WELL then, Pharaoh had betaken himself once more to instructive On out of unconquerable yearning to escape from the empire of Amun and commune with the shiny-pates of the sun house about Har-makhis-Khepere-Atum-Re, Aton. The court chroniclers, puckering their lips and obsequiously crouching, mincingly entered in the rec-ord His Majesty's beautiful resolve; and how thereupon he mounted a great car made of electrum, together with Nefertiti, called Nefer-nefruaton, the Queen of the lands, whose body was fruitful and whose arm was about her consort; and how he had radiantly taken his beautiful way, followed in other cars by Tiy, the mother of God, Nezemmut, the Queen's sister, Baketaton, his own sister, and many chamberlains and ladies-in-waiting with ostrich feather fans on their backs. The heavenly bark Star of the Two Lands had also been used by stretches; the chroniclers had set down how Pharaoh, sitting under his canopy, had eaten a roast pigeon, also held out the bone to the Queen and she ate from it, and how he put into her mouth sweet-meats dipped in wine.
     At  On, Amenhotep entered his palace in the temple district and slept there dreamlessly the first night, exhausted from the journey. The following day he began by sacrificing to Re Horakhte with bread and beer, wine, birds, and incense. After that he listened to the Vizier of the North, who spoke before him at length, and then, regardless of the headache that had brought on, devoted the rest of the day to the much-desired talks with the priests of the God. These conferences, which at the moment greatly occupied Amenhotep's mind, had been taken up with the subject of the bird Bennu, also  

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called Offspring of Fire, because it was said that he was motherless, and moreover his own father, since dying and beginning were the same for him. For he burned himself up in his nest  made of myrrh and came forth from the ashes again as young Bennu. This happened, some authorities said, every
five hundred years; happened in fact in the temple of the sun at On, whither the bird, a heron-like eagle, purple and gold, came for the purpose from Arabia or even India. Other authorities asserted that it brought with it an egg made of myrrh as big as it could carry, wherein it had put its deceased father, that is to say actually itself, and laid it down on the sun-alter. These two assertions might subsist side by side - after all, there sub-sists so much side by side, differing things may both be true and only different expressions of the same truth. But what Pharaoh first wanted to know, what he wanted to discuss, was how much time had passed out of the five hundred years which lay between the bird and the egg; how far they were on the one hand from the last appearance and on the other from the next one; in short, at what point of the phoenix-year they stood. The majority opinion of the priests was that it must be somewhere about the middle of the period. They reasoned that if it was still near its beginning, then some memory of the last appear-ance of Bennu must still exist and that was not the case. But suppose they were near the end of one period and the beginning of the next; then they must reckon on the impending or immediate return of the time-bird. But none of them counted on having the experience in his lifetime so the only remaining possibility was that they were about the middle of the period. Some of the shiny pates went so far as to suspect that they would always remain in the middle, the mystery of the Bennu bird being precisely this: that the distance between the last appearance of the Phoenix and his next one was always the same, always a middle point. But the mystery was not in itself the important thing to Pharaoh. The burning question to be discussed, which was the object of his visit, and which then he did discuss for a whole half-day with the shiny-pates, was the doctrine that the fire-bird's myrrh egg in which he had shut up the body of his father did not thereby become heavier. For he had made it anyhow as large and heavy as he could possibly carry, and if he was still able to carry it after he had put his father's body in it, then it must follow that the egg had not thereby increased in weight.        
     That was an exiting and enchanting fact of world-wide impor-tance. In young Pharaoh's eyes it was worthy of the most circum-stantial exposition. If one added to a body another body and it did not become heavier thereby, that must mean there were immaterial bodies - or differently and better put, incorporeal realities, immaterial as sunlight; or, again differently and still better put, there was the spir-itual; and this spiritual was etherally embodied in the Bennu-father,

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whom the myrrh egg received while altering its character thereby in the most
exciting and significant way. For the egg was altogether a definitely female kind of thing; only the female among birds laid eggs and nothing could be more mother-female than the great egg out of which once the world came forth. But Bennu the sun-bird, motherless and his own father, made his own egg himself, an egg against the natural order, a masculine egg, a father-egg, and laid it as a manifestation of fatherhood, spirit, and light upon the alabaster table of the sun-divinity.
