Egyptian Tales, Second Series
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EGYPTIAN TALES
TRANSLATED FROM THE PAPYRI
SECOND SERIES
XVIIIth TO XIXth DYNASTY
EDITED BY
W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE,
HON. D.C.L., LL.D.
EDWARDS PROFESSOR OF EGYPTOLOGY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON
ILLUSTRATED BY TRISTRAM ELLIS
SECOND EDITION
_First Published . . . September 1895
Second Edition . . . February 1913_
PREFACE
As the scope of the first series of these Tales seems to have been
somewhat overlooked, a few words of introduction may not be out of place
before this second volume.
It seems that any simple form of fiction is supposed to be a "fairy
tale:" which implies that it has to do with an impossible world of
imaginary beings. Now the Egyptian Tales are exactly the opposite of
this, they relate the doings and the thoughts of men and women who are
human--sometimes "very human," as Mr. Balfour said. Whatever there is of
supernatural elements is a very part of the beliefs and motives of the
people whose lives are here pictured. But most of what is here might
happen in some corner of our own country to-day, where ancient beliefs
may have a home. So far, then, from being fairy tales there is not a
single being that could be termed a fairy in the whole of them.
Another notion that seems to be about is that the only possible object
of reading any form of fiction is for pure amusement, to fill an idle
hour and be forgotten and if these tales are not as amusing as some
jester of to-day, then the idler says, Away with them as a failure! For
such a person, who only looks to have the tedium of a vacuous mind
relieved, these tales are not in the least intended. But the real and
genuine charm of all fiction is that of enabling the reader to place
himself in the mental position of, another, to see with the eyes, to
feel with the thoughts, to reason with the mind, of a wholly different
being. All the greatest work has this charm. It may be to place the reader
in new mental positions, or in a different level of the society that he
already knows, either higher or lower; or it may be to make alive to him
a society of a different land or age. Whether he read "Treasure Island"
or "Plain Tales from the Hills," "The Scarlet Letter," "Old Mortality,"
or "Hypatia," it is the transplanting of the reader into a new life, the
doubling of his mental experience, that is the very power of fiction.
The same interest attaches to these tales. In place of regarding
Egyptians only as the builders of pyramids and the makers of mummies, we
here see the men and women as they lived, their passions, their foibles,
their beliefs, and their follies. The old refugee Sanehat craving to be
buried with his ancestors in the blessed land, the enterprise and
success of the Doomed Prince, the sweetness of Bata, the misfortunes of
Ahura, these all live before us, and we can for a brief half hour share
the feelings and see with the eyes of those who ruled the world when it
was young. This is the real value of these tales, and the power which
still belongs to the oldest literature in the world.
Erratum in First Edition, 1st Series. Page 31, line 6 from below, _for_
no It _read_ not I.
CONTENTS
THE TAKING OF JOPPA
REMARKS
THE DOOMED PRINCE
REMARKS
ANPU AND BATA
REMARKS
SETNA AND THE MAGIC BOOK
REMARKS
INDEX
XVIIITH DYNASTY
THE TAKING OF JOPPA
There was once in the time of King Men-kheper-ra a revolt of the
servants of his majesty who were in Joppa; and his majesty said, "Let
Tahutia go with his footmen and destroy this wicked Foe in Joppa." And
he called one of his followers, and said moreover, "Hide thou my great
cane, which works wonders, in the baggage of Tahutia that my power may
go with him."
Now when Tahutia came near to Joppa, with all the footmen of Pharaoh, he
sent unto the Foe in Joppa, and said, "Behold now his majesty, King
Men-kheper-ra, has sent all this great army against thee; but what is
that if my heart is as thy heart? Do thou come, and let us talk in the
field, and see each other face to face." So Tahutia came with certain of
his men; and the Foe in Joppa came likewise, but his charioteer that was
with him was true of heart unto the king of Egypt. And they spoke with
one another in his great tent, which Tahutia had placed far off from the
soldiers. But Tahutia had made ready two hundred sacks, with cords and
fetters, and had made a great sack of skins with bronze fetters, and
many baskets: and they were in his tent, the sacks and the baskets, and
he had placed them as the forage for the horses is put in baskets. For
whilst the Foe in Joppa drank with Tahutia, the people who were with him
drank with the footmen of Pharaoh, and made merry with them. And when
their bout of drinking was past, Tahutia said to the Foe in Joppa, "If
it please thee, while I remain with the women and children of thy own
city, let one bring of my people with their horses, that they may give
them provender, or let one of the Apuro run to fetch them." So they
came, and hobbled their horses, and gave them provender, and one found
the great cane of Men-kheper-ra (Tahutmes III.), and came to tell of it
to Tahutia. And thereupon the Foe in Joppa said to Tahutia, "My heart is
set on examining the great cane of Men-kheper-ra, which is named '. . .
