A Fire in My Head by Ben Okri

Author:Ben Okri [Okri, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800242999
Publisher: Head of Zeus

MANETHO’S BOOKS

when they come to the source

they always want information.

when they conquer they want

the secrets of the land

that its priests conceal.

and so the incas would rather

let the spaniards have the gold

which for them had little value

than reveal to them their temples

or the heart of their tiered gnosis

or their gods high up

the mountains where

peak speaks to peak

among the clouds,

the rockfaces terraced

and textured for agriculture.

ptolemy wanted the secrets

of the land of pyramids

and ordered the high priest

at sebennytus, where isis

has her temple, to write down

the dreams, philosophy

the narrative and religion

of ancient egypt. we don’t know

if manetho asked why.

we don’t know either what

manetho concealed in what he

revealed in the innumerable

volumes that flowed

from his hermes-touched stylus.

but ptolemy forbade their translation

and they were used only

for the solemn instruction

of the greeks.

manetho’s books were the central

columns of alexandria.

students of aristotle drank

from his fountain. egyptian

priests were professors at

the alexendrine schools.

eratosthenes composed,

under the impulse of the greek

spear, a chronology

of theban kings. horapollo

wrote the purest hieroglyphics

of his time. the true story

of civilisation is more obscure

than the oracles and more

twisted than cyrenean snakes.

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