[Hymn to Amon preserved in a papyrus roll at Bulaq, and deciphered
   by Grehaut and L. Stern.]

Such passages as these ought not to be sung in public, at least in times like ours, when new ideas come in upon us from abroad, like the swarms of locusts from the East.”

“Spoken to my very soul!” cried the treasurer of the temple, “Ameni initiated this boy too early into the mysteries.”

“In my opinion, and I am his teacher,” said Gagabu, “our brotherhood may be proud of a member who adds so brilliantly to the fame of our temple.  The people hear the hymns without looking closely at the meaning of the words.  I never saw the congregation more devout, than when the beautiful and deeply-felt song of praise was sung at the feast of the stairs.”

   [A particularly solemn festival in honor of Amon-Chem, held in the
   temple of Medinet-Abu.]

“Pentaur was always thy favorite,” said the former speaker.  “Thou wouldst not permit in any one else many things that are allowed to him.  His hymns are nevertheless to me and to many others a dangerous performance; and canst thou dispute the fact that we have grounds for grave anxiety, and that things happen and circumstances grow up around us which hinder us, and at last may perhaps crush us, if we do not, while there is yet time, inflexibly oppose them?”

“Thou bringest sand to the desert, and sugar to sprinkle over honey,” exclaimed Gagabu, and his lips began to twitch.  “Nothing is now as it ought to be, and there will be a hard battle to fight; not with the sword, but with this—­and this.”  And the impatient man touched his forehead and his lips.  “And who is there more competent than my disciple?  There is the champion of our cause, a second cap of Hor, that overthrew the evil one with winged sunbeams, and you come and would clip his wings and blunt his claws!  Alas, alas, my lords! will you never understand that a lion roars louder than a cat, and the sun shines brighter than an oil-lamp?  Let Pentuar alone, I say; or you will do as the man did, who, for fear of the toothache, had his sound teeth drawn.  Alas, alas, in the years to come we shall have to bite deep into the flesh, till the blood flows, if we wish to escape being eaten up ourselves!”

“The enemy is not unknown to us also,” said the elder priest from Chennu, “although we, on the remote southern frontier of the kingdom, have escaped many evils that in the north have eaten into our body like a cancer.  Here foreigners are now hardly looked upon at all as unclean and devilish.”—­["Typhonisch,” belonging to Typhon or Seth.—­Translator.]

“Hardly?” exclaimed the chief of the haruspices; “they are invited, caressed, and honored.  Like dust, when the simoon blows through the chinks of a wooden house, they crowd into the houses and temples, taint our manners and language;

   [At no period Egyptian writers use more Semitic words than during
   the reigns of Rameses ii. and his son Mernephtah.]