NEFER-KHEPERU-RE-AMENHOTEP was at that time just the age that Joseph - now standing before him a man of thirty - had been when he was "feeding the flocks with his brethren" and beguiled his father of the many coloured coat. In other words, Pharaoh was seventeen years old. But he seemed older; not only because in his climate men ripen faster; not only because of his delicate health; but also because of his early obligations to the universe, the many impressions that, coming from all quarters of the heavens had assailed his mind and heart, and finally because of his zealous and fanatical concern anent the divine. In describing his face, under the round blue wig he wore today over the linen cap, the thousands of year gap must not pre-vent the apt comparison: he looked like an aristocratic young Eng-lishman  of somewhat decadent stock; spare, haughty, weary with a well-developed chin which yet somehow looked weak, a nose with a narrow, rather depressed bridge which made even more striking the broad sensitive nostrils; and deeply, dreamily overshadowed eyes  

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with lids he could never quite open wide - their weary expression was in disconcerting contrast to the unrouged morbid brilliancy of the full lips. There was a complicated and painfull mixture of intellec-tuality and sensuality in this face, still in its boyish stage, with a suggestion of  recklessness. Pretty and well-favoured it was not at all, but of a disturbing attractiveness; it was not surprising that Egypt's people had a great tenderness for their Pharaoh and gave him flowery names.
      Not beautiful either, indeed quite odd, and uncomformable to tradition was Pharaoh's figure. It scarcely reached middle height; that was plain as it lay there in the cushions, clearly defined in its light, choice, costly rainment. The relaxed posture did not indicate a lack of manliness but was a sustained attitude of opposition. There were the long neck and thin arms, the narrow, tender chest half covered by a collar of priceless stones, the arms encircled by chased gold bands; the abdomen, rather prominent from chlidhood  , with the apron be-ginning well below the navel and reaching high up in the back, the rich frill in front trimmed with the uraeus and ribbon fringes. Add to all this that the legs were not only too short but otherwise out of proportion, the thighs being distinctly too big while the legs looked almost as thin as a chicken's Amenhotep charged his sculptors not to disguise this pecliarity but even, for the sake of truth, to exagger-ate it. His hands and feet, on the contrary, were most delicate and aristocratic in shape, especially the hands, with their long fingers and sensitive expression. They had traces of unguent at the base of the nails. It was something to ponder on, that the ruling passion of this spoilt lad, who obviously took for granted all the privilege and luxury of his state, was knowledge of the Highest; Abraham's descendant, standing at one side and looking at Pharaoh, marvelled to see in what divers sorts of humanity, strange and remote one from another, con-cern for God could manifest itself on earth.
       "So good Auta" - Joseph noted the gentle reserved tones he had heard from outside, rather high-pitched, rather slow, but at times falling into a more impetuous measure - "make it as Pharaoh has di-rected, pleasing, living, fine, as my Father above would have it. There are still errors in your work - not mistakes of spirit. My Majesty has shown them to you and you will correct them. You have done my sister, sweet Prin-cess Bakeaton, too much in the dead old style, contrary to the father whose will I know. Make her sweet and easy, make her according to the truth, which is the light, and in which Pharaoh lives, for he has set it in his innermost heart!    

Let one hand be putting to her mouth a piece of fruit, a pomegranate, and her other hand be hanging down easily - not with the palm turned stiffly to the body but the rounded palm turned backwards, thus will the god have it that is in my heart and  