tautnefer.' By the _ka_ of the King Men-kheper-ra it will be in thy
hands to-day; now do thou well and bring thou it to me." And Tahutia did
thus, and he brought the cane of King Men-kheper-ra. And he laid hold on
the Foe in Joppa by his garment, and he arose and stood up, and said,
"Look on me, O Foe in Joppa; here is the great cane of King
Men-kheper-ra, the terrible lion, the son of Sekhet, to whom Amen his
father gives power and strength." And he raised his hand and struck the
forehead of the Foe in Joppa, and he fell helpless before him. He put
him in the sack of skins and he bound with gyves the hands of the Foe in
Joppa, and put on his feet the fetters with four rings. And he made them
bring the two hundred sacks which he had cleaned, and made to enter into
them two hundred soldiers, and filled the hollows with cords and fetters
of wood, he sealed them with a seal, and added to them their rope-nets
and the poles to bear them. And he put every strong footman to bear
them, in all six hundred men, and said to them, "When you come
into the town you shall open your burdens, you shall seize on all the
inhabitants of the town, and you shall quickly put fetters upon them,"
Then one went out and said unto the charioteer of the Foe in Joppa, "Thy
master is fallen; go, say to thy mistress, 'A pleasant message! For
Sutekh has given Tahutia to us, with his wife and his children; behold
the beginning of their tribute,' that she may comprehend the two hundred
sacks, which are full of men and cords and fetters." So he went before
them to please the heart of his mistress, saying, "We have laid hands on
Tahutia." Then the gates of the city were opened before the footmen:
they entered the city, they opened their burdens, they laid hands on
them of the city, both small and great, they put on them the cords and
fetters quickly; the power of Pharaoh seized upon that city. After he
had rested Tahutia sent a message to Egypt to the King Men-kheper-ra his
lord, saying, "Be pleased, for Amen thy good father has given to thee
the Foe in Joppa, together with all his people, likewise also his city.
Send, therefore, people to take them as captives that thou mayest fill
the house of thy father Amen Ra, king of the gods, with men-servants and
maid-servants, and that they may be overthrown beneath thy feet for ever
and ever."
REMARKS
This tale of the taking of Joppa appears to be probably on an historical
basis. Tahutia was a well-known officer of Tahutmes III.; and the
splendid embossed dish of weighty gold which the king presented to him
is one of the principal treasures of the Louvre museum. It is ornamented
with groups of fish in the flat bottom, and a long inscription around
the side.
Unfortunately the earlier part of this tale has been lost; but in order
to render it intelligible I have restored an opening to it, without
introducing any details but what are alluded to, or necessitated, by the
existing story. The original text begins at the star.
It is evident that the basis of the tale is the stratagem of the
Egyptian general, offering to make friends with the rebel of Joppa,
while he sought to trap him. To a Western soldier such an unblushing
offer of being treacherous to his master the king would be enough to
make the good faith of his proposals to the enemy very doubtful. But in
the East offers of wholesale desertion are not rare. In Greek history it
was quite an open question whether Athens or Persia would retain a
general's service; in Byzantine history a commander might be in favour
with the Khalif one year and with the Autokrator the next; and in the
present century the entire transfer of the Turkish fleet to Mohammed Ali
in 1840 is a grand instance of such a case.
The scheme of taking a fortress by means of smuggling in soldiers hidden
in packages has often recurred in history; but this taking of Joppa is
the oldest tale of the kind yet known. Following this we have the wooden
horse of Troy. Then comes in mediaeval times the Arab scheme for taking
Edessa, in 1038 A.D., by a train of five hundred camels bearing presents
for the Autokrator at Constantinople. The governor of Edessa declined to
admit such travellers, and a bystander, hearing some talking in the
baskets slung on the camels, soon gave the alarm, which led to the
destruction of the whole party; the chief alone, less hands, ears, and
nose, being left to take the tale back to Bagdad. And in fiction there
are the stories of a lady avenging her husband by introducing men hidden
in skins, and the best known version of all in the "Arabian Nights," of
Ali Baba and the thieves.
