CHAPTER XXXV.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Renouf, P. Le Page (Peter Le Page) and Naville, Edouard
Chapter whereby the person is not devoured by a Serpent in the Netherworld.
Oh Shu, here is Tattu, and conversely, under the wig(1) of Hathor. They scent(2) Osiris.
Here is the one who is to devour me. They wait apart.(3) The serpent Seksek passeth over me.
Here are wormwood bruised(4) and reeds.
Osiris is he who prayeth that he may be buried.
The eyes of the Great One are bent down, and he doth for thee the work of cleansing;(5) marking out what is conformable to law and balancing the issues.(6)
Notes.
The translator of this chapter cannot pretend to do more than give an accurate meaning to each word. The true sense of the chapter must have been lost when the earliest copies known to us were written.
1.Wig, . The head-dress of the gods is one of the mythical forms of representing the light cloud at sunrise or sunset, in which the deity is pileatus.
2.Scent, . The Egyptian word is also used for nursing, putting to sleep, probably through influencing the breathing.breathing. The nose as a determinative is used in the different senses of the word.
3.They wait apart. The early MSS. do not agree here in a single word, and they defy translation. The later MSS. are scarcely less discordant. is to alight, rest, and this must also be the meaning of . is connected with . ⲛⲉϩ in the sense of dispersing, separating.
4.Bruised, or trodden. There being no rational context it is impossible to fix the sense of a word like , which may mean either guard or bruise by beating or treading down.
5.Cleansing or . The result of the process is certainly cleansing, but the operation itself is generally supposed to be washing. This agrees with the Coptic ⲣⲁϩⲧ a fuller, of which the old Egyptian form is . But ⲣⲁϩⲧ has also the sense of beating, and the operation is in many countries thought to be one of the most important duties of washerwomen. With this sense of the word I would connect the names Rechit given to Isis and Nephthys, as signifying ‘mourners.’ Compare the Greek τύπτεσθαί τινα, κόπτεσθαί τινα, to mourn a person, and the Latin plangere.
6.Balancing the issues. The first of these words is unambiguous. signifies literally ‘standing,’ like status, or στάσις, and like those words also signifies position, situation, condition, circumstances, and also the point at issue, the question to be decided.
A well known passage in Cicero’s Topics (93, c. 35) may be quoted here: “Refutatio accusationis, in quae est depositio criminis, Graece στάσις dicitur, Latine status appelletur: in quo insistit, quasi ad repugnandum congressa defensio.”
Perhaps the passage in chapter 30 B, in which “the divine ministrants are said to deal with a man” according to his may have reference to the circumstances of his life.
Chapters like this, however worthless in themselves, contain small fragments highly illustrative of the ideas of the Egyptians at an extremely remote period.
PLATE XII.
PLATE XIII.