VOCAL STATUE OF MEMNON. 235 



during his stay in Egypt, describes it as if it 

 emitted several sounds : 



Dimidio magicae resonant ubi Memnone chordae. 



Where broken Memnon sounds his magic strings. 



The simple sounds which issued from the 

 statue were, in the progress of time, magnified 

 into intelligible words, and even into an oracle 

 of seven verses, and this prodigy has been re- 

 corded in a Greek inscription on the left leg of 

 the statue. But though this new faculty of the 

 colossus was evidently the contrivance of the 

 Egyptian priests, yet we are not entitled from 

 this to call in question the simple and perfectly 

 credible fact that it emitted sounds. This pro- 

 perty, indeed, it seems to possess at the present 

 day ; for we learn,* that an English traveller, Sir 

 A. Smith, accompanied with a numerous escort, 

 examined the statue, and that at six o'clock in 

 the morning he heard very distinctly the sounds 

 which had been so celebrated in antiquity. He 

 asserts that this sound does not proceed from the 

 statue, but from the pedestal ; and he expresses 

 his belief that it arises from the impulse of the 

 air upon the stones of the pedestal, which are 

 arranged so as to produce this surprising effect. 

 This singular description is, to a certain extent, 

 confirmed by the description of Strabo, who says, 

 that he was quite certain that he heard a sound 

 which proceeded either from the base, or from the 

 colossus, or from some one of the assistants. As 

 there were no Egyptian priests in the escort of 

 Sir A. Smith, we may now safely reject this 

 last, and, for many centuries, the most probable 

 hypothesis. 



* Revue Encyclop^dique, 1821, tome ix., p. 592. 



