His tone did not leave room for hesitation. The two princes bowed their heads in silence, as Pharaoh bid them swear to their pact and shake hands. This they did—then left with the purest of intentions.
It happened during this time that unrest and rebellion broke out among the tribes of Libya. Pharaoh dispatched troops to chastise them, led by Prince Senwosret, the heir apparent, who chose Prince Sinuhe to command a brigade. The army clashed with the Libyans at several places, besetting them until they turned their backs and fled. The two princes displayed the kind of boldness and bravery befitting their characters. They were perhaps about to end their mission when the heir apparent suddenly announced the death of his father, King Amenemhat I. When this grievous news reached Prince Sinuhe, it seemed to have stirred his doubts as to what the new king might intend toward him. Suspicion swept over him and drove him to despair—so he melted away without warning, as though he had been swallowed by the sands of the desert.
Rumors abounded about Sinuhe’s fate. Some said that he had fled to one of the faraway villages. Others held that he had been assassinated in Libya. Still others said that he had killed himself out of desperation over life and love. The stories about him proliferated for quite a long time. But eventually, the tongues grew tired of them, consigning them to the tombs of oblivion under the rubble of time. Darkness enveloped them for forty years—until at last came that messenger from the land of the Amorites carrying Prince Sinuhe’s letter—awakening the inattentive, and reminding the forgetful.
King Senwosret looked at the letter over and over again with disbelieving eyes. He consulted the queen, now in her sixty-fifth year, on the affair. They agreed to send messengers bearing precious gifts to Prince Sinuhe in Amora, inviting him to come to Egypt safely, and with honor.
Pharaoh’s messengers traversed the northern deserts, carrying the royal gifts straight to the land of the Amorites. Then they returned, accompanied by a venerable old man of seventy-five years. Passing the pyramids, his limbs trembled, and his eyes were darkened by a cloud of distress. He was in bedouin attire—a coarse woolen robe with sandals. A sword scabbard girded his waist; a long white beard flowed down over his chest. Almost nothing remained to show that he was an Egyptian raised in the palace of Memphis, except that when the sailors’ songs of the Nile reached his ears, his eyes became dreamy, his parched lips quivered, his breath beat violently in his breast—and he wept. The messengers knew nothing but that the old man threw himself down on the bank of the river and kissed it with ardor, as though he were kissing the cheek of a sweetheart from whom he had long been parted.
They brought him to Pharaoh’s palace. He came into the presence of King Senwosret I, who was seated before him, and said, “May the Lord bless you, O exalted king, for forgiving me—and for graciously allowing me to return to the sacred soil of Egypt.”
Pharaoh looked at him closely with obvious amazement, and said, his voice rising, “Is that really you? Are you my brother and the companion of my childhood and youth—Prince Sinuhe?”
“Before you, my lord, is what the desert and forty years have done to Prince Sinuhe.”
Shaking his head, the king drew his brother toward him with tenderness and respect, and asked, “What did the Lord do with you during all these forty years?”
The prince pulled himself up straight in his seat and began to tell his tale.
“My lord, the story of my flight began at the hour that you were informed of our mighty father’s death out in the Western Desert. There the Devil blinded me and evil whispers terrified me. So I threw myself into the wind, which blew me across deserts, villages, and rivers, until I passed the borders between damnation and madness. But in the land of exile, the name of the person whose face I had fled, and who had dazzled me with his fame, conferred honor upon me. And whenever I confronted trouble, I cast my thoughts back to Pharaoh—and my cares left me. Yet I remained lost in my wanderings, until the leader of the Tonu tribes in Amora learned of my plight, and invited me to see him.
“He was a magnificent chief who held Egypt and its subjects in all awe and affection. He spoke to me as a man of power, asking me about my homeland. I told him what I knew, while keeping the truth about myself from him. He offered me marriage to one of his daughters, and I accepted—and began to despair that I would ever again see my homeland. After a short time, I—who was raised on Pharaoh’s famous chariots, and grew up in the wars of Libya and Nubia—was able to conquer all of Tonu’s enemies. From them I took prisoners, their women and goods, their weapons and spoils, and their herds, and my status rose even further. The chief appointed me the head of his armies, making me his expected successor.
