A very curious Middle Kingdom papyrus appears to recommend suicide as
the only remedy, and in a passage of considerable beauty death is praised as a
happy event. But there also existed a view of the tomb as a place of rest and
tranquilty. A poem expressing this thought is inscribed on a tomb-wall exactly
opposite the song of our hedonistic harper, and is so brave an answer to that
early precursor of Epicurus that I will quote it in extenso:
I have heard those songs that are in the ancient tombs, and what they
tell extolling life on earth and belittling the region of the dead. Wherefore
do they thus concerning the land of eternity, the just and fair, which has no
terrors? Wrangling is its abhorrence, and no man there girds himself against
his fellow. It is a land against which none can rebel; all our kinsfolk rest
within it since the earliest day of time. The offspring of millions of millions
are come thither, every one. For none may tarry in the land of Egypt, none
there is who has not passed yonder. The span of earthly things is a dream; but
a fair welcome is given to him who has reached the West. (Alan H. Gardner, The
Attitude of the Ancient Egyptians to Death and the Dead [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1935], 31-32)
