Egyptian Literature: Comprising Egyptian tales, hymns, litanies, invocations, the Book of the Dead, and cuneiform writings
Religion
Egyptian Literature: Comprising Egyptian tales, hymns, litanies, invocations, the Book of the Dead, and cuneiform writings
Egyptian literature -- Translations into English
And one went to rejoice the heart of her father, and said to him, “One of
the people has reached the window of thy daughter.” And the prince
inquired of the messenger, saying, “The son of which of the princes is
it?” And he replied to him, “It is the son of an officer, who has come as
a fugitive from the land of Egypt, fleeing from before his stepmother when
she had children.” Then the chief of Naharaina was exceeding angry; and he
said: “Shall I indeed give my daughter to the Egyptian fugitive? Let him
go back whence he came.” And one came to tell the youth, “Go back to the
place thou camest from.” But the maiden seized his hand; she swore an oath
by God, saying, “By the being of Ra Harakhti, if one takes him from me, I
will not eat, I will not drink, I shall die in that same hour.” The
messenger went to tell unto her father all that she said. Then the prince
sent men to slay the youth, while he was in his house. But the maiden
said: “By the being of Ra, if one slay him I shall be dead ere the sun
goeth down. I will not pass an hour of life if I am parted from him.” And
one went to tell her father. Then the prince made them bring the youth
with the maiden. The youth was seized with fear when he came before the
prince. But he embraced him, he kissed him all over, and said: “Oh, tell
me who thou art; behold, thou art to me as a son.” He said to him: “I am a
son of an officer of the land of Egypt; my mother died, my father took to
him a second wife; she came to hate me, and I fled a fugitive from before
her.” He then gave to him his daughter to wife; he gave also to him a
house, and serfs, and fields, also cattle and all manner of good things.
But after the days of these things were passed, the youth said to his
wife, “I am doomed to three fates—a crocodile, a serpent, and a dog.” She
said to him, “Let one kill the dog which belongs to thee.” He replied to
her, “I am not going to kill my dog, which I have brought up from when it
was small.” And she feared greatly for her husband, and would not let him
go alone abroad.
And one went with the youth toward the land of Egypt, to travel in that
country. Behold the crocodile of the river, he came out by the town in
which the youth was. And in that town was a mighty man. And the mighty man
would not suffer the crocodile to escape. And when the crocodile was
bound, the mighty man went out and walked abroad. And when the sun rose
the mighty man went back to the house; and he did so every day, during two
months of days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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