In the ancient days of the Pharaohs, when the gods still walked the periphery of the mortal world, there lived two brothers in the lush fields of Egypt. Anpu, the elder, was a man of station and property, a householder with a wife and a stable life. Bata, the younger, was a youth of extraordinary virtue and strength.
Bata was not merely a laborer; he possessed a mystical communion with the natural world. Every day, he followed the cattle to the pastures, and the cattle themselves spoke to him, guiding him to the richest grasses and warning him of hidden dangers. While Anpu managed the affairs of the home, Bata was the spirit of the fields, returning each evening laden with the fruits of the earth, milk from the herd, and the vitality of the sun-drenched soil.
This domestic harmony was the envy of many, for Bata served his brother with a devotion that transcended mere kinship, viewing Anpu as a father figure and a master of wisdom.\n\nThe catalyst for tragedy arrived on a day like any other, heavy with the scent of ripening grain and the humid breath of the Nile. Anpu and Bata were working together in the fields when they realized they required more seed for the sowing. Anpu sent his younger brother back to the house to fetch the grain.
There, Bata found Anpu's wife braiding her hair. When he requested the grain, she was struck by his youthful vigor and the grace of his movements. In a moment of reckless passion, she attempted to seduce him, suggesting they lie together.
Bata, horrified by the betrayal of his brother's trust, reacted with a holy indignation. He compared her proposal to a great crime against nature, a sacrilege as dark as the shadows of the underworld. He rejected her utterly but promised to keep her secret, hoping that the silence would allow the household to return to its state of grace.
However, the wife, consumed by fear of exposure and the sting of rejection, decided to strike first. She applied grease and soot to her body to simulate the bruises of a struggle and awaited Anpu's return.\n\nWhen Anpu arrived home, he found his wife in a state of feigned agony. She told him a calculated lie: that Bata had attempted to violate her and, upon being refused, had beaten her.
Anpu, blinded by a sudden and violent rage, sharpened his spear and hid behind the door of the stable, waiting to strike Bata down as he returned with the cattle. But the gods of Egypt were not silent. As Bata approached the stable, the lead cow turned her head and spoke to him, warning him of the spear-wielding brother lying in wait.
Bata looked beneath the door and saw the feet of his brother. Fear and sorrow seized him, and he fled into the desert night. Anpu pursued him, his heart a furnace of misplaced vengeance.
As the chase reached the edges of the cultivated land, the great sun-god Re-Harakhti heard Bata’s cry for justice. The god caused a vast body of water, teeming with hungry crocodiles, to manifest between the two brothers. Standing on opposite banks, separated by the snapping jaws of the reptiles, Bata was finally able to speak his truth.\n\nAcross the shimmering water, Bata swore his innocence by the name of the creator.
To prove that his heart was free of lust and full of purity, he took a reed-knife and performed a shocking act of self-sacrifice: he severed his own manhood and cast it into the river, where it was consumed by a catfish. This act of self-mutilation served as an irrevocable testament to his lack of carnal desire for his brother’s wife. Anpu, seeing the blood and the physical manifestation of Bata's agony, was struck by a profound and devastating realization of his wife's treachery.
He wept on the bank, but the crocodiles and the divine barrier prevented him from reaching his brother to beg for forgiveness. Bata, pale and weakened, announced his departure. He told Anpu that he would travel far beyond the borders of Egypt to the Valley of the Pine, a place identified with the majestic Mount Lebanon.