While he is dreaming he does not know it is a dream, and in his dream he may even try to interpret a dream. Only after he wakes does he know it was a dream. And someday there will be a great awakening when we know that this is all a great dream. Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too.
Chuang Tzu
The dream as a literary device
Ancient writers, as well as modern, realized that the dream can function as a powerful literary device in poems, song, and fictional narratives. It provides an opening for creating metaphors and similes that are both elegant and easily understandable to a contemporary audience. The Egyptian composers took full advantage of the multi-faceted quality of dreams: the experience of a dream could include a personal encounter with the dead or a deity that left the dreamer feeling exhilarated and joyful, but it could also feature a parade of bizarre images and disturbing distortions of time that left a dreamer feeling disoriented and confused. As we shall see, the authors of royal political texts exploited the perception of dreams as real phenomena, affording access to the divine world. But the authors of literary texts also explored the darker side of dreams, and presented them as insubstantial and untrustworthy.
Freud noted that ‘time when we are sleeping is very different from time when we are awake’.1 This idea can be found in numerous modern scholarly and literary works, and it did not escape the attention of the ancient Egyptians. As early as the Middle Kingdom, texts refer to the temporal dimension of dreams. Maxim 18 of the Teaching of Ptahhotep warns the reader against abusing friendship by approaching the women of the friend’s household. The negative repercussions of such improper behaviour are serious (lines 284–8)2 :
A thousand men are turned away from what is good for them –
A little moment, the likeness of a dream,
and death is reached on account of knowing her.3
In Egyptian ‘knowing’ can have a sexual connotation, and a later version of the text (L.2) confirms that this sense is intended here by adding that ‘one is fooled by a body of faience, but then she transforms into cornelian’.4 This passionate interlude is compared to a dream wherein a person may seem to go through a myriad of sensations and emotions, only to find upon awakening that a surprisingly short time has elapsed. The dream, like the woman who transforms herself, is untrustworthy and can lead to grave danger. In the case of the rude acquaintance, this brief lapse of morality leads to lasting consequences, even death. The time span mentioned is infinitesimal. The smallest unit of measure for time in Egyptian is ⫖.t (moment or instant)5 and this word is further qualified by kt.t (little, short, tiny),6 thus the best English approximation might be ‘split second’ or ‘in the blink of an eye’. But Ogdon suggests that in addition to its temporal sense, ⫖.t simultaneously expresses the notion of ‘striking power’. This term thus represents the double meaning of ‘moment/instant of maximum force/ power’,7 rendering this passage more dynamic. This simile stresses both the temporal distortion which is a feature of dreams, and also their potency.
Another passage in the Teaching of Ptahhotep (Maxim 23) makes an even stronger case for not trusting the ephemeral nature of dreams. The passage is difficult, with considerable variation in the manuscripts,8 but a recent translation by Parkinson provides perhaps the most satisfying understanding of the maxim, and is here quoted in full:9
You should not repeat gossip about something you did not hear direct!
It is the outpouring of the hot-tempered to repeat a matter that is only seen
from a distance and not heard direct –
ignore that, do not tell it at all!
Look at the man before you, by whom excellence is known!
When theft is ordered, that act is made into something hateful against the
taker, according to the law.
Look, gossip is a self-destructive dream, at which one covers the face.
Parkinson suggests that ‘the final verses present two analogies for the effects of gossip – an act of plunder that rebounds on the plunderer, and a terrifying nightmare...’10 The dream metaphor, jw mskj mj sp n rsw.t, refers back to the injunction against gossip. The reader is warned against repeating hearsay which has not been or cannot be verified, and is therefore as unreliable as events seen in a dream. While a dream may seem to be a strange analogy to use here, it represents an undesirable, perhaps even dangerous experience against which one covers the face or from which one must be guarded. The underlying theme is that while it can superfi- cially seem to be hurtful only to others, gossip, theft, and dreams can have a negative effect on the perpetrator himself. The analogy with dreams is this – one should not believe in the events seen in a dream, nor should one repeat unverified slander against another person. Both represent a fluid reality which may seem more solid and momentous than it actually is. Equally relevant is the observation that dreams by their very nature self- destruct – they either mutate into different scenarios, or else the sleeper awakens, and his experiences rapidly fade away; whatever is experienced in the dream will not last, and one is never sure how it will end. Gossip (mskj) is compared to a dream which may start off innocently, but which transforms into a hideous nightmare from which the dreamer tries to escape. One can try to cover one’s face in a futile attempt to guard against its effects, but to no avail. That it is the dream itself against which one must be guarded and not its destruction, is made clear by the consistent use of the feminine suffix =s which must refer back to the feminine noun rsw.t (dream), rather than the masculine sswn (destruction).
This idea of a dream as illusory is in stark contrast to that presented in the preceding chapter where, in letters written to the dead, the dream was treated as a dimension of reality. This inconsistency emphasizes the ambiguous and kaleidoscopic nature of dreams that was recognized and played upon by the ancient authors of literary works.
Authors of literary texts widely divergent in time and distance have also chosen to employ the dream as a temporal trope to emphasize the brevity of time on this earth. In the seventeenth century the Spaniard Pedro Calderon de la Barca composed a philosophical drama called ‘Life is a Dream’. Centuries before, the Chinese sage Chuang Tzu pondered the reality of dreams and proposed that ‘someday there will be a great awakening when we know that this is all a great dream’,11 while in the nineteenth century the American Edgar Allen Poe wrote that ‘You are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream.’12 Perhaps the earliest recorded example of this particular metaphor materializes on the walls of two New Kingdom tombs as part of a ‘harper’s’ or ‘entertainment’ song.13
I have listened to these songs which are in the tombs of long ago
(and) that which they relate in extolling the earthly
while belittling the necropolis.
