Your mother, Prince, the Princess Bithiah,
was once my pupil, too. And, among the
children of privilege, I had never found
a girl of such compassion and such sound
wisdom. A loving and devoted daughter,
yet horrified---disgusted---by the slaughter
her father, Pharaoh, ordered through the land;
she saw you in the basket on the Nile,
and saved your life, despite the stern command:
all this before she had reached fifteen years.
Whether on river mud, or marble tile,
you will stand at the peak of destiny
(as she believes, and I do), without fear's
distress, to change the course of history.
Starward
[jlc]
Author's Notes/Comments:
Ackowledgement to Cecil B. DeMille's film, The Ten Commandments, in which Bithiah is presented as the daughter of Ramases, sister of Seti, and foster mother of Moses. I am not sure which scholarly sources supported this theory; but I think it is so securely installed in the popular mind as to be the reader's reasonable expectation. The idea of her adolescent boldness (in defying her father's command and protecting the infant Moses) is my own, and, I believe, indicative of her youth rather than of a more mature experience (which may have hesitated). I do not believe she was as old as presented in the film mentioned supra.
This acknowledgement includes, and is meant to be part of, any other poems of mine featuring or alluding to Bithiah.
