Your courier reached me yesterday with your important letter, advising
me of the refusal of the King of Cyprus to receive your ambassador, or
release your subjects; and that you only await my return to declare
war. I shall not fail to respond to your call, and will next week
leave Egypt for Syria. I have not yet visited the Thebaïd, and the
superb temples of Upper Egypt, nor seen the wonderful Labyrinth, nor
the Cataracts; but I hope at some future day to revisit this
interesting land. I feel, indeed, rejoiced to go away now, as the
painful and extraordinary events connected with Remeses have cast a
gloom over all things here, and changed all my plans.
But I will resume the narrative, interrupted by the abrupt ending of
my last letter. That, with the preceding, as well as this, I shall now
send to you, as the seal of secrecy is removed from them, by the
publicity which has been given to all the events by Remeses.
To return, dear mother, to the account of the scenes which the
magicians presented to his vision, in the black marble chamber of the
pyramid.
"I now," continued Remeses, "beheld the excited mother reach the
presence of the princess, trying to calm the wild tumult of hope and
fear in her maternal bosom; and to her, I saw the princess, after many
inquiries, commit the charge of the infant.
"'I shall adopt this child, O nurse,' she said; 'bring it, therefore,
to the palace daily that I may see it. Take as faithful care of it as
if it were your own, and you shall be rewarded with my favor, as well
as with a nurse's wages.'
"The joyful Hebrew woman tried to repress her happiness, and trembled
so, that the princess said--
"'Thou art awkward. Carry it tenderly; and see that thou keep this
secret closely, or I shall take the boy away from thee, woman, and
also punish thee. What is thy name?'
"'Jochebeda,' she answered.
"'And thy husband's?'
"'Amram, your majesty,' she replied.
"I saw her, O Sesostris, when she had well got out of the princess's
sight, clasp, by stealth, her recovered child to her bosom, while
words of tenderness were in her mouth, and her eyes streaming with
tears of gratitude and wonder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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