heir faces before
him? Or against the stars which said that the pharaoh had not entered
yet on the true way? What and whom was he to vanquish? Was it, perhaps,
those voices of spirits which were raised amid darkness? Or was it his
own mother, who begged him in terror not to dismiss priests from state
offices?

The pharaoh writhed on his bed while feeling his helplessness. Suddenly
the thought came to him: "What care I for an enemy which yields like
mud in a hand grasp? Let them talk in empty halls, let them be angry at
my godlessness. I will issue orders, and whoso will not carry them out
is my enemy; against him I will turn courts, police, and warriors."

CHAPTER LIII

So in the month Hator, after thirty-four years of rule, died the
Pharaoh Mer-Amen-Ramses XII, the ruler of two worlds, the lord of
eternity, the giver of life and every happiness.

He died because he felt that his body was growing weak and useless. He
died because he was yearning for his eternal home and he wished to
confide the cares of earthly rule to hands that were more youthful.
Finally he died because he wished to die, for such was his will. His
divine spirit flew away, like a falcon which, circling for a time above
the earth, vanishes at last in blue expanses.

As his life had been the sojourn of an immortal in the region of
evanescence, his death was merely one among moments in the existence of
the superhuman.

Ramses XII woke about sunrise; leaning on two prophets, surrounded by a
chorus of priests, he went to the chapel of Osiris. There, as usual, he
resurrected the divinity, washed and dressed it, made offerings, and
raised his hands in prayer. Meanwhile the priests sang:

Chorus I. "Honor to thee who raisest thyself on the horizon and
coursest across the sky."

Chorus II. "The pathway of thy sacredness is the prosperity of those on
whose faces thy rays fall."

Chorus I. "Would that I might go as Thou goest, O sun! without
halting."

Chorus II. "Mighty wanderer in space, Thou who hast no lord, for thee
hundreds of millions of years are merely the twinkle of an eye."

Chorus I. "Thou goest down, but endurest. Thou multipliest hours, days,
and nights, and remainest in solitude according to thy own laws."

Chorus II. "Thou dost illumine the earth, offering thy own self with
thy own hands, when under the form of Ra Thou comest up on the
horizon."

Chorus I: "O star, emerging great, through thy light, Thou thyself
formest thy