(20) With Chapter 151 begins a series of texts written either on the walls of the funeral chamber or on the mummy cloth, or on various amulets. This series goes as far as 160, with the exception of 152 and 153, which have been inserted there without any apparent reason

(1) There is not much more than the vignette left. Only two or three words remain. They are taken from a papyrus in Paris

(2) The three versions which have been preserved of this text are very fragmentary. The most complete, papyrus 10478 of the British Museum, contains only the 7 to 12. As the interest of this text, the character of which is chiefly pictorial, lies in the vignettes, it has been thought unnecessary to give a translation of it

(5) In the older papyri the vignette of this chapter is unaccompanied by any text. The only exception as yet known is that of the papyrus Ab , of the XVIIIth dynasty. The text is also found in the tomb of Rameses VI, with the important addition of the answer made by the four Harbingers to the prayer of the deceased. This addition is retained in all the later recensions. Other discrepancies between the two texts lead to the conclusion that even the older one has suffered from interpolation

(3) Of this chapter we have unfortunately but one copy in Fa , of the Musée Borély. This is defective both at the beginning and at the end, and the text is inaccurate. The later copies are so inaccurate that it is impossible to reconstitute the text. It is precisely on those points where grammatical accuracy is required for fixing a definite sense that the manuscripts are hopelessly defective. The preceding translation is verbally correct, I trust, but I do not pretend that it is intelligible. It stops where the papyrus Fa stops

(68) 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

(4) "For the Muse was not then Greedy of gain or mercenary; Nor were Terpsichore's sweet, Honey-toned, silvery soft-voiced Strains made merchandise of." Now those instructed among the Egyptians learned first of all that style of the Egyptian letters which is called Epistolographic; and second, the Hieratic, which the sacred scribes practise; and finally, and last of all, the Hieroglyphic, of which one kind which is by the first elements is literal (Kyriologic), and the other Symbolic. Of the Symbolic, one kind speaks literally by imitation, and another writes as it were figuratively; and another is quite allegorical, using certain enigmas.

(7) The 58th and 122nd chapters are reproductions of the same text, the earliest copy known being that of Ani

(4) The oldest papyrus containing this chapter is that of Ani, and the translation is based upon it. But the text differs both from those written on the very ancient coffins of Heru and Set-Bastit, copied by M. Maspero, [34] and from the later texts

(42) The text of this chapter handed down by the Turin papyrus and those which agree with it contains nothing very difficult for a translator, but on being compared with the older copies it is found to consist of a collection of small fragments of the older text put together without any regard to their original order or context. And about three-quarters of the old chapter are suppressed in the new recension

(29) The vignette of 153 A , in the papyrus III, 93, of the Louvre ( Pb ), shows a clap-net drawn by four men. Behind it comes the deceased, holding in his hand two instruments mentioned in the text: the and the , called or each of them consists of different parts having a distinct name

(1) AND if thee think that this manner of working be not according to thy disposition in body and in soul, thou mayest leave it and take another, safely with good ghostly counsel without blame. And then I beseech thee that thou wilt have me excused, for truly I would have profited unto thee in this writing at my simple cunning; and that was mine intent. And therefore read over twice or thrice; and ever the ofter the better, and the more thou shalt conceive thereof. Insomuch, peradventure, that some sentence that was full hard to thee at the first or the second reading, soon after thou shalt think it easy.

(1) Now bears us onward one of the hard margins, And so the brooklet's mist o'ershadows it, From fire it saves the water and the dikes. Even as the Flemings, 'twixt Cadsand and Bruges, Fearing the flood that tow'rds them hurls itself, Their bulwarks build to put the sea to flight; And as the Paduans along the Brenta, To guard their villas and their villages, Or ever Chiarentana feel the heat; In such similitude had those been made, Albeit not so lofty nor so thick, Whoever he might be, the master made them. Now were we from the forest so remote, I could not have discovered where it was, Even if backward I had turned myself, When we a company of souls encountered, Who came beside the dike, and every one Gazed at us, as at evening we are wont To eye each other under a new moon, And so towards us sharpened they their brows As an old tailor at the needle's eye. Thus scrutinised by such a family, By some one I was recognised, who seized My garment's hem, and cried out, "What a marvel!"

(11) The ancient text of this chapter has most unfortunately been lost. A few words only remain in the fragments of Papyrus Pm . M. Naville has also published what is found on an ostracon of the time of the XVIIIth dynasty. There is no doubt that the form of the text which has been handed down in the later papyri has suffered great alterations. And a comparison between the Turin and Cadet papyri shows in how untrustworthy a way this later form of the text has been transmitted

(5) For Chapter 160, we have a text from London, 9900 ( Aa ); it is not complete, but the gaps can very easily be filled up from the Papyrus Busca

(17) This Chapter and the following are found in one papyrus only, Paris, III, 93, a document more remarkable for the beauty of its vignettes than for the correctness of the text

(20) The two chapters which are numbered by M. Naville as 136 A and 136 B are represented in the later recensions by a single chapter, which has been made out of them. There is very much obscurity in the ancient texts, though the MSS. containing them are numerous, and the more recent versions are quite as difficult to understand. We must be satisfied for the present by a strict literal and grammatical translation, wherever this amount of success is attainable. The royal sarcophagus 32 of the British Museum gives the latest form of 136 A

(13) The translation of these magical Chapters is still more uncertain than that of the rest of the book, and the text is often very corrupt

(3) After the interruption due to Chapters 153 and 154, we revert to the series inaugurated by 151, the description of the chamber in which the mummy is deposited, and of the funeral equipment of the deceased, his amulets and ornaments. The papyrus III, 93 (Pb), of the Louvre, throws several of these Chapters into one, with the title: the description of the hidden things of the Tuat , and the vignette (Pl. LV) represents three figures of Chapter 151: the statuette, the torch or flame, and the Anubis; besides two Tat of different substances, one of them for the wall, and one to be put on the neck of the deceased, and a buckle

(285) 426 Thy two drops of poison are on the way to thy two poisonvessels. Spit both out now, 426 for they two are rich in water. O thou who winkest, thou . who art (adorned with) a head-band, O s.w, 426 rain, that the serpent may become cowardly and the throat (canal) of my heart may be safe; 426 storm, that the lion may drown himself in water and the throat of the heart of the king (?) may be wide.