by Joan Grant
But the words of Ptah kept echoing in his heart, saying “I am; I am alone,” until his loneliness made him afraid. And he left the gentle places of Earth and ran despairingly in search of one to end his solitude, and in his anguish he cried upon the Gods.
And the great Min heard him and came down to Earth. Then he caused man to fall into a sleep, and while he slept, Min said, “No longer shall you walk in loneliness.…Now you are man and woman, and you shall go upon your journey together. And the two of you I give the power, of your own bodies, to make others, which in their turn shall house the Life of Ptah. And when you see your children, you shall cherish them, even as your creator has cherished you.”
And of each animal, also, he made a pair. And now more swiftly did all progress, with young to feed and shelter and protect. For even the plants shared in this godliness, and they thrust their roots deeper beneath the ground in search of water for their ripening seed.
In those early days all living things knew of their kinship, and on a cold night a little hare would lie for warmth against a mighty lion, and men were grateful to the plant? and trees that sheltered them and gave them of their fruits.
For in those vanished days, when Earth was young, none had forgotten their creator.
CHAPTER NINE
The Body
I was looking for Neyah one day, and I found him with my father in the room where the great rolls of papyrus are kept, on which the scribes record those things that are the fruits of wisdom; some were written many years ago, and some were of our own time. Wisdom knows neither youth nor age, for through all time it is the same.
Father was showing Neyah one of the new scrolls of Zertar. Zertar lived in the palace, where he recorded all that had been found out about the body of man, so that they who came after might learn how to care for it and house their spirits graciously.
On the papyrus there was a picture of a man without his skin on; it was painted in pale brown, and from the top of the skull red lines radiated throughout every part of his body.
Father was explaining that in the body there were little paths that carried feeling to the commander of the body, which was situated in the head; and that this was important knowledge: for if one of these paths was injured, a man might feel pain in his fingers while the injury was really in his arm. And this knowledge helped both healers-with-herbs and healers-with-the-knife when they had no seer to guide them. He said, “This outermost part of ourselves, although it is a part through which we gain experience, is to our real self only as the clothes we wear are to our body. It is called the khat, and it is written as a stranded fish: for when the spirit is joined to the body, the body is like a fish swimming in the river; but when the spirit is away from the body in sleep, the body is as helpless as a fish stranded on the bank.”
And I asked, “When there are so many seers, why do you have to make pictures of the insides of people?”
“Although in the Royal City there is no lack of seers, there are always very few men who can go through the great ordeals necessary to attain this power; and even at the present time there are many people in Kam who might be hurt or ill where there is no seer. There are many countries where there are no seers or healers to succour the injured and the sick, where the priests are without power and the temples are not training-places. For such people—although it would not be as good as if they had seers—accurate knowledge of the working of bodies is of great value.”
I was still looking at the picture, and I saw that in the top of the head, where the red lines sprang from, there was a tiny man, delicately drawn. I pointed to it, and said, “Have we really got a little copy of ourselves inside our heads, or is that just a way of writing?”
And Father said, “Yes, all human beings and animals have it. It is through this that the commands of the spirit are translated to the body. It cannot be seen except by a seer; if Ptah-kefer looked with the eyes of his spirit at this part of a man who was about to raise his arm, then, a flash of time before the earth arm was raised, he would see it being done by the arm of what is called the ka-ibis.
“Do you remember the soldier from the garrison of Na-Kish who was brought here to the temple? His captain sent him down in one of the empty grain boats. He had seen his wife seized and killed by a crocodile. The shock was so terrible that he became dumb, and he was sent here to see if we could cure him. Now this is what had happened to him: so great had been his fear and horror, that the force of his emotions ordering his body had injured his ka-ibis. And, just as a man whose shoulder muscles are torn cannot throw a spear, the ka-ibis could not translate the orders of this man’s spirit to the speaking muscles of his throat, and he became dumb. But when Ptah-kefer saw what was wrong, the ka-ibis was strengthened with healing, until it was once more able to obey its orders.
“The ka-ibis is written as a man walking, an action which is an example of a man obeying his spirit through the channel of the ka-ibis; and sometimes it is written just as two legs, which means, as the scribe has taught you, ‘to go’ or ‘to travel’.
“When the people of Athlanta first came to Kam they found the ibis; and they said that its black and white feathers symbolized the light of wisdom piercing the darkness of ignorance. And the cry of the ibis is ‘Ah’; and they said, ‘Here is a bird which speaks nothing but wisdom, and he that speaks nothing but wisdom speaks nothing but truth.’ Now in the old land the great Tahuti, the God of Wisdom, the Weigher of Hearts, was always symbolized as the balanced scales, the same scales that you see in the places of justice in Kam to-day. Later the people called him Thoth, and they made statues of him with the head of an ibis; and he became known as the Keeper of the Great Records. For they said, ‘As the ibis speaks only of truth, which is wisdom, so does Thoth record only those things that are permanent, which are wisdom and truth.’ And so he has come to be known as the God of Scribes. To-day there are many people who have forgotten that Tahuti and Thoth are one god.
