OK. We have reread to the end of this story which has legs. It goes somewhere. As I write and drink coffee, the sun rises above roofs across the garden.
"We meditate on the lovely light of the god, Savitri. May it stimulate our thoughts."
-Rig Veda.
The sun can be addressed as many solar deities. This story ends:
"Dawn showed them the sea, and rising out of eastern waters the sun, day-god, the bright and loving Aton." (p. 160)
Aton is good as long as he stays in the sky and is not identified with ruinous teachings.
The text on the facing page begins:
"That morning it rained, a fine, summery mist blowing over the hills and hiding the gleam of the river and the village beyond."
-Poul Anderson, "Flight to Forever" IN Anderson, Alight In The Void (New York, August 1993), pp. 161-240 AT p. 161 -
- but this story, published in 1950, is set in 1973. We have left ancient Egypt far behind.
"That morning..." is referred to as such because it was a morning when something important happened. A circuit of cosmic time begins and ends.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
IIRC, "Aten" began as an aspect of the Egyptian god Amon-Ra. An aspect which Akhenaten (originally named Amenhotep IV) exalted as the sole god deserving of worship, displacing all the other gods of Egypt. That alone would be amply controversial enough, leading to chaos and at least suppressed opposition by the priesthoods of the fallen gods and those who worshiped them. No, Akhenaten had to worsen matters by neglecting his "merely" secular duties as King and Pharaoh.
It's no surprise there was an anti-Aten reaction after Akhenaten died and his son Tutankhamen reversed his father's religious innovations and restored the worship of Amon and the other gods. Akhenaten and the Aten suffered a damnatio memoriae and were erased as much as possible from the annals of Egypt; with him being remembered as the "Criminal of Akhet-Aten."
Ad astra! Sean
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