Ancient Evenings

by Norman Mailer

  When the chest was opened, however, Osiris was found in a dreadful state. His face was covered by worms. Isis let out a cry of lamentation, and so loud was the clamor of Her voice that the youngest child of Melkarth died in fright. Blood poured from his ears.

  The death was not wholly lamentable to the King. He was far from convinced of the paternity of this son for he had been stricken with impotence as soon as the magnificent tree was down. Now, he felt desire for his wife come back, and he took the Queen to his rooms, and tried to be happy, but could not. He feared to enjoy himself so soon after such a death. It might cost another. But then Melkarth realized that he trusted none of his sons, and was therefore ready, on Isis’ departure, to lend Her the oldest of his boys to serve as crew.

  Her ship had hardly gone from sight of land before ministrations were begun over the body in the coffin. Loosing the seven scorpions from the hem of Her skirt, She instructed them to devour the worms that lived on the face and limbs of Osiris. The scorpions worked with all the speed of the wind in the sails, and were as round as pigeon’s eggs before evening. Now, Isis crushed these sluggish bodies to make an unguent, and thereby cast off all protection such scorpions could provide—indeed, even as She killed them, She knew they would send a message to their brothers: “Beware of Isis!”—yet She was determined to repair the beauty of Osiris. The oil for such a restoration could be found only in the bellies of these scorpions full of worms. So, She rubbed this unguent upon Her legs and belly. Having stripped Her skirt for this purpose, She thereby aroused the poor Prince of Byblos until his seed was on the deck. This, She also added to Her skin (for the Prince was favored with the features of his mother) and then washed Osiris in the salve by laying Her body upon Her dead husband and, by this, so excited the return of His seven scattered lights that He came back from all the swamps, harbors, mountains and seas of His death to the home of His body. In this hour, young again, and beautiful, lying on His back, He discharged His seed up into Isis, and it was the first time a Goddess ever dared to sit upon a God. The Prince of Byblos, spying on this copulation, was struck with such a look of malevolence from Isis that he died on the spot and fell into the sea, and Horus, the other brother of Osiris, also died at that instant (breaking His back in a fall from a horse) whereupon Horus, the child of Isis and Osiris, was conceived in the same moment, but He came out with a weakness in His legs. Since Gods do not often die, Horus, the newborn, was a transformation of Horus, the brother, and it is certain the child grew quickly and was a full-grown man in fourteen years. But they were to be hard years. Isis knew that Ra and Set were waiting for Her.

  When She came back to Egypt, Isis looked, therefore, to hide the chest containing Her husband. Yet it was not easy to find a place. For the coffin had to rest where the direct rays of Ra could fall upon it. The Sun could only send a curse upon Gods Who tried to hide from Him. Osiris would be safe from Ra’s wrath, if His coffin were not buried. Therefore, Isis chose a shallow lake in the swamps of the Delta, and fixed the box with stones so that it would not float away from the papyrus plants surrounding it; yet, with the lid removed, Osiris could lay open to Ra for His blessing.

  Still, Isis felt far from secure. Since Ra could always lay a curse when He went behind a cloud, She had had, at considerable cost, to make Her peace with the scorpions. She took a vow to protect their safety for all their lives to come. It was necessary. She had need of them. Scorpions were that rare species for whom the rays of the Sun are an irritant. So, when the Sun hid itself, they were quick to come out of the ground and wait by the coffin of Osiris. All through the day, therefore, whether in sun or by the vigilance of the scorpions in the gloom, the body of Osiris was guarded. And at night, in the darkest hour of the night when Ra wandered through the underworld, in that wholly dark hour when the scorpions began to sleep, then Isis was confident Set could not find His brother in such a swamp. Besides, Anubis reigned in this hour of greatest darkness, and He was loyal to Isis—which is to say, true so long as He could be. The powers of Anubis might be steadfast in the dark, but loyalty paled just before the dawn when He knew the hour of the jackal, and would wander off.

  Now, for months, Set had slept by day and ridden by night, but to no purpose until He convinced Ra to ask the Moon to travel for all of one night into the dawn.

