THE BOOK OF THE DEAD.
Translation
PLATE I.
Vignette: The scribe Ani, standing with hands raised in adoration before a table of offerings consisting of haunches of beef, loaves of bread and cake, vases of wine and oil, fruits, lotus, and other flowers. He wears a fringed white and saffron-coloured linen garment; and has a wig, necklace, and bracelets. Behind him stands his wife "Osiris, the lady of the house, the lady of the choir of Amen, Thuthu,"[1] similarly robed and holding a sistrum and a vine (?)-branch in her right hand, and a menat[2] in her left.
[1. See Plate XIX.
2. The menat, which is often called "the counterpoise of a collar," consists of a disk, with a handle attached, and a cord. It was an object which was usually offered to the gods, with the sistrum; it was presented to guests at a feast by their host; and it was held by priestesses at religious festivals. It was either worn on the neck or carried in the left hand; and it was an emblem which brought joy to the bearer. Interesting examples of the pendent menat in the British Museum are No. 17,166, inscribed, "Beautiful god, lord of the two lands, maker of things, King of the North and South, Khnem-ab-Ra, son of the Sun, Aahmes (Amasis), beloved of Hathor, lady of sycamore trees"; and No. 13,950 * in faïence; and Nos. 8172, 8173, and 20,607 in hard stone. No. 18,108 is the disk of a menat in faïence, inscribed, Hathor, lady of the town of Anitha." No. 20,760 is a disk and handle in bronze, the disk having, in hollow work, the figure of a cow, sacred to Hathor, and the handle, the upper part of which is in the form of the head of Hathor, having a sistrum. On the one side is the prenomen of Amenophis III. and on the other is Hathor, lady of the sycamore." The meaning and use of the menat is discussed by Lefébure in Le Menat et le Nom de l'eunuque (Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., 1891, pp. 333-349).
* A duplicate is in the Louvre; see Perrot and Chipiez, Histoire de l'Art, l'Égypte, p. 821, No. 550.]
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Text: [Chapter XV.] (1) [1] A HYMN OF PRAISE TO RA WHEN HE RISETH IN THE EASTERN PART OF HEAVEN. Behold Osiris Ani the scribe who recordeth the holy offerings of all the gods, (2) who saith: "Homage to thee, O thou who hast come as Khepera,[2] Khepera, the creator of the gods. Thou risest, thou shinest, (3) making bright thy mother [Nut], crowned king of the gods. [Thy] mother Nut doeth homage unto thee with both her hands. (4) The land of Manu[4] receiveth thee with content, and the goddess Maat[5] embraceth thee at the two seasons. May he give splendour, and power, and triumph, and (5) a coming-forth [i.e., resurrection] as a living soul to see Horus of the two horizons[6] to the
[1. The numbers in parentheses indicate the lines of the papyrus.
2. The god Khepera is usually represented with a beetle for a head; and the scarab, or beetle, was sacred to him. The name means "to become, to turn, to roll," and the abstract noun kheperu may be rendered by "becomings," or "evolutions." The god was self-created, and was the father of all the other gods; men and women sprang from the tears which fell from his eyes; and the animal and vegetable worlds owed their existence to him. Khepera is a phase of Tmu, the night-sun, at the twelfth hour of the night, when he "becomes" the rising sun or Harmachis (i.e., Horus in the horizon). He is also described as " Khepera in the morning, Ra at mid-day, and Tmu in the evening." See Lanzone, Dizionario, p. 927 ff.; Grébaut, Hymne à Ammon-Ra, p. 264, note 2; Pierret, Panthéon, pp. 74, 75; Lefébure, Traduction Comparée des Hymnes au Soleil, p. 39; De Rougé, Inscription d'Ahmés, p. 110; Archaeologia, vol. 52, p. 541 ff.; Wiedemann, Die Religion der Alten Aegypter, p. 17; Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie, p. 245, etc.
3. The goddess Nut represented the sky, and perhaps also the exact place where the sun rose. She was the wife of Seb, the Earth-god, and gave birth to Isis, Osiris, and other gods. One of her commonest titles is "mother of the gods." She is depicted as a woman bearing a vase upon her head, and sometimes wears the disk and horns usually characteristic of Isis and Hathor. She was the daughter and mother of Ra. See Lanzone, Dizionario, p. 392; Pierret, Panthéon, pp. 34, 36; Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie, pp. 603-610.
4. Manu is the name given to the mountains on the western bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes, wherein was situated tu Manu, "the mountain of Manu," the chief site of rock-hewn tombs. See Brugsch, Dict. Géog., p. 259.
5. Maat, "daughter of the Sun, and queen of the gods," is the personification of righteousness and truth and justice. In many papyri she is represented as leading the deceased into the Hall of Double Maat, where his heart is to be weighed against her emblem. She usually wears the feather, emblematic of Truth, and is called the "lady of heaven": see Lanzone, Dizionario, p. 276 (and tav. 109, where the twin-goddesses Maat are shown); Pierret, Panthéon, p. 2011. She is sometimes represented blind-fold: see Wiedemann, Religion der alten Aegypter, p. 78. For figures of the goddess in bronze and stone, see Nos. 380, 383, 386, II, 109, and II, 114 in the British Museum.
