If all the woes of life and
death lay open the gaze, who would dare to live and who--oh! who could
dare to die?"
"Then woes await me, O thou who wast my mother?"
"How can it be otherwise? Light and darkness make the day, joy and
sorrow make the life. Thou art human, be content."
"Divine also, O Ahura, if all tales be true."
"Then pay for thy divinity in tears and be satisfied. Content is the
guerdon of the beast, but gods are wafted upwards on the wings of pain.
How can that gold be pure which has not known the fire?"
"Thou tellest me nothing," wailed Tua, "and it is not for myself I ask.
I am fair, I am Amen's daughter, and splendid is my heritage. Yet, O
Dweller in Osiris, thou who once didst fill the place I hold to-day, I
tell thee that I would pay away this pomp, could I but be sure that I
shall not live loveless, that I shall not be given as a chattel to one
whom I hate, that one--whom I do not hate--will live to call me--wife.
Great dangers threaten him--and me, Amen is mighty; he is the potter
that moulds the clay of men; if I be his child, if his spirit is
breathed into me, oh! let him help me now.
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