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whom I know as no other knows him because I have come of him"
      "Your servant," answered Auta, wrapping the clay figure with one hand while he raised the other arm towards Pharaoh, " will make it exactly as Pharaoh commands and has instructed me to my great joy who is only one of Re, the beauteous child of Aton."
       "Thank you  Auta, my warm and loving thanks to you, It is im-portant, you understand? For as the father is in me and I in him, so shall all become one in us that is the goal. But your work, conceived in the right spirit, can perhaps contribute a little to all becoming one in him and me - And you good Bek -"  
      "Remember, Auta," the deep, almost masculine voice of the god-dess- widow made itself heard at this juncture from her high seat, "always remember that it is hard for Pharaoh to make us understand him, and that he probably says more than he means in order that our understanding may follow him. What he means is not that you are to show the sweet Princess Bakeaton as eating, as biting into the fruit; rather you should only put the pomegranate into her hand and make her lift her arm so that one may assume she will probably put the fruit to her mouth. That will be enough of the new and is what Pharaoh means you to understand when he says you are to make her eat it. You must also subtract a little from what His Majesty said about the hanging hand, that you are to turn the palm entirely to the back. Turn it just slightly away from the body, half turn it, that is what is meant - and that will make you praise and blame enough. This simply to make things clear,"
      Her son was silent a space.  
      "Have you understood?" he asked then.
      "I have,"answered  Auta
      "Then you will have understood," said Amenhotep, looking down at the lyre-shaped instrument in his lap, " that the great mother of course said somewhat less than she meant, in seeking to lessen the effect of my words. You can carry the hand with the fruit rather far towards the mouth. As for the other hand, it is of course only a half turn if you turn her palm away from her body towards the back, for nobody carries the palm turned entirely outwards. And you would be offending against truth if you made it like that. Thus you can see how wisely the mother has qualified my words."
      "He looked up from the instrument with a mischievous smile show-ing the teeth too small, too white, too translucent between his full lips. He looked over at Joseph, who smiled back at him. The Queen and the craftsman smiled too.
       "And you good Bek," he went on, "go as I have commissioned you to Jebu, into the elephant land, and fetch some of the red granite that is produced there; a goodly amount of the very finest quality, the  

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kind with a glittering of quartz and shot through with black, you know, which my heart loves. Lo, Pharaoh will adorn the house of his father at Karnak that it may excel Amun's house, if not in size, then in the preciousness of the stones, and the name 'Brilliance of the great Aton' be more usual for his district, until perhaps Weset itself, the whole city, may take on one day the name 'City of the Brilliance of Aton' in the popular mouth. You know my thoughts, and I confide in your love of them. Go, then, my good man, travel at once. Pharaoh will sit here in his cushions and you will travel far away upstream and bear the burdens it costs to get the red stone out and down and ship it to Thebes. So is it, and thus so be it. When will you set out?"
        "Early tomorrow" answered Bek, when I have taken care of home and wife: and love to our sweet Lord the beautious child of Aton will make as light my travel and travail as though I sat in the softest cushions."
        "Good, good; and go now, my men. Pack up and go each to his task. Pharaoh has weighty business; only outwardly does he rest on cushions, inwardly he is in a high state of tension, zealous and full of cares. Your cares are indeed great, but small in comparison with his. Farewell!"
        He waited until the craftsmen had done there reverence and withdrawn but meanwhile he looked at Joseph.
       "Come nearer, my friend," he said, as the bee studded curtain closed behind them, "pray come closer to me, dear Khairu from the Retenu, fear not, nor startle in your step, come quite close to me! This is the mother of god, Tiy, who lives a million years. And I am Pharaoh. But think no more of that, lest it make you fearful. Pharaoh is God and man, but sets as much store by the second as by the first, yes he rejoices, sometimes his rejoicing amounts to defiance and scorn, that he is a man like all men, seen from one side; he rejoices to snap his fingers at those sourfaces who would have him bear himself uni-formly as God."
        And he actually did snap his slender fingers in the air.    
        "But I see you are not afraid," he went on, "and startled not in your steps, but pace them with calm courage towards me. That is good to see, for in many the heart turns over when they stand before Pharaoh, their spirit forsakes them, their knees give way and they cannot distinguish life and death. You are not giddy?"  
         Joseph smiling shook his head.
         "There can be three reasons for that," said the boy king. "Either because your descent is noble, or because you see the human being in Pharaoh, as it pleases him when it comes about within the frame of his divinity. Or it may be you feel that a reflection of the divine rests upon you, for you are wonderfully lovely and charming, pretty as a  

