- aHa.n Dd.n Ddi
- immi di=tw n=i wa n qAqAw ini.t=f n=i Xrd.w Hr zXA.w=i
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- "Then Djedi said;"
- "Cause that one give to me a ship that it might fetch for me the children and my books."
aHa.n rdi.w aHa n=f wsx.wy Hna iz.t=sn
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- "Then two barges were caused to stand (i.e. "made ready") for him with their crews."
iw.t pw iri.n Ddi m xdi m wsx nty zA-n.y-sw.t Hrw-dd=f im=f
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- What Djedi did was to come downstream in the barge in which Prince Hardedef was.
xr m-xt spr=f r Xnw
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- "After it had arrived at the Residence,"
- OK, I am taking Stephen and James's idea and letting this be subordinate because I guess it works better that way.
- aq pw iri.n zA-n.y-sw.t Hrw-dd=f r s-mi.t n Hm n.y
- n.y-sw.t bi.t.y xwfwmAa-xrw
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- "what Prince Hardedef did was enter to inform the Majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu the justified."
- Dd.in zA-n.y-sw.t Hrw-dd=f
- it.y anx.w wDA.w snb.w nb=i
- iw ini.n=i Ddi
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- "Then Prince Hardedef said;"
- "Sovereign, may he live, prosper, and be healthy, my Lord,
- "I have brought Djedi!"
- Dd.in Hm=f
- i-zi ini n=i sw
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- Then His Majesty said;
- "Go and bring him to me!"
wDA pw iri.n Hm=f r wAx.y n.y pr-aA anx.w wDA.w snb.w
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- "What His Majesty did was to set out toward the pillared hall of the Royal Domain, may it live, prosper, and be healthy."
sTA.in=tw n=f Ddi
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- "Then Djedi was introduced to him."
- Dd.in Hm=f
- ptr st Ddi tm rdi.w mAn=i Tw
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- "Then His Majesty said;"
- "How is it, Djedi, that I have not been caused to see you (previously)?"
- Dd.in Ddi
- nis pw ii.w
- it.y anx.w wDA.w snb.w nis r=i
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- "Then Djedi said;"Was there a summons which came?"
- I am making this interrogative because it seems odd that he would answer the question in this way. What do you think?
- S. Fryer
- Try nis.w pw i.y = One who is summoned comes. I think both verb forms are participles, the first passive, the second "active" (intransitive verb of motion)
- G.Graham [responding to S. Fryer]
- Yes!!! I think you have got it! That is great, Stephen. I often forget those participles. The sentence would literarally say: "One who is summoned IS one who comes." Sentence form: A pw B: A is B.
- Serge Rosmorduc [18/6/97: RE>AEL What Djedi Said]
- I would more or less agree : "... the one who comes it is one who has been called, oh sovereign lph my lord", and then "nisw r=i" as a passive sDmw=f : "A call has been made for me, and see, here I am."
- J. Hoch [19/6/97; AEL Re(2): AEL What Djedi Said]
- Serge's interpretation is excellent: and then "nisw r=i" as a passive sDmw=f : "A call has been made for me, and see, here I am." The sDm(w).f passive often does not take a subject, especially in a case like this, where the following preposition phrase indicates the person involved. The sDm(w).f passive is a subordinate type (i.e. it can't stand on its own in a new sentence without a "crutch" at the beginning of the sentence). Here it would be "a summons having been made to me--me voila" or "since I was summoned--Here I am!"
- S. Fryer [24/6/97; RE>AEL Re(2): AEL What Dj]
- I think I need to re-evaluate my grammatical analysis here. I still see the first word as a participle, however the last word, i.y is perhaps a prospective relative "who will come." So that gives "It is (pw) the one summoned (nis) who will come (i.y)."
- Response by G. Graham [24/6//97]
- No, you were right the first time around. There is a special form for future participles in Egyptian. It is called the sDm.ty=fy. Its forms in jj would be:
- jj.ty=fy "one who shall come" (m. sing.)
