Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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Among the writers who admired Egypt was Robert A Armour, whose relation with the country goes back to 1981 when he worked as a Fulbright Professor of English at the universities of Al-Azhar and Ain Shams. His book Gods and Myths of Ancient Egypt is on its fifth edition with the American University in Cairo Press.

In his preface, Dr Armour says that having spent two decades as Professor of Literature he developed a scholarly interest in mythology. But, he confesses, he is not an Egyptologist. His book reflect shis interest in the stories, not his capacity for specialised research.

Collecting the stories in the book must have been quite a task, though. With the aid of some Egyptologists, whose contribution he acknowledges, Armour has managed to uncover the various documents and monuments that preserved the fragmented stories and bring them together.

"Egypt," he says "did not have a Homer to tell the stories, but it does have some of the most ancient religious writings -- however fragmented -- which have supplied latter-day scholars with much material."

The book starts with an enlightening introductory chapter on mythological stories in which the author describes the birth of mythology. He does this in the form of a beautiful narrative, which quite easily falls into the category of creative literature:

"At evening the water lily closes its blossom and draws the bud far under the surface of the water, so far that it cannot even be reached by hand. In the morning the sun's rays draw it to the surface again where it opens in full bloom. The cycle caused early Egyptians to associate the flower with the coming of the sun."

Myths of the Lotus, a prominent Egyptian symbol, Armour goes on to say, occur from the ancient period down to modern times and are characteristic of the mythology of ancient culture. Mysteries of nature which directly influenced daily life, especially the movement of the sun, were explained in stories that united man's wish to understand the origin of all things with the realities of political events.

The influence of Egyptian mythology has survived until the present time and the author tells us that in 1970s, one of Bob Dylan's songs was named after the goddess Isis, the eternal mother. Furthermore, tourists visiting Egypt buy reproductions of Thoth, Anubis, Bes and scores of other gods. The United States dollar, he says, depicts an eye and a pyramid, Masonic borrowings from ancient Egypt.

What is the power of myth?

Myths, Armour tells us, are more than just folk tales; they are stories with a special significance for the culture which gave birth to them. Myths are defined as "stories that tell a society what is important for it to know, whether about its gods, its history, its laws or its class structure."

So much for this section. The book contains eleven myths beautifully told in readable language accessible even to children. Some of the stories, like Isis and Osiris, are quite well known, while others are quite new, previously all but unknown.

The story of Ra and his adventures lies somewhere in the middle. As a sun god Ra's chief function was to travel across the sky daily and provide light and heat for the residents of the earth. The Pharaohs understood that the sun was fire, rising from the waters of Nun in a boat that could float and then sail through the air during the day. This daily victory over darkness caused men and women to live, nations to rejoice, and the souls of the dead to sing. There is a hymn in The Book of the Dead which celebrates Ra's daily glory.

"Millions of years have gone over the world. I cannot tell the numbers of those you have passed. Your heart has decreed a day of happiness in the name of the Traveller. You pass over and travel through untold spaces, requiring millions and hundred of thousands of years..."