Spell of Egypt — 19 - Ch. XVII: "Pharoah's Bed", pt. 1

“PHARAOH’S BED” “Pharaoh’s Bed,” which stands alone close to the Nile on the eastern side of the island, is not one of those rugged, majestic buildings, full of grandeur and splendor, which can bear, can “carry off,” as it were, a cruelly imposed ugliness without being affected as a whole.

It is, on the contrary, a small, almost an airy, and a femininely perfect thing, in which a singular loveliness of form was combined with a singular loveliness of color.

The spell it threw over you was not so much a spell woven of details as a spell woven of divine uniformity.

To put it in very practical language, “Pharaoh’s Bed” was “all of a piece.

” The form was married to the color.

The color seemed to melt into the form.

It was indeed a bed in which the soul that worships beauty could rest happily entranced.

Nothing jarred.

Antiquaries say that apparently this building was left unfinished.

That may be so.

But for all that it was one of the most finished things in Egypt, essentially a thing to inspire within one the “perfect calm that is Greek.

” The blighting touch of the Nile, which has changed the beautiful pale yellow of the stone of the lower part of the building to a hideous and dreary grey--which made me think of a steel knife on which liquid has been spilt and allowed to run--has destroyed the uniformity, the balance, the faultless melody lifted up by form and color.

And so it is with the temple.

It is, as it were, cut in two by the intrusion into it of this hideous, mottled complexion left by the receded water.

Everywhere one sees disease on the walls and columns, almost blotting out bas-reliefs, giving to their active figures a morbid, a sickly look.

The effect is specially distressing in the open court that precedes the temple dedicated to the Lady of Philae.

In this court, which is at the southern end of the island, the Nile at certain seasons is now forced to rise very nearly as high as the capitals of many of the columns.

The consequence of this is that here the disease seems making rapid strides.

One feels it is drawing near to the heart, and that the poor, doomed invalid may collapse at any moment.

Yes, there is much to make one sad at Philae.

But how much of pure beauty there is left--of beauty that merely protests against any further outrage!

As there is something epic in the grandeur of the Lotus Hall at Karnak, so there is something lyrical in the soft charm of the Philae temple.

Certain things or places, certain things in certain places, always suggest to my mind certain people in whose genius I take delight--who have won me, and moved me by their art.

Whenever I go to Philae, the name of Shelley comes to me.

I scarcely could tell why.

I have no special reason to connect Shelley with Philae.

But when I see that almost airy loveliness of stone, so simply elegant, so, somehow, spring-like in its pale-colored beauty, its happy, daffodil charm, with its touch of the Greek--the sensitive hand from Attica stretched out over Nubia--I always think of Shelley.

I think of Shelley the youth who dived down into the pool so deep that it seemed he was lost for ever to the sun.

I think of Shelley the poet, full of a lyric ecstasy, who was himself like an embodied “Longing for something afar From the sphere of our sorrow.

” Lyrical Philae is like a temple of dreams, and of all poets Shelley might have dreamed the dream and have told it to the world in a song.

For all its solidity, there are a strange lightness and grace in the temple of Philae; there is an elegance you will not find in the other temples of Egypt.

But it is an elegance quite undefiled by weakness, by any sentimentality.

(Even a building, like a love-lorn maid, can be sentimental.

) Edward FitzGerald once defined taste as the feminine of genius.

Taste prevails in Philae, a certain delicious femininity that seduces the eyes and the heart of man.

Shall we call it the spirit of Isis?

I have heard a clever critic and antiquarian declare that he is not very fond of Philae; that he feels a certain “spuriousness” in the temple due to the mingling of Greek with Egyptian influences.

He may be right.

I

am no antiquarian, and, as a mere lover of beauty, I do not feel this “spuriousness.

” I can see neither two quarrelling strengths nor any weakness caused by division.

I suppose I see only the beauty, as I might see only the beauty of a women bred of a handsome father and mother of different races, and who, not typical of either, combined in her features and figure distinguishing merits of both.

It is true that there is a particular pleasure which is roused in us only by the absolutely typical--the completely thoroughbred person or thing.

It may be a pleasure not caused by beauty, and it may be very keen, nevertheless.

When it is combined with the joy roused in us by all beauty, it is a very pure emotion of exceptional delight.

Philae does not, perhaps, give this emotion.

But it certainly has a lovableness that attaches the heart in a quite singular degree.

The Philae-lover is the most faithful of lovers.

The hold of his mistress upon him, once it has been felt, is never relaxed.

And in his affection for Philae there is, I think, nearly always a rainbow strain of romance.

When we love anything, we love to be able to say of the object of our devotion, “There is nothing like it.

” Now, in all Egypt, and I suppose in all the world there is nothing just like Philae.

There are temples, yes; but where else is there a bouquet of gracious buildings such as these gathered in such a holder as this tiny, raft-like isle?

And where else are just such delicate and, as I have said, light and almost feminine elegance and charm set in the midst of such severe sterility?

Once, beyond Philae, the great Cataract roared down from the wastes of Nubia into the green fertility of Upper Egypt.

It roars no longer.

But still the masses of the rocks, and still the amber and the yellow sands, and still the iron-colored hills, keep guard round Philae.

And still, despite the vulgar desecration that has turned Shellal into a workmen’s suburb and dowered it with a railway-station, there is a mystery in Philae, and the sense of isolation that only an island gives.

Even now one can forget in Philae--forget, after a while, and in certain parts of its buildings, the presence of the grey disease; forget the threatening of the altruists, who desire to benefit humanity by clearing as much beauty out of humanity’s abiding-place as possible; forget the fact of the railway, except when the shriek of the engine floats over the water to one’s ears; forget economic problems, and the destruction that their solving brings upon the silent world of things whose “use,” denied, unrecognized, or laughed at, to man is in their holy beauty, whose mission lies not upon the broad highways where tramps the hungry body, but upon the secret, shadowy byways where glides the hungry soul.

Yes, one can forget even now in the hall of the temple of Isis, where the capricious graces of color, where, like old and delicious music in the golden strings of a harp, dwells a something--what is it?

A murmur, or a perfume, or a breathing?

--of old and vanished years when forsaken gods were worshipped.

And one can forget in the chapel of Hathor, on whose wall little Horus is born, and in the grey hounds’ chapel beside it.

One can forget, for one walks in beauty.

Lovely are the doorways in Philae, enticing are the shallow steps that lead one onward and upward; gracious the yellow towers that seem to smile a quiet welcome.

And there is one chamber that is simply a place of magic--the hall of the flowers.

It is this chamber which always makes me think of Philae as a lovely temple of dreams, this silent, retired chamber, where some fabled princess might well have been touched to a long, long sleep of enchantment, and lain for years upon years among the magical flowers--the lotus, and the palm, and the papyrus.