A God Against the Gods
Page 42
“Lift anchor and set sail for Akhet-Aten!”
Slowly the barge pulls away and swings out into Hapi’s swift-flowing tide.
We take our positions in the prow and we do not look back.
Ahead lies a glorious future with you, O Aten, as our strength.
Behind lies—for the moment—nothing, and nothing beyond nothing.
But it will change.
It must.
They have no choice.
***
Tiye
My sons, my sons … my heart is dead within me. The Two Lands cry out … and now, as always, the Great Wife must answer … though my heart is dead within me at the thought.…
***
Nefertiti
I cannot think.… I cannot think. We loved each other once.… I cannot think.…
***
Kia
I move to the North Palace also on my return. We will take Tut with us, and the girls. I have learned how the game is played, in this strange land. Poor Naphuria is too besotted to see it, but we will hold the pawns. I shall be useful at last, to Kemet.…
***
Aye
It is late: Ra sinks in the west. We met once more an hour ago, in Malkata—just the three of us this time, my sister, Horemheb, myself. Certain things were discussed, certain plans were made. We three are not made of iron for nothing … though, may the gods help us, we pity and love him still, poor, lost Akhenaten.… If only his life had moved differently. If only … “If only!” The plaint of sentimentalists and fools—coming from us who, for Kemet’s sake, can afford to be neither, any more.…
***
Amonhotep,
Son of Hapu
Horemheb tells me that he has ordered a boat and divers to take the river as soon as night falls. They will recover Amon and Horemheb will know where to hide him and keep him safe until he is needed again. Which, I think, will not be too far off.
***
Horemheb
Akhenaten is gone, insane, beyond recapture. He has humbled me for the last time, though for yet a while I must do his bidding as the gods fall—for they will fall. He has decreed it, and he is the Living Horus.
They will fall.
But so, I think, will he.
***
Amonemhet
I, the peasant Amon-em-het, would tell you what I saw this night as I watered my cattle some fifty miles north of Thebes upon the River Nile.
It was dusk. The river flamed to gold, then, as always, quickly faded. In the west the barren, low-lying hills that guard the length of Kemet on both sides softened from rose to purple to the start of black. My cattle lowed their thanks and went to sleep. Thoth and other night birds murmured to their young among the reeds. Hapi flowed silently, Nut claimed the earth and great stars shone. I was ready to go back to my hut, my sleeping children and my eager wife. All was at peace.
Suddenly far to the north I saw a glow of light. Someone was on the river. What fool travels at night through Hapi’s treacherous shoals? I wondered. I turned and waited while the light drew closer. Presently a sight you will not believe surprised my eyes.
It was the King’s barge, this I know, for I have seen it pass many times when he has gone up and down the river. And standing in the prow was the King himself, and beside him another I have often seen, his brother the Prince Smenkhkara. Great torches flared along the sides and fore and aft careful oarsmen with long poles probed the currents to guard against floating logs and hidden bars of sand. I shrank back among the reeds and stared in awe at the dazzling sight.
They were dressed all in gold, and as the barge moved swiftly on Hapi’s bosom I heard their voices, at first faint, then becoming louder as they came abreast of me, then still louder, then gradually becoming weaker and fading away as they passed on north. They were chanting a song of some sort, which I had never heard before. I suspect it was the King’s hymn to his god the Aten, whom he would place above Amon, though he never can, for the people will not permit it.
I suspect that is what it was, but I am not sure; because, though it is carved in many places in Kemet, even in our tiny village where no one from outside ever comes except to collect taxes, I cannot read, and so I am not sure. But I believe it was. And it was quite pretty, I thought, as they sang it while they gleamed and glittered with gold in the light of the great flaring torches dancing on Hapi’s dark bosom, in the soft desert night.
Together, as with one voice, they chanted and I heard their many words:
“Thou arisest fair in the horizon of Heaven, O Living Aten, Beginner of Life. When thou dawnest in the East, thou fittest every land with thy beauty. Thou art indeed comely, great, radiant and high over every land. Thy rays embrace the lands to the full extent of all that thou hast made, for thou art Ra and thou attainest their limits and subdueth them for thy beloved son, Akhenaten. Thou are remote yet thy rays are upon the earth. Thou art in the sight of men, yet thy ways are not known.…
“The earth brightens when thou arisest in the Eastern horizon and shinest forth as Aten in the day-time. Thou drivest away the night when thou givest forth thy beams.…
“Thou it is who causest women to conceive and maketh seed into man, who giveth life to the child in the womb of its mother.…
“How manifold are thy works! They are hidden from the sight of men, O Sole God, like unto whom there is no other! Thou didst fashion the earth according to thy desire when thou was alone—all men, all cattle great and small, all that are upon the earth that run upon their feet or rise up on high flying with their wings.…
“Thou makest the waters under the earth and thou bringest them forth as the Nile at thy pleasure to sustain the people of Kemet.…
“All distant foreign lands, also, thou createst their life.…
“Thy beams nourish every field and when thou shinest they live and grow for thee. Thou makest the seasons in order to sustain all that thou hast made, the winter to cool them, the summer heat that they may taste of thy quality. Thou hast made heaven afar off that thou mayest behold all that thou hast made when thou wast alone, appearing in thy aspect of the Living Aten, rising and shining forth. Thou makest millions of forms out of thyself, towns, villages, fields, roads, the river. All eyes behold thee before them, for thou art the Aten of the day-time, above all that thou hast created.
