The Egyptian Book of the dead
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CHAPTER CXII.
_Chapter whereby one knoweth the Powers of Pu._[(1.)]
Oh thou of corpselike form who art in Chait and Ânpit;(2.) thou goddess
of the Net,(3.) who art in Pu; ye who preside over the untilled lands,
ye stars and constellations(4.).... Know ye wherefore Pu hath been given
to Horus?
I know it if ye know it not.
It was Râ who gave it to him in amends of the blindness in his eye, in
consequence of what Râ said to Horus: “Let me look at what is happening
in thine eye to-day,” and he looked at it.
Râ said to Horus, “Look, pray, at that black swine.”
He looked, and a grievous mishap afflicted his eye.
Horus said to Râ, “Lo, my eye is as though the eye of Sutu had made a
wound in my own eye.” And wrath devoured his heart.
And Râ said to the gods, “Let him be laid upon his bed, that he may
recover.”
It was Sutu who had taken the form of a black swine, and he wrought the
wound which was in the eye of Horus.
And Râ said to the gods, “The swine is an abomination to Horus; may he
get well.” And the swine became an abomination to Horus.(5.)
And the circle of gods said, who were with him when Horus came to light
in his own children:(6.) “Let the sacrificial victims(7.) for him be of
his oxen, of his goats, and of his swine.”
As for Emsta, Hapi, Tuamautef, Kebhsenuf, Horus is their father and Isis
their mother.
And Horus said to Râ, “Give me then two(8.) brothers in Pu and two
brothers in Nechen, of this my own body; and that they may be with me as
an everlasting renewal, through which the earth flourisheth and storms
are quenched.”
And his name became that of Horus upon his Column.
I know the Powers of Pu: they are Horus, Emsta and Hapi.
NOTES.
1. On the situation of _Pu_, see chapter 18, note 6. The Pyramid Texts
(Pepi I, 684) speak of the ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ “those of the
Red Crown who are in Pu.”
2. _Thou of corpselike form in Chait and Ânpit._ The sign of the plural,
here as elsewhere, is quite consistent with its application to a single
person. ⁂⁂ _Chait_ is the name[95] of the 16th, or Mendesian,
Nome of Northern Egypt, and Ânpit was its metropolis. The nome is
mentioned in the inscription of Amten in the third dynasty. The god is
Osiris. He is invoked in the “Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys,” and
asked to come to Tattu, Ânpit and Chait, which are but different names
of one Sanctuary, _Cf._ Brugsch, _Zeitschr._, 1871, p. 81, and his
translation of the Mendesian Tablet, _Zeitschr._, 1875.
3. _Thou goddess of the Net_ ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. This name
corresponds to the Greek Diktynna. The reason why a goddess representing
Heaven should be so called may be understood by the Homeric epithet
πολυωπόν applied to a net.
If, however, the deity was _male_, according to the other reading, the
reference is τὸν τῆς Ἴσιδος τρόφιμον Δίκτυν, who was drowned in the
river. Plut., _de Iside and Os._, 8.
4. _Ye who preside_, etc. Brugsch (_Zeitschr._, 1876, p. 3) identifies
the Egyptian ⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂⁂ with the ψιλοτόπος of the
Demotic and Greek contracts. The remainder of this invocation is so
corrupt that the sense cannot be safely guessed at.
5. See Herodotus, II, 47, without attaching too much importance to
details. The pig was certainly not considered impure (μιαρός) in the
days of the third or fourth dynasty, when Amten, who had risen to the
highest dignities, enumerates swine among the domestic animals it is
natural to possess. And impure animals were not offered in sacrifice.
But long before the days of Herodotus a change had taken place in the
Egyptian religion as to the nature of Sutu.
Plutarch and Aelian are to be read with the like caution. Some of their
information is correct, but it is mixed up with much error.
6. The variants ⁂⁂⁂⁂ and ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ are
noteworthy.
7. _Sacrificial victims_ ⁂⁂⁂⁂. The substitution in Egypt
of animal for human sacrifice is (I believe) _entirely_ without
foundation. And the supposed evidence of human sacrifices drawn from
certain pictures has (I believe) been misinterpreted..
8. The four _children_ of Horus were also his _brothers_. He asks for
_two_ of them to be with him in each of his two cities, Pu and Nechen.
The true sense of the passage is entirely lost in the later recensions
and in translations made from them.
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Footnote 95:
Not _Ḥāmeḥit_, which is the name both of the _Uu_ of the nome and of
the goddess worshipped in it, whose emblem is the fish ⁂.
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CHAPTER CXIII.
_Chapter whereby one knoweth the Powers of Nechen._(1.)
I know the Mystery of Nechen: Horus, and that which his mother did(2.)
for him, when she herself uttered the cry: “Let Sebak, the Lord of the
Marshes, be brought to us.”
He cast the net for them and he found them, and his mother made them
fast in their places.
Sebak, the Lord of the Marshes, said: “I sought and I found the traces
of them under my fingers on the strand. I netted them in a powerful net,
as the net proved to be.”
And Râ said: “Verily, those are fishes in the hands of Sebak. and he
hath found the two arms of Horus for him, which had become fishes.”(3.)
And Râ said: “A mystery, a mystery, in the Net.”
And the hands of Horus were brought to him, and displayed before his
face, on the feast of the fifteenth day of the month; when the fishes
were produced.
