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A Quest for Remembrance The Underworld in Classical and Modern Literature 1st Edition Scherer
A Quest for Remembrance: The Underworld in Classical and Modern Literature brings together a range of arguments exploring connections between the descent into the underworld, also known as katabasis, and various forms of memory. Its chapters investigate the uses of the descent topos both in antiquity and in the reception of classical literature in the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. In the process, the volume explores how the hero’s quest into the underworld engages with the theme of recovering memories from the past. At the same time, we aim to foreground how the narrative format itself is concerned with forms of commemoration ranging from trans-cultural memory, remembering the literary and intellectual canon, to commemorating important historical events that might otherwise be forgotten. Through highlighting this duality this collection aims to introduce the descent narrative as its own literary genre, a ‘memorious genre’ related to but distinct from the quest narrative.
Madeleine Scherer is an Early Career Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study and the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick, UK.
Rachel Falconer is Professor and Chair of Modern English Literature at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Warwick
Series in the Humanities
Series Editor: Christina Lupton
Titles in this Series
Knowing Nature in Early Modern Europe
David Beck
New Jazz Conceptions
History, Theory, Practice
Edited by Roger Fagge and Nicolas Pillai
Food, Drink, and the Written Word in Britain, 1820–1945
Edited by Mary Addyman, Laura Wood and Christopher Yiannitsaros
Beyond the Rhetoric of Pain
Edited by Berenike Jung and Stella Bruzzi
Mood
Interdisciplinary Perspectives, New Theories
Edited by Birgit Breidenbach and Thomas Docherty
Prohibitions and Psychoactive Substances in History, Culture and Theory
Edited by Susannah Wilson
Archaeology of the Unconscious
Italian Perspectives
Edited by Alessandra Aloisi and Fabio Camilletti
A Quest for Remembrance
The Underworld in Classical and Modern Literature
Edited by Madeleine Scherer and Rachel Falconer
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www. routledge.com/Warwick-Series-in-the-Humanities/book-series/WSH
A Quest for Remembrance
The Underworld in Classical and Modern Literature
Edited by
Madeleine Scherer and Rachel Falconer
First published 2020 by Routledge
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1 I ntroduction: The Long Descent into the Past
2 T he Even Longer Descent: Notes on Genesis and Development of Ancient Egyptian Underworld Conceptions and Their Interplay with Funerary Practice 19 JAKOB SCHNEIDER
3 Remembering in the Real World: Katabasis and Natural Deathscapes
4 Lucretius’ Journey to the Underworld: Poetic Memory and Allegoresis
5 Memories of Rome’s Underworld in Lucan’s Civil War Narrative
6 T he Open Door to Elysium in Lucian’s True History
A. EVERETT BEEK
7 T he Politics of Forgetting: Descents into Memory in Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’
8 I n the Depth of Water and the Heat of Fire: T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land as a Modern Descent into the Underworld
YI-CHUANG E. LIN
9 Homer and LeGuin: Ancient and Modern Desires to Be Remembered
FRANCES FOSTER
10 “An Australian-made hell”: Postcolonial Katabasis in Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book
ARNAUD BARRAS
11 Memory and Forgetfulness: in Seamus Heaney’s Virgilian Underworlds
RACHEL FALCONER
12 ‘All must descend to where the stories are kept’: Katabasis and Self-Reflexive Authorship in: Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing and The Penelopiad
MADELEINE SCHERER
1 I ntroduction
The Long Descent into the Past
Madeleine Scherer
Odyssey 11.71
When Odysseus’s helmsman Elpenor bids the hero to ‘remember me’, he not only speaks to the protagonist of Homer’s epic but also utters a plea to the audience. Odysseus’s own listeners at the Phaeacian court and the rhapsode’s audience listening to the Homeric epic are asked with equal fervour to commit the helmsman into their communal memory, to continue talking about him and disseminating his story.1 Elpenor’s wish came true, perhaps by no merit of his own, rather marginal role in the Odyssey, but through his being commemorated into one of the most famous necromantic narratives of Western literary history. Did this line in the epic self-consciously foresee Elpenor’s prominent place within the cultural memory of the generations still to come? In other words, was Homer aware of the commemorative power of the myths he was collecting and adapting in his poetry? And why did he draw his audience’s attention to their own, meta-fictional memories of the epic narrative just as they became immersed in Odysseus’s quest to confront his past?
Questions such as these draw attention to the connections between the appearance of spirits, the recovery of memories, and the transmission of narratives that are established in many stories of spectral haunting and necromantic summons. The Greek literature that followed the Homeric epics is filled with ghostly apparitions, wherein the dead remind the living not only of their existence but also of their wishes and their fortune (or, often lack thereof). To this day, few spectres are remembered as well as Elpenor, Anticleia, Teiresias, Anchises, Dido, and Eurydice, their tales inseparably connected with both their ancient origins as
1 T he term rhapsode (ancient Greek: ῥαψῳδός) refers to the bards who would perform epic poetry in antiquity, largely in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE.
well as the long tradition of the ghost story. 2 The most famous spectral appearances of literary history can be found in the canonical descent narratives that describe the pursuits of the living who choose to seek out the dead of their own accord, undergoing the dangerous journey into the underworld. The earliest known descent appears in the Sumerian and Akkadian epic of Gilgamesh, written around 2100 BCE, and the trope later resurfaced in the Homeric and Virgilian epics of ancient Greece and Rome, most commonly dated around the seventh or eighth century BCE, and between 29 and 19 BCE respectively. 3 Other well-known descent narratives centre on heroes such as Inanna, Orpheus, Theseus, Jason, Heracles, and Demeter, while the underworld also plays an important role in ancient Egyptian eschatology.4 The motif of an underworldly descent was not unique to the cultures of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, however – across the world, it has long been part of different religions and mythological frameworks.
Within the descent tradition known also by its Greek term katabasis, a typically male hero travels to the land of the dead to gain a piece of information that is vital for the continuation of his quest; whether this information pertains to the self, superhuman powers, a forgotten object, or a lost person. 5 It is on these descents where both the hero and his audience are most keenly made aware of the fleeting memory of the dead, of the knowledge which their ancestors held, and where the need to preserve what had been lost becomes most profound. In the katabatic narratives of Graeco-Roman antiquity, the hero’s descent often involves a reunion with a dead family member, his former loved ones, his companions, and other heroes of a mythical age, reunions that remind him of his past and which are contrasted with the future he needs
2 Johnston (1999, ix).
3 O ne important distinction needs to be made between Homer’s Odyssey XI and the other epics in which an underworld narrative dynamic is used; unlike Aeneas and others, Odysseus does not actually enter the underworld but rather he summons the spirits of the dead by sacrificing a ram. Odysseus’s encounter with the dead is termed a nekyia , a necromantic encounter, rather than a katabasis in which the hero literally descends into the realm of Hades. Because of their frequent aesthetic and thematic overlap, the two formats are commonly studied together in classical scholarship.
4 C f. Falconer (2007, 2). Many of these stories reached literary fame and cultural pervasiveness through referencing and drawing on one another: thanks to M.L. West’s The East Face of Helicon we know about the influence of Sumerian and Babylonian works on ancient Greek culture, for instance. Along similar lines, Virgil’s Aeneid is thoroughly indebted to the Homeric epics and Plato’s Myth of Er from the Republic , as well as the Greek concept of metempsychosis for his famously intricate version of the underworld. For important scholarly works on descent narratives, cf. the work of Friedrich Slomsen on the afterlife (1972, 31–41), and also Nicholas Horsefall’s 2013 commentary on the Aeneid.
5 Falconer (2007), 3.
3 to embrace.6 This tension between past and future consistently returns as the conceptual core of katabatic narratives throughout the ages: the hero’s struggle to regain what he has lost and his strife to be transformed into a man able to proceed on his journey. And what the heroes always return with, no matter what occurs after their perilous crossing of the boundary between the living and the dead, are the memories of the deceased, and the tales they bid us remember.