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picture, My Majesty noted it directly you entered, although it did not surprise me, as I have been told you are the son of a lovely women. For after all it indicates that He loves you who creates beauty of form through himself alone, who lends the eyes love and power of vision through and for his beauty. One may call beautiful people the dar-lings of the light."
        He looked at Joseph with satisfaction, his head on one side.
        "Is he not wonderfully pretty and well-favoured, like a god of light, little Mama?" he asked Tiy, who sat leaning her cheek against three fingers of her dark little hand that blazed with gems.
       "You have summoned him because of the wisdom and power of interpretation he is supposed to have ," she answered looking into space
       "They belong together, broke in Amenhotep quickly and eagerly "Pharaoh has considered much and perceived much on this point; he has discussed it with visiting ambassadors often from afar and foreign lands, magi, priests, and initiates who brought him from east and west news of the thoughts of men. For where all must he not hearken and what all not observe: to test to choose, and make useful the usable that he may perfect the teaching and establish the image of truth according to the will of his Father above! Beauty, little Mama, and you dear Amu, has to do with wisdom through the medium of light. For light is the medium and the means, when relationship streams out on three sides: to beauty, to love, and to knowledge of truth. These are one in him, and light is their three-in-oneness. Strangers bore to me the teaching of the beginning god, born of flames, a beautiful god of light and love, and his name was 'first born brilliance.' That is a glorious, a useful contribution, for therein is dis-played the unity of love and light. But light is beauty as well as truth and knowledge, and if you would learn the medium of truth, then know that is love. - Well, now, they say of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it?" he asked Joseph. His face was suffused with the colour of embarrassment at his own extravagant and fanatical words.
       "It is not I who does this, O my lord," answered Joseph. " It is not I who can do it it is God alone, and He does it sometimes through me. Everything has its time: dreams and the interpretation of them. When I was a child I dreamed and my brothers were angry and chid me. Now when I am a man has come the time of my interpretation. My dreams interpret themselves to me , and certainly it is God who gives it to me to interpret the dreams of others."
       "So you are a prophetic youth, a so-called inspired lamb?" in-quired Amenhotep. "You seem to belong in that category. Will you fall down dead with your last words after you have announced the future to the king, and die in a spasm, that he may give you solemn  

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burial and have your prophecies inscribed to be handed down to posterity?"
       "Not easily," said Joseph, "is the question of the Great House to be answered; not with yes and not with no, at best with both. It amazes your servant and goes to his heart that you are pleased to see in him a lamb an inspired lamb. For I am used to this name since a child: my father the friend of God used to call me 'the lamb,' be-cause my lovely mother, the star-maid for whom he served at Sinear, across the river flowing the wrong way, and bore me in the sign of the virgin, was named Rachel, which means mother sheep. But this does not justify me, great lord, in accepting your idea uncondi-tionally or in saying 'I am.' For I am and am not just because I am I. I mean that the general and the typical vary when they fulfill themselves in the particular, so that the known becomes unknown and you cannot recognise it. Do not expect me to fall down dead with my last word just because that is the established pattern. This your servant, whom you summoned from the grave, does not expect it, for it belongs only to the typical .Nor shall I foam at the mouth like the typical prophetic youth, if God shall give to my prophesy to Pharaoh. When I was a lad , I probably did twitch, and gave my father great concern by rolling my eyes like those who run naked, babbling oracles. My father's son has put that away from him since he came to years; he holds now with divine reason, even when he interprets. Interpreta-tion is spasm enough, one need not slaver as well. Plain and clear shall be the interpretation, and no aulasaukaulala."
      He had not looked at the mother as he spoke, but out of one corner of his eye he saw that she nodded assent on her high seat. Her brisk, low almost masculine voice, issuing from that fragile form, was heard to say:
       "The stranger speaks what is worth hearing and heartening to Pharaoh."
       On that Joseph could only continue, for the king was silent for the moment and hung his head with the sulky look of a chidden child. Joseph, thus encouraged by Tiy, went on:
       "In my unworthy opinion, a composed manner in interpreting is due to the fact that it is an I and a single individual through whom the typical and the traditional are being fulfilled, and thereby, in my feeling, the seal of divine reason is vouchsafed to them. For the pattern and the traditional come from the depths which lie beneath and are what binds us, whereas the I is from God and is of spirit, which is free. But what constitutes civilized life is that the binding and tradi-tional depth shall fulfil itself in the freedom of God which belongs to the I; there is no human civilization without the one and without the other."  

