knows no lack, with people who have never walked on hard earth or lived on fish and beans? But we manage, Teacher.
'Now, even though it is still so hot - will the Southern Snake never stop blowing? - I must be away to visit my Lady the Queen, and you can tell stories to these voracious maidens. Ask the slaves for whatever you want,' said Tey, and went.
I heard the outer door slap closed. Then I drew a deep breath, echoed by my new sister, and we both sat down on Teacher Khons' sleeping mat.
'Tell us another,' we said, almost in unison.
'First you will tell me,' he said in a guarded fashion, 'Is the lady your mother always like that?'
'How?' I asked.
'So short, so brisk, so... decided.'
'Yes,' we both agreed.
'Ah. Then we had better make some progress in learning or I'll be off to Khnum at Hermopolis faster than a vulture flies. Tell me what you already know, Lady Mutnodjme.'
'I can read and write cursive and understand most of the hieroglyphs. I can tell stories. Do you know a lot of stories?'
'Hundreds.' He turned to Merope. 'And you, Lady?'
'I never learned to write,' said Merope. 'But I can tell stories, too.'
'And you can speak Kritian,' he added. 'An accomplishment that many of us would envy. Very well. While you are learning cursive, my Lady will learn hieroglyphics. And we will tell lots of stories. Will that please my ladies?'
'Yes. Who beat you?'
'My Master at the school of scribes.'
'Why?' I traced the scars where thin canes or whips had cut his smooth flesh.
'For asking too many questions. For arguing.' He smelt pleasantly of frankincense, now that I was close to him. Merope also edged nearer, and Teacher Khons began to look nervous.
'Sit further away,' he ordered. 'It is too hot to be close in this wind.'
'Where does the wind come from?' I asked, as I moved to another mat.
'It is the breath of Apep, the great Southern Snake, foe of Re the Sun since the beginning of time. At Ephipi, and into Mesoré, the power of Re is diverted to the other side of the world, and Apep roars, desiring to take the Black Land again into his maw and slake his thirst by drinking the Nile dry.'
'Could he do that?'
'Once he did just that,' said Khons. He slid down until he was leaning on one elbow, chin in hand, examining us with his black eyes.
'When?'
'Shall I tell you the tale?'
'Tell us about Apep and Re,' we chorused. Merope and I lay down also on reed mats, and Basht came padding in and settled down with her chin on Merope's chest. It seemed that the striped cat liked stories, too.
'Apep is a gigantic serpent,' he began.
'How gigantic is he?' I asked.
'He is two hour's walk from end to end, and in the middle as wide as the Nile at flood,' replied Khons. We gasped and he continued the tale:
You know that the Lord Amen-Re sails his sun-boat under the world into the Tuat every night? Every hour of darkness he must fight off some attacker or fiend, for the otherword is not as here, my students, it is dark and the water is troubled. Fiends stalk the darkness, and the evening carries more dangers than just robbers and thieves.
As the sun boat navigates the Tuat river in black darkness, Apep comes swimming. Each undulation of his body is as high as the sky, and five armies could march under him abreast. Slithering he comes, for he is cold. Faintly he shines, for he is slimy.
In the night frightened wayfarers see the gleam of his teeth under the cold stars, and dig holes in the sand to hide from the cold stare of his eyes. For he is the great devil, the everlasting Foe of all that is warm, and breathes, and lives.
'What about fish?' I asked. 'They do not breathe and are cold. Do they belong to Apep?'
This would have been the point where any other storyteller would have snapped at me for interrupting, but Teacher Khons took it in his stride.
'Fish breathe, Lady, they just breathe water, not air. And they are warmer than the water in which they swim, and they can be eaten by humans, so they are not of Apep. But the green viper and the horned viper are his own children, and live to slay anyone who touches them.
Now this Apep attacks the boat on which the Sun who is Re rides through the Tuat, and the kind gods fight him; even She who is Beauty and Music, even the gentle Hathor.
Apep roars, and the stink of his breath burns the sail of the Sun Boat; he dives, and the river banks are flooded and washed by his bow-wave. And the gods kill and dismember him, he who is Destruction, and cast him into the river.
But every day, while the Sun Re is in the sky, Apep reforms and draws his bones and his flesh together, and every night he attacks again.
Some men say that one night, if belief fails, then he will win: and that will be the end of light, and warmth, and the world.
We shivered pleasurably. 'You have the spell which they recite every day in every temple of Amen-Re in the Black Land,' said Teacher Khons. 'The priests say it as they destroy a wax image, melting it and spitting on it and crushing it underfoot. We will listen while you read it, Lady Mutnodjme.'
I took the scroll, scanned the cursive script and began to read:
Apep is fallen into the flame; a knife is stabbed into his head: his name lives no more. I drive darts into him, I sever his neck, cutting into his flesh with this knife. He is given over to the fire which has mastery over him.
Horus mighty of strength has decreed that he should come to the front of the boat of Re: his fetter of steel ties him and binds him so that he cannot move. He is chained, bound, fettered, and his strength ebbs so that I may separate the flesh from the bones, cut off his feet and his arms and hands; cut out his tongue and break his teeth, one by one, from his mouth: block up his ears and put out his eyes. I tear out his heart from its throne: I make him not to exist. May his name be forgotten and his heirs and his relatives and his offspring, may his seed never be established: may his soul, body, spirit, shade and words of power and his bones and his skin be as nothing.
I looked at Teacher Khons. 'Why, then, is the serpent still alive?' I asked.
'Because spells cannot mend everything,' said Teacher Khons, turning a gold ring in his ear. 'Because gods are a way of looking at the world. Because there must be a balance, and while there is good there must be Amen-Re, and while there is evil there must be Apep.'
That sounded reasonable. I began to think that having a teacher was going to be very interesting.
Ptah-hotep
