The Whore of Astarte
Keywords: Astarte, of, Whore, The,
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In the eighth year of His Reign, the God-King Thutmose IV, Beloved of Maat, The Bull of Ra...[etc.] subdued the lands of the hairy people in the east, [in] the land of Retenu and Mitanni. He threw down their cities and made waste of their lands. He trod them under foot; he crushed them under the wheels of his mighty chariot. Their Kings he subdued; their children are [in chains]. Their temples are thrown down, the houses of their Gods are no more: He has put their Gods in bondage. He has carried their Gods to the Two Lands [of Egypt].
"---Excerpt from the Hofstedter stela in Thebes, ca. 1420 BCE"
(It is now thirty years later, in the reign of Amenhotep III.)
The sun was setting slowly behind the hills to the west, and long gray shadows were beginning to crawl along the dusty yellow streets of Thebes. The heat still lingered in the avenues and mud brick walls of the shops and houses, but with evening came the breeze that lifted at last off the Nile and brought a welcome coolness to Tia's young face as she stood in the shadow of her doorway, waiting for her brother.
This was the sun as she loved him best, as Aton, old and mellow, his day's journey almost done. Soon he would sink below the edge of the West to engage in his night of struggles and tribulations with what lay in the darkness below, but Tia had perfect faith in her gods, and new that he would emerge victorious as ever. She wished she could say the same for herself.
But already here was Kheneb, her elder brother, striding across from the shade of the other side of the street with his priestly staff in his hand, his white robe adorned with a turquoise cloth across his shoulders. He was arrayed in a fine panoply of jewelry, which explained the four armed temple servants who accompanied him to insure his safety, walking a respectful three paces behind. There were always thieves about, and a priest at night was no safer than a Pharaoh's tomb.
"Good evening to you, my little sister. You are all ready then?" he asked. His eyes glowed with affection but he only allowed himself the faintest smile. Kheneb was a powerful priest at the temple of Hathor, and he knew how to maintain a suitably grave and pious face in public.
Tia nodded in a small bow and smoothed her black hair back from her face. "As my elder brother wishes."
She smiled at her formal greeting and looked her over critically: her spotless white gown, the string of turquoise around her neck, the bracelets on her arms. She was pleased that he approved of how she looked, though it did little to allay the growing nervousness in her stomach. She was not really frightened, just a bit anxious about what lay ahead.
The town was coming alive in the cool of the evening, some shops closing for the day while others were just opening. The tavern owners were raising the reed shades that kept out the daytime flies and heat, and sweeping the sand and dust from their establishments, setting out their signs and banners. Two boys herded a flock of geese into the shade across the road while a third led two mud-spattered oxen back from the fields by the river, giving the priest and his party a wide berth. This was a favorite time to shop and socialize, in the cool of the evening before full darkness fell, and already people were emerging from their houses, dressed in their fine linen skirts and gowns.
Tia looked fine as well. Her black hair had been dressed in the Hathor manner: parted in the middle and brushed out with a bit of sweet oil until it positively gleamed, and the hair-dressers had seen to her make-up as well, lining her large dark eyes with powdered malachite, also sacred to the Goddess, and coloring her lips with the juice of the pomegranate. Her robe was new, of the finest linen, and there were new sandals on her feet. Kheneb had even purchased jewelry for her, the first she had ever owned, and she was sinfully proud of her necklace, bracelets, and earrings of turquoise and gold, colors scared to Hathor as well. As the younger daughter of a powerful and well-placed priest, Tia had never been poor, but tonight she was dressed and made-up as beautifully as the wealthiest lady in Thebes, and for the first time her brother had to treat her as a woman and not a child. It amused her to see him struggle with this change in her, but he had no choice. The foreign goddess would only accept women as priestesses; she had no interest in flighty little girls.
Kheneb took her arm and they began walking down the street, the bodyguard falling in behind them. Kheneb had been cautious in choosing the number of his retinue. This was a delicate mission, and he wanted to be impressive, but not intimidating. He had thought of taking sedan chairs—hence the four guards—but decided against it. Walking was more egalitarian, and they didn't have far to go.
"Stand erect, child. Don't slump like a sack of barley." Kheneb said, stopping to correct her posture, "Straighten your back. You want pride, little sister. You're a lovely girl, Tianefhet, and you must learn to be proud of yourself, especially tonight. This is truly a stunning offer."