The katabatic journey into a space filled with the ghostly embodiments of his past ends in the hero’s metaphorical transformation and rebirth, after which he leaves the underworld a different person from the one who first entered. Memories of and confrontations with the past are used to prefigure a dramatic development in the story, as the past turns into the future and memories are transformed into possibilities, predictions, and visions. It commonly begins with the descending hero setting out to visit or even rescue a deceased soul, a quest tied to his sore need for information – Odysseus seeks out Teiresias for guidance on the way back to Ithaca while Orpheus hopes to rescue his wife from the cold grasp of Hades. At times, these quests fail as much as they succeed, as in the Odyssey an empty, unfulfilling embrace with his beloved mother is placed immediately after the hero’s acquisition of a prophecy vital for his continuing journey, and Orpheus’s success in negotiating the release of his wife is followed by her loss as he breaks the rules of the underworld. As the heroes descend ever further into the past, success and failure exist in a close double-bind in the unforgiving terrain of Hades. While in antiquity, the most famous descent narratives both describe the perils of the underworld and end with the prophetic revelation which awaits its heroes, katabasis fundamentally was and continues to be a tale of recollection. Although it is the oracular knowledge bestowed on them by the sage Teiresias and by Anchises that ultimately allows Odysseus and Aeneas to return to their quests for (a new) home, the largest parts of the heroes’ descent are made up of their fleeting reunions with dead loved ones, friends, comrades, and even enemies. These encounters force the heroes to remember and accept the misfortunes and mistakes that have led them to the underworld, the lowest point of their journey, as the future that awaits them can only be realised after they have confronted their past. Odysseus is forced to face Ajax, whose death he inadvertently caused by tricking him out of Achilles’s armour, while Aeneas is reminded of his former lover Dido when he passes by her shade in the underworld – both heroes feeling a sense of responsibility for the spirits’ presence in Hades. Both the ghosts of Ajax and Dido refuse to
6 For instance, Dido turning away from Aeneas in Aeneid VI foreshadows his political marriage to Lavinia, a marriage driven by Aeneas’s duty, his pietas, which contrasts his passionate affair with Dido, itself characterised largely by furor, violent emotions.
speak to the protagonists, their silence emblematic of the divide and enmity which the heroes’ deceitful actions caused: while Odysseus tricked Ajax out of his spoils of war, Aeneas left the queen of Carthage after she believed them to be bound by ties of marriage. Apart from these poignant reminders of the heroes’ often less than noble past, katabasis also evokes familial and personal recollections through the heroes’ fleeting encounters with a dead family member, recollections that are shaped by bittersweet and nostalgic regret for a nostos the heroes have lost.7 Finally, catalogues of the dead serve as commemoratives of some of the most famous departed heroes of a recent or even mythical history, commemoratives that are largely unrelated to the epic narrative itself and instead provide an intermission in which popular myths are recounted to the audience.8
The haunting spirits of the deceased turn into potent memories once the heroes ascend back to the overworld, and what they have seen continues to haunt them for the rest of their journey. Their encounter with the dead not only shapes the structure of katabasis but also makes up the journey’s emotional core, and the memories of their loved ones become a form of compensation for their permanent loss. In the end, all that remains of them are memories, which to this day is a common comfort given to those who have lost a friend or a family member. It is no surprise therefore that some of the most memorable and commonly adapted parts of the katabasis narratives in both the Odyssey and the Aeneid are the heroes’ thrice failed embrace of their deceased family members; a moving reminder of the missing connection between the living and the dead, and the permanent boundary that now separates them.
There exists a twofold dynamic between remembering the dead and remembering the past in the katabasis narratives of antiquity: at the same time that the spectral embodiments of their past force the hero to remember and reflect, the descent narrative serves as a meta-fictional reminder to its readers or audiences of the very existence of the unquiet dead, and of the histories they were a part of. In antiquity, reminding the living of their stories and accomplishments was one of the spirits’ main concerns: when Elpenor asks Odysseus to remember him in the introductory quotation, it is a plea for Odysseus to remember to bury his body, an important practice in the ancient world as it creates a visible
7 Nostos can roughly be translated as ‘the journey home’ or ‘homecoming’.
8 C f. Davide Susanetti, who writes ‘[t]he entire archive of stories and legends, the mythological arsenal from which Greek poetry takes it tales, comes to life in a sort of symbolic recapitulation, in a paradigmatic catalogue of all that is memorable and worthy of celebration’ (2016, 256). Susanetti’s chapter in Deep Classics discusses classical descent narratives and its spectres as a model for our relationship with the past.
5 monument for the life of the deceased.9 But in a meta-fictional sense, Elpenor also asks the hero to commit his tale to his own memory and –inadvertently or not – that of the people listening to the epic narrative, both at the fictional Phaecian court and wherever the ancient Greek rhapsodes chose to perform the Homeric epics. Memory became a multifaceted preoccupation of the hero’s descent, one whose significance extended both to the memory that is obtained within the world of the story, memories of the story and of its characters, and to cultural commemoration within the ancient world.
For another example of what I tentatively call a meta-fictionality of remembrance within katabasis, we may look to Orpheus’s descent, most famously discussed in Plato’s Symposium, Virgil’s Georgics, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Orpheus, a famous singer in antiquity, travels to the underworld to plead for the life of his deceased wife Eurydice, whereby the beautiful music he plays for Hades and Persephone convinces the underworldly rulers to release her spirit – under the condition that Orpheus travels back to the realm of the living without looking back at his wife. Orpheus fails to obey this rule, glancing back at Eurydice just as they begin to see the light of the overworld, and thus seals his wife’s fate for all eternity. While she remains lost to her living husband, however, Eurydice enters the realm of mythology through the singer’s katabatic quest: although Orpheus disobeys the laws of the underworld and thus fails to revive the spirit of his wife, her memory is saved through the act of narration itself, as the tale of the famous bard’s descent becomes a memorial to her existence. While Orpheus’s story has since been adapted to mean various different things to different writers, many of these adaptations continue to centre on the importance of memory, both in the literal and in the meta-fictional sense. In Rainer Maria Rilke sonnets, for instance, the Orphic hero descends into the underworld for artistic inspiration, an underworld filled with poetic song in which there exists ‘enough memory to keep/ the one most delicate note’.10 As Rilke’s poetic persona descends into the depths of Hades, it is literary and creative memory he searches for, the poetic voices of the past that, in a Dantean fashion, congregate within the underworld and provide the poet with inspiration.
Returning to antiquity, katabasis was not only a narrative dynamic in which the heroes’ own memories could be retrieved, but the descent also framed more varied and, at times, meta-fictional processes of memorialisation, which restored or at least engaged with those stories the authors deemed important to revive. Intertextual and cultural memories
9 M any references to the importance of a proper burial can be found in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Cf. for instance Grethlein (2008, 27–51).
10 R ilke (1987, IX).
of katabasis found their way into all manner of textual sources, including philosophy and even satire, where the conceptual core of remembrance continued to shape adaptations of the narrative dynamic in a variety of different contexts. The case-studies in this collection show that ancient descent narratives which explore themes of both individual remembrance and cultural commemoration were not limited to epics like Gilgamesh, Homer’s Odyssey, the Orphic myths, or Virgil’s Aeneid but extended to sources like Egyptian funerary iconography, Herodotus’s histories, the Epicurean philosophy of Lucretius, Lucan’s civil war narratives, and the satires of Lucian.
In ancient Greece the Homeric epics served as a particularly prominent source of generic memory traditions. They collected popular myths of the Iron Age and took the form of, as Jan Assmann phrases it, an ‘organizational form of cultural memory – as a reconstruction of the past that supported the self-image of a particular group’.11 As they brought together multiple, fragmented traditions, the Homeric epics served as the starting point for new memories that were adapted into the Greek polis and beyond, and served as an ‘archive for exempla a maiore ad minus’.12 The Greeks, as Assmann adapts the famous line from German author Thomas Mann, ‘liv[ed] in quotations’, in an environment of ‘critical intertextuality’ and ‘of cultural memory as scholarship or science’.13 In this fertile mnemonic environment, many ancient thinkers and writers refigured the myths they had become familiar with through or around the Homeric poems, often keeping underlying ideas while substantially changing the context and resolution of the original narrative. One of the most popular tales introduced into the cultural memoryspheres of ancient Greece by this way of ‘living in quotations’ was the descent narrative, and while the myth continuously changed in thematic, aesthetic, and overall storyline, we can see throughout this collection that it retained a conceptual interest in remembrance and transformation.
By the fifth century BCE, myth and memory had become shifting notions in Greece, as it became increasingly difficult to untangle a past woven out of ‘historical’ accounts, word-of-mouth stories, legends, fables, and, of course, epic narratives.14 Especially in a society in which writing was never more than a new medium reserved for an elite minority, many a story would have been remembered more than it was read, and remembered in perhaps a different version to the one(s) committed to
11 A ssmann (2011, 250).
12 G rethlein (2014, 236).
13 I bid, 274.
14 C f. Gould (2001, 408, 414); Grethlein (2014, 236). On the intertwined relationship between history and myth, cf. Saïd (2007, 76–89).
w ritten form.15 In this environment, katabasis held a unique place as a narrative dynamic that, while thematically concerned with the past and its haunting influence, was also itself a commonly reimagined myth that ‘haunted’ the cultural imaginations and memoryspheres of antiquity. The realm of mythology has long caught the attention of memory scholars as a particularly fertile ground for mnemonic traditions. Stephanie Wodianka, for instance, frames adaptations of mythology not as modifications of older stories but as a semantic, retroactive process which mnemonically ‘actualises’ the original story.16 Psychoanalysis, too, holds that memorised myths act as mediators that help both individuals and communities understand their histories and the world around them; myth’s role in cultural memory thereby fulfils a practical social function.17 Based on these important understandings of the interconnected roles of myth and memory, in this collection due attention is paid to the role of memory in order to highlight the socio-cultural and symbolic functions descent narratives held in ancient history and culture – and, as we will see, in later centuries alike – as popular myths that were used to negotiate ideas of the past, the present, and even, at times, the future.
This collection takes note of the complex relationships that exist between katabatic narratives and various forms of remembering: both the memories that are recovered by the heroes within their underworldly descents, the authors’ and their audiences’ mnemonic relationships to the stories that precede their own narrative, and a general interest in the workings of memory on socio-cultural levels. This memory-driven analysis is not a replacement for the study of intertextual adaptations; in fact, an understanding of intertextual relationships in the ancient world often underlies and informs the readings of the chapters. What this collection highlights are the multifaceted and complex engagements with both fictional and meta-textual remembrance, which ancient descent narratives are often entangled with, drawing attention to the importance of memory both for the ancient world at large and for the katabatic genre and its reception.
