destroy their enemies in Aten’s name and send their competitors to mines by bearing witness before false judges. Also grave robbers could defend themselves by explaining that they had violated the graves in their zeal for Aten in order to destroy the name of the accursed god from the walls of the graves.
While I stayed in Thebes, not many sick arrived in my court asking for my help; but people shied away from me and did not look me in the eye, and when they met me alone, they said, “We mean no harm to you, Sinuhe, and many ills vex our wives and children so that we are desperate and don’t know what to do since no one is your equal as a physician. But we dare not come to you any more because we are afraid that your court is an accursed court, and we don’t want to hurt ourselves.” They also said, “We are not afraid of the curse for we are weary of gods, and our measure has become so short that we don’t really care if we live or die. But we fear the horns for they break the doors of our huts and hit our children when we are away at work. You know you’ve talked too much of Aten and wear that nasty sign upon your collar.”
I said to them, “Your foolishness does not offend me, but I understand your trouble. Go to Amun for I have heard that Amun has an amazing way to cure the sick.” They said, “You are a brave man, Sinuhe, to dare say Amun’s name aloud regardless of the guards. Although Amun has made many unbelievable cures, his cure is of short duration, and soon the ill returns worse than before. That we have experienced and so fear the holy cures of Amun since they bind us forever to the horns — and we wouldn’t like to bind ourselves to the horns either, just live free and without fear our lives, and work in peace. But that is not allowed to us. So forgive us, Sinuhe, if we for our sake and for our families’ sake don’t dare greet you or bow before you in public any more as your dignity would so require.”
But the slaves and harbour porters continued to come to me after bruising their fingers between millstones and hurting their knees and breaking their arms when loads fell from harbour winches. They studied me carefully and asked from me, “Is it true that this Aten, who we don’t understand since he has no image, makes the rich and poor equal and loosens slaves’ ropes? We’d also like to lay under canopies and drink
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wine from golden cups and let others work for us. We know that once the wealthy worked in the mines and their wives begged on the streets and those who had once been with nothing dipped their bread in wine and slept their nights under golden canopies. If that was once, why couldn’t it be again, and maybe this Aten will bring that time to us.”
I cured their fingers and put their broken bones back into position and tied their knees and said to them, “Truly, ask not this from me for I do not know, and only Pharaoh Akhenaten controls Aten’s wisdom, and Aten has revealed his plans only to him. But know that Aten puts everyone in his place and gives him his colour and language. There have always been slaves and there will always be slaves, and people need to work with their hands — and there is nothing we can do about that, and therefore let everyone do what they are able to do. I am afraid your words are dangerous words and your thoughts are frightening thoughts, and I wouldn’t let the guards hear of them.”
They said, “We talk to you openly, Sinuhe, because we know you are a foolish and simple man as you cure us without asking for gifts and wouldn’t hurt a fly. Therefore you wouldn’t betray us. But you misunderstand our words, for we understand that people need to work with their hands but why did we have to be born as slaves and servants and why were others born under canopies to drink from golden cups — that goes beyond us, and we want an explanation. Otherwise we will start believing that this is wrong and in error, and we will detect a jackal in hiding somewhere. Maybe we one day will find this jackal and feed it to the rich and noble and others who now beat us with their sticks.”
Their impudence startled me, but there was truth in their impudence, and I kept racking my brain to answer to them, but all my knowledge was insufficient to make an answer to them, and so I only said to them, “A man is a slave if he feels he is a slave, but in his heart everyone is free.” Hearing this, they laughed at me mockingly and said, “If you once felt the sticks beating your back, you would not talk like that.” And they also said, “We like you, Sinuhe, for you are a foolish and simple man and cure us without asking for gifts. Come to the harbour with us so that we’ll hide you in an empty reed basket and protect you when the great jackal hunt starts. We think it will start soon since our measure is increasingly short, and our oil stinks, and we have nothing to lose.”
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