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

It was a day of wonder and amaze,
When, looming large above the silver haze,
Far shadowing all the flood,
Great Amenhotep's huge Colossi came,
To honour everlasting the name,
Of Amenoph, the lion-hunter good,
Him and his queenly dame.

Then to his barge stepped swiftly down the king.
‘Bring wreaths,’ said he, ‘rich garments and a ring,
For I would show him grace,
Great son of Hapoo, he who dared alone
To loose these giants from the red-brown stone,
And float them to their Theban resting-place,
Each seated on his throne.’

The oars flashed forth and bent like osier wands
Within the rowers' eager-hearted hands,

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Their king he leads the van!
Ten thousand boats behind his vessel throng,
With sound of lute and sistrum, harp and song:
Ne'er had such statues by the hand of man
Been borne in pomp along.

There on the shore were gathered from afar
A motley rout, the noble in his car,
The poor man on his ass;
Down the sphinx-avenue was crush and crowd,
Lifting of hands and shouts of wonder loud,
The veriest beggar, humblest lad and lass,
Felt on that day more proud.

High upon Apé's many-gated wall
Shone the bright flags from masts of cedar tall,
The priests, in pard-skins dressed,
And linen garments gleaming in the sun,
Did to the vast propylon tower-heads run,
And gazed on these new glories for the west,
And cried, ‘Well done!—well done!’

E'en they who chipped the stone, and mortar made
For Amenhotep's pillared colonnade
Beside the river flood,

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Left hod; and of the lash no more afeared,
Ceased for a moment from their work and peered,
And saw the sun on throne, broad back, and hood,
As to the hills they steered.

But those eight rafts whereon the statutes rode
Moved slow for all two thousand boatmen towed
And stoutly stretched the strands;
While in the lap of each, to give the time,
A singer stood, and rising to his rhyme
And falling to the clapping of his hands
The oars made ceaseless chime.

Then round the shore beneath the ‘Coffin hill’
Swarmed a dark crowd, of gazing to have fill;
The dead men all that day
Were left half-wrapped in cerecloth; no one poured
Resin and oil, or in cold bosoms stored
Unguent and spice, for all must hie away
To see those huge Colossi safely shored.

And when the sun had sunk beyond the height,
And the tall cliffs with amethystine light
Gleamed to the after-glow,
The solemn statues slowly eastward turned,
And like to gods of gold their shoulders burned;

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And the two thousand rowers ceased to row,
Their rest well had they earned.

So to their place the mighty Memnons came,
And the king called on Amen-Ra by name
To 'stablish the design
Of Hapoo's son; whose work would magnify
Thebes till the world end, and who set hard by
The king's feet, Mut-em-ua mother divine,
And his queen-consort Thi.

Memorial scarabæi tell us that Amenoph iii. speared 210 lions with his own hand in his hunting expeditions in the land of Naharain.

The Sphinx ‘dromos’ that ran between Karnakand Luxor.

Apé, Apts, Aptu, or Aptet, was the old name of Thebes to east of river, comprising Karnak and Luxor.

Amenoph iii. built the Temple at Luxor, b.c. 1500, on foundation walls that rose right out of the river.

The ancient name of the hill to the west of the necropolis at Thebes, at whose feet the city of the embalmers lay.

Note.—The statues which represent Amenhotep iii. in a sitting position, having at their feet statues of his wife Mut-em-ua and of his mother Thi, stand 22 feet apart. The most northerly—the Vocal Memnon—partially destroyed by earthquake, b.c. 27, was repaired by the Emperor Septimius Severus. They are 62 feet high, were carved each out of single blocks of red-brown sandstone grit, probably in the quarries of Jebel Silsileh, floated down here at high Nile, and placed in front of a great temple, now destroyed, b.c. 1500-1465.

The work was executed by a certain Amenhotep, surnamed Hui, son of Hapoo and the Lady Atoo, whose granite portrait-statue is preserved in the Gîzeh Museum. From the inscription on that statue we know the history of this remarkable man. Speaking of these Colossi, he says: ‘I caused to be built eight ships; then the statues were carried up the river, and placed in their sublime building. They will last as long as Heaven.’

‘I declare to you, who shall come here after us, that of the people assembled for the building, all were under me. They were full of ardour, their heart was moved with joy, they raised a shout, they praised the gracious God. Their landing in Thebes was a joyful event.’

Cf. Brugsch's Egypt under the Pharaohs, vol. i. p. 427.