Joseph and his brothers, p.145
Joseph and His Brothers, page 145
Amenhotep had granted them permission for their conference. The court had been given orders to stand at the ready. The king had spent a full two hours—for that is how long the consultation lasted—in great uneasiness. Then the assembly was reconvened.
"May Pharaoh live a million years, beloved of Ma'at, mistress of truth, in return for his love for her, for she is without falsehood." She, so they said, was standing at their side, personally at the side of these experts as they now proclaimed the outcome and offered their interpretation to Pharaoh, Guardian of Truth. First: The seven beautiful cows were seven princesses to which, over time, Nefernefruaton-Nefertiti, Queen of the Two Lands, would give birth. But that the fat cattle were devoured by the decrepit ones meant that all seven daughters would die during Pharaoh's lifetime. That did not mean, they hastened to add, that the king's daughters would die in their youth. For Pharaoh would be granted a life of such duration that he would outlive all his children, no matter how old they grew to be.
Amenhotep stared at them, his mouth agape. What were they talking about? he asked, lowering his voice. They responded that they had been granted the privilege of offering their interpretation of the first dream. But this interpretation, he replied, his voice still faint, had no relationship whatever to his dream, had nothing to do with it at all. He had not asked whether the queen would bear him a son and successor to the throne or a daughter and still more daughters. He had asked them the meaning of the sleek and ugly cows. But the daughters, they responded, were the meaning. He ought not to
expect to find cows again in the interpretation of his cow dream. In the interpretation the cows were transformed into royal daughters.
Pharaoh's mouth was no longer agape; he had in fact closed it quite tightly and opened it again only just the least bit to demand that they move on to the second dream.
As for the second, they said, the seven plump ears of grain were seven flourishing cities that Pharaoh would build; the seven sere and scrubby ones were their ruins. To be sure, they hastened to explain, all cities inevitably fall into ruin over time. Pharaoh, however, would live so long that he would see the ruins of the cities he himself had built.
With that Meni's patience was at an end. He had not had enough sleep, it had been an embarrassment to repeat dreams that withered as he told them, the two-hour wait for the verdict of these learned doctors had unnerved him. And now he was so imbued with the idea that these were botched interpretations, missing the mark of his vision's true meaning by many ells, that he was no longer master of his anger. He asked if what his wise men had told him was found in their books? But when they replied that their presentation was a sound combination of what was in their books and deductions derived from their own joint efforts, he sprang from his chair—something unprecedented during an audience, so that the courtiers raised their shoulders high and covered their mouths with their hands—and with tears in his voice, he called his dreadfully frightened prophets bunglers and ignoramuses.
"Begone!" he cried almost with a sob. "And take with you Pharaoh's disfavor rather than a wealth of golden tribute that My Majesty would have bestowed upon you had truth come from your mouths. Your interpretations are fraud and falsehood. Pharaoh knows that, because it was Pharaoh who dreamt, and even if he does not know the interpretation he still knows how to distinguish be-tv/een a true interpretation and one so mediocre. Out of my sight!"
The pale scholars were led out by two palace guards. Meni, however, without even taking his seat again, had declared to the court that this fiasco had in no way convinced him to let the matter rest. His courtiers had unfortunately been witness to a shameful failure, but, by his scepter! he would call other dream experts to him on the morrow, this time from the house of Djehuti, of Thoth, the Scribe of Ninefold Greatness, the Lord of Khmunu. From priests consecrated
to the white baboon one could expect a worthier and truer interpretation of what an inner voice told him must be interpreted.
