Joseph and His Brothers, page 157
One cannot help thinking of that poor serpent now as well, when the sundial points to the hour of Joseph's marriage to someone else with whom he will lay head and feet together, instead of with her. In order to preclude any general melancholy, we quite intentionally spoke of her previously at an appropriate point and let it be known that she had again become a cool nun of the moon for whom
all this was of no importance. The proud bigotry to which she again devoted herself may help minimize a certain bitterness that we all might otherwise feel for her sake. It was also good for the peace of her soul that it was not in nearby Thebes but in Menfe that Joseph's marriage took place, for which Pharaoh himself, who had eagerly encouraged the matter from the start, made the journey downriver in order to take part personally in the wedding feast and the dance of the planets. Strictly speaking, he played the role of God in this matter, beginning with the idea that it was not good for the man to be alone; for he had proclaimed to Joseph at the start how pleasant it was to be married—though to be sure he, unlike God, was speaking from experience, for he had his Nefertiti, his dawn cloud edged in gold. God, however, had always been alone, his sole concern being mankind. But in much the same way, Pharaoh was concerned about Joseph and, as soon as he had raised him up, he began to look around for a state alliance for him, which any such marriage had to be—that is to say, one that was politically astute and distinguished, yet invigorating as well, a combination not easily managed. But as God had done for Adam, Pharaoh furnished his creature with a bride, led her to him to the music of harps and cymbals, and took part in the wedding himself.
Who was this bride, Joseph's consort, what was her name? Everyone knows that, which in no way diminishes the pleasure we take in providing it, nor do we have the least worry that this might detract from the joy our audience takes in learning it again. Besides which, many have probably forgotten it and no longer realize they know it and would be at a loss to answer the question. The maiden's name was Asenath, daughter of the priest of the sun at On.
Pharaoh had reached that high for his choice—he could not have reached higher. Marriage to the daughter of the High Priest of Re-Horakhte was almost a scandal bordering on sacrilege—although, of course, the girl was also destined to be a wife and mother and no one wished for her to remain unmarried, her womb closed. Nevertheless, whoever took her to wife was in some sense her abductor— his deed, however necessary, and even desirable, regarded as sinister and tantamount to a crime. She was not given to him, but abducted—that was the general view and interpretation of her case, even when everything was done in proper order and by elegant pre-arrangement; and never in this world has another set of parents made
such a to-do of placing their child in the hands of a husband. Her mother in particular was quite beside herself, or at least feigned total despair. She could not emphasize enough how incomprehensible she found the event; she wrung her hands and put on airs as if she herself had been or was about to be raped, which explained why among her comments on this occasion some—granted, more out of ceremony than in earnest—were oaths of vengeance.
All this was because the maidenhood of this daughter of the sun was protected by a special shield of holiness, was clad in a garment of inviolability—one ultimately meant to be violated. Girded with virginity like no other, she was the virgin of virgins, the maiden per se, the epitome of maidenhood. The name designating her status was more or less her personal name: she was named and called "Maiden" her whole life long, and the violator of this maiden, the husband who robbed her of her virginity, was, by common agreement, committing a sacred crime—whereby the adjective mitigated, ennobled, and to some extent canceled out the noun. And yet relations between the son-in-law and the girl's parents, especially the hand-wringing mother, always remained strained in public, though in private they could be quite cordial. In a certain sense they never consented to their daughter's belonging to a husband, and included in the wedding contract was a standard clause stating that their child should not dwell continually at the side of this sinister violator, but for a certain portion of the year, and not all that brief a portion either, return to her sun parents and live again with them as a virgin—a condition that, if not in a literal, then at most in a metaphorical sense was observed in the form of visits paid by the wife to her parental home, something perfectly common in most other marriages as well.
