Kebra Nagast Preface 1

THE BOOK OF THE GLORY OF KINGS’

KEBRA NAGAST

Translated from the Ethiopic

by SIR E. A. WALLIS BUDGE M.A., LITT.D., D.LITT., LIT.D. F.S.A.

MCMXXXII

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD

PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION

WHEN the English translation of the “Book of the Glory of Kings” appeared in
1922 it received a generous welcome from the gentlemen of the Press, and the approval
of it by the public generally was shown by the fact that within two months from
the day of publication a reprint was called for. The amusing and interesting character
of the book which piles up fancy tales, fables, legends, folk-lore, dogma, mysticism
and pious remarks on a substratum of historical fact was frankly admitted by all
the reviewers, but a few of them raised the question of the historicity of the
Book of the Glory of Kings. It must be said at once that we shall never know whether
the queen who visited SOLOMON was a pure-blooded ABYSSINIAN or an Arab queen from
YAMAN or HADRAMAUT or some other part of the great Arabian peninsula. But the
tradition that some “Queen of the South” did visit SOLOMON is so old and so widespread,
that a kernel of historical fact, however small, must be hidden somewhere in it.
It would not surprise me if SIDNEY SMITH or C. J. GADD one day published in the
great Corpus of cuneiform texts from the tablets in the BRITISH MUSEUM a Sumerian
or Babylonian inscription telling how some great queen from latter-day INDIA paid
a visit to a king of one of the city states like ETANA, or MESANNIPADDA or the
great SARGON of AGADE, to be instructed in the wisdom and civilization of his
day. The story of such a visit would be noised abroad among the nations around
by the caravan men, and the scribes of the day would incorporate it in their historical
romances. It is quite possible that the story of SOLOMON and the Queen of SHEBA
is based upon one which is far older. Something like this has actually happened
with the history of GILGAMISH, 1
a king of URUK, in the Ethiopic history of the exploits of ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
In the latter work the scribe tells us how the Macedonian king sought for the
waters of life, and how he made his way through inpenetrable forests and arrived
at the sea of the waters of death, 2
and how he tried to fly up into heaven, 3
, all of which is described in the Epic of GILGAMISH, the prototype of ALEXANDER
to the scribe. The meeting of GILGAMISH with SIDURI the “SITU” i.e. “inn-keeper”
or “ale-wife” finds its counterpart in the meeting of ALEXANDER with ḲUND(CANDACE),
the queen of ETHIOPIA, which country, by the way, ALEXANDER never invaded. ALEXANDER
found such favour with ḲUNDthat she invited him to her private apartments
and shared her bed with him. The beauty of ḲUNDovercame ALEXANDER just as
the beauty of MĔDovercame SOLOMON, and it is possible that GILGAMISH fell
a victim to the “ale-wife”. The object of the Ethiopian scribe, ancient or modern,
was to make a “good story”, and he never allowed facts, or anachronisms, or names
of persons or places, or even possibility or probability to hamper him.

The next question is, How far are the ABYSSINIANS justified in claiming definite
kinship with the SEMITES? In dealing with this question the following facts must
be considered. There is little doubt the aboriginal inhabitants of ABYSSINIA were
negroes or negroids who came from the valley of the NILE. At a very early period,
which must be called prehistoric, tribes and peoples who lived on the western
side of the peninsula of ARABIA made their way across the sea from ASIA into AFRICA
in the south at some place like B-AL-MANDAB and in the north at some place in
the peninsula of SINAI. In this way the influence of Asiatic peoples entered ABYSSINIA.
Later a section of the HAMITES, whose language was akin to that of the LIBYANS,
BERBERS, and EGYPTIANS, brought into ABYSSINIA a language which for convenience
we may call “Ethiopic” though its more correct name is “Kushite”. The translators
of the Bible into “Ethiopic” identified, quite incorrectly, ABYSSINIA with KH,
the Hebrew name for the country which we now call NUBIA. Owing to the intermingling
of SEMITES and HAMITES a Semitic element entered the Hamitic language at a very
early period. The northern part of ABYSSINIA, that is, the mountainous section
of it, became the principal settlement of the SEMITES, who are known as the “AGAW”,
and from them were probably descended many of the FALHAS or “Abyssinian Jews”.

In the eleventh or tenth century before CHRIST a further invasion of ABYSSINIA
by Asiatic SEMlTES took place, and it was they who taught the Abyssinians the
elements of civilization. The principal tribe of the invaders was called “ḤABASHA”,
and they came from YAMAN in western SOUTH ARABIA. They gave the name of “ḤABESH”
to this part of AFRICA in which they settled, and it is from this that the modern
name of “ABYSSINIA” is derived. The immigration of SEMITES from ASIA went on steadily
during the following centuries, and the newcomers introduced the writing which
was current at that time in ARABIA, and trades, arts and crafts. Two or three
centuries before the Christian era they succeeded in forming a kingdom, the capital
of which was AKS. The SEMITES who settled in Upper, Middle, and Lower ABYSSINIA
became merchants and traders, and of such trade and commerce as existed at that
time they were the originators and organizers. The SEMITES who settled in and
about AKS were known as the “AG ‛IY”, i.e. the “free”, and the language
they spoke is called “GĔ‛ĔZ”, now frequently called “ETHIOPIC”. From this is derived
the modern language of TIGRAY called “TIGRI”. The language of the SEMITES in
Middle and Lower ABYSSINIA is known as “AMI” or “AMHARIC” .The Abyssinians
at that period had no literature.

