Still from this lone cell within my prison-tower, I, the Word of Shame, watch thy fluttering banners, Abouthis, flaunting from thy pylon walls, and hear the chants as the long procession winds from sanctuary to sanctuary.
Abouthis, lost Abouthis! my heart goes out toward thee! For the day comes when the desert sands shall fill thy secret places! Thy Gods are doomed, O Abouthis! New Faiths shall make a mock of all thy Holies, and Centurion shall call upon Centurion across thy fortress-walls.

I weep--I weep tears of blood: for mine is the sin that brought about these evils and mine for ever is their shame.
Behold, it is written hereafter.
Here in Abouthis I was born, I, Harmachis, and my father, the justified in Osiris, was High Priest of the Temple of Sethi.

And on that same day of my birth Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, was born also.

I passed my youth in yonder fields watching the baser people at their labours and going in and out at will among the great courts of the temples.

Of my mother I knew naught, for she died when I yet hung at the breast.