GENESIS
Page 53

53 + 37 = 90
B.C. 1780                                                            
                                                          The history of Jacob resumed.
      
   "AND Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.
                                                        
                                                          Joseph, the beloved of his father

2     These are the generations of Ja-cob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his
       brethren: and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives: and               Joseph
       brought unto his father their evil report.

3     Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made

4     him a coat of many colours."  

Page 322  

"...The lad stared in amaze. He drew a long breath through his open, laughing mouth. The metal embroideries glittered in the lamplight. The flashing silver and gold blotted out at times the quieter colours as the old man held it up his unsteady arms: the purple, white, olive-green, rose colour, and black of the emblems and images, the stars, doves, trees, gods, angels, men and beasts, lustrous against the bluish mist of the background.      
"... Give it to me. How doth one wear it, how put it on? Like this - or like this - ? Or this way ? How do I please thee? Am I the gay shepherd-bird in the many coloured coat? Mami's rainment - how doth it become her son?"        

Page 323  

"...How well it set him off! It covered his head and wrapped his shoulders, the silver doves glittered and the gay embroideries glowed,it fell in folds about his youthful form and made him look taller than he really was. But not only so. For the festal garment became his face to such an extent that nobody who saw him could have disputed the popular verdict upon his charms. It made him so lovely and so well favoured that the phenomenon was actually no longer quite earthly: in fact it bordered on the supernatural. Worst of all, the likness to his mother - her look, her forehead and brows, the shape of her mouth - had never stood out so clearly as in this dress: poor Jacob was so smitten by it that his eyes overflowed, and he thiught nothing else than he was beholding Rachel in Laban's house on the day of fulfilment.
          It was the mother-goddess who stood before him smiling, in the boy's lovely guise, and asked:
          "I have put on my coat shall I take it off?"
          "No, no, keep it, keep it!" the father said. The young god rushed away. Jacob lifted his brow and his hands, and   his lips moved in prayer."  

Page 54  

5 + 4 = 9

13       "And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send        thee unto them
       And he said to him, Here am I  
14    And he said to him, Go I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks;        and bring
        me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron and he came to Shechem.
15    And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was  wandering in the field: and the man asked him               saying,
        What seekest thou?
16    And he said, I seek my breth-ren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks."
 

Page 360  

3 + 6 = 9  

"The dear man took no offense at the simplicity of this request. He seemed to be in a position to disregard it and forbore to say to Joseph that his request was somewhat vague. He answered:
    "They are not here, not even in the neighbourhood."    
    Joseph looked at him in bewilderment as they went."
"..."Not here, then," repeated the boy. How can that be? They said so definitely they were all going together to Shechem when they left home. Dost thou know them, then?"            "A little answered his companion. As much as is needful. Oh no, very familiar with them I am not, indeed no, Why dost thou seek them?"
         "Because my father sent me to them, to greet them and see whether things go well with them."
         "Indeed! Then thou art a messenger. Even as I. I often make jour-neys on foot with my staff. But I also am a guide."          "A guide
         "Yes truly. I guide travellers and open the ways for them; that is my business and therefore I spoke to thee as I saw that thou wast seeking as thou wentest."
         "Thou seemest to know that my brethren are not here. But dost thou know where they are?"
         "I think so."
         "Then tell me."  "

Page 361  

"When I came by this place the last time on my ways, a few days ago I heard thy brethren say: 'Up we will go to Dothan with a part of the sheep, for a change.' "
          "To Dothan?"
      "Why not to Dothan?" It occurred to them and they did it. There is sweet passage in the valley of Dothan
      "... No matter for that, responded Joseph. "Rather advise me what I shall do now?"
    "Very simple thou goest to Dothan."  

