Idylls and Lyrics of The Nile :: :: University of Virginia Library

Where once the red colossal Pharaoh stood,
Lord of wide lands and every wondering sail,
The temple-gates are sculptured with the tale
Of Ramses' valour by Orontes' flood.

Here tents are pitched; the altar stone they raise;
‘Pra-Hormachu,’ the legion of the king
Sets the shield fence; and in the serried ring
Stalks the tame lion, and the asses graze.

There, all alone, Mi-ammon in his might,
His heart made strong by ‘Monthu,’ god of war,
Scatters the foe like chaff beneath his car,
And puts the Hittite thousands to their flight.

The river runs blood-red by Kadesh towers,
Like crocodiles they tumble to the stream,
This is no man that drives them, he doth seem
A god himself with Baal-suteck's powers.

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Half drowned they snatch the King of Khilibu
Forth from the flood, and bring him safe to bank;
Many drank deep of death that day, none drank
Deeper of Kadesh stream, Old Chief, than you.

Lo, fresh from fight, the Pharaoh on his throne!
Pricked to the heart, the sycophants must hear
Royal rebuke and reprimand severe:—
‘Ye cravens, wherefore left ye me alone.

Not one among you had the soul of might!
Cowards, who so forsook me to your shame!
No prince or captain to my succour came!
Alone I turned the thousands to their flight.’

The gates may fall, the pictures all may fade,
The battle cannot pass; a poet's tongue
Is dowered with immortality: one sung
That deed of arms. Hear now the song he made:—

Then the king of Khita-land,
With his warriors made a stand,
But he durst not risk his hand
In battle with our Pharaoh; so his chariots drew away,
Unnumbered as the sand;
And they stood, three men of war
On each car;

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And gathered all in force
Was the flower of his army for the fight in full array,
But advance he did not dare
Foot or horse.

So in ambush there they lay,
North-west of Kadesh town;
And while these were in their lair,
Others went forth south of Kadesh, on our midst, their charge was thrown
With such weight, our men went down,
For they took us unaware,
And the legion of Pra-Hormakhu gave way.

But at the western side
Of Arunatha's tide,
Near the city's northern wall, our Pharaoh had his place.
And they came unto the king,
And they told him our disgrace;
Then Rameses uprose, like his father, Month, in might,
All his weapons took in hand,
And his armour did he don,
Just like Baal, fit for fight;
And the noble pair of horses that carried Pharaoh on,
Lo! ‘Victory of Thebes’ was their name,
And from out the royal stables of great Miamun they came.

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Then the king he lashed each horse,
And they quickened up their course,
And he dashed into the middle of the hostile Hittite host,
All alone, none other with him, for he counted not the cost.
Then he looked behind, and found
That the foe were all around,
Two thousand and five hundred of their chariots of war;
And the flower of the Hittites, and their helpers, in a ring—
Men of Masu, Keshkesh, Pidasa, Malunna, Arathu,
Qazauadana, Kadesh, Akerith, Leka and Khilibu—
Cut off the way behind,
Retreat he could not find;
There were three men on each car,
And they gathered all together, and closed upon the king.
‘Yea, and not one of my princes, of my chief men and my great,
Was with me, not a captain, not a knight;
For my warriors and chariots had left me to my fate,
Not one was there to take his part in fight.’

Then spake Pharaoh, and he cried: ‘Father Ammon, where art thou?
Shall a sire forget his son?
Is there aught without thy knowledge I have done;
From the judgments of thy mouth when have I gone?

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Have I e'er transgressed thy word?
Disobeyed, or broke a vow?
Is it right, who rules in Egypt, Egypt's lord,
Should e'er before the foreign peoples bow,
Or own their rod?
Whate'er may be the mind of this Hittite herdsman-horde,
Sure Ammon should stand higher than the wretch who knows no God?
Father Ammon! is it nought
That to thee I dedicated noble monuments, and filled
Thy temples with the prisoners of war?
That for thee a thousand years shall stand the shrines I dared to build?
That to thee my palace-substance I have brought?
That tribute unto thee from afar
A whole land comes to pay?
That to thee ten thousand oxen for sacrifice I fell,
And burn upon thine altars the sweetest woods that smell?
That all thy heart required my hand did ne'er gainsay?
I have built for thee tall gates and wondrous works, beside the Nile,
I have raised thee mast on mast,
For eternity to last,
From Elephantin's isle
The obelisks for thee I have conveyed;
It is I who brought alone
The everlasting stone;

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It is I who sent for thee,
The ships upon the sea,
To pour into thy coffers the wealth of foreign trade;
Is it told that such a thing
By any other king,
At any other time, was done at all?
Let the wretch be put to shame
Who refuses thy commands,
But honour to his name
Who to Ammon lifts his hands.
To the full of my endeavour,
With a willing heart for ever,
I have acted thus for thee,
And to thee, great God, I call;
For behold! now, Ammon, I,
In the midst of many peoples all unknown,
Unnumbered as the sand,
Here I stand,
All alone;
There is no one at my side,
My warriors and chariots afeared
Have deserted me; none heard
My voice, when to the cravens I, their king, for succour cried.
But I find that Ammon's grace
Is better far to me
Than a million fighting men and ten thousand chariots be.

