CHAPTER XL.
Chapter whereby the Eater of the Ass is kept back.
Back, serpent Haiu,([1]) whom Osiris execrateth. May Thoth cut off thy head, and may there accrue to me whatsoever property proceedeth from thee [according to] what was decreed against thee by the Company of the gods for the accomplishment of thy slaughter.
Back, thou whom Osiris execrateth, from the Neshemet galley, which saileth towards the south with favourable breeze.
Pure are ye, all ye gods who overthrow the enemy of Osiris.
The gods upon the larboard utter loud acclamation.
Back, thou Eater of the Ass, whom the god Chas,([2]) who is in the Tuat, execrateth.
Know me! (Repeated four times).
“Who art thou?”
I am....[[57]]
Down upon thy face!([3]) thou who art eating at my sanctuary.
I am the Season, which cometh at its own will.
“Come not against me; thou who comest without being called, and who art unknown.”
I am the master of thine utterance, and the check upon thy pride.([4])
O Ha-as, whose horns([5]) Horus doth cut: by my children, the cycle of gods in Pu and Tepit, thou art severed from thy fold and thy fold is severed from thee.
And he who cutteth thee off cometh forth as the Eye of Horus; thou art kept back and assailed, and stopped([6]) by the breath of my speech.
O thou god who devourest all wrong, and carriest off with violence;([7]) there is no wrong in me, my tablets([8]) are free from wrong. Let me not suffer violence before the Divine Circle; let not disaster be hurled upon me.
I am he who giveth or taketh according to thy behest.
Let not N be seized, let him not be devoured.([9])
He is Possessor of Life, and Sovereign Lord([10]) on the Horizon.
Notes.
The translation of this chapter is based upon the important papyrus T 5 of Leyden, known as Lb. This is the only MS. which contains the whole chapter. All other copies begin after the sixth line. The usual chapter begins in Lb with a
, which is the ordinary way of indicating a various reading. But the difference of reading applies rather to a mere paragraph than to the whole chapter. In this case we should expect
or something equivalent.
The Eater of the Ass is a Serpent, but who is the Ass?
Here, as in each case of mythological name, the animal is not meant, but something which is connoted by it. The name of the ass is given to it in consequence of one of its characteristics. It is
. But this is one of the seventy-five names of the Sun-god in the Solar Litany.[[58]] And he derives this appellation from his fructifying power.
But if the Ass is the Sun, who is the Eater of the Ass? This must be Darkness or Eclipse of some kind.
[1.] Haiu, the serpent who devours the sun, is undoubtedly the same as
Haiu, the serpent who in the Pyramid texts is ordered to lie down (Unas, 545, &c.), and cease from his attacks.
[2.] The god Chas,
.
[3.] The usual chapter begins here. The text of Lb has generally been followed, but in some places later authorities have been preferred.
[4.] Pride or boastings,
ānta, “glory,” cf. glorior. The speaker addresses his adversary as being a miles gloriosus.
[5.] Horns or barbed hooks,
,
or
. The horns here spoken of, as possessed by a viper, are those of the deadly Cerastes, which are spines projecting from the arched eye-brows of the creature. See picture in Long’s Egyptian Antiquities of British Museum, II, p. 316, copied from the great French work.
But the Sun-god is also called in his Litany[[59]]
. And a picture of the god[[60]] under the name
exhibits him as characterized by a pair of hooked weapons, suggested apparently by the mandibles of a beetle.
[6.] Stopped. There are three important variants here
,
, and
. And the last of these is possibly a corrupt reading from
. The first two are synonymous.
may in certain contexts mean destroy, but it only signifies ‘bring to a limit, to an end, stop,’ like the τερ in τερ-μα, ter-min-o. It is used in many cases, such as the staunching of blood, where no destruction is intended.
is stop in thy place.
[7.] There is a picture in Denkm., III, 279, of the god who carrieth off with violence
. But it is a mummied form holding the T’ām sceptre.
[8.] Tablets,
. These are the tablets on which Thoth has written down the evidence taken at the Weighing of the Words, the examination at the Psychostasia. They are mentioned again at the end of Chapter 41.
[9.] Here I follow the general authority of the later texts.
[10.] Sovereign Lord
. This word is closely connected, and was so from the first, with
‘seize.’ The best commentary upon it may be derived from the legal terms usucapio, saisine, seisin. The Sovereign Lord of Egypt is in our current legal phrase “seized of the Two Earths,” that is of the whole Universe, North and South.
[57]. There is a lacuna here in the only MS. containing the text. The dialogue continues through the next line of the original.
[58]. Naville, La Litanie du Soleil, p. 49 and 55, with the plates corresponding.
[59]. In the 64th invocation.
[60]. Lefébure Tombeau de Seti I, pl. XVII.