Egyptian Book of the Dead
Chapter XVII
I am the great Heron who is in Heliopolis, who presideth over the account of whatsoever is and of that which cometh into being
Who is that? It is Osiris who presideth over the account of all that is and all that cometh into being, that is Endless Time and Eternity. Endless Time is Day and Eternity is Night
Who is that, and what are his Feathers? It is Horus, the avenger of his father, and the Two Feathers are the Uræi upon the forehead of his father Tmu
All defects are done away, all deficiencies are removed, and all that was wrong in me is cast forth
I am purified at the two great and mighty Lakes at Sutenhunen, which purify the offerings which living men present to the great god who is there
What is that? The road upon which father Tmu advanceth, when he goeth to the Field of Aarru, approaching to the land of Spirits in Heaven
What is that? This gate of the gods is Haukar. It is the gate and the two doors and openings, through which father Tmu issueth to the Eastern Horizon of Heaven
Who are they? Those who have gone before are Hu and Sau. May I be with their father Tmu, throughout the course of each day
What is that? The battle of the two Opponents is the day upon which Horus fighteth with Sut, when he flingeth his filth upon the face of Horus, and when Horus seizeth upon the genitals of Sut, for it is Horus who doeth this with his own fingers
What is that? The right Eye of Râ in the period of its distress when he giveth it free course, and it is Thoth who lifteth up the net from it
I see Râ, when he is born from Yesterday, at the dugs of the Mehurit cows? His course is my course, and conversely mine is his
What is that? Râ and his births from Yesterday at the dugs of the Mehurit cows? It is the figure of the Eye of Râ, at his daily birth. And Mehurit is the Eye
Hail, ye possessors of Māāt, divine Powers attached to Osiris, who deal destruction to falsehood, ye who are in the train of Hotepeschaus, grant me that I may come to you. Do ye away the wrong which is me, as ye have done to the Seven Glorious ones, who follow after the Coffined one, and whose places Anubis hath fixed on that day of ‘Come thou hither’!
Hotepeschaus is the divine Flame which is assigned to Osiris for burning the souls of his adversaries. I know the names of the Seven Glorious ones who follow the Coffined one, and whose places Anubis hath fixed on the day of ‘Come thou hither.’ The leader of this divine company
‘An-ar-ef, the Great’ is his name; 2, Kat-kat; 3, the Burning Bull, who liveth in his fire; 4, the Red-eyed one in the House of Gauze; 5, Fieryface which turneth backwards; 6, Dark Face in its hour; 7, Seer in the Night
It is Osiris, as he cometh to Tattu, and there findeth the soul of Râ; each embraceth the other, and becometh Two Souls
The pair of gods are Horus, the Avenger of his Father, and Horus, the Prince of the City of Blindness
I am the great Cat, who frequenteth the Persea tree in Heliopolis, on that night of battle wherein is effected the defeat of the Sebau, and that day upon which the adversaries of the Inviolate god are exterminated
Who is that great Cat? It is Râ himself. For Sau said, He is the likeness (Maȧu) of that which he hath created, and his name became that of Cat (Maȧu
The night of conflict is the defeat of the children of Failure at Elephantine. There was conflict in the entire universe, in heaven and upon the earth
He who frequenteth the Persea tree is he who regulateth the children of Failure, and that which they do
O Râ, in thine Egg, who risest up in thine orb, and shinest from thine Horizon, and swimmest over the firmament without a peer, and sailest over the sky; whose mouth sendeth forth breezes of flame, lightening up the Two Earths with thy glories, do thou deliver N from that god whose attributes are hidden, whose eyebrows are as the arms of the Balance upon that day when outrage is brought to account, and each wrong is tied up to its separate block of settlement
May your knives not get hold of me; may I not fall into your shambles, for I know your names; my course upon earth is with Râ and my fair goal is with Osiris. Let not your offerings be in my disfavour, oh ye gods upon your altars! I am one of those who follow the Master, a keeper of the writ of Chepera
Oh Tmu who art in the Great Dwelling, Sovereign of all the gods, deliver me from that god who liveth upon the damned; whose face is that of a hound, but whose skin is that of a man; at that angle of the pool of fire; devouring shades, digesting human hearts and voiding ordure. One seeth him not
This god whose face is that of a hound and whose skin [22] is that of a man: Eternal Devourer is his name
Oh Fearful one, who art over the Two Earths, Red god who orderest the block of execution; to whom is given the Double Crown and Enjoyment as Prince of Sutenhunen
It is Osiris to whom was ordained the Leadership among the gods, upon that day when the Two Earths were united before the Inviolate god
The junction of the Two Earths is the head of the coffin of Osiris whose father is Râ [23] the beneficent Soul in Sutenhunen, the giver of food and the destroyer of wrong, who hath determined the paths of eternity
Deliver me from that god who seizeth upon souls, who consumeth all filth and corruption in the darkness or in the light: all those who fear him are in powerless condition
Oh Chepera, who are in the midst of thy bark and whose body is the cycle of the gods for ever; deliver me from those inquisitorial Wardens to whom the Inviolate god, of Glorious Attributes, hath given guard over his adversaries, and the infliction of slaughter in the place of annihilation, from whose guard there is no escape. May I not fall under your knives, may I not sit within your dungeons, may I not come to your places of extermination, may I not fall into your pits; may there be done to me none of those things which the gods abominate; for I have passed through the place of purification in the middle of the Meskat, for which are given the Mesit and the Tehenit cakes in Tanenit
The Meskat is the place of scourging in Sutenhunen, the Tehenit is the Eye of Horus.... Tanenit is the resting place of Osiris
Tmu buildeth thy dwelling, the Lion-faced god layeth the foundation of thy house, as he goeth his round. Horus offereth purification and Sut giveth might, and conversely
I have come upon this earth and with my two feet taken possession. I am Tmu and I come from my own Place
Back, oh Lion with dazzling mouth, and with head bent forwards, retreating before me and my might
I was conceived by Isis and begotten by Nephthys. Isis destroyeth what in me is wrong, and Nephthys loppeth off that which is rebellious
Dread cometh in my train and Might is in my hands. Numberless are the hands who cling fast to me. The dead ones and the living come to me. I defeat the clients of mine adversaries, and spoil those whose hands are darkened
I have made an agreeable alliance. I have created the inhabitants of Cher-âbat and those of Heliopolis. And every god is in fear before the Terrible, the Almighty one
What is this? “Of unknown attributes, which Hemen hath given” is the name of the Funereal Chest. “The Witness of that which is lifted” is the name of the Shrine
The Lion with dazzling mouth and with head bent forwards is the Phallus of Osiris [ otherwise of Râ
And I who drop the hair which hath loosely fallen upon my brow—I am Isis, when she concealeth herself; she hath let fall her hair over herself
The seventeenth chapter is one of the most remarkable in the whole collection, and it has been preserved from times previous to the XIIth 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 [24] ), two from the sarcophagi of Mentuhotep, and one from that of Sebek-āa (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 XIth 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 ; the ancient added the feminine . What is that? But some of the ancient texts give the equivalent words , 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 XVIIIth dynasty. The XVIIIth 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 XVIIIth 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 .”