Charles

As you note there were several Khatis during the middle kingdom, however, EP pretty well tells us which one he, or more probably Boris,  thought wrote the "Instruction to Merikeri".

Twice in the Canto Pound gives the King's birth name in a cartouche and each time he precedes it with the hieroglyphic phrase "son of Ra".  Meribra Khety of the ninth dynasty was the first king to use this phrase and his cartouche is exactly as Pound renders it in the Canto.  Page 50 of Stephen Quirke's "Who were the Pharaohs? A History of Their Names With a List of Cartouches" gives both Meribra Khety's throne name cartouche and birth name cartouche.   He also lists Merykara's birth name cartouche.  Merykara is Quirke's rendering of Merikeri.

Clayton in "Chronicles of the Pharaohs" page 70 also lists both of  Khety's (Clayton's spelling) cartouches and the Merkare (his rendering of Merikeri) cartouche.  Clayton thinks that both Khety and Merikare were 9th dynasty kings and that Merikare was probably the son of Khaty.

I am interested in your translation of the Egyptian "pet" as "heaven".  This is in keeping with Gardiner but Gardiner caveats his translation with a "?".  "Heaven" is sort of a one word short translation of "the highest that one can reach or perhaps attain".  Budge translates "pet" as "what is above, heaven".  Heaven or paradise seem very much words from western culture but I may be making too much of this.  I am also interested in your thoughts on Pound or Boris's reversal of the Egyptian word order.  Gardiner properly has "good disposition" as the subject of the sentence.  Boris changes this to having "man's paradise" as the subject.  This ever so slightly changes the meaning of the original sentence.


Rick Seddon