When Safekh Inscribed Upon A Leaf Of The Persea-Tree The Name Of
King Or Conqueror, He Gained Everlasting Life.
Was it the life of
youth?
An everlasting life of middle age might be a doubtful benefit.
And then mentally I added, "unless one lived in Egypt." For here the
years drop from one, and every golden hour brings to one surely
another drop of the wondrous essence that sets time at defiance and
charms sad thoughts away.
Unlike White Abydos, White Denderah stands apart from habitations, in
a still solitude upon a blackened mound. From far off I saw the
façade, large, bare, and sober, rising, in a nakedness as complete as
that of Aphrodite rising from the wave, out of the plain of brown,
alluvial soil that was broken here and there by a sharp green of
growing things. There was something of sadness in the scene, and again
I thought of Hathor as the "Lady of the Underworld," some deep-eyed
being, with a pale brow, hair like the night, and yearning, wistful
hands stretched out in supplication. There was a hush upon this place.
The loud and vehement cry of the shadoof-man died away. The sakieh
droned in my ears no more like distant Sicilian pipes playing at
Natale. I felt a breath from the desert. And, indeed, the desert was
near - that realistic desert which suggests to the traveller approaches
to the sea, so that beyond each pallid dune, as he draws near it, he
half expects to hear the lapping of the waves.
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