Page 367  

"...Thou canst not go wrong: round the hill and then back into the valley behind it five hundred paces through scrub and clover - there wilt thou find thy brethren, near a well where there is no water. If thou  needest aught from thy ass bethink thee now. Not a headcloth to shield thee from the sun?"
      "Thou'rt right, cried Joseph. The mischance hath robbed me of my head. That will I not leave here," said he, and drew the ketonet out of the beringed leather bag, " nor in thy care either, whatever good side thou showest. For I will take it with me afoot into the vale of Dothan, that I may arrive in splendour even if not on white Hulda as Jacob would have wished. Iwill put it on at once and be-fore thine eyes - so - and so - and thus, and thus. How dost thou like it? Am I not a gay shepherd boy in my coat of many colours? Mami's veil how doth it become her son?"
 
Joseph And His Technicoloured Dream Coat
"I closed my eyes, drew back the curtain, to see for certain, what I thought I knew.
Far far away some one was weeping, but the world was sleeping.
Any dream will do.
I wore my coat, with golden lining, bright coloured shining, wonderful and new.
And in the east, the dawn was breaking, as the world was waking
Any dream will do.
A crash of drums, a flash of light, my golden cloak, blew out of sight.
The colours faded into darkness, I was left alone.
The world and I, we are still waiting , still hesitating, any dream will do.
A crash of drums, a flash of light, my golden cloak blew out of sight.
The colours faded into darkness, I was left alone.
May I return to the beginning, the light is dimming, and the dream is too.
The world and I, we are still waiting, still hesitating, any dream will do."

Page 372    

"Now it happened that Asher, Zilpah's son with curiosity unquenched even by affliction, peered out over his knees so that his eyes roved across the plain. And afar off in the morning light he saw something glitter like a flash of silver, which disappeared and came again, some-times in a single flash, sometimes two or more close together.
      Asher jogged his brother Gad as they sat next to each other, pointed out the will-o'-the-wisp, and asked him what it meant. They shaded their eyes to look and gestured their surprise; the others saw and heard, and those who sat with their backs to the plain turned round to gaze, following the direction of Asher's eyes; until at last all the brothers had lifted their heads and peered out together at a shimmer-ing figure which was moving towards them.
"One cometh all shining, Judah spoke. But after they had waited awhile for the figure to come nearer, Dan answered:
      "It is not a man it is a boy."

Page54

18    And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to        slay him.
19    And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.



                                                                   Joseph cast into the place of death.



20   Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast        hath devoured
       him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
21   And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him.
22   And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is tn the wilderness, and lay no         hand upon
        him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again.
23    And it came to pass, when Jo-seph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat,
        his coat of many colours that was on him;
24    And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty there was no water in it.
25    And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold, a company of               Ishmeelites came
        from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.
26     And Judah said unto his breth-ren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?
27     Come, let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let our hand not be upon him; for he is our brother and our         flesh. And his
         brethren were content.
28   Then there passed by Midian-ites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and         sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.
36    And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's and captain of the guard

Page 56

Chapter 39 3 x 9 = 27
                            2 + 7 = 9

B.C. 1727

       " AND Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an         Egyptian,
       bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him down thither.
2     And the LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master         the Egyptian
3     And his master saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to pros-per in         his hand.  
4     And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all         that he had
       put into his hand.
5     And it came to pass from the time that he had made him over-seer in his house, and over all that he had,         that the
       Lord blessed the Egyptians house for Joseph's sake; and the blessing of the LORD was upon all that he         had in the
       House, and in the field.
6     And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand; and he knew not ought he had, save the bread which he did         eat. And
       Joseph was a goodly person and well favoured.
       And it came to pass after these things,that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said Lie         with me.
8     But he refused, and said unto his master' wife, Behold, my mas-ter wotteth not what is with me in the         house, and he hath  
        commited all that he hath to my hand;
9      There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee, because         thou art his
        wife: how then can I  do then this great wicked-ness, and sin against God?
8       And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or         to be with her.
9        And it came to pass about this time, that Joseph went into the house to do his business;and there was         none of the men of
        the house there within.
12    And she caught him by his gar-ment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled,         and got him out.
13    And it came to pass, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and was fled forth,
14    That she called unto the men of her house, and spake unto them, saying, See, he hath brought in an                 Hebrew unto us to
         mock us; he came in unto me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice:
15    And it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me,         and fled,
16    And she laid up his garment by her, until his lord came home.
17    And she spake unto him ac-cording to these words, saying, The Hebrew servant, which thou hast                 brought unto us, came
        in unto me to mock me:
18    And it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled out
19    And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife,which she spake unto him saying, After         this manner did
        thy servant to me; that his wrath was kindled.
20    And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison, a place where the king's prisoners were                 bound: and he was
        there in the prison."

