[Footnote 1: i.e. Pe Tep, or Buto.]

[Footnote 2: Eileithyiaspolis.]

[Footnote 3: Hermopolis.]

[Footnote 4: Heliopolis.]



The following is the opening hymn to Osiris in the Papyrus of Ani:

"Glory be to Osiris Un-Nefer, the great god who dwelleth in Abydos, king of eternity, lord of everlastingness, whose existence endureth for millions of years. Eldest son of the womb of Nut,[1] begotten by Keb,[2] the Erpat,[3] lord of the crowns of the South and North, lord of the lofty white crown, prince of gods and men: he hath received the sceptre, and the whip, and the rank of his divine fathers. Let thy heart in Semt-Ament[4] be content, for thy son Horus is established on thy throne. Thou art crowned lord of Tatu[5] and ruler in Abydos.[6] Through thee the world flourisheth in triumph before the power of Nebertcher.[7] He leadeth on that which is and that which is not yet, in his name of 'Taherstanef.' He toweth along the earth by Maat[8] in his name of 'Seker'; he is exceedingly mighty and most terrible in his name of 'Osiris'; he endureth for ever and ever in his name of 'Un-Nefer.' Homage to thee, O King of kings, Lord of lords, Prince of princes, who from the womb of Nut hast ruled the world and Akert.[9] Thy body is [like] bright and shining metal, thy head is of azure blue, and the brilliance of the turquoise encircleth thee. O thou god An of millions of years, whose body pervadeth all things, whose face is beautiful in Ta-Tchesert,[10] grant thou to the Ka of the Osiris the scribe Ani splendour in heaven, power upon earth, and triumph in the Other World. Grant that I may sail down to Tatu in the form of a living soul, and sail up to Abydos in the form of the Benu bird;[11] that I may go in and come out without being stopped at the pylons of the Lords of the Other World. May there be given unto me bread-cakes in the house of coolness, and offerings of food in Anu (Heliopolis), and a homestead for ever in Sekhet Aru,[12] with wheat and barley therefor."

[Footnote 1: The Sky-goddess.]

[Footnote 2: The Earth-god.]

[Footnote 3: The hereditary chief of the gods.]

[Footnote 4: The other world.]

[Footnote 5: The town of Busiris on the Delta.]

[Footnote 6: Abydos in Upper Egypt.]

[Footnote 7: The Lord to the uttermost limit, i.e. Almighty God.]

[Footnote 8: The goddess of physical and moral law, and the personification of the conscience.]

[Footnote 9: A name of the Other World.]

[Footnote 10: The Holy Land, i.e. the Kingdom of Osiris.]

[Footnote 11: A bird which has been identified with the phoenix. The soul of Ra was incarnate in it.]

[Footnote 12: A name of the realm of Osiris, or the Elysian Fields.]

In another Hymn to Osiris, which is found in the Papyrus of Hunefer, we have the following: "The gods come unto thee, bowing low before thee, and they hold thee in fear. They withdraw and depart when they see thee endued with the terror of Ra, and the victory of Thy Majesty is over their hearts. Life is with thee, and offerings of meat and drink follow thee, and that which is thy due is offered before thy face. I have come unto thee holding in my hands truth, and my heart hath in it no cunning (or deceit). I offer unto thee that which is thy due, and I know that whereon thou livest. I have not committed any kind of sin in the land; I have defrauded no man of what is his. I am Thoth, the perfect scribe, whose hands are pure. I am the lord of purity, the destroyer of evil, the scribe of truth; what I abominate is sin."

Here is an address, followed by a short Litany, which forms a kind of introduction to Chapter 15 in the Papyrus of Ani:

"Praise be unto thee, O Osiris, lord of eternity, Un-Nefer, Heru-Khuti, whose forms are manifold, whose attributes are majesty, [thou who art] Ptah-Seker-Tem in Heliopolis, lord of the Sheta shrine, creator of Het-ka-Ptah (Memphis) and of the gods who dwell therein, thou Guide of the Other World, whom the gods praise when thou settest in the sky. Isis embraceth thee contentedly, and she driveth away the fiends from the mouth of thy paths. Thou turnest thy face towards Amentet,[1] and thou makest the earth to shine like refined copper. The dead rise up to look upon thee, they breathe the air, and they behold thy face when [thy] disk riseth on the horizon. Their hearts are at peace, inasmuch as they behold thee, O thou who art Eternity and Everlastingness.

[Footnote 1: The "hidden" land, the West, the Other World.]

LITANY

"1. Homage to thee, O [Lord of] the Dekans[1] in Heliopolis and of the heavenly beings in Kheraha,[2] thou god Unti, who art the most glorious of the gods hidden in Heliopolis.

"Grant thou unto me a path whereon I may pass in peace, for I am just and true; I have not spoken lies wittingly, nor have I done aught with deceit.[3]

"2. Homage to thee, O An[4] in Antes, Heru-Khuti,[5] with long strides dost thou stride over heaven, O Heru-Khuti.

"3. Homage to thee, O Everlasting Soul, who dwellest in Tatu (Busiris), Un-Nefer,[6] son of Nut, who art the Lord of Akert.

"4. Homage to thee in thy rule over Tatu. The Urrt Crown is fixed upon thy head. Thou art One, thou createst thy protection, thou dwellest in peace in Tatu.

"5. Homage to thee, O Lord of the Acacia. The Seker Boat[7] is on its sledge; thou turnest back the Fiend, the worker of evil; thou makest the Eye of the Sun-god to rest upon its throne.

"6. Homage to thee, mighty one in thine hour, Prince great and mighty, dweller in Anrutef,[8] lord of eternity, creator of everlastingness. Thou art the lord of Hensu.[9]

"7. Homage to thee, O thou who restest upon Truth. Thou art the Lord of Abydos; thy body is joined to Ta-Tchesert. Thou art he to whom fraud and deceit are abominable.

"8. Homage to thee, O dweller in thy boat. Thou leadest the Nile from his source, the light shineth upon thy body; thou art the dweller in Nekhen.[10]

"9. Homage to thee, O Creator of the gods, King of the South, King of the North, Osiris, Conqueror, Governor of the world in thy gracious seasons! Thou art the Lord of the heaven of Egypt (Atebui)."

[Footnote 1: A group of thirty-six Star-gods.]

[Footnote 2: A town that stood on the site of Old Cairo.]

[Footnote 3: This response was to be repeated after each petition.]

[Footnote 4: A Light-god.]

[Footnote 5: Harmakhis of the Greeks.]

[Footnote 6: A form of Osiris.]

[Footnote 7: The Henu Boat of Seker was drawn round the sanctuary of Seker each morning.]

[Footnote 8: A district of Hensu.]

[Footnote 9: Herakleopolis in Upper Egypt.]

[Footnote 10: Eileithyiaspolis in Upper Egypt.]

The following passage illustrates the general character of a funerary hymn to Ra: "Homage to thee, O thou who art in the form of Khepera, Khepera the creator of the gods. Thou risest, thou shinest, thou illuminest thy mother [the sky]. Thou art crowned King of the Gods. Mother Nut[1] welcometh thee with bowings. The Land of Sunset (Manu) receiveth thee with satisfaction, and the goddess Maat[2] embraceth thee at morn and at eve. Hail, ye gods of the Temple of the Soul (i.e. heaven), who weigh heaven and earth in a balance, who provide celestial food! And hail, Tatunen,[3] One, Creator of man, Maker of the gods of the south and of the north, of the west and of the east! Come ye and acclaim Ra, the Lord of heaven, the Prince—life, health, strength be to him!—the Creator of the gods, and adore ye him in his beautiful form as he riseth in his Morning Boat (Antchet).

"Those who dwell in the heights and those who dwell in the depths worship thee. Thoth and the goddess Maat have laid down thy course for thee daily for ever. Thine Enemy the Serpent hath been cast into the fire, the fiend hath fallen down into it headlong. His arms have been bound in chains, and Ra hath hacked off his legs; the Mesu Betshet[4] shall never more rise up. The Temple of the Aged God [in Anu] keepeth festival, and the sound of those who rejoice is in the Great House. The gods shout for joy when they see Ra rising, and when his beams are filling the world with light. The Majesty of the Holy God goeth forth and advanceth even unto the Land of Sunset (Manu). He maketh bright the earth at his birth daily, he journeyeth to the place where he was yesterday. O be thou at peace with me, and let me behold thy beauties! Let me appear on the earth. Let me smite [the Eater of] the Ass.[5] Let me crush the Serpent Seba.[6] Let me destroy Aapep[7] when he is most strong. Let me see the Abtu Fish in its season and the Ant Fish[8] in its lake. Let me see Horus steering thy boat, with Thoth and Maat standing one on each side of him. Let me have hold of the bows of [thy] Evening Boat and the stern of thy Morning Boat.[9] Grant thou unto the Ka of me, the Osiris the scribe Ani, to behold the disk of the Sun, and to see the Moon-god regularly and daily. Let my soul come forth and walk hither and thither and whithersoever it pleaseth. Let my name be read from the list of those who are to receive offerings, and may offerings be set before me, even as they are set before the Followers of Horus. Let there be prepared for me a seat in the Boat of Ra on the day when the god goeth forth. Let me be received into the presence of Osiris, in the Land where Truth is spoken."

[Footnote 1: The Sky-goddess.]

[Footnote 2: Goddess of Law.]

[Footnote 3: An ancient Earth-god.]

[Footnote 4: The associates of Set, the god of Evil.]

[Footnote 5: The Ass was a form of the Sun-god, and its eater was a mythological monster-serpent.]

[Footnote 6: Another mythological serpent.]

[Footnote 7: The serpent that tried to swallow the sun each morning, but the Sun-god cast a spell on it and rendered it powerless.]

[Footnote 8: The Abtu and the Ant were two fishes that swam before the boat of the sun to warn the god of danger.]

[Footnote 9: i.e., Ani wishes to be sure of a seat in both boats.]

