Papyrus with part of the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant

This Twelfth Dynasty papyrus yields the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant on the recto (front side) and The Discourse of the Fowler on the verso (back side). No other extensive copy of the verso text is known, but comparison with full copies of the Eloquent Peasant suggests that this must once have been a long roll. Both poems are laments spoken by lowly members of society. The Fowler's laments concern the loss of the pastoral landscape, while the tale describes the theft of a peasant's donkeys, which becomes the subject of a grand complaint.

The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant is regarded as one of the masterpieces from the Middle Kingdom (2040-1750 BC), the 'classical' period of Egyptian literature. This papyrus contains part of the opening of the story.

The events are set in the reign of a king of the Ninth/Tenth Dynasties (around 2160-2025 BC). A peasant trader sets out from the area of the Wadi Natrun (west of the Delta) and travels south towards the city of Herakleopolis. A man named Nemtynakht covets the poor man's goods. When one of the peasant's donkeys eats grain from a field for which Nemtynakht is responsible, he cruelly confiscates the goods. The peasant petitions Rensi, the owner of the estate. Rensi is so taken by petitioner's eloquence that he reports this astonishing discovery to the king. The king realises the peasant has been wronged but delays judgement, so as to hear more of his eloquence. The peasant makes a total of nine petitions, each more desperate and more eloquent than the last. Finally, Nemtynakht is punished, and the peasant's goods are returned.

The irony of the plot, and of the situation (the contrast between the social status of the peasant and his elaborate discourse), were part of the appeal to the original élite audience. The text also questions social and divine justice.