Chapter LXIV

Chapter whereby one cometh forth by day from the Netherworld.

I am Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow, for I am born again and again; mine is the unseen Force,(1) which createth the gods and giveth food to those in the Tuat(2) at the West of Heaven; I am the Eastern Rudder,(3) the Lord of Two Faces, who seeth by his own 118light; the Lord of Resurrections, who cometh forth from the dusk and whose birth is from the House of Death.

Ye two divine Hawks(4) upon your gables, who are giving attentive heed to the matter; ye who accompany the bier to the tomb, and who conduct the ship of Râ, advancing onwards from the highest place of the Ark in heaven—the Lord of the Shrine(5) which standeth in the centre of the Earth;

He is I, and I am He.(6)

Mine is the radiance in which Ptah floateth over his firmament.(7)

Oh Râ, who smileth cheerfully, and whose heart is delighted with the perfect order of this day as thou enterest into Heaven and comest forth in the East: the Ancients and those who are gone before acclaim thee.

Let thy paths be made pleasant for me; let thy ways be made wide for me to traverse the earth and the expanse of Heaven.

Shine thou upon me, oh gracious Power;(8) as I draw nigh to the divine words which my ears shall hear in the Tuat; let no pollution of my mother be upon me; deliver me, protect me from him who closeth his eyes at twilight and bringeth to an end in darkness.

I am the Overflower, and Kam-ura(9) is my name: I bring to its fulness(10) the Force which is hidden within me.

Oh thou Great One, who art Shoreless,(11) and callest upon the Powers of the South, at the moment when the god is carried forth, saying:—

“Behold the Lord of his Flood; see, the Shoulder is fastened(12) upon his neck and the Haunch upon the head of the West” offerings which the two goddesses of the West(13) present to me when the weeping bursteth forth from me at what I witness, as I am borne round on the Tenait in Abydos,(14) and the bolts made fast on the gateways(15) above your images are in the reach of thine hand and from within thee.

Thy face is as that of a hound whose nostril sniffeth at the covert to which my feet convey me.

Anubis is my bearer, for he who lulleth me to rest(16) is the god in Lion form.

Do thou save me!

I am He who cometh forth as one who breaketh through the door; and everlasting is the Daylight which his will hath created.

119“I know the deep waters” is my name.

I satisfy the desires of the Glorified, who are by millions and hundreds of thousands....^[73] I am the guardian of their interests, actively working at the hours of the day and adjusting the arms of Sahu; twelve in circling round, uniting hands, each of them with another. But the sixth of them in the Tuat is the ‘Hour of the overthrow of the Sebau,’ which cometh here in triumph; the same which maketh way into the Tuat; the same which is yoked with Shu.

I shine forth as the Lord of Life and the glorious order of this day: the blood which purifieth and the vigorous sword-strokes by which the Earth is made one.

I sever the horns(17) from those who unite in resistance to me; the hidden ones who rise up in opposition against me; those who go upon their bellies.

I come as the ambassador of the Lord of lords to avenge the cause of Osiris in this place. Let not^[74] the Eye consume its tears.

I am the Guide of the house of Him who dwelleth in his treasures.

I am come from Sechem to Heliopolis to inform the Bennu of the matters of the Tuat.

Oh goddess Aucherit, who concealest that is within thee, but raisest up forms, like Chepera, grant that I may come forth and see the orb of the sun, and walk forth in the presence of the great god, who is Shu and abideth for eternity.

I travel on high, I tread upon the firmament, I raise a flame with the daylight which mine eye hath made, and I fly forward towards the splendours of the Glorified in presence of Râ daily, giving life to every man who treadeth on the lands(18) which are upon the earth.

Oh thou who leapest forth, conductor of the Shades and Glorified ones from the Earth, let the fair path to the Tuat be granted to me, which is made in behalf of those who are in faint condition and for the restoration of those who are in pain.

Who art thou, who devourest in Amenta?

I am He who presideth in Restau. “He who entereth in his 120own name, and cometh forth in quest; the Lord of the Eternity of the Earth” is my name.

She who hath conceived hath set down her burden; which turneth round before descending; the door is shut at the wall which is reversed....^[75]

His Eye hath been given to Horus and his face brighteneth at the dawning of the day.

I am not exhausted: I become the Lion god and the palm flowers of Shu are upon me.

I am not one who drowneth.

Blessed are they who see(19) the Bourne:(20) beautiful is the god of the motionless heart who causeth the stay of the Overflowing.

Behold! there cometh forth the Lord of Life, Osiris thy support, who abideth day after day.

I embrace the Sycomore,(21) I am united to the Sycomore.

I part the two deities of morning that I may come to hold the Eye,(22) and cause it to rest in its place.

I am come to see Râ at his setting, and I unite with the breeze at his coming forth: my two hands are pure for adoring him.

May I be restored! May I be restored!

I fly up to heaven and I alight upon the earth; and mine eye turneth back there towards the traces of my footsteps.

I am the offspring of Yesterday; the tunnels(23) of the earth have given me birth, and I am revealed at my appointed time.

May I be under shelter from the warlike handed god who cometh behind me, may my flesh be sound and may my glories be a protection to the limbs of one who waiteth for the purpose of taking counsel. May the Cycle of the gods listen to what I say.

