Leigh North

“ For years Cleopatra had been his inspiration, his passion, his lode-star; where else to fly he knew not, his old world was, all too deservedly, against him. Yet it was not now for joyance that he sought, though he followed her; he steeled his heart against her sorceries, and shut himself up in morbid communings with his own spirit. He would not see her and for some time it was in vain that her maidens pleaded with and tried to comfort him.
It seemed for the moment as if Cleopatra’s power, she who “governed men by change” had failed. Her heart cried out,
“Where is Mark Antony? ”

“ So the bond was sealed between the royal lovers and away from her own land journeyed the newly elected queen. A woman with a fair face and figure, a heart keenly responsive to human affections, with a deep-seated faith in the religion of her fore-fathers, worshippers of the sun, and, perhaps even at that early period, a quiet determination that she would win her husband and his people from what she must have deemed the error of their ways, their worship of so many gods under the form of beasts and birds, introduce a purer, simpler religion among them. ”

“ A part of the inscription at her feet, on the base of the statue at Gizeh, from which the names of her father and mother are erased, reads: “May he (the god Amen) grant everything that is good and pure by which the divine nature lives, all that the heaven bestows and the earth brings forth, to the princess, the most pleasant, the most gracious, the kindest and most amiable queen of Upper and Lower Egypt, the sister of the king (Sabaco) , the ever-living, the daughter of the deceased king (Khasta) , the wife of the divine one, Amenisitis. May she live!” ”

“ She dwelt among columns, statues and sphinxes, and, always adorned with flowers and jewels, wore over her shoulders, when in the character of a priestess, the leopard skin of the sacrificer. As special honor to any subject she would bestow upon him a chain of gold and put a ring on his finger. Her throne of ivory was sometimes said to have been so finely carved that a breath would move the foliage represented upon it.
Such in general outline was the position of the Egyptian Queen. But when we approach the individual the difficulties in the study of personality are manifold. ”

“ O most august goddess, O lady of the West, O mistress of the East, come and enter into the two ears of the deceased! O doubly powerful, eternal, young and very mighty lady of the West and mistress of the East, may breathing take place in the head of the deceased in the nether world. Grant that he may see with his eyes, that he may hear with his two ears, that he may breathe through his nose, that he may utter sounds with his mouth and articulate with his tongue in the nether world. ”

“ But the most extensive, tasteful and finely wrought of these objects was the parure of Queen Aah-hotep. Chains to the women were as essential as rings to the men; a woman was indeed poor if her jewel box held only one.
As the North American Indian slays the favorite horse and lays beside his dead chief bows and arrows for use in the “happy hunting grounds,” so the Egyptian placed in the tomb of his revered and beloved things that he used in daily life. ”

“ All to the sound of the harp and flute, cimbals and sistrum. The queen doubtless looking, from some gorgeously decorated point of vantage when she did not personally share in the pageant.
This was the home of the young queen, these the magnificent sights to which her eyes were accustomed. Parts of private letters on parchment and on pottery have been found, telling familiarly of the feasts and festivals, the expenses and the daily incidents of the life of this period. And the love stories and other fragments of fiction which have, come down to us also give their share of local color. ”

“ Cleopatra stands among the few daughters of Eve pre-eminent for wit, charm, power and perhaps beauty, and to this must be added ambition and vice.
“The laughing queen who held the world’s great hands,” having won the heart of the world’s greatest rulers, yet lays her magic touch upon the centuries. Artists and writers have never tired of limning her personal charms and special characteristics. No colors have been too bright, none too dark to be used. ”

“ The murder of Arsinoe III was due to the influence of the king’s shameless mistress, Agathoclea and her brother Agathocles, but what had made the unfortunate queen especially obnoxious to them we do not know. Perhaps she was merely an obstacle in the path of their ambition, and they thought that if they could get the child absolutely in their power they could regulate things better to their own liking; perhaps some stories, true or false, were raised against the queen to justify their proceedings. She seems to have had a sad life and to have been friendless in the midst of enemies. ”

“ The exquisite beauty of the ruins at Philae still charm the beholder—graceful columns and feathery palms, like cameos against the radiant blue of the sky, the river softly lapping at their feet. We can imagine the splendor and magnificence of it all, when in the completeness of its perfection and the queenly Venus with her attendant train of followers, adding its artistic and picturesque human element to the scene. ”

