CHAPTER XII.

Chapter for entering and for coming forth out of the Netherworld.

Salutation to thee, O Râ, who guardest the secrets of the gates([1]) over this domain of Seb, and this Balance with which Râ raiseth up Maât ([2]) daily:

Here am I, who cleave open([3]) the earth, grant that I may come and acquire advance in age.([4])

Notes.

This chapter, like the next, occurs only in Pa among the older MSS. It comes twice in the Turin copy, being repeated as Chapter 120.

[1.] So Pa; the Turin copy has ‘the Tuat.’

[2.] In many places it is important to treat Maât as a proper name.

[3.]

or

, a word not confined to agricultural operations. See [note 20], p. 8.

[4.] As the sun, who is represented as an infant at dawn and as an aged man at sunset.