acquainted. They went about among men and took a real personal interest in their affairs, and, according to tradition, they spared no pains in promoting their wishes and well-being. The

in all periods of Egyptian history regarded as the type of what a king should be. When men instead of gods reigned over Egypt they all delighted to call themselves sons of Rā, and every king believed that Rā was his true father, and regarded his mother's husband as his father only in name. This

ruction

the Great House in Heliopolis, where Rā would take counsel with them. In due course all the gods assembled in the Great House, and they ranged themselves down the sides of the House, and they bowed down in homage before Rā until their heads touched the ground, and said, "Speak, for we are listening." Then Rā addresing Nu, the father of the first-born gods, told him to give heed to what men were doing, for they whom he had created were murmuring against him. And he said, "Tell me what ye would do. Consider the matter, invent a plan for me, and I will not slay them until I have heard what ye shall say concerning this thing." Nu replied, "Thou, O my son Rā, art greater than the god who made thee (i.e. Nu himself), thou art the king of those who were created with thee, thy throne is establis

ether with some of the blood of those who had been slain by Hathor. The beer was then made, and seven thousand vessels were filled with it. When Rā saw the beer he ordered it to be taken to the scene of slaughter, and poured out on the meadows of the four quarters of heaven. The object of putting mandrakes (?) in the beer was to make those who

f retiring from the earth. He ascended into the heights of heaven, being still on the back of the Cow-goddess Nut, and he created there Sekhet-hetep and Sekhet-Aaru as abodes for the blessed, and the flowers that blossomed therein he turned into stars. He also created the millions of beings who lived there in order that they might praise him. The height to which Rā had ascended was now so great that the legs of the Cow-goddess on which he was enthroned trembled, and to give her strength he ordained that Nut should be held up in her position by the godhead and upraised arms of the god Shu. This is why we see pictures of the body of Nut being supported by Shu. The legs of the Cow-goddess were supported by the various gods, and thus the seat of the throne of Rā became stable. When this was done Rā caused the Earth-god Keb to be summoned to his presence, and when he came he spake to him about the v

nd of Rā

ell on the ground. One day Isis took some of the spittle and kneaded up dust in it, and made this paste into the form of a serpent with a forked tongue, so that if it struck anyone the person struck would find it impossible to escape death. This figure she placed on the path on which Rā walked as he came into heaven after his daily survey of the Two Lands (i.e. Egypt). Soon after this Rā rose up, and attended by his gods he came into heaven, but as he went along the serpent drove its fangs into him. As soon as he was bitten Rā felt the living fire leaving his body, and he cried out so loudly that his voice reached the uttermost parts of heaven. The gods rushed to him in great alarm, saying, "What is the matter?" At first Rā was speechless, and found himself unable to answer, for his jaws shook, his lips trembled, and the poison continued to run through every part of his body. When he was able to regain a little strength, he told the gods that some deadly creature had bitten him, something the like of which he had never seen, something which his hand had never made. He said, "Never before have I felt such pain; there is no pain

er. The season Shemmu began in

ile the poison of the serpent was coursing through the veins of Rā, and the enumeration of his works afforded the god no relief from it. Then Isis said to Rā, "Among all the things which thou hast named to me thou hast not named thy name. Tell me thy name, and the poison shall come forth from thee." Rā still hesitated, but the poison was burning in his blood, and the heat thereof was stronger than that of a fierce fire. At length he said, "Isis shall search me through, and my name shall come forth from my body and pass into hers." Then Rā hid himself from the gods, and for a season his throne in the Boat of Millions of Years was empty. When the time came for the he

nt Cow-godde

orm of

igures of Temu and Heru-Hekenu, who gave Rā his secret name, and over fig

rus of Behutet a

told Rā that the enemy were plotting against him, and Rā told him to go out and slay them. Horus took the form of a great winged disk, which flew up into the air and pursued the enemy, and it attacked them with such terrific force that they could neither see nor hear, and they fell upon each other, and slew each other, and in a moment not a single foe was left alive. Then Horus returned to the Boat of Rā-Harmakhis, in the form of the winged disk which shone with many colours, and said, "Advance, O Rā, and look upon thine enemies who are lying under thee in this land." Rā set out on the journey, taking with him the goddess Ashtoreth, and he saw his enemies lying on the ground, each of them being fettered. After looking upon his slaughtered foes Rā said to the gods who were with him, "Behold, let us sail in our boat on the water, for our hearts are glad because our enemies have been overthrown on the earth." So the Boat of Rā moved onwards towards the north, and the enemies of the god who were on the banks took the form o

iths had in their hands spears and chains, and they slew large numbers of them to the south-east of the town of Thebes in Upper Egypt. Many succeeded in escaping towards the north once more, but after pursuing them for a whole day Horus overtook them, and made a great slaughter among them. Meanwhile the other foes of the god, who had heard of the defeats of their allies, fled into Lower Egypt, and took refuge among the swamps of the Delta. Horus set out after the

