Page:Egyptian Literature (1901).djvu/233

 34 B.—“To the King my Lord my God my Sun thus (says) this Aziru thy servant: seven times and seven times at the feet of my Lord I bow. Now what you wish is desirable. Sun God my Lord I am thy servant forever; and my sons serve thee. Now two men I have commanded as envoys  what he says  and let him rule  in the land of the Amorites.”

34a B.—The salutation of the usual type is here injured. The letter continues: “My Lord my God my Sun, I am thy servant and my sons and my brethren, to serve the King my Lord forever. Now all my Lord’s wishes, and what he causes to be despatched, duly the King my Lord having despatched. Now eight chiefs who are great, and many (decrees?) we all of which  from  the King my Lord  And the Kings of the Land of Marhasse will follow with  and are these not promised (or leagued) to the city Simyra these thirty years? I turn me to the city Simyra. My Lord I am thy servant forever, and a King of men who are friends; will not my (agents?) my Lord (wilt not thou hear?). And the King is my Lord my God and my Sun: let him send his messenger with my messenger, and let them go up who serve the King ”

36 B.—“To the King thus Aziru: seven times and seven times at  of my God and Sun. Behold truly thou hast known this, O King my Lord; behold I am thy servant forever; from my Lord’s commands I never rebel: my Lord from of old (it has been) thus. I am kind to the men who are servants of my King; but the chiefs of the city Simyra have not kept faith righteously with us; and behold neither one nor all are with us: my Lord the King did not you cause to be asked? The King my Lord has known that the chiefs are sinful; and why ask, ‘What does he contend for?’ I say nay ”

From these letters by Aziru, we must conclude either that he was a great liar or that he was induced to change sides later. The other correspondents seem to have believed that he had long deceived the King of Egypt; but, in the end, his invasion of Phœenicia—perhaps cloaked by pretences of hostility to the Hittite league—caused him, as we shall see, to be proclaimed a rebel. The quarrel with Simyra may have been due to his