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Amenhotep nodded to his mother with lifted brows; he began to applaud, holding one hand straight up and striking the palm with two fingers of the other.
      "Do you hear my little mama?" said he . This is a youth of great insight whom My Majesty has sent for to come hither. Remember, pray, that by my own resolve I called him to come. Pharaoh is also very gifted and advanced for his years, but it is doubtful whether he could have made up and expressed these things about the binding pattern of the depths and the dignity which comes from above. - So you are not bound to the binding pattern of the foaming lamb," he asked, and you will not bruise the heart of Pharaoh with the tradi-tional announcements of horrible misery to come, the invasion by foreign peoples, and how that which is undermost shall be turned uppermost?" He shuddered. "We all know about that," he said his lips going a little white. "But My Majesty must spare himself a little, he cannot well bear the wild and savage, he is in need of tenderness and love. The land has gone down to destruction, it lives in uproar. Bedoins rove over it. Poor and rich change places, all law is anulled, the son slays the father and by his brother is slain, wild beasts of the desert drink at the springs, one laughs the laugh of death Re has turned away his face, no one knows when midday is, for one knows not the shadow on the dial; beggars consume the sacrifices, the King is taken and snatched away; one only consolation abides, that by the might of him who shall deliver all shall be better once more. Pharaoh,then, need not hear this song again? May he hope that the modifica-tion of the traditional by the particular will exclude such horrors?"
        Joseph smiled it was now that he made the famous reply, both courteous and shrewd:
        "God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace."                                
        "You speak of God probed Amenhotep. You have done so several times. Which God do you mean? You are from Zahi and from Amu, so I assume you mean the ox whom in the East they call Baal the Lord?"
      Joseph's smile became detached. He even shook his head.
      "My father's the God-dreamers," said he, "made their covenant with another Lord."
      "Then it can only be Adonai, the bridegroom said the King quickly "for whom the flute wails in the gorges and who rises again. You see, Pharaoh knows his way about among the gods of all man-kind. He must know and try all and be like a gold-washer who dredges the kernel of truth out of much absurdity, that it may help to perfect the teaching of his adored father. Pharaoh finds it hard but good, very good, a royal task. My good parts have made me work that out. Who has hardship must also have ease, but only he. For it is disgusting to have only ease; yet to have only hardship is not right    

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either. At the great feast of tribute in the beautiful balcony of audi-ence My Majesty sits next to my lovely consort and the ambassadors of the people. Moors, Libyans and Asiatics bring a ceaseless train of gifts from all the world, bar gold and gold in rings, ivory, silver vases, ostrich feathers, oxen, byssus, leopards and elephants in procession; and just so the lord of the crowns sits in the beauty of his palace and receives in fitting ease the tribute of all the thought of the inhabited earth. For as My Majesty was already pleased to say, the singers and seers of strange gods succeed one another, coming to my court from all the regions of the earth together: from Persia, where the gardens are renowned and where they believe that some day the earth will be flat and even and all men have one species, speech and law; from India the land where the incense grows, from star-wise Babel and the islands of the sea. They all visit me, they pass over be-fore my seat, and My Majesty has intercourse with them as he now has with you who are a special kind of lamb. They offer me the early and the late, the old and the new. Sometimes they leave strange sou-venirs and divine signs. Do you see this toy here?" And he lifted the round stringed instrument from his lap and held it out to Joseph.
       "A lyre the other assented. "It is fitting that Pharaoh holds in his hand the symbol of goodness and charm ."
       This he said because the hieroglyph for the Egyptian "Nofert," which means goodness and charm, is a lyre.
       "I see responded the King, that you have understanding of the arts of Thoth and are a scribe. I suppose that belongs to the dignity of the I, wherein the binding pattern of the depths fulfills itself. But this object is a sign of something else besides goodness and charm, namely of the artfulness of a strange god, who may be a brother of the Ibis-headed or his other self, and who invented the toy as a child when he met a certain creature. Do you know the shell?"
      "It is a tortoise shell said Joseph.
      "You are right," assented Amenhotep. "This sly-boots of a child-god met this wise creature born in the hollow of the rocks and it fell a sacrifice to his quick wit. For he impudently robbed it of its hollow shell and put strings across and fastened on two horns as you can see, and it became a lyre. I will not say this is the very same toy the mis-chievous rascal made. The man who brought it and gave it to me, a seafarer from Crete, does not say that. It may only have been made in memory of the first, in jest or piety, for this was only one of various tales the Cretan told of the swaddling-babe of the cave. It seems this infant was always getting up out of his hole and swaddlings to play pranks. He stole - it is almost unbelievable - the cattle of the sun-god, his elder brother, away from the hill where they pastured, when the sun-god had gone down. Fifty of them he took and drove them about, across and across, to confuse their hoof-marks, His own steps 

