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Alexandria: A History and a Guide

Chapter 37: CONCLUSION.
By E. M. Forster
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About This Book

The author traces the city's development across more than two millennia, arranging material as a pageant of periods: the Hellenistic age under the Ptolemies, including Cleopatra and Greco-Egyptian literature and science; the Roman and Christian era with its changing fortunes and episodes such as the murder of Hypatia; a reflective interlude on Pagan and Christian philosophy and religion; the long Arab period; and a modern phase of reconstruction culminating in nineteenth-century reforms and later events. A second, practical guide provides maps, site-by-site directions, and cross-references that link present remains to their historical contexts.

CONCLUSION.

Since the bombardment of 1882, the city has known other troubles, but they will not be here described. Nor will any peroration be attempted, for the reason that Alexandria is still alive and alters even while one tries to sum her up. Politically she is now more closely connected with the rest of Egypt than ever in the past, but the old foreign elements remain, and it is to the oldest of them, the Greek, that she owes such modern culture as is to be found in her. Her future like that of other great commercial cities is dubious. Except in the cases of the Public Gardens and the Museum, the Municipality has scarcely risen to its historic responsibilities. The Library is starved for want of funds, the Art Gallery cannot be alluded to, and links with the past have been wantonly broken—for example the name of the Rue Rosette has been altered and the exquisite Covered Bazaar near the Rue de France destroyed. Material prosperity based on cotton, onions, and eggs, seems assured, but little progress can be discerned in other directions, and neither the Pharos of Sostratus nor the Idylls of Theocritus nor the Enneads of Plotinus are likely to be rivalled in the future. Only the climate only the north wind and the sea remain as pure as when Menelaus the first visitor landed upon Ras-el-Tin, three thousand years ago; and at night the constellation of Berenice’s Hair still shines as brightly as when it caught the attention of Conon the astronomer.

THE GOD ABANDONS ANTONY.

When at the hour of midnight
an invisible choir is suddenly heard passing
with exquisite music, with voices—
Do not lament your fortune that at last subsides,
your life’s work that has failed, your schemes that have proved illusions.
But like a man prepared, like a brave man,
bid farewell to her, to Alexandria who is departing.
Above all, do not delude yourself, do not say that it is a dream,
that your ear was mistaken.
Do not condescend to such empty hopes.
Like a man for long prepared, like a brave man,
like to the man who was worthy of such a city,
go to the window firmly,
and listen with emotion,
but not with the prayers and complaints of the coward
(Ah! supreme rapture!)
listen to the notes, to the exquisite instruments of the mystic choir,
and bid farewell to her, to Alexandria whom you are losing.
C. P. Cavafy.[6]

6.  The local reference of this exquisite poem is to the omen that heralded the defeat of Mark Antony (p. 26). The poet is eminent among the contemporary writers of Greece; he and his translator, Mr. George Valassopoulo, are both residents of Alexandria.

Alexandria: Historical Map
Ancient Sites in Capitals
Modern Sites bracketed (...)