TIY, the mother, came down from her chair into the hall and approached the rapt one with short, decided steps. She looked at him a moment, gave him a quick little tap on the back of one finger across his cheek, of which he was obviously unconscious, and turned to Joseph.
     "He will exalt you," said she, with her bitter smile. Her pouting mouth and the lines round it were probably incapable, by their shape, of any smile but a bitter one.
     Joseph, in some alarm, was looking over at Amenhotep.
     "Do not be distressed," she said. "He does not hear us. He is unwell, he has his affliction, but it is not serious. I knew it would end like this when he would keep on talking about joy and tenderness; it always the same way, although sometimes it is more severe. When he began on the mice and chickens I was sure how it would turn out, but I was certain when he kissed you. You must take it in the light of his special susceptability."
     "Pharaoh loves to kiss, Joseph remarked.
     "Yes two much," she answered. Ithink you are shrewd enough to see that there is danger for a kingdom which supports within it a too powerful god and without it many envious tributaries, who plot revolts. That was why I was willing you should speak to him of the stoutheartedness of your ancestors, who were not debilitated by all their thoughts on God."
     "I am no man of war," said Joseph, "nor were my ancestor save under great pressure. My father was a pious dweller in tents and prone to contemplation, and I am his son by his first and true wife. True among my brethren who sold me are several who are capable of considerable barbarity; the twins were war-heroes - we called them twins, though there is a whole year between them - and Gad-diel was more or less harness, at least in my time."
Tiy shook her head.
      "You have a way," she said of talking about your people - as a mother I should call it spoilt. All in all, you think pretty well of your-self, it seems; you feel you could stand a good deal of promotion?"
      "Let me put it to you like this, great lady, said he, "that none suprises me."
      "So much the better for you," she answered. "I told you that he  

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would exalt you, probably quite extravagantly. He does not know it yet, but when he comes to himself he will."
      "Joseph said: Pharaoh has exalted me in that he honoured me with this talk about God."
      "Rubbish," said she impatiently. You put him to it, you led up to it from the start . You need not play the innocent before me; or pretend to be the lamb they called you who spoiled you when they brought you up. I have a political mind, it is no use making pious faces to me. 'Sweet sleep' forsooth, and 'mother's milk, warm baths and swaddling bands'! Stuff and nonsense! I have nothing against politics, on the contrary; and I do not reproach you for making the best of your hour. Your talk of God was a talk of gods as well; and your story not bad at all, the one about the god of mischief and worldly-wise advantage ."    
     "Pardon, great mother," said Joseph, "it was Pharaoh who told that tale."
     "Pharaoh is receptive and suggestible," she responded."What he said, your presence evoked. He felt you and spoke
of the god."
     "I was without falseness against him great Queen," said Joseph.
     "And I will remain so whatever he may decide about me. By Pharaoh's life, I will never betray his kiss. That was at Dothan in the vale, my brother Jehudah kissed me before the eyes of  the children of Ishmael, my purchasers, to show them how highly he valued the goods. That kiss your dear son has wiped off with his own. But my heart is full of the wish to serve and help him as well as I can and as far as he empowers me to do it."
     "Yes, serve and help him," said she, coming quite close with her firm little person and putting her hand on his shoulder. "Do you prom-ise it to his mother? You see the great and high responsibility I have with the child - but you understand you are painfully subtle; you even spoke of the wrong right one, and -  he is so sensitive - he got the point when you suggested that one can be right and yet wrong."
     "It was not known or recognized before," answered Joseph. "It is a destiny and a basis for destiny that a man can be right on the way and yet not the right one for the way. Until today there was no such thing; but from now on there will be. Honour is due every new foundation: honour and love, if one is as worthy love as your lovely son!"
     "From Pharaoh's direction came a sigh; the mother turned towards him. He stirred, blinked his eyes, and stood up straight. Colour came back to his lips and cheeks.
      "Decisions," they heard him say, "decisions must be made. My Majesty made it clear that I had no more time and must return at once to my immediate kingly concerns. Pardon my absence," he said with a smile as he let his mother lead him back to his seat and  

