Egypt.
—The literature of Egypt probably ranks next to that of Chaldea in point of antiquity. In fact, not a few of the archæologists have contended that the civilization of Egypt was of still earlier development than that of the countries of Mesopotamia or of any other portion of the world.
The earliest Egyptian writings were, with few exceptions, theological in their character and appear to have originated in the temples. First among the authors of Egypt stands, according to tradition, Thoth-Hermes, the ibis-headed god of wisdom and of literature, the “Lord of the Hall of Books.” His companion is the beautiful Ma, goddess of truth and justice, a very proper associate for the founder of a nation’s literature.
By later generations, Thoth-Hermes came to be known as Hermes Trismegistus, the god of threefold greatness or majesty. The forty-two works, the authorship of which is ascribed to Thoth or Trismegistus, formed, according to Karpeles, a kind of national encyclopædia, presenting the canon of the faith and the knowledge of ancient Egypt.
Of these so-called Hermetic books, only portions appear to have remained in existence with the beginnings of the historic period, but of these portions certain fragments have been preserved for the inspection of scholars of to-day. In the examination in 1892 of some newly discovered tombs, papyri were found which proved to contain religious writings based upon the Hermetic books, and which were themselves the work of scribes writing during the 4th dynasty, 3733-3566 B.C.
The founder of the 4th dynasty was Khufa, better known as Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid, who is also ranked as an author, and to whose reign belongs the first record of the famous Book of the Dead. This Book of the Dead consisted of invocations to the deities, psalms, prayers, and the descriptions of the experiences that awaited the spirit of the departed in the world to come, experiences that included an exhaustive analysis of his past life and his final judgment for the life hereafter. The Egyptian title of the book was, according to Karpeles, The Manifestation to the Light, that is, the book revealing the light. Rawlinson specifies for it another name, To Go Forth from Day. Portions of the book of the dead are said to have been written by Thoth, and other portions are spoken of as “the composition of a great god.” These belonged to what might be called the permanent part of the text or Ritual. Other divisions or pages containing special references to the deceased would, of course, be distinctive in each case. The copies prepared for any particular funeral were more or less comprehensive in their matter and more or less elaborate and costly in their form according to the wealth and importance of the departed, and according also to the probable buying capacities of the mourners. The material written upon was always papyrus, while for the covers, tinted or stained sheepskin was used. One copy of the book was always placed in the tomb, as a safe-conduct for the pilgrim soul on its journey through Amenti (Hades), and for its guidance in the world to come. This practice has secured the preservation in the tombs of a great number of copies of the Book of the Dead, more than one half of the existing papyri being transcripts of different portions of its text. The Book of the Dead enjoys the distinction of being the first literature of the regular sale of which there is any evidence. The undertaker, acting probably under the instructions of the priests, made a business of disposing of copies of the “book” among the mourners and friends of the deceased, for whom it served as a memorial of the departed. The Egyptian undertaker, distributing in this manner from a period three thousand years or more before the Christian era, authorized or authenticated copies of the sacred scriptures, accompanied in some cases by memorial pages concerning the deceased, must take rank as the first bookseller known to history. I speak of authenticated copies, for it is probable that the authorized text of the scriptures was kept in the temples or in the colleges of the priests, and that the copies were prepared by the priests themselves or by scribes working under their supervision and direction. In this case the proceeds of the sales were doubtless divided between the priests and the undertakers, and the priests’ portion may to some extent have found its way into the treasury of the temple. The scribes employed were sometimes assistants or students attached to the temple, but not infrequently slaves, although later the work of scribes came to be regarded as honorable and as semi-professional in its character, and some among them held high stations. The control exercised by the priests over the authorized texts of their sacred scriptures, including certain writings in addition to those belonging to the ritual of the dead, must have given to them a practical copyright of the material. The most complete copy of the Book of the Dead, ranking as one of the oldest works of literature in the world, is now in the British Museum. A small edition has been printed under the editorship of Mr. Budge, in precise fac-simile.
Apart from the Book of the Dead, the oldest book of which there is record in the literature of Egypt, and one of the oldest in the known literature of the world, is a collection of Precepts, bearing the name of Ptah-Hotep. Their author was a viceroy or governor of Egypt, and was a younger son of Assa, the seventh king of the 5th dynasty, whose reign began 3366 B.C. The Prisse papyrus, discovered at Thebes in 1856, and now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, is said by its discoverer, Chabas, to be the oldest papyrus in existence, and to have been written about 2500 B.C.[2] This papyrus contains a copy of these Precepts of Ptah-Hotep, which have apparently retained their interest for Egyptian readers for nearly nine centuries, and which now, more than five thousand years after their first publication, have been issued, for the benefit of modern readers, in French and English versions.
The Precepts are characterized by simplicity, directness, high-mindedness, great refinement of nature, and a keen sense of humor, and they give to the reader a very pleasant impression of their noble author. The great importance laid by Ptah-Hotep upon courtesy of manner and of action recall to mind Lord Chesterfield, but the courtly Egyptian had a heart and convictions. English and American readers are under obligations to the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley not only for placing before them this antique and distinctively interesting production, but also for his excellent metrical versions of some of the representative hymns of Ancient Egypt.[3] The original translation from the papyrus of the Precepts was made by P. Virey for Records of the Past. It is Virey’s impression that the Precepts were in part original with the Viceroy, and in part collected by him from older sources. In reading these pithy words of wise counsel of the shrewd and kindly old Egyptian, one naturally recalls the proverbs ascribed to King Solomon, the sayings of Confucius, and certain of the utterances of Socrates. I do not mean that Ptah-Hotep, on the strength of the fragmentary utterances that have come down to us, is to be ranked with these great teachers, but that it is interesting to note how early in literature favor was found for the form of expressing opinions, or of giving counsel in the form of maxims or proverbs. The proverbs of Solomon are said to have been written about 1000 B.C. The conversations of Confucius were held about 500 years later, and the utterances of Socrates were closed with his death, 399 B.C.
