Three Novels of Ancient Egypt Khufu's Wisdom, Rhadopis of Nubia, Thebes at War

by Naguib Mahfouz

Tahu fell silent, though the rage still boiled in his veins, and seeing the torment and fear she was in, he felt relief and pleasure, and he mumbled, “Taste agony and humiliation and behold death. Neither of us should live. I died a long time ago. There is nothing left of Tahu save his glorious, emblazoned uniforms. As for the Tahu who took part in the conquest of Nubia, and whose courage on the field of battle earned the praise of Pepi II, Tahu, commander of the guard of Merenra II, his bosom friend and counselor, he does not exist.”

  The man cast a quick glance about the room and unbearable anguish showed in his face. He could no longer stand the stifling silence nor the sight of Rhadopis, who was transformed into an unfeeling statue. He snorted into the air with bitterness and disgust as he said, “Everything should end, but I will not deny myself the harshest punishment. I shall go to the palace and summon all those who think well of me. I will announce my crime for them all to hear, and I will unmask the traitor who, though his lord's right-hand man, betrayed him in the end. I shall tear off the decorations that adorn my wicked breast, I shall throw aside my sword and plunge this dagger into my heart. Farewell, Rhadopis, and farewell to life that demands from us so much more than it deserves.”

  With these words Tahu departed.

  THE END

  NO SOONER HAD Tahu left the palace than the skiff” bearing Benamun Ben Besar docked at the garden stairway. The young man was exhausted, all color drained from his face, his clothes smeared with dust. The unrest he had seen in the city, the raging fury of the people in revolt, had left his nerves in shreds. Only with great effort had he managed to reach his lodgings. The scenes he had encountered on the way there paled in significance next to the horrors that greeted him on the return journey. So it was that he breathed a great sigh of relief when he found himself walking down the garden paths of the white palace of Biga, the summer room lying in front of him a little way ahead. He reached the room, and believing it to be empty, crossed the threshold. He soon realized his mistake, however, when he saw Rhadopis slumped on the divan underneath her magnificent portrait with Shayth sitting cross-legged at her feet, the two of them contained in an unearthly silence. He hesitated a moment. Shayth sensed his presence and Rhadopis turned toward him. The slave stood up, bowed to him in greeting and left the room. The young man stepped over to the woman, beaming with joy, but when he saw the expression on her face all his emotions stood still and he was overcome with anxiety, struck speechless. There was no doubt in his mind that the news of events outside had reached the ears of his goddess, and that the reports of the pains afflicting the people had reflected themselves on her lovely face and clothed it in this coarse mantle of despair. He knelt down in front of her, then leaned over the hem of her dress and kissed it passionately. He looked at her with his two clear eyes, full of compassion, as if to say to her, “I would gladly take upon myself your suffering.” The relief that appeared on her face when she saw him did not escape him. His heart raced with delight and his face turned bright red. In a feeble voice Rhadopis said to him, “You took a long time, Benamun.”

  The youth said, “I made my way through a crashing sea of seething humanity. Abu today has flared up and boiled over, casting burning embers all about, and filling the air with ash.”

  Then the young man thrust his hand into his pocket, pulled out a small phial, and handed it to her. She took it in her hand and held it tight. She felt its coldness course through her veins and settle in her heart, as she heard him say, “It looks to me as if your spirit carries more than it can bear.”

  “Sorrows are contagious,” she said.

  “Then be gentle with yourself. You should not surrender completely to sorrow. Why do you not leave for Ambus for a period of time, my lady, until some measure of calm returns to this place?”

  She listened to him, feigning interest, with an odd expression in her eyes, as if she were looking for the last time at the last person she would ever set eyes upon in this world. The thought of death had so completely taken her over that she felt like a stranger in the world. So choked was she by her emotions that she did not feel a drop of compassion for the youth kneeling before her, floating in his world of hopes, his eyes blind to the fate that awaited him so imminently. Benamun thought that she was weighing his proposal in her mind, and hope welled in his heart and his desires were aroused as he said excitedly, “Ambus, my lady, is a town of tranquility and beauty. All the eye sees there is cloudless sky and birds chirping and ducks gliding across the water and lush greenery. Its glorious and happy air will wash away the pains that poor, troubled Abu has roused in your heart.”

