Joseph and His Brothers, page 79
Joseph and his owners were on hand to watch such a ceremony—a remarkable abomination, but amusing as well, thanks to the good mood of the people of Menfe, men and women with fidgety children: an animated, festive crowd, chatting in expectation of the god, "kissing" (their word for "eating") sycamore figs and onions, letting the juice of melon slices drip down from the corners of their mouths at every bite, and haggling with merchants stationed at the sides of the court and peddling holy bread, sacrificial fowl, beer, incense, honey, and flowers.
A potbeUied man in bast sandals was standing next to the Ish-maelites, and when the throng pressed them still closer together, they began to speak to one another. He was wearing a knee-length skirt of coarse linen with a triangular fold draped at the waist, and around his torso and arms he had wound all sorts of ribbons into which he had tied sacred knots. His short hair lay tight against his round skull, and his glassy, cheerful bug-eyes popped out all the more once his well-shaped, clean-shaven mouth began to chatter away. He had been inspecting the old man and his followers from one side for a good while before he spoke and, intrigued by their foreignness, asked them about their whence and whither. He himself was a baker, he explained, which was to say, he did not bake with his own two hands or stick his own head into the oven. He employed a half dozen apprentices and delivery boys, who crisscrossed the city, carrying his very good crescents and twists in baskets on their heads;
and woe to them if they didn't pay attention and forgot to wave an arm above their wares to keep the birds of the heavens from diving to pilfer from their baskets. Any bread carrier guilty of that was "taught a lesson," as Bata the master baker put it. For that was his name. He also owned several fields outside the city, and it was their grain that he baked. But it was never enough, for his was a major enterprise, and he had to buy additional grain. He had come out today to see the god, which was to his advantage inasmuch as it was to his disadvantage to fail to do so. Meanwhile his wife was visiting the Great Mother in her house and offering flowers to Isis, to whom she was especially devoted, whereas he, Bata, found greater satisfaction in this spot. And so, the baker asked, they were traveHng through the Two Lands for commercial reasons, were they?
Such was the case, the old man replied. And they had more or less reached their goal in reaching Menfe, grand in its gates, rich in residences and eternal edifices, and could now just as well turn back.
He was very much obliged, the baker said. They could, but presumably would not; for like the rest of the world they probably regarded this old dump of a city as only a tread beneath their feet on the stairway to the splendors of Amun. They would be the first travelers to do otherwise, to have any other goal than Weset, the brand-spanking new city of Pharaoh—may he live a long, healthy life!—to which people and treasures flowed and for which Menfe's weather-beaten name was now only good enough for Pharaoh's courtiers and chief eunuchs to boast of in their titles—just as, for instance, the god's head baker, who supervised the palace bakeries, was called Prince of Menfe, though not entirely without justification, one had to admit, for it was certainly true that fine cakes in the shape of cows and snails had been delivered to the houses of Menfe back when Amun's people had still been content just to gobble down roasted grain.
The old man replied that, yes, well, they would, after a significant sojourn in Menfe, probably also cast a glance at Wase just to see to what extent it had caught up by now in matters of refinement and the embellishment of baked goods—when with a drum roll the rear gate opened and the god was led out into the courtyard, but only a few steps beyond the open doors. And great was the excitement of the crowd. Hopping about on one leg, people shouted, "Hapi! Hapi!" and anyone with enough room threw himself on his face
and kissed the ground. Everywhere spines twisted and bent low, and hundreds of throats filled the air with the guttural huffing sound with which the god's name began. It was also the name of the river that had created and still preserved the land. It was the name of this sun-bull, the embodiment of all those powers of fertility on which these people knew they depended, the name of continued existence for both the land and its people, the name of life. Easygoing and talkative these people might be, but they were deeply moved, for their devotions contained all the hope and anxiety with which a precisely limited existence can fill the human breast. Their thoughts were of the flood, which dared not be one ell too high or too low if life was to have stability; of the fitness of their wives and the health of their children; of their own bodies and of those easily jeopardized functions that supplied pleasure and comfort if all went smoothly, but fierce torments when they failed and that had to be safeguarded by employing magic against magic; of the enemies of the land to the south, east, and west; of Pharaoh, whom they likewise called the Strong Bull and who, as they knew, was cherished and preserved in his palace at Thebes as carefully as Hapi was here, for in his transitory person he protected them and established the link between them and that on which all else depended. "Hapi! Hapi!" they cried in anxious jubilation, haunted by the sense of how brief and imperiled their lives were, and stared with hope at the god beast's square brow, iron horns, and stocky neck, running in an unbroken line from spine to skull, and at his sexual organs, the guarantors of fertility. "Security!"—that is what their cries meant. "Protection and permanence!" "Long live the land of Egypt!"