The prayers of the Book of the Dead consist usually of a string of petitions for sepulchral offerings to be offered in the tombs of the petitioners, and the fundamental idea underlying them is that by their transmutation, which was effected by the words of the priests, the spirits of the offerings became available as the food of the dead. Many prayers contain requests for the things that tend to the comfort and general well-being of the dead, but here and there we find a prayer for forgiveness of sins committed in the body. The best example of such is the prayer that forms Chapter CXXVI. It reads: "Hail, ye four Ape-gods who sit in the bows of the Boat of Ra, who convey truth to Nebertchet, who sit in judgment on my weakness and on my strength, who make the gods to rest contented by means of the flame of your mouths, who offer holy offerings to the gods, and sepulchral meals to the spirit-souls, who live upon truth, who feed upon truth of heart, who are without deceit and fraud, and to whom wickedness is an abomination, do ye away with my evil deeds, and put ye away my sin, which deserved stripes upon earth, and destroy ye every evil thing whatsoever that clingeth to me, and let there be no bar whatsoever on my part towards you. Grant ye that I may make my way through the Amhet[1] chamber, let me enter into Rastau,[2] and let me pass through the secret places of Amentet. Grant that cakes, and ale, and sweetmeats may be given to me as they are given to the spirit-souls, and grant that I may enter in and come forth from Rastau." The four Ape-gods reply: "Come, for we have done away with thy wickedness, and we have put away thy sin, which deserved stripes, which thou didst commit upon earth, and we have destroyed all the evil that clung to thee. Enter, therefore, into Rastau, and pass in through the secret gates of Amentet, and cakes, and ale, and sweetmeats shall be given unto thee, and thou shalt go in and come out at thy desire, even as do those whose spirit-souls are praised [by the god], and [thy name] shall be proclaimed each day in the horizon."

[Footnote 1: A chamber in the kingdom of Seker in which the dead were examined.]

[Footnote 2: The corridors in the kingdom of Seker.]

Another prayer of special interest is that which forms Chapter XXXB. This is put into the mouth of the deceased when he is standing in the Hall of Judgment watching the weighing of his heart in the Great Scales by Anubis and Thoth, in the presence of the Great Company of the gods and Osiris. He says: "My heart, my mother. My heart, my mother. My heart whereby I came into being. Let none stand up to oppose me at my judgment. May there be no opposition to me in the presence of the Tchatchau.[1] Mayest thou not be separated from me in the presence of the Keeper of the Balance. Thou art my Ka (i.e. Double, or vital power), that dwelleth in my body; the god Khnemu who knitteth together and strengthened my limbs. Mayest thou come forth into the place of happiness whither we go. May the Shenit officers who decide the destinies of the lives of men not cause my name to stink [before Osiris]. Let it (i.e. the weighing) be satisfactory unto us, and let there be joy of heart to us at the weighing of words (i.e. the Great Judgment). Let not that which is false be uttered against me before the Great God, the Lord of Amentet (i.e. Osiris). Verily thou shalt be great when thou risest up [having been declared] a speaker of the truth."

[Footnote 1: The chief officers of Osiris, the divine Taskmasters.]

In many papyri this prayer is followed by a Rubric, which orders that it is to be said over a green stone scarab set in a band of tchamu metal (i.e. silver-gold), which is to be hung by a ring from the neck of the deceased. Some Rubrics order it to be placed in the breast of a mummy, where it is to take the place of the heart, and say that it will "open the mouth" of the deceased. A tradition which is as old as the twelfth dynasty says that the Chapter was discovered in the town of Khemenu (Hermopolis Magna) by Herutataf, the son of Khufu, in the reign of Menkaura, a king of the fourth dynasty. It was cut in hieroglyphs, inlaid with lapis-lazuli on a block of alabaster, which was set under the feet of Thoth, and was therefore believed to be a most powerful prayer. We know that this prayer was recited by the Egyptians in the Ptolemaic Period, and thus it is clear that it was in common use for a period of nearly four thousand years. It may well be the oldest prayer in the world. Under the Middle and New Empires this prayer was cut upon hard green stone scarabs, but the versions of it found on scarabs are often incomplete and full of mistakes. It is quite clear that the prayer was turned into a spell, and that it was used merely as a "word of power," and that the hard stone scarabs were regarded merely as amulets. On many of them spaces are found that have been left blank to receive the names of those with whom they were to be buried; this proves that such scarabs once formed part of some undertaker's stock-in-trade, and that they were kept ready for those who were obliged to buy "heart scarabs" in a hurry.

Another remarkable composition in the Book of the Dead is the first part of Chapter CXXV, which well illustrates the lofty moral conceptions of the Egyptians of the eighteenth dynasty. The deceased is supposed to be standing in the "Usekht Maati," or Hall of the Two Maati goddesses, one for Upper Egypt and one for Lower Egypt, wherein Osiris and his Forty-two Judges judge the souls of the dead. Before judgment is given the deceased is allowed to make a declaration, which in form closely resembles that made in many parts of Africa at the present day by a man who is condemned to undergo the ordeal of drinking "red water," and in it he states that he has not committed offences against the moral and religious laws of his country. He says:

"Homage to thee, O Great God, thou Lord of Maati. I have come to thee, O my Lord, and I have brought myself hither that I may behold thy beauties. I know thee. I know thy name. I know the names of the Forty-two[1] gods who live with thee in this Hall of Truth, who keep ward over sinners, and who feed upon their blood on the day when the lives of men are taken into account in the presence of Un-Nefer (i.e. the Good Being or Osiris).... Verily, I have come unto thee, I have brought truth unto thee. I have destroyed wickedness for thee. I have not done evil to men. I have not oppressed (or wronged) my family. I have not done wrong instead of right. I have not been a friend of worthless men. I have not wrought evil. I have not tried to make myself over-righteous. I have not put forward my name for exalted positions. I have not entreated servants evilly. I have not defrauded the man who was in trouble. I have not done what is hateful (or taboo) to the gods. I have not caused a servant to be ill-treated by his master. I have not caused pain [to any man]. I have not permitted any man to go hungry. I have made none to weep. I have not committed murder. I have not ordered any man to commit murder for me. I have inflicted pain on no man. I have not robbed the temples of their offerings. I have not stolen the cakes of the gods. I have not carried off the cakes offered to the spirits. I have not committed fornication. I have not committed acts of impurity in the holy places of the god of my town. I have not diminished the bushel. I have not added to or filched away land. I have not encroached upon the fields [of my neighbours]. I have not added to the weights of the scales. I have not falsified the pointer of the scales. I have not taken milk from the mouths of children. I have not driven away the cattle that were upon their pastures. I have not snared the feathered fowl in the preserves of the gods. I have not caught fish [with bait made of] fish of their kind. I have not stopped water at the time [when it should flow]. I have not breached a canal of running water. I have not extinguished a fire when it should burn. I have not violated the times [of offering] chosen meat-offerings. I have not driven off the cattle from the property of the gods. I have not repulsed the god in his manifestations. I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. I am pure."

[Footnote 1: The Forty-two gods represent the forty-two nomes, or counties, into which Egypt was divided.]



In the second part of the Chapter the deceased repeats many of the above declarations of his innocence, but with each declaration the name of one of the Forty-two Judges is coupled. Thus we have:

1. "Hail, thou of the long strides, who comest forth from Heliopolis, I have not committed sin.

2. "Hail, thou who art embraced by flame, who comest forth from Kheraha, I have not robbed with violence.

3. "Hail, Nose, who comest forth from Hermopolis, I have not done violence [to any man].

4. "Hail, Eater of shadows, who comest forth from the Qerti, I have not thieved.

5. "Hail, Stinking Face, who comest forth from Rastau, I have not slain man or woman.

9. "Hail, Crusher of bones, who comest forth from Hensu, I have not lied."

Nothing is known of the greater number of these Forty-two gods, but it is probable that they were local gods or spirits, each one representing a nome, whose names were added to the declarations with the view of making the Forty-two Judges represent all Egypt.

In the third part of the Chapter we find that the religious ideas expressed by the deceased have a far more personal character than those of the first and second parts. Thus, having declared his innocence of the forty-two sins or offences, "the heart which is righteous and sinless" says:

"Homage to you, O ye gods who dwell in your Hall of Maati! I know you and I know your names. Let me not fall under your knives, and bring ye not before the god whom ye follow my wickedness, and let not evil come upon me through you. Declare ye me innocent in the presence of Nebertcher,[1] because I have done that which is right in Tamera (Egypt), neither blaspheming God, nor imputing evil (?) to the king in his day. Homage to you, O ye gods, who live in your Hall of Maati, who have no taint of sin in you, who live upon truth, who feed upon truth before Horus, the dweller in his disk. Deliver me from Baba, who liveth upon the entrails of the mighty ones, on the day of the Great Judgment. Let me come to you, for I have not committed offences [against you]; I have not done evil, I have not borne false witness; therefore let nothing [evil] be done unto me. I live upon truth. I feed upon truth. I have performed the commandments of men, and the things which make the gods contented. I have made the god to be at peace [with me by doing] that which is his will. I have given bread to the hungry man, and water to the thirsty man, and apparel to the naked man, and a ferry boat to him that had none. I have made offerings to the gods, and given funerary meals to the spirits. Therefore be ye my deliverers, be ye my protectors; make ye no accusations against me in the presence [of the Great God]. I am clean of mouth and clean of hands; therefore let be said unto me by those who shall see me: 'Come in peace, come in peace' (i.e. Welcome! Welcome!).... I have testified before Herfhaf,[2] and he hath approved me. I have seen the things over which the Persea tree spreadeth [its branches] in Rastau. I offer up my prayers to the gods, and I know their persons. I have come and have advanced to declare the truth and to set up the Balance[3] on its stand in Aukert."[4]

[Footnote 1: The Lord to the uttermost limit, i.e. Almighty God.]

[Footnote 2: The celestial ferryman who ferried the souls of the righteous to the Island of Osiris. None but the righteous could enter his boat, and none but the righteous was allowed to land on the Island of Osiris.]

[Footnote 3: The balance in which the heart was weighed.]