Rawnsley gives, among other renderings, metrical versions of the following specimens of early Egyptian poetry: “A Festal Dirge of King Antef,” 2533-2466 B.C.; “The Song of the Harper,” about 1700; “Hymn to Pharaoh,” about 1400; “Dirge of Meneptah,” about 1333; “Hymn to Amen Ra,” about 1300; “Hymn to the Nile,” about 1300; “Lamentations of Isis and Nepathys,” about 320; “The Poem of Penta-ur on the Exploits of Rameses II.,” written in 1326 B.C. The last-mentioned is interesting as being almost the sole example of an Egyptian epic. It is not clear whether Penta-ur won his position as court poet-laureate by the production of this poem, or whether, being already laureate, the epic was written as one of his official compositions. Under the instructions of the king, however, whose exploits it commemorated, the poem was made a national epic, and copies of it appear to have been officially distributed throughout the kingdom. The reign of Rameses, which covered the years 1350-1300 B.C., marked, according to Rawlinson and Karpeles, the culmination of a period which was important not only for success in war, but for literary production. Under Rameses, literary activity, no longer confined to the temple, was in part at least transferred to the court. He collected about him scholars and philosophers, and gave great rewards for successful literary efforts. The approval given by royalty to Penta-ur’s poem doubtless secured for the author much better results than would have come to him through the royalty enjoyed under the modern literary system.
The king took pride in the great library which had been brought together under his instructions. Over the entrance to the great hall of the library was engraved the inscription, “A place of healing for the soul.”
By some historians, Rameses II., this king of a long reign and of great exploits, the patron of literature, whose massive and well-preserved figure has only recently been disentombed, has been identified with the Pharaoh of the Exodus. I believe, however, that the better authorities have decided that the Exodus took place under the Pharaoh who was the son of the great Rameses.
Rawlinson speaks of the Egyptians as possessing at a very early date an “extensive literature, comprising books on religion, morals, law, rhetoric, arithmetic, mensuration, geometry, medicine, books of travel, and above all, novels!” He says further, however, that, as far as can be judged from the specimens which have been preserved, “the merit of the works is slight. The novels are vapid, the medical treatises interlarded with charms and exorcisms, the travels devoid of interest, the general style of all the books forced and stilted.”
Rawlinson adds that, while “intellectually the Egyptians must take rank among the foremost nations of remote antiquity, they cannot compare with the great European races whose rise was later, the Greeks and Romans.... Egypt may in some particulars have stimulated Greek thought, directing it in new lines, and giving it a basis to work upon; but otherwise it cannot be said that the world owes much of its intellectual progress to this people, about whose literary productions there is always something that is weak and childish.”[4]
On the other hand, the long list of distinguished Greeks who sought learning in Egypt shows the respect in which Egyptian culture was held. In the list of the subjects considered in Egyptian literature, Rawlinson appears also to have overlooked astronomy, in which the investigations of Egyptian scholars were certainly of the first importance. Notwithstanding the production of a very considerable body of literature, there appears to be no evidence of any compensation being secured by the authors, or of literary productions taking shape as property. The scribes, who did the copying, must of course have been paid, for the Egyptians were probably not able, as were later the Romans, to secure the labor of skilled and educated slaves. These scribes were for the most part natives and freemen, and they came to form a very important class, in which class the most important were those engaged in what might be called the civil service of the government. Of payment to the authors, however, there is no trace, and they must have written solely for their own satisfaction or for hopes of favor. There is also nothing to inform us of the manner in which the copies of the books which had been “manifolded” were distributed amongst the readers, and we can only conjecture the existence of collections or libraries from which the books could be borrowed, or a practice on the part of the wealthy writers (a practice not unknown in modern times) of a wide distribution of presentation copies to friends whose appreciation was hoped for.
The royal library of Rameses contained, says Karpeles, works under such headings as annals, sacred poetry, royal poetry (i. e., poetry addressed to the king), travels, works on agriculture, irrigation, and astronomy, correspondence and fiction.
Rawlinson speaks of some characteristic tales which were preserved from generation to generation, such as the Tale of the Two Brothers (charmingly narrated by the late Amelia B. Edwards), The Doomed Prince, The Possessed Princesses, etc. He also refers to collections of correspondence apparently preserved to serve as models or patterns, after the fashion of the “complete letter-writers” of to-day.
Karpeles points out that the early Egyptian literature was particularly rich in folk-tales, or Märchen. It is possible that in Egypt, as in Greece and Persia, the folk-tales as well as the folk-songs, and such an occasional epic as the Poem of Penta-on, were recited to the people by peripatetic reciters or rhapsodists. There are references to such recitations taking place at court and at the banquets of the rich.
It would have been interesting if it had occurred to some Hebrew scribe, endowed with a sense of humor, to send for the royal library in Thebes, as a remembrance of the guests who had gone out of Egypt, an Egyptian rendering of the Book of Exodus, or even of the Song of Miriam.