To be said on coming forth by day; that one may not be kept back on the path of the Tuat, whether on entering or on coming forth; for taking all the forms which one desireth; and that the soul of the person die not a second time.

If then this chapter be known the person is made triumphant upon earth [and in the Netherworld] and he performeth all things which are done by the living.

This chapter was discovered on a plinth of the god of the Hennu 121Bark (24) by a master builder of the wall in the time of King Septa, the Victorious.(25)

This composition is a secret; not to be seen or looked at.

Recite the chapter when sanctified and pure; not approaching women, not eating goat’s flesh or fish.

Notes.

This is one of the most important as it is one of the most ancient chapters. The text of it was already doubtful at the time of the XIth dynasty. It had been handed down in two recensions, both of which were inscribed on the coffin of Queen Mentuhotep, the discovery of one of these being attributed to the time of King Septa of the 1st dynasty, and that of the second to the time of Menkaurâ, the king of the third pyramid. These two recensions are also found in the papyrus of Nebseni. The MSS. present innumerable various readings, few of which are of the slightest value. These have been collected, as far as they could be discovered, in the French and some other Museums in 1876, in a very admirable work upon the chapter, by M. Paul Guieysse,^[76] who has translated and commented upon it and and all the variations of it known to him at the time. Since then the papyrus of Nebseni has been published, and M. Naville has given all the variants found in the few existing papyri of the best period. I have notes of the readings of the papyri in the British Museum, and also those of a cast (now in the British Museum) taken from a block in serpentine, belonging to the Museum of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

With such light as could be derived from these extremely divergent authorities I have done my best (taking as the basis of my translation the texts in the papyrus of Nebseni and the rubric in which the discovery is ascribed to the time of king Septa) towards exhibiting the chapter in as intelligible a form as seems to me possible. Some passages as yet defy translation in consequence of the corruption of the text.

Some years before his untimely death M. de Rougé read his translation of this chapter before the Académie des Sciences. It is much to be lamented that this has never been published. I have, in addition to the versions of other scholars, a copy of one by 122Mr. Goodwin, with whom I read this and other chapters nearly thirty years ago. But this kind of literature is not one of those in which his marvellous sagacity showed to advantage.

In reading this and almost every other chapter of the Book of the Dead, it is absolutely necessary to bear in mind that different divine names do not necessarily imply different personalities. A name expresses but one attribute of a person or thing, and one person having several attributes may have several names. It is not implied in this chapter that the Sun is the Nile or the Inundation, but that the same invisible force which is manifested in the solar phenomena is that which produces the inundation; He is the Inundator. But he has many other names and titles. In this chapter, as in others before it, the speaker at one time talks in terms identifying him with some divinity, and at another as a simple mortal petitioning some favour.

In the passage of the Pyramid Texts just referred to it is stated that these “divinities in Ununait open their arms to the god as he stands up erect on the eastern side of the firmament.”

Ununait is the place of rising, springing up.

Tenait is also the name of certain days of the month, and (Teta, 229) of the fifth hour of the day.

According to the ancient myth Sut deprived Horus of his Eye, which was recovered by Thoth, and by him restored to its owner. The following passage from an inscription at Edfu (Rochemonteix, p. 25) is in strict accordance with the oldest mythological texts.

“Asten, who restored the Eye of Horus to its Lord, who preserved the Eye (ut’ at) from suffering harm, who made fast the Eye (nutrit) in its place, and who pacified Horus with his Eye.” The different synonyms designating the Eye are important as showing that the word is here used in the sense of the daily light of the sun.

The other part of the same text as Edfu gives additional variants. and . Here the Eye is called , , and . But in other places the Ut’ at stands for a less frequent moment of the solar progress. In the Pyramid Texts for instance “holder of the Southern Eye of Horus” might perhaps designate the Summer Solstice. And a later text connects the Eye with the opening of the year.

The priestly title , ‘holder of the Eye,’ is like all such titles, that of the divinity whom the priest personates. The god 126himself is hieroglyphically represented by the sign of an ape holding the Eye.

The Pyramid Texts have another word which I understand of the tunnels through which the Sun, Moon, and Stars pass from West to East, , as opposed to , the paths of the upper world. Anubis is called (Pepi I, 80), and these passages are (ib., 73), “between the two divine forms” (a lion at each end). Cf. Teta, 319, where it is said of the Stars , that at their triumphant course through the tunnels the bones of the Akeru gods quake.

The other account of the discovery of the chapter is thus described in the rubric of the second recension.

This chapter was discovered at Hermopolis upon a slab of alabaster, inscribed in blue, under the feet of this god [Osiris], at the time of King Menkarā, the victorious, by the royal prince Hortâtâf, when he was journeying for the purpose of inspecting the temples ...^[79] and he 127carried off the slab in the royal chariot, when he saw what was on it.

The rubric farther prescribes that a scarab of hard stone encircled and purified with gold^[80] should be placed upon the place of the heart of the deceased, and that the ‘words of power’ contained in the 30th chapter, “Heart mine of my mother,” etc., should be repeated. The gold leaf or plate has been found on some scarabs, but has disappeared from nearly all.

The ‘Ritual of Parma,’ which speaks of two metals, smu, and silver (the latter for the rim), directs that the scarab should be put at the throat of the deceased. According to this authority it was the 30th chapter, not the 64th, which was discovered by Prince Hortâtâf in his inspectorial tour.