I, Sinuhe, write this only for my own sake, because knowledge burns my heart like lye, and I have lost all joy in my life. I begin this book in the third year of my exile on the shores of the Eastern Sea, whence ships put out for the land of Punt, near the desert, near those hills from which stone was quarried to build the statues of former Kings. I write this because wine is bitter to my tongue, because I have lost my pleasure in women and because neither gardens nor fish ponds delight me any more. I have driven away the singers, and the sound of pipes and strings is anguish to my ears. Therefore, I write this, I, Sinuhe, who makes no use of wealth nor golden cups, myrrh, ebony or ivory.
I still have all this luxury, and they have not been taken from me. Slaves still fear my rod, and guards bow their heads and stretch out their hands at knee level before me. But bounds have been set to my walking, and no ships can put in through the surf of these shores. Therefore I, Sinuhe, shall never again smell the scent of black earth on a night in spring, and therefore I write this.
But my name was once inscribed in Pharaoh’s golden book, and I dwelt in the golden house at his right hand. My words outweighed those of the mighty in the land of Kem, the nobles sent me gifts, and chains of gold were hung about my neck. I possessed all that a man can desire, but as a man, I desired more than a man can possess. Therefore I am now here. I was driven from Thebes in the sixth year of the reign of Pharaoh Horemheb, to be beaten to death like a cur if I returned — to be crushed like a frog between the stones if I took one step beyond the proscribed area for my dwelling place. This is by command of the King, of Pharaoh who once was my friend.
But what else can you expect from a low-born who has let erase the names of Kings from the list of rulers and let the scribes mark his parents as noble. I witnessed his coronation: I saw how the red and white crowns were laid on his head. It was in the sixth year from that moment that I was banished by him. But the scribes already say it was the thirty-first year of his reign. Isn’t the writing today and the writing of the past nothing but lies?
11
During his lifetime, I despised the one who lived from truth for his weakness, and I was frightened of the destruction he laid on the land of Kem for the sake of his truth. But now, as if his revenge to me, it is me who wants to live from truth, not for the sake of his god, but for the sake of myself. Truth is a cutting knife, an unhealed wound in man, truth is bitter lye that consumes the heart. During the days of his youth and strength, a man escapes from truth to pleasure houses, blinds his eyes with work, travels and pastimes, power and construction. But a day comes that truth cuts through him like a spear, and from then on, his thoughts or the work of his hands bring him no joy, and he is alone amongst others, and gods cannot help him in his loneliness. Thus write I, Sinuhe, well knowing how wicked my deeds and how wrong my paths have been, but also knowing that reading about them would not make anyone learn anything from them. Let the others wash their sins with the holy water of Amun, but I, Sinuhe, cleanse myself by writing down my deeds. Let others leave the lies of their hearts weighed by the scales of Osiris, but I, Sinuhe, weigh my heart with a reed pen.
But before I begin my book, I will let my heart cry out in lamentation, and this is how my exiled heart cries, black with sorrow:
He who has once drunk of the Nile water will forever yearn to be by the Nile again. His thirst cannot be quenched by the waters of any other land.
He who was born in Thebes, he always longs to return to Thebes, as there is no other city on earth like Thebes. He who was born in an alley longs to return to the alley, back from a cedar wood palace to a mud hovel, back from the scents of myrrh and balm to the smoky smell of dung fire and oil-fried fish.
I would exchange my cup for an earthenware mug if my feet might once more tread the soft soil in the land of Kem. I would give my linen clothes for the roasted skin of a slave if once more I might hear the reeds of the river rustling in the spring wind.
The Nile floods, the cities rise like jewels from the green water, the swallows return, the cranes wade in the mud, but I am gone. Why am I not a swallow or a crane to fly pass the guards back to the land of Kem?
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