CHAPTER CXXXVIB.

_Chapter whereby one is conveyed in the Great Bark of Rā to pass through
the orbit of flame._


O bright flame which art behind Rā, and dividest his Crown!
The Bark of Rā feareth the storm.
Ye[145] are bright and ye are exalted.

I come daily with Sek-hra(8.) from his exalted station, so that I may
witness the process of the Maāt(9.) and the lion-forms(10.) which belong
to them ... so that I may see them there.

We are rejoicing: their great ones are in jubilation, and their smaller
ones in bliss.

I make my way at the prow of the Bark of Rā, which lifteth me up like
his disk.

I shine like the Glorious ones, whom he hath enriched with his wealth,
holding fast like a Lord of Maāt.

Here is the Cycle of the gods, and the Kite of Osiris.

Grant ye that his father, the Lord of them, may judge in his behalf.

And so I poise for him the Balance, which is Maāt, and I raise it to
Tefnut that he may live.

Come, come, for the father is uttering the judgment of Maāt.

Oh thou who callest out at thine evening hours, grant that I may come
and bring to him the two jaws of Restau, and that I may bring to him the
books which are in the Annu and add up for him his hosts.

And so I have repulsed Apepi and healed the wounds he made.

Let me make my way through the midst of you.

I am the Great one among the gods, coming in the two Barks of the Lord
of Sau, the Figure of the great saluter, who hath made the Flame.

Let the fathers and their Apes make way for me, that I may enter the
Mount of Glory, and pass through where the Great ones are.

I see who is there in his Bark, and I pass through the orbit of Flame
which is behind the Lord of the Side-lock, over the serpents.

Let me pass: I am the powerful one, the Lord of the powerful.

I am the Sāhu, the Lord of Maāt, the creator of every Dawn,(11.)

Place me among the followers of Rā: place me as one who goeth round in
the Garden of Peace of Rā.

I am a god greater than thou art.

Let me be numbered in presence of the Divine Cycle when the offerings
are presented to me.

NOTES.

The two chapters which are numbered by M. Naville as 136A and 136B 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 136A.

1. _Light_ ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. A common noun signifying _lamp_, but
the determinative here shows that a heavenly body is meant. The sun is
here spoken of exactly in the same poetical way as when Antigone (879)
speaks of τόδε λαμπάδος ἱερὸν ὄμμα, or Virgil of the _Phœboea lampas_.

2. The later recension speaks of “the Lamp in Annu and the Hammemit in
Cherāba.” This reading is already found in a few of the Theban texts.
The royal sarcophagus 32 of the British Museum gives the important
variant ⁂⁂⁂ = ⁂⁂⁂⁂, whence it follows that ⁂
is phonetically = ⁂. The latter sign has only two known values
⁂⁂⁂ _āḥā_, and ⁂⁂⁂ _āba_. That the latter is the true
equivalent of ⁂ is certain, in consequence of the complementary
vowels ⁂, which commonly accompany that sign, whether in the word
signifying _battle_, or in the name of a place. It is _impossible_ that
⁂⁂⁂ a should be the right reading, and no one has a right to
convert ⁂ into a simple ⁂.

The well known word ⁂⁂, “strike,” takes the prothetic ⁂, and is
found under the form ⁂⁂⁂, in the name of one of the hours of
the night.[146] No fresh information is derived from the discovery by M.
Daressy of the same word under the form ⁂⁂⁂, that is
⁂⁂⁂, as it should be corrected if cited. To _strike_ and to
_fight_ are different words, though they may often be used synonymously,
and admit of being substituted one for the other.[147]

3. _He of the strong cord_, ⁂⁂. This is grammatically the subject
of the verb _is born_, and I consider it as a compound expression in
which the adjective precedes the substantive, as in longimanus. I
understand ⁂ as = ⁂⁂⁂ (see _Zeitsch._, 1868, p. 70, and
1870, p. 154, 155). In the later recessions (_e.g._, Todt. 136, and B.M.
32) it is omitted in this place, but not in the passage which follows.

4. _His cable_, ⁂⁂. See Bonomi, _Sarc._ 8 D. and _cf._ a passage
in the Pyramid Texts (_Pepi_ I, 413, _Merenrā_ 590) which refers to this
or a similar voyage. M. Maspero thus translates it:—“Fais amener à Pepi
ta barque sur laquelle naviguent tes purs et quand tu auras reçu ta
libation d’eau fraîche sur cette CUISSE DES INDESTRUCTIBLES (the Uārit
⁂⁂⁂ of the Circumpolar Stars), fais naviguer Pepi dans cette
barque avec ce cable d’étoffe verte et blanche par lequel l’Œil d’Hor
est remorqué,” &c. The Uārit, or _Leg_ (on which see Ch. 74, Note 1) of
Nut is mentioned at the end of this chapter.

5. _Rudder_ ⁂⁂⁂ or ⁂⁂⁂.

6. _Machinery_ ⁂⁂⁂. The word has disappeared from the later
texts and been replaced by various conjectural emendations of the
scribes.

7. _The Kaf_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂, one of the divinities in form of apes.
Etymologically the word signifies “the _hot_ one.”

8. _Seḳ-ḥra_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂ is the more common reading, but
⁂⁂⁂ also occurs and so does ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. I
cannot remember where I found ⁂⁂⁂⁂ (_P.S.B.A._ VI, 191)
which would identify this divinity with Thoth.

9. _The Maāt_, the series of phenomena occurring in strict conformity
with Law, that is with the laws of Nature.

10. _Lion forms_, ⁂ phonetically ⁂⁂, in most of the papyri.
Some of the words which follow are evidently in very corrupt condition.

11. _Every Dawn_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.

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Footnote 145:

_Sic._

Footnote 146:

To press the identity of ⁂ and ⁂⁂⁂ in the name of this
hour is to forget that its variants would equally prove that
⁂⁂ = ⁂⁂ = ⁂⁂.

Footnote 147:

See _P.S.B.A._ IX, p. 313, and two previous articles of mine there
referred to. The corrections I have to make are the following:—I
wrongly assumed that the _fish_ which in hieratic papyri crosses the
foot of the sign ⁂ in the variants of ⁂ was the same fish as
we find in the group ⁂⁂ = ⁂⁂⁂ = ⁂. The
fishes are different. On referring to M. Naville’s _Festival Hall of
Osorkon II_, pl. 18, pictures will be found of the ⁂⁂ and the
⁂⁂. The first of these is clearly the fish in ⁂⁂,
_ḥem-reu_, and the corresponding sign in the variant is to be read
⁂, _ḥem_, in harmony with the other evidence produced by W. Max
Müller (_Recueil_, vol. IX). The picture of it does not enable one to
determine its species. The pictures at Bubastis of the ⁂⁂
seem to indicate the _Synodontis_, but a picture found by Petrie
(_Medum_, pl. 12) shows an immense fish which has been identified with
the _Latus_ or _Perca_ _Nilotica_. This being of the Acanthopterygian
family is of course a very formidable _warrior_, like our own small
perch, which, as Mr. Ward says, “does not yield its life without
endangering the person of its captor, for the formidable rows of
spinous rays belonging to the first dorsal fin have wounded the hands
of many an incautious angler.”

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PLATE XLII.

BOOK OF THE DEAD.

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