The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

everything that comes to pass is written in the stars, a man cannot avoid what comes to pass even if he knew it beforehand, and there are many stories about this, like the story about a prince and his dogs. If a man knows all evil that will happen to him in advance, he becomes sad and tries in vain to change his destiny. But if a man reads that nothing but good fortune waits for him, which does not happen too often, isn’t it better if he rejoices and enjoys all the good things without looking at the stars and thus waste the time that he could spend gladdening his heart. Usually both good and bad things happen to men, as is decided by gods, and reading the stars only causes unnecessary troubles when people in turn rejoice and fret what will happen. It is better for us to trust our scarab.”

“But,” I said, “if everything that comes to pass is written in the stars, the scarab cannot change our fortunes, not one bit, and the scarab can have no power over what happens to us.”

This hurt Kaptah deeply, and he said, “That is silly talk and stinks like pig dung. For if things are like you said, it certainly is written in the stars that the scarab brings good luck to us, and carefully lists all small and great occasions when he brings good luck to us — for indeed we’d already be hanging heads downward on the wall or your skull whitening on a battlefield were we without the scarab.”

I had nothing to add to that, so I gave up the idea to stay in Babylon to study the stars. Examining my heart, I found this decision joyful for I had become used to travelling and my eyes were restless, and I endlessly desired to see something new. But it consoled me to realise that even if I didn’t stay, I didn’t lose anything, for my decision as well as the discussion with Kaptah must have been written in the stars already before I was born, and so I could not stay even if I wanted to, because so had the stars set things.

Instead, I studied the sheep liver and wrote down what the priests of Marduk knew about the flight of the birds to take into consideration the auguries of the birds during my journey. I also spent lots of time by letting them pour oil on water and explain the patterns formed by oil upon the surface of water; but in this art I believed the least for each time the patterns were different and explaining required more slippery language than knowledge. But I memorised anyway what they had to say about this art.

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I became so keen on learning that for a while I forgot I was a physician and spent days in the temple and turned away the patients who came looking for me after hearing about my healing skills, and sent them to see the royal doctors who were very pleased about this as it increased their reputation amongst the people of Babylon. But I, having combined the wisdom of Egypt with the wisdom of Babylon, became terrified of my own wisdom and thought how all the knowledge collected by man during many millennia in all four corners of the world was now in my possession. Thinking about this made me feel stronger, and I became proud and thought how nothing was impossible to me. So young I was in spite of all my knowledge and experience.

Before I speak of the spring festival in Babylon and of the Day of the False King, I would mention a curious incident concerning my birth. When the priests consulted a sheep’s liver on my account and contemplated floating oil, they said, “There is some fearful secret connected with your birth that we cannot resolve and from which it appears that you are not merely an Egyptian as you believe but a stranger in the world.” I told them then that I had not been born like other men but had come drifting down the river in a reed boat and that my mother had found me amongst the reeds. Then the priests looked at one another and bowing low before me, said, “So we thought.” They went on to tell me of their great King Sargon, who had gathered the four corners of the world under his sway and whose empire had stretched from the northern sea to the southern sea and who had also ruled over the islands in the seas. They told me that as a newborn child he had been carried down the river in a pitched-reed boat and that nothing was known of his birth until his mighty deeds showed that he was born of the gods.

At this my heart was filled with dread, and I tried to laugh the matter off and said to them, “Surely you do not fancy that I, a doctor, am born of the gods?” They did not laugh but said gravely, “That we do not know, but certainty is best, therefore, we bow before you.” They bowed low before me once more until I had had enough and said, “Let us make an end of this foolery and return to our business.” We returned back to the clay model and they began once more to explain the mazes of the liver but stole awestruck glances at me and whispered amongst themselves.

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