With the exception of Cleopatra, one or two Ptolemy queens, Hatasu, and possibly Nitocris, the history of Egypt which has come down to us deals principally with the kings, and not with the queens. The latter are mentioned incidentally, or not at all, though holding a very different place from the female sovereigns of other Eastern nations, and the student explorer who endeavors to vitalize these fragmentary and scattered outlines has not an easy task.
In no case is the above more true than in that of the wife or wives of Rameses II, the Sesostris of the Greeks who waged tedious wars against the Hittites, with whom he made peace in the twenty-first year of his reign, and of whom Herodotus speaks. It is the king whose striking and heroic figure in childhood, youth and manhood, occupies the foreground of the canvas, dwarfing into comparative insignificance all who stand near him, and leaving the details as regards female relationships but as accessories and background.
Nofritari Minimut.
Says an ardent Egyptologist, “One of the handsomest of men, we come in time to recognize his[219] face, with its haughty beauty, just as we do that of Henry VIII or Louis XIV.” Curtis speaks thus on the general subject: “Oriental masculine beauty is so mild and feminine that the men are like statues of men seen in the most mellowing and azure atmosphere. The forms of the face have a surprising grace and perfection. They are not statues and gods so seen, but the budding beauty of the Antinous when he, too, had been in the soft climate, the ripening rounding lip, the arched brow, the heavy, drooping lid, the crushed, closed eye, like a bud bursting with voluptuous beauty, the low broad brow; these I remember at Asyoot and remember forever.”
Much of this, perhaps, constituted the charm of the youthful Rameses face, but to it must be added something of the strength and intellect which were often lacking.
From his mother, Queen Tuaa, Rameses II, of the nineteenth dynasty, received the heritage of royal ancestry; his father, Seti I, belonged to a new family, who, in view of descent, had no claim to the throne. So say most authorities, though some dispute it. As a child, his father made him co-ruler with himself. An inscription of Rameses II reads, “I was a boy in his lap,” referring to his father, “and he spoke thus, ‘I will have him crowned as king, for I desire to behold his grandeur while I am still alive.’” Officers then came forward to place the crown on his head, and Seti said: “Place the royal circlet on his brow.” After this ceremony, however, he was still left in the[220] house of the women and royal concubines, but was put in command of a band of Amazons, “maidens who wore a harness of leather.” So that soldier and conqueror though he so early became, his associations from childhood up were constantly with women, and for the sex in general his subsequent conduct may lead us to infer he had a special weakness.
Another inscription reads, “when thou wast a boy with the youth locks of hair, no monument saw the light without thy command, no business was conducted without thy knowledge.” He laid foundation stones even in childhood. Little wonder that no prouder monarch ever held sway and that we associate the idea of unwonted magnificence with him and his queens.
“Rameses the Great, if he was as much like his portraits as they are like each other, must have been one of the handsomest men, not only of his own day, but of all history,” says the enthusiastic Miss Edwards. There is a bas-relief of him during his first campaign as a beautiful youth with “a delicate, Dantesque face.” Some years later we see him at Abydos in the temple of Seti I with a boyish beard. The likeness with which we become most familiar, in the prime of life, is thus described: “The face is oval, the eyes are long, prominent and heavy-lidded, the nose slightly aquiline and characteristically depressed at the tip. The nostrils are open and sensitive, the under lip projects, the chin is short and square.”
It seems likely that it was true of Rameses II[221] as is said of the sailor, that he had a “sweetheart in every port.” No woman could boast that she alone reigned in his heart. Two, if not three, wives were made his legal consorts, and he had numerous concubines. The king’s name was branded on female slaves that they could not escape undiscovered.
Little or nothing is known of the queen’s previous history; she may be said to have had no childhood or youth as regards our story. As the wife of Rameses II and the mother of his children she first becomes known to us. Queen Nofritari seems to have been his earliest consort, probably his sister or the daughter of some Egyptian noble. One writer, Pollard, gives authority for considering her the princess who rescued Moses, the daughter of the king, whom he subsequently married; but as the king doubtless married in his youth, and she is the first queen of whom we find record, this seems unlikely. Says the same writer, speaking of the temple of Luxor, “Rameses the Great, some two hundred and thirty years afterwards, added another large court, which was surrounded by a double row of columns; between these are gigantic statues of this monarch, more or less perfect. One on the left of the court is very beautiful, in most perfect condition, and represents him as a young man. The expression of the countenance is very pleasing. By his side, her head reaching to his knee, stands the diminutive but beautiful form of his beloved Nefert-ari.”
The queen’s name, as usual, is variously spelled
[222]
Nofritari-Minimut, Nefertari, Nofertuit-Meri-en Mut, and Nofruari, and means, as did that of Queen Nefertari-Aahmes, “good or beautiful companion.” She shared her honors with a Khi-tan princess, whose brief story is told in a later chapter, and with another lady, Isis-Nefer.
