CHAPTER CXXXVIII.
Chapter whereby one is enabled to enter into Abydos.
Oh all ye gods who are in Abydos, [each one and his]([1]) divine circle likewise in its entirety, who are coming with acclamation to meet me: let me see my father Osiris: let me be held as one who cometh forth as of his house([2]).
I am Horus, the Lord of Kamit, and the heir of Tesherit,([3]) which I have also seized. I, the invincible one, whose eye is potent against his adversaries: who avengeth his father, and is fierce at the drowning of his mother;([4]) who smiteth his adversaries and putteth an end to violence on their part....([5]).
Oh[Oh] thou of the potent Lock, king of hosts, who art seized of the Two Worlds; whose father’s house is seized([6]) [by him] in virtue of the writs([7]); my balance is perfectly even, my voice is law, and I prevail over all mine adversaries.([8])
Notes.
[1.] [Each one and his.] These words are necessary for the purpose of bringing out the meaning of the text. Every god, it has already been said, has his circle of associates. The feminine suffix
after
shows the concordance with
, which, like other collective nouns, is of the feminine[feminine] gender.
[2.] The exact text here is doubtful, and the sense of
depends upon it.
or
is the well known title of a priestly official, whose presence was required in the ritual of the dead. He is sometimes in attendance upon royal personages. Here according to its etymological sense the word might simply mean a relative.
[3.] Kamit
, the “Black Land” is Egypt; Tesherit
, the “Red Land,” is whatever lies beyond the limits of Egypt.
[4.] The drowning of his mother
. Drowning maybe too strong a word, but immersion at least is meant. We are at present without any other reference to this incident in the career of the goddess Isis.
[5.] Here occurs a word,
or
of doubtful meaning. As the next word to it begins a sentence, it must be considered as connected with the words preceding it. I am not satisfied that “silently” or “causing silence” would be a grammatical solution of the question.
[6.] Seized (throughout this chapter) in the juridical sense of seisin or feudal possession.
[7.] Writs
, a reading of three early papyri, which has disappeared in the later ones. The Turin Todtenbuch has
, “with his two hands.”
[8.] Here the chapter ends in Pi, and even sooner in the later texts. The three older papyri differ as to the words which immediately follow, and are certainly corrupt and unintelligible[unintelligible].