By E. A. Bourland
A long time ago there were an unhappy people who lived in a desolate land. They eked a living by farming and herding. The only water came from slight winter rains and a creek that ran through their land and nearly vanished in mid-summer. There were no shade trees, and the days were hot, and the nights were cold.
They were an anxious people, and among them kindness was rare, and while they knew storytelling their stories relied on sarcastic humor. Other than insults they had little to trade, so foreign merchants avoided their villages and towns.
In the south was a lone snowy mountain. On the slopes of this mountain the people sledded and skied, and these sports were the chief distraction from their difficult lives. None ever climbed to the summit of the mountain because its heights were occupied by beasts, sorcerers, and outlaws.
In time a king and queen rose to rule this land. They were brother and sister, and they were wed, as was the practice in those days.
The king was called Sarapis the Wise; the queen, Aset Who Knows Her Spells. On ascending the throne Sarapis ordered a program of planting trees throughout the land, and Aset ordered her advisors to study methods to distribute scarce water. In time the people were able to improve the wheat harvest, and grow cotton. Almost in spite of themselves they began to prosper.
As the trees grew, the little creek grew as well, until it became a river, which became the home of antelope, birds, hippos, and crocodiles. A quarry was discovered, and the people built a city with walls of granite. Aset invited visitors to ski and sled on the southern mountain, and so began a business in tourism that brought additional wealth to the people.
Sarapis and Aset had two siblings, a brother named One-Man Wolf, and a sister named Sister-Witch of the Hidden Moon, who also were married to each other. One-Man Wolf wore an ill-starred look. Sister-Witch was great in magic, especially in the dark of the moon. The four siblings looked alike, but at dawn and dusk on holy days, or any time when their emotions were roused, they assumed the appearance of animals of different kinds.
The people’s new prosperity served to reinforce, rather than disperse, the sarcastic tone of their conversation. Having secured comfort, they had more time in which to tear each other with gibes. Observing this state of affairs, King Sarapis decided to outlaw sarcasm, and named prominent satirists whom he would have crucified.
On hearing this decree One-Man Wolf smiled his wolf smile. But wise Aset and wise Sister-Witch together convinced the king to spare the satirists from cruel death.
Aset said, “They just want someone to listen to them.”
Sister-Witch said, “A satirist is angry. But if he feels someone is listening to him, he will be less angry, and the tone of his stories will become kind. Then our people will be in a better mood.”
Aset said, “Many of our nation’s most incisive satirists are women, but their voices are commonly disregarded. They should be included, too.”
One-Man Wolf growled low and disapproving. But the satirists (women and men alike) were given a monthly festival to tell their stories at the palace. Over time the tone of their stories became kinder, and the mood of the people improved, just as Aset and Sister-Witch had said.
So an unhappy people became a flourishing society. Too much credit was given to Sarapis, too little to Aset and Sister-Witch, but the nation was better off than it had been. Foreign merchants began to visit the bright-walled city. The royal court flourished as a center of culture.
One day in the royal court the topic of discussion was a man’s strength.
Sarapis said, “Where is located the strength of a man? I say it is in his heart, in the kindness and wisdom of his actions.”
He was an elephant, ponderous and melancholy, with gentle eyes.
Aset said, “Husband, my view is similar to yours. A man’s strength is located where it most helps the woman, who often is the victim of man.”
One-Man Wolf said, “You think a man’s strength resides in his heart? Wrong! A man’s strength is in his grip!” And he took a piece of granite in his hand and crushed it to bits.
He seemed a powerful hippopotamus standing on its hind legs.
Sister-Witch said to One-Man Wolf, “My husband, I like a man with a strong grip, but he should be compassionate, too. There is balance in all things.”
One-Man Wolf muttered angrily, as though the idea of compassion insulted him. He was a growling wolf with savage fangs.
Then Sarapis said to One-Man Wolf, “Brother, your pronouncements are ever disagreeable, and your chief delight is the aggressive incitement of conflict. Hear me now. Though I am saddened to do so, hereby I banish you from this palace, and you are not to return until the Feast of the Goddesses. In the intervening time I direct you to reform your churlish demeanor until you are able to present yourself in a mode of charity, sufficient to preserve the peace of my court.”
