The Egyptian Book of the dead
after thou hadst buried them?
I cried out after them and drew them forth: and I extinguished the fire,
and I broke the pillar, and I made a Tank.
Thou mayest now enter through the door of the hall of Righteousness, for
thou knowest us.
I allow thee not to pass by me, saith the Leaf(47.) of the Door, unless
thou tell my name:
“The Pointer of Truth”(48.) is thy name.
I allow thee not to pass by me, saith the right side of the Door, unless
thou tell my name.
“The Scale-pan(49.) of one who lifteth up Right” is thy name.
I allow thee not to pass by me, saith the left side post of the Door,
unless thou tell my name:
“The Scale-pan of Wine” is thy name.
I allow thee not to pass over me, saith the Threshold of the Door,
unless thou tell my name:
“Ox of Seb” is thy name.
I open not to thee, saith the Lock of the Door, unless thou tell my
name:
Bone of An-maut-ef is thy name.
I open not to thee, saith the Latch, unless thou tell my name:
“The Eye of Sebak, Lord of Bachau,” is thy name.
I open not to thee, and I allow thee not to pass by me, saith the Keeper
of the Door, unless thou tell my name:
“The Knee of Shu, which he hath lent for the support of Osiris,” is thy
name.
We allow thee not to pass by us, say the Lintels of the Door, unless
thou tell our names:
“The dragon brood(50.) of Renenut” is your name.
Thou knowest us: pass therefore by us.
I allow thee not to pass over me, saith the Floor of the Hall, for the
reason that I am noiseless and clean, and because we know not the names
of thy two feet, wherewith thou wouldst walk upon us. Tell me, then,
their names.
“He who goeth before Amsu” is the name of my right foot: and “The
Truncheon of Hathor”(51.) is the name of my left foot.
Thou mayest walk over us: for thou knowest us.
I do not announce thee, saith the Doorkeeper, unless thou tell my name:
“He who knoweth the heart and exploreth the person”(52.) is thy name.
Then I will announce thee.
But who is that god who abideth in his own hour? Name him.
He who provideth for(53.) the Two Worlds.
Who, pray, is it? It is Thoth.
Come hither, saith Thoth, wherefore hast thou come?
I am come, and wait to be announced.
And what manner of man, prithee, art thou?
I have cleansed myself from all the sins and faults of those who abide
in their own day; for I am no longer among them.
Then I shall announce thee.
But who is he whose roof is of fire, and whose walls are living Uræi,
and the floor of whose house is of running water? Who is it?
It is Osiris.
Proceed then: for behold, thou art announced.
Thy bread is from the Eye, thy beer is from the Eye, and the funeral
meals offered upon earth will come forth to thee from the Eye(54.). So
is it decreed for me.
_This chapter is said by the person, when purified and clad in raiment;
shod with white sandals; anointed from vases of ānta; and presenting
oblations of beeves, birds, incense, bread, beer and vegetables._
_And thou shalt make a picture, drawn upon a clean brick of clay,
extracted from a field in which no swine hath trod._
_And if this chapter be written upon it—the man will prosper and his
children will prosper: he will rise in the affection of the king and his
court: there will be given to him the shesit cake, the measure of drink,
the persen cake and the meat offering upon the altar table of the great
god; and he shall not be cut off at any gate of Amenta, but he shall be
conveyed along with the Kings of North and South, and make his
appearance as a follower of Osiris: undeviatingly and for times
infinite._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLATE XXXVIII.
BOOK OF THE DEAD.
CHAPTER CXXV. (Note 2.)
[Illustration: Mummy Case, Leyden Museum.]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLATE XXXIX.
BOOK OF THE DEAD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER CXXV.
NOTES.
For the significance of this most important chapter with reference to
the religion and ethics of ancient Egypt I must refer to the
Introduction. The notes in this place must be confined to the text and
its elucidation.
No copy of the chapter is known of more ancient date than the eighteenth
dynasty, but the oldest papyri contain the three parts of which the
chapter consists. That the chapter is of much earlier date than the
eighteenth dynasty is quite certain from the nature of the corruptions
which had already made their appearance in the earliest copies which
have come down to us. But the three parts are not necessarily of the
same antiquity. The second part seems to have grown out of the first and
to have been suggested by the mention of the “Forty-two” gods and the
“negative confession,” as it is called, of certain sins. It is a
tabulated form in which the gods are named and a sin is mentioned in
connection with each god. The number of sins in this form is therefore
forty-two; a higher number than in Part I.
The two catalogues agree to a certain extent, but they also disagree,
and the second is evidently the result of a different process of thought
than that which gave birth to the first. The author of Part I is not the
author of Part II, unless perhaps at a different and later period. Nor
is there any indication in Part I of the extraordinary examination to
which the deceased person is subjected in Part III. This in itself would
not be a serious objection, but the matter becomes more complicated if
we remember that the picture of the Psychostasia has the right to be
considered as a part of the chapter. The texts which are written upon it
differ, indeed, according to the taste of the artist, and can therefore
claim no canonical authority. But the question as to the order of
succession in the trials, or the precise moment at which the deceased
person is finally freed from all anxiety as to his fate, cannot be
satisfactorily solved on the supposition that all these documents form
parts of a consistent whole. It seems much more natural to consider them
as really independent compositions brought together in consequence of
their subject matter. The artists of the Ramseside period (in the papyri
of Hunefer and Ani) add another scene[111] in which the deceased is
judged not by the forty-two assessors of Osiris but by a smaller company
of gods (twelve or fourteen), sitting on thrones and bearing the names
of well known divinities.
