NOTES TO CHAPTER 17

 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 

[Explanation of vignettes: This vignette of Chapter XVII is taken from the great hieroglyphic papyrus of Trinity College, Dublin, Da of M. Naville. The following subjects receive illustration.

1. The ideogram of Amenta, with the symbols [glyphs] and [glyphs] of food and drink.
2. The deceased and his wife seated in a bower, before a table upon which is a draught-board.
3. The souls of the deceased and of his wife.
4. The deceased in adoration before Two Lions seated back to back under the ideogram of the sky. The ideogram [glyph] of the rising sun is between them. In the Papyrus of Ani one of the lions is named "Yesterday," and the other "Morrow."
5. The coffin of Osiris between the kneeling figures of Isis and Nephthys. The head which rises out of the coffin is that of Ra.
6. The deceased kneeling before the "great god," the "herald of Ra."
7. The Bennu, "the great Heron who is in Heliopolis." The original of the picture has been somewhat damaged, so that the plumes depending from the neck of the bird do not appear. But see the picture in the Papyrus of Ani.
8. The mummy of Osiris between Isis and Nephthys in the forms of Kites. The soul of Osiris hovers over the mummy, holding in its talons the ring which is ideographic both of motion in an orbit and of infinity.
9. The two "Uraei upon the forehead of Tmu," one representing the South and the other the North. Cf. vignette of Ag.
10. The personage with hanging breast turning his hands to the Lakes of Maat and of Natron is, in the Ani Papyrus, named [glyphs] the "Great Deep" (literally the "great green or pale one").
The personage behind him is [glyphs] "He who regulateth eternity."
11. "The gate with the two doors and openings through which father Tmu issueth to the Eastern horizon of Heaven."
12. "The Eye."
13. "The Mehurit Cow."
14. "The Coffined One" (Osiris) with the four sons of Horus, and in this vignette two other gods.
15. This group is apparently meant for "the spirits or bright ones who accompany their Lord," but the number should be seven. M. de Rouge obtains this number by including the first divinity in the next line.
16. "He whose soul resideth in a pair of gods."
17. The deceased in adoration before five criocephalous gods representing the souls of Ra, Shu, Tefnut, Seb and the god of Tattu. The names are written in the vignette of the Papyrus of Hunefer.
18. "The Persea tree in Heliopolis."
19. "The Great Cat, who is Ra himself."
20. "Chepera in the midst of his bark," with Thoth and Maat before him and Horus at the rudders.

The vignette ends here, like those of other ancient papyri, but some of the XIXth dynasty (as La of Leyden and Ani) add pictures of the "Lion with dazzling mouth," and "Uat'it the Fiery " who are mentioned in the additional portion of the chapter.

The Smen goose is of very rare occurrence, and the ithyphallic god Amsu never occurs in the earlier vignettes.

More recent forms of the vignette of this chapter may be seen in the Turin Todtenbuch published by Lepsius, in the Cadet Papyrus, and in the Hieratic text of Leyden (T. 16) published by Leemans.

The additions characteristic of these later texts are, first a picture of a person holding in one hand an image of the ithyphallic god Amsu, and in the other a lotus flower, and secondly a bark, in which the central figure is the sun-god in the form of a ram. The rowers in front have the royal crown of the South, and those behind have the crown of the North. Both these pictures come before the Two Lions, between 2 and 3.

The Leyden Papyrus a after the "Hawk which flies" and the "Smen Goose which cackles" already have the figures of two divinities with the feather of Maat on their heads and surmounted by a pair of eyes. They are perhaps the "inquisitorial Wardens" from whom there is no escape. In the later MSS. they stand facing six throned deities, and the intermediate space is occupied by the names of certain festivals not mentioned in the chapter.

All the later vignettes end as follows. The Solar bark is saluted by two cynocephali and by Isis and Nephthys at each end. The cynocephali are identified in the text with these goddesses. Then follows a personage bearing a sepulchral chest, and behind him Anubis. The deceased invokes Tmu (or Osiris, who is the same divinity) seated upon a throne. The final scene consists of a woman inclined at an acute angle over a lion, and between them a scarab rising. Isis and Nephthys are seated behind.]

