CHAPTER CXXXIV.
Chapter whereby the Deceased acquireth might.
Hail to thee who art in the midst of thine Ark, Oh rising Sun who risest, and declining([1]) one who declinest: at whose will millions spring forth, as he turneth his face to the unborn generations of men: Chepera in the middle of his Bark, who overthroweth Apepi.
Here are the children of Seb who overthrow the adversaries of Osiris and destroy them from the Bark of Rā.
Horus cutteth off their heads in heaven when in the forms of winged fowl, their hinder parts on earth when in the forms of quadrupeds or [in the water] as fishes.
All fiends, male or female, the Osiris N destroyeth them, whether descending from heaven or coming forth upon the earth, or issuing out of the water or travelling along with the Stars.
Thoth slaughtereth them, the Son of the Rock, proceeding from the place of the Two Rocks.([2])
The Osiris N is dumb and deaf([3]) for the Strong one is Rā, the puissant of stroke, the Almighty one, who washeth in their blood and walloweth in their gore.
The Osiris N destroyeth them from the Bark of his father Rā.
The Osiris N is Horus: his mother Isis bringeth him forth, and Nephthys nurseth him, as they did to Horus, who repelleth the dark ones of Sutu: who, when they see the Crown fixed upon his brow, fall upon their faces.
Osiris Unneferu is triumphant over his adversaries in heaven and on earth, and in the cycle of each god and goddess.
Said over a Hawk in a Boat, with the White Crown upon its head, and the figure of Tmu, Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Sutu,([4]) Nephthys, painted yellowish green on a fresh papyrus placed in this Boat, together with the figure of the Deceased, anointed with the Heknu oil. Let there be offered to them incense burning and roast fowl. It is the adoration of Rā, and his voyage, for it is granted to him to make his appearance each day with Rā, whithersoever he journeyeth; and it is the Slaughter of the adversaries of Rā; positively and undeviatingly for times infinite.
Notes.
[1.] Declining
. This word frequently occurs in contrast with
. I understand the latter in all such cases to signify the shining of the sun on his rising, and the former to signify the shining of the sun in his afternoon course.
[2.] The son of the Rock, proceeding from the place of the Two Rocks. The only explanation I can think of is derived from the identification (in chapter 62) of Thoth with the Nile,
. From this point of view the god is both the son of the Rock and issues from the place of the Double Rock,
, or of the two Rocks, called in the time of Herodotus Krophi and Mophi.
[3.] Dumb and deaf,
. It is strange that this meaning of the passage has so long been misunderstood. The sense of the first word has long been recognised, and ‘deaf’ is the meaning rightly assigned to
in Birch’s Dictionary. One instance like the following (from Unas, 608) is sufficient to settle the question—
, “He is not so deaf that he should not hear thy voice.”
That the subject of these attributes is the Osiris is seen by reference to At, where instead of ‘the Osiris’ the deceased speaks in the first person,
, “I am dumb, I am deaf.”
[4.] Sutu. This divine name occurs in the text of Amenhait in the reign of Thothmes III. And I have noted another instance where the name is written
. Dr. Birch called the papyrus Miss Brockelhurst’s. It cannot however be the Ax of M. Naville, which does not contain the chapter.
The disappearance of the god’s name from all other documents is a fatal argument against their claims to high antiquity.