  So Set obtained a few more hours of moonlight. But He still had to find the swamp where His brother was hidden. Therefore, He called upon every memory. That was equal to saying His pride had to writhe again in all the shame of the cuckold. Yet if He was obliged to think of Nephthys with Osiris, it was but a step from there to see Osiris in the embrace of Isis, and that made it possible for Set to enter the thoughts of Isis. So, on this night, when the sun was down, Set offered His breath to the evening sky and to the dark ridges of the earth (His mother and father, no less!) and turned slowly until His thoughts could look into Isis where She lived in the town of Buto. Motionless as a hunter, Set waited until the moment when the depth of early night was lit by the moon rising over the swamp. Then, into His mind, at the moment it came into Isis’ mind, arrived the image of the grove where Osiris was hidden. Set spurred His horse, and charged up and down the swamp in search of that view until in a fever of sweat, laved in His own coating of mud, there in the last of the moonlight in the hour of the jackal, He found the open chest unguarded, the scorpions sleeping, and Anubis gone. In this pale hour before dawn, Set lifted His sword and butchered the dead body of His brother, hacking free the heart, the backbone and the neck, the head and legs and arms, Osiris’ stomach, His intestines, His chest, His liver, even His gall bladder, His buttocks! Set would certainly have amputated the genitals if He had not stopped to make a count and discovered He had fourteen pieces already, a number twice seven, thereby a formidable doubling of bad luck to His enemies. But then His frustration was great because He could not mutilate His brother further, and His blood raged until He raised His sword and chopped off His own thumb. And left it in the mouth of Osiris. With His horse, He carried the coffin and the fourteen pieces back to camp, then sent His men to deliver the chest to the camp of Isis. Now He got ready to travel up the Nile. Employing a galley of the most powerful oarsmen in the kingdom, His boat would sail, He knew, and be rowed faster, than Isis could ever follow, and on this journey He would bury the parts of Osiris in different places. But first, in all the vigors of His victory, He chose to go down the separate mouths of the Delta and leave the lower limbs at Bubastis and Busiris (which is why the hieroglyph of the letter B is a drawing of a leg) and He even left one arm at Baloman for good measure, the other at Buto where Isis lived, stopping there long enough to rape Her favorite handmaiden and strew two more pieces in the swamp. Isis was helpless in this hour.

  Set then left parts of Osiris at Athribis and Heliopolis and the head at Memphi, gave burial to one section of the body at Fayum, then further up the Nile to Siut, Abydos and Dendera, and feeling safe at last, trusted His men to row the long distance with the last piece up the river to Yeb. And if these men had walked, it would have taken thirty days and thirty days again. But they stopped to celebrate, and so it took twice as long.

  Now, Isis lost all desire to move from Her bed. Her breast had no milk. Near to human was Isis in the depth of Her unhappiness. Set had overcome Her magic. Certainly, Her most intimate forces gave no intimation of return. In this sad time, Her thoughts drew tears whose fall gave birth to rain—a last gift of the sweet powers in the body of Osiris scattered now from the marshes of the Delta to the waters of the First Cataract.

  I do not know if it was this unfamiliar sound of rain in our Egyptian air, but a haze drifted over my thoughts and I could see these Gods no longer. It was startling to recognize Menenhetet as he looked at me out of the blazing white of his eyes. “We come,” he said, “to the activities of Maat. Without Her, all might be lost for Isis.”

  TWO

  “Yes,” he said, “Maat is so devoted to the smallest measure of balance, that She chose a feather for Her face.
To think that She is the daughter of Ra!” Again, I was confounded by the phenomenon of his laughter. It was as if the greed of the worst beggars passed through him, some sewage of mean human tide. Yet he seemed altogether oblivious to the blow this gave his dignity. “Yes,” said Menenhetet, “Maat is the most innocuous of Ra’s fornications. In fact, She was conceived by a little bird who (after all the quick and timid trips of her life) became, for once, intoxicated by the warmth of the air. Soaring on a current, this downy fluff rose to the arms of Ra, up, up, in a trance, and immediately expired—what a copulation! The mother was roasted to a crisp, and the child drifted down to us as a feather, a genius of balance between heartfelt attraction and clear immolation.” He gave another disturbing laugh. “Now that same feather is used by Anubis to weigh the moral worth of the heart of each dead person.” He shrugged again. “Of all of His children, Maat is the only one who has no guts to lose, so She is fearless. She was the only divinity brave enough to scold Ra about His favors to Set, and did no less than tell Her Father: ‘It is dangerous to protect a victor from the curses of those He defeated. Such a God will prosper too easily, and the world will tip.’

