Let those who are untrammelled then, pass out into the sunshine of the Egyptian fields and marshes, where the wild duck cry to each other as they scuttle through the tall reeds.  Here in the early morning comes our songstress, and one may see her as clearly as one can that Shulamite of King Solomon’s day, who has had the good fortune to belong to a land where stones and bones, being few in number, do not endanger the atmosphere of the literature.  One may see her, her hair moving in the breeze “as a flock of goats that appear from Mount Gilead”; her teeth white “as a flock of shorn sheep which came up from the washing,” and her lips “like a thread of scarlet.”  Through such imaginings alone can one appreciate the songs, or realise the lightness of the manner in which they were sung.

With such a happy view of life amongst the upper classes as is indicated by their philosophy, and with that merry disposition amongst the peasants which shows itself in their love of song, it is not surprising to find that asceticism is practically unknown in ancient Egypt before the time of Christ.  At first sight, in reflecting on the mysteries and religious ceremonies of the nation, we are apt to endow the priests and other participators with a degree of austerity wholly unjustified by facts.  We picture the priest chanting his formulae in the dim light of the temple, the atmosphere about him heavy with incense; and we imagine him as an anchorite who has put away the things of this world.  But in reality there seems to have been not even such a thing as a celibate amongst the priests.  Each man had his wife and his family, his house, and his comforts of food and fine linen.  He indulged in the usual pastimes and was present at the merriest of feasts.  The famous wise men and magicians, such as Uba-ana of the Westcar Papyrus, had their wives, their parks, their pleasure-pavilions, and their hosts of servants.  Great dignitaries of the Amon Church, such as Amenhotepsase, the Second Prophet of Amen in the time of Thutmosis IV., are represented as feasting with their friends, or driving through Thebes in richly-decorated chariots drawn by prancing horses, and attended by an array of servants.  A monastic life, or the life of an anchorite, was held by the Egyptians in scorn; and indeed the state of mind which produces the monk and the hermit was almost entirely unknown to the nation in dynastic times.  It was only in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods that asceticism came to be practised; and some have thought that its introduction into Egypt is to be attributed to the preaching of the Hindoo missionaries sent from India to the court of the Ptolemies.  It is not really an Egyptian characteristic; and its practice did not last for more than a few centuries.