[Footnote 4: A name of a part of the Other World near Heliopolis.]

Then addressing the god Osiris the deceased says: "Hail, thou who art exalted upon thy standard, thou lord of the Atef crown, whose name is 'Lord of the Winds,' deliver me from thine envoys who inflict evils, who do harm, whose faces are uncovered, for I have done the right for the Lord of Truth. I have purified myself and my fore parts with holy water, and my hinder parts with the things that make clean, and my inward parts have been [immersed] in the Lake of Truth. There is not one member of mine wherein truth is lacking. I purified myself in the Pool of the South. I rested in the northern town in the Field of the Grasshoppers, wherein the sailors of Ra bathe at the second hour of the night and at the third hour of the day." One would think that the moral worth of the deceased was such that he might then pass without delay into the most holy part of the Hall of Truth where Osiris was enthroned. But this is not the case, for before he went further he was obliged to repeat the magical names of various parts of the Hall of Truth; thus we find that the priest thrust his magic into the most sacred of texts. At length Thoth, the great Recorder of Egypt, being satisfied as to the good faith and veracity of the deceased, came to him and asked why he had come to the Hall of Truth, and the deceased replied that he had come in order to be "mentioned" to the god. Thoth then asked him, "Who is he whose heaven is fire, whose walls are serpents, and the floor of whose house is a stream of water?" The deceased replied, "Osiris"; and he was then bidden to advance so that he might be introduced to Osiris. As a reward for his righteous life sacred food, which proceeded from the Eye of Ra, was allotted to him, and, living on the food of the god, he became a counterpart of the god.

From first to last the Book of the Dead is filled with spells and prayers for the preservation of the mummy and for everlasting life. As instances of these the following passages are quoted from Chapters 154 and 175. "Homage to thee, O my divine father Osiris, thou livest with thy members. Thou didst not decay. Thou didst not turn into worms. Thou didst not waste away. Thou didst not suffer corruption. Thou didst not putrefy. I am the god Khepera, and my members shall have an everlasting existence. I shall not decay. I shall not rot. I shall not putrefy. I shall not turn into worms. I shall not see corruption before the eye of the god Shu. I shall have my being, I shall have my being. I shall live, I shall live. I shall flourish, I shall flourish. I shall wake up in peace. I shall not putrefy. My inward parts shall not perish. I shall not suffer injury. Mine eye shall not decay. The form of my visage shall not disappear. Mine ear shall not become deaf. My head shall not be separated from my neck. My tongue shall not be carried away. My hair shall not be cut off. Mine eyebrows shall not be shaved off. No baleful injury shall come upon me. My body shall be established, and it shall neither crumble away nor be destroyed on this earth." The passage that refers to everlasting life occurs in Chapter 175, wherein the scribe Ani is made to converse with Thoth and Temu in the Tuat, or Other World. Ani, who is supposed to have recently arrived there, says: "What manner of country is this to which I have come? There is no water in it. There is no air. It is depth unfathomable, it is black as the blackest night, and men wander helplessly therein. In it a man may not live in quietness of heart; nor may the affections be gratified therein." After a short address to Osiris, the deceased asks the god, "How long shall I live?" And the god says, "It is decreed that thou shalt live for millions of millions of years, a life of millions of years."

As a specimen of a spell that was used in connection with an amulet may be quoted Chapter 156. The amulet was the tet, which represented a portion of the body of Isis. The spell reads: "The blood of Isis, the power of Isis, the words of power of Isis shall be strong to protect this mighty one (i.e. the mummy), and to guard him from him that would do unto him anything which he abominateth (or, is taboo to him)." The object of the spell is explained in the Rubric, which reads: "[This spell] shall be said over a tet made of carnelian, which hath been steeped in water of ankham flowers, and set in a frame of sycamore wood, and placed on the neck of the deceased on the day of the funeral. If these things be done for him the powers of Isis shall protect his body, and Horus, the son of Isis, shall rejoice in him when he seeth him. And there shall be no places hidden from him as he journeyeth. And one hand of his shall be towards heaven and the other towards earth, regularly and continually. Thou shalt not let any person who is with thee see it [a few words broken away]." Of the spells written in the Book of the Dead to make crocodiles, serpents, and other reptiles powerless, the following are specimens: "Away with thee! Retreat! Get back, O thou accursed Crocodile Sui. Thou shalt not come nigh me, for I have life through the words of power that are in me. If I utter thy name to the Great God he will make thee to come before the two divine messengers Betti and Herkemmaat. Heaven ruleth its seasons, and the spell hath power over what it mastereth, and my mouth ruleth the spell that is inside it. My teeth which bite are like flint knives, and my teeth which grind are like unto those of the Wolf-god. O thou who sittest spellbound with thine eyes fixed through my spell, thou shalt not carry off my spell, thou Crocodile that livest on spells" (Chap. XXXI).

"Get thee back, thou Crocodile of the West, that livest on the never-resting stars. That which is thy taboo is in me. I have eaten the brow (or, skull) of Osiris. I am set.

"Get thee back, thou Crocodile of the West. The serpent Nau is inside me. I will set it on thee, thy flame shall not approach me.

"Get thee back, thou Crocodile of the East, that feedest upon the eaters of filth. That which is thy taboo is in me. I advance. I am Osiris.

"Get thee back, thou Crocodile of the East. The serpent Nau is inside me. I will set it on thee; thy flame shall not approach me.

"Get thee back, thou Crocodile of the South, that feedest upon waste, garbage, and filth. That which is thy taboo is in me.... I am Sept.[1]

"Get thee back, thou Crocodile of the South. I will fetter thee. My charm is among the reeds (?). I will not yield unto thee.

"Get thee back, thou Crocodile of the North, that feedest upon what is left by the hours. That which is thy taboo is in me. The emissions shall [not] fall upon my head. I am Tem.[2]

"Get thee back, thou Crocodile of the North, for the Scorpion-goddess[3] is inside me, unborn (?). I am Uatch-Merti (?).[4]

"Created things are in the hollow of my hand, and the things that are not yet made are inside me. I am clothed in and supplied with thy spells, O Ra, which are above me and beneath me.... I am Ra, the self-protected, no evil thing whatsoever shall overthrow me" (Chap. XXXII).

[Footnote 1: A god of the Eastern Delta and a local form of the Sun-god early in the day.]

[Footnote 2: The primeval god, a form of Pautti, the oldest Egyptian god.]

[Footnote 3: She was called "Serqet."]

[Footnote 4: A green-eyed serpent-god, or goddess, equipped with great power to destroy.]



CHAPTER V

BOOKS OF THE DEAD OF THE GRAECO-ROMAN PERIOD

From what has been said in the preceding chapter it will be clear that only wealthy people could afford to bury copies of the great Book of the Dead with their deceased relatives. Whether the chapters that formed it were written on coffins or on papyrus the cost of copying the work by a competent scribe must have been relatively very great. Towards the close of the twenty-sixth dynasty a feeling spread among the Egyptians that only certain parts of the Book of the Dead were essential for the resurrection of the body and for the salvation of the soul, and men began to bury with their dead copies of the most important chapters of it in a very much abridged form. A little later the scribes produced a number of works, in which they included only such portions of the most important chapters as were considered necessary to effect the resurrection of the body. In other words, they rejected all the old magical elements in the Book of the Dead, and preserved only the texts and formulae that appertained to the cult of Osiris, the first man who had risen from the dead. One of the oldest of these later substitutes for the Book of the Dead is the Shai en Sensen, or "Book of Breathings." Several copies of this work are extant in the funerary papyri, and the following sections, translated from a papyrus in the British Museum, will give an idea of the character of the Book:

"Hail, Osiris[1] Kersher, son of Tashenatit! Thou art pure, thy heart is pure. Thy fore parts are pure, thy hind parts are cleansed; thy interior is cleansed with incense and natron, and no member of thine hath any defect in it whatsoever. Kersher is washed in the waters of the Field of Offerings, that lieth to the north of the Field of the Grasshoppers. The goddesses Uatchet and Nekhebet purify thee at the eighth hour of the night and at the eighth hour of the day. Come then, enter the Hall of Truth, for thou art free from all offence and from every defect, and 'Stone of Truth' is thy name. Thou enterest the Tuat (Other World) as one exceedingly pure. Thou art purified by the Goddesses of Truth in the Great Hall. Holy water hath been poured over thee in the Hall of Keb (i.e. the earth), and thy body hath been made pure in the Hall of Shu (heaven). Thou lookest upon Ra when he setteth in the form of Tem at eventide. Amen is nigh unto thee and giveth thee air, and Ptah likewise, who fashioned thy members for thee; thou enterest the horizon with Ra. Thy soul is received in the Neshem Boat of Osiris, thy soul is made divine in the House of Keb, and thou art made to be triumphant for ever and ever."