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he disguised, binding on them enormous sandals woven of branches so that there were giant footprints they he left behind, and thus none at all. And that was quite fitting. For he was indeed an infant and yet a god; and so those vast vague footprints were quite as they should be. The cattle he drove away and hid them in a cave, a different one from the one where he was born -  there are many in those parts. But first he slaughtered two cows by the river and roasted them at a huge fire. These he ate, the suckling babe; it was the meal of a giant child and went with the footprints."
      "Amenhotep went on, lying back relaxed in his chair: "This done, the thievish child slipped back to his parent cave and went into his swad-dlings. But when the sun-god came up again and missed his cattle, he divined, for he was a soothsaying god, and knew that only his newborn brother could have done the deed. Hot with anger he came to him in his cave. But the little thief who had heard him coming, cuddled himself into his swaddlings that smelled sweet of his godhead, made himself very small, and counterfeited the slumber of inno-cence. In his arms he held his invention, the lyre. And of course the hypocrite knew how to lie like the truth when the sun-god undecieved by his wiles, taxed him with the theft. "Quite other concerns have I" he lisped, "than this you think: sweet sleep and mother's milk, the swaddlings round my shoulders and warm baths." And then he swore, the seafarer said, a great round oath that he knew nothing of the cattle. - Do I bore you , Mama?" he interrupted himself and turned to the goddess on her throne.
     "Since I am freed from the cares of the governing of this land," she replied I have much time to spare. I can as well while it away listening to stories of strange gods. Yet truly the world seems upside down to me: it is usually the king who lets himself be narrated to, and now Your Majesty narrates himself."
     "Why should he not?" responded Amenhotep. "Pharaoh must in-struct. And what he has learned he is always urged to teach to others . What my mother really objects to," he went on, and stretch-ing two fingers towards her he seemed as it were to explain to her her own words,, is no doubt, that Pharaoh delays to relate his dreams to this understanding and inspired lamb, that he may at last here the truth about them. For that I shall get true interpretation from him I am almost certain even now, owing to his person and some things he has already said My Majesty is not afraid, for he has promised that he will not prophesy in the manner of the mouth-foaming youth or horrify me with such tales as that beggars will consume the offerings, But do you not know and have you not seen the wonderful way the mind has: that a man, when the fulfilment approaches of his most coveted wish, will of his own free will hold off a little from the consummation? 'Now is at hand any how,' he says, 'and only waits on  

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me; I may as well put it off a little, for the desire and wish have grown dear to me, in a way, and it is too bad about them.' That is a way human beings have, and Pharaoh too, who sets great store by being a human being himself."
       "Tiy smiled
       "As your beloved Majesty does it, we shall call it beautiful. Since this soothsayer may not well ask, I will: did the naughty suckling's perjury avail or what happened next?"
      "This, answered Amenhotep, "according to my source: the sun-brother brought the thief in bonds before their father, the great god, that he should confess and the god punish him. But here too the rascal lied with the utmost guile and spoke piously out of his mouth. Highly I honour the sun he lisped, 'and the other gods and you I love, but fear him here. Protect, then, the younger and help poor little me!' So he misrepresented himself displaying his baby side, winking the while at his father out of one eye, so that he could only laugh aloud at the arch rogue. He ordered him to show his brother the cattle and deliver back the stolen property, to which the infant agreed. But when the elder brother heard of the two slaughtered cows he was wroth anew. Now while he threatened and fumed, the little one played on his lyre - this thing here - and his singing went so sweet to the sound of the lyre that the elder brother's scolding died away and the sun-god thought only of getting the instrument for his own. And his it became, for they made a bargain: the cattle remained to the thief, the lyre the brother carried away - and keeps it for ever."
     "He stopped speaking and looked down at the toy in his lap.
     "In right instructive way after all, said the mother, "Pharaoh has put off the fulfillment of his most ardent wish."
     "Instructive it  is," gave back the king, "for it shows that child gods are only disguised children - disguised out of sheer mischief. He came out of his cave whenever he chose, as a gay and gifted youth, skilled in devices, never at a loss for flexible stratagems, a helper to gods and men. What new things did he not invent, in the belief of the people: writing and reckoning, culture of the olive and of shrewd persuasive speech; not shrinking from deceit, yet deceiving with great charm. My seafaring man, whose patron he was, esteemed him highly. For he was the god of favourable chance, so the man said, and of smiling inventiveness: shedding blessing and well-being - whether honestly or even a bit dishonestly won, the way life is: a leader and guide through the windings of this world, turning back with lifted staff to smile. Even the dead he guides, the man said in their kingdom of the moon - and even dreams, for he is lord of sleep, who closes the eyes of man with his staff, a gentle magician with all his slyness."

