An Egyptian Princess | Page 3

father and the same mother as Cambujiya.
Thereupon Cambujiya killed that Bartiya." In a book intended for
general readers, it would not be well to enter into a discussion as to
niceties of language, but even the uninitiated will see that the word
"thereupon" has no sense in this connection. In every other point the
inscription agrees with Herodotus' narrative, and I believe it possible to
bring it into agreement with that of Darius on this last as well; but
reserve my proofs for another time and place.
It has not been ascertained from whence Herodotus has taken the name
Smerdis which he gives to Bartja and Gaumata. The latter occurs again,
though in a mutilated form, in Justin.
My reasons for making Phanes an Athenian will be found in Note 90.
Vol. I. This coercion of an authenticated fact might have been avoided
in the first edition, but could not now be altered without important
changes in the entire text. The means I have adopted in my endeavor to
make Nitetis as young as possible need a more serious apology; as,

notwithstanding Herodotus' account of the mildness of Amasis' rule, it
is improbable that King Hophra should have been alive twenty years
after his fall. Even this however is not impossible, for it can be proved
that his descendants were not persecuted by Amasis.
On a Stela in the Leyden Museum I have discovered that a certain
Psamtik, a member of the fallen dynasty, lived till the 17th year of
Amasis' reign, and died at the age of seventy-five.
Lastly let me be permitted to say a word or two in reference to
Rhodopis. That she must have been a remarkable woman is evident
from the passage in Herodotus quoted in Notes 10, and 14, Vol. I., and
from the accounts given by many other writers. Her name, "the
rosy-cheeked one," tells us that she was beautiful, and her amiability
and charm of manner are expressly praised by Herodotus. How richly
she was endowed with gifts and graces may be gathered too from the
manner in which tradition and fairy lore have endeavored to render her
name immortal. By many she is said to have built the most beautiful of
the Pyramids, the Pyramid of Mycerinus or Menkera. One tale related
of her and reported by Strabo and AElian probably gave rise to our
oldest and most beautiful fairy tale, Cinderella; another is near akin to
the Loreley legend. An eagle, according to AElian--the wind, in
Strabo's tale,--bore away Rhodopis' slippers while she was bathing in
the Nile, and laid them at the feet of the king, when seated on his
throne of justice in the open market. The little slippers so enchanted
him that he did not rest until he had discovered their owner and made
her his queen.
The second legend tells us how a wonderfully beautiful naked woman
could be seen sitting on the summit of one of the pyramids (ut in una ex
pyramidibus); and how she drove the wanderers in the desert mad
through her exceeding loveliness.
Moore borrowed this legend and introduces it in the following verse:
"Fair Rhodope, as story tells-- The bright unearthly nymph, who dwells
'Mid sunless gold and jewels hid, The lady of the Pyramid."
Fabulous as these stories sound, they still prove that Rhodopis must
have been no ordinary woman. Some scholars would place her on a
level with the beautiful and heroic Queen Nitokris, spoken of by Julius
Africanus, Eusebius and others, and whose name, (signifying the
victorious Neith) has been found on the monuments, applied to a queen

of the sixth dynasty. This is a bold conjecture; it adds however to the
importance of our heroine; and without doubt many traditions referring
to the one have been transferred to the other, and vice versa. Herodotus
lived so short a time after Rhodopis, and tells so many exact particulars
of her private life that it is impossible she should have been a mere
creation of fiction. The letter of Darius, given at the end of Vol. II., is
intended to identify the Greek Rhodopis with the mythical builder of
the Pyramid. I would also mention here that she is called Doricha by
Sappho. This may have been her name before she received the title of
the "rosy-cheeked one."
I must apologize for the torrent of verse that appears in the love-scenes
between Sappho and Bartja; it is also incumbent upon me to say a few
words about the love-scenes themselves, which I have altered very
slightly in the new edition, though they have been more severely
criticised than any other portion of the work.
First I will confess that the lines describing the happy love of a
handsome young couple to whom I had myself become warmly
attached, flowed