Rameses II even lies under the suspicion of having married two of his own daughters, Honuttani and Bint-Antha, the latter whom Baedaker speaks of as queen under the title of Bint-Anat, and of a small statue of her standing by the knee of a larger one of Rameses II, of whom he was known to be especially fond. It is this princess who is made the heroine of Ebers’ story of “Uarda,” but she is here provided with a more suitable lover, while Rameses himself is depicted as a more noble character than is perhaps quite warranted by the historical records. So true, however, are Professor Ebers’ stories to the ascertained facts in each case, that, as a rule, they may, serve as admirable historical studies, quite aside from any merit they may possess as artistic works of fiction.
Jewish tradition mentions a certain Princess Moeris (which some writers have believed to be one of Rameses II’s youngest children, the Princess Meri) as the one who rescued Moses in infancy, as above referred to.
Pictures and inscriptions give the number of Rameses II’s children as sixty sons and fifty-nine daughters, and one enumeration even reaches to one hundred and seventy-one children. Some of Rameses’ daughters were Meri Amun, Beken-Mut,[223] Noferari, Nebtani and Isiemkheb, of whom Meri-Amun and Neb-tani, in addition to Houttani, and Bint-Antha are marked as queens in the family list, probably the wives of their brothers or near relatives.
On the walls of the temple at Deir Champollion found an imperfect list of these sons and daughters. As a curiosity one may cite the different dates assigned by historians as the beginning of the reign of Rameses II: Brugsch, B. C. 1407; Mariette, 1405; Lepsius, 1388; Bunson, 1352, and Poole, 1283.
Since his son was of the blood royal, it was the policy of Seti I to unite him with himself, as has been shown, in the government of the kingdom, thus pacifying all adherents to the old regime, and Queen Tuaa, from whom Rameses II derived his “blue blood,” appears in the family group. The attachment between this father and son is an attractive feature of their joint reigns, and reminds one of the similar bond between Thothmes I and his daughter Hatasu. In peace and war Seti and Rameses were ever side by side. Together they governed, together they took their pleasure and rode forth, each in his royal chariot, to fight and to conquer.
At Abydos, Karnak and other places are pictures of the prince; in one of them, adorned with the priestly panther skin, he is pouring libations on the altar in front of him, while his father holds a censor; according to these same representations and many inscriptions in the various temples adorned with his statues, the youthful Rameses[224] performed prodigies of valor in the field. In the little temple of Betel-Wali are shown, on the right wall, the victories of Rameses II over the Libyans and Syrians, and on the left, over the Ethiopians. He was a “Black Prince” for whom the hand of fate did not lay out a brief career. The delight of his father’s heart, he lived to assume the full government and to pay royal honors in that beloved parent.
Like his ancestor Amenophis III, Rameses II seems to have had a passion for lions, not so much for the sport of hunting them as to train them for pets or instruments of warfare. Doubtless there was something that specially ministered to the pride of the haughty monarch in these favorites, known as the lion has ever been as “the king of beasts,” the “monarch of the forest,” etc.
Whether the queen shared his partiality we are not told, but since they were his playthings and his companions, she must have accepted them in a measure, if with a trembling heart. His favorite lion lay at the door of the king’s tent and went forth with him to the battlefield, probably at times even set loose to slay and destroy the enemy. The wall paintings show the king’s lions in various places.
There is something both attractive and repellant in this figure of the proud, handsome, vainglorious monarch, in the full vigor of his manhood, accompanied by this dangerous ally and slave. The tale of the lion and the mouse, Esop’s well known fable, is said to be of Egyptian origin, and within the last forty or fifty years many romantic[225] stories and many love tales of the Egyptians have come to light.
A more modern character, Sir Henry Rawlinson, who wrote much on Egypt and also a great authority on Persian inscriptions, shared with this ancient king his taste for barbarous pets. He brought up a young lion who followed him around like a dog and lay at his feet when he wrote and studied. He also made such a pet of a leopard that it knew him after long separation, and displayed pleasure at his presence, when he visited the Zoological Garden in England, to which he had given it. The story goes that he put his hand into the cage when the keeper, who did not know him, exclaimed: “Take your hand out of the cage! The animal is very savage and will bite you!”
“I don’t think he will bite me,” said Sir Henry, “will you Fahad?” and the beast answered with a purr and would hardly let the hand be withdrawn.
Queen Nefritare-Minimut was the first, the chief, and the best beloved, there seems little question, of the wives of Rameses II, since it is her picture that appears with that of the king in various places and she is termed “Beloved Companion.” Maspero gives a picture of her in her chariot, following the king and says, “Still a young woman with delicate, regular features already faded and wrinkled under her powder. Like her husband she wears a long robe, its folds, through the rapid motion, floating behind her.” There is a large escort and every one stands in[226] a chariot driven by a groom. This queen was the mother of a number of children, who, in the temple of Abou Simbel, elsewhere called Ibsamboul, are grouped with her. We may accord her some charm of beauty since the monarch of that time selected his wife, not from a list of foreign princesses of suitable rank, but from among the children of his own nobles, or relatives, with whose attractions he could become mor............