- jj.ty=sy "one who shall come" (f. sing.)
- jj.ty=sn "ones who whall come" (plur.)
- Gerald E. Kadish [25/6/97; responding to S.Fryer]
- Just a quick observation on the participle + pw + participle. The issue of futurity is not, I think, involved. Essentially, the pw serves to equate the two verbal nouns, producing a generalizing statement. "One who is summoned" (imperfect passive participle) is "one who comes" (imperfect active participle). Djedi merely enunciates a principle that any sound servant of the king would take as a statement of an obligatory response to what has the appearance of a royal command. So, leaving aside the futurity distraction, you and Stephen both have it right, in my view.
- [Antonio Loprieno, post to MD-S, 7/8/97]
- Njs pw jj.w is probably NOT a participal pw-sentence, but rather a pseudoverbal "thetic" sentence with a stative as predicate (see my book): njs pw jj.w < *[njs jj.w] pw lit. *"It is the case that the one who was summoned has come," = "So, he who was summoned is now here" = "So, here I am." For the pattern NomP-pw-AdvP, in which pw acts as clitic dummy subject of a predicate consisting of a clause [NomP-Subject+AdvP-predicate] see examples such as jnk pw h3j.kw r bj3.t n jty... in the Sh.S. or the most famous one, the beginning of the Eloquent Peasant zj pw wn.w < *[zj wn.w] pw , lit. *"It is the case that a man was" = Once upon a time, there was a man...
- J. Hoch [11/8/97, post to MDS]
- I am not sure if I prefer it to the traditional interpretation as a 3-partite nominal sentence with participles as the nouns: i.e. "The one who comes is the one who has been summoned." This would fit the context--a somewhat clever statement--rather than stating the obvious, which Djedi actually does in the next line or so.
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- "The Sovereign, may he live, prosper, and be healthy, has summoned for me."
- [19/6/97, responding to S. Fryer]
- > Something like "You sent for me and, see, here I am!" (+ gesture of magician pulling rabbit out of hat?)
- Hmmmmm, it almost works, but there is no "you" expressed. Could it be imperative?
- "Summon for me, and I.... NO, this is stative, it has to be past action following. This is why I decided to put the jt.y l.p.h. as the subject and call njs another stative. There has to be a subject for njs, and it is clearly not expressed after it. The only other choice seems to be that the subject is before it.
mk wi ii.kw
- G.Graham [16/6/97: AEL What Djedi Said]
- "Behold, I have come!"
- I hope I have not been too much of a "translation hawg", but it seems like we go so slow sometimes! I am sure there will be plenty of disagreement, so I look forward to all the exegesis! ;-)
- G.Graham [9/7/97: AEL Westcar pp. 81-...]
- Hi, everyone, I guess we covered the part I transliterated last time. Since this seems to be the only way to get things rolling again, I will provide some more here: :
- LINE 16 (De Buck's Page 81, line 10) [next] [top]
- Dd.in Hm=f in-iw mAa.t pw pA-Dd
- [Mike D-S: 13/7/97: RE>AEL Westcar pp. 81-..]
- "Then his majesty said:"What truth is there in the saying..."
- [later post, 17/7] As Serge pointed out to me in my attempted translation, the particle in fronting the sentence is called an interrogative particle (see Gardiner, p402). It can be used alone, but the combination in-iw is also commonly used. In fact, Gardiner p403, section 492, actually gives this exact sentence from Westcar as an example of the use of in-iw, describing it as a 'special interrogative phrase' that can be put at the start of a sentence without altering its syntax. So in this case, m3't pw p3-Dd could be used as a statement "this saying is true (lit. truth)", but such a sentence would never have iw placed at the front of it. Put in-iw at the front and you get the corresponding question, "Is this saying true (lit. truth)..."
