Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

2)^6 THE HISTORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
said, and she ordered that all men should be
gathered together thereto, and that every one
upon whom sorrow had not come should partake
of it; and it came to pass that no one came to
the meal. Thus she understood by this and became
sure that in this world there is no one who
is without sorrow.' And Philemon, the captain' of
his hosts, prepared his body for burial, and he
anointed it with aloes, and placed it in a golden^
Alexander coffin, aud pourcd over it the honey of bees.
carried to
Alexandria. Then he lifted it up and took it with him, and
marched by day and by night to the city of
Alexandria, and he brought forth the coffin and
set it down among the people.
Then came Aristotle, the sage, together with
a great many of the Greek philosophers who
dwelt in Alexander's kingdom, and each of them
uttered some wise"* saying over the coffin of
Alexander.'
' See above, p. 306. ^ Read A.+
= ihi-lh '
3 The Greek says he was laid in a leaden coffin, ev fiO-
XujBbivt;) \dpvaKi (Miillerj p. 151, col. i), but the Syriac version
(p. 141), agreeing with the Ethiopic, says a "gold coffin."
Mas'udi (ii. p. 251) says that the gold coffin was inlaid with
precious stones yiil_^-vJb g^yo ,
+ Read Tfl-O '
ooJJl
^^j^ o>j'-^.
5 The following sayings are probably referred to in the
passage in the Syriac version (p. 142), "They kept the body
of Alexander in that place [Memphis] twelve days, and each
day they made elegies and lamentations and weeping over
him afresh; and they wished to retain his body there."