“And just as a scribe puts his thoughts into writing signs, so does this little man in the head turn thoughts into actions. And because it belongs to a part of us that, though it dies with the body, cannot be seen with earth eyes, as does the ka, we call it the ka-ibis.”
Neyah had told me what the ka part of ourselves was, but I wasn’t sure if I quite understood, so I asked Father to explain it.
“In the body there are many parts which make use of the things of Earth by which we live; our lungs purify us with the air we breathe; our bowels and stomach and many other organs transform our food and drink into fresh blood, which our heart pumps through us. But we have a greater need, which none of these can give us, and that need is life, that life which is everywhere, and which you have heard me call ‘the life of Ptah.’ It is too fine to contact the khat, and so we have a finer replica of ourselves, which is a network, like thousands of invisible veins; and through these channels flows this life of Ptah, without which we would die. This part of ourselves is called the ka, which means ‘gatherer of life’. It cannot be seen by earth eyes, yet so important is it, that if these channels are injured and cannot carry life, then the body will die. Only when we sleep can the ka re-store itself with life—and that is why we can live longer without food than without sleep.
“The ka is written as two upstretched arms rising from a straight line. The line used to mean ‘the horizon’ and has come to mean ‘Earth’; the upstretched arms with open hands symbolize one who is reaching upwards and gathering the life of Ptah. Hundreds of years ago there was a circle between and above the hands, symbolizing the source of life. But now we use the simpler form.”
CHAPTER TEN
The Healer with Herbs
When my father became Pharaoh, twelve years before the death of the great Meniss, there was little knowledge in Kam of dealing with herbs. But under his guidance much old knowledge was remembered and much that was new was added to the store.
The people of the Land of Gold had much of the old knowledge of herbs, and many plants that wer
e strange to our country were brought back from there by my father. Travellers from distant lands would bring him rare plants, for which he often gave three times their weight in gold. Although he loved flowers and trees, in the private garden that adjoined his own apartments there were only those plants that had healing virtue to men or animals. The leaves of some of them were dried, then boiled in water, and the liquid would cool fevers; some had roots that were pounded into dust and on the tongue would cure a disordered bowel; and there were some from which ointments were made to cure sores, or to heal the angry flesh round wounds. The bark of a low shrub with yellow flowers was made into a lotion for the eyes. There were tall poppies with crinkled, silky petals, from whose seeds a draught was made, which drowsily soothed pain; and a rare plant with a fleshy stalk, whose juice on linen, bandaged round the eyes, would take away the yellow crust that destroys sight.
Once my father said to me—it was after the stele had been erected which told of the building of the palace—“If far in the future men shall think of me, I hope that I shall be remembered, not as a warrior or as a builder, but as a man who healed with herbs. For it is greater to make a blind man see the stars again than to build mightily in stone.”
He would often tell us that plants had much to teach us. “Mankind is often foolish: warriors throw down the sword to drive the plough; and fields remain untilled because the ploughman tries to paint frescoes on the cowshed wall; and the draughtsman throws away his reed, wishing to be the bearer of a sword. But plants are wiser; for they, in their several ways, gain each experience in its turn: the violet does not cringe under its leaves because it has no thorns upon its stalk; the verbena does not try to flower like the convolvulus, but it is content to yield refreshing scent from the rough greenness of its simple leaves.”
One day we found Father kneeling beside one of his plants; its leaves were limp, and the flower-buds drooped to the ground. He was pointing his fingers at it as if he were healing a sick person, and when he had finished we asked him what he was doing.
And he told us, “This plant was dying for lack of life. Although the bodies of men and of animals collect new life when they are empty and the spirit has left them in sleep, plants cannot sleep or gather new life for themselves. And so Ptah made for each plant a little spirit to look after it, which does for the plant what our ka does for our body. These little plant-spirits take different forms, but all of them spin very fast round and round, faster than you can whirl a top with a cord.” And he reminded us of the time we had seen a curious gust of wind, which had drawn up sand and little bits of stick, sucking them towards itself. “So does a plant-spirit collect life with which to feed the plant under its protection. The spirit of this plant was weak and could not spin, so, being a healer priest, I gathered life—the life of Ptah—and, by my will, drove it to where my fingers pointed. And now the little plant-spirit is once more strong enough to do its work.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Seership
Neyah’s wild-cat never got tame, even after two years. He got a mate for it so it shouldn’t be lonely, and had a special house built for it, which had a long run with grass and trees to make it feel natural. I don’t know why Neyah was so fond of it. He used to spend hours trying to teach it to be a reliable friend. He always fed it himself, and at last it seemed really pleased to see him, and used to come running up to the gate when he called. But one day, for no reason except that it must have been feeling in a specially bad temper, the wild-cat gave him a terribly deep bite in the calf of his leg. Luckily Serten was cleaning out the run at the time, and he drove it off with a rake.
