Then Neith's dark blue eyes grew darker, and she said, 'Oh, Lord of truth! why should they love us? their love is vain; or fear us? for their fear is base. Yet let them testify of us, that they knew we lived for ever.'
But the Lord of truth answered, 'They know, and yet they know not. Let them keep silence; for their silence only is truth.'
But Neith answered, 'Brother, wilt thou also make league with Death, because Death is true? Oh! thou potter, who hast cast these human things from thy wheel, many to dishonour, and few to honour; wilt thou not let them so much as see my face; but slay them in slavery?'
But Pthah only answered, 'Let them build, sister, let them build.'
And Neith answered, 'What shall they build, if I build not with them?'
And Pthah drew with his measuring rod upon the sand. And I saw suddenly, drawn on the sand, the outlines of great cities, and of vaults, and domes, and aqueducts, and bastions, and towers, greater than obelisks, covered with black clouds. And the wind blew ripples of sand amidst the lines that Pthah drew, and the moving sand was like the marching of men. But I saw that wherever Neith looked at the lines, they faded, and were effaced.
'Oh, Brother!' she said at last, 'what is this vanity? If I, who am Lady of wisdom, do not mock the children of men, why shouldst thou mock them, who art Lord of truth?' But Pthah answered, 'They thought to bind me; and they shall be bound. They shall labour in the fire for vanity.'
And Neith said, looking at the sand, 'Brother, there is no true labour here—there is only weary life and wasteful death.'
And Pthah answered, 'Is it not truer labour, sister, than thy sculpture of dreams?'
Then Neith smiled; and stopped suddenly.