Ancient Evenings (8 page)

“In the first month of His homecoming, Set invited Him to a great feast, and excited the vanity of Osiris by telling Him of a magnificent chest that He had built to fit the body of the God closest to Temu.

“Set called for the chest to be brought, and commanded the seventy-two Gods of His Court to lay within it one by one. The box fit none of Them. Nor did it match the proportions of Set. At last it became the turn of Osiris, and He was a perfect fit. ‘You are so beautiful,’ said Set, as His brother lay down. Then He slammed the cover. Seven of His warriors sealed it with molten metal.

“Now they carried the chest to the Nile and lay it on the water. It floated away on an afternoon when the sun was in the sign of the scorpion. And Osiris was gone.

“When Isis heard of this, She let out a cry that became part of the shriek men utter when they behold their own wound, and She began to search for the coffin in the marshes of the Delta and in the swamps.”

And I, as if suffering an equal blow, now moved and sat with the side of my face against the cool wood of poor Meni’s burial case, poor Meni indeed! Who, but myself! As Menenhetet One continued to tell his story, I think I must have crawled out along a branch of sleep and fallen from there into another sleep since I only came back into the passage of his voice after the coffin of Osiris had floated all the way down the waters of the Nile and was out at sea on a voyage to Byblos by the shores of Lebanon. There I heard the smack of the last wave as the box was lifted by a swell into the branches of a little evergreen growing out of the rocks on the beach. Yet that poor shrub, twisted by every wind, began to thrive as soon as Osiris came to it, and its trunk grew right around the coffin and rose to prodigious height until the King of Byblos saw it and thereupon had the tree cut down and made into the central pillar of his new palace.

To this shore came Isis, led by Her seven scorpions, and when She arrived at the court of Byblos, and the Queen received Her, Isis smelled of a fragrance sweeter than any garden.

To this Queen, Astarte, the first measure of rank was superb appearance. She only wished those as lovely as herself to come near. Therefore, she welcomed Isis; indeed, they cherished each other so tenderly that Isis could even ask the Queen to beg the King to cut down the pillar, and thereby free Her husband from the coffin. It was a monumental request. The greatest room in Byblos would be destroyed. From the day, however, that he had felled the tree to build the chamber, this King, Melkarth, had become secretly fearful of the silence in his palace. So he agreed.

When the chest was opened, however, Osiris was found in a dreadful state. His face was covered by worms. Isis let out a cry of lamentation, and so loud was the clamor of Her voice that the youngest child of Melkarth died in fright. Blood poured from his ears.

The death was not wholly lamentable to the King. He was far from convinced of the paternity of this son for he had been stricken with impotence as soon as the magnificent tree was down. Now, he felt desire for his wife come back, and he took the Queen to his rooms, and tried to be happy, but could not. He feared to enjoy himself so soon after such a death. It might cost another. But then Melkarth realized that he trusted none of his sons, and was therefore ready, on Isis’ departure, to lend Her the oldest of his boys to serve as crew.

Her ship had hardly gone from sight of land before ministrations were begun over the body in the coffin. Loosing the seven scorpions from the hem of Her skirt, She instructed them to devour the worms that lived on the face and limbs of Osiris. The scorpions worked with all the speed of the wind in the sails, and were as round as pigeon’s eggs before evening. Now, Isis crushed these sluggish bodies to make an unguent, and thereby cast off all protection such scorpions could provide—indeed, even as She killed them, She knew they would send a message to their brothers: “Beware of Isis!”—yet She was determined to repair the beauty of Osiris. The oil for such a restoration could be found only in the bellies of these scorpions full of worms. So, She rubbed this unguent upon Her legs and belly. Having stripped Her skirt for this purpose, She thereby aroused the poor Prince of Byblos until his seed was on the deck. This, She also added to Her skin (for the Prince was favored with the features of his mother) and then washed Osiris in the salve by laying Her body upon Her dead husband and, by this, so excited the return of His seven scattered lights that He came back from all the swamps, harbors, mountains and seas of His death to the home of His body. In this hour, young again, and beautiful, lying on His back, He discharged His seed up into Isis, and it was the first time a Goddess ever dared to sit upon a God. The Prince of Byblos, spying on this copulation, was struck with such a look of malevolence from Isis that he died on the spot and fell into the sea, and Horus, the other brother of Osiris, also died at that instant (breaking His back in a fall from a horse) whereupon Horus, the child of Isis and Osiris, was conceived in the same moment, but He came out with a weakness in His legs. Since Gods do not often die, Horus, the newborn, was a transformation of Horus, the brother, and it is certain the child grew quickly and was a full-grown man in fourteen years. But they were to be hard years. Isis knew that Ra and Set were waiting for Her.