"Hail, Osiris Kersher! Thy name flourisheth, thy earthly body is stablished, thy spirit body germinateth, and thou art not repulsed either in heaven or on earth. Thy face shineth before Ra, thy soul liveth before Amen, and thy earthly body is renewed before Osiris. Thou breathest the breath of life for ever and ever. Thy soul maketh offerings unto thee in the course of each day.... Thy flesh is collected on thy bones, and thy form is even as it was upon earth. Thou takest drink into thy body, thou eatest with thy mouth, and thou receivest thy rations in company with the souls of the gods. Anubis protecteth thee; he is thy protector, and thou art not turned away from the Gates of the Tuat. Thoth, the most mighty god, the Lord of Khemenu (Hermopolis), cometh to thee, and he writeth the 'Book of Breathings' with his own fingers. Then doth thy soul breathe for ever and ever, and thy form is renewed with life upon earth; thou art made divine with the souls of the gods, thy heart is the heart of Ra, and thy limbs are the limbs of the great god. Amen is nigh unto thee to make thee to live again. Upuat openeth a prosperous road for thee. Thou seest with thine eyes, thou hearest with thine ears, thou speakest with thy mouth, thou walkest with thy legs. Thy soul hath been made divine in the Tuat, so that it may change itself into any form it pleaseth. Thou canst snuff at will the odours of the holy Acacia of Anu (An, or Heliopolis). Thou wakest each day and seest the light of Ra; thou appearest upon the earth each day, and the 'Book of Breathings' of Thoth is thy protection, for through it dost thou draw thy breath each day, and through it do thine eyes behold the beams of the Sun-god Aten. The Goddess of Truth vindicateth thee before Osiris, and her writings are upon thy tongue. Ra vivifieth thy soul, the Soul of Shu is in thy nostrils. Thou art even as Osiris, and 'Osiris Khenti Amenti' is thy name. Thy body liveth in Tatu (Busiris), and thy soul liveth in heaven.... Thy odour is that of the holy gods in Amentet, and thy name is magnified like the names of the Spirits of heaven. Thy soul liveth through the 'Book of Breathings,' and it is rejoined to thy body by the 'Book of Breathings.' These fine extracts are followed in the British Museum papyrus by the praises of Kersher by the gods, a prayer of Kersher himself for offerings, and an extract from the so-called Negative Confession, which has been already described. The work is closed by an address to the gods, in which it is said that Kersher is sinless, that he feeds and lives upon Truth, that his deeds have satisfied the hearts of the gods, and that he has fed the hungry and given water to the thirsty and clothes to the naked.[2]

[Footnote 1: The deceased is always supposed to be identified with Osiris.]

[Footnote 2: A papyrus at Florence contains a copy of Part II. of The Book of Breathings. The fundamental ideas are the same as those in Part I., but the forms in which they are expressed are different. The deceased is made to address several gods by name, and to declare that he himself is those gods. "I am Ra, I am Atem, I am Osiris, I am Horus, I am Thoth," &c.]

Another late work of considerable interest is the "Book of Traversing Eternity," the fullest known form of which is found on a papyrus at Vienna. This work describes how the soul of the deceased, when armed with the power which the Book of Traversing Eternity will give it, shall be able to travel from one end of Egypt to the other, and to visit all the holy places, and to assist at the festivals, and to enjoy communion not only with the gods and spirits who assemble there, but also with its kinsfolk and acquaintances whom it left behind alive on the earth. The object of the book was to secure for the deceased the resurrection of his body; it opens with the following words: "Thy soul liveth in heaven in the presence of Ra. Thy Ka hath acquired the divine nature of the gods. Thy body remaineth in the deep house (i.e. tomb) in the presence of Osiris. Thy spirit-body becometh glorious among the living. Thy descendants flourish upon the earth, in the presence of Keb, upon thy seat among the living, and thy name is stablished by the utterance of those who have their being through the 'Book of Traversing Eternity.' Thou comest forth by day, thou art joined to the Sun-god Aten." The text goes on to state that the deceased breathes, speaks, eats, drinks, sees, hears, and walks, and that all the organs of his body are in their proper places, and that each is performing its proper functions. He floats in the air, hovers in the shadow, rises in the sky, follows the gods, travels with the stars, dekans, and planets, and moves about by night and by day on earth and in heaven at will.

Of the works that were originally composed for recitation on the days of the festivals of Osiris, and were specially connected with the cult of this god, three, which became very popular in the Graeco-Roman period, may be mentioned. These are: (1) The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys; (2) The Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys; (3) The Book of making splendid the Spirit of Osiris. The first of these works was recited on the twenty-fifth day of the fourth month of the season Akhet (October-November) by two "fair women," who personified Isis and Nephthys. One of these had the name of Isis on her shoulder, and the other the name of Nephthys, and each held a vessel of water in her right hand, and a "Memphis cake of bread" in her left. The object of the recital was to commemorate the resurrection of Osiris, and if the book were recited on behalf of any deceased person it would make his spirit to be glorious, and stablish his body, and cause his Ka to rejoice, and give breath to his nostrils and air to his throat. The two "fair women" sang the sections alternately in the presence of the Kher-heb and Setem priests. The two first sections, as they are found on a papyrus in Berlin, read thus:—ISIS SAITH: "Come to thy house, come to thy house, O An, come to thy house. Thine enemy [Set] hath perished. O beautiful youth, come to thy house. Look thou upon me. I am the sister who loveth thee, go not far from me. O Beautiful Boy, come to thy house, straightway, straightway. I cannot see thee, and my heart weepeth for thee; my eyes follow thee about. I am following thee about so that I may see thee. Lo, I wait to see thee, I wait to see thee; behold, Prince, I wait to see thee. It is good to see thee, it is good to see thee; O An, it is good to see thee. Come to thy beloved one, come to thy beloved one, O Un-Nefer, whose word is truth. Come to thy wife, O thou whose heart is still. Come to the lady of thy house; I am thy sister from thy mother's [womb]. Go not thou far from me. The faces of gods and men are turned towards thee, they all weep for thee together. As soon as I saw thee I cried out to thee, weeping with a loud voice which pierced the heavens, and thou didst not hear my voice. I am thy sister who loved thee upon earth; none other loved thee more than [thy] sister, thy sister."

NEPHTHYS SAITH: "O Beautiful Prince, come to thy house. Let thy heart rejoice and be glad, for thine enemies have ceased to be. Thy two Sisters are nigh unto thee; they guard thy bier, they address thee with words [full of] tears as thou liest prone on thy bier. Look thou at the young women; speak to us, O our Sovereign Lord. Destroy thou all the misery that is in our hearts; the chiefs among gods and men look upon thee. Turn thou towards us thy face, O our Sovereign Lord. At the sight of thy face life cometh to our faces; turn not thou thy face from us. The joy of our heart is in the sight of thee. O Beautiful Sovereign, our hearts would see thee. I am thy sister Nephthys who loveth thee. The fiend Seba hath fallen, he hath not being. I am with thee, and I act as the protectress of thy members for ever and ever."

The second work, the "Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys," was sung during the great festival of Osiris, which took place in the fourth month of the Season of Akhet and lasted five days (from the twenty-second to the twenty-sixth day). It was sung by two virgins who wore fillets of sheep's wool on their heads, and held tambourines in their hands; one was called Isis and the other Nephthys. According to the rubrical directions given in the British Museum papyrus, the sections were sung by both women together. The following passage will illustrate the contents of the work:

"Come, come, run to me, O strong heart! Let me see thy divine face, for I do not see thee, and make thou clear the path that we may see thee as we see Ra in heaven, when the heavens unite with the earth, and cause darkness to fall upon the earth each day. My heart burneth as with fire at thy escape from the Fiend, even as my heart burneth with fire when thou turnest thy side to me; O that thou wouldst never remove it from me! O thou who unitest the Two Domains (i.e. Egypt, North and South), and who turnest back those who are on the roads, I seek to see thee because of my love for thee.... Thou fliest like a living being, O Everlasting King; thou hast destroyed the fiend Anrekh. Thou art the King of the South and of the North, and thou goest forth from Tatchesert. May there never be a moment in thy life when I do not fill thy heart, O my divine brother, my lord who goest forth from Aqert.... My arms are raised to protect thee, O thou whom I love. I love thee, O Husband, Brother, lord of love; come thou in peace into thy house.... Thy hair is like turquoise as thou comest forth from the Fields of Turquoise, thy hair is like unto the finest lapis-lazuli, and thou thyself art more blue than thy hair. Thy skin and body are like southern alabaster, and thy bones are of silver. The perfume of thy hair is like unto new myrrh, and thy skull is of lapis-lazuli."

The third work, "The Book of making splendid the Spirit of Osiris," was also sung at the great festival of Osiris that took place during the November-December at Abydos and other great towns in Egypt, and if it were sung on behalf of any man, the resurrection and life, constantly renewed, of that man were secured for his soul and spirit. This Book, written in hieratic, is found in a papyrus in Paris, and the following extract will illustrate its contents: "Come to thy house, come to thy house, O An. Come to thy house, O Beautiful Bull, lord of men and women, the beloved one, the lord of women. O Beautiful Face, Chief of Akert, Prince, Khenti Amentiu, are not all hearts drunk through the love of thee, O Un-Nefer, whose word is truth? The hands of men and gods are lifted up and seek thee, even as the hands of a babe are stretched out to his mother. Come thou to them, for their hearts are sad, and make them to rejoice. The lands of Horus exult, the domains of Set are overthrown because of their fear of thee. Hail, Osiris Khenti Amentiu! I am thy sister Isis. No god and no goddess have done for thee what I have done. I, a woman, made a man child for thee, because of my desire to make thy name to live upon the earth. Thy divine essence was in my body, I brought him forth on the ground. He pleaded thy case, he healed thy suffering, he decreed the destruction of him that caused it. Set fell under his knife, and the Smamiu fiends of Set followed him. The throne of the Earth-god is thine, O thou who art his beloved son.... There is health in thy members, thy wounds are healed, thy sufferings are relieved, thou shalt never groan again in pain. Come to us thy sisters, come to us; our hearts will live when thou comest. Men shall cry out to thee, and women shall weep glad tears, at thy coming to them.... The Nile appeareth at the command of thy mouth; thou makest men to live on the effluxes that proceed from thy members, and thou makest every field to flourish. When thou comest that which is dead springeth into life, and the plants in the marshes put forth blossoms. Thou art the Lord of millions of years, the sustainer of wild creatures, and the lord of cattle; every created thing hath its existence from thee. What is in the earth is thine. What is in the heavens is thine. What is in the waters is thine. Thou art the Lord of Truth, the hater of sinners, whom thou overthrowest in their sins. The Goddesses of Truth are with thee; they never leave thee. No sinful man can approach thee in the place where thou art. Whatsoever appertaineth to life and to death belongeth to thee, and to thee belongeth everything that concerneth man."

During the period of the occupation of Egypt by the Romans, the three last-named works were still further abridged, and eventually the texts that were considered essential for salvation were written upon small sheets of papyrus from 9 to 12 inches high, and from 5 to 10 inches wide.