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sank into the cushions. Pardon me, Mama, and you too dear sooth-sayer. Pharaoh," he added with a meditative smile, "had no need to excuse himself, for he is untrammelled, and besides, he did not go but was fetched. But he excuses himself all the same, out of ordinary politeness. But now to business. We have time, but we have none to lose. Take your seat eternal mother, if I may respectfully beg you. It is not proper for you to stand while your son is sitting. Only this young man with the lower- region name might stand before Pharaoh for a little while longer, during the discussion of matters growing out of my dreams. They came from below too, but out of concern for that which is above; but he seems to me blest from below up and from above down. So you are of the opinion, Osarsiph," he asked, "that we must husband the fullness against the ensuing scarcity and collect enormous stores in the barns to be given out in the bar-ren years, in order that the upper should not suffer with the lower?"
     "Just so, dear master," answered Joseph. The term was quite for-eign to etiquette, and at once brought the bright tears to Pharaoh's eyes. "That is the silent message of the dreams. There cannot be enough barns and graneries; there are many in the land, but yet all too few. New ones must be built everywhere so that their number is like the stars in the skies. And everywhere must officials be appointed to deal with the harvest and collect the taxes - there should be no arbitrary estimate which can always be got round with bribes, but instead there must be a fixed ruling - and heap up grain in Phar-aoh's granaries until it is like the sands of the sea; and provision the cities so that food is laid up for distribution in the bad years and the land does not perish of hunger and Amun reap the benefit, who would misinterpret Pharaoh to the people, saying: It is the King who is guilty and this the punishment for the new teaching and worship.' I said distribution ; but I do not mean it so that the corn should be handed out once and for all, but we should distribute to the poor and little people and sell to the great and rich. Poor harvests mean a hard time, and when the Nile is low prices are high; the rich shall buy dear and all those shall stoop who still think  themselves great as Pharaoh in the land. For only Pharaoh shall be rich in the land of Egypt, and he shall become silver and gold ."
      "Who shall sell?" cried Pharaoh in alarm. God's son the King?"
      But Joseph answered: "God forbid! It shall be the wise and under-standing man whom Pharaoh must search out among his servants: one filled with the spirit of planning and foresight, master of the survey, who sees all even unto the borders of the land and beyond, because the borders of the land are not his borders. Him let Pharaoh appoint and set him over the land of Egypt with the words: 'Be as myself'; so that he husband the abundance as long as it goes on and feed the  

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dearth when it comes. Let him be as the moon between Pharaoh our lovely sun and the earth below. He shall build the barns, direct the host of officials, and establish the laws governing the collection. He shall investigate and find out where it is to be distributed gratis and where sold, shall arrange that the little people shall eat and listen to Pharaoh's teaching, and shall harass the great in favour of the crown, that Pharaoh become over and over gold and silver."
     The goddess- mother laughed a little from her chair.
     "You laugh little Mama," said Amehotep. "But My Majesty finds really interesting what our foreseer here foresees. Pharaoh looks down from above on these things below, but it interests him mightily to see what the moon brings about on earth in her jesting, spectral way. Tell me more soothsayer, since we are in council, about this middleman, this blithe ingenious young man, and how he should go to work once I have appointed him."
     "I am not Keme's child and not the son of Jeor," answered Joseph "indeed, I come from abroad. But the garment of my body has long been of Egyptian stuff, for at seventeen I came down here with my guide which God appointed for me, the Midianites, and came to No-Amun, your city. Although I am from afar, I know this and that about the affairs of the land and its history: how everything grew out of the nomes, and out of the old the new, and how remnants of the old still defiantly persist, out of tune with the times. For Pharaoh's father's the princes of Weset, who smote the foreign Kings and drove them out and made the black earth a royal poswsession, these had to reward the princes of the nomes and the petty kings who helped them in their campaigns, with gifts of land and lofty titles, so that some of them still call themselves kings next after Pharaoh, sit defiantly on their estates, which are not Pharaoh's and resist the passage of time. All this being well known to me, I have no trouble in showing how Pharaoh's  middleman, the master of the survey and of the prices shall act and how use the occasion. He will fix the prices for the whole seven years to the proud district princes and surviving so-called kings when they have neither bread nor seed but he has abundance of them They shall be such a kind of prices that their eyes will run over with tears and they shall be plucked to the last pin feather; so that their land shall finally fall to the crown as it ought and these stiff necked kings be turned into ten-ants."
     "Good said the Queen-mother energetically in her deep voice.
     Pharaoh was much amused.
     "What a rascal, your young middleman and moon-magician!" he laughed. My Majesty would not have thought of it, but he finds it capital. But what shall this man, my regent do about the temples which are rich to excess and oppress the land; shall he harass them  

