Song of the Blind Harpist
Song of the Blind Harpist
The text below is known as the Song of the Blind Harpist and belongs to the funerary literature of Ancient Egypt. It is associated with the court of one of the Antef kings (Eleventh Dynasty).
What is presented here is a translation by Pierre Gilbert, published in 1949 in La Poésie égyptienne (Egyptian Poetry).
According to specialists in the field, this translation is an interpretative one, comparable to the translations of the Cad Goddeu presented on this site. As we are qualified neither in Medieval Welsh nor in Ancient Egyptian, we offer these texts in their French translations.It should be noted that the song of the blind harpist below is translated into English on the basis of Pierre Gilbert’s French translation.
Nevertheless, it is striking to observe the parallel between the Song of the Harpist and the Book of Qoheleth, known in French as L’Ecclésiaste (Ecclesiastes).
Like the Song of the Blind Harpist, Ecclesiastes stands out as an exception both within Egyptian society and within the corpus of Old Testament sources.
Both texts are distinguished by their lucidity, their disenchantment, and their recognition of universal erasure. Each possesses a striking modernity, in direct opposition to the contemporary tendency to impose a strictly literal reading of texts. It has seemed salutary to us to emphasise that metaphysical questioning is in no way a product of modernity, but is as ancient as—if not older than—the texts of the monotheistic religions. We shall devote a more extensive discussion to this subject in the future.
Bodies are on the move; others enter into immortality
Since the time of the Ancients;
The gods who once lived rest in their pyramids,
As do the nobles, glorified, buried in their pyramids.
They built themselves chapels whose place is no more.
What has become of them?
I have heard the words of Imhotep and of Hordjedef,
Whose sayings are repeated everywhere.
Where is their tomb?
Their walls are destroyed, their tomb as though it had never been.
No one comes from there to tell us what they are like,
To tell us what they need,
Or to soothe our hearts,
Until we go to where they have gone.
Gladden your heart, so that your heart may forget that one day you will be beatified.
Follow your heart while you live.
Place myrrh upon your head,
Clothe yourself in fine linen,
Anoint yourself with these true marvels that are the portion of a god.
Multiply your pleasures; do not allow your heart to grow weary.
Follow your heart and the pleasures you desire.
Do what you wish upon earth.
Do not constrain your heart.
The day of lamentation will come for you!
The god of tranquil heart does not hear lamentations;
Cries do not deliver a man from the other world.
—
Make a happy day, without wearying of it.
See, there is no one who takes his possessions with him.
See, no one has returned after he has departed.
— Pierre Gilbert, La Poésie égyptienne, Brussels, Queen Elisabeth Egyptological Foundation, p. 89, 1949.