Two extended literary reflections on kingship practice survive on manuscripts copied after 1500 bc but thought to have been composed earlier. Hieroglyphic inscriptions confirm the idea that a king should teach; the first minister Rekhmira invokes the Teaching of Thutmes III (1450 bc), and officials of Akhenaten (1350 bc) claim to place the teaching of the king in their bodies.
Teaching for King Merykara Set in the period of disunity (2150-2050 bc), most Egyptologists date this composition under the reunified Middle Kingdom, perhaps after 1900 bc. A king of the north (name lost) addresses a treatise on the practice of kingship to his successor King Merykara, “giving all the rules for a king.” The advice operates on three levels (Vernus 2001, 137). The first is about how to rule within and from the court: control of factions and of speech, favor of the elite and others close to the king, and care in exacting punishments. The second level concerns relations with the world outside the kingdom, whether nomads on the eastern frontier or the rival southern kingdom of that time. Finally, the king is destined to rule alone in his time, in a chain of unique incarnations of the sun-god across history, and is held accountable for his reign: Merykara is told of the looting of Abdju—“it happened even as something I did, though I learned of it after the deed.” The teaching culminates in a hymn to the creator, with a moving description of peaceful intentions (translation by the author, here and for other extended citations in this and following sections):
Well-tended are people, the herd of the god, he has made heaven and earth for their hearts, he has driven off the crocodile of the waters.
He has made the breath of the heart, that their nostrils might live.
They are his images who came from his body.
He shines in the sky for their hearts.
He has made for them plants and herds, birds and fish, to nourish them.
Immediately following lines address the conflict in life, in violent terms aimed at legitimating sovereign power:
He kills his enemies,
And he has damaged his children
At their plotting to carry out rebellion.
He repeats daybreak for their hearts, and sails by to see them.
He has raised a chapel behind them; when they weep he can hear.
He has made for them rulers in the egg, commanders to command at the back of the vulnerable.
He has made words of power for them, as weapons to repel the blow of events, watchful over them night and day.
He has killed the disaffected among them,
As a man strikes his son for the sake of this brother.
The god is aware of every name.
Teaching of King Amenemhat I A literary papyrus from about 1250 bc records that the Teaching of King Amenemhat I was written for his son King Senusret I by a man named Khety (Vernus 2001, 161-162, on Deir al-Madina Papyrus Chester Beatty 4); there is no corroboration for this date from their reigns, and it remains possible that it was written later—the earliest surviving copies are from around 1500 BC. Where the Teaching for Merykara seems weary, the tone here is aggressively bitter. Merykara was advised to favor those close to him; the dead King Amenemhat I warns Senusret I, “Trust none as brother, make no friend, foster no intimates—it is worthless,” and describes an attack on his life by court conspirators:
It was after the meal, night had fallen, I took an hour of rest.
I lay on my bed, for I had grown weary.
My heart began to follow sleep.
Suddenly weapons of counsel were turned against me.
I was like a snake of the desert I awoke to my bodyguard.
I found it was a body blow by a soldier.
If I had swiftly taken weapons in my hand,
I would have turned the wretch back in confusion,
But there is no night champion, no-one who can fight alone.
There can be no success without a protector.
After lamenting treason, Amenemhat I describes his good deeds, in giving Egypt peace and prosperity, and closes in endorsing his son on the throne.
These two compositions give rules not for human, but for kingly conduct. Nevertheless, they are preserved on manuscripts copied and circulated outside the court and form part of the same reading world as more directly didactic literature. Within the critique of kingly frailty in both works, we learn of how their writers, and at least some of their readers, perceived human life within the relations between creator, ruler, and society.
World History
