glow of her presence raised the poet's oppressed soul to fresh life and
beauty.  They had given each other up for lost through strife and
suffering, and now had found each other again; each knew how precious
the other was.  To make each other happy, and prove their affection,
was now the aim of their lives, and as they each had proved that they
prized honor and right-doing above happiness their union was a true
marriage, ennobling and purifying their souls.  She could share his
deepest thoughts and his most difficult undertakings, and if their house
were filled with children she would know how to give him the fullest
enjoyment of those small blessings which at the same time are the
greatest joys of life.

Pentaur finding himself endowed by the king with superabundant wealth,
gave up the inheritance of his fathers to his brother Horus, who was
raised to the rank of chief pioneer as a reward for his interposition at
the battle of Kadesh; Horus replaced the fallen cedar-trees which had
stood at the door of his house by masts of more moderate dimensions.

The hapless Huni, under whose name Pentaur had been transferred to the
mines of Sinai, was released from the quarries of Chennu, and restored to
his children enriched by gifts from the poet.

The Pharaoh fully recognized the splendid talents of his daughter's
husband; she to his latest days remained his favorite child, even after
he had consolidated the peace by marrying the daughter of the Cheta king,
and Pentaur became his most trusted adviser, and responsible for the
weightiest affairs in the state.

Rameses learned from the papers found in Ani's tent, and from other
evidence which was only too abundant, that the superior of the House of
Seti, and with him the greater part of the priesthood, had for a long
time been making common cause with the traitor; in the first instance he
determined on the severest, nay bloodiest punishment, but he was
persuaded by Pentaur and by his son Chamus to assert and support the
principles of his government by milder and yet thorough measures.
Rameses desired to be a defender of religion--of the religion which could
carry consolation into the life of the lowly and over-burdened, and give
their existence a higher and fuller meaning--the religion which to him,
as king, appeared the indispensable means of keeping the grand
significance of human life ever present to his mind--sacred as the
inheritance of his fathers, and useful as the school where the people,
who needed leading, might learn to follow and obey.

But nevertheless no one, not even the priests, the guardians of souls,
could be permitted to resist the laws of which he was the bulwark,
to which he himself was subject, and which enjoined obedience to his
authority; and before be left Tanis he had given Ameni and his followers
to understand that he alone was master in Egypt.

The God Seth, who had been honored by the Semite races since the time of
the Hyksos, and whom they called upon under the name of Baal, had from
the earliest times never been allowed a temple on the Nile, as being the
God of the stranger; but Rameses--in spite of the bold remonstrances of
the priestly party who called themselves the 'true believers'--raised a
magnificent temple to this God in the city of Tanis to supply the
religious needs of the immigrant foreigners.  In the same spirit of
toleration he would not allow the worship of strange Gods to be
interfered with, though on the other hand he was jealous in honoring
the Egyptian Gods with unexampled liberality.  He caused temples to be
erected in most of the great cities of the kingdom, he added to the
temple of Ptah at Memphis, and erected immense colossi in front of its
pylons in memory of his deliverance from the fire.

[One of these is still in existence.  It lies on the ground among
the ruins of ancient Memphis.]

In the Necropolis of Thebes he had a splendid edifice constructed-which
to this day delights the beholder by the symmetry of its proportions in
memory of the hour when he escaped death as by a miracle; on its pylon he
caused the battle of Kadesh to be represented in beautiful pictures in
relief, and there, as well as on the architrave of the great banqueting--
hall, he had the history inscribed of the danger he had run when he stood
"alone and no man with him!"

By his order Pentaur rewrote the song he had sung at Pelusium; it is
preserved in three temples, and, in fragments, on several papyrus-rolls
which can be made to complete each other.  It was destined to become the
national epic--the Iliad of Egypt.

