Moon of Israel | Page 5

the temple, where I copied
many rolls and also wrote out Books of the Dead which I adorned with
paintings. Indeed, in this business I became so clever that, after my
father went blind some years before his death, I earned enough to keep
him, and my sisters also until they married. Mother I had none, for she
was gathered to Osiris while I was still very little. So life went on from
year to year, but in my heart I hated my lot. While I was still a boy
there rose up in me a desire--not to copy what others had written, but to
write what others should copy. I became a dreamer of dreams. Walking
at night beneath the palm-trees upon the banks of the Nile I watched the
moon shining upon the waters, and in its rays I seemed to see many
beautiful things. Pictures appeared there which were different from any
that I saw in the world of men, although in them were men and women
and even gods.
Of these pictures I made stories in my heart and at last, although that
was not for some years, I began to write these stories down in my spare
hours. My sisters found me doing so and told my father, who scolded
me for such foolishness which he said would never furnish me with
bread and beer. But still I wrote on in secret by the light of the lamp in
my chamber at night. Then my sisters married, and one day my father
died suddenly while he was reciting prayers in the temple. I caused him
to be embalmed in the best fashion and buried with honour in the tomb

he had made ready for himself, although to pay the costs I was obliged
to copy Books of the Dead for nearly two years, working so hard that I
found no time for the writing of stories.
When at length I was free from debt I met a maiden from Thebes with a
beautiful face that always seemed to smile, and she took my heart from
my breast into her own. In the end, after I returned from fighting in the
war against the Nine Bow Barbarians, to which I was summoned like
other men, I married her. As for her name, let it be, I will not think of it
even to myself. We had one child, a little girl which died within two
years of her birth, and then I learned what sorrow can mean to man. At
first my wife was sad, but her grief departed with time and she smiled
again as she used to do. Only she said that she would bear no more
children for the gods to take. Having little to do she began to go about
the city and make friends whom I did not know, for of these, being a
beautiful woman, she found many. The end of it was that she departed
back to Thebes with a soldier whom I had never seen, for I was always
working at home thinking of the babe who was dead and how
happiness is a bird that no man can snare, though sometimes, of its own
will, it flies in at his window-place.
It was after this that my hair went white before I had counted thirty
years.
Now, as I had none to work for and my wants were few and simple, I
found more time for the writing of stories which, for the most part,
were somewhat sad. One of these stories a fellow scribe borrowed from
me and read aloud to a company, whom it pleased so much that there
were many who asked leave to copy it and publish it abroad. So by
degrees I became known as a teller of tales, which tales I caused to be
copied and sold, though out of them I made but little. Still my fame
grew till on a day I received a message from the Prince Seti, my twin in
Ra, saying that he had read certain of my writings which pleased him
much and that it was his wish to look upon my face. I thanked him
humbly by the messenger and answered that I would travel to Tanis and
wait upon his Highness. First, however, I finished the longest story
which I had yet written. It was called the Tale of Two Brothers, and

told how the faithless wife of one of them brought trouble on the other,
so that he was killed. Of how, also, the just gods brought him to life
again, and many other matters. This story I dedicated to his Highness,
the Prince Seti, and with it in the bosom of my robe I travelled to Tanis,
having hidden about me a sum