"Yes, my brother." She drew herself up and stood erect, and Kheneb looked away uneasily as her breasts came into prominence.
She did feel proud, but along with the pride was fear, even a mild dread. She knew and loved her gods of Egypt, but this strange goddess was no one she knew, and she had the vague feeling of betrayal. It didn't help that Kheneb was uncharacteristically nervous as well. It was so unlike him.
They turned a corner and came out into a plaza of food sellers. The yeasty smell of beer and of grilled fish was in the air, mingled with the earthy smell of the river carried in on the fitful breeze.
"Now tell me once again," Kheneb said, deftly plucking a fresh fig from a fruit-vender's table as they walked past. The vendor looked up in reproach, but seeing that Kheneb was a priest, he lowered his eyes and said nothing. "What is the goddess' name?"
"Kheneb, really..."
"Now, now. Answer me, little sister. We want no mistakes, no slips of the tongue."
Tia sighed. They walked in the middle of the street now, and Tia was aware of the stares of both men and women, some who knew her, others who didn't, and all wondering what this special occasion might be that a fine lady walked in the street with a High Priest and an armed escort.
"Her name is Astarte, my brother, though her worshippers just call her My Lady."
"And who is she?"
"She is a goddess of the Mitanni, the hairy people of the east." Tia said, remembering to keep her back erect as they walked. "She is the goddess of love and war, and some would call her Ishtar, that is, our Isis, but she is not Ishtar."
"Just leave Ishtar and Isis out of this," Kheneb said testily. "This goddess is the same as Hathor. Anyone can see that. That's what this is all about: to show that this Astarte is Hathor, the Mistress of Joy, the Golden One."
"Yes, my brother," Tia said gravely. She knew how he felt about competing goddesses, and had said it partly to tease him and distract him from his nervousness. "But how one goddess can embody both love and the violence of war, I'm afraid I won't ever understand."
"Understanding will come with time, once you're accepted into the temple," Kheneb said. "And that's what we must concentrate on now. I do hope you will keep in mind what an honor this is, Tia, and how important it is to us, and to all of Egypt. I've worked very hard to get you accepted. It's almost certain now that Great Pharaoh will have prince Nekhet marry the Mitanni princess to cement their alliance, and so he's set his mind on making a home for this princess in Egypt, and that means a home for her gods as well, though I hear the funds for her new temple are not quite flowing as freely as could be wished, what with all the other building he is doing. In any case, it's very important that you be accepted into this temple, and that we establish once and for all that this foreign goddess--this Astarte--is our Hathor, not Isis. You know how I feel about Isis."
"Yes, Kheneb."
"I mean, I have nothing against her. Nothing at all. But she is not Hathor, and I will not have anyone confusing the two, least of all my little sister. How would that look?"
Tia didn't understand this rivalry between the gods, but then she took a much simpler view of their religion than did her learned brother. In her mind, Hathor was the goddess of joy and fulfillment, the goddess of happiness, just as Kheneb had always taught her. Isis embodied something completely different, a more troubling mixture of love and loss, altogether more human. Whereas Hathor was joy and beauty, Isis was grace and mercy. Both goddesses were ancient, and of course, as a priest Kheneb honored them both, but Tia knew that he always thought of Isis as being something of an upstart.
"Now," Kheneb said, clearing his throat and drawing himself up, "As for the role of hierodule or sacred prostitute, we shall most certainly have to make some arrangements about that. Such barbarian practices are foreign to us Egyptians, we who dwell in the Happy Land. It's quite unacceptable. And I won't have you doing anything you don't want to do, or anything that will bring shame upon our family."
Tia felt a little surge of excitement in her stomach. In truth, this was the crux of the entire matter and what made her so nervous and yet strangely excited. Sacred prostitution was the rule with the goddess Astarte. She'd known this since she was a girl, and that was already long after the time when soldiers from the army of Thutmose the Third had already brought back tales of the practice. She and her friends used to tease and scandalize each other with the idea of giving oneself away to a strange man for a night. (And in the name of what was holy, too!) But that had been in the days before the Foreign Goddess had been brought to Egypt itself, back when her worshippers were still strangers far away in a far away land.
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Keywords: Astarte, of, Whore, The,