If a high priest and his wife had several daughters, all this applied chiefly to the firstborn and only in a lesser degree to the younger ones. Sixteen-year-old Asenath, however, was their only daughter— and one can well imagine what a sacred crime and violation it was to marry her. Her father, the Great Prophet of Horakhte, was, of course, no longer the same gentle old man who, on the occasion of Joseph's first visit to On in the company of the Ishmaelites, had occupied the golden chair at the foot of the great obelisk, the winged solar disk at his back. This was his chosen successor, likewise a kindly, good, serene man—the office demanded that of this high ser-
vant of Atum-Re, and if he was not that by nature, requisite dissem-bhng helped him make it his nature. Purely by chance the man bore, as is well known, the same name as Joseph's former owner, the courtier of light—that is, Potiphera or Petepre. And what better name could a man in his position have had than The Sun Has Given Him? His name speaks for the fact that he was born to this office and predestined for it. Presumably he was the son of the old man in the golden cap, whose granddaughter, then, was Asenath. As for her name, which was written as "Ns-nt," it was related to the goddess Neith of Sais in the Delta and meant "she who belongs to Neith"; and so Maiden stood under the special protection of this armed goddess, whose emblem was a shield with two crossed arrows attached, and in her human form she also bore a bundle of arrows atop her head. Which Asenath did as well. Her hair or, better, the stylized wig she wore over it—though Egyptian fashion in such items leaves it uncertain whether these should be called headscarves or hairpieces—was always adorned with arrows, either inserted into it or fastened on top; and as for the shield, the fitting symbol of her exceptional virginity and impenetrability, it was frequently repeated, along with crossed arrows, in the jewelry at her throat or waist or on her arms.
Despite all these defenses and this manifest readiness to sting, Asenath was as charming as she was exceptionally kind, gentle, and docile, a child obedient to the will of her highborn parents, of Pharaoh, and finally of her husband, even to the point of renouncing any will of her own; and the hallmark of Asenath's character was precisely this union of a holy aloofness kept under seal and an evident willingness to go along with whatever happened to her, a forbearing acceptance of her lot as a woman. The form of her face was typically Egyptian, fine-boned, with a somewhat prominent chin, yet not without its own personal stamp. The cheeks were still childishly plump, the lips were full as well, with a delicate indentation between mouth and chin; the brow was clear, the little nose likewise a bit too fleshy perhaps; her large, beautifully madeup eyes had a peculiarly fixed, attentive look, something like that of a deaf person, though there was nothing whatever of the mute about her, for her glance revealed an inner expectancy, an anticipation of some order about to be given perhaps, a darkly attentive readiness to hear the
call of destiny. As if in apologetic contrast, a little dimple would show in one cheek whenever she spoke—and the whole effect had its own unique charm.
Charming and in a certain sense unique as well were the lines of her body, which could be seen through the gossamer of her garments and were marked by an exceptionally small waist with a wasplike tuck, set above correspondingly full hips and a long abdomen—a childbearing womb. Bold, firm breasts and slender well-proportioned arms that she liked to hold fully extended completed this amber-hued image of maidenhood.
Surrounded by flowers, Asenath the Maiden lived a flowerlike existence until she was abducted. Her favorite haunt was the shore of the holy lake within the precincts of her father's temple, where there was a rolling meadow covered with flowers, a kind of carpet of narcissi and anemones; and she loved nothing better than to join her playmates, the daughters of other priests and nobles of On, and stroll through these fields beside the mirroring waters, to sit in the grass and make wreaths of plucked flowers, her attentive eyes beneath raised brows gazing out into the distance, that little dimple forming in her cheek, as she waited for whatever things might come. And come they did; for one day Pharaoh's messengers were there, demanding of Potiphera her father, who nodded gravely, and her fully uncomprehending mother, who wrung her hands, that this virgin of the shield become the wife of Djepnuteefonekh, the Vice-Horus, the Spender of Shade to the King. She herself, under the influence of the model of her life, raised her arms heavenward, pleading for help, as if someone had grabbed her about her narrow waist to snatch her up and abduct her.