Pentaur was commissioned to transfer the school of the House of Seti to
the new votive temple, which was called the House of Rameses, and arrange
it on a different plan, for the Pharaoh felt that it was requisite to
form a new order of priests, and to accustom the ministers of the Gods to
subordinate their own designs to the laws of the country, and to the
decrees of their guardian and ruler, the king.  Pentaur was made the
superior of the new college, and its library, which was called "the
hospital for the soul," was without an equal; in this academy, which was
the prototype of the later-formed museum and library of Alexandria, sages
and poets grew up whose works endured for thousands of years--and
fragments of their writings have even come down to us.  The most famous
are the hymns of Anana, Pentaur's favorite disciple, and the tale of the
two Brothers, composed by Gagabu, the grandson of the old Prophet.

Ameni did not remain in Thebes.  Rameses had been informed of the way in
which he had turned the death of the ram to account, and the use he had
made of the heart, as he had supposed it, of the sacred animal, and he
translated him without depriving him of his dignity or revenues to
Mendes, the city of the holy rams in the Delta, where, as he observed not
without satirical meaning, he would be particularly intimate with these
sacred beasts; in Mendes Ameni exerted great influence, and in spite of
many differences of opinion which threatened to sever them, he and
Pentaur remained fast friends to the day of his death.

In the first court of the House of Rameses there stands--now broken
across the middle--the wonder of the traveller, the grandest colossus in
Egypt, made of the hardest granite, and exceeding even the well-known
statue of Memnon in the extent of its base.  It represents Rameses the
Great.  Little Scherau, whom Pentaur had educated to be a sculptor,
executed it, as well as many other statues of the great sovereign of
Egypt.

A year after the burning of the pavilion at Pelusium Rameri sailed to the
land of the Danaids, was married to Uarda, and then remained in his
wife's native country, where, after the death of her grandfather, he
ruled over many islands of the Mediterranean and became the founder of a
great and famous race.  Uarda's name was long held in tender remembrance
by their subjects, for having grown up in misery she understood the
secret of alleviating sorrow and relieving want, and of doing good and
giving happiness without humiliating those she benefitted.

THE END.




ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Drink of the joys of life thankfully, and in moderation
It is not seeing, it is seeking that is delightful
The man within him, and not on the circumstances without






ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE COMPLETE "UARDA":

A dirty road serves when it makes for the goal
Age when usually even bad liquor tastes of honey
An admirer of the lovely color of his blue bruises
Ardently they desire that which transcends sense
Ask for what is feasible
Bearers of ill ride faster than the messengers of weal
Blossom of the thorny wreath of sorrow
Called his daughter to wash his feet
Colored cakes in the shape of beasts
Deficient are as guilty in their eyes as the idle
Desert is a wonderful physician for a sick soul
Do not spoil the future for the sake of the present
Drink of the joys of life thankfully, and in moderation
Every misfortune brings its fellow with it
Exhibit one's happiness in the streets, and conceal one's misery
Eyes kind and frank, without tricks of glance
For fear of the toothache, had his sound teeth drawn
Hatred for all that hinders the growth of light
Hatred between man and man
He is clever and knows everything, but how silly he looks now
He who looks for faith must give faith
Her white cat was playing at her feet
How easy it is to give wounds, and how hard it is to heal
How tender is thy severity
Human sacrifices, which had been introduced into Egypt by the Phoenicians
I know that I am of use
I have never deviated from the exact truth even in jest
If it were right we should not want to hide ourselves
Impartial looker-on sees clearer than the player
It is not seeing, it is seeking that is delightful
Judge only by appearances, and never enquire into the causes
Kisra called wine the soap of sorrow
Learn early to pass lightly over little things
Learn to obey, that later you may know how to command
Like the cackle of hens, which is peculiar to Eastern women
Man has nothing harder to endure than uncertainty
Many creditors are so many allies
Medicines work harm as often as good
Money is a pass-key that turns any lock
No good excepting that from which we expect the worst
No one so self-confident and insolent as just such an idiot
None of us really know anything rightly
Obstinacy--which he liked to call firm determination
Often happens that apparent superiority does us damage
One falsehood usually entails another
One should give nothing up for lost excepting the dead
Only the choice between lying and silence
Our thinkers are no heroes, and our heroes are no sages
Overbusy friends are more damaging than intelligent enemies
Patronizing friendliness
Prepare sorrow when we come into the world
Principle of over-estimating the strength of our opponents
Provide yourself with a self-devised ruler
Refreshed by the whip of one of the horsemen
Repugnance for the old laws began to take root in his heart
Seditious words are like sparks, which are borne by the wind
Successes, like misfortunes, never come singly
The beginning of things is not more attractive
The scholar's ears are at his back: when he is flogged
The man within him, and not on the circumstances without
The dressing and undressing of the holy images
The experienced love to signify their superiority
The mother of foresight looks backwards
Think of his wife, not with affection only, but with pride
Those whom we fear, says my uncle, we cannot love
Thou canst say in words what we can only feel
Thought that the insane were possessed by demons
Title must not be a bill of fare
Trustfulness is so dear, so essential to me
Use words instead of swords, traps instead of lances
We quarrel with no one more readily than with the benefactor
Whether the form of our benevolence does more good or mischief
Youth should be modest, and he was assertive






AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS, Complete

By Georg Ebers

Volume 1.



Translated from the German by Eleanor Grove





PREFACE TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION

Aut prodesse volunt ant delectare poetae,
Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitae.
Horat.  De arte poetica v. 333.

It is now four years since this book first appeared before the public,
and I feel it my duty not to let a second edition go forth into the world
without a few words of accompaniment.  It hardly seems necessary to
assure my readers that I have endeavored to earn for the following pages
the title of a "corrected edition."  An author is the father of his book,
and what father could see his child preparing to set out on a new and
dangerous road, even if it were not for the first time, without
endeavoring to supply him with every good that it lay in his power to
bestow, and to free him from every fault or infirmity on which the world
could look unfavorably?  The assurance therefore that I have repeatedly
bestowed the greatest possible care on the correction of my Egyptian
Princess seems to me superfluous, but at the same time I think it
advisable to mention briefly where and in what manner I have found it
necessary to make these emendations.  The notes have been revised,
altered, and enriched with all those results of antiquarian research
(more especially in reference to the language and monuments of ancient
Egypt) which have come to our knowledge since the year 1864, and which
my limited space allowed me to lay before a general public.  On the
alteration of the text itself I entered with caution, almost with
timidity; for during four years of constant effort as academical tutor,
investigator and writer in those severe regions of study which exclude
the free exercise of imagination, the poetical side of a man's nature may
forfeit much to the critical; and thus, by attempting to remodel my tale
entirely, I might have incurred the danger of removing it from the more
genial sphere of literary work to which it properly belongs.  I have
therefore contented myself with a careful revision of the style, the
omission of lengthy passages which might have diminished the interest of
the story to general readers, the insertion of a few characteristic or
explanatory additions, and the alteration of the proper names.  These
last I have written not in their Greek, but in their Latin forms, having
been assured by more than one fair reader that the names Ibykus and Cyrus
would have been greeted by them as old acquaintances, whereas the
"Ibykos" and "Kyros" of the first edition looked so strange and learned,
as to be quite discouraging.  Where however the German k has the same
worth as the Roman c I have adopted it in preference.  With respect to
the Egyptian names and those with which we have become acquainted through
the cuneiform inscriptions, I have chosen the forms most adapted to our
German modes of speech, and in the present edition have placed those few
explanations which seemed to me indispensable to the right understanding
of the text, at the foot of the page, instead of among the less easily
accessible notes at the end.

The fact that displeasure has been excited among men of letters by this
attempt to clothe the hardly-earned results of severer studies in an
imaginative form is even clearer to me now than when I first sent this
book before the public.  In some points I agree with this judgment, but
that the act is kindly received, when a scholar does not scorn to render
the results of his investigations accessible to the largest number of the
educated class, in the form most generally interesting to them, is proved
by the rapid sale of the first large edition of this work.  I know at
least of no better means than those I have chosen, by which to instruct
and suggest thought to an extended circle of readers.  Those who read
learned books evince in so doing a taste for such studies; but it may
easily chance that the following pages, though taken up only for
amusement, may excite a desire for more information, and even gain a
disciple for the study of ancient history.

