This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS, Part 1.
By Georg Ebers
Translated from the German by Eleanor Grove
Aut prodesse volunt ant delectare poetae,
Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitae.
Horat. De arte poetica v. 333.
It is now four years since this book first appeared before the public,and I feel it my duty not to let a second edition go forth into the worldwithout a few words of accompaniment. It hardly seems necessary toassure my readers that I have endeavored to earn for the following pagesthe title of a "corrected edition." An author is the father of his book,and what father could see his child preparing to set out on a new anddangerous road, even if it were not for the first time, withoutendeavoring to supply him with every good that it lay in his power tobestow, and to free him from every fault or infirmity on which the worldcould look unfavorably? The assurance therefore that I have repeatedlybestowed the greatest possible care on the correction of my EgyptianPrincess seems to me superfluous, but at the same time I think itadvisable to mention briefly where and in what manner I have found itnecessary to make these emendations. The notes have been revised,altered, and enriched with all those results of antiquarian research(more especially in reference to the language and monuments of ancientEgypt) which have come to our knowledge since the year 1864, and whichmy limited space allowed me to lay before a general public. On thealteration of the text itself I entered with caution, almost withtimidity; for during four years of constant effort as academical tutor,investigator and writer in those severe regions of study which excludethe free exercise of imagination, the poetical side of a man's nature mayforfeit much to the critical; and thus, by attempting to remodel my taleentirely, I might have incurred the danger of removing it from the moregenial sphere of literary work to which it properly belongs. I havetherefore contented myself with a careful revision of the style, theomission of lengthy passages which might have diminished the interest ofthe story to general readers, the insertion of a few characteristic orexplanatory additions, and the alteration of the proper names. Theselast I have written not in their Greek, but in their Latin forms, havingbeen assured by more than one fair reader that the names Ibykus and Cyruswould have been greeted by them as old acquaintances, whereas the"Ibykos" and "Kyros" of the first edition looked so strange and learned,as to be quite discouraging. Where however the German k has the sameworth as the Roman c I have adopted it in preference. With respect tothe Egyptian names and those with which we have become acquainted throughthe cuneiform inscriptions, I have chosen the forms most adapted to ourGerman modes of speech, and in the present edition have placed those fewexplanations which seemed to me indispensable to the right understandingof the text, at the foot of the page, instead of among the less easilyaccessible notes at the end.
The fact that displeasure has been excited among men of letters by thisattempt to clothe the hardl