One-Man Wolf looked Sarapis up and down, as though measuring him, and growled, “Oh wise Sarapis who is my king, certainly I shall do as you command. Without delay I shall convert my character so comprehensively that you shall wonder that I was ever anything other than a star in the constellation of our family, and a courtier whose decorum admits no rival. Further, at the Feast of the Goddesses, I will present to the gathered guests a crafted tribute finer than any ever seen in this land.”
He looked again a man, though wolfish in aspect. He departed holding high his wolf head and his siblings wondered at him.
At the Feast of the Goddesses the people feasted and drank, and danced the holy dances, while the satirists held forth with good stories well-told. In the midst of the merrymaking One-Man Wolf said, “Hear me! I offer this gift to any here who might repose within it.” He lifted a silk to reveal a chest of finely carved cedar, inlaid with ebony, ivory, and gold.
Everyone crowded around, but whoever tried to lie down in the fine chest was compelled to leap out of it, for something unseen within the beautiful chest viciously prodded them. At last Sarapis tried the chest.
He said, “This chest fits me perfectly. Never have I rested more comfortably. Never have I felt such calmness or known such clarity.”
He closed his eyes, as though the holy festivities had wearied him, and his face was filled with peace.
Immediately One-Man Wolf slammed down the lid of the chest, and bravos sprang forward and hammered the lid in place. Then One-Man Wolf cast the chest in the river, where it floated away.
Then One-Man Wolf ruled the nation. He kept his wife Sister-Witch by his side, but he did not listen to any of the wise things she said. He fed the satirists to the crocodiles, and brought in new satirists whose intonations were even more sour than before. After Sarapis’s fall, the vital spirit of the nation began to disperse, and the land deteriorated. The river shrank back to a creek, the trees withered, the cotton and wheat fields declined, and the people knew again their old condition of hopeless toil. Again they tore each other with their words. The foreign merchants departed. The gleam of the city walls was lost under dust and grime. Every likeness of Sarapis was destroyed and it was death to mention his name.
Aset searched up and down the river for the chest that held the corpse of her husband. She searched under the burning sun or the cold moon, weary, ever-mourning. One day, walking along a bluff, she paused. In the face of the rock, was that her husband’s face? Maybe. But no. A shadow crossed the sky. Was that his body in the clouds? Maybe it was. Then it was gone. She said, “I know he is dead, because the river has shrunk, and his life was the life of the river. But I must find his body so that I can perform the funeral rites, and send him properly into the afterlife. No longer am I Aset Who Knows Her Spells. Now I am Most Gray Widow.”
She wandered the river for years but never found him. In time she came back to the unhappy city and settled in a run-down neighborhood. She made a living by weaving and dyeing textiles, and lived in a shabby place over a bakery. She missed her husband, and her sorrow never went away. Over time her business went bad, and she was cheated by merchants. Seeing no other way to survive she married one of the merchants who had cheated her.
Though she was a good wife to him, he scolded her. He said, “What are you doing now? Why is dinner late? I see in your haste you have broken the water vessel. This is the second vessel in a month. Do we need to change the way you go about your tasks? Do I need to keep a closer eye on you? It seems I do. Why did you put that parcel of wool by the door? Someone will trip on it. Are you going to have one of your little episodes now? Oh, go on. I will get someone else to cook my dinner if you cannot manage it.”
Reduced by scolding, she began to shrink in stature. She spoke rarely, and went on long aimless walks. Her neck was crooked. Her face hung down. On one of her walks she met some of the queen’s handmaidens gathering water at the creek, and befriended them. They told her, “Though you are gray with grief, you have the scent of a goddess.”
They told her of a tamarisk tree that had been cut down near the creek, to make a decorative column that was set inside the palace of One-Man Wolf and Sister-Witch. So charmed were they by her refined politeness they invited her to visit the palace at her convenience. She thanked them with courtesy. Tired and hungry she went home.
Her husband said, “How is it that you have become so scrawny? My wife should be fleshy of body. I suppose the dresses I spent so much money on no longer fit you. You stink of sweat. Have you lost the way to the bath house? Has the comb become enemy to your hair? Could anyone blame me if I divorced you?”
He went away from her. She ate half of a pastry and fell asleep. The next day he was beheaded in a sledding accident. The moment it happened she stood up from her loom and bathed and dressed. She said, “Now I shall go find my husband.”
She went to the palace and met the handmaidens who took her to the tamarisk column. She touched the column and said, “My husband is here.” She ordered men, hard-working farmers, to come with axes and split open the column, and they obeyed. Out fell the beautiful cedar chest crafted by One-Man Wolf. The men pried up its lid to reveal the corpse of Sarapis, which Aset embraced with a cry of joy and sorrow.