      Pharaoh could not talk enough with the sun calendar men of the temple of Re about this event and its significance
for the developing nature of Aton. He discussed deep into the night, he discussed to excess, he wallowed in golden immateriality and father spirit, and when the priests were worn out and their shiny pates nodded, he was still not tired and could not summon resolution to dismiss them - almost as though he were afraid to stay alone. But at last he did dismiss them, nodding and stumbling to their rest, and himself sought his bedchamber. His dressing and undressing slave was an elderly man assigned to him as a boy, who called him Meni although not otherwise informal or lacking in respect. He had been awaiting his master for hours by the light of the hanging lamp and now quickly made him ready for the night. Then he flung himself on his face and withdrew to sleep on the threshold. Pharaoh for his part nestled into the cushions of his exquisitely ornate bed, which stood on a dais in the middle of the room, its headboard decorated with the finest ivory-work displaying figures of jackals, goats, and Bes. He fell  
almost at once into an exhausted sleep. But only for a short time. After a few hours of profound oblivion he began to dream: such com-plicated, impressive, absurd, and vivid dreaming as he had not done
since he was a child with tonsillitis.
      In his dream he stood on the bank of Hapi the Nourisher, in a lonely, marshy, uncultivated spot. He had on the red crown of Lower Egypt, the beard was on his chin and the jackal's tail fastened to his upper garment behind. Quite alone he stood, heavy-hearted, and held his crooked staff in his hand. Then there was a rippling noise not far from the shore and seven shapes mounted from the stream: seven cows came on shore; they had probably been lying in the water like buffalo cows. They moved in a straight line one behind another, seven without the bull, for no bull was there, only the seven cows. Magnificent cows they were, white ones, black ones with lighter backs, grey with lighter belly, and two dappled - fine smooth fat kine with bursting udders, long-lashed Hathor-eyes, and high curv-ing lyre-shaped horns. They began to graze contentedly among the reeds . The King had never seen such fine cattle, not in the whole country. Their sleek well fed bodies were something to see and Meni's

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heart would have rejoiced at the sight if it had not felt so heavy and full of care - feelings which presently gave way, indeed, to actual horror and fear. For these seven were not all: still more cows came out of the water, joining those to these, seven more cows climbed upon the bank, again without the bull, for what bull could have cared to join with such as these? Pharaoh shuddered at the kine; they were the ugliest, leanest, most starveling cows he had ever seen in his life -  their bones stood out on their wrinkled hides, their udders were like empty bags with stringlike teats They were an alarming and upsetting sight, the wretched creatures seemed hardly able to keep their legs. And yet their behaviour was so bold, so aggressive and so sudden -  one could never have expected the like from such decrepit beasts, , yet truly it was all too natural, since it was the recklessness of starvation. Pharaoh watches: the haggard herd advances on the bonny one, the calamitous cows leap on the well-favoured ones as cows do  when they play the bull; the poverty-stricken devour and swallow the well-fed and simply wipe them off the earth. Afterwards they stand there on the spot as lean as ever before, without one single sign of being any fuller.