“The gravest challenge that I faced was the great thief of the desert, a demonic giant—the very mention of whom frightened the bravest of men. He came to my place seeking to seize my home, my wife, and my wealth. The men, women, and children all rushed to the square to see this most ferocious example of combat between two opponents. I stood against him amid the cheers and apprehension, fighting him for a long time. Dodging a mighty blow from his axe, I launched my piercing arrow and it struck him in the neck. Fatally weakened, he fell to the ground, death rattling in his throat. From that day onward, I was the undisputed lord of the bad-lands.
“Then I succeeded my father-in-law after his death, ruling the tribes by the sword, enforcing the traditions of the desert. And the days, seasons, and years passed by, one after another. My sons grew into strong men who knew nothing but the wilderness as the place for birth, life, glory, and death. Do you not see, my lord, that I suffered in my estrangement from Egypt? That I was tossed back and forth by horrors and anxieties, and was afflicted by calamities, although I also enjoyed love and the siring of children, reaping glory and happiness along the way. But old age and weakness finally caught up with me, and I conceded authority to my sons. Then I went home to my tent to await my passing.
“In my isolation, heartaches assailed me, and anguish overwhelmed me, as I remembered gorgeous Egypt—the fertile playground of my childhood and youth. Desire disturbed me, and longing beckoned my heart. There appeared before my eyes scenes of the Nile and the luxuriant greenery and the heavenly blue sky and the mighty pyramids and the lofty obelisks, and I feared that death would overtake me while I was in a land other than Egypt.
“So I sent a messenger to you, my lord, and my lord chose to pardon me and to receive me hospitably. I do not wish for more than a quiet corner to live out my old age, until Sinuhe’s appointed hour comes round. Then he would be thrown into the embalming tank, and in his sarcophagus, the Book of the Dead—guide to the afterlife—would be laid. The professional women mourners of Egypt would wail over him with their plaintive rhyming cries. . . .”
Pharaoh listened to Sinuhe with excitement and delight. Patting his shoulder gently, he said, “Whatever you want is yours.” Then the king summoned one of his chamberlains, who led the prince into his wing of the palace.
Just before evening, a messenger came, saying that it would please the queen if she could meet with him. Immediately, Sinuhe rose to go to her, his aged heart beating hard. Following the messenger, nervous and distracted, he muttered to himself, “O Lord! Is it possible that I will see her once again? Will she really remember me? Will she remember Sinuhe, the young prince and lover?”
He crossed the threshold of her room like a man walking in his sleep. He reached her throne in seconds. Lifting his eyes up to her, he saw the face of his companion, whose youthful bloom the years had withered. Of her former loveliness, only faint traces remained. Bowing to her in reverence, he kissed the hem of her robe. The queen then spoke to him, without concealing her astonishment, “My God, is this truly our Prince Sinuhe?”
The prince smiled without uttering a word. He had not yet recovered himself, when the queen said, “My lord has told me of your conversation. I was impressed by your feats, and the harshness of your struggle, though it took me aback that you had the fortitude to leave your wife and children beh
ind.”
“Mercy upon you, my queen,” Sinuhe replied. “What remains of my life merely lengthens my torture, while the likes of me would find it unbearable to be buried outside of dear Egypt.”
The woman lowered her gaze for a moment, then raising up to him her eyes filled with dreams, she said to him tenderly, “Prince Sinuhe, you have told us your story, but do you know ours? You fled at the time that you learned of Pharaoh’s death. You suspected that your rival, who had the upper hand, would not spare your life. You took off with the wind and traversed the deserts of Amora. Did you not know how your flight would injure yourself and those that you love?”
