Four thousand years ago, on the banks of the Nile, a man sat down in despair and argued with his own soul. Why should I go on living, he asks, when the world is full of greed, cruelty, and forgetfulness? His soul answers, warns, and pleads — and in reply the man composes one of the most haunting hymns to death ever written. This is “The Dispute Between a Man and His Soul,” one of the oldest and most personal dialogues in world literature, here rendered for today's readers in clear, flowing modern English. Faithful to the meaning and spirit of the original, this edition lets an ancient voice be heard again — a voice that still speaks to anyone who has wrestled with grief, emptiness, or the unbearable weight of an ordinary day. The work survives on a single damaged papyrus in Berlin, its opening and ending lost, and yet its middle remains startlingly alive. Part of The World Scriptures Library.