Joseph and His Brothers, page 95
Though his lips were small, Pharaoh's friend ate large portions of everything offered, for his tower of flesh had to be fed. And at every meal his goblet had to be refilled several times from a long-necked pitcher, for wine apparently warmed his self-esteem and let him believe that, despite an officer named Hor-em-heb, he was still the true and genuine Captain of the Guard. The mistress, however— hovered about by a dainty and very demure personal slave draped in a garment of very thin gossamer, beneath which (and what a good thing that Jacob, Joseph's father, never saw it!) she was as good as naked—Mut-em-enet, then, showed so little appetite that it was as if she attended only out of custom and ceremony. She would accept a
roast duck and, scarcely opening her mouth, take a single bite of the breast, then toss the rest into the basin. As for the saintly parents, who were served by the fooUsh Uttle girls (for they would not suffer adults to serve them), they fretted and fussed over this and that, but likewise came to the table only to be civilized and had had enough after two or three bites from some vegetable or pastry—especially old Huya, who always had to worry that his stomach would rebel against anything more, leaving him in a cold sweat. Sometimes favored Bes-em-heb, the unmarried dwarf, would sit on the steps of the dais at the feet of his masters and nibble away, even though he took his meals at a sort of officers' table, where he ate his fill along with Mont-kaw himself, Dudu, guardian of the jewelry chests, Fire-belly, the head gardener, and a few scribes—the higher-ranking servants of the house, that is, who were soon joined by the Habiru slave Joseph, or Osarsiph as he was called; or the mock vizier in his rumpled finery might perform droll dances around the large buffet table. In one remote corner there was usually crouched an old harpist, who gently plucked his strings with gaunt, crooked fingers and murmured chants no one could understand. He was blind, as was only proper for a bard, and could also prophesy, though only haltingly and vaguely.
This was the daily routine of meals at Petepre's. Often the chamberlain was with Pharaoh at Merima't Palace on the far side of the river or he joined the god on his royal barque to sail up and down the Nile visiting quarries, mines, or dams and buildings under construction. On those days no meals were served, and the blue hall remained empty. But if the master was present and the midday meal had ended with mutual declarations of tender feeling—after which the saintly parents let themselves be helped upstairs and their daughter-in-law, the nun of the moon, either returned to her drawing room in the main house, which was separated from her spouse's bedroom by the great northern columned hall, or was borne back to the house of seclusion on her lion chair, with footmen before and after— then Joseph had to follow Potiphar to one of the adjoining rooms, airy arcades with painted niches along three walls, but open to a slender-pillared front: either the northern hall extending from dining chamber to reception hall, or the western one, which was even lovelier, since it looked out on the garden, with its trees and elevated summerhouse. The former, however, had the advantage that the
master could gaze from there out to the workshop courtyard, to the granaries and stables. It was also cooler.
In both halls were many magnificent objects that Joseph regarded with the mixture of admiration and skeptical mockery that he reserved for the high civilization of Egypt—gifts from a gracious Pharaoh to his chamberlain and titular captain, of which that golden marvel in the dining chamber was but one example, arranged on various chests and side tables or hung on the walls: statuettes in silver or gold, ebony and ivory, that portrayed their royal donor, Neb-maat-Re-Amenhotep, a squat, fat man, in various vestments, crowns, and hairstyles; brass sphinxes, also bearing the head of the god; objets d'art in the form of animals, such as a running herd of elephants, squatting baboons, or a gazelle with flowers in its mouth; costly vases, mirrors, fans, and whips; but, above all, weapons, great numbers of every sort of weaponry of war, including axes, daggers, and coats of mail, hide-covered shields, bows, and bronze scythelike swords. It made one wonder why Pharaoh—successor to great conquerors, yet no man of battle, but a prince of peace with vast riches and a plethora of building projects—would have showered so many implements of war upon his courtier, this Ruben-like tower whose disposition likewise did not appear intent on wreaking bloodbaths among "rubber-eaters" and "sand-dwellers."
