Joseph and His Brothers, page 97
"Greetings, my father, for the night," he might say, raising his hands. "Behold, the day has lived its life and, grown weary of itself, has closed its eyes, and silence has come over all the world. Hark,
how wonderful! The sound of stamping from the barn, and the bark of a dog, but then the silence is all the deeper, gently suffusing a man's soul as well, lulling him to sleep, while the vigilant lamps of God are lit above courtyard and city, tilled land and desert. Having grown weary, the nations rejoice that evening has come at the right moment and that when they are refreshed day will open its eyes again on the morrow. Truly the ordainments of God deserve our thanks. For let man but consider there would be no night and that the burning road of toil might still lie before him unbroken, in garish monotony as far as eye can see. Would that not be a cause of horror and despair? But God has made the days and set an end to each, that we may assuredly attain it in its hour. It is the grove of night that invites us to holy rest, and with arms outstretched, head sinking backward, lips open, and eyes fluttering with bliss, we enter its precious shade. Do not think, dear master, that you must rest upon your bed. Think, rather, that you may rest—regard this as a great boon, and peace will be yours. Lie down then, my father, and may sweet sleep descend upon you, over you, filling all your soul with blissful rest, so that free of life's problems and plagues you may breathe sleep upon the breast of the divine."
"Thank you, Osarsiph," the steward would then say, and just as when Joseph had first wished him good-night by broad daylight, he felt his eyes moisten a Httle. "May you rest well too. Yesterday your words were perhaps a trace more harmonious, but today as well they were consoling and kindred to the poppy, so that I truly believe they will help me do battle with wakefulness. Your distinction that I may rather than must sleep is strangely pleasing to me; I intend to think about it, it will bear me up. How is it that the words come to you for this magic charm, words that say 'On you, over you, filling all your soul'? You probably cannot say why yourself. And so, good night then, my son."
AmuYi Looks Askance at Joseph
Thus it was that many and varied demands were made upon Joseph in those days, nor was it enough that he meet them, since he also had to worry that others would hold his good fortune against him; for
the smiles and downcast eyes that accompany an ascendancy such as his conceal much ill will, which it is important to appease by cleverness, forbearance, and gentle skill applied in all directions—yet one more demand amidst all the others on a man's prudence and vigilance. It is quite impossible for a person like Joseph, growing as if beside a spring, not to trespass on someone else's land or infringe upon the boundary stones of others; he cannot avoid it, because the diminishment of others is irrevocably bound up with his own existence, and a good portion of his wit must constantly be applied to reconciling those whom his existence has overshadowed and shunted aside. The Joseph of the days before the pit had lacked any regard or finer feeling for such truth; his opinion that everyone loved him more than themselves had left him insensitive to it. In his death and as Osarsiph, he had grown more clever, or shrewder if you like, for as Joseph's earlier life reveals, cleverness does not protect a man from folly; and in his conversation with Mont-kaw the tender consideration he had shown to his predecessor as a reader was directed first of all toward the steward himself, out of an awareness that Mont-kaw would be agreeably touched by it—given the fact that he was also a man who tended to happy resignation. But Joseph also did his best in regard to Amenemuia, went to see him and spoke to him so courteously and modestly that the scribe was completely won over in the end and sincerely willing to accept having been removed from his post as reader simply because his successor was so charming to him. For with hands crossed at his chest, Joseph described in supple words how his soul had been pained by the decision and by their master's whim, which though sacred, he had not knowingly done anything to influence, the best proof of which was his conviction that as a scholar of the house of books Amenemuia read far better than he, being a son of the black earth after all, whereas he, Osarsiph, was an Asian who mangled human speech. But it had simply come about that he had had to speak before the master in the orchard and out of embarrassment had told all sorts of things he chanced to know about trees, bees, and birds—and incredibly enough it had pleased the master so inordinately that, with the swift wit of the great and mighty, he had made his decision, but not to his own advantage, as the master surely realized now himself. For again and again he frequently held up Amenemuia's example to him.