Considering our scanty knowledge of the domestic life of the Greeks and
Persians before the Persian war--of Egyptian manners we know more--even
the most severe scholar could scarcely dispense with the assistance of
his imagination, when attempting to describe private life among the
civilized nations of the sixth century before Christ.  He would however
escape all danger of those anachronisms to which the author of such a
work as I have undertaken must be hopelessly liable.  With attention and
industry, errors of an external character may be avoided, but if I had
chosen to hold myself free from all consideration of the times in which I
and my readers have come into the world, and the modes of thought at
present existing among us, and had attempted to depict nothing but the
purely ancient characteristics of the men and their times, I should have
become unintelligible to many of my readers, uninteresting to all, and
have entirely failed in my original object.  My characters will therefore
look like Persians, Egyptians, &c., but in their language, even more than
in their actions, the German narrator will be perceptible, not always
superior to the sentimentality of his day, but a native of the world in
the nineteenth century after the appearance of that heavenly Master,
whose teaching left so deep an impression on human thought and feeling.

The Persians and Greeks, being by descent related to ourselves, present
fewer difficulties in this respect than the Egyptians, whose dwelling-
place on the fruitful islands won by the Nile from the Desert, completely
isolated them from the rest of the world.

To Professor Lepsius, who suggested to me that a tale confined entirely
to Egypt and the Egyptians might become wearisome, I owe many thanks; and
following his hint, have so arranged the materials supplied by Herodotus
as to introduce my reader first into a Greek circle.  Here he will feel
in a measure at home, and indeed will entirely sympathize with them on
one important point, viz.: in their ideas on the Beautiful and on Art.
Through this Hellenic portico he reaches Egypt, from thence passes on to
Persia and returns finally to the Nile.  It has been my desire that the
three nations should attract him equally, and I have therefore not
centred the entire interest of the plot in one hero, but have endeavored
to exhibit each nation in its individual character, by means of a fitting
representative.  The Egyptian Princess has given her name to the book,
only because the weal and woe of all my other characters were decided by
her fate, and she must therefore be regarded as the central point of the
whole.

In describing Amasis I have followed the excellent description of
Herodotus, which has been confirmed by a picture discovered on an ancient
monument.  Herodotus has been my guide too in the leading features of
Cambyses' character; indeed as he was born only forty or fifty years
after the events related, his history forms the basis of my romance.

"Father of history" though he be, I have not followed him blindly, but,
especially in the development of my characters, have chosen those paths
which the principles of psychology have enabled me to lay down for
myself, and have never omitted consulting those hieroglyphic and
cuneiform inscriptions which have been already deciphered.  In most cases
these confirm the statements of Herodotus.

I have caused Bartja's murder to take place after the conquest of Egypt,
because I cannot agree with the usually received translation of the
Behistun inscription.  This reads as follows: "One named Cambujiya, son
of Curu, of our family, was king here formerly and had a brother named
Bartiya, of the same father and the same mother as Cambujiya.  Thereupon
Cambujiya killed that Bartiya."  In a book intended for general readers,
it would not be well to enter into a discussion as to niceties of
language, but even the uninitiated will see that the word "thereupon" has
no sense in this connection.  In every other point the inscription agrees
with Herodotus' narrative, and I believe it possible to bring it into
agreement with that of Darius on this last as well; but reserve my proofs
for another time and place.

It has not been ascertained from whence Herodotus has taken the name
Smerdis which he gives to Bartja and Gaumata.  The latter occurs again,
though in a mutilated form, in Justin.

My reasons for making Phanes an Athenian will be found in Note 90. Vol.
I.  This coercion of an authenticated fact might have been avoided in the
first edition, but could not now be altered without important changes in
the entire text.  The means I have adopted in my endeavor to make Nitetis
as young as possible need a more serious apology; as, notwithstanding
Herodotus' account of the mildness of Amasis' rule, it is improbable that
King Hophra should have been alive twenty years after his fall.  Even
this however is not impossible, for it can be proved that his descendants
were not persecuted by Amasis.