Ptah's living repetition was extraordinarily beautiful—but then, since experts spent years searching for the most beautiful bull between the swamps of the Delta and Elephant Island, he surely ought to have been. He was black; and the scarlet saddlecloth across his back was a splendid, if not to say divine, match for his own blackness. Two bald attendants in pleated skirts of some gold fabric, which left the navel exposed but rose halfway up the back, held him, one on each side, with golden cords, and the attendant on the right lifted the blanket for the crowd to show them a white spot on Hapi's flank that they were to regard as a symbol of the crescent moon. A priest, across whose back was hung a leopard skin, including tail and paws, bowed low and, placing one foot before the other, held out his
long-handled censing bowl toward the bull, who lowered his head and sniffed, flaring thick, moist nostrils tickled by the spicy smoke. He gave a mighty sneeze, which only redoubled the crowd's urgent cries and one-legged hops for joy. As accompaniment to the censing ritual, crouching harpists, faces turned heavenward, sang hymns, while behind them other singers clapped in time. Women appeared now as well, temple girls with hair hanging free, one of them naked and adorned only with a cord belt above her wide hips, the other in a long garment delicate as a veil and open to the front, which likewise left the fullness of her youth in plain view. Shaking sistrums and tambourines above their heads, they danced around the spectacle, extending a leg from the hip with each long stride and raising it to an amazing height. A lector priest sat down facing the crowd at the feet of the bull and, rocking his head, began to chant a text from his scroll, with the people joining in at the constant refrain of "Hapi is Ptah. Hapi is Re. Hapi is Hor, the son of Eset!" This was followed by the entrance, amid waving feathered fans, of an obviously high-ranking attendant in a long and wide batiste skirt with shoulder straps, a proud man with a shaven head who held before him a basin of spices and herbs, which—by skillfully creeping forward, one leg thrust wide behind and the other foot on tiptoe and tucked as far underneath as possible—he now shoved forward with both hands as a gift to the god.
Hapi paid no attention. Accustomed to all this fuss being made on his behalf and to the life of solemn boredom that was his melancholy fate thanks to certain physical hallmarks, he stood with legs spread and let his little, bloodshot bull's eyes sweep in dull cunning beyond those offering sacrifices to him and out into the hopping, leaping throng, who, one hand on their chests, the other stretched out to him, were shouting his holy name. They were so happy to see him bound by golden ropes and to know that he was in the safe custody of the temple, constrained by the guards who served him. He was their god and their prisoner. In reality, it was in honor of his imprisonment and the security it gave them that they made their leaps and called out to him in joy; and perhaps his gaze was so cunning and wicked because he understood that despite all the ceremonial fuss their intentions were not all that good.
Bata the master baker, being a stout man, did not hop about with joy, but, visibly edified by the sight of Hapi, he, too, responded to
the lector's chant in a powerful voice and greeted the god over and over by prostrating himself and raising his hands.
"It does one good to see him/' he explained to his neighbors. "It strengthens one's vital spirits and helps restore one's confidence. It has been my experience that when I see Hapi, I need nothing more to eat the whole day, for it is as if a hearty meal of beef were coursing through my limbs, and with my belly full I then become drowsy, and after a nap I awaken as if newborn. He is a very great god, the living repetition of Ptah. You should know that his grave awaits him in the West, for the order has been given that upon his death he is to be salted and wrapped, using the finest resins and cloths of royal linen, with no expense spared, and as custom demands be entombed in the eternal house of divine animals in the City of the Dead. It has been so ordered," he said, "and so it will be. Already two Usar-Hapis lie resting in their stony chests in the Eternal House of the West."
