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Instructions for Little Pepi on His Way to School CHAPTER ONE

Divisions 1-30

INSTRUCTIONS FOR LITTLE PEPI

The beginning of the teaching

that the man of Tjel named Dua-Khety made for his son named Pepi,

while he sailed southwards to the Residence

to place him in the school of writings among the children of the magistrates,

the most eminent men of the Residence.

Thus he spoke to his son Pepi,

Since I have seen those who have been beaten,

it is to writings that you must set your mind.

Observe the man who has been carried off to perform manual labor.

Behold, there is nothing that surpasses writings!

They are a boat upon the water.

Read then at the end of the Book of Kemyet this statement in it saying:

As for a scribe in any office in the Residence,

he will not suffer want in it.

When he fulfills the bidding of another,

he does not come forth satisfied.

10.

I do not see an office to be compared with it,

to which this maxim could relate.

11.

I shall make you love books more than your mother,

and I shall place their excellence before you.

12.

It is greater than any office,

there is nothing like it on earth.

13.

When he began to become sturdy yet was still a child,

he was greeted honorably.

14.

When he was sent to carry out a task,

before he returned he was dressed in adult garments.

15.

I do not see a stoneworker on an important errand

or a goldsmith in a place to which he has been sent,

yet I have seen a coppersmith at his work at the door of his furnace.

16.

His fingers were like the claws of the crocodile,

and he stank more than fish excrement.

17.

Every carpenter who bears the adze is wearier than a fieldhand.

18.

His field is his wood, his hoe is the axe.

19.

There is no end to his work, and he must labor excessively in his activity.

20.

At nighttime he still must light his lamp.

21.

The jeweler pierces stone in stringing beads in all kinds of hard stone.

22.

When he has completed the inlaying of the eye-amulets,

his strength vanishes and he is tired out.

23.

He sits until the arrival of the sun,

his knees and his back bent at the place called Aku-Re.

24.

The barber shaves until the end of the evening.

25.

Yet he must be up early, crying out,

his bowl upon his arm.

26.

He takes himself from street to street to seek out someone to shave.

27.

He wears out his arms to fill his belly,

like bees who eat only according to their work.

28.

The reed-cutter goes downstream to the Delta to fetch himself arrows.

29.

He must work excessively in his activity.

30.

When the gnats sting him and the sand fleas bite him as well,

then he is judged.

Instructions for Little Pepi on His Way to School CHAPTER TWO

Divisions 31-60

INSTRUCTIONS FOR LITTLE PEPI

31.

The potter is covered with earth,

although his lifetime is still among the living.

32.

He burrows in the field more than swine to bake his cooking vessels.

33.

His clothes being stiff with mud,

his head cloth consists only of rags,

so that the air which comes forth from his burning furnace enters his nose.

34.

He operates a pestle with his feet with which he himself is pounded,

penetrating the courtyard of every house and driving earth into every open place.

35.

I shall also describe to you the bricklayer.

36.

His [kidney] [hands? ] are [painful] [sore].

37.

When he must be outside in the wind, he lays bricks without a garment.

38.

His belt is a cord for his back, a string for his buttocks.

39.

His strength has vanished through fatigue and stiffness,

kneading all his excrement.

40.

He eats bread with his fingers,

although he washes merely once a day.

41.

It is miserable for the carpenter when he planes the roof-beam.

42.

It is the roof of a chamber 10 by 6 cubits.

43.

A month goes by in laying the beams and spreading the matting.

44.

All the work is accomplished.

45.

Yet as for the food which is to be given to his household while he is away,

there is no one who provides for his children.

46.

The vintner carries his shoulder-yoke.

47.

Each of his shoulders is burdened with age.

48.

A swelling is on his neck, and it festers.

49.

He spends the morning in watering leeks and the evening with corianders,

after he has spent the midday in the palm grove.

50.

So it happens that he sinks down at last and dies through his deliveries,

more than one of any other profession.

51.

The fieldhand cries out more than the guinea fowl,

his voice is louder than the raven's.

52.

His fingers have become ulcerous with an excess of stench.

53.

When he is taken away to be enrolled in Delta labour, he is in tatters.