The Man of Blessing -/6i
Joseph, and said, "Amenemuia, my previous reader, read it like this, with this emphasis, and if you wish to find favor with me, you must read it the same way, for I have long been spoiled." Then he, Joseph, would attempt it, which meant his life and breath were really those of someone else, of his predecessor. Nevertheless the master had not rescinded his previous decision, because great lords never will or should admit that they have been too hasty in giving an order to their own detriment. Which was why Joseph daily tried to console the master in his unspoken regrets, by saying, "You must give Amenemuia two garments for feast days, my lord, and also assign him a good post as scribe of sweets and revels in the house of seclusion; that will ease your mind, and mine as well, on his account."
For Amenemuia this, of course, was balsam. He had not even known he was such a good reader, for as soon as he had opened his mouth, the master usually dozed off; and since, as he told himself, he had had to be dismissed in order to learn of it, then surely he should be content with his dismissal. And his successor's pangs of conscience and the master's unacknowledged regret did his soul good; and since he had in fact received the two garments for feast days and been appointed master of revels in Petepre's house of women— which was a very good post and proof that Joseph really had spoken to the master on his behalf—he bore the Kenanite no ill will, but instead was inclined in his favor, seeing as he had treated him so very nicely.
To be sure, it made no difference to Joseph if he could find good positions for others, since with God's help he was aiming for the best one himself and, even if from afar and still at Mont-kaw's side, was preparing himself for the general oversight of things. He did much the same thing for a certain Merab, a household servant who had usually accompanied Petepre on bird hunts and spearfishing expeditions. For as his companion in these manly pursuits, Potiphar no longer took along Merab, but his favorite, young Osarsiph— which really ought to have driven a thorn, and a very poisonous one at that, into Merab's side. But Joseph took the sting and poison from the thorn by speaking to Merab as he had to Amenemuia and arranging for both a gift of honor and another post, that of supervisor of the brewery, so that instead of making an enemy, he made a real friend of him. And to anyone who would listen Merab would say of
him: "He comes, I gram, from the wretched land of Retenu and those gadabouts of the desert, but I must admit he is an elegant fellow all the same, and has the nicest way about him. By all the Holy Three, he still makes mistakes in speaking the language of humans, and yet it's true, no denying it, that if you must make way for him it is a joy to do it, it sets your eyes shining even as you step back. Explain why that is so if you like, but there is no explanation and you will only miss the mark—but your eyes do shine."
Such were the words of Merab, an ordinary Egyptian; and it was Se'enkh-Wen-nofre-et-cetera, the favored dwarf, who whispered to Joseph the news that the dismissed servant spoke of him to people in that fashion. "Well, then that's all to the good," Joseph replied. But he knew quite well that not everyone spoke that way. He had got over his childish delusion that all people ought to love him more than themselves and perfectly understood that his rise in the house of Potiphar was not only annoying to many in and of itself, but was also lent a special opprobrium because he was a foreigner, a "sand-dweller," a man of the Ibrim—all of which demanded the greatest tact on his part. And we are back now to the inner contradiction and partisanship that ruled in the land of the grandchildren and amid which Joseph's career followed its path—back to certain pious and patriotic principles that stood in opposition to his career and almost managed to send him into the fields at the wrong time, but back as well to certain other principles that favored his rise and that one might call freethinking and tolerant, or even fashionable and flimsy. These latter were the behefs of Mont-kaw, the overseer, simply because they were the beliefs of his master Petepre, the great courtier. And why were they his? Because they were those of the court, of course; because people there were annoyed by the burdensome weight of the power of Amun's temple, which was the embodiment of patriotic, conservative moral rectitude in these latter days of the Two Lands, and because for that very reason the great men of the court favored and encouraged a different cult—it is easy to guess which. It was the worship of Atum-Re in On, the tip of the triangle, of a very old and mild god, with whom Amun had equated himself, not in an obliging but in a brutal fashion, so that he was now called Amun-Re, the imperial god of the sun. Both Re and Amun were the sun in his barque, but in what dissimilar senses, what different ways!