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too and fleece them properly as a rogue should? Above all, I would wish that Amun might be plundered and that my man of business would straightway lay the common taxes on him who has never had to pay!"
     "If the man is as extremely sensible as I expect," replied Joseph, "he will spare the temples and leave the gods' of Egypt alone during the years of plenty, since it has always been the custom for the gods' property to be left untaxed. Above all, Amun must not be exasper-ated against the work of provision and not agitate among the people to oppose the storage of supplies, telling them it is directed against the god. When the hard times come, then the temple will have to pay the prices of the master of the prices; that is enough. It will not profit from the success of the crown's enterprise;Pharaoh shall become heavier and more golden than all of them if the middle man even half-way understands his affair."
     "Very sensible," nodded the mother -goddess.
     "But if I do not deceive myself in this man," went on Joseph, "and why should I since Pharaoh will choose him? -then the man will cast his eye even beyond the borders of the land and see to it that disloyalty is suppressed and the vacillating firmly attached to Pharaoh's throne. When my forefather Abram came down into Egypt with his wife Sarai (which means queen and heroine), when they came down, there was famine at home where they lived and high prices in the lands of the Retenu, Amor and Zahie. But in Egypt there was plenty. And shall it be different now? When the time of the lean kine comes for us here , who says there will not be scarcity up there too? Pharaoh's dreams were so heavy with warning that their mean-ing might apply to the whole world and would be a thing something like the Flood. Then the peoples would come on  pilgrimage down to the land of Egypt to get bread and seed-corn, for Pharaoh has it heaped in abundance. People will come hither, people from everywhere and from who knows where, whom one had never expected to see here; they will come driven by need and come before the lord of the survey, your business man, and say to him: 'Sell to us other-wise we are sold and betrayed, for we and our children are dying of hunger and know not how to live longer unless you sell to us out of your substance.'  Then will the seller answer them and go about with them according to what sort of people they are. But how he will go about with this and that city king of Syria and Phoenicia, that I can trust myself to prophesy. For I know that neither of them loves Phar-aoh his lord as he should, and is unsteady in his loyalty, carrying water on both shoulders and even pretending submission to Pharaoh, but at the same time making eyes at the Hittites and bargaining for his own advantage. Such as these will the overseer make humble when the time comes, I can see that. For not alone silver and wood  

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will he make them pay for bread and seed-corn; they will be obliged to deliver up their sons and daughters as payment or as a guarantee to Egypt if they want to live; thus they will be bound to Pharaoh's seat, so that one can depend on their loyalty and duty."
     Amenhotep bounced for joy on his chair like a child.
     "Little Mama," he cried, "think of Milkili, the King of Ashdod, who is more than wobbling and so evil-intentioned tha he loves not Pharaoh from his whole heart but even plots treachery and defec-tion - I have letters to that effect. Everybody wants me to send troops against Milkili and dye my sword; Horemheb, my first officer, demands it twice daily. But I will not do it, for the Lord of the Aton will have no bloodshed. But now you hear how my friend here, the son of the roguish one, suggests how we can force the loyalty of such bad kings and bind them firmly to Pharaoh's seat without shed-ding of blood and just in the way of business. Capital, capital!" he cried and struck his hand repeatedly on the arm of his chair. Sud-denly he grew serious and got up solemnly from his seat: but then, as though seized by misgiving, sat down again.
      "It is difficult," he said pettishly. "Mama, I do not know how to arrange about the office and rank which I shall confer on my friend and middleman, the person who shall concern himself with the col-lection and distribution of provisions. The government is unfortu-nately fully staffed, all the best offices are taken. We have the two viziers, the overseers of the granaries and the King's herds, the chief scribe of the treasury, and so on. Where is the office for my friend, to which I can appoint him, with a suitable title?"
      "That is the least of your difficulties," returned his mother calmly. She even turned her head aside as though the matter were indifferent to her. "It happened often in earlier times, and even in more recent ones; there is an established tradition, which could be resumed any day, if it pleased Your Majesty, to set between Pharaoh and the great officials of the state a go-between and mouthpiece, the head of all the heads and overseers, through whom the King' word went forth, the representative of the god. The chief mouth-piece is something quite customary. We need not see difficulties where there are none," she said and turned her head even further away.
      "And that is the truth!" Amenhotep cried. I knew it, I had just forgotten it, because there had been no occupant of the office for so long, no moon between the heaven and earth. And the Viziers of the North and South were the highest. Thank you little Mama, thank you most warmly and cordially."
      And he got up again very grave and solemn of countenance.
     "Come nearer to the king," he said, "Usarsiph, messenger and friend! Come here besides me, and let me tell you. The good Pharaoh  

