Egyptian Literature / Comprising Egyptian tales, hymns, litanies, invocations, the Book of the Dead, and cuneiform writings

Previous

A Hymn To The Setting Sun

Hymn And Litany To Osiris

Litany

Hymn To R?

Hymn To The Setting Sun

Hymn To The Setting Sun (2)

The Chapter Of The Chaplet Of Victory

The Chapter Of The Victory Over Enemies.

The Chapter Of Giving A Mouth To The Overseer

The Chapter Of Giving A Mouth To Osiris Ani

Opening The Mouth Of Osiris

The Chapter Of Bringing Charms To Osiris

The Chapter Of Memory

The Chapter Of Giving A Heart To Osiris

The Chapter Of Preserving The Heart

The Chapter Of Preserving The Heart (2)

The Chapter Of Preserving The Heart (3)

The Chapter Of Preserving The Heart (4)

The Heart Of Carnelian

Preserving The Heart

Preserving The Heart (2)

Preserving The Heart (3)

Rubric

Beating Back The Crocodile

Beating Back The Crocodile (2)

Repulsing Serpents

Against Snakes

Against Serpents

Driving Away Apshait

Driving Back The Merti

Living By Air

Living By Air (2)

Driving Back Rerek

Repulsing The Eater Of The Ass

Abolishing The Slaughterings

Abolishing The Slaughterings (2)

Air And Water

Dominion Over Elements

Dominion Over Elements (2)

Dominion Over Elements (3)

Preservation Of The Soul

Of Drinking Water

Of Drinking Water (2)

Preservation From Scalding

On Coming Forth By Day

Chapter Of Knowledge

Of Gaining Mastery Over Enemies

Victory Over Enemies

Coming Forth By Day

Opening The Underworld

Coming Forth By Day (2)

Coming Forth By Day (3)

Coming Forth By Day (4)

Coming Forth By Day (5)

Coming Forth By Day (6)

Of Lifting Up The Feet

Of Journeying To Annu

Of Transformation

Of Performing Transformations

Of Transformation Into A Hawk

Of Transformation Into A Governor

Of Transformation Into A God

Transformation Into A Lotus

Transformation Into A Lotus (2)

Transformation Into Ptah

Transformation Into A Bennu Bird

Transformation Into A Heron

Of The Living Soul

Of The Swallow

The Serpent Sata

Of The Crocodile

Soul And Body

Of Evil Recollections

Of Rescue

Of Opening The Tomb

Of Not Sailing To The East

Of The Ink-Pot And Palette

Of Being Nigh Unto Thoth

Of Being Nigh Unto Thoth (2)

Of Bringing A Boat Along In Heaven

Of Bringing The Makhent Boat

Of Entering The Boat Of Ra

Of Protecting The Boat Of Ra

Of Going Into The Boat Of Ra

Of Knowing The Souls Of The East

Of Sekhet-Hetepet

Of Knowing The Souls Of Pe

Of Knowing The Souls Of Nekhen

Of Knowing The Souls Of Khemennu

Of Coming Forth From Heaven

Of Knowing The Souls Of Khemennu (2)

Of Receiving Paths

Of Coming Forth From Re-Stau

Of Coming Forth From Re-Stau (2)

Of Going About In The Underworld

Of Entering Into The Great House

Of Entering The Presence

The Introduction To Maati

The Introduction To Maati (2)

The Negative Confession

Address To The Gods Of The Underworld

Of The Hour Apes 109

Of The Praise Of The Gods

Adoration Of The Gods Of The Qerti

Hymn Of Praise To Osiris

Of Making Perfect The Khu

Of Living Nigh Unto Ra

Of Bringing Men Back To Earth

Of Making Perfect The Khu (2)

Of Making Perfect The Khu (3)

For The New Moon

Of Travelling In The Boat Of Ra

Of Making Perfect The Khu (4)

Sailing In The Great Boat

Of The Four Flames

The Taking Of Joppa

The Doomed Prince

Anpu And Bata

Setna And The Magic Book

Tales Of The Magicians

The Peasant And The Workman

The Shipwrecked Sailor

The Adventures Of Sanehat

The Hittite Invasion Of Damascus

The Amorite Treachery

The War In Phoenicia

Northern Palestine

Southern Palestine

Royal Letters

The Great Tablet Of Rameses II At Abu-Simbel

Translated by Edouard Naville

Hymn To Osiris

(Stele of Amen-em-ha, Eighteenth Dynasty)

Translated by M. Franaeois Chabas

Travels Of An Egyptian In The Fourteenth Century B.C.

