Letter to the Dead | wstn n 3ḫ
By Caitlin Kropp, BK’17 — Ancient Egyptian
To the Ancient Egyptians, ghosts weren’t exactly a part of ordinary life — spirits, yes, but ghosts, no. Their belief was that each individual had a soul that was made of five distinctive parts: the “ib” (heart), the “sheut” (shadow), the “ren” (name), the “ba” (personality), and the “ka” (often called the “vital spark”). When a person died, the Egyptians believed that their ba, in the form of a bird with a human head, would leave the body and go on to live in the afterlife. Should they be proven worthy, the deceased would enter the afterlife, which was a perfect mirror of the real world and contained everything a person wanted or needed in life. Thus, the idea of having a soul or ghost lingering behind was extremely against the grain. In Egyptian literature, this only occurred when the deceased had met an especially violent or abrupt end (like with the assassinated pharaoh Amenemhat I) or were denied the appropriate burial rites or accommodations. In both cases, the deceased were permitted to return to the world of the living to rectify their unfinished business, and, once they were satisfied, they would return to their proper place in the afterlife. I have tried to write something that accurately reflects this way of thinking, in conception at least — as for accuracy of the phrasing, we’ll have to leave that to the gods to decide.
Translation Note: Traditionally in Egyptian translations, the hieroglyphs are translated into two parts: the transliteration, which is the phonetic rendering of the elements, and the translation, which contains the actual English rendering of the words.
ORIGINAL (HIEROGLYPHS)
ORIGINAL (TRANSLITERATION)
iw whhi ib=k m=i iw whi=i
‘r.n=k r 3h.t=k pw dr-’wy hn’ htp=i
iw swtwt=i shi=i tw
iw snfr=i wp(w).t=i shi=i tw
h3b=i n=k hrw nb mdw.w snk.ty mdw.w n ib=i
rhi=i ntk m hnkyt-’nh
tn pw bw pn tmi rh=i gmi sw
sdm=w wsir sm3’=i m33=kwi r-s3
iw b3=k tmi m33=tw tmi sdm=tw
3’’t=k hr dnhwy 3sb n hsbd d3i=k itn hr p.t m r’
iw 3bbi=i nty ntk ii-m-htp hr ni 3bbi=i nty ii=k n=i
mni.ty=ny n sp.t w3.t hn’=nn dmd.ty=ny b3w n igr.t
gmi=w ba=k htp nfr.yt-r hrw pw
m(w)t r md.t m3.t w’.y n n=wy
TRANSLATION
Your heart is missing to me, I am undone.
That you ascended to your horizon was long ago, with my contentment.
I walk about and I remember you
I carry out my business and I call you to mind
I write to you every day, words of longing, words of my heart
I know that you are in the bed of life where the sun sets
Where is that place? I cannot find it.
May Osiris hear my prayers, May I see you soon.
Your soul is not seen, is not heard.
You fly aloft on glowing wings of lapis lazuli — with Ra, you ferry the disk of the sun across the sky.
I hope that you return safely, although I do not hope that you return to me.
We will moor on the far shore together, we will assemble our souls in the underworld.
Until that day, may your soul find peace.
Death will only be a new story for us both.
