And, meanwhile, mark thou this, my son: the Roman eagle hangs on high, waiting with ready talons till such time as he may fall upon the fat wether Egypt and rend him.

And mark again: the people of Egypt are weary of the foreign yoke, they hate the memory of the Persians, and they are sick at heart of being named 'Men of Macedonia' in the markets of Alexandria.

The whole land mutters and murmurs beneath the yoke of the Greek and the shadow of the Roman.
"Have we not been oppressed?
Have not our children been butchered and our gains wrung from us to fill the bottomless greed and lust of the Lagidae?
Have not the temples been forsaken ?--ay, have not the majesties of the Eternal Gods been set at naught by these Grecian babblers, who have dared to meddle with the immortal truths, and name the Most High by another name--by the name of Serapis--confounding the substance of the Invisible?
Does not Egypt cry aloud for freedom ?--and shall she cry in vain?
Nay, nay, for thou, my son, art the appointed way of deliverance.
To thee, being sunk in eld, I have decreed my rights.

Already thy name is whispered in many a sanctuary, from Abu to Athu; already priests and people swear allegiance, even by the sacred symbols, unto him who shall be declared to them.

Still, the time is not yet; thou art too green a sapling to bear the weight of such a storm.