  She soon grew weary of his talking and, as her thoughts wandered to the mysterious phial, she felt a yearning for the end. Her eyes scoured the spot where the litter had lain just a short while before. Her heart screamed out that she should end her life here and now. She decided to get rid of Benamun so she said, “What you are suggesting is wonderful, Benamun. Let me think for a while, alone.”

  His face shining with joy and hope, the young man asked her, “Will I have to wait long?”

  And she said, “You will not have to wait long, Benamun.”

  He kissed her hand, rose to his feet, and left the room.

  Shayth came in almost immediately after, just as Rhadopis was about to get up off her seat, but before the slave could say a word, Rhadopis ordered her away again. “Fetch me a jug of beer,” she said, and was rid of her.

  Shayth went back to the palace. Meanwhile, Benamun had strolled down to the pool and was resting on a seat by its edge. He was now in a state of rapture and delight, for hope was bringing nearer his goal of taking his beloved goddess to Ambus, far from the misfortune hanging over Abu. Then she would belong to him and he would find comfort with her. He prayed to the gods to come down to her in her loneliness and to inspire her toward the right decision and a felicitous outcome.

  He could not bear to sit for long, and he stood up to walk leisurely round the pool. When he had completed the first lap he saw Shayth carrying a jug, making hurriedly for the room. His eyes followed her until she disappeared behind the door. He decided to sit down again and had only just done so when he heard a chilling scream ring out from inside the room. He leapt to his feet, his heart in his mouth, and raced over to the source of the commotion. He found Rhadopis sprawled on the floor in the center of the room, the slave girl kneeling by her side, bending over her, calling her, touching her cheeks, and checking her pulse. He rushed over to her, his legs trembling, panic and alarm clearly visible in his wide eyes. He knelt down next to Shayth and taking Rhadopis's hand between his own, he found it cold. She seemed like one asleep, save that her face was all pale, tinged with a gentle blueness. Her ghostly lips were slightly parted, and locks of her black hair lay disheveled on her breast and shoulders while others had tumbled onto the carpet. He felt his throat slowly parch, his breath unable to escape as he asked the slave in a hoarse voice, “What is wrong with her, Shayth? Why isn't she answering?”

  The woman answered in a voice like a wail, “I do not know, sir.

  “I found her when I entered the room just as you see her now. I called her but she did not respond. I ran over to her and shook her but she did not come to, and no sign of consciousness showed in her. O Lord, my lady. What is the matter with you? What has afflicted you to make you like this?”

  Benamun did not utter a word, but looked long at the woman crumpled on the floor in terrible stillness. As his eyes looked about her they alighted on the fiendish phial beneath her right elbow, the stopper removed. He let out a sorrowful moan as his trembling fingers picked it up. All that remained inside -were a few drops clinging to the glass and as his eyes moved between the phial and the woman, the truth became clear. A shudder ran through his slender body that tore him all to shreds. He moaned in agony and the slave turned to him as he exclaimed in a panic-stricken voice, “O God, how terrible!”

  Shayth fixed her eyes on him as she asked him in apprehension and alarm, “What is it that horrifies an
d disturbs you? Speak, man. I am almost out of my mind with confusion.”

  He paid no attention to her, and addressing Rhadopis as if she could hear him and see him, he said, “Why have you taken your own life, why have you taken your own life, my lady?”

  Shayth screamed and beat her breast with her hands, saying, “What are you saying? How do you know she has taken her own life?”

  He threw the phial violently against the wall and it smashed into pieces, then he said in bewilderment and dismay, “Why did you annihilate yourself with this poison? Did you not promise me that you would seriously consider coming with me to Ambus, far away from the troubled South? Were you deceiving me so that you could put an end to your life?”

  The slave looked at the shards of broken glass, all that remained of the phial, and said in disbelief, “Where did my lady obtain the poison?”

  Shrugging his shoulders inconsolably, he said, “I brought it to her myself.”

