The cypress, which strangled its mother, is this gloomy, unhappy man.

In his days a people shall come from the East and shall make of the Nile, that is of the Egyptians, dead bodies, and of their cities ruinous heaps; these are the urns for the dead, which thou sawest." Psamtik listened as if turned into stone; his father continued; "Thy mother died in giving birth to thee; fiery-red hair, the mark of the sons of Typhon, grew around thy brow; thou becam'st a gloomy man.
Misfortune pursued thee and robbed thee of a beloved wife and four of thy children.

The astrologers computed that even as I had been born under the fortunate sign of Amman, so thy birth had been watched over by the rise of the awful planet Seb.

Thou..." But here Amasis broke off, for Psamtik, in the anguish produced by these fearful disclosures had given way, and with sobs and groans, cried: "Cease, cruel father! spare me at least the bitter words, that I am the only son in Egypt who is hated by his father without cause!" Amasis looked down on the wretched man who had sunk to the earth before him, his face hidden in the folds of his robe, and the father's wrath was changed to compassion.

He thought of Psamtik's mother, dead forty years before, and felt he had been cruel in inflicting this poisonous wound on her son's soul.