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So now, for a change, I've become an Egyptian;
- but Egyptian on the basis of the Gyntish I.
- To Assyria next I will bend my steps.
- To begin right back at the world's creation
- would lead to nought but bewilderment.
- I will go round about all the Bible history;
- its secular traces I'll always be coming on;
- and to look, as the saying goes, into its seams,
- lies entirely outside both my plan and my powers.
- [Sits upon a stone.]
- Now I will rest me, and patiently wait
- till the statue has sung its habitual dawn-song.
- When breakfast is over, I'll climb up the pyramid;
- if I've time, I'll look through its interior afterwards.
- Then I'll go round the head of the Red Sea by land;
- perhaps I may hit on King Potiphar's grave.-
- Next I'll turn Asiatic. In Babylon I'll seek for
- the far-renowned harlots and hanging gardens,-
- that's to say, the chief traces of civilisation.
- Then at one bound to the ramparts of Troy.
- From Troy there's a fareway by sea direct
- across to the glorious ancient Athens;-
- there on the spot will I, stone by stone,
- survey the Pass that Leonidas guarded.
- I will get up the works of the better philosophers,
- find the prison where Socrates suffered, a martyr-;
- oh no, by-the-bye-there's a war there at present-!
- Well then, my Hellenism must even stand over.
- [Looks at his watch.]
- It's really too bad, such an age as it takes
- for the sun to rise. I am pressed for time.
