From the IVth Dynasty to the end of the
VIth, the number of the inscriptions increases; tablets set up to the
kings of the IVth Dynasty in memory of warlike raids are found in
the peninsula of Sinai, and funerary inscriptions abound.
VIth, the number of the inscriptions increases; tablets set up to the
kings of the IVth Dynasty in memory of warlike raids are found in
the peninsula of Sinai, and funerary inscriptions abound.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v09 - Dra to Eme
Hypocrites give God part of his due, the out-
ward man, but the profane person giveth God neither outward
nor inward man. ” To reason thus is to put subtlety into the
cathedra of common-sense, to bewilder vision by legerdemain.
Notwithstanding his natural gift for devoutness and his almost
immodest godliness, Cotton was incapable of high sincerity. He
would not specifically advise Williams's banishment, but having
labored with him round a corner according to his most approved
ecclesiastical formula, he said, “We have no more to say in his
behalf, but must sit down;” by which expression of passivity he
gave the signal to the "secular arm” to do its worst, while he
washed his hands in innocent self-complacency. When one scru-
pulous magistrate consulted him as to his obligation in Williams's
case, Cotton answered his hesitation by saying, “You know they
are so much incensed against his course that it is not your voice,
nor the voice of two or three more, that can suspend the sen-
tence. " By such shifty phrases he shirked responsibility for the
results of his own teaching. Of the temper that stands alone for
the right, nature had given him not a jot. Williams may be a
little too severe, but he has some truth when he describes Cotton
on this occasion as “swimming with the stream of outward credit
## p. 5221 (#393) ###########################################
EDWARD EGGLESTON
5221
and profit,” though nothing was further from Cotton's conscious
purpose than such worldliness. Cotton's intolerance was not like
that of Dudley and Endicott, the offspring of an austere temper;
it was rather the outgrowth of his logic and his reverence for
authority. He sheltered himself behind the examples of Eliza-
beth and James I. , and took refuge in the shadow of Calvin,
whose burning of Servetus he cites as an example, without
any recoil of heart or conscience. But the consideration of the
character of the age forbids us to condemn the conscientious
men who put Williams out of the Massachusetts theocracy as they
would have driven the Devil out of the garden of Eden. When,
however, it comes to judging the age itself, and especially to
judging the Puritanism of the age, these false and harsh ideals
are its sufficient condemnation. Its government and its very re-
ligion were barbarous; its Bible, except for mystical and ecclesi-
astical uses, might as well have closed with the story of the
Hebrew judges and the imprecatory Psalms. The Apocalypse of
John, grotesquely interpreted, was the one book of the New Tes-
tament that received hearty consideration, aside from those other
New Testament passages supposed to relate to a divinely ap-
pointed ecclesiasticism. The humane pity of Jesus was unknown
not only to the laws, but to the sermons of the time. About the
time of Williams's banishment the lenity of John Winthrop was
solemnly rebuked by some of the clergy and rulers as a lax
imperiling of the safety of the gospel; and Winthrop, overborne
by authority, confessed, explained, apologized, and promised
amendment. The Puritans substituted an unformulated belief in
the infallibility of "godly” elders acting with the magistrates, for
the ancient doctrine of an infallible Church.
In this less scrupulous but more serious age it is easy to hold
Williams up to ridicule. Never was a noble and sweet-spirited
man bedeviled by a scrupulosity more trivial. Cotton aptly
dubbed him “a haberdasher of small questions. ” His extant let-
ters are many of them vibrant with latent heroism; there is
manifest in them an exquisite charity and a pathetic magnanim-
ity: but in the midst of it all the writer is unable to rid himself
of a swarm of scruples as pertinacious as the buzzing of mosqui-
toes in the primitive forest about him. In dating his letters,
where he ventures to date at all, he never writes the ordinary
name of the day of the week or the name of the month, lest he
should be guilty of etymological heathenism. He often avoids
## p. 5222 (#394) ###########################################
52 2 2
EDWARD EGGLESTON
writing the year, and when he does insert it he commits himself
to the last two figures only and adds a saving clause. Thus 1652
appears as "52 (so called),” and other years are tagged with the
same doubting words, or with the Latin "ut vulgo. ” What
quarrel the tender conscience had with the Christian era it is
hard to guess.
So too he writes to Winthrop, who had taken
part in his banishment, letters full of reverential tenderness and
hearty friendship. But his conscience does not allow him even
to seem to hold ecclesiastical fellowship with a man he honors as
a ruler and loves as a friend. Once at least he guards the point
directly by subscribing himself “Your worship's faithful and
affectionate in all civil bonds. » It would be sad to think of a
great spirit so enthralled by the scrupulosity of his time and his
party, if these minute restrictions had been a source of annoy-
ance to him. But the cheerful observance of little scruples seems
rather to have taken the place of a recreation in his life; they
were to him perhaps what bric-à-brac is to a collector, what a
well-arranged altar and candlesticks are to a ritualist.
Two fundamental notions supplied the motive power of every
ecclesiastical agitation of that age. The notion of a succession of
churchly order and ordinance from the time of the apostles was
the mainspring of the High Church movement. Apostolic primi-
tivism was the aim of the Puritan, and still more the goal of
the Separatist. One party rejoiced in a belief that a mysterious
apostolic virtue had trickled down through generations of bishops
and priests to its own age; the other rejoiced in the destruction
of institutions that had grown up in the ages, and in getting back
to the primitive nakedness of the early Christian conventicle.
True to the law of his nature, Roger Williams pushed this latter
principle to its ultimate possibilities. If we may believe the
accounts, he and his followers at Providence became Baptists that
they might receive the rite of baptism in its most ancient Ori-
ental form. But in an age when the fountains of the great deep
were utterly broken up, he could find no rest for the soles of his
feet. It was not enough that he should be troubled by the Puri-
tan spirit of apostolic primitivism: he had now swung round to
where this spirit joined hands with its twin, the aspiration for
apostolic succession. He renounced his baptism because it was
without apostolic sanction, and announced himself of that sect
which was the last reduction of Separatism. He became
Secker.
a
## p. 5223 (#395) ###########################################
EDWARD EGGLESTON
5223
Here again is a probable influence from Holland. The Seek-
ers had appeared there long before. Many Baptists had found
that their search for primitivism, if persisted in, carried them to
this negative result; for it seemed not enough to have apostolic
rites in apostolic form unless they were sanctioned by the gifts”
of the apostolic time. The Seekers appeared in England as early
as 1617, and during the religious turmoils of the Commonwealth
period the sect afforded a resting-place for many a weather-beaten
soul. As the miraculous gifts were lost, the Seekers dared not
preach, baptize, or teach; they merely waited, and in their mysti-
cism they believed their waiting to be an "upper room” to which
Christ would come. It is interesting to know that Williams, the
most romantic figure of the whole Puritan movement, at last
found a sort of relief from the austere externalism and ceaseless
dogmatism of his age by traveling the road of literalism, until
he had passed out on the other side into the region of devout
and contented uncertainty.
In all this, Williams was the child of his age, and sometimes
more childish than his age. But there were regions of thought and
sentiment in which he was wholly disentangled from the meshes
of his time, and that not because of intellectual superiority,- for
he had no large philosophical views,— but by reason of elevation
of spirit. Even the authority of Moses could not prevent him
from condemning the harsh severity of the New England capital
laws.
He had no sentimental delusions about the character of
the savages, --- he styles them “wolves endued with men's brains”;
but he constantly pleads for a humane treatment of them. A11
the bloody precedents of Joshua could not make him look with-
out repulsion on the slaughter of women and children in the
Pequot war, nor could he tolerate dismemberment of the dead or
the selling of Indian captives into perpetual slavery. From big-
otry and resentment he was singularly free. On many occasions
he joyfully used his ascendency over the natives to protect those
who kept in force against him a sentence of perpetual banish-
ment. And this 'ultra-Separatist, almost alone of the men of his
time, could use such words of catholic charity as those in which
he speaks of “the people of God wheresoever scattered about
Babel's banks, either in Rome or England. ”
Of his incapacity for organization or administration we shall
have to speak hereafter. But his spiritual intuitions, his moral
insight, his genius for justice, lent a curious modernness to many
## p. 5224 (#396) ###########################################
5224
EDWARD EGGLESTON
.
of his convictions. In a generation of creed-builders which
detested schism, he became an individualist. Individualist in
thought, altruist in spirit, secularist in governmental theory, he
was the herald of a time yet more modern than this laggard age
of ours.
If ever a soul saw a clear-shining inward light, not to
be dimmed by prejudices or obscured by the deft logic of a dis-
putatious age, it was the soul of Williams. In all the region of
petty scrupulosity the time-spirit had enthralled him; but in the
higher region of moral decision he was utterly emancipated from
it. His conclusions belong to ages yet to come.
This union of moral aspiration with a certain disengagedness
constitutes what we may call the prophetic temperament. Brad-
ford and Winthrop were men of high aspiration, but of another
class. The reach of their spirits was restrained by practical
wisdom, which compelled them to take into account the limits of
the attainable. Not that they consciously refused to follow their
logic to its end, but that, like other prudent men of affairs, they
were, without their own knowledge or consent, turned aside by
the logic of the impossible. Precisely here the prophet departs
from the reformer. The prophet recks nothing of impossibility;
he is ravished with truth disembodied. From Elijah the Tishbite
to Socrates, from Socrates to the latest and perhaps yet unrecog-
nized voice of our own time, the prophetic temperament has ever
shown an inability to enter into treaty with its environment. In
the seventeenth century there was no place but the wilderness
for such a John Baptist of the distant future as Roger Williams.
He did not belong among the diplomatic builders of churches,
like Cotton, or the politic founders of States, like Winthrop. He
was but a babbler to his own time; but the prophetic voice rings
clear and far, and ever clearer as the ages go on.
Reprinted by consent of the author, and of D. Appleton & Company, pub-
lishers, New York.
## p. 5225 (#397) ###########################################
5225
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
BY FRANCIS LLEWELLYN GRIFFITH AND KATE BRADBURY GRIFFITH
He advance that has been made in recent years in the deci-
pherment of the ancient writings of the world enables us
to deal in a very matter-of-fact way with the Egyptian
inscriptions. Their chief mysteries are solved, their philosophy is
almost fathomed, their general nature is understood. The story they
have to tell is seldom startling to the modern mind. The world was
younger when they were written. The heart of man was given to
devious ways then, as now and in the days of Solomon, — that we can
affirm full well; but his mind was simpler: apart from knowledge
of men and the conduct of affairs, the educated Egyptian had no
more subtlety than a modern boy of fifteen, or an intelligent English
rustic of a century ago.
