a roman depiction of the god anubis

Did Egyptian Gods have Animal Heads? Of course they did, you might be saying.  If you were anything like me, as a kid you may have loved the distinctively weird depictions in Egyptian art of their gods, jackal-headed Anubis, cat-headed Bastet, ibis-headed Thoth and all the rest, much more exciting (in my opinion) than the Greek gods, who were pretty much just naked people. On the other hand, if you’ve read a bit about Ancient Egypt (the Wikipedia page on the Egyptian Religion, for instance) you might answer that no, they didn’t believe their gods had animal heads; these crazy half-man, half-beast images were just symbolic: Anubis was shown with a jackal head because the jackal was associated with the necropolis and Anubis was a god of the dead, he didn’t really look like that.  Well, in this post I thought I’d do a bit of digging, and do my best to find out what the truth actually is.

To start off with, yes, Egyptian gods were often depicted in therianthrophic – part human, part animal form.  There are the well known gods with animal heads, the sphinxes with human heads and lion bodies, and hybrids like Hathor, who is shown with cow’s ears and horns, but is otherwise human.  Other gods are anthropomorphic – human in form – Isis, Osiris, Ptah and Atum are usually shown in this way. Then there are theriomorphic depictions , where gods are shown entirely in animal form.  These are quite common, and in fact were the most common representations of gods in the very earliest periods of Egyptian history. So, for instance, Anubis could be a black jackal, and Thoth as either an ibis or a white baboon.  (Depictions could get a bit weirder than this, some gods could have plant heads, Hathor could be depicted as a pillar with a human head, Taweret was a hybrid of hippo, crocodile and lioness, and one god was shown with two thongs used to bind the damned in place of a head, but these are a quite a bit rarer…)

Now, this has caused problems for some people.  Way back when the Romans encountered Egypt, they found it unbelievable that such an ancient and sophisticated culture could worship barking dogs and scavenging ibises.  As the satirist Juvenal asked “Who knows not…what monsters demented Egypt worships? “[1]  Modern writers have often had a similar opinion; the great nineteenth century scholar Adolf Erman is said to have ended a speech on Egyptian religion by remarking “Aber Quatsch ist es doch, meine Herren!” –“But it is nonsense, gentlemen!” [2] The solution has been to argue that the gods of Egypt weren’t really animals at all.  As Zeus puts it in Lucian’s Council of the Gods “Certainly, it is disgraceful the way these Egyptians go on. At the same time, Momus, there is an occult significance in most of these things; and it ill becomes you, who are not of the initiated, to ridicule them.” [3] The modern solution has been to say that the depictions of the gods are like hieroglyphs: Sekhmet’s lion head indicates that she is a supernatural being, that she is powerful and dangerous like a lioness, but they didn’t depict what the gods would look like if we would see them.[4] By way of comparison we could point to Christian images of Jesus as a lion or a lamb, or the Holy Spirit as a dove, or angels with wings. All these things are symbolic- Christians don’t really believe Jesus has four legs and a fluffy coat of wool (well, Christian furries might…). But this is a position with I have to respectfully disagree.

a very literal depiction from the mummy ii

To start with, how did Ancient Egyptians understand their gods? There is good evidence that they believed the gods to be fundamentally mysterious, and were every bit as aware as a modern Hindu, Jew, Muslim or Christian that the divine could never be fully known. In a twelfth century hymn from the time of Ramesses III a god is described as “divine power with hidden faces and mighty majesty, who has hidden his name and keeps his image secret, whose being was not known at the beginning of time.”[5] But like modern believers Egyptians felt they could know their gods in various, indirect ways.  A modern Christian  might know God from reading about Him in the Bible, from looking at the world around them, and from personal experience, which might range from a vague sense of God’s presence to the descriptions of full-on visions of blazing angels you can find on Christian fundamentalist forums without too much digging. In the same way, the Egyptian text known as Papyrus Leiden (dating from the thirteenth century) has this mysterious verse:

All gods are three: Amun, Re and Ptah, who have no equal.
He hides his name as Amun, he appears as Re, his body is Ptah.[6]

Jan Assmann, a German scholar and leading expert in Egyptian religion, has seen this as describing the three main ways of knowing the divine in Ancient Egypt: name, cosmic manifestation and body, or image.

The name of gods often tells you something about them; ‘Amun’ means ‘hidden’, referring to his nature as the invisible, life-giving wind.  More broadly, ‘name’ can refer to myths about the gods, equivalent to the Bible stories which tell Christians and Jews about Yahweh.

The ‘cosmic manifestation’ refers to the action of the divine in nature.  At their core, gods are always of understanding the forces at work in the world, something that it’s easy for moderns, who think of the world in terms of impersonal, scientific forces, to forget. Ra was the sun god, and was manifest in the world through the sun. Shu was the atmosphere, specifically air saturated with light. Hathor was love, and Seth was at once the force behind warfare, the wild, foreign deserts and thunderstorms.  For most Egyptians, the cosmic manifestation was not the same as the god. The god of the heretic, ‘monotheist’ king Akhenaten is best known as the Aten, but his full title was ‘Ankh-re-heqa-akheti-hai-em-akhet Em-ren-ef-em-hait’ – ‘The Living one, the sun, ruler of the horizon, who becomes active in the Lightland in his identity of the light that comes from the sun disk’ – the light of the sun is the way in which we know the god, but it is not the totality of the god.[7]