Why is the like done against the land of Eternity
and uprightness which is without terror?
Tumult is its abomination.
There is no one who prepares himself against his fellow;
this land is without its opponent.
All our kindred rest within it since the time of the primeval beginning.
Those who will come into being – by millions and millions – will come to it.
There is no lingering in the Beloved Land;
There is no one who does not reach it.14
As for a lifetime done on earth, it is the time of a dream.
It is said: ‘Welcome safe and sound’ to the one who reaches the West.
The owner of the earliest known version of this text is Neferhotep, a nobleman who lived during the reign of Horemheb.15 He had a total of three harpers’ songs written in his tomb, one of which includes the passages quoted above (I have included all but the first three introductory lines). The much discussed singularity of this text is reinforced by its placement on the tomb wall usually reserved for a representation of a royal scene.16 The second version of the text recently published by Kákosy and Fábián appears in a similar location in the Ramesside tomb of Djehutimes, but with the text of this song merged with another.17 The publishers of this tomb propose that, rather than being copied from the text of Neferhotep’s tomb, both were copied from a prototype papyrus.18
As part of the entertainment song genre, the song above would have served both a creative and a didactic function.19 These songs were ‘meant to be sung and heard, written and read to ensure eternal blessedness for the deceased through the creative force of word and representation and to instruct listeners and readers in the true meaning and value of the mortuary maintenance cult’.20 Written shortly after the Amarna Period, this particular text reflects the beliefs of that time. While earlier funerary texts included references to specific gods, funerary rites, offerings, and the idea of an afterlife to which one must earn entry through meritorious behaviour, they are strikingly absent in this song.21 It also shows a return to the more traditional concepts of the afterlife which had been rejected by Akhenaten.22 The author of the text explains that he is aware of the previous songs which ‘extol the earthly while belittling the necropolis’ but they are wrong. The text teaches that once again the farworld is a positive place, a place to look forward to rather than fear, without demons or other bad things, rather serene, yet inevitable.23 There, the individual will live for eternity,24 compared to which the earthly life is transient and brief, like a dream.
While the central motif of the text is the glorification of the afterlife, it also conveys the perceived duration of a dream. When the author writes ‘As for a lifetime done on earth, it is the time of a dream’ (jr ᶜḥᶜ(.w) jrr.t tp t⫖ sp pn n.t rsw.t) he is echoing the sentiment which appears above in Ptahhotep – that while a dream seems to extend over a prolonged period of time, upon awakening the sleeper realizes that little time has passed relative to his waking reality. This passage can be compared to the Middle Kingdom Teaching for King Merikare which advises ‘Trust not in length of years, for They25 see a lifetime as an hour!’26 A similar expression occurs in a Ramesside instruction text: ‘every man passes his life within an hour’ (P. Chester Beatty IV v. 6, 6–7),27 while in the Dialogue of a Man and his Soul we learn that ‘Life is a transitory time: the trees fall.’28 Earthly life is therefore short and transient, compared to life after death. In the entertainment song of Neferhotep II and Djehutimes the single image of a dream is able to compress all of these concepts contained in the other passages; it embodies the various ideas of a lifetime of experiences which are fleeting compared to eternity, impermanent and ephemeral in nature, and partaking of a different reality.
These texts also imply that dream-time is more closely related to earthly time than the time spans of the farworld. This connection reappears in a song to Amun on a Ramesside ostrakon:29
How short is a lifetime! It is upon your two [...].
Place, indeed, our destiny within Thebes.
That which we see in the dream is that which is on earth.
The one who endures is reaching his final mooring; do not let us be
far from you!
As translations of this passage are varied and unsure, the ideas presented here should be considered as an invitation to further discussion. From the beginning of the passage we learn that an individual’s lifetime is short, and in the control of Amun. The author hopes that his future will lie in the city of Thebes, the beloved cultural centre of Egypt, which was itself the object of contemporary hymns.30 Based on the translation above, the Egyptian author conveys the idea that earthly events and inhabitants are seen as if in a dream. After he reaches his death (lit. ‘final mooring’), his much longer life will begin, hopefully in the presence of the god Amun. From the infinite vantage point of the afterlife, earthly life will seem as transient as a dream. Unlike the dream metaphors in Ptahhotep, the oneiric zone is not here imbued with any particularly negative undertone, but is identified with an alternative plane of existence which, although it may at the time seem to be durable and solid, will fade away to a tenuous memory when the deceased awakens in his permanent life after death. This universal analogy of life as a dream is the result of serious contemplative thinking, and provides a glimpse of intellectual thought within ancient Egypt.
Yet another literary use of the dream appears in the Middle Kingdom tale of Sinuhe, where it is employed not as a temporal trope, but rather to evoke the realm of the irrational,31 and to create an alibi to relieve the protagonist of responsibility for his own actions. As the quantity of manuscripts attests,32 this composition enjoyed great popularity in ancient Egypt, and continues to be the topic of numerous Egyptological discussions today.33 While the tale begins with the standard phraseology of an official autobiography, it is quickly made clear that the story is fictional. In brief, the hero, Sinuhe, relates how during a Libyan expedition he overhears of the death of the king Amenemhat I. For some obscure reason he flees Egypt in a complete panic and eventually reaches the land of Retjenu (Palestine). Here he is rescued by a local prince, settles in to the foreign land, raises a family, leads a respectable and comfortable life, and even defeats a chal- lenger in a duel; yet as he ages he longs for his homeland. He eventually corresponds with the king of Egypt and ultimately returns to his homeland where he is greeted as a prodigal son. In the course of his narration, Sinuhe attempts to address his unjustified flight. In a conversation with his foreign rescuer, he explains that
Lo, this flight which your humble servant did, without planning it –
It was not in my heart; I didn’t think about it.
