Sunday, January 5, 2020

“The REED and the SCEPTRE” – Did a shrewd palace tutor and scribe Senmut use his reed pen to win the heart of a sovereign of Egypt, Queen Hatshepsut?

WHAT IF? - An historical, romantic imagining by Roy Lester Pond. Short fiction here, free to read.
An artist’s sketch on a flake of ostraca shows the acute face of Senmut. On the reverse side is a sketch of a rodent. (Here shown superimposed.) An ancient critique? (In the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection)

Senmut’s mortal remains have never been found.

Only his two empty tombs.

Mysteriously, he vanishes from the historical record, perhaps exiled to Punt, Africa’s storied land of the incense that wreathed Egypt’s gods in mystical perfume.

I like to picture a much older Senmut looking back on his *meteoric career later in life...

In the end, we all become historians.

When the cold and dark approach, we warm ourselves by raking the coals of the past and blowing upon the dying embers of memories.

Did Senmut in his old age stir up the flame of Queen Maat-ka-re Hatshepsut in the heart-hearth of consolation?

Did she rise like sparks under his breath, bending and twisting like a sapling?

A young woman with eyes that could flash like jewels in delight or glitter in anger and disapproval.

But of course she was more than a young woman.

She was royal and half divine.

And he, Senmut, a scribe and tutor, did not just adore her as subjects must do according to the laws of Ma’at, but dared to love her.

For this he was hated.



He first saw Hatshepsut’s disapproval in the palace grounds in Thebes.

She came through the garden to Senmut where he sat with her child under palms beside a pool strewn with water lilies.

As a royal tutor, Senmut was instructing the Queen’s daughter, the young princess Neferure, in writing with reed pen and papyrus.

“Tutor, Senmut.” The queen’s voice was like a stirring of palm fronds above his head. But there was no breeze.

“Your Majesty.”

Senmut jumped to his feet at her arrival and bent the head before the gowned young woman, a mother, a widow and Queen co-regent. He found himself gazing down at slender feet shod in golden sandals.

“What have you made my daughter write today?” she said.

He detected accusation.

“We are practicing a text, Your Majesty,” he said, straightening under her cool regard.

“What text?”

“About a beautiful garden, like this one.”

And a beautiful lover, he was tempted to add when the young princess spoke up.

“See, I have written a poem, Mother,” her daughter said, pleased with herself.

Little Princess Neferure had been daubing on a scrap of papyrus in a child’s hand, although her text was readable enough.

Neferure held her work up for her mother’s eyes. They glittered.

“Do you want me to read it to you?” she said to her mother.

“No,” the God’s Wife Hatshepsut said. “Let your tutor share it with us.”

Senmut accepted the scrap of jotted text from the child’s gleeful hand, its surface still damp with ink, and tried to calm the tremble he always felt whenever Hatshepsut came into sight.

“The princess likes poems,” he said.

“As does her tutor, evidently,” the queen noted.

“This is merely an exercise --”

“In what?”

“Writing and appreciation.”

“Go on.”

“Your majesty wishes me to read it out?” Senmut said.

“A difficulty? Surely your teaching is not of so poor a quality that you cannot read your student’s hand?”

The papyrus crackled.

A choice swayed in his heart like the balancing scales of Maat.

Should he give the text a mechanical read, like a dictation to a pupil? He glimpsed the queen’s painted mouth. A twitch in the corner. Of anger or enjoyment at his discomfort? He felt a flash of heat on his face as if reflected from the silvery water of the pond. Heat suddenly dazzled Senmut. An insect buzzing near his ear sounded like a swarm.

Yet a destructive sense of daring in the presence of power tipped him in a dangerous direction.

He cleared his throat.

He would try to read the text as if delivering it to its secretly intended recipient and dare the consequences.



“Come through the garden, Love, to me.

My love is like each flower that blows;

Tall and straight as a young palm tree,

And in each cheek a sweet blush-rose --”
“No, Senmut. Do not read it like an inventory of grain in a storehouse. On pain of dismissal from your post, or worse, read it as it is meant, as love poetry, written to its intended.” Senmut felt an icy hand with pointed fingernails grip his insides and his heart cowered in his chest. Did he dare? Her fine eyes dazzled his. It was one thing to dream about Makare Hatshepsut, another to stand in the sunlight glare of her power and radiance. He read it again, or his heart did. He did not hear his own voice speaking.


Hatshepsut remained still as one of her statues.

“A love poem, like all the others my daughter has brought to the palace. I recall the words of the last one,” the Queen said. “It referred directly to the king’s daughter.”



“Sweet of love is the daughter of the King!  

Black are her tresses as the blackness of the night,  

Black as the wine-grape are the clusters of her hair.  

The hearts of the women turn towards her with delight,  

Gazing on her beauty with which none can compare.  

Sweet of love is the daughter of the King,

Fair are her arms in the softly swaying dance, 

Fairer by far is her bosom’s rounded swell!  

The hearts of the men are as water at her glance,  

Fairer is her beauty than mortal tongue can tell.  

Sweet of love is the daughter of the King!  

Rosy are her cheeks as the jasper’s ruddy hue.  

Rosy as the henna which stains her slender hands...”



She broke off and gave him a challenging stare.

