The Egyptian Book of the dead
his description of the text, says: “Il est salué à ton apparition par
les huit ... ‘les esprits d’Orient, dieux du ciel, des terres, des
pays étrangers, de la montagne d’horizon orientale qui est On.’”
Footnote 113:
This is the principle by which to judge the cases of the
_Facing-backward_ god ⁂⁂⁂⁂ serpentine, or crocodile
⁂⁂⁂, and of Uammeta ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, against
both of whom a passage of the ‘Book of Hades’ (Bonomi, _Sarc._, pl. II
A) has been quoted. The book, of course, is of inferior authority to
the ‘Book of the Dead,’ but in any case it must be remembered that
these names, as appellatives, are _common_ nouns (_Uammeta_ is in the
_plural_ number in the passage in question), and may simply mean
_Serpents_. Sutu is called by the first of these names at Edfu
(_Zeitschr._, 1871, p. 108). But even at Dendera (Lanzone, _Diz._, pl.
173, 1) this ‘god of serpent face’ is ‘disastrous to the Sebau,’ the
enemies of Osiris and Rā, and is therefore not one of them. His soul
is invoked like those of all the great gods in the royal tombs.
Footnote 114:
The ⁂ is not to be read _fi_ or _fy_. The sign ⁂ is merely
the ideogram of the number 2, like the letter ⲃ in Coptic. The belief
in an Egyptian dual with ⁂ as a final syllable is an illusion,
though a very pardonable one, of our grammarians.
Footnote 115:
Or _Vultures_. _See_ M. Gayet’s _Temple de Luxor_, Pl. xliii, fig.
127, where the Bird at each end of the picture holds ⁂ in its
claw. And note the tabernacles (a very frequent picture) where a
winged goddess bearing the ⁂ kneels on either side of the solar
scarab.
Footnote 116:
Or as it is said in other words (Teta, 172; Pepi I, 130; Pepi II, 107,
and Merenra, 152), “Seb hath brought to thy side thy two sisters, Isis
and Nephthys.”
Footnote 117:
A very conceivable, because a very frequent, one.
Footnote 118:
“His sons were kept in prison, till they grew
Of years to fill a bowstring or a throne.”
Footnote 119:
To quote only well known cases, we have ‘the massacre of the princes,’
involving the two uncles and seven cousins of the Emperor Constantius,
and those of our own King John and Richard III.
Footnote 120:
The legislation of Solon is said by Diogenes Laertius (who is however
contradicted by notorious evidence) to have excluded from the position
of guardian anyone who had the right of succession to the ward’s
estate. And this was also the law of England with reference to
guardians in socage. In France the next in succession had the charge
of the estate, but was excluded from the custody of the person of the
ward.
Footnote 121:
The true sense of the name has been missed by Birch, who reads it
Teti, and by Brugsch, who reads it “Chonti, der Anfängliche.” At
Beb-el-moluk it is written ⁂⁂⁂.
Footnote 122:
_D. Aegyptische Elle_, Taf. 1 and 2.
Footnote 123:
_Cf._ the forms ⁂`⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂ and
⁂⁂⁂⁂ (Naville, _Litanies_, pp. 55, 83, and the
corresponding texts) of one of the Solar names.
Footnote 124:
On the other hand in the standard ⁂ of Dendera, the Crocodile is
Sut, and the Feather upon his head is Osiris.
Footnote 125:
Her son Horus inherited these gifts. He is invoked (_Metternich
Stele_, line 106),
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.
Footnote 126:
Rechmarā filled this office shortly before this, in the time of
Thothmes III, and the inscriptions of his tomb give interesting
information of the duties discharged. His clerks are praised for the
virtue of discretion (18th Precept). Each heard the reports read by
others, but without troubling himself with what did not concern him.
See next note.
Footnote 127:
This office is often referred to by Greek writers as existing in the
Persian hierarchy. Pseudartabas, the ‘King’s Eye,’ is one of the
Dramatis Personæ in the _Acharnians_ of Aristophanes. Herodotus (1,
114) tells how Cyrus being chosen king by his playfellows, selected
his principal officers, and one among the boys to be the ‘King’s Eye.’
Aeschylus does not forget in his _Persae_ (line 976) to make the
Chorus bewail the loss of the King’s faithful Eye.
The most ancient personage who is known to me as the ‘King’s Eye’ in
Egypt is Antuf, whose tablet (of the 12th dynasty) is in the Louvre
(C. 26). His duties are detailed on this magnificent tablet, and they
are very similar to those of Rechmarā. He is described not only as the
King’s Eyes which see, but ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
the “Tongue which speaks, of the lord of the Palace.”
Footnote 128:
⁂⁂ in cursive writing might be mistaken for ⁂⁂ or for
⁂⁂, and the scribe, to show his learning, might interpolate
the ⁂, but even this might be an error for ⁂.
Footnote 129:
The determinatives in ⁂⁂, ⁂⁂, express the sense of
_division_, διαμελισμός, and the insect (a scolopendron) in ⁂⁂
exhibits the very notion which has given rise to the Latin _insecta_
and the Greek ἔντομον
Footnote 130:
For more particular details, see P.S.B.A., viii, p. 245, and
following.
Footnote 131:
Ἀκούειν τι τοῦ λόγου, παρακούειν δε: _Ethic. Nich._, viii. 7.
