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Ancient Egyptian Texts:  2.7


PRAYER OF A BLIND MAN


Text:   Brooklyn 37.1821E   [ TM 53689 ]
Provenance:   Thebes (?)
Date:   July 265 B.C.
Language:   Demotic
Translated by:   G. Renberg
Format:   see key to translations

This unusual document was written on an ostracon. The translation is adapted from G. Renberg , "Where Dreams May Come", pp. 499-500 ( Google Books ); which in its turn was adapted from the translation by S.P. Vleeming.


Year 20, Pachons 28, under Pharaoh (l.p.h.) Ptolemy (l.p.h.), son of Ptolemy (l.p.h.), with Ptolemy (l.p.h.) his son, while Berenikē (l.p.h.), the daughter of Aristodikos (?), is the kanephoros before Arsinoē (l.p.h.) the Brother-loving. It happened in year 20, Pachons 28, that Thotortaios, son of Pachoy, his mother being Sas, the caretaker, said:

I slept in the courtyard of Amonrasonther - as I suffer in my eyes, 10 having lost my sight, and others have to show me the way - while praying loudly before Amun in the courtyard, and before Amonrasonther, Amonsomteu, Shu-great-of-shining-in-Thebes, Amun-the-primeval-one-of-the-two-lands, the divine master:   'Come towards me, my great Lord. O Amun, I am wretched, but I am your servant; do not let me perish, do not forget me. For thirty years I have served Amun, while no reason has been found to reproach me, while I have not abandoned the embalming workshop {wabe} of my own accord, while if any reason was found to reproach me I had not acted of my own accord.'   I have prayed to Amun: 'Let them send me to the place where they will give me medicine.'   I have fallen asleep . . . that very night, 20 whereas I saw myself in a dream while a . . . [was] speaking with me.

Thotortaios, son of Pachoy, the caretaker, is the one who . . .


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