From a Papyrus in the British Museum

Translated by M. F. Chabas and M. C. W. Goodwin

Dirge Of Menephtah

Translated by S. Birch, LL.D.

Hymn To The Nile

Translated by Rev. F. C. Cook

The Solemn Festal Dirge Of The Egyptians

Translated by C. W. Goodwin, M.A.

Hymns To Amen

Translated by C. W. Goodwin, M.A. (2)

Hymn To Pharaoh

The Song Of The Harper

Translated by Ludwig Stern

Hymn To Amen-Ra

Translated by C. W. Goodwin, M.A. (3)

Hymn To Ra-Harmachis

Translated by E. L. Lushington, LL.D., D.C.L.

The Lamentations Of Isis And Nephthys

Translated by P. J. De Horrack

The Litany Of Ra

Translated by Edouard Naville (2)

The Book Of Respirations

Translated by P. J. De Horrack (2)

Section 1.

Section 2.

Section 3.

Section 4.

Section 5.

Egyptian Literature

Comprising

Egyptian Tales,

Hymns, Litanies, Invocations,

The Book Of The Dead,

And

Cuneiform Writings

Edited And With A Special Introduction By

Epiphanius Wilson, A.M.

New York And London

The Co-Operative Publication Society

Copyright, 1901

The Colonial Press


Contents

The wonders of Egyptian archÆology are the latest and most precious harvest of scholars and explorers. From Belzoni to Flinders Petrie there has been a succession of discoveries in the valley of the Nile with which it is hard for ordinary students to keep pace. Our knowledge of Egyptian life to-day is far clearer and more complete than Bentley's or Porson's acquaintance with the antiquities of Greece and Rome, and we have far more complete access to the treasures of Egyptian literature than Dante or Thomas Aquinas had to the remains of Attic poets and mystics. We know exactly how an Egyptian of the twelfth dynasty dressed; what was the position of women in Egypt; and what uniform was worn by the Egyptian soldiers who took part in the campaign against Khitasis. We can see Rameses II riding in his war-chariot; we know the very names of the horses by whose side his tame lion is running and thirsting for the blood of his master's foes. We know all about the domestic animals, the funeral customs, the trades, the gods, the agriculture of the Nile valley thirty centuries ago. We see the whole many-sided civilization portrayed in the brightest colors in the poetry, the books of ritual, the hieratic inscriptions, the tablets, papyri, and hieroglyphics which day by day come to light in exhaustless abundance from the mounds and ruins of that fertile plain that stretches from Thebes to the Mareotic lake.

For instance, we can learn exact particulars about the mode in which Rameses II made war, from the poem of Penta-Our, a Theban writer of the fourteenth century b.c. It is only by a figure of speech that this poem can be called an epic; it is rather a historical narrative couched in terms of poetic exaggeration with the object of flattering the royal vanity of Pharaoh.

The campaign in which Rameses then engaged was directed [pg iv] against Kadesh, a city built on an island in the Orontes. It is, according to Penta-Our, inhabited by a people known as Khita, whose spies are brought into the tent of Rameses and questioned as to the whereabouts of the King of Kadesh. The spies are forced by blows to answer, and they tell the Egyptian monarch that the King of the Khita “is powerful with many soldiers, and with chariot soldiers, and with their harness, as many as the sand of the seashore, and they are ready to fight behind Kadesh.”

The King is very angry; for he had been deceived by false news to the effect that his enemy had fled in terror to Khilibu. “The fault is great,” he cries, “that the governors of the land and the vassal princes of Pharaoh have committed, in neglecting to watch the movements of the Khita.” He sends to bring back the legions he had sent away, and meanwhile the approach of the enemy is announced. The camp of Rameses is surprised by the Asiatics; many foot-soldiers are killed before they can seize their weapons, but a faithful band rallies in front of the royal quarters. Suddenly a cry is heard; Rameses has quickly put on his armor, seized his lance, ordered his war lion to be loosed, and dashed into the fight. Pharaoh with his master of the horse, Menni, is soon hemmed in by foes. “My Lord, O generous King!” cries Menni, “Egypt's great protector in the day of battle! behold we stand alone in the midst of the enemy, for the archers and the chariots have left us. Let us return, that our lives may be saved. Save us, O my Lord, Rameses Miamun!” Then Rameses called upon Amen, his god, and under his protection charged the enemy, and “his hand devoured them in the space of an instant.” Five times he rushed upon them, and five times they repulsed him. The sixth time he breaks their ranks and regains his own lines. Then the legions of Ptah, which had returned to the camp, join the battle, and the Asiatics are routed. The first care of Rameses is to refresh his brave horses, Victory-in-Thebes and Maut-is-Satisfied. Neither they nor Rameses and his lion are wounded, though all stained with blood and dust, while the head-plumes of the team are torn and tattered and their caparison broken.

