The Eloquent Peasant & the Plea for Justice
A robbed peasant pleads so eloquently for justice that the magistrate keeps him talking.
Also: Eloquent Peasant · Tale of the Eloquent Peasant · Khun-Anup · plea for justice · ma'at and justice
In this classic Middle Kingdom tale, a peasant who has been robbed pleads his case before a high official in nine eloquent speeches, insisting that those in power do ma'at — that they judge fairly and defend the powerless against the strong. The official, impressed by his eloquence, deliberately prolongs the case to hear more. The work is a sustained meditation on justice and the moral obligations of authority.
In short
A Middle Kingdom literary work in which a wronged peasant delivers a series of eloquent petitions demanding justice, articulating ma'at as social justice and the duty of officials to judge rightly and protect the weak.
Where it’s found
The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant (Middle Egyptian; Middle Kingdom manuscripts)
Read it in the Egyptian texts
The passages in our corpus where this idea is discussed — each opens in our reader with the Egyptian transliteration and the English translation side by side.
How the idea developed across Egypt
A Middle Kingdom composition (classical Middle Egyptian), preserved in several Middle Kingdom manuscripts; a central text of Egyptian wisdom-and-justice literature.
Literary fiction; its value here is as a statement of the ma'at-as-justice ideal, not as a court record.