The Tale of Sinuhe: and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940-1640 B.C.

The Dual King Sneferu bids his Council to bring him a clever man “who will tell me a few perfect words / choice verses / which my Majesty will be entertained to hear” (134). They bring him Neferti, a sage from the east and a chief lector priest of Bastet. The King instructs Neferti to speak of what will happen, and he takes up writing materials to record what the priest says.

Neferti begins with a lament for the current state of the land, which he says has been destroyed entirely. The sun does not shine; the river of Egypt is dry. The winds clash, and alien birds breed in the delta. Asiatics and Syrians are ravaging the country. He predicts weapons made of copper, bread asked for with blood, sons and brothers turning foes. All goodness has fled, the land is ruined, men are robbed, alms are answered with blows, and the taxes are great, with little grain to pay them. “The Sungod separates Himself from mankind,” Neferti says, but adds, “He will rise when it is time” (138).

He predicts a king from the south, Ameny, will take the White and Red Crown, unite the Two Powers, and appease the Two Lords. The people of his time will be joyful, and his fame will live for eternity. He will quell the Asiatics, Libyans, rebels, and malcontents, and the Walls of the Ruler will be built. Truth will return to its proper place, and chaos will be driven away. Sages will pour offerings of water to Neferti when they see what he predicts come to pass.

“The Words of Khakheperreseneb” is a reflective monologue in which a priest addresses his own heart, informing it of his despair at the world’s troubles. His focus, however, is his own suffering, and how difficult it is to encapsulate this pain in speech. The text is attested by a writing board used for a scribal exercise, though the name of the sage dates it to the late 12th or early 13th Dynasty. For Parkinson, this discourse suggests that poetry is a means of reconciling oneself with suffering—a therapeutic, if not redemptive act.

The first verses introduce “the seeking of utterances with heart-searching” (146) made by a priest of Heliopolis, Seni’s son Khakheperreseneb. The narrator begins by wishing he had a new language instead of the worn-out speech of his ancestors. He ruminates on what has yet to be spoken and declares that he will speak of things he has seen, hoping to unburden his heart of its anguish.

Meditating on the state of things, the speaker mourns the uproar in the land, claiming, “Truth is put outside, Chaos within the council” (147). The land is in calamity, towns and districts in woe, and mourning is everywhere. He hopes speaking will drive away his anguish, pleading with his heart to answer him and explain why there is so much misery in the land, but no one is speaking of it. There is no one clever enough to understand, the sage says, and no one angry enough to give voice (148). He likens the silences to a disease, saying honest speech is abandoned. He compares the heart to a servant sharing his lord’s burdens.

Of “The Dialogue of a Man and his Soul,” Parkinson notes that “‘Soul’ is a free translation of the Egyptian ba, which is one aspect of the personality, and the manifestation of a person after death” (151). In the debate a man considers how to view death, and his soul takes an opposing view. While the man is ready to prepare for death, the soul counsels him instead to enjoy life. Since parting from one’s soul represents a second or final death in Egyptian thinking, Parkinson suggests it would relieve the audience that the two speakers reconcile at the end. A late 12th Dynasty manuscript is the only known copy.

The beginning of the dialogue is missing, with fragmented initial lines suggesting that the soul has answered the speaker on a point now lost. The man answers the soul, complaining, “This is all too much for me today! My soul has disagreed with me!” (155). He insists his soul should not depart, escape, or mislead him, should rather be close to him on the Day of Pain, yet his soul is dragging him to death, throwing him on a fire. The speaker calls upon gods including Thoth, Khonsu, the sun god, and Isdes to drive the heaviness from his body. The soul replies with a taunt to be a man and act alive, enjoying his life and riches.

The man responds by saying that if the soul behaves, he (the man), will help the soul reach the west and have such food and shelter that other souls will be envious. Rather than hastening toward death, the man asks the soul to wait until he has an heir who can make offerings and attend his burial. The soul replies that contemplating death causes misery; altar stones have vanished, and some have died in oblivion. Listen, the soul says, “Follow the happy day! Forget care!” (157). He relates the example of a commoner who loses a boat carrying his harvest, then sees his wife and children eaten by crocodiles. Then he tells another story of a commoner who wants his dinner before it is time, causing distress for his household.

