"
And Neith answered, "What shall they build, if I build not with
them?"
And Pthah drew with his measuring rod upon the sand. And I saw
suddenly, drawn on the sand, the outlines of great cities, and of
vaults, and domes, and aqueducts, and bastions, and towers,
greater than obelisks, covered with black clouds. And the wind
blew ripples of sand amidst the lines that Pthah drew, and the
moving sand was like the marching of men. But I saw that wherever
Neith looked at the lines, they faded, and were effaced.
"Oh, Brother!" she said at last, "what is this vanity? If I, who
am Lady of wisdom, do not mock the children of men, why shouldst
thou mock them, who art Lord of truth?" But Pthah answered, "They
thought to bind me; and they shall be bound. They shall labor in
the fire for vanity."
And Neith said, looking at the sand, "Brother, there is no true
labor here--there is only weary life and wasteful death."
And Pthah answered, "Is it not truer labor, sister, than thy
sculpture of dreams?" Then Neith smiled; and stopped suddenly.
She looked to the sun; its edge touched the horizon-edge of the
desert. Then she looked to the long heaps of pieces of clay, that
lay, each with its blue shadow, by the lake shore.
"Brother," she said, "how long will this pyramid of thine be in
building?"
"Thoth will have sealed the scroll of the years ten times, before
the summit is laid.
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