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fears to startle you. I beg you to steel yourself for what Pharaoh has to say. Steel yourself beforehand, even before you have heard my words, so that you will not fall in a faint and feel as though a winged bull was bearing you up to the skies. Have you prepared yourself? Then hear! You are this man! You yourself and no other are he whom I choose and raise to a place here by my side, to be chief overseer over all, into whose hands the highest power is given, that you may husband the plenty and feed the lands in the years of famine. Can you wonder at this, can my decision take you utterly by surprise? You have interpreted to me my dreams from below, without cauldron or book, just as I felt one must interpret them, and you did not fall dead afterwards as inspired lambs are wont to do. To me that was a sign that you are set apart to take all the measures which, as you clearly recognize, follow from the interpretation. You have inter-preted to me my dreams from above, precisely according to the truth of which my heart was aware, and have explained to me why my Father said that he didn't wish to be called Aton, but the Lord of Aton, and you have enlightened my soul on the doctrinal dif-ference between 'my Father above' and 'my Father who is in heaven.' You are not only a prophet but a rogue as well; you have shown me how by means of the lean years we can fleece the district kings who no longer fit into the picture, and bind the wavering kings of Syria to Pharaoh's seat. God has told you all this; and because of it no one can be as understanding as you, and there can be no sense in my seeking far and near for another. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall be obedient to your word are you very much surprised?"
      "I Lived long," answered Joseph, "at the side of a man who did not know how to be surprised, for he was steadiness itself. He was my taskmaster in the prison. He taught me that steadiness is nothing but being prepared for everything. So I am not overwhelmingly sur-prised. I am in Pharaoh's hand."
      "And in your hands shall be the lands, and you shall be as myself before all the people," said Amenhotep with feeling. Take this in the first place," said he. With nervous fingers he jerked and pulled a ring over his knuckle and thrust it upon Joseph's hand. It was an oval lapis lazuli of exceptional beauty, in a high setting. It glowed like the sunlit heavens, and the name Aton within the royal cartouche was engraved on the stone. "That shall be the sign," Meni went on with passion, once more growing quite pale, "of your plenary power and representative status, and whosoever sees it shall tremble and know that each word you utter to one of my servants, be he the highest or the lowest, shall be as my own word. Whoever has a request to Pharaoh he shall come first before you, and your word shall be kept and obeyed because wisdom and reason stand at your side. I am Pharaoh!  

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I set you over all the land of Egypt, and without your will shall no one stir hand or foot in the two lands. Only by the height of the royal seat shall I be higher than you, and lend you of the loftiness and splendour of my throne. You shall drive in my second chariot, just behind mine, and they shall run alongside and shout: 'Take care, take your heart to you, here is the Father of the Lands!' You shall stand before my throne and have the power of the keys, unlimited.  
. . . Isee you shake your head, little Mama, you turn it away  and I hear you murmur something about extravagance. But there can be something splendid about extravagance. And just now Pharaoh is bent on extravagance. You shall have a title and style confirmed to you, lamb of God, such as was never heard before in Egypt; and in it your death- name shall disappear. We have of course the two viziers; but I will create for you the as yet unknown title of Grand Vizier. But that will not be nearly enough; for you shall be called in addi-tion Friend of the Harvest of God, and Sustainer of Egypt, and shadow- spender of the King, Father of Pharaoh - and whatever else happens to occur to me, though just now I am so happy and ex-cited that nothing else does. Do not shake your head , Mama, let me this one time have my fun; for I am extravagant on purpose and consciously. It is grand that it will happen as in the foreign song that goes:



                  Father Inlil has named his name Lord of the Lands.
                  He shall administer all realms over which I hold sway,
                  All my obligations shall he take to himself.
                                                .    .    .  
                  His land shall flourish, he himself shall be in health.  
                  His word shall stand firm, what he commands shall not
                         Be changed,
                   Not any god shall alter the word of his mouth.



As it goes in the song and as the foreign hymn says so shall it be, and it gives me infinite pleasure. Prince of the Interior and Vice God: so shall you be called at the investiture. We cannot undertake your gild-ing here, there is no adequate treasure-house out of which I can re-ward you with gold, with collars and chains. We must go back at once to Weset, it can only be there, at Merimat in the palace, in the great court under the balcony. And a wife must be found for you from the best circles - that is, of course, a whole lot of wives, but first of all the first and true one. For it is settled I am going to see you married. You will find out what a pleasure that is!" And Amenhotep clapped his hands with  the eager unrestraint of a child.
      "Eiy!" he called breathlessly to the chamberlain who came crouch-ing forward. "We are leaving. Pharaoh and the whole court are go- 

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ing back to Nowet-Amun today. Make haste, it is a gracious com-mand. Make ready my boat Star of theTwo Lands, I will travel on it with the eternal mother, the sweet consort, and this elect one, the Adon of my house, who from now on shall be as myself in Egypt . Tell it to the rest their will be a tremendous gilding!"
      The hunchback had of course been close to the portieres the whole time, he had listened with all his might, but he had not trusted his ears. Now he was forced to believe; and we can imagine how he fawned like a kitten and bridled and kissed his fingers.      
                    
