I tell of his divine Majesty whom I loved and love as my own soul, Seti Meneptah the second, whose day of birth was my day of birth, the Hawk who has flown to heaven before me; of Userti the Proud, his queen, she who afterwards married his divine Majesty, Saptah, whom I saw laid in her tomb at Thebes.  I tell of Merapi, who was named Moon of Israel, and of her people, the Hebrews, who dwelt for long in Egypt and departed thence, having paid us back in loss and shame for all the good and ill we gave them.  I tell of the war between the gods of Egypt and the god of Israel, and of much that befell therein.

Also I, the King’s Companion, the great scribe, the beloved of the Pharaohs who have lived beneath the sun with me, tell of other men and matters.  Behold! is it not written in this roll?  Read, ye who shall find in the days unborn, if your gods have given you skill.  Read, O children of the future, and learn the secrets of that past which to you is so far away and yet in truth so near.

As it chanced, although the Prince Seti and I were born upon the same day and therefore, like the other mothers of gentle rank whose children saw the light upon that day, my mother received Pharaoh’s gift and I received the title of Royal Twin in Ra, never did I set eyes upon the divine Prince Seti until the thirtieth birthday of both of us.  All of which happened thus.

In those days the great Pharaoh, Rameses the second, and after him his son Meneptah who succeeded when he was already old, since the mighty Rameses was taken to Osiris after he had counted one hundred risings of the Nile, dwelt for the most part at the city of Tanis in the desert, whereas I dwelt with my parents at the ancient, white-walled city of Memphis on the Nile.  At times Meneptah and his court visited Memphis, as also they visited Thebes, where this king lies in his royal tomb to-day.  But save on one occasion, the young Prince Seti, the heir-apparent, the Hope of Egypt, came not with them, because his mother, Asnefert, did not favour Memphis, where some trouble had befallen her in youth—­they say it was a love matter that cost the lover his life and her a sore heart—­and Seti stayed with his mother who would not suffer him out of sight of her eyes.

Once he came indeed when he was fifteen years of age, to be proclaimed to the people as son of his father, as Son of the Sun, as the future wearer of the Double Crown, and then we, his twins in Ra—­there were nineteen of us who were gently born—­were called by name to meet him and to kiss his royal feet.  I made ready to go in a fine new robe embroidered in purple with the name of Seti and my own.  But on that very morning by the gift of some evil god I was smitten with spots all over my face and body, a common sickness that affects the young.  So it happened that I did not see the Prince, for before I was well again he had left Memphis.