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egypt-第23部分

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even; in the midst of these gigantic figures; whose smile disdains the

flight of ages。 The granites within which we are immuredand in such

terrible companyshut out everything save the point of an old

neighbouring minaret which shows now against the blue of the sky: a

humble graft of Islam which grew here amongst the ruins some centuries

ago; when the ruins themselves had already subsisted for three

thousand yearsa little mosque built on a mass of debris; which it

new protects with its inviolability。 How many treasures and relics and

documents are hidden and guarded by this mosque of the peristyle! For

none would dare to dig in the ground within its sacred walls。



Gradually the silence of the temple becomes profound。 And if the

shortened shadows betray the hour of noon; there is nothing to tell to

what millennium that hour belongs。 The silences and middays like to

this; which have passed before the eyes of these giants ambushed in

their colonnadeswho could count them?



High above us; lost in the incandescent blue; soar the birds of prey

and they were there in the times of the Pharaohs; displaying in the

air identical plumages; uttering the same cries。 The beasts and

plants; in the course of time; have varied less than men; and remain

unchanged in the smallest details。



Each of the colossi around mestanding there proudly with one leg

advanced as if for a march; heavy and sure; which nothing should

withstandgrasps passionately in his clenched fist; at the end of the

muscular arm; a kind of buckled cross; which in Egypt was the symbol

of eternal life。 And this is what the decision of their movement

symbolises: confident all of them in this poor bauble which they hold

in their hand; they cross with a triumphant step the threshold of

death。 。 。 。 〃Eternal Life〃the thought of immortalityhow the human

soul has been obsessed by it; particularly in the periods marked by

its greatest strivings! The tame submission to the belief that the

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 w
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