"Hast Thou forgotten what the sage Eney said? Perhaps holy Sem will repeat those beautiful words to us."
"Remember," quoted Sem, "that she gave birth to thee and nourished thee in every manner."
"Speak further; speak!" insisted the pharaoh, striving always to command himself.
"Shouldst Thou forget that she would raise her hands to the god, and he would hear her complaint. She bore thee long beneath her heart, like a great burden, and gave thee birth when thy mouths had expired. She carried thee in her arms afterward, and during three years she put her breast into thy mouth. She reared thee, was not disgusted with thy uncleanness. And when Thou wert going to school and wert exercised in writing, she placed before thy teacher daily bread and beer from her own dwelling." [Authentic]
Ramses sighed deeply and said with calmness,
"So ye see that it is not proper that my mother should salute me.
Rather I will go to her."
And he passed through a series of halls lined with marble, alabaster, and wood, painted in bright colors, carved and gilded; behind him went his immense suite. But when he came to the antechamber of his mother's apartments, he made a sign to leave him. When he had passed the antechamber, he stopped a while before the door, then knocked and entered quietly.
In a chamber with bare walls, where in place of furniture there stood only a low wooden couch and a broken pitcher holding water, all in sign of mourning, Queen Niort's, the mother of the pharaoh, was sitting on a stone. She was in a coarse shirt, barefoot; her face was smeared with mud from the Nile, and in her tangled hair there were ashes.
When she saw Ramses, the worthy lady inclined so as to fall at his feet. But the son seized her in his arms, and said with weeping,
"If thou, O mother, incline to the ground before me, I shall be forced to go under the ground before thee."