Poem of Pentaur

The Poem of Pentaur (pntAwr.t) is an account of the Battle of Kadesh (1274 BC) known from eight inscriptions.

• The king pierced the lines of the miserable Khita. He was alone. He turned to look behind him, and, lo! around him were two thousand five hundred chariots of the vile Khita. Each chariot bore three men. The king had with him no chief, no marshal, no captain, no officer. Fled were his troops and his horses! Then lifted he up his voice to God, and said, "I call on thee, Father Ammon. I am amid unknown multitudes. Nations are gathered against me. My numerous soldiers have forsaken me. When I called to them not one listened to my voice. But I think Ammon worth more to me than a million of soldiers. I have never disobeyed thy word. Lo, have I not glorified thee, even to the ends of the earth?" Ammon heard when I called. He gave me his hand. He called to me, from behind: "Ramses, Miamon, I hasten to thy aid. It is I, thy Father. I am worth to thee more than a hundred thousand men."
  My prayer was answered. To the right I hurled my arrows. To the left I overthrew mine enemy. I was like Baar in his fury. The twenty-five hundred chariots encircling me were broken into splinters. Not a Khitan finds a hand to fight with. Their hearts faint within them, and fear palsies their limbs. I tumbled them into the waters like crocodiles. Head first I pitched them over, one after the other. I slew them by thousands!
  Then called the king to his archers, to his cavalry, to his chiefs who had failed to fight. He said, "Of what profit are such cowards? Is there one among you who has done his duty to his country? Had I not been given power from above, ye would all have perished. Every day I have made some of you princes. To sons, I have transmitted the honors of their fathers. If any evil has happened to Egypt I have not held you responsible. Whoever has come to me with his complaints, it is I who have administered justice, in person. Never did royal master for his soldiers what I have done for you. Yet you have played the coward, all of you. Not one of you stood by me when I had to fight. What a military deed is this to present at the Theban altar as an offering to Ammon! What a shame! What a disgrace, and to my soldiers, and to my cavalry! Yet the whole world has seen the path of my victory and my might. People saw it, and will repeat my name even in remote and unknown lands. Of the millions who saw me to-day, not one paused in his flight. All dropped their arrows and fled or turned to me in supplication."
  • Extract, translated by Lysander Dickerman, in Henry B. Carrington (ed.) Patriotic Reader; or, Human Liberty Developed (Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott Co, 1888) pp. 6–7. Cf. Exodus 15:1–18 (Song of the Sea)

• Encyclopedic article on Poem of Pentaur on Wikipedia