Confusion showed on Sinuhe’s face, but he did not break his silence. The queen continued, “Yet how could you know that the heir apparent visited me just before your departure at the head of the campaign in Libya. He said to me: ‘Princess, my heart tells me that you have chosen the man that you want. Please answer me truthfully, and I promise you just as truthfully that I will be both contented and loyal. I would never break this vow.’ ”
Her majesty grew quiet. Sinuhe queried her with a sigh, “Were you frank with him, my queen?”
She answered by nodding her head, then her breath grew more agitated. Sinuhe, gasping from the forty-year voyage back to his early manhood, pressed her further.
“And what did you tell him?”
“Will it really interest you to know my answer? After a lapse of forty years? And after your children have grown to be chiefs of the tribes of Tonu?”
His exhausted eyes flashed a look of perplexity, then he said with a tremulous voice, “By the Sacred Lord, it matters to me.”
She was staring at his face with pleasure and concern, and said, smiling, “How strange this is, O Sinuhe! But you shall have what you want. I will not hold back the answer that you should have heard forty years ago. Senwosret questioned me closely, so I told him that I would grant him whatever I had of fondness and friendship. But as for my heart. . . .”
The queen halted for a moment, as Sinuhe again looked up, his beard twitching, shock and dismay bursting on his face. Then she resumed, “As for my heart—I am helpless to control it.”
“My Lord,” he muttered.
“Yes, that is what I said to Senwosret. He bid me a moving good-bye—and swore that he would remain your brother so long as he breathed.
“But you were hasty, Sinuhe, and ran off with the wind. You strangled our high hopes, and buried our happiness alive. When the news of your vanishing came to me, I could hardly believe it—I nearly died of grief. Afterward, I lived in seclusion for many long years. Then, at last, life mocked at my sorrows; the love of it freed me from the malaise of pain and despair. I was content with the king as my husband. This is my story, O Sinuhe.”
She gazed into his face to see him drop his eyes in mourning; his fingers shook with emotion. She continued to regard him with compassion and joy, and asked herself: “Could it be that the agony of our long-ago love still toys with this ancient heart, so close to its demise?”
A Voice from the Other World
One
By God, what does this tomb want for the good things of a bygone existence? It is a fragment of life’s essence rich with lusciousness and luxury. Its walls are adorned with scenes of servants and slave girls. It is filled with the most lavish of furniture, the most sublime of embellishments. It has all that one could want of splendid fixtures and fragrances and decorative objects. It has a storehouse stuffed with seeds, fruits, and vegetables, and what my library bore of books filled with wisdom, and what a writer may need from the tools of his trade. It is the world as I knew it. But do my senses now still taste life? Do I still need its distractions? Those who built this house for the dead surely labored in vain. And yet, I cannot deny, however strange it may seem, that I have not lost the urge to write. How amazing! What are these leaves that call to me with their beloved bewitchment? Is there still some part of me from which Death has not obliterated the desires of weakness and passion? Have we, the community of scribblers, been sentenced to suffer for our deeds in both of our lives? In any case, a period of waiting still lies before me, after which I shall begin my journey into eternity. So let me occupy this idle time with the reed pen, for how often has this instrument enhanced my precious hours of leisure.
O Lord! Do I not still remember the day that rent my world between life and death? Yes, on that day I left the Prince’s palace just before sunset, after exhausting efforts which had utterly absorbed me, until the Prince said to me, “Taw-ty, that’s enough work—don’t wear yourself out.” The sun was slanting toward the western horizon, the endless expanse of the realm of shadows. The flickerings of its fading rays shook with the shiver of Death upon the surface of the sacred Nile. I continued on my accustomed way, across from the sycamore tree at the southern edge of the village where my lovely house lies.
O holy Amon! What is this aching in my joints and my bones? It’s not a result of my efforts at work, for how often have I worked without a pause, and how often have I zealously persevered and patiently carried on and prevailed over fatigue by force and resolve! What is this consuming pain? And what is this powerful trembling—a new and unexpected thing? I am filled with fear. Could this be the malaise that does not descend upon the body until the condition is fatal? Fold up, village road—for I lack the strength to draw any charm from your beauty! Be gone, you omen of heaven, for in Taw-ty’s breast there is no wish to summon you!