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IT is well that this conversation between Pharaoh and Joseph - which led to the lifting up of the departed one, so that he was made great in the west - this famous and yet almost unknown conversation which the great mother, who was present, not unaptly called a conversation of gods about God, has now been re-established from beginning to end in all its turnings, windings and conversational episodes. Well that it has been set down with exactitude once and for all, so that everyone can follow the course which in its time it pursued in reality; so that if some point or other should slip the memory, one need only turn back and read. The summary nature of the tradition up till now almost makes it, however venerable, unconvincing. For instance upon Joseph's interpretation and his advice to the king to look about for a wise and knowledgeable and forethoughted man, Pharaoh straight-way answers; "Nobody is so knowledgeable and wise as you. I will set you over all Egypt." And overwhelms him on the spot with the most extravagant honours and dignities. There is too much abridge-ment and condensation about this, it is too dry, it is a drawn and salted and embalmed remnant of the truth, not truth's living linements. Pharaoh's inordinate enthusiasm and favour seem to lack foundation and motivation. Long ago when, overcoming the shrinking of our flesh, we pulled ourselves together for the trip down through millen-nial abysses, down to the regions below, to the field and the fountain where Joseph was standing; what we were actually after was to listen to that very conversation and to bring it back with us in all its members as it really came to pass and took place at On in Lower Egypt.
      Of course, there is really nothing against condensation in itself. It is useful and even necessary. In the long run it is quite impossible to narrate life just as it flows. What would it lead to? Into the infinite. It would be beyond human powers. Whoever got such an idea fixed in his head would not only never finish, he would be suffocated at the outset. Entangled in a web of delusory exactitude, a madness of detail No excision must play its part at the beautiful feast of narra-

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tion and recreation ; it has an important and indispensable role. Here then the art will be judiciously practised, to the end of getting finally quit of preoccupation which though after all it has a distant kin-ship with the attempt to drink the sea dry, must not be driven to the folly of actually and literally doing so.
       What would have become of us, for instance, when Jacob was serv-ing with the devil Laban, seven and thirteen and five - in short, twenty-five years, of which every tiniest time element was full of a life-in-itself, quite worth telling?   And what would become of us now without that reasonable principle, when our little bark, driven by the measuredly moving stream of narration, hovers again on the brink of a time-cataract of seven and seven prophesied years?  Well, to begin with, and just amongst ourselves: in these fourteen years things were neither quite so definitely good nor so definitely bad as the prophecy would have them. It was fulfilled no doubt about that. But fulfilled as life fulfils imprecisely. For life and reality always assert a certain independance, sometimes on such a scale as to blur the prophecy out of all recognition. Of course, life is bound to the prophecy; but within those limits it moves so freely that one almost has one's choice as to whether the prophecy has been fulfilled or not. In our present case we are dealing with a time and a people animated by the best will in the world to believe in the fulfilment, however inexact. For the sake of the prophecy they are willing to agree that two and two make five -  if the phrase may be used in a context where not five but an even higher odd number, namely seven, is in question.  Probably this would constitute no great difficulty, five being almost as respectable a number as seven; and surely no reasonable man would insist that five instead of seven could constitute an inex-actitude.
       In fact and in reality the prophesied seven looked rather more like five. Life being living, put no clear or absolute emphasis on either number.The fat and the lean years did not come up out of the womb of time to balance each other so unequivocally as in the dream. The fat and lean years that came were like life in not being entirely fat or entirely lean Among the fat ones were one or two which might have been described as certainly not lean, but to a critical eye as certainly no more than very moderately fat.  The lean ones were all lean enough, at least five of them, if not seven; but among them there may have been a couple which did not reach the last extreme of exiguity and even half-way approached the middling. Indeed, if the prophecy had not existed they might not have been recognized as years of famine at all. As it was, they were blithely reckoned in along with the others.

Does all this detract from the fulfilment of the prophecy? Of course not Its fulfilment is incontestable, for we have the fact - the  

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facts of our tale, of which our tale consists, without which it would not be in the world and without which, after the snatching away and the lifting up, the making to come after could not have happened. Certainly things were fat and lean enough in the land of Egypt and adjacent regions, years long-fat and years-long more or less lean, and Joseph had plenty of chance to husband the plenty and distribute the crying lack, and like Utnapishtim-Atrachasis, like Noah the ex-ceeding wise one, to prove himself a man of prudence and foresight, whose ark rocks safe on the flood. In loyal service to the highest he did this as his minister, and by his dealings he gilded Pharaoh over and over again."  
 