The third way of knowing gods, the ‘image’, is the one that interests us here. The most common form of the image were the ‘idols’, the cult statues that represented their gods in their traditional iconography, theriomorphic, therianthropic or anthropomorphic. The most sacred of these were kept in the holy of holies in temples, locked in their shrines and seen only by priests who had first purified themselves, and entered the shrines reverently in order to carry out the daily ritual of feeding, cleaning and dressing the gods.  When the gods left their temples for festivals, they were usually borne on carry-chairs in the form of boats, something along the lines of the Ark of the Covenant or the modern portable shrines found in Japanese Shinto.  But lesser cult statues with more-or-less the same depictions could be found more commonly, as amulets, in people’s houses, and carved or painted on temple walls.  All of these were images of the gods.  But Egyptian priests did not understand the gods as literally being the statues.  Several texts tell us that the gods were thought of as descending from on high to dwell in their images, so that their worshippers could interact with them.  An excellent example of this is found carved on the walls of the temple of Horus at Edfu:

He comes down from heaven day by day
in order to see his image upon his great throne.
He descends upon his image
and unites himself with his cult image[8]

So even if the gods were fundamentally mysterious, they could live in their statues, those half-man, half-beast depictions the Romans found so shocking.  But statues and carvings weren’t the only images the gods could inhabit; living beings could also serve as vessels for their divine essence.  The best known of these is the Pharaoh, and in the Kuban Stela to Ramesses II we read:

For you are the embodiment of Re,
Khepre in his true form.
You are the living image on earth
of your father Atum in Heliopolis.[9]

But the gods could also inhabit the forms of animals.  At Memphis, the best known of these was the Apis bull, treated as a living image of a god, pampered and groomed and consulted for oracles, his mother revered as an embodiment of Isis, and when they died they were mummified and spoken of as having become ‘an Osiris’, just as dead Pharaohs and commoners were.  In fact, the worship and mummification of animals as diverse as baboons, cats, dogs, crocodiles, fish and even beetles strongly suggests that showing gods as animals was not just symbolic; in some real way the gods had a special relationship with certain animals. Writers like Herodotus record that in many Egyptian villages animals, birds or fish considered sacred to their local god were not eaten.  Remember that the animals here are images of the gods, in which part of the god’s essence might live, rather than full gods, but the same caveat applies to Pharaohs and cult statues.

As you can see, Egyptians had a higher opinion of animals than most contemporary Romans, and than many moderns. Many Egyptian texts talk about the love the gods had for animals.  In a hymn to Amun we read:

Thou art the only one, the creator of all that is. From whose eye men came forth. From whose mouth the gods originated. Who creates the herbs which the cattle live on…Who creates that which the fish in the river life on. And the birds in the air. Who gives breath to the chicken in the egg. Who maintains the young of the snake. Who creates the nourishment of the gnat. And also of the worms and the fleas. Who cares for the mice in their hole and keeps alive the insects in every tree.[10]

Looking after animals was an ethical duty for Egyptians, along the same lines as looking after the poor and needy:

I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked. I have given food to the ibis, the falcon, the cat and the jackal.[11]

The image of baboons holding their arms up to warm them in the rays of the morning sun was the interpreted by Egyptians as a gesture of worshipping the sun god, and many texts describe animals as worshipping the gods alongside humans. In the Stela of Huy the writer promises to preach about the gods to animals: “I proclaim your power to the fish in the river, to the birds in the sky.” [12]

baboons and ramesses iii worship the sun god at the temple of medinet habu

It’s worth remembering, though, that Ancient Egyptians were not animal loving hippies. If some peasants had a largely vegetarian diet, it was because they had little access to meat, not for ethical reasons. Throughout Egyptian history animals were used for their labour, eaten, hunted and sacrificed to the gods, and some sacred animals were deliberately killed to make mummies that would serve as messengers to the gods. But human beings too could be killed in warfare as enemies of the Pharaoh. It seems that to the Egyptians, the boundary between human and animal life was not rigid, and the gods were neither human nor animal, but had a relationship to both.

But we still haven’t really answered the question; fine, a god might live in a statue, or a person or an animal, but what did they really look like: if an Egyptian god appeared in the room to you right now, what would it look like? Well, you might point out that they aren’t real, so they wouldn’t look like anything, but that’s not really the point.  No doubt at this very instant, people are having very real (to them) visions of aliens, Jesus, Hindu gods, angels and a host of other supernatural beings that cannot all exist.  Google ‘visions of Mary’ and you will find perhaps hundreds of cases where the Mother of God has appeared to individuals or crowds, and I personally know people who tell me they’ve seen Jesus, or heard the voice of the Buddhist demon Mara.

And this has been going on for a long time. The historian Herodian reports that at the siege of Aquileia in Northern Italy in 238 the god Apollo appeared frequently above the city to defend it.[13] Zosimos tells us that in the fifth century, when Alaric the Goth began his siege of Athens, the goddess Athena appeared to patrol the walls, looking just like her statue and ready for war; he was so terrified he sent heralds to arrange a peace treaty. [14]  Pagans in the Roman world often saw their gods in dreams, generally appearing as they did in their statues and images, but one young Graeco-Roman Egyptian writes that he saw “not in a dream, or in sleep… a very large figure with a book in his hand, dressed in white.”[15] This was the typical description of a non-specific god: a large, beautiful figure dressed in white.

I’ll point out briefly that I don’t believe these appearances of gods were real: they were probably the result of rumours grown out of proportion, or the experiences of people in exotic mental states like hypnagogia, in which they experience dreamlike visions but are awake and otherwise lucid. Reality aside, the point is that people believed that the gods could be and were seen by human beings.

a dead egyptian before osiris, isis and nephthys

Now, for Egypt, the evidence isn’t so clear, and we have far fewer descriptions of men and women meeting gods.  In many religious texts from the New Kingdom onwards, we have gods appearing on earth, or in the dreams of kings: they are accompanied by a sweet fragrance, the earth or stars might tremble as they come, or a bright light or darkness might steal over the scene.  But there are fewer descriptions of what the gods actually look like in these instances.  Sometimes there is an oblique reference to “secret forms”, as when the magician Setna visits the underworld and sees the “secret form of Osiris” in a text from the early first century AD. [16] Interestingly, “secret image” in at least some instances refers to the cult statue, which is secret because it is hidden in the holy of holies, where normal people cannot see it.