In conversation with the bleary-eyed priests of Horakhte, Joseph had been offered proofs on the spot of the resourceful and serenely instructive sense in which Re was a god of the sun; he had learned of the god's desire to expand and of his incHnation to join in all-seeing concord with all the solar gods of other nations, with Asia's youthful suns, each of whom emerged like a bridegroom from his chamber, ran his course like a joyful hero, and was mourned as he went down, lamented by women. Much as Abraham in his day had compared his own God to Malkizedek's El-Elyon, Re, it appeared, wished to admit no great difference between himself and these others. He was called Atum at his setting, in which he was very beautiful and pitiable; but of late the resourceful speculation of his edifying prophets had supplied him a new, similar-sounding name for his entire and universal sunship, not just in his setting, but for morning, noon, and evening—he called himself Aton, a name whose peculiar suggestiveness was apparent to all. For it brought his name into close proximity with the name of the youth mutilated by the boar, for whom flutes mourned in the groves and ravines of Asia.
This was the resourceful, slightly exotic, and world-embracing tendency of Re-Horakhte's sunship, and it was of great significance at court. Pharaoh's scholars knew nothing finer than to conjecture about him. Amun-Re in Karnak, however, Pharaoh's father in his massive house rich in treasures, was the opposite of everything Atum-Re was. He was unbending and strict, a forbidding enemy of any speculation with a view to universality, ill disposed to all things foreign, rigid in the observation of national customs that brooked no discussion, locked in holy tradition—and all that despite his being much younger than the god in On. Here an ancient god, resourceful and open to the world, there a newer but inflexibly conservative god—a confusing set of circumstances.
But if Amun in Karnak looked askance at the esteem Atum-Re-Horakhte enjoyed at court, Joseph was quite aware that he also looked askance at him, the foreign personal attendant and reader to the courtier; and in assessing favor and disfavor he soon recognized that the meaning of Re's sunship was favorable to him, but that of Amun unfavorable, and that such disfavor demanded that he exercise the greatest tact.
The most immediate embodiment of Amun's sunship was Dudu,
the Stuffy prig, the keeper of the jewelry chests. That the man did not love him more than he loved himself, indeed loved him considerably less, was only too clear from the beginning; and over this entire period, indeed for years on end Jacob's son went to untold trouble trying to placate this dwarf of substance, employing the most circumspect courtesy to win over not only him, but also her whose arm embraced him, his wife Zeset, who held a high position in the house of women, and even his tall, but nasty children, Esesi and Ebebi; and he painfully avoided the least infringement of any boundary stones. Given the standing he had with Potiphar thanks to his warming helpfulness, who can doubt that it would have been easy for him to push Dudu aside and have himself named supervisor of the wardrobe? The master wanted nothing better than to draw Joseph more and more into his personal service, and it is as good as certain that, without ever being asked, he expressly offered him the position of head of the wardrobe, particularly since—as Joseph himself observed, having drawn his own conclusions from the faithful steward's dislike of the arrogant wedded dwarf—Potiphar could not stand the fellow. But Joseph's refusal of the offer was both meek and firm, first because he did not want any more new duties as a personal attendant while still trying to gain an overview of things, and second, as he emphasized, because he could not and would not trespass on the dignified little man's land.
But do you suppose the dwarf thanked him for this? Certainly not—in that regard Joseph had cherished false hopes. The enmity Dudu had shown toward him from the first day—no, from the first hour by trying to frustrate his purchase—was not to be overcome, or even moderated, by any sort of forbearance or courtesy; but anyone hoping to gain an insight into deeper reasons and motivations behind this entire matter will not be satisfied with the explanation that so stubborn a dislike was based on an Egyptian party man's abhorrence of favor shown a foreigner or of his rise in Potiphar's house. Rather, one must certainly take into account those peculiar magical ways in which Joseph knew to be "helpful" to his master and win him for himself—and of which Dudu had already seen examples. He found them particularly odious because he thought them prejudicial to his own high status and to those privileges that constituted the pride and sterling superiority of his undersized life.