      Here this dream ended and Pharaoh started from his sleep in a perspiration of fear; sat up with a throbbing heart and looked about in the mildly lighted chamber. It had only been a dream; yet so immediate, so speaking, that its urgency was like that of the starving kine and lay cold in the limbs of the dreamer. He had no wish for his bed again;stood up , drew on the white woolen robe, and moved about in the room, musing on the dream and the pressing nature of that obviously absurd yet so vivid nonesense. Gladly would he have waked the slave to tell it to him, or rather to try if what he had seen could be reproduced in words. But he was two kindly to disturb the old man, who had to wait up for so long the night before. He sat down in the cow-footed armchair besides the bed, drew closer about him the moonbeam softness of his white wool robe, and dozed off again , his feet on the footstool,squeezed into the corner of the chair. But scarce was he asleep when he dreamed again; again - or still - he stood on the bank in beard and crown and tail, and now their was on it a ploughed strip of black earth. And he beholds the loam dis-turbed, the crust rises curls over, a stalk pricks forth, and one, two, even up to seven ears spring swiftly from it, one after another, all on one stalk: full, fat ears, bursting with golden fullness. How blithe the heart could feel at such a sight! Yet cannot, for, lo the stalk keeps on shooting forth ears; seven ears more, poor , pathetic, dead ,and dry, scorched by the east wind, blackened with mildew and blight; and as they push out raggedly below the full ones, the fine large ears vanish as though into the poor lean ones. Truly it was like that the wretched ears swallowed up the fat, just as before the ill-favoured  /
Page 918   9 x 1 x 8 = 72   7 + 2 = 9     /  cows had devoured the sleek ones. And grew neither fuller or fatter than before. This Pharaoh saw with his bodily eyes, started up in his chair, and once more found it all a dream
       A confused, ridiculous enough dream, wordless and senseless. Still it came so close , it so urgently assailed his mind with its burden of warning that Pharaoh could not sleep again. Nor did he wish to, till happily the dawn soon broke, but went on shifting between bed and chair, musing on the dream - or the twin dreams grown on one stalk - and its clear and pressing demand for clarification. Already he was  firmly resolved not to let such a dream pass over silently and keep it to himself. He would make an occasion of it, he would sound an alarm. In it he had worn the crown, the crozier, and the tail, beyond a doubt these were King-dreams of imperial import, vastly suggestive and significant. They must be made public and everything possible done to get to the bottom of them and study them on the basis of their obviously alarming meaning. Meni was greatly wrought up over his dreams, he hated them more with every minute that passed. A king could not put up with such dreams - although on the other hand they could not come to anyone but a king. While he, Nefer-Kheperu-Re-Wanre-Amenhotep, sat on the throne such things must not happen: no such abominable cows must eat up such fine fat ones; or such wretched blighted ears consume such swelling golden ones. Nothing must happen in the realm of events corresponding to this frightful picture-language. For it would reflect upon him, his prestige would suffer; ears and hearts would be closed to the annunci-ation of Aton, and Amun would gain thereby. Danger threatened the light from the black earth, danger from the material side threatened the spiritual-ethereal, there was no doubt about that. His excitement was great; it took the form of anger ,and the anger swelled up into a great resolve that the danger must be revealed and recognized for what it was in order to meet it.
      The first person to whom he told the dream - as much as it lent itself to telling - was the old man who now came
to dress him, arrange his hair, and wind the headress round it. He only shook his head in amaze and then gave it as his view that the dream came from the good god going to bed so late after he had heated his brain with all that wool gathering, as he popularly and simple-mindedly put it.Very likely he unconsciously thought of the dreams as a sort of punishment for having kept his old servant up late. "Silly old goat," Pharaoh had said, half laughing, half angry. He gave him a light slap on the cheek and went to the Queen. But she was feeling sick, being preg-nant, and paid little heed. Then he sought out Tiy, the mother god-dess, and found her at her dressing-table in the hands of her maids-in-waiting. To her too he told the dream,finding it not at all easier to tell as time went on, but harder instead. Nor did he get from his  

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mother much consolation or encouragement. Tiy was always rather mocking when he came to her with his kingly cares; and he was so convinced that this was a heavy care that he began by saying so. And at once the bantering smile appeared on the maternal face. King Neb-mare's widow had, after mature reflection, of her own free will laid down the regency and given over to her son the ruling power of his majority; but
she could never quite conceal her jealousy, and the painful thing for Meni was that he saw it all, this bitter reaction that he himself evoked did not escape him, while he sought to soften it by childlike pleas for counsel and help.