On a Stela in the Leyden Museum I have discovered that a certain Psamtik,
a member of the fallen dynasty, lived till the 17th year of Amasis'
reign, and died at the age of seventy-five.

Lastly let me be permitted to say a word or two in reference to Rhodopis.
That she must have been a remarkable woman is evident from the passage in
Herodotus quoted in Notes 10, and 14, Vol. I., and from the accounts
given by many other writers.  Her name, "the rosy-cheeked one," tells us
that she was beautiful, and her amiability and charm of manner are
expressly praised by Herodotus.  How richly she was endowed with gifts
and graces may be gathered too from the manner in which tradition and
fairy lore have endeavored to render her name immortal.  By many she is
said to have built the most beautiful of the Pyramids, the Pyramid of
Mycerinus or Menkera.  One tale related of her and reported by Strabo and
AElian probably gave rise to our oldest and most beautiful fairy tale,
Cinderella; another is near akin to the Loreley legend.  An eagle,
according to AElian--the wind, in Strabo's tale,--bore away Rhodopis'
slippers while she was bathing in the Nile, and laid them at the feet of
the king, when seated on his throne of justice in the open market.  The
little slippers so enchanted him that he did not rest until he had
discovered their owner and made her his queen.

The second legend tells us how a wonderfully beautiful naked woman could
be seen sitting on the summit of one of the pyramids (ut in una ex
pyramidibus); and how she drove the wanderers in the desert mad through
her exceeding loveliness.

Moore borrowed this legend and introduces it in the following verse:

"Fair Rhodope, as story tells--
The bright unearthly nymph, who dwells
'Mid sunless gold and jewels hid,
The lady of the Pyramid."

Fabulous as these stories sound, they still prove that Rhodopis must have
been no ordinary woman.  Some scholars would place her on a level with
the beautiful and heroic Queen Nitokris, spoken of by Julius Africanus,
Eusebius and others, and whose name, (signifying the victorious Neith)
has been found on the monuments, applied to a queen of the sixth dynasty.
This is a bold conjecture; it adds however to the importance of our
heroine; and without doubt many traditions referring to the one have been
transferred to the other, and vice versa.  Herodotus lived so short a
time after Rhodopis, and tells so many exact particulars of her private
life that it is impossible she should have been a mere creation of
fiction.  The letter of Darius, given at the end of Vol. II., is intended
to identify the Greek Rhodopis with the mythical builder of the Pyramid.
I would also mention here that she is called Doricha by Sappho.  This may
have been her name before she received the title of the "rosy-cheeked
one."

I must apologize for the torrent of verse that appears in the love-scenes
between Sappho and Bartja; it is also incumbent upon me to say a few
words about the love-scenes themselves, which I have altered very
slightly in the new edition, though they have been more severely
criticised than any other portion of the work.

First I will confess that the lines describing the happy love of a
handsome young couple to whom I had myself become warmly attached, flowed
from my pen involuntarily, even against my will (I intended to write a
novel in prose) in the quiet night, by the eternal Nile, among the palms
and roses.  The first love-scene has a story of its own to me.  I wrote
it in half an hour, almost unconsciously.  It may be read in my book that
the Persians always reflected in the morning, when sober, upon the
resolutions formed the night before, while drunk.  When I examined in the
sunshine what had come into existence by lamplight, I grew doubtful of
its merits, and was on the point of destroying the love-scenes
altogether, when my dear friend Julius Hammer, the author of "Schau in
Dich, und Schau um Dich," too early summoned to the other world by death,
stayed my hand.  Their form was also approved by others, and I tell
myself that the 'poetical' expression of love is very similar in all
lands and ages, while lovers' conversations and modes of intercourse vary
according to time and place.  Besides, I have to deal with one of those
by no means rare cases, where poetry can approach nearer the truth than
prudent, watchful prose.  Many of my honored critics have censured these
scenes; others, among whom are some whose opinion I specially value, have
lavished the kindest praise upon them.  Among these gentlemen I will
mention A. Stahr, C. V. Holtei, M. Hartmann, E. Hoefer, W. Wolfsohn, C.
Leemans, Professor Veth of Amsterdam, etc.  Yet I will not conceal the
fact that some, whose opinion has great weight, have asked: "Did the
ancients know anything of love, in our sense of the word?  Is not
romantic love, as we know it, a result of Christianity?"  The following
sentence, which stands at the head of the preface to my first edition,
will prove that I had not ignored this question when I began my task.