To the Egyptologist by profession the inscriptions have a wonder-
ful charm. The writing itself in its leading form is the most
attractive that has ever been seen. Long rows of clever little pict-
ures of everything in heaven and earth compose the sentences:
every sign is a plaything, every group a pretty puzzle, and at pres-
ent, almost every phrase well understood brings a tiny addition to
the sum of the world's knowledge. But these inscriptions, so rich in
facts that concern the history of mankind and the progress of civili-
zation, seldom possess any literary charm. If pretentious, as many
of them are, they combine bald exaggeration with worn-out simile, in
which ideas that may be poetical are heaped together in defiance of
art. Such are the priestly laudations of the kings by whose favor
the temples prospered. Take, for instance, the dating of a stela
erected under Rameses II. on the route to the Nubian gold mines.
It runs:-
“On the fourth day of the first month of the season of winter, in the third
year of the Majesty of Horus, the Strong Bull, beloved of the Goddess of Truth,
lord of the vulture and of the uræus diadems, protecting Egypt and restrain-
ing the barbarians, the Golden Horus, rich in years, great in victories, King
of Upper Egypt and King of Lower Egypt, Mighty in Truth of Ra, Chosen
of Ra,' the son of Ra, Rameses Beloved of Amen, granting life for ever and
ever, beloved of Amen Ra lord of the Throne of the Two Lands )2 in Apt
1 The italicized phrases represent the principal names of the King.
2 The temple of Karnak.
## p. 5226 (#398) ###########################################
5226
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
Esut, appearing glorious on the throne of Horus among the living from day
to day even as his father Ra; the good god, lord of the South Land, Him of
Edfù? Horus bright of plumage, the beauteous sparrow-hawk of electrum that
hath protected Egypt with his wing, making a shade for men, fortress of
strength and of victory; he who came forth terrible from the womb to take
to himself his strength, to extend his borders, to whose body color was given
of the strength of Mentu? ; the god Horus and the god Set. There was
exultation in heaven on the day of his birth; the gods said, “We have begot-
ten him;) the goddesses said, He came forth from us to rule the kingdom
of Ra;' Amen spake, 'I am he who hath made him, whereby I have set Truth
in her place; the earth is established, heaven is well pleased, the gods are sat-
isfied by reason of him. ) The Strong Bull against the vile Ethiopians, which
uttereth his roaring against the land of the negroes while his hoofs trample
the Troglodytes, his horn thrusteth at them; his spirit is mighty in Nubia
and the terror of him reacheth to the land of the Kary3; his name circulateth
in all lands because of the victory which his arms have won; at his name
gold cometh forth from the mountain as at the name of his father, the god
Horus of the land of Baka; beloved is he in the Lands of the South even as
Horus at Meama, the god of the Land of Buhen,King of Upper and Lower
Egypt, Mighty in Truth of Ra, son of Ra, of his body, Lord of Diadems
Rameses Beloved of Amen, giving life for ever and ever like his father Ra,
day by day. ” [Revised from the German translation of Professor Erman. )
As Professor Erman has pointed out, the courtly scribe was most
successful when taking his similes straight from nature, as in the
following description, also of Rameses II. : -
“A victorious lion putting forth its claws while roaring loudly and uttering
its voice in the Valley of the Gazelles.
A jackal swift of foot seeking
what it may find, going round the circuit of the land in one instant,
his mighty will seizeth on his enemies like a flame catching the ki-ki plant 5
with the storm behind it, like the strong flame which hath tasted the fire,
destroying, until everything that is in it becometh ashes; a storm howling
terribly on the sea, its waves like mountains, none can enter it, every one
that is in it is engulphed in Duat. 6 »
Here and there amongst the hieroglyphic inscriptions are found
memorials of the dead, in which the praises of the deceased are
neatly strung together and balanced like beads in a necklace, and
passages occur of picturesque narrative worthy to rank as literature
1 Horus as the winged disk of the sun, so often figured as a protecting
symbol over the doors of temples.
? The coloration or configuration of his limbs indicated to the learned in
such matters his victorious career. Mentu was the god of war.
3 The southern boundary of the Egyptian empire.
4 Baka, Meama, Buhen were in Nubia.
5 The castor-oil plant (Ricinus communis).
6 The underworld.
## p. 5227 (#399) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5227
of the olden time. We may quote in this connection from the bio-
graphical epitaph of the nomarch Ameny, who was governor of a
province in Middle Egypt for twenty-five years during the long reign
of Usertesen I. (about 2700 B. C. ). This inscription not only recounts
the achievements of Ameny and the royal favor which was shown
him, but also tells us in detail of the capacity, goodness, charm, dis-
cretion, and insight by which he attached to himself the love and
respect of the whole court, and of the people over whom he ruled
and for whose well-being he cared. Ameny says:-
«I was a possessor of favor, abounding in love, a ruler who loved his city.
Moreover I passed years as ruler in the Oryx nome. All the works of the
house of the King came into my hand. Behold, the superintendent of the
gangs? of the domains of the herdsmen of the Oryx nome gave me 3,000 bulls
of their draught stock. I was praised for it in the house of the King each
year of stock-taking. I rendered all their works to the King's house: there
were no arrears to me in any of his offices.
“The entire Oryx nome served me in numerous attendances. There was
not the daughter of a poor man that I wronged, nor a widow that I oppressed.
There was not a farmer that I chastised, not a herdsman whom I drove
away, not a foreman of five whose men I took away for the works. There
was not a pauper around me, there was not a hungry man of my
time.
When there came years of famine, I arose and ploughed all the fields of the
Oryx nome to its boundary south and north, giving life to its inhabitants, mak-
ing its provisions. There was not a hungry man in it. I gave to the widow
as to her that possessed a husband, and I favored not the elder above the
younger in all that I gave. Thereafter great rises of the Nile took place,
producing wheat and barley, and producing all things abundantly, but I did
not exact the arrears of farming. ”
Elsewhere in his tomb there are long lists of the virtues of
Amenemhat, and from these the following may be selected both on
account of picturesqueness of expression and the appreciation of fine
character which they display.
«Superintendent of all things which heaven gives and earth produces,
overseer of horns, hoofs, feathers, and shells.
Master of the art of
causing writing to speak.
Caressing of heart to all people, making to
prosper the timid man, hospitable to all, escorting [travelers] up and down
the river.
Knowing how to aid, arriving at time of need; free of
planning evil, without greediness in his body, speaking words of truth.
1 The fellâhîn herdsmen of the time seem to have clubbed together into
gangs, each of which was represented by a ganger, and the whole body by a
superintendent of the gangs.
2 Corvée work for the government.
3 1. e. , he did not impress men (wrongfully ? ) for the government works,
such as irrigation or road-making.
## p. 5228 (#400) ###########################################
5228
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
Unique as a mighty hunter, the abode of the heart of the King.
Speaking the right when he judges between suitors, clear of speaking fraud,
knowing how to proceed in the council of the elders, finding the knot in the
skein.
Great of favors in the house of the King, contenting the
heart on the day of making division, careful of his goings to his equals,
gaining reverence on the day of weighing words, beloved of the officials of
the palace.
The cursive forms of writing — hieratic from the earliest times,
demotic in the latest — were those in which records were committed
to papyrus.
This material has preserved to us documents of every
kind, from letters and ledgers to works of religion and philosophy.
To these, again, “literature is a term rarely to be applied; yet the
tales and poetry occasionally met with on papyri are perhaps the
most pleasing of all the productions of the Egyptian scribe.
It must be confessed that the knowledge of writing in Egypt led
to a kind of primitive pedantry, and a taste for unnatural and to us
childish formality: the free play and naïveté of the story-teller is too
often choked, and the art of literary finish was little understood.
Simplicity and truth to nature alone gave lasting charm, for though
adornment was often attempted, their rude arts of literary embellish-
ment were seldom otherwise than clumsily employed.
A word should be said about the strange condition in which most
of the literary texts have come down to us. It is rarely that mon-
umental inscriptions contain serious blunders of orthography; the
peculiarities of late archaistic inscriptions which sometimes produce a
kind of “dog Egyptian” can hardly be considered as blunders, for
the scribe knew what meaning he intended to convey. But it is
otherwise with copies of literary works on papyrus. Sometimes these
were the productions of schoolboys copying from dictation as an
exercise in the writing-school, and the blank edges of these papyri
are often decorated with essays at executing the more difficult signs.
The master of the school would seem not to have cared what non-
sense was produced by the misunderstanding of his dictation, so long
as the signs were well formed. The composition of new works on
the model of the old, and the accurate understanding of the ancient
works, were taught in a very different school, and few indeed
attained to skill in them. The boys turned out of the writing-school
would read and write a little; the clever ones would keep accounts,
write letters, make out reports as clerks in the government service,
and might ultimately acquire considerable proficiency in this kind of
work. Apparently men of the official class sometimes amused them-
selves with puzzling over an ill-written copy of some ancient tale,
and with trying to copy portions of it. The work however was be-
yond them: they were attracted by it, they revered the compilations
## p. 5229 (#401) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5229
of an elder age and those which were written by the finger of
Thoth himself”; but the science of language was unborn, and there
was little or no systematic instruction given in the principles of the
ancient grammar and vocabulary. Those who desired to attain emi-
nence in scholarship after they had passed through the writing-school
had to go to Heliopolis, Hermopolis, or wherever the principal uni-
versity of the time might be, and there sit at the feet of priestly
professors; who we fancy were reverenced as demigods, and who
in mysterious fashion and with niggardly hand imparted scraps of
knowledge to their eager pupils. Those endowed with special talents
might after almost lifelong study become proficient in the ancient
language. Would that we might one day discover the hoard of rolls
of such a copyist and writer!
There must have been a large class of hack-copyists practiced in
forming characters both uncial and cursive. Sometimes their copies
of religious works are models of deft writing, the embellishments
of artist and colorist being added to those of the calligrapher: the
magnificent rolls of the Book of the Dead in the British Museum
and elsewhere are the admiration of all beholders. Such manu-
scripts satisfy the eye, and apparently neither the multitude in Egypt
nor even the priestly royal undertakers questioned their efficacy in
the tomb. Yet are they very apples of Sodom to the hieroglyphic
scholar; fair without, but ashes within. On comparing different
copies of the same text, he sees in almost every line omissions, per-
versions, corruptions, until he turns away baffled and disgusted.