Page 852  

"Joseph too - by the law of correspondences between Above and Be-low - was thinking of the flood. The two sets of thought met, or rather, if you like moved parallel to each other far apart; for this young specimen of the human race, thinking them here on the waves of the Jeor, bowed down by the weight of events and the traditional procedure of punishment for guilt, was thinking with much more immediacy and associative energy than were the hosts above, who, having no experience of suffering, were just having a pleasant, refined little gossip
But more of this later. The convict lay discomfortably in the plank compartment which served as cabin and storeroom to a smallish freight-boat built with acacia-wood with a pitched deck."
"...It was manned by four oarsmen, who had to take to their oars when the wind died down or was con-trary and the swaying double mast was lowered. They stood on the platform of the forward deck; there was a steerman aft and two under-servants of Petepre acted as escorts, also served at the ropes and with the lead. Finally there was Khamat, the scribe of the buffet. To him had been entrusted the command of the ship and the transport of the prisoner to Zawi-Re, the island fortress. He carried on his per-son a sealed letter which the master had written about his erring steward to the warden of the prison, a captain of troops and writer to command of the victorious army named Mai-Sachme.
       The journey was long and protracted - Joseph thought of that other, early one, seven and three years before, when for the first time he had voyaged on this river, with the old man who bought him with Mibsam his son-in-law, Epher his nephew, and Kedar and Kedema his sons  In nine days they had come from Menfe, city of the Swaddled One, to No-Amen, the royal city. But now they were going far beyond Menfe, yes past On the Golden,and past Per- Bastet, the city of cats. Zawi-Re, the bitter goal, lay deep in the land of Seth and the  

/ Page 853 /

red crown, that is to say in Lower Egypt, down in the desert, in a branch of the district of Mendes,which there is called Djedet. It was to the abominable goat-district they were carrying him; the thought gave his apprehensive and brooding melancholy an added pang. Yet it was not without a sense of destiny, a heightened sense of emotion and lively play of thought. He was a son of Jacob and his real and only wife, and never all his life long would he be able to check this play - just as little now as a man of seven-and-twenty as when he was a simple inexperienced lad. And the kind of play nearest to his heart, most satisfying to his mind, was the play of illusion; so that when his life, so painfully introspected, seemed full of that quality, and its circumstances to show themselves suffused with correspondences to the motion of higher things, he was prone to feelings of satisfaction, since such correspondences could never really be sad.  
       Sad enough in all conscience his circumstances were; and sadly musing he pondered them as he lay with his arms bound together at the elbows across his back, in his little compartment, on the roof of which the provender of the crew was heaped up, melons, ears of maize, and loaves of bread. He had returned to a hideously familiar state; again he lay helpless, in bonds, as once he had lain for three hor-rible days in the dark of the moon , in the hole of the well, with worms crawling and rustling about him, and fouled himself like a sheep with his own filth. True his present state was a little less rigorous than before, because his fetters were not much more than a matter of form and for appearance's sake, being a piece of ship,s rope they had for-borne to tighten. But even so his fall was not less deep  and breath-taking, the change in his life not less abrupt and incredible. That other time, the spoiled darling and pet of his father, always annointed with the oil of gladness, had been treated in a way he could never have dreamed of. This time it was Usarsiph, he who had mounted so high in the land of the dead, who was head overseer and dwelt in the special chamber of trust, who tasted all the charms and refinements of culture and arrayed himself in pleated royal linen - to this Usarsiph was his present treatment now meted out; he was sore smitten indeed.
       Gone all the fine-folded linen, the modish apron and elegant sleeved coat, this being now become the evidence which spoke against him.
They had given him a single garment, the slave's hip-apron, such as the crew wore. gone the curled wig, the enamelled collar, the arm-bands and necklace of red and gold. All this refinement and beauty was vanished away, not one poor ornament left, save on his neck the little packet with the amulet which he had worn in the land of his fathers and with which the seventeen-year old lad had gone down to the pit. The rest was laid aside - Joseph used the significant words to himself, an allusive phrase, as the fact itself was an allusion and a

