CHAPTER CXXVI.

Oh ye four Harbingers([1]) who sit at the prow of the Bark of Rā, and convey the fixed ordinances([2]) of the Inviolate One, ye who are judges of my distress([3]) and of my good fortune, and propitiate the gods with the flames from your mouths: ye who present to the gods their oblations and the sacrificial meals to the Glorified: ye who live through Maāt and are sated with Maāt: who have nothing wrong in you and execrate that which is disordered,([4]) do ye put an end to my ills and remove that which is disorderly in me through my being smitten to the earth.([5])

Grant that I may penetrate into the Ammehit and enter into Restau; and that I may pass through the mysterious portals of Amenta.

Be there given to me the Shensu cakes and the Persen cakes [and all things] even as to the Glorified, who make their appearance on entering into Restau or on coming forth.([6])

Enter thou, Osiris N: We put an end to thine ills, and we remove that which is disorderly in thee through thy being smitten to the earth. We put away from thee all the ills which thou hast. Enter thou into Restau and pass through the mysterious portals of Amenta. Enter thou in and come forth at thy pleasure, like the Glorified ones; and be thou invoked each day in the Mount of Glory.([7])

Notes.

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.

[1.] Harbingers or Saluters,

. See Chapter 5, [Note 5], for an explanation of the name of those Apes who salute [^[135]] the Daybreak. Here four only are spoken of, and this was probably the original number, corresponding to the four portals of the Mount of Glory. The number eight (the Chemunnu) is more easy to explain than six, which is the number stated in the text quoted from the tomb of Rameses VI.

[2.] Fixed ordinances,

; θέμιστες in the different acceptations of that word.

[3.] Distress,

. “Te semper anteit saeva necessitas,” Horace says to Fortuna. The determinative

and the Coptic ⲙⲣ̄ evidently point to the notion of constraint, but the few texts in which the word is found imply want, need (angustiæ, ἀνάγκη),[^[136]] rather than captivity. Amenemhat at Benihassan (tomb 2) boasts that in his days and under his government no one was seen “in distress (

), or starving.” And Horus at Edfu (Naville, Mythe d’Horus, pl. XXII) is said to protect the needy or distressed (

) against the powerful. This is an honour already claimed by Antuf on his tablet (Louvre, C. 26 line 17), who mentions the maȧru as being an object of interest to him, like the orphan and the widow.

[4.] Disordered,

, is the absence of

, strict order, and always spoken of as in opposition to it. One is κόσμος and the other is οὐ κατὰ κόσμον, and may be predicated of whatever is contrary to rule, faulty, defective, out of line, deformed, or disfigured, not only in a moral but in a purely physical sense.

, ill, does not mean wickedness or sin, but simply physical evil, mischief, pain or sorrow. There are many texts to prove this, but perhaps the most interesting is the great text at Dendera (Mariette, Denderah, IV, pl. 73, or Dümichen, Rec., III, pl. 96), where Osiris is invoked at Apu (Panopolis) as the fiery Bull, hiding (or scarcely seen) on the day of the New Moon ..., but at length rising into full strength,[^[137]] and seeing the Golden Horus fixed upon the throne of the universe.

(continues the text), “Joy cometh round after [^[138]] pain,” or sorrow; most certainly, not after sin.

The meaning of

, which governs the noun, has been explained (Chapter 40, [Note 6]) as stopping, bringing to an end; not destroying, and still less forgiving.

[5.] Through my being [or because I am] smitten to the earth,

in this position, without a suffix or nominal subject, is not an auxiliary verb, but a particle of correlation, used when a cause, motive, or circumstance is asserted or implied in connection with a preceding statement.

Like all such particles, of which the function was originally only deictic, it is susceptible of very many shades of meaning, and it would be impossible in this place to do justice to a word so frequently occurring, especially in the hieratic papyri of a secular character. The following examples are only intended to illustrate its grammatical use in our text.

The particle occurs three times before as many propositions at the beginning of Chapter 123; ‘I have balanced the divine Pair,’ ‘I have put a stop, etc.,’ ‘I have ended their complaints;’

connects each of these statements with the preceding one, ‘I am Thoth.’ It is as if the speaker said, ‘It is in consequence of my being Thoth, that I have balanced,’ etc.

In Chapter 36, ‘I am the bearer of the divine words’ is followed by

, ‘and so it comes that I make the report.’

In Chapter 15, line 7, ‘I am one of those who honoured thee upon earth’ is followed by

... “let me therefore attain to the Land of eternity.”

Aahmes, the son of Abana, says in his inscription (line 5) that he was young and unwedded,

“and so I continued to wear” a certain dress.

Amenemheb was, he tells[tells] us (Zeitschr[Zeitschr]., 1873, p. 3), high in the favour of the King, “and so it comes that I followed my Lord

.”

Una was sent by his sovereign on a certain mission, and the negro chieftains of certain districts furnished the wood for his purpose, “and so it came to pass that he spent

a year in this wise.“

After verba dicendi

corresponds to our as how, comme quoi, or the quod or quia of late Latinity. It often needs no more translation than the Greek ὅτι in such a relation.

In the inscription of Pianchi (line 2) one came to tell his Majesty “that (comme quoi) a prince [or magnate] had started up

” and seized upon a part of the kingdom.

most certainly does not mean ‘est, est,’ any more than it means ‘Dominus meus mortuus est.’

Nebuaiu (Zeitschr., 1876, p. 5) in the time of Thothmes III

“says, as how ‘I have presided over many constructions.’”

The Naophoros of the Vatican in like manner

“says that ‘I made a petition’” to Cambyses.

Long before this Chnumhotep of Benihassan begins his biography (line 14)

“his mouth, it says as how ‘his Majesty appointed me’ to the dignity of Erpā ḥā.”

The absence of Verbal character becomes especially apparent in such combinations

[6.] The older texts finish here. What follows in the translation is taken from the later recensions. It is the reply made by the four Harbingers to the prayer addressed to them.

[7.] Mount of Glory

. This is the real meaning of the word, and there is no reason why we should continue to use the misleading term horizon.

[135]. The Gothic Hana (the Cock), German Hahn and our Hen signify the Singer, and are words cognate to the Latin can-ere. The Latin Gallus is probably related to our call.

[136]. The Greek language would furnish an interesting parallel to the Egyptian if it could be shown that δέω, bind, and δέω, want, need, had the same root. But the latter was originally δέϝω.

[137]. Such is the real meaning of