Beside this golden bowl there are many other objects
from Tahuti’s tomb which must have been very
rich, and have escaped plundering until this century.
A silver dish, broken, and a canopic jar of alabaster,
are in Paris; another canopic jar, a palette, a kohl
vase, and a heart scarab set in gold, are in Leyden;
while in Darmstadt is the dagger of this great general.
This piece of a popular tale founded on an incident
of his Syrian wars has curiously survived, while the
more solid official records of his conquests has perished
in the wreck of history. His tomb even is unknown,
although it has been plundered; perhaps his active
life of foreign service did not give him that leisure
to carve and decorate it, which was so laboriously
spent by the home-living dignitaries of Thebes,
THE DOOMED PRINCE
There once was a king to whom no son was born; and
his heart was grieved, and he prayed for himself unto
the gods around him for a child. They decreed
that one should be born to him. And his wife,
after her time was fulfilled, brought forth a son.
Then came the Hathors to decree for him a destiny;
they said, “His death is to be by the crocodile,
or by the serpent, or by the dog.” Then
the people who stood by heard this, and they went
to tell it to his majesty. Then his majesty’s
heart sickened very greatly. And his majesty
caused a house to be built upon the desert; it was
furnished with people and with all good things of the
royal house, that the child should not go abroad.
And when the child was grown, he went up upon the
roof, and he saw a dog; it was following a man who
was walking on the road. He spoke to his page,
who was with him, “What is this that walks behind
the man who is coming along the road?” He answered
him, “This is a dog.” The child said
to him, “Let there be brought to me one like
it.” The page went to repeat it to his majesty.
And his majesty said, “Let there be brought to
him a little pet dog, lest his heart be sad.”
And behold they brought to him the dog.
Then when the days increased after this, and when
the child became grown in all his limbs, he sent a
message to his father saying, “Come, wherefore
am I kept here? Inasmuch as I am fated to three
evil fates, let me follow my desire. Let God
do what is in His heart.” They agreed to
all he said, and gave him all sorts of arms, and also
his dog to follow him, and they took him to the east
country, and said to him, “Behold, go thou whither
thou wilt.” His dog was with him, and he
went northward, following his heart in the desert,
while he lived on all the best of the game of the
desert. He went to the chief of Naha-raina.
And behold there had not been any born to the chief
of Naharaina, except one daughter. Behold, there
had been built for her a house; its seventy windows
were seventy cubits from the ground. And the chief
caused to be brought all the sons of the chiefs of
the land of Khalu, and said to them, “He who
reaches the window of my daughter, she shall be to
him for a wife.”
