Each month there was a fortnight of youth and of growing splendour, followed by a fortnight's agony and ever-increasing pallor. It was born to die, and died to be born again twelve times in the year, and each of these cycles measured a month for the inhabitants of the world. One invariable accident from time to time disturbed the routine of its existence. Profiting by some distraction of the guardians, the sow greedily swallowed it, and then its light went out suddenly, instead of fading gradually. These eclipses, which alarmed mankind at least as much as did those of the sun, were scarcely more than momentary, the gods compelling the monster to cast up the eye before it had been destroyed.
1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the rectangular zodiac
carved upon the ceiling of the great temple of Denderah
(Dùmichen, Resultate, vol. ii. pl. xxxix.).
Every evening the lunar bark issued out of Hades by the door which Râ had passed through in the morning, and as it rose on the horizon, the star-lamps scattered over the firmament appeared one by one, giving light here and there like the camp-fires of a distant army. However many of them there might be, there were as many Indestructibles—Akhîmû Sokû—or Unchanging Ones—Akhîmû Ûrdû—whose charge it was to attend upon them and watch over their maintenance.[**]
** The Akhîmû Sokû and the Akhîmû Ûrdû have been very
variously defined by different Egyptologists who have
studied them. Chabas considered them to be gods or genii of
the constellations of the ecliptic, which mark the apparent
course of the sun through the sky. Following the indications
given by Dévéria, he also thought them to be the sailors of
the solar bark, and perhaps the gods of the twelve hours,
divided into two classes: the Akhîmû Sokû being those who
are rowing, and the Akhîmû Ûrdû those who are resting. But
texts found and cited by Brugsch show that the Akhîmû Sokû are the planets accompanying Râ in the northern sky, while
the Akhîmû Ûrdû are his escort in the south. The
nomenclature of the stars included in these two classes is
furnished by monuments of widely different epochs. The two
names should be translated according to the meaning of their
component words: Akhîmû Sokû, those who know not
destruction, the Indestructibles; and Akhîmû Ûrdû (
Urzii), those who know not the immobility of death, the
Imperishables.
They were not scattered at random by the hand which had suspended them, but their distribution had been ordered in accordance with a certain plan, and they were arranged in fixed groups like so many star republics, each being independent of its neighbours. They represented the outlines of bodies of men and animals dimly traced out upon the depths of night, but shining with greater brilliancy in certain important places. The seven stars which we liken to a chariot (Charles's Wain) suggested to the Egyptians the haunch of an ox placed on the northern edge of the horizon.[*]
* The forms of the constellations, and the number of stars
composing them in the astronomy of different periods, are
known from the astronomical scenes of tombs and temples. The
identity of the Haunch with the Chariot, or Great Bear of modern astronomy, was discovered by Lepsius and confirmed
by Biot. Mariette pointed out that the Pyramid Arabs applied
the name of the Haunch (er-Rigl) to the same group of
stars as that thus designated by the ancient Egyptians.
Champollion had noted the position of the Haunch in the
northern sky, but had not suggested any identification. The
Haunch appertained to Sît-Typhon.
Two lesser stars connected the haunch—Maskhaît—with thirteen others, which recalled the silhouette of a female hippopotamus—Rirît—erect upon her hind legs,[*] and jauntily carrying upon her shoulders a monstrous crocodile whose jaws opened threateningly above her head. Eighteen luminaries of varying size and splendour, forming a group hard by the hippopotamus, indicated the outline of a gigantic lion couchant, with stiffened tail, its head turned to the right, and facing the Haunch.[***]