Then Râ said: “I grant Nechen to Horus, in the place of his two arms;
that his two hands be displayed before his face in Nechen; and I grant
to him whatsoever is therein comprised on the feast of the fifteenth day
of the month.”
And Horus said: “Be it granted to me that Tuamāutef and Kebhsenuf be
taken with me, and that they be guards of my body in dutiful
service.(4.) Let them be this under the god of Nechen.”
And Râ said: Be that granted to thee, there and in Sati, and let that be
done for them which is done for those who are in Nechen; yea, they are
asking to be with thee.
And Horus said: Be they with thee, so that they be with me to listen to
Sutu invoking the Powers of Nechen: “Be it granted to me that I may make
my entry among the Powers of Nechen.”
I know the Powers of Nechen: they are Horus, Tuamāutef, and Kebhsenuf.
NOTES.
1. _Nechen_, the chief hieroglyphic variants of which are ⁂, ⁂,
⁂ and ⁂⁂, was situated in the third nome (⁂ _Ten_) of
Upper Egypt, and was called by the Greeks Hieracōnpolis, ‘city of the
Hawks,’ from the hawk-headed divinities mentioned in this chapter as
Powers of Nechen, and of which numberless pictures are found on the
monuments.
2. Between these words and those which the three old papyri[96] _Aa_,
_Ae_, and _Ib_, which unfortunately do not agree together on all points,
have a few passages here which do not appear in the later papyri. They
read, “Horus and what his mother did, tossing in distressful agitation
(⁂⁂⁂⁂, ⲕⲓⲙ, σαλεύεσθαι) over the water.” The mother then
addresses persons who are not named, in words of which the sense is not
clear; and Rā speaks words of which the only certain ones are “the son
of Isis.” Then follows the usual text.
3. This legend of Nechen is connected with that of the dismemberment of
Horus (τὸ περὶ τὸν Ὥρου διαμελισμὸν), of which we have but very scanty
information.[97] It must have been like a repetition of what had
happened to his father Osiris. The limbs of Horus had been thrown into
the water, and when Sebak threw his net, at the prayer of Isis, he
brought up two fishes, into which the arms of Horus had been turned.
Reminiscences of this story are preserved in the names of several
localities. ⁂, “Two Fish,” is the name of the _Mer_ of the second
Northern Nome, and of the _pehu_ of the seventeenth Southern Nome; just
as ⁂, “Two Eyes,” is the name of the _pehu_ of the eleventh Northern
Nome. The latter name may perhaps have reference to Osiris, but the same
stories were probably told of both divinities.
4. _On dutiful service_ ⁂⁂⁂, a word omitted in the Turin and
other texts. Brugsch (_Rev. Egypt_, I, 22) has discussed the sense of
this word, and quoted numerous passages in illustration of it.
It is of course ridiculous to identify the word with the Hebrew אדן the
meaning of which is radically different.
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PLATE XXXI.
BOOK OF THE DEAD.
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CHAPTER CXIV.
_Chapter whereby one knoweth the Powers of Hermopolis._
Maāt is borne(1.) over the Arm,(2.) and Neith dawneth at Ment’ait,(3.)
and the Eye is illumined(4.) by the one who adjusteth its level.
I am led in by her, and I know what she bringeth from Kasu.(5.) I tell
it not to men; I repeat it not to gods.
I am come as a messenger of Rā, to make fast Maāt upon the Arm, for the
dawning of Neith at Ment’ait, and for restoring the Eye to him who
taketh the reckoning thereof.
I am come as omnipotent through the knowledge of the Powers of
Hermopolis, who love the Powers which you love.
I am one acquainted with Maāt made firm and permanent and reckoned out,
and I take delight in reckoning out that which is reckoned.
Hail ye Powers of Hermopolis, small at the beginning of the month and
great upon the Fifteenth Day; Rā teacheth the mysteries of Night, and be
it known to you that he who teacheth me is Thoth.
Hail ye Powers of Hermopolis as I know you.
NOTES.
There are two chapters (114 and 116) of “the Powers of Hermopolis,” and
they have been preserved separately both in the older and in the more
recent papyri. They are very similar in thought but differently worded,
and each throws a certain light upon the other, without however
dispelling the obscurity of this very ancient religious composition.
Some farther help, however insufficient, is afforded by the pictures of
the Book which records the passage of the Sun-god through the twelve
hours of the night.
1. _Maāt is borne._ ⁂⁂ is the same word as ⁂⁂⁂, the
reduplicated form of ⁂⁂ _to gush_, _spring forth_. But in certain
cases it acquires the sense of _being borne_, or _conveyed_, and is
written ⁂⁂⁂ in Ptolemaic inscriptions. The corresponding word
in chapter 116 is ⁂⁂⁂⁂, which has the same meanings. One
of the pictures above alluded to (Lefébure, _Hypogées, Tombeau de Seti_,
part IV, pl. 31) represents a boat carrying the Moon-disk, raised upon a
stand.
A personage kneeling behind is supporting the feather of Maāt. The words
⁂⁂⁂, which are written by way of explanation, might give
rise to some misunderstanding were it not for considerations mentioned
in the following note.
2. _The Arm_ ⁂ in chapter 114 has for corresponding word
⁂⁂⁂⁂ in chapter 116 implying that _Arm_ is to be taken in
a geographical sense, as when we speak of an ‘arm of the sea’. Now the
pictures which have been spoken of have the words ⁂⁂⁂, ‘arm of