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egypt-第21部分

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rottenness of the grave is the end of all is characteristic of ages of

decadence and mediocrity。



The three similar giants; little damaged in the course of their long

existence; who align the eastern side of this courtyard strewn with

blocks; represent; as indeed do all the others; that same Ramses II。;

whose effigy was multiplied so extravagantly at Thebes and Memphis。

But these three have preserved a powerful and impetuous life。 They

might have been carved and polished yesterday。 Between the monstrous

reddish pillars; they look like white apparitions issuing from their

embrasure of columns and advancing together like soldiers at

manoeuvres。 The sun at this moment falls perpendicularly on their

heads and strange headgear; details their everlasting smile; and then

sheds itself on their shoulders and their naked torso; exaggerating

their athletic muscles。 Each holding in his hand the symbolical cross;

the three giants rush forward with a formidable stride; heads raised;

smiling; in a radiant march into eternity。



Oh! this midday sun; that now pours down upon the white faces of these

giants; and displaces ever so slowly the shadows cast upon their

breasts by their chins and Osiridean beards。 To think how often in the

midst of this same silence; this same ray has fallen thus; fallen from

the same changeless sky; to occupy itself in this same tranquil play!

Yes; I think that the fogs and rains of our winters; upon these

stupendous ruins; would be less sad and less terrible than the calm of

this eternal sunshine。



*****



Suddenly a ridiculous noise begins to make the air tremble; the

dynamos of the Agencies have been put in motion; and ladies in green

spectacles arrive; a charming throng; with guidebooks and cameras。 The

tourists; in short; are come out of their hotels; at the same hour as

the flies awake。 And the midday peace of Luxor has come to an end。







CHAPTER XIV



A TWENTIETH…CENTURY EVENING AT THEBES



An impalpable dust floats in a sky which scarcely ever knows a cloud;

a dust so impalpable that; even while it powders the heavens with

gold; it leaves them their infinite transparency。 It is a dust of

remote ages; of things destroyed; a dust that is here continuallyof

which the gold at this moment fades to green at the zenith; but flames

and glistens in the west; for it is now that magnificent hour which

marks the end of the day's decline; and the still burning globe of the

sun; quite low down in the heaven; begins to light up on all sides the

conflagration of the evening。



This setting sun illumines with splendour a silent chaos of granite;

which is not that of the slipping of mountains; but that of ruins。 And

of such ruins as; to our eyes unaccustomed hereditarily to proportions

so gigantic; seem superhuman。 In places; huge masses of carven stone

pylonsstill stand upright; rising like hills。 Others are crumbling

in all directions in bewildering cataracts of stone。 It is difficult

to conceive how these things; so massive that they might have seemed

eternal; could come to suffer such an utter ruin。 Fragments of

columns; fragments of obelisks; broken by downfalls of which the mere

imagination is awful; heads and head…dresses of giant divinities; all

lie higgledy…piggledy in a disorder beyond possible redress。 Nowhere

surely on our earth does the sun in his daily revolution cast his

light on such debris as this; on such a litter of vanished palaces and

dead colossi。



It was even here; seven or eight thousand years ago; under this pure

crystal sky; that the first awakening of human thought began。 Our

Europe then was still sleeping; wrapped in the mantle of its damp

forests; sleeping that sleep which still had thousands of years to

run。 Here; a precocious humanity; only recently emerged from the Age

of Stone; that earliest form of all; an infant humanity; which saw

massively on its issue from the massiveness of the original matter;

conceived and built terrible sanctuaries for gods; at first dreadful

and vague; such as its nascent reason allowed it to conceive them。

Then the first megalithic blocks were erected; then began that mad

heaping up and up; which was to last nearly fifty centuries; and

temples were built above temples; palaces over palaces; each

generation striving to outdo its predecessor by a more titanic

grandeur。



Afterwards; four thousand years ago; Thebes was in the height of her

glory; encumbered with gods and with magnificence; the focus of the

light of the world in the most ancient historic periods; while our

Occident was still asleep and Greece and Assyria were scarcely

awakened。 Only in the extreme East; a humanity of a different race;

