Cleopatra
By H. Rider Haggard
“Hail to thee, fruit of my womb! Hail to thee, Royal child! Hail to thee, Pharaoh that shalt be! Hail to thee, God that shalt purge the land, Divine seed of Nekt-nerf, the descended from Isis. Keep thee pure, and thou shalt rule and deliver Egypt and not be broken. But if thou dost fail in thy hour of trial, then may the curse of all the Gods of Egypt rest upon thee, and the curse of thy Royal forefathers, the justified, who ruled the land before thee from the age of Horus. Then in life mayst thou be wretched, and after death may Osiris refuse thee, and the judges of Amenti give judgment against thee. Set and Sekhet torment thee till thy sin is purged, and the Gods of Egypt, called by strange names, are once more worshipped in the Temples of Egypt. The staff of the Oppressor is broken, and the footsteps of the Foreigner are swept clean, and the thing is accomplished as thou in thy weakness shalt cause it to be done.”
When she had spoken thus, the Spirit of Prophecy went out of her, and she fell dead across the cradle where I slept so that I awoke with a cry.
But my father, Amenemhat, the High Priest, trembled and was very fearful, both because of the words that the Spirit of the Hathors had said through my mother’s mouth and because what had been uttered was treason against Ptolemy. For he knew that if the matter should come to the ears of Ptolemy, Pharaoh would send his guards to destroy the life of the child concerning whom such things were prophesied. Therefore, my father shut the doors and caused all those who stood by to swear upon the holy symbol of his office, and by the name of the Divine Three, and by the Soul of her who lay dead upon the stones beside them, that nothing of what they had seen and heard should pass their lips.
Now among the company was the old wife, Atoua, who had been the nurse of my mother and loved her well; and in these days, though I know not how it had been in the past, nor how it shall be in the future, no oath can bind a woman’s tongue. And so it came about that by and by, when the matter had become homely in her mind, and her fear had fallen from her, she spoke of the prophecy to her daughter, who nursed me at the breast now that my mother was dead. She did this as they walked together in the desert carrying food to the husband of the daughter, who was a sculptor, and shaped effigies of the holy Gods in the tombs that are fashioned in the rock—telling the daughter, my nurse how great must be her care and love toward the child that should one day be Pharaoh, and drive the Ptolemies from Egypt.
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H. Rider Haggard
Sir Henry Rider Haggard KBE (22 June 1856 – 14 May 1925) was an English writer of adventure fiction romances set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a pioneer of the lost world literary genre.
Biography.
He was also involved in land reform throughout the British Empire. His stories, situated at the lighter end of Victorian literature, remain famous and influential.
Life and career
Family
Henry Rider Haggard, generally known as H. Rider Haggard or Rider Haggard, was born at Bradenham, Norfolk, the eighth of ten children, to William Meybohm Rider Haggard, a barrister, and Ella Doveton, an author and poet. His father was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1817 to British parents.
A member of the Haggard family, he was the great-nephew of the ecclesiastical lawyer John Haggard, an uncle of the naval officer Admiral Sir Vernon Haggard and the diplomat Sir Godfrey Haggard.
Education
Haggard was initially sent to Garsington Rectory in Oxfordshire to study under Reverend H. J. Graham. Still, unlike his elder brothers, who graduated from various private schools, he attended Ipswich Grammar School. This was because his father, who perhaps regarded him as somebody who would not amount to much,[8] could no longer afford to maintain his expensive private education. After failing his army entrance exam, he was sent to a private crammer in London to prepare for the entrance exam for the British Foreign Office, where he never sat. During his two years in London, he came into contact with people interested in studying psychic phenomena.
H. Rider Haggard