  She was filled with rage and screamed at him, “How could you do that, you wretch?”

  “I did not realize that she wanted it so that she could kill herself with it. She deceived me, as she did just now.”

  She turned away from him in dismay and burst into tears, and pored over the feet of her mistress, kissing them and -washing them -with her tears. The young man -was swamped -with desolation as he fixed his bulging eyes on Rhadopis's face, which was now shrouded in eternal stillness. He -wondered in his desolation how oblivion could apprehend such beauty as the sun never before had shone upon, and how such burning overflowing vitality could quiesce and don this pale and withered hide that would soon display signs of corruption. He longed to see her, if only for a fleeting moment, the breath of life restored to her, her graceful walk, a smile of joy beaming from her resplendent face, an expression of love and seduction. Then he could die and it would be his last memory of this world.

  Shayth's wailing irritated him intensely and he chided her, “Cease your racket!”

  He gestured to his heart and continued, “Here is the place of noble grief. More noble than weeping and wailing.”

  There still remained in the slave's heart the faintest glimmer of hope, and looking at the youth through her tears she implored him, “Is there no hope, sir? Perhaps it is just a severe faint.”

  But in his grief-stricken voice he said, “Neither hope nor expectation shall bring her back. Rhadopis is dead. Love is dead. All my delusions are scattered asunder. Oh, how dreams and delusions toyed with me. Now, though, everything is over. Fearsome death has roused me from my slumber.”

  The last rays of the sun slipped below the horizon, its blood-red face slowly disappearing in a glowing haze. Darkness crawled in, covering the universe in a raiment of mourning.

  In her grief, Shayth had not forgotten her duty toward the corpse of her mistress. She was well aware that she would not be able to accord it the reverence and care it was due in Biga while all around her lady's enemies lurked, waiting to sate their revenge upon the body. She confided her fears in the young man whose heart was on fire right next to her. She asked him if the two of them might transport the body to the town of Ambus, and there deliver it into the hands of the embalmers and lay it to rest in the Besar family mausoleum. Benamun agreed with her suggestion, not only in his words but also in his heart. Shayth summoned some slave girls, and they brought in a litter. They placed the body on it and drew a sheet over it. The slaves carried the litter down to the green boat, which immediately set sail down river to the North.

  The young man sat at the head of the body not far from Shayth, while a deep silence lay over the cabin. That sad night, as the boat was drawn slowly northwards by the choppy waters, Benamun strayed through distant vales of dreams: his life passed before his eyes, in images following fast upon the heels of one another, depicting his hopes and dreams, the pain and longing he had endured, and the happiness, felicitation, and joy that he had thought would one day be his lot in life. He sighed from the depths of his broken heart, his eyes fixed on the shrouded body upon which his hopes and dreams had been wrecked, scattered asunder, and dispersed, like sweet dreams put to flight when one awakes.

  THEBES AT WAR

  A Novel of Ancient Egypt

  Translated by Humphrey Davies

  SEQENENRA

  1

  THE SHIP made its way up the sacred river, its lotus-crowned prow cleaving the quiet, stately waves that since ancient days had pressed upon each other's heels like episodes in the endless stream of time. On either side, villages dotted the landscape, palms sprouted singly and in clusters, and greenery extended to the east and the west. The sun, high in the sky, sent out beams of light that quivered where they drenched the vegetation and sparkled where they touched the water, whose surface was empty but for a few fishing boats that made way for the big ship, their owners staring questioningly and mistrustfully at the image of the lotus, symbol of the North.

  To the front of the cabin on the deck sat a short, stout man with round face, long beard, and white skin, dressed in a flowing robe, a thick stick with a gold handle grasped in his right hand. Before him sat two others as stout as he and dressed in the same fashion — three men united by a single mien. The master gazed fixedly to the south, his dark eyes consumed with boredom and fatigue, and he glared balefully at the fishermen. As though oppressed by the silence, he turned to his men and asked,” I wonder, tomorrow will the trumpet sound and will the heavy silence that now reigns over the southern regions be broken? Will the peace of these tranquil houses be shattered and will the vulture of war hover in these secure skies? Ah, how I wish these people knew what a warning this ship brings them and their master!”

