CHAPTER LIV.
Chapter whereby air is given in the Netherworld.
I am the god in Lion-form([1]), the Egg in the Great Cackler, and I watch over that great Egg which Seb hath parted from the earth([2]); my Life is the Life thereof, and the same is true of my advance in life and of my breathing of the air.
I am the god who keepeth opposition in equipoise([3]) as his Egg circleth round. For me dawneth([4]) the moment of the most mighty one, Sut.
O ye gods who are pleasant through the alternate successions of the Earth, who preside over sustenance and who live in the Blue([5]), do ye keep watch over him who abideth in his Nest; the Infant god who cometh forth towards you.
Notes.
The text here followed is that of Pa which is much preferable to that of Ani. There is a far older text, that of Horhotep, line 344 and sqq., but it is too inaccurate to serve as the basis of a translation. It is however very valuable for other purposes.
[1.] The god in Lion form. These words are not in Horhotep, the chapter beginning as in later texts “Oh Tmu let there come to me the air which is in thy nostrils.” The word for air is written
(lines 344 and 346) as in other places.
[2.] It is a mistake to speak of a mundane egg, of which there is no trace in Egyptian mythology. Seb, the great cackling goose, lays the golden egg, which is the Sun; but
does not mean ‘lay upon the earth,’ but ‘divide, separate from the earth.’ The egg springs from the back of Seb.
[3.] Who keepeth opposition in equipoise. This sense may be inferred from Pa, but is made very clear by the
of Horhotep. The equilibrium of forces is maintained by the revolution of the Sun.
[4.] Dawneth,
, Horhotep; whose text breaks off without a word on Sutu.
[5.] The Blue,
‘lapis lazuli.’ The French l’azur exactly corresponds to the Egyptian, for the word azure is derived from lazulum.
Ancients and modern differ greatly, as is well known, from each other as to the impressions derived from colour. It seems strange to read in the tale of the Destruction of Mankind that the ‘hair of Râ was of real chesbet,’ that is ‘dark blue.’ But we have an exact parallel to this in Greek. Κύανος is lapis lazuli in Theophrastus, who even mentions the artificial lapis made in Egypt. But in the Homeric poems the hair of Hector (Il., 22, 401), and the hair and beard of Odysseus (Od., 16, 176), as well as the eyebrows of Zeus (Il.,1, 528; 17, 209) are described as κυάνεαι.