Nothing Surpasses Books
Duauf said to his son Pepi, " I have seen him that is set free from forced labor: behold, nothing surpasses books."
Duauf, an Egyptian Philosopher (1340 BC). "Duauf was a remarkable testimony of the ancient African emphasis on learning. Reading was promoted as the best way to train the mind and to reveal the secrets of the hidden things." --- Molefi Kete Asante (2000) The Egyptian Philosophers: Ancient African Voices from Imhotep to Akhenaten. African American Images, Chicago, Illinois. page xv.
Books in papyrus were abundant ... "The following text was taken from the oldest religious texts, The Pyramid Texts, from the tombs of Teti, Unas, and Pepi, the burial chambers of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties." (page 18)
* * * * * Nothing Surpasses Books * * * * *
The scribe, his is every place at the residence and he knows what he is doing. But the one who acts according to the understanding of another does not have success. The other professions are as this sentence says.
I would like to make you love books more than your momma; I would like to bring their beauty right in front of your face. It is greater that any calling.
I have never seen a sculptor on an errand nor a goldsmith as he was being sent forth. But I have seen the smith at his task at the mouth of his furnace. His fingers were like stuff from crocodiles, he stank more that the offal of fishes.
Every artisan who wields the chisel is wearier than he who delves into books; his field is the work and his hoe is the metal. In the night when he is set free, he works beyond what the arm can do; in the night he burns a light.
The stone-mason seeks work in all types of hard stone. When he completes it, his arms are destroyed and he is weary. When such a one sits down at dusk his thighs and his back are broken.
The barber shaves late into the evening, going from street to street, seeking someone to shave. He strains his arm in order to fill his stomach, like a bee feeds at its work.
The small bricklayer with the Nile mud spends his life among the cattle: he is concerned with swine and vines, his clothes are stiff, he works with his feet, pounding.
The gardener brings loads and his arm and neck are sore from the weight. In the morning he waters the leek, and at evening, the vines.
The field-worker's reckoning endures forever; he has a louder voice that the abu-bird. He is wearier than can be told and he fares as well as one fares among lions; and when he comes into his house at evening, the going has cut him to pieces.
The weaver in the workshop, he fares more ill than any women. His thighs are upon his belly, and he breathes no air. He plucks lotus flowers from the pond. He gives bread to the doorkeeper that he may suffer him to come into the daylight.
The fletcher does not do well when he goes up into the desert to find flints for arrow-heads. He gives much for his donkey and he gives much for what is in the field. When he sets out on the road and comes into the house in the evening the trip has cut him to pieces.
The cobbler fares exceedingly ill, he begs ever; he bites leather.
The fuller washes upon the river bank, close to the crocodile. This is no peaceful calling in you eyes that would be more tranquil that all callings.
The fowler does not fare well when he looks at the bids in the air. When the passers-by are joined to the heavens, he says, I wish I had a net up there, but he has no such success.
Let me tell you more, say, about the fisherman; it goes worst of all for him than any other profession. Is not his work upon the river where he is mixed with the crocodile?
Listen here is no profession that is without a director except the scribe and the scribe is the director.
If he knows the books then truth is revealed: They are good for you. What I now do on the voyage up to the Residence, I do it for you. A day in school is very profitable and endures like the mountains.
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Source: Molefi Kete Asante (2000) The Egyptian Philosophers: Ancient African Voices from Imhotep to Akhenaten. African American Images, Chicago, Illinois. Pages 95-97.