Egyptian Tales, Translated from the Papyri eBook

Excellently finished in peace, for the ka of the scribe of the treasury Kagabu, of the treasury of Pharaoh, and for the scribe Hora, and the scribe Meremapt.  Written by the scribe Anena, the owner of this roll.  He who speaks against this roll, may Tahuti smite him.

REMARKS

This tale, which is perhaps, of all this series, the best known in modern times, has often been published.  It exists only in one papyrus, that of Madame d’Orbiney, purchased by the British Museum in 1857.  The papyrus had belonged to Sety ii. when crown prince, and hence is of the XIXth Dynasty.  Most of the great scholars of this age have worked at it:  __De Rouge, Goodwin, Renouf, Chabas, Brugsch, Ebers, Maspero, and Groff have all made original studies on it.  The present translation is, however, a fresh one made by Mr.

Griffith word for word, and shaped as little as possible by myself in editing it.  The copy followed is the publication by Birch in “Select Papyri,” part ii. pls. ix. to xix.  Before considering the details of the story, we should notice an important question about its age and composition.  That it is as old as the XIXth Dynasty in its present form is certain from the papyrus; but probably parts of it are older.  The idyllic beauty of the opening of it, with the simplicity and directness of the ideas, and the absence of any impossible or marvellous feature, is in the strongest opposition to the latter part, where marvel is piled on marvel in pointless profusion.  In the first few pages there is not a word superfluous or an idea out of place in drawing the picture.  That we have to do with an older story lengthened out by some inartistic compiler, seems only too probable.  And this is borne out by the colophon.  In the tales of the Shipwrecked Sailor, and of Sanehat, the colophon runs—­“This is finished from beginning to end, even as it was found in the writing,” and the earlier of these two tales follows this with a blessing on the transcriber.  But, apparently conscious of his meddling, the author of Anpu and Bata ends with a curse:  “Written by the scribe Anena, the owner of this roll.  He who speaks against this roll, may Tahuti smite him.”  This points to a part of it at least being newly composed in Ramesside times; while the delicate beauty of the opening is not only far better than the latter part, but is out of harmony with the forced and artificial taste of the XIXth Dynasty.  At the same time, the careful drawing of character is hardly akin to the simple, matter-of-fact style of Sanehat, and seems more in keeping with the emotional style of the Doomed Prince.  If we attribute the earlier part to the opening of the XVIIIth Dynasty—­the age of the pastoral scenes of the tombs of El Kab, which are the latest instances of such sculptures in Egypt—­we shall probably be nearest to the truth.