“ The dead sometimes carried a papyrus on which his good deeds were written. The mummy was placed recumbent or upright in the tomb, and the soul was received by Horus and conducted to Amenti, where a sort of Cerberus kept the gate of Truth. The goddess of Justice, with scales of gold, weighed the virtues of the deceased, which the god Thoth wrote down on a tablet, like the scribes of their daily life, and, after reading, Osiris presented him with the ostrich feather, the emblem of Truth, while Isis led him to the abode of the gods, where he dwelt in perpetual honor and happiness. ”

“ The Gizeh museum has a statue of her, in granite, in the general character of the sculpture of the Tanite school. It goes almost without saying that it is mutilated, the eyes formerly inlaid, have fallen out, the bronze eyelids are lost, the arms have disappeared, but enough remains to show a young and beautiful woman, the fine outlines of whose youthful form are seen through the usual narrow linen robe. The head is adorned, or disfigured, with the heavy wig worn by the goddess Hathor, the Egyptian Venus, of which two enormous tresses surround the cheeks [65] and curl outward on the breasts. ”

“ Osiris and Isis were both brother and sister, husband and wife. Nor could the gods any more than men get on without magic. Even the statues of the former wore amulets as a protection against evil and death, and used mystic formulae to constrain each other. Isis was above all the mistress of magic and famous in incantations.
To her royal spouse the queen is spoken of as “thy beloved sister who fills the palace with light,” or “thy sister who is in thine heart, who sits near thee at the feast,” or “thy beloved sister with whom thou dost love to speak.” ”

“ Oriental masculine beauty is so mild and feminine that the men are like statues of men seen in the most mellowing and azure atmosphere. The forms of the face have a surprising grace and perfection. They are not statues and gods so seen, but the budding beauty of the Antinous when he, too, had been in the soft climate, the ripening rounding lip, the arched brow, the heavy, drooping lid, the crushed, closed eye, like a bud bursting with voluptuous beauty, the low broad brow ”

“ The reigning queen had, like all sovereigns, her tasks to perform. Reports from all parts of the kingdom to receive, the regulation of laws, the commerce and the domestic affairs of her dominions. Luxury surrounded her, attendants and slaves waited upon her bidding. Gold, silver, precious stones and valuable stuffs composed her furniture, her table-service and her attire. Scribes indited at her dictation and royal papyrus bore the impress of her signet, upon which vermilion was rubbed from a small cushion, while blue and a somewhat different stamp was used in religious matters. ”

“ Spirit seems to have especially distinguished those queens who have made their way up through the mists of oblivion which lie so heavily and darkly over many centuries of the Egyptian chronology. No vast library remains for us to turn to and in direct sequence acquaint ourselves with the early history of this land and people. Broken monuments and tombs and half obliterated fragments of papyrus alone tell the story.
Hence from the Sixth to the Twelfth Dynasty, during which period these sources of information are notably lacking, no queen’s name appears. ”

“ Even the conscience slumbers. But the prosaic traveller hurries through all with unseeing eyes. Like the tourist who visited Cologne and was too sleepy to get up and look at the Cathedral, he gapes at the Pyramids, viewing them perhaps as “warts on the face of creation,” and sees no glory in the heavens, no beauty in the earth, the story of the ages has no charm for him. ”

“ All the pharaohs are his roots, the nomarks and priests his larger branches, the nobles the smaller branches. The visible god sits on the throne of the earth and receives the income which belongs to him from Egypt; the invisible god receives offerings in his temples and declares his will through the lips of the priesthood. ”

“ Nevertheless, even the fiercest of their kind must yield before man, the conqueror of beasts, before woman, the conqueror of man, and on the shaft which drank his life blood and transfixed the lion from side to side was graven the royal tiara of a monarch’s mate. ”

“ Both the hawk and the bull appeared as emblems of royalty and divinity among the Egyptians from the earliest times. But the bull was also highly regarded in Assyria, India and among other ancient nations. The hawk was sacred to the sun, the Apis bull, the living image of Osiris, the incarnation of a source of life and creative energy. Upon this animal, so revered and worshipped, Cambyses dared to lay what was deemed a sacrilegious hand ”

“ The king enters, thoughtfully pacing by the calm browed statue, that seems the sentinel of heaven. In the presence of the majestic columns, humanly carved, their hands sedately folded upon their breasts—his weary soul is bathed with peace, as a weary body with living water.” This statue is one of the most pleasing of the many likenesses of Rameses II, and a cast of it has been taken. Mariette said “the head [232] modelled with a grandeur of style which one never tires of admiring, is an authentic portrait of the celebrated conqueror of the Nineteenth Dynasty.” ”

