One day, King Sneferu grew bored of sitting in his palace doing kingly stuff. I mean, he could only do so much work before it became rather tedious. So he called his chief scribe in to ask for some ideas of things that could cure his boredom.
"Dude, I'm so ridiculously bored I'm losing my mind in here," said Sneferu. "I need some ideas of things to do."
Now his scribe knew the king pretty well, and knew his interests well. The scribe had a laundry list of things the king enjoyed doing, but he had done all of them fairly recently, and surely something he had done before wouldn't make him any less bored. But then, the scribe thought of an idea in the back of his mind for the king to do.
"Go out to the lake, Your Highness," the scribe suggested. "Pick some girls from the kingdom to row for you, that way you can enjoy their beauty and relax at the same time. Maybe take some lunch and just spend the afternoon out there."
The king stroked his regal king beard as he thought of whether he wanted to do this or not.
Bibliography:
Egyptian Myth and Legend
Donald Mackenzie
1907
"Dude, I'm so ridiculously bored I'm losing my mind in here," said Sneferu. "I need some ideas of things to do."
Now his scribe knew the king pretty well, and knew his interests well. The scribe had a laundry list of things the king enjoyed doing, but he had done all of them fairly recently, and surely something he had done before wouldn't make him any less bored. But then, the scribe thought of an idea in the back of his mind for the king to do.
"Go out to the lake, Your Highness," the scribe suggested. "Pick some girls from the kingdom to row for you, that way you can enjoy their beauty and relax at the same time. Maybe take some lunch and just spend the afternoon out there."
The king stroked his regal king beard as he thought of whether he wanted to do this or not.
Metal representation of what Sneferu's beard may have looked like.* How regal.
After some internal deliberation, Sneferu decided his scribe was probably right, as he usually was. "Right you are, dear friend," he said. "Fetch me some beautiful women and send word to the docks to have a boat prepared for my departure within the hour."
Sneferu and the women the scribe found set out on their relaxing day on the lake (relaxing for the king that is, the women were rowing for him). After a while, one of the girls suddenly stopped rowing. The king immediately asked what was going on because as most of you know, if more people are rowing on one than on the other, the boat starts turning. Sneferu got kind of mad because the sun was in the perfect position and now it was ruined.
"What in the name of Ra is going on?" the king exclaimed.
One of the girls responded, "The driver lost one of her jewels."
"And?" questioned the king incredulously. "What concern is that of mine?"
Now the girl who had lost her jewel spoke up, explaining, "This jewel is one of my most prized possessions, Your Highness. It was given to me from my mother, who is now with Osiris in the underworld."
When he heard this, the king felt bad for the girl, for it was partially his fault she had lost it. So he offered to find it for her in the lake. She tried to decline, but the king insisted. He told them to drop the anchor so they wouldn't drift away, and after taking off most of his clothes, jumped into the water. He dove and dove, much farther than he had expected it to be.
After what felt like ages, the king surfaced with the girl's jewel in his hand. The girl was ecstatic and thanked the king profusely. The king handed her the jewel under one premise: come back to the palace with him and be his wife, for she was beautiful. Of course she agreed.
When they got back to the palace, the story was recounted time and time again of the king's courage and dedication to helping the girl. Once the night crept around, the scribe went to bed immediately. He had a long day ahead of him tomorrow; after all, the hieroglyphics to cement the story in history wouldn't write themselves.
Author's Note: I used the Green Jewel as reference for my story. My last few stories have been pretty seriously written in terms of the language I used and the content, so I wanted to write a little more light-hearted story. I changed the ending mainly, because in the original the scribe whips up a fancy spell to split the lake, and that was just a little too magical for me. Hope you guys enjoyed!
*Disclaimer: he may or may not have actually had a beard.
Bibliography:
Egyptian Myth and Legend
Donald Mackenzie
1907
Hello again, Patrick! So I really enjoyed your inserts about the king's "regal king beard," haha. It definitely added some character to the story. And though I totally would've kept the magic in the story just for the fun of it, your plot works well and is much more realistic than it could have been, hah. Great job!
ReplyDeleteHaha, I love that the king said, "dude". That definitely puts the story into more modern times. Plus, the thought of a king saying dude is amusing!
ReplyDeleteI love the beard! Also, I'm pretty sure the king's beard definitely looked like that. Gold coated and everything.
I loved the light-hearted story. It was fun and easy to read. Good job!
I really liked your story! I think you accomplished the light-hearted nature that you wanted to change things up with. Your writing was very clear and concise and there weren’t any major errors in grammar.
ReplyDeleteI think your blog is somewhat dark in layout though. The black on black is somewhat much. I would consider changing one of your elements to a more grey tone to give your page somewhat of a highlight. You could also perhaps outline your posts in white to splash some light into your layout. However, it’s a personal preference so whatever you like. The color scheme you have doesn’t affect the reading of your posts as far as clarity or anything so it’s not of paramount importance that a change be made.
Overall, I really like your blog writings. We both read the Twenty Two Goblins unit for week five so I’ll be interested to see how you do your story telling and which part you choose to retell.
You're so right about the template I used, I had been previously doing work on an iPad since my computer was messed up, so I just picked one and didn't even think about it! I changed up the coloring so it should be easier on the eyes now. Thanks for the input!
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