CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Chapter whereby one liveth by the breath of air in the Netherworld, and keepeth back Merta.

I am the god in Lion form; the heir of Râ and Tmu in Chemmis,([1]) the Master in their halls.

Those who are in their cells([2]) accompany me as guides. I have made my way and gone round the heavenly Ocean on the path of the Bark of Râ, and standing on the girders [^[52]] of the Bark of Râ.

I utter his words to the men of the present generation [^[53]] and I repeat his words to him who is deprived of breath.([3])

I spy out for my father Râ at sunset, compressing my mouth,([4]) and feeding upon life.

I live in Tattu, and I repeat my life after death like the Sun daily.

Notes.

There are two recensions of this chapter, and both are found in the papyrus Lb. They are called by M. Naville, 38A and 38B. The latter is that adopted as canonical by all the manuscripts of a later date, and is the one here translated. The other recension is longer, and contains passages which are also found in other chapters, to which it accordingly furnishes important variants. It may possibly be older than those chapters.

[1.] In Chemmis. The name of the place where Isis gave birth to Horus is in the Pyramid texts written

(Pepi I, 428), and

(Merenra I, 683), aḫ-ḫebit or ḫebit-aḫ; but simply ḫebit in the texts of the eighteenth dynasty, as in the annals of Thothmes III (Mariette, Karnakc pl. 16, line 47),[^[54]] or in the divine and proper names

, and

. It is certain therefore that the sign

is here only an ideogram of

, not of the ancient

. From the eighteenth dynasty at least, and for a time belonging to a period of unknown length between the sixth and the eighteenth dynasties, and for ever afterwards, the name of the place was

Ḫebit, where, as the Tablet of the Dream says,

(Mariette, Mon. div., pl. 7).

[2.] In their cells:

. Here 38A has:

in their shrines, followed in some papyri by

“I fraternize with Horus and Sut.”

[3.] Deprived of breath, ‘the dead.’ In 38A, the privation of breath is mentioned but in a different connection. But the text of the passage is uncertain. Here as in chapter 41,