Dispute Between a Man and His Ba
The Talk of a Man Who Was Tired of Life with His Soul
Even when the world offers only suffering and isolation, a man's own soul may counsel him to endure it rather than seek release in death, and the two can still be reconciled.
- an existential dialogue between a man and his own soul
- death imagined as relief rather than only threat
- an argument for enduring suffering over self-destruction
- one of the only known ancient Egyptian introspective dialogues
A dialogue, missing its opening, between a despairing man weary of a corrupt and companionless world and his ba, or soul, who argues against suicide and for embracing life's pleasures regardless of death's certainty. The man answers with some of Egyptian literature's bleakest imagery, comparing death favorably to convalescence or the scent of a lotus, before the fragmentary text appears to close in reconciliation, with the ba agreeing to remain beside the man wherever he goes. It survives on a single Middle Kingdom papyrus.
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