    "Why does Your Majesty come to me the rejected?" she would say. "You are Pharaoh , so be Pharaoh and stand on your own feet instead of on mine . Confide in your servants the Viziers of the South and the North when you do not know what to do, and let them tell you what is your will if you do not know it; but not in me, for I am old and retired."  
     She behaved like that about the dream too. "I am too much out of the habit of power and responsibility, my friend," she had told him with a smile, "to be able to judge whether you are right in giving so much weight to this matter. 'Hidden is the darkness,' so it is written, 'when ample is the light.' Let your mother hide herself. Let me even hide my opinion whether these dreams are worth while or befitting your state. They ate them up? They devoured them? Some cows ate up some other cows ? Some withered ears some full ones ? That is no dream vision, you cannot see it or form a picture of it, either awake or I should say asleep either. Probably Your Majesty dreamed some-thing quite different and you have put in its place this monstrous picture of impossible greediness."
    In vain Meni assured her that he had positively seen it precisely like that with the eyes of his dream and that its
clarity had been full of meaning which cried out for interpretation. In vain he spoke of his inner threat, of the harm which might come to the "teaching" - in other words to Aton - if the dream were to interpret itself un-hindered; that is to say, be fulfilled and take the actual shape of which it had been the prophetic garment. He had again the impression that at bottom his mother had no heart for his God; that it was only with her reason, namely on political and dynastic grounds, that she sided with him She had always supported her son in his tender love, his sriritual passion for Aton. But again today, as for a long time, he saw - and thanks to his sensitiveness he always saw  - that she did it only out of calculation, exploiting his heart as a woman would who saw the whole world exclusively from the point of view of statemanship, and not, as he did, from the religious first and foremost. That troubled Meni and wounded him. He left his mother, having heard from her that if he really thought his cow-and corn vision important to the  

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state, he could apply to Ptahemheb, the Vizier of the South, at the morning audience. Besides, there was no dearth of dream-interpreters on the spot.
      He had already sent for the interpreters and now impatiently awaited them. But before receiving them he had to see the great offi-cial who came to report on the affairs of the "Red House," in other words the business of the treasury of Lower Egypt. Immediately after the greeting hyms Meni interrupted him and made him listen to the story of the dreams, related in nervous, tormented tones; hesitating, seeking for the right words, he demanded that the man express him-self on two points:first whether he, like his master, considered the narrative to have political significance, and second, If so, in what way and what connection. The official did not know what to answer; or rather he had answered in a lengthy speech of very well-turned phrases that he did not know how to answer and did not know what to say about the dreams - after which he had tried to return to treas-ury business. But Amenhotep kept him on the subject of dreams, obviously unwilling and unable to talk about anything else or listen to it, only to want to make him understand how speakingly impres-sive or impressively speaking they were -  and he did not leave off until the wise men and seers were announced.
