Uarda. Georg Ebers
it, the sun and the
moan came forth. Hence his name “the opener.”]
as well as of the other Gods, finds expression.
Pentaur listened to the youth with folded arms, now looking at him enquiringly, now adding approbation. Then taking up the thread of the discourse when it was ended, he began himself to speak.
Like obedient falcons at the call of the falconer, thoughts rushed down into his mind, and the divine passion awakened in his breast glowed and shone through his inspired language that soared every moment on freer and stronger wings. Melting into pathos, exulting in rapture, he praised the splendor of nature; and the words flowed from his lips like a limpid crystal-clear stream as he glorified the eternal order of things, and the incomprehensible wisdom and care of the Creator—the One, who is one alone, and great and without equal.
“So incomparable,” he said in conclusion, “is the home which God has given us. All that He—the One—has created is penetrated with His own essence, and bears witness to His Goodness. He who knows how to find Him sees Him everywhere, and lives at every instant in the enjoyment of His glory. Seek Him, and when ye have found Him fall down and sing praises before Him. But praise the Highest, not only in gratitude for the splendor of that which he has created, but for having given us the capacity for delight in his work. Ascend the mountain peaks and look on the distant country, worship when the sunset glows with rubies, and the dawn with roses, go out in the nighttime, and look at the stars as they travel in eternal, unerring, immeasurable, and endless circles on silver barks through the blue vault of heaven, stand by the cradle of the child, by the buds of the flowers, and see how the mother bends over the one, and the bright dew-drops fall on the other. But would you know where the stream of divine goodness is most freely poured out, where the grace of the Creator bestows the richest gifts, and where His holiest altars are prepared? In your own heart; so long as it is pure and full of love. In such a heart, nature is reflected as in a magic mirror, on whose surface the Beautiful shines in three-fold beauty. There the eye can reach far away over stream, and meadow, and hill, and take in the whole circle of the earth; there the morning and evening-red shine, not like roses and rubies, but like the very cheeks of the Goddess of Beauty; there the stars circle on, not in silence, but with the mighty voices of the pure eternal harmonies of heaven; there the child smiles like an infant-god, and the bud unfolds to magic flowers; finally, there thankfulness grows broader and devotion grows deeper, and we throw ourselves into the arms of a God, who—as I imagine his glory—is a God to whom the sublime nine great Gods pray as miserable and helpless suppliants.”
The tomtom which announced the end of the hour interrupted him.
Pentaur ceased speaking with a deep sigh, and for a minute not a scholar moved.
At last the poet laid the papyrus roll out of his hand, wiped the sweat from his hot brow, and walked slowly towards the gate of the court, which led into the sacred grove of the temple. He had hardly crossed the threshold when he felt a hand laid upon his shoulder.
He looked round. Behind him stood Ameni. “You fascinated your hearers, my friend,” said the high-priest, coldly; “it is a pity that only the Harp was wanting.”
Ameni’s words fell on the agitated spirit of the poet like ice on the breast of a man in fever. He knew this tone in his master’s voice, for thus he was accustomed to reprove bad scholars and erring priests; but to him he had never yet so spoken.
“It certainly would seem,” continued the high-priest, bitterly, “as if in your intoxication you had forgotten what it becomes the teacher to utter in the lecture-hall. Only a few weeks since you swore on my hands to guard the mysteries, and this day you have offered the great secret of the Unnameable one, the most sacred possession of the initiated, like some cheap ware in the open market.”
“Thou cuttest with knives,” said Pentaur.
“May they prove sharp, and extirpate the undeveloped canker, the rank weed from your soul,” cried the high-priest. “You are young, too young; not like the tender fruit-tree that lets itself be trained aright, and brought to perfection, but like the green fruit on the ground, which will turn to poison for the children who pick it up—yea even though it fall from a sacred tree. Gagabu and I received you among us, against the opinion of the majority of the initiated. We gainsaid all those who doubted your ripeness because of your youth; and you swore to me, gratefully and enthusiastically, to guard the mysteries and the law. To-day for the first time I set you on the battle-field of life beyond the peaceful shelter of the schools. And how have you defended the standard that it was incumbent on you to uphold and maintain?”
“I did that which seemed to me to be right and true,” answered Pentaur deeply moved.
“Right is the same for you as for us—what the law prescribes; and what is truth?”
“None has lifted her veil,” said Pentaur, “but my soul is the offspring of the soul-filled body of the All; a portion of the infallible spirit of the Divinity stirs in my breast, and if it shows itself potent in me—”
“How easily we may mistake the flattering voice of self-love for that of the Divinity!”
“Cannot the Divinity which works and speaks in me—as in thee—as in each of us—recognize himself and his own voice?”
“If the crowd were to hear you,” Ameni interrupted him, “each would set himself on his little throne, would proclaim the voice of the god within him as his guide, tear the law to shreds, and let the fragments fly to the desert on the east wind.”
“I am one of the elect whom thou thyself hast taught to seek and to find the One. The light which I gaze on and am blest, would strike the crowd—I do not deny it—with blindness—”
“And nevertheless you blind our disciples with the dangerous glare-”
“I am educating them for future sages.”
“And that with the hot overflow of a heart intoxicated with love!”
“Ameni!”
“I stand before you, uninvited, as your teacher, who reproves you out of the law, which always and everywhere is wiser than the individual, whose defender the king—among his highest titles—boasts of being, and to which the sage bows as much as the common man whom we bring up to blind belief—I stand before you as your father, who has loved you from a child, and expected from none of his disciples more than from you; and who will therefore neither lose you nor abandon the hope he has set upon you—
“Make ready to leave our quiet house early tomorrow morning. You have forfeited your office of teacher. You shall now go into the school of life, and make yourself fit for the honored rank of the initiated which, by my error, was bestowed on you too soon. You must leave your scholars without any leave-taking, however hard it may appear to you. After the star of Sothis
[The holy star of Isis, Sirius or the dog star, whose course in the
time of the Pharaohs coincided with the exact Solar year, and served
at a very early date as a foundation for the reckoning of time among
the Egyptians.]
has risen come for your instructions. You must in these next months try to lead the priesthood in the temple of Hatasu, and in that post to win back my confidence which you have thrown away. No remonstrance; to-night you will receive my blessing, and our authority—you must greet the rising sun from the terrace of the new scene of your labors. May the Unnameable stamp the law upon your soul!”
Ameni returned to his room.
He walked restlessly to and fro.
On a little table lay a mirror; he looked into the clear metal pane, and laid it back in its place again, as if he had seen some strange and displeasing countenance.
The events of the last few hours had moved him deeply, and shaken his confidence in his unerring judgment of men and things.
The priests on the other bank