But for the present it was himself who was gilded; for to "become a man of gold" was the phrase the children of Egypt  used for what now happened to him when by Pharaoh's gracious command - together with this god, the Queen-mother, the sweet consort, and the princesses Nezemmut and Baketaton - he had made the journey up-stream on the royal bark Star of the Two Lands back to Weset, amid the plaudits of the crowded shores. Back to Weset, amid the plaudits of the crowded shores. There with the sun-family he made his entry into the palace of the west,, Merimat, set in its gardens, at the foot of the high-coloured desert hills. There he received spacious quarters , servants rainment, and everything for his comfort and pleasure and as early as the second day the state function of the investiture and gilding was held, begin-ing with the ceremonial progress by the court when the purchased slave did actually drive in Pharaoh's second car directly behind the monarch and surrounded by his Syrian and Nubian bodyguard and fan-bearers, separated from the car of the god only by a troop of runners who cried : "Abrekh!" and Take care!" and "Grand Vizier!" and "Behold the father of the land !"By this means it was made known to the populace what was going on and who that was in the second car. At least they saw and understood that Pharaoh had made some-one very great, for which he must have had his own reasons, even if it was his gracious will and whim, that being quite reason enough. Moreover, since the idea of a dawning new age and great improvement in all things was somehow always bound up with such an investiture and lifting up, Weset's people exulted greatly on the house-tops and hopped on one leg along the avenues. They shouted: "Pharaoh!" and  "Neb-nef-nezem!"and "Great is Aton!" And you might even distinguish this name pronounced with a softer sound: "Adon! Adon!" doubtless referring to Joseph. For it had probably leaked out that he was an Asiatic, and it seemed proper - particularly to the women - to hail him by the name of the Syrian "Lord" and bridegroom, not least because he whom they dis-  

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9 x 8 x 2 = 144   1 + 4 + 4 = 9  /

tinguished was so very young and handsome. It should be added here that among all his titles it was this name that stuck And in all the land of Egypt he was called Adon all his life, in speaking both to and of him.
     After this fine procession they were all ferried across the river to the west bank and back to the palace to the west bank and to the palace, where there was now to take place the ceremony of the gilding, always wonderful and this time simply irresistable to the eye and the heart. Its course was as follows: Pharaoh, and She-who-filled-the-palace with-love, Nefernefruaton the Queen, showed themselves at the so-called audience-window, actually not a window but a sort of balcony giving on an inner course of the palace, a pillared terrace in front of the great reception hall. It was magnificently constructed of malachite and azure and adorned with bronze uraei. But in front of this was still another little structure supported on enchantingly garlanded lotus columns. Its broad balus-trade was covered with gay cushions, and on these their Majesties leaned to fling down the gold presents of every shape and sort, handed them by officers of the treasure-house, upon the lucky man standing below on the terrace. The present recipient, of course was none other than Joseph the son of Jacob. The scene and all that went with it were never forgotten by those who once saw it. Everything swam in a sea of colour and pomp, of extravagant favour and fervid ecstasy. The splendid fretwork of the architecture, the banners flap-ping in the breeze, under a sunny sky, from the gay gilded and painted wooden columns; the blue and red whisks and fans of the ranking retainers who filled the court, dressed in flowing gala aprons, bow-ing and scraping, cheering and paying homage; women striking tam-bourines; boys with the youth-lock told off to jump for joy without stopping; the hosts of scribes  in their customary obsequious posture, writing down with their reeds everything that happened; the view through three wide-open gates into the outer court, full of vehicles whose prancing horses carried tall coloured plumes on their heads and behind them the drivers, facing the scene with them, bowing low and lifting their arms; looking in on all this from outside the red and yellow mountains of Thebes, dark blue and violet in their shadowy depths; and on the splendid ceremonial estrade the god-like pair, fragile and smiling in their languid elegance, wearing their high caplike crowns with the drapery protecting the back of their necks: uninterruptedly, with obvious enjoyment tossing out of an inexhaustible store the shower and dower of valuables on the favoured one below, strings of gold beads, gold in the shape of lions, gold arm-bands, gold daggers, gold fillets, collars, sceptres, vases hatchets, all out of fine gold - the recipient of course could not catch them all, so he had two slaves to heap up in front of him on the ground a veritable golden hoard, glittering in the sunshine amid the  