The seventeenth chapter is one of the most remarkable in the whole collection, and it has been preserved from times previous to the twelfth dynasty. The very earliest monuments which have preserved it have handed it down accompanied with scholia and other commentaries interpolated into the text. Some of the monuments enable us to some extent to divide the original text from the additions, in consequence of the latter being written in red. But there is really only one text where the additions are suppressed, and which therefore offers the most ancient form, as far as we know it, of the chapter. This is the copy on the wall of the tomb of Horhotep. The sarcophagus itself of Horhotep contains a copy of the text along with the additions. The chapter must already at the time have been of the most venerable antiquity. Besides these two copies of the chapter we have those from the sarcophagi of Hora and Sit-Bastit (published, like those of Horhotep, by M. Maspero*), two from the sarcophagi of Mentuhotep, and one from that of Sebek-aa (the three latter published by Lepsius in his Aelteste Texte), The British Museum has Sir Gardner Wilkinson's copy of the texts inscribed on the coffin of Queen Mentuhotep of the eleventh dynasty, and also a fragment (6636 a) of the coffin of a prince named Hornefru. Here then we have an abundance of witnesses of the best period. They unfortunately do not agree. The progress of corruption had no doubt begun long before, and the variants are not simply differences of orthography but positively different readings. The differences however are chiefly in the scholia. Even when the explanations of the text are identical, the form differs. The latest recensions have retained the form [glyphs] added the feminine [glyphs]. What is that? But some of the ancient texts give the equivalent words [glyphs] and Horhotep does without them altogether. These words were evidently additions not merely to the text but to the scholia.

The text of the chapter grew more and more obscure to readers, and the explanations hitherto given were so unsatisfactory as to call for others. The texts of the manuscripts of the new empire furnish a good deal of fresh matter, much of which is extremely ancient, though the proof of this is unfortunately lost through the disastrous condition of literature in the period preceding the eighteenth dynasty. The eighteenth dynasty and its immediate successors inherited but did not invent the new form of the Book of the Dead, with its succession of vignettes, which however differing in detail bear the stamp of a common traditional teaching. The manuscripts of a later period bear witness, with reference to this as well as to other chapters, to a recension of an authoritative kind. The text becomes more certain though perhaps not either more true or more intelligible, and the notes and explanations have here reached their fullest extent.

It would take an entire volume to give the translations of all the forms the chapter has assumed. It must be sufficient here to give the earliest forms known to us of the text and of the first commentaries. These are printed in characters which show the difference between text and later additions; all of which, it must be remembered, are of extreme antiquity—some two thousand years before any probable date of Moses.

Explanations or other interesting matter occurring in the manuscripts of the later Empire will be referred to in the notes.

The title in the early copies is the simple one here heading the chapter. In those which begin at the eighteenth dynasty the title is very like that given for the first chapter. The chief additions are that the deceased person "takes every form that he pleases, plays draughts, and sits in a bower, comes forth as a soul living after death, and that what is done upon earth is glorified.''

I. It would be difficult for us to imagine that the very remarkable opening of the chapter is an addition. Yet it is unknown to the primitive recension on the walls of Horhotep's tomb, though found everywhere else. The texts however which contain it do not agree. "I am He who closeth, and He who openeth, and I am but One." 'He who closeth' [glyphs] Tmu, 'He who openeth' [glyphs] Unen. As the god who closes and who opens is one and the same, 'I am but One,' is a very natural ending of the sentence, and for its sense the whole may appeal to classical, and higher than classical, authority.

"Modo namque Patulcius idem
Et modo sacrifico Clusius ore vocor."**

"I am Alpha and O, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord."+

The meaning of the Egyptian is quite plain, but the readings most probably through the absence of determinatives in the oldest style are somewhat different. Horhotep and other texts have [glyphs] apparently as one word (compounded of tmu and unen), which may signify the 'closer and opener,' but Sebek-aa and later texts have[glyphs]. The papyrus of Nebseni has [glyphs], in the third person, which does not alter the meaning, but this is quite an isolated reading. The later recension, as represented by the Turin Todtenbuch and the Cadet papyrus, has [glyphs], which only prominently brings forward, what is implied in all the other texts, that the Opener is a god.++ The absence of the determinative [glyph] after ù is no objection to the sense 'opener,' especially after [glyphs]. It is absolutely necessary when dealing with mythology to look to physical rather than to metaphysical meanings. I have sufficiently discussed the meanings of the word ù so in my essay on the Myth of Osiris Unnefer.