/ Page 854   /

matter of mournful order and correspondence. It would have been quite false, travelling whither he travelled, to wear breast and arm adornment. The hour of unveiling, of putting off ornaments, was at hand, the hour of descent into hell. A cycle had come round: a small cycle often completed; but also a greater, too, bringing round its like more seldom; for the revolutions of the two coincided with each other at the centre Alittle year was returning on itself, a sun-year - insofar, that is as the mud depositing water had run off again and (not by the calendar but in practical reality) it was sowing time, the time of ploughing and hoeing, the breaking up of the soil When Joseph  now and then got up from his mat and Khamat allowed him to walk on the caulked deck, with his hands on his back as though  he held them there at will, he would stroll about or sit on a coil of rope, in the clear-carrying echoing air above the water and watch the peasants on the fertile shore performing their careful, life-and-death task of digging and sowing that was hedged about with so many taboos and penalties. A mournful task, for sowing-time is mourning-time, when the Corn King is buried, when Usir is borne down to the dark and hope is seen but from afar. It is a time of weeping - Joseph wept a little himself at sight of the corn-burying little peasants, for he two was being buried again into the darkness and into hope only too far away - in token that a great year had come round as well and brought repetition, renewal of life, the journey into the abyss.      
       It was the abyss into which the True Son descends,Etura, the sub-terrestrial sheepfold, Aralla, kingdom of the dead. Through the pit he had come into the land below, the land of the rigour of death; now again the way went down into bor and prison, towards Lower Egypt - lower it could not go. Days of the dark moon came again, great days which would become years, and during which the underworld had power over the Beautiful One. He declined and died but after three days he would rise again. Down into the well of the abyss sank Attar-Tammuz as evening star; but as morning star it was certain he would rise up out of it. This we call hope and hope is a precious gift .Yet after all it has something forbidden about it, because it contracts the value of the hallowed present and anticipates the festal hours of the cycle, which are not yet at hand. Each hour has its honour, and he does not live aright who cannot despair. Joseph held this view. His hope, indeed, was the most certain knowledge; yet as a child of the moment he wept.
        He knew his tears. Gilgamesh had wept them when he had scorned Ishtar's longing and she had "prepared tears for him. He was thor-oughly worn out from the severe trial he had endured, the pressure from the woman, the severe crisis of the climax and the utter down-fall and transformation of his life. The first few days he did not ask

