Be of Good Cheer

JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS features a domestic scene of Potiphar's aged parents, adorably named Huya and Tuya. Tuya addresses Huya with a number of peculiar endearments. "Right you are, my swamp beaver," she says. (This is the excellent translation by John E. Woods.) A couple of paragraphs after that: "How true, my good spoonbill." Soon afterward: "Then be of good cheer, my little owl." I only had to read to page 703 to find the owl! The book isn't even half over yet. I read 702 pages thinking, I bet there aren't even owls in the region. My mother-in-law is Egyptian, and yet, shamefully, I wasn't sure whether there were owls in Egypt (see also). I'm still not sure. I guess I'm just taking Thomas Mann's (implied) word for it. I've read three Thomas Mann novels now (well, 2.5, but I'm getting there!) and they've all had owls in them. Could Thomas Mann be the German Charles Portis? By which, of course, I mean to remind you ("click" here) that every Charles Portis book has an owl in it. Wait! I just remembered there are owls in the Bible. So I must have known there were owls around there somewhere. I haven't had my coffee yet! And I'm down to a cup a day for health reasons! Which is why I must conclude with my accidental discovery just now that the "blog" addressed the question of owls in Egypt a full decade ago ("click" here), with similarly lazy results.