The story of the descent into the underworld did not cease to inspire writers in later periods of history. Graeco-Roman katabasis shaped the works of authors like Dante and Milton, who adapt the katabatic narratives of epic into Christian frameworks, to Derek Walcott, who places his
15 O n the development of writing in ancient Greece, and its influence on ancient Greek culture, cf. Thomas (1992), esp. chapter 4.
16 Wodianka (2006, 5–6).
17 Renard (2013, 63–64). Jan Assmann draws comparable conclusions on the relationship between cultural memory, history, and myth in antiquity: ‘cultural memory transforms factual into remembered history, thus turning it into myth’ (2011, 38).
underworld within the Atlantic Ocean, and J.M. Coetzee, who locates Hell within a South African Township. Not only within a Western literary tradition but all across the world, the descent into the underworld has held a prominent place within the human imagination as a narrative dynamic that foregrounds conversations with the ghosts of the dead, holding long forgotten or repressed secrets, information, and creating memories that remain with the hero long past the end of his quest. Its seeming universality in being adapted, drawn on, or refigured globally has led to scholars such as Rosalind Williams to describe the katabatic journey as an ‘enduring archetype’,18 while Rachel Falconer has previously described the idea of a journey to the underworld and the ensuing return as even more entrenched in the Western imagination than the notion of Hell itself.19 While the descent narrative has been tied to preoccupations of both fictional, intertextual, and cultural remembrance in the memory cultures of antiquity and beyond, in the twentieth-century memory explosively resurfaced as a central concern both in the West and beyond, and came to define the shape katabasis would take from then onwards. As a symbol that frames a quest for the recovery of traditions, an exploration of an uncertain history, and a spiritual journey to confront trauma, one of the most important twentieth-century katabatic texts was written by Joseph Conrad at the very start of the century with his seminal 1899 Heart of Darkness, then remained, a pervasive literary and cultural motif centred on the excavation and interpretation of the past. From T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, James Joyce’s Ulysses, the war poetry of Wilfred Owen, Zbigniew Herbert’s postwar poetry, and Seamus Heaney’s early bog poems as well as later translations and transfusions of Virgil’s underworld to Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy, Adrienne Rich’s Diving into the Wreck, Kazuo Ishiguro’s memorious novels, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, and popular fantasy novels such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea, twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers have turned repeatedly to the trope of a descent into the past.
The number of catastrophic developments in the history of the last century played a particularly important role in shaping the imagination of many authors and drew them to the katabatic motif, as the unfolding events ‘convinced many people of the view that Hells actually exist, and survivors do return, against all probability, to pass on their experience’. 20 Historians, authors, journalists, politicians, and philosophers alike turned to pre-existing images of the underworld as the
18 W illiams (2008, 11).
19 Falconer (2007, 1).
20 I bid, 3.
symbolic expression of displacement, nostalgia, and trauma. Edith Hall has summarised the importance of the conversation with the dead in Odyssey XI for the literature of the twentieth century when she writes ‘the poem’s status as an “aftermath” text, a post-war story, has had particular resonance for an age that has defined itself as post-everything: postmodern, post-structuralist, post-colonial’. 21 Beyond the confines of katabasis itself, the stories of refuge, loss, displacement, recovery, and homecoming of ancient epic have become evocative narratives in the context of many political developments of the twentieth century; from the Odyssean journeys of Aimé Césaire’s poem on diasporic identity, Cahier d’un retour au pays natal, to Patrick Kingsley’s The New Odyssey: The Story of Europe’s Refugee Crisis, an account of the Syrian refugee movements of 2016, framed by the narrative template of Odyssean travels.
In the apocalyptic history of the twentieth century, classical antiquity resurfaces from the depths of Hades; in the words of Williams, images of Pompey become the photographs of ruined Warsaw and Dresden as modern culture is ‘haunted by a remnant of the mythical’. 22 But why is it that the symbol of the underworld has had such a unique importance for the twentieth century that it inspired so many writers to try and capture its elusive essence?23 How did the catastrophes and social upheavals of the time inspire this almost singularly prevalent return to an ancient myth that katabasis became a central motif within many re-imaginings of both present and past? This volume explores the idea that it is an inherent and self-conscious preoccupation with processes of remembering and commemoration that continues to draw authors to the descent narrative dynamic.
The question of how to remember the past is one that the twentieth century has been particularly gripped by. 24 The number of global massacres, wars, and genocide occurring in such a short span of time,
21 H all (2008, 214).
2 2 W illiams (2008, 189).
23 T his is not to suggest that the reception history of katabasis was not bound up in concerns with memory up until the twentieth century, but the sheer mass of new adaptations of the descent narrative, many of them explicitly meta-textual in its preoccupation, is worth remarking upon and trying to unpack.
24 T he twentieth century is the first to have pioneered the scientific study of memory. As Astrid Erll writes:
Acts of cultural remembering seem to be an element of humans’ fundamental anthropological make-up, and the history of creating a shared heritage and thinking about memory can be traced all the way back to antiquity, for example to Homer, Plato, and Aristotle. However, it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that there developed a scientific interest in the phenomenon.
(Erll 2011, 13)
combined with increasingly quick ways of distributing information about these horrors from around the globe, has formed a ubiquitous and self-reflexive memorial culture, overwhelmed with the dilemma of having to commemorate often unspeakable atrocities. At both the 2017 and the 2019 Memory Studies Association conferences, a majority of papers focussed on memories in or of the twentieth century, many of which were of a traumatic nature. The ‘memory boom’ of the 1970s is a consequence of this Benjaminian history of repeating catastrophes, one which necessitates an exploration not only of the events that themselves occurred, but of how they are remembered by individuals, nations, and within global, inter-, and transcultural frameworks. Irish memory culture, for instance, came into being out of this ‘obsess[ion] with the past. […] While representations of the past have always been an integral element of Irish culture, they are now one of its most compelling subjects. And the tone that characterises this subject is trauma’. 25 In Graeco- Roman antiquity as well as in the twentieth century the concept of memory lay at the forefront of cultural consciousness. Remembering the past – and the question of how to remember – assumed such a fundamental importance in people’s lives at the time that perhaps the central myth around memory became one the most popular tropes to draw inspiration from.
Memory studies provide important tools for an understanding of the katabasis genre across history, both in terms of the memories that are uncovered within the narratives themselves, the memories that exist of the descent genre, and the underworld’s symbolic importance in (trans-)cultural commemoration. By now, many narratives, images, and events have come to exist as (trans-)culturally pervasive mythologies, as ‘foundational myths’ or ‘myths of origin’ for the identity of certain groups. 26 Stories from across history have gained renewed significance within increasingly global mnemonic frameworks: Astrid Erll, for instance, has described Homer as one of Europe’s earliest founding myths whose ‘(ultra) long-term mnemohistory’ can be traced back to the foundations of European culture and identity. She describes the Odyssey as a ‘powerful source for premediation’ and Homer as a travelling ‘transcultural schema’, sources which contain a narrative kernel of references which are continuously adapted and re-appropriated. 27 And while these myths are often (artificially) bound up with the identity of certain groups, ‘global icons’ such as Odysseus are used in narratives all across
25 P ine (2011, 3).
26 C f., for instance, Virginie Renard on the First World War as a foundational myth in Great War and Postmodern Memory, 30.
27 E rll (2018, 275, 283).
t he world, either drawing on or deconstructing their supposed cultural associations.
Katabasis is another narrative with such a long, multidirectional mnemohistory, one that has assumed many different shapes, but whose core appeal has been an inherent preoccupation with memory and commemoration from its oldest incarnations onwards. Just as Odyssean travels continue to reappear in various forms, the descent into a subterranean past is a motif that has fundamentally taken hold within the consciousness of many different societies and cultures – spread either in its ‘classical’ guise through a colonial education system, or born out of local eschatologies. As the figure of Odysseus returns as a uniquely resonant comparison for the diasporas and displacements of modernity, Peter Chils notes that
[t]he idea that the dead, in general or in specific circumstances, may not have fully passed from the world of the living underpins so much Western history and culture, spanning ancient folklore and urban myth as well as traditional religion and contemporary literature. 28
This collection also includes chapters that show how the importance of the descent narrative as a resonant myth is certainly not limited to the West .
The underworld and its ghosts have turned into a lasting, traveling, and perhaps even universal symbol for the ways we imagine the relationship between life and death, between present and past, and between memory and forgetfulness. Carl Jung even named the underworld part of an archetypal mythic unconscious, emphasising its centrality to human thought and imagination. Rather than returning to Jung’s essentialist ideas about the subconscious and its archetypes, 29 this collection utilises recently developed methods from memory studies to better understand the transcultural travel of the descent narrative, and to outline some of the ways in which katabasis has throughout its genre history been tied to meta-textual and (trans-)cultural preoccupations with memory.
As a prominent number of famous descent narratives were written at the end of the nineteenth and in the twentieth century, some of the most famous studies of the katabatic genre have focussed on the modern and postmodern eras. Such studies include Falconer’s Hell in Contemporary Literature: Western Descent Narratives since 1945 (2007), Michael
28 C hils (2016, 268).
29 C f. Jung (2014 [1959], 81–82, 186). On the essentialism of Jung’s approach, cf. Hauke (2000), esp. ‘Dealing with the Essential’ 114ff.
