XIII THE PYRAMID OF MEN-KAU-RA
When old Ptah-hotep took his stand
In that Red Temple, at the Feast,
And lifted up his guardian hand
Beside the lotus-bearing priest.
He knew accursèd was the sleep
Of him who reared ‘Chut's’ pyramid,
That under ‘Ur's’ gigantic heap
A tyrant of mankind was hid.
But this good ruler's heart of trust,
Who piled the Ethiopian stone
Above his sleeping-place, was just,
He thought with love on him alone.
And often as he walked around
To see none harmed the royal tomb,
From out the granite slope would sound
Words from the coffin in its womb.
‘Osiris, king of South and North,
Men-kau-ra, evermore to live,
The heaven of heavens brought thee forth,
The sky and earth thy life did give.
Thy mother Nut, above thee spread,
Wraps thee in mystery divine,
In grace lifts up thy royal head
And sets thee with the gods to shine.
And now thou art where peace is sure,
No foes thy kingly sleep distress,
Men-kau-ra ever to endure
In everlasting happiness.'
For he who levelled here the ground,
And piled the granite line on line,
He knew that law alone was sound
Which had its root in things divine.
He flung the temple-buildings wide,
He set the serf from bondage free,
He heard the poor man when he cried,
And justice did, with love, decree.
Ptah-hotep from the temple went,
‘Longer,’ he cried, ‘than mounded stone
Good deeds shall be the monument
Of Men-kau-ra, the living one.
Tho' hands of greed one day may break
The granite portals of his sleep,
Tho' robbers over seas shall take
And plunge his coffin in the deep.
Tho' time may level with the sand
His tomb divine beside the river,
Men-kau-ra's monument shall stand,
His righteousness shall live for ever.'
Notes.—The inscription on the fragments of Men-kau-ra's coffin,
now in the British Museum, reads: ‘Osiris, king of the North and
South, Men-kau-ra, living for ever, the heavens have produced thee;
thou wast engendered by Nut (the sky), thou art the offspring of Seb
(the earth). Thy mother Nut spreads over thee in her form as a
divine mystery. She has granted thee to be a god; thou shalt never
more have enemies, O king of the North and South, Men-kau-ra,
living for ever.’
Ptah-hotep, whose tomb is at Sakkarah, was a priest of the
Pyramids of Asa, Ra-en-user, and the ‘Divine dwelling of Men-kau-hor,’
and lived in the fifth dynasty.
[_]
Readers of Herodotus, Book II., 129, 134, will remember the
good character, given by the historian, of Mycerinus, builder of the third
pyramid, B.C. 3633. An attempt was made to destroy this pyramid
in A.D. 1196. Howard Vyse discovered the sarcophagus of the king
in situ in 1837. It was lost in the Bay of Biscay by shipwreck,
and only an inscribed portion of the wooden coffin which floated
was saved.