I don’t know what separated me from my place.
It was like the unfolding of a dream –
like a man from the Delta seeing himself in Elephantine,
a man of the marshlands in Nubia.
The use of the dream in Sinuhe to assign an unreal status to his flight is patent. The experience of a dream itself is mimetic in that it parallels waking reality, using elements formed from the dreamer’s conscious life to create a convincing alternate existence. Indeed Sinuhe’s entire narrative is dreamlike – filled with contradictions, ambiguities,34 and a sense of individuality which likely endeared the story and its hero to the ancient reader.35 This is not to imply that a reference to a dream is by itself enough to indicate the literary status of a particular text, for dreams appear in various non-fictional contexts where they are intended to represent an alternate (and often frightening) reality.36 But Sinuhe is not describing a dream or saying that he had a dream, he is comparing his flight to a dream – to be more specific, he is stating that his flight shares at least some of the features of a dream. Rather than placing the stress on the temporal quality of dreams, Sinuhe’s simile accentuates his lack of control over his circumstances. He says that his flight was unplanned (n ḫmt.(w)t=s), unpremeditated (n qmd=j sy), involuntary (nn sy m jb=j), and that he had no idea what had separated him from his normal place or state (n rḫ=j jwd wj st=j).37 Instead, he says that his flight was ‘like the unfolding of a dream’ (jw mj sšm rsw.t), as if he were a passive viewer helplessly watching events develop before him. Sinuhe stresses his separation from his ordinary reality in the following phrase: ‘like a man from the Delta seeing himself in Elephantine, a man of the marshlands in Nubia’ (mj m⫖⫖ sw jdḥy m⫖bw, s nj h̲⫖.t m t⫖-sty). As discussed above, dreams seemed to be a phenomenon external to the dreamer, and not of his choosing. At an earlier point in the text, Sinuhe (B 43) says his flight was ‘like the plan of a god’ (jw mj sḫr nt̲r), while eventually he contends that it was ‘the god who determined this flight’ who was in control of his very limbs, literally ‘dragging’ him along (B 229–30). Not only is Sinuhe not responsible for his flight, but indeed he represents himself as a victim of some numinous force beyond his control, set within a separate chaotic frame of reality. The use of the dream as a simile in this literary text reminds the ‘audience that this fictional inscription – unlike a real one – commemorates no reliable reality’.38 This is in stark contrast to the nature of dreams as we have seen expressed in other documentary evidence such as letters and magical spells, and as we shall see in the royal texts, whether the context be military annals or the ‘king’s novel‘.39
Royal dreams
While message dreams, both symbolic and explicit, appear at an early date in Mesopotamia,40 they are not attested in Egypt until the New Kingdom, when deities appear in the dreams of three pharaohs and two non-royal individuals.41 These five dreams were instantly understood, and required no interpretation. Symbolic message dreams – those in which the message was ‘coded’ and needed specialized interpretation to be understood – first make an appearance approximately five centuries later in the dream of Tanutamani, the last pharaoh of the twenty-fifth dynasty. The dreams of the two private individuals will be considered later in the context of personal piety; at this stage we will focus on the royal message dreams of the New Kingdom, and suggest an explanation for the late appearance of symbolic dreams.
The earliest surviving royal message dream is the dream of Amenhotep II42 during his Year 9 Campaign against the Syrians.43 The pharaoh’s winter campaign is recorded in two locations: on a stela at the temple of Karnak, and on reused blocks found in Memphis in the ceiling of the twenty-second-dynasty tomb of Sheshonq I. In the Memphis stela only, the account of Amenhotep II’s divine dream is sandwiched between a descrip- tion of Amenhotep II’s subjugation of two unidentified cities (ḫ⫖tjṯ⫖tn and m⫖p⫖syn) west of Socho, and his victory over the settlements of jtwryn and m⫖ktjr⫖ynt.44 The Karnak stela – a similar although not identical account of the same campaign – excludes this brief but tantalizing dream episode. The first portion describes Amenhotep II’s triumph over a number of Asiatic towns, and stresses the pharaoh’s personal valour in glowing terms.45
Year 9, third month of ⫖ḫt, day 25. His Majesty proceeded to Retjenu on his second campaign of victory, against the town of Apheq. It came forth in peace because of the great victories of Pharaoh – Life! Prosperity! Health! His Majesty went forth by horse, equipped with weapons of battle against the city of ja-ḥ-má. His Majesty plundered the village of má-pá-ši-n, together with the village of ḫá-tá-s̏i-n, two towns to the west of Socho. Now the ruler raged like a divine falcon; his horses flew like a star of heaven. His Majesty entered, and its chiefs, its children and its women were brought off as prisoners, and all its retainers likewise, all its property without limit, its cattle, its horses, and all the goats which were before him.
The dream sequence immediately follows, separated from the rest of the narrative by the literary sd̲m pw jrj.n=f construction.46
nḏm pw jrj.n ḥm=f
jj.t ḥm nj nṯr pn Jmn nb ns.wt t⫖.wy tp m ḥm=f m rsw.t
r rdj‹.t›qn n s⫖=f c ⫖-ḫpr.w-rᶜ
jt=f Jmn m s⫖.wḥc .w=f ḥr ḫwy p⫖ ḥq⫖
His Majesty rested,
and the majesty of the god Amun, lord of the Thrones
of the Two lands, came before His Majesty in a dream
in order to give valour to his son, Aa-Kheperu-Ra,
his father Amun being the protection of his body,
guarding the ruler.