“Do you not fear, Senmut, that love poems sent out in the unsteady hands of a child are like lamps that can set a fire in an unexpected place? There are many women in the palace.”

But only one queen, he thought. Wife of the ailing young king Thutmosis who had died soon after their marriage and the daughter of a greater king, also named Thutmosis, who had flown to the heavens.

“May I ask - does your Royal Highness appreciate poetry?” he said.

“Your poetry?”

Senmut had read her well enough to guess that a womanish heart was not her weakness, only womanly curiosity. He had gained his appointment as a tutor, as he’d gained all his rapid appointments, first in the army and then in the temple bureaucracy, because he had a nimble grasp. He knew that she would wonder why he would keep aiming his arrows at something she lacked. It was because he was interested in everything she lacked, yet could have if she desired. Including unwomanly power and glory.

“Arrows flying past may miss you,” she said, “yet nevertheless gain your attention. What is it that you want, Senmut?”

The scales swayed again.

The power of Hatshepsut’s presence blasted away prevarication and left only boldness.

He came down on the side of risk.

“To serve Your Majesty,” he said simply.

“I have any number who serve me, including you, but I discern that you mean something different.”

“I want to devote my life to your glory and radiance as one does with the divine.  You are already above all other women, but I see in Your Majesty that which could place you above all men.” She was Queen Co-Regent with her young stepson Thutmosis, a son by a secondary wife, Isis. But the child was still a hawk in the nest, too young to rule as pharaoh in his own right. So the throne was not entirely hers. “Your Majesty deserves all - for the strength and steadying hand displayed in a time of grief and dynastic uncertainty.”

“You suggest my hand takes more?”

“Your Majesty’s fingers need only close.”

“You forget the hawk in the nest. He is young. But active.”

“The army needs young hawks in training. Let his Young Highness play soldiers. He will make the career choice willingly.”

“How?”

“Simply give His Young Highness the true taste of power,” Senmut said.

“To what conceivable end?”

“Insist that he shares the creaking burden of rule and spends a full week beside Your Majesty in the throne room sitting on a hard throne, attending to affairs of state, administrative affairs, rulings, deliberations, hearings and reports interminable, as well as giving audiences to delegations from foreign lands and he will long to be set free like a bird. Then dazzle him with a golden chariot and flying steeds with plumes on their heads like smoke, as well as shiny bronze weapons and he will soon forget the solemn gloom of the throne room.”

“And when he grows? He will have an army at his back.”

“Then send him on campaigns and keep an army at his back. He will have adventure – and unpredictable excitement. Yet boredom can be far more dangerous than enemy soldiers.”

She nodded.

“You have an engaging turn of mind, Senmut...”

He bowed...
“Maybe you should turn it instead to more practical school lessons than poetry,” she added. “Oh, I do, Your Majesty. See.” He drew a rolled up scroll from the belt of his kilt and unrolled it for her inspection. It showed a kind of architect’s impression of a grand and majestic building rising in pillared terraces to meet the striations of great cliffs behind it, such as appeared in the royal valley of the dead.” “That, for a little princess?” “Or a queen who may be as grand as any king. And in these porticoed terraces the walls could tell at length the miracle of that ruler’s divine royal birth and selection for immortal glory." He reached for another scroll on the other side of his kilt. "And this lesson here.” The queen now gazed at a drawing of a giant obelisk on the scroll. “The highest obelisk ever carved and setting a ruler above all others and all doubt..." Senmut said....



Senmut as tutor to Hatshepsut’s daughter Neferure (British Museum)



A scurrilous workman’s doodle believed to portray Senmut and a woman in a heavy queen’s wig



Senmut is said to have inspired and overseen the sublime Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari.



Senmut was entrusted with the cutting of Hatshepsut’s soaring obelisks. Despite later attempts to hide this one, it is stands proudly as the tallest in Egypt. (Karnak) Sadly, Senmut’s plan for another, the tallest obelisk ever erected, came to nothing, when the colossal stone cracked in its excavation. The unfinished obelisk may still be seen, rockbound, in an Aswan quarry today.)




Hatshepsut’s triumphant trading expedition - a squadron of vessels sent to Punt (Somalia)





In the end, did Senmut overreach himself?

Wanting not just to share in Hatshepsut’s radiance, but to survive with her in a divine eternity?

We know he had hidden images of himself secreted in her holy temple at Deir el-Bahari - unheard of sacrilege - although he claimed in texts that he did everything with Hatshepsut’s approval.

But did he take even bolder steps that ruptured the law of Ma’at and brought him undone, perhaps even earning the queen’s anger?


Suddenly Senmut vanishes from the record, while Hatshepsut continues her reign for another four years.

Interestingly, there are clues that Hatshepsut may have caused a stone image of herself to be transported to Africa’s Land of Punt.



I like to imagine Senmut, ‘Hatshepsut’s Rat’ consoling himself with the carved presence of his beloved queen while pining for her in exile.





*In his stratospheric career, Senmut rose to amass 93 titles, including Steward of the God’s Wife, Steward of the Princess (Neferure), Overseer of the Estate of Amun, Overseer of Amun’s Granaries, Overseer of the Royal Works, Treasurer, Overseer of the Works of Amun, Truly Known to the King (Hatshepsut)... and more.





Copyright Roy Lester Pond, 2020
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