It was all a masquerade, behavior dictated by convention; for not only were the wishes and courtship of Pharaoh a command, but marriage to his favorite, to the king's Supreme Mouth, was also honorable and desirable; the parents could not have reached higher for their child than Pharaoh had reached for Joseph, and there was no reason whatever for despair, or even for any sort of worry beyond the natural sorrow parents feel when letting go an only child so that she may marry. All the same, as much fuss as possible had to be made over Asenath's maidenhood and her abduction and the bridegroom depicted as a very sinister figure, even though the parents who sired
her should have been deUghted with him and probably really were— for Pharaoh had expressly let it be known that in this case virginity was to be joined with virginity and that the bridegroom himself was a kind of virgin, one who for many years had been jealously set aside as a bride only to emerge now as a suitor. For this even to occur, he had first had to settle with the god of his fathers, the bridegroom of his tribe, whose jealousy he had long treated with consideration but would do so no longer now, or only insofar as he was entering into a special and exemplarily virginal marriage—if that was any sort of excuse. There is really no point in our worrying about this, despite all the implications such a step involved—for Joseph was indeed making an Egyptian marriage, a marriage with Sheol, an Ismael marriage, not lacking in precedent, then, but a dubious precedent nonetheless, one requiring the indulgence that he, so it seems, confidentially felt he had been granted. Scholars and interpreters have taken great offense at this and have tried to sweep the facts under the rug. In the interest of purity they have presented it as if Asenath was not really the child of Potiphera and his wife, but rather a foundling, indeed a child abandoned by Jacob's disowned daughter Dinah and found floating in a basket, which would mean that Joseph married his own niece, though that would hardly improve matters much, since half of the flesh and blood of this niece was that of fidgety Sichem, a Baal-worshiping Canaanite. Moreover, respect for these scholars should not prevent us from calling the story of Dinah's child of the bulrushes what it is: an interpolation and pious fib. Asenath, the Maiden, was the true daughter of Potiphera and his wife, of pure Egyptian blood, and the sons that she would bear to Joseph, his heirs, Ephraim and Manasseh, were for better or worse half-Egyptian by blood—and let people think whatever they choose about that. But this was not all. By marrying this daughter of the sun, Israel's son entered into a close relationship with the temple of Atum-Re, a priestly relationship, which had also been one of Pharaoh's goals in arranging this marriage. It was almost unthinkable that a high-ranking official such as Joseph would not also fulfill a higher priestly function at the same time and receive temple income, both of which Joseph did as Asenath's husband—and one can make of that whatever one likes. He drew income from the benefice, if one were to put it crudely, of an idol. From now on his official
wardrobe included the priest's leopard skin, and on certain occasions, he would find himself having to burn incense before an idol, the falcon Horakhte with the solar disk atop his head.
Only a very few people since then have reaUzed just what all this means, and to hear it stated outright may come as a shock to some. But Joseph had obviously arrived at a time of permissions and liberties, and one can be certain that he knew how to square all this with Him who had separated him from his family, transplanted him to Egypt, and let him become great there. Perhaps Joseph assumed his God would agree with the philosophy of the triangle, according to which a sacrifice at the alabaster table of the tolerant Horakhte did not imply robbing some other divinity. Ultimately it was not a matter of just any temple, but that of the temple of the Lord of the Wide Horizon, and Joseph may well have told himself that it would be a mistake, indeed folly—which is to say, a sin—to ascribe to the God of his fathers a narrower horizon than that of Atum-Re. And finally, one dare not forget that from this same god there had only recently emerged the Aton, whom, as Joseph and Pharaoh had agreed, one rightly invoked not as the Aton but as the Lord of the Aton, calling him "our Father in heaven," and not "our father in the heavens." These may have been the thoughts of a man who from the beginning had been set apart and called to become great in a foreign land, but who on certain, not necessarily frequent, occasions now donned his leopard skin to go forth and burn incense.
There was something very unusual about Rachel's firstborn, Jacob's expatriate darling. The indulgence granted him made allowances for the things of this world, which in turn prevented there ever being a "tribe of Joseph," even though there was a tribe of Is-sakhar, of Dan, and of Gad. His role and task in the plan was, as we shall see, that of someone sent out into the larger world to be the preserver, provider, and savior of his family, and everything argues for his having been aware of that mission, or at least having sensed it—that he understood his worldly, expatriate life to be not that of an outcast, but rather of someone set aside for special purposes, and that therefore he could trust in the forbearance of the Lord of Plans.
