Part 5

The other main personage here is Na-nefer-ka-ptah (or "Excellent is the _ka_ of Ptah"), who is said to be the son of a King Mer-neb-ptah. No such name is known among historical kings; and it is probably a popular corruption or abbreviation. It was pronounced Minibptah, the r being dropped in early times. It would seem most like Mine-ptah or Mer-en-ptah, the son and successor of Ramessu II.; but as the date of Mer-neb-ptah is supposed to be some generations before that, such a supposition would involve a great confusion on the scribes' part. Another possibility is that it represents Amenhotep III., Neb-maat-ra-mer-ptah, pronounced as Nimu-rimiptah, which might be shortened to Neb-mer-ptah or Mer-neb-ptah. Such a time would well suit the tale, and that reign has been adopted here in fixing the style of the dress of Ahura and her family.

This tale shows how far the _ka_ or double might wander from its body or tomb. Here Ahura and her child lie buried at Koptos, while her husband's tomb is at Memphis. But that does not separate them in death; her _ka_ left her tomb and went down to Memphis to live with the _ka_ of her husband in his tomb. Thus, when Setna forces the tomb of Na-nefer-ka-ptah, he finds Ahura seated by him with the precious magic roll between them and the child Mer-ab; and the voluble Ahura recounts all their history, and weeps when the roll is carried away by Setna. Yet all the time her body is at Koptos, and the penalty imposed on Setna is that of bringing her body to the tomb where her _ka_ already was dwelling. If a _ka_ could thus wander so many hundred miles from its body to gratify its affections, it would doubtless run some risks of starving, or having to put up with impure food; or might even lose its way, and rather than intrude on the wrong tomb, have to roam as a vagabond _ka._ It was to guard against these misfortunes that a supply of formulas were provided for it, by which it should obtain a guarantee against such misfortunes--a kind of spiritual directory or guide to the unprotected; and such formulas, when once accepted as valid, were copied, repeated, enlarged, and added to, until they became the complex and elaborate work--The Book of the Dead, Perhaps nothing else gives such a view of the action of the _ka_ as this tale of Setna.

There is here also an insight into the arrangement of marriages in Egypt. It does not seem that anything was determined about a marriage during childhood; it is only when the children are full-grown that a dispute arises between the king and queen as to their disposal. But the parents decide the whole question. It is, of course, well known that the Egyptians had no laws against consanguinity in marriages; on the contrary, it was with them, as with the Persians, essential for a king to marry in the royal family, and also usual for private persons to marry in their family. Even to the present day in Egypt, although sister-marriage has disappeared, yet it is the duty of a man to marry his first cousin or some one in the family. The very idea of relationship being any possible impediment to marriage was un-thought of by the Egyptian; his favourite concrete expression for a self-existent or self-created being--"husband of his mother "--shows this unmistakably.

The objection made by the king to the marriage of Na-nefer-ka-ptah and Ahura turns on the point that he has only these two children, and hence, if they marry the children of the generals, there will be two families instead of only one to ensure future posterity. The queen, however, talks the king over on the matter. The cause of Ahura's being troubled at the feast is not certain, but the king evidently supposes that she has been pleading to be allowed to marry her beloved brother, and when taxed with it she only expresses her willingness to give way to his exogamic views. The brief sentence, "I laughed and the king laughed," seems to mean that she pleased and amused her father so that he gave way, and immediately told the steward to arrange for her marriage as she desired. I have here abbreviated a few needlessly precise details. We also learn, by the way, that there was a regular registry of births, in which Mer-ab was entered.

It appears that the court was considered to be at Memphis, and not at Thebes. This would not have been so arranged had this been written in the Ramesside times, but under the Ptolemies Memphis was the seat of the court--when not at Alexandria. The name of the priest, Nesi-ptah, also shows another anachronism. Such a name was not usual till some time after the XIXth Dynasty. Another touch of late times is in the antiquarian curiosity of Na-nefer-ka-ptah about ancient writings, "He did nothing on earth but read the writings that are in the catacombs of the kings, and the tablets of the House of Life." In the XIXth Dynasty there is no sign of interest in such records, but in the Renascence ancient things came into fashion, all the old titles were revived, the old style was copied, and very long genealogies were worked up and carved in the inscriptions. In such an age many a _dilettante_ rich young man would amuse himself, as in this tale, with reading inscriptions and hunting up his family genealogy from the tombstones and the registers.

The firm belief in magic which underlies all this tale might perhaps be thought to be inappropriate to the enlightenment of Greek times. We have seen how in the earliest tales magic is a mainspring of the action, and it is at first sight surprising that its sway should last through so many thousands of years. But there may well have been a recrudescence of such beliefs, along with the revival of interest in the earlier history. The enormous spread and popularity of Gnosticism--the belief in the efficacy of words and formulas to control spirits and their actions--in the centuries immediately after this, shows how ingrained magic ideas were, and how ready to sprout up when the counterbalancing interests of the old mythology were gone, and their place taken by the intangible spirituality of Platonism and the early Christian atmosphere.