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Khamat's permission to walk on deck amid the colour and bustle of Egypts great artery. He lay alone on the mat in his pen and wove a web of dreamlike thoughts. He dreamed tablet-verses.
       Ishtar the raving bounded to Amo, King of the Gods, demanding revenge. Thou shalt create the steer of the heavens, he shall stamp on the world, singe the earth with the fiery breath of his nostrils, wither and destroy the ground."  
     "The heavenly steer will I create, Lady Ashirta, for grieviously art thou affronted. But chaff-years will come, seven in number, years of famine, thanks to this stamping and singeing. Hast thou provided food, heaped up provision, to meet the years of want?"
     "Prepared have I for food, heaped up provisions." 
      "Then will I create the heavenly steer, for sore art thou affronted, Lady Ashirta."
       What singular conduct! When Ashera burnt to destroy the earth because Gilgamesh shrank from her, and demanded the fire-breathing steer, there had not been much sense in accumulating food for the seven years shortage the steer would cause. But anyhow that was what she had done, accepting the condition because she so burned for the avenging  steer. What pleased and intrigued Joseph in the whole thing was just this precaution, which the goddess even at the height of her fury had to reckon with if she was to get her fire-breathing steer. Foresight, carefulness, these were familiar and ever important ideas to the dreamer, however often he might in his folly have done violence to them. And they were almost the first law of life in the land where he had grown up as by a spring, the land of Egypt. For it was a fearful land ; its folk engaged in endless effort, with every kind of magic and charm it could command, to close up all the crannies through which misfortune, great or small, might creep in. And he had now been for so long an Egyptian himself, his fleshly garment made of pure Egyptian stuff, that the national watchword of care and foresight had sunk deep into his soul, where it found its twin already at home. For it was deeply rooted in his native tradition, where the word "sin" had almost the same sense as want of foresight. It meant folly, it meant folly, it meant clumsy dealing with God, it was something to jeer at. Whereas wisdom meant foresight and care for the future. Had not Noah-Utnapishtim been calling the exceeding wise one, sim-ply because he had seen the flood coming and provided for it by building the great ark? The ark, the great chest, the Aron wherein creation survived in the time of the flood; to Joseph the ark was the first instance, the earliest pattern of all wisdom - in other words, of all knowledgeable foresight. And thus, by the route of Ishtar's fury, the trampling and fire eating beast, and the heaping up of pro-visions as a safeguard against want, Joseph's thoughts followed trains parallel to those in the upper sphere about the great Flood; of the

/ Page 856  /

little flood too he was reminded with tears, the one which had come upon him because while he had not indeed, be so lost in folly as to betray God and cast himself out, yet he had certainly been guilty of woeful lack of fore.sight 
               He acknowledged to himself his sin, just as he had done in the first pit, a great year before, and his heart was sore for his father Jacob, and bitterly ashamed before his face for having brought himself down again to the pit in the land whither he had been snatched. What a lifting up had come of that snatching and what a downfall and abasement  had followed it, all due to the want of wisdom! The third - that is, the making-come-after - was so far away now that it was quite out of sight. Joseph's spirit was honestly crushed"
" By Pharaoh's life!" said Khamat as he sat down in the pen beside Joseph's mat, how you have come down in the world, ex-steward, and sunk beneath us all after you had so nimbly mounted above us! One can scarcely believe it.

Page 859

"...And so after a few days Khamat said to Joseph: " Let me tell you, I am fed up with feeding you and having you open your beak like a young daw in the nest , and when you open it words come out that disgust me even more. I am going to untie your bonds so that you  

/ Page 860  /

are not so helpless and I need not be your slave and angel, that is not a scribe's job When we come near your destination I will tie you up again and deliver you in bonds to the governor there, Mai-Sachme, a captain of troops. That is only proper"
"...But you are to tell the governor of the prison that I treated you with tolerable severity and with firmness
tempered with humanity."
   " So will I do said Joseph and got his elbows free until they were far down into the land of Uto the serpent and the seven-branched river in the district of Djedet and near the Zawi-Re, The island fortress then Khamet tied him up again.  
                                                            
                                                            THE GOVERNOR OF THE PRISON  
"Joseph's place of penance and second pit, which he reached after al-most seventeen days' journey, and where by his own trancendental reckoning he was to spend three years before his head should be once more be lifted up, was a group of gloomy buildings irregular in shape and covering almost the whole of the island that rose from the Men-desian  arm of the Nile.."
"...Khamat stood on the bow of the ox-boat and waved his letter at the guards from afar. As they came under the gate he shouted that he was bringing a prisoner who he must  himself in person hand over to the troop captain and head of the prison. To Joseph it seemed as though he were back in the times

