The Triumph of Horus: An Ancient Egyptian Sacred Drama

by H.W. Fairman, Derek Newton (Contributor), Derek Poole (Contributor)

English (translation)

Genres: Plays

150 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[وائل المنعم · Rating 1 out of 5]

المفترض أنها ترجمة لنصوص هيروغليفية، ولعها تعكس ملل وجمود الفنون الفرعونية عامة، ورغم الاداء الجيد من الأصوات إلا أنها لم تستطع التخلص من رتابتها.

[Aaron Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The performance at Edfu is a really interesting document, and it seems very clear that it is a performance of some sort – and a very interesting performance indeed! However... what we get in The Triumph of Horus instead is Fairman's adaptation of the script – if indeed it is a script – rather than a reproduction of what it says on the walls on the temple at Edfu. In other words, it's very hard to begin to try to see what this performance might actually have looked like, because Fairman is so intent on transforming what he sees on the walls into what he insists on calling a "play". The book contains pages of descriptions of the things he has altered and amended – so many that I ceased to be able to keep track in my head.

In short, we are in dire need of a new edition of the text for the performance that occurred at Edfu. This one is too heavily altered to be of much use to the performance historian.

The Triumph of Horus, incidentally is, as far as I can tell, an entirely invented title for this performance tradition.

[John Gates · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should be called "The Triumph of Fairman, His Play, & Translations of Edfu".
He should've just written an additional journal entry to his previous research. The title of this book is misleading and presupposes (to the ignorant) a story, which for the most part it is not. Seeing that I hadn't dipped into Fairman's pervious scholarly articles on Edfu, I figured reading this would benefit my research, which is at this time to hear the interpretation of Ancient Egyptian Mythology through the eyes of another, giving my schema a more rounded depiction. I was expecting the full spectrum - A to Z. Unfortunately Fairman goes on a stubborn rant for the first several pages with unnecessary conviction, disaffecting anyone with a divergent or contrasting perspective. Seeing how I picked this book up without bias, it all comes across a bit naïve, like a poorly written request, where the demands are laid out at first and as passion tapers, compliments appear in the end... an automatic turn off. This could be a great book, if not written in haste and spite.
Okay, fine... it's a play!

Though this book is mostly just banter dismantling prior interpretations, which is quite boring and for the most part useless or better assimilated into an appendix, Fairman does eventually express a few fine points and intricacies making it not a complete waste of time.

[nevaeh galluccio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I definitely didn’t read 150 pages of a play, but I did in fact read The Triumph of Horus so… It was fun! A short nice play about the story of Horus’ revenge against Seth. Many lines that seemed like they had sexual double meanings but maybe that was just the translation (or my mind). Good start to my theatre history class. Isis is down for anything she’s really passionate about killing Seth.