And Khuns Had His Temple Here By The
Sphinx Of The Twelfth Rameses, And Ptah, Who Created "The Sun Egg And
The Moon Egg," And Who Was Said - Only Said, Alas!
- To have established
on earth the "everlasting justice," had his, and still their stones
receive the silver moon-rays and wake the wonder of men.
Thothmes
III., Thothmes I., Shishak, who smote the kneeling prisoners and
vanquished Jeroboam, Medamut and Mut, Amenhotep I., and Amenhotep II.
- all have left their records or been celebrated at Karnak. Purposely
I mingled them in my mind - did not attempt to put them in their proper
order, or even to disentangle gods and goddesses from conquerors and
kings. In the warm and seductive night Khuns whispered to me: "As long
ago at Bekhten I exorcised the demon from the suffering Princess, so
now I exorcise from these ruins all spirits but my own. To-night these
ruins shall suggest nothing but majesty, tranquillity, and beauty.
Their records are for Ra, and must be studied by his rays. In mine
they shall speak not to the intellectual, but only to the emotions and
the soul."
And presently I went down, and yielding a complete and happy obedience
to Khuns, I wandered along through the stupendous vestiges of past
eras, dead ambitions, vanished glory, and long-outworn belief, and I
ignored eras, ambitions, glory, and belief, and thought only of form,
and height, of the miracle of blackness against silver, and of the
pathos of statues whose ever-open eyes at night, when one is near
them, suggest the working of some evil spell, perpetual watchfulness,
combined with eternal inactivity, the unslumbering mind caged in the
body that is paralysed.
There is a temple at Karnak that I love, and I scarcely know why I
care for it so much. It is on the right of the solitary lotus column
before you come to the terrific hall of Seti. Some people pass it by,
having but little time, and being hypnotized, it seems, by the more
astounding ruin that lies beyond it. 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.
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