A most Egyptian turn is given where the priest bargains for a large payment for his funeral, and to be buried as a rich priest. The enclosing of the magic roll in a series of boxes has many parallels. In an Indian tale we read: "Round the tree are tigers and bears and scorpions and snakes; on the top of the tree is a very fat great snake; on his head is a little cage; in the cage is a bird; and my soul is in that bird" ("Golden Bough," ii. 300). In Celtic tales the series-idea also occurs. The soul of a giant is in an egg, the egg is in a dove, the dove is in a hare, the hare is in a wolf, and the wolf is in an iron chest at the bottom of the sea ("Golden Bough," ii. 314). The Tartars have stories of a golden casket containing the soul, inside a copper or silver casket ("Golden Bough," ii. 324). And the Arabs tell of a soul put in the crop of a sparrow, and the sparrow in a little box, and this in another small box, and this put into seven other boxes, and these in seven chests, and the chest in a coffer of marble ("Golden 10 Bough," ii. 318). The notion, therefore, of a series of boxes, one enclosing another, and the whole guarded by dangerous animals, is well known as an element in tales. The late date is here shown by the largest and least precious of the boxes being of iron, which was rarely, if ever, used in Ramesside times, and was not common till the Greek age.

The magic engineering of Na-nefer-ka-ptah is very curious. The cabin or air-chamber of men in model, who are let down to work for him, suggests that Egyptians may have used the principle of a diving-bell or air-chamber for reaching parts under water. Certainly the device of raising things by dropping down sand to be put under them is still practised. An immense sarcophagus at Gizeh was raised from a deep well by natives who thrust sand under it rammed tight by a stick, and by this simple kind of hydraulic press raised it a hundred feet to the surface. In this way the magic men of Na-nefer-ka-ptah raised up the chest when they had discovered it by means of the sand which he poured over from the boat.

There is some picturesqueness in this tale, though it has not the charm of the earlier compositions. The scene of Ahura sitting for three days and nights, during the combat, watching by the side of the river, where she "had not drunk or eaten anything, and had done nothing on earth but sat like one who is gone to the grave," is a touching detail.

The light on the education of women is curious. Ahura can read the roll, but she cannot write. We are so accustomed to regard reading and writing as all one subject that the distinction is rare; but with a writing comprising so many hundred signs as the Egyptian, the art of writing or draw-Ing all the forms, and knowing which to use, is far more complex than that of reading. There are now ten students who can read an inscription for one who could compose it correctly. Here a woman of the highest rank is supposed to be able to read, but not to write; that is reserved for the skill of "a good writer, and a very learned one."

The writing of spells and then washing the ink off and drinking it is a familiar idea in the East. Modern Egyptian bowls have charms engraved on them to be imparted to the drink, and ancient Babylonian bowls are inscribed with the like purpose.

An insight into the powers of the gods is here given us. The Egyptian did not attribute to them omniscience. Thoth only discovered what Na-nefer-ka-ptah had done as they were sailing away, some days after the seizure of the book. And even Ra is informed by the complaint of Thoth. If Ra were the physical sun it would be obvious that he would see all that was being done on earth; it would rather be he who would inform Thoth. The conception of the gods must therefore have been not pantheistic or materialist, but solely as spiritual powers who needed to obtain information, and who only could act through intermediaries. Further, nothing can be done without the consent of Ra; Thoth is powerless over men, and can only ask Ra, as a sort of universal magistrate, to take notice of the offence. Neither god acts directly, but by means of a power or angel, who takes the commission to work on men. How far this police-court conception of the gods is due to Greek or foreign influence can hardly be estimated yet. It certainly does not seem in accord with the earlier appeals to Ra, and direct action of Ra, in "Anpu and Bata."

The power of spells is limited, as we have just seen the abilities of the gods were limited. The most powerful of spells, the magic book of Thoth himself, cannot restore life to a person just drowned. All that Na-nefer-ka-ptah can do with the spell is to cause the body to float and to speak, but it remains so truly dead that it is buried as if no spell had been used. Now it was recognised that the _ka_ could move about and speak to living persons, as Ahura does to Setna. Hence all that the spells do is not to alter the course of nature, but only to put the person into touch and communication with the ever-present supernatural, to enable him to know what the birds, the fishes, and the beasts all said, and to see the unseen.

Modern conceptions of the spiritual are so bound up with the sense of omnipresence and omniscience that we are apt to read those ideas into the gods and the magic of the ancients. Here we have to deal with gods who have to obtain information, and who order powers to act for them, with spells which extend the senses to the unseen, but which do not affect natural results and changes.

The inexorable fate in this tale which brings one after another of the family to die in the same spot is not due to Greek influence, though it seems akin to that. In the irrepressible transmigrations of Bata, and the successive risks of the Doomed Prince, the same ideas are seen working in the Egyptian mind. The remorse of Na-nefer-ka-ptah is a stronger touch of conscience and of shame than is seen in early times.

