Complaints of the peasant

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The Lamentations of the Peasant ( story of the eloquent peasant , The talkative oasis man , peasant story and the like) are a Middle Egyptian literary work that takes place in the First Intermediate Period and is handed down on six papyrus fragments.

Emergence

The writing time of the work has so far mostly been dated to the First Intermediate Period or the early Middle Kingdom . The more recent research tends towards the 12th dynasty . The peasant's complaints were still known in the Ramesside period.

content

The lowly placed farmer Chui-ni-Anup (also Chu-en Anubis ) moves from his place of residence, the Wadi Natrun , to the Nile Valley to sell products there. In the Nile Valley he is robbed of all his possessions under flimsy pretexts by the serf tenant Thoth-Nacht or, according to other handwriting, Nemti-Nacht . Chui-ni-Anup then goes to Herakleopolis and turns to Rensi, the owner and superior of Nemti-Nacht and the king's chief asset manager. Rensi consults with his "councilors" and leaves Chui-ni-Anup's request unanswered. Then the farmer begins to take legal action against Rensi speeches in which he the Maat discussed, order, right and wrong and requires legal equality between rich and poor. After the first speech, Rensi did not answer, but reported it to King Nebkaure Cheti . Out of interest, the latter orders that the farmer's speeches continue to be left unanswered and that they be recorded for himself, and on the other hand to ensure the farmer's livelihood. After the third speech, the farmer believes that he has prevailed and is punished with a beating for it. In the next few days he continues with further speeches. At the end of the ninth and last speech, he finally considers the situation to be completely hopeless and wishes himself death in order to complain about Rensi to the god of death Anubis . Finally, he was found to be right, Rensi had his speeches read to him and then handed them over to the interested king; Thoth-Nacht is handed over to Chui-ni-Anup with all his possessions. The last remnant of the story has not survived.

literature

  • Hieratic papyrus from the Royal Museums in Berlin. Volume 4: Adolf Erman (Hrsg.): Literary texts of the middle realm . Part 1: Friedrich Vogelsang, Alan H. Gardiner : The peasant's complaints. Paragraph and translation. Hinrichs, Leipzig 1908.
  • RB Parkinson (Ed.): The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant. Griffith Institute - Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 1991, ISBN 0-900416-61-0 .
  • Dieter Kurth: The oasis man. An ancient Egyptian story. von Zabern, Mainz 2003, ISBN 3-8053-3084-7 , ( Cultural History of the Ancient World 103).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oleg D. Berlev: The Date of the "Eloquent Peasant" . In: Jürgen Osing, Günter Dreyer (Ed.): Form and Mass. Contributions to the literature, language and art of ancient Egypt . Festschrift for Gerhard Fecht on his 65th birthday on February 6, 1987. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-447-02704-5 , ( Egypt and Old Testament 12), pp. 78–83; Pascal Vernus: La date du Paysan Eloquent . In: Sarah Israelit-Groll (Ed.): Studies in Egyptology Presented to Miriam Lichtheim . Volume 2. Magnes Press - Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1990, ISBN 965-223-733-7 , pp. 1033-1047.

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