So we were compelled to soil our faces and to haul down the bright pennants of victory in the ships, and Horemheb was fairly annoyed as he had to loose and drop to the river the bodies of Syrian and Hittite commanders, which he had hung head downward from the bows of his ship in the manner of the great Pharaohs. The dung snouts, whom he had taken with him to celebrate peace in Thebes — while leaving the mud rats in Syria to bring peace to the country and to stuff themselves on the fat of the land after all the hardships and tribulations of the war — they were also annoyed and cursed Tutankhamun, who even in death spoiled their pleasure.
Vexed, they played dice on the ship for the loot that they had gathered in Syria and fought amongst themselves for the girls they had taken on board to sell in Thebes — after having already rejoiced enough with them. They hit each other causing bumps and wounds, and they sang obscene songs instead of mourning hymns — so that pious people who had gathered on the river shores to watch the ships were aghast about their behaviour. And it was hard to recognise Horemheb’s dung snouts as Egyptians any more since many dressed in the Syrian or Hittite manner, having looted their handsome clothes; and they mixed Syrian and Hittite words and curses with their speech, and many had started to worship Baal in Syria, bringing Baals with them to Egypt. I had no reason to reproach them about this, since I had myself made a great drink and meat sacrifice to the Baal of Amurru before I left Syria for the sake of my friend Aziru’s memory, but I only tell this to show how people shunned them and feared them like strangers even though they were also proud of their victories in Syria.
On the other hand, Horemheb’s soldiers were looking at Egypt which they hadn’t seen for many years and found it strange as they did not recognise it as the same land from which they had left for the war — and neither did I know Egypt any more. Wherever we went ashore from the ships to spend the night on land, all we saw was sorrow and misery and poverty around us. People’s clothes were grey from washing and colourful from patches, and their faces were dry and rough from the lack of oil, and their eyes were exhausted and suspicious — and we saw the strikes of tax gatherers’ sticks in the backs of the poor. Public buildings were decayed, and birds were nesting in the gutters of Pharaoh’s judges’ houses,
695
and crumbling mud tiles were falling on the streets from Pharaoh’s buildings. Roads had not been repaired for years due to lack of manpower, for the living force of Egypt waged war in Syria, and the walls of the irrigation ditches had collapsed, and water dykes of the fields had become overgrown.
Only the temples thrived, and fresh golden and red inscriptions glowed on their walls, praising Amun, and the priests of Amun were fat, with their bald heads gleaming from oil. But while they were tucking away the sacrificial meat, the poor people drank the water of the Nile to push down their dry bread and porridge, and men who had been wealthy and who had drunk wine from decorated goblets, were content if they only had a jarful of thin beer once during a moon’s cycle. On the shores, there was no women’s laughter nor the sounds of children’s joy, but women waved washing bats in their thin arms on the shore and children crept on the streets like scared animals who have been beaten, digging water plants’ roots from the mud as their food. This was what war had made Egypt into, and the war had taken everything that Aten had saved. People did not have strength to rejoice for the peace but watched fearfully as Horemheb’s warships sailed upstream.
Yet swallows were were still darting over the water’s surface with wings fast as arrows, and hippopotamuses were bellowing amongst the rushes of empty beaches while crocodiles rested their limbs on shallows with their jaws open, letting small birds clean their teeth. On board, we drank the water of the Nile, and there is no water in the world like the water of the Nile that revives a thirsty man the same way. We breathed the smell of mud and heard the papyrus reed whisper in the wind, and we heard the ducks’ cries, and Amun sailed across the glowing blue sky in his golden boat, and we knew we had come back to our home country.
Thus came the day when the three mountaintops, the three eternal guardians of Thebes, became visible behind the river; we saw the great roofs of the Temple, and the golden peaks of the obelisks were flashing fire in our eyes. We saw the western mountains and the endless city of the dead, the stone piers of Thebes and the harbour, the endless alleys of the poor quarter, lined with mud huts, and the quarters of the rich and
696
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384