"On the other hand, for lives of certain kinds the philosophical equivalent of a closed helmet is an expedient thing to wear, despite its inconveniences, for it softens the bangs and bumps which we frequently take from Fate's cudgel."
Long after dark, exhausted from rowing, we reached Bousiris. Because of the lateness of the hour, I put off my visit to Azarias until the following morning.
The weaver was overjoyed to see me again. When I explained my secret errand and showed him the remains of the robe, he lifted up his hands and invoked his god Iao.
"How lucky I am that I can try to repay you for saving my life!" he cried. "If it can he done, ii shall be done. Come with me, my dear friend."
He took me to his storeroom und pulled down several bolts of undyed silk. He compered them, one after another, with the goods of the robe.
"This is the one," he said. "Feel it. How fortunate that you came not later! For I have an order for this bolt, and in a few days it had been gone. Remain here whilst I fetch my fellow workers."
Soon Azarias came back with men whom he presented as Isakos the dyer, Abramos the goldsmith, and Iesous the tailor. So swiftly flew the talk that I was unable to follow the Judaean dialect. At last Azarias turned to me.
"We can make you a duplicate of the original robe, closely enough like it so that none but an expert could tell them apart, in less than a ten day."
"How much will this cost?"
"It shall cost you nought, save for some gold thread and sequins, which I must needs buy. Nay, nay, my friend, press me not, or I shall be offended. I will take care of all other expenses. Now you must stay for dinner."
"I must first go back to the boat, to tell my comrades of our good fortune. And may I bring a friend to dinner? A lady?"
"Surely, surely, anyone you like."
At the boat I said to Manethôs : "Your home lies less than an hour's sail from here. Why not have Horos run you and Phiôps down to Sebennytos and then return hither for us?"
"I suppose I ought," said the priest with a glum look. Remembering Onas' remark about Manethôs domestic life, I surmised that he would have deferred his homecoming if he could have thought of an excuse. "Ere I go, O Chares, let me warn you against Judaean tricks! This fellow may be as virtuous as he pretends, but I would not trust one of them."
At dinner the weaver asked many questions about our adventures. I answered guardedly, not wishing to give away news that might help to put Tis on our track. Among other things he asked:
"Was it the Egyptian priest who betrayed you into the hands of your foes? It is what I should have expected of a slave of one of those false beast gods."
"No, on the contrary, Manethôs rendered us invaluable services."
"Heach!" he said. "You wait; he will forelay you yet. And then, say not that Azarias ben-Moses failed to warn you."
I said: "Be that as it may, he told me an interesting history of your people's having once conquered his and later being driven out."
"What pack of lies is this? Tell me!"
I repeated, as well as I could, Manethôs ' tale of the conquests of Egypt by the Hyksos. As I neared the end, I could see that Azarias was hard pressed to contain his emotions. He flushed, bounced in his seat, and muttered: "Lies! Lies!"
When I finished, he burst out: "Never in my life have I heard such an amass of slanderous falsehoods! I call on Iao to witness!" He waved his fists above his head. "It is false! It is a vile calumny! It is the utter opposite of the truth! Cursed be they who give currency to such a lying tale!
"Let me tell you what really happened. There was a Judaean named Ioseph, who was carried off to Egypt as a slave ..."
It transpired that this Ioseph was thrown into jail as .a result of trouble with his master's wife. Then, by several strokes of improbably good luck, he was freed and raised to the post of king's minister as a reward for interpreting the Egyptian king's dreams. In this exalted position he devised a scheme by which the king was enabled, during a famine, to get title to all the land in Egypt, save only that belonging to the temples. The grateful king permitted Ioseph to invite in his fellow tribesmen, who settled in Egypt. As in Manethôs ' story, the Judaeans were shepherds, as many of them are to this day.
In time these shepherds so waxed in power and number that the Egyptians began to fear that so vigorous and warlike a folk would seize the mastery of the land and rule the Egyptians as slaves. So the king, a successor to the one who had befriended Ioseph, enslaved and persecuted the Judaeans, until a Judaean prophet and politician named Moses arose to their leadership. This Moses led them to revolt and flee across the Arabian wastes to Judaea.
In the meantime other tribes had occupied the land vacated by the Judaeans. The latter, however, exterminated the other tribes with great and bloody slaughters and re-occupied their former homeland, as their god directed them to do.
"And that is the absolute, literal truth," said Azarias, waving his forefinger under my nose. "Bascas! Fetch the sacred scroll of the Five Books to show our guest."
Azarias' eldest son went out and quickly returned with an embroidered cloth container, from which Azarias took a small scroll.
"Here, do you see?" said Azarias, unrolling the scroll and pointing to the lines of Judaean writing, which of course meant nothing to me. "These are the words of the lord Iao himself, so there is no question about their truth. Would that you were here longer, that I might convert you to the true religion! Of course you would have to be circumcised and give up your iniquitous trade of making graven images, but those are minor matters compared to the grace of the one true God.
"That fantastical tale about the Shepherd kings is the sort of libel those vile beast worshipers would devise," he continued, rolling up his scroll. Then he ranted on for an hour about the depravities of the Egyptian priesthood. Nothing that Amenardis or I could say diverted him from this subject.
Azarias, I decided, was a good man. He was, in Homer's words, a friend to human race, and most of the time was not bad company. Hut when he embarked upon this particular subject, he could be the biggest bore in the land of Chem.
I took my leave early, not only to escape the tirade but also to be alone with Amenardis. Onas had taken space at Kenamon's inn, so that Amenardis could better nurse poor Berosos, who suffered a fever from his wounds. My sweetling proved a vigorous and vigilant nurse who stood for no nonsense from her patient. For her and myself I obtained a private room. Onas himself went off to visit his kin.
There was little to do while waiting for Azarias and his fellow tradesmen to finish their copy of the robe. Twice a day I went to their houses to see how the work progressed; but to stand over a craftsman and breathe down his neck makes him nervous and causes bad work. I know.
On the morning of the third day after we reached Bousiris, Amenardis, Dikaiarchos, and I were lounging on the waterfront and watching the Nile flow past. I repeated to Dikaiarchos the story I had from Azarias about the Egyptian captivity of the Judaeans.
"Now here," said I, "we have two histories about the same set of peoples, flatly contradicting each other. Which should I believe? It's no use appealing to ancient records, because each disputant has his own records, and the two sets of writings disagree.'"
Dikaiarchos yawned. "I suppose one might settle the question by twenty or thirty years of independent historical research," he said. "Had I nothing more urgent to do, I could settle down in Egypt, learn to read this writing that uses snakes and owls for letters, and compose my own history. In fact, both the stories you heard are probably wrong, or at least much distorted. That is the way with historical traditions; they suffer sea changes in the handing down.