Thurston’s The Underworld in Twentieth-Century Poetry: From Pound and Eliot to Heaney and Walcott (2009), and Gregson Davis’s (2007)
‘“Homecomings without Home”: Representations of (post)colonial nostos in the lyric of Aimé Césaire and Derek Walcott’. Williams’s Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination (1990) in many ways prefigures the research on katabatic literature in modernity as she focusses largely on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, relating the technological and archaeological advancements of its time to the prominence of underground imagery. 30 In Passage Through Hell, David L. Pike discusses the descent topos as a central self-authorising strategy of modernist texts, one that is considerably complicated and redefined by writers like Céline, Peter Weiss, Virginia Woolf and Walter Benjamin. Ronald R. Macdonald’s The Burial Place of Memory: Epic Underworlds in Vergil, Dante, and Milton (1987) selects earlier case-studies still, providing an essential reading of the complex and manifold relationships between some of the most important canonical epics.
All these studies frame memory as of either central or at least tangential importance to the descent motif. While studies like Macdonald’s emphasise the importance of remembering within the narrative itself, 31 Williams elaborates on memories of the underworld myth itself, arguing that ‘the metaphor of death is a primary category of human thought’:
Long before Virgil’s Aeneas was guided by a Sibyl to the infernal regions through a cave on the leaden Lake Avernus, long before stories of Proserpine’s abduction to the underworld by Plato or of Orpheus’s descent to the Stygian realm to bring back Eurydice, and long before recorded history, when the earliest humans drew the bison and bears they hunted on the walls and ceilings of caves, they must have told stories about the dark underworld lying even deeper within the earth. Even in environments that lack caves – the Kalahari Desert, and the flat open landscapes of Siberia and Central Asia – the preliterate inhabitants assumed a vertical cosmos: sky, earth, the underworld. 32
The descent narrative is one that has existed as long as the first stories of mankind, in both literary and oral formats. To comprehend and usefully analyse such a long mnemohistory, not only does each descent
30 W illiams (2008, 16).
31 C f., for instance, Macdonald (1987, 31).
32 W illiams (2008, 8).
narrative’s context invite close analysis, but the intertextual relations between katabasis narratives become important subjects for study in themselves. More than a mythical trope with a long reception history, the journey to the underworld has become what Falconer names a ‘memorious genre’, wherein the narrative structure of katabasis resonates with memories of previous descents, which are revisited throughout – and outside of – the Western literary canon and cultural imagination. 33 Each version of a descent narrative therein resonates with the canon that precedes it but, more than this, it serves to perpetuate an intertextual tradition that has come to assume a recognisable place within literary memory. 34 Memory scholars like Renate Lachmann have long called literature a ‘mnemonic art par excellance’, proposing that
[l]literature is culture’s memory, not as a simple recording device but as a body of commemorative actions that include the knowledge stored by a culture, and virtually all texts a culture has produced and by which a culture is constituted. 35
The narrative dynamic of remembering is crucial both within the descent narrative itself and as part of the meta-fictional and intertextual authoring process, as the negotiations of context, creative agency, and relationality within such a prominent genre are, in effect, acts of intertextual remembering. Due to this combination of katabasis’s long- standing preoccupation with memory and commemoration, and its prominent history of intertextuality, it exists in a unique double-bind, not only an easily communicable ‘global icon’ but also a narrative dynamic that is intrinsically bound up in complex negotiations of ‘remembering’ – adapting, refiguring, alluding to – textual, intertextual, and meta-fictional versions of the past.
Pike has previously alluded to the self-reflexive dimension of the descent narrative when he notes that
[t]he lore of the nekuia is presented as a repository of the past from which each poet draws whatever mythic or historical personages are required by each audience and context. In a broader sense, the descent to the underworld reveals itself as the site where
33 Falconer (2011, 405).
34 O n genre memories and their potential to generate cultural memory, cf. Erll (2011, 74).
35 L achmann (2010, 301). This claim is echoed in Liedeke Plate’s assessment of women’s rewritings of the classics, wherein she sees specifically classical reception as a ‘process and product of cultural remembrance’ (Plate 2011, 3).
the means and intentions of representation may be expressed and contextualised. 36
The descent to the underworld thus becomes an ‘allegorical mode […] emblematic of metaliterary motifs in general’. 37 This collection draws on conceptions of katabasis as a ‘memorious genre’ to explore the connections that exist between the descent and the various ideas around ‘remembering’ which we find both in antiquity and in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. And, at its core, the suggestion it tentatively puts forward is that the popularity of the katabasis motif in both these eras originates from the descent narrative’s textual and meta-fictional preoccupations with different forms of remembrance, a preoccupation that fundamentally resonates with and is shaped by its respective sociocultural environments.
In the second chapter, entitled ‘The even longer Descent: Notes on Genesis and Development of Ancient Egyptian Underworld conceptions and their Interplay with Funerary Practice’, Jakob Schneider reads the emergence and transformations of ancient Egyptian underworld mythology as continuous acts of remembering, preserved, and encapsulated in funerary practices. The next chapter retains the toponymical focus as Joel Gordon’s ‘Remembering in the real world: katabatic and natural deathscapes’ investigates numerous locales across the GraecoRoman world at which the descent into the underworld became manifest within reality, sites identified by the ancients as nekuomanteia , charonia , and plutonia. Moving from underworldly landscapes to epic, Abigail Buglass discusses Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura in the fourth chapter, ‘Lucretius’ Journey to the Underworld: Poetic Memory and Allegoresis’, focussing on the important roles that cultural memory, the remembrance or forgetfulness of the characters in the narratives themselves, and broader networks of remembrance in intertextuality all play in ancient depictions of hell and misery. Chapter 5, ‘Memories of Rome’s Underworld in Lucan’s Civil War Narrative’ by Eleonora Tola, discusses Lucan’s Bellum Civile in connection to Roman cultural memory and attempts to preserve the city’s moral traditions. The chapter that follows, ‘The Open Door to Elysium in Lucian’s True History ’, is A. Everett Beek’s discussion of the sea voyage to Elysium described in Lucian’s collection of parodic tales as a literary engagement with several katabatic narratives .
After the first six chapters, this collection moves from antiquity into modernity, where it uncovers adaptations and refigurations of GraecoRoman as well as other descent traditions. Chapter 7, entitled ‘The
36 P ike (1997, 9).
37 I bid, 2.
Politics of Forgetting: Descents into Memory in Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness’’: the katabatic wisdom tradition in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness’ is Borg Cardona’s exploration of several interconnected acts of remembering in Conrad’s seminal novella. In the eighth chapter, ‘In the Depth of Water and the Heat of Fire: T. S. Eliot ’s The Waste Land as a Modern Descent into the Underworld’, Yi-Chuang E. Lin discusses Eliot’s poem within the cultural context of post-World War I Britain. Chapter 9, ‘Homer and LeGuin: Ancient and Modern Desires to Be Remembered’, is Frances Foster’s comparative investigation of Odyssey XI and Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea. Arnaud Barras’s subsequent chapter, ‘“An Australian-made hell”: postcolonial katabasis in Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book’, discusses Australian Aboriginal writer Alexis Wright’s third novel, which depicts a world deeply imbued with an Australian Aboriginal ontology in which materiality and spirituality, life and death, and knowing and being are all entangled. The eleventh chapter, ‘Memory and Forgetfulness: In Seamus Heaney’s Virgilian Underworlds’, is Rachel Falconer’s investigation of Seamus Heaney’s poetic descents. And Chapter 12 , entitled ‘“All must descend to where the stories are kept”: Katabasis and Self-Reflexive Authorship in: Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing and The Penelopiad ’, is Madeleine Scherer’s discussion of Atwood’s novella as an authorial descent into a past commemorated by the classical canon within a transcultural mnemonic hemisphere.
Most of the chapters from this collection are based on papers presented at the 2017 conference ‘“A Quest for Remembrance”: The Descent into the Classical Underworld’, organised by Madeleine Scherer and held at the University of Warwick, and all chapters have been selected and edited by Scherer and Falconer. The fact that only three female authors are discussed here should briefly be addressed. It is undeniably the case that the history of katabatic narratives features many more male than female authors, particularly in the literature of antiquity. Moreover, as Falconer writes,
[f]emale characters, by definition, are usually excluded from descent because they are already in the underworld; indeed, the underworld is symbolically what they are. Narratives of the Orpheus myth, for example, usually dispatch Eurydice to the underworld in the opening lines or paragraphs, if she is not discovered there already from the outset; in a sense, she has always already died. 38
38 Falconer (2007, 144). As a notable exception from this trend in antiquity, Falconer names Inanna, the ancient Mesopotamian goddess who descended to the underworld to wrest power from the underworld goddess Erishkigal (ibid, 144).
To counter this tradition, many female writers have adopted the descent narrative structure, especially from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Falconer devotes one chapter of her study, Hell in Contemporary Literature to female writers who have engaged directly in the inherited gender dynamics of the tradition. And in this collection, we find Atwood and LeGuin changing the shape of that tradition from within. But many more could be discussed, from Virginia Woolf to Eavan Boland, and it is to be hoped that the present volume will prove to be a stimulus for further research in this direction.
