CHAPTER XXXIX.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Renouf, P. Le Page (Peter Le Page) and Naville, Edouard
Chapter whereby the Serpent Rekrek is repulsed in the Netherworld.
Back! down with thee, stabber(1) from Apepi! Drown in the lake of Heaven, in the spot wherein thy father ordered that thy murder should be carried out. Away from this birth-place of Râ, the god encompassed by[55] his terrors.
I am Râ, encompassed by his terrors.
Back! the dark demon and the sword which he maketh to flash!
Râ flingeth down thy words; thy face is twisted round by the gods; thy whole heart is torn out by the Lynx goddess; chains are flung upon thee by the Scorpion goddess; and slaughter is dealt upon thee by Maāt.
The gods who are on the roads overthrow thee.
Apep falleth down, the enemy of Râ.
O thou who removest the bolt from the East of Heaven at the stormy voice of bellowings, and openest the gates of the Horizon before Râ: he cometh forth fainting from the wounds.
I am a doer of thy will, I am a doer of thy will, O Râ.
I have done well, I have done well; I have done to the satisfaction of Râ.
And I raise shouts of acclamation at thy success at fettering, O Râ. Apep is fallen and is in bonds.
The gods of the South, the North, the West and the East bind him; their bonds are upon him. Aker(2) overthroweth him, and the lord of the ruddy sky doth bind him.
Râ is satisfied; Râ is satisfied; Râ maketh his progress peacefully.
Apep falleth; Apep goeth down; the enemy of Râ. And more grave for thee is the proof(3) than that sweet proof through the Scorpion goddess, which she practised for thee, in the pain which she suffered...(4).
Be thou emasculate, O Apep, enemy of Râ; be thou repulsed whom Râ hateth; look behind thee: a chopper is over thy head to divide it into two parts, and those who are above thy head assail it. Thy bones are broken, thy limbs are severed under the direction of Aker, O Apep, enemy of Râ.
Thy boatmen [O Râ], succeed in measuring out thy path, and a journey, with which thou art satisfied; a progress, a progress towards home; and the progress which thou hast made towards home is a fair progress.
Let no evil hindrances come forth against me from thy mouth in what thou doest towards me.
I am Sutu, who causeth the storms and tempests, and who goeth round in the Horizon of Heaven, like to one whose heart is veiled.
Tmu saith: Let your countenances be raised up, ye soldiers of Râ, and drive back Nebtu in presence of the Divine Circle.
Seb saith: establish those who are upon their thrones in the middle of the Bark of Chepera; seize your shields and spears, and hold them in your hands.
Hathor saith: Seize your daggers.
Nut saith: Come and drive back Nebtu, who cometh against him who dwelleth in his shrine, and maketh his voyage in solitary guise: the Inviolate god, the resistless one.
O ye gods in your Divine cycles, who travel round the lake of Emerald, come and defend the Great one who is in the shrine from which all the Divine cycle proceedeth. Let glory be ascribed to him, and let honour be given to him. Oh then, proclaim him with me.
Nut saith, the mother of the gods: He cometh forth and findeth his path, and maketh captures of the gods; he hath the first place in the two houses of Nut.
Seb standeth still, the great cycle of the gods is in terror, Hathor is under terror, and Râ is triumphant over Apep.
Notes.
The extreme uncertainty of the text is such that no translation at present can be other than conjectural.
1.Back, down with thee, Stabber. The first word is clear enough; not so the two next.
Are we to read , or ? for each of M. Naville’s authorities gives a different word. The last of these readings has some support in a subsequent passage, but almost all copies have . There has evidently been a confusion between and , and the determinative of the latter word has been transferred to the first. I believe that the true word is which is used in the ancient forms of conjuration (see the texts of Unas, 304, 311, 542, 545, 554, etc.). It is always used in expressions of lying down or falling down , , and it is also found in parallelism with .
without a determinative is susceptible of different meanings, and the very recent texts have it written with the determinative of motion or , as significant of retreat. But the oldest determinative in this place is , and this inclines me to identify the word with , and translate it ‘stabber.’ But this is mere conjecture. See note 5 on chapter 40.
2.Akar. The older MSS. differ hopelessly from each other as to the name of the god.
In order to understand the nature of the god Akar, we have to imagine a tunnel starting from the spot where the sun sets, and extending through the earth as far as where the sun rises. Each end of the tunnel has a sphinx-like form. A human-headed lion stands at the entrance and also at the terminus. It is through the paws of this double sphinx that the galley of the Sungod enters on the Western horizon and comes out on the Eastern.
In the picture Plate XV, taken from the tomb of Rameses IV, , Fair Entrance, is written at one end of the tunnel; , Fair Exit, at the other. As the solar bark could not be represented inside the dark tunnel, it is placed above.
3.The proof. Lit. the taste, ṭepit, with the tongue as a determinative, in the sense of a probe. The hand of an Egyptian hero is said to taste his enemy. In the Bremner Papyrus the god tastes Apep four times. The same conception is found in the Homeric poems,
ἀλλ’ ἄγε, θᾶσσον
γευσόμεθ’ ἀλλήλων χαλκήρσεσιν ἐγχείησιν.[56]
though in Greek the taste comes generally to the patient rather than to the agent.
4. This passage, which would be most interesting if we could only get it accurately, is wretchedly corrupt. It is impossible from the variants to obtain a text grammatically intelligible. The Scorpion goddess is Isis.
Source notes
55. between, in the midst of, surrounded by.
56. Iliad, 20, 258.