me, none of my charioteers looked towards me when
I called them, not one of them heard my voice when
I cried to them. But I find that Amon is more
to me than a million soldiers, than a hundred thousand
charioteers, than a myriad of brothers or young sons,
joined all together, for the number of men is as nothing,
Amon is greater than all of them. Each time I
have accomplished these things, Amon, by the counsel
of thy mouth, as I do not transgress thy orders, I
rendered thee glory even to the ends of the earth.”
So calm an invocation in the thick of the battle would
appear misplaced in the mouth of an ordinary man,
but Pharaoh was a god, and the son of a god, and his
actions and speeches cannot be measured by the same
standard as that of a common mortal. He was possessed
by the religious spirit in the hour of danger, and
while his body continued to fight, his soul took wing
to the throne of Amon. He contemplates the lord
of heaven face to face, reminds him of the benefits
which he had received from him, and summons him to
his aid with an imperiousness which betrays the sense
of his own divine origin. The expected help was
not delayed. “While the voice resounds in
Hermonthis, Amon arises at my behest, he stretches
out his hand to me, and I cry out with joy when he
hails me from behind: ’Face to face with
thee, face to face with thee, Ramses Miamun, I am
with thee! It is I, thy father! My hand is
with thee, and I am worth more to thee than hundreds
of thousands. I am the strong one who loves valour;
I have beheld in thee a courageous heart, and my heart
is satisfied; my will is about to be accomplished!’
I am like Montu; from the right I shoot with the dart,
from the left I seize the enemy. I am like Baal
in his hour, before them; I have encountered two thousand
five hundred chariots, and as soon as I am in their
midst, they are overthrown before my mares. Not
one of all these people has found a hand wherewith
to fight; their hearts sink within their breasts,
fear paralyses their limbs; they know not how to throw
their darts, they have no strength to hold their lances.
I precipitate them into the water like as the crocodile
plunges therein; they are prostrate face to the earth,
one upon the other, and I slay in the midst of them,
for I have willed that not one should look behind
him, nor that one should return; he who falls rises
not again.” This sudden descent of the god
has, even at the present day, an effect upon the reader,
prepared though he is by his education to consider
it as a literary artifice; but on the Egyptian, brought
up to regard Amon with boundless reverence, its influence
was irresistible. The Prince of the Khati, repulsed
at the very moment when he was certain of victory,
“recoiled with terror. He sends against
the enemy the various chiefs, followed by their chariots
and skilled warriors,—the chiefs of Arvad,
Lycia, and Ilion, the leaders of the Lycians and Dardanians,
the lords of Carchemish, of the Girgashites, and of