Hymn III.(18)
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Renouf, P. Le Page (Peter Le Page) and Naville, Edouard
Instead of “resting in the Land of Life,” the older texts have ‘in Amenta’ or ‘in life in Amenta,’ or as ‘one living, in Amenta.’
12.. The word pat implies going round like a wheel or in a circle; ‘going round on high with the Sun.’ Hence the use of it as synonymous with , in the expressions = ‘never’ and = ‘the first time, the beginning of time, prima vice.’ A sacrificial cake is called (Denkm., II, 28) on account of its shape, like the Latin rotundula, also written .
And, like the Greek κύκλος, the word comes to signify a circle of persons. This circle is not necessarily of gods. The Bremner Papyrus in the British Museum (14, line 8), says an apage not only to Âpepi, who was no god, and to his soul and body, and ghost and shadow and children, and to his kith and kin, but, also to his , that is all associated with him, “ceux de son entourage.”
That should express the ‘feast of the New Moon’ is only natural, though Lepsius has pointed out serious difficulties on the subject.
But also expresses the number nine. Whence in this relation arises the Egyptian conception of the number nine? Is it the round (we should say the ‘square’) number, three times three? It certainly is merely a round number in many instances, but what is still more certain is that the same expression meaning ‘circle of gods’ and ‘nine gods,’ the circle was supposed to consist of nine gods, and was enlarged to companies of eighteen or twenty-seven. It is, I am sure, perfectly idle work to look for more profound reasons for the theory of the ‘Ennead.’[18] Every god of importance had his ,[19] and the best theory that has ever been given is that given at the beginning of Chapter 17.
13. The Turin text seems better adapted for the basis of a translation of Hymn II than the older papyri. These have been used for checking the later text whenever possible.
14. A difficult passage, but the readings are unanimous. What is ? Brugsch translates it “the Talisman of the Earth,” and Pierret “le salut de la terre.” No objection can be raised against the truth of either of these meanings taken by itself. But we have to look at the entire context. The expression literally signifies “the back of the earth.” In Latin we say sinus, gremium and viscera terrae. The Egyptians themselves talk of the back of Seb, , out of which the plants grow, and in a place quoted by Duemichen (Zeitschrift, 1871, p. 92, note) ta the Earth, is substituted for Seb. I believe then that is best translated by Soil of the Earth.
15. Thy mother Isis. So Ba. The Turin text has Nut, which is inconsistent with what follows.
16.La gives Tatunen; Af, Tunen; the Turin recension Tanen, names belonging to the god also called Ptah, Sokru and Osiris. See the inscriptions in Mariette’s Abydos, I, pl. 16, 6, on the Tat figures.
Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, seems to be here addressed.
17. This rubric does not occur in the older MSS.
18. This hymn has not yet been found in the older MSS. A text carefully corrected from the papyri of the Louvre will be found in M. Lefébure’s Traduction comparée des Hymnes au Soleil composant le XVe chapitre du Ritual Funéraire Egyptien. Paris, 1868.
19. ‘Chepera, father of the gods.’ Expressions like this are liable to be misunderstood by superficial readers. They are not meant to imply that ‘father of the gods’ was the special attribute of Chepera. ‘Father of the gods’ is predicated in Chapter 8 of Sutu, and it is predicated elsewhere of many other divinities. As in mathematics any point in space may be conceived as the origin of a given line or surface, so in Egyptian mythology any god may be rightly called the father of the gods. And for the same reason. The Day precedes the Night, but not more truly than Night precedes, or in mythological language gives birth to Day. But we may begin at Daybreak, or at Noon, or at Sunset, or with the Sun or the Moon, or with the rising of the Nile or any other natural phenomenon which obeys an evidently permanent fixed Law.
PLATE IV
PLATE V
Source notes
11. One of the names of the Uræus on the royal crown.
12. ‘The Glorious ones’; see Note 1 on Chapter I.
13. See note 11.
14. An abode of bliss (like the Elysian fields) frequently mentioned and described in the Book of the Dead.
15. The dragon Âpepi.
16. Both Chabasu and Hammemit have the sign of the plural, which may arise from the omission of who art above before the first of these words. Unfortunately we have no other copy to check the readings. But it is certain that the sign of plurality is often affixed to words which though in plural form (like the Latin moenia, literae, tenebrae) have a singular meaning. Chabasu means a lamp, and the stars, especially the decans, were called by this appellation. Hammemit is the name given to those yet unborn.
17. Un-tȧ, signifies the god who assumes the face or form of a Hare, just as Mau-tȧ signifies the god with the face or form of a Cat, Tehuta, the god with the head or form of an Ibis.
18. I am deeply grieved that in my conversation and correspondence with Goodwin (see my Miscellaneous Notes on Egyptian Philology, p. 15), I hit upon ‘Ennead’ as a translation of . Goodwin took it up, and it has since been productive of much mischief. The word in itself (like Triad), is perfectly innocent and correct, yet every word has its ‘cycle’ of associations, and some of them lead the unwary astray. I had just been lecturing on Plotinus when Goodwin asked me for the word.
19. The four children of Horus are called (Tempelins., I, 41, 1) .