  The two men nodded in agreement with their leader's words. “Let it be war, Lord Chamberlain,” said one of them, “so long as this man whom our lord has permitted to govern the South insists on placing a king's crown on his head, builds palaces like the pharaohs, and walks cheerfully about Thebes without a care in the world!”

  The chamberlain ground his teeth and jabbed with his stick at the deck before him with a movement that betrayed anger and exasperation. “There is no Egyptian governor except for this, of the region of Thebes,” he said. “Once rid of him, Egypt will be ours forever and the mind of our lord the king will be set at rest, having no man's rebelliousness left to fear.”

  The second man, who lived in the hope of one day becoming governor of a great city, fervently replied, “These Egyptians hate us.”

  The chamberlain uttered an amen to that and said in violent tones, “So they do, so they do. Even the people of Memphis, capital of our lord's kingdom, make a show of obedience while concealing hatred in their hearts. Every stratagem has been tried and nothing now is left but the whip and the sword.”

  For the first time, the two men smiled and the second said, “May your counsel be blessed, wise chamberlain! The whip is the only thing these Egyptians understand.”

  The three men relapsed for a while into silence and nothing was to be heard but the slap of the oars on the surface of the water. Then one of them happened to notice a fishing boat in whose waist stood a young man with sinewy forearms, wearing nothing but a kilt at his waist, his skin burned by the sun. In amazement he said, “These southerners look as though they had sprung from their own soil!”

  “Wonder not!” the chamberlain responded sarcastically, ‘ ‘Some of their poets even sing the beauties of a dark complexion!

  “Indeed! Next to ours, their coloring is like mud next to the glorious rays of the sun.”

  The chamberlain replied, “One of our men was telling me about these southerners and he said, ‘Despite their color and their nakedness, they are full of conceit and pride. They claim they are descended from the loins of the gods and that their country is the wellspring of the true pharaohs.’ Dear God! I know the cure for all that. All it will take is for us to reach out our arm to the borders of their country.”

  No sooner had the chamberlain ceased speaking than he heard one of his
men saying, pointing to the east, “Look! Can that be Thebes? It is Thebes!”

  They all looked where the man was pointing and beheld a large city surrounded by a great wall, behind which the heads of the obelisks soared like pillars supporting the celestial vault. On its northern side, the towering -walls of the temple of Amun, Divine Lord of the South, could be seen, appearing to the eye like a mighty giant climbing toward the sky. The men were shaken and the high chamberlain knitted his brows and muttered, “Yes. That is Thebes. I have been granted a sight of it before and time has only increased my desire that it submit to our lord the king and that I see his victory procession making its way through its streets.”

  One of the men added, “And that our god Seth be worshipped there.”

  The ship slowed and proceeded little by little to draw in to the shore, passing luxuriant gardens whose lush terraces descended to drink from the sacred river. Behind them, proud palaces could be seen, while to the west of the farther shore crouched the City of Eternity, where the immortals slept in pyramids, mastabas, and graves, all enveloped in the forlornness of death.

  The ship turned toward the port of Thebes, making its way among the fishing smacks and traders’ ships, its size and beauty, and the image of the lotus that embellished its prow, attracting all eyes. Finally, it drew up alongside the quay and threw down its huge anchor. Guards approached and an officer, wearing a jacket of white linen above his kilt, was brought out to it. He asked one of the crew, “Where is this ship coming from? And is it carrying goods for trade?”

  The man greeted him, said, “Follow me!” and accompanied him to the cabin, where the officer found himself standing before a high chamberlain of the Northern Palace — the palace of the King of the Herdsmen, as they called him in the South. He bowed respectfully and presented a military salute. With patent arrogance, the chamberlain raised his hand to return the salute and said, in condescending tones, “I am the envoy of Our Master Apophis, Pharaoh, King of the North and the South, Son of Lord Seth, and I am sent to the governor of Thebes, Prince Seqenenra, to convey to him the proclamation that I bear.”