A Legend of Old Egypt - Plot

Plot

"A Legend of Old Egypt"
Author	Bolesław Prus
Original title	"Z legend dawnego Egiptu"
Translator	Christopher Kasparek
Country	Poland
Language	Polish
Genre(s)	Historical short story
Published in	Kurier Codzienny, and Tygodnik Ilustrowany (Warsaw)
Media type	Print
Publication date	1 January 1888

The centenarian pharaoh Ramses is breathing his last, "his chest... invested by a stifling incubus the blood from his heart, the strength from his arm, and at times even the consciousness from his brain." He commands the wisest physician at the Temple of Karnak to prepare him a medicine that kills or cures at once. After Ramses drinks the potion, he summons an astrologer and asks what the stars show. The astrologer replies that heavenly alignments portend the death of a member of the dynasty; Ramses should not have taken the medicine today. Ramses then asks the physician how soon he will die; the physician replies that before sunrise either Ramses will be hale as a rhino, or his sacred ring will be on the hand of his grandson and successor, Horus.

Ramses commands that Horus be taken to the hall of the pharaohs, there to await his last words and the royal ring. Amid the moonlight, Horus seats himself on the porch, whose steps lead down to the River Nile, and watches the crowds gathering to greet their soon-to-be new pharaoh. As Horus contemplates the reforms that he would like to introduce, something stings his leg; he thinks it was a bee. A courtier remarks that it is fortunate that it was not a spider, whose venom can be deadly at this time of year.

Horus orders edicts drawn up, ordaining peace with Egypt's enemies, the Ethiopians, and forbidding that prisoners of war have their tongues torn out on the field of battle; lowering the people's rents and taxes; giving slaves days of rest and forbidding their caning without a court judgment; recalling Horus' teacher Jethro, whom Ramses had banished for instilling in Horus an aversion to war and compassion for the people; moving, to the royal tombs, the body of Horus' mother Sephora which, because of the mercy that she had shown the slaves, Ramses had buried among the slaves; and releasing Horus' beloved, Berenice, from the cloister where Ramses had imprisoned her.

Meanwhile Horus' leg has become more painful. The physician examines it and finds that Horus has been stung by a very poisonous spider. He has only a short time to live.

The ministers enter with the edicts that they have drawn up at his bidding, and Horus awaits the death of Ramses so that he may touch and thus confirm his edicts with the sacred ring of the pharaohs.

As death approaches Horus, and it becomes increasingly unlikely that he will have time to touch every edict with the ring, he lets successive edicts slip to the floor: the edict on the people's rents and the slaves' labor; the edict on peace with the Ethiopians; the edict moving his mother Sephora's remains; the edict recalling Jethro from banishment; the edict on not tearing out the tongues of prisoners taken in war. There remains only the edict freeing his love, Berenice.

Just then, the high priest's deputy runs into the hall and announces a miracle. Ramses has recovered and invites Horus to join him in a lion hunt at sunrise.

Horus looked with failing eye across the Nile, where the light shone in Berenice's prison, and two sanguineous tears rolled down his face.

"You do not answer, Horus?" asked Ramses' messenger, in surprise.

"Don't you see he's dead?..." whispered the wisest physician in Karnak.

Behold, human hopes are vain before the decrees that the Eternal writes in fiery signs upon the heavens.