If we try to visualize the Egyptian character we find it difficult to distinguish between the ethics of the literature and the actual practices of life. Very frequently noble sentiments occur; a poet, for example, counsels his countrymen:
Give bread to him who has no field,
And create for thyself a good name for ever more;114
and some of the elders give very laudable advice to their children. A papyrus in the British Museum, known to scholars as “The Wisdom of Amenemope†(ca. 950 B.C.), prepares a student for public office with admonitions that probably influenced the author or authors of the “Proverbs of Solomon.â€
Be not greedy for a cubit of land,
And trespass not on the boundary of the widow. . . .
Plough the fields that thou mayest find thy needs,
And receive thy bread from thine own threshing floor.
Better is a bushel which God giveth to thee
Than five thousand gained by transgression. . . .
Better is poverty in the hand of God
Than riches in the storehouse;
And better are loaves when the heart is joyous
Than riches in unhappiness. . . .