Gilbert Stuart Moore (1910–2004)

Only about 50 love poems from Ancient Egypt have survived (for the time being). They all date from the New Kingdom (ca 1550-1200), are roughly 3500 years old, but they still look remarkably fresh. Ecstasy through love apparently manifests itself in a stereotyped way (would it be a disease after all?), mainly through an accumulation of metaphors.
“My beloved is unrivaled,
There is none to equal her,
She is beautiful beyond all women.
Behold, she is like the star which appears
At the onset of a prosperous year.
Exquisite is her splendor,
Gleaning is her complexion,
Brilliant are her gazing eyes.
Sweet are her lips when they speak,
For she is not given to excessive speech.
High is her neck,
Resplendent are her breasts,
Of pure lapis lazuli is her hair.
Her arms surpass (even) gold,
Like lotus flowers are her fingers.
Her buttocks are soft, her waist is slender,
And her thighs extend her beauty.
In some cases, these metaphors arouse surprise, or is it because of the difficult translation? Look at the fragments below: they are two translations of the same poem. The first, by Vincent A. Tobin, is quite literal, with the mandrakes, snares, or willow and goose rather strange for us; the second by George A. Barton is much freer. But in both cases the tenor is clear: the writer is clearly under the spell of his lover.
“(How) intoxicating are the plants of my garden!
[The lips] of my beloved are the bud of a lotus,
Her breasts are mandrakes,
And her arms are ornate [...].
Behold, her forehead is a snare of willow,
And I am a goose.
My [hands are in] her hair as a lure,
Held fast in the snare of willow.”

Disturbed is the condition of my pool.
The mouth of my sister is a rosebud.
Her breast is a perfume.
Her arm is a ''uncertain'' bough
Which offers a delusive seat.
Her forehead is a snare of meryu-wood.
I am a wild goose, a hunted one,
My gaze is at your hair,
At a bait under the trap
That is to catch me.”
Anyway, there are gems among those earliest love poems that we know. We will find echoes of it in the Biblical Song of Salomo, in the Greek Sappho, and in Arabic and Persian literature. But these are vintage Ancient Egypt. They indicate that in that New Kingdom a kind of middle class had emerged, outside the pharaonic court, who fully expressed the pleasures of life.… (mais)