Joseph also surmised as much. He was perfectly aware that by
his orations in the date garden he had wounded the one in the secret depths of his soul while managing to delight those same depths in the other and that, without wishing to, he had nevertheless trespassed in some way upon the wedded dwarf's field. Which was why he treated Dudu's wife and brood with such great delicacy. But that did not help, for Dudu showed his disfavor from below in any way he could and enjoyed particular success in stressing venerable moral strictures that declared Joseph, a Habiritic foreigner, unclean. For at meals, when the higher-ranking servants of the house, including Joseph and the steward Mont-kaw, broke bread together, Dudu stubbornly insisted, all the while letting his upper lip build a dignified roof above his retracted lower lip, that the Egyptians be served separately from the Ebrew; and in fact, when the overseer and the others, as followers of Atum-Re's sunship, did not prove to be so punctilious, he demonstrated his devotion to Amun and adherence to his decrees by withdrawing from this abomination—and presumably spat in all four directions as well and spun in a circle while casting all sorts of exorcising spells to atone for this defilement, and with such diligence that his intention to offend Joseph was quite obvious. If only that had been all! But Joseph quickly learned that dignified Dudu was working explicitly against him and trying to force him out of the house—learned it in detail and piping hot once again by way of his friend Bes-at-the-Feast, who, thanks to his own brevity, was extraordinarily good at spying and eavesdropping, as if created for being secretly present wherever there was something to be overheard, a master at hiding in nooks that full-grown people would never even have considered. Dudu, likewise of dwarfish lineage and built to the same small scale, should also have been less oafish and defenseless than people of stature. But what Neteruhotpe alleged may well have been true: by marrying into the world of the overstretched, Dudu had forfeited many of the refinements of the smaller life—though the same sterling qualities that had enabled him to enter into such a marriage probably meant that his portion of dwarfish refinement was imperfect to begin with. In any case, he could be crept up on, unaware that he was being spied upon by his despised little brother, who quickly learned what paths Dudu took in his attempts to prevent Joseph's ascendancy—they led to the house of seclusion, they led to Mut-em-enet, Potiphar's titular consort. And anything the dwarf told her she in turn discussed, either in
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his presence or tete-a-tete, with a powerful man who had access to the inner chambers of Petepre's house of women: Beknechons, First Prophet of Amun.
We know already from the conversation of Potiphar's mischievous parents what a close relationship Joseph's mistress had with the temple of the imposing imperial god, the house of Amun-Re. Like countless women of her social class—including, for instance, her friend Renenutet, the consort of the Chief Steward of Amun's Bulls—she belonged to the aristocratic Order of Hathor, whose patroness was Pharaoh's Great Consort and whose head was always the wife of the chief attendant to the god at Karnak, who at that time was the pious Beknechons. The order's focal point and spiritual home was the beautiful temple by the river, Amun's Southern House of Women, or "the Harem" as it was called, which was connected by the amazing Street of the Rams with the great dwelling in Karnak that Pharaoh was in the process of enlarging with a columned hall higher than any other. The ceremonial title for the members of the order was "harem wife of Amun," which corresponded to the title First of the Harem Wives conferred on the head of the order, the high priest's wife. But then why were these women called "priestesses of Hathor," since Amun-Re's great consort was named Mut, or "the mother," and Hathor of the fair countenance and cow eyes belonged instead to Re-Atum and was the wife of the lord of On. Yes, these were the refinements of the land of Egypt, its politic way of counterbalancing forces. For since it had been politically pleasing to Amun to be equated with Atum-Re, Mut, the mother of her son, had had herself equated with triumphant Hathor, and Amun's earthly harem wives, the women of Thebes' high society, followed suit: each of them was Hathor, the mistress of love in person, when at great feasts they donned the clinging garment and the golden helmet topped by cow horns with the solar disk between and made music, danced, and sang for Amun—as well as ladies of society can sing; for they were chosen not for the beauty of their voices, but for their wealth and elegance. Mut-em-enet, however, the mistress of Potiphar's house, sang very beautifully and also instructed others, including Renenutet, the chief stewardess of the bulls, in singing; indeed, her standing in the god's house of women was very high in general, so that her place in the order was more or less at the side of its head—whose consort, Beknechons, the great prophet of Amun,