54.

He suffers when he proceeds to the island,

and sickness is his payment,

55.

the forced labour then is tripled.

56.

If he comes back from the marshes there,

he reaches his house worn out, for the forced labor has ruined him.

57.

The weaver inside the weaving house is more wretched than a woman.

58.

His knees are drawn up against his belly,

he cannot breathe the air.

59.

If he wastes a single day without weaving, he is beaten with 50 whip lashes.

60.

He has to give food to the doorkeeper to allow him to come out to the daylight.

Instructions for Little Pepi on His Way to School CHAPTER THREE

Divisions 61-90

INSTRUCTIONS FOR LITTLE PEPI

61.

The arrow maker, completely wretched, goes into the desert.

62.

Greater than his own pay is what he has to spend for his she-ass for its work afterwards.

63.

Great is also what he has to give to the fieldhand

to set him on the right road to the flint source.

64.

When he reaches his house in the evening, the journey has ruined him.

65.

The courier goes abroad after handing over his property to his children,

being fearful of the lions and the Asiatics.

66.

Only he knows when he is to be back in Egypt,

yet his household by then is only a tent.

67.

There is no happy homecoming.

68.

The furnace-tender, his fingers are foul, the smell thereof is as corpses.

69.

His eyes are inflamed because of the heaviness of smoke.

70.

He cannot get rid of his dirt, although he spends the day at the reed pond.

71.

Clothes are an abomination to him.

72.

The sandal maker is utterly wretched, carrying his tubs of oil.

73.

His stores are provided with carcasses, and what he bites is hides.

74.

The washerman launders at the riverbank in the vicinity of the crocodile.

75.

I shall go away, father, from the flowing water, said his son and his daughter,

to a more satisfactory profession,

one more distinguished than any other profession.

76.

His food is mixed with filth,

and there is no part of him which is clean.

77.

He cleans the clothes of a woman in menstruation.

78.

He weeps when he spends all day with a beating stick and a stone there.

79.

One says to him, I have dirty laundry,

come to me, the brim overflows.

80.

The fowler is utterly weak while searching out for the denizens of the sky.

81.

If the flock passes by above him, then he says:

would that I might have nets.

82.

Yet God will not let this come to pass for him,

for He is opposed to his activity.

83.

I mention for you also the fisherman.

84.

He is more miserable than one of any other profession,

one who is at his work in a river infested with crocodiles.

85.

When the totalling of his account is made for him, then he will lament.

86.

One did not tell him that a crocodile was standing there,

and fear has now blinded him.

87.

When he comes to the flowing water,

so he falls as through the might of God.

88.

See, there is no office free from supervisors, except the scribe's.

89.

He is the supervisor!

90.

Yet if you understand writings,

then it will be better for you than the professions which I have set before you.

Instructions for Little Pepi on His Way to School CHAPTER FOUR

Divisions 91-130

INSTRUCTIONS FOR LITTLE PEPI

91.

Behold the official and the dependent pertaining to him.

92.

The tenant farmer of a man cannot say to him,

Do not keep watching me.

93.

What I have done in journeying southward to the Residence city

is what I have done through love of you.

94.

A day at school is advantageous to you.

95.

Seek out its work early,

while the workmen I have caused you to know hurry on

and cause the noncompliant to hasten.

96.

I will also tell you another matter

to teach you what you should know at the station of your debating.

97.

Do not come close to where there is a dispute.

98.

If a man reproves you, and you do not know how to oppose his anger,

make your reply cautiously in the presence of listeners.

99.

If you walk to the rear of officials, approach from a distance behind the last.

100.

If you enter while the master of the house is at home,

and his hands are extended to another in front of you,

sit with your hand to your mouth.

101.

Do not ask for anything in his presence,

yet do as he says to you.

102.

Beware of approaching the table.

103.

Be serious, and great as to your worth.

104.

Do not speak secret matters.

105.

For he who hides his innermost thoughts is one who makes a shield for himself.

106.

Do not utter thoughtless words when you sit down with an angry man.

107.

When you come forth from school after midday recess has been announced to you,

go into the courtyard and discuss the last part of your lesson book.

108.