Neyah always hated being bothered when he had hurt himself, but this time he couldn’t keep it private, for he could hardly walk, and blood was streaming down his leg. He went and told Father about it, because he knew Maata would fuss and would be sure to say, “I’ve told you a thousand times that horrid animal would turn on you one day.” He didn’t want to tell Mother, because seeing us hurt always made her anxious, although she never said so. Father was perfect when you had hurt yourself. He made me feel as if we were two warriors comparing wounds after a battle, so even if I had fallen out of a tree from sheer clumsiness, I would pretend I’d been wounded in a chariot charge. We used to make up imaginary stories about what we had done in battle; and I got so interested that there was no need to be brave.
When Father saw Neyah’s leg, he sent for Ptah-kefer, who looked at it with the eyes of spirit. He said that a muscle was torn, but if it were healed twice a day, it would be well in about fifteen days. Father didn’t send for a healer priest, but he drove the life of Ptah into Neyah’s wound himself; then he put on an ointment and bandaged the leg with charged linen.
Neyah couldn’t walk for several days. Ptah-kefer used to look at his leg every morning to see how it was getting on; and he often stayed and talked to us. He was very understanding with children, although he had none of his own. He was skilled at carving, and quite often he would help Neyah make things. Once he mended Neyah’s model boat for me, when I had borrowed it after Neyah had told me not to, and I had broken it.
One day, when his leg was almost healed, Neyah asked him, “How can you see the wound in my leg when it is bandaged and you have your hand over your eyes? I know it’s your seer’s sight, but I don’t quite understand how it works.”
And Ptah-kefer answered, “I don’t look at the body, I look at its life-bearing counterpart.…”
And I said, “You mean the ka, the one that’s written with two upstretched arms and a horizon?” Neyah frowned at me for interrupting. Ptah-kefer went on, “On Earth there is no stillness. Everything you can see has colour and is reflecting rays of light; some things throw the rays back faster than others do.” He reached for the checka ball, with which I had been playing. “Let us pretend that this ball is a ray of light, and that that wall is the thing it is thrown against. Now if the wall were of stone, it would throw the ball right back to us: and that is as if a ray of light shone upon something that reflected it at the speed we call violet, for violet reflects light the fastest of all colours. If that wall were of wet mud, the ball would fall in the flower-bed at its foot: and that is as if a ray of light were reflected from something red, for red reflects light the slowest of all colours.
“Anything that reflects light faster than violet, our earth eyes cannot see. Now if that wall were of the substance of the ka it would throw the ball back right over the palace and across the vineyard, for the speed of light reflected from the ka is that much faster in comparison with anything that ordinary earth sight can see.
“Now when I am looking at a man’s ka with the eyes of the spirit, I cover my eyes with my hand so that the slow light, which we know as colour, is cut off, and then with my trained sight I can look upon the swiftness of the ka, and yet it seems to be as still as a sleeping man, because my seer’s sight travels at the same speed—perhaps I am not explaining clearly what I mean?”
Neyah said, “Oh, I understand. It’s like this, isn’t it? If I was looking out of the window and a cow walked past, I couldn’t help seeing it, because it would be going at an ordinary speed; but if an arrow from a very strong bow went past, it would be going so quickly that I might not notice it—just as sometimes it’s very difficult to see a dragon-fly moving.…”
I interrupted, “If I’m looking through a doorway and a chariot gallops past, I can hardly see it, because it’s going so quickly; but if there are two people galloping in two chariots abreast, they can see each other as clearly as if they were both standing still. And a seer just travels at the same speed as whatever he is looking at.”
I think Ptah-kefer was pleased I was so good at understanding things. I wondered if he ever got impatient when people wouldn’t listen to his wisdom and I said, “When people won’t believe the truth, don’t you want to do a big magic before them, so that they must realise their ignorance?”
Ptah-kefer laughed and said, “If you see a man who is starving, it is well
to give him food. But if he refuses to eat of it thinking it is poisoned, do not force it between his teeth; for food thus given may choke him instead of ending his hunger.
“And do not give a large bowl of food to a starving one, or he may gulp it too quickly and then suffer pain and say, ‘That was a most grievous diet. In future I must avoid it.’ Rather should you feed him gradually, a little at a time; and he must have milk before he is ready for strong meat. Then he will have great benefit from what you give him and will long for more with which to build his strength.”
Then Ptah-kefer had to leave us, for it was the hour of audience. And I said to Neyah, “That shows it’s no good trying to explain things to people who don’t want to listen. Because in that story the food meant teaching, and the hungry man was an ignorant one.”
And Neyah said, “Sekeeta, I’m very glad you realise that, because it’s so very obviously true!”
I thought he was being grand and teasing me, but I wasn’t quite sure, so I said, “Let’s go off and have a bathe.” And so we did.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Soul
There was a stone pavilion at the end of my father’s garden of herbs. It was open on one side, where the roof was supported by two fluted pillars. A record of all the plants in the garden was carved on its walls, and there were still many blank spaces, which would one day be filled. On the south wall were all those plants whose healing value lies in their leaves; on the east wall those that hold it in their flowers and seeds; and on the west wall those that hold it in their roots.
I went there one morning and found Neyah talking to the stone-carver, who was cutting along the lines that had been drawn on the stone wall by a scribe under my father’s direction. The scribe had drawn in black, and my father had corrected his drawing in two places with a red line.