  “ ‘Do not speak of balance,’ Ra told Her. ‘I ride in a golden ship by day, but am obliged to travel through the Duad by dark and give battle to the serpent. If I ever lose, the world will not see My light again.’ ”

  Menenhetet gave vent to his laugh. “I can assure you, Maat was not about to tell Ra that the perils of the serpent were small.”

  And again, as if the story pulled on me like a stream of passing spirits, the sights in my mind began to stir. I could see that Ra no longer fought alone, and many Gods and Goddesses were by His side to trap the serpent. Indeed, Ra had to do no more than chop Aapep into pieces. All the same, the labor made Him breathe heavily. Ra was growing old.

  Maat, rebuked by Her Father, began to watch the habits of His pilot-fish. For these two creatures, named Abtu and Ant, would serve as His eyes when it came to navigating the perils of the Duad. Each night, swimming to either side of Ra’s boat, they guided the entourage past fires, boiling pits, and stench. By day, however, the fish, justifiably fatigued, chose to become two short pieces of rope, and they would sun themselves on the banks of the Nile. There they basked, two bights of bleached hemp, so short that no passing fisherman would think of splicing them to a larger rope. Maat, now traveling in Her natural condition—a feather in the wind—soared along the riverbank until She passed over the pilot-fish.

  Hovering in place, She succeeded in putting Abtu and Ant into shadow. Deprived of the light of Ra, their ability to reason was confused, and so they quit the shore for the water, but the shadow of a serpent now flickered on the surface. They were not aware it was the feather twisting its supple spine above the river to cast patches of shade below. So, they chased the shadow of that serpent down the current until Maat led them to the pelvis of Osiris stuffed in the stump of an uprooted palm, a place that Maat knew well. (She had been present as the spirit of balance when Set on the last stroke cut off His own thumb instead.) Now, Abtu leaped on the phallus of Osiris, bit it off, choked it down, and danced in frenzy through the water. His skin was luminous; he felt composed of light. A terror! Where to hide? In panic, both fish rushed to the shore to reassume their existence as pieces of dull hemp, yet when Abtu turned back into a rope, he was whiter than the moon, and Ant had to cover him with mud until it was time to swim off to the Duad once more. In the dark, however, he gleamed. He would call attention to them all. In fury, Ra lifted him from the water and swallowed him. Ant was left to serve as the pilot, but since he could not keep the boat off the rocks on his blind side, the bark shuddered and scraped from every blow, and, the phallus of Osiris sticking in His stomach, Ra soon grew ill.

  The balance shifted. Since the God’s member proved indigestible, Ra began to feel most uncomfortable, and allowed the sky to cloud. Isis stirred in Her bed and listened to the gulls. Their cawing went on through gray and hazy days. Other birds came to tell how the noble horse on which Set hunted in the swamp had shied from a fallen tree, and broke his leg. The good luck of Set might have shattered.

  Isis dared to remember the hour when She and Osiris gave conception to Horus. Even as the Prince of Byblos fell backward once more into the sea, so did a message come from the Ka of Osiris. Isis must arm Herself with the Secret Name of Ra. She began to listen to the gossip of the Gods.

  Now, She heard that Ra was old and His bones had changed from gold to silver as His limbs grew stiff. He dribbled when He spoke. His seven emissions fell constantly to the earth, and the paths were covered with His earwax and His sweat, His urine, His turd, His snot, His semen and saliva.

  Isis contemplated how to use these leavings. The full bowel of the sun certainly reeked of wealth. Yet, how could She know which monsters of the sulphurous night might also be set free? That was power too much. Isis needed the Secret Name, no more. Why conclude that Ra excreted His Secret Name each day?

  So, too, did She avoid sweat. In His perspiration might be the honor of His name, but such sweat also gave off the odor of every animal He became while making love. And their Secret Names. An abundance and a confusion.

