“That I do not believe,” I said boldly. “As readily would a wolf lend his teeth and fangs to a hare, that much I know you.” He roared with laughter, smiting his knees till the wine slopped out of his cup and said, “I must tell the King that, and perhaps even during your lifetime you may see a great coursing of hares, for the justice of the Hittites is different from the justice of the plains. In your land, I believe the rich rule the poor, but in ours the strong rule the weak. The world will learn a new lesson before your hair is grey, Sinuhe.”
“The new Pharaoh in Egypt also has a new god,” I said with feigned simplicity.
“That I know,” he said, “for I read all the King’s letters, and this new god is a great lover of peace and declares that there is no dispute between nations that cannot be settled peaceably, and we have nothing against this god. On the contrary, we like him very well, so long as he rules in Egypt and in the plains. Your Pharaoh has sent our great King an Egyptian cross that he calls the symbol of life, and he will certainly have peace for some years to come, provided he sends us plenty of gold that we may store up even more copper and iron and grain, and build new workshops and fashion more and heavier chariots than before; for all of these need much gold, and our King has gathered together here in Hattusa the cleverest armorers of many different countries and rewards them lavishly, but why he does this, I believe no doctor’s wisdom can divine.”
“The future you foretell may please crows and jackals,” I said, “but it does not cheer me, and I find in it no cause for laughter. I have seen the prisoners turning your stone mills whose eyes are pierced; and in Mitanni stories are told of your crimes in the borderlands, and the stories are so frightful that I will not repeat them, for they are unbecoming of a cultured people.”
“What is culture?” he asked, refilling his wine cup. “We also can read and write and amass numbered clay tablets in our archives. It is only humane if we pierce the eyes of the prisoners, who will turn the stone mills until the end of their days, for it is heavy work indeed and would feel even heavier if they saw the sky and the earth and birds flying on the sky. It would only evoke useless thoughts, and they would be killed if they attempted to flee. If our soldiers cut some limbs and pull some skins over eyes in the borderlands, that is not done out of
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cruelty — for we are generous and friendly people, we love our children and small animals and do not beat our wives, as you know. Our aim is to instil fear amongst the enemy peoples so that when the time comes, they will submit to us without a struggle and so save themselves needless injury and loss. For we do not love destruction for its own sake, and we prefer to annex countries and cities in as undamaged a state as possible. A timid foe is a foe half-vanquished.”
“Is everyone then your enemy?” I asked sarcastically. “Have you no friends at all?”
“Our friends are all those who make submission to us and pay us tribute,” he explained. “We let them live in their own way and do not interfere much with their customs and their gods so long as we are the rulers. Our friends are usually all those who are not our neighbours at least until such time as they become our neighbours, for then we tend to discover offensive traits in them that disturb harmony and force us into war against them. So it has been hitherto, and so I fear it will be henceforth, from what I know of our great King.”
“Have your gods nothing to say about this?” I asked. “In other countries, it is often the gods who determine what is right and what wrong.”
“What is right and wrong?” he asked in return. “Right is what we desire, and wrong is what our neighbours desire. That is a very simple principle that makes both life and statesmanship easy; and that, in my opinion, differs little from the teaching of the gods in the plains for as I understand it, those gods hold that to be right which the wealthy desire and that wrong which the poor desire. But if you want to know more of our gods, the only gods we have are the Earth Mother and Sky, and we worship them every spring when the first rain falls from the skies inseminating the earth, like a man’s semen inseminates a woman. Our severe customs are eased during these festivities for the people need to unwind once a year. A lot of children are conceived during these festivities, which is good, for early marriages and children make the country strong. The common people have a number of lesser gods, like they need to have, but you do not need to care for them since they have no significance to the state. You cannot deny that our religion is generous, if I may say so.”
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