The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems

"They had judges, senior members of the community, in front of whom you, as an individual, would plead your case. The book by Richard Parkinson is another collection of translations, but this time of poems and other literary texts from the Middle Kingdom (1940-1640BC), the so-called classic period of Egyptian literary production. When I do public lectures or take tourists to Egypt they are often surprised that Ancient Egypt had a literature. We think mostly of Greek and Roman material when we think of ancient literature, but Richard has been at the forefront of changing that. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . This is a wonderful collection starting with the most famous Egyptian poem, the Tale of Sinuhe . It’s short, only about 16 pages in this edition. Although numerous written copies are known, including versions used in teaching at Deir el-Medina, we think the life of these stories was primarily oral, performed by one storyteller or a group of performers, perhaps in court contexts. There began to be good translations in the mid-to-late 19th century and then really thoughtful ones perhaps only in the 20th, so there isn’t the long tradition of ‘the classics’. But the Egyptian stories are also really different. They don’t have the plot structure and the characterisation that we are used to. Richard tries to open up the material so that we can understand it and see the beauty of the language. The Tale of Sinuhe , for example, is the story of an individual who flees Egypt when the king dies; he is worried that he will be accused of conspiracy. He becomes very successful in his new life in Syria-Palestine but all this success is hollow because the only life that is meaningful is a life in Egypt. It is easy to read a story like this just as propaganda for central Egyptian ideology and the king, but it isn’t that simple. Sinuhe ran away from Egypt after all, and the story can be read as a questioning of what it is to be Egyptian. There is a long eulogy to the king in the middle but it too is full of little contradictory nuances and critiques. Richard’s introduction and notes help you to understand the subtlety of the story, but at the same time allow you to develop your own ideas and thoughts, which is really important for my students and any reader. Richard’s anthology offers a sense of the range of literary production. My favourite is a poem in which a man debates with his soul about views of death and his own existential anxiety. There is rhythm and metre and sound play – it’s an extraordinary poem: Death is to me today like a sick man’s recovery, like going out after confinement. Death is to me today like the smell of myrrh, like sitting under a sail on a windy day. Death is to me today like the smell of flowers, like sitting on the shore of Drunkenness. Death is to me today like a well-trodden path, like a man’s coming home from an expedition. Death is to me today like the sky’s clearing, like a man grasping what he did not know before. Death is to me today like a man’s longing to see home, having spent many years in captivity. September 3, 2009. Updated: August 13, 2025 Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]"

"The Tale of Sinuhe , which was composed around 1875-1850 BCE, is the fictional story of an official’s flight from Egypt , his life in exile, and return in old age. It is written as if in the tradition of an autobiography for his tomb. Many copies have been found, and it is thought to have been a very popular work of literature in ancient Egypt. In today’s globalised world, the themes of culture, identity and belonging are perhaps what resonate most with this story. What happens is that our narrator flees in a moment of panic when he overhears the news that the king is dead. It is not explicit, but we assume the king has been assassinated and that a period of chaos is likely to ensue. Sinuhe nearly dies of thirst, is rescued by nomads, and goes on to make a successful new life for himself in exile, all the while longing to return to Egypt but fearing that he will be punished as a defector. In the end, Sinuhe is welcomed back to the Egyptian court after admitting that his flight was probably not divine intervention but an act of his own irrational heart, and he is given a burial in the royal enclosure around the pyramid of Senwosret I. After an extraordinary journey he has regained his true identity, reached his final resting place, and can now speak to us from his tomb. This book is subtitled ‘ and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940-1640 BC ’, and there are other intriguing chapters, among them The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor and The Dialogue of a Man and his Soul . The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor is, at least in part, also about a person’s journey through life. Set within a frame tale of a voyage interrupted by disasters, the storyteller speaks of our hope of achieving success in life before making landfall in death, and counsels putting on a brave face and enduring without despair. In an unexpected twist, the listener scoffs at this, asking what is the point — if someone is doomed — of hoping for a happy ending? In the internal Dialogue , the living man extols life after death, while his soul encourages him to think more positively about this life."