the yellow people; called to follow in totally different ways; was

fixing; so that they remain even to our day; the oblique lines of its

angular roofs and the rictus of its monsters。



The men of Thebes; if they still saw too massively and too vastly; at

least saw straight; they saw calmly; at the same time as they saw

forever。 Their conceptions; which had begun to inspire those of

Greece; were afterwards in some measure to inspire our own。 In

religion; in art; in beauty under all its aspects; they were as much

our ancestors as were the Aryans。



Later again; sixteen hundred years before the birth of Christ; in one

of the apogees of the town which; in the course of its interminable

duration; experienced so many fluctuations; some ostentatious kings

thought fit to build on this ground; already covered with temples;

that which still remains the most arresting marvel of the ruins: the

hypostyle hall; dedicated to the God Amen; with its forest of columns;

as monstrous as the trunk of the baobab and as high as towers;

compared with which the pillars of our cathedrals are utterly

insignificant。 In those days the same gods reigned at Thebes as three

thousand years before; but in the interval they had been transformed

little by little in accordance with the progressive development of

human thought; and Amen; the host of this prodigious hall; asserted

himself more and more as the sovereign master of life and eternity。

Pharaonic Egypt was really tending; in spite of some revolts; towards

the notion of a divine unity; even; one might say; to the notion of a

supreme pity; for she already had her Apis; emanating from the All…

Powerful; born of a virgin mother; and come humbly to the earth in

order to make acquaintance with suffering。



After Seti I。 and the Ramses had built; in honour of Amen; this

temple; which; beyond all doubt; is the grandest and most durable in

the world; men still continued for another fifteen centuries to heap

up in its neighbourhood those blocks of granite and marble and

sandstone; whose enormity now amazes us。 Even for the invaders of

Egypt; the Greeks and Romans; this old ancestral town of towns

remained imposing and unique。 They repaired its ruins; and built here

temple after temple; in a style which hardly ever changes。 Even in the

ages of decadence everything that raised itself from the old; sacred

soil; seemed to be impregnated a little with the ancient grandeur。



And it was only when the early Christians ruled here; and after them

the Moslem iconoclasts; that the destruction became final。 To these

new believers; who; in their simplicity; imagined themselves to be

possessed of the ultimate religious formula and to know by His right

name the great Unknowable; Thebes became the haunt of 〃false gods;〃

the abomination of abominations; which it behoved them to destroy。



And so they set to work; penetrating with an ever…present fear into

the profound depths of the gloomy sanctuaries; mutilating first of all

the thousands of visages whose disconcerting smile frightened them;

and then exhausting themselves in the effort to uproot the colossi;

which even with the help of levers; they could not move。 It was no

easy task indeed; for everything was as solid as geological masses; as

rocks or promontories。 But for five or six hundred years the town was

given over to the caprice of desecrators。



And then came the centuries of silence and oblivion under the shroud

of the desert sands; which; thickening each year; proceeded to bury;

and; in the event; to preserve for us; this peerless relic。



And now; at last; Thebes is being exhumed and restored to a semblance

of lifenow; after a cycle of seven or eight thousand years; when our

Western humanity; having left the primitive gods that we see here; to

embrace the Christian conception; which; even yesterday; made it live;

is in way of denying everything; and struggles before the enigma of

death in an obscurity more dismal and more fearful than in the

commencement of the ages。 (More dismal and more fearful still in this;

that plea of youth is gone。) From all parts of Europe curious and

unquiet spirits; as well as mere idlers; turn their steps towards

Thebes; the ancient mother。 Men clear the rubbish from its remains;

devise ways of retarding the enormous fallings of its ruins; and dig

in its old soil; stored with hidden treasure。



And this evening on one of the portals to which I have just mounted

that which opens at the north…west and terminates the colossal artery

of temples and palaces; many very diverse groups have already taken

their places; after the pilgrimage of the day amongst the ruins。 And

others are hastening towards the staircase by which we have just

climbed; so as not to miss the grand spectacle of the sun setting;

always with the same serenity; the same unchanging magnificence;

behind the town which once was consecrated to it。



French; German; English; I see them below; a lot of pygmy figures;

issuing from the hypostyle hall; and making their way towards us。 Mean

and pitiful they look in their twentieth…century travellers' costumes;

hurrying along that avenue where once defiled so many processions of

gods and goddesses。 And y
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