Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [40]
The next son related a wonder that had occurred under Snefru, Khufu’s father. One day Snefru too became bored with life; he wandered through all the palace in search of amusement and found none. So he sent for the priest and magician Djadjaemankh, and asked him to make a suggestion. Said the sage: “Let Your Majesty go to the royal lake: equip a boat with all the beautiful girls of the palace. The heart of Your Majesty will be entertained watching them row up and down.” The king liked the idea and refined it further by ordering that the young ladies be attired only in nets of mesh.
For a space the heart of His Majesty was happy as the maidens rowed up and down. But then the leader of the damsels dropped a pretty ornament into the water, and in her distress she stopped rowing. The king demanded the reason and the girl told him. “Give her another one,” said Snefru impatiently; but the girl refused, with a proverb—I want my pot down to its bottom—which meant, “I want my own ornament, not another like it.”
Faced with feminine stubbornness, the king threw up his hands and again summoned the magician. Djadjaemankh pronounced an incantation, which folded the lake back like a sandwich, half the water upon the other half. Upon the exposed bottom lay the ornament, which the magician returned to its owner. He then put the water back in its place and the rowing continued, to the plea sure of the king.
When it came to the turn of Prince Djedefhor to tell a story, he said: “We have been hearing tales of past times, in which it is hard to tell truth from fiction; but, sire, I must tell you that you have in your own kingdom a great magician who is the equal of all those you have heard about.”
In great excitement the king sent his son to fetch the venerable sage, whose name was Djedi. The meeting of prince and wise man is charmingly told; the sage greeted the royal youth with courteous words of praise, and the prince helped him to his feet and gave him his arm to assist him to the waiting boat, for Djedi was 110 years old.
When Djedi arrived at the palace, the king asked him to perform his famous trick of putting back a head that had been cut off. The sage was willing, but when the king ordered a prisoner to be brought out, Djedi protested: “No, not a man, O sovereign, my lord; for this is forbidden.” So the guards decapitated a goose, and Djedi repaired it, to the admiration of all beholders.
After these magical divertissements, the tale gets down to essentials. The king asked about a particular magical secret and Djedi informed him that it would be brought to him by the eldest of three children who were not yet born. The secret is only a device to introduce the children; for, Djedi tells the astounded king, all three of them would one day be kings of Egypt. “They are at this time in the womb of a wife of a priest of Re, but their father is none other than the sun god himself.”
The scene switches to the birth of the divine children, who are delivered by the great goddesses of Egypt disguised as dancer-musicians. As the children come forth, the goddesses address them with speeches involving puns on their names; this leaves no doubt that the kings in question are really Fifth Dynasty rulers.
Obviously this story was not composed during the reign of Khufu; it was a pretty piece of propaganda commissioned by a Fifth Dynasty king to give mystical sanction to his dynasty. Why the new dynasty should need such support is a mystery, for it seems to be distantly related to the royal family of the Fourth Dynasty. Perhaps the “religious coup d’état” was really a political usurpation, by a lesser branch of the Khufu-Khafre family. Speculation—but that’s the