Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/803

* EGYPT. 697 EGYPT. abode in a solitary place. The gods, pitying liis loiiuliness, fashion a woman of surpassing beauty to be his wife, but she, too, proves faithless. A lock of lier beautiful hair is borne by the sea to the King of Egypt, who sends his messengers, and she readily allows herself to be carried off. Her husband is slain, but is miraculously restored to life, and, after a series of wonderful adventures, becomes King of Egyi)t. and punishes his faith- less wife with death. In addition to the wonders of magic, travels and adventure in strange lands formed a favorite theme of the Egyptian story- tellers. The story of the shipwrecked mariner, a sort of Egyptian Sindbad, who is cast upon a fabulous island peopled with serpents, and the legend of the taking of Joppa by the General Tahuti, who contrives to introduce his men into the town concealed in sacks of grain, are good e.xamples of this kind of narrative. In all these stories the style is simple and unalTected, and the interest lies entirely in the development of the plot. Of an entirely different type is The Story of Siiiuhe (Lepsius. Denhmiilrr, vol. vi., Leipzig, 1S.5S). an Egyptian of high rank, who flees his eoimtry on account of some political complication, and takes refuge with the Syrian Bedouins. He is kindly received, vanquishes a redoubtable champion in single combat, and is advanced to high honor. But after a prosperous life among the Bedouins, he yearns in his old age for his native land, and applies to the Pharaoh for per- mission to return to Egypt. His request is granted, and. on his return, he is restored to all his former wealth and honors. In this story the plot is extremely simple, while the style is ornate and florid, and the narrative is loaded with rhe- torical embellishments. Of a similar character is the story of the Eloquent Peasant (Lepsius, Denlnniiler, vol. vi.. Leipzig, 1858), The peasant is robbed of his ass. and applies to the chief official of his district for redress. His eloquence excites the admiration of the oflicial, who re- ports the matter to the King, and by his com- mand the case is carried on from term to term, the peasant's speeches being carefully written down and reported to His Majesty. Here the very slender thread of narrative merely serves to carry the semi-poetical speeches of the peasant, which, for the ancient reader, constituted the real charm of the book. It would seem that these very elaborate compositions were intended for a more cultured circle of readers, while the tales of magic and wonderful adventures reflect, in their simple style, the stories current among the people. The rhetorical narrative belongs, moreover, to a particular period, that of the Middle Empire. Although still cultivated to some extent by the learned, especially for educa- tional purposes, it seems to have gone out of fashion under the Xew Empire, and thereafter Egyptian taste affected the simpler tales of magic and adventure. One of the latest romances that have been preserved is the tale of fiefna Khn-cm-Wa'st (Hess, Der ijemotische Roman rrm f!tne Enm-us, Leipzig. l.'^SR) found in a demotic papyrus of the Ptolemaic period. The hero, a son of Kinsr Rameses II., devotes him- self to the study of magic, and descends into an ancient tomb to obtain a wonderful hook of enchantment written by the god Thoth himself. He secures the book, but its possession brings unhappiness, and he is at last compelled to re- store it to its place and to make expiation for having removed it. The plot of this tale is well constructed, the action advances rapidly, and the incidents are varied and wonderful. But although it is in some respects a more elaborate composition than the talcs of the older period, the style is sinijile. and shows no trace of the strain- ing after effect which characterizes the rhetorical narrative of the -Middle Empire. Translations- of such old Egyptian tales as have been pre- served are given in Maspero, Lrs conies popti- laires de VEgypte ancienne (Paris, 1889), and in Petrie, Ei/i/pfian Tales (London, 1895-99). The best translations from the various depart- ments of Egyi)tian literature are to be foimd in The World's Best Literature (ed. Warner, New York, 1897) ; the translations in the first series of Records of the Past (ed. Birch, London, 1874-79) are to be used with caution. AxciE.XT Religio.x. The religion of ancient Egypt had its origin in a low kind of fetishism, or animism, of purely African character. Every village of prehistoric times seems to have had its own god or demon, worshiped in some object, usually a tree or an animal. Out of this end- less pantheon, in course of time, only the "great gods' survived; i.e. those of the principal cities. The most important deities of the surrounding places were brought into relation with the god of a city by becoming his child, his wife, etc.; thus most of the principal deities are surrounded each by his 'circle of gods.' The Avorship of the celestial bodies, principally of the sun, de- veloped early, but was connected with the lead- ing local cults, so that the sun never had one name throughout all Egypt. The earliest forms seem to be Re and Horus. whom the theologians differentiated as the midday sun and the young morning sun. respectively (both worshiped in hawk form). In the earliest texts, however, we find Ileliopolis in possession of its own sun- god, Atumu, in whom the later theological system saw the old setting sun. Osiris (the local god of Abydos and Busiris) also became the set- ting sun. ruling the lower heavens. In short, sooner or later, almost every local divinity was treated as a form or phase of the sun. The confusion which existed even in the earliest religious documents cannot be de- scribed. The Egyptian priests, of course, felt this confusion, but their attempts to construct a logical system were of little avail. Their genealo- gies of the gods, their identification of all simi- lar divinities, who were explained as different manifestations of the same deity, their division of the world and of the natural forces among the various gods of the pantheon were contradic- tory, and merely served to increase the confusion. Aniemphis IV. endeavored to carry the identifi- cation of the various divinities to its logical conclusion, and to establish a species of mono- theism, in which the sun was worshiped as the supreme source of life and power. But althoigh .menophis carried on his propaganda with fa- natical violence, the attempted reform ilid not survive his own reign. The highest development of the later'relis;ion. springing froni the identifi- cation of all divinities. led to pantheistie ideas after n.c. GOO: but these advanced thoughts did not touch the popular religion, which always remained attached to the old fetishistic local