The Pharaoh And The Priest Part 123

"Look ye!" cried one of the cowled priests, "are they not criminals?

The pharaoh died in the chapel of Osiris, so he must have been in ceremonial costume, while here--oh!--instead of gold ornaments--bronze; the chain is bronze, too, and on his breast false jewels!"

"True," said another. "I am curious to know who fitted him out thus: priests, or scribes?"

"Surely priests. Oh, would that your hands withered, ye scoundrels!

And some wretch--they are all such--dared command us to give the deceased what was best."

"It was not they, but the treasurer."

"They are all rogues."

Thus discoursing, the embalmers took from the deceased his garments of a pharaoh, put on him a gown of cloth of gold and bore the remains to the boat.

"Thanks to the G.o.ds," said one of the cowled men, "we have a new pharaoh. He will bring the priests to order. What they have taken with their hands they will bring back with their mouths."

"Uuu!--they say that he will be a shrewd ruler," put in another. "He is friendly with the Phnicians; he pa.s.ses time willingly with Pentuer, who is not of priestly family, but of such poor people as we.

But the army, they say the army would let itself be burnt and drowned for the new pharaoh."

"Besides, he conquered the Libyans most gloriously a few days ago."

"Where is he now, that new pharaoh?" asked another. "In the desert? I am afraid that misfortune may meet him before he comes back to us."

"What will any one do to him when he has an army behind him? May I not live to an honest burial if the young lord will not treat the priests as a buffalo treats growing wheat."

"O thou fool!" interrupted an embalmer who had been silent till that moment. "The pharaoh conquer the priests!"

"Why not?"

"But hast thou ever seen that a lion tore down a pyramid?"

"Nonsense!"

"Or that a buffalo tossed it apart?"

"Of course he cannot toss it."

"Or that a tempest overturned it."

"What has this man begun at to-day?"

"Well, I tell thee that sooner will a lion, a buffalo, or a tempest overturn the great pyramid than the pharaoh put an end to the priesthood. Even if that pharaoh were a lion, a buffalo, and a tempest in one person."

"Hei ye, there!" cried men from above. "Is the corpse ready?"

"Yes, yes; but its jaw has fallen," answered they at the entrance.

"All one--give it up here, for Isis must go to the city an hour from now."

After a while the golden boat with the dead pharaoh was raised by means of ropes to an internal balcony.

From the entrance it went into a great hall, painted in the color of the sky, and ornamented with golden stars. Through the whole length of the hall, from one wall to the other, was fixed a balcony in the form of an arch the ends of which were one story high and the centre a story and a half.

The hall represented the dome of heaven, the balcony the road of the sun in the sky. The late pharaoh was to represent Osiris, or the sun, which pa.s.ses from the east to the west.

On the pavement of the hall stood a throng of priests and priestesses who, while waiting for the solemnity, conversed about indifferent subjects.

"Ready!" cried they from the balcony.

Conversation ceased. Above was heard the sound of a metal plate beaten thrice--and on the balcony appeared the golden boat of the sun in which the late pharaoh was advancing.

Below sounded the hymn in honor of the sun:

"Behold he appears in a cloud to separate the sky from the earth, and later to connect them.

"Hidden unceasingly in all things, he alone lives, in him all things exist through eternity."

The boat moved gradually upward on the balcony; finally it halted at the highest point.

Then at the lower end of the arch appeared a priestess, arrayed as the G.o.ddess Isis, with her son Horus, and with equal slowness she began to ascend. That was an image of the moon, which follows the sun.

Now the boat from the top of the arch began to go toward the west, and the chorus below sang again:

"The G.o.d incarnate in all things, the spirit of Shu in all G.o.ds. He is the body of a living person, the creator of the tree which bears fruit, the causer of fertilizing overflows. Without him nothing lives in the earthly circle."[30]

[30] Authentic hymn.

The boat vanished at the western termination of the balcony, Isis and Horus stopped at the summit of the arch. A crowd of priests ran to the boat, took out the corpse of the pharaoh and placed it on a marble table, as Osiris to rest after his toils of the day.

Now to the dead man came the dissector, dressed as the G.o.d Typhon. On his head were a horrid mask and a red tangled wig, on his shoulders the skin of a wild boar, and in his hand an Ethiopian stone knife.

With this knife he began quickly to cut off the soles of the dead pharaoh's sandals.

"What art thou doing, O Typhon, to thy sleeping brother?" asked Isis from the balcony.

"I am sc.r.a.ping the feet of my brother Osiris, so that he may not befoul heaven with earthly dust," replied the dissector dressed as Typhon.

When he had cut off the soles, the dissector took a bent wire, thrust it into the nostrils of the deceased and began to extract his brains.

Next he made an opening in his body, and through that opening drew out quickly the heart, lungs, and viscera.

During this time the a.s.sistants of Typhon brought four great urns adorned with the heads of the G.o.ds Hape, Emset, Duamut and Quebhsneuf, and in each of those urns he placed some internal organ of the deceased pharaoh.

"But what art thou doing, O brother Typhon?" inquired Isis a second time.

"I am purifying my brother Osiris of earthly things, so that he may become more beautiful," replied the dissector.

At the side of the marble table was a vat of water with soda in solution. The dissectors, when they had cleaned the body, put it into the vat where it was to soak seventy days.

Meanwhile Isis, when she had pa.s.sed over the entire vault, approached the chamber where the dissectors had cleaned the pharaoh's body. She looked at the marble table, and, seeing that it was empty, inquired in terror,--