“Thou art in my heart, there is none that knoweth thee save thy son Akhenaten. Thou hast made him wise in thy plans and thy power!”
Many, many words did they sing, all the words of their song, and three times they sang it, from beginning to end, as they passed me, starting with the first moment I saw them in the twilight to the south until they faded from my sight in the darkness of the north; so that I was able to understand quite well what they were saying. It was pretty, as I say, and you would not believe the splendid sight they made, standing in their golden clothes with the great torches flaring out upon the dark water on both sides.
I swear to you this is what I saw, but I cannot say it convinced me, now that I know what the writing in our village means. I still like the old ways of Amon, myself. But it was something, to see the King and the Prince Smenkhkara, so golden and chanting in the night. I went back and told my wife about it before we fell upon one another with happy cries that finally wakened both the children, so that we had to draw the old camel’s-hide blanket over us to finish the business.
I don’t know whether she believed me or not, or whether it matters, really. We have two mouths to feed already, and likely to have a third if we keep on like this. Amon has always understood such things, we feel easy with Amon. I am not so sure the Aten does, and anyway, I do not intend to bother my head about it, or with what happens in great cities.
It was pretty, and I loved to see them pass, because of course we are far from the great ones, here. But it really doesn’t matter much to me, my wife, or anyone I know here in the village.
***
Akhenaten
(life, health, prosperity!)
I have never known the world to be filled with such happiness, for I am with the One who understands and loves me, and we worship you, O Aten, as one body, one heart, one mind.
Now all things will at last come right for your son Akhenaten. His sad, unhappy days will end. Now Kemet and all will finally worship you, my Father Aten, and your son Akhenaten, whom you have directed in all things, to your greater glory, and to his.…
I smile at Smenkhkara and he smiles at me, strong and beautiful in the flaring torchlight as we speed over the swift dark river.
Together we will be happy and together we will make Kemet happy. I so decree it and it will be so:
For I am Akhenaten, he who has lived long, and I will live in truth forever and ever, for millions and millions of years.
October 1974–August 1975
***
For Further Reading
Aldred, Cyril. Akhenaten and Nefertiti. New York: Brooklyn Museum and Viking Press, 1973.
Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt. London: Abacus, Sphere Books Ltd., 1968.
Egypt: The Amarna Period and the End of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. II, Chapter XIX. Cambridge University Press, 1971.
Breasted, James H. Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. 2; The Eighteenth Dynasty. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906.
A History of Egypt. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909.
Budge, E. A. Wallis. The Egyptian Book of the Dead. New York: Dover Publications, 1967.
The Mummy. New York: Collier Books, 1972.
Carter, Michael. Tutankhamun. New York: David McKay Co., Inc., 1972.
Champollion, Jacques. The World of the Egyptians. Geneva: Editions Minerva, 1971.
Cottrell, Leonard. The Lost Pharaohs. London: Pan Books, 1956.
Desroches-Noblecourt, Christiane. Tutankhamen. London: Michael Joseph, Ltd., 1963.
Erman, Adolf. The Ancient Egyptians: A Sourcebook of Their Writings. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966.
Life in Ancient Egypt. New York: Dover Publications, 1971.
Forman, Werner, and Kischewitz, Hannelore. Egyptian Drawings. London, New York: Octopus Books, 1972.
Frankfort, Henri. Ancient Egyptian Religion. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
Grayson, A. K., and Redford, Donald B. Papyrus and Tablet. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1973.
Harris, James E., and Weeks, Kent R. X-Raying the Pharaohs. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973.
Hawkes, Jacquetta. The First Great Civilizations. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1973.
Hayes, William C. The Scepter of Egypt, Part II: The Hyksos Period and the New Kingdom. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1959.
James, T. G. H. Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt. New York: Bantam Books, 1972.
Johnson, Irving and Electa. Yankee Sails the Nile. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1966.
Kaster, Joseph. Wings of the Falcon. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.
Lons, Victoria. Egyptian Mythology. London: The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., 1963.
Meade, N. F. Mansfield. Egypt: A Compact Guide. Luxor: Gaddis, 1973.
Mertz, Barbara. Red Land, Black Land. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1966.
Murray, Margaret A. The Splendor That Was Egypt. New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1963.
Niebuhr, Carl. The Tell el Amarna Period. London: David Nutt, 1910.
Petrie, Flinders. Wisdom of the Egyptians, Vol. LXIL New York: Rinehart and Winston, 1968.
Steindorff, George, and Seele, Keith C. When Egypt Ruled the East. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957.
