The Yoke | Page 8

first king of the
first dynasty in the hour of chronological daybreak. Within were
orderly squares, cross-cut by avenues and relieved from monotony by
scattered mosaics of groves. Out of these shady demesnes rose the great
white temples of Ptah and Apis, and the palaces of the various
Memphian Pharaohs.
About these, the bazaars and residences, facade above facade, and tier
upon tier, as the land sloped up to its center, shone fair and white under
a cloudless sun.
Memphis was at the pinnacle of her greatness in the sixth year of the
reign of the divine Meneptah. She had fortified herself and resisted the
great invasion of the Rebu. Her generals had done battle with him and
brought him home, chained to their chariots.
And after the festivities in celebration of her prowess, she laid down
pike and falchion, bull-hide shield and helmet, and took up the chisel
and brush, the spindle and loom once more.
The heavy drowsiness of a mid-winter noon had depopulated her
booths and bazaars and quieted the quaint traffic of her squares. In the
shadows of the city her porters drowsed, and from the continuous wall
of houses blankly facing one another from either side of the streets,
there came no sound. Each household sought the breezes on the
balconies that galleried the inner walls of the courts, or upon the
pillared and canopied housetops.
Memphis had eaten and drunk and, sheltered behind her screens, waited
for the noon to pass.
Mentu, the king's sculptor, however, had not availed himself of the
hour of ease. He did not labor because he must, for his house stood in
the aristocratic portion of Memphis, and it was storied, galleried,
screened and topped with its breezy pavilion. Within the hollow space,
formed by the right and left wings of his house, the chamber of guests
to the front, and the property wall to the rear, was a court of uncommon

beauty. Palm and tamarisk, acacia and rose-shrub, jasmine and purple
mimosa made a multi-tinted jungle about a shadowy pool in which a
white heron stood knee-deep. There were long stretches of sunlit sod,
and walks of inlaid tile, seats of carved stone, and a single small
obelisk, set on a circular slab, marked with measures for time--the
Egyptian sun-dial. On every side were evidences of wealth and luxury.
So Mentu labored because he loved to toil. In a land languorous with
tropical inertia, an enthusiastic toiler is not common. For this reason,
Mentu was worth particular attention. He towered a palm in height over
his Egyptian brethren, and his massive frame was entirely in keeping
with his majestic stature. He was nearly fifty years of age, but no sign
of the early decay of the Oriental was apparent in him. His was the
characteristic refinement of feature that marks the Egyptian
countenance, further accentuated by self-content and some hauteur. The
idea of dignity was carried out in his dress. The kilt was not visible, for
the kamis had become a robe, long-sleeved, high-necked and belted
with a broad band of linen, encompassing the body twice, before it was
fastened with a fibula of massive gold.
That he was an artisan noble was another peculiarity, but it was proof
of exceptional merit. He had descended from a long line of royal
sculptors, heightening in genius in the last three. His grandsire had
elaborated Karnak; his father had decorated the Rameseum, but Mentu
had surpassed the glory of his ancestors. In the years of his youth, side
by side with the great Rameses, he had planned and brought to
perfection the mightiest monument to Egyptian sculpture, the
rock-carved temple of Ipsambul. In recognition of this he had been
given to wife a daughter of the Pharaoh and raised to a rank never
before occupied by a king's sculptor. He was second only to the
fan-bearers, the most powerful nobles of the realm, and at par with the
market, or royal architect, who was usually chosen from among the
princes. And yet he had but come again to his own when he entered the
ranks of peerage. In the long line of his ancestors he counted a king,
and from that royal sire he had his stature.
He sat before a table covered with tools of his craft, rolls of papyrus,

pens of reeds, pots of ink of various colors, horns of oil, molds and clay
images and vessels of paint. Hanging upon pegs in the wooden walls of
his work-room were saws and the heavier drills, chisels of bronze and
mauls of tamarisk, suspended by thongs of deer-hide.
The sculptor, rapidly and without effort, worked out with his pen on a
sheet of papyrus the detail of a frieze. Tiny profile figures, quaint
borders of lotus and mystic inscriptions trailed after