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

Here, conscious of his work well done,
There rests the lady Hennu's son;
Who, in his agèd father's place,
Warred with the Ethiopian race,
Set them their bounds, and to his king,
Usertsen, brought back offering;
Chief president of prophets he,
And nomarch of Antinöe;
One of old Egypt's feudal lords;
Now hearken Amenemhât's words.

‘Ne'er from my word have I gone,
All that I said I have done.
A gracious, compassionate man,
A governor loving his town.
In Meh all the years of my span
Was I ruler; I laboured to plan
The palace, the work was mine own.

To the priests of the temple of Meh
Three thousand bulls have I driven,
Three thousand bulls with their cows,
That unto the gods might be given
Gifts and due paying of vows.
Honour had I from the king,
For this that I carried him all
The fruits of the milking stall,
And unto the palace did bring
Milk, white cheeses and whey;
Yea, none contributed more
Than I to the royal store.

Never a child did I harm,
Nor took from a widow her gains,
Nor drove a hind from my gate,
Nor put a herdsman in chains,
Nor impressed from a five-handed farm
Its ploughmen to till for the State.

None were sad in my day,
None went hungry of mouth,
Wretched, or poor at my hand;
If famine threatened to come,
I ploughed all the arable land,
I sowed all the fallows of Meh,
From the northern gate of the Nome
To the frontier lines of the South.

So to the people I gave
Food and provision for life,
None went hungry or bare;
With the widow as with the wife
My doles did I equally share,
The master alike with the slave
Were both of them one in my care;
And if ever the flood was great,
And men grew rich by the yield,
No new taxes or rate
Were laid on the farm and the field.’

Note.—One of the most interesting of the northern group of Rock Tombs at Beni Hasân, which were all hewn at the time of Usertsen i. of the twelfth dynasty, b.c. 2433 to b.c. 2400, is the tomb of the son of the lady Hennu, Ameni Amenemhât, one of the feudal lords of Egypt, chief of the nome of Meh or Antinöe, and chief president of the prophets. In his youth he was sent to Ethiopia in the place of his father, who was too old for the task; he conducted successfully the warlike expedition, settled the frontiers of the country, and returned with much tribute and spoil. The pictures on the walls of the tomb, that are fading very fast, owing to the merciless treatment they have received at the hands of visitors, represent scenes on the battlefield, which may perhaps commemorate this expedition; but the pictures of Ameni's life on the farm, on the river, and in the hunting-ground, interesting as they are, with their details of Egyptian life when Usertsen was king, and specially of the part which women played at that time in domestic pursuits, pass into insignificance before the story of the man's life and character as given us by himself. This inscription on his tomb I have rendered into verse from the admirable translation given us by Mr. Wallis Budge, in his book The Nile, p. 168.