At dawn, Amenhotep II rides forth and resumes his plunder of the Asiatic towns. This section ends by again highlighting the pharaoh’s personal singular bravery:47
His Majesty went forth by horse at dawn against the town of ᐣa-tu-ri-n as well as ma-k-tá-la-j2 -n. His Majesty triumphed – Life! Prosperity! Health! – like the triumph of Sakhmet and like Mentu in Thebes. He brought back their chiefs: 34, mrwyn: 57; living Asiatics: 231; hands: 372; horses: 54; chariots: 54 in addition to all the weapons of war, all the might of Retjenu their children, their women, and all their property. After his Majesty inspected the great and plentiful booty, they were forced to become prisoners. Two ditches were made with everything pertaining to them, and one filled them with fire; and his Majesty kept watch over them until day-break, while his battle-axe was in his right hand, alone, without anyone with him. For the army was far from him, as well as the retainers of Pharaoh.
Spalinger notes that both the dream and the ‘night watch’ of the pharaoh are intrusive elements into the otherwise more typical military narrative, and links them to a separate ‘literary mold’, stemming perhaps from the literary creativity of this text’s author(s). He further suggests that, as well as highlighting the following assault, ‘the deeds of Amenophis – his dream as well as his night watch – link up rather well with the common stock characteristics of the warrior Pharaoh ideal of the eighteenth dynasty (if not the New Kingdom)’.48 What should not escape notice is, that this is the earliest surviving instance not only of a royal divine dream, but the first surviving reference to a dream featuring the appearance of a deity to an Egyptian. As far as we know, the divine dream was not a feature of the known Egyptian literature before Amenhotep II, and even in his case the oneiric episode makes its way into only one of the two accounts of the same campaign. The royal-divine dream encounter makes its introduction as a literary topos at a time when the Egyptian pharaohs felt the need for increased divine sanction and legitimation. Omens began to play a significant role in the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty during the reigns of Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III. Both of these pharaohs record instances when the gods (particularly Amun) publicly acknowledged or foretold their nomination to the throne, although not in a dream.49 It was Thutmosis III’s successor Amenhotep II, who supplies our first currently- known example of a divine dream. Unlike his predecessors, Amenhotep II’s right to the throne was clear and uncomplicated; he was Thutmosis III’s son and co-regent, so the decision to include a divine dream in his military account does not seem to have been inspired by a need to confirm or legitimize his claim to kingship. The dream episode in the Merikare stela does not describe a public expression of support by the god, but underlines instead the intimate and personal relationship he had with his god Amun-Ra. As is the case with all eighteenth-dynasty rulers,50 the king is here referred to as the god’s son, and the god is not only the divine father, but the very body-guard of the pharaoh. As noted by Der Manuelian, the function of the dream here is obscure – it did not play a role in Amenhotep’s victory either before or after his dream, his bravery was never in doubt even before the divine encouragement, and there was no ‘mutually beneficial transaction’.51 It does, however, emphasize the closeness of the state god with the state’s ruler, and elevates the status of the ruler in his human aspect, distinguishing him from other mortals.52 Amenhotep did not merely ‘see’ (m⫖) the god from a distance in a dream, but the great god Amun-Ra himself actively came into the presence of the king, in a private setting, while the king was sleeping. A second dynamic may be at work here. In his discussion of the Instruction of Amenemhat I, Parkinson has noted that the king’s ‘mortal need to sleep’ contrasts with his need for constant vigilance and security against enemies that was extolled in official texts.53 He suggests that the pharaoh ‘implicitly justifies his inaction and weakness by the negative cosmology in which "no one is strong in the night..." (7e)’. 54 But whereas Amenemhat I was assassinated in his bed, Amenhotep II had the strength of the god Amun-Re to support him in this potential moment of weakness.
Thutmosis IV
The next occurrence of a divine dream occurs in the reign of Amen- hotep II’s son, Thutmosis IV, and is now perhaps the most famous dream in ancient Egyptian history. That Thutmosis IV emulated his father is clear, and the parallels can be found in his fondness for Giza55 and references to his athletic prowess, as well as his incorporation of a divine dream.56 His dream report is, however, fundamentally different from that of his father Amenhotep II, and indeed is unlike any other Egyptian royal dream account. Inscribed on a large stela set between the front legs of the Sphinx at Giza, this text continues to create controversy and discussion in both historical and literary contexts. For example, it has been labelled as ‘a religious composition that combines the sporting tradition with a building tradition’,57 while other scholars maintain that it is a typical example of the ‘king’s novel’.58 But our purpose is to examine the function and role of the dream itself within the context of other dream reports.
Following a reference to the date and a eulogy to god, Thutmosis IV (at this point a prince) describes how as a youth he would frequently engage in the recreational activities of chariot-riding, hunting, and target practice in the vicinity of the sphinx at Giza. He describes this particular outing as a solitary venture, with no one but his ‘sole companion’ accompanying him. At this point, he relates a very unusual occurrence:59
One of these days it happened that Prince Thutmosis was strolling at the time of midday. He relaxed in the shadow of this Great God. Sleep and slumber overcame him at the moment the sun was at zenith. He found the Majesty of this venerable god speaking from his very own mouth like a father speaks to his son, and saying:
‘Look at me, gaze upon me, my son Thutmosis. I am your father Horem- Akhet-Khepri-Ra-Atum. I shall give to you my kingship [upon my land at the head of the living.] You shall carry its white crown and its red crown upon the seat of Geb, the heir. The land in its length and breadth shall belong to you, and that which the eye of the Lord of All illuminates. Provisions will be yours from within the Two Lands, and great gifts from all the foreign lands, and a lifetime of time great in years. My face belongs to you, my heart belongs to you, and you belong to me. [Behold, my condition is like one who is in suffering and all my limbs are ruined.] The sand of the desert, upon which I used to be, faces me; and it is in order to cause that you do what is in my heart that I have waited, for I know that you are my son, and my saviour. Arrive! Behold I am together with you! I am [your guide]’.
