And if you're really interested, look into the whole genre of 'Wisdom Literature' [0] in the Ancient Near East. It's a super interesting genre, and was fairly widespread.
This isn't actually advice to his son (who was also destined to be vizier, and thus lots of this advice wouldn't apply to him). It's "wisdom literature", as was fairly common among the royalty and elites of old (i.e. people who have little to no knowledge of what the life of the underclass is like).
It would be like Jeff Bezos or Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan releasing a worldly advice and self-help book for the commoners.
It's interesting how similar most of this is to more modern advice. The main differences seem to regard humane treatment of your servants, and of women upon whom you've brought public disgrace for 'wanton behavior' -- neither of which are all that relevant today.
> It's interesting how similar most of this is to more modern advice.
Well, he's:
>> paraphrased the rules below so that they’re written in my own everyday language as clearly as I can manage, while being careful not to distort the meaning of the text, as far as I understand it.
I was suspicious about that. Let's see. He gives the first one as:
1. Don’t let your education make you arrogant. Be humble when you talk to someone and assume they might have something to teach you, regardless of whether they’re more or less educated than you.
Which is apparently their paraphrase of this 1906 translation:
> 1. Be not proud because thou art learned; but discourse with the ignorant man, as with the sage. For no limit can be set to skill, neither is there any craftsman that possesseth full advantages. Fair speech is more rare than the emerald that is found by slave-maidens on the pebbles.
Another, I think, more modern translation:
Then he addressed his son:
Do not be proud on account of your knowledge,
but discuss with the ignorant as with the wise.
The limits of art cannot be delivered;
there is no artist whose talent is fulfilled.
Fine words are more sought after than greenstone,
but can be found with the women at the grindstone.
It appears to have been bowdlerized in the text available on Project Gutenberg (which the article author probably didn't bother to look beyond).
Elsewhere in the thread someone has linked a UCL "digital egypt" effort that makes the text available in the original and a translation:
Do not have sex with a child woman
when you knew the approach to the water of its chest.
There is no cooling what is in his body.
Do not go mad on making the approach.
He is cool after damaging his heart.
This is what the Gutenberg text renders as "[concerning continence]". The first line seems fairly clear, but I don't really understand what the next four lines are saying.
There is a serious disagreement between the two translations as to #37, where the Gutenberg translation has this:
If thou make a woman to be ashamed,
wanton of heart,
one known by her townsfolk to be falsely placed,
be kind unto her for a space, send her not away,
give her to eat.
The wantonness of her heart shall esteem thy guidance.
and the UCL translation has this:
If you marry a good-time girl
A joyful woman known to her town,
If she is wayward,
and revels in the moment,
do not reject her, but instead let her enjoy;
joyfulness is what marks calm water.
Something has gone badly wrong here, and clearly euphemisms are involved somewhere, but without the ability to read the Egyptian there's no way to know what the text actually said.
Beautiful set of maxims. I love these outtakes from another time. Many of these rules also seem applicable while discussing issues and being considerate.