The old man cast Joseph a glance that the slave took as encouragement to test this man with a question. "Have this man explain to you," he asked, "why he says that Usar-Hapi's eternal home awaits him in the West, since it is not really in the West at all, but in Menfe itself, a city of the living, which is situated on the west bank, so that the dead are not ferried across the river."
Turning to the baker, the old man told him the lad's question. "Do you care to reply?"
"I spoke as everyone does," the Egyptian answered, "and gave it no thought. For we all speak that way and think nothing of it. The West is simply the West, the City of the Dead in our language. But it is true that the dead of Menfe do not travel across the river as in other places, but that the city of the living is likewise already in the West. According to reason, your lad is right to object. But according to our usage, what I said is correct."
"Then ask him this as well," Joseph said. "If Hapi, the beautiful bull, is the living Ptah in the eyes of the living, what then is Ptah in his shrine?"
"Ptah is great," the baker replied.
"Tell him I do not doubt that," Joseph responded. "But Hapi is called Usar-Hapi once he has died, and by the same token Ptah in his barque is Osiris and is said to have a human form because he has the
shape of the bearded chests that the carpenters turn out and appears to be wrapped in cloths. What is he then?"
"Instruct the lad," the baker said, "that the priest enters Ptah's chamber daily to open his mouth with a powerful tool, so that he may drink and eat, and renews the color of life on his cheeks daily as well. That is the service and care he renders."
"Which leads me to ask politely," Joseph replied, "what happens to the dead man at the door to his grave, with Anup standing behind, and what sort of service is it that the priest renders for the mummy?"
"He doesn't know even that?" the baker retorted. "It is quite obvious that he is a sand-dweller, an utter stranger, and a recent arrival in the land. I would have you tell him that this service consists, above all, in the so-called opening of the mouth, which we call that because the attending priest opens the dead man's mouth with a special staff, so that he may again eat and drink and enjoy the nourishing offerings brought to him. Moreover, in token of a return to life in accord with Usir's example, the priest of the dead paints the mummy a rosy hue, which is a comfort to those who mourn him."
"I hear and am grateful," Joseph said. "So that, then, is the difference between the service offered the gods and that offered the dead. But now ask master Bata what materials are used for building in Egypt."
"Your lad," the baker replied, "is pretty, but stupid. For the living, we build with Nile bricks. Whereas both the dwellings of the dead and our temples are of eternal stone."
"I hear this," Joseph said, "with many thanks. But if the same holds true of two things, then the two are the same and one may interchange them with impunity. Egypt's graves are temples, but its temples—"
"Are houses of the gods," the baker finished the thought.
"As you say. Egypt's dead are gods, and your gods, what are they?"
"The gods are great," Bata the baker responded. "That I can tell from the full belly and drowsiness that have come over me at the sight of Hapi. I wish to return home and lie down for my nap of rebirth. My wife will also have returned from serving the Great Mother by now. May you be well, strangers. Rejoice and journey in peace."
And with that, he departed.
But the old man said to Joseph, "The man's god made him weary, and you should not have used me to press him with captious questions."
"But your slave," Joseph said, justifying himself, "must surely inquire about all such things, that he may find his way into the life of Egypt, seeing as you wish to leave him here and should his stay prove permanent. Everything here is strange and new enough in this lad's eyes. For the children of Egypt worship in graves, whether they call them temples or eternal dwellings; at home, however, we follow the custom of our fathers and worship beneath green trees. Do these children not give you pause to think and laugh? For them, Hapi is now Ptah's living form, and, I would say, Ptah can certainly use one since he himself has obviously been wrapped in cloths and is a corpse. But they cannot rest until they have also wrapped his living form and turned him as well into a divine mummy and another Osiris, or else they are not satisfied. But I feel a fondness for Menfe, whose dead need not travel across the water, because it already lies in the West—this great city, so full of people, who have no trouble abbreviating its graveyard name. It is a shame that the house of blessing, the house of Petepre the fan-bearer, to which you wish to bring me, is not in Menfe, for of all the cities of Egypt it might well suit me."