Only here and there is the text practically certain, and even then
there are probably grammatical blunders in every copy. Nor is it
only in the later papyri that these blunders are met with. The
hieroglyphic system of writing, especially in its cursive forms, lends
itself very readily to perversion by ignorant and inattentive copyists;
and even monumental inscriptions, so long as they are mere copies,
are usually corrupted. The most ridiculous perversions of all, date
from the Ramesside epoch when the dim past had lost its charm,
for the glories of the XVIIIth Dynasty were still fresh, while new
impulses and foreign influence had broken down adherence to tradi-
tion and isolation.
In the eighth century B. C. the new and the old were definitely
parted, to the advantage of each. On the one hand the transactions
of ordinary life were more easily registered in the cursive demotic
script, while on the other the sacred writings were more thoroughly
investigated and brought into order by the priests. Hence, in spite
of absurdities that had irremediably crept in, the archaistic texts
copied in the XXVIth Dynasty are more intelligible than the same
class of work in the XIXth and XXth Dynasties.
## p. 5230 (#402) ###########################################
5230
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
In reading translations from Egyptian, it must be remembered
that uncertainty still remains concerning the meanings of multitudes
of words and phrases. Every year witnesses a great advance in
accuracy of rendering; but the translation even of an easy text still
requires here and there some close and careful guesswork to supply
the connecting links of passages or words that are thoroughly under-
stood, or the resort to some conventional rendering that has become
current for certain ill-understood but frequently recurring phrases.
The renderings given in the following pages are with one exception
specially revised for this publication, and exclude most of what is
doubtful. The Egyptologist is now to a great extent himself aware
whether the ground on which he is treading is firm or treacherous;
and it seems desirable to make a rule of either giving the public
only what can be warranted as sound translation, or else of warn-
ing them where accuracy is doubtful. A few years ago such a course
would have curtailed the area for selection to few of the simplest
stories and historical inscriptions; but now we can range over almost
the whole field of Egyptian writing, and gather from any part of it
warranted samples to set before the reading public. The labor, how-
ever, involved in producing satisfactory translations for publication,
not mere hasty readings which may give something of the sense, is
very great; and at present few texts have been well rendered. It is
hoped that the following translations will be taken for what they are
intended, -- attempts to show a little of the Ancient Egyptian mind
in the writings which it has left to us.
We may now sketch briefly the history of Egyptian literature,
dealing with the subject in periods:'-
I. THE ANCIENT KINGDOM, ABOUT B. C. 4500-3000
The earliest historic period — from the Ist Dynasty to the IIId,
about B. C. 4500 — has left no inscriptions of any extent. Some
portions of the Book of the Dead' profess to date from these or
earlier times, and probably much of the religious literature is of
extremely ancient origin. The first book of * Proverbs) in the Prisse
Papyrus is attributed by its writer to the end of the IIId Dynasty
(about 4000 B. C. ).
From the IVth Dynasty to the end of the
VIth, the number of the inscriptions increases; tablets set up to the
kings of the IVth Dynasty in memory of warlike raids are found in
the peninsula of Sinai, and funerary inscriptions abound. The pyra-
mids raised at the end of the Vth and during the VIth Dynasty are
found to contain interminable religious inscriptions, forming alınost
1 An asterisk (*) attached to the title of a text indicates that a translation
of part or all of it is printed in the following pages.
## p. 5231 (#403) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5231
complete rituals for the deceased kings. Professor Maspero, who has
published these texts, states that they “contain much verbiage,
many pious platitudes, many obscure allusions to the affairs of the
other world, and amongst all this rubbish some passages full of
movement and wild energy, in which poetical inspiration and reli-
gious emotion are still discernible through the veil of mythological
expressions. ” Of the funerary and biographical inscriptions the most
remarkable is that of * Una. Another, slightly later but hardly less
important, is on the facade of the tomb of Herkhuf, at Aswân, and
recounts the expeditions into Ethiopia and the southern oases which
this resourceful man carried through successfully. In Herkhuf's later
life he delighted a boy King of Egypt by bringing back for him from
one of his raids a grotesque dwarf dancer of exceptional skill: the
young Pharaoh sent him a long letter on the subject, which was copied
in full on the tomb as an addition to the other records there. It is to
the Vth Dynasty also that the second collection of *( Proverbs in the
Prisse Papyrus is dated. The VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties have left
us practically no records of any kind.
II.
THE MIDDLE KINGDOM, B. C. 3000 TO 1600
The Middle Kingdom, from the IXth to the XVIIth Dynasty, shows
a great literary developinent. Historical records of some length are
not uncommon. The funerary inscriptions descriptive of character
and achievement are often remarkable.
Many papyri of this period have survived: the * Prisse Papyrus
of Proverbs, a papyrus discovered by Mr. Flinders Petrie with the
*'Hymn to Usertesen III. ,' papyri at Berlin containing a *dialogue
between a man and his soul, the * Story of Sanehat,' the Story of
the Sekhti,' and a very remarkable fragment of another story; besides
the Westcar Papyrus of Tales' and at St. Petersburg the *' 'Ship-
wrecked Sailor. ' The productions of this period were copied in later
times; the royal *( Teaching of Amenemhat,' and the worldly *( Teach-
ing of Dauf' as to the desirability of a scribe's career above any other
trade or profession, exist only in late copies. Doubtless much of the
later literature was copied from the texts of the Middle Kingdom.
There are also *treatises extant on medicine and arithmetic. Por-
tions of the Book of the Dead are found inscribed on tombs and
sarcophagi.
III. THE NEW KINGDOM, ETC.
From the New Kingdom, B. C. 1600-700, we have the *(Maxims
of Any,' spoken to his son Khonsuhetep, numerous hymns to the
gods, including *that of King Akhenaten to the Aten (or disk of the
sun), and the later * hymns to Amen Ra. Inscriptions of every kind,
## p. 5232 (#404) ###########################################
5232
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
historical, mythological, and funereal, abound. The historical *inscrip-
tion of Piankhy is of very late date. On papyri there are the stories
of the *' Two Brothers,' of the “Taking of Joppa, of the * Doomed
Prince. )
From the Saite period (XXV'Ith Dynasty, B. C. 700) and later, there
is little worthy of record in hieroglyphics: the inscriptions follow an-
cient models, and present nothing striking or original. In demotic we
have the ** (Story of Setna,' a papyrus of moralities, a chronicle some-
what falsified, a harper's song, a philosophical dialogue between a cat
and a jackal, and others.
Here we might end. Greek authors in Egypt were many: some
were native, some of foreign birth or extraction, but they all belong
to a different world from the Ancient Egyptian. With the adapta-
tion of the Greek alphabet to the spelling of the native dialects,
Egyptian came again to the front in Coptic, the language of Christ-
ian Egypt. Coptic literature, if such it may be called, was almost
entirely produced in Egyptian monasteries and intended for edifica-
tion. Let us hope that it served its end in its day. To us the dull,
extravagant, and fantastic Acts of the Saints, of which its original
works chiefly consist, are tedious and ridiculous except for the lin-
guist or the church historian. They certainly display the adjustment
of the Ancient Egyptian mind to new conditions of life and belief;
but the introduction of Christianity forms a fitting boundary to our
sketch, and we will now proceed to the texts themselves.
Francis Le. Enfitt
Mate Griffith
1
LIST OF SELECTIONS
STORIES:
The Shipwrecked Sailor The Doomed Prince
The Story of Sanehat
The Story of the Two Brothers
The Story of Setna
HISTORY:
The Stela of Piankhy
The Inscription of Una
POETRY:
MORAL AND DIDACTIC:
Songs of Laborers
The Negative Confession
Love Songs
The Teaching of Amenemhat
Hymn to Usertesen III. The Prisse Papyrus
Hymn to Aten
From the Maxims of Any
Hymns to Amen Ra
Instruction of Dauf
Songs to the Harp
Contrasted Lots of Scribe and
From an Epitaph
Fellâh
From a Dialogue Between a Reproaches to
Reproaches to a Dissipated Stu-
Man and His Soul
dent
## p. 5233 (#405) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5233
THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR
[One of the most complete documents existing on papyrus is the (Story of
the Shipwrecked Sailor. ) The tale itself seems to date from a very early
period, when imagination could still have full play in Upper Nubia. In it a
sailor is apparently presenting a petition to some great man, in hopes of royal
favor as the hero of the marvels which he proceeds to recount.
The Papyrus, which apparently is of the age of the XIth Dynasty, is pre-
served at St. Petersburg, but is still unpublished. It has been translated
by Professors Golenisheff and Maspero. The present version is taken from
(Egyptian Tales,) by W. M. Flinders Petrie. ]
T"
He wise servant said, “Let thy heart be satisfied, O my lord,
for that we have come back to the country; after we have
long been on board, and rowed much, the prow has at last
touched land. All the people rejoice and embrace us one after
another. Moreover, we have come back in good health, and not
a man is lacking; although we have been to the ends of Wawat?
and gone through the land of Senmut,’ we have returned in
peace, and our land — behold, we have come back to it. Hear
me, my lord; I have no other refuge. Wash thee and turn the
water over thy fingers, then go and tell the tale to the Majesty. ”
His lord replied, “Thy heart continues still its wandering
words! But although the mouth of a man may save him, his
words may also cover his face with confusion. Wilt thou do,
then, as thy heart moves thee. This that thou wilt say, tell
quietly. "
The sailor then answered:-
“Now I shall tell that which has happened to me, to my very
self.
I was going to the mines of Pharaoh, and I went down
on the Sea on a ship of 150 cubits long and 40 cubits wide,
with 150 sailors of the best of Egypt, who had seen heaven and
earth, and whose hearts were stronger than lions. They had said
that the wind would not be contrary, or that there would be
none. But as we approached the land the wind arose, and threw
up waves eight cubits high. As for me, I sized a piece of wood;
but those who were in the vessel perished, without one remain-
ing. A wave threw me on an island, after that I had been three
I Lower Nubia.
2 District about the first cataract.
3 A name often applied to the great river Nile.
IX-328
## p. 5234 (#406) ###########################################
5234
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
near.
