countless men, poverty and starvation for the wives and children of seamen. In the name of Seth, no man goes to sea unless he has earned such faith with his own deeds and has been sentenced to service at sea before judges according to lawful documents — and it seldom happens that men are ordered to ships wrongly and forcefully except during the best years of harvest when there is less crime — but during the reign of this Pharaoh there certainly is enough crime in the land of Egypt since no one fears gods any more but lives each day like it was his last. Consider the fortunes invested in ships and warehouses, in glass beads and earthenware jars. Think of the Egyptian trade representatives who must now languish forever in the straw huts of the land of Punt, abandoned by their gods. My heart bleeds when I think of them and their crying wives and children who will never see their fathers again, although it is true that many have started new families there and fathered children who are said to born with coloured skins.”
Not until the incense dealer had been given the third crocodile’s tail on the flat of his hand, did he calm down and grow quieter and make haste to beg forgiveness if in the zeal of his grief he had uttered disparagement of Pharaoh. “Yet,” he said, “I thought Queen Tiye, who is a wise and discerning woman, would govern her son better, and I also thought Ay the priest was a sensible man, but they all seek to overthrow Amun and allow Pharaoh to give free rein to his madness. Poor Amun! A man commonly comes to his senses once he has broken a jar with a woman and is married, but this Nefertiti, this great royal consort, thinks only of her clothes and of her smutty fashions. Believe it or not, the women of the court now paint themselves green round the eyes with malachite and go with their robes open from the waist down and reveal their navels to the sight of men.”
Kaptah was curious and said, “I have never seen such fashions in any other land, though I have encountered many curiosities, especially in the matter of women’s dress. Do you mean to tell me that women now walk around with their private parts uncovered, even the Queen?”
The incense dealer was offended and said, “I am a pious man with a wife and children. Therefore I did not lower my eyes below the navel, nor would I counsel you to do anything so unbecoming.”
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Merit now interposed wrathfully, “It is your own mouth that is shameless and not these new summer fashions, which are wonderfully cool and do full justice to a woman’s beauty, provided she has a fair and well-formed belly and a navel that has not been disfigured by an unskilled midwife. You might safely have allowed your eyes to travel lower, for beneath the open robe there is a narrow loincloth of the finest linen that cannot offend the eye of the pious — if a woman only lets her hair be plucked like every decent woman does.”
The incense dealer would have liked to reply to this, but could not for the third crocodile’s tail was stronger than his tongue. Therefore he laid his head in his hands and wept bitterly over the dress of the women of the court and over the hard fate of the Egyptians abandoned in the land of Punt. However, an elderly priest of Amun, whose fat face and shaved head gleamed with oil, chimed in. He hit his hand on the table, encouraged by a crocodile’s tail, and shouted aloud and said:
“This is going too far! I do not mean women’s garments for Amun approves any garment as long as one wears white during festivals, and everyone likes to see a beautiful woman’s navel and round belly. But it is too much if Pharaoh in such impudent manner for the sake of seamen’s alleged pitiful fate wants to prevent all import of sweet-smelling trees from Punt for Amun is used to the scent of these trees — and should we burn the sacrifices with dung now? This is shameful mischief and wilful daring, and I am not surprised if every decent man spits on the face of those who have the cross of life embroidered on their clothes as a sign of this accursed god whose name I do not want to contaminate my sacred mouth with. Truly, I would pay many crocodile’s tails to a man who tonight would go to the temple you all know and relieve himself on the altar since the temple is open and has no walls, and I think that a skilled man could easily avoid the guards. I would truly do it myself if not prevented by my rank and if the Amun’s fame did not suffer if I did it.”
He looked about challengingly, and after a while a man whose face was eaten by plague so that it was dappled, came to him. They started whispering together, and the priest ordered two more crocodile’s tails, until the plague-faced man became loud and said, “Truly I will do it, and I won’t do it for the sake of the gold you promise me, but for the sake of my own Ka and Ba, for even if I have done sinful deeds and do
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