Now when the days were multiplied after these things, when he had fulfilled many years as heir of the whole land, his Majesty flew up to heaven. There was command given, "Let my great nobles of his Majesty be brought before me, that I may make them to know all that has happened to me." And they brought to him his wife, and he argued with her before them, and their case was decided. They brought to him his elder brother; he made him hereditary prince in all his land. He was thirty years King of Egypt, and he died, and his elder brother stood in his place on the day of burial.
Excellently finished in peace, for the Ka of the scribe of the treasury, Kagabu, of the treasury of Pharaoh, and for the scribe Hora, and the scribe Meremapt. Written by the scribe Anena, the owner of this roll. He who speaks against this roll, may Tahuti be his opponent.
Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.
THE STORY OF SETNA
[The beginning of this tale is lost, but it is clear from what remains of it that Setna Kha-em-uast, son of a Pharaoh who may be identified with Rameses II., of the XIXth Dynasty (about 1300 B.C.), was a diligent student of the ancient writings, chiefly for the sake of the occult knowledge which they were supposed to contain. He discovered, or was told of, the existence of a book which Thoth, the god of letters, science and magic, had "written with his own hand," and learned that this book was to be found in the cemetery of Memphis, in the tomb of Na-nefer-ka-ptah, the only son of some earlier Pharaoh. Setna evidently succeeded in finding and entering this tomb, and there he saw the kas or ghosts of Na-nefer-ka-ptah, his wife (and sister) Ahura, and their little boy Merab; and with them was the book. To dissuade Setna from abstracting the book, Ahura tells him how they had become possessed of it, and had paid for it with their earthly lives; and it is with her tale that the papyrus begins. Setna, however, insists upon taking the book; but Na-nefer-ka-ptah challenges him, as a good scribe and a learned man, to a trial of skill in a game, and in the imposition of magical penalties on the loser. Setna agrees; but being worsted, he calls in outside help and succeeds in carrying off the book. Na-nefer-ka-ptah comforts Ahura for its loss by assuring her that Setna shall ignominiously restore it. Setna studies the book with delight; but presently, by the magic power of Na-nefer-ka-ptah, he becomes the victim of an extraordinary hallucination, and the strength of his spirit is broken because (in imagination at least) he is steeped in impurity and crime. When he awakes from this trance, Pharaoh persuades him to return the book to its dead owners. On his return to the tomb, Na-nefer-ka-ptah exacts from him the promise to go to the cemetery of Koptos and bring thence to Memphis the bodies of Ahura and of Merab, which had been buried there, apart from him. Setna duly performs his promise, and so the story ends.
The only known copy of this tale appears to have been written in 251 B.C., the thirty-fifth year of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and it must have been composed at least as late as the Sebennyte Dynasty, early in the fourth century, although it refers to historical characters of a thousand years before.
The story is more elaborate, and its plot is more coherent than is the case with the earlier tales such as that of Anpu and Bata, in which events succeed each other often without natural connection. The language however is in simple narrative style, without any attempt at fine writing.
At the point at which the mutilated papyrus begins, we find that Ahura is telling Setna the story of her life. Apparently he has just been told how she sent a messenger to the king, asking that she may be married to her brother Na-nefer-ka-ptah. The king has refused her request, and the messenger has reproached him for his unkindness; the king replies:—]
"It is thou who art dealing wrongly towards me. If it happen that I have not a child after two children, is it the law to marry the one with the other of them? I will marry Naneferkaptah with the daughter of a commander of troops, and I will marry Ahura with the son of another commander of troops: it has so happened in our family much.'