WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY
Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)
Vol. 1, No. 17: February 23, 2022
Insights on Leadership from Ancient Egypt
“The Wisdom of the Elders: Ptahhotep”
By Rob Chappell, M.A.
Adapted & Condensed from the February 2014 Issue of the
Illinois Administrative Professionals’ Newsletter
Contemporary Western culture
places a high value on youth and strength, not on age and wisdom. This emphasis
is a rather recent innovation; just a few hundred years ago, reaching the
silver years was considered to be the crowning achievement of human life.
Elders were widely revered and consulted because of their long years of
experience and valuable insight into the human condition. The reverence due to
elderhood is still practiced every day by billions of people around the world.
In honor of African-American History Month in February, let’s take a look at an
ancient African sage to see what lessons we can learn from him about leadership
and elderhood.
Ptahhotep was an Egyptian sage
who flourished around 2400 BCE. He was prime minister (grand vizier) to King
Isesi, a Pharaoh of Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty. Ptahhotep was renowned for his great
learning and wisdom, along with his remarkable longevity (he lived to be 110
years old!). His chief claim to fame, however, is his authorship of the oldest
known book in world literature, the Maxims
of Good Discourse, in which he instructed his son with wise proverbs
and common-sense advice so that he could acquire good leadership qualities and
achieve success and fulfillment in life.
Ancient Egyptian portrait of Ptahhotep,
the wise elder statesman. (Image Credit:
Public Domain)
Here are some of the lessons
that Ptahhotep recorded in his book and that still speak to us today, across a
gulf of 44 centuries. (The Editor has slightly modernized the spelling and
grammar of this translation from a century ago.)
·
B. Here begin the proverbs of fair speech, spoken by the
Hereditary Chief, the Holy Father, Beloved of God, the Eldest Son of the King,
of his body, the Governor of his City, the Vizier, Ptah-Hotep, when instructing
the ignorant in the knowledge of exactness in fair speaking; the glory of him
that obeys, the shame of him that transgresses them. He said unto his son:
·
5. If you are a leader, as one directing the conduct of the
multitude, endeavor always to be gracious, that your own conduct may be without
defect. Great is Truth, appointing a straight path; never has it been
overthrown since the reign of Osiris. One that oversteps the laws shall be
punished. Overstepping is by the covetous man; but degradations bear off his
riches. Never has evil-doing brought its venture safe to port. For he says, “I
will obtain by myself for myself,” and says not, “I will obtain because I am
allowed.” But the limits of justice are steadfast; it is that which a man
repeats from his father.
·
16. If you are a leader, cause that the rules that you have enjoined
to be carried out; and do all things as one that remembers the days coming
after, when speech avails not. Be not lavish of favors; it leads to servility,
producing slackness.
·
17. If you are a leader, be gracious when you hearken unto the
speech of a suppliant. Let him not hesitate to deliver himself of that which he
has thought to tell you; but be desirous of removing his injury. Let him speak
freely, that the thing for which he has come to you may be done. If he
hesitates to open his heart, it is said, “Is it because he — the judge – does
the wrong that no entreaties are made to him concerning it by those to whom it
happens?” But a well taught heart hearkens readily.
·
25. If you are powerful, make yourself to be honored for knowledge
and for gentleness. Speak with authority, that is, not as if following
injunctions, for he that is humble – when highly placed – falls into errors.
Exalt not your heart, that it not be brought low. Be not silent, but beware of
interruption and of answering words with heat. Put it far from you; control
yourself. The wrathful heart speaks fiery words; it darts out at the man of
peace that approaches, stopping his path. One that reckons accounts all the day
passes not a happy moment. One that gladdens his heart all the day provides not
for his house. The bowman hits the mark, as the steersman reaches land, by
diversity of aim. He that obeys his heart shall command.
·
34. Let your face be bright what time you live. That which goes
into the storehouse must come out therefrom; and bread is to be shared. He that
is grasping in entertainment shall himself have an empty belly; he that causes
strife comes himself to sorrow. Take not such a one for your companion. It is a
man’s kindly acts that are remembered of him in the years after his life.
·
D. If now you attain your position, the body shall flourish, the
King shall be content in all that you do, and you shall gather years of life
not fewer than I have passed upon earth. I have gathered even 110 years of
life, for the King has bestowed upon me favors more than upon my forefathers;
this is because I wrought truth and justice for the King unto my old age. It is
finished, from its beginning to its end, even as found in writing.
Editor’s
Note: The
complete text of Ptahhotep’s Maxims of
Good Discourse can be read in Brian Brown’s classic 1923 book, The Wisdom of the Egyptians, at http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/woe/.
“Egypt”
By Gerald Massey (1828-1907)
EGYPT! How I
have dwelt with you in dreams,
So long, so
intimately, that it seems
As if you
had borne me; though I could not know
It was so
many thousand years ago!
And in my
gropings darkly underground
The
long-lost memory at last is found
Of
motherhood – you Mother of us all!
And to my
fellow-men I must recall
The memory
too; that common motherhood
May help to
make the common brotherhood.
Egypt! it
lies there in the far-off past,
Opening with
depths profound and growths as vast
As the great
valley of Yosemite;
The
birthplace out of darkness into day;
The shaping
matrix of the human mind;
The Cradle
and the Nursery of our kind.
This was the
land created from the flood,
The land of
Atum, made of the red mud,
Where Num
sat in his Teba throned on high,
And saw the
deluge once a year go by,
Each
brimming with the blessing that it brought,
And by that
waterway, in Egypt's thought,
The gods
descended; but they never hurled
The Deluge
that should desolate the world.
There the
vast hewers of the early time
Built, as if
that way they would surely climb
The heavens,
and left their labors without name –
Colossal as
their carelessness of fame –
Sole
likeness of themselves – that heavenward
Forever look
with statuesque regard,
As if some
Vision of the Eternal grown
Petrific,
was forever fixed in stone!
They watched
the Moon re-orb, the Stars go round,
And drew the
Circle; Thought's primordial bound.
The Heavens
looked into them with living eyes
To kindle
starry thoughts in other skies,
For us
reflected in the image-scroll,
That night
by night the stars for aye unroll.
The Royal
Heads of Language bow them down
To lay in
Egypt's lap each borrowed crown.
The glory of
Greece was but the Afterglow
Of her
forgotten greatness lying low;
Her
Hieroglyphics buried dark as night,
Or coal deposits
filled with future light,
Are mines of
meaning; by their light we see
Through many
an overshadowing mystery.
The nursing
Nile is living Egypt still,
And as her
lowlands with its freshness fill,
And heave
with double-breasted bounteousness,
So doth the old
Hidden Source of mind yet bless
The nations;
secretly she brought to birth,
And Egypt
still enriches all the Earth.
