And Then Gradually, As We Walked On, We Saw It In
Profile, Shorn Of Its Nose - Flat-Nosed Like A Death's Head - But Having
Already An Expression Even When Seen Afar Off And From The Side;
Already Disdainful With Thrust-Out Chin And Baffling, Mysterious
Smile.
And when at length we arrived before the colossal visage, face
to face with it - without however encountering its
Gaze, which passed
high above our heads - there came over us at once the sentiment of all
the secret thought which these men of old contrived to incorporate and
make eternal behind this mutilated mask.
But in full daylight their great Sphinx is no more. It has ceased as
it were to exist. It is so scarred by time, and by the hands of
iconoclasts; so dilapidated, broken and diminished, that it is as
inexpressive as the crumbling mummies found in the sarcophagi, which
no longer even ape humanity. But after the manner of all phantoms it
comes to life again at night, beneath the enchantments of the moon.
For the men of its time whom did it represent? King Amenemhat? The Sun
God? Who can rightly tell? Of all hieroglyphic images it remains the
one least understood. The unfathomable thinkers of Egypt symbolised
everything for the benefit of the uninitiated under the form of awe-
inspiring figures of the gods; and it may be, perhaps, that, after
having meditated so deeply in the shadow of their temples, and sought
so long the everlasting wherefore of life and death, they wished
simply to sum up in the smile of these closed lips the vanity of the
most profound of our human speculations.
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Words from 1621 to 1897
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