, the god of evil, who dwelt in the Western Delta. Horus pursued them in his boat for one day and one night without seeing them, and he arrived at the town of Per-Rehui. At length he discovered the position of the enemy, and he and his followers fell upon them, and slew a large number of them; he capture

they might work their will on him. Here we must note that the ancient editor of the Legend has confounded Horus the ancient Sun-god with Horus, son of Isis, son of Osiris. Then Horus, the son of Isis, cut off the heads of Set and his followers in the presence of Rā, and dragged Set by his feet round about throughout the district with his spear driven through his head and back, according to the order of Rā. The form which Horus of Edfu had at that time was that of a man of great strengt

he middle o

stern Delta. Horus of Edfu, the winged disk, pursued them, speared them, and finally slew them in the presence of Rā. For the moment there were no more enemies of Rā to be found in the district on land, although Horus passed six days and six nights in looking for them; but it seems that several of the followers of Set in the forms of water reptiles were lying on the ground under water, and that Horus saw them there. At this time Horus had strict guard kept over the tomb of Osiris in Anrutef,[1] because he learned that the Smait fiends wanted to come and wreck both it and the body of the god. Isis, too, never ceased to recite spells and incantat

rict of He

who, no doubt, ate them. This was the last fight in the north of Egypt, and Rā proposed that they should sail up the river and return to the south. They had traversed all Egypt, and sailed over the lakes in the Delta, and down the arms of the Nile to the Mediterranean, and as no more of the enemy were to be seen the prow of the boat of Rā was turned southwards. Thoth recited the spells that produced fair weather, and said the words of power that prevented storms from rising, and in due course the Boat reached Nubia. When it arrived Horus found in the country of Uauatet men who were conspiring against him and cursing him, just as they had at one time blasphemed Rā. Horus, taking the form of the winged disk, and accompanied by the two serpent-goddesses, Nekhebet and Uatchet, attacked the rebels,

ames of certain towns and gods. All these are interpolations in the narrative made by scribes at a late period of Egyptian history. As it wou

hnemu and a Sev

nd of Elephantine. The Legend sets forth that the Viceroy of Nubia, in the reign of Tcheser, was a nobleman called Meter, who was also the overseer of all the temple properties in the South. His residence was in Abu, or Elephantine, and in the eighteenth year of his reign the king sent him a despatch in which it was written thus: "This is to inform thee that misery hath laid hold upon me as I sit upon the great throne, and I grieve for those who dwell in the Great House.[1] My heart is grievously afflicted by reason of a very great calamity, which is due to the fact that the waters of the Nile have not risen to their proper height for seven years. Grain is exceedingly scarce, there are no garden herbs and vegetables to be had at all, and everything which men use for food hath come to an end. Every man robbeth his neighbour. The people wish to walk about, but are unable to move. The baby waileth, the young man shuffleth along on his feet through weakness. The hearts of the old men are broken down with des

n Egyptian Per-aa, the "Great House," in whom an

magician of Memphis, who

art of

opolis, the t

e library o

he determineth to prolong life to mankind. It is called 'Netchemtchem ānkh.' Here are the 'Two Qerti,'[1] which are the two breasts wherefrom every good thing cometh. Here is the bed of the Nile, here the Nile-god reneweth his youth, and here he sendeth out the flood on the land. Here his waters rise to a height of twenty-eight cubits; at Hermopolis (in the Delta) their height is seven cubits. Here the Nile-god smiteth the ground with his sandals, and here he draweth the bolts and throweth open the two doors through which the water poureth forth. In this town the Nile-god dwelleth in the form of Shu, and he keepeth the account of the products of all Egypt, in order to give to each his due. Here are kept the cord for measuring land and the register of the estates. Here the god liveth in a wooden house with a door made of reeds, and branches of trees form the

which contained the

er thy body; I made thy members sound, and I gave thee thy heart. Yet the stones have been lying under the ground for ages, and no man hath worked them in order to build a god-house, to repair the [sacred] buildings which are in ruins, or to make shrines for the gods of the South and North, or to do what he ought to do for his lord, even though I am the Lord [the Creator]. I am Nu, the self-created, the Great God, who came into being in the beginning. [I am] Hep [the Nile-god] who riseth at will to give health to him that worketh for me. I am the Governor and Guide of all men, in all their periods, the Most Great, the Father of the gods, Shu, the Great One, the Chief of the earth. The two halves of heaven are my abode. The Nile is poured out in a stream by me, and it goeth round about the tilled lands, and its embrace produceth life for every one that breatheth, according to the extent of its embrace.... I will make the

nding before a statu

he cubits which the wate

he daily offering. Gold, ivory, ebony, spices, precious stones, and woods were tithed, whether their owners were Egyptians or not, but no local tribe was to levy duty on these things on their road to Abu. Every artisan also was to pay tithe, with the exception of those who were employed in the foundry attached to the temple, and whose occupat

f the Wander

make himself sole lord of Egypt, and, although no text states it distinctly, it is clear that he seized his brother's wife, Isis, and shut her up in his house. Isis was, however, under the protection of the god Thoth, and she escaped with her unborn child, and the following Legend describes the incidents that befell her, and the death and revivification of Horus. It is c

