 |
Thutmose, Model Bust of Queen Nefertiti, c. 1340 BCE,
|
Works discussed:
- The Tale of Sinuhe
- Egyptian Love Poems
- Setne Khamwas and the Mummies
- Stela of Taimhotep
________________________
As for death, ‘Come’ is his name:
every one whom he summons, they come to him at once…
In several of these texts there is communication between the dead and the living. How exactly do these two realms interact? Do the living profit from being contacted by the dead? In what manner can the dead be assisted by the living?
The land of the living and the "land beyond" have an open relationship. They communicate and influence each other at will, and even though the latter is often more powerful and informed than the former, it's life that's coveted most. In fact it may be said that all of Ancient Egypt's society was geared towards making death more bearable--that is, more like life. So the answer is mostly 'no', the living rarely were better off when interacting with the dead, either because they meddled in affairs beyond their control, or because the dead wanted something from them.
What the dead wanted were the luxuries and simple pleasures that life affords: food, friendship, even a cool breeze on a warm day. The living aided the dead by providing them these comforts--or at least their symbols--in their tomb. Early on Egypt would include the real thing, often killing servants, pets, and even family members to be buried with the patriarch. But over time they saw the foolishness in this, so simulacra were substituted for living things. But the inert remained: valuables, art, and of course, words.
 |
The stela of Taimhotep. |
The Stela is bleak. I'm not sure if it's done as a genuine attempt to guilt people into providing the comforts I spoke of earlier--in this case water, wind, and incense--or as a warning to its readers to appreciate life. Overtly it achieves both, with Taimhotep urging her husband to "follow your heart", and despairing of the cruelty of death. She denies the standard consolation of religion, which says we will be reborn in light, but only stresses the darkness, hunger, and eternal isolation of the beyond.
I want to say Taimhotep longs for life--some of her language implies this--but there's more a bitterness about what dying entails. Death's inexorability, and the futility of the living to alleviate it, almost negates her pleas for relief. The most striking line is when she tells visitors to "be fearful for me", as if all death is a form of hell. Taken together with the imposing image of the stela itself, and we're left with a gnawing urgency that's hard to place.
There is an interesting interplay between the comic and tragic elements in Setne Khamwas and the Mummies. What sort of genre is this work? Why are there comic elements in a tale with such a serious undertone? How does the comic relate to the tragic?
The animated film director Don Bluth once observed (and often practiced) that as long as a story has a happy ending, it can go as dark or sad as needed in the middle and still leave a satisfying residue when finished. Setne Khamwas proves this to be false. In the first half, Naneferkaptah's theft of Thoth's magic book has disastrous consequences, leading to the deaths of his wife and son followed by his own suicide. After this heavy tale Setne barely registers a response and gingerly steals the book for his own gain. When he subsequently suffers an illusion to rape Tabubu and murder his family to do so, his boobery at being discovered naked by the Pharaoh (all of it resembling a bad dream) is so jarring that we're in fact left in a confused emotional state.
While ostensibly an example of a tragicomedy, it's hard for me to explain these conflicting tones. I wonder if the original frame of this story was a grave warning to would-be coffin-thieves (ubiquitous in ancient Egypt) that morphed into something comedic over time, as the reality of the powerlessness of the dead seeped into the popular consciousness. Hence we have a wacky adventure tale resting on an older layer of Egyptian religious injunctions.
If this is not so, I can only guess that the story sought to create a night/day juxtaposition, wherein the torture of death provides sharp relief against the fun of life, leading the reader to stick with one over the other. As with any tragicomedy, the comedic bits make the tragic bits more palatable.
In the Egyptian love poetry, the "Seventh Stanza" states, "If I see her, I'll become healthy" (16). How does this relate to the rest of the poem and other poems in this selection? What is the relationship between desire and satisfaction in these works, and does it seem hyperbolic? In what ways are the poems serious in their insistence of happiness in the beloved?
Though undermined somewhat by the knowledge that old male scribes likely wrote these (including the female pov ones) rather than young couples in love, I think the poems are standard courtship and pillow talk. Which is to say they are hyperbolic by definition, yet somehow never hyperbolic enough.
The quoted line epitomizes the rhetorical theme of these works: there is a lack in these people's lives, or more appropriately a hole, that love fills. One is sick until their love makes them healthy. One is a ring to be worn on a finger. One is a maid to dress their mistress. One has the body with which to fill and satiate the hungry partner. Even a quick glance when passing a doorway where the crush lives is enough to liven one's day. In short, these poems frame love as incomplete until consummated, not just in sex, but in recognition that lovers are two components which ache incessantly for each other. The creative imagery and symbolism used to communicate this is part of what makes these poems so enjoyable.
 |
The Tale of Sinuhe in “hieratic” writing on papyrus. |
To Sinuhe 'home' is not merely a location, as if a geographic landmark that can be found on a map. It is nothing less than the epicenter for the entire universe: a Polaris to which all compass's point. It calls to him everlasting, heard less with his ear than his heart. The need to die in this land--at the very least be buried there--completes a person's narrative by having their soul return from whence it came (i.e., their life has come full-circle). Put another way, one's homeland is an integral part of their identity, without which they cannot be considered whole.
Sir Walter's Scott's poem is indeed fitting for Sinuhe, and may be taken as a fruitful interpretation of his feelings. If a difference may be found, it's the political element that scared Sinuhe into staying away from Egypt until invited to return. I cannot imagine Scott being intimidated in this way, as he explicitly renounces the merits of any life away from one's "native land."
I didn't see any evidence of this. Which is, in fact, standard for ancient religions: "sinning" was not an immoral act, but simply an act offending a deity. Worship and religion weren't about being good people, but in being rewarded or punished for placating or insulting cruel gods. Egyptian literature reflects this. There is ritual behavior, but none of it enunciates or even implies a moral code.
The only "end" Egyptian religion aims for is the proper burial of the dead so they may have a suitable afterlife. (Interestingly, early on in Egyptian history mummification was reserved only for the Pharaoh, then the priestly class and other important elites, to eventually anyone with the coin to buy it.) Some have joked that all of ancient Egyptian life was reduced to preparing for death, not via any kind of moral performance as in Christianity, but simply in digging one's grave.