This is a brief account of the main incident in this Egyptian epic, which is written with life-like detail and animation. The [pg v] war concludes with a treaty, and the marriage of Rameses with the daughter of the King of Kadesh, so that henceforth “the people of Egypt were of one mind with the princes of Khita, which had not been the case since the god Rā.”

The Egyptians have always been deeply impressed by the fact of human mortality, and much of their religious belief and religious ritual is taken up with the rites of burial, and detailed doctrines as to the experience of the soul after parting from the body. Their elaborate embalming of the dead springs from the desire to keep the mortal tenement prepared for the soul's return to it. In their Book of the Dead is a full series of prayers, songs, and incantations to be employed at funerals, and by the individual in his journey beyond the tomb. The funeral procession was a very noisy company; lamentations were heard through its whole length, but the burden of the hymns was always, “To the West.” This was enlarged upon, “To the West, the dwelling of Osiris; O Chief, as thou goest to the West, the Gods themselves lament, as thou goest to the West.”

Osiris is the judge who weighs the souls, and allots them happiness or misery, according to their deserts. “The Book of the Dead” is interesting because it teaches how clearly and dogmatically the solemn and precise Egyptian stated his views and held his convictions concerning the unknown country. Four parts of man, it was said, survive after death, namely, the soul, the spirit, the shadow, and the double. The double remains in the tomb, and only leaves it in search of food. Sometimes it feels its loneliness and avenges itself upon near relations who have forsaken it. But the soul hurries to the bar of Osiris, where Thoth weighs the heart in the scales, and the innocent are admitted into the Field of Beans, a realm of fertility, where wheat grows seven cubits high. Immortality is spent in feasting, singing, conversation, and games. But the whole of this wonderful book is well worth studying. It shows how what Addison calls “this longing after immortality” led an ancient and deeply religious people to attempt in their burial rites to rob even the grave of its terrors, and conjured up out of the shadows of the tomb a clear and distinct vision of future life, wherein man in his complete individuality survived to all eternity.

[pg vi]

Among the most important results of recent Egyptian exploration must be reckoned the discovery of the tablets of Tell Amarna. Tell Amarna is a village in Upper Egypt, and in a pit at the foot of the mountain, at the base of which it stands, were discovered hundreds of these relics, which have since been distributed among the museums of London, Berlin, and Gizeh. The writing on these tablets is cuneiform, and the matter is of profound historic importance, illustrating, as it does, the relations between Egypt and western Asia in the fifteenth century b.c. While the existence of these tablets proves that cuneiform writing was common to Palestine and Syria as well as the Euphrates Valley, yet curiously enough the manuscripts of Tell Amarna are different from any of the same kind that have been found elsewhere, and the language resembles somewhat the Hebrew of the Old Testament.

While most of these tablets are letters and despatches from friendly powers in Syria, and from vassal princes in Palestine, others contain interesting legends. The letters are addressed to the Pharaohs known as Amenophis III and Amenophis IV, who reigned in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries b.c.

The Egyptians employed what practically were three alphabets—the hieroglyphic, the hieratic, and the demotic. The hieroglyph is a symbol, denoting something without letters or syllables; as, pictures of a bee stand for king. The hieratic handwriting was a transition from symbols to primitive letters; the papyrus reed, cut in slices and gummed together, was used as paper for this writing, much of which is very beautifully executed in black and red inks. These papyri are constantly being discovered, but perhaps the earliest “find” of importance was that at Thebes in 1846, when a number of literary compositions were brought to light which must have been executed during the twelfth dynasty, about twenty-five centuries b.c.

The Egyptian Tales are works written in a lighter vein than the literature we have already described. They will be read with delight, and none the less so because they show that the Egyptians, who are the Chinese of the Mediterranean, possess that saving quality in literary and political life, namely, a sense of humor.

(signed) Epiphanius Wilson

[pg 001]
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Clyx.com


Top of Page
Top of Page