1
days alone, without a companion beside my own heart. I laid me
in a thicket and the shadow covered me. Then stretched I my
limbs to try to find something for my mouth. I found there figs
and grapes, all manner of good herbs, berries and grain, melons
of all kinds, fishes and birds. Nothing was lacking. And I sat-
isfied myself, and left on the ground that which was over, of what
my arms had been filled withal. I dug a pit, I lighted a fire, and
I made a burnt-offering unto the gods.
“Suddenly I heard a noise as of thunder, which I thought to
be that of a wave of the sea. The trees shook and the earth
was moved.
I uncovered my face, and I saw that a serpent drew
He was thirty cubits long, and his beard greater than two
cubits; his body was overlaid with gold, and his color as that
of true lazuli. He coiled himself before me.
“Then he opened his mouth, while that I lay on my face
before him, and he said to me, What has brought thee, what
has brought thee, little one, what has brought thee? If thou
sayest not speedily what has brought thee to this isle, I will
make thee know thyself; as a flame thou shalt vanish, if thou
tellest me not something I have not heard, or which I knew not
before thee. '
« Then he took me in his mouth and carried me to his resting-
place, and laid me down without any hurt. I was whole and
sound, and nothing was gone from me. Then he opened his
mouth against me, while that I lay on my face before him, and
he said, “What has brought thee, what has brought thee, little
one, what has brought thee to this isle which is in the sea, and
of which the shores are in the midst of the waves ? )
"Then I replied to him, and holding my arms low before
him,' I said to him:- 'I was embarked for the mines by the
order of the Majesty, in a ship; 150 cubits was its length, and
the width of it 40 cubits. It had 150 sailors of the best of Egypt,
who had seen heaven and earth, and the hearts of whom were
stronger than lions. They said that the wind would not be con-
trary, or that there would be none. Each of them exceeded his
companion in the prudence of his heart and the strength of his
arm, and I was not beneath any of them. A storm came upon
us while we were on the sea. Hardly could we reach to the
shore when the wind waxed yet greater, and the waves rose even
1 The usual Egyptian attitude of respect to a superior was to stand bent
slightly forward, holding the arms downward.
## p. 5235 (#407) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5235
eight cubits.
As for me, I seized a piece of wood, while those
who were in the boat perished without one being left with me
for three days. Behold me now before thee, for I was brought
to this isle by a wave of the sea! !
« Then said he to me, Fear not, fear not, little one, and
make not thy face sad. If thou hast come to me, it is God? who
has let thee live. For it is he who has brought thee to this isle
of the blest, where nothing is lacking, and which is filled with
all good things. See now thou shalt pass one month after
another, until thou shalt be four months in this isle. Then a
ship shall come from thy land with sailors, and thou shalt leave
with them and go to thy country, and thou shalt die in thy town.
Converse is pleasing, and he who tastes of it passes over his
misery I will therefore tell thee of that which is in this isle.
I am here with my brethren and my children around me; we are
seventy-five serpents, children, and kindred; without naming a
young girl who was brought unto me by chance, and on whom
the fire of heaven fell and burnt her to ashes. As for thee, if
thou art strong, and if thy heart waits patiently, thou shalt press
thy infants to thy bosom and embrace thy wife. Thou shalt
return to thy house which is full of all good things, thou shalt
see thy land, where thou shalt dwell in the midst of thy kin-
dred! )
« Then I bowed in my obeisance, and I touched the ground
before him. “Behold now that which I have told thee before. I
shall tell of thy presence unto Pharaoh, I shall make him to
know of thy greatness, and I will bring to thee of the sacred
oils and perfumes, and of incense of the temples with which all
gods are honored. I shall tell moreover of that which I do
see (thanks to him), and there shall be rendered to thee
praises before the fullness of all the land. I shall slay asses for
thee in sacrifice, I shall pluck for thee the birds, and I shall
bring for thee ships full of all kinds of the treasures of Egypt,
as is comely to do unto a god, a friend of men in a far country,
of which men know not. '
“Then he smiled at my speech, because of that which was in
his heart, for he said to me, Thou art not rich in perfumes, for
all that thou hast is but common incense. As for me, I am
1 The polytheistic Egyptians frequently used the term “God” without speci-
fying any particular deity: perhaps, too, in their own minds they did not
define the idea, but applied it simply to some general notion of Divinity.
now
## p. 5236 (#408) ###########################################
5236
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
prince of the land of Punt,' and I have perfumes. Only the oil
which thou saidst thou wouldst bring is not common in this isle.
But when thou shalt depart from this place, thou shalt never
more see this isle; it shall be changed into waves. '
"And behold, when the ship drew near, attending to all that
he had told me before, I got me up into an high tree, to strive
to see those who were within it. Then I came and told to him
this matter; but it was already known unto him before. Then
he said to me, Farewell, farewell; go to thy house, little one,
see again thy children, and let thy name be good in thy town;
these are my wishes for thee! !
« Then I bowed myself before him, and held my arms low
before him, and he, he gave me gifts of precious perfumes, of
cassia, of sweet woods, of kohl, of cypress, an abundance of
incense, of ivory tusks, of baboons, of apes, and all kinds of
precious things. I embarked all in the ship which was come,
and bowing myself, I prayed God for him.
« Then he said to me, Behold, thou shalt come to thy country
in two months, thou shalt press to thy bosom thy children, and
thou shalt rest in thy tomb! ! After this I went down to the
shore unto the ship, and I called to the sailors who were there.
Then on the shore I rendered adoration to the master of this
isle and to those who dwelt therein.
“When we shall come, in our return, to the house of Pha-
raoh, in the second month, according to all that the serpent
has said, we shall approach unto the palace. And I shall go in
before Pharaoh, I shall bring the gifts which I have brought
from this isle into the country. Then he shall thank me before
the fullness of all the land. Grant then unto me a follower, and
lead me to the courtiers of the king. Cast thine eye upon me
after that I am come to land again, after that I have both seen
and proved this. Hear my prayer, for it is good to listen to
people. It was said unto me, “Become a wise man, and thou
shalt come to honor,' and behold I have become such. ”
This is finished from its beginning unto its end, even as it was
found in a writing. It is written by the scribe of cunning fingers,
Amenia menaa; may he live in life, wealth, and health.
1 Punt was the land of spices » to the Egyptian, and thence, too, the
finest incense was brought for the temple services. It included Somaliland in
Africa, and the south of Arabia.
## p. 5237 (#409) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5237
THE STORY OF SANEHAT
[The story of Sanehat is practically complete. A papyrus at Berlin con-
tains all the text except about twenty lines at the beginning, the whole being
written in about three hundred and thirty short lines. Scraps of the missing
portion were found in the collection of Lord Amherst of Hackney; and these,
added to a complete but very corrupt text of about the first fifty lines, enable
one to restore the whole with tolerable certainty. The story was written
about the time of the XIIth or XIIIth Dynasty, but was known at a much
later period: one extract from the beginning of the tale and one from the
end have been found written in ink on limestone flakes or (ostraca) of about
the XXth Dynasty (about 1150 B. C. ). It seems to be a straightforward rela-
tion of actual occurrences, a real piece of biography. At any rate, it is most
instructive as showing the kind of intercourse that was possible between
Egypt and Palestine about 2500 B. C. ]
keeper of the gate
He hereditary prince, royal seal-bearer, trusty companion,
of the foreigners, true and
beloved royal acquaintance, the attendant Sanehat says:-
I attended my lord as a servant of the king, of the house-
hold of the hereditary princess, the greatly favored, the royal
wife, Ankhet-Usertesen [? ], holding a place at Kanefer, the pyra-
mid of King Amenemhat. '
In the thirtieth year, the month Paophi, the seventh day, the
god’ entered his horizon, the King Sehetepabra flew up to heaven;
he joined the sun's disk, he attended the god, he joined his
Maker. The Residences was silenced, the hearts were weakened,
the Great Portals were closed, the courtiers crouching on the
ground, the people in hushed mourning.
Now his Majesty had sent a great army with the nobles to
the land of the Temehu,“ his son and heir as their commander,
the good King Usertesen. And now he was returning, and had
brought away captives and all kinds of cattle without end. The
Companions of the Court sent to the West Side to let the king
know the state of affairs that had come about in the Audience
1 This paragraph is very difficult to restore and very doubtful.
? 1. e. , the King Sehetepabra Amenemhat I. , whose death is recorded in the
nest clause.
3 The king's city, and so throughout the story.
* The land of the Temehu was in the Libyan desert on the west of Egypt.
5 Usertesen I. , the son and heir of Amenemhat I. , reigned ten years
jointly with his father.
61. e. , the western edge of Lower Egypt.
## p. 5238 (#410) ###########################################
5238
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
Chamber. ' The messenger found him on the road; he reached
him at the time of evening. “It was a time for him to hasten
greatly (was the message]: Let the Hawk' fly [hither with his
attendants, without allowing the army to know of it. ” And when
the royal sons who commanded in that army sent messages, not
one of them was summoned to audience. Behold, I was standing
(near]; I heard his voice while he was speaking. ' I fled far away,
my heart beating, my arms outspread; trembling had fallen on
all my limbs. I ran hither and thither to seek a place to hide
me, I threw myself amongst the bushes: and when I found a
road that went forward, I set out southward, not indeed thinking
to come to this Residence. I expected that there would be dis-
turbance. I spake not of life after it. ® I wandered across my
estate' [? ] in the neighborhood of Nehat; I reached the island [or
lake] of Seneferu, and spent the day [resting ? ] on the open field.
I started again while it was yet day,* and came to a man stand-
ing at the side of the road. He asked of me mercy, for he
feared me. By supper-time I drew near to the town of Negau.
I crossed the river on a raft without a rudder, by the aid of a
west wind, and landed at the quay [? ] of the quarrymen of the
Mistress at the Red Mountain. ' Then I fled on foot northward,
1
Perhaps this refers to the death of the king, or to the deliberations of
the royal councilors.
? Apparently a term for the king.
8 Sanehat, accidentally hearing the news of the old king's death, which
was kept secret even from the members of the royal family, was overcome
with agitation and fled.
* It was of course night-time.
5 The Royal Residence called Athet-taui lay on the boundary of Upper and
Lower Egypt, between Memphis and the entrance to the Faiyûm, and so in the
direction which Sanehat at first took in his flight from the western edge of the
Delta. One might prefer the word Capital to Residence, but it can hardly be
doubted that Thebes and Memphis were then the real capitals of Egypt.