Among the furnishings in both halls were beautiful decorated bookcases, and while Potiphar stretched out his massive body on an elegant couch, whose delicacy looked even more fragile beneath him, Joseph would step over to one such bookcase and offer suggestions for reading. What should he unroll: the adventures of a shipwrecked sailor on the island of monsters; the story of King Khufu and a man named Dedi, who was able to put his head back on after it had been chopped off; the true and fitting story of how the city of Joppa was taken by Thuti, great officer of His Majesty Men-kheper-Re-Thutmose III, by having sacks and baskets containing five hundred warriors smuggled into the city; the fairy tale of the royal child whom the priestesses of Hathor predicted would be slain by a crocodile, a serpent, or a dog—or something else? The selection was imposing. Petepre owned a fine and varied library that he kept in bookcases in both halls and included amusing fantasies and comical fables—like "The Battle of the Cats and the Geese"—as well as fascinating works of dialectic, such as the sharply polemical exchange
of correspondence between the scribes Hori and Amenemone, plus religious and magical texts and tracts on wisdom in a dark, elaborate language, as well as lists of kings from the days of the gods down to the alien shepherd kings, along with dates for the reign of each son of the sun and annals of notable historical events, such as extraordinary levies of taxes and important jubilees. Nor did he lack the Book of Breathing, works entitled Striding Through Eternity and May the Name Flourish, or a learned geography of the world beyond.
Potiphar knew them all well. He hstened in order to hear something familiar, the way one listens to music. This response to what was offered him was all the more appropriate since for the great m.a-jority of these works it was not their contents or the fable that counted, but instead, the important factor was the charm of the style, the rarity and elegance of the rhetoric. With his feet drawn up under him or standing at a kind of liturgical lectern, Joseph made an excellent reader—fluent, precise, without pretensions, moderately dramatic, and so natural in his command of words coming from his lips that even the most difficult formal writing had the sound of conversational palatability and improvised ease. He literally read his way into his listener's heart, and for a better understanding of the simple fact of his well-known rise in the Egyptian's favor, these hours of reading should certainly not go unremarked.
Potiphar, by the way, would often soon doze off as he listened, lulled by the reserved, yet pleasant voice speaking to him so evenly and intelligently. But he would also interrupt the reading sometimes to correct Joseph's pronunciation, to call both his own and his reader's attention to some rhetorical flourish or to offer literary criticism of what he had heard; he might even discuss some obscure passage with Joseph, so taken was he by the lad's keen mind and exegetical talents. Over time the master's personal and emotional bias for certain literary works became evident—for example, his preference for the "Song in Praise of Death by a Man Weary of Life," which he often had Joseph read to him as his days of service wore on and in which a yearning, but steady voice compared death with many good and gentle things: with recuperation from a grave illness, with the fragrance of myrtle and lotus blossoms, with sitting beneath the shelter of an awning on a windy day, a cool drink beside the shore, a path in the rain, the homecoming of a sailor from his battleship, a reunion with family and home after years of captivity,
and other such things that we wish for. Just as he awaited all these, said the poet, so too he awaited death; and Potiphar listened to the words as they were carefully shaped on Joseph's lips, the way one listens to music one knows in every detail.
Another literary work that fascinated him and had to be read to him frequently was the dark and dire prophecy of disorder laying waste to the Two Lands, of wild anarchy left in its wake, of a ghastly reversal of all things, so that the rich would become poor and the poor rich, all said to go hand in hand with desolation of the temples and total neglect of the gods. Why it was that Petepre loved to hear these descriptions remained unclear; perhaps just for the horror of it, which could be pleasant inasmuch as for now the rich were still rich and the poor still poor and would remain so, as long as one shunned disorder and nourished the gods with sacrifices. He said nothing about it, any more than he ever remarked about the "Song of the Man Weary of Life," or about the so-called "Delightful Songs," to whose honeyed words and lovers' plaints he reacted with silence. These romances expressed the sufferings and joys of a love-struck girl, a catcher of birds, who coos for her lad and wants desperately to be a housewife, so that his arm can always lie upon her own. And when he did not come to her at night, she would lament in words sweet as honey, saying she was like someone lying in her grave, for he was health and life. But it was all a misunderstanding, for he, too, lay in his bedchamber, struck down by an illness that mocked the skill of his doctors, the illness of love. But then she found her way to his bed, and they no longer wounded one another's hearts, but each made the other the first person in the world, and with flushed cheeks they wandered hand in hand through the flower garden of their happiness. From time to time Petepre would have their cooings read to him. His face showed no expression as he Hstened, his gaze revealing only a cool attentiveness as it wandered slowly back and forth across the room, and he never expressed either his like or dislike of these songs.
