Projective Inversion in the Ancient Egyptian "Tale of Two Brothers"

Abstract

After a brief review of the folkloristic scholarship devoted to the ancient Egyptian tale of two brothers, an attempt is made to distinguish between the concepts of projection and projective inversion. The utilization of the second concept seeks to illuminate the possible meaning of the tale including the initial part, which consists of the widespread Potiphar's Wife motif.

In 1852, the text of an ancient Egyptian folktale, written on papyrus and known as the "Tale of Two Brothers," was first revealed to the scholarly community. This tale has been called, rightly or wrongly, "The Oldest Fairy Tale in the World" (Hollis 1990). However, it is certainly not the oldest recorded folktale (Jason and Kempinski 1981). Not surprisingly, it has attracted the notice of many of the leading folklorists of the 19th and 20th centuries, notably Mannhardt (1859), Cosquin (1877), Lang (1899, 2:317-329), and Von Sydow (1930), among others. The abundant folkloristic scholarship (not to mention that of the Egyptologists) is ably surveyed by the Czech folklorist Karel Horálek in his entry devoted to "Brüdermärchen: Das ägyptische" in the Enzyklopädie des Märchens (1978a), and especially by Susan Tower Hollis in her doctoral dissertation, which examined the tale and its likely original Egyptian context in great depth (1990).

One reason for the great interest in the tale was its undoubted antiquity. It appears to have been recorded in the 13th century before the Christian era, which would make it more than three millennia old. The great Swedish folklorist C. W. Von Sydow observed that the survival of the tale into the 20th century "shows that a tale can live for more than 3,000 years unsupported by written literature" (1948:32). Another reason folklorists have been fascinated by the tale is because of the numerous traditional motifs that it contains. For the convenience of the reader, let me first give a synopsis of the tale based on the full text provided by Hollis (1990:5-15).

Two brothers, Anubis and Bata, live together along with the wife of Anubis who is unnamed. One day when the younger brother, Bata, returns to the house, the wife of Anubis tries to seduce him saying, "Come, let us spend an hour lying down." Bata becomes angry "because of the evil word she said to him," and he replies, "Now see, you are like a mother to me. Further, your husband is like a father to me. Now the one older than I, he has raised me." Later, Anubis returns, and the spurned wife, fearful that Bata might tell Anubis of her attempted infidelity, applies grease markings to give the appearance of having been beaten. When Anubis asks about this, she claims that she was beaten by Bata after she rebuffed his attempt to seduce her (Motif K 2111, Potiphar's Wife). She claims to have told Bata, "Now, am I not your mother? Further, your older brother is like a father to you." The wife then asks Anubis to kill Bata: "Now if you let him live, I will die." Anubis goes to the stable and hides behind the door, prepared to kill his brother, but a helpful cow warns Bata in time (Motif B 211, Advice from a Speaking Cow) for him to escape. Bata prays to the Sun God for help, and a river full of crocodiles appears, separating him from the pursuing Anubis (Motif D 672, Obstacle Flight). Bata then tells Anubis what really happened and chastises him for taking the word of a "filthy whore" without even hearing his side of the matter. Bata then takes a "reed knife and he cut off his [own] phallus (Motif S 176.1, Mutilation: emasculation), and he [throws] it to the water and a wels fish [swallows] it."

Bata then directs his brother to go home after informing him that he has cut out his [own] heart and placed it "on the top of the blossom of the pine" (Motif E 712.1, Soul hidden in tree; Motif E 714.4, Soul [life] in the heart). Bata also says...