ets for offerings
of the wretched people who belong to the Corvee, of whom some die on the
banks of the canals, leaving one part of their bodies on the land and
the other in the water, and some fall into the water altogether and are
eaten by the fish, and others under the burning heat of the sun become
bloated and loathsome objects. Because men receive fine burials it does
not follow that offerings of food, which will enable them to continue
their existence, will be made by their kinsfolk. Finally the soul ends
its speech with the advice that represented the view of the average
Egyptian in all ages, "Follow after the day of happiness, and banish
care," that is to say, spare no pains in making thyself happy at all
times, and let nothing that concerns the present or the future trouble
thee.

This advice, which is well expressed by the words which the rich man
spake to his soul, "Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" (St. Luke
xii. 19), was not acceptable to the man who was tired of life, and he at
once addressed to his soul a series of remarks, couched in rhythmical
language, in which he made it clear that, so far as he was concerned,
death would be preferable to life. He begins by saying that his name is
more detested than the smell of birds on a summer's day when the heavens
are hot, and the smell of a handler of fish newly caught when the
heavens are hot, and the smell of water-fowl in a bed of willows wherein
geese collect, and the smell of fishermen in the marshes where fishing
hath been carried on, and the stench of crocodiles, and the place where
crocodiles do congregate. In a second group of rhythmical passages the
man who was tired of life goes on to describe the unsatisfactory and
corrupt condition of society, and his wholesale condemnation of it
includes his own kinsfolk. Each passage begins with the words, "Unto
whom do I speak this day?" and he says, "Brothers are bad, and the
friends of to-day lack love. Hearts are shameless, and every man seizeth
the goods of his neighbour. The meek man goeth to ground (_i.e._ is
destroyed), and the audacious man maketh his way into all places. The
man of gracious countenance is wretched, and the good are everywhere
treated as contemptible. When a man stirreth thee up to wrath by his
wickedness, his evil acts make all people laugh. One robbeth, and
everyone stealeth the possessions of his neighbour. Disease is
continual, and the brother who is with it becometh an enemy