6 Perhaps the meaning is that Sanehat did not imagine life possible after
the king's death, or it may be “outside the Residence.
ward man, but the profane person giveth God neither outward
nor inward man. ” To reason thus is to put subtlety into the
cathedra of common-sense, to bewilder vision by legerdemain.
Notwithstanding his natural gift for devoutness and his almost
immodest godliness, Cotton was incapable of high sincerity. He
would not specifically advise Williams's banishment, but having
labored with him round a corner according to his most approved
ecclesiastical formula, he said, “We have no more to say in his
behalf, but must sit down;” by which expression of passivity he
gave the signal to the "secular arm” to do its worst, while he
washed his hands in innocent self-complacency. When one scru-
pulous magistrate consulted him as to his obligation in Williams's
case, Cotton answered his hesitation by saying, “You know they
are so much incensed against his course that it is not your voice,
nor the voice of two or three more, that can suspend the sen-
tence. " By such shifty phrases he shirked responsibility for the
results of his own teaching. Of the temper that stands alone for
the right, nature had given him not a jot. Williams may be a
little too severe, but he has some truth when he describes Cotton
on this occasion as “swimming with the stream of outward credit
## p. 5221 (#393) ###########################################
EDWARD EGGLESTON
5221
and profit,” though nothing was further from Cotton's conscious
purpose than such worldliness. Cotton's intolerance was not like
that of Dudley and Endicott, the offspring of an austere temper;
it was rather the outgrowth of his logic and his reverence for
authority. He sheltered himself behind the examples of Eliza-
beth and James I. , and took refuge in the shadow of Calvin,
whose burning of Servetus he cites as an example, without
any recoil of heart or conscience. But the consideration of the
character of the age forbids us to condemn the conscientious
men who put Williams out of the Massachusetts theocracy as they
would have driven the Devil out of the garden of Eden. When,
however, it comes to judging the age itself, and especially to
judging the Puritanism of the age, these false and harsh ideals
are its sufficient condemnation. Its government and its very re-
ligion were barbarous; its Bible, except for mystical and ecclesi-
astical uses, might as well have closed with the story of the
Hebrew judges and the imprecatory Psalms. The Apocalypse of
John, grotesquely interpreted, was the one book of the New Tes-
tament that received hearty consideration, aside from those other
New Testament passages supposed to relate to a divinely ap-
pointed ecclesiasticism. The humane pity of Jesus was unknown
not only to the laws, but to the sermons of the time. About the
time of Williams's banishment the lenity of John Winthrop was
solemnly rebuked by some of the clergy and rulers as a lax
imperiling of the safety of the gospel; and Winthrop, overborne
by authority, confessed, explained, apologized, and promised
amendment. The Puritans substituted an unformulated belief in
the infallibility of "godly” elders acting with the magistrates, for
the ancient doctrine of an infallible Church.
In this less scrupulous but more serious age it is easy to hold
Williams up to ridicule. Never was a noble and sweet-spirited
man bedeviled by a scrupulosity more trivial. Cotton aptly
dubbed him “a haberdasher of small questions. ” His extant let-
ters are many of them vibrant with latent heroism; there is
manifest in them an exquisite charity and a pathetic magnanim-
ity: but in the midst of it all the writer is unable to rid himself
of a swarm of scruples as pertinacious as the buzzing of mosqui-
toes in the primitive forest about him. In dating his letters,
where he ventures to date at all, he never writes the ordinary
name of the day of the week or the name of the month, lest he
should be guilty of etymological heathenism. He often avoids
## p. 5222 (#394) ###########################################
52 2 2
EDWARD EGGLESTON
writing the year, and when he does insert it he commits himself
to the last two figures only and adds a saving clause. Thus 1652
appears as "52 (so called),” and other years are tagged with the
same doubting words, or with the Latin "ut vulgo. ” What
quarrel the tender conscience had with the Christian era it is
hard to guess.
So too he writes to Winthrop, who had taken
part in his banishment, letters full of reverential tenderness and
hearty friendship. But his conscience does not allow him even
to seem to hold ecclesiastical fellowship with a man he honors as
a ruler and loves as a friend. Once at least he guards the point
directly by subscribing himself “Your worship's faithful and
affectionate in all civil bonds. » It would be sad to think of a
great spirit so enthralled by the scrupulosity of his time and his
party, if these minute restrictions had been a source of annoy-
ance to him. But the cheerful observance of little scruples seems
rather to have taken the place of a recreation in his life; they
were to him perhaps what bric-à-brac is to a collector, what a
well-arranged altar and candlesticks are to a ritualist.
Two fundamental notions supplied the motive power of every
ecclesiastical agitation of that age. The notion of a succession of
churchly order and ordinance from the time of the apostles was
the mainspring of the High Church movement. Apostolic primi-
tivism was the aim of the Puritan, and still more the goal of
the Separatist. One party rejoiced in a belief that a mysterious
apostolic virtue had trickled down through generations of bishops
and priests to its own age; the other rejoiced in the destruction
of institutions that had grown up in the ages, and in getting back
to the primitive nakedness of the early Christian conventicle.
True to the law of his nature, Roger Williams pushed this latter
principle to its ultimate possibilities. If we may believe the
accounts, he and his followers at Providence became Baptists that
they might receive the rite of baptism in its most ancient Ori-
ental form. But in an age when the fountains of the great deep
were utterly broken up, he could find no rest for the soles of his
feet. It was not enough that he should be troubled by the Puri-
tan spirit of apostolic primitivism: he had now swung round to
where this spirit joined hands with its twin, the aspiration for
apostolic succession. He renounced his baptism because it was
without apostolic sanction, and announced himself of that sect
which was the last reduction of Separatism. He became
Secker.
a
## p. 5223 (#395) ###########################################
EDWARD EGGLESTON
5223
Here again is a probable influence from Holland. The Seek-
ers had appeared there long before. Many Baptists had found
that their search for primitivism, if persisted in, carried them to
this negative result; for it seemed not enough to have apostolic
rites in apostolic form unless they were sanctioned by the gifts”
of the apostolic time. The Seekers appeared in England as early
as 1617, and during the religious turmoils of the Commonwealth
period the sect afforded a resting-place for many a weather-beaten
soul. As the miraculous gifts were lost, the Seekers dared not
preach, baptize, or teach; they merely waited, and in their mysti-
cism they believed their waiting to be an "upper room” to which
Christ would come. It is interesting to know that Williams, the
most romantic figure of the whole Puritan movement, at last
found a sort of relief from the austere externalism and ceaseless
dogmatism of his age by traveling the road of literalism, until
he had passed out on the other side into the region of devout
and contented uncertainty.
In all this, Williams was the child of his age, and sometimes
more childish than his age. But there were regions of thought and
sentiment in which he was wholly disentangled from the meshes
of his time, and that not because of intellectual superiority,- for
he had no large philosophical views,— but by reason of elevation
of spirit. Even the authority of Moses could not prevent him
from condemning the harsh severity of the New England capital
laws.
He had no sentimental delusions about the character of
the savages, --- he styles them “wolves endued with men's brains”;
but he constantly pleads for a humane treatment of them. A11
the bloody precedents of Joshua could not make him look with-
out repulsion on the slaughter of women and children in the
Pequot war, nor could he tolerate dismemberment of the dead or
the selling of Indian captives into perpetual slavery. From big-
otry and resentment he was singularly free. On many occasions
he joyfully used his ascendency over the natives to protect those
who kept in force against him a sentence of perpetual banish-
ment. And this 'ultra-Separatist, almost alone of the men of his
time, could use such words of catholic charity as those in which
he speaks of “the people of God wheresoever scattered about
Babel's banks, either in Rome or England. ”
Of his incapacity for organization or administration we shall
have to speak hereafter. But his spiritual intuitions, his moral
insight, his genius for justice, lent a curious modernness to many
## p. 5224 (#396) ###########################################
5224
EDWARD EGGLESTON
.
of his convictions. In a generation of creed-builders which
detested schism, he became an individualist. Individualist in
thought, altruist in spirit, secularist in governmental theory, he
was the herald of a time yet more modern than this laggard age
of ours.
If ever a soul saw a clear-shining inward light, not to
be dimmed by prejudices or obscured by the deft logic of a dis-
putatious age, it was the soul of Williams. In all the region of
petty scrupulosity the time-spirit had enthralled him; but in the
higher region of moral decision he was utterly emancipated from
it. His conclusions belong to ages yet to come.
This union of moral aspiration with a certain disengagedness
constitutes what we may call the prophetic temperament. Brad-
ford and Winthrop were men of high aspiration, but of another
class. The reach of their spirits was restrained by practical
wisdom, which compelled them to take into account the limits of
the attainable. Not that they consciously refused to follow their
logic to its end, but that, like other prudent men of affairs, they
were, without their own knowledge or consent, turned aside by
the logic of the impossible. Precisely here the prophet departs
from the reformer. The prophet recks nothing of impossibility;
he is ravished with truth disembodied. From Elijah the Tishbite
to Socrates, from Socrates to the latest and perhaps yet unrecog-
nized voice of our own time, the prophetic temperament has ever
shown an inability to enter into treaty with its environment. In
the seventeenth century there was no place but the wilderness
for such a John Baptist of the distant future as Roger Williams.
He did not belong among the diplomatic builders of churches,
like Cotton, or the politic founders of States, like Winthrop. He
was but a babbler to his own time; but the prophetic voice rings
clear and far, and ever clearer as the ages go on.
Reprinted by consent of the author, and of D. Appleton & Company, pub-
lishers, New York.
## p. 5225 (#397) ###########################################
5225
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
BY FRANCIS LLEWELLYN GRIFFITH AND KATE BRADBURY GRIFFITH
He advance that has been made in recent years in the deci-
pherment of the ancient writings of the world enables us
to deal in a very matter-of-fact way with the Egyptian
inscriptions. Their chief mysteries are solved, their philosophy is
almost fathomed, their general nature is understood. The story they
have to tell is seldom startling to the modern mind. The world was
younger when they were written. The heart of man was given to
devious ways then, as now and in the days of Solomon, — that we can
affirm full well; but his mind was simpler: apart from knowledge
of men and the conduct of affairs, the educated Egyptian had no
more subtlety than a modern boy of fifteen, or an intelligent English
rustic of a century ago.