Through these case-studies this collection hopes to explore katabasis as a sub-genre of the quest narrative; as a narrative dynamic that stretches from antiquity to the contemporary world and that, although it has varied over time and within its many adaptation contexts, has stayed continuously resonant through its strong thematic preoccupations with both memory and commemoration. The diversity of examples aims to reinforce the sense of memory as a persistent preoccupation of ancient as well as modern descent narratives, comparisons between katabasis narratives that would otherwise be difficult to frame contextually. As this volume aims to demonstrate, the long intertextual history of one of the most consistently popular tropes is best explored through a conceptual lens that appreciates katabasis’s central narrative preoccupation with textual, intertextual, and cultural memory. The history of literature and intertextuality has long been conceptualised as a mnemohistory, and the long mnemohistory of myth provides a wide scope of case-studies to map the multidirectional travel, local integration, and, at times, the universalising and competitive nature of travelling memories. Here, the reader is invited to embark on their own katabatic descent through the following chapters, to investigate the darkness of Hell in which, in the words of Boland, ‘[m]emory was a whisper, a sound that died in your throat ’.
Works Cited
Assmann, Jan. 2011. Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Boland, Eavan. 1995. Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time. Manchester: Carcanet Press.
Chils, Peter. 2016. ‘Remembrance in the Twenty-First Century.’ In Memory in the Twenty-First Century: New Critical Perspectives from the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences, edited by Sebastian Groes, 268–271. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Erll, Astrid. 2011. Memory in Culture, translated by Sara B. Young. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave MacMillan. . 2018. ‘Homer – A Relational Mnemonhistory.’ Memory Studies 11 (3): 274–286.
Introduction 17
Falconer, Rachel. 2011. ‘Heaney, Virgil and Contemporary Katabasis.’ In A Companion to Poetic Genre, edited by Erik Martiny Erik, 404–420. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
. 2007. Hell in Contemporary Literature: Western Descent Narratives since 1945. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Gould, John. 2001. Myth, Ritual, Memory, and Exchange: Essays in Greek Literature and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grethlein, Jonas. 2008. ‘Memory and Material Objects in the Iliad and the Odyssey.’ The Journal of Hellenic Studies 128: 27–51.
. 2010. The Greeks and Their Past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
. 2014. ‘The Many Faces of the Past in Archaic and Classical Greece.’ In Thinking, Recording, and Writing History in the Ancient World, edited by Kurt A. Raaflaub, 234–255. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. Groes, Sebastian. 2016. ‘Introduction: Memory in the Twenty-First Century.’ In Memory in the Twenty-First Century: New Critical Perspectives from the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences, edited by Sebastian Groes, 1–6. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Hall, Edith. 2008. The Return of Ulysses. London; New York: I.B. Tauris.
Johnston, Sarah Iles. 1999. Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Jung, Carl Gustav. 2014 [reprint 1959]. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 9.1, edited by Sir Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, and Gerhard Adler, translated by R.F.C. Hull. London; New York: Routledge.
Kocka, Jürgen. 2003. ‘Comparison and Beyond.’ History and Theory 42: 39–44.
Lachmann, Renate. 2010. ‘Mnemonic and Intertextual Aspects of Literature.’ In A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, edited by Astrid Erll, and Ansgar Nü n ning, 301–311. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter.
Macdonald, Ronald R. 1987. The Burial Place of Memory: Epic Underworlds in Vergil, Dante, and Milton. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Pike, David Lawrence. 1997. Passage through Hell: Modernist Descents, Medieval Underworlds. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Pine, Emily. 2011. The Politics of Irish Memory: Performing Remembrance in Contemporary Irish Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Renard, Virginie. 2013. Great War and Postmodern Memory: The First World War in Late 20th-Century British Fiction (1985–2000). Brussels; New York: P.I.E. Peter Lang.
Saïd, Suzanne. 2007. ‘Myth and Historiography.’ In A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography, Volume 1, edited by John Marincola, 76–89. Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Susanetti, Davide. 2016. ‘Circulation of Spectres: Ghosts and Spells.’ In Deep Classics: Rethinking Classical Reception, edited by Shane Butler, 255–269. London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Thomas, Rosalind. 1992. Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
18 M adeleine Scherer
Williams, Rosalind H. 2008. Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wodianka, Stephanie. 2006. ‘Zur Einleitung: “Was ist ein Mythos?” – Mögliche Antworten auf eine vielleicht falsch gestellte Frage.’ In Mythosaktualisierungen: Tradierungs- und Generierungspotentiale einer alten Erinnerungsform, edited by Stephanie Wodianka, and Dietmar Rieger, 1–17. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter.
2 T he Even Longer Descent Notes on Genesis and Development of Ancient Egyptian Underworld Conceptions and Their Interplay with Funerary Practice
Jakob Schneider
Introduction: Egyptology and Cultural Memory*
During the final discussion of the Second Annual Conference of the Memory Studies Association (Copenhagen, 2017), Astrid Erll called for an extension of the scope of Cultural Memory Studies towards antiquity. Indeed, most of the talks and panels of this conference – which intends to give an overview of the current research in Memory Studies – dealt with topics from modern times while questions on early modern, medieval or even ancient times were strangely absent. For the Egyptologist, this comes as a surprise, since one of the “founding fathers” of Memory Studies, Jan Assmann, is a trained and influential Egyptologist himself who is known for a wide array of publications and studies within the discipline of Egyptology.1 In one of his most influential books, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization, 2 he laid out important roots of modern memory theory using examples and observations from ancient Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia and Israel, thus creating a bridge between the confinements of Archaeology, Philology and the broader approaches of Cultural
* I would like to thank Dagmara Ha ł adaj (University of Warsaw), Joanne Robinson (University of Manchester) and the editors of this volume for their help with the language and content of this chapter.
1 E gyptology may be described as the discipline of studying the conditions and events which appeared broadly between 3100 BCE and 640 CE within the broader geographical area of modern Egypt based on the remaining material and textual evidence (cf. Fitzenreiter 2010, 253f). For a detailed study on the history of ancient Egypt, cf. Wilkinson 2013. For an analysis of ancient Egyptian religion and mythology, cf. Hornung (1971), Assmann (2001) (translated in Assmann 2005). For tombs and mortuary practices, cf. Ikram / Dodson (2008). For conceptions of the netherworld and related ideas, cf. Hornung (1997).
2 Original title: Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in fr ü hen Hochkulturen (Assmann 1992).
20 Jakob Schneider
Studies. 3 Surprisingly, such a connective and interdisciplinary approach to the remote past was rarely picked up in the wake of Assmann’s book. One reason for this lies in the specific history of the involved disciplines which soon led to differentiation and segregation from one another.
In the last quarter of the twentieth century the growing field of Memory Studies concentrated on Holocaust Studies – a development which led to the now characteristically broad and complex landscape of research about colonisation, perpetration, displacement, victimhood and trauma in modern times.4 Egyptology, however, was too entangled within its own old and trusted theories and methods to make use of the fruitfulness of such a collaboration. In opposition to anglophone prehistoric archaeologists, who promoted scholarly exchange and were eagerly discussing the theoretical and epistemological foundations of their field early on, Egyptology often showed a certain reluctance towards interdisciplinary influx and a remarkable immunity against post-structural and post-processual critique. 5 Consequently, the reception of Memory Studies in Egyptology is nowadays mostly limited to Assmann’s ideas, with the extensive theoretical and methodological progress of Memory Studies remaining largely unnoticed.6
A focus on modernity on the side of Memory Studies, together with Egyptology’s reluctance to participate in theoretical debates, created a gap which inhibited mutual collaboration and complicated any attempt to make use of the vast resources which both sides could provide for one another. From the Egyptological side, such resources consist of over 3,000 years of cultural history with its manifold documents recording or reflecting ancient traditions, transmissions, ways of administration, history, knowledge and power relations. This impressive and complex temporal scope can further be extended to the later reception of ancient Egypt – from the writings of antique scholars7 to the reuse and adaption of ancient imagery during the Egyptian revolution in 20118 and beyond. The study of Egyptology thus allows for the observation of mnemonic processes in the distant past as well as for the analysis of cultural memory on a large historical scale.9 However, Egyptology would greatly ben-
3 For the actual extent and interdisciplinary influence of Assmann’s work, cf. Schraten (2011).
4 E rll (2011, 3), Olick (2011, 29).
5 C f. Fitzenreiter (2010, 254–55), Verbovsek (2011, 18).
6 C f. Becker (2012) as one of the few exceptions.
7 Derricourt (2015).
8 C f., for instance, the graffiti of the ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti wearing a gasmask (discussed in Gruber 2015).
9 It should be noted that other fields of archaeology are already more advanced in forming interdisciplinary connections to Memory Studies. Cf. Harman ş ah (2015) ( Near Eastern Archaeology) or van Dyke / Alcock (2003) and Hofmann et al. (2017) (Prehistoric and Classical Archaeology).
efit from engaging with Memory Studies in order to re-examine its own framework for interpreting the archaeological evidence.