      The King, full of his night's experience - indeed, possessed by it as he now was - turning his levee into a first-class ceremony - and yet after all it turned out to be a lamentable failure. He not only ordered Ptah-em-heb to remain present, but also arranged that all the court dignitaries who had accompanied him to On should attend the audience of interpretation. There were some dozen high-ranking gentlemen: the great steward of the palace, the keeper of the King's wardrobe the overseer of the fullers, the so-called sandal bearer of the King, a considerable office; the head wig-keeper of the god, who was likewise "guardian of the enchanted empires," in other words of the two crowns, and privy councillor of the royal jewels; the groom of all Pharaoh's horses; the new head baker and Prince of Menfe, named Amenemopet, the first steward of the buffet, Nefer-em-Wese, once temporarily called Bin-em-Wese, and several fan-bearers on the right hand of the god. All these had to be present in the audience and council hall; they stood round in two groups on either hand of Pharaoh's splendid seat, which was on a raised dais under a baldchin borne by slender beribboned poles. The prophets and dream-interpreters were brought before him, six in number, all of whom were in more or less close relation with the temple of the horizon-dweller and of a whom a few had taken part in the phoenix-council of the day before. People of their sort no longer prostrated themselves on their bellies to kiss the ground, as had once been the custom, before the throne-chair. It was still the same chair as in the  

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time of the pyramid-builders and even much earlier: a boxlike arm-chair with a low back and a cushion on the floor in front; only there was rather more ornamentation than in primitive times. But even although the chair had become more splendid and Pharaoh more mighty, one no longer kissed the ground before them. Here as in the case of the living burial of the court in the dead king's tomb, it was no longer good ton.The soothsayers merely lifted there arms in rever-ential wise and murmured in rather unrhythmical confusion a long formula of respect and greeting, wherein they assured the king that he had a form like his father Re
and illumined the two lands with his beauty. For the radiance of His Majesty penetrated into the dungeons and there was no place which escaped the piercing glance of his eye, nor one whither the fine hearing of his million ears did not reach, he heard and saw all, and whatsoever issued from his mouth was like the words of Horus in the horizon as his tongue was the scale of the world and his lips more precise than the little tongue on the just scale of Thoth. He was Re in all his members, they said in un-even and confused chorus, and Khepere in true form the living image of his father Atum of On in Lower Egypt - "O Nefer-Kheperu-Re-Wanre, Lord of Beauty, through whom we breathe!"
       Some of them finished before the others. Then they were all silent, and listened, Amenhotep thanked them,
told them first in general on what occasion he had called them together, and then began, before this assemblage of some twenty either elegant or learned persons to relate his egregious dream - for the fourth time. It was painful to him, he flushed and floundered as he spoke. His insistent sense of the por-tentous significance of his tale had decided him to make it public. Now he regretted the decision, for he did not conceal from himself that what had been - and to him still was - so serious sounded laugh-able when he repeated it aloud. Really why should such fine fat cat-tle let such miserable weak ones calmly eat them up? Why and how should one set of ears of corn devour another set? But it had been so to him in his dream, so and not otherwise. The dreams had had been fresh, lifelike, and impressive at night; by day they were like badly prepared mummies with distorted features; nobody could want to reveal them. He was embarrassed and came laboriously to an end. Then he looked shyly and expectantly at the dream-seers. They had nodded their heads meaningfully; but gradually one after the other they stopped nodding and began a side to side mo-tion, a series of wondering head-shakes. These were very singular and almost unique dreams, they explained through their elders;the inter-pretation was not easy. Not that they despaired of it - the dream was still to be dreamed that they could not expound. But they must ask for time to consider and the favour of withdrawing for counsel. And compendiums must be fetched for consultation. There was no-  

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body so learned as to have the whole technique at his figure ends. To be learned, they permitted themselves to remark, did not mean to have all knowledge in their heads; there would not be room for it; no, it meant to be in possession of the books in which the the knowledge was written, and that they were.
      Amenhotep granted them leave to take counsel. The court was told to hold itself in readiness. The King spent two whole hours - the wait lasted that long very restlessly. Then the sitting was re-sumed.
      "May Pharaoh live a hundred years, beloved of Maat, lady of truth, in response to his love of her who was without guile." She stood at the side of the experts as they pronounced their results and brought their interpretation before Pharaoh, Protector of the truth. In the first place: the seven fat kine meant meant seven princesses, which Nefernefruaton-Nofertiti, the Queen of the Lands would in time bear. But that the fat kine had been devoured by the lean ones meant that these seven daughters would all die in Pharaoh's lifetime. To Pharaoh would be vouchsafed such a length of days that he would outlive all his children, however long they lived.