The later recensions add an interpolation (not without very different readings) to the effect that the Sun made his first appearance when Shu raised the Sky from the height of Chemennu, where he destroyed the 'Children of Failure' [glyphs].

The raising of the Sky by Shu is very frequently represented in pictures. Seb (the Earth) and Nut (the Sky) have been sleeping in each other's arms during the night; Shu (Daylight at sunrise) parts them, and the sky is seen to be raised high above the earth.

[glyphs], Shu, who is of course the son of Ra, is in consequence of this act called [glyphs] An-heru, 'The Lifter up of the Heaven.' Chemennu is the geographical name of the town called by the Greeks Hermopolis. The mystical Chemennu, however, is alone referred to in this place. The word itself means Eight, and Lepsius sees here a reference to eight elementary deities. (We must remember that the passage itself is an interpolation, of which there is no trace in the older texts.)

The 'children of Failure' ([glyphs], deficere, dissolvi, deliquium†) are the elements of darkness which melt away and vanish at the appearance of Day. This mythological expression here found in an interpolated passage is met later on in a genuine portion of the older text.

2. It would be impossible to find a more emphatic assertion of the doctrine of Nomina Numina; and that more than 3000 years before Christ.

The Names of Ra, the Sun-god, are said, when taken together, to compose 'the cycle of the gods.' [glyphs]. Or the names which he has created, to which he has given rise, that is the names of all the solar phenomena, recurring as they do, day after day, to the eyes of all beholders, compose "the cycle of the gods," who are also called the limbs or members of Ra.

The scholia contained in the papyri of the eighteenth and later dynasties explain the text as follows:

"It is Ra as he creates the names of his limbs [glyphs] which becomes the gods who accompany him."

And the present chapter later on says of Chepera, the rising Sun, that the "cycle of the gods is his body."

The god who has hitherto been spoken of is Ra. In glaring contradiction to the whole text, a later note states that the resistless god is "the Water, which is Nu''; that is Heaven.†† [glyphs] is not alluded to at all in the primitive text, but the papyrus of Nebseni already exhibits the corruption of the fine passage, "I am he who closeth and he who openeth, and I am but One." This is itself an addition, the true meaning of which was afterwards destroyed a [glyphs] by the interpolation of the words [glyphs]. These are ambiguous. They might mean that the god was alone "in heaven," or that he was alone "as Heaven." The papyrus of Ani has [glyphs] "I was born from Nu." These attempted improvements do not give a favourable impression of the exegetical acumen of Egyptian theologians.

But the mention of 'Water' in the scholion has nothing whatever to do with the doctrine of Thales, and to suppose that it has implies a confusion between two very different realms of human thought.

3. 'The kinsman of the Morrow,' literally 'I know the Morrow.' The word [glyphs] signifies can, ken, and kin.

The papyrus of Nebseni and all the subsequent texts give the explanation that Yesterday means Osiris, and the Morrow means Ra.

And the vignette in the papyrus of Ani gives the name of Yesterday to one of the Lions and of Morrow to the other.

4. The earliest texts have either [glyphs] 'speak,' or [glyphs] 'command.' The meaning is the same in both readings. Strife arose among the gods at the bidding of Ra: that is every force in nature began its appropriate career of activity, necessarily coming into contact and conflict with the other forces. And of all this collision the first cause, the origin of all activity and motion, is the Sun.

This mythological cosmology reminds one of the saying o Heraclitos that "Strife is the father and the king of all things," and the doctrine that all becoming must be conceived as the product of warring opposites [Greek].

5. The heron is the bird called [glyphs] bennu, the numerous pictures of which enable us to identify it with the Common Heron or Heronshaw. The reason for connecting this bird with the Sun-god has to be sought in the etymology of its name. [glyphs] ben is a verb of motion, and particularly of 'going round.' [glyphs] benenu is a ring, also a 'round pill.' The Sun therefore is very naturally called bennu, an appellative like [glyphs] in the Orphic hymns.

[glyphs], 'of that which is, and of that which cometh into being.' Here, as in many other places, ù, which is a verb of motion, and really signifies 'rise up, spring forth,' is pointedly distinguished from [glyphs], that which (is). So far from signifying 'being, that which is,' it very much more nearly corresponds to [glyphs] in the frequent expression [glyphs] 'that which is and that which is not yet.' The sense of 'good being' so commonly given to the divine name Unnefer is utterly erroneous.

