The Shipwrecked Sailor
Shipwrecked Sailor papyrusAlso called
The Island of Enchantment; The Sailor and the Serpent; The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor
First publication
c.1990 BCE
Literature form
Novel
Genre
Literary
Writing language
Ancient Egyptian
Author's country
Egypt
Length
Approx. 1,600 words in English translation
Notable lines
When Pharaoh Amen-em-het ruled Egypt in about the year 2000 BC he brought peace and prosperity to a country that had been torn by civil war and rebellion for nearly two hundred years.
— First line, trans. unknown
"I have such a tale to tell," answered the wanderer, 'that I will risk your anger with an easy mind."
— trans. unknown
"I was on an island with no other human being to be a companion to me. But such an island as no man has seen!"
— trans. unknown
Never shall I forget the horror of that moment. Moving towards me I saw a serpent thirty cubits long with a beard of more than two cubits. Its body was covered with golden scales and the scales round its eyes shaded off into blue as pure as lapis lazuli.
— trans. Flinders Petrie
"The serpent coiled up its whole length in front of where I lay with my face on the ground, reared its head high above me, and said: 'What has brought you, what has brought you here, little one? Say, what has brought you to my island?'"
— trans. unknown
"'" ''"Converse is pleasing, and he who tastes of it passes over his misery.'"
— trans. Petrie
This is finished from its beginning unto its end, even as it was found in a writing. It is written by the scribe of cunning fingers, Ameni-amenaa; may he live in life, wealth, and health!
— Last line, trans. Petrie