There are two texts where a god is more-or-less described: in the stela in which Tuthmosis IV (ruled c. 1401 – 1391 BC) describes his restoration of the Sphinx, he tells how he fell asleep under it, and heard “this noble god speaking with his own mouth” [17]- he saw the sphinx itself speaking to him!

A more dramatic encounter is found in the tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor from around the twentieth century BC.  A sailor has his ship destroyed in a storm, and clinging to a mast is carried to an island bursting with an abundance of fruit and vegetables.  Then, as he makes a sacrifice, he hears the sound of thunder, the earth quakes and he is confronted by a god in the form of a human-headed serpent, its skin gold, its eyebrows lapis lazuli and its body thirty cubits long (44.4 feet or 13.5 metres). [18]

From all this, it seems pretty clear to me that if the Egyptians saw their gods in dreams or visions, they expected them to be as they were in their images: human, animal or combination of both.  They weren’t literally human or animal, although they had something in common with both; they were something other, and their true nature was hidden and mysterious.  But to dismiss their (perhaps weird) depictions as merely symbolic is to miss an important part of Egyptian belief.

A Couple of Notes

I should point out that even though many Ancient Egyptian texts survive, most of the religious ones are either hymns or collections of funerary spells along the lines of the Book of the Dead.  While these make constant references to theology, they very rarely actually explain anything.  The upshot of this is that there are numerous disagreements on what the Egyptians actually believed, even, for example, if they were really polytheistic or basically monotheistic.  So it’s best to bear this in mind, and remember that everything I (or anyone else) says about Egyptian religion is an opinion, which may or may not be supported by the evidence.  And like every civilisation, remember that there were probably dozens of different opinions about religion, and a great deal of change over its three-thousand year history.

Maybe later I’ll write a post about the Ancient Egyptian language, but in the meantime I should also say that Egyptian Hieroglyphs (like Hebrew) only recorded consonants. So, for instance, the  name we write “Akhenaten” was actually written 3x-n-jtn (where the ‘3’ represents ‘aleph’, a glottal stop, and the ‘x’ represents a sound like the ‘ch’ in ‘loch’).  From various bits of evidence (Coptic- the modern form of Egyptian – as well as renderings of names and phrases into Akkadian and Greek, which did record vowels) we can reconstruct how the words were probably pronounced: 3x-n-jtn was probably vocalised as *Akhanyati.  But reconstructing dead languages is a messy and controversial business, and different people come up with different results.  So as a compromise, I (and most scholars) use the ‘Egyptological pronunciation’, a convenient compromise where you take the bare consonants, replacing ‘3’ with ‘a’ and adding ‘e’s where necessary EXCEPT where a different form of the name is much better known – Aten instead of Iten, Anubis instead of Inpu, Isis instead of Uset and so on. Whew.

Footnotes

[1] Juvenal, Satires, Satire 15, G G Ramsay (translator), 1918, http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/juvenal_satires_15.htm

[2] H te Velde, ‘A Few Remarks upon the Religious Significance of Animals in Ancient Egypt’ in Numen, Vol. 27, Fasc. 1, Jun., BRILL, 1980, pp. 76-82

[3] Lucian, The Gods in Council, http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl4/wl430.htm

[4] James P Allen,  Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.44

[5] Hymn of Ramesses III, Text 68 in B G  Ockinga, Ancient Egyptian Religion: An Anthology of Primary Sources (produced for the Macquarie University Egyptian Religion course, Sydney, 2009), p. 43 (available by email on request)

[6] Papyrus Leiden I, 350 (IV, 21–22), Text 66 in B G  Ockinga, Ancient Egyptian Religion: An Anthology of Primary Sources, p. 43

[7]  Allen,  Middle Egyptian, p.197

[8] The Temple of Horus at Edfu, Text 46A in B G  Ockinga, Ancient Egyptian Religion: An Anthology of Primary Sources, p. 37

[9] Kuban Stela: Eulogy to Ramesses II, Text 23 in B G  Ockinga, Ancient Egyptian Religion: An Anthology of Primary Sources, p. 23

[10] te Velde, A Few Remarks upon the Religious Significance of Animals in Ancient Egypt, pp.77-78

[11] Ibid, pp. 77-78

[12] Stele of Huy (Turin 50044), Text 19 in B G  Ockinga, Ancient Egyptian Religion: An Anthology of Primary Sources, p. 19

[13] Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1989, p.121

[14] Zosimos, New History 5.6, Ronald T Ridley (translator), Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, Sydney 2006

[15] Fox, Pagans and Christians, p.142

[16] William Kelly Simpson, The Literature of Ancient Egypt, Yale University Press, Newhaven & London, 2003, p. 474

[17] Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, John Baines (translator), Cornell University Press, New York, 1982, p 130

[18] Simpson, The Literature of Ancient Egypt, p. 49

Well, it’s finally the uni holidays here in Australia where I live, so I’ve made it my new resolution to be a better blogger.  Every week for the next few months, I’ll try to post an essay on topics that interest me (and hopefully you) – my own takes on ancient history, religion, race and biology.  But for those of you here for the animal pictures, don’t worry, I also have an artist’s residency on the go, so I’ll be posting new paintings and drawings as I knock them out.  I have another 15 planned, fingers crossed I’ll be able to get them all done before the residency ends in February…

Remember  back in this post when I compared Starseeds – aliens trapped in human bodies longing to return to the stars – with Christians – in the world but not of it and longing for the Kingdom of God? Well, over at the charmingly wacky site Rapture Ready one poster has written a short article using exactly this as the premise. Here’s a brief quote:

I am an Extra-Terrestrial. I am here, but I am not of this planet. There is no place on this earth that is my home; there are only fortifications that provide shelter from the raging storm.