It appears from the tale that the conference of Tahutia with the rebel
took place between the town and the Egyptian army, but near the town.
Then Tahutia proposes to go into the town as a pledge of his sincerity,
while the men of the town were to supply his troops with fodder. But he
appears to have remained talking with the rebel in the tent, until the
lucky chance of the stick turned up. This cleared the way for a neater
management of his plan, by enabling him to quietly make away with the
chief, without exciting his suspicions beforehand.
The name of the cane of the king is partly illegible; but we know how
many actual sticks and personal objects have their own names inscribed
on them. Nothing had a real entity to the Egyptian mind without an
individual name belonging to it.
The message sent by the charioteer presupposes that he was in the
secret; and he must therefore have been an Egyptian who had not heartily
joined in the rebellion. From the conclusion we see that the captives
taken as slaves to Egypt were by no means only prisoners of war, but
were the ordinary civil inhabitants of the conquered cities, "them of
the city, both small and great."
The gold dish which the king gave to the tomb of Tahuti is so splendid
that it deserves some notice, especially as it has never been published
in England. It is circular, about seven inches across, with vertical
sides an inch high. The inside of the bottom bears a boss and rosette in
the centre, a line of swimming fish around that, and beyond all a chain
of lotus flowers. On the upright edge is an incised inscription, "Given
in praise by the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, _Ra-men-kheper,_ to the
hereditary chief, the divine father, the beloved by God, filling the
heart of the king in all foreign lands and in the isles in the midst of
the great sea, filling stores with lazuli, electrum, and gold, keeper of
all foreign lands, keeper of the troops, praised by the good gold lord
of both lands and his _ka,--_the royal scribe Tahuti deceased." This
splendid piece of gold work was therefore given in honour of Tahuti at
his funeral, to be placed in his tomb for the use of his _ka._ The
weight of it is very nearly a troy pound, being 5,729 grains or four
utens. The allusion on it to the Mediterranean wars of Tahuti,
"satisfying the king in all foreign lands and in the isles in the midst
of the great sea," is just in accord with this tale of the conquest of
Joppa.
Beside this golden bowl there are many other objects from Tahuti's tomb
which must have been very rich, and have escaped plundering until this
century. A silver dish, broken, and a canopic jar of alabaster, are in
Paris; another canopic jar, a palette, a kohl vase, and a heart scarab
set in gold, are in Leyden; while in Darmstadt is the dagger of this
great general. This piece of a popular tale founded on an incident of
his Syrian wars has curiously survived, while the more solid official
records of his conquests has perished in the wreck of history. His tomb
even is unknown, although it has been plundered; perhaps his active life
of foreign service did not give him that leisure to carve and decorate
it, which was so laboriously spent by the home-living dignitaries of
Thebes,
CLOSE OF THE XVIIIth DYNASTY
THE DOOMED PRINCE
There once was a king to whom no son was born; and his heart was
grieved, and he prayed for himself unto the gods around him for a child.
They decreed that one should be born to him. And his wife, after her
time was fulfilled, brought forth a son. Then came the Hathors to decree
for him a destiny; they said, "His death is to be by the crocodile, or
by the serpent, or by the dog." Then the people who stood by heard this,
and they went to tell it to his majesty. Then his majesty's heart
sickened very greatly. And his majesty caused a house to be built upon
the desert; it was furnished with people and with all good things of the
royal house, that the child should not go abroad. And when the child was
grown, he went up upon the roof, and he saw a dog; it was following a
man who was walking on the road. He spoke to his page, who was with him,
"What is this that walks behind the man who is coming along the road?"
He answered him, "This is a dog." The child said to him, "Let there be
brought to me one like it." The page went to repeat it to his majesty.
And his majesty said, "Let there be brought to him a little pet dog,
lest his heart be sad." And behold they brought to him the dog.
Then when the days increased after this, and when the child became grown
in all his limbs, he sent a message to his father saying, "Come,
wherefore am I kept here? Inasmuch as I am fated to three evil fates,
let me follow my desire. Let God do what is in His heart." They agreed
to all he said, and gave him all sorts of arms, and also his dog to
follow him, and they took him to the east country, and said to him,
"Behold, go thou whither thou wilt." His dog was with him, and he went
northward, following his heart in the desert, while he lived on all the
best of the game of the desert. He went to the chief of Naha-raina.
