The Egyptian Book of the dead
NOTES.
1. [_Each one and his._] These words are necessary for the purpose
of bringing out the meaning of the text. Every god, it has already
been said, has his circle of associates. The feminine suffix ⁂
after ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ shows the concordance with
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, which, like other collective nouns, is of the
feminine gender.
2. The exact text here is doubtful, and the sense of ⁂⁂ depends
upon it. ⁂⁂ or ⁂⁂ is the well known title of a priestly
official, whose presence was required in the ritual of the dead. He is
sometimes in attendance upon royal personages. Here according to its
etymological sense the word might simply mean a relative.
3. _Kamit_ ⁂⁂⁂, the “Black Land” is Egypt; _Tesherit_
⁂⁂, the “Red Land,” is whatever lies beyond the limits of Egypt.
4. _The drowning of his mother_ ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.
_Drowning_ maybe too strong a word, but immersion at least is meant. We
are at present without any other reference to this incident in the
career of the goddess Isis.
5. Here occurs a word, ⁂⁂⁂ or ⁂⁂⁂ of doubtful
meaning. As the next word to it begins a sentence, it must be considered
as connected with the words preceding it. I am not satisfied that
“silently” or “causing silence” would be a grammatical solution of the
question.
6. Seized (throughout this chapter) in the juridical sense of _seisin_
or feudal possession.
7. _Writs_ ⁂⁂⁂, a reading of three early papyri, which has
disappeared in the later ones. The Turin _Todtenbuch_ has ⁂⁂⁂,
“with his two hands.”
8. Here the chapter ends in _Pi_, and even sooner in the later texts.
The three older papyri differ as to the words which immediately follow,
and are certainly corrupt and unintelligible.
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CHAPTER CXXXIX.
Identical with CHAPTER CXXIII.
_This completes Sir P. Le Page Renouf’s translation of the Book of the
Dead, so far as he had prepared it for publication at the time of his
death._
BOOK OF THE DEAD.
BY EDOUARD NAVILLE, _D.C.L._, _&c., &c._
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
During the last days of his life, the lamented Sir Peter Le Page Renouf,
foreseeing that he would not be able to reach the goal he had been
striving to attain, the completion of his translation of the Book of the
Dead, expressed the wish that the writer of these lines should continue
and complete his work. I did not feel at liberty to go against the
desire of the eminent master, who had done me the honour to choose me as
his successor, and to leave unfinished a work which he had kept in view
all his life long, and which he considered to be the choicest fruit of
his Egyptological researches.
But I had hardly set myself to the task, when I realised the
difficulties which were in my way. It is never easy, even for a
translator, to put himself into the place of another, to enter fully
into his views, to reconstitute the conception he had formed of the book
he had to interpret. To these difficulties must be added, that I had
hardly any help with regard to that part of the book which Renouf has
not published himself. Renouf, like many eminent scholars, had his
learning chiefly in his head; his notes are very scanty, mere scraps
without any methodical order. There is not a line of written translation
left, beyond what he printed himself. Thus, for the translation of the
following chapters, I was entirely dependent on the part already
published, and I had constantly to refer to those chapters, in order to
know the sense which Renouf would have given to words and sentences I
came across in the course of my work.
I endeavoured as much as I could, to translate as Renouf would have
done. Whenever it was possible, I used his words or his readings, though
I did not always agree with them. I followed his choice of texts. He
generally took the oldest one he had, which he frequently found in my
edition. On the whole I tried to continue the work on the lines which
Renouf himself adopted. Thus it cannot be said absolutely that this
translation is my work; Egyptological scholars will soon recognize what
is mine, and the interpretations for which I am not responsible. I beg
the reader to look at my work in this light, and to remember that at
present any translation of the Book of the Dead is tentative and
provisional, and liable, with the progress in our knowledge of Egyptian,
to undergo considerable changes. Nevertheless, I hope that this joint
work will not compare too unfavourably with the part done by my
illustrious predecessor.
EDOUARD NAVILLE.
------------------------------------
CHAPTER CXL.
_The book read on the last day of Mechir, when the Eye is full on the
last day of Mechir._
There rises a form which shines on the horizon. Atmu rises pouring out
his dew, and the bright one who shines in the sky. The abode of the
obelisk is in joy because of them, because they are complete. There are
shouts of joy in the sanctuary and loud cheering fills the Tuat. They
fall down before Atmu Harmachis. For His Majesty gave orders to the
cycle of his followers. His Majesty ordered to give praise to the Eye,
and behold, my flesh he gave it strength, and all my limbs are renewed,
as soon as the order came out of the mouth of Rā.