Ah, but these human emotions are the worst. These human emotions cause pain. And yet, I wouldn’t trade these emotions for the finest house anywhere on this earth. It is these emotions that make the entire human experience so enriching for an extra-terrestrial! They make me just like you…because I am like you!

Also worth checking out on the site is the Rapture Index, an attempt to predict the likelihood of Armageddon based on such indicators as False Messiahs, the Israel-Palestine peace process, American unemployment and Liberalism.

If you live in, or visit, Australia for any length of time, chances are someone will tell you that it’s the only country to eat an animal from its coat of arms.  Now it’s true that kangaroo steaks and burgers are fairly common in Australian cooking, even if they have yet to challenge beef, pork or chicken for ubiquity, and emus are also farmed for their meat, although it’s even less common.  But, being sceptical by nature, I’ve always wondered whether this little nugget is really true; I mean, Brits don’t eat unicorns or lions, but surely some other national emblems find themselves on the plate every now and then?  So yesterday I finally decided to do some research, this consisting mainly of looking at the Wikipedia page listing national coats of arms, and keeping my eyes out for any edible looking critters.

Before I let you in on my fascinating discoveries, I should probably mention my criteria.  Several coats of arms include plants, but I didn’t count these.  I also tried to limit my search to the supporters of the coat of arms (where they fitted the traditional European design) rather than animals which just appeared on the shield.  Finally, human beings have probably eaten just about every animal on the planet at some point or another, but to make it fair I tried to only count animals eaten with some regularity, which includes, surprisingly, armadillos and zebra, but not lions or eagles.  Horses are a difficult case, but I couldn’t find a country where it both appeared as a supporter and was a common source of meat. Obviously extinct animals didn’t count, otherwise I could have included Mauritius with its dodo. In some cases, it was a bit hard to prove that a particular animal is eaten in a particular country using only the internet, but if I was able to find evidence that it was used as a source of food in that general area, I counted it as a hit.

Ok, so what did I discover? Well, of the 200 or so countries whose coats of arms I looked at, most didn’t really eat their supporting animals, probably because they were generally powerful predators (lions, eagles or bears), human beings or mythical animals.  Which is understandable, since people tend to look down on farm animals, seeing them as none too bright and too common to be particularly interesting.  The exceptions to this rule are Chad, whose arms are supported by a goat rampant, and Iceland, which has a bull symbolising the local spirit (landvaettir) of the southwestern part of the country.

Fish are also surprisingly common among island nations: the vibrant coat of arms of the Bahamas is supported by the marlin, Barbados by the odd looking dolphin fish and the Seychelles by two swordfish.

Then we get into slightly weirder territory: Eritrea’s coat of arms features a camel, which apparently tastes something like horse.  Botswana’s features two zebras and Zimbabwe’s has two curly-horned kudus. I suppose they probably taste like horse too.  And finally Grenada’s features a little armadillo; if you ever find yourself with a cut of Grenadan armadillo be careful to cook it thoroughly, since it’s apparently a common carrier of leprosy.

So next time someone tells you that pernicious lie about Australia being the only country to eat its national emblem, you’ll know better.

I will openly admit that I’m quite a weird person.  Part of my weirdness probably comes from the bizarre books I read as a kid.  My adoptive grandmother was a linguist, with a huge and fantastical library of unusual books, and I would leave her house with a pile of them after every visit.  One of my favourites was Richard Garnett’s Twilight of the Gods. Written in the late 19th century, it’ a beautiful and humanistic satire on religion, with targets ranging from ancient paganism to medieval Christianity.  Written in wonderfully florid prose filled with hilarious circumlocutions, it is packed with references to obscure historical and  religious minutiae.  Only a Victorian academic could write a book like this and pull it off.

I was very happy to find that Twilight of the Gods had been put onto Project Gutenberg, you can find a copy of it here if you’re interested, but I’ve copied and pasted one of the shorter stories here so you can get an idea of the general style.  It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you can make it to the end, it’s one of those rare books that will not only make you laugh out loud, but will also make you smarter.

Abdallah the Adite by Richard Garnett

An aged hermit named Sergius dwelt in the wilds of Arabia, addicting himself to the pursuit of religion and alchemy. Of his creed it could only be said that it was so much better than that of his neighbours as to cause him to be commonly esteemed a Yezidi, or devil worshipper. But the better informed deemed him a Nestorian monk, who had retired into the wilderness on account of differences with his brethren, who sought to poison him.

The imputation of Yezidism against Sergius was the cause that a certain inquisitive young man resorted to him, trusting to obtain light concerning the nature of demons. But he found that Sergius could give him no information on that subject, but, on the contrary, discoursed so wisely and beautifully on holy things, that his pupil’s intellect was enlightened, and his enthusiasm was inflamed, and he longed to go forth and instruct the ignorant people around him; the Saracens, and the Sabaeans, and the Zoroastrians, and the Carmathians, and the Baphometites, and the Paulicians, who are a remnant of the ancient Manichees.

“Nay, good youth,” said Sergius, “I have renounced the sending forth of missionaries, having made ample trial with my spiritual son, the Prophet Abdallah.”

“What!” exclaimed the youth, “was Abdallah the Adite thy disciple?”

“Even so,” said Sergius. “Hearken to his history.