When an official sends you as a messenger, then say what he said.

109.

Neither take away nor add to it.

110.

He who abandons a chest of books, his name will not endure.

111.

He who is wise in all his ways, nothing will be hidden from him,

and he will not be rebuffed from any station of his.

112.

Do not say anything false about your mother,

this is an abomination to the officials.

113.

The offspring who does useful things,

his condition is equal to the one of yesterday.

114.

Do not indulge with an undisciplined man,

for it is bad after it is heard about you.

115.

When you have eaten three loaves of bread and swallowed two jugs of beer,

and the body has not yet had enough, fight against it.

116.

Yet if another is satiated, do not stand,

take care not to approach the table.

117.

See, you send out a large number.

You hear the words of the officials.

118.

Then you may assume the characteristics of the children of men,

and you may walk in their footsteps.

119.

One values a scribe for his understanding,

for understanding transforms an eager person.

120.

You are to stand when words of welcome are offered.

121.

Your feet shall not hurry when you walk.

122.

Do not approach a trusted man,

yet associate with one more distinguished than you.

123.

Yet let your friend be a man of your generation.

124.

See, I have placed you on the path of God.

125.

The fate of a man is on his shoulders on the day he is born.

126.

He comes to the judgement hall and the court of magistrates which the people have made.

127.

See, there is no scribe lacking sustenance,

or the provisions of the royal house.

128.

It is Meskhenet who is turned toward the scribe

who is present before the court of magistrates.

129.

Honour your father and mother who have placed you on the path of the living.

130.

Mark this, which I have placed before your eyes,

and the children of your children.

It has come to an end in peace.

Translated by A. Erman

from other earlier translations

Longing for Memphis CHAPTER ONE

Divisions 1-20

The poem is of an apprentice scribe weary of his schoolwork, daydreaming of the big city. He prays to Ptah, god of Memphis, to help him concentrate on his lesson. From a schoolbook of New Kingdom, circa 1550-1070 BC, (the era of Amram, Moses, Joshua, the judges, Samson, Ruth, Eli, and the prophet Samuel. )

LONGING FOR MEMPHIS

Farewell, my thoughts!

Ran off, they race toward a place they know well,

Upriver bound to see Memphis,

house of Lord Ptah,

and I wish I were with them!

Yet I idle here absent-minded,

wanting my thoughts back to whisper me news of the City.

No task at all now prospers by my hands,
my heart, torn from its perch, is just not in it.

Come to me, Ptah!

Carry me captive to Memphis,

Let me gaze all around, and fly free!

I would spend my workday wakeful and dutiful,
yet the will drowses,

10.

The heart veers away,

and will not stay in my body;

11.

All other parts of me sickened to ennui,

12.

The eye heavy with staring and studying,
ear, it will not be filled with good counsel,

13.

The voice cracks, and words of the recitation tumble and slur.

14.

O Lord of the City friendly to young scribes,
be at peace with me!

15.

Grant me to rise above this day’s infirmities!

Translation adaptation by J. L. Foster

Note how diverse translations can be from one to another.

Alternate translation:

See, my heart has slipped away,
It is hurrying to the place it knows,
it is traveling upstream to see Memphis,
But I sit at home, and wait for my heart,
It tell me about the condition of Memphis.
No task succeeds any more in my hands,
my heart has departed from place.

Come to me, Ptah, and take me to Memphis.
Let me see you as desired;
I am awake, but my heart sleeps.
My heart is not in my body,
and all my limbs are seized by evil.
My eye is weary from seeing,
my ear does not hear, my voice is raw,
and all my words are garbled.
Be gracious to me and let me recuperate.

Caminos l954

Alternate translation:

See how my heart runs
It flies to a spot it knows,
Going upstream to see Memphis, House of the Spirit of Ptah –
and I wish I were with it!
But I sit here expecting my heart back
so it can tell me how it is in Memphis.

No work can be done by hand,
my mind cannot concentrate.
o come to me, Ptah, to carry me off to Memphis,
Let me look about unhindered!
I would spend the day properly
but my heart is listless;
My mind will not stay in my body,
and misery seizes all of my limbs!
My eye is exhausted with staring,
my ear, it will not be filled,
my voice is hoarse and words become tumbled.
O my Lord, be at peace with me!
Help me to rise above all these things!

