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Updated: August 12, 2024
Every year, on the advice of the king, he married another wife, and now he had in his harem thirty wives, all childless. He determined to take unto himself no more wives, and one night he dreamed a dream in which a spirit appeared to him and said: "Ikkor, thou wilt die full of years and honor, but childless. Therefore, take Nadan, the son of thy widowed sister and let him be a son to thee."
Ikkor bowed to indicate that this was so, and Pharaoh was much annoyed and puzzled. "Perform thy task and at once," he commanded. At a sign from Ikkor, the four youths mounted the eagles which flew aloft to the extremity of their cords. The birds remained in the air two hundred ells apart, as they had been trained, and the lads held cords in the form of a square.
Nadan could not advise him what to do, and he bitterly regretted that Ikkor, the man of wisdom, was no longer by his side to advise him. "I would give one-fourth of my kingdom to bring Ikkor to life again," he exclaimed. Hearing these words, Nabu Samak, the executioner, fell on his knees and confessed that Ikkor was alive. "Bring him hither at once," cried the king.
Meanwhile, the vizier descended into a cellar deep beneath his palace and was there fed, while his adopted son, Nadan, was appointed chief of the king's counselors in his stead. Now, when Pharaoh, king of Egypt, heard that Ikkor, the wise, had been executed, he determined to make war upon Assyria.
Ikkor was brought before the king and confronted with the letter to Pharaoh. "Explain this, if thou canst," exclaimed the king, angrily. "I have trusted thee and loaded thee with riches and honors and thou wouldst betray me. Is not this thy signature, and is not thy seal appended?" Ikkor was too much astounded to reply, and Nadan whispered to the king that this proved his guilt.
Give ear then to my words and on the tenth day of the next month come with thy troops to the Eagle Plain beyond the city, and I, Ikkor, the grand vizier, will deliver thine enemy, the King of Assyria, into thy hands." To this letter he forged Ikkor's name; then he took it to the king. "I have found this," he said, "and have brought it to thee.
"Your majesty," said Ikkor, "I desire nothing more than to serve thee. I am innocent. Time will prove me guiltless." When he saw Pharaoh's demand, he smiled. "'Tis easy," he said. "I will go to Egypt and outwit Pharaoh." He gave orders that four of the tame eagles in the gardens of the palace should be brought to him with cords five hundred ells long attached to their claws.
This only served to make Nadan still more arrogant, and a wicked idea entered his head to gain further favor with the king and supplant Ikkor at once. "O King, live for ever!" he said one day, when Ikkor was absent in a distant part of the land; "it grieves me to have to utter words of warning against Ikkor, the wise, the father who has adopted me. But he conspires to destroy thee."
The vizier returned the day before the review, and while the king stood with Nadan and the foreign envoys, Ikkor and the troops, acting on their instructions, made a pretense of attacking his majesty. "Do you not see?" said Nadan. "The king of Egypt not being here, Ikkor threatens thee," and he immediately gave orders to the royal trumpeters to sound "Halt!"
Ikkor was a pious man and deeply learned in the Holy Law; and he had prayed long and devoutly and had listened unto the advice of magicians that he might be blessed with but one son, or even a daughter, to carry down his name and renown. But the years passed and no child was born to him.
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