Ancient Egyptian Love Song /Canção de amor do antigo Egipto (3000 anos)

"São muito numerosas as comunidades étnicas que não possuem mais do que uns rudimentos orais da literatura. Não há grupo humano sem música — sem uma música muitas vezes elaborada e extremamente complexa. Os dados sensoriais e emocionais da música são muito mais imediatos do que os da fala (podem remontar à vida intra-uterina)."

George Steiner, in A POESIA DO PENSAMENTO

The words for this song are from an ancient Egyptian papyrus scroll, written in a formalized version of the language of the New Kingdom (roughly 1500 B.C.). This was the era of some of Egypt's most famous pharaohs, including Tutankhamun, Queen Hatshepsut and the notorious "heretic king" Akenaten and his wife Queen Nefertiti.

The song itself is written in several parts as a dialog between a young man and the girl he loves. This is the first part of it sung by the young man.  Although he refers to the girl as "sister", she is not his actual sister. It was common for people in those days, as it is in some places today, to refer to one another as "brother" and "sister" when they belonged to the same community.

The language of ancient Egypt died out long ago, and no one is certain exactly how it was pronounced because only consonants were written - no vowels. The song itself is surprisingly explicit and erotic. After I made the video, I decided I had better add subtitles with a translation because without that nothing made any sense.

Peter Pringle