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136 D. Klotz : Fish at Night and Birds by Day ZS 136(2009)

DAVID KLOTZ

Fish at Night and Birds by Day (Kemit VIII)

Although much is known about the educa-tional uses of the scribal compilation Kemit1, theactual content remains incredibly obscure2. Aftera standard epistolary introduction, the text con-tinues with letters concerning a man named Au(). For previous translators, Au is a typicalprodigal son who has abandoned his wife in

Thebes to enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle in Mem-

phis with a harem woman, anticipating to someextent the Tabubu episode of Setne I3. Bartaeven suggested the name Au () could be ahypocoristic for , happiness, alludingto die Leichtlebigkeit des Helden der Ge-schichte4. Unfortunately, the standard interpre-tation is based almost entirely on reading a diffi-cult word as , harem woman (Kemit

VII)5, even though it is actually spelled like ,temple forecourt or entrance to a tomb6.

1See most recently F. Hagen, Ostraca, Literatureand Teaching at Deir el-Medina, in R. Mairs and

A. Stevenson, eds., Current Research in Egyptology2005 (Oxford, 2007), pp. 4244.

2 For bibliography on Kemit, see most recently G.Burkard and H. J. Thissen, Einfhrung in die alt-gyptische Literaturgeschichte I: Altes und MittleresReich (Berlin, 2007), pp. 199202; S. Jger, Altgyp-tische Berufstypologien, Lingua Aegyptia Studia Mono-graphica 4 (Gttingen, 2004), pp. 158167 (both withfurther references); and note that detailed text-criticalcommentary also appears among the lemmata of the

Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae (http://aaew.bbaw.de/tla;this reference was kindly noted by Lutz Popko).3 For traditional interpretations of Kemit, see re-

cently R. B. Parkinson, Poetry and Culture in MiddleKingdom Egypt: A Dark Side to Perfection (London,2001), pp. 323324.

4 W. Barta, Das Schulbuch Kemit, ZS 105(1978): 10, n. 38; followed by Burkard and Thissen,Einfhrung in die altgyptische Literaturgeschichte I,p. 201.

5 Translating as harem woman alone is prob-lematic; cf. D. Nord, The Term : Harem or Mu-sical Performers? in W. K. Simpson, ed., Studies in

Ancient Egypt, the Aegean, and the Sudan,

Essays in honor of Dows Dunham on the occasion

Stripped of any erotic undertones, the reasonfor Aus absence is not immediately clear. None-theless, an important clue may be found in anunusual phrase from Kemit VIII7:

She says:Go, Au, and see your wife!Her crying for you is bitter,that she cries for you,

(is because of) your fish in/of the night, andyour birds in/of the day.

The final sentence is quite unusual, and pre-vious translators have all rendered it in roughlythe same fashion:

Hayes: because of thy fishing by night and thy

fowling by day8

.Kaplony: wegen deiner Fische in der Nacht unddeiner Vgel am Tag9.

of his 90th birthday, June 1, 1980 (Boston, 1980),pp. 137145.

6 Already noted by Jger, Altgyptische Berufsty-pologien, p. 163, n. 137; for the architectural nuances ofthe term , see recently J. C. Darnell, The Enig-matic Netherworld Books of the Solar-Osirian Unity.Cryptographic Compositions in the Tombs of Tutankh-amun, Ramesses VI and Ramesses IX, OBO 198 (Fri-

bourg; Gttingen, 2004), pp. 421422.7 Text after G. Po sener, Catalogue des ostraca hi-ratiques littraires de Deir el Mdineh II, DFIFAO 18(Cairo, 1952), Pls. 810; additional fragments of thissection appear in J. Lopez, Ostraca ieratici II, CMETIII.2 (Milano, 1980), Pl. 97; A. Gasse, Catalogue desostraca littraires de Deir al-Mdna V, DFIFAO 44(Cairo, 2005), pp. 150 152, Nos. 1865 6.

8 W. C. Hayes, A Much-Copied Letter of theMiddle Kingdom, JNES 7 (1948): 8.

9 P. Kap lon y, Das Bchlein Kemit, in E. Ki e -ling and H.-A. Rupprecht, eds., Akten des XIII.Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses, Marburg/Lahn, 26. August 1971, MBPF 66 (Munich, 1974),

p. 179.

