Behold, thou rememberest not the condition of the fellâh, when the harvest is taken over. The worms carry off half the corn, and the hippopotamus devours the rest; mice abound in the fields, and locusts arrive; the cattle devour, the sparrows steal. How miserable is the lot of the fellâh! What remains on the threshing-floor, robbers finish it up. The bronze ... are worn out, the horses [oxen?] die with threshing and plowing. Then the scribe moors at the bank who is to take over the harvest;[313] the attendants[314] bear staves, the negroes carry palmsticks. They say, "Give corn!" But there is none. They beat [the fellâh] prostrate; they bind him and cast him into the canal, throwing him headlong. His wife is bound before him, his children are swung off; his neighbors let them go, and flee to look after their corn.
But the scribe is the leader of labor for all; he reckons to himself the produce in winter, and there is none that appoints him his tale of produce. Behold, now thou knowest!
They tell me that thou forsakest books, And givest thyself up to pleasure. Thou goest from street to street; Every evening the smell of beer, The smell of beer, frightens people away from thee, It bringeth thy soul to ruin.
Thou art like a broken helm, That obeyeth on neither side. Thou art as a shrine without its god, As a house without bread.
Thou art met climbing the walls, And breaking through the paling: People flee from thee, Thou strikest them until they are wounded.
Oh that thou didst know that wine is an abomination, And that thou wouldst forswear the _Shedeh_ drink! That thou wouldst not put cool drinks within thy heart, That thou wouldst forget the _Tenreku_.
But now thou art taught to sing to the flute, To recite [?] to the pipe, To intone to the lyre, To sing to the harp,
[and generally to lead a life of dissipation.]
[1] The italicized phrases represent the principal names of the King.
[3] Horus as the winged disk of the sun, so often figured as a protecting symbol over the doors of temples.
[4] The coloration or configuration of his limbs indicated to the learned in such matters his victorious career. Mentu was the god of war.
[5] The southern boundary of the Egyptian empire.
[7] The castor-oil plant (_Ricinus communis_).