CHAPTER VI

THE EGYPTIAN STORY OF THE CREATION

If we consider for a moment the vast amount of thought which the Egyptian gave to the problems of the future life, and their deep-seated belief in resurrection and immortality, we cannot fail to conclude that he must have theorised deeply about the constitution of the heaven in which he hoped to live everlastingly, and about its Maker. The translations given in the preceding pages prove that the theologians of Egypt were ready enough to describe heaven, and the life led by the blessed there, and the powers and the attributes of the gods, but they appear to have shrunk from writing down in a connected form their beliefs concerning the Creation and the origin of the Creator. The worshippers of each great god proclaimed him to be the Creator of All, and every great town had its own local belief on the subject. According to the Heliopolitans, Atem, or Tem, and at a later period Ra, was the Creator; according to Memphite theology he was Ptah; according to the Hermopolitans he was Thoth; and according to the Thebans he was Amen (Ammon). In only one native Egyptian work up to the present has there been discovered any connected account of the Creation, and the means by which it was effected, namely, the British Museum Papyrus, No. 10,188. This papyrus was written about 305 B.C., and is therefore of a comparatively late date, but the subject matter of the works contained in it is thousands of years older, and it is only their forms which are of a late date. The Story of the Creation is found in the last work in the papyrus, which is called the "Book of overthrowing Aapep, the Enemy of Ra, the Enemy of Un-Nefer" (i.e. Osiris). This work is a liturgy, which was said at certain times of the day and night in the great temple of Amen-Ra at Thebes, with the view of preventing the monster Aapep from obstructing the sunrise. Aapep was supposed to lie in wait for the sun daily just before sunrise, with the view of doing battle with him and overthrowing him. When the Sun-god arrived at the place where Aapep was, he first of all cast a spell upon the monster, which rendered him helpless, and then he cast his fiery rays upon him, which shrivelled him up, and the fire of the god consumed him entirely. In the temple of Amen-Ra the priests recited the spells that were supposed to help the Sun-god to burn up Aapep, and they burnt waxen figures of the monster in specially prepared fires, and, uttering curses, they trampled them under foot and defiled them. These spells and burnings were also believed to break up rain clouds, and to scatter fog and mist and to dissipate thunder-storms, and to help the sun to rise on this world in a cloudless sky. Aapep was a form of Set, the god of evil of every kind, and his allies were the "Red Fiends" and the "Black Fiends," and every power of darkness. In the midst of the magical spells of this papyrus we find two copies of the "Book of knowing how Ra came into being, and of overthrowing Aapep." One copy is a little fuller than the other, but they agree substantially. The words of this book are said in the opening line to have been spoken by the god Nebertcher, i.e. the "Lord to the uttermost limit," or God Himself. The Egyptian Christians, or Copts, in their religious writings use this name as an equivalent of God Almighty, the Lord of All, the God of the Universe. Nebertcher says: "I am the creator of what hath come into being. I myself came into being under the form of the god Khepera. I came into being under the form of Pautti (or, in primeval time), I formed myself out of the primeval matter, I made myself out of the substance that was in primeval time."[1] Nothing existed at that time except the great primeval watery mass called NU, but in this there were the germs of everything that came into being subsequently. There was no heaven, and no earth, and the god found no place on which to stand; nothing, in fact, existed except the god. He says, "I was alone." He first created himself by uttering his own name as a word of power, and when this was uttered his visible form appeared. He then uttered another kind of word of power, and as a result of this his soul (ba) came into being, and it worked in connection with his heart or mind (ab). Before every act of creation Nebertcher, or his visible form Khepera, thought out what form the thing to be created was to take, and when he had uttered its name the thing itself appeared in heaven or earth. To fill the heaven, or place where he lived, the god next produced from his body and its shadow the two gods Shu and Tefnut. These with Nebertcher, or Khepera, formed the first triad of gods, and the "one god became three," or, as we should say, the one god had three aspects, each of which was quite distinct from the other. The tradition of the begetting of Shu and Tefnut is as old as the time of the pyramids, for it is mentioned in the text of Pepi I, l. 466. The next act of creation resulted in the emerging of the Eye of Nebertcher (later identified with Ra) from the watery mass (NU), and light shone upon its waters. Shu and Tefnut then united and they produced Keb, the Earth-god, and Nut, the Sky-goddess. The text then refers to some calamity which befell the Eye of Nebertcher or of Khepera, but what it was is not clear; at all events the Eye became obscured, and it ceased to give light. This period of darkness is, of course, the night, and to obviate the inconvenience caused by this recurring period of darkness, the god made a second Eye, i.e. the Moon, and set it in the heavens. The greater Eye ruled the day, and the lesser Eye the night. One of the results of the daily darkness was the descent of the Sky-goddess Nut to the Earth-god Keb each evening.

[Footnote 1: The second version here states that the name of Nebertcher is Ausares (Osiris), who is the oldest god of all.]

The gods and goddesses next created were five, namely, Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Osiris married Isis, and their son was called Horus; Set married Nephthys, but their son Anpu, or Anubis, is not mentioned in our text. Osiris became the great Ancestor-god of Egypt, and was a reincarnation of his great-grandfather. Men and women were first formed from the tears that fell from the Eye of Khepera, or the Sun-god, upon his body; the old Egyptian word for "men" very closely resembles in form and sound the word for "tears." Plants, vegetables, herbs, and trees owe their origin to the light of the moon falling upon the earth. Our text contains no mention of a special creation of the "beasts of the field," but the god states distinctly that he created the children of the earth, or creeping things of all kinds, and among this class quadrupeds are probably included. The men and women, and all the other living creatures that were made at that time by Nebertcher, or Khepera, reproduced their species, each in his own way, and thus the earth became filled with their descendants as we see at the present time. The elements of this Creation legend are very, very old, and the form in which they are grouped in our text suggests the influence of the priests of Heliopolis. It is interesting to note that only very ancient gods appear as Powers of creation, and these were certainly worshipped for many centuries before the priests of Heliopolis invented their cult of the Sun-god, and identified their god with the older gods of the country. We may note, too, that gods like Ptah and Amen, whose reputation was so great in later times, and even when our text was copied in 305 B.C., find no mention at all.



CHAPTER VII

LEGENDS OF THE GODS

The Egyptians believed that at one time all the great gods and goddesses lived upon earth, and that they ruled Egypt in much the same way as the Pharaohs with whom they were more or less acquainted. They went about among men and took a real personal interest in their affairs, and, according to tradition, they spared no pains in promoting their wishes and well-being. Their rule was on the whole beneficent, chiefly because in addition to their divine attributes they possessed natures, and apparently bodily constitutions that were similar to those of men. Like men also they were supposed to feel emotions and passions, and to be liable to the accidents that befell men, and to grow old, and even to die. The greatest of all the gods was Ra, and he reigned over Egypt for very many years. His reign was marked by justice and righteousness, and he was in all periods of Egyptian history regarded as the type of what a king should be. When men instead of gods reigned over Egypt they all delighted to call themselves sons of Ra, and every king believed that Ra was his true father, and regarded his mother's husband as his father only in name. This belief was always common in Egypt, and even Alexander the Great found it expedient to adopt it, for he made a journey to the sanctuary of Amen (Ammon) in the Oasis of Siwah in order to be officially acknowledged by the god. Having obtained this recognition, he became the rightful lord of Egypt.

THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND

This Legend is cut in hieroglyphs on the walls of a small chamber in the tomb of Seti I about 1350 B.C. When Ra, the self-begotten and self-formed god, had been ruling gods and men for some time, men began to complain about him, saying, "His Majesty hath become old. His bones have turned into silver, his flesh into gold, and his hair into real lapis-lazuli." His Majesty heard these murmurings and commanded his followers to summon to his presence his Eye (i.e. the goddess Hathor), Shu, Tefnut, Keb, Nut, and the father and mother gods and goddesses who were with him in the watery abyss of NU, and also the god of this water, NU. They were to come to him with all their followers secretly, so that men should not suspect the reason for their coming, and take flight, and they were to assemble in the Great House in Heliopolis, where Ra would take counsel with them. In due course all the gods assembled in the Great House, and they ranged themselves down the sides of the House, and they bowed down in homage before Ra until their heads touched the ground, and said, "Speak, for we are listening." Then Ra addresing Nu, the father of the first-born gods, told him to give heed to what men were doing, for they whom he had created were murmuring against him. And he said, "Tell me what ye would do. Consider the matter, invent a plan for me, and I will not slay them until I have heard what ye shall say concerning this thing." Nu replied, "Thou, O my son Ra, art greater than the god who made thee (i.e. Nu himself), thou art the king of those who were created with thee, thy throne is established, and the fear of thee is great. Let thine Eye (Hathor) attack those who blaspheme thee." And Ra said, "Lo, they have fled to the mountains, for their hearts are afraid because of what they have said." The gods replied, "Let thine Eye go forth and destroy those who blasphemed thee, for no eye can resist thine when it goeth forth in the form of Hathor." Thereupon the Eye of Ra, or Hathor, went in pursuit of the blasphemers in the mountains, and slew them all. On her return Ra welcomed her, and the goddess said that the work of vanquishing men was dear to her heart. Ra then said that he would be the master of men as their king, and that he would destroy them. For three nights the goddess Hathor-Sekhmet waded about in the blood of men, the slaughter beginning at Hensu (Herakleopolis Magna).

Then the Majesty of Ra ordered that messengers should be sent to Abu, a town at the foot of the First Cataract, to fetch mandrakes (?), and when they were brought he gave them to the god Sekti to crush. When the women slaves were bruising grain for making beer, the crushed mandrakes (?) were placed in the vessels that were to hold the beer, together with some of the blood of those who had been slain by Hathor. The beer was then made, and seven thousand vessels were filled with it. When Ra saw the beer he ordered it to be taken to the scene of slaughter, and poured out on the meadows of the four quarters of heaven. The object of putting mandrakes (?) in the beer was to make those who drank fall asleep quickly, and when the goddess Hathor came and drank the beer mixed with blood and mandrakes (?) she became very merry, and, the sleepy stage of drunkenness coming on her, she forgot all about men, and slew no more. At every festival of Hathor ever after "sleepy beer" was made, and it was drunk by those who celebrated the feast.

