"Said by the Majesty of Râ to this goddess: 'Libations shall be made to her at each of the festivals of the new year, under the superintendence of my priestesses.'
"Hence it comes that libations are made under the superintendence of the priestesses of Hathor by all men since the ancient days."
Nevertheless, some men have escaped the destruction commanded by Râ, and renewed the population of the earth. As for the solar god who reigns over the world, he feels himself old, sick and weary; he has had enough of living among men, whom he regrets not to have completely annihilated, but has sworn henceforth to spare.
"Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'There is a smarting pain that torments me; what is it then that hurts me?' Said by the Majesty of Râ: 'I am living, but my heart is weary of being with them [men], and I have in no way destroyed them. That destruction is not one that I have made myself.'
"Said by the gods who accompany him: 'Away with lassitude, thou hast obtained all thou didst desire.'"
The god Râ decides, however, to accept the help of the men of the new human race who offer themselves to him to combat his enemies, and a great battle takes place, out of which they come victorious. But in spite of this success the god, disgusted with earthly life, resolves to quit it for ever, and has himself carried into heaven by the goddess Nut, who takes the form of a cow. Then he creates a region of delight, the fields of Aalu, the Elysium of Egyptian mythology, which he peoples with stars. Entering into rest, he assigns to different gods the government of different parts of the world. Shu, who is to succeed him as king, is to administer celestial matters with Nut; Seb and Nun receive the charge of the things of earth and water. Finally, Râ, a sovereign who has voluntarily abdicated, goes to dwell with Thoth, his favourite son, on whom he has bestowed the superintendence of the under-world.
Such is this strange narrative, "in which," as M. Naville has well said, "in the midst of fantastic and often puerile inventions, we do nevertheless find the two terms of existence as understood by the ancient Egyptians. Râ begins with earth, and passing through heaven stops in the region of profundity, Ament, in which he apparently wishes to sojourn. This then is a symbolic and religious representation of life, which for every Egyptian—and especially for a royal conqueror—had to begin and end like the sun. This explains the chapter being inscribed in a tomb."
Hence it was the last portion of the narrative—which we can analyse but very briefly—the abdication of Râ and his retreat, first, in heaven, next in the Ament, a symbol of death which is to be followed by resurrection as the setting of the sun by its rising—it is this which constituted its interest in the conception of the doctrine of a future life, illustrated in the decoration of the interior of the tomb of Seti I. For our present purpose, on the contrary, it is the beginning of the story which constitutes its importance, it is that destruction of primal humanity by the gods of which no mention has been hitherto found elsewhere. Although the means of destruction employed by Râ are quite dissimilar, although he does not proceed by submersion but by a massacre in which the lion-headed goddess Tefnut or Sekhet, the dreadful form of Hathor, is the agent, the other sides of the story bear a sufficiently striking analogy to that of the Mosaic or Chaldean Deluge to show that it is the special and very individual form assumed in Egypt by that tradition. In both we have human corruption exciting divine wrath, and punished by a divinely ordained annihilation of the race, from which there escapes but a very small number destined to give birth to a new humanity. Finally, after the event an expiatory sacrifice appeases the celestial anger, and a solemn covenant is made between men and the deity, who swears never so to destroy them again. To me, the agreement of these principal features outweighs the divergence in detail. And we have also to observe how singularly akin is the part ascribed by the Egyptian priest to Râ with that assigned in the epic poem of Uruk to the god Bel, in the deluge of Khasisatra. The Egyptians believed, as did other nations, in the destruction of mankind; but as inundation meant for them prosperity and life, they changed the primitive tradition; the human race, instead of perishing by water, was otherwise exterminated; and the inundation—that crowning benefit to the valley of the Nile—became in their eyes the sign that the wrath of Râ was appeased.
V.
American Stories of the Flood.