“Never have I instructed so promising a pupil as Abdallah, nor when he was first my disciple do I deem that he was other than the most simple-minded and well-intentioned of youths. I always called him son, a title I have never bestowed on another. Like thee, he had compassion on the darkness around him, and craved my leave to go forth and dispel it.

“‘My son,’ said I, ‘I will not restrain thee: thou art no longer a child. Thou hast heard me discourse on the subject of persecution, and knowest that poison was administered to me personally on account of my inability to perceive the supernatural light emanating from the navel of Brother Gregory. Thou art aware that thou wilt be beaten with rods and pricked with goads, chained and starved in a dungeon, very probably blinded, very possibly burned with fire?’

“‘All these things I am prepared to undergo,’ said Abdallah; and he embraced me and bid me farewell.

“After certain moons he returned covered with weals and scars, and his bones protruded through his skin.

“‘Whence are these weals and scars?’ asked I, ‘and what signifies this protrusion of thy bones?’

“‘The weals and the scars,’ answered he, ‘proceed from the floggings inflicted upon me by command of the Caliph; and my bones protrude by reason of the omission of his officers to furnish me with either food or drink in the dungeon wherein I was imprisoned by his orders.’

“‘O my son,’ exclaimed I, ‘in the eyes of faith and right reason these scars are lovelier than the moles of beauty, and the sight of thy bones is like the beholding of hidden treasure!’

“And Abdallah strove to look as though he believed me; nor did he entirely fail therein. And I took him, and fed him, and healed him, and sent him forth a second time into the world.

“And after a space he returned, covered as before with wounds and bruises, but comely and somewhat fat.

“‘Whence this sleekness of body, my son?’ I asked.

“‘Through the charity of the Caliph’s wives,’ he answered, ‘who have fed me secretly, I having assured them that in remembrance of this good work each of them in the world to come would have seven husbands.’

“‘How knewest thou this, my son?’ I inquired.

“‘In truth, father,’ he said, ‘I did not know it; but I thought it probable.’

“‘O my son! my son!’ exclaimed I, ‘thou art on a dangerous road. To win over weak ignorant people by promises of what they shall receive in a future life, whereof thou knowest no more than they do! Knowest thou not that the inestimable blessings of religion are of an inward and spiritual nature? Did I ever promise any disciple any recompense for his enlightenment and good deeds, save flogging, starvation, and burning?’

“‘Never, father,” said he, ‘and therefore thou hast had no follower of thy law save one, and he hath broken it.’

“He left me after a shorter stay than before, and again went forth to preach. After a long time he returned in good condition of body, yet manifestly having something upon his mind.

“‘Father,’ he said, ‘thy son hath preached with faithfulness and acceptance, and turned thousands unto righteousness. But a sorcerer hath arisen, saying, “Why follow ye Abdallah, seeing that he breathes not fire out of his mouth and nostrils?” And the people give ear unto the words that come from this man’s lips, when they behold the flame that cometh from his nose. And unless thou teachest me to do as he doth I shall assuredly perish.’

“And I told Abdallah that it was better to perish for the truth’s sake than to prolong life by lies and deceit. But he wept and lamented exceeding sore, and in the end he prevailed with me; and I taught him to breathe flame and smoke out of a hollow nut filled with combustible powder. And I took a certain substance called soap, but little known in this country, and anointed his feet therewith. And when he and the sorcerer met, both breathing flame, the people knew not which to follow; but when Abdallah walked over nine hot ploughshares, and the sorcerer could not touch one of them, they beat his brains out, and became Abdallah’s disciples.

“A long time afterward Abdallah came to me again, this time with a joyful, and yet with somewhat of a troubled look, carrying a camel-hair blanket, which he undid, and lo! it was full of bones.

“‘O father,’ he said, ‘I bring thee happy tidings. We have found the bones of the camel of the prophet Ad, upon which his revelation was engraved by him.’

“‘If this be so,’ said I, ‘thou art acquainted with the precepts of the prophet, and hast no need of mine.’

“‘Nay, but father,’ said he, ‘although the revelation was without question originally engraved by the prophet on these very bones, it hath come to pass by the injury of time that not one letter of his writing can be distinguished. I have therefore come to ask thee to write it over again.’

“‘What!’ I exclaimed, ‘I forge a revelation in the name of the prophet Ad! Get thee behind me!’

“‘Thou knowest, father,’ he rejoined, ‘that if we had the original words of the prophet Ad here they would profit us nought, as by reason of their antiquity none would understand them. Seeing therefore that I myself cannot write, it is meet that thou shouldst set down in his name those things which he would have desired to deliver had he been now among us; but if thou wilt not, I shall ask Brother Gregory.’

“And when I heard him speak of having recourse to that cheat and impostor my spirit was grieved within me, and I wrote the Book of Ad myself. And I was heedful to put in none but wholesome and profitable precepts, and more especially did I forbid polygamy, having perceived a certain inclination thereunto in my disciple.

“After many days he came again, and this time he was in violent terror and agitation, and hair was wanting to the lower part of his countenance.

“‘O Abdallah,’ I inquired, ‘where is thy beard?’

“‘In the hands of my ninth wife,’ said he.

“‘Apostate!’ I exclaimed, ‘hast thou dared to espouse more wives than one? Rememberest thou not what is written in the Book of the prophet Ad?’