To the Egyptologist by profession the inscriptions have a wonder-
ful charm. The writing itself in its leading form is the most
attractive that has ever been seen. Long rows of clever little pict-
ures of everything in heaven and earth compose the sentences:
every sign is a plaything, every group a pretty puzzle, and at pres-
ent, almost every phrase well understood brings a tiny addition to
the sum of the world's knowledge. But these inscriptions, so rich in
facts that concern the history of mankind and the progress of civili-
zation, seldom possess any literary charm. If pretentious, as many
of them are, they combine bald exaggeration with worn-out simile, in
which ideas that may be poetical are heaped together in defiance of
art. Such are the priestly laudations of the kings by whose favor
the temples prospered. Take, for instance, the dating of a stela
erected under Rameses II. on the route to the Nubian gold mines.
It runs:-
“On the fourth day of the first month of the season of winter, in the third
year of the Majesty of Horus, the Strong Bull, beloved of the Goddess of Truth,
lord of the vulture and of the uræus diadems, protecting Egypt and restrain-
ing the barbarians, the Golden Horus, rich in years, great in victories, King
of Upper Egypt and King of Lower Egypt, Mighty in Truth of Ra, Chosen
of Ra,' the son of Ra, Rameses Beloved of Amen, granting life for ever and
ever, beloved of Amen Ra lord of the Throne of the Two Lands )2 in Apt
1 The italicized phrases represent the principal names of the King.
2 The temple of Karnak.
## p. 5226 (#398) ###########################################
5226
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
Esut, appearing glorious on the throne of Horus among the living from day
to day even as his father Ra; the good god, lord of the South Land, Him of
Edfù? Horus bright of plumage, the beauteous sparrow-hawk of electrum that
hath protected Egypt with his wing, making a shade for men, fortress of
strength and of victory; he who came forth terrible from the womb to take
to himself his strength, to extend his borders, to whose body color was given
of the strength of Mentu? ; the god Horus and the god Set. There was
exultation in heaven on the day of his birth; the gods said, “We have begot-
ten him;) the goddesses said, He came forth from us to rule the kingdom
of Ra;' Amen spake, 'I am he who hath made him, whereby I have set Truth
in her place; the earth is established, heaven is well pleased, the gods are sat-
isfied by reason of him. ) The Strong Bull against the vile Ethiopians, which
uttereth his roaring against the land of the negroes while his hoofs trample
the Troglodytes, his horn thrusteth at them; his spirit is mighty in Nubia
and the terror of him reacheth to the land of the Kary3; his name circulateth
in all lands because of the victory which his arms have won; at his name
gold cometh forth from the mountain as at the name of his father, the god
Horus of the land of Baka; beloved is he in the Lands of the South even as
Horus at Meama, the god of the Land of Buhen,King of Upper and Lower
Egypt, Mighty in Truth of Ra, son of Ra, of his body, Lord of Diadems
Rameses Beloved of Amen, giving life for ever and ever like his father Ra,
day by day. ” [Revised from the German translation of Professor Erman. )
As Professor Erman has pointed out, the courtly scribe was most
successful when taking his similes straight from nature, as in the
following description, also of Rameses II. : -
“A victorious lion putting forth its claws while roaring loudly and uttering
its voice in the Valley of the Gazelles.
A jackal swift of foot seeking
what it may find, going round the circuit of the land in one instant,
his mighty will seizeth on his enemies like a flame catching the ki-ki plant 5
with the storm behind it, like the strong flame which hath tasted the fire,
destroying, until everything that is in it becometh ashes; a storm howling
terribly on the sea, its waves like mountains, none can enter it, every one
that is in it is engulphed in Duat. 6 »
Here and there amongst the hieroglyphic inscriptions are found
memorials of the dead, in which the praises of the deceased are
neatly strung together and balanced like beads in a necklace, and
passages occur of picturesque narrative worthy to rank as literature
1 Horus as the winged disk of the sun, so often figured as a protecting
symbol over the doors of temples.
? The coloration or configuration of his limbs indicated to the learned in
such matters his victorious career. Mentu was the god of war.
3 The southern boundary of the Egyptian empire.
4 Baka, Meama, Buhen were in Nubia.
5 The castor-oil plant (Ricinus communis).
6 The underworld.
## p. 5227 (#399) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5227
of the olden time. We may quote in this connection from the bio-
graphical epitaph of the nomarch Ameny, who was governor of a
province in Middle Egypt for twenty-five years during the long reign
of Usertesen I. (about 2700 B. C. ). This inscription not only recounts
the achievements of Ameny and the royal favor which was shown
him, but also tells us in detail of the capacity, goodness, charm, dis-
cretion, and insight by which he attached to himself the love and
respect of the whole court, and of the people over whom he ruled
and for whose well-being he cared. Ameny says:-
«I was a possessor of favor, abounding in love, a ruler who loved his city.
Moreover I passed years as ruler in the Oryx nome. All the works of the
house of the King came into my hand. Behold, the superintendent of the
gangs? of the domains of the herdsmen of the Oryx nome gave me 3,000 bulls
of their draught stock. I was praised for it in the house of the King each
year of stock-taking. I rendered all their works to the King's house: there
were no arrears to me in any of his offices.
“The entire Oryx nome served me in numerous attendances. There was
not the daughter of a poor man that I wronged, nor a widow that I oppressed.
There was not a farmer that I chastised, not a herdsman whom I drove
away, not a foreman of five whose men I took away for the works. There
was not a pauper around me, there was not a hungry man of my
time.
When there came years of famine, I arose and ploughed all the fields of the
Oryx nome to its boundary south and north, giving life to its inhabitants, mak-
ing its provisions. There was not a hungry man in it. I gave to the widow
as to her that possessed a husband, and I favored not the elder above the
younger in all that I gave. Thereafter great rises of the Nile took place,
producing wheat and barley, and producing all things abundantly, but I did
not exact the arrears of farming. ”
Elsewhere in his tomb there are long lists of the virtues of
Amenemhat, and from these the following may be selected both on
account of picturesqueness of expression and the appreciation of fine
character which they display.
«Superintendent of all things which heaven gives and earth produces,
overseer of horns, hoofs, feathers, and shells.
Master of the art of
causing writing to speak.
Caressing of heart to all people, making to
prosper the timid man, hospitable to all, escorting [travelers] up and down
the river.
Knowing how to aid, arriving at time of need; free of
planning evil, without greediness in his body, speaking words of truth.
1 The fellâhîn herdsmen of the time seem to have clubbed together into
gangs, each of which was represented by a ganger, and the whole body by a
superintendent of the gangs.
2 Corvée work for the government.
3 1. e. , he did not impress men (wrongfully ? ) for the government works,
such as irrigation or road-making.
## p. 5228 (#400) ###########################################
5228
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
Unique as a mighty hunter, the abode of the heart of the King.
Speaking the right when he judges between suitors, clear of speaking fraud,
knowing how to proceed in the council of the elders, finding the knot in the
skein.
Great of favors in the house of the King, contenting the
heart on the day of making division, careful of his goings to his equals,
gaining reverence on the day of weighing words, beloved of the officials of
the palace.
The cursive forms of writing — hieratic from the earliest times,
demotic in the latest — were those in which records were committed
to papyrus.
This material has preserved to us documents of every
kind, from letters and ledgers to works of religion and philosophy.
To these, again, “literature is a term rarely to be applied; yet the
tales and poetry occasionally met with on papyri are perhaps the
most pleasing of all the productions of the Egyptian scribe.
It must be confessed that the knowledge of writing in Egypt led
to a kind of primitive pedantry, and a taste for unnatural and to us
childish formality: the free play and naïveté of the story-teller is too
often choked, and the art of literary finish was little understood.
Simplicity and truth to nature alone gave lasting charm, for though
adornment was often attempted, their rude arts of literary embellish-
ment were seldom otherwise than clumsily employed.
A word should be said about the strange condition in which most
of the literary texts have come down to us. It is rarely that mon-
umental inscriptions contain serious blunders of orthography; the
peculiarities of late archaistic inscriptions which sometimes produce a
kind of “dog Egyptian” can hardly be considered as blunders, for
the scribe knew what meaning he intended to convey. But it is
otherwise with copies of literary works on papyrus. Sometimes these
were the productions of schoolboys copying from dictation as an
exercise in the writing-school, and the blank edges of these papyri
are often decorated with essays at executing the more difficult signs.
The master of the school would seem not to have cared what non-
sense was produced by the misunderstanding of his dictation, so long
as the signs were well formed. The composition of new works on
the model of the old, and the accurate understanding of the ancient
works, were taught in a very different school, and few indeed
attained to skill in them. The boys turned out of the writing-school
would read and write a little; the clever ones would keep accounts,
write letters, make out reports as clerks in the government service,
and might ultimately acquire considerable proficiency in this kind of
work. Apparently men of the official class sometimes amused them-
selves with puzzling over an ill-written copy of some ancient tale,
and with trying to copy portions of it. The work however was be-
yond them: they were attracted by it, they revered the compilations
## p. 5229 (#401) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5229
of an elder age and those which were written by the finger of
Thoth himself”; but the science of language was unborn, and there
was little or no systematic instruction given in the principles of the
ancient grammar and vocabulary. Those who desired to attain emi-
nence in scholarship after they had passed through the writing-school
had to go to Heliopolis, Hermopolis, or wherever the principal uni-
versity of the time might be, and there sit at the feet of priestly
professors; who we fancy were reverenced as demigods, and who
in mysterious fashion and with niggardly hand imparted scraps of
knowledge to their eager pupils. Those endowed with special talents
might after almost lifelong study become proficient in the ancient
language. Would that we might one day discover the hoard of rolls
of such a copyist and writer!
There must have been a large class of hack-copyists practiced in
forming characters both uncial and cursive. Sometimes their copies
of religious works are models of deft writing, the embellishments
of artist and colorist being added to those of the calligrapher: the
magnificent rolls of the Book of the Dead in the British Museum
and elsewhere are the admiration of all beholders. Such manu-
scripts satisfy the eye, and apparently neither the multitude in Egypt
nor even the priestly royal undertakers questioned their efficacy in
the tomb. Yet are they very apples of Sodom to the hieroglyphic
scholar; fair without, but ashes within. On comparing different
copies of the same text, he sees in almost every line omissions, per-
versions, corruptions, until he turns away baffled and disgusted.