When She came back to Egypt, Isis looked, therefore, to hide the chest containing Her husband. Yet it was not easy to find a place. For the coffin had to rest where the direct rays of Ra could fall upon it. The Sun could only send a curse upon Gods Who tried to hide from Him. Osiris would be safe from Ra’s wrath, if His coffin were not buried. Therefore, Isis chose a shallow lake in the swamps of the Delta, and fixed the box with stones so that it would not float away from the papyrus plants surrounding it; yet, with the lid removed, Osiris could lay open to Ra for His blessing.

Still, Isis felt far from secure. Since Ra could always lay a curse when He went behind a cloud, She had had, at considerable cost, to make Her peace with the scorpions. She took a vow to protect their safety for all their lives to come. It was necessary. She had need of them. Scorpions were that rare species for whom the rays of the Sun are an irritant. So, when the Sun hid itself, they were quick to come out of the ground and wait by the coffin of Osiris. All through the day, therefore, whether in sun or by the vigilance of the scorpions in the gloom, the body of Osiris was guarded. And at night, in the darkest hour of the night when Ra wandered through the underworld, in that wholly dark hour when the scorpions began to sleep, then Isis was confident Set could not find His brother in such a swamp. Besides, Anubis reigned in this hour of greatest darkness, and He was loyal to Isis—which is to say, true so long as He could be. The powers of Anubis might be steadfast in the dark, but loyalty paled just before the dawn when He knew the hour of the jackal, and would wander off.

Now, for months, Set had slept by day and ridden by night, but to no purpose until He convinced Ra to ask the Moon to travel for all of one night into the dawn.

So Set obtained a few more hours of moonlight. But He still had to find the swamp where His brother was hidden. Therefore, He called upon every memory. That was equal to saying His pride had to writhe again in all the shame of the cuckold. Yet if He was obliged to think of Nephthys with Osiris, it was but a step from there to see Osiris in the embrace of Isis, and that made it possible for Set to enter the thoughts of Isis. So, on this night, when the sun was down, Set offered His breath to the evening sky and to the dark ridges of the earth (His mother and father, no less!) and turned slowly until His thoughts could look into Isis where She lived in the town of Buto. Motionless as a hunter, Set waited until the moment when the depth of early night was lit by the moon rising over the swamp. Then, into His mind, at the moment it came into Isis’ mind, arrived the image of the grove where Osiris was hidden. Set spurred His horse, and charged up and down the swamp in search of that view until in a fever of sweat, laved in His own coating of mud, there in the last of the moonlight in the hour of the jackal, He found the open chest unguarded, the scorpions sleeping, and Anubis gone. In this pale hour before dawn, Set lifted His sword and butchered the dead body of His brother, hacking free the heart, the backbone and the neck, the head and legs and arms, Osiris’ stomach, His intestines, His chest, His liver, even His gall bladder, His buttocks! Set would certainly have amputated the genitals if He had not stopped to make a count and discovered He had fourteen pieces already, a number twice seven, thereby a formidable doubling of bad luck to His enemies. But then His frustration was great because He could not mutilate His brother further, and His blood raged until He raised His sword and chopped off His own thumb. And left it in the mouth of Osiris. With His horse, He carried the coffin and the fourteen pieces back to camp, then sent His men to deliver the chest to the camp of Isis. Now He got ready to travel up the Nile. Employing a galley of the most powerful oarsmen in the kingdom, His boat would sail, He knew, and be rowed faster, than Isis could ever follow, and on this journey He would bury the parts of Osiris in different places. But first, in all the vigors of His victory, He chose to go down the separate mouths of the Delta and leave the lower limbs at Bubastis and Busiris (which is why the hieroglyph of the letter B is a drawing of a leg) and He even left one arm at Baloman for good measure, the other at Buto where Isis lived, stopping there long enough to rape Her favorite handmaiden and strew two more pieces in the swamp. Isis was helpless in this hour.

