CHAPTER LXX.
Another Chapter.
I have come to an end([7]) for the Lord of Heaven. I am written down as sound of heart, and I rest at the table of my father Osiris, King of Tattu, and my heart is stirred by his country. I breathe the eastern breeze by its hair([8]); I grasp the north wind by its side lock; I grasp the south wind by the skin as I make the circuit of heaven on its four sides; I seize the east wind by the skin, and I give the breezes to the faithful dead amid those who eat bread.
If this scripture is known upon earth he will come forth by day, he will walk upon earth amid the living: his name will be uninjured for ever.
ce Notes to Chapters LXIX and LXX.
These last two chapters are always found together, and always appended to the ancient Chapter 68. This is the case not only in the papyri, but in tombs like that of Bakenrenef.
[1.] The later texts say “the eldest of the five gods.”
[2.] Who presenteth the tablets and guardeth the door of Osiris. See picture of Thoth in the Psychostasia.
[3.] Where Osiris renews his birth.
[4.] The Thigh. The iron instrument so called used in the ceremony of ‘Opening the mouth’ of the deceased.
[5.] Sound of heart implies that the conscience of the deceased has been recognized as blameless.
[6.] Oxen and birds of various kinds. These kinds are named in the text, but we have no corresponding European names.
[7.] I have come to an end. The first two words of this chapter are evidently copied from the end of the last, but instead of menḥu, ‘sacrificial slaughter,’ the notion of menȧ or meni ‘coming to an end,’ has been substituted. Later texts read “I do not come to an end.”
[8.] Its hair. All this paragraph sounds very strangely, and translators are tempted to understand that the hair, side-lock, and skin of the deceased are acted upon by the winds.[[82]] But the feminine suffix shows that the converse is the case. The speaker catches the air and distributes it, as we are afterwards told, to the faithful departed.
[82]. But we “catch Time by the forelock,” and so did the Greeks.