Only here and there is the text practically certain, and even then
there are probably grammatical blunders in every copy. Nor is it
only in the later papyri that these blunders are met with. The
hieroglyphic system of writing, especially in its cursive forms, lends
itself very readily to perversion by ignorant and inattentive copyists;
and even monumental inscriptions, so long as they are mere copies,
are usually corrupted. The most ridiculous perversions of all, date
from the Ramesside epoch when the dim past had lost its charm,
for the glories of the XVIIIth Dynasty were still fresh, while new
impulses and foreign influence had broken down adherence to tradi-
tion and isolation.
In the eighth century B. C. the new and the old were definitely
parted, to the advantage of each. On the one hand the transactions
of ordinary life were more easily registered in the cursive demotic
script, while on the other the sacred writings were more thoroughly
investigated and brought into order by the priests. Hence, in spite
of absurdities that had irremediably crept in, the archaistic texts
copied in the XXVIth Dynasty are more intelligible than the same
class of work in the XIXth and XXth Dynasties.
## p. 5230 (#402) ###########################################
5230
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
In reading translations from Egyptian, it must be remembered
that uncertainty still remains concerning the meanings of multitudes
of words and phrases. Every year witnesses a great advance in
accuracy of rendering; but the translation even of an easy text still
requires here and there some close and careful guesswork to supply
the connecting links of passages or words that are thoroughly under-
stood, or the resort to some conventional rendering that has become
current for certain ill-understood but frequently recurring phrases.
The renderings given in the following pages are with one exception
specially revised for this publication, and exclude most of what is
doubtful. The Egyptologist is now to a great extent himself aware
whether the ground on which he is treading is firm or treacherous;
and it seems desirable to make a rule of either giving the public
only what can be warranted as sound translation, or else of warn-
ing them where accuracy is doubtful. A few years ago such a course
would have curtailed the area for selection to few of the simplest
stories and historical inscriptions; but now we can range over almost
the whole field of Egyptian writing, and gather from any part of it
warranted samples to set before the reading public. The labor, how-
ever, involved in producing satisfactory translations for publication,
not mere hasty readings which may give something of the sense, is
very great; and at present few texts have been well rendered. It is
hoped that the following translations will be taken for what they are
intended, -- attempts to show a little of the Ancient Egyptian mind
in the writings which it has left to us.
We may now sketch briefly the history of Egyptian literature,
dealing with the subject in periods:'-
I. THE ANCIENT KINGDOM, ABOUT B. C. 4500-3000
The earliest historic period — from the Ist Dynasty to the IIId,
about B. C. 4500 — has left no inscriptions of any extent. Some
portions of the Book of the Dead' profess to date from these or
earlier times, and probably much of the religious literature is of
extremely ancient origin. The first book of * Proverbs) in the Prisse
Papyrus is attributed by its writer to the end of the IIId Dynasty
(about 4000 B. C. ).
From the IVth Dynasty to the end of the
VIth, the number of the inscriptions increases; tablets set up to the
kings of the IVth Dynasty in memory of warlike raids are found in
the peninsula of Sinai, and funerary inscriptions abound. The pyra-
mids raised at the end of the Vth and during the VIth Dynasty are
found to contain interminable religious inscriptions, forming alınost
1 An asterisk (*) attached to the title of a text indicates that a translation
of part or all of it is printed in the following pages.
## p. 5231 (#403) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5231
complete rituals for the deceased kings. Professor Maspero, who has
published these texts, states that they “contain much verbiage,
many pious platitudes, many obscure allusions to the affairs of the
other world, and amongst all this rubbish some passages full of
movement and wild energy, in which poetical inspiration and reli-
gious emotion are still discernible through the veil of mythological
expressions. ” Of the funerary and biographical inscriptions the most
remarkable is that of * Una. Another, slightly later but hardly less
important, is on the facade of the tomb of Herkhuf, at Aswân, and
recounts the expeditions into Ethiopia and the southern oases which
this resourceful man carried through successfully. In Herkhuf's later
life he delighted a boy King of Egypt by bringing back for him from
one of his raids a grotesque dwarf dancer of exceptional skill: the
young Pharaoh sent him a long letter on the subject, which was copied
in full on the tomb as an addition to the other records there. It is to
the Vth Dynasty also that the second collection of *( Proverbs in the
Prisse Papyrus is dated. The VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties have left
us practically no records of any kind.
II.
THE MIDDLE KINGDOM, B. C. 3000 TO 1600
The Middle Kingdom, from the IXth to the XVIIth Dynasty, shows
a great literary developinent. Historical records of some length are
not uncommon. The funerary inscriptions descriptive of character
and achievement are often remarkable.
Many papyri of this period have survived: the * Prisse Papyrus
of Proverbs, a papyrus discovered by Mr. Flinders Petrie with the
*'Hymn to Usertesen III. ,' papyri at Berlin containing a *dialogue
between a man and his soul, the * Story of Sanehat,' the Story of
the Sekhti,' and a very remarkable fragment of another story; besides
the Westcar Papyrus of Tales' and at St. Petersburg the *' 'Ship-
wrecked Sailor. ' The productions of this period were copied in later
times; the royal *( Teaching of Amenemhat,' and the worldly *( Teach-
ing of Dauf' as to the desirability of a scribe's career above any other
trade or profession, exist only in late copies. Doubtless much of the
later literature was copied from the texts of the Middle Kingdom.
There are also *treatises extant on medicine and arithmetic. Por-
tions of the Book of the Dead are found inscribed on tombs and
sarcophagi.
III. THE NEW KINGDOM, ETC.
From the New Kingdom, B. C. 1600-700, we have the *(Maxims
of Any,' spoken to his son Khonsuhetep, numerous hymns to the
gods, including *that of King Akhenaten to the Aten (or disk of the
sun), and the later * hymns to Amen Ra. Inscriptions of every kind,
## p. 5232 (#404) ###########################################
5232
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
historical, mythological, and funereal, abound. The historical *inscrip-
tion of Piankhy is of very late date. On papyri there are the stories
of the *' Two Brothers,' of the “Taking of Joppa, of the * Doomed
Prince. )
From the Saite period (XXV'Ith Dynasty, B. C. 700) and later, there
is little worthy of record in hieroglyphics: the inscriptions follow an-
cient models, and present nothing striking or original. In demotic we
have the ** (Story of Setna,' a papyrus of moralities, a chronicle some-
what falsified, a harper's song, a philosophical dialogue between a cat
and a jackal, and others.
Here we might end. Greek authors in Egypt were many: some
were native, some of foreign birth or extraction, but they all belong
to a different world from the Ancient Egyptian. With the adapta-
tion of the Greek alphabet to the spelling of the native dialects,
Egyptian came again to the front in Coptic, the language of Christ-
ian Egypt. Coptic literature, if such it may be called, was almost
entirely produced in Egyptian monasteries and intended for edifica-
tion. Let us hope that it served its end in its day. To us the dull,
extravagant, and fantastic Acts of the Saints, of which its original
works chiefly consist, are tedious and ridiculous except for the lin-
guist or the church historian. They certainly display the adjustment
of the Ancient Egyptian mind to new conditions of life and belief;
but the introduction of Christianity forms a fitting boundary to our
sketch, and we will now proceed to the texts themselves.
Francis Le. Enfitt
Mate Griffith
1
LIST OF SELECTIONS
STORIES:
The Shipwrecked Sailor The Doomed Prince
The Story of Sanehat
The Story of the Two Brothers
The Story of Setna
HISTORY:
The Stela of Piankhy
The Inscription of Una
POETRY:
MORAL AND DIDACTIC:
Songs of Laborers
The Negative Confession
Love Songs
The Teaching of Amenemhat
Hymn to Usertesen III. The Prisse Papyrus
Hymn to Aten
From the Maxims of Any
Hymns to Amen Ra
Instruction of Dauf
Songs to the Harp
Contrasted Lots of Scribe and
From an Epitaph
Fellâh
From a Dialogue Between a Reproaches to
Reproaches to a Dissipated Stu-
Man and His Soul
dent
## p. 5233 (#405) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5233
THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR
[One of the most complete documents existing on papyrus is the (Story of
the Shipwrecked Sailor. ) The tale itself seems to date from a very early
period, when imagination could still have full play in Upper Nubia. In it a
sailor is apparently presenting a petition to some great man, in hopes of royal
favor as the hero of the marvels which he proceeds to recount.
The Papyrus, which apparently is of the age of the XIth Dynasty, is pre-
served at St. Petersburg, but is still unpublished. It has been translated
by Professors Golenisheff and Maspero. The present version is taken from
(Egyptian Tales,) by W. M. Flinders Petrie. ]
T"
He wise servant said, “Let thy heart be satisfied, O my lord,
for that we have come back to the country; after we have
long been on board, and rowed much, the prow has at last
touched land. All the people rejoice and embrace us one after
another. Moreover, we have come back in good health, and not
a man is lacking; although we have been to the ends of Wawat?
and gone through the land of Senmut,’ we have returned in
peace, and our land — behold, we have come back to it. Hear
me, my lord; I have no other refuge. Wash thee and turn the
water over thy fingers, then go and tell the tale to the Majesty. ”
His lord replied, “Thy heart continues still its wandering
words! But although the mouth of a man may save him, his
words may also cover his face with confusion. Wilt thou do,
then, as thy heart moves thee. This that thou wilt say, tell
quietly. "
The sailor then answered:-
“Now I shall tell that which has happened to me, to my very
self.
I was going to the mines of Pharaoh, and I went down
on the Sea on a ship of 150 cubits long and 40 cubits wide,
with 150 sailors of the best of Egypt, who had seen heaven and
earth, and whose hearts were stronger than lions. They had said
that the wind would not be contrary, or that there would be
none. But as we approached the land the wind arose, and threw
up waves eight cubits high. As for me, I sized a piece of wood;
but those who were in the vessel perished, without one remain-
ing. A wave threw me on an island, after that I had been three
I Lower Nubia.
2 District about the first cataract.
3 A name often applied to the great river Nile.
IX-328
## p. 5234 (#406) ###########################################
5234
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
near.
1
days alone, without a companion beside my own heart. I laid me
in a thicket and the shadow covered me. Then stretched I my
limbs to try to find something for my mouth. I found there figs
and grapes, all manner of good herbs, berries and grain, melons
of all kinds, fishes and birds. Nothing was lacking. And I sat-
isfied myself, and left on the ground that which was over, of what
my arms had been filled withal. I dug a pit, I lighted a fire, and
I made a burnt-offering unto the gods.
