"Say to 'my people: Work and be patient. Say to the priests who are loyal: Serve the gods and cultivate wisdom, which is the sun of the universe. But those stubborn and suspicious dignitaries leave to my management. Woe to them if they anger me."
"Lord," said the priest, "I am thy faithful servant."
But when he had taken farewell and gone out care was evident on his face.
About seventy-five miles from Siut, higher up the Nile, the wild Arabian rocks almost touch the river, but the Libyan hills have pushed away so far from it that the valley at that point is perhaps the widest part of Egypt. Just there, side by side, stood Tibis and Abydos, two holy cities. There was born the first Egyptian pharaoh, Menes, there, a hundred thousand years before, were laid in the grave the holy relics of the god Osiris slain by Set (his brother Typhon) treacherously.
There, finally, in memory of those great events, the famous pharaoh Seti built a temple to which pilgrims came from every part of Egypt. Each believer was bound even once during life to bring his forehead to the blessed earth of Abydos. Truly happy was he whose mummy could make a journey to that place and halt even at a distance from the temple.
The mummy of Ramses XII spent two days there; for he had been a ruler noted for devotion. There is nothing wonderful in this, therefore, that Ramses XIII began his reign by rendering homage to the grave of Osiris.
Seti's temple was not among the oldest or most splendid in Egypt, but it was distinguished for pure Egyptian style. His holiness Ramses XIII, accompanied by Sem the high priest, visited the temple and made offerings in it.
The ground belonging to the edifice occupied a space of seventy-five hectares, on which were fish ponds, flower beds, orchards and vegetable gardens, besides the houses or rather villas of the temple priesthood. Everywhere grew poplars and acacias, as well as palm, fig, and orange trees which formed alleys directed toward the cardinal points of the world, or groups of trees of almost the same height and set out in order.
Under the watchful eyes of priests even the plant world did not develop according to its own impulses into irregular but picturesque groups; it was arranged in straight lines according to direction, or straight lines according to height, or in geometrical figures.
Palms, tamarinds, cypresses, and myrtles were arranged like warriors in ranks or columns. The grass was a divan shorn and ornamented with pictures made of flowers, not of any chance color, but of that color which was demanded. People looking from above saw pictures of gods or sacred beasts blooming on the turf near the temple; a sage found there aphorisms written out in hieroglyphs.