"It has often been remarked that in Cicero's letters and those of
Pliny the younger there are unmistakeable indications of sympathy
with the more sentimental feeling of modern days.  I find in them
tones of deep tenderness only, such as have arisen and will arise
from sad and aching hearts in every land and every age."

A. v. HUMBOLDT.  Cosmos II. P. 19.

This opinion of our great scholar is one with which I cheerfully coincide
and would refer my readers to the fact that love-stories were written
before the Christian era: the Amor and Psyche of Apuleius for instance.
Indeed love in all its forms was familiar to the ancients.  Where can we
find a more beautiful expression of ardent passion than glows in Sappho's
songs?  or of patient faithful constancy than in Homer's Penelope?  Could
there be a more beautiful picture of the union of two loving hearts, even
beyond the grave, than Xenophon has preserved for us in his account of
Panthea and Abradatas? or the story of Sabinus the Gaul and his wife,
told in the history of Vespasian?  Is there anywhere a sweeter legend
than that of the Halcyons, the ice-birds, who love one another so
tenderly that when the male becomes enfeebled by age, his mate carries
him on her outspread wings whithersoever he will; and the gods, desiring
to reward such faithful love, cause the sun to shine more kindly, and
still the winds and waves on the "Halcyon days" during which these birds
are building their nest and brooding over their young?  There can surely
have been no lack of romantic love in days when a used-up man of the
world, like Antony, could desire in his will that wherever he died his
body might be laid by the side of his beloved Cleopatra: nor of the
chivalry of love when Berenice's beautiful hair was placed as a
constellation in the heavens.  Neither can we believe that devotion in
the cause of love could be wanting when a whole nation was ready to wage
a fierce and obstinate war for the sake of one beautiful woman.  The
Greeks had an insult to revenge, but the Trojans fought for the
possession of Helen.  Even the old men of Ilium were ready "to suffer
long for such a woman."  And finally is not the whole question answered
in Theocritus' unparalleled poem, "the Sorceress?"  We see the poor love-
lorn girl and her old woman-servant, Thestylis, cowering over the fire
above which the bird supposed to possess the power of bringing back the
faithless Delphis is sitting in his wheel.  Simoetha has learnt many
spells and charms from an Assyrian, and she tries them all.  The distant
roar of the waves, the stroke rising from the fire, the dogs howling in
the street, the tortured fluttering bird, the old woman, the broken-
hearted girl and her awful spells, all join in forming a night scene the
effect of which is heightened by the calm cold moonshine.  The old woman
leaves the girl, who at once ceases to weave her spells, allows her pent-
up tears to have their way, and looking up to Selene the moon, the
lovers' silent confidante, pours out her whole story: how when she first
saw the beautiful Delphis her heart had glowed with love, she had seen
nothing more of the train of youths who followed him, "and," (thus sadly
the poet makes her speak)

"how I gained my home
I knew not; some strange fever wasted me.
Ten days and nights I lay upon my bed.
O tell me, mistress Moon, whence came my love!"

"Then" (she continues) when Delphis at last crossed her threshold:

"I
Became all cold like snow, and from my brow
Brake the damp dewdrops: utterance I had none,
Not e'en such utterance as a babe may make
That babbles to its mother in its dreams;
But all my fair frame stiffened into wax,--
O tell me mistress Moon, whence came my love!"