  Nor did She think to look for His seed. The Secret Names of future sons and daughters would be in that seed, but not His own. So did She also pass over the snot and the earwax. Ra hardly listened to what others said, so in His earwax was much stupidity, while the nose was a poor place to conceal the Name when every wind would sniff it out. Only urine and saliva were left: a choice of the sour waters of His blood, or the well of His mouth. Each had a clear attachment to the Name. Like a great river (that carries off many a secret from the land) was Ra’s urine. But those waters went back to the Celestial Waters. Nu would certainly be displeased if Isis tried to steal a Secret Name from Her. Therefore, Isis chose saliva. It was the spirit of Ra’s speech. At the center of His speech must be the Name. Therefore, She took up moist dust near a spot where the old God, walking on His path, had drooled, and She worked this moist dust into clay, and added to it an old powder made of the semen of Set (which She had kept from the skirt of the handmaiden Set had raped). There could be no better way to fortify a poison than to mix the leavings of one’s enemies. So Isis shaped this mortar from the spit of Ra and the semen of Set and molded it into the form of a snake, and anointed its fangs (which came from the cuttings of Her fingernails) with the poison of scorpions. Then Isis said to these fangs, “Go out. Discover in your enemy what is most different from yourself. Attack Him there. Loose your sting!” The venom of Isis’ heart flowed from Her eye, and every carnal memory of Ra was in it. For with no innocence had She studied the seven varieties of His emission. His scent had been left on Her. Despite Her adoration of Osiris, which was like the tenderness of the sky as evening fell on the oasis and animals stood next to one another, Isis could never prevent one outrageous desire. It was the thrill to Her belly at the sight of Ra. So She had indulged one secret hour with Her father. How the death of Osiris brought back the burden of Her old deception. She had never told Her husband, and Osiris, therefore, had believed Himself too well beloved. Knowing too little of the powers of other Gods, He had entered Set’s coffin too carelessly. To Her own rage at Ra was added, therefore, the turmoil of Her own deception. With what a spell did Isis leave the serpent on the path!

  Ra passed through the cool fields of heaven pouting and dribbling as He took His short walk in the dawn. On this route had Isis set Her snake. As the old God approached (His belly still churning on the indigestible phallus) the snake leaped through the distance within itself from the inert clay to the vital curse, and lanced its fang into the God. And the poison said: “Burn, Ra, as flame licks at Your loins. Freeze in the chill of Your golden eye as the light leaves. A poison has been made that will find Your last extremity!”

  And the Sun-God felt the presence of all He was not. It crept across Him and His limbs began to struggle, and heat became His torture. He staggered and His will
had fear of all that was strange in His flesh. His skin lost its hue and He was pale as platinum, pale as the silver of His bones. The old age of Ra turned in His mouth, and His lips made Him spit on the earth. The poison came into His flesh even as the Nile spreads over the fields. “What has stung Me?” He cried out. “It is something I do not know and have never made.” And He gave the great cry of bewilderment all men have since uttered to themselves at the moment death is on them. “Come here, Gods and Goddesses,” He cried out, “all You Who were formed from Me!”

  The air altered. Light and dark flowed, colors engulfed other colors. Gods and Goddesses manifested Themselves from the four pillars of the sky, up from the river, and across from the winds of the desert. The waters of the Duad boiled.

  Ra said: “At dawn, I was passing through the kingdom of Egypt for I wanted to see what I had made, and a serpent bit me. I feel colder than water and more inflamed than the fire. My legs sweat, My body shakes, My eyes are weak. Water pours from My face as in the time of flood. Agonies have entered.”

  In the pall that followed, dark as the blood that dries on sand after a war has passed, Isis spoke. For that first instant, the Gods snickered: They all knew of Isis’ humiliation by Set. There was, however, no uncertainty in Her tone. “Great Ra,” She said, “You have been poisoned by an art devoted to Your death.”

  “I cannot die,” said Ra. “I am the First, and the Son of the First.”

  “You will die,” said Isis, “unless You reveal Your Secret Name. He who is able to reveal His Name will live.”

  “I will not tell My Secret Name,” said Ra. “If I am gone, the earth bursts, and the heavens are lost with the earth. For I have created the heavens and the secret of the horizon.”