Footnote 132:
There is no such god as _Min_ or _Minu_, except as an abbreviated (or
perhaps primitive) _orthographic_ form of _Amon_. ⁂⁂⁂ and
⁂⁂ bear to ⁂⁂⁂ exactly the same relationship
that ⁂⁂, ⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂, have to
⁂⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂ and ⁂⁂⁂⁂.
Neither _Amen_ nor the shorter form can be the phonetic equivalent of
⁂. The image of Horus with the Flail at Edfu is described (J. de
Rougé, pl. C. III) as ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, _Horus as
Amsu-Amen_, and I have elsewhere quoted from _Tempel insch._, I, 32,
the ⁂⁂⁂ _Amsu- Men_ [or _Amen_] as well as ⁂⁂
_Amsu Horus_.
Footnote 133:
The Luynes papyrus reads ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, which affords
good reason for thinking that in Chapter 115, as elsewhere, ⁂
was originally written without its phonetic value.
Footnote 134:
_Zeitschr._, No. 3.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLATE XL.
BOOK OF THE DEAD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLATE XLI.
BOOK OF THE DEAD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER CXXVI.
Oh ye four Harbingers(1.) who sit at the prow of the Bark of Rā, and
convey the fixed ordinances(2.) of the Inviolate One, ye who are judges
of my distress(3.) and of my good fortune, and propitiate the gods with
the flames from your mouths: ye who present to the gods their oblations
and the sacrificial meals to the Glorified: ye who live through Maāt and
are sated with Maāt: who have nothing wrong in you and execrate that
which is disordered,(4.) do ye put an end to my ills and remove that
which is disorderly in me through my being smitten to the earth.(5.)
Grant that I may penetrate into the Ammehit and enter into Restau; and
that I may pass through the mysterious portals of Amenta.
Be there given to me the Shensu cakes and the Persen cakes [and all
things] even as to the Glorified, who make their appearance on entering
into Restau or on coming forth.(6.)
Enter thou, Osiris _N_: We put an end to thine ills, and we remove that
which is disorderly in thee through thy being smitten to the earth. We
put away from thee all the ills which thou hast. Enter thou into Restau
and pass through the mysterious portals of Amenta. Enter thou in and
come forth at thy pleasure, like the Glorified ones; and be thou invoked
each day in the Mount of Glory.(7.)
NOTES.
In the older papyri the vignette of this chapter is unaccompanied by any
text. The only exception as yet known is that of the papyrus _Ab_, of
the XVIIIth dynasty. The text is also found in the tomb of Rameses VI,
with the important addition of the answer made by the four _Harbingers_
to the prayer of the deceased. This addition is retained in all the
later recensions. Other discrepancies between the two texts lead to the
conclusion that even the older one has suffered from interpolation.
1. _Harbingers_ or _Saluters_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. See Chapter 5,
Note 5, for an explanation of the name of those Apes who salute[135] the
Daybreak. Here _four_ only are spoken of, and this was probably the
original number, corresponding to the four portals of the Mount of
Glory. The number _eight_ (the Chemunnu) is more easy to explain than
_six_, which is the number stated in the text quoted from the tomb of
Rameses VI.
2. _Fixed ordinances_, ⁂⁂; θέμιστες in the different acceptations
of that word.
3. _Distress_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂. “Te semper anteit saeva
_necessitas_,” Horace says to Fortuna. The determinative ⁂ and the
Coptic ⲙⲣ̄ evidently point to the notion of _constraint_, but the few
texts in which the word is found imply _want_, _need_ (_angustiæ_,
ἀνάγκη),[136] rather than captivity. Amenemhat at Benihassan (tomb 2)
boasts that in his days and under his government no one was seen “in
distress (⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂), or starving.” And Horus at Edfu
(Naville, _Mythe d’Horus_, pl. XXII) is said to protect the _needy_ or
_distressed_ (⁂⁂⁂) against the powerful. This is an honour
already claimed by Antuf on his tablet (Louvre, C. 26 line 17), who
mentions the _maȧru_ as being an object of interest to him, like the
orphan and the widow.
4. _Disordered_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, is the absence of ⁂⁂,
strict _order_, and always spoken of as in opposition to it. One is
κόσμος and the other is οὐ κατὰ κόσμον, and may be predicated of
whatever is contrary to rule, faulty, defective, out of line, deformed,
or disfigured, not only in a moral but in a purely physical sense.
⁂⁂, _ill_, does not mean _wickedness_ or _sin_, but simply
physical evil, mischief, pain or sorrow. There are many texts to prove
this, but perhaps the most interesting is the great text at Dendera
(Mariette, _Denderah_, IV, pl. 73, or Dümichen, _Rec._, III, pl. 96),
where Osiris is invoked at Apu (Panopolis) as the fiery Bull, hiding (or
scarcely seen) on the day of the New Moon ..., but at length rising into
full strength,[137] and seeing the Golden Horus fixed upon the throne of
the universe. ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ (continues the text),
“Joy cometh round after[138] pain,” or sorrow; most certainly, not after
_sin_.
The meaning of ⁂, which governs the noun, has been explained
(Chapter 40, Note 6) as _stopping_, _bringing to an end_; not
_destroying_, and still less _forgiving_.
5. _Through my being_ [or _because I am_] _smitten to the earth_,
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.
⁂⁂ in this position, without a suffix or nominal subject, is not
an auxiliary verb, but a particle of correlation, used when a cause,
motive, or circumstance is asserted or implied in connection with a
preceding statement.
Like all such particles, of which the function was originally only