Читать книгу The Harim and the Purdah: Studies of Oriental Women - Elizabeth Cooper - Страница 6

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The word Egypt opens the Book of Romance to the traveller in the East, and he longs to come under the spell of its mysterious grandeur, and gaze upon the monuments which will speak to him of the power and splendour of a people long since gathered to their gods. It is a land in which to dream dreams and see visions. The temples, broken columns, and great pylons call with a voice that must be heard even by the prosaic tourist, and the hands he sees painted upon the walls of Denderah or Deirel Bahari will beckon him when sitting in office, club, or home, far from the dazzling sands or burning sun of Africa.

The charm of the land of the Pharaohs is very real, and it is hard to speak of Egyptian life in a calm and lucid style, or free oneself from extravagant descriptions.

Egypt and its fascination are favourite themes for novelists and writers of travel, and yet in spite of a good deal of general knowledge we remain curiously ignorant of the Egyptian woman, from the point of view of her moral and mental development. In common with women of other Oriental lands, she has been an object of mystery to the Western world. We know that in the olden time, in the days of the Pharaohs, she held an important place in the life of her world. We see her pictures on the tombs, temples were erected in her honour, and we know that there were queens who in their day governed their country with dignity and rare ability.

In former days the purity of the blood of the royal line was assured by the marriage of a brother and sister, the queen reigning equally with the king. If a queen of royal birth took as her consort a male not descended directly from a royal mother, even though his father might have been a Pharaoh, at the death of his wife he was compelled to abdicate in favour of the son or daughter who could call the queen “mother.” This was shown when Thotmes I was compelled to resign his crown in favour of that great Queen Hatshepsu, his daughter, who for twenty years governed Egypt. Although her reign was a stormy one because of her half-brothers who claimed the throne, her name and features erased from all the monuments, and omitted from the official tablets and chronological records, yet enough was left to show that her power had been great and that she commanded the attention of the world. It is said that Hatshepsu had herself everywhere depicted as a man, wearing the dress and even the beard of the stronger sex, perhaps hoping in this way to gain a greater allegiance of her people.

RAMESES AND HIS WIFE.

To face p. 20.

One of the most interesting temples along the Nile is that of the first woman ruler of Egypt of whom we have accurate knowledge. One rides over the hot sands beneath a burning sun to a series of great terraces and broken white columns against a background of tiger-coloured precipices. This beautiful temple of the XVIIIth Dynasty, called by the Egyptians “the Sublime of the Sublime,” was dedicated to Amen Ra and his companion gods, Hathor and Anubis, but it was really erected to commemorate the glorious reign of a great queen.

Another woman who influenced Egypt was the mother of Amenophis IV, the great reformer. He disestablished the State religion, some say at the instance of his mother; confiscated the lands and destroyed the power of the priests of Amon who were becoming all-powerful; and established the worship of one God.

Solomon evidently held the Egyptians in high favour. He had many wives before he married a princess of Egypt, but we hear of no palaces being built especially for any of them, nor of the worship of their gods being introduced into Jerusalem. Yet we are told that a magnificent palace was built for Pharaoh’s daughter and that she was permitted, although contrary to the laws of Israel, to worship the gods of her country.

Then there was Hypatia, an Alexandrine, who established a school of philosophy where learned men from all parts of the world came to listen to her words of wisdom; and in the British Museum there is a manuscript of the Old and New Testament, written on parchment immediately after the Council of Nice, by an Egyptian woman, which goes to prove that men did not possess all the knowledge nor learning of their time.

We all know the story of Cleopatra and the part she played in the downfall of her country, and history abounds with tales narrating the bravery, courage, and charm of Egyptian women.

Women are also associated with the religion of this old land. The worship of Isis was as general as the worship of her brother Osiris, and this goddess is reverenced as the representation of true and loyal wifehood.

Another woman, Athor, the goddess of love, who was called the “Great Mother” and served as the protectress of earthly mothers, was good and beautiful, lovely and gentle, the goddess of love and joy. Neith was worshipped as the goddess of art and learning. Maat was the goddess of truth and justice; and in ancient times judges, when trying cases, held a small figure of the goddess Maat in their hands, and touched the persons acquitted with it, to show that they had won their cause.

There was Taur, the goddess of evil, and Sekhet, typical of the scorching, destructive power of the sun, and many minor goddesses whose emblems, seen on columns and walls of the ancient ruins, tell us that in those days woman was thought fit to represent Divinity.

The women of ancient Egypt were evidently not secluded, as is shown by the story of Pharaoh’s daughter who was going with her train of maids to bathe when she found Moses. The story of Potiphar’s wife and Joseph would never have been told in modern times, as a man-servant would not have dared to go to the women’s quarters.

This valley of the Nile has always been the home of mystery and charm. The inscriptions on its tombs and temples have been deciphered and receive much attention in modern days; but they are not more interesting than is the woman of Egypt, who, as we have learned, enjoyed greater liberties and received more honour than is the heritage of her modern daughters. It is difficult to understand her, as even yet she represents traditions and the habits of dead centuries, fit to be relegated to the past.

She is the Sphinx of this Oriental land, and will not easily give to the world her secrets.