The new consultation had taken place the next day under the same circumstances. But the outcome was even worse than on the day before. Once again, despite his inner struggle and faltering tongue, Pharaoh had publicly displayed his dream mummies, and once again there had been much nodding and head-shaking among these luminaries. The king and his court had had to wait not two, but three long hours for the result of the secret consultations that the sons of Thoth had likewise requested; and even then these experts could come to no agreement among themselves, but had been divided in their opinions about the dreams. There were, their eldest announced, two interpretations for each, although these were the only ones worth considering and others were unthinkable. According to one theory, the seven fat cows were seven kings from the seed of Pharaoh, the seven ugly ones, however, seven princes of wretched lands that would rise up against them. But this lay far in the future. On the other hand, the beautiful cows might also be a group of queens that either Pharaoh himself or one of his distant successors would bring into his house of women, and who—as suggested by the seven emaciated cows—would unfortunately die one after the other.
And the ears of grain?
The seven golden ears meant, or so some of them were convinced, seven heroes of Egypt, who would be slain in some future war by seven warriors, even though, as indicated by the blighted ears of grain, they were less powerful. The others firmly believed the seven plump and seven withered ears were fourteen children that would be born to Pharaoh by those foreign queens. Except that strife would break out among them and, by their superior wiles, the seven weaker children would murder the seven stronger ones.
This time Amenhotep did not even leap up from his throne of presence. He remained sitting there, hunched over, his face hidden in his hands, and the courtiers to the right and left of the baldachin had to cock their ears to hear what he murmured into his hands. "Charlatans, charlatans!" he had whispered over and over, and then gestured to the Vizier of the North, who stood nearby, to bend down to him and receive his barely audible command. Ptahemheb carried out
the order by proclaiming to the experts in a loud voice that Pharaoh wanted to know if they were not ashamed of themselves.
They had done their best, they answered.
Then the vizier had bent down to the king again and this time it turned out that he had been given an order to tell these sorcerers to vacate the hall. In great confusion and amid exchanged sidelong glances, as if each were asking the other if he had ever experienced anything like this, the men withdrew. The courtiers left behind stood there in anxious puzzlement, for Pharaoh was still sitting bent over in his chair, his hands covering his eyes. When he finally took them away and sat up, his face was lined with sorrow and his chin was quivering. He told his courtiers that he would gladly have spared them and only with reluctance had plunged them into such pain and sadness, but he could not conceal from them the fact that their lord and king was most unhappy. His dreams had undeniably borne the stamp of imperial significance, and their interpretation was a matter of life and death. The explanations they had received, however, were flimsy stuff; they did not match his dreams in any way, nor had they recognized themselves in them the way that dream and interpretation must recognize one another. After the failure of these two grand attempts, he had no choice but to doubt if he would ever receive an interpretation that would correspond to the truth and be immediately recognized as such. But that meant one was forced to leave it to the dreams to interpret themselves and, barring any preventative measures, to realize their own sad fulfillment—possibly resulting in gravest injury to both state and religion. The Two Lands were in danger; but Pharaoh, to whom this was apparent, was now left alone on his throne, without advice or assistance.
The apprehensive silence that followed these words lasted only a moment. Then it was that Nefer-em-Wese, the Chief Butler, after much struggle with himself, had stepped forward from among the king's assembled friends and requested the favor of speaking before Pharaoh. "I remember my faults this day"—with these words, according to tradition, he began his address; that statement hangs in the air, one can still hear it even now. The Chief Wine Steward was not, however, speaking of sins he had not committed, for he had been wrongly imprisoned and had not been party to the plan to have
the aged Re bitten by Eset's serpent. He meant another fault—that is, that he had firmly promised someone that he would mention him, but had not kept his word, for he had forgotten that someone. But now he remembered him and spoke of him before the royal baldachin. He reminded Pharaoh, who scarcely remembered it, of the "ennui"—as he put it, borrowing a foreign euphemism—of his experience from two years before, when he was still butler under Neb-maat-Re, and by mistake had ended up at the island fortress of Zawi-Re, along with someone it would be better not to name, a man despised by god, whose body and soul had both been destroyed. Upon their arrival there, a young lad, the captain's aide, had been appointed to wait upon them, a Habiru from Asia, with the odd name of Osarsiph, the son of a king of flocks and friend of a god in the East, borne to him by a lovely wife, which was certainly evident from the look of the lad. This Osarsiph had been given the greatest talent in the field of dream exegesis that he. Excellent in Thebes, had ever encountered in all his life. For both his guilty comrade and he, the innocent man, had dreamt on the same night—very difficult, momentous dreams, each for himself—and had been terribly hard-pressed to find a correct interpretation. This Usarsiph, however, who had never made an issue of his talent before, had interpreted their dreams easily and quite on his own, and had told the baker that he would end up hanged on the crossbar, whereas he himself, on account of his radiant purity, would be received into favor again and restored to his office. It had happened exactly that way, and today he, Nefer, remembered his faults—that is, that during all this time he had not called attention to this talent still living in shadows and pointed a finger to him. He did not hesitate to state his conviction that if anyone might be able to interpret Pharaoh's important dreams, it was presumably this lad still vegetating at Zawi-Re.
