And Perhaps It Would Be Well, On
A First Visit, To Enter It Last; To Let Its Influence Be The Final One
To Rest Upon Your Spirit.
This is the temple of Rameses III., a brown
place of calm and retirement, an ineffable place of peace.
Yes, though
the birds love it and fill it often with their voices, it is a
sanctuary of peace. Upon the floor the soft sand lies, placing silence
beneath your footsteps. The pale brown of walls and columns, almost
yellow in the sunshine, is delicate and soothing, and inclines the
heart to calm. Delicious, suggestive of a beautiful tapestry, rich and
ornate, yet always quiet, are the brown reliefs upon the stone. What
are they? Does it matter? They soften the walls, make them more
personal, more tender. That surely is their mission. This temple holds
for me a spell. As soon as I enter it, I feel the touch of the lotus,
as if an invisible and kindly hand swept a blossom lightly across my
face and downward to my heart. This courtyard, these small chambers
beyond it, that last doorway framing a lovely darkness, soothe me even
more than the terra-cotta hermitages of the Certosa of Pavia. And all
the statues here are calm with an irrevocable calmness, faithful
through passing years with a very sober faithfulness to the temple
they adorn. In no other place, one feels it, could they be thus at
peace, with hands crossed for ever upon their breasts, which are torn
by no anxieties, thrilled by no joys. As one stands among them or
sitting on the base of a column in the chamber that lies beyond them,
looks on them from a little distance, their attitude is like a summons
to men to contend no more, to be still, to enter into rest.
Come to this temple when you leave the hall of Seti. There you are in
a place of triumph. Scarlet, some say, is the color of a great note
sounded on a bugle. This hall is like a bugle-call of the past,
thrilling even now down all the ages with a triumph that is surely
greater than any other triumphs. It suggests blaze - blaze of scarlet,
blaze of bugle, blaze of glory, blaze of life and time, of ambition
and achievement. In these columns, in the putting up of them, dead men
sought to climb to sun and stars, limitless in desire, limitless in
industry, limitless in will. And at the tops of the columns blooms the
lotus, the symbol of rising. What a triumph in stone this hall was
once, what a triumph in stone its ruin is to-day! Perhaps, among
temples, it is the most wondrous thing in all Egypt, as it was, no
doubt, the most wondrous temple in the world; among temples I say, for
the Sphinx is of all the marvels of Egypt by far the most marvellous.
The grandeur of this hall almost moves one to tears, like the marching
past of conquerors, stirs the heart with leaping thrills at the
capacities of men. Through the thicket of columns, tall as forest
trees, the intense blue of the African sky stares down, and their
great shadows lie along the warm and sunlit ground. Listen! There are
voices chanting. Men are working here - working as men worked how many
thousands of years ago. But these are calling upon the Mohammedan's
god as they slowly drag to the appointed places the mighty blocks of
stone. And it is to-day a Frenchman who oversees them.
"Help! Help! Allah give us help!
Help! Help! Allah give us help!"
The dust flies up about their naked feet. Triumph and work; work
succeeded by the triumph all can see. I like to hear the workmen's
voices within the hall of Seti. I like to see the dust stirred by
their tramping feet.
And then I like to go once more to the little temple, to enter through
its defaced gateway, to stand alone in its silence between the rows of
statues with their arms folded upon their quiet breasts, to gaze into
the tender darkness beyond - the darkness that looks consecrated - to
feel that peace is more wonderful than triumph, that the end of things
is peace.
Triumph and deathless peace, the bugle-call and silence - these are the
notes of Karnak.
VIII
LUXOR
Upon the wall of the great court of Amenhotep III. in the temple of
Luxor there is a delicious dancing procession in honor of Rameses II.
It is very funny and very happy; full of the joy of life - a sort of
radiant cake-walk of old Egyptian days. How supple are these dancers!
They seem to have no bones. One after another they come in line upon
the mighty wall, and each one bends backward to the knees of the one
who follows. As I stood and looked at them for the first time, almost
I heard the twitter of flutes, the rustic wail of the African hautboy,
the monotonous boom of the derabukkeh, cries of a far-off gaiety such
as one often hears from the Nile by night. But these cries came down
the long avenues of the centuries; this gaiety was distant in the
vasty halls of the long-dead years. Never can I think of Luxor without
thinking of those happy dancers, without thinking of the life that
goes in the sun on dancing feet.
There are a few places in the world that one associates with
happiness, that one remembers always with a smile, a little thrill at
the heart that whispers "There joy is." Of these few places Luxor is
one - Luxor the home of sunshine, the suave abode of light, of warmth,
of the sweet days of gold and sheeny, golden sunsets, of silver,
shimmering nights through which the songs of the boatmen of the Nile
go floating to the courts and the tombs of Thebes. The roses bloom in
Luxor under the mighty palms.
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