So admonished Ipu-wer some 4,200 years ago. Nobody knows much of anything about him, except that at some point he spouted off a bunch of such things, prophecies in the Biblical sense, which means they're not so much about the future as about one fellow standing before Pharaoh and saying nasty things about the past and present governance of Egypt. All cloaked in metaphors about sinking crocodiles, Rivers of blood, grieving nobles, and fumigation via incense. The last two columns of the papyrus--described by the translator as being in a state of "lamentable destruction"--tantalize us with the words, "Once upon a time there was a man who was old and in the presence of his salvation, while his son was still a child, without understanding..."
Actually, that's not very tantalizing at all, but that's all we get. Nothing else is heard from Ipu-wer. I wonder if, in his own time, he was held in the same regard as the tentative prophet in Life of Brian, who prophesied that "At this time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer, and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o'clock."
"Ipu-wer?" they'd say. "Was that the guy who went on about men sitting in bushes and robbing people, and about how the go-spells and enfold-spells don't work anymore because nowadays any old tosser can say them aloud? Pfah!" Who knows? Maybe all the good material was in missing bits of the papyrus. Maybe all that stuff about not having enough cedar for the mummies was just Ipu-wer warming up, a prophetic throat-clearing before he laid into Pharaoh with raging holy fervor and let everyone know that the gods were really displeased with his corpse-buggery or whatever it was that Middle Kingdom Egyptians found scandalous.
But now all we've got left of him are a few columns of unremarkable cryptic metaphor and stories that defy consecutive translation, barely enough to warrant a Wikipedia entry, and really only noticed at all because some of his scribblings might possibly refer to a small group of wandering Semites whose own collected prophecies and tales later became part of the best-selling book of all time.
I suppose the lesson here, if any, is that if you can't write your own deathless prose, write about somebody else who's bound to be fabulous and important so that you might at least survive as a minor point of interest appended to their fantastically dramatic and splendid life.
Here's to the Ipu-wers of present-day Earth! May you lot of hangers-on choose your subjects with care and diligence, and may the inevitable loss of most of your work be described in a footnote as "lamentable."
Actually, that's not very tantalizing at all, but that's all we get. Nothing else is heard from Ipu-wer. I wonder if, in his own time, he was held in the same regard as the tentative prophet in Life of Brian, who prophesied that "At this time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer, and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o'clock."
"Ipu-wer?" they'd say. "Was that the guy who went on about men sitting in bushes and robbing people, and about how the go-spells and enfold-spells don't work anymore because nowadays any old tosser can say them aloud? Pfah!" Who knows? Maybe all the good material was in missing bits of the papyrus. Maybe all that stuff about not having enough cedar for the mummies was just Ipu-wer warming up, a prophetic throat-clearing before he laid into Pharaoh with raging holy fervor and let everyone know that the gods were really displeased with his corpse-buggery or whatever it was that Middle Kingdom Egyptians found scandalous.
But now all we've got left of him are a few columns of unremarkable cryptic metaphor and stories that defy consecutive translation, barely enough to warrant a Wikipedia entry, and really only noticed at all because some of his scribblings might possibly refer to a small group of wandering Semites whose own collected prophecies and tales later became part of the best-selling book of all time.
I suppose the lesson here, if any, is that if you can't write your own deathless prose, write about somebody else who's bound to be fabulous and important so that you might at least survive as a minor point of interest appended to their fantastically dramatic and splendid life.
Here's to the Ipu-wers of present-day Earth! May you lot of hangers-on choose your subjects with care and diligence, and may the inevitable loss of most of your work be described in a footnote as "lamentable."
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