EGYPT
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EGYPT
sented in Egj'ptian literature as that of the dead.
Yet we have a few important works such as the ritual,
or rather the liturgy, of Osiris in his temple at Abydos,
of which an illustrated edition has been preserved on
the walls of that temple (published by Moret, " Le
Ritual du culte divin journalier en Egypte", 1902),
and the liturgy of the Amon-worship contained in
a Berlin papyrus (O. v. Lemm, Ritualbuch des Amon-
dienstes, 1882). The Litany of the Sim has been
translated by Naville, in "Records of the Past",
VIII, 103 sqq.; also a fragment of the Legend of Re
to which we have already alluded (op. cit., VI, 103
sq.) and several hymns to Osiris (op. cit.. New Series,
IV, 17 sq.), the Nile (op. cit.. New Series, III, 46
sqq.), and Amon-Re (in Maspero, "Histoire an-
eienne", pp. 328 sqq.; Grebaut, " Hymne a Ammon-
Ra", Paris, 1875; cf. Stern in "Zeitschrift fiir agyp-
tische Sprache", 1877, and Brugsch, "Religion u.
Mythologie der alten Aegypter", Leipzig, 1885, pp.
690 sqq.). From the point of view of composition
and style these hymns are the most remarkable liter-
ary products of ancient Egypt, as the}' are the most
striking specimens of the monotheistic tendencies
which developed under the Eighteenth-Twentieth
Dynasties as a result of the political supremacy of
Thebes. Not less noteworthy are the hymns com-
posed by Amenophis IV in honour of his sole god Aton
(see the specimen published by Breasted, " History of
the Ancient Egj-ptians", pp. 273 sqq.).
Moral. — Several Egyptian literary compositions of a moral nature have reached us. The two oldest are attributed to Kagemme, vizier of King Snefru, and Ptahhotep, vizier and chief judge under King Isesi, last but one of the fifth dynasty. Both composi- tions, preserved in a manuscript of the Twelfth Dy- nasty, consist of apophthegms and proverbs of a rather positive and practical nature, as " A slight fail- ure is enough to make vile a great man" (Kagemme), or " A docile son shall be happy on account of his obedience; he shall grow old and get favour", or "If you are a wise man, fix your house pleasantly, love your wife, do not quarrel with her, give her food and jewels, because this makes her comely, give her per- fumes and pleasures during your life. She is a treas- ure which must be worthy of its owner" tPtahhotep). Lender the Twelfth Dynasty we have the teaching of Amenemhet I, where the old king warns his son and successor, Usertesen, against placing too much con- fidence in, and being too intimate with, those around him, exemplifying his teaching from his own experi- ence (translated in "Records of the Past", II, p. 9 sqq.). Of a much higher order and wider scope are the counsels that Ani, a scribe of the Nineteenth Dy- nasty, gives to his son Khons-Hotep: "Let thine eye observe the deeds of God; it is he that strikes whatso- ever is stricken. Piety to the gods is the highest virtue"; "It is I who gave thee to thy mother, but it is she that bore thee and while she was carrying thee she suffered many pains. When the time of her de- livery arrived thou wert born and she carried thee like the veriest yoke, her pap in thy mouth, for three years. Thou didst grow, and thy filthiness never so far disgusted her as to make her cry out: 'Oh! what am I doing?' Thou wert sent to school. She was anxious about thee every day, bringing thee meat and drink from home. Thou didst take a house and wife of thine own, but never forget the pains of childbed thou didst cost to thy mother; give her not cause to complain of thee, lest perchance she lift up her hands to the divinity, and he give ear to her will"; "Keep this in mind whenever thou ha.st to make a decision; Even as the most aged die thou also shalt lie down among them. There is no exception; even for him whose life is without blame, the same lot awaits him as well. Thy death-messenger will come to thee too, to carry thee away. Discourses will avail thee noth- ing, for he is coming, yea, he is ready even now. Do
not begin to say: ' I am still but a child, I whom thou
takest off.' Thou knowest not how thou shalt die.
Death comes to the suckling babe; yea, to him who
is yet in the womb, as well as to the old, old man.
See, I tell thee things for thy good, which thou shalt
ponder in thy heart before acting. In them thou shalt
find happiness and all evil shall be put far from thee "
(tr. of Chabas, "L'Eg>'ptologie", Paris, 1876-8).
History. — Egyptian historical literature is some- what illustrated from what we have said of the sources of chronology (see above, II., subsection Chronology). In sharp contrast with the aridity which generally char- acterizes such documents, the so-called prose-poem of Pentaur stands alone so far. Pentaur is the name of the copyist, not of the author, as was long believed. Its subject is an episode of the famous campaign of Ramses II against the Hittites. When taken by sur- prise he, with only the household troops and a few officers who happened to be there, bravely charged the van of the enemy who were in pursuit of his de- feated army, and so brilliantly successful was he that the rout was turned into a victory. The work dis- plays a good deal of literary skill and is the nearest approach to an epic to be found in Egyptian litera- ture (Breasted, "Hist, of the Anc. Eg^TStians", 320; cf. Maspero, " Hist. Anc", 272 sq.). Not less remark- able, perhaps, although less pretentious in point of style are: (1) the long autobiography of Uni, under three successive kings (Teti II, Pepi I, and Mernere) of the sixth dynasty, the longest fimerary inscription and the most important historical docimient of that time (Breasted, "Anc. Rec. of Egypt", I, 134 sq.); (2) the famous stele of Piankhi (see above, II. under Dynastic History; Second Period) which Professor Breasted calls the clearest and most rational account of a military expedition which has survived from ancient Egypt (Hist, of the Anc. Egyptians, 370); (3) the great Papyrus Harris, a huge roll one himdred and thirty feet long, the longest document from the Early Orient. It contains an enormous inventory of the gifts of Ramses III to the three chief divinities of Egj-pt, a statement of his achievements abroad, and his bene- factions to his people at home (op. cit., 347).
Fiction. — If history proper is not more largely rep- resented in Egj^itian literature, it is because its natu- rally positive and dry character, which the structure of the Egyptian language made it difficult to disguise, was not in harmony with the highly imaginative Egyptian mind. No doubt the Egyptians were proud of their kings; but from one end of the country to the other the waters of the Nile reflected temples and mortuary chapels without number, on the walls of which the achievements of the pharaohs were spread in gorgeous inscriptions and reliefs. That was all the history they needed. It furnished them with histori- cal outlines which their fertile imaginations filled out with stories or tales after their own taste, tales in the style of the "Arabian Nights", where animals and mum- mies spoke like ordinary folks, as for instance in the tale of "The Two Brothers", from the Nineteenth Dynasty (Records of the Past, II, 137 sqq.), and the story of Satni-Khamois from Ptolemaic times (op. cit., IV, 131 sq.). In "The Doomed Prince", Twentieth Dynasty (op. cit., II, 153 sq.), men fly like birds; in "The Shipwrecked", Twelfth Dynasty (translated, with all the others, in Maspero, " Les contes populaires de I'Egypte ancienne", .3d ed., Paris, 1905), the hero is shipwrecked on the Island of the Ka (one of the popular concepts of the Land of the Dead), where a gigantic serpent addresses him with a human voice and treats him with the utmost kindness. In "The Daughter of the Prince of Bakhtan", Twentieth Dy- nasty, the prince's younger daughter is delivered from a demon or spirit by the statue of the god Khonsu for which he had sent to Thebes. Sometimes, however, the action remains within the limits of the natiu-al order, and' the interest consists in some extraordinary