And behold there had not been any born to the chief of Naharaina, except
one daughter. Behold, there had been built for her a house; its seventy
windows were seventy cubits from the ground. And the chief caused to be
brought all the sons of the chiefs of the land of Khalu, and said to
them, "He who reaches the window of my daughter, she shall be to him for
a wife."
And many days after these things, as they were in their daily task, the
youth rode by the place where they were. They took the youth to their
house, they bathed him, they gave provender to his horses, they brought
all kinds of things for the youth, they perfumed him, they anointed his
feet, they gave him portions of their own food; and they spake to him,
"Whence comest thou, goodly youth?" He said to them, "I am son of an
officer of the land of Egypt; my mother is dead, and my father has taken
another wife. And when she bore children, she grew to hate me, and I
have come as a fugitive from before her." And they embraced him, and
kissed him.
And after many days were passed, he said to the youths, "What is it that
ye do here?" And they said to him, "We spend our time in this: we climb
up, and he who shall reach the window of the daughter of the chief of
Naharaina, to him will he given her to wife." He said to them, "If it
please you, let me behold the matter, that I may come to climb with
you." They went to climb, as was their daily wont: and the youth stood
afar off to behold; and the face of the daughter of the chief of
Naharaina was turned to them. And another day the sons came to climb,
and the youth came to climb with the sons of the chiefs. He climbed, and
he reached the window of the daughter of the chief of Naharaina. She
kissed him, she embraced him in all his limbs.
And one went to rejoice the heart of her father, and said to him, "One
of the people has reached the window of thy daughter." And the prince
inquired of the messenger, saying, "The son of which of the princes is
it?" And he replied to him, "It is the son of an officer, who has come
as a fugitive from the land of Egypt, fleeing from before his stepmother
when she had children." Then the chief of Naharaina was exceeding angry;
and he said, "Shall I indeed give my daughter to the Egyptian fugitive?
Let him go back whence he came." And one came to tell the youth, "Go
back to the place thou earnest from." But the maiden seized his hand;
she swore an oath by God, saying, "By the being of Ra Harakhti, if one
takes him from me, I will not eat, I will not drink, I shall die in that
same hour." The messenger went to tell unto her father all that she
said. Then the prince sent men to slay the youth, while he was in his
house. But the maiden said, "By the being of Ra, if one slay him I shall
be dead ere the sun goeth down. I will not pass an hour of life if I am
parted from him." And one went to tell her father. Then the prince made
them bring the youth with the maiden. The youth was seized with fear
when he came before the prince. But he embraced him, he kissed him all
over, and said, "Oh! tell me who thou art; behold, thou art to me as a
son." He said to him, "I am a son of an officer of the land of Egypt; my
mother died, my father took to him a second wife; she came to hate me,
and I fled a fugitive from before her." He then gave to him his daughter
to wife; he gave also to him a house, and serfs, and fields, also cattle
and all manner of good things.
But after the days of these things were passed, the youth said to his
wife, "I am doomed to three fates--a crocodile, a serpent, and a dog."
She said to him, "Let one kill the dog which belongs to thee." He
replied to her, "I am not going to kill my dog, which I have brought up
from when it was small." And she feared greatly for her husband, and
would not let him go alone abroad.
And one went with the youth toward the land of Egypt, to travel in that
country. Behold the crocodile of the river, he came out by the town in
which the youth was. And in that town was a mighty man. And the mighty
man would not suffer the crocodile to escape. And when the crocodile was
bound, the mighty man went out and walked abroad. And when the sun rose
the mighty man went back to the house; and he did so every day, during
two months of days.
Now when the days passed after this, the youth sat making a good day in
his house.
And when the evening came he lay down on his bed, sleep seized upon his
limbs; and his wife filled a bowl of milk, and placed it by his side.
Then came out a serpent from his hole, to bite the youth; behold his wife
was sitting by him, she lay not down. Thereupon the servants gave milk
to the serpent, and he drank, and was drunk, and lay upside down. Then
his wife made it to perish with the blows of her dagger. And they woke
her husband, who was astonished; and she said unto him, "Behold thy God
has given one of thy dooms into thy hand; He will also give thee the
others." And he sacrificed to God, adoring Him, and praising His spirits
from day to day.
And when the days were passed after these things, the youth went to walk
in the fields of his domain. He went not alone, behold his dog was
following him. And his dog ran aside after the wild game, and he
followed the dog. He came to the river, and entered the river behind
his dog. Then came out the crocodile, and took him to the place where
the mighty man was. And the crocodile said to the youth, "I am thy doom,
following after thee. ..."
