During the last days of his life, the lamented Sir Peter Le Page Renouf, foreseeing that he would not be able to reach the goal he had been striving to attain, the completion of his translation of the Book of the Dead, expressed the wish that the writer of these lines should continue and complete his work. I did not feel at liberty to go against the desire of the eminent master, who had done me the honour to choose me as his successor, and to leave unfinished a work which he had kept in view all his life long, and which he considered to be the choicest fruit of his Egyptological researches.
But I had hardly set myself to the task, when I realised the difficulties which were in my way. It is never easy, even for a translator, to put himself into the place of another, to enter fully into his views, to reconstitute the conception he had formed of the book he had to interpret. To these difficulties must be added, that I had hardly any help with regard to that part of the book which Renouf has not published himself. Renouf, like many eminent scholars, had his learning chiefly in his head; his notes are very scanty, mere scraps without any methodical order. There is not a line of written translation left, beyond what he printed himself. Thus, for the translation of the following chapters, I was entirely dependent on the part already published, and I had constantly to refer to those chapters, in order to know the sense which Renouf would have given to words and sentences I came across in the course of my work.
I endeavoured as much as I could, to translate as Renouf would have done. Whenever it was possible, I used his words or his readings, though I did not always agree with them. I followed his choice of texts. He generally took the oldest one he had, which he frequently found in my edition. On the whole I tried to continue the work on the lines which Renouf himself adopted. Thus it cannot be said absolutely that this translation is my work; Egyptological scholars will soon recognize what is mine, and the interpretations for which I am not responsible. I beg the reader to look at my work in this light, and to remember that at present any translation of the Book of the Dead is tentative and provisional, and liable, with the progress in our knowledge of Egyptian, to undergo considerable changes. Nevertheless, I hope that this joint work will not compare too unfavourably with the part done by my illustrious predecessor.
EDOUARD NAVILLE.
CHAPTER CXL.
The book read on the last day of Mechir, when the Eye is full on the last day of Mechir.
There rises a form which shines on the horizon. Atmu rises pouring out his dew, and the bright one who shines in the sky. The abode of the obelisk is in joy because of them, because they are complete. There are shouts of joy in the sanctuary and loud cheering fills the Tuat. They fall down before Atmu Harmachis. For His Majesty gave orders to the cycle of his followers. His Majesty ordered to give praise to the Eye, and behold, my flesh he gave it strength, and all my limbs are renewed, as soon as the order came out of the mouth of Rā.
His glorious Eye rests on its place on His Majesty in this hour of the night. When the fourth hour is accomplished, the world is joyous in the last day of Mechir, for the Majesty of the Eye is in the presence of the cycle of the gods, and His Majesty rises as from the beginning, with the Eye on his head as Rā Atmu.
The([1]) eyes of Shu, Seb, Osiris, Suti, Horus, Menthu, Ptah, Raneheh, Thoth, Chati, Nai, Eternity, Necht, Mert, the land, he who is born by himself. After the computation of the eye has been made in the presence of this god, and when it is full and completed, all these gods are joyous on that day, they who were silent;([2]) and behold there is a festival made to every god; and they say: hail to thee, praise from Rā, the boatmen tow his boat, Apepi is struck down. Hail to thee, praise from Rā who causes the form of Chepera to exist; hail to thee, praise from Rā, there is joy in him, his enemies are conquered; hail to thee, praise from Rā, who has repelled the chiefs of the sons of the rebellion. Acclamation to thee and praise to Osiris N.