The essential notion was that of a trial before Osiris, in which the
man’s conduct or conscience was weighed in the Balance. This trial is
referred to in various chapters of the Book of the Dead and in other
texts which prove that, with reference to the details, free scope was
allowed to the imagination of the scribes or artists.
The number of the Forty-two assessors might be thought connected with
that of the Nomes of Egypt. But this number is only certain for the
later periods of Egyptian history, and is not true for earlier times.
Moreover the localities in which the gods are said to make their
appearances do not correspond to the nomes, or places within them. Some
of the localities occur more than once, and some of them, if not all,
are localities not upon earth. Heaven occurs twice, the eleventh god
makes his appearance at Amenta and the forty-second in the Netherworld.
But the names which have a more earthly sound may have a mystical
meaning. The first god makes his appearance in Annu, so does the
seventeenth and so does the twenty-fourth. But does this mean Heliopolis
of Egypt? On referring to an important text in Mariette’s _Monuments
Divers_, pl. 46, it will be seen that Annu is the Eastern _Solar
Mountain_ ⁂⁂⁂, where the sun rises, and where he is saluted by
the Powers of the East. There cannot be a more striking illustration of
“the Divine Babe who maketh his appearance in Annu” (the twenty-fourth
Assessor), than the _picture_ I refer to.[112]
And Chemunnu, ⁂⁂⁂⁂, is surely not the Hermopolis of
Egypt, but the place _of the Eight gods_ ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂,
four to the Left and four to the Right of the rising sun, who hail
his coming and help him to rise; where Shu, according to the MSS. of
the 17th Chapter, raises up the Sky, and where “the children of
Failure,” (that is, shades of darkness) are exterminated. It is not
simply of Hermopolis nor yet of Lake Moeris that one may say
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
‘it is the place of the Eight deities where Rā riseth’ (_Zeitschr._,
1872, p. 8).
The same considerations apply to such names as those of Sutenhunen and
Tattu.
The presence of the divine “Babe,” of the god “of long strides” (Rā), of
the god “of Lion form,” of the goddess Bast, of Nefer-tmu, of the
“Striker” (_Ahi_, a name of Horus), and of Nehebkau, not to mention
others, among the Assessors, would of itself be sufficient to convince
us that, in spite of the strange and terrific names of some of these
personages, they are not to be looked upon as fiends, like Malacoda,
Scarmiglione, and the rest of the demon crew in the Inferno of Dante.
They are not evil spirits, but gods, all of them, “subsisting on
righteousness;” there is “nothing _wrong_ about them.”[113] They are the
gods who accompany Osiris, and, according to Egyptian theology, are his
Names, his Limbs, his Body. If the names of some of them appear harsh or
cruel, it is because strict Justice is inexorable, and Mercy is a
quality never thought of in Egyptian theology.
The exact notion of Maāt in Egyptian texts is discussed in another part
of the present work. In this chapter I have translated it
_Righteousness_, because the question here is about _moral conduct_: and
conformity to the strict Rule of Right towards one’s fellow men, one’s
own self and the heavenly powers is what is meant by Righteousness. And
here it is opposed to moral transgression or sin, not to physical evil,
which itself is a very frequent result from the operation of the
inexorable Maāt.
But in the expression, “Hall of Righteousness,” the word in Egyptian is
used in the dual number: hence the erroneous or inadequate translations,
“the Two Truths,” or “Double Justice,” and the guesses which have been
made as to their meaning.
A very important determinative of the Egyptian word is found not only in
the papyri but in the very earliest mention yet known of the Hall. The
great inscription of the tomb of Peher at El Kab, calls it the
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. The repetition of the sign ⁂ indicates a
locality in which the Sun-god is _present_, as in the cases of ⁂,
⁂, ⁂⁂ and many others. Space is divided into two parts; one
on the Southern and one on the Northern side of the god as he proceeds
on his course. And when we have for determinatives two Uræi ⁂⁂, or
two ostrich Feathers ⁂⁂, we have to understand two goddesses Maāt,
one to the Left and one to the Right side of Osiris.
These goddesses are Isis and Nephthys, who play very conspicuous parts
in a symbolism discussed in note 2 of the present chapter.
It would be well if evidence could be brought with equal facility to
bear upon all the difficulties with which the chapter abounds. But
though a very lively interest was attracted to it ever since Champollion
quoted extracts from it in his Grammar, the difficulties with which he
did not attempt to cope have only increased with our knowledge of the
language and its scientific treatment. The text is extremely doubtful in