Poems from the Ancient Egyptian

Poems from the Ancient Egyptian

During the New Kingdom (1567-332 BCE), a poetry of intense feeling developed in Egypt, most of it in the form of love poems. Whole series of love poems have come down to us, sometimes linked together in the form of dialogue, ‘the ebb and flow of impressions counting infinitely more that external facts.’[1] The context of the following fragmentary, Egyptian lyrics, many of which were intended to be sung to melodies now unfortunately lost to us, is obscure, as are many lines of the text itself, hitherto untranslated. However, we may tentatively reconstruct their setting as follows: A poet of the XXXth dynasty (c.330 BCE)[2] becomes aware, thanks to a dream vouchsafed to him by a goddess when recovering from a severe illness, that he is a reincarnation of a general who had lived nearly three millennia earlier, during the 1^st Dynasty (c.3100-2980 BCE). On awakening, he realized that his present wife had also been his wife in that past life. Thanking the gods for this revelation, he is moved to pour out his feelings into songs:

He returns to his wife:[3]

After twenty-seven centuries

Of dust and darkness

Blown like a leaf

From life to life,

I rise at last

To bathe again in the clear pools of your eyes,

Pure as Nile water,

Where the holy ibis bathes at dawn,

Veiled with the storm clouds of your hair.

He recalls his dying vow to rejoin her.

My wound

Burnt like the sacred fire of the Magi.

Upon your skin

Cool as the water lily,

White as papyrus,

I wrote in my heart’s blood:

‘Death shall not part us.’

He recalls her mourning for him.

As the sacred Nile in flood,

Or salt waves of the Great Green[4],

So were the tears of blood,

You shed for me, unseen[5].

On his death-bed, he knew they were to be parted for centuries for offending the gods.

Dying, I glimpsed you in some far-off life,

And kissed your eyelids shut, tasting your tears.

The gods are cruel! We who were ever one

Stretch out vain hands across the gulf of years.

He swears his love is eternal

Like Seti, the great lion

I led to battle before my high-plumed captains,

My passions slumbered.

Tread softly, Nofret![6]

Devouring time shall never blunt those paws.

He implored the Goddess to grant them rebirth together.

As the fallen obelisk

Of a vanquished god

Lies whelmed in sand,

So slept our love

For endless centuries,

Raise it anew, O Hathor![7]

Great goddess, grant us life.

Their undying love for each other has finally brought them together.

As monkeys sport

Upon the islands of the Cataract,

So leapt my heart

To hear your gentle feet upon my stairs.

Seeing your penitent tears bathe my face,

The gods were merciful, and granted grace.

---

[1] Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Macmillan Press, London and Basingstoke, 1975, 214a. Several excellent translations of these love poems are extant, among which we may single out B. de Rachewiltz, Liriche Amorose degli antiche Egiziani, Roma, 1955 and G. Nolli, Canti d’amore dell’antico Egitto, Napoli, 1959.

[2] The XXXth Dynasty was extinguished by Alexander III of Macedonia (Alexander the Great) in 332 BCE.

[3] The titles have been appended for clarification and are not a feature of the original.

[4] The Mediterranean.

[5] Because his eyes were already closing in death.

[6] His wife.

[7] Goddess of love and beauty.

COPYRIGHT (C) 2010 J D FRODSHAM