I Know Nothing Of The Bustling,
Shrieking Steamer That Defies Her, Churning Into Angry Waves Her
Waters For The Edification Of Those Who Would "Do" Egypt And Be Gone
Before They Know Her.
If you are in a hurry, do not come to Egypt.
To hurry in Egypt is as
wrong as to fall asleep in Wall street, or to sit in the Greek Theatre
at Taormina, reading "How to Make a Fortune with a Capital of Fifty
Pounds."
VI
DENDERAH
From Abydos, home of the cult of Osiris, Judge of the Dead, I came to
Denderah, the great temple of the "Lady of the Underworld," as the
goddess Hathor was sometimes called, though she was usually worshipped
as the Egyptian Aphrodite, goddess of joy, goddess of love and
loveliness. It was early morning when I went ashore. The sun was above
the eastern hills, and a boy, clad in a rope of plaited grass, sent me
half shyly the greeting, "May your day be happy!"
Youth is, perhaps, the most divine of all the gifts of the gods, as
those who wore the lotus-blossom amulet believed thousands of years
ago, and Denderah, appropriately, is a very young Egyptian temple,
probably, indeed, the youngest of all the temples on the Nile. Its
youthfulness - it is only about two thousand years of age - identifies
it happily with the happiness and beauty of its presiding deity, and
as I rode toward it on the canal-bank in the young freshness of the
morning, I thought of the goddess Safekh and of the sacred Persea-
tree.
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