Idylls and Lyrics of The Nile :: :: University of Virginia Library

Entef sits in solemn rest,
See one hand is on his breast,
One outstretched with joy to take
Bowl of wine and flesh and cake:
Underneath his master's chair
Waits the hound; and cool the air
Blows about him from the fan
Of the grave fly-flapper man.

Entef cannot speak or think
Till his soul have meat and drink.
Bring him food, and pray the gods
Speed it through their drear abodes,
So that Entef in Amenti,
Finding fruit and flesh in plenty,
May remember what was done
When he dwelt beneath the Sun;
See again his pleasant fields,
Know what wine his wintage yields,
Count his labourers, tell his flocks,
Drive his asses, slay the ox;

Laugh at dance and tumblers gay,
Hear the old blind harper play,
Watch the sword-stick flash and crack,
Wrestlers straining arm and back,
Know again the sportsman's zest,
Feel again his knees caressed
By the children and the wife
Whom he loved as he loved life.

Stranger, let the words be read
Over Entef's princely head;
They are words will give him rest,
The reciter shall be blest.

`Ye who live upon the earth,
Simply born, of gentle birth,
Priest or scribe or minister,
Yea, or layman, entering here
To this tomb with bated breath,
Loving life and hating death,
Wishing from the city's gods
Favour for your own abodes,
Fleeing from the wrath to come,
And in your eternal home
Praying that your rest may be
Endless in security,
Hoping to your children's hands
To transmit your name and lands—

You, if scribe you are, recite
Words that on this stone I write,
Or if words you cannot spell,
Hear them read, repeat them well.

Saying “Offerings be thine,
Amen, lord of Karnak's shrine,
That he of his grace will give
So that Entef's soul may live,
Thousands of the loaves we bake,
Thousands of the wine we make,
Thousands of fat oxen bred,
Thousands of the geese well-fed,
Thousands too of garments meet
For the soul in his retreat.
So that all things pure and good
For his living shadowhood
May be his who bids you pray,
Ere you pass upon your way.”’

Note.—The funerary inscription, of which this is a metrical rendering, is translated by M. Maspero, ‘Conference,’ p. 382.

M. de Rouget dates it as belonging to the twelfth dynasty. A similar invocation is seen at the tomb of Ameni Amenemhat, at Beni Hassan. Travellers will remember the famous Stele of Entef in the Gîzeh Museum, which is described in the first part of the poem.

The Egyptians believed that the shadow, or Ka, or double, of the deceased could not be fully alive in the next world unless an abundance of food was supplied it by way of offerings brought to the tomb-chamber on stated days.