The Egyptian Book of the dead
to the Field of Aarru, approaching to the land of Spirits in Heaven.=
I come forth through the T’eser gate.
=What is that? This gate of the gods is Haukar. It is the gate and the
two doors and openings, through which father Tmu issueth to the Eastern
Horizon of Heaven.=(10.)
O ye who have gone before! Let me grasp your hands, me who become one of
you.
=Who are they? Those who have gone before are Hu and Sau. May I be with
their father Tmu, throughout the course of each day.=(11.)
I make full the Eye when it waxeth dim on the day of battle between the
two Opponents.(12.)
=What is that? The battle of the two Opponents is the day upon which
Horus fighteth with Sut, when he flingeth his filth upon the face of
Horus, and when Horus seizeth upon the genitals of Sut, for it is Horus
who doeth this with his own fingers.=
I lift up the hairy net from the Eye at the period of its distress.(13.)
=What is that? The right Eye of Râ in the period of its distress when he
giveth it free course, and it is Thoth who lifteth up the net from it.=
I see Râ, when he is born from Yesterday, at the dugs of the Mehurit
cows?(14.) His course is my course, and conversely mine is his.
=What is that? Râ and his births from Yesterday at the dugs of the
Mehurit cows? It is the figure of the Eye of Râ, at his daily birth. And
Mehurit is the Eye.=
I am one of those who are in the train of Horus.
=What is that—‘one of those in the train of Horus’? Said with reference
to whom his Lord loveth.=
Hail, ye possessors of Māāt, divine Powers attached to Osiris, who deal
destruction to falsehood, ye who are in the train of Hotepeschaus, grant
me that I may come to you. Do ye away the wrong which is me, as ye have
done to the Seven Glorious ones, who follow after the Coffined one, and
whose places Anubis hath fixed on that day of ‘Come thou hither’!
=Hotepeschaus is the divine Flame which is assigned to Osiris for
burning the souls of his adversaries. I know the names of the Seven
Glorious ones who follow the Coffined one, and whose places Anubis hath
fixed on the day of ‘Come thou hither.’ The leader of this divine
company,=
‘An-ar-ef, the Great’ is his name; 2, Kat-kat; 3, the Burning Bull, who
liveth in his fire; 4, the Red-eyed one in the House of Gauze; 5,
Fieryface which turneth backwards; 6, Dark Face in its hour; 7, Seer in
the Night.(15.)
I am he whose Soul resideth in a pair of gods.
=It is Osiris, as he cometh to Tattu, and there findeth the soul of Râ;
each embraceth the other, and becometh Two Souls.=
=The pair of gods are Horus, the Avenger of his Father, and Horus, the
Prince of the City of Blindness.=
I am the great Cat, who frequenteth the Persea tree in Heliopolis, on
that night of battle wherein is effected the defeat of the Sebau, and
that day upon which the adversaries of the Inviolate god(16.) are
exterminated.
=Who is that great Cat? It is Râ himself. For Sau said, He is the
likeness (Maȧu) of that which he hath created, and his name became that
of Cat (Maȧu).=(17.)
=The night of conflict is the defeat of the children of Failure at
Elephantine. There was conflict in the entire universe, in heaven and
upon the earth.=
=He who frequenteth the Persea tree is he who regulateth the children of
Failure, and that which they do.=
O Râ, in thine Egg, who risest up in thine orb, and shinest from thine
Horizon, and swimmest over the firmament without a peer, and sailest
over the sky; whose mouth sendeth forth breezes of flame, lightening up
the Two Earths with thy glories, do thou deliver _N_ from that god whose
attributes are hidden, whose eyebrows are as the arms of the Balance
upon that day when outrage is brought to account, and each wrong is tied
up to its separate block of settlement.
=The god whose eyebrows are as the arms of the Balance is “he who
lifteth up his arm.”=[21]
Deliver me from those Wardens of the Passages with hurtful fingers,
attendant upon Osiris.
=The Wardens of Osiris are the Powers who keep off the forces of the
adversaries of Râ.=
May your knives not get hold of me; may I not fall into your shambles,
for I know your names; my course upon earth is with Râ and my fair goal
is with Osiris. Let not your offerings be in my disfavour, oh ye gods
upon your altars! I am one of those who follow the Master, a keeper of
the writ of Chepera.
I fly like a Hawk, I cackle like the _Smen_-Goose, I move eternally like
Nehebkau.(18.)
Oh Tmu who art in the Great Dwelling, Sovereign of all the gods, deliver
me from that god who liveth upon the damned; whose face is that of a
hound, but whose skin is that of a man; at that angle of the pool of
fire; devouring shades, digesting human hearts and voiding ordure. One
seeth him not.
=This god whose face is that of a hound and whose skin[22] is that of a
man: Eternal Devourer is his name.=(19.)
Oh Fearful one, who art over the Two Earths, Red god who orderest the
block of execution; to whom is given the Double Crown and Enjoyment as
Prince of Sutenhunen.
=It is Osiris to whom was ordained the Leadership among the gods, upon
that day when the Two Earths were united before the Inviolate god.=
=The junction of the Two Earths is the head of the coffin of Osiris
whose father is Râ=[23] =the beneficent Soul in Sutenhunen, the giver of
food and the destroyer of wrong, who hath determined the paths of
eternity.=
=It is Râ himself.=
Deliver me from that god who seizeth upon souls, who consumeth all filth
and corruption in the darkness or in the light: all those who fear him
are in powerless condition.