This chapter represents a first attempt to bridge this methodological gap and to bring Egyptology and Memory Studies together on a common ground. It examines the varying conceptions of nether- and underworlds in ancient Egypt and follows their connections to the long history of tomb architecture and funerary practice in chronological order. The interplay between underworld mythologies and the conception of the tomb’s function and role enabled the tomb owner to exist in an imagined divine realm whose eternal character secured him a practically indefinite existence beyond the life span of his tomb and the mortals who remembered him. However, the netherworld was also predominantly conceptualised as a place of transformation which magically enabled the deceased to dwell in the world of the living and the world of the dead. The tomb –as the Egyptian site of memory per se – served as a vehicle for the formulation of various netherworld narratives which, in turn, influenced the many ways in which the deceased was remembered. Besides the tomb itself, the transmission, translation and adjustment of texts and pictorial representations throughout the ages also point to long-term mnemonic processes which were fuelled by the constant need to deal with the phenomenon of death. The ancient Egyptian underworld was not a fixed spatial and temporal toponym, but a multivalent topos whose function and appearance changed constantly over time.
The Old Kingdom10
The Old Kingdom marks the beginning of the pharaonic state. For the first time, political unity and a strong and centralised administration of the whole country can be observed. From the archaeological and textual evidence emerges a complex picture of royal powers, regulatory networks, influential civil servants and an increasingly complex social stratification. Massive building projects such as the great pyramids and the vast fields of mastabas 11 surrounding them express a new level of wealth and organisation, a level which empowered the higher echelons of society in providing for their social and death-related needs in hitherto unknown ways. The mastabas are especially revealing in this respect, since they offer a wide range of texts which are often interconnected with a specific imagery. A long lasting memory legacy was possible if the tomb was built and decorated in accordance to a loose set of rules and conventions. However, within the images and biographies tomb owners
10 For Old Kingdom funerary culture, cf. Ikram / Dodson (2008, 133ff).
11 M astaba denotes the typical architectural form of tombs for higher officials of the state in early Egypt. Typically, it consists of a rectangular stone building with various richly painted hallways and chambers inside.
Jakob Schneider also frequently emphasise their exceptionalism among their peers, leaving room for individuality within socially sanctioned mechanisms of commemoration.12
The second important source for textual evidence comes from the pyramids. From the 5th dynasty onwards, a vast corpus of texts with highly religious significance appears on the inner walls of the massive structures which housed the tombs of the kings and queens. These Pyramid Texts convey a complex mythology which is centred around the royal afterlife. Although the many invocations, conjurations and allusions of the texts are still not fully understood, it is generally accepted that they were intended to secure the ascent of the dead king to the stars to become a god among the other gods.13
Surprisingly, in both cases – in the rich world of the mastabadepictions and in the intricate and comprehensive Pyramid Texts –a llusions to any sort of a subterranean underworld are mostly absent. The focus of the spells in the pyramids is clearly an afterlife in the sky and the aspects, roles and functions of its divine inhabitants. The pictorial worlds of the mastabas, however, locate the afterlife in liminal spaces like marshes and deserts which resemble the border regions of the Nile valley. While the body of the deceased stays in the mastaba , the images point to the ability of his spiritual form to dwell in the world of the living within such borderlands of half-real, half-transcendental connotations.14
Still it must be noted that, presumably, non-royal individuals also had a certain interest in ascending to the sky. The idea of building a ladder to the stars can be found in royal and non-royal burial contexts alike, while several depictions and architectural features of the mastabas suggest that certain funerary-related activities took place on the roofs of those buildings to be closer to the sky.15 Additionally, it seems that even the shape of the pyramids was supposed to help the king in ascending to the stars.16 Thus, beliefs about death and the afterlife influenced architectural, pictorial and textual representations which, in turn, affirmed and empowered the continuation of such beliefs.
Architecturally, hints about the conception of an underworld below the earth may only – if at all – be found in the enormous subterranean galleries built by the kings of the second dynasty at their burial place in Saqqara.17 Although parts of those galleries resemble the layout of regular houses of this time, any interpretation of the structures remains
12 Fitzenreiter (2001).
13 T heis / Luft (2013, 30).
14 Fitzenreiter (2008, 79f).
15 T heis (2014, 96–107).
16 T heis (2014, 107f., 110).
17 C lose to modern Cairo.
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
1.M
A short ACCOUNT of the Death of
S A M U E L H I T C H E N S.
Bisveal, near Redruth, Cornwall
Y son, Samuel Hitchens, was born on the 23d of March 1725. He was brought up to read and write. But he had almost forgot that, and every thing which is good, until God sent his ministers into these parts also, to call sinners to repentance. He was soon very deeply convinced of sin: particularly, in the beginning of January, 1744, while Mr. Reeves was praying in my house. In the middle of our prayer, he fell to the ground, and cried so hard, that it greatly surprized us all. We were met, to take our leave of Mr. Reeves and John Daniel, who were going to Bristol. Mr. Reeves raised him up, and strove to comfort him. But he still cried out, “He was a lost, undone sinner.” In the morning they set out before it was day. Samuel would needs go with them. He had not rode six miles, before God spoke peace to his soul. He rode about ten miles further, and then returned home rejoicing.
2. But it was not long before his faith was tried. The devil first strove to reason him out of it. But he could not prevail. Then he stirred up the world against him. They came in multitudes, threatening to kill us all, and broke down the door and all the windows of the house, where we used to meet. After we had repaired these, they came and tore down the house itself, swearing they would also tear down the house also where we lived. And we were forced to stop up the chamber windows as well as we could, or we should have been stoned as we lay in our beds.
3. When this did not move him, they got a warrant, and came to press him for a soldier, much about the time that they had pressed the Rev. Mr. Graves at St. Just, and carried him on board the man of war. And several of our neighbours who were quiet, industrious men, they did press, by virtue of that warrant, and carried them away from their work, and wives and families. But God suffered them not to touch him, though he was daily in his shop; and going up and down about his business.
4. But he was not so well aware of another snare which was laid for him: for soon after, having some thoughts of marriage, he gave way by little and little, till he found his heart was quite drawn away from God. Hereby he was quickly plunged into utter darkness of soul, and fell under stronger convictions than at first. He often told his brother, “he was in hell.” He wandered about in the fields by night, seeking rest, but finding none; and often threw himself on the earth, and beat his head against the ground. And once when his brother and several others were present, he cast himself on the ground, roaring aloud for the disquietness of his heart, and beat and cut himself in several places.
5. He was quite delivered in a moment, in December last, and the Lord was with him as at the first. But after this deliverance, he began more sensibly to feel his want of inward holiness. He had always walked very circumspectly, having a tender conscience, even in the smallest things, avoiding all light discourse, and finding constant power over anger, his bosom-sin. But this did not make him shut his eyes against the light, which shewed him the corruptions of his heart: And this knowledge, in particular, he was willing to learn, even from the meanest instrument. Nor did it cost any one much trouble to teach him; for he was indeed a man that feared always: being so jealous of his own heart and conduct, that half a sentence, sometimes a single word, or even a look, would shew him what was amiss. And reproof, instead of falling short, would frequently strike much deeper than was intended.
6. He was very zealous for the Lord, and had great opportunities of shewing it in his daily business. For abundance of tinners came to his shop (he being a smith by trade) both at morning and mid-day and in the evening, to have their tools repaired. These he continually exhorted and reproved, with great boldness and plainness of speech: and yet so meekly, that few of them went away angry, and the greater part were quite in love with him.
7. His common hours of sleep, were between eleven and five. He was very diligent in his labour. Yet he could not refrain from breaking it off now and then, to go up into a little room, which he had purposely ♦built just over his shop, and pour out his soul before God. But he soon made up the time he had thus employed, so that no necessary business was neglected.
♦ “just built” replaced with “built just” per Errata
8. He had frequent and sore conflicts with the enemy of souls, who was permitted to sift him with divers temptations. One of the most dreadful was, doubting the being of a God; but out of this also the Lord delivered him.
9. His love of souls cannot easily be described, especially those that were more immediately under his care. If any thing was amiss in his class or band, he often felt the weight, before he discovered the reason of it: and would lay it home to them with the greatest earnestness, till he had found out the accursed thing. But his love was by no means confined to these. He would lament over sinners of every kind, those especially who would not hear the call of God, with inexpressible grief and tenderness. The prophet Jeremiah was in this his particular favourite. He used to tell much concerning, “The weeping prophet:” And was often saying to himself, O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears! If ye will not hear, my soul shall weep for you in secret places.
10. By this eager love of souls, he was even constrained at the time we had no preacher among us, himself to exhort, first our own, and then other societies, to continue in the grace of God. But he had many sharp trials concerning this, fearing he should run before he was sent: till one day in May last, being in deep distress, he went up into his room, threw himself down before God, and ceased not to wrestle with him in prayer, till all his doubts fled away, and he was fully convinced what was the will of God concerning him.
11. He often complained, that the world was a burthen to him, and he wanted to be wholly sequestered from it. But God convinced him at length, this was not right. “I now, said he, see plainly, there is such a thing as going through any business, and taking all prudent care, yet so as it shall only pass through our hands, without either troubling or intangling our hearts.”
12. For some time he was under another mistake. He was even to an extreme, negligent of his apparel, thinking it was below the character of a Christian, to have any, the least concern about it. But afterwards he was clearly convinced, that in this also he had gone too far, and that a Christian ought even by his outward neatness, to shew forth the purity of his mind.