[He completed this speech.
Then this Prince stared for] he heard this [speech(?) of the Lord of All (?)]. He understood the words of this god and he placed silence in [his] heart.
Although the word ‘dream’ (rsw.t or qd) does not appear in this text, the event takes place after Thutmosis IV has been overcome by ‘sleep and slumber’ (ᒼᒼwy and nqdd)60 – indicating that the event should be classified as a dream. While certain constructions are similar to his father’s dream account,61 Thutmosis IV’s dream as a whole differs greatly in both quality and quantity of detail. The situation (recreation rather than battle), the god (HoremAkhet-Khepri-Ra-Atum rather than Amun-Ra), the setting (Egypt rather than Asia), the location (shadow of the sphinx rather than tent), the underlying context (deeds of construction rather than deeds of valour), and even the time of day (noon rather than night) are different, while the message received by Thutmosis IV is clearly unique among royal dreams. For the first time, a deity speaks directly to the dreamer; in this case the speech is quite lengthy and includes a specific request, along with the promise of kingship coupled with a long life upon completion of the task. While the visual details are lacking (we are left ignorant concerning the appearance of the deity) the god announces himself and embarks on a lengthy speech detailing the present abhorrent condition of his image, the Sphinx, and the reward available for the pharaoh once he cleans him up. As a topos in the genre of the king’s novel, the prophetic dream through which kingship is bequeathed will appear again, but not until the reign of Tanutamani, more than 500 years later.
As with most Egyptian dreams, Thutmosis is a passive recipient of an oneiric event. He specifically states that he is overcome with sleep and slumber, in a sense helpless to resist, and although the setting is a sacred location, this should not be considered as an example of a solicited dream or a form of incubation. Both he and his father receive their dreams after resting pleasantly as a natural consequence of their respective exertions (battle in the case of Amenhotep II, and sport in the case of Thutmosis IV). After the dream the pharaoh stares in surprise at the unprecedented privilege of receiving a direct spoken communication from his god in a dream.
That Thutmosis erected this stela after his coronation is not in doubt, and there is material evidence that the Pharaoh did indeed restore the Sphinx. Whether or not he was an ‘evil usurper’ to the throne as has been suggested, or the rightful heir according to others,62 the Sphinx Stela fits tightly into the mold of other eighteenth-dynasty inscriptions which stress the divine nature of the king as a child of god and specify this godly conferring of power – thus divinely assuring the king’s succession. As Bryan noted, the purpose of these texts was to confirm the divine legitimacy of the ruler, regardless of the royal succession.63 By setting his divine encounter within the privacy of a dream, and including a direct communiqué, Thutmosis IV presents himself as intimately close to his god. The author(s) of the royal texts expected that they would be accepted as a true record of events, and their content, including any dream experiences, would be believed unquestioningly. The ever-tightening connection between the royal and divine spheres in the New Kingdom seems an ideal milieu for the appearance of the royal message dream; what is perhaps surprising is its lack of use. The next currently-known instance of a royal divine dream does not appear until the reign of Merneptah.
Merneptah
Corresponding with the dream of Amenhotep II, the dream of Merneptah also describes a divine visitation during battle, but there any resemblanceends. The nineteenth-dynasty pharaoh sees his dream at a point in battle where he is particularly vulnerable and in need of help, and he not only receives the gift of bravery from the god, but seems to carry on a conversation as well. The dream sequence is inserted into the narrative of the pharaoh’s war against the Libyans, after an aggressive speech by the king wherein he announces Amun’s approval of the campaign. The troops prepare to march against the enemy, with Amun as their ‘shield’, but it is not the Theban god Amun who visits the pharaoh in a dream fourteen days before the march, but rather the Memphite god Ptah, for whom Merneptah (‘Beloved of Ptah’) had a special affection:64
ᒼḥᒼ.n m⫖⫖.n ḥm=f m rsw‹.t› mj nty wᒼ tw(t) n Ptḥ ...
Then his Majesty saw in a dream as if it were an image of Ptah,
standing before the Pharaohl.p.h.65
He was as tall as [...]
He said to him:
‘Grab hold here!’
while he was giving to him the Khepesh sword
‘And drive away the heart-sickness within you.’
The Pharaohl.p.h. said to him: ‘
Indeed [...]’
