Idylls and Lyrics of The Nile | ||
The Prince whom the Sphinx made a king,
On his lordly pastime bent,
Cast the spear at the ring,
Bolts at brazen target sent,
And to hunt the lion went
With his chariot and two horses in the ‘valley of gazelles.’
Unto Hormachu he brought,
In the city of the dead,
Offering fair of mountain flowers,
And with prayer the goddess sought
Who of Memphis-town is head,
She whose bosom Horus fed,
And with vows he came to call
On Her who guards the towers
Of the north and southern wall,
And on Sekhet feared at Zois,
And on Set and Rannu blest.
Of great Khepra, where the road
From of old doth eastward run,
From the setting of the sun
O'er the plain, and goeth straight
Unto On, from very near
The Sphinx, whose monument
Doth Khepra represent—
Of spirits the most great:—
The Sphinx, whose ruddy face
Shines forth with Khepra's grace,
Khepra, he who in this place
Doth remain a mighty god.
He was weary, wanted rest,
And himself adown he laid
In the great god's mighty shade,
And sleep sank into his breast,
And a wondrous dream he dreamed.
It was noontide, and it seemed
That the god's own mouth spake words as a father to a son.
I am Khepra, Ra, and Tum,
And the kingship; thou shalt wear
The white crown, and the red
Shall be placed upon thy head,
Thou, young Seb, the earth-god's heir;
And the earth it shall be thine
Far as his great eyes do shine
Who is lord of all the lands.
Plenty, riches thine shall be,
Borne by furthest people's hands,
From the north and southern nation
Shall full tribute come to thee,
And of years a long duration
Shall be granted, for my face
Smiles upon thee with its grace,
And my heart to thee it clings.
With the best of all earth's things,
Thothmes' son, on one condition, to enrich thee I desire.
Lo, the sand how it doth cover,
Blown by centuries of storm,
How encroaching it wraps over
All my moveless, godlike form!
Do the wish within my heart,
So shall all men understand
That to me a son thou art;
Come thou near me, let me be
As a Father unto thee,
Lo! I take thee by the hand, Thothmes, thou and I are one.'
And he recognised the sign,
Felt the message was divine,
And made silence very deep
In his heart these words to keep.
‘Let us go,’ said he, ‘and bring
To the Sphinx uncovering,
For the honour of the king
Khafra good, and for the sake
Of the image he dared make
Unto Harmachis and Tum,
That again the folk may come
Here with prayer and offering.'
Bared the Temple where it stands
In the Sphinx's mighty hands;
Egypt's priests and people all,
And white crown upon his head,
Came again to festival;
Geese in thousands, beer and bread,
Wine and oil and incense brought
To the God whom Khafra wrought,
Great guardian, Lord of Lords,
Where to-day a granite tablet the royal dream records.
The Sun of the Midnight, the Sun in the East, the Sun in the West, under which forms Hormachu the Sphinx was worshipped.
Note.—The translation of the dream of Thothmes IV., upon which this poem is based, was made by S. Birch—Records of the Past, vol. xii. p. 143. But I have availed myself also of the fuller translation given by M. Brugsch, in his Egypt under the Pharaohs, vol. i. p. 415. The inscription from which these translations are made is found upon a granite tablet, about 14 feet high, placed before the breast of the great Sphinx at Gîzeh. Travellers to Egypt should not leave the Pyramids without a careful examination of this remarkable dream-tablet, set up in the month Athyr, and on the nineteenth day, in the year I of Thothmes IV., B.C. 1533.
Idylls and Lyrics of The Nile | ||