- mAat pw pA-Dd = a typical sentence with nominal predicate, of the form NOUN pw NOUN, where the pw acts as a 'copula' or simple joining word, indicating the connection (nexus) between subject and predicate. In this case, the usual interpretation is that the subject is the SECOND noun, ie. pA-Dd, so it comes first in the english translation, and the predicate is the first noun, ie. mAat (truth).
- [S. Fryer, 17/7/97: RE>AEL Westcar pp. 81-...]
- The form of Dd is probably a participle, so the tranlslation of pA Dd as "this saying" would be accurate but rather strange English syntax. We would probably use a pseudo-impersonal like "what they say"
- [G. Graham, 17/7/97: RE>AEL Westcar pp. 81-...] (responding to Nancy, but equally valid for the above)
- jn-jw is a question word expecting a yes or no answer. I would render this: "Is the saying true..". One could liberate the English a little with: "Is it true what they say" but of course this is free-form.
- [P. Ryan, , 17/7/97: RE>AEL Westcar pp. 81-..]
- My suggestion is: "Is that which is said the truth?"
- [which Geoff Graham agreed was a good translation into english]
- LINE 17 [next] [top]
- iw=k rx.ti TAs tp Hsq.w
- [Mike D-S: 13/7/97: RE>AEL Westcar pp. 81-..]
- "... that you know how to rejoin a severed head."
- LINE 18 [next] [top]
- Dd.in Ddi tiw iw=i rx.kw it.y anx.w wDA.w snb.w nb=i
- [Mike D-S: 13/7/97: RE>AEL Westcar pp. 81-..]
- "Djedi replied, "Yes! I know how sovereign (l.p.h.), my lord."
- [Katherine Griffis-Greenberg, 15/5/1998; Re: AEL Re: Conversational features of AEL]
- In 1998, there was a thread on whether the word 'yes' existed in egyptian. This line of westcar was offered as an example (ie. tiw) and both A. Loprieno and Katherine Griffis-Greenberg, answered that a simple 'yes' word did not exist, for the following reason]
- Faulkner on p. 294 confirms the use of tiw as 'yes', as does Gardiner in §258, but notes that it is not an independent word but an enclitic particle, or a word that forms a unit with another word, and thus has no independent meaning.
- So, your example of what Djedi says is a "yes" with a purpose and not a simple affirmation. The answer is to a query for corroboration (Gardiner: §491) The king's query is in the standard "negative form" of in iw, and which requires a "yes" answer. Here, the query is in the nominal predicate utilizing pw:
- When Djedi answers the king, he is not merely saying "yes", but is repetitively affirming his ability to do the action of which the king inquired about, or "Yes, it is (the condition) that I can <am able to> [join a severed head]..."(implied).
- It is as Dr. Loprieno said in a previous AEL post [ed. forwarded by Nubkhas, 15/5/98] that the affirmation must relate back to the predicate of the question: "One usually preferred to answer with a confirmation or a denial of the predicate of the question. "Will you go home"--"I will (iry=j)" or "I will not" (nn jry=j) rather than just yes or no." A simple "yes" is not sufficient, but has to come back, directly or indirectly, stating the inquired about action. See Gardiner: § 492, ex. 4 for the exact phrasing of the king's query as shown here. See also Faulkner, p. 151 on the use of rx as "ability" or "be able to".
- LINES 19-20 [top]
- Dd.in Hm=f immi ini=tw n=i xnr nty m xnr.t wdi.w nkn=f
- [Mike D-S: 13/7/97: RE>AEL Westcar pp. 81-..]
- "His majesty said, "Let a criminal who is in prison be brought to me and execute his sentence!"
- [Serge Rosmorduc, 14/7/97: RE>AEL Westcar pp. 81-...]
