And That Palm Is Part Of
The Spell, And The Reliefs Upon The Walls And Even The Coptic Crosses
That Are Cut Into The Stone.
But at the end, one can only say that this place is indescribable, and
not because it is complex or terrifically grand, like Karnak.
Go to it
on a sunlit morning, or stand in it in late afternoon, and perhaps you
will feel that it "suggests" you, and that it carries you away, out of
familiar regions into a land of dreams, where among hidden ways the
soul is lost in magic. Yes, you are gone.
To the right - for one, alas! cannot live in a dream for ever - is a
lovely doorway through which one sees the river. Facing it is another
doorway, showing a fragment of the poor, vivisected island, some
ruined walls, and still another doorway in which, again, is framed the
Nile. Many people have cut their names upon the walls of Philae. Once,
as I sat alone there, I felt strongly attracted to look upward to a
wall, as if some personality, enshrined within the stone, were
watching me, or calling. I looked, and saw written "Balzac."
Philae is the last temple that one visits before he gives himself to
the wildness of the solitudes of Nubia. It stands at the very
frontier. As one goes up the Nile, it is like a smiling adieu from the
Egypt one is leaving. As one comes down, it is like a smiling welcome.
In its delicate charm I feel something of the charm of the Egyptian
character. There are moments, indeed, when I identify Egypt with
Philae. For in Philae one must dream; and on the Nile, too, one must
dream. And always the dream is happy, and shot through with radiant
light - light that is as radiant as the colors in Philae's temple. The
pylons of Ptolemy smile at you as you go up or come down the river.
And the people of Egypt smile as they enter into your dream. A
suavity, too, is theirs. I think of them often as artists, who know
their parts in the dream-play, who know exactly their function, and
how to fulfil it rightly. They sing, while you are dreaming, but it is
an under-song, like the murmur of an Eastern river far off from any
sea. It never disturbs, this music, but it helps you in your dream.
And they are softly gay. And in their eyes there is often the gleam of
sunshine, for they are the children - but not grown men - of the sun.
That, indeed, is one of the many strange things in Egypt - the
youthfulness of its age, the childlikeness of its almost terrible
antiquity. One goes there to look at the oldest things in the world
and to feel perpetually young - young as Philae is young, as a lyric of
Shelley's is young, as all of our day-dreams are young, as the people
of Egypt are young.
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