and those
who tended the Boat of the god are yoked together [in ploughing]. Men do
not go on voyages to Kepuna (Byblos in Syria) to-day. What shall we do
for cedar wood for our mummies, in coffins of which priests are buried,
and with the oil of which men are embalmed? They come no longer. There
is no gold, the handicrafts languish. What is the good of a treasury if
we have nothing to put in it? Everything is in ruins. Laughter is dead,
no one can laugh. Groaning and lamentation are everywhere in the land.
Egyptians have turned into foreigners. The hair hath fallen out of the
head of every man. A gentleman cannot be distinguished from a nobody.
Every man saith, 'I would that I were dead,' and children say, '[My
father] ought not to have begotten me.' Children of princes are dashed
against the walls, the children of desire are cast out into the desert,
and Khnemu[1] groaneth in sheer exhaustion. The Asiatics have become
workmen in the Delta. Noble ladies and slave girls suffer alike. The
women who used to sing songs now sing dirges. Female slaves speak as
they like, and when their mistress commandeth they are aggrieved.
Princes go hungry and weep. The hasty man saith, 'If I only knew where
God was I would make offerings to Him.' The hearts of the flocks weep,
and the cattle groan because of the condition of the land. A man
striketh his own brother. What is to be done? The roads are watched by
robbers, who hide in the bushes until a benighted traveller cometh, when
they rob him. They seize his goods, and beat him to death with cudgels.
Would that the human race might perish, and there be no more conceiving
or bringing to the birth! If only the earth could be quiet, and revolts
cease! Men eat herbs and drink water, and there is no food for the
birds, and even the swill is taken from the mouths of the swine. There
is no grain anywhere, and people lack clothes, unguents, and oil. Every
man saith, 'There is none.' The storehouse is destroyed, and its keeper
lieth prone on the ground. The documents have been filched from their
august chambers, and the shrine is desecrated. Words of power are
unravelled, and spells made powerless. The public offices are broken
open and their documents stolen, and serfs have become their own
masters. The laws of the court-house are rejected, men trample on them
in public, and the poor break them in the street. Things are now done
that have never been done before, for a party of miserable men have