‘‘Oh, I’m bound downstream on the Memphis Ferry’’

Oh, I’m bound downstream on the Memphis ferry, like a runaway, snapping all ties, With my bundle of old clothes over my shoulder. I’m going down there where the living is, going down there to that big city, And there I’ll tell Ptah (Lord who loves justice): ‘‘Give me a girl tonight! ’’ Look at the River! eddying, in love with the young vegetation.

Ptah himself is the life of those reedshoots,

Lady Sakhmet the life of of the lilies,

Yes, Our Lady of Dew dwells among lilypads,

and their son, Nefertem, sweet boy,

blossoms newborn in the blue lotus.

Twilight is heavy with gods,

and the quiet joy of tomorrow,

dawn whitening over her loveliness,

O, Memphis, my city, beauty forever!

You are a bowl of love’s own berries,

a dish set for Ptah your god,

god of the handsome face.

The Shipwrecked Sailor

Songs to the Bird Catchers Daughter

prologue to ptahotep

Twin Lands of Sedge and Papyri?

Poem of Pentaur

Tale of Sinehue Jacob 2000 bc

Hymn to the Sun Akhenaten 1350 BC Ps 104 Amenhotep IV

reformer monotheist the Aten

Rebuke Addressed to a Dissipated Scribe CHAPTER ONE

Divisions 1-15

A book of the larger series of Pepi's book.

REBUKE ADDRESSED TO A DISSIPATED SCRIBE

Now, as for what I have been told,

that you throw aside your studies

and live in a whirl of singing and dancing,

You go about from street to street,

and beer fumes hang wherever you have been.

Don’t you know beer kills the man in you?

It stiﬀ ens your very soul!

You are like a warped steering-oar that gives no help to either side!

You are a shrine without its god,

a house with no provisions!

You are discovered scrambling up a wall

after breaking your conﬁ nement,

with people running headlong from you

—you deal them bloody wounds!

If you only knew that strong drink is destruction,

you would swear oﬀ the pomegranate wine,

You would not waste a thought on drinking-mugs,

and you would disown beer!

10.

You were taught to sing to the pipe,

to perform to the reed-ﬂ ute,

11.

Chant in time to the lyre,

and accompany the lute.

12.

Yet you loll about the fancy houses,

and the street girls swarm around you;

13.

Or you stand there carrying on

while they do their attendance on you.

14.

You sit there under the hussy’s spell,

soaked with perfumes and ointments,

with your wreaths of forget-me-nots round your neck;

15.

Or you beat time on your gut as you stagger about,

then fall down ﬂ at on your face

and just lie there covered with ﬁ lth.

Letter to a Wayward Son CHAPTER ONE

Divisions 1-35

The Letter of Menna’s Lament

Menna, the father, and his son, Pay-iry, are historical personages of Ramses era, circa 1300-1050 BC, the times of Samson, Ruth, Eli, Samuel, and David). They lived in a village on the west bank of ancient Thebes. The village supplied the workers who constructed and decorated the rock-cut tombs of the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings. The inscription derives from that village and its school for young scribes. The letter is a literary rendering of a sad event that may actually have taken place. Pay-iry, instead of remaining at home and taking up his father’s craft, runs off to sea. The bereft father writes in an attempt to persuade him to return.

The letter is clearly a literary device to urge schooling of young people, especiually those of considerably gifted and talented. The parable of the prodigal son also invokes the theme, and the lost lamb of the book of revelation also echoes the sentiments of the upset father.

LETTER TO A WAYWARD SON

The artist Menna speaks to his son and apprentice, the scribe, Pay-iry:

High winds foretell for you the coming of the storm,

my able seaman, lost for the final mooring.

I had set good advice of every sort before you,

yett you never listened.

I would point out each path which hid the danger in the underbrush,

saying,

‘‘Should you go without your sandals,

one little thorn will end your caravan. ’’

I satisfied your needs in everything which normal men desire;

Nor would I let you cry ‘‘If only! ’’ in the night,

tossing and turning as you lay in bed.