She said, “I shall use all of my will to bring you back.”
She was a hawk furiously beating her wings, forcing air into her husband’s lungs.
This feat tired her, and she resumed the form of an old, gray woman. Her husband still lay dead, except for one part of him, his penis, which had woken eager and erect. Quickly she lifted her robe and mounted her husband.
One of the farmers said, “Gods! Should we put a stop to this?”
Another said, “They are husband and wife. Let them be!”
A handmaiden said, “Attention, all! The king and queen arrive! Stand in positions of respect!”
One-Man Wolf and Sister-Witch entered the room. Observing the scene, One-Man Wolf howled with rage. Sister-Witch cried out, “Where did she go? The gray woman who was here?” But One-Man Wolf seized an axe and attacked the body of Sarapis.
A thekla lark fluttered near the rafters, then flew out a window.
With so much going on all at once, no one had seen Most Gray Widow leave the chamber, but gone she was. A servant dashed into the chamber and said, “The river returns!”
Even over the high walls of their city, within the depths of the royal palace, they could hear the crash of water flooding the river bed and the glad cries of the people.
One of the farmers said, “It is Sarapis! He has returned, and he has brought the river with him!” The others agreed, and some began to dance and sing.
One-Man Wolf said to them, “You conspire against me. You farmers shall be banished for failing to stop an unlawful act of necromancy. You handmaidens shall . . . .”
Sister-Witch said, “Shall not be interfered with.”
She was a kite, talons ready to strike.
But One-Man Wolf swiped with his axe, and Sarapis’s severed penis flew against a wall. The handmaidens wailed and the farmers moaned in fear.
Sister-Witch said, “My brother Sarapis is in the world of the dead. My sister Aset has drawn forth the last effusion of his semen. Now the river floods, and the beasts howl on the mountain.”
She said, “For many years I have been lady of this palace and queen of this land. But I would give all if I could be with my sister again and hear her voice.”
One-Man Wolf was loading into a bag the chopped-up bits of Sarapis’s body.
He said, “If the river has flooded, then upon the river shall I cast Sarapis again. My rule prevails.” He left the room with his corpse-bag.
The room was silent. The handmaidens and the farmers bowed their heads.
Someone said, “He was our wisdom and our peace. He ruled over us too briefly.”
Someone else said, “It was known that sorrow lived in his breast. His face was ever melancholy.”
Another said angrily, as though remembering a grievance, “How soon he lay down in One-Man Wolf’s cedar chest. Did he truly wish to rule us?”
Sister-Witch said, “He rules the dead, being greatest among them. So in time shall he rule us all.”
She said, “This land of ours has never had a name. We shall name it Kemet, the Land of the Black Earth, made fertile by the river. In this land we were raised unhappily by struggling parents. But Kemet shall be our home, and if our parents cannot parent any one of us, the river shall, and the black earth. And our city shall be named Memphis, the City of White Walls.”
Then she dismissed her retinue and dressed herself in common clothes. She left her palace and walked through the city. With fair words, she settled a bitter disagreement between two rival merchants. She helped feuding neighbors establish a boundary between their properties, and told them to mark the boundary with a line of trees. She interrupted a father berating his child and asked him to listen to the words of the child, and offer more praise than scolding, and the man did so, and there was peace in that family for a while. She stepped between two men ready to exchange blows amid the wreckage of their collided carriages.
One man said, “Sister, what business is it of yours?” His contempt shifted from his adversary to her.
She stepped back and said, “Begging your pardon, brother, you are right, it is no business of mine.” And the two men laughed and were friends thereafter, using the woman as the fulcrum of their alliance, but she did not mind them and went back to her palace. The vizier met her at the door and said men were already feuding to claim the black, fertile land along the river. On the boundaries of long-droughted farms blood was being spilled.
She said, “Let blood be spilled. Let the people hold anger in their hearts if they wish. I am queen, but I cannot change any person’s heart. Let Kemet be Kemet. Come with me. Tell the handmaidens and the farmers to come with me.”
In a run-down area of the city workers were putting the final touches on a temple dedicated to Ptah. They went there to pray, the queen and her retinue. They did pray. All of this happened in the land of Kemet long ago, and afterward things carried on as they had always carried on.
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