Set then left parts of Osiris at Athribis and Heliopolis and the head at Memphi, gave burial to one section of the body at Fayum, then further up the Nile to Siut, Abydos and Dendera, and feeling safe at last, trusted His men to row the long distance with the last piece up the river to Yeb. And if these men had walked, it would have taken thirty days and thirty days again. But they stopped to celebrate, and so it took twice as long.

Now, Isis lost all desire to move from Her bed. Her breast had no milk. Near to human was Isis in the depth of Her unhappiness. Set had overcome Her magic. Certainly, Her most intimate forces gave no intimation of return. In this sad time, Her thoughts drew tears whose fall gave birth to rain—a last gift of the sweet powers in the body of Osiris scattered now from the marshes of the Delta to the waters of the First Cataract.

I do not know if it was this unfamiliar sound of rain in our Egyptian air, but a haze drifted over my thoughts and I could see these Gods no longer. It was startling to recognize Menenhetet as he looked at me out of the blazing white of his eyes. “We come,” he said, “to the activities of Maat. Without Her, all might be lost for Isis.”

TWO

“Yes,” he said, “Maat is so devoted to the smallest measure of balance, that She chose a feather for Her face. To think that She is the daughter of Ra!” Again, I was confounded by the phenomenon of his laughter. It was as if the greed of the worst beggars passed through him, some sewage of mean human tide. Yet he seemed altogether oblivious to the blow this gave his dignity. “Yes,” said Menenhetet, “Maat is the most innocuous of Ra’s fornications. In fact, She was conceived by a little bird who (after all the quick and timid trips of her life) became, for once, intoxicated by the warmth of the air. Soaring on a current, this downy fluff rose to the arms of Ra, up, up, in a trance, and immediately expired—what a copulation! The mother was roasted to a crisp, and the child drifted down to us as a feather, a genius of balance between heartfelt attraction and clear immolation.” He gave another disturbing laugh. “Now that same feather is used by Anubis to weigh the moral worth of the heart of each dead person.” He shrugged again. “Of all of His children, Maat is the only one who has no guts to lose, so She is fearless. She was the only divinity brave enough to scold Ra about His favors to Set, and did no less than tell Her Father: ‘It is dangerous to protect a victor from the curses of those He defeated. Such a God will prosper too easily, and the world will tip.’

“ ‘Do not speak of balance,’ Ra told Her. ‘I ride in a golden ship by day, but am obliged to travel through the Duad by dark and give battle to the serpent. If I ever lose, the world will not see My light again.’ ”

Menenhetet gave vent to his laugh. “I can assure you, Maat was not about to tell Ra that the perils of the serpent were small.”

And again, as if the story pulled on me like a stream of passing spirits, the sights in my mind began to stir. I could see that Ra no longer fought alone, and many Gods and Goddesses were by His side to trap the serpent. Indeed, Ra had to do no more than chop Aapep into pieces. All the same, the labor made Him breathe heavily. Ra was growing old.

Maat, rebuked by Her Father, began to watch the habits of His pilot-fish. For these two creatures, named Abtu and Ant, would serve as His eyes when it came to navigating the perils of the Duad. Each night, swimming to either side of Ra’s boat, they guided the entourage past fires, boiling pits, and stench. By day, however, the fish, justifiably fatigued, chose to become two short pieces of rope, and they would sun themselves on the banks of the Nile. There they basked, two bights of bleached hemp, so short that no passing fisherman would think of splicing them to a larger rope. Maat, now traveling in Her natural condition—a feather in the wind—soared along the riverbank until She passed over the pilot-fish.