       Amenhotep looked at them open-mouthed. What were they talking about, he asked them, in a diminished voice. They answered , it had been granted them to deliver the meaning of the first dream. But this interpretation, he had responded , in a still smaller voice, had no sort of reference to his dream, it simply had nothing to do with it. He had not asked them whether the Queen would bear him a son and successor or a daughter and more daughters. He had asked them for an interpretation of the sleek and ill-favoured kine. - The daughters, they replied, were the interpretation. He should not ex-pect to find cows in the interpretation of a dream about cows. In the interpretation the cows were turned into princesses.  
      Pharaoh no longer had his mouth open, he had it very tightly closed, and opened it only a very little when he
ordered them to go onto the second dream. Very well, the second they said. The seven full ears were seven flourishing cities which Pharaoh would build, but the seven shrunk and scrubby ones were - the ruins of them. It was well known, they hastily explained, that all cities inevitably fell into ruins in time. Pharaoh himself would survive so long that he would see with his own eyes the ruin of the cities he had built.  
    But here Meni's patience came to an end. He had not had enough sleep; the repeated telling of the dreams, lessening in impressiveness each time he told them, had been painful; the two hours' wait unnerv-ing. Now he was so filled with the idea that these interpretations were sheer boggling and miles away from the true meaning of his  

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visions that he could no longer control his anger. He put one more question; did the books say the same as the wise men had said ? But when they replied that their contributions were a suitable synthesis of what was in the books, together with the promptings of their own powers of combination, he sprang from his chair. During an audience that was unheard of, the courtiers shrugged and put their hands over their mouths, Meni, tears in his voice, called the fearfully startled prophets bunglers and ignoramuses.
    "Away with you!" he cried almost sobbing. "And take with you, instead of the plenteous gold which my Majesty would have conferred on you if truth would come out of your mouths, the disfavour of Pharaoh. Your interpretations are cheating and lies, Pharaoh knows it, for it was Pharaoh who dreamed, and even though he does not know how to distinguish between real interpreta-tion and such worthless stuff as this . Out of my sight!"
     The pallid scholars were led out by two palace officials. But Phar-oah, without sitting down, had declared to his court that their failure would not lead him to let the matter rest. The gentlemen had unfor-tunately been witness to a mortifying failure, but by his faith and his sceptre, on the very next day he would call up other experts, this time from the house of Djehuti, the scribe of Thoth the ninefold great, lord of Khnumu. From the adepts of the white peacock was to be expected true and worthy interpretation of that which, the inner voice had told him,must be explained at all costs.
      The second hearing took place next day under the same circum-stances. It went off even worse than the first. Again young Pharaoh, with much inward constraint, halting in his speech, made public exhi-bition of his dream-mummies and again among the luminaries there had been great nodding and then great head-shaking. Not two but three hours had King and court to wait on the issue of the private consultation; and then the experts were not even agreed among them-selves, but divided as to the meaning of the dreams. Two interpreta-tions, the eldest of them announced, existed for each dream, and these, certainly, were the only ones possible, or even thinkable. Ac-cording to one theory the seven fat kine were seven kings of Phar-aoh's seed, the seven lean ones  seven princes of misery who would make head against them. All this lay in the distant future. Alterna-tively the fat kine might be so many Queens whom either Pharaoh himself or one of his late success would take into his women's house, and who as indicated by the lean kine, would unhappily all die, one after the other.
     And the ears of corn?
       The seven golden ears meant in one version seven heroes of Egypt, who in a later war would fall by the hand of seven hostile and as - shown by the thin ears - much less powerful warriors . The others

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stuck to it that the seven full and seven barren ears were children , in all  fourteen of them, which Pharaoh would get from those foreign queens. But quarrels would break out among them, and, thanks to superior guile, the seven weak children would destroy the seven ber ones.