6 Heru-khuti, i.e., "Horus of the two horizons," the Harmachis of the Greeks, is the day-sun from his rising in the eastern horizon to his setting in the western horizon; for the various forms in which he is represented, see Lanzone, Dizionario, tav. 129. Strictly speaking, he is the rising sun, and is one of the most important forms of Horus. As god of mid-day and evening he is called Ra-Harmachis and Tmu-Harmachis respectively. The sphinx at Gizeh was dedicated to him.]
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ka[1] of Osiris,[2] the scribe Ani, triumphant[3] before Osiris, (6) who saith: Hail all ye gods of the Temple of the Soul,[4] who weigh heaven and earth in the balance, and who provide food and abundance of meat. Hail Tatunen,[5] One, (7) creator of mankind and of the substance of the gods of the south and of the north, of the west and of the east. Ascribe [ye] praise unto Ra, the lord of heaven, the (
Prince, Life, Health, and Strength, the Creator of the gods, and adore ye him in his beautiful Presence as he riseth in the atet[6] boat. (9) They who dwell in the heights and they who dwell in the depths worship thee. Thoth[7] and Maat both are thy recorders. Thine enemy[8] is given to the (10) fire, the evil one hath fallen; his arms are bound, and his legs hath Ra taken from him. The children of (11) impotent revolt shall never rise up again.
[1. According to the Egyptian belief man consisted of a body xa, a soul ba, an intelligence xu, and ka, The word ka means "image," the Greek ei?'dolon (compare Coptic kau Peyron, Lexicon, p. 61). The ka seems to have been the "ghost," as we should say, of a man, and it has been defined as his abstract personality, to which, after death, the Egyptians gave a material form. It was a subordinate part of the human being during life, but after death it became active; and to it the offerings brought to the tomb by the relatives of the dead were dedicated. It was believed that it returned to the body and had a share in its re-vivification. See Birch, Mémoire sur une patère Égyptienne (in Trans. Soc. Imp. des Antiquaires de France, 1858; Chabas, Papyrus Magique, pp. 28, 29; Maspero, Étude sur quelques peintures, p. 191 ff.; Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. vi., p. 494 ff.; Brugsch, Aegyptologie, p. 181; Wiedemann, Religion der alien Aegypter, p. 126 f.).
2 The deceased is always identified with Osiris, or the sun which has set, the judge and god of the dead. As the sun sets in the west and rises again in the cast, so the dead man is laid in his tomb on the western bank of the Nile, and after being acquitted in the Hall of judgment, proceeds to the east to begin a new existence.
3. maaxeru or maatxeru. On this word, see Naville, Litanie du Soleil, p. 74; Devéria, L'Expression Mââ-xerou (in Recueil de Travaux, tom. i., p. 10 ff.).
4. Compare ### and ### Brugsch, Dict. Géog., pp. 185, 186.
5. Tatunen, or Tenen was, like Seb with whom he was identified, the god of the earth; his name is often joined to that of Ptah, and he is then described as the creator of gods and men, and the maker of the egg of the sun and of the moon. See Lanzone, Dizionario, p. 1259; Wiedemann, Religion, p. 74; Pierret, Panthéon, p. 6; and Naville, La Litanie du Soleil, pp. 118, 119, and plate xxiv., 1. 3. This god was, in one aspect, a destroyer of created things; compare ###, Naville, op. cit., p. 89.
6. A name for the boat of the evening sun.
7. See infra, p. 257, note 2.
8 The enemy of Ra was darkness and night, or any cloud which obscured the light of the sun. The darkness personified was Apep, Nak, etc., and his attendant fiends were the mesu betesh, or 'children of unsuccessful revolt.']
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The House of the Prince[1] keepeth festival, and the sound of those who rejoice is in the (12) mighty dwelling. The gods are glad [when] they see Ra in his rising; his beams flood the world with light. (13) The majesty of the god, who is to be feared, setteth forth and cometh unto the land of Manu; he maketh bright the earth at his birth each day; he cometh unto the place where he was yesterday. (14) O mayest thou be at peace with me; may I behold thy beauties; may I advance upon the earth; may I smite the Ass; may I crush (15) the evil one; may I destroy Apep[2] in his hour[3]; may I see the abtu[4] fish at the time of his creation, and the ant fish in his creation, and the (16) ant[4] boat in its lake. May I see Horus in charge of the rudder, with Thoth
[1. ###, more fully ### "the great house of the old man," i.e., the great temple of Ra at Heliopolis: see Brugsch, Dict. Géog., p. 153.
2 Apep, the serpent, personifying darkness, which Horus. or the rising sun must conquer before he can re-appear in the East.
3 Compare the following scenes which represent Apep in the form of a serpent and crocodile and ass being pierced by the deceased.
