[3] That is, the Hittite king.
[4] Erman: Life in Ancient Egypt, 529.
CHAPTER XII.
Praising Learning.[1]
I have seen violence, I have seen violence, give thy heart after letters.
I have seen one free from labors; consider there is not anything beyond letters.
Love letters as thy mother. I make its beauty go in thy face.
It is a greater possession than all besides.
He who has commenced to avail himself is from his infancy a counsellor.
He is sent to perform commissions.
He who does not go is in sack-cloth.
I have not seen a blacksmith on a commission, a founder who goes on an embassy.
I have seen the blacksmith at his work at the mouth of the furnace.
His fingers like things of crocodiles, he smells worse than the eggs of fishes.
Every carpenter carrying tools,—is he more at rest than the laborer?
I tell you the fisherman suffers more than any employment.
Consider, is he not toiling on the river? he is mixed with the crocodiles.
Should the clumps of papyrus diminish, then he is crying for help.
If he has not been told that a crocodile is not there, terrors blind him.
Consider, there is not an employment destitute of superior ones
Except the scribe, who is first, for he knows letters; he is greater than they.
Shouldst thou walk after great men, thou art to proceed with great knowledge.
Do not say proud words. Be sealed in thyself alone.