Weigall, Arthur. The Life and Times of Akhnaton. London: Thornton Butterworth, Ltd., 1910.
White, Jon Manchip. Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt. New York: Capricorn Books, 1967.
Wilson, John A. The Culture of Ancient Egypt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
Zayed, Dr. Abd el Hamid. The Antiquities of El Minia. The Society for the Promotion of Tourism in El Minia.
Two other books deserve mention. It was through Evelyn Wells’ Nefertiti (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964), picked up casually some years ago for idle reading, that I first became intrigued with the period and decided to read further. In her version both Akhenaten and Nefertiti emerge as superhuman beings perfect in every respect—which Akhenaten in particular certainly was not—but it is an entertaining and enjoyable account. And to that eternally amusing gentleman, Immanuel Velikovsky—who on Egyptology, as on all other subjects, jumps on his horse and rides wildly off in all directions—we owe Oedipus and Akhnaton (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1960). Like all his books, it contains just enough of a shred of possibility so that it makes the reader stop and think. And this, it seems to me, is sufficient to warrant its inclusion on anybody’s list.
***
Appendix
On Writing:
Can It Be Taught?
Speech given at Rollins University, November 12, 1970
Ladies and gentlemen
I think you will find, among people who participate in writers’ conferences on the administrative side, a certain skepticism about whether writing—the actual guts of it, which comes out of you and is something you either have or you don’t—can be taught.
But you will also find, I think, a considerable willingness to share with those who ask, their experiences and their methods and the things that they have found to be helpful in getting life, insofar as one can know it, out of the mind and onto paper for other people to read.
Thus I expect—or at least I know we all hope—that you will take away from here some ideas about techniques of writing, and some ideas also about marketing the writing once you have produced it.
It has been the intention, I think, to make this a practical writers’ conference, as well as, hopefully a stimulating one. To that end we offer you not only a group of practicing writers in the fields of poetry, play-writing, business writing, television scripting, the novel—but also such glittering but pragmatic luminaries as my own editor at Doubleday, Mr. Ken McCormick, the editor in chief, and Mr. Bill Berger, literary agent and guide to the mysteries of pleasing publishers.
The best way to please them is to make money, and hopefully you’ll get a few hints on that here, too.
No one, when all is said and done, can tell you exactly how to write; but there are, perhaps, some pointers and suggestions that may be helpful. Professional writers come to whatever success they may achieve through a number of different pathways, but I think that probably for all of us there are certain basic guidelines we follow.
The first, if one had to sum them up, would probably be—
Observe.
Look—listen—think—speculate—analyze. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open. The proper study of mankind is man, and for no group of people is this truer than it is for writers, a fortunate crew who go about the world eavesdropping on their fellows and presently, if they have the urge and the skill to express it, tell everyone all about it.
The second thing, I think, is to experience things yourselves, and to bear in mind the truism that is not only the great assurance of the writer but also can be a very happy escape-valve in times of stress—namely, that everything is grist for your mill.
Do you pause just on the verge of shooting some obnoxious neighbor whose dog has been mangling your hydrangeas, held back by some last, self-preservative caution? The impulse, though stillborn, isn’t wasted. Instantly your mind leaps forward: the shooting, the cover-up, discovery, trial, publicity, ruination—vindication. The whole sequence is there, relieving that cautious frustration, begging to be used someday in fictional form.
Are you engaged in the greatest romance of the century and does it end suddenly amid anguish and tears? There’s a little voice somewhere that says: Don’t despair. This is really all righ
t. It may hurt like hell right now, but someday I’m going to get it down on paper and it’ll sell a million.
So—keep yourself open to life’s experiences. Welcome them when they come to you, invite them when a reasonable prudence tells you it’s safe to do so: don’t say Nay.
You need as broad a knowledge of other people, and of yourself as you can possibly get. Don’t be afraid of it. It all adds up.
Other things, too, might be guidelines.
The most obvious, so obvious it is the great cliché of writing, is: write about something you know about. This does not necessarily mean, however, write about something you know about as of this moment, without any other qualification than that you just know about it. There are degrees of knowing about things, and too often this cliché is taken to mean that you, right here, with just what you know at this pristine moment in time, should start writing about it. This is not necessarily true.
Mr. Hailey, for instance, knew a little bit about hotels and airports, and I knew a little about the space program. But before he wrote Hotel and Airport, and before I wrote The Throne of Saturn, we both did plenty of homework.
It is possible, in other words, to increase your knowing; and if it is a kind of knowing that is not so obviously based upon fact, but the kind of knowing that is based upon the heart’s experiences, you can increase that knowing too.
You start with a scrap of knowing, in other words, and then you build upon it. What you know about is simply the take-off point. Much work and much study and much understanding follow.
And there are other guidelines. For instance:
Be tolerant.
Be compassionate.
Don’t judge.
Try to understand.
Don’t be surprised.
Expect anything, of human beings: They’re like the weather, if something hasn’t happened already in human living, wait a minute: it will.