"You who show me as in a mirror what I am, and how mysterious powers throng and stir in me?
You made me what I am by your arts; you sold me to the treasurer of Rameses, and he gave me to the father of Mena, his brother-in-law.

Fifteen years ago! I was a young man then, a youth like any other, only more passionate, more restless, and fiery than they.

I was given as a plaything to the young Mena, and he harnessed me to his little chariot, and dressed me out with ribbons and feathers, and flogged me when I did not go fast enough.

How the girl--for whom I would have given my life--the porter's daughter, laughed when I, dressed up in motley, hopped panting in front of the chariot and the young lord's whip whistled in my ears wringing the sweat from my brow, and the blood from my broken heart.

Then Mena's father died, the boy, went to school, and I waited on the wife of his steward, whom Katuti banished to Hermonthis.