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
“Leave all the riches that thou hast, and that are with thee, altogether.
When thou shalt come into Egypt behold the palace, and when thou shalt
enter the palace, bow thy face to the ground before the Great House; thou
shalt be chief among the companions. And day by day behold thou growest
old; thy vigor is lost, and thou thinkest on the day of burial. Thou shalt
see thyself come to the blessed state, they shall give thee the bandages
from the hand of Tait, the night of applying the oil of embalming. They
shall follow thy funeral, and visit the tomb on the day of burial, which
shall be in a gilded case, the head painted with blue, a canopy of cypress
wood above thee, and oxen shall draw thee, the singers going before thee,
and they shall dance the funeral dance. The weepers crouching at the door
of thy tomb shall cry aloud the prayers for offerings: they shall slay
victims for thee at the door of thy pit; and thy pyramid shall be carved
in white stone, in the company of the royal children. Thus thou shalt not
die in a strange land, nor be buried by the Amu; thou shalt not be laid in
a sheepskin when thou art buried; all people shall beat the earth, and
lament on thy body when thou goest to the tomb.”
When this order came to me, I was in the midst of my tribe. When it was
read unto me, I threw me on the dust, I threw dust in my hair; I went
around my tent rejoicing and saying: “How may it be that such a thing is
done to the servant, who with a rebellious heart has fled to strange
lands? Now with an excellent deliverance, and mercy delivering me from
death, thou shalt cause me to end my days in the palace.”
Copy Of The Answer To This Order
“The follower Sanehat says: In excellent peace above everything consider
of this flight that he made here in his ignorance; Thou, the Good God,
Lord of both Lands, Loved of Rā, Favorite of Mentu, the Lord of Thebes,
and of Amen, lord of thrones of the lands, of Sebek, Rā, Horus, Hathor,
Atmu, and of his fellow-gods, of Sopdu, Neferbiu, Samsetu, Horus, lord of
the east, and of the royal uræus which rules on thy head, of the chief
gods of the waters, of Min, Horus of the desert, Urrit, mistress of Punt,
Nut, Harnekht, Rā, all the gods of the land of Egypt, and of the isles of
the sea. May they give life and peace to thy nostril, may they load thee
with their gifts, may they give to thee eternity without end,
everlastingness without bound. May the fear of thee be doubled in the
lands of the deserts. Mayest thou subdue the circuit of the sun’s disk.
This is the prayer to his master of the humble servant who is saved from a
foreign land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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