In The Twelfth Dynasty Egyptian Literature
A Reconstruction
|
In The Twelfth Dynasty Egyptian Literature
|
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
|
Back at the Egyptian palace peace had settled over the remaining royal family. Sesostris stoically accepted his mantle and praised his late father for the wisdom to have allowed him to rule with him those ten years.
Sesostris hired the greatest scribe to be found. “Write for me a great praise honoring my father, Amenemhet I. Tell how he kept the Asiatics from taking over. Tell how they feasted on our Egyptian treasures, the lands, and the fertile areas of the delta. Write it as if it were written by my father advising me, like he would have, had he sat with me before he died. Tell how the group of cowards invaded his bedroom and overpowered him unfairly. Tell how he would have won if it had been a one-on-one fight. “Make note about the rejected woman, Sidiptu, and how she started it all. It is not necessary to name her or those criminals because that only invites defacing of the words. The people will know the truth. “Note how her fiancée, that old arrogant priest, turned his back to the plot, thus approving it. Emphasize that the plot emerged from the harem hangers-on. Tell how they lived off my father’s generosity, how he adopted them, and subsidized their luxuries. Tell how ungrateful they were. Tell how the son killled his father. They will know it is Sinuhe who killed the king.” The scribe accepted the commission without comment and departed. At the harem, Sesostris’ mother, Neferty-to-tenen, still mourned the loss of both her son and daughter. It had been a few days after the traumatic night. She had not spoken or eaten the entire time. Finally, she accepted that her husband also mourned. “I am sorry I did not think of you. I could only think of myself as a dead creature. I will tell you about the tragic night, my dear husband, Seni. How I love you,” she walked over to him and sadly sat with him leaning heavily into his arms on the divan. “Sidiptu came running to me, in my chambers, and told me how she had approached the old king. She said that young Sesostris refused to rescue her from her planned marriage. She said he told her to go ask his father. She said that she wanted the old man to order his son to marry her, that she would produce a doubly royal son much beloved by all factions of the populous. “She had not expected the king to want her for himself. He surprised her. He told her how much she looked like me.” Neferty and Seni stayed silent a while, recalling her old bargain with that dead king. They understood the irony of that bargain, that the son of the bargain, Sesostris, rejected their darling. They would have accepted the younger king, Sesostris, for her. But the old one, the one that Neferty herself rejected, seemed a very bitter pill. Their child, Sidiptu, with her white skin proclaiming how her mother preferred another instead of that same king, Amenemhet, had remained dangerously unaware of the family’s past, despite all the clues. “She came in to me,” Nefery continued to Seni, “disheveled and crying, ‘I only wanted to be a mother of a king, like you mother,’ she said. She also said, strangely, that I was mother of three kings. I didn’t understand what she meant. She collapsed in my arms, and the attendants came to clean her. They called the lullaby musicians, who quietly played the strings and hummed to soothe us. “Then she said, ‘I will go back to him and ask to marry him.’ “At this I lost control. I grabbed her forcing her to stand upright. I shook her, holding her arms. Her neck wobbled. ‘He will accept me. I will be his queen,’ she sobbed. “No! no,” I whispered to her, “I will take you to the cottage in the hills. We will provide attendants. It is beautiful there. Or I will call upon the cousins in Byblos. They will provide for you in palaces with silks and attendants. They will hide your identity. We will visit for three months each year. We will holiday on the yachts. You will marry a royal cousin and live a peaceful life!” “She didn’t hear me. She stood and told me that I did not hear her. Then she started to run. ‘Sinuhe will listen. He will reason with both kings. One of them will take me.’ “I ran after and pulled her down. She pulled off my wig and pushed me in the chest. I grabbed her and wrestled her down to the floor. She was almost as strong as I was. The attendant ladies feared greatly. They cowered along the walls. A few grabbed the pillows to cushion us from each other and the floor. Sidiptu got up again. I pulled her gown and tore it. The ladies began to cry. They brought new robes for us. Sidiptu collapsed again sobbing. The commotion caused the guards to knock and inquire. The ladies tried to shoo them away. The harpists continued trying to hum and sooth us. “I lifted her up and carried her to my bed. I hugged her and cried with her. The ladies tried to muffle their sobbing. “We laid there a while in fits of sleep. Then she got up and cried out ‘Sinuhe, Sinuhe’. She would have married Sinuhe had he asked her. I think, she just couldn’t understand why she had to marry the oldest brother, Khuni. “At this point the nervous guardsmen had called for Sinuhe to come and investigate. “He knocked and called ‘Mother, Mother, what is the commotion. May I enter?’ “I tried to bar him, ‘We are fine, we will chat tomorrow. Go continue your sleep.’ I called to him. “Sidiptu leapt up and cried, “Oh, I knew you would come, Sinuhe, dear brother . . . the king has despoiled me!” “Sinuhe burst past the door and became like a beast in his heart. He stood frozen looking at her. The girl ran to him and hugged him sobbing. “How did he get to you?” Sinuhe yelled, then he pushed her away staring at her. “Whore! Whore! Filthy Whore! You went to him!” Neferty began to sob again and Seni pulled his arm tighter around her. “Then he picked her up by her neck and her ankles. He raised her up above his head. Both screaming, he raced across the room and threw her from the balcony to the waters below. “The splashing and grunting from the creatures below still sound in my head. “He stood there looking down, an equal beast to the beasts below. I hated him then with such overwhelming hatred that it surpassed the hatred that I held for that dead king. I still fight to remove the sight from my mind.” “Sinuhe turned and came to me, ‘dear Lady . . . ’ he blurted. “I cried, ‘the little girl who grew up in the House . . . ’ Then he turned and left the room.” Seni, sobbed quietly holding his grief-collapsed wife, and tried to revive his love for his son, his son of his heart that yearned for him. The face of his daughter faded and he tried to remember each part of her familiar face that he had brightened his life for so long. He tried to grab at each eyelash, her nose, her forehead, how she walked. He tried to grab and grab and the fade kept coming over him. |
[Main]
[Order]
[Contact] |
 |
 |
|