The priestess Meretites hugs her husband, the singer Kahai (Saqqara, Old Kingdom Egypt)
First written poems in Egypt
By the time the New Kingdom started, about 1500 BC, many Egyptian writers were writing poetry. Skilled poets wrote these poems, which were translated and passed around not only in Egypt but also in India, Southeast Asia, and Mesopotamia. A similar set of poems have come down to us as the Bible’s Song of Songs.
More about the Bible
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Lots more Ancient Egypt articles
Egyptian love poems
Many of the Egyptian poems are about love, even though the lovers call each other “brother” and “sister”, and pretend it’s just about their families. In each collection of poems, first the boy writes to the girl, then the girl writes to the boy (Egyptian love poems are always between girls and boys).
Families in ancient Egypt
But we shouldn’t assume that these poems are really only about love. They may also be metaphors for other power struggles: the Egyptian army conquering Libya, or rich people oppressing the poor.
An Egyptian poem
This is a poem from the boy’s point of view:
Seven days since I saw my sister (girlfriend),
And it’s like I’m sick all over;
My arms and legs feel so heavy,
My body feels like a stranger’s body.
When the doctors come to me,
My heart rejects their medicine;
The magicians are no use either,
Nobody can figure out what’s wrong.
If someone said, “Here she is!” I’d feel better!
Her name would get me out of bed;
Her messenger, coming and going,
That would do my heart good!
My sister’s better than any prescription,
She does more for me than any medicine;
When she comes over, she’s like a charm,
Just seeing her makes me feel better!
When she looks at me I feel young,
When she speaks I feel strong;
Hugging her fixes my flu —
But it’s seven days since she left me!
When did Egyptians stop writing poems?
With the end of the New Kingdom, about 1100 BC, people in Egypt were poorer, and they didn’t have so much time to write poetry, or to copy out poems in school so copies of them would survive for us to read. So we don’t have so many of these poems from the Third Intermediate Period.
Learn by doing: write a poem about swimming
More about Ancient Egyptian writing
More about Hieroglyphs
More stories from Ancient Egypt:
Tales of Ancient Egypt, by Roger Lancelyn Green
More examples of Egyptian poems:
http://www.humanistictexts.org/egyptlov.htm
I enjoy poetry in general, but ancient Egyptian poetry probably has had the biggest influence in my life. The first ancient poem I read changed my outlook on everything. I realized 3500 years ago, they felt like us, felt our pain, love, joy, fear, apprehension and all the other things that make us human. Now, literally every time I see a graveyard, see the atrocities of mass slaughters by peddlers of fascism, communism and other political ideas, all the victims are now real to me, not just large numbers in a statistic. Life is now so much more precious to me, and political ideas less so. Thank you for sharing the words of a young man, from such a long time ago, and giving him life in our minds.
You’re welcome! I agree that we must remember that even large numbers of people also existed as individuals whose lives were as important to them as ours are to us…
why does the boy refer to his ex-girlfriend as “sister”?
Black people refer to each other as brother, sister in speech
Indeed! I don’t know whether this is related, but it could be. It’s also related to Christian practice, but then a lot of Christian ideas also come from Egypt, where a lot of early Christians lived.
Where did you get this poem (what website)?
You’ll find it, and others like it, here: http://www.humanistictexts.org/egyptlov.htm