“Suddenly I heard a noise as of thunder, which I thought to
be that of a wave of the sea. The trees shook and the earth
was moved.
I uncovered my face, and I saw that a serpent drew
He was thirty cubits long, and his beard greater than two
cubits; his body was overlaid with gold, and his color as that
of true lazuli. He coiled himself before me.
“Then he opened his mouth, while that I lay on my face
before him, and he said to me, What has brought thee, what
has brought thee, little one, what has brought thee? If thou
sayest not speedily what has brought thee to this isle, I will
make thee know thyself; as a flame thou shalt vanish, if thou
tellest me not something I have not heard, or which I knew not
before thee. '
« Then he took me in his mouth and carried me to his resting-
place, and laid me down without any hurt. I was whole and
sound, and nothing was gone from me. Then he opened his
mouth against me, while that I lay on my face before him, and
he said, “What has brought thee, what has brought thee, little
one, what has brought thee to this isle which is in the sea, and
of which the shores are in the midst of the waves ? )
"Then I replied to him, and holding my arms low before
him,' I said to him:- 'I was embarked for the mines by the
order of the Majesty, in a ship; 150 cubits was its length, and
the width of it 40 cubits. It had 150 sailors of the best of Egypt,
who had seen heaven and earth, and the hearts of whom were
stronger than lions. They said that the wind would not be con-
trary, or that there would be none. Each of them exceeded his
companion in the prudence of his heart and the strength of his
arm, and I was not beneath any of them. A storm came upon
us while we were on the sea. Hardly could we reach to the
shore when the wind waxed yet greater, and the waves rose even
1 The usual Egyptian attitude of respect to a superior was to stand bent
slightly forward, holding the arms downward.
## p. 5235 (#407) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5235
eight cubits.
As for me, I seized a piece of wood, while those
who were in the boat perished without one being left with me
for three days. Behold me now before thee, for I was brought
to this isle by a wave of the sea! !
« Then said he to me, Fear not, fear not, little one, and
make not thy face sad. If thou hast come to me, it is God? who
has let thee live. For it is he who has brought thee to this isle
of the blest, where nothing is lacking, and which is filled with
all good things. See now thou shalt pass one month after
another, until thou shalt be four months in this isle. Then a
ship shall come from thy land with sailors, and thou shalt leave
with them and go to thy country, and thou shalt die in thy town.
Converse is pleasing, and he who tastes of it passes over his
misery I will therefore tell thee of that which is in this isle.
I am here with my brethren and my children around me; we are
seventy-five serpents, children, and kindred; without naming a
young girl who was brought unto me by chance, and on whom
the fire of heaven fell and burnt her to ashes. As for thee, if
thou art strong, and if thy heart waits patiently, thou shalt press
thy infants to thy bosom and embrace thy wife. Thou shalt
return to thy house which is full of all good things, thou shalt
see thy land, where thou shalt dwell in the midst of thy kin-
dred! )
« Then I bowed in my obeisance, and I touched the ground
before him. “Behold now that which I have told thee before. I
shall tell of thy presence unto Pharaoh, I shall make him to
know of thy greatness, and I will bring to thee of the sacred
oils and perfumes, and of incense of the temples with which all
gods are honored. I shall tell moreover of that which I do
see (thanks to him), and there shall be rendered to thee
praises before the fullness of all the land. I shall slay asses for
thee in sacrifice, I shall pluck for thee the birds, and I shall
bring for thee ships full of all kinds of the treasures of Egypt,
as is comely to do unto a god, a friend of men in a far country,
of which men know not. '
“Then he smiled at my speech, because of that which was in
his heart, for he said to me, Thou art not rich in perfumes, for
all that thou hast is but common incense. As for me, I am
1 The polytheistic Egyptians frequently used the term “God” without speci-
fying any particular deity: perhaps, too, in their own minds they did not
define the idea, but applied it simply to some general notion of Divinity.
now
## p. 5236 (#408) ###########################################
5236
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
prince of the land of Punt,' and I have perfumes. Only the oil
which thou saidst thou wouldst bring is not common in this isle.
But when thou shalt depart from this place, thou shalt never
more see this isle; it shall be changed into waves. '
"And behold, when the ship drew near, attending to all that
he had told me before, I got me up into an high tree, to strive
to see those who were within it. Then I came and told to him
this matter; but it was already known unto him before. Then
he said to me, Farewell, farewell; go to thy house, little one,
see again thy children, and let thy name be good in thy town;
these are my wishes for thee! !
« Then I bowed myself before him, and held my arms low
before him, and he, he gave me gifts of precious perfumes, of
cassia, of sweet woods, of kohl, of cypress, an abundance of
incense, of ivory tusks, of baboons, of apes, and all kinds of
precious things. I embarked all in the ship which was come,
and bowing myself, I prayed God for him.
« Then he said to me, Behold, thou shalt come to thy country
in two months, thou shalt press to thy bosom thy children, and
thou shalt rest in thy tomb! ! After this I went down to the
shore unto the ship, and I called to the sailors who were there.
Then on the shore I rendered adoration to the master of this
isle and to those who dwelt therein.
“When we shall come, in our return, to the house of Pha-
raoh, in the second month, according to all that the serpent
has said, we shall approach unto the palace. And I shall go in
before Pharaoh, I shall bring the gifts which I have brought
from this isle into the country. Then he shall thank me before
the fullness of all the land. Grant then unto me a follower, and
lead me to the courtiers of the king. Cast thine eye upon me
after that I am come to land again, after that I have both seen
and proved this. Hear my prayer, for it is good to listen to
people. It was said unto me, “Become a wise man, and thou
shalt come to honor,' and behold I have become such. ”
This is finished from its beginning unto its end, even as it was
found in a writing. It is written by the scribe of cunning fingers,
Amenia menaa; may he live in life, wealth, and health.
1 Punt was the land of spices » to the Egyptian, and thence, too, the
finest incense was brought for the temple services. It included Somaliland in
Africa, and the south of Arabia.
## p. 5237 (#409) ###########################################
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
5237
THE STORY OF SANEHAT
[The story of Sanehat is practically complete. A papyrus at Berlin con-
tains all the text except about twenty lines at the beginning, the whole being
written in about three hundred and thirty short lines. Scraps of the missing
portion were found in the collection of Lord Amherst of Hackney; and these,
added to a complete but very corrupt text of about the first fifty lines, enable
one to restore the whole with tolerable certainty. The story was written
about the time of the XIIth or XIIIth Dynasty, but was known at a much
later period: one extract from the beginning of the tale and one from the
end have been found written in ink on limestone flakes or (ostraca) of about
the XXth Dynasty (about 1150 B. C. ). It seems to be a straightforward rela-
tion of actual occurrences, a real piece of biography. At any rate, it is most
instructive as showing the kind of intercourse that was possible between
Egypt and Palestine about 2500 B. C. ]
keeper of the gate
He hereditary prince, royal seal-bearer, trusty companion,
of the foreigners, true and
beloved royal acquaintance, the attendant Sanehat says:-
I attended my lord as a servant of the king, of the house-
hold of the hereditary princess, the greatly favored, the royal
wife, Ankhet-Usertesen [? ], holding a place at Kanefer, the pyra-
mid of King Amenemhat. '
In the thirtieth year, the month Paophi, the seventh day, the
god’ entered his horizon, the King Sehetepabra flew up to heaven;
he joined the sun's disk, he attended the god, he joined his
Maker. The Residences was silenced, the hearts were weakened,
the Great Portals were closed, the courtiers crouching on the
ground, the people in hushed mourning.
Now his Majesty had sent a great army with the nobles to
the land of the Temehu,“ his son and heir as their commander,
the good King Usertesen. And now he was returning, and had
brought away captives and all kinds of cattle without end. The
Companions of the Court sent to the West Side to let the king
know the state of affairs that had come about in the Audience
1 This paragraph is very difficult to restore and very doubtful.
? 1. e. , the King Sehetepabra Amenemhat I. , whose death is recorded in the
nest clause.
3 The king's city, and so throughout the story.
* The land of the Temehu was in the Libyan desert on the west of Egypt.
5 Usertesen I. , the son and heir of Amenemhat I. , reigned ten years
jointly with his father.
61. e. , the western edge of Lower Egypt.
## p. 5238 (#410) ###########################################
5238
EGYPTIAN LITERATURE
Chamber. ' The messenger found him on the road; he reached
him at the time of evening. “It was a time for him to hasten
greatly (was the message]: Let the Hawk' fly [hither with his
attendants, without allowing the army to know of it. ” And when
the royal sons who commanded in that army sent messages, not
one of them was summoned to audience. Behold, I was standing
(near]; I heard his voice while he was speaking. ' I fled far away,
my heart beating, my arms outspread; trembling had fallen on
all my limbs. I ran hither and thither to seek a place to hide
me, I threw myself amongst the bushes: and when I found a
road that went forward, I set out southward, not indeed thinking
to come to this Residence. I expected that there would be dis-
turbance. I spake not of life after it. ® I wandered across my
estate' [? ] in the neighborhood of Nehat; I reached the island [or
lake] of Seneferu, and spent the day [resting ? ] on the open field.
I started again while it was yet day,* and came to a man stand-
ing at the side of the road. He asked of me mercy, for he
feared me. By supper-time I drew near to the town of Negau.
I crossed the river on a raft without a rudder, by the aid of a
west wind, and landed at the quay [? ] of the quarrymen of the
Mistress at the Red Mountain. ' Then I fled on foot northward,
1
Perhaps this refers to the death of the king, or to the deliberations of
the royal councilors.
? Apparently a term for the king.
8 Sanehat, accidentally hearing the news of the old king's death, which
was kept secret even from the members of the royal family, was overcome
with agitation and fled.
* It was of course night-time.
5 The Royal Residence called Athet-taui lay on the boundary of Upper and
Lower Egypt, between Memphis and the entrance to the Faiyûm, and so in the
direction which Sanehat at first took in his flight from the western edge of the
Delta. One might prefer the word Capital to Residence, but it can hardly be
doubted that Thebes and Memphis were then the real capitals of Egypt.
6 Perhaps the meaning is that Sanehat did not imagine life possible after
the king's death, or it may be “outside the Residence.
