AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN POEM
A century ago, when the hieroglyphical script of the Ancient Egyptians
first began to be deciphered, it would hardly have been believed
possible that scholars would one day find themselves possessed of such a
vast literature as is now at the disposal of Egyptologists; nor would it
have been dreamed that the subtilties of the language, the idioms, or
even the grammatical structure, would ever be so fully understood as
they are at the present day. Thanks mainly to the diligent work of a
group of painstaking German Jews, and to the brilliant labours of a
handful of European and American scholars, we can now translate the many
hieroglyphic or hieratic texts which have come down to us, with a degree
of accuracy almost equal to that obtained in our renderings of Greek and
Latin. Poems, prayers, tales serious and comic, historical narratives,
satires, and letters, are now able to be put into modern language with
the full certainty that the meaning has been grasped; and the wealth and
variety of the material thus presented to us is astonishing.
One of the most remarkable documents of all those which have come down
from Pharaonic times is that which records the dialogue between a man
about to commit suicide and his own soul, composed somewhere about the
year B.C. 2000. The papyrus upon which it is written is now preserved in
Berlin; and the text has been translated by Professor Erman and
Professor Breasted, whose renderings I have, in the main, here followed.
The man is supposed to be weary of his mortal life, owing, it would
seem, to the fact that his body has been disfigured by some dreadful
mutilation, perhaps inflicted by his enemies; and the burden of the
flesh has become intolerable to him. His soul, however, enjoys its
sojourn upon earth, and has no desire to be launched into another
sphere. The distinction between soul and body is somewhat difficult for
us to understand, but actually it may be supposed that the dialogue
represents the battle in the unfortunate man’s mind between the desire
for freedom from bodily pain on the one hand, and the dread of death on
the other.
“Recollect,” says the life-loving soul, “that burial is lamentation and
a bringer of tears, causing a man to be full of sorrow. It is taking a
man from his home and casting him out upon the heights (of the desert).
But you will not be going up there that you may see the sun. There are
those who build (their tombs) in red granite, who construct their
sepulchres within a pyramid; there are those who (lie) splendidly in
splendid structures.... But their memorial altars are as forsaken as are
(the bodies of) those weary-ones who, without a surviving relative, die
on the pathway across the inundation, the flood taking hold of them on
the one side, the heat (of the sun) on the other, and to whom (alone)
the fish along the brink of the water speak. Hearken to me!--pursue the
gladness of the day and forget sorrow.”
But the man does not fear death so greatly as he dreads life now that
his body has become hideous and an object to be shunned by others. “My
name,” he cries in the bitterness of his distress, “is more horrible
than the stench of a (dead) bird on a summer day when the sun is hot....
Yea, my name is more abhorrent than a woman against whom gossip is told
to her husband.” He then burst into a tirade against humanity in
general. “The quiet man perishes,” he declares; “the bold-faced walk
abroad. Hearts are full of thieving; the (only) man in whom one can
trust is he of no understanding.... I am burdened with misery, and have
no faithful friend....”
Then, in the anguish of his mind, he utters a welcome to Death which
will stand for all time amongst the greatest poems in existence. The
brevity of his metaphors, which are yet amply descriptive, are
reminiscent of the best Japanese poetry, and show the same masterly
handling of the structure of imagination, the same ability in the
selection of the essential materials for the formation of a mindpicture.
“Death is before me to-day
Like the recovery of a sick man;
Like going out into the garden after an illness.
Death is before me to-day
Like the fragrance of myrrh;
Like sitting under a (ship’s) sail on a windy day.
Death is before me to-day
Like the scent of lotus flowers;
Like resting on the roadside to drink deep.
Death is before me to-day
Like the course of the overflowing water-channel,
Like the return of a man from a ship of war to his house.
Death is before me to-day
Like the clearing of (mist from) the sky;
Like a man fowling therein toward that of which he was not aware.
Death is before me to-day
As a man craves to see his home
When he has spent years in captivity.”
I doubt whether, in the whole world’s literature, Death has ever been
portrayed in more alluring fashion or so sweetly sung. Could one but
think of the experience of life’s termination as being like that of
going out from the monotony of the sick-room into the vivid freshness of
the garden, when one’s senses are all quickened by long absence from
growing things, truly Death would be a sensation which would make all
the distress of life worth while. Or does the reader know the
enchantment of sitting upon the deck of a Nile-vessel when the steady
North wind fills out the great sail above him, white against the deep
blue of the sky, and drives the prow through the waters with the
insistency of nature itself? Does he know that indefinable sense of
reliability which is conveyed to a sailor by the straining sail spread
above him in the sunlight? Has he felt the confident exultation of that
passage through the waters, when the mind, aware of the destination, is
absorbed by the majesty of the journey? Even so, says our poet, is
Death; the triumphant rush forward to a sure harbour. The picture of the
over-flowing water-channel is one that will best be appreciated by those
who have lived amongst the fields of Egypt. The farmer digs a rough
channel through the soil with his hoe, and into this he suddenly
releases the water which has been held back awhile by a little bank of
earth, so that it rushes forward on to the rich ground, travelling
along its appointed way in the sunlight. And to the joyful overflow of
the cool water upon the prepared earth the poet tells us that Death is
to be likened.
The metaphor in regard to the clearing of the mist requires to be
explained before its extreme beauty can be appreciated by those
unfamiliar with Egypt. Upon a reed-covered lake of the Delta a hunter’s
canoe is silently propelled through the dense, white mist of early
morning, as yet undissolved by the risen sun. Presently the little craft
comes to rest amidst the tall stems of the papyrus-plants; and in the
stillness of the morning the clearing of the air is awaited, in order
that the hunter may learn in which direction to move towards his quarry.
Then, of a sudden, the sun breaks through the vapour, the white volume
of the mist rolls aside, and he finds himself already in full, close
view of the flock of duck and wild-fowl which he is seeking but of whose
presence he was not aware. Even so is Death: the rending of the mist,
and the sudden, proximate vision of that which stirs a hunter’s heart.
As the lines of this poem are read and their sense is received by the
brain, the series of pictures spring into life in the imagination with a
clarity which is evidence of the author’s mastery in the selection of
words. Each sentence is expressed with such lucidity, such poignancy,
and such convincing brevity, that the brain responds almost
automatically. The meaning of the words leaps to the mind, the curtain
swings up, the picture is seen in its perfection; and so clear is the
vision that one is almost loath to read on and thus to change the scene.
But not only is a series of pictures called before the imagination:
there is also their application to the poet’s imagery of Death; and,
line by line, the reader is introduced to mankind’s ultimate tragedy in
a new and wondrous aspect.
In spite of this laudation of Death, the soul still protests against the
destruction of its earthly home; and thereupon the man describes the
great privileges enjoyed by “those who are yonder,” that is to say, the
dead. They shall sit, he declares, in the barque of the sun and shall
traverse the sky like the stars; they shall converse face to face with
the solar gods and shall not be repelled by them; and they shall at last
be able to inflict punishment for evil-doing where punishment is due,
and shall seize hold of the wicked in the manner of the living gods. The
idea of an ultimate Justice, and of the ability of the dead to sit in
judgment upon those who had wronged them in life, at length overcome the
scruples of the soul; and the embittered man is thus left free to put an
end to his existence.