The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [1]
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
GLOSSARY OF ARABIC WORDS AND PHRASES
For Olivia Grace Brown Mertz
January 18, 1992
with love from Ammie
EDITOR’S NOTE
A brief explanation of Arabic and ancient Egyptian terms may be in order for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with those languages. Like certain other Semitic scripts, Arabic and hieroglyphic Egyptian do not write the vowels. It is for this reason that English spellings of such words may legitimately vary. For example: the hieroglyphic writing of the name of the little servant figurines consists of five signs: sh, wa, b, t, and i or y. (Some of these may look like vowels, but they aren’t. Take the editor’s word for it, will you please? You really don’t want to hear about semi-vowels and weak consonants.) This word may be transcribed into English as “ushebti,” “shawabti,” or “shabti.” NOTE: A glossary of Arabic words and phrases can be found on page 339.
Arabic personal and place names are subject to similar variations when written in English script. Fashions in these things change; the spellings common in Mrs. Emerson’s early days in Egypt have sometimes been replaced by other, more modern versions. (Dahshoor with Dashur, Meidum with Medum, and so on.) Like most of us, Mrs. Emerson tends to cling doggedly to the habits of her youth. In some cases she has modernized her spellings; in other cases she has not. Since this does not bother her, the editor sees no reason why it should bother the reader and feels that a sterile consistency in these matters might mar to some extent the dashing spontaneity of Mrs. Emerson’s prose.
(The editor also wishes to remark that she is not the individual referred to in Chapter One. She has absolutely nothing against poetry.)
The quotations at the head of each chapter are from The Collected Works of Amelia Peabody Emerson, Oxford University Press, 8th ed., 1990.
CHAPTER 1
“Some concessions to temperament are necessary if the marital state is to flourish.”
I believe I may truthfully claim that I have never been daunted by danger or drudgery. Of the two I much prefer the former. As the only unmarried offspring of my widowed and extremely absentminded father, I was held responsible for the management of the household—which, as every woman knows, is the most difficult, unappreciated, and lowest paid (i.e., not paid) of all occupations. Thanks to the above-mentioned absentmindedness of my paternal parent I managed to avoid boredom by pursuing such unwomanly studies as history and languages, for Papa never minded what I did so long as his meals were on time, his clothing was clean and pressed, and he was not disturbed by anyone for any reason whatever.
At least I thought I was not bored. The truth is, I had nothing with which to compare that life, and no hope of a better one. In those declining years of the nineteenth century, marriage was not an alternative that appealed to me; it would have been to exchange comfortable serfdom for absolute slavery—or so I believed. (And I am still of that opinion as regards the majority of women.) My case was to be the exception that proves the rule, and had I but known what unimagined and unimaginable delights awaited me, the bonds that chafed me would have been unendurable. Those bonds were not broken until the death of my poor papa left me the possessor of a modest fortune and I set out to see the ancient sites I knew only from books and photographs. In the antique land of Egypt I learned at last what I had been missing—adventure, excitement, danger, a life’s work that employed all my considerable intellectual powers, and the companionship of that remarkable man who was destined for me as I was for him. What mad pursuits! What struggles to escape! What wild ecstasy!
I am informed, by a certain person of the publishing persuasion, that I have not set about this in the right way. She maintains that if an author wishes to capture the attention of her readers she must begin with a scene of violence and/or passion.
“I mentioned—er—’wild ecstasy,’