The Story of Nefrekepta, from a Demotic Papyrus

Henry Frowde, M.A. Publisher to the University of Oxford London, Edinburgh, New York Toronto and Melbourne
PRINTED IN ENGLAND

The original of this tale is in Demotic Egyptian, in prose, on a fragmentary papyrus dated 'the first month of winter, in the fifteenth year' of some king unnamed. Palaeographical evidence suggests some date about 100 b.c. My own education has been neglected in the matter of Demotic, and I know the tale only from the literal translation which accompanies the text in Dr. Griffith's Stories of the High Priests of Memphis . In that form, however, it so fascinated me that I presently found myself, to the neglect of more urgent duties, putting it into English verse and filling up the gaps in the narrative. I have tried to preserve the style and often the exact words of the original, as rendered by Dr. Griffith, but in other respects temptations have been great and I have not resisted them.
The names present some difficulties. In Demotic, if I understand aright, the vowels are not written and the consonants often do not mean what they seem to mean. The hero's name is spelt, roughly speaking, N('y)-nfr-k'-Pth, the phantom lady's Ty-bwbwe; the priest's is written Stne, but was probably pronounced, so Dr. Griffith tells me, Sětôn or Sětân.
While doing the verses I was constantly reminded of certain Egyptian illuminations by Miss Florence Kingsford, now Mrs. Sydney Cockerell, which I had seen some years ago, and she has been so kind as to provide the book with a frontispiece and tail-piece.
Those who desire further information about Setne will find it in the introduction to Dr. Griffith's learned and delightful book (Clarendon Press, 1900).
G. M.