“‘O father,’ he said, ‘the revelation of Ad being, as thou knowest, so exceedingly ancient, doth of necessity require a commentary. This hath been supplied by one of my disciples, a young Syrian and natural son of Gregory, as I opine. This young man can not only write, but write to my dictation, an accomplishment in which thou hast been found lacking, O Sergius. In this gloss it is set forth how, since woman hath the ninth part of the soul of man, the prophet, in enjoining us Adites (as we now call ourselves) to take but one wife, doth instruct us to take nine; to espouse a tenth would, I grant, be damnable. It ensues, therefore, that having become enamoured of a most charming young virgin, I am constrained to repudiate one of the wives whom I have taken already. To this, each thinking that it may be her turn speedily, if not now, they will in no wise consent, and have maltreated me as thou seest, and the dens of wild beasts are at this moment abodes of peace, compared to my seraglio. What is even worse, they threaten to disclose to the people the fact, of which they have unhappily become aware, that the revelation of the blessed Ad is not written upon the bones of a camel at all, but of a cow, and will therefore be accounted spurious, inasmuch as the prophet is not recorded to have ridden upon this quadruped. And seeing that thou didst inscribe the characters, O father, I cannot but fear that the fury of the people will extend unto thee, and that thou wilt be even in danger of thy life from them.’

“This argument of Abdallah’s had much weight with me, and I the more readily consented to his request as he did not on this occasion require any imposture at my hands, but merely the restitution of his domestic peace. And I went with him to his wives, and discoursed with them, and they agreed to abide by my sentence. And, willing to please him, I directed that he should marry the beautiful virgin, and put away one of his wives who was old and ugly, and endowed with the dispositions of Sheitan.

“‘O father,’ said Abdallah, ‘thou hast brought me from death unto life! And thou, Zarah,’ he continued, ‘wilt lose nought, but gain exceedingly, in becoming the spouse of the wise and virtuous Sergius.’

“‘I marry Zarah!’ I exclaimed, ‘I! a monk!’

“‘Surely,’ said he, ‘thou would’st not take away her husband without giving her another in his stead?’

“‘If he does I will throttle him,’ cried Zarah.

“And I wept sore, and made great intercession. And it was agreed that there should be a delay of forty days, in which space if any one else would marry Zarah, I should be free of her. And I promised all my substance to any one who would do this, and no one was found. And she was offered to thirteen criminals doomed to suffer death, and they all chose death. And at the last I was constrained to marry her. And truly I have now the comfort of thinking that if I have offended by encouraging Abdallah’s deceits, or otherwise, the debt is paid, and Eternal Justice hath now nothing against me; for verily I was an inmate of Gehenna until it came to pass that she was herself translated thither. And respecting the manner of her translation, inquire not thou too curiously. It was doubtless a token of the displeasure of Heaven at her enormities that the water of the well of Kefayat, which had been known as the Diamond of the Desert, became about this time undrinkable, and pernicious to man and beast.

“As I sat in my dwelling administering to the estate of my deceased wife, which consisted principally of wines and strong liquors, Abdallah again appeared before me.

“‘Hast thou come,’ said I, ‘to solicit me to abet thee in any new imposture? Know, once for all, that I will not.’

“‘On the contrary,’ said he, ‘I am come to set thee at ease by proving to thee that I shall not again require thy assistance. Follow me.’

“And I followed him to a great plain, where was a host of armed horsemen and footmen, more than I could number. And they bore banners on which the name of Abdallah was embroidered in letters of gold. And in the midst was an ark of gold, with the bones of Ad’s camel, or cow. And by this was a great pile of the heads of men, and warriors were continually casting more and more upon the heap.

“‘How many?’ asked Abdallah.

“‘Twelve thousand, O Apostle of God,’ answered they, ‘but there are more to come.’

“‘Thou monster!’ said I to Abdallah.

“‘Nay, father,’ said he, ‘there will not be more than sixteen thousand in all, and these men were unbelievers. Moreover we have spared such of their women as were young and handsome, and have taken them for our concubines, as is ordained in the eleventh supplement to the Book of Ad, just promulgated by my authority. But come, I have other things to manifest unto thee.’

“And he led me where a stake was driven into the earth, and a man was chained unto it, and fuel was heaped all around him, and many stood by with lighted torches in their hands.

“‘O Abdallah,’ I exclaimed, ‘wherefore this atrocity?’

“‘This man,’ he replied, ‘is a blasphemer, who hath said that the Book of Ad is written on the bones of a cow.’

“‘But it is written on the bones of a cow! ‘I cried.

“‘Even so,’ said he, ‘and therefore is his heresy the more damnable, and his punishment the more exemplary. Had it been indeed written on the bones of a camel, he might have affirmed what pleased him.’

“And I shook off the dust from my feet, and hastened to my dwelling. The rest of Abdallah’s acts thou knowest, and how he fell warring with the Carmathians. And now I ask thee, art thou yet minded to go forth as a missionary of the truth?”

“O Sergius,” said the young man, “I perceive that the temptations are greater, and the difficulties far surpassing what I had thought. Yet will I go, and I trust by Heaven’s grace not to fail utterly.”

“Then go,” said Sergius, “and Heaven’s blessing go with thee! Come back in ten years, should I be living, and if thou canst declare that thou hast forged no scriptures, and worked no miracles, and persecuted no unbelievers, and flattered no potentate, and bribed no one with the promise of aught in heaven or earth, I will give thee the philosopher’s stone.”

This is my translation of another Japanese song, one I came across in my Japanese pop culture class last semester.  It belongs to a genre known as Enka, something along the lines of Japanese country music.  Although it may look like a traditional artform, Enka is a 20th century phenomenon, produced partly in reaction to the mostly Western-inspired J-Pop.  Fans are typically older and more working-class than pop listeners, and performers tend to be chosen for their powerful voices rather than the cute looks and charisma that are responsible for the success of most Japanese Idols.

Like Country singers, Enka singers dress fairly conservatively- suits for men and kimono for women, and along with its pentatonic scale (which I understand to mean it lacks two notes) this may responsible for its traditional feel.  As with Country music, Enka lyrics are full of stories of tragic love and loss, everyday hardships and nostalgic references to their lyricists’ particular rural roots.

