CHAPTER LXXVIII.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Renouf, P. Le Page (Peter Le Page) and Naville, Edouard
O Lord of the Soul Most Mighty, behold me; I come, raise thou me up that I may see the Tuat.
May all the paths which are in Heaven and upon earth be open to me, and let there be no repulse for me.
Thou art exalted upon thy throne, Osiris; thine hearing is good, Osiris; thy back is strong, Osiris; thy head, Osiris, is firmly fastened, thy throat is made fast, thine heart is glad, thou art confident in the strength and courage of those around thee. Thou art established in strength as the Bull of Amenta.
Thy son Horus is seated upon thy throne, and all that liveth is subject to him. Endless generations are at his service, endless generations are in fear of him; the cycle of the gods is in fear of him, the cycle of the gods is at his service. So saith Tmu, the Sole Force of the gods; not to be altered is that which he hath spoken.
Horus is the offering and the altar of offering; twofold of aspect; it is Horus who hath reconstituted his father and restored him. Horus is the father, Horus is the mother, Horus is the brother, Horus is the kinsman. Horus proceedeth from the essence of his father and the corruption which befell him.
He ruleth over Egypt, and the gods are in his service. He hath carried off endless generations, and given life to endless generations with his Eye; the sole one of its Lord, the Inviolate one.
Notes.
This chapter is seldom found in the complete shape which it has in the Turin Todtenbuch. The shortest copy of it is that in the tomb of Horhotep (Miss. Arch. Fr., p. 158); it has but a few lines; but they are very important, as giving the earliest form of the formula , which is an invocation to the battlements. The common reading, which adds the pronominal suffix both to the verb and to its subject, is ungrammatical. The papyri Au, Pg, and Ij, rightly omit the suffix after the verb, in the early part of the chapter.
The coffin of Amamu has a chapter of the same title, but with quite a different text.
1.Sacred Hawk. Between this and the Golden Hawk of the last chapter the vignettes make no distinction but that of colour, which is indicative of age rather than of kind. The typical Egyptian Hawk may be identified with the Falco Lanarius, or with the Peregrinus, but naturalists tell us that “the Lanier of Buffon is the perfect state of the male Peregrinus,” and that “the Lanner of Pennant is a young female Peregrine.”
2.Thy powers, baiu.
3.The goal or , a word we have already met in chapter 72 (see Note 3), and which occurs later on in the present chapter. It is apparently connected with the verb of motion, , and seems here to correspond to the Greek βαλβῖδες, or the Latin carceres, the two posts which were at once the starting point and the goal.
“signum unde reverti.
Scirent, et longos ubi circumflectere cursus.”[88]
4.Invested, which is connected with . The determinative is the symbol of investiture, which is also expressed by the sign . A mummied person is called Sāhu, in virtue of his investiture.
5.Apple of the eye, literally point, thorn; .
6. The Nemmes is the royal head-dress in the form of a wig. This chapter is the only one in the Book of the Dead in which it is referred to, but other religious texts mention it. It is one of the objects provided for the deceased in the pictures of ancient coffins. (See Aelteste Texte, p. 35.)
7. [Aahat.] In this place different MSS. introduce one or more words followed by the sign , determinative of divinity. But the whole text which follows is extremely unsatisfactory. The prudent scribe who copied Pg has the words “I am the great god,” and with them ends the chapter.
8.Fall upon Shu, or before Shu, who represents Daylight.
9. The passage is obscure through the absence of the right determinative after . The portals of Shu, the gates of Morning, answer the summons of the god who comes as Horus. has the sense of obviam ire, occurrere.
10.Hematit, a place near the Horizon, not mentioned in the Book of the Dead except in this chapter. It has disappeared in the later recensions.
11. Here follow one or two divine names unknown to the copyists, and by them written at random.
Source notes
88. Aeneid, V, 130.