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Pharaoh's gaze fell on Joseph, as he stood before him, the pretty and charming head bowed or even bent on one shoulder, looking side-ways up at the paintings on the wall, with an unforced and absent smile, which seemed to say he need not absolutely listen to all this.
      "Are the tales of the mischievous god known to you, soothsayer?" asked Amenhotep.
      Joseph quickly changed his pose. He had behaved with pointed lack of courtly manners and now showed that he was aware of it. He even did so in somewhat exaggerated fashion; so that Pharaoh, who always noticed everything, got the impression not only that this startled return to the present moment was assumed, but that it had been put on for that very impression. He waited, keeping his veiled grey eyes, as wide open as he could make them, directed on Joseph.
     "Known, highest Lord?" the young man asked. "Yes and no - if you will permit your servant the double answer."
     "You seek often for such permission," said the king, or rather you simply take it. All your speaking turns on the Yes and at the same time on the No. Is that likely to please me? You are the mouth-foaming youth and you are not, because you are you. The mischievous because - why? Was he known to you or not?  
     "To you too, Lord of the Crowns, he has always been known - in a way; for did you not call him a distant brother of the Ibis-headed Djehuti, the moon friendly scribe, or indeed his other self? Was he known to you or not? He was familiar - that is more than known, for in it the Yes and the No cancel each other out and are one and the same. No I did not know the child of the cave and master of pranks.
My father's oldest servant, the wise Eliezer, was my teacher: he who could say the earth sprang to meet him on the bridal journey for the saved sacrifice, my father's father - pardon, pardon! All this leads too far afield, your servant cannot narrate the world to you at this hour. And yet the words of the great mother still ring in his ear: it is the custom in the world for the king not to narrate but to be nar-rated to Of pranks such as these I might know several, to show you, you and the great mistress , that the spirit of the rogue - god has always been at home among my people and is familiar to me."
     Amenhotep looked across at his mother with light nod which meant: Well, what shall we make of him?" Then he answered Joseph:
     "The goddess permits you to tell us one or two of them, if you think you can amuse us before the interpreting." Our breath cometh from you," said Joseph, with an obeisance. "I use it to divert you."  

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And with folded arms, but often lifting his hand in a descriptive gesture, he spoke before Pharaoh and said: "Rough was Esau, my uncle, the mountain goat, twin of my father, who forced the passage before him when they were born. Red and shaggy of hair was he, a bungler; my father was smooth and fine, tent bred and son of his mother, clever in God, a shepherd, while Esau a hunter was. Always was Jacob blest, since before the hour when my forebear, father of both, resolved to bestow the hand down blessing, for he declined into death. Blind the old man, his ancient eyes would no longer obey him, only with hands he saw, feel-ing not seeing. Before him he summoned the red one long-ing to love him. 'Go shoot me game with thy bow,' he said ' my forthright, hairy first born, cook me a savoury meat that I may eat and then bless thee, strengthened thereto by the meal.' Red one went off to hunt. Meanwhile the mother wrapped the younger in goat-skins round his smooth limbs and gave him a mess, spiced and seasoned, from goat's flesh. With it he went to the master into the tent and spake: 'Here am I back, my father, Esau, thy hairy one, having hunted and cooked for thee. Eat then, and bless thy first born!' 'Come now to me, come near to thy father, my son,'  spoke the blind old man, 'that I may feel with my seeing hands if you are truly Esau, my hairy one, for it is easy to say.' And felt with his hands and felt the fell of the goat where the skin was bare, and there it was rough, like Esau; red it was not, but that the hands could not see and the old eyes would not. ' Yes, there can be no doubt, it is you,' said the old man then, 'from your fleece it is plain to me. Rough or smooth, so it is, and how good that one needs not the eyes to perceive, for the hand suf-ficeth! Esau art thou, then feed me that I may bless thee!' So did he smell and eat, and he gave to the wrong one, who yet was the right one, the fullness of blessing one might not recall. Then came Esau from hunting, puffed up and boastful at this his great hour. He cooks and seasons his game where all eyes can see him and bears it within to his father inside the tent. But there in the tent was he cheated and mocked as a humbug, truly he was the wrong right one, since the right wrong one had come before him through mother's guile. Only a barren curse he received since naught else was left after the blessing was spent. What jesting and laughing were there, when he sat down wailing aloud with his tongue hanging out, and the fat tears plumped down into the dust, the cozened clodplate whom the clever one tricked, skilled and familiar in all!"
      Mother and son both laughed, the one in a sonorous alto, the other clear and piping . Both shook their heads.
     "What a grotesque tale!" cried Amenhotep. "A barbaric farce, capital in its way, if rather depressing too; one hardly knows how to  