Now, although the blasphemers of Ra had been put to death, the heart of the god was not satisfied, and he complained to the gods that he was smitten with the "pain of the fire of sickness." He said, "My heart is weary because I have to live with men; I have slain some of them, but worthless men still live, and I did not slay as many as I ought to have done considering my power." To this the gods replied, "Trouble not about thy lack of action, for thy power is in proportion to thy will." Here the text becomes fragmentary, but it seems that the goddess Nut took the form of a cow, and that the other gods lifted Ra on to her back. When men saw that Ra was leaving the earth, they repented of their murmurings, and the next morning they went out with bows and arrows to fight the enemies of the Sun-god. As a reward for this Ra forgave those men their former blasphemies, but persisted in his intention of retiring from the earth. He ascended into the heights of heaven, being still on the back of the Cow-goddess Nut, and he created there Sekhet-hetep and Sekhet-Aaru as abodes for the blessed, and the flowers that blossomed therein he turned into stars. He also created the millions of beings who lived there in order that they might praise him. The height to which Ra had ascended was now so great that the legs of the Cow-goddess on which he was enthroned trembled, and to give her strength he ordained that Nut should be held up in her position by the godhead and upraised arms of the god Shu. This is why we see pictures of the body of Nut being supported by Shu. The legs of the Cow-goddess were supported by the various gods, and thus the seat of the throne of Ra became stable. When this was done Ra caused the Earth-god Keb to be summoned to his presence, and when he came he spake to him about the venomous reptiles that lived in the earth and were hostile to him. Then turning to Thoth, he bade him to prepare a series of spells and words of power, which would enable those who knew them to overcome snakes and serpents and deadly reptiles of all kinds. Thoth did so, and the spells which he wrote under the direction of Ra served as a protection of the servants of Ra ever after, and secured for them the help of Keb, who became sole lord of all the beings that lived and moved on and in his body, the earth. Before finally relinquishing his active rule on earth, Ra summoned Thoth and told him of his desire to create a Light-soul in the Tuat and in the Land of the Caves. Over this region he appointed Thoth to rule, and he ordered him to keep a register of those who were there, and to mete out just punishments to them. In fact, Thoth was to be ever after the representative of Ra in the Other World.

THE LEGEND OF RA AND ISIS

This Legend is found written in the hieratic character upon a papyrus preserved in Turin, and it illustrates a portion of the preceding Legend. We have seen that Ra instructed Thoth to draw up a series of spells to be used against venomous reptiles of all kinds, and the reader will perceive from the following summary that Ra had good reason for doing this. The Legend opens with a list of the titles of Ra, the "self-created god," creator of heaven, earth, breath of life, fire, gods, men, beasts, cattle, reptiles, feathered fowl, and fish, the King of gods and men, to whom cycles of 120 years are as years, whose manifold names are unknown even by the gods. The text continues: "Isis had the form of a woman, and knew words of power, but she was disgusted with men, and she yearned for the companionship of the gods and the spirits, and she meditated and asked herself whether, supposing she had the knowledge of the Name of Ra, it was not possible to make herself as great as Ra was in heaven and on the earth? Meanwhile Ra appeared in heaven each day upon his throne, but he had become old, and he dribbled at the mouth, and his spittle fell on the ground. One day Isis took some of the spittle and kneaded up dust in it, and made this paste into the form of a serpent with a forked tongue, so that if it struck anyone the person struck would find it impossible to escape death. This figure she placed on the path on which Ra walked as he came into heaven after his daily survey of the Two Lands (i.e. Egypt). Soon after this Ra rose up, and attended by his gods he came into heaven, but as he went along the serpent drove its fangs into him. As soon as he was bitten Ra felt the living fire leaving his body, and he cried out so loudly that his voice reached the uttermost parts of heaven. The gods rushed to him in great alarm, saying, "What is the matter?" At first Ra was speechless, and found himself unable to answer, for his jaws shook, his lips trembled, and the poison continued to run through every part of his body. When he was able to regain a little strength, he told the gods that some deadly creature had bitten him, something the like of which he had never seen, something which his hand had never made. He said, "Never before have I felt such pain; there is no pain worse than this." Ra then went on to describe his greatness and power, and told the listening gods that his father and mother had hidden his name in his body so that no one might be able to master him by means of any spell or word of power. In spite of this something had struck him, and he knew not what it was. "Is it fire?" he asked. "Is it water? My heart is full of burning fire, my limbs are shivering, shooting pains are in all my members." All the gods round about him uttered cries of lamentation, and at this moment Isis appeared. Going to Ra she said, "What is this, O divine father? What is this? Hath a serpent bitten thee? Hath something made by thee lifted up its head against thee? Verily my words of power shall overthrow it; I will make it depart in the sight of thy light." Ra then repeated to Isis the story of the incident, adding, "I am colder than water, I am hotter than fire. All my members sweat. My body quaketh. Mine eye is unsteady. I cannot look on the sky, and my face is bedewed with water as in the time of the Inundation."[1] Then Isis said, "Father, tell me thy name, for he who can utter his own name liveth."

[Footnote 1: i.e. in the period of summer. The season Shemmu began in April and ended about July 15.]

Ra replied, "I am the maker of heaven and earth. I knit together the mountains and whatsoever liveth on them. I made the waters. I made Mehturit[1] to come into being. I made Kamutef.[2] I made heaven, and the two hidden gods of the horizon, and put souls into the gods. I open my eyes, and there is light; I shut my eyes, and there is darkness. I speak the word[s], and the waters of the Nile appear. I am he whom the gods know not. I make the hours. I create the days. I open the year. I make the river [Nile]. I create the living fire whereby works in the foundries and workshops are carried out. I am Khepera in the morning, Ra at noon, and Temu in the evening." Meanwhile the poison of the serpent was coursing through the veins of Ra, and the enumeration of his works afforded the god no relief from it. Then Isis said to Ra, "Among all the things which thou hast named to me thou hast not named thy name. Tell me thy name, and the poison shall come forth from thee." Ra still hesitated, but the poison was burning in his blood, and the heat thereof was stronger than that of a fierce fire. At length he said, "Isis shall search me through, and my name shall come forth from my body and pass into hers." Then Ra hid himself from the gods, and for a season his throne in the Boat of Millions of Years was empty. When the time came for the heart of the god to pass into Isis, the goddess said to Horus, her son, "The great god shall bind himself by an oath to give us his two eyes (i.e. the sun and the moon)." When the great god had yielded up his name Isis pronounced the following spell: "Flow poison, come out of Ra. Eye of Horus, come out of the god, and sparkle as thou comest through his mouth. I am the worker. I make the poison to fall on the ground. The poison is conquered. Truly the name of the great god hath been taken from him. Ra liveth! The poison dieth! If the poison live Ra shall die." These were the words which Isis spoke, Isis the great lady, the Queen of the gods, who knew Ra by his own name.

[Footnote 1: An ancient Cow-goddess of heaven.]

[Footnote 2: A form of Amen-Ra.]

In late times magicians used to write the above Legend on papyrus above figures of Temu and Heru-Hekenu, who gave Ra his secret name, and over figures of Isis and Horus, and sell the rolls as charms against snake bites.

THE LEGEND OF HORUS OF BEHUTET AND THE WINGED DISK

The text of this Legend is cut in hieroglyphs on the walls of the temple of Edfu, in Upper Egypt, and some of the incidents described in it are illustrated by large bas-reliefs. The form of the Legend here given dates from the Ptolemaic Period, but the subject matter is some thousands of years older. The great historical fact underlying the Legend is the Conquest of Egypt by some very early king who invaded Egypt from the south, and who succeeded in conquering every part of it, even the northern part of the Delta. The events described are supposed to have taken place whilst Ra was still reigning on the earth. The Legend states that in the three hundred and sixty-third year of the reign of Ra-Harmakhis, the ever living, His Majesty was in Ta-sti (i.e. the Land of the Bow, or Nubia) with his soldiers; the enemy had reviled him, and for this reason the land is called "Uauatet" to this day. From Nubia Ra sailed down the river to Apollinopolis (Edfu), and Heru-Behutet, or Horus of Edfu, was with him. On arriving there Horus told Ra that the enemy were plotting against him, and Ra told him to go out and slay them. Horus took the form of a great winged disk, which flew up into the air and pursued the enemy, and it attacked them with such terrific force that they could neither see nor hear, and they fell upon each other, and slew each other, and in a moment not a single foe was left alive. Then Horus returned to the Boat of Ra-Harmakhis, in the form of the winged disk which shone with many colours, and said, "Advance, O Ra, and look upon thine enemies who are lying under thee in this land." Ra set out on the journey, taking with him the goddess Ashtoreth, and he saw his enemies lying on the ground, each of them being fettered. After looking upon his slaughtered foes Ra said to the gods who were with him, "Behold, let us sail in our boat on the water, for our hearts are glad because our enemies have been overthrown on the earth." So the Boat of Ra moved onwards towards the north, and the enemies of the god who were on the banks took the form of crocodiles and hippopotami, and tried to frighten the god, for as his boat came near them they opened their jaws wide, intending to swallow it up together with the gods who were in it. Among the crew were the Followers of Horus of Edfu, who were skilled workers in metal, and each of these had in his hands an iron spear and a chain. These "Blacksmiths" threw out their chains into the river and allowed the crocodiles and hippopotami to entangle their legs in them, and then they dragged the beasts towards the bows of the Boat, and driving their spears into their bodies, slew them there. After the slaughter the bodies of six hundred and fifty-one crocodiles were brought and laid out before the town of Edfu. When Thoth saw these he said, "Let your hearts rejoice, O gods of heaven, Let your hearts rejoice, O ye gods who dwell on the earth. The Young Horus cometh in peace. On his way he hath made manifest deeds of valour, according to the Book of slaying the Hippopotamus." And from that day they made figures of Horus in metal.