While this passage superficially resembles that of Amenhotep II, Merneptah’s dream displays a number of unique features which deserve comment. First, unlike Amenhotep II or Thutmosis IV, Merneptah is not described as being in a state of sleep, nor does he suddenly awaken after his divine visitation; this is not described as a nocturnal event, nor is any particular time of day mentioned. The reader knows it is a dream only because the text specifically states that His Majesty saw (the god) in a dream m⫖⫖.n ḥm=f m rsw‹.t›. As in the account of Amenhotep II, the dream of Merneptah seems to be an insertion of a separate literary element within the narrative report of the war, separated from the rest of the text by the ᒼhᒼ.n construction.66 As mentioned above, the appearance of Ptah seems almost superfluous, for divine protection was already assured in the form of Amun who had approved the venture and whose righteous power was in place as a shield for the army. The campaign was just beginning, no setback had been encountered, and the pharaoh indeed triumphed as expected. Throughout the text, Merneptah exudes confidence and self-assurance, yet Ptah appears to hand the king the Khepesh sword – a common symbol of power – and surprisingly to drive away the pharaoh’s fearful heart. The king appears here even more human than his predecessors, and relies heavily on the strength and support of the gods. It is not enough for Amun to be the army’s shield, Ptah must enable the king to win by providing him with a divine weapon, and by dispelling his human weakness. Divine favours are not rare in royal texts and depictions – Merneptah himself is awarded a sword on a number of occasions. What sets this divine support apart from the others, is that it occurs in a dream.67
Another innovation introduced in this royal dream is the inclusion of a visual description of the deity, or more precisely, the image or statue of the god Ptah (tw(t) n Ptḥ). Although the portrayal is brief, and a lacuna prevents a precise reading, it is evident that this image of Ptah is described as being quite large, indeed likely of colossal size. As discussed by Oppenheim,68 the reporting of a dream figure as being of superhuman size or beauty is a typical feature of other ancient Near Eastern69 and classical message- dreams. It is interesting that while the author of Merneptah’s text may have been archaistically hearkening back to the battle dream of one of his predecessors, Amenhotep II, he succeeds in echoing the dreams of his Assyrian neighbours instead. But perhaps most notably – although Merneptah’s response was brief70 – this text describes the first known instance of a pharaoh (referred to here as ‘the Great House’ pr ᒼ⫖), or of any individual, speaking back to a god in a dream. The two-way communication may represent another facet of the unique relationship the king enjoyed with the divine. With the increase in recorded accounts of direct communication between the divine and the non-royal sphere that had appeared by the time of the nineteenth dynasty, the pharaoh was in a sense losing his grasp on many of the previously restricted themes. In terms of dreams, non-royal individuals now recorded visual access to the gods and could even receive divine communiqués,71 but Merneptah’s text is one of the earliest surviving documents that describes an individual as an active participant in this oneiric conversation.
Summary
To summarize, in the New Kingdom three royal dreams are attested that progressively increase in intimacy and complexity. Each of them involves divine contact but in each case the specific deity who appears is different and reflects the allegiance of the pharaoh. Two of the dreams involve divine manifestations during battle, though neither seems integral to the outcome of the conflicts; with or without that particular divine intervention, the kings were on course to win their respective battles. In the other dreams there is a mutually beneficial exchange involving the restoration of a divine monument in return for divine legitimation to the throne. Unlike the dream of Sinuhe, the royal oneiric events reflect a reality in which the dreamer is already in control of the situation, and the dream serves to reinforce the king in his aspect as rightful leader. These public revelations of divine communications within the private milieu of dreams serve to stress the exclusive relationship between the king and the gods, yet the very paucity of recorded episodes, and the humbleness and surprise expressed by the royal dreamers following these oneiric theophanies, reveal the humanization of the pharaoh, and his gradual distancing from the realm of the divine.72 This seeming paradox is explained by Posener when he notes that the dreams occur not in the context of religious texts which would place them on the plane of royal myth, but are meant to represent a reality situated in the concrete and perhaps less ideal world.73 The fact that each of the New Kingdom dreams was instantly understood and did not require interpretation, also reflects the time of their writing. They can be contrasted with the twenty-fifth-dynasty dream of the Nubian Pharaoh Tanutamani:74
His Majesty saw a dream in the night:
two snakes
one on his right
the other on his left.
He woke up,
without finding them any more.
His Majesty said,
‘Why are these things against me?’
Then it was interpreted to him saying,
‘To you belongs the land of the South
take for yourself Lower Egypt.
The Two Goddesses appear in glory on your head;
take for yourself the land in its length and its breadth,
there is no one who can share it with you’.
As in the case of Thutmosis IV, the dream reinforces the pharaoh’s kingship, but with two significant differences: the god does not play any role in the dream itself (although at a later point in the narrative Tanutamani indirectly attributes the dream to the god Amun-Ra), and the pharaoh is incapable of understanding the dream on his own. Both of these factors can be attributed to what Vernus has dubbed ‘a great ideological mutation’ which began in the New Kingdom with the gradual incorporation of both solicited oracles and spontaneous prodigious signs (including dreams) intothe fabric of society, and the gradual re-emergence of divine control over the state of Egypt.75 As these once autonomous mechanisms for divine discourse gradually became institutionalized, the power structure shifted in favour of those who controlled the mechanisms. By the time of the Libyan dynasty, the oracle was required to legitimize the rule of the pharaoh, thus guaranteeing that the real power rested with those who physically manipulated the oracle – the priesthood of Amun.76 In a similar fashion, the divine message-dream of pharaoh, the meaning of which was immediately comprehensible to the dreamer, was replaced by the first attested occurrence of a symbolic dream – a dream whose meaning is enigmatic and required a third party for interpretation. Although the interpreter is not specified in this instance, it is likely to have been a priest of Amun, at whose instigation the pharaoh at a later point in the text (Tanutamani Dream Stele 29–31) identifies the source of the dream as Amun-Ra. From the Late Period references to dreams that required interpretation by an outside agency increased, and in the Ptolemaic Period the practice of dream interpretation was institutionalized.77
While Oppenheim characterized the Egyptian royal dreams as typical examples of message-dreams in the ancient Near East,78 this rather obscures the fact that these dreams were not typical of the Egyptian literary tradition until the New Kingdom when they make their first, rare appearance.79 With the exception of the dream of Tanutamani, the other dreams which are cited as examples of Egyptian royal dreams are Late Period and Hellenistic pseudepigraphic descriptions attributed to earlier pharaohs, which bear little resemblance to the dream anecdotes recorded centuries earlier.80 Dream accounts should be examined within the context of their time, and after the Third Intermediate Period dream reports need to be studied against the backdrop of increased power of the priesthood and the institutionalization of previously private activities. The royal dream reports of the New Kingdom reflect the changing ideology of kingship, the new expressions of the divine-royal relationship, and the increased need for divine authorization. In none of the three instances, however, are they crucial to the legitimation of the King’s right to the throne or to military acts against an enemy. They belong fundamentally to the literary discourse, where as elements of the literary topos of a king’s deeds and events they serve to bolster the king as hero in his own fiction.81
Other literary texts suggest that the distinct temporal distortion of a dream made it an ideal metaphor for the ephemeral nature of earthly life, leading to the earliest known declaration of the now popular idea that life is but a dream. The more negative aspects of a dream as an unsettling, insubstantial, and untrustworthy phenomenon also inspired its use as an analogy for improper behaviour. In the fictional tale of Sinuhe the dream was used to emphasize and excuse the irrationality of his behaviour. As a literary element in royal texts the dream was used to create an intimate ambience for divine discourse and to accentuate the pharaoh’s unique relationship with the gods.
