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Frazer that there is any revival of the dead; and in no case is there any transformation like that of Bata. Perhaps none but an Egyptian or a Chinese would have credited Anpu with wandering up and down for four years seeking the lost soul. The first transformation of Bata, into a bull, is clearly drawn from the Apis bull of Memphis.
He said, "Go not outside, lest the sea seize thee; for I cannot rescue thee from it, for I am a woman like thee; my soul is placed on the head of the flower of the acacia; and if another find it, I must fight with him." And he opened unto her his heart in all its nature. Now after these things Bata went to hunt in his daily manner.
It was Bata who made the clothes; he tended and herded his cattle in the fields, he ploughed the land, he did the hard work during the time of harvest, and he kept the account of everything that related to the fields. And Bata was a most excellent farmer, and his like there was not in the whole country-side; and behold, the power of the God was in him.
Are we, therefore, to seek for the common origin of all the myths and romance in the tragedy of Anpu and Bata that was current, we know not how long, before the days of King Seti?
But from the weird confusion and mystery of these transformations, we turn back with renewed pleasure to the simple and sweet picture of peasant life, and the beauty of Bata, and we see how true a poet the Egyptian was in feeling and in expression. XIXth DYNASTY, PTOLEMAIC WRITING
And Bata spake unto Anpu, saying, "Why hast thou pursued me in this treacherous way, wishing to slay me without first hearing what I had to say? I am thy brother, younger than thou art, and thou art as a father and thy wife is as a mother to me. Is it not so?
But now he had made up his mind: the gold of Kooskuam, the silver of Bata, the treasures of Selassie should refill his empty coffers; her churches should perish with the doomed city: nothing would he leave standing as a record of the past, not a dwelling to shelter the people he despised.
And when he arrived there he went into Bata's house, and he found his young brother there lying dead on his bed; and when he looked upon his young brother he wept on seeing that he was dead. Then he set out to seek for the heart of Bata, under the Acacia where he was wont to sleep at night, and he passed three years in seeking for it but found it not.
By means of the mug Inpw learns of Bata’s peril and departs to look for his younger brother. Inpw finds the fallen acacia and on it a berry that is the heart of his brother transformed. Bata comes to life again and transforms himself into an ox. Two drops of blood fall from the cut throat of the ox upon the ground and are changed into two peach trees. Bata’s wife has the two peach trees felled.
And many days afterwards, when Bata had gone out hunting as usual, the young woman went out of the house and walked under the Acacia tree, which was close by, and the River saw her, and sent its waters rolling after her; and she fled before them and ran away into her house. And quarrels among them went on daily, and at length they did not know what they were doing.
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