/ Page 983  

9 x 8 x 3 = 216   2 + 1 + 6 = 9  /

onlookers' admiring cries - yes, this was certainly, take it all in all, the prettiest scene imaginable; and were it not for the inexorable laws of abridgement and condensation it would be described here in greater detail.
     Jacob in his time had amassed treasure during his life with Laban the devil in the land of no return. On this day his darling did so too, in the merry land of the dead into which he had died and been sold. For certainly all that gold exists only in the lower world. Here in this very spot and space of time he became a well-to-do man sim-ply by dint of the gold of favour. We know that foreign kings, trad-ing with Pharaoh for gold were wont to say that in Egypt that metal was no more precious than the dust in the streets. But it is an economic error to think that gold decreases in value the more there is of it. Yes that was a red-letter day for the snatched-away and set apart one, a day full of  worldly blessing. One could wish that Jacob the father might have beheld it, feeling as he gazed a mixture of pride and dismay in which the first would have outweighed the second. Joseph did wish it; and later he said: "Tell the father of all my glory in Egypt!" He had had a letter from Pharaoh that day, not written by the King himself, of course, but by the "actual scribe," his secre-tary, by Pharaoh's order. It was somewhat stiff, but as a calligraphic production quite delightful,and in its content most gracious. It said:
     "Command of the King to Osarsiph, the overseer of that which the heavens give, the earth produces, and the Nile brings forth, superin-tendent of all things in the whole land and actual administrator of works. My Majesty has heard with pleasure the words which a few days before this , in the conversation which the King was pleased to hold with you at On in Lower Egypt, you spoke about heavenly and earthly things. On that happy day you greatly rejoiced the heart of Nefer-Kheperu-Re with that which he really loves. My Majesty heard these words from you with extraordinary pleasure, in that you linked the heavenly with the earthly and through your concern for the one at the same time showed great concern for the other, and also contributed to the teaching of my father who is in heaven. Truly you know how to say what pleases My Majesty extraordinarily, and what you say makes my heart to laugh.
My Majesty also knows that you rejoice to say what My Majesty likes to hear. O Osarsiph, I say to you times without end: Beloved of his lord! Rewarded of his lord! Favourite and ordained of his lord! Truly the Lord of Aton loves me, since he has given you to me! As true as Nefer-Kheperu-Re lives eter-nal, whenever you utter a wish, be it orally or in writing to My Majesty, My Majesty will straightway see it granted."
     "And in anticipation of such a wish, in Egyptian thought the most pressing concern of all, the letter ended by saying that Pharaoh had given orders for the immediate excavation, construction, and decora-  

/ Page 984  

9 x 8 x 4 = 288   2 + 8 + 8 = 18   1 + 8 = 9   9 + 8 + 4 = 21   2 + 1 = 3  /

tion of an eternal dwelling, in otherwords a tomb for Joseph in the Western hills.
     After the exalted one had read this paper, there took place before the assembled court, in the great columned hall behind the balcony of audience, the great ceremony of the investiture; at which Pharaoh, besides the signet ring already given and all the gold showered upon him, hung a particularly heavy gold necklace of favour round Jo-seph's neck over his immaculate court garment which of course was not made of silk as we in our ignorance might think, but of the finest royal linen. The Vizier of the South read the letters patent which Pharaoh had conferred, and the style and titles under which hence-forth Joseph's death name should be hidden. Most of these we already know from Pharaoh's own lips and from the formal letter with its official superscription: "Administrator of what the heavens give," and so forth. The most impressive was probably "The King's shad-ow-dispenser," "friend of the harvest of God," "nourisher of Egypt" ("Ka-ne-Keme" in the language of the country). "Grand Vizier," although unprecedented, and "universal friend of the King," as distinguished from "unique friend," sounded pale besides them. But it did not stop there, for Pharaoh was bent on extravagance. Joseph was called Adon of the royal house," and "Adon over all Egypt." He was called " chief mouthpiece" and "prince of meditation," "increaser of the teachings," "good shepherd of the people," "double of the King," "vice-Horus." There had not been such a thing before, the future repeated it, and probably it could only happen under the dominion of a young king prone to impulsiveness and bursts of extravagant resolve. There was another title still, but there was more like a personal name and intended not so much to cover as to replace Joseph's own. Posterity has speculated much about it, and even the most respectable tradition gives an inadequate or misleading interpre-tation. It is said that Pharaoh called Joseph his "Privy Counsellor." That is an uninformed version. In our script the name would have appeared as Dje-p-nut-ef-onch, which the glib-lipped children of Egypt pronounced Dgepnuteefonech, with the palatal ch on the end. The most prominent part of the combination is onch or onech, the sign for which in picture writing is (  ) which means life and which the gods held under the noses of men, especially their sons the kings, that they might have breath. The name then, which was added to Joseph's many titles, was a name of life it meant: The god (Aton, one did not need to specify) "says: Life be with thee!" But even that was not in whole meaning. It meant, for every ear that heard it, not only "Live thou thyself," but also "Be a life- bringer, spread life, give life giving-food to the many!" In a word, it was a name that meant satisfaction , sufficiency; and in that character above all had Joseph been exalted. All his titles and styles, in so far as they did not  