Amagi Goe (Crossing Amagi) is a case in point; The title refers to Mount Amagi, and specific waterfalls, bridges and marshes pop up throughout the song.  Amagi Goe was also used as the theme tume of  a drama series of the same name, in which a young boy does indeed, cross Mount Amagi, meeting on the way a beautiful geisha.  I haven’t seen the series, so I can’t really say how much the song relates to its plot; but if the lyrics are anything to go to, its a bittersweet and powerful story of  frustrated longing and jealousy.  Visit YouTube and watch Ishikawa Sayuri belt it out (Amaaaagiii Goooooooooe); it’s a great piece of music.

天城越え
Amagi goe
Crossing Amagi

隠しきれない 移り香が
Kakushi kirenai utsuri na ga
I can’t hide the lingering scent

いつしかあなたに しみついた
Itsu shika anata ni shimitsuita
Stained without knowing it by you

誰かに盗られる くらいなら
Dare ka ni torareru, kurai nara
If someone stole you,

あなたを殺して いいですか
Anata o koroshite ii desu ka?
Would it be ok if I killed you?

寝乱れて 隠れ宿
Nemidarete kakure yado
The secret inn where we slept,

九十九折り 浄蓮の滝
Tsuzura ori jouren no taki
The winding Jouren waterfall

舞い上がり 揺れおちる 肩のむこうに
Mai agari, yure ochiru, kata no mukou ni
Rises dancing, falls trembling; over your shoulder

あなた…… 山が燃える
Anata… Yama ga moeru
My dear… the mountain is burning

何があっても もういいの
Nani ga atte mo mou ii no
It’s okay, whatever is there

くらくら燃える 火をくぐり
Kura kura moeru hi o kuguri
Passing through the dizzily burning fire

あなたと越えたい 天城越え
Anata to koetai, Amagi goe
I want to cross with you, cross Amagi

口を開けば 別れると
Kuchi wo hirakeba wakareru to
If you open your mouth we will be parted,

刺さったまんまの 割れ硝子
Sasatta manma no ware garasu
Stabbed with broken glass

ふたりでいたって 寒いけど
Futari de itatte samui kedo
It’s cold even with you there,

嘘でも抱かれりゃ あたたかい
Uso demo dakarerya atatakai
If you would hold me, I would be warm even if you didn’t mean it

わさび沢 隠れ径
Kakure michi, Wasabi Sawa
The hidden path through Wasabi Marsh

小夜時雨 寒天橋
Sayoshi gure Kanten Bashi
A light shower falls on Kanten bridge

恨んでも 恨んでも からだうらはら
Uurande mo, urande mo, karada urahara
Even if I resent you, even if I resent you, my body feels differently

あなた…… 山が燃える
Anata… Yama ga moeru
My dear… The mountain is burning,

戻れなくても もういいの
Modorenakute mo mou ii no
It’s okay if I don’t go back

くらくら燃える 地をはって
Kura kura moeru chi o hatte
Dizzily walking over the burning earth

あなたと越えたい 天城越え
Anata to koetai, Amagi goe
I want to cross with you, cross Amagi

走り水 迷い恋
Hashiri mizu mayoi goi
Love lost in running water

風の群れ 天城隧道
Kaze no mure amagi suidou
The wind rushes, the waterway through Amagi

恨んでも 恨んでも からだうらはら
Urande mo urande mo karada urahara
Even if I resent you, even if I resent you, my body feels differently

あなた…… 山が燃える
Anata… Yama ga moeru
My dear… The mountain is burning

戻れなくても もういいの
Modorenakure mo mou ii no
It’s okay if I don’t go back

くらくら燃える 地をはって
Kura kura moeru chi o hatte
Dizzily the burning earth spreads

あなたと越えたい 天城越え
Anata to koetai, Amagi goe
I want to cross with you, cross Amagi

Some more character portraits for the boardgame I’m working on.  Just got the zombie horde and angry mob to go now… they’ll be a lot harder.

Here’s another song from the brilliant Shiina Ringo, this time from the band she formed in 2004, Tokyo Jihen (東京事変 also known as Tokyo Incidents).  Again, tanslations for this one are a bit hard to come by on the internets, so I thought I’d try my hand.  It’s called Blackout.

ブラックアウト
Burakkuauto
Blackout

山ノ手線 最終で何処へ行こうと云うの?
Yamanotesen saishu de doko e ikou to iu no?
On the last train of Yamanote line where do you say we go?

都市の芳香いが変わり桜はもう散っている
Machi no nioi ga kawari sakura wa mou chitteiru
The smell of the city changes, the cherry blossom is already shedding its petals

急いで帰る気温は疾(とう)に北へと逃げ去った様
Isoide kaeru kion wa touni kita e to nigesatta
The cold flees quickly north

抜け駆けで何処へでも遊びに行きましょう
Nukegake de doko e demo asobi ni ikimashou
Let’s go somewhere while no-one knows

もっと酔って居たい
Motto yotte itai
I want to drink more

哀しく満たされ寒さより明るさが疎ましいのさ
Kanashiku mitasare samusa yori akarusa ga utomashii no sa
Filled with sadness, I hate the light more than the cold, you know

都市のネオンはきっと星達を奪ったのだ
Machi no neon wa kitto hoshi tachi wo ubatta no da
Perhaps the neon of the city has stolen the stars

希望の通り黒い時間が二人を匿っている
Kibou no toori kuroi jikan ga futari o kakumatteiru
On the path of hope, we two are surrounded by blackness

抜け駆けで何処へでも私を連れて行って
Nukegake de doko e demo watashi wo tsurete itte
Come away with me somewhere while no-one knows