      This time Amenhotep did not get up from his seat of audience. He sat there bent over, burying his face in his
hands; the courtiers to the right and the left of the canopy inclined their ears to hear what he was muttering. "Oh muddlers, muddlers!" he whispered over and over; then beckoned to the Vizier of the North, who stood nearest him, and gave him a whispered order. Ptah-hem-heb discharged this task by announcing to the experts in a loud voice that Pharaoh wanted to know if they were not ashamed with themselves.
      They had done their best they replied.
      Then the Vizier had to bend over again to the King, and this time it appeared he had received the order to tell the wonder-workers to leave the audience. In great confusion, looking one at an-other as though to ask whether the like had ever been known before, they departed. The court, remaining, stood about perplexed, for Pharaoh still sat there, bent over, shielding his eyes with his hand. When at length he took it away and sat up, affliction was painted on his face, and his chin quivered. He told his courtiers he would gladly have spared them and only reluctantly plunged them into pain and grief, but he could not hide the truth; their lord and King was profoundly unhappy. His dreams had borne the unmistakable stamp of political significance, and their meaning was a matter of life and death. The expositions he had been given were ineffectual twad-dle; they did not in the least fit the dreams, nor could the dreams, rec-ognize themselves in the interpretations, as dream and interpretations must recognize each other. After the failure of these two full-dress attempts he was forced to doubt whether he was able to get any interpretations corresponding to the truth, which he would at once recognize. But that meant to be forced to leave the dreams to interpret themselves without any preventative measures and proceed to their evil consumation, quite possibly involving religion and the state in irreparable injury. Danger threatened the lands; but Pharaoh to whom it was apparent, would be left alone without counsel or aid.
     The oppressive silence lasted for only a moment after Pharaoh fin-ished speaking. For then it happened that Nefer-em-Wese, the chief cup-bearer, after a long struggle with himself came forward from the group of King's friends and besought the favour of speaking before Pharaoh. "I do remember my faults today": thus tradition makes him begin his speech, we know the words, they still echo today in our ears. But the chief butler meant not faults which he had not committed, for he had once come unjustly into prison and had not

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shared in the plot to have the aged Re bitten by Eset's serpent. He meant a different fault: namely, that he had explicitly promised some-body to mention him but had not kept his word for that he had for-gotten the somebody. Now he thought of him, and he spoke of him before the baldachin. He reminded Pharaoh - who scarcely remembered it himself - of the ennui ( for so he put it with a deprecating foreign word) he had at one time two years before, under King Nebmare, when there had been a mistake in identity and he together with another man, whom it were better not to name, an accursed of God, whose soul had been destroyed with his body, had been sent to Zawi-Re, the island fortress. There a youth had been assigned to him as steward , a Khabirite from Asia, the captain's aide, with the fan-tastic name of Osarsiph, son of a shepherd king and friend of God in the East, born of a beautiful woman, as one could tell just by looking at him. This youth, then, had the greatest gift in the field of dream exegesis which he, Exellent-in Thebes, had ever seen in all the days of his life. For they had both dreamed, his guilty fellow-prisoner and himself the innocent one: very weighty portentous dreams, each his own dream,  and had been extremely embarrassed for their true mean-ing. Then this Usarsiph, without making much of his talent before-hand, had interpreted their dreams quite easily and offhand, and announced to the baker he would go to the gibbet, but to himself that on account of his utter innocence he would be taken back again into favour and put back into his office. And exactly so it had come to pass, and today he, Nefer was mindful of his fault, namely that he had not long before called attention to and pointed out this talent that existed under a cloud. He did not hesitate to express the convic-tion that if anyone were able to interpret Pharaoh's important dreams, it was this youth, presumably still vegetating in Zawi-Re.
       Their was a stir among the friends of the King; something also stirred in Meni's face and form . A few more questions and answers, quickly exchanged between him and the fat man - and then the high command went forth, the first and swiftest messenger was straight-way to hasten by flight of boats to Zawi-Re and with the minimum of delay to fetch back the soothsaying youth to On before Pharaoh's countenance.