6. The reading of the name [glyphs] is proved by the numerous variants of this passage to be Amsu. In M. Naville's edition, II pl. 41, the name, as written in Ce, would seem to be [glyphs] am. But I already in Zeitschr., 1877 (p. 98) pointed out, that in this manuscript the last sign K is at the top of a column, and that at the foot of the preceding column there is a space where the signs [glyphs], following [glyphs] (as they still do in the next passage)., have been obliterated. No one from merely looking at M. Naville's copy would guess that there was any interval between g and K.

The god's name is written [glyphs] on a tablet, Denk. Ill, 114 i. And the name is also written [glyphs] or [glyphs], which are ligatures of [glyphs] and ò.

7. Note that in this scholion Horus, 'the avenger of his father,' calls his father not Osiris but Tmu. In the more recent texts there are many interpretations of the two Feathers. One is "his two Eyes are the Feathers." But the favourite one is "Isis and Nephthys, who have risen up as two kites." [glyphs]

8. The [glyphs] rehit, by whom the oblation is made, the present generation as contrasted with the [glyphs] pait, the past, and  [glyphs] hamnemit, the coming generations.

9. [glyphs] Maaaaat is supposed to be nitre or salt, or some other substance used in the process of embalming.

The more recent recensions thus answer the question about the lakes. "Eternity is the name of one, and the Great green one that of the other, the lake of Natron and the lake of Maat."

10. See the picture of this gate on the Vignette, which shows the Sun-god passing through. One of the later explanations is that from this gate Shu raised up Heaven. Another is that it was the gate of the Tuat. Haukar, [glyphs] "behind the Shrine."

11. Hu and Sau, sons of Tmu, and his companions in the Solar bark, are, like so many other gods, Solar appellatives. [glyphs] Hu is the Nourisher, [glyphs] Sau 'the Knowing One.' The god is also called 'the Seer' [glyphs] and 'He who heareth' [glyphs]. These names are not personifications of the senses but, as in all cases, appellatives expressing attributes.

12. See Note 2 on ch. 4.

13. The Eye ([glyphs]) being the Sun or Moon, the period of distress ([glyphs]) is that of obscuration or eclipse, and the hairy net ([glyphs]) which is removed is the shadow which passes for a time over the heavenly body.

The explanation which M. Maspero has recently given (P.S.B.A. XIV, 314) of the word [glyphs], as connected with 'health,' receives confirmation from the scholia in the papyri, according to which Thoth not only delivered the Eye from the veil of darkness which oppressed it, but carried it off [glyphs],  in 'life, health and strength, without any damage.'

14. Mehurit is explained in the ancient scholion as 'the Eye,' but it is really the Sky, from which the Sun is born daily. The sign of plurality after Mehurit (if it means anything) only indicates the daily succession of the skies whence Ra is born.

15. The 'coffined One' [glyphs] is of course Osiris, as it is plainly stated in the later scholia, which further add that the 'Seven glorious ones' who follow the coffin, or, as they read it, "their Lord," are to be sought in the constellation of 'the Thigh in the northern sky,' that is in the seven stars of the Great Bear.

These stars never set, but are perpetually revolving round the Pole. It is therefore evidently with the Polar Star that we must identify the coffin of Osiris. The names of the Seven Glorious ones vary according to the different authorities. And these Stars themselves receive other mythical forms; that of the Seven Cows and their Bull is recorded in the 148th chapter. Names like 'the Red-eyed' [glyphs] or the 'Red-haired' cow [glyphs] seem to imply double stars. The 'Red-eyed' is said to abide in [glyphs] 'house of gauze' (perhaps a cobweb).

The papyri add the important note that the "day of Come thou hither"! represents the moment "when Osiris says to Ra, Come thou hither"! or, as some read, "Come thou to me." The speaker adds that he sees the meeting of the two gods in Amenta.

16. [glyphs] possessor of completeness, integrity, hence 'inviolate.' This name is given to Osiris when restored to his first condition after having been dismembered and cut into pieces. The god is called Ra-Tum-Nebert'er in the great Harris papyrus, 15, 3.