Whence came her love?  thence, whence it comes to us now.  The love of
the creature to its Creator, of man to God, is the grand and yet gracious
gift of Christianity.  Christ's command to love our neighbor called into
existence not only the conception of philanthropy, but of humanity
itself, an idea unknown to the heathen world, where love had been at
widest limited to their native town and country.  The love of man and
wife has without doubt been purified and transfigured by Christianity;
still it is possible that a Greek may have loved as tenderly and
longingly as a Christian.  The more ardent glow of passion at least
cannot be denied to the ancients.  And did not their love find vent in
the same expressions as our own?  Who does not know the charming
roundelay:

"Drink the glad wine with me,
With me spend youth's gay hours;
Or a sighing lover be,
Or crown thy brow with flowers.
When I am merry and mad,
Merry and mad be you;
When I am sober and sad,
Be sad and sober too!"

--written however by no poet of modern days, but by Praxilla, in the
fifth century before Christ.  Who would guess either that Moore's little
song was modelled on one written even earlier than the date of our story?

"As o'er her loom the Lesbian maid
In love-sick languor hung her head.
Unknowing where her fingers stray'd,
She weeping turned away and said,'
Oh, my sweet mother, 'tis in vain,

I cannot weave as once I wove;
So wilder'd is my heart and brain
With thinking of that youth I love.'"

If my space allowed I could add much more on this subject, but will
permit myself only one remark in conclusion.  Lovers delighted in nature
then as now; the moon was their chosen confidante, and I know of no
modern poem in which the mysterious charm of a summer night and the magic
beauty which lies on flowers, trees and fountains in those silent hours
when the world is asleep, is more exquisitely described than in the
following verses, also by Sappho, at the reading of which we seem forced
to breathe more slowly, "kuhl bis an's Herz hinan."

"Planets, that around the beauteous moon
Attendant wait, cast into shade
Their ineffectual lustres, soon
As she, in full-orb'd majesty array'd,
Her silver radiance pours
Upon this world of ours."

and:--

"Thro' orchard plots with fragrance crown'd,
The clear cold fountain murm'ring flows;
And forest leaves, with rustling sound,
Invite to soft repose."

The foregoing remarks seemed to me due to those who consider a love such
as that of Sappho and Bartja to have been impossible among the ancients.
Unquestionably it was much rarer then than in these days: indeed I
confess to having sketched my pair of lovers in somewhat bright colors.
But may I not be allowed, at least once, to claim the poet's freedom?

How seldom I have availed myself of this freedom will be evident from the
notes included in each volume.  They seemed to me necessary, partly in
order to explain the names and illustrate the circumstances mentioned in
the text, and partly to vindicate the writer in the eyes of the learned.
I trust they may not prove discouraging to any, as the text will be found
easily readable without reference to the explanations.

Jena, November 23, 1868.
GEORG EBERS, DR.



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH GERMAN EDITION.

Two years and a half after the appearance of the third edition of "An
Egyptian Princess," a fourth was needed.  I returned long since from the
journey to the Nile, for which I was preparing while correcting the
proof-sheets of the third edition, and on which I can look back with
special satisfaction.  During my residence in Egypt, in 1872-73, a lucky
accident enabled me to make many new discoveries; among them one treasure
of incomparable value, the great hieratic manuscript, which bears my
name.  Its publication has just been completed, and it is now in the
library of the Leipzig University.

The Papyrus Ebers, the second in size and the best preserved of all the
ancient Egyptian manuscripts which have come into our possession, was
written in the 16th century B. C., and contains on 110 pages the hermetic
book upon the medicines of the ancient Egyptians, known also to the
Alexandrine Greeks.  The god Thoth (Hermes) is called "the guide" of
physicians, and the various writings and treatises of which the work is
composed are revelations from him.  In this venerable scroll diagnoses
are made and remedies suggested for the internal and external diseases of
most portions of the human body.  With the drugs prescribed are numbers,
according to which they are weighed with weights and measured with hollow
measures, and accompanying the prescriptions are noted the pious axioms
to be repeated by the physician, while compounding and giving them to the
patient.  On the second line of the first page of our manuscript, it is
stated that it came from Sais.  A large portion of this work is devoted
to the visual organs.  On the twentieth line of the fifty-fifth page
begins the book on the eyes, which fills eight large pages.  We were
formerly compelled to draw from Greek and Roman authors what we knew
about the remedies used for diseases of the eye among the ancient
Egyptians.  The portion of the Papyrus Ebers just mentioned is now the
only Egyptian source from whence we can obtain instruction concerning
this important branch of ancient medicine.