Then Horus of Edfu took the form of the winged disk, and set himself on the prow of the Boat of Ra. He took with him Nekhebet, goddess of the South, and Uatchet, goddess of the North, in the form of serpents, so that they might make all the enemies of the Sun-god to quake in the South and in the North. His foes who had fled to the north doubled back towards the south, for they were in deadly fear of the god. Horus pursued and overtook them, and he and his blacksmiths had in their hands spears and chains, and they slew large numbers of them to the south-east of the town of Thebes in Upper Egypt. Many succeeded in escaping towards the north once more, but after pursuing them for a whole day Horus overtook them, and made a great slaughter among them. Meanwhile the other foes of the god, who had heard of the defeats of their allies, fled into Lower Egypt, and took refuge among the swamps of the Delta. Horus set out after them, and came up with them, and spent four days in the water slaying his foes, who tried to escape in the forms of crocodiles and hippopotami. He captured one hundred and forty-two of the enemy and a male hippopotamus, and took them to the fore part of the Boat of Ra. There he hacked them in pieces, and gave their inward parts to his followers, and their mutilated bodies to the gods and goddesses who were in the Boat of Ra and on the river banks in the town of Heben.

Then the remnant of the enemy turned their faces towards the Lake of the North, and they attempted to sail to the Mediterranean in boats; but the terror of Horus filled their hearts, and they left their boats and fled to the district of Mertet-Ament, where they joined themselves to the worshippers of Set, the god of evil, who dwelt in the Western Delta. Horus pursued them in his boat for one day and one night without seeing them, and he arrived at the town of Per-Rehui. At length he discovered the position of the enemy, and he and his followers fell upon them, and slew a large number of them; he captured three hundred and eighty-one of them alive, and these he took to the Boat of Ra, then, having slain them, he gave their carcases to his followers or bodyguard, who presumably devoured them. The custom of eating the bodies of enemies is very old in Egypt, and survives in some parts of Africa to this day.

Then Set, the great antagonist of Horus, came out and cursed him for the slaughter of his people, using most shameful words of abuse. Horus stood up and fought a duel with Set, the "Stinking Face," as the text calls him, and Horus succeeded in throwing him to the ground and spearing him. Horus smashed his mouth with a blow of his mace, and having fettered him with his chain, he brought him into the presence of Ra, who ordered that he was to be handed over to Isis and her son Horus, that they might work their will on him. Here we must note that the ancient editor of the Legend has confounded Horus the ancient Sun-god with Horus, son of Isis, son of Osiris. Then Horus, the son of Isis, cut off the heads of Set and his followers in the presence of Ra, and dragged Set by his feet round about throughout the district with his spear driven through his head and back, according to the order of Ra. The form which Horus of Edfu had at that time was that of a man of great strength, with the face and back of a hawk; on his head he wore the Double Crown, with feathers and serpents attached, and in his hands he held a metal spear and a metal chain. And Horus, the son of Isis, took upon himself a similar form, and the two Horuses slew all the enemies on the bank of the river to the west of the town of Per-Rehui. This slaughter took place on the seventh day of the first month of the season Pert,[1] which was ever afterwards called the "Day of the Festival of Sailing."

[Footnote 1: About the middle of November.]

Now, although Set in the form of a man had been slain, he reappeared in the form of a great hissing serpent, and took up his abode in a hole in the ground without being noticed by Horus. Ra, however, saw him, and gave orders that Horus, the son of Isis, in the form of a hawk-headed staff, should set himself at the mouth of the hole, so that the monster might never reappear among men. This Horus did, and Isis his mother lived there with him. Once again it became known to Ra that a remnant of the followers of Set had escaped, and that under the direction of the Smait fiends, and of Set, who had reappeared, they were hiding in the swamps of the Eastern Delta. Horus of Edfu, the winged disk, pursued them, speared them, and finally slew them in the presence of Ra. For the moment there were no more enemies of Ra to be found in the district on land, although Horus passed six days and six nights in looking for them; but it seems that several of the followers of Set in the forms of water reptiles were lying on the ground under water, and that Horus saw them there. At this time Horus had strict guard kept over the tomb of Osiris in Anrutef,[1] because he learned that the Smait fiends wanted to come and wreck both it and the body of the god. Isis, too, never ceased to recite spells and incantations in order to keep away her husband's foes from his body. Meanwhile the "blacksmiths" of Horus, who were in charge of the "middle regions" of Egypt, found a body of the enemy, and attacked them fiercely, slew many of them, and took one hundred and six of them prisoners. The "blacksmiths" of the west also took one hundred and six prisoners, and both groups of prisoners were slain before Ra. In return for their services Ra bestowed dwelling-places upon the "blacksmiths," and allowed them to have temples with images of their gods in them, and arranged for offerings and libations to be made to them by properly appointed priests of various classes.

[Footnote 1: A district of Herakleopolis.]

Shortly after these events Ra discovered that a number of his enemies were still at large, and that they had sailed in boats to the swamps that lay round about the town of Tchal, or Tchar, better known as Zoan or Tanis. Once more Horus unmoored the Boat of Ra, and set out against them; some took refuge in the waters, and others landed and escaped to the hilly land on the east. For some reason, which is not quite apparent, Horus took the form of a mighty lion with a man's face, and he wore on his head the triple crown. His claws were like flints, and he pursued the enemy on the hills, and chased them hither and thither, and captured one hundred and forty-two of them. He tore out their tongues, and ripped their bodies into strips with his claws, and gave them over to his allies in the mountains, who, no doubt, ate them. This was the last fight in the north of Egypt, and Ra proposed that they should sail up the river and return to the south. They had traversed all Egypt, and sailed over the lakes in the Delta, and down the arms of the Nile to the Mediterranean, and as no more of the enemy were to be seen the prow of the boat of Ra was turned southwards. Thoth recited the spells that produced fair weather, and said the words of power that prevented storms from rising, and in due course the Boat reached Nubia. When it arrived Horus found in the country of Uauatet men who were conspiring against him and cursing him, just as they had at one time blasphemed Ra. Horus, taking the form of the winged disk, and accompanied by the two serpent-goddesses, Nekhebet and Uatchet, attacked the rebels, but there was no fierce fighting this time, for the hearts of the enemy melted through fear of him. His foes cast themselves before him on the ground in submission, they offered no resistance, and they died straightway. Horus then returned to the town of Behutet (Edfu), and the gods acclaimed him, and praised his prowess. Ra was so pleased with him that he ordered Thoth to have a winged disk, with a serpent on each side of it, placed in every temple in Egypt in which he (i.e. Ra) was worshipped, so that it might act as a protector of the building, and drive away any and every fiend and devil that might wish to attack it. This is the reason why we find the winged disk, with a serpent on each side of it, above the doors of temples and religious buildings throughout the length and breadth of Egypt.

In many places in the text that contains the above Legend there are short passages in which attempts are made to explain the origins of the names of certain towns and gods. All these are interpolations in the narrative made by scribes at a late period of Egyptian history. As it would be quite useless to reproduce them without many explanatory notes, for which there is no room in this little book, they have been omitted.

THE LEGEND OF KHNEMU AND A SEVEN YEARS' FAMINE

This Legend is cut in hieroglyphs on a large rounded block of granite, which stands on the south-east portion of Sahal, a little island in the First Cataract in Upper Egypt, two or three miles to the south of the modern town of Aswan, the ancient Syene. The form of the Legend, and the shapes of the hieroglyphs, and the late spelling of the words, prove that the inscription is the work of the Ptolemaic Period, though it is possible that the Legend in its simplest form is as old as the period to which it is ascribed in the Sahal text, namely, the third dynasty, about 4100 B.C. The subject of the Legend is a terrible famine, which lasted for seven years, in the reign of King Tcheser, and which recalls the seven years' famine that took place in Egypt when Joseph was there. This famine was believed to have been caused by the king's neglect to worship properly the god Khnemu, who was supposed to control the springs of the Nile, which were asserted by the sages to be situated between two great rocks on the Island of Elephantine. The Legend sets forth that the Viceroy of Nubia, in the reign of Tcheser, was a nobleman called Meter, who was also the overseer of all the temple properties in the South. His residence was in Abu, or Elephantine, and in the eighteenth year of his reign the king sent him a despatch in which it was written thus: "This is to inform thee that misery hath laid hold upon me as I sit upon the great throne, and I grieve for those who dwell in the Great House.[1] My heart is grievously afflicted by reason of a very great calamity, which is due to the fact that the waters of the Nile have not risen to their proper height for seven years. Grain is exceedingly scarce, there are no garden herbs and vegetables to be had at all, and everything which men use for food hath come to an end. Every man robbeth his neighbour. The people wish to walk about, but are unable to move. The baby waileth, the young man shuffleth along on his feet through weakness. The hearts of the old men are broken down with despair, their legs give way under them, they sink down exhausted on the ground, and they lay their hands on their bellies [in pain]. The officials are powerless and have no counsel to give, and when the public granaries, which ought to contain supplies, are opened, there cometh forth from them nothing but wind. Everything is in a state of ruin. I go back in my mind to the time when I had an adviser, to the time of the gods, to the Ibis-god [Thoth], and to the chief Kher-heb priest Imhetep (Imouthis),[2] the son of Ptah of his South Wall.[3] [Tell me, I pray thee], Where is the birthplace of the Nile? What god or what goddess presideth over it? What kind of form hath the god? For it is he that maketh my revenue, and who filleth the granaries with grain. I wish to go to [consult] the Chief of Het-Sekhmet,[4] whose beneficence strengtheneth all men in their works. I wish to go into the House of Life,[5] and to take the rolls of the books in my own hands, so that I may examine them [and find out these things]."

[Footnote 1: An allusion to the royal title of Pharaoh, in Egyptian PER-AA, the "Great House," in whom and by whom all the Egyptians were supposed to live.]

[Footnote 2: A famous priest and magician of Memphis, who was subsequently deified.]

[Footnote 3: A part of Memphis.]

[Footnote 4: i.e. Hermopolis, the town of Thoth.]

[Footnote 5: i.e. the library of the temple.]

