"He's really quite spry, for someone his age."
"Enduringly and repeatedly,"
"And repeatedly... and repeatedly... and repeatedly..."
Thus wound the conversation between the two royal physicians as they watched their pharaoh wind his own way back and forth between the boundary stones of his first Sed festival, marking the tenth regnal year under the person of the Lord of the Two Lands Shemanira, son of Ra Pehettyra, given Life, Stability and Dominion like Ra.
Lord of the Two Lands Shemanira, son of Ra Pehettyra was the name of the current Pharaoh, of course, whose wisps of remaining white hair were blowing in the gentle Nile breeze as he huffed and puffed his way between the boundary stones. His name roughly translated to "The Strength of Ra is in the South."
Everybody knew this Pharaoh was a southerner, if nothing else because of his southern Egyptian accent and his nearly hyper-religous ways. He even had his own religious center, built on a mastaba which could be easily transported across the sands by just over four thousand slaves, earning itself the title of the Mastaba Accompanying the Son of Horus with Four Thousand and Seventy Seven slaves, or, you guessed it, the M*A*S*H 4077.
The M*A*S*H 4077 was parked, for the time, in the land of Poker, the Royal town of the dead. Shemanira Pehettyra was, as we have seen, running the course of the Sed festival, his two physicians looking on intently over their martinis.
His two physicians were men named Aamaat and Henequet, whose names, respectively, meant "Great Truth" and "Beer." Aamaat's father had named him after a phrase on the temple of old King Djoser, the only inscription he had ever read. Henequet's father was a drunkard, also named Henequet, and had passed along both his name and his hobby to his son, who had become a scribe and a physician nonetheless.
Merikaye, the priest, was purifying himself in the river. He was called Merikaye, "Beloved of Two Kas," because, while technically a Wab-priest, he could conduct services as a Hem-netur-priest, as well. He was very versatile.
The Pharaoh's head Visier, Purenes, looked upon the Wab/Hem-Netur Priest with disgust mingled with teeming envy. His family name, "House of the Man," showed his hereditary ideal: to own his own house with over thirty thousand slaves. He'd already completed this mission in life, and should have been content, but he couldn't help it: how nice it would be to have a thirty five thousand slave house AND two Kas...
"It's disGUSTing," Purenes had complained to Aamaat and Henequet earlier, while they were lounging by the Sed-court. "That two-souled freak, repeating the voice-offerings over and over again for that near-sighted scribe to memorize."
"Look, Feneka," Aamaat retorted, using the nickname "Nose Ka" that they'd pinned on Purenes from early on in their stint here on the Pharaoh's Mastaba, "What are voice-offerings for, except to be repeated over and over again?"
"Oh, yeah," Nose-Ka mused.
"Oh, yeah," Beer mocked, "And how often do we GET to Poker, anyhow, Feneka?"
Nose-Ka turned on a heel, "Well, we're never going to get there at this rate!" he huffed, and went off to go beat some of the slaves into dragging the Mastaba faster across the sands.
Beer and Great-Truth looked at one another. "Poor Reder," Beer spoke, and Great-Truth nodded, getting up to pace the surface of the slowly moving mastaba. They were speaking of Reder, the Pharaoh's Scribe, whose name signified nothing in particular and several things all at once, some on the Mastaba maintaining that it meant something like "The One Who Informs," others thinking that it had something to do with his two little feet, which, as Aamaat had once said, was incidentally his height. Others who wished to make fun of the short scribe attested to his name deriving from an excuse that he was "Still Growing." All recognized the significant presence of the R of futurity in the Scribe's name, as he would sometimes inscribe temples with events still years off in the future.
"Yeah," Great-Truth continued, looking down at the close-spaced tracks of the man as he'd gone ahead to run across the sands to Poker. "Ten years tonight since we buried our fearless leader. They really were fond of one another."
Despite "Feneka" Purenes' anticipation of their not arriving in time for the festival, they certainly did, and the 4077 slaves sat down panting and eating their gruel while Merikaye purified the Sed-grounds and then went to purify himself while the Pharaoh ran the boundary stones.
Which brings us back to the beginning of the tale, and Aamaat's comment to Henequet concerning the spry nature of their new leader on the tenth anniversary of his accession to the throne of upper and lower Egypt.
The physicians sipped their martinis.
"Finest Kind," Aamaat spoke.
"Sweeter than anything in the two lands," agreed Henequet.
