Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 02.djvu/390

brought that he had caused to be made, he put two hundred soldiers into them; he then filled the belly of the other three hundred with cords and wooden fetters. They sealed them with a seal, they covered them with their covering and the cordage necessary to carry them, and placed them on as many strong soldiers, five hundred men in all, and one said to them, "When you shall enter the city, you shall open the jars of your companions, you shall seize all the inhabitants who are in the town, and you shall put the fetters on them immediately." One went on to say to the equerry of the vanquished of Joppa, "Thy master has fallen! Go, say to thy sovereign lady,^[1] 'Rejoice, for Sutekhu^[2] has delivered Thutiyi to us, with his wife and his children.' Behold, under the name of booty taken from them two hundred jars are disguised, which are full of men, wooden collars, and fetters!"^[3]

The equerry went at the head of these people to rejoice the heart of his sovereign lady by saying, "We are masters of Thutiyi!" The fastenings of the city were opened to give passage to the porters; they entered into the city, they opened the jars of their companions, they took possession of the whole city, small and great; they placed fetters and collars at once on the people who lived there. When the army of Pharaoh, l. h. s., had taken possession of the city, Thutiyi reposed himself, and sent a message to Egypt to the King Manakhpirriya, l. h. s., his lord, to say, "Rejoice thou! Amon, thy father, has given thee the vanquished of Joppa with all his subjects, and also the city. Let men come to

later to the inhabitants of the city, saying to them, "We are masters of Thutiyi."

1. The wife of the prince, who was not in camp with her husband, but had remained in Joppa.
2. Sutekhu, Sutekh, was the name given by the Egyptians to the principal gods of the Asiatic and Libyan peoples. This appellation goes back to the time of the Hyksos.
3. The number "two hundred" appears to be contradictory with that of "five hundred" which is indicated previously. We must suppose that the scribe had the two hundred jars that contained the men in his mind, and gave this partial number without remembering the total number of five hundred.