Egyptian Tales and Romances Review

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(More customer reviews)From the preface:Part I contains tales and historical romances which are written in the hieratic characters, and are found written on papyrus and engraved upon stone stelae. In Part II of this book I have added translations form twelve Coptic manuscripts in which some of the curious results of the attempt to graft the Christian religion upon the old pagan religion of the country are made clear. The Books of the Old and New Testaments took the place of the Book of the Dead and the smaller funerary works. As the advent of Christianity killed the literature of the old pagan cults in Egypt, so the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs destroyed the language and literature of the Copts, and the language and literature of the Arabs took their place. Meanwhile the number of Muhammadans in Egypt has steadily increased and it is thought the Muslims now form about 95 percent of the population. And the "Rawi" or Story-teller doe not recite the old pagan or Christian stories of Egypt. Often he related the most popular stories from A Thousand Nights and a Night. When I was in Cairo, and Baghdad, and at many places in Upper Egypt and Sudan, I collected a few popular stories, but to print anything like literal translations of them in England is impossible, because we have a censor. A few excerpts, these are not the stories themselves, but rather a short introduction to the story. HOW THE WITCH-GODDESS ISIS USURPED THE POWER OF RA THE SUN-GOD: The godess Isis, the divine witch, possessed a profound knowledge of magic in all its branches, and having been instructed by Thorth, the heart and tongue of Ra, the Sun-god, enjoyed great power both in heaven and upon earth. Usually she employed her great knowledge in helping gods and men, and the living and the dead. But she was not satisfied with such knowledge as she possessed, and she wished to usurp the power of Ra, the creator and sustainer of the heavens and earth. She discoverd that Ra derived his almighty power from a secret magical name and she determined to find out what this name was so that she might become his equal. How she succeeded in her attempt is made known to us by a papyrus preserved at Turin. The text is written in hieratic (XXth dynasty). SETMA KHAMAUS AND HIS CONVERSE WITH THE DEAD: The story of the quest of Khamaus for a wonderful Book of Magic which was believed to have been composed by Thoth, and his converse with mummies in a tomb, is found written in Demotic upon a papyrus preserved in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The papyrus was written in the fifteenth year of the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes I, i.e. 233 B.C. Khamaus was a son of Rameses II by his wife Ast-Nefert, and during the greater part of his life he dwelt at Memphis, where he was a SEM, or SETEM priest, and as high-priest of Memphis he held the title of "Great Wielder of the Hammer." He died in the fifty-fifth year of the reign of Rameses II and was buried near the Great Pyramid of Gizah; Maspero found the remains of his tomb at Kaft al-Batran. He was a very learned man and a great magician, and some have thought that he was one of the magicians who performed such marvelous acts before Moses in connection with the snake-rod. Khamaus discovered by some means that the god Thoth had written a book of magic. Now Thoth was regarded as the heart and tongue of Ra, the Sun-god, and it was he who pronounced the magical words which expressed the thoughts and intentions of Ra, and caused creation to come into being. The book of magic written by Thoth was eagerly sought after by the Egyptians in all ages, but what it was like or what it contained were alike unknown. A tradition exists which stated that it had been sought for and found by Prince Nefer-ka-Ptah, the son of Mer-neb-Prah, a King of Egypt, and that it was buried with this Prince in this tomb, at Memphis. Now Khamaus spent a great deal of time in wandering about the cemeteries. And one day he discovered the tomb of Nefer-Ka-Ptah, which he opened and entered. In it he found the spirits of Nefer-Ka-Ptah, and his wife Ahura, and their child. By the side of them lay the famous Book of Magic written by Thoth. When Khamuas stretched, out his hand to take possession of the book, Ahura, the wife of Nefer-Ka-Ptah, prevented him form doing so. When he persisted she entreated him to abandon the idea of doing so, and then she described to him how the book came into their hands, and the disasters which had befallen her and her husband and child in connection with the possession thereof. Lots, and lots, and lots, of tales. Scholarly.

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