13. The last great temptation into which he fell, was that of denying to the body even what was necessary for its support. Though he worked hard at his own business, and spent his strength very much, in all the intervals of his work, in going up and down and exhorting the societies, he could not be prevailed on to take any cordial, or any thing for the preserving of his lungs. For a considerable time before he was sick, he wholly abstained from flesh. And even other victuals he took at his father’s table, as if he was stealing it; and it seemed by his manner, as if he seldom or never eat so as to satisfy nature. The error of this was not shewed him, till a day or two before he was taken ill: when he was fully convinced, that seeing the body as well as the soul is committed to our charge, we ought with prudence and moderation to use all proper means, for preserving the one as well as the other.
14. This temptation, I believe, began and ended, while he walked in the broad light of God’s countenance: which he enjoyed with little intermission for two or three months before his last sickness. Indeed it increased very much toward the period of his life: He saw the corruptions that remained in his heart. But though they were not destroyed, yet they were fast bound, so that they could not hurt him. The only shadow of doubt which he had was this: Whether the peace he had was not too great, while sin remained? But this was but a few moments at a time. And “e’er he was aware (he said) his soul flew back and center’d in God.”
15. On Wednesday, August 13. John Trembath, being ill of a malignant fever, and as it was believed both by himself and others, ready to depart, desired to take his leave of the family. Samuel stooped down to kiss him, and was immediately sensible he had caught the distemper. However he met the society in the evening, and was unusually vehement in prayer. Thursday, the 14th, he continued working at his trade, till about four in the afternoon. Being then obliged to leave off, he came in to his parents, and said, he was not well. He talked of sickness and death with as much ease as of going to sleep, and mostly with a smiling countenance. Towards evening he took his bed: As he lay down he said, “Once I laid on this bed, full of guilt and fears; but now they are all taken away. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for sending his messengers into these parts. Now is the harvest come. Now I shall reap the end of all my prayers.”
16. About nine his mother and I came to him, and he said, “mother, you are troubled about many things. I know you have a great cross now sickness is in the house, over and above the care of this large family. Father, you must bear your part. There is a want in you both. You are religious singly: But you are not free in confessing your faults and temptations one to another. It would be a great help, if you would set apart a time for this, for the family in general, once a week. God has made you an instrument of keeping his little flock together in this place. I believe you do it with all your heart. Let us do it chearfully, and he will greatly bless us all.”
17. He passed the night without sleep; but continually praising God, and exhorting all that came in his sight. To one who stood by him he said, “I opened my bible to-day on the cxii. Psalm. Take the prayer-book and find it.” She did so, and he took especial notice of the 6th, 7th, and 8th verses. “’Tis sweet (said he) to speak those words experimentally: He shall never be moved. He will not be afraid of any evil tidings; for his heart standeth fast, believing in the Lord. His heart is established, and will not shrink, until he shall see his desire upon his enemies.”
18. In the morning, Friday, 15 He was full of the spirit of grace, and of supplication: always expressing an unshaken confidence in God, and making strong intercession for the church. “O said he, could I but see the church of Christ, in peace and unity! Of one heart, and of one mind! then I should die rejoicing indeed!”
19. Three of the leaders of classes coming in, he said, “We have been neglectful in one thing, in not going more diligently after backsliders, and bringing back the sheep that were lost. O it is a great thing, to bring one soul unto the Lord! Let me desire you to remember it for the time to come.” One of them asked, “Shall I pray for you?” He said, “Yes: but do not pray for my recovery.” After praying, he asked, “How do you find yourself now?” He said, “Clear of doubt: full of God.”
20. The man coming to him who used to work with him in the shop, he said, “John, how is the case between God and your soul? Of late you have not been so earnest as you was. Why do you not join in the society? I believe you are kept from outward sin. But that will not do.” A few days after the man came to me, desiring to be admitted into the society, and saying, “He hoped the words would never go out of his mind, and that he should never rest till he knew the Lord.”
21. Speaking of some who were intangled with inordinate affection, and talked of their “wanting to know the will of God,” he said, “When we can give up our own wills, then we shall know the will of God. And when that is known and carefully followed, all temptations of this kind are at an end.”
22. He asked one¹ who was much with him, “Are you willing to die?” And on her saying, “If I knew it was the will of God, I could lie down and not leave a wish behind:” He answered, “I think I am drawn two ways. I have a strong desire to depart and to be with Christ; but sometimes I am drawn a little backward, not knowing whether my abiding awhile in the flesh, may not be for the glory of God. These are two opposite points. When they are brought to meet, my way will lie strait before me.”
¹ The same person who wrote part of this relation.
23. He often made her repeat those lines of Dr. Watts’s:
“Say, live for ever, glorious King, Born to redeem and strong to save!”
And catch’d the two next from her, repeating with triumph,
“Then ask the monster, Where’s his sting?
And where’s thy victory, boasting grave?”
24. Those three verses in one of the funeral hymns he was almost continually repeating,
“Thou know’st, in the spirit of prayer, We groan thy appearing to see, Resign’d to the burden we bear, But longing to triumph with thee.
’Tis good at thy word to be here, ’Tis better in thee to be gone, And see thee in glory appear, And rise to a share of thy throne.
“To mourn for thy coming is sweet, To weep at thy longer delay: But thou whom we hasten to meet Shall chase all our sorrows away The tears shall be wip’d from our eyes, When thee we behold in the cloud, And echo the joys of the skies, And shout to the trumpet of God “Come then to thy languishing bride, Who went’st to prepare us a place, Receive us with thee to abide, And rest in thy mercy’s embrace. Our heaven of heavens be this, Thy fulness of mercy to prove, Implung’d in the glorious abyss, And lost in the ocean of love.”
25. Elizabeth Thomas being with him on Friday night, he asked her to pray, and said, “I can pour out my whole heart, and soul, and spirit, and life in prayer.” She asked, “Can you rejoice in God?” He replied, “Yes; I have not the least doubt of my salvation. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall stand before him in that day. I know my Saviour is now at the right hand of God, and that he is praying for me. I see the gates of heaven stand open, and Jesus stands with open arms to receive me.” Then he cried, “Let me go! I must be gone!” She asked him, “Whither he would go?” He said, “To my God;” and burst out, “Come, Lord Jesus! The harvest is ready. Come, Lord, and put in the sickle!”
26. The next morning, Saturday 16. his sweats stopped. All proper means were used to recover them. He said, “I believe they will not return. But I have left all to God. My heart is full of God. I know he will appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation.”
After lying a short time he broke out into vehement prayer, first for the church, and then for himself: crying out aloud, “Open the heavens, O my God, and come down into my soul! Come, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and plunge me into God! Carry me ye angels, to the bosom of my God. Bear me to the feet of Jesus!” Then with smiles of triumph, not to be exprest, he cried, “Jesus is coming! Now I shall see the unclouded face of Jesus! ’Tis finish’d! ’Tis finish’d! Jesus is come! Jesus is come!
“For us is prepar’d
The angelical guard, The convoy attends
A minist’ring host of invisible friends!
“Ready-wing’d for their flight
To the regions of light
The horses are come,
The chariots of Israel to carry me home!”
*One called aloud to his mother to come. He said, “You may call; but God will not stop one moment.” He spake no more till he resigned his spirit into the hands of God.
Of the L I F E and D E A T H of
N A T H A N A E L O T H E N,
Who was shot in Dover-Castle, October 26, 1757.
WAS born at Ogham in Hampshire, of honest parents, and when about thirteen years old, went to service to a farmer near Ogham, whom I served faithfully for a year. I was then for a year and a half postilion to the Exeter stage-coach. Afterwards I went up to London, and hired myself again, in the place of a postilion. It was here I was soon led into drunkenness, and by that means not long after into lewdness. Leaving this place after six months, I hired myself for another year as a postilion, at the White-Horse in Piccadilly. Here I got more money, but could keep none, squandering it all away in drink and debauchery. My mistress reproving me for this, I was so enraged, that I went and entered on board a privateer. I went down as far as Exeter, in my way to Plymouth, in order to embark. But my mind then changed: so I came back to London, and hired myself in the Hay-Market as a second coachman. I soon quitted this place, and served Lord H―― in the same post for a year and a half, who when he wanted me no longer, recommended me to Colonel B―― with whom I had large wages. But I wasted all among lewd women, ’till I embarked with my master for Holland.
2. In eight days we arrived at Williamstadt. Thence we went to Breda, where I was again drawn into drunkenness. My master hearing ♦of it, desired the groom to reprove me, which made me reflect on my past life. I went out into the fields, and went to prayers, repeating the prayers which I had been taught by my parents. And this I did many times while we staid at Breda: And I had more power over sin than formerly.
♦ duplicate word “of” removed
3. We now removed to Mastricht Soon after my master parted with the horses I took care of, and recommended me to another master. But I stayed with him only a fortnight, before I relapsed into drunkenness, and was persuaded to inlist among the Welch Fusileers, in the year 1747. I remained at camp till Michaelmas: thence we marched to Rudenburgh, where I remained all the winter. On the first day of March, 1748, we marched to Ruremond, where we encamped, tho’ the weather was cold and the snow deep. After the cessation of arms, we removed from place to place, till in November we came to Williamstadt.