There is an unexplained point in the action as to how Na-nefer-ka-ptah, with the book upon him, comes up from the water, after he is drowned, into the cabin of the royal boat. The narrator had a difficulty to account for the recovery of the body without the use of the magic book, and so that stage is left unnoticed. The successive stages of embalming and mourning are detailed. The sixteen days in the Good House is probably the period of treatment of the body, the time up to the thirty-fifth day that of wrapping and decoration of the mummy cartonnage, and then the thirty-five days more of lying in state until the burial.

We now reach the third act, of Setna's struggle to get the magic roll. Here the strange episode comes in of the rival magicians gambling; it recalls the old tale of Rampsinitus descending into Hades and playing at dice with Ceres, and the frequent presence of draught-boards in the tombs, shows how much the _ka_ was supposed to relish such pleasures. The regular Egyptian game-board had three rows of ten squares, or thirty in all. Such are found from the XIIth Dynasty down to Greek times; but this form has now entirely disappeared, and the _man-galah_ of two rows of six holes, or the _tab_ of four rows of nine holes, have taken its place. Both of these are side games, where different sides belong to opposite players. The commoner _siga_ is a square game, five rows of five, or seven rows of seven holes, and has no personal sides. The ancient game was played with two, or perhaps three, different kinds of men, and the squares were counted from one end along the outer edge; but what the rules were, or how a game of fifty-two points was managed, has not yet been explained.

The strange scene of Setna being sunk into the ground portion by portion, as he loses successive games, is parallel to a mysterious story among the dervishes in Palestine. They tell how the three holy shekhs of the Dervish orders, Bedawi, Erfa'i, and Desuki, went in succession to Baghdad to ask for a jar of water of Paradise from the Derwisha Bint Bari, who seems to be a sky-genius, controlling the meteors. The last applicant, Desuki, was refused like the others; so he said, "Earth! swallow her," and the earth swallowed her to her knees; still she gave not the water, so he commanded the earth, and she was swallowed to her waist; a third time she refused, and she was swallowed to her breasts; she then asked him to marry her, which he would not; a fourth time she refused the water and was swallowed to her neck. She then ordered a servant to bring the water ("Palestine Exploration Statement, 1894," p. 32). The resemblance is most remarkable in two tales two thousand years apart; and the incident of Bint Bari asking the dervish to marry her has its connection with this tale. Had the dervish done so he would--according to Eastern beliefs--have lost his magic power over her, just as Setna loses his magic power by his alliance with Tabubua, to which he is tempted by Na-nefer-ka-ptah, in order to subdue him. The talisman here is a means of subduing magic powers, and is of more force than that of Thoth, as Ptah is greater than he.

The fourth act recounts the overcoming of the power of Setna by Na-nefer-ka-ptah, who causes Tabubua to lead to the loss of his superior magic, and thus to subdue him to the magic of his rival. Ankhtaui, here named as the place of Tabubua, was a quarter of Memphis, which is also named as the place of the wife of Uba-aner in the first tale.

The fifth act describes the victory of Na-nefer-ka-ptah, and his requiring Setna to reunite the family in his tomb at Memphis. The contrast between Ahura's pious ascription to Ptah, and her husband's chuckle at seeing his magic successful, is remarkable. Setna at once takes the position of an inferior by addressing praises to Na-nefer-ka-ptah: after which the tomb became bright as it was before he took away the magic roll. Setna then having made restitution, is required to give some compensation as well.

The search for the tomb of Ahura and Mer-ab is a most tantalising passage. The great cemetery of Koptos is the scene, and the search occupies three days and nights in the catacombs and on the steles. Further, the tomb was at the south corner of the town of Pehemato, as Maspero doubtfully reads it. Yet this cemetery is now quite unknown, and in spite of all the searching of the native dealers, and the examination which I have made on the desert of both sides of the Nile, it is a mystery where the cemetery can be. The statement that the tomb was at the south corner of a town pretty well excludes it from the desert, which runs north and south there. And it seems as if it might have been in some raised land in the plain, like the spur or shoal on which the town of Koptos was built. If so it would have been covered by the ten to twenty feet rise of the Nile deposits since the time of its former use.

The appearance of the ancient to guide Setna gives some idea of the time that elapsed between then and the death of Ahura. The ancient, who must be allowed to represent two or three generations, says that his great-grandfather knew of the burial, which would take it back to five or six generations. This would place the death of Ahura about 150 years before the latter part of the reign of Ramessu II., say 1225 B.C.: thus, being taken back to about 1375 B.C., would make her belong to the generation after Amenhotep III., agreeing well with Mer-neb-ptah, being a corruption of the name of that king. No argument could be founded on so slight a basis; but at least there is no contradiction in the slight indications which we can glean.

The fear of Setna is that this apparition may have come to bring him into trouble by leading him to attack some property in this town; and Setna is particularly said to have restored the ground as it was before, after removing the bodies.

The colophon at the end is unhappily rather illegible. But the thirty-fifth year precludes its belonging to the reign of any Ptolemy, except the IInd or the VIIIth; and by the writing Maspero attributes it to the earlier of these reigns.