[The following is a sample of the warnings to young men to
stick to the business of the scribe and not be led away by the
charms of out-door life, always so dear to the Egyptian.--Date
XIXth Dynasty, or earlier.]
It is told to me that thou hast cast aside learning, and givest thyself
to dancing; thou turnest thy face to the work in the fields, and castest
the divine words behind thee.
Behold, thou rememberest not the condition of the fellah, when the
harvest is taken over. The worms carry off half the corn, and the
hippopotamus devours the rest; mice abound in the fields, and locusts
arrive; the cattle devour, the sparrows steal. How miserable is the lot
of the fellah! What remains on the threshing-floor, robbers finish it
up. The bronze ... are worn out, the horses [oxen?] die with threshing
and plowing. Then the scribe moors at the bank who is to take over the
harvest;[313] the attendants[314] bear staves, the negroes carry
palmsticks. They say, "Give corn!" But there is none. They beat [the
fellah] prostrate; they bind him and cast him into the canal, throwing
him headlong. His wife is bound before him, his children are swung off;
his neighbors let them go, and flee to look after their corn.
But the scribe is the leader of labor for all; he reckons to himself the
produce in winter, and there is none that appoints him his tale of
produce. Behold, now thou knowest!
Translation of F. M. Griffith.