DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5538#0219
LITERATURE AND RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 199
he conquered the known world of his time. It was his mag-
nificent boast that he planted the frontiers of Egypt where
he pleased; and he did so. Southward as far, apparently, as
the great equatorial lakes which have been rediscovered in
our time; northward to the islands of the ./Egean and the
upper waters of the Euphrates; over Syria and Sinai, Meso-
potamia ami Arabia in the east; over Libya and the North
African coast as far as Scherschell in Algeria on the west, he
carried fire and sword, and the terror of the Egyptian name.
He was by far the greatest warrior-king of Egyptian history,
and his " Chant of Victory," though rhapsodical and Oriental
in style, does not exaggerate the facts. This chant, written
by the laureate of the day, is one of the finest example ex-
tant of the poetry of ancient Egypt. For the Egyptians, not-
withstanding the poverty of their grammar and the cum-
brous structure of their language, had poetry, and poetry of
a very high order. It was not like our poetry. It had
neither rhyme nor metre; but it had rhythm. Like the
chants of the Troubadours and Trouveres, it was largely al-
literative, cadenced, symmetrical. It abounded in imagery,
in antithesis, in parallelisms. The same word, or the same
phrase, was repeated at measured intervals. In short, it had
style and music; and although the old Egyptian language is
far more literally dead than the languages of Greece and
Rome, that music is still faintly audible to the ears of such
as care to listen to its distant echo.
A two-fold bas-relief group at the top of the tablet of
Thothmes III. represents the King in adoration before Araen-
Ra; and the context shows the poem to have been composed
in commemoration of the opening of the Hall of Columns
added by this Pharaoh to the Temple of Amen at Karnak.
It is the god who speaks. He begins with a few lines of
prose; thus:
THE DISCOURSE OF AMEN-RA,
LORD OF THROXES.
" Come unto me! Tremble thou with joy, Oh my Son,
he conquered the known world of his time. It was his mag-
nificent boast that he planted the frontiers of Egypt where
he pleased; and he did so. Southward as far, apparently, as
the great equatorial lakes which have been rediscovered in
our time; northward to the islands of the ./Egean and the
upper waters of the Euphrates; over Syria and Sinai, Meso-
potamia ami Arabia in the east; over Libya and the North
African coast as far as Scherschell in Algeria on the west, he
carried fire and sword, and the terror of the Egyptian name.
He was by far the greatest warrior-king of Egyptian history,
and his " Chant of Victory," though rhapsodical and Oriental
in style, does not exaggerate the facts. This chant, written
by the laureate of the day, is one of the finest example ex-
tant of the poetry of ancient Egypt. For the Egyptians, not-
withstanding the poverty of their grammar and the cum-
brous structure of their language, had poetry, and poetry of
a very high order. It was not like our poetry. It had
neither rhyme nor metre; but it had rhythm. Like the
chants of the Troubadours and Trouveres, it was largely al-
literative, cadenced, symmetrical. It abounded in imagery,
in antithesis, in parallelisms. The same word, or the same
phrase, was repeated at measured intervals. In short, it had
style and music; and although the old Egyptian language is
far more literally dead than the languages of Greece and
Rome, that music is still faintly audible to the ears of such
as care to listen to its distant echo.
A two-fold bas-relief group at the top of the tablet of
Thothmes III. represents the King in adoration before Araen-
Ra; and the context shows the poem to have been composed
in commemoration of the opening of the Hall of Columns
added by this Pharaoh to the Temple of Amen at Karnak.
It is the god who speaks. He begins with a few lines of
prose; thus:
THE DISCOURSE OF AMEN-RA,
LORD OF THROXES.
" Come unto me! Tremble thou with joy, Oh my Son,