law. But whoever plants a tree thereby wins the favor of the gods. The inhabitants of Babylon are fatter and oilier than other people and like all fat folk are given to laughter. They eat heavy, floury food, and I saw a bird there they call a hen, which could not fly but lived among the people and laid an egg as large as a crocodile’s egg for them every day, though no one hearing this would believe it. I was offered some of these eggs to eat, for the Babylonians regard them as a great delicacy, but I never ventured to try them and contented myself with dishes familiar to me or of which I knew the ingredients.
The people of the country told me that Babylon was the greatest and most ancient of all the cities in the world, though I did not believe them, knowing that Thebes is both the greatest and the oldest. There is no city in the world like Thebes, though I will admit that Babylon astonished me with its size and wealth. Its very walls were as high as hills and formidable to see, and the tower they had built to their gods soared to the sky. The town houses were four and five stories high so that people lived their lives above and below each other, and nowhere-not even in Thebes-have I seen such magnificent shops and such a wealth of merchandise as in the trading houses of the temple.
Their god was Marduk, and to the honor of Ishtar a gateway had been built that was loftier than the pylons of Ammon’s temple. It was covered with many-colored glazed tiles fitted together into pictures that dazzled the eyes in sunlight. From this gateway a broad road ran to Marduk’s tower, up which a spiral way led to the summit-a way so smooth and wide that a number of chariots might have been driven up it abreast. At the top of this tower dwelt the astrologers, who knew all the heavenly bodies, calculated their paths, and proclaimed auspicious and inauspicious days so that all might regulate their lives thereby. It was said also that they could foretell a man’s destiny, though for this they had to know the day and hour of his birth. Being ignorant of my own, I could not put their science to the test.
I had as much gold as I cared to draw from the temple counting house, and I took up my dwelling near the Gate of Ishtar at a large inn many stories high, on the roof of which were gardens of fruit trees and myrtle bushes and where streams flowed and fish leaped in the pools. This inn was frequented by eminent people visiting Babylon from their country estates-if they had no town house of their own-and also by foreign envoys. The rooms were carpeted with thick mats and the couches soft with the skins of wild animals, while on the walls were frivolous pictures very gaily and colorfully pieced together with glazed tiles. This inn was called Ishtar’s House of Joy and belonged, like all else of note in the city, to the Tower of the God.
Nowhere else in the world are so many different sorts of people to be seen or languages to be heard as in Babylon. The citizens say that all roads lead thither and that it is the center of the world. Its people are first and foremost merchants; nothing is more highly regarded than commerce, so that even their gods trade among themselves. For this reason they have no love for war, and they maintain mercenaries and build walls merely to safeguard their business. Their desire is for roads in every country to be kept open to all, chiefly because they know themselves to be the greatest merchants of any and that trade is of more advantage to them than war. Yet they are proud of the soldiers who guard their ramparts and temples and who march every day to the Gate of Ishtar, their helmets and breastplates gleaming with gold and silver. The hilts of their swords also and their spearheads are adorned with gold and silver in token of their wealth. They inquire eagerly of the stranger whether he has ever before seen such troops and such chariots.
The King of Babylon was a smooth-faced boy who had to hang a false beard to his chin when he mounted the throne. He loved playthings and strange tales. My fame had sped before me from Mitanni, so that when I put up at Ishtar’s House of Joy and had spoken with the priests and doctors of the tower, I received word that the King commanded my attendance.
Kaptah as usual was anxious, and said to me, “Do not go, but rather let us fly together, for of kings no good thing can come.”
But I said, “You fool, do you not remember that we have the scarab with us?”
“The scarab is the scarab,” he rejoined, “and I have not forgotten, but safety is better than hazard, and we must not try the scarab too high. If you are resolved to go, I cannot hinder you, and I will come, too, so that at least we may die together. But we must stand upon our dignity and request that a royal chair be sent to fetch us- and we will not go today, for by the custom of the country it is an evil day.
The merchants have closed their shops, and the people rest in their houses and do no work. I? they did, it would miscarry, this being the seventh day of the week.”
I pondered this and knew that he was right. Though to Egyptians all days are alike, save those proclaimed unpropitious according to the stars, yet in this country the seventh day might be unlucky for an Egyptian, also, and it was better to be prudent.
I said, therefore, to the King’s servant, “You must take me for a simple foreigner indeed if you fancy I would appear before the King on such a day as this. Tomorrow I will come if your King will send a chair for me. I have no wish to come before him with dung between my toes.”
The servant replied, “For these words of yours, Egyptian scum, I fear you will come before the King with a spear prodding your behind.”
But he went and was certainly impressed, for the next day the King’s chair came to Ishtar’s House of Joy to fetch me. But the chair was a common one, such as is sent to bring tradesmen and other common people to the palace to show jewelry and feathers and apes.
Kaptah shouted loudly to the porters and to the runner, “In the name of Set and all devils! May Marduk scourge you with scorpions! Be off! As if it were seemly for my lord to travel in such a rickety old coop as that!”
The porters looked blank, and the runner threatened Kaptah with his staff. Onlookers began to gather at the inn door and laugh, saying, “In truth we long to see your lord for whom the King’s chair is inadequate.”
But Kaptah hired the great chair belonging to the inn, which required forty slaves to carry it; in this the ambassadors from powerful kingdoms went about their business, and in this also foreign gods were carried when they visited the city. And the bystanders laughed no longer when I came down from my room in a robe on which were embroidered in silver and gold the symbols of my calling. My collar glittered in the sunshine with gold and precious stones, while about my neck were hung chains of gold. The inn slaves followed with chests of cedarwood and ebony inlaid with ivory in which lay my medicines and my instruments. Indeed, there was no more laughing; rather they bowed before me, saying one to another, “Truly this man must be as the lesser gods in wisdom. Let us follow him to the palace.”
At the palace gates the guards dispersed the throng with their spears and raised their shields as a barrier, a very wall of gold and silver. Winged lions lined the way along which I was carried to the inner courts. Here an old man came to meet me whose chin was shaven after the fashion of scholars and in whose ears gleamed golden rings. His cheeks hung in discontented folds, and there was anger in his eyes as he addressed me.
“My liver is incensed because of the needless uproar you have caused by your arrival. The lord of the four quarters of the world is already asking what manner of man this is who comes when it suits him rather than when it suits the King-and who, when he does come, brings tumult with him.”
I said to him, “Old man! Your speech is as the buzz of flies in my ear. Nevertheless, I ask who you may be to address me thus?”
“I am physician in chief to the lord of the four quarters of the world-and what swindler are you who come to entice gold and silver from the King? Know that if of his bounty he reward you with minted gold or silver, you must give half of it to me.”
“I see that you would do better to talk to my servant, whose business it is to clear blackmailers and parasites from my path. Yet I shall be your friend since you are an old man and know no better. I shall give you these gold rings from my arm to show you that gold and silver are but as dust beneath my feet and that it is not for them that I have come but for wisdom.”
I gave him the bracelets, and he was astonished and knew not what to say. He even allowed Kaptah to accompany me and brought us into the presence of the King.
King Burnaburiash sat on soft cushions in an airy room with the walls glowing with brightly colored tiles, a spoiled, sulky boy with his hand to his cheek. Beside him lay a lion that growled softly as we appeared. The old man prostrated himself to wipe the floor with his mouth before the King, and Kaptah did the same. When he heard the growl, however, he bounced up on hands and feet like a frog with a yelp of fear, which made the King burst out laughing and tumble backward on his cushions, squirming with mirth. Kaptah squatted on the floor, his hands raised defensively, while the lion also sat up and yawned at great length, then clashed its fangs together as the temple