Joseph Marries
And so Asenath, the Maiden, was sent up to Menfe with twenty-four selected slaves, for a virginal wedding in Joseph's house, and her sacerdotal parents, still crushed by this incomprehensible abduction, likewise traveled upriver from On, just as Pharaoh himself came downriver from Nowet-Amun in order to take part in these nuptial mysteries, to give this rare bride into the hands of his favorite and, as an experienced husband, to assure him once more of the pleasures the wedded state brought with it. It should be noted that twelve of the young, beautiful slave girls who came with Asenath and now passed along with her into the possession of her dark bridegroom— automatically reminding one of the retinue that at one time was buried alive in the tomb of the king—that twelve of these twenty-four were there to celebrate, strew flowers, and make music, the other twelve, however, to raise lamentation and beat their breasts. For the wedding ceremonies conducted in Joseph's honorary residence, especially those performed in the torchlit quadrangle of its fountain court, around which all the other rooms were arranged, had something very funereal about them, and if we do not describe them down to the last detail it is out of a kind of consideration for old Jacob at home, who quite mistakenly still believed his darling to be preserved in death forever as a seventeen-year-old and would have clapped his hands above his head at much of what took place here at his wedding. Jacob's venerable prejudices against Mizraim, the Land of Mud, would have been confirmed, and it is more or less out of a respect for them that we prefer not to provide a detailed account of the ceremonies, which would look very much like a stamp of approval.
Behind his back one can admit, however, that there is a certain similarity between wedding and death, bridal chamber and grave, robbing a virgin of her virginity and murder—which is also why one cannot entirely separate the bridegroom from his role as a god of death engaged in violent abduction. Certainly the similarity between the fate of a girl crossing the threshold between maidenhood and womanhood as a veiled sacrifice and that of a seed of grain lowered into the depths to rot there and return to the light as the same grain, yet virginally new—that similarity must be granted; and the ear of
grain mowed down by the sickle is a painful metaphor for a daughter being torn from the arms of her mother—who herself, by the way, was once virgin and sacrifice, who was also mowed down by the sickle and relives her own fate in that of her daughter. And thus the sickles with which the steward Mai-Sakhme had ordered the ceremonial rooms decorated, in particular the fountain court lined with columns, played a significant—indeed, one could say meaningful— role, just as did the seed corn, the grain, the cereal that was offered to the wedding guests in ceremonies before and after the nuptial banquet: men strewed it on the tiled floor and, uttering formulaic cries, watered it from jugs they carried; women bore vessels on their heads, one part filled with seeds, but with a lamp burning in a separate compartment. For these ceremonies took place in the evening, so that it was only natural that there were torches throughout the rooms, which were draped with colorful tapestries and adorned with myrtle everywhere. But there was such an intentionally excessive use of torches that one almost inevitably associates this with the notion that they are meant to light chambers into which daylight cannot penetrate—so many torches beyond any practical purpose that it was obvious they were meant to stir such associations. The bride's mother, Potiphar's wife—if one may call her that without causing confusion—presented a tragic figure wrapped in a robe of dark violet and carried either two torches in one hand or, at other times, one torch in each, just as everyone else, men and women alike, carried torches as they moved in the grand procession that was the central rite of these solemnities, passing through every room in the house and then emptying into the fountain court—where Pharaoh as the highest-ranking guest sat in a relaxed pose between Joseph and Ase-nath, likewise veiled in violet—there to unfold or, rather, to entangle itself into an elaborate and truly remarkable torch dance. For the lines of the smoky, blazing procession now moved to the left in a ninefold spiral with the fountain at its midpoint; and the red cord that was threaded through the hands of the dancers, following every coil of their twisting labyrinth, did not prevent them from crowning their performance with a skillful play of lights, a veritable firework in which the torches were tossed about in exchange, in all directions at once, often from the innermost spiral to the outermost rim—and not one flying arc of fire missed its goal and fell to the floor.
