The Songs of the Harpers Author(s): Miriam Lichtheim Source: Journal of Near Eastern Studies , Jul., 1945, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Jul., 1945), pp. 178- 212 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/542776 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Near Eastern Studies This content downloaded from 88.103.232.111 on Mon, 30 Nov 2020 14:22:40 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE SONGS OF THE HARPERS' MIRIAM LICHTHEIM I. THE DISCUSSION OF HARPERS' Bethink thee of joys SONGS SINCE THEIR Till that day has come of landing DISCOVERY At the land that loveth silence <Where> the heart of the son-whom-he-loves O N THE north wall of the passage does not weary. leading from the outer hall of his Make holiday, Neferhotep the justified! tomb (No. 50 at Thebes) into the Thou good priest pure of hands. inner shrine the priest Neferhotep is I have heard all that happened to the shown seated at a table piled high with Their buildings have crumbled, food offerings. His wife sits at his side, and Their dwellings are no more; in front of him squats a harper (now de- They are as if they had not come into being stroyed). The words which he sings to the Since the time of the god. accompaniment of his harp are engraved It was this song which, having been pub- above the group (P1. VII). The first part lished by Diimichen2 in 1869, received, in of the song, which contains its chief bur- 1873, its first translation and commen- den, runs as follows: tary at the hands of Stern3 and, together How reposed is this righteous lord! with the "Antef" song published in the The kindly fate has come to pass. following year,4 formed the basis for all Bodies pass away since the time of the god, subsequent discussion of "The Harper's New generations come in their place. Song." According to Stern, the harper Re shows himself at dawn, sang at a mortuary feast celebrated in the Atum goes to rest in the Western Mountain. Men beget, tomb in honor of the deceased. His song Women conceive, urged the survivors to enjoy life while it Every nostril breathes the air, lasts. And it is such a mortuary feast Dawn comes and their children have gone to which Herodotus had in mind when he their tombs. wrote that in their festival gatherings the Make holiday, 0 priest! Egyptians passed a wooden image of a Put incense and fine oil together to thy nos- dead man around in a coffin and exhorted trils each other to drink and make merry.5 And garlands of lotus and rrmt-flowers upon These views of Stern are important as a thy breast; statement of the problems, not as their While thy sister whom thou lovest sits at thy side. solution. All his conclusions need to be re- Put song and music before thee, vised, but they aptly indicate the ques- Cast all evil behind thee; tions which the song raises and which can 1 I acknowledge in profound gratitude the many be stated as follows: (1) What is the na- valuable suggestions and critical observations made ture and purpose of the song? (2) At what by Professors John A. Wilson, Henri Frankfort, and Keith C. Seele. I am especially indebted to Pro- occasion or occasions was it performed? fessor Seele, who has generously placed at my dis- 2 Historische Inschriften altaegyptischer Denkmdler, posal his hand copies and photographs of the two II, 40. hitherto unpublished harpers' songs from the Theban tombs of Paser and Piay and additional hand copies 3 ZAS, XI (1873), 58-63 and 72-73. and photographs of several of the other harpers' 4 TSBA, III (1874), 380-81 and 385-87. texts. 5 Herodotus ii. 78. 178 This content downloaded from 88.103.232.111 on Mon, 30 Nov 2020 14:22:40 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE SONGS OF THE HARPERS 179 At the time of Stern's writing the Antef and Neferhotep songs,8 which in- Egyptian literary and archeological ma- cluded two additional harpers' texts from terial which has a bearing on the prob- Neferhotep's tomb, which, though pub- lems of harpers' songs was not sufficiently lished,9 had remained untranslated, the known. Hence too much weight was ac- pendulum swings back from the worldly corded to the observations of the Greek banquet of Goodwin to the funerary ban- writers led by Herodotus. Ever since quet of Stern. In addition, Maspero is the Stern, the "banquet" of Herodotus has first to acknowledge the existence of a loomed large in the discussion, although problem in the fact that the "make- the Greek writer had made no mention merry" advice of the Neferhotep song is of harpers and although we have no addressed not to the guests attending the Egyptian evidence to bear out his descrip- funerary feast but to the deceased him- tion of Egyptian banqueting custom. self. This difficulty, however, he quickly Thus the application of this Herodotus resolves by telling us that the Egyptian passage has prejudiced the inquiry into dead were not dead in our sense of the the nature of the feasts at which the word.'0 Maspero believed that the harp- harpers' songs were supposedly performed ers' songs were sung in the tomb at funer- -an inquiry which can have results ary only feasts over which the deceased were if based on Egyptian, not on Greek, felt to preside, that the songs contain a sources. carpe diem message which is addressed Goodwin in his publication toof all the attendants Antef of the banquet, the liv- song6 also referred to Herodotus ing and thebut dead, dif- and that this message fered from Stern in believing originated that in worldlythe feast songs as part feast in question is the worldly, of a custom not intended the as a reminder of funerary, banquet. According death. to Againhim, thethe argument is clinched by theme of the song "is the thewords Herodotus which passage. Herodotus tells us were pronounced Maspero's ideas at were adopted by feasts when a mummied image Benddite, was carried who re-edited the three Nefer- round and presented to each of the hotep texts in his publication of the whole guests." He further remarks that the song tomb." fle, too, affirms that the harpers' is "one of those solemn and lugubrious songs were sung at mortuary feasts in the compositions by which the Egyptians intombs, having been adapted from worldly the midst of their feasts were reminded of drinking songs whence they derive their the shortness of human joys." With this praise of life, which, though originally shifting of the scene from the tomb to conceived as advice to the living, is not the banquet hall, the character of the song out of place in the funerary context, appears in a different light: What for since, in the Egyptian mind, there is no Stern was merriment in the midst of sharp distinction between life and death. gloom is for Goodwin a solemn note intro- Hence these songs are well within the duced at a merry occasion.7 boundaries of Egyptian religion. With Maspero's new edition of the Similar opinions were voiced by 6 See n. 4 above. 8 Etudes tgyptiennes, I (1886), 162 if. The objection might be raised that the Antef 9 Dilmichen, Hist. Inschr., II, 40a. song which Goodwin deals with is different in spirit from Stern's Neferhotep text. This difference, how- o10 Etudes 6gyptiennes, I (1886), 171. ever, was not taken into account by the early com- mentators. 11 Memoires de la Mission Frangaise, V, 489-540. This content downloaded from 88.103.232.111 on Mon, 30 Nov 2020 14:22:40 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 180 JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES Brugsch"2 and by Wiedemann,13 that both "Maneros" mak- was the opening phrase ing light of the incongruity ofof a recordingbanquet song urging enjoyment of carpe diem songs in the tombs. the pleasures of life.5 The many scholars The anticlimax to these harmonizing who have used the term "Maneros" for interpretations is provided byone Maxor another Mtl- of the harpers' songs have ler's comments to his edition unsuccessfully of harpers' striven to discover the songs (Antef and Neferhotep Egyptian I),14 where, etymology of the word.16 In with more erudition than sympathy, spite of the complete he failure of these ef- dwells on what he considers their forts, brazenly some recent commentators con- heretical character, their closeness to tinue to use it."7 Toward an understanding Epicurean songs from all over the world, of harpers' songs the label has contributed and the illogicality and superficiality of nothing except confusion. the Egyptian mind as apparent in the The skeptic or agnostic character of use of such songs for funerary purposes. the songs, which Milller was the first to Thus MUiller inaugurated the view that emphasize, now begins to hold the atten- the Antef and Neferhotep songs are dis- tion of the commentators.