The man replies with a list of images including bird droppings, dead fish, crocodiles, and a woman who is gossiped about. He then repeatedly asks to whom he can speak, and provides for each an answer describing loss, disorder, and lack of faithful friends. Wrong roams the earth, and there is no end to it.

He then turns to a set of analogies about death, listing welcoming images including the scent of myrrh and flowers, a clear sky, and a man’s longing for home. In death, he suggests, a man is a living god or a sage. The soul tells the man to throw complaint over the fence, make an offering, and cling to life. They will both make harbor together in good time.

Rather than historicized figures, the speakers in “The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All” are general authority figures. Though the beginning of the single surviving manuscript is lost and several sections are damaged, Parkinson guesses the setting is the sage or court poet Ipuur speaking to the court of a king.

Parkinson describes Ipuur’s speech about the destruction of the land as “long, virtuosic, and baroque” (166). He organizes the poem into two laments, ending in a call to action. The sage directly questions the Lord and through him the justice of the gods. His description of an ideal society contrasts with how he depicts the present day. The Lord rejects Ipuur’s accusations, though Parkinson predicts that, in the vanished ending, they likely reached some sort of reconciliation. The surviving papyrus dates to the Ramesside Period (the 19th Dynasty, c.1295-1186 BCE).

The beginning of the poem is highly fragmented, conveying images of people arming for war and foreigners becoming people. A series of stanzas beginning with “O, but” introduces images of unrest and chaos, describing wrongdoers and plunderers everywhere, the Nile flood rising with no one prepared, barren women, beggars becoming lords of wealth, and plague throughout the land. The dead are being buried in the river; the wealthy are in woe; the land is spinning like a potter’s wheel. Egypt is ransacked; walls are burning; crocodiles are glutted on fish. Jewels are strung on the neck of serving girls while wealthy women go in rags. No one sails to Byblos or Crete for trade any longer. Elephantine and Thinis produce no taxes. There is only groaning throughout the land. The speaker continues to describe scenes of disorder and injustice, lamenting, “those things that yesterday saw are ruined” (175).

The speaker extends his lament with more images of displacement, referring to families put to the millstone, musicians put to the loom, trees felled and branches stripped. Servants rule and maids talk back; travelers are robbed on the road. The grain is ruined, and men take fodder from pigs for food. Sacred places have been ransacked, laws thrown aside, and writings destroyed. There follows a series of further laments beginning with “Look,” all of them denoting some inversion of the proper order, with the high made low and the low given wealth and rank.

The discourse continues its laments for what has been destroyed, repeating several images already proposed: the traveler is robbed; taxes are not coming into the Royal House. Ipuur then begins a series of imperatives calling for the listener to destroy the enemies of that fine Residence. He invokes a set of commands beginning “Remember,” which present images of prosperity and order: fattened geese, priests praying in sanctuaries, the upholding of regulations.

The speaker ponders the will of the gods and the reasoning of the creator in shaping mankind. Is he sleeping? the speaker wonders. Here the diatribe becomes personal as the speaker addresses his listener as “you,” noting that people transgress against what “you have commanded” (186). The speaker paints a picture of a prosperous land with stanzas each beginning “It is so good,” listing smooth beds, sounds of jubilation, full nets, and passable roads.

A part is lost in which Parkinson suggests that the Lord of All now answers, informing Ipuur that the chaos is due to attacks by foreigners. The Lord does not know if they are Syrians, Nubians, Libyans, or Medjai, but insists they must be repelled. He accuses this generation of ravaging themselves. Ipuur answers the Lord of All with a parable of a father who was carried off by death while his son was still a child. The Lord of All’s response is fragmented, but seems to be a continued argument for the necessity of military action against enemies and rebels.