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when he and the Ishmaelites were admitted through the gates of the fortress of Thel"
"...But now here he was, led on a rope, like Hapi, the living  representation of Ptah in the court of his temple at Menfe: a captive in Egypt just like that sacred bull. Two of Petepre's people held the ends of his bonds and drove him in front of them. Behind them, Khamat addressed himself beneath the gate to an under-officer with a staff, who had probably given the order for admission, and was referred to a higher official coming across the court with a cudgel. This man took the letter , saying that he would take it to the captain and told them to wait.
      So they waited, under the curious gaze of the soldiery, in a little quadrangle, in the sparse shade of two or three spindling palm trees tufted with green at the top,their round reddish fruits lying about on their roots. The son of Jacob mused. He was recalling what Petepre had said about the governor of the prison into whose hand he was being given: that he was a man with whom one did not jest"
"...Joseph consoled himself with the thought that at least this was a human being with whom he would have to deal - and in Joseph's eyes that meant that he was somehow or other to be got on terms with; in Gods name, however much he might be a prison keeper, yet by this means or that, from one angle if not from another, he could be jested with! Besides, Joseph knew his children of Egypt, the denizens of this land who against a background of deathlike rigidity and a religion of the tomb were blithe and inof-fensive children at heart and easy to live with. Then the letter which the governor was now reading, where Potiphar told him about the man he was casting out, so that the governor could get an idea of his affair: Joseph was confident that the description would not turn out to be too dreadful; that it would not be calculated to evoke the man's grimmest qualities. His real confidence, however was more of a gen-eralization: it proceeded, as it is wont to do with children of the bless-ing, not from himself outwards but inwards upon himself and the happy mysteries of his own nature." Certainly he had got beyond the childish stage of blind confidence, where he had believed that everybody must love him more than they did themselves. What he con-

/ Page 862 /

tinued to believe, was that it was given him to constrain the world and the men in it to turn him their best and brightest side - and this we can see was confidence rather in himself than in the world. In any case the two, his ego and the world, in his view belonged together, they were in a way one, so that the world was not simply the world by and in itself, but quite definitely his world and by virtue of the fact susceptible of being moulded into a good and friendly one. Cir-cumstances were powerful; but what Joseph believed in was their plasticity: he felt sure of the individual destiny upon the general force of circumstances. When like Gilgam-esh he called himself a glad-sorry man, it was in the sense that he knew the happy side of his nature was capable of much suffering, but on the other hand did not believe in suffering - bad and black enough it was that it had proved too dense for his own light, or the light of God in him to penetrate.
      Such was the nature of Joseph's confidence. Generally speaking it was trust in God, and with it he armed himself to look Mai-Sachme, his taskmaster ,in the face. In no long time he was set before him; for they were led through a low covered passage to the foot of the citadel, to a barred door manned by other guards in helmets with bosses on them. The grating presently opened and the troop captain came out.
He was in the company of the high priest of Wepwawet,..."
"...In his hand he the captain held the unsealed roll of the fan-bearer's letter.
      He stood where he was, re-opened and reread it; and when he lifted his face Joseph had a feeling that this was more than just a man's face, it was the very presentment of forbidding circumstance with the light of God striking through, the very face which life shows to the glad-sorry man."

Page 863

"..."You are the former steward of the great courtier Petepre? " he asked.
      "I am he answered Joseph in all simplicity."
"... There was an implication that question and answer did not quite match, that the answer overlapped the question and might tempt the questioner to another question: "What are you ? " or even "Who are you? " over and above that.
       The truth is, Joseph's answer was a formula, old, familiar, and widely appealing from ages past. It was the time- honoured revela-tion of identity, a ritual statement beloved in song and story and play in which the gods had parts. In such a play it is used in order to string together a whole gamut of effects and plot sequences, from mere casting down of the eyes to being thundered at and flung to one's knees.
"..."Yes, yes, so you are,"said he. Possibly at the moment he did not know himself just what he meant by that; and if so the fact that this man before him was the handsomest twenty-seven-year-older in the two lands may have contributed to his absence of mind. Beauty is impressive. Unfailingly it stirs a special kind of trepidation even in the most placid soul from whom fear in general is remote. A sim-ple "I am he" uttered with a sober smile might be magnified by the beauty of the speaker into something unearthly."    
"... Were you ignorant", he went on, that in the stranger's

