CHAPTER LXXIV.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Renouf, P. Le Page (Peter Le Page) and Naville, Edouard
Chapter whereby the legs are set in motion upon earth.
Do what thou hast to do, O Sekaru (twice); as The god who is in his own house, and as The god who standeth on his legs in the Netherworld.
I shine above the Leg(1) as I come forth in Heaven, but I lie helpless with corpselike face.
Oh I faint, I faint, as I advance; I faint, I faint before the teeth of those whose mouth raveneth in the Netherworld.
Note.
1.The Leg. In this place, as in chapter 98 and other texts, a constellation in the northern sky is meant, which many years ago I identified with Cassiopeia.
This constellation, according to chapter 98, is in the Northern sky and in the Great Stream, by which I understand the “Milky Way.” This position is also in accordance with the ancient text on the Coffin of Amamu, pl. XXVI, line 22. The Leg is as close to the Pole as the Great Bear (called the Thigh in Egyptian Astronomy) but in the opposite direction, and in consequence of this position it never sets below the horizon. Hence in the Pyramid Texts (Pepi I, 411 and Merenrā 589) it is called . And here, according to these texts, as in the Book of the Dead (see chapter 86), purification was obtained.
The god (also named among the 42 judges) whose face looks backwards, and who is said to be gate keeper of Osiris, must be a star (e.g. γ Cepheus) in the immediate neighbourhood of the Polar Star which represented Osiris. On the ancient coffins of Amamu and Sit-Bastit there is a chapter[87] for assuming the form of a Vulture , in which the speaker says “I am the Vulture god who is on the .”
I suspect that in the formula said of Osiris on the stelæ of the twelfth dynasty, the constellation in heaven and not a place at Abydos was meant.
Source notes
86. Brugsch, Rec., II, pl. 63. The whole tomb has now been published by M. Bénédite in the Mémoires de la Mission Archéologique au Caire, tome 5.
87. It was afterwards incorporated with chapter 149.