A stir among the friends of the king, and something stirred in Pharaoh's face and form as well. There followed a few questions and answers exchanged between the king and his fat butler—and the beautiful order was issued for the First Express Runner and Winged Messenger to set out by express boat for Zawi-Re and, wasting as little time as possible, to bring this prophetic foreigner before Pharaoh's face at On.
Part Three
THE CRETAN LOGGIA
The Introduction
When Joseph arrived in the millennial city of blinking eyes it was the time of sowing, of the burial of the god, just as it had been back then, when for the second time he had fallen into the pit, where he had spent three great days under tolerable conditions with Mai-Sakhme, the calm captain. This was as it should be: exactly three years had passed and, just as then, the same point in the great cycle had come round and the children of Egypt had again erected the god's spine in celebration of the Festival of the Ripped-Open Earth—it was the week between the twenty-second and last day of the month of Khoiak.
Joseph was delighted to see Golden On again, through which once, now three and ten years ago, he had traveled as a boy, following the route along which the Ishmaelites had led him and together with them had been instructed by the servants of the sun about the beautiful figure of the triangle and the gentle nature of Re-Horakhte, Lord of the Wide Horizon. Once again he passed through the triangular district of this edifying city with its many glistening symbols of the sun, this time at the side of a courier, and sped toward its tip—that is, toward the endpoint where its lateral sides intersected and where the topmost slanted planes of the great obeHsk, their gold outshining all else, greeted them from afar.
Jacob's son, who had spent so long gazing at nothing but prison walls, had no time to use his eyes and enjoy the sights of a busy city and its people—his guide, the winged messenger, who had not a minute to spare and was still pushing ahead with breathless haste, did not allow him to take in the outside world; nor was he himself in a mood for leisurely observation. For another cycle was repeating itself, and another return was about to take place: he would once again be standing before the highest. Back then it had been Petepre, the highest in the vicinity, before whom he had been permitted to speak
there in the palm garden, and that had meant everything. Now it was Pharaoh himself, the highest of all here below, before whom he was to speak, and this time it meant the highest of everything. What it also meant was that he had to be helpful to the Lord in His plans and not clumsily thwart them, which would be great folly, a scorning of the course of the world out of a lack of faith. Only a wavering in his faith that God wanted to raise him high could lead him to be inept and to fail to seize the opportunity arranged for him; and so Joseph was filled with suspense as to what was to come and had no eyes for the hustle and bustle of the city—he was confident in an expectation that knew no fear, for he was certain in his faith, itself the source of all pious proficiency, that God had joyful, loving, and significant things in store for him.
