Harper's Song of Antef
The Harper's Song of Antef is a work of ancient Egyptian literature from the New Kingdom and, in its modified form of the critical examination of the cult of the dead, is a classic model for all subsequent harp songs .
Lore
The song has come down to us in two versions. The older one dates to the Amarna period (late 18th dynasty ) and consists of a badly damaged inscription in the tomb of Paitenemhab in Saqqara . The text is an inscription to the pictorial representation of a blind harper and a flute player. The entire representation is in Leiden today .
The more recent version is a writing on the front (recto) of the Harris 500 papyrus from the reign of Seti I or Ramses II ( 19th Dynasty ). The text has been preserved here in full and is framed by a collection of love songs. The text of the two versions is identical.
In the song itself, an inscription in the tomb of a king Antef is mentioned as the original version. Several kings with this name ruled in the 11th , 13th and 17th Dynasties . So far, however, no such setting has been found in any of the known royal tombs. It is also possible that here, as often happened in Egypt, the text was merely given more meaning by associating it with a king who had long since died.
content
The song is written verbatim by the harper and begins with a brief introduction in which King Antef is praised. The following is a sobering account of the funeral cult of past generations:
“The song that stands in the house of (King) Antef , the Blessed, in front of the (picture of) the singer to the harp. This good prince is happy after good fortune has come. Genders pass, others come from ancestral times. The gods that arose before, rest in their pyramids . The noble and transfigured alike are buried in their pyramids. Those who built houses there, their place is no more. What happened to them? I have heard the words of Imhotep and Hordjedef , whose sayings are on everyone's lips. Where are their places? Their walls have crumbled, they no longer have a place as if they had never been. Nobody comes from there to report on their progress, to tell their needs, to calm our hearts until we too get where they have gone. But you please your heart and do not think about it. It is good for you to follow your heart while you are. Tu myrrh on thy head, clothe yourself in white linen , anoint yourself with real oil of God cult, increase your beauty, let your heart which never tire. Follow your heart in the company of your beauties, do your things on earth, do not offend your heart until that day of mourning comes to you. The weary one does not hear their screams, and their complaints do not bring a man's heart back from the underworld. Refrain : Celebrate the beautiful day, don't get tired of it. Remember, no one takes with them what they are attached to; no one returns who has gone once. "
literature
- Jan Assmann : Death and the afterlife in ancient Egypt . Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49707-1 .
- Jan Assmann: The Harper Songs . In: Stein und Zeit. Man and Society in Ancient Egypt . Munich 1991, pp. 215-217.
- Jan Assmann: Celebrations of the moment, promise and duration . In: Jan Assmann, Erika Feucht, Reinhard Grieshammer (eds.): Questions to ancient Egyptian literature. Studies in memory of Eberhard Otto. Wiesbaden 1977, pp. 55-84.
- Jan Assmann: Harper songs . In: Wolfgang Helck , Eberhard Otto (Hrsg.): Lexikon der Ägyptologie . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1997, Vol. 2, Columns 972-982.
- Günter Burkard, Heinz J. Thissen: Introduction to the ancient Egyptian literary history II. New Kingdom . LIT, Berlin 2008, pp. 96-98.
- Michael V. Fox: The Song of the Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs . University of Wisconsin Press, Madison Wisc. 1985, ISBN 978-0-299100-94-0 , pp. 378-380.
- Michael V. Fox: A Study of Antef . In: Orientalia. Vol. 46, 1977, pp. 393-423.
- Wolfgang Kosack : Berlin booklets on Egyptian literature 1 - 12 .: Part I. 1 - 6 / Part II. 7 - 12 (2 volumes). Parallel texts in hieroglyphics with introductions and translation. Book 3: The report of the weary man and his soul, the shepherd's story and the harpist's song. Christoph Brunner, Basel 2015, ISBN 978-3-906206-11-0 .
- Miriam Lichtheim : The Songs of the Harpers . In: Journal of Near Eastern Studies . Vol. 4, 1945, pp. 178-212.