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9 x 4 x 4 = 144  1 + 4 + 4 = 9  /

take it, it makes you feel like laughing and crying, both at once. The wrong right one, you say, and the wrong one that was the right one ? That is not bad; it is so crazy that it is witty. But may the higher goodness preserve us all from being both right and wrong, so that we need not sit blubbering in the end, with our tears plopping into the dust! What do you think of the mother, little Mama? Wrapping goatskins round the smoothness, and helping the old one and his seeing hands to bless the right one, in other words the wrong one. Tell me if you do not find this an original lamb whom I have summoned before my presence. My Majesty permits you to relate another jest Khabire, that I may see whether the first was not good just by chance, and whether  this spirit of clever roguery is really better than known to you, because familiar. Let me hear!"    
     "What Pharaoh commands," Joseph said, " is already done. The blessing one had to flee before the wrath of the cheated; travel he must, and travelled to Naharin in the land of Sinear, where relatives dwelt: Laban the clod, a sinister man of affairs, and his daughters, the one red-eyed, the other more lovely than stars in the sky. So she became his all, and more to him than all save only God. But the hard taskmaster made him serve seven years for the starry maid. They passed like days, but then the uncle gave to him first in the dark the other unloved, and only much later the true bride, Rachel the mother sheep, who bore me with more than natural pains, and they called me Dumuzi, the true son. This only in passing. Now, when the star-maid was healed after bearing, my father would be away with me and the ten whom the maids and the wrong one had borne him; or he made as if he would go to his uncle, who was unwilling, for Jacob's blessing-hand was a profit to Laban. 'Give me, then , all the pied sheep and goats of the flocks,' said he to his uncle. 'They shall be mine, but yours all those of one colour. Such is my modest condition.' So they sealed their bargain. But what then did Jacob do? Took wands from the trees and bushes and peeled white stripes in the bark, so they were pied. These he laid in the troughs where the flocks came to drink and mated after the drinking. Always he made them see the pied wands at this business, which worked on them through their eyes so that they dropped pied young, which he took. So he grew rich out of all count and Laban was laid by the heels through the wit the roguish god."
     Again the mother and son were much diverted . They laughed and shook their heads; a vein stood out on the King's sickly forehead and tears were in his half-shut eyes.
     "Mama, Mama ," said he, "My Majesty is very, very much amused. Striped staves he took and gave them the pattern through their eyes - ring-straked and speckled, we say, and ring-straked and speckled  Pharaoh could laugh himself at a jest like that! Does he still live, your  

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9 x 4 x 5 = 180  1 + 8 = 9    9 + 4 + 5 = 18  1 + 8 = 9  /

father? That was a rogue! And so you are the son of a rogue and a lovely one?"
     "The lovely one was a thief and rascal too," Joseph supplemented his tale. "Her loveliness was no stranger to stratagems. For love of her husband she stole her gloomy father's images, thrust them into the camel's bedding, and sat on it and said in her beguiling voice: 'I am unwell with my periods and cannot stand up.' But Laban searched in vain, to his own chagrin."
     "One on top of the other!" cried Amenhotep, his voice breaking. "Listen to me, Mama. You owe me an answer whether I have not summoned before me a highly original subtle and sporting lamb. Now is the moment," he suddenly decreed; "now is Pharaoh ready to here from this wise youth the interpretation of his difficult dreams. Before these tears of merriment are quite dry in my eyes, I will hear it. For as long as my tears are still wet from this rare laughter, I fear not the dreams nor their meaning, whatever it is. This son of jesters will tell Pharaoh neither such stupidities as did the pedants of the book-house, nor yet any frightful things. And even though the truth he tells be bad, yet these lips so given to smiling can scarcely shape it so as to turn straightway these tears of laughter to tears of mourning. Soothsayer, is there need of any vessel or apparatus for your task? A cauldron, perhaps, to receive the dreams, out of which their meaning shall rise?
      "Nothing at all," answered Joseph. "I need nothing between heaven and earth for my affair. I just go ahead and interpret as the spirit moves me. Pharaoh needs only to speak."  
      "The King cleared his throat and looked over in some embarrass-ment at his mother excusing himself by a little bow for her having to hear the tale all over again. Then blinking with his laughter-wet eyes, for the sixth time he conscientiously related his now stale dreams.