Discourses of the Eloquent Peasant, Episode 1, Departure

This work is considered second of importance after the Story of Sinuhe. Which we've already covered. There are several copies extant all written in hieratic on papyrus.

One is missing the beginning and the end, by the same scribe who wrote one of the Sinuhe papyri.

The second has the end, and the only one with the very end, written all in vertical lines on the recto.

A third has the beginning except for the opening lines. Also written in vertical lines.

A fourth has the beginning but not the end. Written horizontally except for a few columns.

The first is dated to the coregency of Senwosret III and Amenemhat III. The next two are dated about the same time. The fourth is dated to the first part of Dynasty XIII or slightly earlier. The original was composed during the first half of Dynasty XII. It is a blend of two genres; stories and wisdom texts. It begins and ends as a story while the bulk of the middle is devoted to the nature of Maat, its reason for being. It is the most consciously literary of Middle Egyptian writings, filled with metaphors and carefully crafted sentences.

In James Allen's book Middle Egyptian Literature we are on page 230 of 451 pages. But the last 68 pages don't count because those are the consecutive translations in English of all the previous stories, the same thing all over again. So let's say, page 230 of 381 pages. That makes us 60% completed already. I have no idea how those consecutive English translations are useful. Except I can copy from the back of the book for this:

There once was a man named Khueninpu.
   He was a peasant of Salt Field,
   and he had a wife named Meret.
So, that peasant said to that wife of his,
   "Look, I am going down to the Blackland
   to get provisions there for my children.
Now, go measure for me the barley
   that is in the storehouse as the balance of yesterday."
   Then he measured for her six heqat of barley.
So, that peasant said to that wife of his,
   "Look, I will give you twenty heqat of barley
   for income with your children.
And you make me those six heqat of barley
   into bread and beer for every day,
   and I will live on it.

The notes that are placed in the back, I moved to the front. Instead of placing them before the lines where they occur because they cross over lines and mess up the way I mask the hieroglyphs. They really are useful in comprehending the wackiness. For example, the numbering of heqats was deduced from hieratic. The scribes did not use the hieroglyphic system of numbering. Modern scholars did this by calculating the time required to travel back and forth from the salt flats to the delta and back. One month. And how many heqats of barley would be needed for bread and for beer.

Barley bread must have been more like crackers. Barley bread made a month in advance? I'm not seeing it. And the beer is not as I'm imagining it. I'm just not getting this picture visualized.

At any rate, the notes tell us how experts translated crucial passages. Often contrary to dictionary definitions. The notes also tell us that the eloquent peasant was also rather well off, judging by his storehouse of heqats of barely and other provisions mentioned later.