Having read the royal despatch the Viceroy Meter set out to go to the king, and when he came to him he proceeded to instruct the king in the matters about which he had asked questions. The text makes the king say: "[Meter] gave me information about the rise of the Nile, and he told me all that men had written concerning it; and he made clear to me all the difficult passages [in the books], which my ancestors had consulted hastily, and which had never before been explained to any king since the time when Ra [reigned]. And he said to me: There is a town in the river wherefrom the Nile maketh his appearance. 'Abu' was its name in the beginning: it is the City of the Beginning, it is the Name of the City of the Beginning. It reacheth to Uauatet, which is the first land [on the south]. There is a long flight of steps there (a nilometer?), on which Ra resteth when he determineth to prolong life to mankind. It is called 'Netchemtchem ankh.' Here are the 'Two Qerti,'[1] which are the two breasts wherefrom every good thing cometh. Here is the bed of the Nile, here the Nile-god reneweth his youth, and here he sendeth out the flood on the land. Here his waters rise to a height of twenty-eight cubits; at Hermopolis (in the Delta) their height is seven cubits. Here the Nile-god smiteth the ground with his sandals, and here he draweth the bolts and throweth open the two doors through which the water poureth forth. In this town the Nile-god dwelleth in the form of Shu, and he keepeth the account of the products of all Egypt, in order to give to each his due. Here are kept the cord for measuring land and the register of the estates. Here the god liveth in a wooden house with a door made of reeds, and branches of trees form the roof; its entrance is to the south-east. Round about it are mountains of stone to which quarrymen come with their tools when they want stone to build temples to the gods, shrines for sacred animals, and pyramids for kings, or to make statues. Here they offer sacrifices of all kinds in the sanctuary, and here their sweet-smelling gifts are presented before the face of the god Khnemu. In the quarries on the river bank is granite, which is called the 'stone of Abu.' The names of its gods are: Sept (Sothis, the dog-star), Anqet, Hep (the Nile-god), Shu, Keb, Nut, Osiris, Horus, Isis, and Nephthys. Here are found precious stones (a list is given), gold, silver, copper, iron, lapis-lazuli, emerald, crystal, ruby, &c., alabaster, mother-of-emerald, and seeds of plants that are used in making incense. These were the things which I learned from Meter [the Viceroy]."

[Footnote 1: The two caverns which contained the springs of the Nile.]

Having informed the king concerning the rise of the Nile and the other matters mentioned in his despatch, Meter made arrangements for the king to visit the temple of Khnemu in person. This he did, and the Legend gives us the king's own description of his visit. He says: I entered the temple, and the keepers of the rolls untied them and showed them to me. I was purified by the sprinkling of holy water, and I passed through the places that were prohibited to ordinary folk, and a great offering of cakes, ale, geese, oxen, &c., was offered up on my behalf to the gods and goddesses of Abu. Then I found the god [Khnemu] standing in front of me, and I propitiated him with the offerings that I made unto him, and I made prayer and supplication before him. Then he opened his eyes,[1] and his heart inclined to me, and in a majestic manner he said unto me: "I am Khnemu who fashioned thee. My two hands grasped thee and knitted together thy body; I made thy members sound, and I gave thee thy heart. Yet the stones have been lying under the ground for ages, and no man hath worked them in order to build a god-house, to repair the [sacred] buildings which are in ruins, or to make shrines for the gods of the South and North, or to do what he ought to do for his lord, even though I am the Lord [the Creator]. I am Nu, the self-created, the Great God, who came into being in the beginning. [I am] Hep [the Nile-god] who riseth at will to give health to him that worketh for me. I am the Governor and Guide of all men, in all their periods, the Most Great, the Father of the gods, Shu, the Great One, the Chief of the earth. The two halves of heaven are my abode. The Nile is poured out in a stream by me, and it goeth round about the tilled lands, and its embrace produceth life for every one that breatheth, according to the extent of its embrace.... I will make the Nile to rise for thee, and in no year shall it fail, and it shall spread its water out and cover every land satisfactorily. Plants, herbs, and trees shall bend beneath [the weight of] their produce. The goddess Rennet (the Harvest goddess) shall be at the head of everything, and every product shall increase a hundred thousandfold, according to the cubit of the year.[2] The people shall be filled, verily to their hearts' desire, yea, everyone. Want shall cease, and the emptiness of the granaries shall come to an end. The Land of Mera (i.e. Egypt) shall be one cultivated land, the districts shall be yellow with crops of grain, and the grain shall be good. The fertility of the land shall be according to the desire [of the husbandman], and it shall be greater than it hath ever been before." At the sound of the word "crops" the king awoke, and the courage that then filled his heart was as great as his former despair had been.

[Footnote 1: The king was standing before a statue with movable eyes.]

[Footnote 2: i.e. the number of the cubits which the waters of the Nile shall rise.]

Having left the chamber of the god the king made a decree by which he endowed the temple of Khnemu with lands and gifts, and he drew up a code of laws under which every farmer was compelled to pay certain dues to it. Every fisherman and hunter had to pay a tithe. Of the calves cast one tenth were to be sent to the temple to be offered up as the daily offering. Gold, ivory, ebony, spices, precious stones, and woods were tithed, whether their owners were Egyptians or not, but no local tribe was to levy duty on these things on their road to Abu. Every artisan also was to pay tithe, with the exception of those who were employed in the foundry attached to the temple, and whose occupation consisted in making the images of the gods. The king further ordered that a copy of this decree, the original of which was cut in wood, should be engraved on a stele to be set up in the sanctuary, with figures of Khnemu and his companion gods cut above it. The man who spat upon the stele [if discovered] was to be "admonished with a rope."

THE LEGEND OF THE WANDERINGS OF ISIS

The god Osiris, as we have seen in the chapter on the Egyptian Religion in the accompanying volume, lived and reigned at one time upon earth in the form of a man. His twin-brother Set was jealous of his popularity, and hated him to such a degree that he contrived a plan whereby he succeeded in putting Osiris to death. Set then tried to usurp his brother's kingdom and to make himself sole lord of Egypt, and, although no text states it distinctly, it is clear that he seized his brother's wife, Isis, and shut her up in his house. Isis was, however, under the protection of the god Thoth, and she escaped with her unborn child, and the following Legend describes the incidents that befell her, and the death and revivification of Horus. It is cut in hieroglyphs upon a large stone stele which was made for Ankh-Psemthek, a prophet of Nebun in the reign of Nectanebus I, who reigned from 373 B.C. to 360 B.C. The stele was dug up in 1828 at Alexandria, and was given to Prince Metternich by Muhammad Ali Pasha; it is now commonly known as the "Metternich Stele." The Legend is narrated by the goddess herself, who says:

I am Isis. I escaped from the dwelling wherein my brother Set placed me. Thoth, the great god, the Prince of Truth in heaven and on earth, said unto me: "Come, O goddess Isis [hearken thou], it is a good thing to hearken, for he who is guided by another liveth. Hide thyself with thy child, and these things shall happen unto him. His body shall grow and flourish, and strength of every kind shall be in him. He shall sit upon his father's throne, he shall avenge him, and he shall hold the exalted position of 'Governor of the Two Lands.'" I left the house of Set in the evening, and there accompanied me Seven Scorpions, that were to travel with me, and sting with their stings on my behalf. Two of them, Tefen and Befen, followed behind me, two of them, Mestet and Mestetef, went one on each side of me, and three, Petet, Thetet, and Maatet, prepared the way for me. I charged them very carefully and adjured them to make no acquaintance with any one, to speak to none of the Red Fiends, to pay no heed to a servant (?), and to keep their gaze towards the ground so that they might show me the way. And their leader brought me to Pa-Sui, the town of the Sacred Sandals,[1] at the head of the district of the Papyrus Swamps. When I arrived at Teb I came to a quarter of the town where women dwelt. And a certain woman of quality spied me as I was journeying along the road, and she shut her door in my face, for she was afraid because of the Seven Scorpions that were with me. Then they took counsel concerning her, and they shot out their poison on the tail of Tefen. As for me, a peasant woman called Taha opened her door, and I went into the house of this humble woman. Then the scorpion Tefen crawled in under the door of the woman Usert [who had shut it in my face], and stung her son, and a fire broke out in it; there was no water to put it out, but the sky sent down rain, though it was not the time of rain. And the heart of Usert was sore within her, and she was very sad, for she knew not whether her son would live or die; and she went through the town shrieking for help, but none came out at the sound of her voice. And I was sad for the child's sake, and I wished the innocent one to live again. So I cried out to her, saying, Come to me! Come to me! There is life in my mouth. I am a woman well known in her town. I can destroy the devil of death by a spell which my father taught me. I am his daughter, his beloved one.

[Footnote 1: These places were in the seventh nome of Lower Egypt (Metelites).]

Then Isis laid her hands on the child and recited this spell:

"O poison of Tefent, come forth, fall on the ground; go no further. O poison of Befent, come forth, fall on the ground. I am Isis, the goddess, the mistress of words of power. I am a weaver of spells, I know how to utter words so that they take effect. Hearken to me, O every reptile that biteth (or stingeth), and fall on the ground. O poison of Mestet, go no further. O poison of Mestetef, rise not up in his body. O poison of Petet and Thetet, enter not his body. O poison of Maatet, fall on the ground. Ascend not into heaven, I command you by the beloved of Ra, the egg of the goose which appeareth from the sycamore. My words indeed rule to the uttermost limit of the night. I speak to you, O scorpions. I am alone and in sorrow, and our names will stink throughout the nomes.... The child shall live! The poison shall die! For Ra liveth and the poison dieth. Horus shall be saved through his mother Isis, and he who is stricken shall likewise be saved." Meanwhile the fire in the house of Usert was extinguished, and heaven was content with the utterance of Isis. Then the lady Usert was filled with sorrow because she had shut her door in the face of Isis, and she brought to the house of the peasant woman gifts for the goddess, whom she had apparently not recognised. The spells of the goddess produced, of course, the desired effect on the poison, and we may assume that the life of the child was restored to him. The second lot of gifts made to Isis represented his mother's gratitude.