"Enduringly and repeatedly,"
"And repeatedly... and repeatedly... and repeatedly..."
Thus wound the conversation between the two royal physicians as they watched their pharaoh wind his own way back and forth between the boundary stones of his first Sed festival, marking the tenth regnal year under the person of the Lord of the Two Lands Shemanira, son of Ra Pehettyra, given Life, Stability and Dominion like Ra.
Lord of the Two Lands Shemanira, son of Ra Pehettyra was the name of the current Pharaoh, of course, whose wisps of remaining white hair were blowing in the gentle Nile breeze as he huffed and puffed his way between the boundary stones. His name roughly translated to "The Strength of Ra is in the South."
Everybody knew this Pharaoh was a southerner, if nothing else because of his southern Egyptian accent and his nearly hyper-religous ways. He even had his own religious center, built on a mastaba which could be easily transported across the sands by just over four thousand slaves, earning itself the title of the Mastaba Accompanying the Son of Horus with Four Thousand and Seventy Seven slaves, or, you guessed it, the M*A*S*H 4077.
The M*A*S*H 4077 was parked, for the time, in the land of Poker, the Royal town of the dead. Shemanira Pehettyra was, as we have seen, running the course of the Sed festival, his two physicians looking on intently over their martinis.
His two physicians were men named Aamaat and Henequet, whose names, respectively, meant "Great Truth" and "Beer." Aamaat's father had named him after a phrase on the temple of old King Djoser, the only inscription he had ever read. Henequet's father was a drunkard, also named Henequet, and had passed along both his name and his hobby to his son, who had become a scribe and a physician nonetheless.
Merikaye, the priest, was purifying himself in the river. He was called Merikaye, "Beloved of Two Kas," because, while technically a Wab-priest, he could conduct services as a Hem-netur-priest, as well. He was very versatile.
The Pharaoh's head Visier, Purenes, looked upon the Wab/Hem-Netur Priest with disgust mingled with teeming envy. His family name, "House of the Man," showed his hereditary ideal: to own his own house with over thirty thousand slaves. He'd already completed this mission in life, and should have been content, but he couldn't help it: how nice it would be to have a thirty five thousand slave house AND two Kas...
"It's disGUSTing," Purenes had complained to Aamaat and Henequet earlier, while they were lounging by the Sed-court. "That two-souled freak, repeating the voice-offerings over and over again for that near-sighted scribe to memorize."
"Look, Feneka," Aamaat retorted, using the nickname "Nose Ka" that they'd pinned on Purenes from early on in their stint here on the Pharaoh's Mastaba, "What are voice-offerings for, except to be repeated over and over again?"
"Oh, yeah," Nose-Ka mused.
"Oh, yeah," Beer mocked, "And how often do we GET to Poker, anyhow, Feneka?"
Nose-Ka turned on a heel, "Well, we're never going to get there at this rate!" he huffed, and went off to go beat some of the slaves into dragging the Mastaba faster across the sands.
Beer and Great-Truth looked at one another. "Poor Reder," Beer spoke, and Great-Truth nodded, getting up to pace the surface of the slowly moving mastaba. They were speaking of Reder, the Pharaoh's Scribe, whose name signified nothing in particular and several things all at once, some on the Mastaba maintaining that it meant something like "The One Who Informs," others thinking that it had something to do with his two little feet, which, as Aamaat had once said, was incidentally his height. Others who wished to make fun of the short scribe attested to his name deriving from an excuse that he was "Still Growing." All recognized the significant presence of the R of futurity in the Scribe's name, as he would sometimes inscribe temples with events still years off in the future.
"Yeah," Great-Truth continued, looking down at the close-spaced tracks of the man as he'd gone ahead to run across the sands to Poker. "Ten years tonight since we buried our fearless leader. They really were fond of one another."
Despite "Feneka" Purenes' anticipation of their not arriving in time for the festival, they certainly did, and the 4077 slaves sat down panting and eating their gruel while Merikaye purified the Sed-grounds and then went to purify himself while the Pharaoh ran the boundary stones.
Which brings us back to the beginning of the tale, and Aamaat's comment to Henequet concerning the spry nature of their new leader on the tenth anniversary of his accession to the throne of upper and lower Egypt.
The physicians sipped their martinis.
"Finest Kind," Aamaat spoke.
"Sweeter than anything in the two lands," agreed Henequet.