Nevertheless the difficulties which Renouf enumerates are only partly removed. We are still very far from being able to give a final translation of the Book of the Dead, and I have no doubt that Renouf would repeat about his own work what he says of Dr. Birch’s translation, “Many parts of it, where most faithful to the original, must in consequence of that very fidelity be utterly unintelligible to an English reader.”
No doubt Renouf’s translation is a great step towards making the book more intelligible; still the reader may often stumble over sentences out of which it is hardly possible to make a reasonable sense, in spite of their grammatical correctness, and which at first sight will seem childish, not to say, with Renouf, “outrageous nonsense.” But we may say with certainty that they were not so to the old Egyptians. Under this extraordinary or even ridiculous garment may be hidden some very simple, or even elementary truths. Let us remember that we have not yet unravelled all the intricacies of the Egyptian mythology, which plays such an important part in the book. Moreover, we only begin now to understand how the Egyptians expressed abstract ideas. When we speak of passion, shame, remorse, hope, we have so thoroughly lost sight of the concrete element in these words, that we are apt to forget that originally they must have been metaphors, and that they must have expressed something striking the senses, and connected with the material world. An instance will illustrate the difficulty in this translation.
Chapter 112 relates how, owing to an imprudent request, Horus was the victim of Sutu, who inflicted a wound on his eye, which caused him great suffering, and the text adds:
