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| British Museum |
“There’s
no civilization so seductive,” Kalila said.
“Seductive
is the word. I find the graphics of ancient Egypt pretty ravishing, I must
admit,” he said.
She
smiled.
“You find
them erotic?”
“Hell yes.
I can easily imagine myself being grasped possessively by one of those
dark-eyed goddesses in the frescoes and reliefs. The art of ancient Egypt
ensnares you with its atmosphere of pervasive mystery.”
“Yet there
is rarely any lewdness portrayed in Egyptian art,” she commented. “Except for a
few scurrilous doodles on ostraca. The Egyptians achieved a sense of sexual
tension in far more subtle ways, in the ladies with their diaphanous gowns,
painted eyes and gala wigs that sent an erotic signal. Then there were the
other coded symbols, the scented delta of a lotus blossom held under a nose,
the ducks and geese, or a monkey playing under a chair, the possessive arm
slung around the waist of a husband, the intent, very-interested eyes of a
goddess taking the pharaoh by the hand. It’s all there, but in the oblique
Nilotic way. There is a love poem where the girl bathes in the stream with her
beloved and says: ‘I'll go into the water
at your bidding and come up with a red fish who will quiver with happiness in
my fingers.’”
“I don’t
get it,” he said, putting an expression of puzzlement on his face. “I hope
you’re going to explain it to me.”
“I’ll do
nothing of the sort.”
Excerpt, The Smiting Texts