/  Page 985  

9 x 8 x 5 = 360    3 + 6 = 9   3 x  6 = 18  1 + 8 = 9  /

refer to his personal relation to Pharaoh, contained in some form or other this idea of the preservation of life, the feeding of the country; and of all them, including this excellent and much disputed one, could be  comprehended in a single epithet: the Provider."

Page 986    9 x 8 x 6 = 432    4 + 3 + 2 =   9
Page 987    9 x 8 x 7 = 504    5 + 0 + 4 =   9
Page 988    9 x 8 x 8 = 576    5 + 7 + 6 = 18   1 + 8 = 9
Page 989    9 x 8 x 9 = 648    6 + 4 + 8 = 18   1 + 8 = 9
Page 990    9 x 9 x 0 =   81          8 + 1 =  9

Page 87  

"...Amenhotep III, the luxury-loving pharaoh who spent his life enjoying the fruits of his predeces-sors' conquests, added Mitannian princesses to his interna-tional assemblage of wives and favourites. When local medical help failed him in his illness, he asked the king of Mitanni for  

/ Page 88  /  

a statue of the Ninevite goddess of love Ishtar, hoping that her celebrated healing powers would relieve his symptoms. His son Amenhotep IV, the so-called heretic king, initiated a short-lived religious revolution, the philosophical content of which is still a matter of discussion. Some believe the king was mad, or at least mentally unbalanced; others, like James Henry Breasted, have called him 'the first individual in history', a man who had the courage to defy the powerfully entrenched  

/Page 89  

8 x 9 = 72  /  

priesthood of Amen-Re, and with his beautiful wife Nefertiti to establish a new capital at el Amarna, where he devoted his life to a novel religion. This was based on the worship of the Aten, the 'One God', whose symbol was the sun's disk. The pharaoh changed his name to Akhenaten, meaning he who is serviceable to Aten'. In a single stroke he tried to abo-lish the innumerable deities whom the Egyptians had inherited from predynastic times; all were to be swept away, even Osiris, god of the dead, who by this time had almost come to equal Amen-Re in importance. This religious revolt was accom-panied by an equally short-lived revolution in art; the statu-ary and tombs of the so-called Amarna period, of which the best known is the Berlin portrait bust of Nefretiti, are distinguished by a startling realism that contrasted sharply with the traditional canons of Egyptian art. Akhenaten encouraged his sculptors to depict him as he was with swollen belly,  

/ Page 90  /

elongated jaw, and pronounced effeminate characteristics; also to show him, not in the conventional austere pose of the god-king, but, with informality, as a devoted spouse and parent, kissing and fondling his daughters (he had no sons).
      The Hymn To Aten, which is attributed to the heretic pharaoh and which is inscribed on the walls of several tombs near his capital, contains passages of lyrical beauty; the sun is not merely the fierce, all-pervading heat, driving men into the shade of midday, but the gentle source of life in all created things."  
Page 8   "...Akhenaten 1379-1361"
    
"...Akhenaten 1379-1361"                                                      
                1379 minus 1361  
                      Iz 18 Azin  1 + 8 iz 9 so writ that scribe                                        
 
     1379                                      1361
1 x 3 x 7 x 9                           1 x 3 x 6 x 1      
     3 x 7                                     3 x 6
    21 x 9                                       18
       189                            Azin Re + 8     Or times Re, writ the scribe writing Re three times making a total of four.
 
1 x  8 x  9                                 1 +  8  +  9
     72                                               18  
   7 + 2                                           1 + 8
      9                                                 9
  "...Akhenaten 1379-1361"
1379 x 360                                1361 x 360
    496440                                     489960  
                            

Page 38

It was not until the fourth year of his reign that Akhenaten adopted the religion of the
Aten, to which he devoted the rest of his life to the exclusion of all other considerations.The
Aten is the actual disc of the sun , the physical sun that emits heat and sends out visible rays; whereas Re is the divine element in the sun and is a more abstract, perhaps a more spiritual, conception. Akhenaten was therefore no heretic, for the sun in all its aspects was the royal god, and this was recognised by him for he worshipped Re, Horus, and the Mnevis bull.