In the city of Azipiranu, which on the bank of the
Euphrates lies, my mother, the princess, conceived me;
in an inacessible spot she brought me forth. She placed
me in a basket of rushes; with bitumen the door of my
ark she closed. She launched me on the river, which
drowned me not. The river bore me along; to Akki, the
irrigator, it brought me. Akki, the irrigator, in the
tenderness of his heart, lifted me up. Then Akki, the
irrigator, as his gardener appointed me, and in my
gardenership the goddess Istar loved me. For forty-five
years the kingdom I have ruled, and the black-headed
(Akkadian) race have governed."
Of the childhood of Moses a curious story is told to account for his
being in after life "slow of speech and slow of tongue": Pharaoh was one
day seated in his banqueting hall, with his queen at his right hand and
Bathia at his left, and around him were his two sons, Bi'lam, the chief
soothsayer, and other dignitaries of his court, when he took little
Moses (then three years old) upon his knee, and began to fondle him. The
Hebrew urchin stretched forth his hand and took the kingly crown from
Pharaoh's brow and deliberately placed it upon his own head. To the
monarch and his courtiers this action of the child was ominous, and
Pharaoh inquired of his counsellors how, in their judgment, the
audacious little Hebrew should be punished.
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