The ancient Egyptian peasants, like their modern descendants, were fatalists, and a happy carelessness seems to have softened the strenuousness of their daily tasks.  The peasants of the present day in Egypt so lack the initiative to develop the scope of their industries that their life cannot be said to be strenuous.  In whatever work they undertake, however, they show a wonderful degree of cheerfulness, and a fine disregard for misfortune.  Their forefathers, similarly, went through their labours with a song upon their lips.  In the tombs at Sakkara, dating from the Old Empire, there are scenes representing flocks of goats treading in the seed on the newly-sown ground, and the inscriptions give the song which the goat-herds sing:—­

    “The goat-herd is in the water with the fishes,—­
     He speaks with the nar-fish, he talks with the pike;
     From the west is your goat-herd; your goat-herd is from the west.”

The meaning of the words is not known, of course, but the song seems to have been a popular one.  A more comprehensible ditty is that sung to the oxen by their driver, which dates from the New Empire:—­

    “Thresh out for yourselves, ye oxen, thresh out for yourselves. 
     Thresh out the straw for your food, and the grain for your masters. 
     Do not rest yourselves, for it is cool to-day.”

Some of the love-songs have been preserved from destruction, and these throw much light upon the subject of the Egyptian temperament.  A number of songs, supposed to have been sung by a girl to her lover, form themselves into a collection entitled “The beautiful and gladsome songs of thy sister, whom thy heart loves, as she walks in the fields.”  The girl is supposed to belong to the peasant class, and most of the verses are sung whilst she is at her daily occupation of snaring wild duck in the marshes.  One must imagine the songs warbled without any particular refrain, just as in the case of the modern Egyptians, who pour out their ancient tales of love and adventure in a series of bird-like cadences, full-throated, and often wonderfully melodious.  A peculiar sweetness and tenderness will be noticed in the following examples, and though they suffer in translation, their airy lightness and refinement is to be distinguished.  One characteristic song, addressed by the girl to her lover, runs—­

              “Caught by the worm, the wild duck cries,
               But in the love-light of thine eyes
               I, trembling, loose the trap.  So flies
                         The bird into the air. 
               What will my angry mother say? 
               With basket full I come each day,
               But now thy love hath led me stray,
                         And I have set no snare.”

Again, in a somewhat similar strain, she sings—­