- A minor point : I would rather write : 'the criminal/prisoner who is in prison', because of nty. In theory, a relative introduced by nty is a determination of the antecedent ; it doesn't simply add a detail, but defines the antecedent and allows to differentiate it from the other member of its class
- [G. Graham, 17/7/97: RE>AEL Westcar pp. 81-...] (responding to Nancy, but equally valid for the above)
- [ed. more literally] "Cause that one bring..." or "let there be brought..."
- Let me just insert a grammatical note here. jmmj (or jmj in Gardiner) is the imperative of rdj "give/cause/allow/place/put". This verb is often used as an auxiliary with other verbs, making them causative. jmmj jnj=tw shows the imperative of rdj, and the subjunctive of jnj with the indefinite personal suffix ending. Any verb that comes after rdj or immj in this fashion will always be subjunctive. The suffix =tw can either be translated as "one/some indefinite person" or it can make the verb passive.
- wdj.w is a passive sDm.w=f. Notice that the /w/ is not written in the text, but it must be there in order to make sense. The verb follows soon after other verbs, immj jnj=tw. In order to make the sentence flow, you can do as you have done, and translate it as a weak circumstantial using "and", or you could make it into another subjunctive and get: "that his sentence might be carried out". Quite literally the the idiom says: "his damage is struck". One has to get creative to make this sound like real English. ;-)
- [Serge Rosmorduc, 17/7/97: RE>AEL Westcar pp. 81-...]
- In theory, nty introduces a kind of relative proposition called "determinative", vs. other relatives that are only "descriptive". (remember that to express something that is temporary or unessential, the egyptian language resorts to adverbial constructs : iw=k m ntr vs. ntk nTr) so they used the so-called "virtual relative clauses" which are only relative clauses for us in our translations.
- A consequence of the use of nty is that the antecedent of the relative becomes grammatically determined (the relative distinguishes it from anything else). So, if it had been 'a prisoner, who is in jail', we would have had xnr iw=f m xnrt. But xnr nty m xnrt means "the prisoner who is in jail" (in the palace's jail ?)
- [J. Hoch, 17/7/97: AEL Re(2): AEL Westcar pp. 81-...]
- wdj.w nkn=f
- Geoff is no doubt correct in analysing wdi(w) as a sDm(w).f passive. This is not the passive form that one expects, as it tends to be a past tense (and also limited to places that the "circumstantial sDm.f" are used--not in purpose clauses). A purpose clause ("so that his punishment may be executed") works very nicely here. So what is happening here? There actually are some good examples of a prospective sDm(w).f passive (i.e. subjunctive or prospective). These examples are generally not found in standard Middle Kingdom literary texts, but it looks like we have one here. This may have been a somewhat archaic form.
- > Serge raised points about nty that normally hold true. True, every once in a while there are cases that don't seem to work--these are rare enough, however, to make Serge's suggested translation as "the prisoner" likely. The use of the concept of "definite" (vs. indefinite) is often a subtle point. Here the king is speaking, and he may have a particular prisoner in mind--or there may have been only one prisoner. Djedi, on the other hand, would use constructions/modifiers that would be appropriate for the concept of "indefinite" (how would he know who was in prison--if anyone?)
- [J. Hoch, 18/7/97: AEL Re(2): AEL Westcar pp. 81-...]
- About the use of imi (the imperative of rdi) + passive prospective sDm.f... The construction does, indeed, start off with an imperative, but one must also look at use in context. This construction is regularly used by inferiors to their superiors, and is fairly clearly a "polite request" as opposed to an ordinary "command" (polite or otherwise). The mechanism is a distancing one... i.e. it is less direct than saying "Give me two ships..."--which would be appropriate for a superior speaking to an inferior, but the socially inferior person would say: "Let two ships be given to me..." by means of this construction.
- [J. Hoch, 28/7/97: AEL Re(2): AEL Grammar the head on the Goose!]
- Since xnr is perfectly positioned to be the subject, we do not need to revert to the original meaning of tw as "one." We do this when there is no other subject.
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