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W. Barta: wegen deiner Fische der Nacht unddeiner Vgel des Tages10.Dakin: and [over] your trying to catch your fish bynight and your birds by day11.

Wente: because of your (catching) fish by night andyour (snaring) fowl by day12.

According to earlier commentators, Auspredilection for fishing and fowling is a furtherexample of his errant behavior, possibly refer-ring to his sexual activities with the harem lady13.However, this translation assumes that the

words fish () and fowl () hereserve as otherwise unattested denominal verbs(similar to English to fish or German fi-schen)14 or as idiomatic abbreviations of the

phrases , fishing, and ,fowling15. Furthermore, this particular inter-pretation presupposes that Egyptians actuallyengaged in night-fishing.

In the most recent translation of Kemit, Jgeroffered a new approach to this difficult passage,taking and as denominal verbs mean-ing to be (like) a fish and to be (like) a bird:weil Du ein Fisch bist bei Nacht, und ein Vogelbei Tag16. Unlike the former emendation tofishing and fowling, this type of denominal

10 W. Barta, Das Schulbuch Kemit, ZS 105(1978): 11.

11A. N. Dakin, Kemit: a revised translation withmaterial for a commentary, in: Sesto congresso inter-nazionale di egittologia. Atti, I (Turin, 1992), p. 465.

12E. Wente, Letters from Ancient Egypt, Writingsfrom the Ancient World 1 (Atlanta, 1990), p. 16.

13 Ka plo ny, in Kie li ng and H.-A. Ru ppr ech t,eds., Akten des XIII. Internationalen Papyrologenkon-gresses, pp. 191192, specifically appealed to the sexual

connotations of fishing and fowling. Nonetheless, seeE. Feucht, Fishing and Fowling with the Spear and theThrow-stick Reconsidered, in U. L uft , ed., The Intel-lectual Heritage of Egypt, Studia Aegyptiaca 14 (Buda-pest, 1992), pp. 157169.

14 Hayes, JNES 7 (1948): 89, n. 41, claimed thatcan sometimes mean to catch fish, but the ref-erence he cited (Wb. II, 416, 14) does not actually listany examples of this verb.

15The only attested abbreviations for these phrasesare , literally trapping (cf. Gardiner, AEO I,p. 94*).

16 J ger , Altgyptische Berufstypologien, p. 163,noting that this section remains vllig Dunkel (ibid,

n. 138).

verb is actually attested in Egyptian17. Moreover,the new translation suggests a radically differentinterpretation of the entire story.

Aus periodic alternation between fish andbirds corresponds closely to the daily course ofthe sun, as explicitly described in the DemoticMythus (III, 39, 20)18:

[He (the sundisk)] flies up to heaven with the birdsevery day,(and) then he is perpetually in the water with thefish19.

In certain cosmological traditions, Re traveled

in the sky during the day and returned to thesubterranean Nun waters at night in order toreunite with Osiris and achieve rebirth20. In so-me accounts of the nocturnal journey, Re actu-ally swims through the primordial waters21, andthe hieroglyph of a fish swimming through wa-ter can write Re in texts from the Late Pe-riod22. In other versions, beneficent fish sur-

17 E.g. , to be ruler (Wb. I, 143, 20), , to be

king (ibid., 334, 18). , to be divine (ibid., 364,

618). Jger, op. cit., p. 163, n. 138, noted that , tobe bird-like is attested, without providing references;presumably he meant , to hurry (like a bird) (Wb.I, 9, 1214; Wilson, A Ptolemaic Lexikon, p. 7).

18 W. Spiegelberg, Der gyptische Mythus vomSonnenauge nach dem Leidener demotischen Papyrus I384 (reprint; Hildesheim, 1994), pp. 1617; cf.

J. Johnson, The Demotic Verbal System, SAOC 38(Chicago, 1976), p. 91.

19 The expression (< ), daily, mainlyexpresses periodicity (cf. Meeks, AL I, 77.1699: quo-tidien, perptuel), and does not imply that events oc-cur during the daytime. Cf. especially Crum, CD 172a,for the phrase ,

meaning day and night.20 For the birth of Re from the corpse of Osiris andthe waters of Nun, see most recently Darnell, TheEnigmatic Netherworld Books of the Solar-OsirianUnity, pp. 391 395, 410411.

