Through a long and golden noontide, and on into an afternoon whose
opulence of warmth and light it seemed could never wane, I sat alone,
or wandered gently quite alone, in the Temple of Seti I. at Abydos. Here
again I was in a place of the dead. In Egypt one ever seeks the dead in
the sunshine, black vaults in the land of the gold. But here in Abydos I
was accompanied by whiteness. The general effect of Seti’s mighty temple
is that it is a white temple when seen in full sunshine and beneath
a sky of blinding blue. In an arid place it stands, just beyond an
Egyptian village that is a maze of dust, of children, of animals, and
flies. The last blind houses of the village, brown as brown paper,
confront it on a mound, and as I came toward it a girl-child swathed
in purple with ear-rings, and a twist of orange handkerchief above her
eyes, full of cloud and fire, leaned from a roof, sinuously as a young
snake, to watch me. On each side, descending, were white, ruined walls,
stretched out like defaced white arms of the temple to receive me.
I stood still for a moment and looked at the narrow, severely simple
doorway, at the twelve broken columns advanced on either side, white and
greyish white with their right angles, their once painted figures now
almost wholly colorless.
Here lay the Osirians, those blessed dead of the land of Egypt, who
worshipped the Judge of the Dead, the Lord of the Underworld, and who
hoped for immortality through him--Osiris, husband of Isis, Osiris,
receiver of prayers. Osiris the sun who will not be conquered by night,
but eternally rises again, and so is the symbol of the resurrection
of the soul. It is said that Set, the power of Evil, tore the body of
Osiris into fourteen fragments and scattered them over the land. But
multitudes of worshippers of Osiris believed him buried near Abydos and,
like those who loved the sweet songs of Hafiz, they desired to be buried
near him whom they adored; and so this place became a place of the dead,
a place of many prayers, a white place of many longings.
I was glad to be alone there. The guardian left me in perfect peace. I
happily forgot him. I sat down in the shadow of a column upon its mighty
projecting base. The sky was blinding blue. Great bees hummed, like
bourdons, through the silence, deepening the almost heavy calm. These
columns, architraves, doorways, how mighty, how grandly strong they
were! And yet soon I began to be aware that even here, where surely one
should read only the Book of the Dead, or bend down to the hot ground
to listen if perchance one might hear the dead themselves murmuring over
the chapters of Beatification far down in their hidden tombs, there was
a likeness, a gentle gaiety of life, as in the tomb of Thi. The effect
of solidity was immense. These columns bulged, almost like great fruits
swollen out by their heady strength of blood. They towered up in crowds.
The heavy roof, broken in places most mercifully to show squares and
oblongs of that perfect, calling blue, was like a frowning brow. And yet
I was with grace, with gentleness, with lightness, because in the place
of the dead I was again with the happy, living walls. Above me, on the
roof, there was a gleam of palest blue, like the blue I have sometimes
seen at morning on the Ionian sea just where it meets the shore. The
double rows of gigantic columns stretched away, tall almost as forest
trees, to right of me and to left, and were shut in by massive walls,
strong as the walls of a fortress. And on these columns, and on these
walls, dead painters and gravers had breathed the sweet breath of life.
Here in the sun, for me alone, as it seemed, a population followed their
occupations. Men walked, and kneeled, and stood, some white and clothed,
some nude, some red as the red man’s child that leaped beyond the
sea. And here was the lotus-flower held in reverent hands, not the
rose-lotus, but the blossom that typified the rising again of the sun,
and that, worn as an amulet, signified the gift of eternal youth. And
here was hawk-faced Horus, and here a priest offering sacrifice to a
god, belief in whom has long since passed away. A king revealed himself
to me, adoring Ptah, “Father of the beginnings,” who established upon
earth, my figures thought, the everlasting justice, and again at the
knees of Amen burning incense in his honor. Isis and Osiris stood
together, and sacrifice was made before their sacred bark. And Seti
worshipped them, and Seshta, goddess of learning, wrote in the book of
eternity the name of the king.
The great bees hummed, moving slowly in the golden air among the mighty
columns, passing slowly among these records of lives long over, but
which seemed still to be. And I looked at the lotus-flowers which the
little grotesque hands were holding, had been holding for how many
years--the flowers that typified the rising again of the sun and the
divine gift of eternal youth. And I thought of the bird and the Sphinx,
the thing that was whimsical wooing the thing that was mighty. And I
gazed at the immense columns and at the light and little figures all
about me. Bird and Sphinx, delicate whimsicality, calm and terrific
power! In Egypt the dead men have combined them, and the combination has
an irresistible fascination, weaves a spell that entrances you in the
sunshine and beneath the blinding blue. At Abydos I knew it. And I loved
the columns that seemed blown out with exuberant strength, and I loved
the delicate white walls that, like the lotus-flower, give to the world
a youth that seems eternal--a youth that is never frivolous, but that is
full of the divine, and yet pathetic, animation of happy life.
The great bees hummed more drowsily. I sat quite still in the sun. And
then presently, moved by some prompting instinct, I turned my head, and,
far off, through the narrow portal of the temple, I saw the girl-child
swathed in purple still lying, sinuously as a young snake, upon the
palm-wood roof above the brown earth wall to watch me with her eyes of
cloud and fire.
And upon me, like cloud and fire--cloud of the tombs and the great
temple columns, fire of the brilliant life painted and engraved upon
them--there stole the spell of Egypt.
V