hree, Petet, Thetet, and Maatet, prepared the way for me. I charged them very carefully and adjured them to make no acquaintance with any one, to speak to none of the Red Fiends, to pay no heed to a servant (?), and to keep their gaze towards the ground so that they might show me the way. And their leader brought me to Pa-Sui, the town of the Sacred Sandals,[1] at the head of the district of the Papyrus Swamps. When I arrived at Teb I came to a quarter of the town where women dwelt. And a certain woman of quality spied me as I was journeying along the road, and she shut her door in my face, for she was afraid because of the Seven Scorpions that were with me. Then they took counsel concerning her, and they shot out their poison on the tail of Tefen. As for me, a peasant woman called Taha opened her doo

n the seventh nome of L

ands on the child an

ground. Ascend not into heaven, I command you by the beloved of Rā, the egg of the goose which appeareth from the sycamore. My words indeed rule to the uttermost limit of the night. I speak to you, O scorpions. I am alone and in sorrow, and our names will stink throughout the nomes.... The child shall live! The poison shall die! For Rā liveth and the poison dieth. Horus shall be saved through his mother Isis, and he who is stricken shall likewise be saved." Meanwhile the fire in the house of Us

nd that there was poison in it, and then taking him in her arms, "she leaped about with him like a fish that is put upon hot coals," uttering loud cries of lamentation. During this outburst of grief the goddess Nephthys, her sister, arrived, and she too lamented and cried bitterly over her sister's loss; with her came the Scorpion-goddess Serqet. Nephthys at once advised Isis to cry out for help to Rā, for, said she, it is wholly impossible for the Boat of Rā to travel across the sky whilst Horus is lying dead. Then Isis cried out, and made supplication to the Boat of Millions of Years, and the Sun-god stopped the Boat. Out of it came down Thoth, who was provided with powerful spells, and, going to Isis, he inquired concerning her trouble. "What is it, what is it, O Isis, thou goddess of spells, whose mouth hath skill to utter them with supreme effect? Surely no evil thing hath befallen Horus, for the Boat of Rā hath him under its protection. I have come from the Boat of the Disk to heal Horus." Then Thoth told Isis not to fear, but to put away all anxiety from her heart, for he had come to heal her child, and he told her that Horus was fully protected because he was the Dweller in his disk, and the firstborn son of heaven, and the Great Dwarf, and the Mighty Ram, and the Great Hawk, and the Holy Beetle, and the Hidden Body, and the Governor of the Other World, and the Holy Benu Bird, and by the spells of Isis and the names of Osiris and the weeping of his mother and brethren, and by his own name and heart. Turning towards the child Thoth began to recite his spells and said, "Wake up, Horus! Thy protection is established. Make thou happy the heart of t

-Nefer-Hetep and the

are supposed to have taken place at the end of the fourteenth century B.C., and there may indeed be historical facts underlying the Legend. The text states that the king of Egypt, Usermaātrā-setepenrā Rāmeses-meri-Amen, i.e. Rameses II, a king of the nineteenth dynasty about 1300 B.C., was in the country of Nehern, or Mesopotamia, according to his yearly custom, and that the chiefs of the country, even those of the remotest districts from Egypt, came to do homage to him, and to bring him gifts, i.e. to pay tribute. Their gifts consisted of gold, lapis-lazuli, turquoise, and costly w

portion of the east coast

he ground before His Majesty, he told him that he had come to present a petition to him on behalf of the Queen's sister, who was called Bentresht (i.e. daughter of joy). The princess had been attacked by a disease, and the Prince of Bekhten asked His Majesty to send a skilled physician to see her. Straightway the king ordered his magicians (or medicine men) to appear before him, and also his nobles, and when they came he told them that he had sent for them to come and hear the

g the Story o

t, Princess

d, who dost drive away the spirits who attack men. Bekhten is thine; its people, both men and women, are thy servants, and I myself am thy servant. I am going to depart to the place whence I came, so that thy heart may be content concerning the matter about which thou hast come. I beseech Thy Majesty to give the order that thou and I and the Prince of Bekhten may celebrate a festival together." The god Khensu bowed his head as a sign that he approved of the proposal, and told his priest to make arrangements with the Prince of Bekhten for offering up a great offering. Whilst this conversation was passing between the evil spirit and the god the soldiers stood by in a state of great fear. The Prince of Bekhten made the great offering before Khensu and the evil spirit, and the Prince and the god and the spirit rejoiced greatly. When the festival was ended the evil spirit, by the command of Khensu, "departed to the place which he loved." The Prince and all his people were immeasurably glad at the happy result, and he decided that he would consider the god to be a gift to him, and that he would not let him return to Egypt. So the god Khensu stayed for three years and nine months in Bekhten, but one day, whilst the Prince was sleeping on his bed, he had a vision in which he saw Khensu in the form of a hawk leave his shrine and mount up into the air, and then depart to Egypt. When he awoke he said to the priest of Khensu, "The god who was staying with us hath departed to Egypt; let his chariot also depart." And the P

OF CO