CHAPTER XCVIII.

_Chapter whereby one saileth a ship in the Netherworld._


Oh thou Leg in the Northern Sky,(1.) and in that most conspicuous but
inaccessible Stream; I rise up and come to light as a god, I am
conspicuous but inaccessible.

I rise up and live, and bring myself to light as a god.

I cackle even as the Smen-goose, but I stoop(2.) like the Hawk at the
nets of the Great Fowler.

I sail across the Sky, and Shu standeth erect and the Achmiu Stars(3.)
are instantly active in raising the ladder which lifts the Setting Stars
away from destruction.(4.)

And I bear that which repelleth mischief as I make my voyage over the
Leg of Ptah.

I come from the Lake of Flame, from the Lake of Fire, and from the Field
of Flame, and I live....

I stand erect in the Bark which the god is piloting ... at the head of
Aarru,(5.) and the Achmiu Stars open to me ... and my fellow
citizens(6.) present to me the sacred cakes with flesh.

NOTES.

There is but one papyrus of the older period which contains any portion
of this chapter, and it does so very imperfectly.

On referring to M. Naville’s edition it will be seen that not only the
title but the greater part of the chapter is destroyed. The later copies
have texts so different from the original form, that it is unsafe to
attempt a restoration except within very strict limits.

It is absurd to attempt a translation from a mixture of divergent and,
at the same time, incorrect texts.

1. See note to chapter 74. The _Stream_ which is so conspicuous but
cannot be reached is the Milky Way, and the _Leg_ is the constellation
Cassiopeia in the Northern Sky.

2. _Stoop_, ⁂⁂⁂. This comparison occurs repeatedly in the
Pyramid Texts, and others of the early periods.

3. _Achmiu Stars_ ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ so _Ab_, giving another
proof that the word is to be taken as a _noun_, and not as a _negative_.

4. See chapter 30A, on “The Crocodile of the West who lives on the
Setting Stars.”

5. So _Ab_, but perhaps wrongly. I dare not fill up the lacunæ of this
text.

6. _Fellow-citizens._ The translation here is necessarily conjectural.
But I understand by _fellow-citizens_ (συμπολῖται) the dwellers of that
_city_ of which the deceased says, in chapter 17, “I arrive at my own
city, ⁂⁂.”[92] And this _city_ is explained by the ancient
scholion as being “the Horizon ⁂ [or, as Lepsius more accurately
translates it, ‘der Sonnenberg’] of my father Tmu.” It is no earthly
city that is thought of, but an eternal one.

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Footnote 92:

I take this opportunity of correcting my former translation, where the
preposition ⁂, which twice occurs in the passage, is both times
rendered by the same word, _from_. But the sense of a preposition
really depends upon the verb which it follows. The same English word
will not suit the French _de_ in ‘s’approcher _de_’ and ‘s’éloigner
_de_.’

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