"You are much too immature," the old man responded, "to decide what is to your benefit. I, however, know that and bestow it upon you as would a father; for I am surely that to you, if we assume that your mother is the pit. At the earliest hour tomorrow we shall board ship and travel through the land of Egypt for nine days, moving upstream toward the south, so that we may set foot upon the shimmering shore of Weset-per-Amun, the royal city."
Part Three
THE ARRIVAL
Journey by River
Sparkling with Speed was the name of the ship up whose gangplank the Ishmaehtes strode with their animals, but only after having first secured nine days' worth of provisions at trading booths set up along the river landing. That was its name, written on both sides of a prow decorated with the head of a goose—a name born of the Egyptian love of boasting, for it was the bulkiest freighter to be found anywhere on Menfe's quay, with a big belly for holding more cargo, wooden lattice along its sides, a cabin that was merely a vaulted canopy of mats open to the front, and a single, but very heavy, rudder rising at a sharp angle and attached to a pole at its stern.
The boat's captain was named Thot-nofer, a man from the north, with rings on his ears and white hair on his head and chest, whose acquaintance the old man had made at the inn and with whom he had come to an agreement for a cheap fare. Thot-nofer's boat had already taken on lumber, one bale each of royal and coarse linen, papyrus, cowhides, and ship's rope, twenty sacks of lentils and thirty casks of dried fish. In addition. Sparkling with Speed had on board a statue, the Hkeness of a rich citizen of Thebes, that stood in protective sackcloth and crating far forward at the prow. It had been commissioned for the man's "good house," that is, for his grave on the west side of the river, where, stepping out of a false door, it was to survey its—or better, the grave's occupant's—eternal possessions and the representations of his daily Hfe painted on the walls. The eyes with which it would do this had not yet been inserted, nor had it been tinted with the colors of life, and it lacked the walking stick that would pass through the fist extended at the side of the flaring front of the skirt. But the model had insisted that his double chin and stout legs be executed, at least in the rough, under the eyes of Ptah and by the hand of his artists—final touches could then be added in a workshop in Thebes' City of the Dead.
At noon the crew untied the ship from its moorings and raised the patched brown sail, which immediately filled with a stiff breeze from the north. The helmsman, sitting on the steeply slanted beak of the stern, began to work the rudder with a lever jutting out from under it; a man stationed forward at the goose head tested the channel with a pole, while Thot-nofer, the captain, stood in front of the cabin and, burning some of the resin with which the Ishmaelites had paid their fare, implored the gods to grant them an easy voyage. And so this barque, curved high at both fore and aft and with only the middle of the keel cutting the water, bore Joseph out onto the river, while the old man, who was sitting with his family on the pile of lumber stored behind the cabin, launched into observations on how wise life was, so that its benefits and drawbacks balanced and canceled each other out, establishing a middling perfection between not-all-too-good and not-all-too-bad. So now, he said, they were traveling upstream, against the current, whereas the wind was from the north, as it almost always was here, pushing helpfully at the sail, so that thrust and impediment cooperated for a measured progress. Going downstream was, to be sure, quite amusing, because you could let yourself drift along—except that it was very easy for the motion to get out of hand, leaving the boat athwart the river, and that meant exhausting rowing and steering to keep the journey from turning topsy-turvy. Thus life's benefits were always held in check by its drawbacks, and its drawbacks compensated for by its benefits, so that in purely mathematical terms the result was naught and nothing, but in practical terms, it was the wisdom of balance and of middling perfection—in light of which neither jubilation nor curses were in order, but rather contentment. For perfection did not consist of a one-sided amassing of benefits, just as life would be impossible if it were naught but drawbacks. Instead, life was made up of the mutual cancellation of benefit and drawback, resulting in nothing, which was to say, contentment.