I kept going down the road in dread of where it would end. At my home’s doorstep the face of my wife—the companion of my youth and the mother of my children—loomed before me. “My poor Taw-ty, why are you quivering so? Why do your eyes look so distressed?” she cried. I said to her, in agony and despair, “O sister! Something unthinkable has occurred. A deadly disease has settled in the body of your husband. Make ready the bed and cover me up. Summon the physician and our children and loved ones, and tell them that Taw-ty is on his bed, pleading to his Lord, and to plead along with him for his cure.”
She who had taken me to her breast carried me, and the doctor came to give me medicine. Pointing to heaven, he said, “O great writer Taw-ty, O servant of His Majesty the Prince, you are in need of the Lord’s compassion. Pray to Him from the depths of your heart!” And I lay there, without strength or resource. O Divine Amon, whose wisdom is lofty! Did I not accompany His Highness the Prince to the north in the armies of Pharaoh? Did I not witness the fighting in the deserts of Zahi and Nubia? Was I not there at Qadesh in the courageous campaign? Indeed, O Lord, and I was delivered from the lances and the chariots and the battles. So how can Death threaten me in my dear, safe village, in the embrace of my spouse and my mother and my children? Meanwhile I drowned in the vapors of fever, as my dizziness increased. Senseless jabber flowed from my tongue, and I felt the hand of Doom moving for my heart. How cruel you are, O Death! I see you advancing toward your target on two sure feet, with a heart made of stone. You do not tire or weary, tears do not sway you, you do not show mercy, nor do hopes arouse your sympathy. You trample our tiny hearts, you disregard our desires and dreams—and you do not change your appointed ways even when your prey is in the blooming spring of youth. Taw-ty is in his twenty-sixth year, the father of sons and daughters—do you not hear? What would it harm you if you left my breath to recur in my breast? Send for me when I have been sated with this beautiful and beloved life. It has not brought me torment, nor have I abstained from it ever. I have loved it from the depth of my heart— and it is still in its prime. My health has been good, my money plentiful, my aspirations unbounded. Haven’t you noted all these things? Around me are hearts full of affection, souls and deities—haven’t you looked into their tearful eyes? It’s as if I haven’t lived one hour of this alluring life. What did I see of its scenes? What have I heard of its voices? What have I learned of its sciences? What have I tasted of its arts? Which of its colors shall fade? What opportunities shall be lost tomorrow? What raptures shall be extinguished? Wha
t passions shall abate? What delights shall disappear?
I recalled this, all of it. In my eternity, other things, without boundaries or limits, that lay between the enchantments of the past, the magic of the present, and the longings of the future, spun before me. The flowers and fields and waters and clouds and food and drink and songs and ideas and love and my children and the Prince’s palace and Pharaoh’s parties and the money I was paid and the medals and titles and the honors and the glory, were drawn before my senses. And I wondered, would all this vanish into the void?
My breast pounded heavily; I was filled with sadness and grief, and every afflicted part of me shouted, “I do not want to die!” The legions of night followed in succession, and sleep overcame the little ones. My wife lingered about my head, my mother about my feet. Midnight came and as quickly passed while we remained in this state, until the baying of jackals startled me with the blue light of dawn. A bizarre feeling of alarm seized me, as a sinister silence settled over all. Then I felt my mother’s hand gripping my feet as she called in a quavering voice, “My son, my son!” My wife screamed, “Taw-ty, what do you see?” But I was unable to reply. Something, no doubt, aroused their apprehension. Did she see what this was? Did the warning show on my face? My gaze shifted against my will to the entrance of the room. The door was locked, yet the Messenger entered. He entered without needing to open the door. I knew him without knowing him before: he was the Messenger of the Hereafter, without any like him. He approached me in awesome silence and irresistible beauty. As he did so my eyes were fixed upon him; he was all I could see. I wanted to call out to him but my tongue would not obey. He seemed to know my inner desire, for his smile grew broader, and I recognized him as my escort, while nothing else remained in my mind.