We, who share in the suspense of expectation with him, even though we know how it all turned out, do not wish to reproach him for his confidence, but accept him as he was, and as we have come to know him over so long a time. There are those who are chosen who in despairing humility and self-castigation are never able to beUeve in their election, who dismiss it with anger and self-abasement, never trusting their own senses, and to some extent even feel their lack of faith has been insulted when, despite everything, they are raised up at last. And then there are the others, for whom nothing in the world is more self-evident than their being chosen—those who are aware that they are God's favorites, who marvel at nothing when they are raised up and crowned with the crown of life. Whichever race of the elect one may prefer, the one haunted by disbelief or the one filled with presumption—Joseph belonged to the second. We should nonetheless be glad that at least he did not belong to a third, which also exists: these are the hypocrites before God and man, who feign their unworthiness even to themselves, but in whose mouth the word "grace" sounds more arrogant than all the blissful self-confidence of those who are never amazed by it.
Pharaoh's stopgap quarters at On lay to the east of the temple of the sun and were connected to it by a boulevard of sphinxes and sycamores, the same path the god took whenever he wanted to burn incense to his father. The residence itself was a light and cheerful improvisation, which like all residences was constructed of brick and wood—but without any stone, which is appropriate only for Eternal Dwellings—and, of course, as charmingly and finely ornamented as
anything Kerne's luxurious high culture might dream of; it lay enclosed and protected amidst its gardens by a dazzling white wall, before whose lofty entrance stood gilded flagpoles with colorful pennants fluttering in the breeze.
It was now past noon, the midday meal was over. Although the express boat had not put up for the night, it had still required the morning hours to reach On. In the square outside a gate in the wall a throng had gathered, for many of the city's people had come simply to stand about and wait for some spectacle; but a troop of military police, gate guards, and charioteers—who stood chatting away beside their snorting, pawing, and sometimes even loudly whinnying steeds—now blocked the way, which was likewise filled with peddlers and vendors offering brightly colored candies, fritters, souvenir scarabs, and inch-high statuettes of the king and queen. The courier and the man he had brought made their way through all this only with difficulty. "A decree! A decree! A guest, a guest!" he shouted over and over, trying to frighten the crowd with his professional breathlessness, which he had not displayed during their journey until now. Once inside the palace courts he continued to shout these words to servants who had run out to meet them, but now raised their eyebrows and gladly fell back; he brought Joseph to the foot of a stairway leading up to the entrance of a pavihon set on a high platform, where a palace official, evidently some substeward or other, had planted himself and stared down at them with dulled eyes. Calling up the stairs, the courier announced in hurried words that he was bringing the soothsayer of Zawi-Re, whom he had been commanded to fetch in greatest haste; whereupon the man measured Joseph from head to toe with the same dulled gaze, as if in the wake of this announcement it was up to him whether to admit him—and then signaled to him, once again leaving the impression that this was his own decision, that if he liked he could also refuse him entrance. The courier hastily enjoined Joseph that he, too, should breathe in rapid gasps when he came before Pharaoh, since this would leave the lovely impression that he had run the whole way without rest to appear before his countenance—instructions that Joseph, however, did not take seriously. He thanked his long-legged companion for fetching and escorting him and now climbed the stairs to the official, who responded to his greeting not with a nod, but a shake of his head, and then ordered him to follow.
They strode through a portico painted with bright colorful scenes and borne by four columns wound with ribbons and now entered a fountain court shimmering with the precious woods of more round columns and opening to the front and sides onto broad pillared passageways. Here armed men stood guard. The man led Joseph straight ahead into an antechamber with three deep doors, one beside the other, and escorted him through the middle one. With that they entered into a very large hall that was supported by perhaps twelve columns and whose sky blue ceiling was decorated with birds in flight. An openwork cottage done in red and gold, much like a garden gazebo, stood in the middle; inside it was a table surrounded by armchairs with colorful cushions. Apron-clad servants were sprinkling and sweeping the floor here; they were clearing away trays of fruit, plumping up cushions, tending to the incense bowls and lamps on tripods that alternated with broad-handled alabaster vases, and arranging gold-embossed goblets on the buffet tables. It was obvious that Pharaoh had just dined here and had now retreated to some place of rest, to the gardens or deeper into the building. All of this was somewhat less new and amazing to Joseph than was probably presumed by his guide, who from time to time cast him appraising sidelong glances.
