CHAPTER CV.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Renouf, P. Le Page (Peter Le Page) and Naville, Edouard
Chapter whereby one propitiateth(1) the Ka.
Hail to thee, my Ka, my coeval.(2)
May I come to thee and be glorified and made manifest and ensouled, let me have strength and soundness.
Let me bring to thee grains of incense wherewith I may purify myself and may also purify thine own overflow.
The wrong assertions that I have uttered, and the wrong resistance which I have offered: let them not be imputed to me.
For I am the green gem, fresh at the throat of Rā, given by those who are at the Horizon: their freshness is my freshness [said twice], the freshness of my Ka is like theirs, and the dainties of my Ka are like theirs.
Thou who liftest the hand at the Balance, and raisest Law to the nose of Rā in this day [of my Ka]: do not thou put my head away from me. For I am the Eye which seeth and the Ear which heareth; and am I not the Bull of the sacrificial herd, are not the mortuary gifts(3) upon me and the supernal powers [otherwise said: the powers above Nut].
Grant that I may pass by thee, and may purify myself and cause the triumph of Osiris over his adversaries.(4)
Notes.
1.Propitiate, . The simple root ḥetep signifies, what is implied by the ideographic sign , the taking hold, embracing, and kindred notions (Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., Vol. X, p. 578). The notion of appeasing an angry personage is no more necessarily involved in the Egyptian word than in the Latin propitiare. M. Léfebure’s translation, réunir, in the title of this chapter is perfectly correct as far as it goes.
See in Denkm., III, pl. 34, b, the picture of Thothmes III being greeted by his ka. Rameses II and other kings are often represented in the act of supplicating their own ka.
2.My coeval or, as some might prefer, my duration of life.
The pictures in the temple of Luxor (Denkm., III, 74 and 75) are well known which represent the birth of Amenophis III. The infant prince in each of these pictures is accompanied by his ka, his exact image. The ka is nursed and suckled by the same goddesses.
But perhaps the best commentary on our text is to be found in the picture recently published by the French Mission Archéologique (Temple de Luxor, fig. 203), in which both the royal infant and his ka are being fashioned by the hand of Chnum, upon his potter’s wheel.
3.Mortuary gifts, meals offered to the departed. The meaning of the compound group is plain enough from the determinatives, and such frequent forms as “consisting of bread and beer,” but the origin of it is not so clear. The usual meaning of like that of the Coptic ϧⲣⲱⲟⲩ is voice, but in the present group it stands for corresponding to ϧⲣⲉ, plur. ϧⲣⲏⲟⲩⲓ, τροφὴ, βρώματα, ἐδέσματα,, and is to be understood as in the very common formula .
The reading which is sometimes found in late texts is faulty and leads to an erroneous interpretation. is a mistake either for or for , the phonetic of .
In such passages of the Pyramid texts as (Unas 36) is a demonstrative not a negative particle, “Here is the mortuary meal presented for thee, and here are the two Eyes, the White and the Black, of Horus.”
4. All the early MSS. except Pd omit this last passage.