NOTES ON LITERATURE IN EGYPT IN THJi; TIME OP MOSES. 181 



" After all, what is prosperity 1 

 Their fenced walls are dilapidated, 

 There houses are as that which never existed. 

 No man comes from thence 

 Who tells of their sayings. 

 Who tells of their aifairs, 

 Who encourages our hearts. 



Ye go 

 To the places whence they return not. 

 Strengthen thy heart to forget how thou hast enjoyed thyself, 



Fvilfil thy desire whilst thou livest. 



Put oil upon thy head. 

 Clothe thyself with fine linen adorned with precious metals. 



With the gifts of God 



Multiply thy good things, 



Yield to thy desire. 

 Fulfil thy desire with thy good things 



(Whilst thou art) upon earth, 

 According to the delectation of thy heart. 



The day will come to thee, 



When one hears not thy voice, 

 When the one who is at rest hears not their voices. 

 Lamentations deliver not him who is in the tomb. 



Feast in tranquility. 

 Seeing there is no one who carries away his goods with him. 

 Yea, behold, none who goes thither comes back again." 



Several works on ethics, teaching good manners, practical 

 wisdom in business and official hfe, court etiquette, and pro- 

 verbial sayings of the ancients, have gained a Avide celebrity. 

 The only complete work of this primitive wisdom which has 

 come down to us is that preserved in the Piisse Papyrus. 

 It contains the books of two classic writers, one of whom 

 lived probably under the third, and the other under the fifth 

 dynasty. The manuscript was transcribed before tbe 

 eighteenth dynasty and was a text book in the schools in 

 the time of Moses. The latter part of the Papyrus contains 

 the Proverbs of Ptahhotep, who was called the king's son. 

 He displayed a profound knowledge of men and was on that 

 account appointed to compile and edit the political and 

 moral maxims of the sages — a work which he accomplished 

 in his extreme old age. ISays Professor Maspero : " We must 

 not expect to find in this work great profundity of thought. 

 Clever analyses, subtle discussions, metaphysical abstractions, 

 were not in fashion at the time of Phtahhotpu. Actual 

 facts were preferred to speculative fancies. Man himself 

 was the subject of observation, his passions, his temptations, 

 and his defects, not for the purpose of constructing a system 

 therefrom, but in the hope of reforming the imperfections 