=This god is Sut.=
Oh Chepera, who are in the midst of thy bark and whose body is the cycle
of the gods for ever; deliver me from those inquisitorial Wardens to
whom the Inviolate god, of Glorious Attributes, hath given guard over
his adversaries, and the infliction of slaughter in the place of
annihilation, from whose guard there is no escape. May I not fall under
your knives, may I not sit within your dungeons, may I not come to your
places of extermination, may I not fall into your pits; may there be
done to me none of those things which the gods abominate; for I have
passed through the place of purification in the middle of the Meskat,
for which are given the Mesit and the Tehenit cakes in Tanenit.
=The Meskat is the place of scourging in Sutenhunen, the Tehenit is the
Eye of Horus.... Tanenit is the resting place of Osiris.=(20.)
Tmu buildeth thy dwelling, the Lion-faced god layeth the foundation of
thy house, as he goeth his round. Horus offereth purification and Sut
giveth might, and conversely.
I have come upon this earth and with my two feet taken possession. I am
Tmu and I come from my own Place.
Back, oh Lion with dazzling mouth, and with head bent forwards,
retreating before me and my might.
I am Isis and thou findest me as I drop upon my face the hair which
falleth loosely on my brow.
I was conceived by Isis and begotten by Nephthys. Isis destroyeth what
in me is wrong, and Nephthys loppeth off that which is rebellious.
Dread cometh in my train and Might is in my hands. Numberless are the
hands who cling fast to me. The dead ones and the living come to me. I
defeat the clients of mine adversaries, and spoil those whose hands are
darkened.
I have made an agreeable alliance. I have created the inhabitants of
Cher-âbat and those of Heliopolis.(21.) And every god is in fear before
the Terrible, the Almighty one.
I avenge every god against his oppressor, at whom I shoot my arrows when
he appeareth.
I live according to my will.
I am Uat’it, the Fiery one.(22.)
And woe to them who mount up against me!
What is this? “Of unknown attributes, which Hemen(23.) hath given” is
the name of the Funereal Chest. “The Witness of that which is lifted” is
the name of the Shrine.
The Lion with dazzling mouth and with head bent forwards is the Phallus
of Osiris [_otherwise_ of Râ].
And I who drop the hair which hath loosely fallen upon my brow—I am
Isis, when she concealeth herself; she hath let fall her hair over
herself.
Uat’it the Fiery is the Eye of Râ.
They who mount up against me, woe to them, they are the associates of
Sut as they approach.(24.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLATE VI.
BOOK OF THE DEAD. CHAPTER XVII.
PAPYRUS, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, IV.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLATE VII.
BOOK OF THE DEAD.
CHAPTER XVII.
---------------------
_a._ Berlin Museum. No. 1470.
_b._ British Museum. No. 9901.
---------------------
_See_ NAVILLE, “Book of the Dead,” I, Plate.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES.
The seventeenth chapter is one of the most remarkable in the whole
collection, and it has been preserved from times previous to the XIIth
dynasty. The very earliest monuments which have preserved it have handed
it down accompanied with scholia and other commentaries interpolated
into the text. Some of the monuments enable us to some extent to divide
the original text from the additions, in consequence of the latter being
written in red. But there is really only one text where the additions
are suppressed, and which therefore offers the most ancient form, as far
as we know it, of the chapter. This is the copy on the wall of the tomb
of Horhotep. The sarcophagus itself of Horhotep contains a copy of the
text along with the additions. The chapter must already at the time have
been of the most venerable antiquity. Besides these two copies of the
chapter we have those from the sarcophagi of Hora and Sit-Bastit
(published, like those of Horhotep, by M. Maspero[24]), two from the
sarcophagi of Mentuhotep, and one from that of Sebek-āa (the three
latter published by Lepsius in his _Aelteste Texte_). The British Museum
has Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s copy of the texts inscribed on the coffin of
Queen Mentuhotep of the XIth dynasty, and also a fragment (6636 a) of
the coffin of a prince named Hornefru. Here then we have an abundance of
witnesses of the best period. They unfortunately do not agree. The
progress of corruption had no doubt begun long before, and the variants
are not simply differences of orthography but positively different
readings. The differences however are chiefly in the scholia. Even when
the explanations of the text are identical, the form differs. The latest
recensions have retained the form ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂; the
ancient added the feminine ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. _What is that?_
But some of the ancient texts give the equivalent words
⁂⁂⁂⁂, and Horhotep does without them altogether. These words
were evidently additions not merely to the text but to the scholia.
The text of the chapter grew more and more obscure to readers, and the
explanations hitherto given were so unsatisfactory as to call for
others. The texts of the manuscripts of the new empire furnish a good
deal of fresh matter, much of which is extremely ancient, though the
proof of this is unfortunately lost through the disastrous condition of
literature in the period preceding the XVIIIth dynasty. The XVIIIth
dynasty and its immediate successors inherited but did not invent the
new form of the Book of the Dead, with its succession of vignettes,
which however differing in detail bear the stamp of a common traditional
teaching. The manuscripts of a later period bear witness, with reference
to this as well as to other chapters, to a recension of an authoritative