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Yea, better than ten thousand, be they brother, be they son,
When with hearts that beat like one,
Together for to help me they are gathered in one place.
The might of men is nothing, it is Ammon who is lord,
What has happened here to me is according to thy word,
And I will not now transgress thy command;
But alone, as here I stand,
To thee my cry I send,
Unto earth's extremest end,
Saying, ‘Help me, father Ammon, against the Hittite horde.’

Then my voice it found an echo in Hermonthis' templehall,
Ammon heard it, and he came unto my call;
And for joy I gave a shout,
From behind, his voice cried out,
‘I have hastened to thee, Ramses Miamun,
Behold! I stand with thee,
Behold! 'tis I am he,
Own father thine, the great god Ra, the sun.
Lo! mine hand with thine shall fight,
And mine arm is strong above

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The hundreds of ten thousands, who against thee do unite,
Of victory am I lord, and the brave heart do I love,
I have found in thee a spirit that is right,
And my soul it doth rejoice in thy valour and thy might.

Then all this came to pass, I was changèd in my heart
Like Monthu, god of war, was I made,
With my left hand hurled the dart,
With my right I swung the blade,
Fierce as Baal in his time, before their sight.
Two thousand and five hundred pairs of horses were around,
And I flew into the middle of their ring,
By my horse-hoofs they were dashed all in pieces to the ground,
None raised his hand in fight,
For the courage in their breasts had sunken quite,
And their limbs were loosed for fear,
And they could not hurl the dart,
And they had not any heart
To use the spear;
And I cast them to the water,
Just as crocodiles fall in from the bank,
So they sank.
And they tumbled on their faces, one by one;
At my pleasure I made slaughter,
So that none

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E'er had time to look behind, or backward fled;
Where he fell did each one lay
On that day,
From the dust none ever lifted up his head.

Then the wretched king of Khita, he stood still,
With his warriors and his chariots all about him in a ring,
Just to gaze upon the valour of our king
In the fray.
And the king was all alone,
Of his men and chariots none,
To help him, but the Hittite of his gazing soon had fill,
For he turned his face in flight, and sped away.
Then his princes forth he sent
To battle with our lord,
Well equipped with bow and sword
And all goodly armament,
Chiefs of Leka, Masa, Kings of Malunna, Arathu,
Qar-qâ-mash, of the Dardani, of Keshkesh, Khilibu.
And the brothers of the king were all gathered in one place,
Two thousand and five hundred pairs of horse—
And they came right on in force,
The fury of their faces to the flaming of my face.

Then, like Monthu in his might,
I rushed on them apace,

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And I let them taste my hand
In a twinkling moment's space.
Then cried one unto his mate,
‘This is no man, this is he,
This is Suteck, god of hate,
With Baal in his blood;
Let us hasten, let us flee,
Let us save our souls from death,
Let us take to heel and try our lungs and breath.’
And before the king's attack
Hands fell, and limbs were slack,
They could neither aim the bow, nor thrust the spear,
But just looked at him who came
Charging on them, like a flame.
And the king was as a griffin in the rear
(Behold thus speaks the Pharaoh, let all know),
‘I struck them down, and there escaped me none.
Then I lifted up my voice, and I spake,
Ho! my warriors, charioteers,
Away with craven fears,
Halt, stand, and courage take,
Behold I am alone,
Yet Ammon is my helper and his hand is with me now.

When my Menna, charioteer, beheld in his dismay
How the horses swarmed around us, lo! his courage fled away,

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And terror and affright
Took possession of him quite;
And straightway he cried out to me, and said,
‘Gracious lord and bravest king, saviour-guard
Of Egypt in the battle, be our ward;
Behold we stand alone, in the hostile Hittite ring,
Save for us the breath of life,
Give deliverance from the strife,
Oh protect us, Ramses Miamun! Oh save us, mighty king!’

Then the king spake to his squire, ‘Halt! take courage, charioteer,
As a sparrow-hawk swoops down upon his prey,
So I swoop upon the foe, and I will slay,
I will hew them into pieces, I will dash them into dust;
Have no fear,
Cast such evil thought away!
These godless men are wretches that in Ammon put no trust!’

