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The Tour: A Story of Ancient Egypt

Chapter 1: Translator’s Note
By Louis Couperus
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The narrative follows Publius Lucius Sabinus as he sails on a moonlit voyage, seeking respite from despair after the unexplained disappearance of Ilia; his tutor Thrasyllus offers gentle counsel while the ship's chorus, sailors' songs, and a harpist's hymn to Aphrodite produce a fragile calm. Scenes shift ashore to luminous Egyptian towns where torchlit processions, temple rites to Serapis, and the sights of palm-lined quays are rendered in vivid sensory detail. The work alternates intimate grief and longing with atmospheric descriptions of ancient travel, ritual observance, and social life, examining mourning, memory, and the tension between private passion and public ceremony.

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Title: The Tour: A Story of Ancient Egypt

Author: Louis Couperus

Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos

Release date: September 21, 2011 [eBook #37497]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOUR: A STORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT ***

The Tour

By the same author

In Preparation

The Inevitable.

The Tour
A Story of Ancient Egypt
By
Louis Couperus
Translated from the Dutch by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
Thornton Butterworth Ltd.
62 St. Martin’s Lane London W.C.2

First published November, 1920

Copyright, U.S.A., 1920.
by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.

Translator’s Note

I am greatly indebted to my friend John Sargeaunt for a number of extremely useful comments and suggestions and to my friend Stephen McKenna for his version of the Hymn to Aphrodite in Chapter VII. and for assistance in the translation generally.

A. T. de M.

Crowborough, 10 July, 1920.