今日は帰らない
Kyou wa kaeranai
I won’t go home today

素面になってしまいそう
Shirafu ni natte shimai sou
I’ll probably sober up

遠くまで揺らせて運んで行って
Touku made yurasete hakonde itte
Lead me, shaking, far away

もっと酔って居たい
Motto yotte itai
I want to drink more

哀しく汚され何時もより撓やかに忘れたいのさ
Kanashiku yogosare itsu mo yori shinayaka ni wasuretai no sa
Stained by sadness, more than usual, I want to easily forget, you know

白く照らされる日々に置いて行かれそうで
Shiroku terasareru hibi ni oite ikaresou de
I’ll be left behind by the days that brightly light me

ちょっと隠れたいだけ
Chotto kakuretai dake
I just want to hide for a bit

分かっている
Wakatteiru
But I understand

是以上は無い
Kore ijou wa nai
I can’t do that

だから連れて行って
Dakara tsurete itte
So come away with me

帰りたくない
Kaeritakunai
I don’t want to go home

誰も知らないけど
Dare mo shiranai kedo
Noone knows

何より嗚呼!
Nani yori aa!
But more than anything

あなたが疎ましいのさ
Anata ga utomashii no sa
I hate you, you know

One of my favourite books ever is A Night In the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny; it’s this awesome pastiche about classic horror characters – Rasputin, Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman – indulging in tangled Lovecraftian intrigues, and narrated by Jack the Ripper’s dog.  After I read it for the first time as a teenager I had a dream that it was a boardgame, and the idea floated around my head for over a decade, until recently I reread it and decided to have a go making a game based on it.

I’ve worked most of the rules, but before I test out whether they actually work with the help of some indulgent friends, I need to make the board and the various pieces and cards; here are some rough sketches I’ve done in photoshop over the last few days of some of the characters; I’m not sure how exactly, but printed out suitably small and made to stand up they’ll probably serve as playing pieces.

I first discovered the singer Shiina Ringo when I was living in Japan in 2003, and she’s been one of my favourite artists ever since.  If you’re not familiar with her eclectic stylings you might want to imagine the lyricism of Tori Amos, the endless reinvention of David Bowie and the theatricality of Bjork, combined into one chameleonic Tokyoite.

Since my Japanese has stuck resolutely around intermediate level for the past 6 years, I still need help getting the gist of most of her songs (which are especially difficult to understand given her fondness for obscure references and archaic spellings).  Translations of most of her songs are available online in various places, but there are some songs which I haven’t been able to find translations of, among them the beautiful Gamble (ギャンブル).  So with the help of my language exchange partner I thought I’d give it a go myself. There are a couple of versions of this song, the one most easily found on youtube is from a collaboration with the violinist Saito Neko, and used in the movie SAKURAN.

(If you notice any mistakes in my translation, or can improve on it in any way, let me know.)

ギャンブル
Gyanburu
Gamble

あなたはそっと微笑ってくれるから
Anata wa sotto waratte kureru kara
You softly smile at me

明くる朝とうに泣き止んで居るのさ
Akuru asa tou ni naki yandeiru no sa
You know I stop crying as the morning breaks

此の小さな轍に「アナタ呼吸ヲシテ居ル」
Kono chisa na wadachi ni “anata iki wo shiteiru”
I ask the little furrow “are you breathing?”

蝉が喚いて夏の到来を知る
Semi ga naite natsu no torai wo shiru
The cicadas cry and we know of summer’s coming

其の都度何故か羨んで居るのさ
Sono tsudou naze ka urayandeiru no sa
Why do I feel envious every time?

此の戦地で尽きたら「何カシラヘノ服従」
Kono senchi de tsukitara “nani ka shirahen fukuju
If I’d ended on this battlefield,  “Obedience without knowing”

帰る場所など何処に在りましょう
Kaeru bashou nado ni doko ni arimshou
Where can I return to?

動じ過ぎた
douji sugita
I‘m too agitated

もう疲れた
Mou tsukareta
I’m already tired

愛すべき人は何処に居ましょう
Ai subeki hito wa doko ni imashou
Where is the person I’m meant to love?

都合の良い答えは知っているけど
Tsugo no ii kotae wa shitteiru kedo
I know the easy answer

中目黒駅のホームに立って居たら
Nakameguro eki no homu ni tatteitara
Standing at the platform of Nakameguro Station

誰かが急に背を押したんだ 本当さ
Dare ka ga kyu ni se wo oshitanda honto sa
Someone suddenly pushed me from behind, it’s true

此の勝負に負けたら「生キテユク資格モ無イ」
kono shobu ni maketara, “ikite yuku shikaku mo nai”
If I lose this contest, “Unqualified to live”

飼い馴らされた猫の眼で
Kai nasareta neko no manako
The eyes of a tamed cat

鳴いてみようか
Naite miyou ka
Should I try mewing?

やってみようか
Yatte miyou ka
Should I try it?

愛すべき人は何処に居ましょう
Ai subeki hito wa doko ni imashou
Where is the person I was supposed to love?

予定の調和なんて容易だけど
Yotei no chowa nante youi da kedo
But it’s so easy to harmonise plans

声を出せばどなたかみえましょう
Koe wo daseba donata ka miemashou
Should I see what would happen if I spoke?

真実がない
Shinjitsu ga nai
There’s no truth

もう歩けない
Mou arukenai
I can’t walk any more

灰になれば皆喜びましょう
Hai ni nareba mina yorokobimashou
Everyone would be happy if I turned to dust

愛していたよ
Aishiteita yo
I loved you

軽率だね
Keisotsu da ne
Thoughtless, wasn’t it