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house one should not seek out the women with one's eyes? Have you not read the precepts in
the Book of the Dead or the teachings and sayings of the holy Imhotep?"
      "They are familiar to me Joseph replied, "for I have read them countless times aloud and to myself."
      But the captain, though he had asked for an answer, was not listen-ing to it.
     "That was a man,"said he, turning to his companion, the chaplain, "a good companion for life, Imhotep the Wise!
Physican, architect, priest, and scribe all in one, Tut-anch-Djehuti, the living image of Thoth. I venerate the man, that I must say. If it were given me to be appalled, which it is not - perhaps I ought to say unfortunately, I am much too easy-going for that -  but if I could I should certainly be appalled at such encyclopaedic wisdom. He died long years ago, Imhotep the Divine; his like existed only in early times and in the mornings of the two lands. His sovereign was an early king named Djoser, whose eternal dwelling he was known to have built, the stepped pyramid near Menfe, six storeys high, some hundred and twenty ells, but the limestone is poor. Ours up in the quarry where the convicts work is better stuff; the master just had no better to his hand.. But the art of building was only a small part of his knowledge and skill; he knew all the locks and keys to the temple of Thoth. Skilled in medicine he was too and adept in nature's matters, with knowledge of solids and liquids. He had a gentle hand with the sick and could relieve folk groaning and tossing with pain. He himself must have been very tranquil by nature and not prone to fear. Added to all this he was a reed in the hand of God, a writer of wisdom; but his talents worked together, not today a doctor and tomorrow a writer, but both in one and at the same time. I emphasize this because it is to my mind a surpassing virtue. Medicine and writing go well together, they shed light on each other and both do better by going hand in hand. A doc-tor possessed of the writer's art will be the better consoler to anyone rolling in agony; conversely, a writer who understands the life of the body, its powers and its pains, its fluids and functions, its bless-ings and banes, has a great advantage over him who knows nothing of such things. Imhotep was such a doctor and such a writer. A god-like man; they ought to burn incense to him. And I think when he has been dead a while longer
They will. Anyhow, he also lived in Menfe, a very stimulating city."
     "You need not blush before him captain replied the high priest. "For aside from your military service you practise the art of healing, you do good to those who wreathe and writhe, and besides that write very winningly in form and matter, while uniting all these branches in perfect serenity."
     "Serenity by itself does not do it," answered Mai-Sachme, and

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the serenity of his own face with its shrewd round eyes altered a shade into the pensive. "Perhaps I just need to get good and scared once .But how would that happen? - And you? " he said suddenly. He lifted his brows and shook his head as he looked over at Petepre's two-house slaves who were holding the ends of Joseph's bonds. "What are you doing there? Are you going to plough with him or play horse like little boys? I suppose your ex-steward is to do time at hard labour with his hands tied up like a calf for the slaughter? , untie him, stupids! here we work hard for Pharaoh, in the quarry or on the knew buildings, we don't lie about in bonds. What lack of under-standing! These people, he explained to the man of God, live in the belief that a prison is a place where one lies about in chains."

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"... - You people of Wese," he said to Joseph's attendants, "can now be off and set out on your homeward journey. You will be going up-stream and you will have a north wind.Take your rope along with you, and make my compliments to Pharaoh's friend, your master. - Memi!" he gave order in conclusion to the man with the club who

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had ushered in the new arrival. " This slave of the King will do convict labour as assistant in the office;
show him a place to sleep by him-self and give him an upper garment and a staff of office. Very high he once stood, very low has he let himself be brought down here to us; now he must submit to the iron regimen of Zawi-Re."
"...Such was Joseph's first meeting with Mai-Sachme, the governor of the prison.