Notes
1 This quotation has been attributed to Freud in Varela 1997, 5.
2 Źába 1956, 38.
3 Following Parkinson’s translation of P. Prisse (1998, 256).
4 For a discussion of this passage as an early example of the idea of the dual nature of women, an idea which appears frequently in later Demotic literature, see Troy 1984, 77–81.
5 Gardiner (1948, 13–15) explains the temporal function of ⫖.t as deriving from its primary meaning of ‘readiness to strike’ (p. 14) in the context of not only a ‘leopard’s sudden spring, its rapidity of attack’ (p. 15), but primarily that of the speed of the attack of the uraeus or striking cobra.
6 In manuscript P. Prisse the phrase is⫖t kt.t, while L.2 omits ⫖t, and instead writes nh(.t) kt.t (lit. smallest little thing).
7 Ogdon 1998.
8 See for example the translations in Simpson 1972, 168, and Lichtheim 1973, 23. Note also the useful commentary in Źába 1956, 90, 148–9.
9 Parkinson 1998, 258. The following commentary is based in large part on personal communications with Parkinson, and I am grateful for his patient and astute observations on this passage.
10 Parkinson 1998, 269 n. 31.
11 Watson 1964, 43.
12 Poe 1975, 967.
13 The tomb of Neferhotep II (TT 50) and Djehutimes (TT 32). The relevant literature includes: Assmann 1977; Gardiner 1913; Hari 1985; Kákosy and Fábián 1995; Lichtheim 1945. The passage quoted below includes lines 11–16 of the Djehutimes text, and lines 3–6 of the Neferhotep text. Due to lacuna in the former, the latter is used as the basis for translation.
14 ‘It’ meaning the farworld.
15 The introductory portion of this song describes Neferhotep as the ‘Divine Father of Amun’.
16 Hari 1985, 13, pl. IV.
17 Kákosy and Fábián 1995, 211–15. As the subject of the second text is the Rites of Sokar it will not be discussed here, but it should be noted that its evolution from being a separate text in the tomb of Neferhotep to being merged with the earlier text here is perhaps significant in terms of the reintegration of various deities into the funerary rites from which they had been separated in the period of Amarna.
18 Kákosy and Fábián 1995, 215.
19 Fox 1982; Bochi 1998.
20 Fox 1982, 301.
21 Hari 1985, 13.
22 Kákosy and Fábián 1995, 215.
23 Hari 1985, 13.
24 Note that the lexeme here is nḥḥ, which is logical as for the deceased this is the land of eternal recurrence, not eternal sameness. See also Assmann 1975b for a crucial discussion on the ancient Egyptian conception of time.
25 ‘They’ refers to the judges in the farworld.
26 Parkinson 1998, 220.
27 Gardiner 1935, 43; Meeks 1971, 42.
28 Parkinson 1998, 155; Weill 1947, 116, 118–19(g).
29 O Glasgow D. 1925.69 = O Colin Campbell 4 (lines 8–11) in McDowell 1993, 7–9; HO 39.1.
30 See for example O. Gardiner 25 (HO I, XXXVIII).
31 Loprieno 1988, 58–9; Loprieno 1996a, 47–8.
32 The complete text has been found on seven papyri dating to the Middle Kingdom, and more than twenty dating to the New Kingdom (Quirke 1996, 379–401; Parkinson 1991b, 113–14.)
33 A convenient select bibliography can be found in Parkinson 2002, 298.
34 Parkinson 1999b.
35 Spalinger 1998, 339.
36 A conspicuous example is the Letter to the Dead, Nag ed’ Deir 3737, where the writer complains of seeing a dead acquaintance in an unwelcome dream.
37 This phrase has a double meaning. On the one hand, it refers to Sinuhe’s flight from his ‘proper place’ in a geographical sense (meaning Egypt), but on the other hand it refers once again to the unreal or dream-like status of his flight, where he was not in full command of his faculties.
38 Parkinson 1999, 69. See now the recent analysis in Parkinson 2002, 149– 68.
39 For the defining discussion of this specific form of discourse as a literary genre see Loprieno 1996b, 277–95.
40 Butler 1998, 15–19.
41 The Elephantine inscription of the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senusret I (Schenkel 1975; Helck 1978) has for many years been cited as the first example of a royal message dream. The inscription was not discovered until after Sauneron’s seminal work on dreams (1959), and so was not included in his essay, but it has appeared in numerous discussions since. In her article on divination in ancient Egypt, von Lieven (1999, 108–9) noted that this reading was always considered dubious and uncertain, and Schenkel, the original publisher of the text, has now established that the lexeme in question is not ‘dream’ (rsw.t), but rather ‘enemy hordes’ (rs.tjw). This article is to be published in W. Kaiser, W. Schenkel, et al. (eds.) Der Tempel der Satet im Mittleren Reich. Elephantine Vol. VI. At the time of this writing the title was not confirmed, and I would like to thank Dr Kaiser for providing me with the pre-publication information. I would also like to thank Professor Schenkel for graciously allowing me to read a draft of his forthcoming manuscript.