21 Darnel l , The Enigmatic Netherworld Books, pp.197 and 429; D. Klotz, Adoration of the Ram: FiveHymns to Amun-Re from Hibis Temple, YES 6 (NewHaven, 2006), pp. 42, n. A, 105, n. E.

22 This reading is explained in P. Brooklyn47.218.84, VII, 3; see D. Meeks,Mythes et lgendes duDelta daprs le papyrus Brooklyn 47.218.84, MIFAO125 (Cairo, 2006), pp. 16, 8485, n. 205 (noting furtherexamples from temple texts and the Ptolemaic statuette

BM 55254).

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round and protect Res night-bark, announcingthe approach of inimical serpents and crocodileslike Wenty or Apep23.

Stars could also transform into fish and fowl.In the Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days,Re ingests gods and goddesses and spits theminto the water; their bodies remain there as fish(), while their Ba-spirits ascend to the sky inthe form of birds ()24. In the Book ofNut, decan stars transform into fish while

within the Nun waters and then fly up to heaven presumably as birds after they are reborn25.Further evidence for this concept appears in anunusual scene in the tomb of Ramesses IX fea-turing a row of eight men in disks, all upside-

down with their limbs spread apart26. The pos-ture of these men figures simultaneously evokesthe five-pointed star ( ), the hieroglyph of aswimmer ( , or = ), as well as the signfor ( ), identifying them as swimming,inverted stars, while sportively labeling them asthe lords of the Duat ( )27.

23 I. Ga me r-Wa ll e r t, Fische und Fischkulte im al-ten gypten, gAbh 21 (Wiesbaden, 1970), p. 132

134; J. Borghouts, The Magical Texts of PapyrusLeiden I 348, OMRO 51 (Leiden, 1971), pp. 210214;G. Meyer, Das Hirtenlied in den Privatgrbern des

Alten Reiches, SAK 17 (1990): 269272; J. B i l l en,Un poisson rouge, in Cl. Obsomer and A.-L.Oosthoek, eds., Amosiades, Mlanges offerts auProfesseur Claude Vandersleyen par ses anciens tudi-ants (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1992), pp. 4347; A. Belluc-cio, Les poissons celestes, in C. J. Eyre, ed., Pro-ceedings of the seventh International Congress ofEgyptologists. Cambridge, 39 September 1995, OLA82 (Leuven, 1998), pp. 129142; Klotz, Adoration ofthe Ram, pp. 8889, n. B.

24 Chr. Lei tz , Tagewhlerei: Das Buch

und verwandte Texte I, gAbh. 55 (Wiesbaden,1994), pp. 3841 (I Akhet 22).25A. von Lieven, Grundriss des Laufes der Ster-

ne. Das sogenannte Nutbuch I, The Carlsberg Papyri 8,CNI Publications 31 (Copenhagen, 2007), pp. 8991,169170, 424426 ( 117124).

26 Darnell, The Enigmatic Netherworld Books,Pls. 3132.

27 Da rne l l , op.cit., pp. 278285, 428444; J. F.Quack, Ein Unterweltsbuch der solar-osirianischenEinheit? WdO 35 (2005): 34, dismissed this interpreta-tion and the entire discussion of the (withoutsuggesting an alternative explanation) because for himdie Haltung der kopfber dargestellten Personen in

den Kreisen keineswegs als Schwimmhaltung gedeutet

Deceased humans were also capable of trans-forming into fish and birds, both of whichrisked capture by inimical trappers in the Neth-erworld28. As with the decan stars, the fish-birdduality corresponds to the separation betweenthe corpse ( , ) and the spirit ( , )29.

The specifically nocturnal fish and daily birdsin Kemit VIII thus evoke a range of cosmologi-cal concepts that would not have been lost onthe Ancient Egyptians. In other words, Aus

wife does not cry bitterly because her husband isflirting in the Delta or hunting with his friends,but because he has died and begun his Protean

werden kann. However, the celestial figures need notrepresent a naturalistic depiction of swimming, sincethey serve as hieroglyphs in the scene, writing (