Saturday, March 2, 2013

Ancient Egyptian Poetry

Women in ancient Egypt did two things, gossip and write poetry.

Here's a genre you don't associate much with ancient Egypt, love poems.  Or poems in general really.  And yet, I can now say I've read ancient Egyptian love poems, and boy are these some interesting poems.

My personal favorite was "I was simply off to see Nefrus my friend."  In this particular poem a girl is on her way to see Nefrus when she spies the guy she has a crush on.  She then narrates how she hides from him because she knows that if he sees her and says hello, she'll blurt out "Please take me."  And while she wants him to take her, she doesn't want to be just another of his girls.  It's rather like the self-narration of a teenage girl in a high school soap opera.  It's amusing to see how little humanity has changed in three or four millenia.

There's also a few praise poems to the main god of Egyptian society, the Sun god, who apparently has had a couple different names.  And while the purpose of the poems is to praise the Sun god, it's also to praise his descendant on Earth, the pharaoh that was either writing the poem or commissioned the poem.  But praise both they do.

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