The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

The crowd stoned the soldiers and hit them with sticks, and the soldiers defended themselves and slew many of the people, who cried out unceasingly, “Amun, Amun, give us back Amun.” and also they shouted, “Away with you, false Pharaoh, begone, Thebes will have none of you.” Stones were also cast on those of high rank, and the people surged threateningly about the reserved enclosures, so that women threw away their flowers and dropped their perfume vessels and fled.

Then at Horemheb’s command the horns were sounded, and from courts and side streets came the chariots that he had disposed there out of sight lest the people be provoked. Chariots came, and many were crushed beneath the hoofs and wheels, but Horemheb had ordered the removal of the scythes from the sides of the chariots to save the blood of the people, and they drove slowly and in a prearranged order, encircling Pharaoh’s chair and also protecting the royal family and others in the procession and so escorted them away. But the crowds would not disperse until the royal barges were seen rowing back across the river. Then the people broke out in jubilation, and their rejoicing was yet more terrible than their anger, and the ruffians among the crowd besieged the houses of the rich plundering and robbing anything they saw until the soldiers restored order with their spears, and the people dispersed to their homes; and evening drew on, and the crows circled down to tear at the bodies that remained lying on the stones of the Avenue of Rams.

Thus Pharaoh Akhenaten was confronted for the first time by his raging people eye to eye, and he saw blood flowing on his god’s account, and he never forgot this sight — yet something broke inside of him and hatred dropped poison into his love, and his fanaticism grew until at last he decreed that everyone who spoke the name of Amun aloud or held his name concealed on images or vessels should be sent to the mines. But the people did not want to let each other in, and thus thieves and slaves were good as witnesses as well, and no one was safe from false witnesses so that many honest and respectable men ended up in mines and quarries as slaves, and ruthless and treacherous men took over their homes and workshops and stores in the name of Aten.

I speak of these events before coming to the time in which they took place, to make plain their cause. That same evening I was summoned hastily to the golden house, for Pharaoh had had an attack of his sickness, and his physicians feared for his life and sought to share the burden of responsibility, for he had spoken of me and mentioned my name. For the time of several water measures, he lay unconscious and

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like one who is dead so that his limbs grew cold, and his pulse was no longer to be detected. After biting his tongue and lips in his delirium so that blood flowed, he soon regained consciousness. He then dismissed all the physicians of the House of Life, for he could not endure the sight of them, and only kept me. Having recovered, he said:

“Summon the oarsmen and let everyone who is my friend come with me, for I am going upon a journey and will let my vision lead me until I find a land belonging neither to gods nor to men. This land I will dedicate to Aten and build there a city that shall be the city of Aten, and I will never again return to Thebes.” He said also, “The conduct of Thebans is more hateful to me than all that has gone before and more loathsome and more contemptible than anything my ancestors ever saw, even in foreign countries. Therefore I will never set my foot in Thebes again but abandon Thebes to its own darkness.”

So intense was his agitation that he demanded to be carried to his ship while yet ailing, and I could not prevent him as his physician nor could his counsellors. But Horemheb said, “It is better so. The people of Thebes will have their way, and Akhenaten will have his, and both will be satisfied, and there will be peace in the land once more.”

His condition was so confused and his eyes so bewildered that I submitted to his decision, and as a physician I thought that it was better for him to change his surroundings and see new places and meet new people who did not hate him. This way, I attended Pharaoh on his voyage down the river, and he was too impatient to wait even for the royal family but set sail first before others, and Horemheb ordered an escort of warships to accompany the vessel that he might come to no harm.

So Pharaoh’s ship glided down the river, and Thebes fell behind us, and its walls and temple roofs, and the gilded tips of the obelisks sank below the horizon, and lastly the three peaks, the eternal guardians of Thebes, vanished also. But the memory of Thebes did not vanish but remained with us down the river for many days, for the river was full of fat crocodiles whose tails splashed up the foul waters that reeked death, and a hundred times a hundred swollen corpses drifted with the current, and there was no shoal or clump of reeds without a body held fast by clothes or hair for the sake of Pharaoh Akhenaten’s god. But he knew nothing of this, for he lay in his cabin on soft mats, where servants anointed him with perfumed oils and burned incense about him, that he might not smell the smell of his god.

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