Of the works that were originally composed for recitation on the days of the festivals of Osiris, and were specially connected with the cult of this god, three, which became very popular in the Graeco-Roman period, may be mentioned. These are: (1) The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys; (2) The Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys; (3) The Book of making splendid the Spirit of Osiris. The first of these works was recited on the twenty-fifth day of the fourth month of the season Akhet (October-November) by two "fair women," who personified Isis and Nephthys. One of these had the name of Isis on her shoulder, and the other the name of Nephthys, and each held a vessel of water in her right hand, and a "Memphis cake of bread" in her left. The object of the recital was to commemorate the resurrection of Osiris, and if the book were recited on behalf of any deceased person it would make his spirit to be glorious, and stablish his body, and cause his Ka to rejoice, and give breath to his nostrils and air to his throat. The two "fair women" sang the sections alternately in the presence of the Kher-heb and Setem priests. The two first sections, as they are found on a papyrus in Berlin, read thus:—Isis saith: "Come to thy house, come to thy house, O An, come to thy house. Thine enemy [Set] hath perished. O beautiful youth, come to thy house. Look thou upon me. I am the sister who loveth thee, go not far from me. O Beautiful Boy, come to thy house, straightway, straightway. I cannot see thee, and my heart weepeth for thee; my eyes follow thee about. I am following thee about so that I may see thee. Lo, I wait to see thee, I wait to see thee; behold, Prince, I wait to see thee. It is good to see thee, it is good to see thee; O An, it is good to see thee. Come to thy beloved one, come to thy beloved one, O Un-Nefer, whose word is truth. Come to thy wife, O thou whose heart is still. Come to the lady of thy house; I am thy sister from thy mother's [womb]. Go not thou far from me. The faces of gods and men are turned towards thee, they all weep for thee together. As soon as I saw thee I cried out to thee, weeping with a loud voice which pierced the heavens, and thou didst not hear my voice. I am thy sister who loved thee upon earth; none other loved thee more than [thy] sister, thy sister."
Nephthys saith: "O Beautiful Prince, come to thy house. Let thy heart rejoice and be glad, for thine enemies have ceased to be. Thy two Sisters are nigh unto thee; they guard thy bier, they address thee with words [full of] tears as thou liest prone on thy bier. Look thou at the young women; speak to us, O our Sovereign Lord. Destroy thou all the misery that is in our hearts; the chiefs among gods and men look upon thee. Turn thou towards us thy face, O our Sovereign Lord. At the sight of thy face life cometh to our faces; turn not thou thy face from us. The joy of our heart is in the sight of thee. O Beautiful Sovereign, our hearts would see thee. I am thy sister Nephthys who loveth thee. The fiend Seba hath fallen, he hath not being. I am with thee, and I act as the protectress of thy members for ever and ever."
The second work, the "Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys," was sung during the great festival of Osiris, which took place in the fourth month of the Season of Akhet and lasted five days (from the twenty-second to the twenty-sixth day). It was sung by two virgins who wore fillets of sheep's wool on their heads, and held tambourines in their hands; one was called Isis and the other Nephthys. According to the rubrical directions given in the British Museum papyrus, the sections were sung by both women together. The following passage will illustrate the contents of the work:
"Come, come, run to me, O strong heart! Let me see thy divine face, for I do not see thee, and make thou clear the path that we may see thee as we see Rā in heaven, when the heavens unite with the earth, and cause darkness to fall upon the earth each day. My heart burneth as with fire at thy escape from the Fiend, even as my heart burneth with fire when thou turnest thy side to me; O that thou wouldst never remove it from me! O thou who unitest the Two Domains (i.e. Egypt, North and South), and who turnest back those who are on the roads, I seek to see thee because of my love for thee.... Thou fliest like a living being, O Everlasting King; thou hast destroyed the fiend Anrekh. Thou art the King of the South and of the North, and thou goest forth from Tatchesert. May there never be a moment in thy life when I do not fill thy heart, O my divine brother, my lord who goest forth from Aqert.... My arms are raised to protect thee, O thou whom I love. I love thee, O Husband, Brother, lord of love; come thou in peace into thy house.... Thy hair is like turquoise as thou comest forth from the Fields of Turquoise, thy hair is like unto the finest lapis-lazuli, and thou thyself art more blue than thy hair. Thy skin and body are like southern alabaster, and thy bones are of silver. The perfume of thy hair is like unto new myrrh, and thy skull is of lapis-lazuli."
The third work, "The Book of making splendid the Spirit of Osiris," was also sung at the great festival of Osiris that took place during the November-December at Abydos and other great towns in Egypt, and if it were sung on behalf of any man, the resurrection and life, constantly renewed, of that man were secured for his soul and spirit. This Book, written in hieratic, is found in a papyrus in Paris, and the following extract will illustrate its contents: "Come to thy house, come to thy house, O An. Come to thy house, O Beautiful Bull, lord of men and women, the beloved one, the lord of women. O Beautiful Face, Chief of Akert, Prince, Khenti Amentiu, are not all hearts drunk through the love of thee, O Un-Nefer, whose word is truth? The hands of men and gods are lifted up and seek thee, even as the hands of a babe are stretched out to his mother. Come thou to them, for their hearts are sad, and make them to rejoice. The lands of Horus exult, the domains of Set are overthrown because of their fear of thee. Hail, Osiris Khenti Amentiu! I am thy sister Isis. No god and no goddess have done for thee what I have done. I, a woman, made a man child for thee, because of my desire to make thy name to live upon the earth. Thy divine essence was in my body, I brought him forth on the ground. He pleaded thy case, he healed thy suffering, he decreed the destruction of him that caused it. Set fell under his knife, and the Smamiu fiends of Set followed him. The throne of the Earth-god is thine, O thou who art his beloved son.... There is health in thy members, thy wounds are healed, thy sufferings are relieved, thou shalt never groan again in pain. Come to us thy sisters, come to us; our hearts will live when thou comest. Men shall cry out to thee, and women shall weep glad tears, at thy coming to them.... The Nile appeareth at the command of thy mouth; thou makest men to live on the effluxes that proceed from thy members, and thou makest every field to flourish. When thou comest that which is dead springeth into life, and the plants in the marshes put forth blossoms. Thou art the Lord of millions of years, the sustainer of wild creatures, and the lord of cattle; every created thing hath its existence from thee. What is in the earth is thine. What is in the heavens is thine. What is in the waters is thine. Thou art the Lord of Truth, the hater of sinners, whom thou overthrowest in their sins. The Goddesses of Truth are with thee; they never leave thee. No sinful man can approach thee in the place where thou art. Whatsoever appertaineth to life and to death belongeth to thee, and to thee belongeth everything that concerneth man."
During the period of the occupation of Egypt by the Romans, the three last-named works were still further abridged, and eventually the texts that were considered essential for salvation were written upon small sheets of papyrus from 9 to 12 inches high, and from 5 to 10 inches wide.