Plum Punch: The Game’s the Thing

Título: Plum Punch: The Game's the Thing

Autor: P. G. Wodehouse

Sinopse: The story of the beginnings of research into the wonders of antiquity in Egypt is unique in at least one point. In no other land does a conquering army march at the head of the pioneers of exploration; but the true beginnings of the century and a quarter of research which has given to us so many wonders from the Land of the Nile are to be found with that amazing troop of learned camp-followers who accompanied NapoleonÕs army on the expedition of 1798. The wonders of ancient Egypt had never altogether been blotted from the memory and the interest of man, as was the case with some of the other lands of the Classic East. The pages of Herodotus, never fuller or more vivid than when he is dealing with Egypt, prevented that oblivion; and therefore Herodotus has some right to be named at the very beginning of the story of the exploration of ancient Egypt as the pioneer of pioneers. But the world was first really awakened to the richness of the Treasury of Egypt by the colossal production, twelve volumes of plates and twenty-four of text, which was the result of the untiring labours of Vivant Denon and his collaboratorsÑthe famousDescription de lÕEgypteÑa work almost comparable in scale and grandeur with the monuments which it described. Few armies have left behind them such a memorial of their passage across a landÑthe more credit to the man whose inexhaustibly fertile brain conceived the idea of making even war subserve the interests of science. Unfortunately, however, the tie with international strifes and jealousies, which had drawn the French savants originally to the Nile Valley, remained unbroken for many years; and questions of arch¾ology were continually complicated by questions of national pride and prestige, so that the early story of Egyptian exploration is not the story of pure research, conducted for the love of truth and of antiquity, but very often merely the story of how the representative of France strove with the representative of Britain or Italy for the possession of some ancient monument whose capture might bring glory to his nation, or profit to his own purse. There are few more melancholy chapters in the story of human frailty than those in which the early explorers of Egypt (if you can dignify them by such a name) describe how they wrangled and intrigued, lied and cheated, over relics whose mutilated antiquity might have taught them enough of the vanity of human wishes to make them ashamed of their pettiness. Dr. Macalister has told us in the Cambridge Ancient History that Òit is impossible to give any complete survey of the history of Egyptian excavation.Ó This is true for the later period, because the field is so vast, and the workers are so many; it is not less true for the beginnings, because it is impossible to write a history of the scufflings of kites and crowsÑor rather, one might say, of ghouls. It must be almost a nightmare to the modern excavator, with his ingrained appreciation of the importance of even the very smallest object which may add to the knowledge of ancient lands and peoples, to think of the priceless material which was destroyed by the undiscriminating zeal of men like Belzoni, Drovetti, and their fellows, or if not destroyed, at least deprived of half its value by being torn from its historical place and connection. These were the lamentable days when interest in the antiquities of Egypt had advanced but little beyond that displayed by the gentleman of AddisonÕs first Spectator, whose Egyptian researches are thus described by himselfÑÒI made a voyage to Grand Cairo on purpose to take the measure of a pyramid; and as soon as I had set myself right in that particular, returned to my native country with great satisfaction,Ó or by Lord Charlemont, who according to Johnson had nothing to tell of his travels except a story of a large serpent which he had seen in one of the pyramids of Egypt. In the early years of the nineteenth century, and, indeed, till Mariette in 1858 laid his masterful hand upon the key of the great treasure-house and allowed no one to spoil it but himself, there was a perfect orgy of spoliation carried on, not in the interests of science, but partly out of vanity, and partly out of greed. Every important or noble traveller had to add a few curios from Egypt to his miscellaneous collection gathered from half a dozen other lands, and sculptures, inscriptions, and papyri of the greatest value were thus uselessly dispersed in paltry private collections, where, when they had gratified a passing curiosity or ministered to a momentary spirit of emulation, they were allowed to gather dust through years of neglect, till at last the futile cabinet of curios was dispersed, and its items were lost sight of altogether. Some collections, such as those of Belzoni, Passalacqua, Drovetti, and a few others, had better fortune, and were finally purchased for one or other of the great European Museums, which nearly all formed the nucleus of their Egyptological collections in this fashion; but the amount of unnecessary loss of what can never now be replaced must have been deplorable.

Contexto da obra

Quando a classificação é mais ampla, o contexto do livro costuma depender ainda mais de autoria, tema e edição. “Plum Punch: The Game’s the Thing”, de P. G. Wodehouse, publicado pela editora Library of Alexandria, em 1969 e com 11 páginas, integra a categoria Livros Variados. Por isso, autoria, edição e tema acabam tendo ainda mais peso na forma de apresentar o livro.

Editora: Library of Alexandria

Páginas: 11

Ano: 1969

Edição:

Linguagem: en

ISBN: 1465540415

ISBN13: 9781465540416