Details of the downfall of the Semitic kingdom which had AKS for its capital
are wanting, but we know that its successor was ruled by kings who were pagans;
among these were APHILAS, ENDYBIS, and ALALMIDIS (ELLA ‛AM, the father of
‛EZ the Αειζανάς of the GREEKS, who reigned in the first half of the fourth
century of our era. ‛EZ who has been called the “CONSTANTINE OF ABYSSINIA”
was the greatest king of ABYSSINIA known to history , and he adopted Christianity
as the national religion of his country. With the coming of Christianity Abyssinian
literature came into existence.

From the facts summarized briefly in the preceding paragraphs it is clear that
the ABYSSINIANS or ETHIOPIANS, as the people themselves prefer to be called, owe
more to the SEMITES than to the HAMITES, or NEGROES, or EGYPTIANS, or GREEKS,
or any other people with whom they came in contact in the prehistoric or historic
periods. The SEMITES found them negro savages, and taught them civilization and
culture, and gave them the Holy Scriptures on which their whole literature is
based, and set before their eyes shining examples of righteous kings, prophets,
priests, and holy men. And from first to last there must have been a very large
admixture of Semitic blood in the ABYSSINIANS introduced by marriage and concubinage.

The original form of the Legend of the Queen of SHEBA probably came into being
soon after the great invasion of ABYSSINIA by the SEMITES in the tenth century
before CHRIST. In the opinion of the ABYSSINIANS divine authority was given to
it by Our Lord by His words quoted in the Gospels (Matt. xii. 42; Luke xi. 31),
and they never doubted that SOLOMON was the father of the son of the Queen of
SHEBA. It followed as a matter of course that the male descendants of this son
were the lawful kings of ABYSSINIA, and as SOLOMON was an ancestor of CHRIST they
were kinsmen of Our Lord, and they claimed to reign by divine right. This belief
was probably shared by the kings of the Semitic kingdom of AKS, which city
was at a very early period regarded as a duplicate of JERUSALEM and was called
the “ZION OF ABYSSINIA”. When the ABYSSINIANS adopted Christianity in the second
half of the fourth or the first half of the fifth century they decided to sever
as far as possible their connexion with their pagan ancestors from ARABIA. The
SEMITES who claimed kinship with the HEBREWS of JERUSALEM abandoned MAḤRAM and
the other gods of the MINAEANS and SABAEANS in favour of JAHWEH, the god of the
HEBREWS. When the SEMITES who were Christians had the Holy Scriptures translated
into GĔ‛ĔZ the translators used a script which, though based on the old writings
of the MINAEANS and SABAEANS, was different from it in some very important particulars.
The old inscriptions, like Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, , read from right to left,
but the ABYSSINIANS decided to read their texts from left to right, as did the
BABYLONIANS and ASSYRIANS. This decision was due probably to Greek influence.
The letters of the old Arabian alphabets were entirely consonantal and vowels
were expressed by the semi-vowel letters. Some genius, name unknown, discovered
a way of expressing the vowels in GĔ‛ĔZ by attaching short lines and minute circles
to the consonants of the Sabaean alphabet and by modifying the forms of some of
the consonants themselves. Thus the ABYSSINIANS turned the old Sabaean alphabet
into a syllabary. Two examples will make this clear.

The Sabaean letter

= B. With the circles and lines added to it by the Abyssinians we have: በ = bă,
ብ = bĕ, ቡ = b ቤ = b ባ = b ቢ = b ቦ = b

The Sabaean letter

= D. With the change of position from perpendicular to horizontal, and the circles
and lines added we have: ደ = dă, ድ = dĕ, ዱ = d ዲ = d ዳ = d ዴ = d ዶ = d
Thus the ABYSSINIANS provided for the expression of the “o” sound, which the ASSYRIANS
and BABYLONIANS failed to do.

The translators of the Bible into GĔ‛ĔZ rejected HABESH, the old name of ABYSSINIA,
and in their version definitely gave the name of ETHIOPIA (ĔYĔY to the
region, the capital of which was AKS. They read that the “eunuch of great authority
under CANDACE queen of the ETHIOPIANS ‘was called’ a man of ETHIOPIA” (Acts viii.
27), and as the country over which that queen ruled was the KH of the Old Testament,
they rendered that name by “ETHIOPIA” (e.g. Psalms lxviii. 32.; lxxxvii. 4). Strictly
speaking KH was UPPER NUBIA. The name HABESH was disliked by the indigenous
peoples of the country , and though in the modern Amharic dictionaries HABASH
is still to be found, the present-day native hates to be called “HABASHIYY”, for
by him it is regarded as an abusive epithet. Thus the Abyssinian Christian gained
a new national name, a new script, and a new literature.