17. It is most probable that the Cat became the representative of the Sun because of the homonymy between the Egyptian name [glyphs] maau of the animal and the attributive [glyphs] mau, 'shining' said of the Sun.. But the Egyptian scribe gives a different etymological explanation. Sau said of Ra "he is [glyphs] maau of what he hath made." [glyphs] may, like the Latin exemplar, be either the type or the prototype, the copy or the original. The creatures of Ra were made after his likeness. Sanskrit literature, from the Catapata Brahmana down to the Vishnu Purana, is full of similar etymologies. The Egyptians from the very first delighted in this play upon words.

18. Nehebu-kau, [glyphs] or [glyphs] is the son of Seb and Renenut. The etymology of the name is indicated in the Pyramid texts. [glyphs] 'carry, sustain, support' (whence '[glyphs] nehbet a neck, and [glyphs] nehb a yoke), and the rest of the word is the plural of ka, which is susceptible of more than one meaning. It might signify the divine or human ka, but the word is sometimes (e.g. Todt., 125, 32) written [glyphs] 'victuals.' The god is one of the forty-two judges of the dead, and in some copies of the Book of the Dead he is described as coming forth from his [glyphs], a word most frequently used for the source of the Nile. The serpent È, which is a most frequent determinative of the name, is an additional reason for identifying this god with the Nile: a conclusion which seems fully justified by the Pyramid texts, which speak of him as Water J, and describe him as [glyphs] ''of many windings."

19. This Devourer has the same functions as the strange animal called [glyphs] Amemit in the pictures of the Psychostasia. The later scholia add that the Devourer comes from the 'basin of Punit,' the Red sea. They add other names, [glyphs] Mates 'Flint,' "stationed at the gate of Amenta," and [glyphs] or [glyphs] Baba, who, in ch. 63, 2, is described as the first born of Osiris. He is a terrible god from whom the deceased prays in ch. 125, 36, to be delivered. His name implies 'one who searches or probes thoroughly,' as a digger or miner. And such are his functions at the judgment of the dead.

Instead of [glyphs] tesem, a 'hound,' La reads [glyphs] sau, a sheep.

20. The [glyphs] Mesqat is a [glyphs] 'a place of scourging.' The word [glyphs] is known as signifying violent treatment by beating, and has been illustrated by Chabas and Goodwin. See Zeitschr., 1874, p. 62. In the 72nd chapter the deceased prays that he may not perish at the Mesqat. A kindred word [glyphs] Mesqa signifies 'a hide.' We can understand the connection between [Greek] 'flay, cudgel, thrash' and [Greek] 'abide.' And we ourselves have the familiar phrase of 'giving a hiding.' But purification as well as punishment was found at the heavenly mesqat. It is mentioned in the Harris Magical papyrus (6, 3) simply as a heavenly thing. In the more recent scholia the purifier is said to be Anubis, who is behind the chest containing the remains of Osiris.

After the scholion which has just been translated the early texts pass on to the 18th chapter.

For the rest of the chapter we are compelled to follow the texts of the papyri. The character of this portion differs considerably from the former part, and is clearly an addition. The speakers rapidly succeed each other. "I am Tmu," "I am Isis," "I was conceived by Isis," "Isis destroyeth what in me is wrong," and finally "I am Uat'it."

21. Cher-abat and Heliopolis like all the localities here mentioned are in heaven not upon earth.

22. Uat'it is literally 'the pale one,' a name of the Dawn. But here the fiery dawn is spoken of, [Greek].

23. Hemen [glyphs] is a divinity seldom, if ever, mentioned after the "Middle Empire." In the Pyramid texts he has a Snake (the River) in his hand.

24. The last line of the chapter has suffered in all the best papyri. See M. Naville's collation. In the papyrus of Ani the chapter is unfinished. The later papyri end the chapter by saying that "it has been granted to the speaker by those who are in Tattu to destroy by fire the souls of his adversaries." This consummation is already found in La.

Notes

* Mission archiologique Francaise an Caire, II. 382.

** Ovid, Fast, I, 129, 130.

+ Apocalypse i, 8.

++ The last form of the chapter (as found in the hieratic papyrus T. 16 of Leyden, and others in the British Museum) changes the opening as follows "I am Atmu, who made the Sky and created all that hath come into being."

† [glyph] historical inscriptions is just like the Greek [Greek].

†† It is certain that from the earliest times Heaven as [glyphs] 'the Great Weeper,' was considered as the source of life to gods and men. But myths must not be mixed. One must not be considered as the explanation of another.