But when such days were now past counting, he did indeed ask Joseph whether these "DeUghtful Songs" appealed to him, and it was the first time that master and servant again brushed up against and warily hovered over the subject of that testing conversation in the palm garden.
"You recite the songs of this bird catcher and her lad very
nicely," Potiphar said, "almost as if with their voices. So you like these songs better than others, do you?"
"My endeavors to win your satisfaction, my great lord," Joseph replied, "are the same with all subjects."
"That may be. But it seems to me that the reader's mind and heart provide greater or less effective support to such endeavors. The subject may be closer to him or, then again, more distant. I do not wish to say that you read this book better than others. But that does not prevent you from preferring to read it over others."
"Before you, my lord," Joseph said, "I am as happy to read one as another."
"Yes, fine. Except I would like to hear your opinion. Do you find these songs beautiful?"
And the air Joseph now assumed was both shrewd and haughtily critical.
"Quite beautiful," he said and pursed his hps. "Beautiful, and with every word, as it were, dipped in honey. Somewhat too simple, perhaps, as a result—a trace too simple."
"Simple? But this work, which is a perfect expression of simplicity and a brilliant model of what happens between the children of men, will stand for countless jubilees yet. Your years demand that you judge whether such words are a model of model speech."
"It seems to me," Joseph replied with detachment, "as if the words of this bird catcher and her bedridden lad convey model simplicity very nicely and fix them for preservation."
"It seems that and nothing more?" the fan-bearer asked. "I was counting on your experience. You are young and yours is a beautiful face. But you speak as if for your part you have never strolled in a flower garden with such a snarer of birds."
"Youth and beauty," Joseph replied, "can also imply a more austere adornment than the wreath such a garden supplies the children of men. Your slave, my lord, knows of an evergreen that is both the symbol of youth and beauty and also an adornment of sacrifice. He who wears it is set apart, and he whom it adorns has been chosen."
"You are speaking of myrtle?"
"Of myrtle, yes. My family and I like to call this herb 'touch-me-not.'"
"And do you wear this herb?"
"My seed and tribe wear it. Our God has betrothed Himself to
US and is a bridegroom of the blood and filled with jealousy, for He is lonely and burns for faithfulness. We, however, are like a bride to His faithfulness, consecrated and set apart."
"What, all of you?"
"In principle, all of us, my lord. But from among the friends of God and the heads of our tribe, it is God's custom to select one who is especially betrothed to Him by the adornment of consecrated youth. It is demanded of the father that he offer this son as a whole offering. If he can, he does so. If he cannot, then it is done for him."
"I cannot bear," Potiphar said, tossing back and forth on his couch, "to hear of something being done to someone that he does not wish and cannot do. Speak, Osarsiph, of other things."
"I can at once mitigate what I have said," Joseph replied, "for a certain forbearance and leniency apply to the whole sacrifice. For, you see, what is commanded is also averted and declared a sin, and thus the blood of an animal shall intervene for the blood of the son."
"What was that word you used? It is declared what?"
"A sin, my great lord. It is declared a sin."
"What is that—sin?"
"Just this, my lord—what is demanded and yet averted, what is commanded and yet cursed. We are as good as alone in the world in knowing what sin is."
"That must be a burdensome knowledge, Osarsiph, and, it seems to me, a contradiction full of suffering."
"God also suffers for the sake of our sin, and we suffer with Him."
"And might it be," Potiphar asked, "as I am beginning to surmise, that a stroll in that bird catcher's garden would also be a sin in your mind?"
"It has a strong element of sin about it, my lord. If you ask me— most definitely, yes. I cannot say that we especially love it, though if need be we could also manage to produce songs of similar 'delight.' That garden there—it would not be out-and-out the land of Sheol for us, I would not go that far. It is not an abomination to us, but nonetheless it is a misgiving and a demonic realm full of God's jealousy, where accursed commands run free. Two beasts lie in wait before it: one is named Shame and the other Guilt. And yet a third peers out from among the branches as well, and its name is Mocking Laughter."