42 He is also known in modern scholarship as ‘Amenophis’.
43 Urk IV 1306–7. I follow Der Manuelian’s dating of this campaign (1987,68–9.)
44 For a discussion on the possible locations of these sites see Der Manuelian 1987, 70, fig. 21 and Spalinger 1983, 89–101.
45 Urk IV 1305.13–1306.10. The translations of the military sections are that of Der Manuelian (1987, 225–6).
46 Urk IV 1306.11–1307.2. For the grammatical construction see Spalinger 1983, 91.
47 Urk IV 1307.4–17.
48 Spalinger 1983, 91–2.
49 For an elegant discussion of the ideological shift of the New Kingdom see Vernus 1995 and Spalinger 1997.
50 Bryan 1991, 40 n. 16. For the increased importance of god as divine father of the king see Spalinger 1997.
51 Der Manuelian 1987, 71.
52 Posener 1960a, 85–8.
53 Parkinson 2002, 243.
54 Parkinson 2002, 244.
55 Both Amenhotep II and his son Thutmosis IV erected stelae at Giza, specifically in the vicinity of the Great Sphinx.
56 Der Manuelian 1987, 198.
57 Spalinger 1982, 102–4.
58 For an outline of the literature see Bryan 1991, 144.
59 Zivie 1976, 128, ll. 8–13.
60 See Zivie 1976, 141 (ll) for this reading of 𡒼ᒼwy nqdd as opposed to 𡒼ᒼwy n qdd suggested by Faulkner 1981, 38.
61 For example, the construction nd̲m pw jrj.n=f is used in both texts to express the hero’s relaxing or resting. The dream occurs after the pharaohs have entered a specifically ‘pleasant’ state, as noted by Goedicke 1992, 136. Whether this relaxed state occurs in the night or in the day is irrelevant in these cases.
62 Bryan 1991, 38–9. For the problem of Thutmosis IV’s succession see pp. 38–92, where the various arguments are presented.
63 Bryan 1991, 40.
64 For the text see Libyan War, Karnak, 28–31; KRI IV 5 ll. 10–15; Breasted 1906–7, §582; Davies 1997, 156–7.
65 The abbreviation l.p.h. stands for ‘life, prosperity, health’ written behind royal names and other words related to the pharaoh.
66 Spalinger 1982, 103, 211. The ᶜḥᶜn(=f) introductory word can be used to introduce an initial verbal clause, and is translated as ‘Then... ’
67 Posener 1960a, 37–9, 87 (4).
68 Oppenheim 1956, 188–90.
69 e.g. Gudea, Cyl. A IV 7–VI 14, where the dream image is described as being as large as the earth itself (Oppenheim 1956, 245–6.)
70 Breasted 1906, §582 (c).
71 See the examples found in the Ramesside Dream Book, the inscriptions of Ipuy and Djehutiemhab in Chapter 5.
72 Posener 1960a, 87–8.
73 Posener 1960a, 88.
74 Tanutamani Dream Stele 3–6; Grimal 1981.
75 Vernus 1995, 69–95.
76 Vernus 1995, 94. See also Loprieno 1998, 20–1, for the differences between the Libyan and the Ethiopian responses to the problem of legitimation in the Third Intermediate Period.
77 Ray 1981.
78 Oppenheim 1956, 187–92.
79 In certain other cultures, the oneiric call to office seems to have been much more prevalent, and to have served a clearly political purpose. For example, the Igbo king Obalike describes a dream he had as being central to his candidacy. In this dream, he saw something come from the sky, like a vulture, which put two signs in his hands, followed by God’s voice telling him that he would be king. This dream did not, however, actually play a role in his decision to become king, but was later narrated to the District Officer as a political strategy to deal with the new colonial domination (Ray 1992, 61).
In not only the Igbo culture, but in much of Africa (though certainly not all), dreams traditionally play the role of the medium for a person receiving a ‘calling’. This has also led to their being used to justify military activities retroactively. In a recent article, Mbiti explores this issue, and notes that even the then president of Uganda, Idi Amin, said he had a revelatory dream of God, who told him to expel the Asians from Uganda (which he then proceeded to do). He was also informed that he would rule, and when he would die (Mbiti 1976). Both of these modern examples seem to express a much stronger political sentiment than that expressed in the New Kingdom royal dream accounts, which did not play such a prominent role in the kingship of the pharaoh. The pharaohs did not need the dreams to establish their kingship, nor to justify their military actions.
80 The most famous of these later accounts include the ‘Dream of Sethos’, ‘the Dreams of the Ethiopian Kings’, ‘the Dream of Ptolemy Soter’, ‘The Hunger Stela’, ‘The Dream of Neferkasokar’, and the ‘Dream of King Nectanebo’. To this list can be added ‘The Prince of Bakhtan’ which does not describe a pharaoh but a royal prince. Translations of these texts can be conveniently found in Oppenheim 1956, 251–3, and Sauneron, ‘Les songes et leur interpretation’, 21–31.
81 The literary aspect of the dream episodes has already been noted by scholars such as Spalinger (1983, 91 n. 14) and Loprieno 1996b.