“ With Hatshepsut, or Hatsu, some 1600 B. C., we come to the most celebrated of all the Egyptian queens, not perhaps excluding the world-renowned Cleopatra, and her reign bears also a noteworthy feature, an especial ornament to a woman’s brow—it was a reign of peace. Her father and brothers, especially the younger, were warriors, but she was not. To the male of all species the fighting instinct more particularly and rightfully belongs. ”

“ At the time of a death, in token of grief the mourning women would leave the house where the body was lying, put dust and mud on their heads and faces, and with bare bosoms run through the streets, striking themselves and uttering lamentations. ”

“ Queen Maut-a-mua had the pleasure, we may believe, of seeing a number of grandchildren, as Amenophis III had four sons and three daughters, if not others unmentioned, and so kindly seem to have been the family relations that we may perhaps picture her with her son’s wife in the midst of the home circle spoiling them quite like a modern grandmother. Up to this period the men of the family appear to have been a stalwart, good-looking race, while the women probably possessed more beauty than their pictures would lead us to infer. ”

“ Plutarch’s words will best describe the gorgeous pageant she devised. “She came sailing up the River Cydnus” (Antony was in Cilicia) “in a barge with gilded stem and outspread sails of purple, while oars of silver beat time to the music of flutes and pipes and harps. She herself lay all along under a canopy of cloth of gold, dressed as Venus in a picture, and beautiful young boys, like painted Cupids, stood on each side to fan her. Her maids were dressed like sea Nymphs and Graces, some steered at the rudder, some working at the ropes. ”

“ Life in the East moves more slowly, even in modern times, than in the strenuous West. One traveller playfully remarks that one can perceive in the face after a Nile voyage something of the patience and resignation of the Sphinx, and another says that Egypt is the best place in the world to rest, and recommends that one “go 600 or 700 miles up the Nile before the season opens and occupy a hotel alone. You will find each day at least forty-eight hours long, and you will think of nothing but Egyptian antiquities [14] and Arabs, both of which are wonderfully soothing to the tired mind.” ”

“ Upon the prow a sort of fortress, the soldiers carrying long spears and oval shields decorated with hieroglyphics in brilliant colors. Above the rowers large black Ethiopians in steel cuirasses and long swords. The captains in variegated armor and accompanied by a thousand soldiers and three hundred rowers. The prow ornamented with a lion’s head and colossal shoulders across a broad gilded image of the feathered globe of the sun, the emblem of Egypt [131] and the inscription, “Mistress of the World.” But Hatasu’s fleet was going on a peaceful errand and required no such panoply of war. ”

“ In no case is the above more true than in that of the wife or wives of Rameses II, the Sesostris of the Greeks who waged tedious wars against the Hittites, with whom he made peace in the twenty-first year of his reign, and of whom Herodotus speaks. It is the king whose striking and heroic figure in childhood, youth and manhood, occupies the foreground of the canvas, dwarfing into comparative insignificance all who stand near him, and leaving the details as regards female relationships but as accessories and background. ”

“ Many of Caesar’s actions are credited to her influence, and it is even believed that she desired him to establish an empire with Alexandria rather than Rome for its capital. The ostensible cause of her visit to Rome was to negotiate a treaty between the former and the country over which she nominally ruled. She dwelt in Caesar’s palace across the Tiber and held court, at which not only Caesar’s adherents, but his opponents, appeared, and it is said that statues of her, beautiful probably as the Venus of Pauline Bonaparte, were erected in the temple of the goddess of Love and Beauty. ”

“ But the restless spirit of Alexander know no pause—he could not stay to dally in the arms of his love, no matter how beautiful, ambition was even a more powerful mistress and he rushed onward to new conquests.
He had adopted a conciliatory policy towards the Jews, he showed the same in Egypt. He sacrificed to the gods of the land, to Apis in particular, in marked and acceptable contrast to the conduct of Cambyses and Ochus, showed great favor to the priests and placed native Egyptians in posts of honor and command. ”

“ So as a blonde, high-spirited, bewitching, beautiful and vengeful, Nitocris stands before us. Nit-a-ker, “the perfect Nit,” as she is styled in the much injured “Book of the Kings” in the Turin papyrus, where some say two of this name are mentioned. A great contrast we feel her to be, in appearance at least, to Queen Mertytefs; yet both were able women who left their mark on their generation. Like others her name is variously rendered as Nitocris—the best known appellation—Nitokris, the former from the Greek Nitaquert, (Egyptian) Neit-go-ri, or Neit-a-cri. ”