His glorious Eye rests on its place on His Majesty in this hour of the
night. When the fourth hour is accomplished, the world is joyous in the
last day of Mechir, for the Majesty of the Eye is in the presence of the
cycle of the gods, and His Majesty rises as from the beginning, with the
Eye on his head as Rā Atmu.
The(1.) eyes of Shu, Seb, Osiris, Suti, Horus, Menthu, Ptah, Raneheh,
Thoth, Chati, Nai, Eternity, Necht, Mert, the land, he who is born by
himself. After the computation of the eye has been made in the presence
of this god, and when it is full and completed, all these gods are
joyous on that day, they who were silent;(2.) and behold there is a
festival made to every god; and they say: hail to thee, praise from Rā,
the boatmen tow his boat, Apepi is struck down. Hail to thee, praise
from Rā who causes the form of Chepera to exist; hail to thee, praise
from Rā, there is joy in him, his enemies are conquered; hail to thee,
praise from Rā, who has repelled the chiefs of the sons of the
rebellion. Acclamation to thee and praise to Osiris _N_.
Said on an eye of pure lapis-lazuli or _mak_ stone, ornamented with
gold; an offering is made before it of all things good and holy, when Rā
puts it on (on his head) on the last day of Mechir; another one is made
of jasper, which a man will put on any of his limbs he likes. When this
chapter is read by one who is in the boat of Rā, he is towed like the
gods, he is like one of them, and he prescribes what is done to him in
the Netherworld.
When this chapter has been read to its end, this is the copy of the
order of offerings made when the Eye is full: four burning altars for
Rā, four for the Eye, and four for these gods; what there is on each of
them is: five good pointed white loaves; five pointed fruit cakes, five
baskets of pastry, one measure of incense, one of fruit and one of roast
meat.
NOTES.
The ancient papyri do not contain this chapter. The translation is made
from the Turin _Todtenbuch_, supplemented and corrected from hieratic
papyri in Paris. Its real meaning is difficult to understand. It seems
that under symbolical expressions it refers to an astronomical
phenomenon, the renewal of the sun after the winter solstice. According
to the principle which I have adopted, to maintain my predecessor’s
interpretations, I translated ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ “the Eye is full”
(_cf._ Notes on ch. 125, p. 214). But as it seems evident that here the
two eyes of the sun are the two periods of his apparent course, the
decrease and the growth, I should translate “the period is
accomplished,” this period being that of the decrease after which the
sun enters its ascending course, or according to Egyptian ideas begins
again to grow. It is natural that the completing of the period should be
hailed with joy by Rā, since it is the final victory over his enemies,
which sets him free and allows him to rise again as at the beginning.
The sign of his triumph is that he puts the ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ on his
head, as we see in the vignette.
1. Why this list of gods comes here, it is difficult to understand. It
seems quite out of place. Their number varies according to the papyri.
In some of them, they are put after the text in vertical columns. I
presume they are the divinities often alluded to as _these gods_. They
are the witnesses of the scene of Rā rising with the Eye on his head.
2. I have adopted the reading of the Paris papyrus, III, 58,
⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.
The vignettes consist, in the Turin papyrus, of the deceased worshipping
a black Anubis lying down on a naos, and having on his back the sign
⁂. This god is the ⁂⁂ first mentioned. Behind him are the
⁂⁂⁂⁂, a human form with the Eye on its head, and Harmachis.
Several papyri have only the Eye and Harmachis.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLATE XLIV.
BOOK OF THE DEAD.
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PLATE XLV.
BOOK OF THE DEAD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLATE XLVI.
BOOK OF THE DEAD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLATE XLVII.
BOOK OF THE DEAD.
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CHAPTERS CXLI TO CXLIII.
_The book(1.) said by a man or his father or his son in the festival of
the Amenta, and wherewith he acquires might(2.) with Rā, and with the
gods when he is with them. Said on the day of the new moon, when
offerings are made of bread, beer, oxen, geese, and burnt incense to_
Osiris Chentamenta,
Nu,
Māāt,
The boat of Rā,
Tmu,
The Cycle of the great gods,
The Cycle of the small gods,
Horus the lord of the double diadem,
Shu,
Tefnut,
Seb,
Nut,
Isis,
Nephthys,
The house of the _ka_ of the inviolate god,(3.)
The storm of the sky which raises the god,
The hidden one in her dwelling,
Chebt the mummified form of the god,
The greatly beloved, with red hair,
The abundant in life, the veiled one,
Her whose name is powerful in her works,
The bull of the cows,
The divine force, the good one, the good rudder of the Northern sky,