Then the king, he hurried forward, on the Hittite host he flew,
‘For the sixth time that I charged them,’ says the king —and listen well,
‘Like Baal in his strength, on their rearward, lo! I fell,
And I killed them, none escaped me, and I slew, and slew, and slew.’

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One of Ramses' titles of honour,=‘Favourite of Ammon.’

One of the forms of the Sun-god Ra, as warrior-god of Light.

At Hermonthis, called the ‘An of the South’—modern Erment —stood a great temple to Monthu, the warrior-god of Light, the ancient tutelar Lord of Thebes.

Note.—This, the most remarkable of old Egyptian epics, was written by a court poet of the nineteenth dynasty, Pentaur, in the seventh year of Rameses ii., b.c. 1326, and describes the singlehanded combat of the great Pharaoh against the Hittites. Its text is preserved on the walls of Abydos, Karnak, Luxor, the Ramesseum and Ipsambul. But it is to the Ramesseum we turn for illustrations of the poem.

Mariette Bey tells us: ‘The scene is laid in Syria, on the banks of a river which everything seems to point out as the Orontes. Rameses is present in person, and comes fully armed, to dispute possession of the country, designated under the generic name of the Khetas. Kadesh is the nearest town. Through a concourse of circumstances, which do not reflect credit on the Egyptian generals, Rameses finds himself surrounded by his enemies. The soldiers who formed the escort have taken flight. Rameses stands alone, and no one is with him.’

With unreflecting valour he throws himself among the chariots. He kills the chiefs of the ‘vile Khetas,’ forces their troops to recross the river in hot haste, and by personal courage turns the threatened rout into a complete victory. This brilliant feat of arms is what the first pylon of the Ramesseum commemorates.

On one side Rameses is seen precipitating himself into the thickest of the fight. The enemy fly in terror; some are crushed under the feet of the horses and under the chariot-wheels; some lie dead on the ground, pierced with arrows shot by the king's own hand; others again leap into the river and are drowned. On the opposite side the king is represented seated on his throne. His officers come forward tendering their congratulations; but it is with reproofs the king receives them. ‘Not one among you,’ he exclaims, ‘has behaved well in thus deserting me, and leaving me alone in the midst of the enemy. The princes and the captains did not join hands with me in fight. I have put to flight thousands of nations, and I was all alone.’

On the interior facade of the second pylon, one may see, by the evening light, the same king in the thick of the battle. Here Grabatousa, the armour-bearer of the Prince of Khita, falls pierced by the arrows of the king; there Rabsounna, captain of the archers, meets with the same fate. The Orontes lies in the path of the Khita, who fly in disorder. Upon one of the pylons one notices the square camp of the Egyptians, surrounded by its wall of shields, which the Egyptian warriors have placed around it. The life of the camp servants, resting by their baggage, comes before us. The asses, some of them giving a little trouble, are loose within the enclosure. Pharaoh's tent is seen in the midst of the camp. The favourite lion ‘Tearer-in-pieces,’ stalks about, and near it is the shrine of the great gods of Egypt. When one reads the poem of Pentaur, one realises that all this last picture represents the encampment of the first legion of Ammon, the bodyguard of the king, that gave way so disastrously on the great day of battle.

Another wall-sculpture gives us a spirited picture of the battle at the critical moment of Rameses' single-handed victory. The river Orontes runs round two sides of the picture, and the flight of the Hittites' horses and chariots towards the stream, the falling into it of the pursued, as crocodiles fall into the water, is graphically pourtrayed. A copy of this battle-scene is given in Eber's Egypt, vol. ii. p. 279.

The papyrus from which this poem was originally translated is known as the third Sallier papyrus, one of several that were purchased from an Egyptian sailor by M. Sallier of Aix, in Provence. It is now in the British Museum. It is a copy of an earlier document. It was seen by Champollion in 1833, but to Vicomte de Rouget belongs the credit of having first attempted a full translation of it, in the year 1856.

Mr. Goodwin translated it in 1858, and Professor Lushington's translation of it is given in vol. ii. of Records of the Past, p. 65. Henry Brugsch Bey, after comparing the various texts of the poem on the monuments, and papyri fragments, and having carefully studied the well-known papyrus of the British Museum, has produced a very full translation, a portion of which is here metrically rendered.

Readers should compare Brugsch Bey's translation (History of the Pharaohs, vol. ii. p. 53) with that of Professor Lushington.

Cf. Rawnsley's ‘Notes for the Nile,’ among The Hymns of Ancient Egypt, p. 207 (W. Heinemann: London).