Volume 46, Number 12 · July 15, 1999
The She-Pharaoh
By Wislawa Szymborska
Long ago—recently… Depends who is talking and what is being considered. For an astronomer 'long ago' will mean something different than for an anthropologist. And it will be something else again for those who think back to the Second World War: for those who experienced it, it will be a recent war; for those born after, it will be ancient history. In these feelings, chronology is not always respected. For me, for example, medieval historians seem more remote than historians of the Roman Empire. Certainly this is true in the case of the Polish Master Vincent Kadlubek in comparison with Tacitus. But let's stick to the subject. The queen Hatshepsut governed in Egypt three thousand years ago. As a widow of Pharaoh, she was supposed only to take care of his little son from another marriage. Soon she decided otherwise and declared herself a pharaoh—most certainly with the support of some court coterie.
Feature, 460 words
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