When the Egyptian king Psammenitus had been beaten and captured by the Persian king Cambyses, Cambyses was bent on humbling his prisoner. He gave orders to place Psammenitus on the road along which the Persian triumphal procession was to pass. And he further arranged that the prisoner should see his daughter pass by as a maid going to the well with her pitcher. While all the Egyptians were lamenting and bewailing this spectacle, Psammenitus stood alone, mute and motionless, his eyes fixed on the ground; and when presently he saw his son, who was being taken along in the procession to be executed, he likewise remained unmoved. But when afterwards he recognized one of his servants, an old, impoverished man, in the ranks of the prisoners, he beat his fist against his head and gave all signs of deepest mourning.

From Walter Benjamin’s “The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov,” Illuminations, Glasgow: Fontana, 1973, pp. 89-90.

Addendum I (November 12, 1988)

The story goes that when Psammenitus, king of Egypt, after his defeat and capture by Cambyses, king of Persia, saw his daughter pass before him as a prisoner, dressed as a servant and on her way to draw water, while all his friends around him were weeping and lamenting, he himself neither moved nor spoke a word, his eyes fixed on the ground. And further, seeing his son presently being led to his death, he held himself to this same demeanor. But having seen one of his friends led along among the captives, he began to beat his head and manifest extreme grief.

From Montaigne’s Complete Essays, translated by Donald M. Frame, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1958, p. 6.

Addendum II (November 13, 1988)

Ten days passed since the Egyptians succumbed to the Persian siege of Memphis and surrendered, and Cambyses, wishing to see what stuff the Egyptian king Psammenitus was made of—he had been but six months on the throne—forced him, with other Egyptians, to witness from a seat in the city suburbs a spectacle deliberately devised to humiliate him. First, he had his daughter dressed like a slave and sent out with a pitcher to fetch water, accompanied by other young girls similarly dressed and chosen from noble families. The girls cried bitterly as they passed the place where their fathers sat watching them, and the fathers, in their turn—all but Psammenitus himself—wept and lamented no less bitterly at the sight of such an insult to their children. Psammenitus, however, after a single glance of recognition, bent to the ground in silence. The girls with their pitchers passed on, and then came the king’s son with two thousand others of the same age, their mouths bridled and a rope round their necks, on their way to execution. Psammenitus watched them pass, and knew that his son was going to his death; but, though the other Egyptians who were sitting near him continued to weep and to show every sign of distress, he did just what he had done before at the sight of his daughter. So the young men, too, passed on; and then there chanced to walk by the place where Psammenitus, son of Amasis, sat with others in the city suburbs, an old man who had once been the king’s friend and had dined at his table, but had been stripped of his fortune and was now nothing more than a beggar trying to get what he could from the soldiers. At the sight of him Psammenitus burst into tears, and called him by name, and beat his head in distress.

From Herodotus’ Histories, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972, p. 208.