The instruction of Ptah-hotep

For soprano and wind ensemble. Duration - 8 minutes.

The Instruction of Ptah-hotep is Ancient Egyptian “self-help” literature – attributed to an Old Kingdom vizier writing advice and maxims to his son on good governance and virtuous living. Originally, when I was planning this piece, I was going to include many of the more eccentric and culturally specific maxims – including keeping temple crocodiles well fed. But what moved me more were the many universal elements: cherishing wives and family, balancing work and leisure, treating others with respect – advice we can appreciate in any era.

But something still troubled me, until I realized that the reason so many of these aphorisms sound so obvious, even trite, is that humankind has been repeating itself with most of these same phrases for the roughly 4,500 years since this Instruction. We seem to know and have always known how we should be living, but this and other texts show that we don’t always take our own advice.