As Christianity spread southwards the idea of the Solomonic ancestry of the
kings of ETHIOPIA in the period between the sixth and the thirteenth centuries
gained ground everywhere. During this period many kings who were not of the Solomonic
line reigned, and a group of them called the ZUwere masters of ETHIOPIA for
about 330 years. At length there appeared a member of the Solomonic line called
YEKUENAML (1270-85) in SHOA, and with the help of the great saint TAKLA HAYM
he expelled the ZUand became “King of the Kings of ETHIOPIA”. In return for
this help of the saint, YEKUENAML agreed to give to the Church one-third
of the revenues of his kingdom, and his successors have, on the whole, followed
his example.

As regards the present edition of the Queen of Sheba little need be said. In
the first edition of my translation of the KEBRA NAGAST (all vowels short) there
were 31 plates containing monochrome photographs, reproductions of coloured illustrations
copied from Ethiopic manuscripts of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries. The scenes and subjects represented were all of a religious character,
but had no special reference to the Book of the Glory of Kings, for strangely
enough that work is without illustrations. Nothing in a systematic way of publishing
specimens of Ethiopian Art had been done before LADY MEUX published the coloured
facsimiles of all the illustrations, both vignettes and full pages, from her two
splendid manuscripts of the Miracles of the Virgin Mary and from the Life of Ḥanna
the mother of the Virgin, and the Life of Mab Ṣĕyon. I therefore added the 31
plates of illustrations from the manuscripts of the great MAḲDALCollection now
in the BRITISH MUSEUM, thinking that they would give the reader a good idea of
the character of Ethiopian art generally. But it must never be forgotten that
the art represented on the plates is not indigenous, for it is borrowed directly
from or is based upon the paintings which were executed for the kings of ETHIOPIA
by FRANCISCO DI BRANCA-LEONE, a Venetian monk, who is commonly called “the Frank”.
He flourished in the reign of ZARA YḲ (A.D. 1436-68). This monk came to ABYSSINIA
with the view of converting the people to Christianity, and he is famous as “the
Frank” who by the command of the king, carried on several debates with ABBGG
on the faith. When the king discovered that he was a painter as well as a monk,
he set him to work at painting pictures of Our Lady and the saints to be hung
up in the churches, and it was he who painted for BAEDA MY (A.D. 1468-78)
the picture of the Virgin and the Infant CHRIST which exasperated the ABYSSINIANS.
He represented the Virgin holding the Child on her left arm as was customary in
Europe, but the ABYSSINIANS regarded the left hand as the “hand of dishonour”,
and they wanted to destroy the picture. This the king refused to permit, and it
was hung in the ATRONSA MY, a church in the town of the same name in the
south of AMḤAR on the AB RIVER, and there it remained until the third year
of the reign of THEOPHILUS (A.D. 1709). In that year the GALLAS came and wrecked
the church, and killed the priests, and the picture and the coffin containing
the remains of BAEDA MY were hurled over a precipice on SUNDAY, AUGUST 23.

The Introduction and Translation given in the first edition of the Queen of
Sheba are repeated herein practically unaltered. The readings of two or three
passages have been, I hope, improved, and a few references added. To write the
literary history of the KEBRA NAGAST I believe to be impossible at present, owing
to the lack of material. We can never expect to find out what was the original
form of the Legend of the Queen of SHEBA, and it is impossible to assign dates
to the various recensions of it which have been made in Coptic, Arabic, and Ethiopic.
The sources of many of the legends reproduced in the great work are untraceable
at present, and the unauthorized additions made to it by generations of scribes
cannot with certainty be identified. It would be very interesting to know when
the KEBRA NAGAST (all vowels short) began to be politically important, and regarded
as the source of the invincibility of the ABYSSINIANS. The success of the British
Expedition under GENERAL NAPIER in 1868 disturbed their equanimity somewhat, but
they comforted themselves by remembering that it was directed against THEODORE,
who was after all only an impostor. The natives everywhere helped the British
Army because they wished to see the usurper smashed. Had they been hostile the
result of the expedition would have been different. The battle of ADWA showed
how the ABYSSINIANS could deal with an army of European soldiers, and “unconquered
ABYSSINIA” is now the fiery, passionate cry of every patriot of ETHIOPIA from
AKS to the Equator.

48 Bloomsbury Street
Bedford Square, W.C. 1
August 22, 1932

Footnotes

1 For his authentic
history see Sidney Smith, Early History of Assyria, p. 34.
2 See the Epic
of Gilgamish (British Museum), London, 1929.
3 See the “Legend
of Etana” in Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 519f.