[Here the papyrus breaks off.]
REMARKS
This tale is preserved in one of the Harris papyri (No. 500) in the
British Museum. It has been translated by Goodwin, Chabas, Maspero, and
Ebers. The present version is adapted from that of Maspero, with
frequent reference by Mr. Griffith to the original.
The marvellous parentage of a fated or gifted hero is familiar in
Eastern tales, and he is often described as a divine reward to a
long-childless king. This element of fate or destiny is, however, not
seen before this age in Egyptian ideas; nor, indeed, would it seem at
all in place with the simple, easygoing, joyous life of the early days.
It belongs to an age when ideals possess the mind, when man struggles
against his circumstances, when he wills to be different from what he
is. Dedi or the shipwrecked sailor think nothing about fate, but live
day by day as life comes to them. There is here, then, a new element,
that of striving and of unrest, quite foreign to the old Egyptian mind.
The age of this tale is shown plainly in the incidents. The prince goes
to the chief of Naharaina, a land probably unknown to the Egyptians
until the Asiatic conquests of the XVIIIth Dynasty had led them to the
upper waters of the Euphrates. In earlier days Sanehat fled to the
frontier at the Wady Tumilat, and was quite lost to Egypt when he
settled in the south of Palestine. But when the Doomed Prince goes out
of Egypt he goes to the chief of Naharaina, as the frontier State. This
stamps the tale as subsequent to the wars of the Tahutimes family, and
reflects rather the peaceful intercourse of the great monarch Amenhotep
the Third. If it belonged to the Ramessides we should not hear of
Naharaina, which was quite lost to them, but rather of Dapur (Tabor) and
Kadesh, and of the Hittites as the familiar frontier power.
The Hathors here appear as the Fates, instead of the goddesses Isis,
Nebhat, Mes-khent, and Hakt, of the old tale in the IVth Dynasty (see
first series, p. 33); and we find in the next tale of Anpu and Bata, in
the XIXth Dynasty, that the seven Hathors decree the fate of the wife of
Bata. That Hathor should be a name given to seven deities is not strange
when we see that Hathor was a generic name for a goddess. There was the
Hathor of foreign lands, such as Punt or Sinai; there was the Hathor of
home towns, as Dendera or Atfih; and Hathor was as widely known, and yet
as local, as the Madonna. In short, to one of the races which composed
the Egyptian people Hathor was the term for any goddess, or for a
universal goddess to whom all others were assimilated. Why and how this
title "house of Horus" should be so general is not obvious.
The variety of fate here predicted is like the vagueness of the fate of
Bata's wife, by "a sharp death." It points to the Hathors predicting as
seers, rather than to their having the control of the future. It bears
the stamp of the oracle of Delphi, rather than that of a divine decree.
In this these goddesses differ greatly from the Parcae, whose ordinances
not even Zeus could withstand, as Lucian lets us know in one of the most
audacious and philosophical of the dialogues. The Hathors seem rather to
deal with what we should call luck than with fate: they see the nature
of the close of life from its beginning, without either knowing or
controlling its details.
In this tale we meet for the first time the idea of inaccessible and
mysterious buildings; and from the resort to this element or curiosity
in describing both the prince and the princess, it appears as if it were
then a new motive in story-telling, and had not lost its power. To
modern ears it is, of course, done to death since the "Castle of
Otranto"; though as a minor element it can still be gently used by the
poet and novelist in a moated grange, a house in a marsh or a maze.
Another point of wonder, so well known in later times, is the large and
mystic number of windows, like the 365 windows attributed to great
buildings of the present age. It would not be difficult from these
papyrus tales to start an historical dictionary of the elements of
fiction: a kind of analysis that should be the death of much of the
venerable stock-in-trade.
We see coming in here, more strongly than before, the use of emotions
and the force of character. The generous friendship of the sons of the
Syrian chiefs; then the burst of passionate love from the chiefs
daughter, which saves the prince's life twice over from her father, and
guards him afterwards from his fates; again, the devotion of the prince
to his favourite dog, in spite of all warnings--these show a reliance on
personal emotion and feeling in creating the interest of the tale, quite
different from the mere interest of incident which was employed earlier.
The reason which the prince alleges for his leaving Egypt is also a
touch of nature, the wish of a mother to oust her stepson in order to
make way for her own children, one of the deepest and most elemental
feelings of feminine nature.