page_title: A Legend of Old Egypt
section_title: Influences
hierarchical_section_title: A Legend of Old Egypt / Influences
context_page_description: "A Legend of Old Egypt" is a short story by Bolesław Prus, originally published January 1, 1888, in New Year's supplements to the Warsaw Kurier Codzienny and Tygodnik Ilustrowany. It was his first piece of historical fiction and later served as a preliminary sketch for his only historical novel, Pharaoh, which would be serialized in the Illustrated Weekly.
  "A Legend of Old Egypt" and Pharaoh show unmistakable kinships in setting, theme and denouement.
context_section_description: In addition to the German elements, there were other influences on the composition of the short story.  These included:
  the use of a device inspired by the ancient Greek chorus, in this case stating at the opening and at the end, and repeating once in the course of the text, a sentiment about the vanity of human hopes before the decrees of heaven;
  astrological echoes from Prus' own newspaper account of the solar eclipse that he had witnessed at Mława, north of Warsaw, four months earlier, on August 19, 1887;
  the history of Pharaoh Ramses II ("the Great"), who had lived nearly as long as the "Legend's" "hundred-year-old Ramses" (who is also referred to in Prus' story as "great Ramses") and had outlived dozens of his own potential successors;
  and the Roman poet Horace's sentiment, "Non omnis moriar" ("I shall not die altogether"), which Prus cites in Polish in the "Legend" and will cite in the original Latin at the end of The Doll, which he is also writing just then.
caption: Horace
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