The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [148]
WALL PANEL E: “ATUM-HADU AND THE DAUGHTEROF THE MASTER OF LARGESSE”
Text: After ten floodings of the Nile [1632 B.C.?—RMT], Atum-hadu saw the most beautiful of all women. She bewitched him, and he saw in her the spirit of Ma’at in the forms of Isis, the kindness of the sweetest mother wrapped in the bright shining raiments of Hathor [the moon and love goddess—RMT]. He asked for her name and was told she was the daughter of the Master of Largesse. She approached him. She asked for nothing, but in her magic she calmed the king, soothed his belly, made him sleep, despite Hyksos and the memories of priests.
She enchanted his eyes so that he could look at none but her, and all his other queens and all the women of the court wept at his absence from their chambers and grottoes. Those women whom he no longer needed found other men in the court, and together the men and women who loved Atum-hadu formed a group to rival the official priests, and they called Atum their only god, and pleasure their only practise.
Atum-hadu took the Master of Largesse’s daughter as his leading queen. That night he saw the colour of her limbs, and when her moment came she cried his name so loudly that silence fell everywhere in the court, and she cried his name again, and again, and again, and soon all those who had fallen silent took up the new queen’s cry and the halls of the palace echoed with a hundred throats crying his name in the voice of pleasure, Atum-hadu, Atum-hadu, Atum-hadu, until the walls of the palace trembled, and the hunting dogs howled in unison.
Monday, 4 December, 1922
WALL PANEL F: “ATUM-HADU IGNORES SETH’S WARNINGS”
Text: While Atum-hadu slept, troubles multiplied. The Hyksos approached. Time was not infinite, nor was the royal gold, and the Master of Largesse had nothing to offer. Seth appeared and spoke: “Her father is not a Master of Largesse but a Master of Betrayal. Are there not other women who would be your queens? Look, they are littered about, more numerous than flies on the droppings of a hippopotamus, surely another is ready to stand, bright-skinned with the neck of a white goose and heavy buttocks. Troubled Majesty, why do you resist?” Atum-hadu wept at Seth’s words. He should destroy the love that bound him. He turned in their bed, lifted a knife to her white neck, and she slept in peace, and he looked at her face, and he sheathed his knife. He would not believe mischievous Seth.
Illustration: Most intriguing in this section of the wall, amidst the scenes of conjugal life tenderly depicted, is the recurring image of the Master of Largesse, a porcine figure forever lurking just out of the king’s view. While Atum-hadu takes his queen’s hand, her father hides behind a curtain and spies on them, his tongue wetting his lips. While Atum-hadu takes his queen to their bed and embraces her, her father hides under that same bed with carved lion-head footboards, his robes apart, and makes of himself a grotesque (and amusingly miniature) impersonator of Atum. While Atum-hadu sobs at his sleeping queen’s side, his dropped knife on the floor at his feet, her father conspires behind his back, speaking to an unidentified but ominous figure. Far in the distance, the Hyksos soldiers mass.
This was not always the case, of course, and Quatrain 45 (Fragments A & C) describes Atum-hadu’s trust in his adviser in earlier days, even when war with the Hyksos was pressing:
When two Egypts are torn apart,
Twins pulled from a dying mother’s cooling womb,
Atum-hadu sobs and writhes at the pain in his heart,
But his Master remains steadfast in the gloom.
Journal: Post, bank. Would CCF stoop so low as to prevent the other partners from funding me? Cats, post. Have no more pre-paid cable forms, and can afford only an extremely brief cable to Margaret. The temporary abandonment of the villa is no great loss, except on days like today, when my stomach is raging against Fate and I am the innocent bystander who