"After all this," Petepre said, "I begin to understand why you called the 'DeUghtful Songs' simple. Yet I cannot help thinking there is something peculiar and life-threatening about a tribe of men for whom model simplicity is a sin and a cause of mocking laughter/'
"It has its own history with us, my lord, taking its place both in time and in stories. It first occurs in model form, and then in a variety of others. There was a man and friend of God, who was as devoted to a lovely woman as he was to God, and there was model simplicity in this story of a father. God in His jealousy, however, took her from him and plunged her into death, out of which she reemerged for the father in a different form—that is, as his young son, in whom he now loved his lovely wife. And so death had made a son of his beloved, in whom she lived on, and the boy lived only by virtue of death. But the father's love for him was a love now altered by the bath of death—love no longer in the form of life, but of death. And thus my lord can see that there is more variety to this story, in all directions, making it less of a model."
"And that young son," Potiphar said with a smile, "was he perhaps the same one about whom you went so far, too far, as to say that his birth was a virgin birth simply because it occurred under the sign of the Virgin?"
"Perhaps in your kindness, my lord," Joseph replied, "you may be inclined to soften your rebuke of what was said, or even graciously to revoke it—who knows? For since the son became a lad only through death, became his mother in the form she took on in death, and is, as it is written, female in the evening, but male in the morning—might one not, upon consideration, speak quite legitimately of a virgin birth? God has chosen my tribe, and all of them bear the betrothed's adornment of sacrifice. But one there is who wears it yet again and is set apart for God's jealousy."
"Let that be as it may be, my friend," said the chamberlain. "Our talk has wandered far afield, from simplicity to variety. If you so beseech and entreat me, then I shall surely soften my rebuke, indeed retract it, with only the smallest vestige left. Read something else for me now. Read to me of the sun's journey by night through the twelve houses of the underworld—I've not heard it for a long time, though, if memory serves, it contains several very beautiful maxims and exquisite words."
And Joseph read about the sun's underworld journey with fine
good taste, so that Potiphar was well fed; and that word is in order, for the reader's voice and the excellent text to which he applied it fed the sense of well-being that the previous conversation had left with the listener, fed it the way a flame feeds the sacrificial altar when supplied with fuel below and strewn with good things on top—that same sense of well-being that the Ebrew slave knew how to instill in Pharaoh's friend again and again and that was much like trust, both in his own person and in his servant. The essential thing was the trust that Potiphar put in Joseph in this twofold regard, and the growth of that trust—which is why we have also provided a detailed reconstruction of at least this conversation as well, for in earlier versions of the story it is as little noted as the test in the palm garden.
We cannot provide all the conversations in which this sense of trusting well-being was nourished, until it grew to the level of unconditional partiality that defined Joseph's good fortune. It is enough for us to provide a few striking examples that characterize his method for "flattering" his master and proving "helpful" to him, just as his covenant with the good Mont-kaw stipulated about his service to Potiphar. Yes, with no fear of any sense of coldness being attached to it, we use the word "method" here, because we know that calculation and sincerity in Joseph's artful treatment of his master blended in a truly perfect kinship, just as they did in his relationship to still higher lonely entities. And we would ask as well whether sincerity can ever succeed without the art of calculation, without wise technique, if it is to be set into reality—for example, into creation of a sense of trusting well-being? Trust is a rarity among men; but among men of Potiphar's fleshly stamp—titular men with titular wives at their side—there develops a general and unfocused zealous distrust of all who have not had the same done to them, distrust of the very basis of life itself, so that nothing is more suited for bestowing upon them an unfamiliar and thus all the more gratifying sense of trust than the discovery that one man among all that eager crowd bears in his hair a bitter evergreen that strips his person of the usual disconcerting qualities. It was by calculation, by method, that Joseph provided Potiphar with this discovery. Let those who presume they must take offense at this make good use of their previous knowledge of the story we are telling and, in looking ahead, recall that Joseph did not disappoint the trust he thus created, but rather remained truly faithful to it amid a storm of temptation—just as
