Note 40 — PREFACE.

The “Negative Confession” forms chap. cxxv. of The Book of the Dead, and varies slightly in different copies. The following is Renouf’s translation of the chapter as it appears in a Nineteenth Dynasty papyrus (see The Papyrus of Ani, London, 1890):—“I am not a doer of what is wrong. I am not a plunderer. I am not a robber. I am not a slayer of men. I do not stint the quantity of corn. I am not a niggard. I do not seize the property of the gods. I am not a teller of lies. I am not a monopoliser of food. I am no extortioner. I am not unchaste. I am not the cause of others’ tears. I am not a dissembler. I am not a doer of violence. I am not of domineering character. I do not pillage cultivated land. I am not an eavesdropper. I am not a chatterer. I do not dismiss a case through self-interest. I am not unchaste with women or men. I am not obscene. I am not an exciter of alarms. I am not hot in speech. I do not turn a deaf ear to the words of righteousness. I am not foul-mouthed. I am not a striker. I am not a quarreller. I do not revoke my purpose, I do not multiply clamour in reply to words. I am not evil-minded or a doer of evil. I am not a reviler of the king. I put no obstruction upon the water. I am not a bawler. I am not a reviler of the God. I am not fraudulent. I am not sparing in offerings to the gods. I do not deprive the dead of the funeral cakes. I do not take away the cakes of the child, or profane the god of my locality. I do not kill sacred animals.”