All this scarcely seems to have a place in the preface of a historical
romance, and yet it is worthy of mention here; for there is something
almost "providential" in the fact that it was reserved for the author of
"An Egyptian Princess" to bestow the gift of this manuscript upon the
scientific world.  Among the characters in the novel the reader will meet
an oculist from Sais, who wrote a book upon the diseases of the visual
organs.  The fate of this valuable work exactly agrees with the course of
the narrative.  The papyrus scroll of the Sais oculist, which a short
time ago existed only in the imagination of the author and readers of "An
Egyptian Princess," is now an established fact.  When I succeeded in
bringing the manuscript home, I felt like the man who had dreamed of a
treasure, and when he went out to ride found it in his path.

A reply to Monsieur Jules Soury's criticism of "An Egyptian Princess" in
the Revue des deux Mondes, Vol. VII, January 1875, might appropriately be
introduced into this preface, but would scarcely be possible without
entering more deeply into the ever-disputed question, which will be
answered elsewhere, whether the historical romance is ever justifiable.
Yet I cannot refrain from informing Monsieur Soury here that "An Egyptian
Princess" detained me from no other work.  I wrote it in my sick-room,
before entering upon my academic career, and while composing it, found
not only comfort and pleasure, but an opportunity to give dead scientific
material a living interest for myself and others.

Monsieur Soury says romance is the mortal enemy of history; but this
sentence may have no more justice than the one with which I think myself
justified in replying: Landscape painting is the mortal enemy of botany.
The historical romance must be enjoyed like any other work of art.  No
one reads it to study history; but many, the author hopes, may be aroused
by his work to make investigations of their own, for which the notes
point out the way.  Already several persons of excellent mental powers
have been attracted to earnest Egyptological researches by "An Egyptian
Princess."  In the presence of such experiences, although Monsieur
Soury's clever statements appear to contain much that is true, I need not
apply his remark that "historical romances injure the cause of science"
to the present volume.

Leipzig, April 19, 1875.

GEORG EBERS.



PREFACE TO THE FIFTH GERMAN EDITION.

Again a new edition of "An Egyptian Princess" has been required, and
again I write a special preface because the printing has progressed so
rapidly as unfortunately to render it impossible for me to correct some
errors to which my attention was directed by the kindness of the well-
known botanist, Professor Paul Ascherson of Berlin, who has travelled
through Egypt and the Oases.

In Vol. I, page 7, I allow mimosas to grow among other plants in
Rhodopis' garden.  I have found them in all the descriptions of the Nile
valley, and afterwards often enjoyed the delicious perfume of the golden
yellow flowers in the gardens of Alexandria and Cairo.  I now learn that
this very mimosa (Acacia farnesiana) originates in tropical America, and
was undoubtedly unknown in ancient Egypt.  The bananas, which I mentioned
in Vol. I, p. 64, among other Egyptian plants, were first introduced into
the Nile valley from India by the Arabs.  The botanical errors occurring
in the last volume I was able to correct.  Helm's admirable work on
"Cultivated Plants and Domestic Animals" had taught me to notice such
things.  Theophrastus, a native of Asia Minor, gives the first
description of a citron, and this proves that he probably saw the so-
called paradise-apple, but not our citron, which I am therefore not
permitted to mention among the plants cultivated in ancient Lydia.  Palms
and birches are both found in Asia Minor; but I permitted them to grow
side by side, thereby committing an offense against the geographical
possibility of vegetable existence.  The birch, in this locality,
flourishes in the mountainous region, the palm, according to Griesbach
(Vegetation of the Earth, Vol. I, p. 319) only appears on the southern