4. Here we lay five weeks on board the Seaflower, a ship belonging to Whitby. On December 18, new stile, we set sail for Burnt-island: our ship having 41 horses on board. About sun-rise, just as we got over the bar, it looking as if we should have hard weather, the man of war that sailed with us prepared for it, backing his sails, and making fast his guns. Before we lost sight of land, we saw one of the transports break her yard. Soon after we came up along-side of a man of war, who advised us, to take in some of our sails. But our captain, being head strong, did not regard him, but kept all his sails set, except the main-top-gallant. About two hours before sun-set, it blew a hurricane; and we having but few sailors, before they were able to furl the sails, the wind tore them all in pieces. And it was well it did. For we lay gunnel to; so that had the sails stood, we must have overset. Suddenly a great outcry was made below, that the horses were broke loose. I ran down and found seven of them had broke loose, which made the rest so wild, that we were obliged to kill them all but one. But it was six days before we could get them over-board: during which the smell was so offensive, that it made the whole ship’s crew sick. Two days after we saw the shore; but we could not possibly make it, the wind was so high. We then endeavoured to make Aberdeen: but were beat to sea again. The next morning we lost sight of land, the weather continued as before for five days. The sixth, at day-break, we were surprised to see in the midst of the sea a rock very high out of the water, and the ship was almost upon it: so all hands were called. The captain standing on the deck, cried, “O my ship, my ship.” Some of the soldiers cursed him for disheartening them, he answered, “You need not swear and curse, for you may look over the side of the ship, and see your graves.” Many were then frighted, and some went to prayer. When we got to the lee-side of the rock, we strove to anchor; but the wind blew so hard, and the sea was so rough, we could not. The ship was now taking in water apace, so that we had two foot water in our hold already Ten soldiers were employed, of whom I was one, to ♦ bale the water out with their camp-kettles. In a little while our steward perished with cold, as did the carpenter soon after. And several of the boys had their limbs frozen, so that they were unable
to work Eight soldiers who had been on board a man of war were ordered to supply their place.
♦ “hale” replaced with “bale”
5. The wind continued to blow hard at south which drove us on the coast of Greenland. We were now so far north that I believe we had not above four hours day-light. The captain now came into the cabin, and cried, “Lord, have mercy upon us! What shall we do? I am afraid we shall be drove so far north, as to have no day-light at all.” Quickly after, he went out of his senses, and was confined in his cabin. But just then the wind shifted from south to north; and Lieutenant Eyres, understanding the theory of navigation, undertook the management of the ship. The 10th of March we came in sight of a rocky coast, but knew not what land it was. We tried to take soundings; but could find no bottom. A strong current ran between the rocks, which was against us: but the wind blew strong for us. We hung out a flag of distress at our main-top-mast, and fired several guns and several platoons.
6. During this distress most in the ship called upon God, and if any man spoke profanely, he was reproved for it. At the same time, a thought came into the minds of many, that there was some grievous sinner in the ship: and all agreed to cast lots, that they might find the man, for whose sake this was come upon us. But they did not execute what they had agreed. Here we remained five days. One who had been a sailor, then swore, that it was the Orkneys we saw, and undertook to bring us safe in. But we had not gone far, before our passage was quite shut up, and we were just upon the rocks. In the morning a man was sent to the main-top-mast head, and ordered to keep a good look-out. Before twelve he cried, “A boat a-head.” Our boat was quickly manned in order to row to them. In a short time they came on board: they brought us into the harbour about sun-set. Here we remained, till we had liberty from the king of Denmark, to come to North-Bergen in Norway. When we came thither, several lost the use of their limbs, and many died in an hospital erected for us. Here we continued a month. Having then repaired our ship, and got a new captain, (for the old one was still disordered) we set sail for Scotland, intending for Burnt-island, which we hoped to reach in a short time.
7. But we had scarce lost sight of land two hours, when another violent storm arose. I then renewed the good resolutions I made in the last, and which I forgot almost as soon as I had made them. It blew exceeding hard; however on April 9, we came with great difficulty to Leith. When we were safe on shore, instead of returning God thanks, I soon fell to my old trade of drunkenness: and during our several removes, I continually plunged deeper and deeper into all manner of wickedness.
8. After being at several other places we marched to Glasgow, where I met with a sober woman, and one that feared God, whom I married and lived comfortably with, till orders came for my remove to England. We past the winter at Dover, where the advice of my wife made such an impression upon me, that I began to take up, and be a good husband, and worked hard to maintain myself and her. So I continued to do at Exeter, where I had a son born, and stayed eleven months. Thence we marched to Plymouth, where we embarked for Minorca. We landed there May 25, and I lived happy with my wife for two months. Then both she and my child were taken sick and died. This was a loss indeed! I believe if she had lived, it would have been the saving of my life.
9. After her death I soon fell back to drunkenness, and to supply the expence of it, took to coining. The next spring, April 20, the French invested the castle of St. Philip. Toward the end of the siege, my companion and I got drunk together and quarrelled: upon which he threatened to inform against me, for which a great reward was offered. Being soon after told that he was gone to give information, I thought there was but one way to save my life. So I and he that told me determined to desert together. In getting out of the castle, I fell into the sea, and was very near being drowned. With much difficulty we then got to an old house, and took shelter therein. But we were between the fire of the French and the English; so we stayed not above a quarter of an hour. I would now fain have returned; but our case was desperate: so we went on hand in hand. As we advanced, the French gave the signal, which was three slaps with their hand on the cartouch-box. As we did not answer it, or speak, (for neither of us could speak French) they immediately fired upon us. But here also the hand of God was over us. The shot all flew over our heads. They then came and took us to the commanding officer, who sent us to the town as prisoners. In the morning we were removed to a prison near one of the general’s quarters, who sent for us about noon, and asked, what our design was? I answered, it was our desire to go into France and work. He said, “this could not be allowed by any means, unless I first serv’d in the army for three years.” I said, I would only comply, on condition I should not serve on the island, he replied, if I would not serve on the island, I must go back to prison, I was going, but he called me back and ask’d, “in what regiment in France would you like to serve?” I answer’d in Fitz-James’s. He said, I should. However for the present, I was remanded to prison. Two days after I was carried before the Duke de Richlieu, who asked me many questions. But I continued a prisoner during the whole siege, and was so, till we came to Valenciennes.
10. Here I was enlisted into Fitz-James’s horse, and continued two months: but with an aking heart. I longed to be in England again, and only waited for an opportunity. This was suspected: so that when we marched hence, I was confined every night, till we got a great way into France. By interceding with the quarter-master, I then got my liberty. After many removes, we marched to Hanau, and from thence about thirty leagues toward Muscovy. Here four of us agreed to desert the next night, and make the best of our way to the Duke of Cumberland’s army. At eleven we set out in thunder, lightning and rain. We took each of us a brace of pistols, with our swords, and plenty of powder and ball. With great difficulty we past the guards, and then not knowing the roads, quickly lost our way: so that at break of day, we had got but nine miles. However we were now got into the right road: but day-light approaching, we went into a wood, and stayed there till six in the evening: having been all this time without victuals, we were weak and faint; however we walk’d all night. In the morning we learn’d from a waggoner, that a party of French horse were within a mile and a half of us. We ask’d what he thought they came there for? He said he knew not unless it was to look for deserters. Upon this, finding no way to get to the duke, we agreed to make for Holland, having changed our clothes with some of the boors, who likewise behaved kindly to us, or we must have perished.
11. Having sold our arms to buy us provisions, after many difficulties and dangers, in passing by both the French and Imperial troops, we at length came to Mastricht. Thence we went to Middleburgh, and afterward to Flushing, where we got on board an English man of war, which the next morning sailed, and brought us into the Downs. The third day after we landed, we were apprehended as deserters, and laid in irons for six days. We were then removed to Brumpton camp, near Chatham, where I was tried by a court martial, for deserting from the castle of St. Philips, which I acknowledg’d and was condemned to die.
12. I now began to be in great trouble, not knowing what to do. At length my companion and I determined to lay violent hands on ourselves. In this resolution I continued till night. Then I began to think of the consequences of self-murder. Betimes in the morning I went to prayer, and continued praying ’till about ten o’clock. In my distress I bethought me of one James Harbuckle, a drummer in our regiment. When he came I told him of my condition, and he began to talk to me of the love of Christ to sinners: of repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. In the evening he was obliged to go; but he promised to send some of his brethren to me. Two of them came at night and explained more at large what James Harbuckle had said. From this time I found another kind of trouble: my sins were so set in array against me, that not an evil work or word, or thought, I had ever given way to, but was brought to my remembrance. Yet I was not so much troubled for fear of hell, as for grief that I had offended so good a God, and had crucified the Son of God afresh. For three days and three nights my distress was so great, that it was as if all my flesh was tearing off my bones, and my bones breaking in pieces, which made me often look at my hands and legs, to see if it was not so.
13. My load so increased, that I was just ready to despair of mercy, when on a sudden it all dropt off. I was on my knees at prayer, when in a moment all my fear was gone. I knew I had redemption in the blood of Christ, the forgiveness of my sins: and the love of God was shed abroad in my heart, enabling me to love all mankind, even my enemies: and him in particular who had been the cause of my deserting. And I had an earnest desire to see and tell him so. And I found every day an increase in love, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I was so delivered from the fear of death, that I could have rejoiced to have died that instant; being filled with prayer, and praise, and thanksgiving, such as no tongue can express. And this sense of the love of God to my soul, I never since lost, not for a moment.