Yet you are like the swallow in her flight

wide wandering with her fledgling brood;

And when you reach the Delta in your great migration,

you run with foreign Asiatic birds,

10.

You have fed on your own vitals

and neither heart nor sense is left within you!

11.

I am so troubled I would range the sea

so that Imight report that I had rescued you;

12.

Yet would you enter your own village,

bringing nothing except water for your monument?

13.

I said in my heart,

‘‘He does not care for words, not for any I have spoken up till now. ’’

14.

Yet I must say again what I have said before:

15.

Get you from the ramparts of the wicked.

16.

Fortify yourself with maxims of the wise,

In speech, in name, in deed;

17.

and your ship of fools may still do likewise. [depart from the wicked]

18.

Then, should it founder far out in the East,

men would address you with the honor due a lion although you stood alone.

19.

As for the son who should obey his father,

that text holds good for all eternity, they say.

20.

Yet then you did not pause for any admonition with which I warned and warned you long ago.

21.

Should you capsize when you take ship defying me

— should you drift downward to a watery grave—

22.

Should you stride wide upon the waves to flee the deep—

still were you lost through your own piloting!

23.

And who shall speak the word to my small boat,

“Go to him swiftly over the white-capped waves”?

24.

I see you sinking in the chambers of the sea,

and my arm does not know how to save you!

25.

All I can bring you is a slender straw thrown in the wide path of the drowning man,

there is not any way at all.

26.

You make yourself like one who says that he would kill to have my donkeys,

choking the very protests in my mouth!

27.

You clip the wings of one who eyes your goods,

yet are you dull and dawdling in my presence;

28.

Your goods themselves aggrandize only senseless people

because you chose to act without me.

29.

You should take care to weigh my words,

and you might find my teaching useful;

30.

Give ear to hear instruction so as to build on long experience.

31.

Should I allow you to ignore it altogether,

you will shoot up a useless weed;

32.

There is no climbing to the height for such a one

though he provide you with an ample household.

33.

Oh, that a son of mine should be found out,

when letting this hell-bent course continue!

34.

You are like someone on a team of bolting horses,

yet should your heart beat easy in the reins with mine!

35.

My son, preserve and hold in trust this letter,

someday, it might bring you good.

Conversation between a Man Weary of Life and His Soul CHAPTER ONE

Divisions 1-25

A poem that is a discussio between a man so disspirited he wants to die, and his ba, or soul, that insists that each person must endure life until the end comes naturally. The single surviving papyrus, with its first lines unavailable, dates to the 12th dynasty, circa 1975-1800 BC, the times of Abrahams family. The profound text is difficult to translate, yet the man’s despair gives rise to some of the finest lyric poetry to survive from ancient Egypt.

The Debate between a Man Tired of Life and His Soul

CONVERSE OF A TIRED MAN AND HIS SOUL

The man’s ba-bird, or soul, is concluding a speech:

25.

‘‘The tongues of the gods, they do not speak amiss,

they make no special cases. ’’

Conversation between a Man Weary of Life and His Soul CHAPTER TWO

Divisions 26-50

CONVERSE OF A TIRED MAN AND HIS SOUL

26.

I opened my mouth to my soul that I might answer what it had said,

This is more than I can bear just now!

27.

My soul could find no time for me!

28.

It is beyond belief —as if I should hesitate to do the deed!

29.

Let my soul not disappear like this, not flutter off,

yet let it take its stand beside me!

30.

Or never shall it have the chance to wrap my person in its stifling bonds;

31.

and for all its twitter,

never shall it escape the Day of Reckoning.

32.

O all you gods, see how my soul defames me!

33.

I will not listen to it ever as I drag my way toward dissolution,

34.

for it will not help me do the death by fire,

myself the victim, who shall no more suffer.

35.

Let it be near me on the Day of Reckoning!

36.

Let it stand tall on that side yonder as one who shares my joy!

37.

Yet this the very soul that rushes off,

it vanishes, to separate itself from death.

38.

My foolish soul is going to ease the pains of living, is it?

39.

Keep me from death until I come to it by nature?

40.

No! make the West sweet for me now!

41.

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