These last have been
published in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology,
xiv. 558. The number of copies seem to show that this was a popular tale
in early times; it certainly is of a more advanced type than the earlier
tales of magic, though it belongs to a simpler style than the tales
which follow. It has been translated partially by Chabas and Goodwin,
and also by Maspero, but most completely by Griffith in the Proceedings
of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, referred to above.
The beginning of the tale is lost in all the copies, and an introductory
sentence is here added in brackets, to explain the position of affairs
at the opening of the fragment. The essence of the tale is the
difference in social position between the Sekhti, or peasant, and the
Hemti, or workman--the _fellah_ and the client of the noble; and the
impossibility of getting justice against a client, unless by some
extraordinary means of attracting his patron's attention, is the basis
of the action. There is not a single point of incident here which might
not be true in modern times; every turn of it seems to live, as one
reads it in view of country life in Egypt.
The region of the tale is Henenseten, or Herakleopolis, now Ahnas, a
little south of the Fayum. This was the seat of the IXth and Xth
Dynasties, apparently ejected from Memphis by a foreign invasion of the
Delta; and here it is that the High Steward lives and goes to speak to
the king.
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