Chapter 26

) is only one of the readings of this doubtful text.

39. _Disasters_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ bad luck, misfortune. See my note on this word, _T.S.B.A._, II, p. 313.

40. _Grasshoppers_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. The similar word סלעם, which only occurs in Lev. xi, 22, does not appear to be Semitic. It is a sufficiently familiar word in Egyptian to serve as a term in comparison, ‘as plentiful as grasshoppers.’

41. The text here is quite uncertain. The Turin _Todtenbuch_ has “the fourth hour of the Night and the eighth hour of the Day,” which does not agree with any early reading. _Cd._ has “the fourth hour of the Night and of the Day.” Several papyri have the “second hour of the Night and the third ⁂⁂⁂ of the Day.” It was in this passage, as written in B.M. 9904, that, in the year 1860, I found the phonetic value of the Egyptian number 3: a discovery first ascribed by Brugsch[134] to Goodwin, and afterwards by others to Brugsch himself.

42. _The hearts of the gods are appeased_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. _Cf._ ⲛⲁⲓ, ἱλάσκεσθαι, and ⲛⲁⲏⲧ, ἐλεήμων, οἰκτίρμων. This explains Pap. Prisse XVII, 6 ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.

43. _Let him come._ ⁂⁂⁂ is a tolerably certain reading, but it is not possible to say what should be the word preceding this. The scribes have written ‘there he cometh,’ ‘we grant that he come,’ ‘I grant,’ ‘let him be brought in,’ and the like.

44. _He who groweth under the Grass_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.

45. _A thigh_, ⁂⁂⁂, also written ⁂⁂.

46. _See the greetings_: φωνῇ γαρ ὁρῶ, τὸ φατιζόμενον, _Oedip. Col._ 138.

47. _The Leaf_, ⁂⁂⁂.

48. _Pointer_ [or _Plummet_] _of Truth_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.

49. _The Scale Pan_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂.

50. _The Dragon Brood_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂.

51. _The Truncheon of Hathor_, ⁂⁂⁂ does not appear to be a very familiar word to the scribes, who write it in the most diverse ways possible; one of them even understanding it as the ‘opening of heaven’ ⁂⁂. All that we can say is that the word is shown by its determinative to be of _wood_, and by its etymology (_cf._ ⁂⁂, ⁂) to serve for _striking_, _blinding_, or _slaying_. Some of the texts name Hathor, and others Nephthys. The sign ⁂ occurs in both names, and the scribes have read the rest of the name as best they could.

52. _He who knoweth the heart and exploreth the person_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. This is so exactly the equivalent of “Searching the heart and trying the reins” of Jeremiah (xvii, 10), that we might have expected to find something like it in the Coptic version of the Bible. But there we have nothing but a close adherence to the sense of the Septuagint, and even to such a word as δοκιμάζειν.

53. _Who provideth for._ ⁂⁂⁂ is the equivalent of the Greek φρονεῖν in the inscription of Tanis, and of μέριμνα in the Demotic text of the verses of Moschion. The Coptic form is ⲙⲉⲩⲓ, ⲙⲉⲉⲩⲉ, which stands for φρονεῖν in Phil. iv, 10, “Your _care_ of me, wherein ye also were _careful_.”

Thoth is thus represented as the divine Providence, which takes care of the universe. The same view is found in a text at Edfu.

54. _The Eye_ of Horus; see latter part of Note 2, of this chapter.

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Footnote 111:

Apparently suggested by the scene in the tomb of Hor-em-heb (see _Denkm._, III, 78), in the time of Amenophis III. (Plate XXXII, fig. 15.)

Footnote 112:

The picture of the Babe lifted up into the upper world by two divinities speaks for itself. Of the birth of the Sun as the Winged Scarab at the beginning of the first hour of the day, M. Maspero, in his description of the text, says: “Il est salué à ton apparition par les huit ... ‘les esprits d’Orient, dieux du ciel, des terres, des pays étrangers, de la montagne d’horizon orientale qui est On.’”

Footnote 113:

This is the principle by which to judge the cases of the _Facing-backward_ god ⁂⁂⁂⁂ serpentine, or crocodile ⁂⁂⁂, and of Uammeta ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, against both of whom a passage of the ‘Book of Hades’ (Bonomi, _Sarc._, pl. II A) has been quoted. The book, of course, is of inferior authority to the ‘Book of the Dead,’ but in any case it must be remembered that these names, as appellatives, are _common_ nouns (_Uammeta_ is in the _plural_ number in the passage in question), and may simply mean _Serpents_. Sutu is called by the first of these names at Edfu (_Zeitschr._, 1871, p. 108). But even at Dendera (Lanzone, _Diz._, pl. 173, 1) this ‘god of serpent face’ is ‘disastrous to the Sebau,’ the enemies of Osiris and Rā, and is therefore not one of them. His soul is invoked like those of all the great gods in the royal tombs.

Footnote 114:

The ⁂ is not to be read _fi_ or _fy_. The sign ⁂ is merely the ideogram of the number 2, like the letter ⲃ in Coptic. The belief in an Egyptian dual with ⁂ as a final syllable is an illusion, though a very pardonable one, of our grammarians.

Footnote 115:

Or _Vultures_. _See_ M. Gayet’s _Temple de Luxor_, Pl. xliii, fig. 127, where the Bird at each end of the picture holds ⁂ in its claw. And note the tabernacles (a very frequent picture) where a winged goddess bearing the ⁂ kneels on either side of the solar scarab.

Footnote 116:

Or as it is said in other words (Teta, 172; Pepi I, 130; Pepi II, 107, and Merenra, 152), “Seb hath brought to thy side thy two sisters, Isis and Nephthys.”

Footnote 117:

A very conceivable, because a very frequent, one.

Footnote 118:

“His sons were kept in prison, till they grew Of years to fill a bowstring or a throne.”

Footnote 119:

To quote only well known cases, we have ‘the massacre of the princes,’ involving the two uncles and seven cousins of the Emperor Constantius, and those of our own King John and Richard III.

Footnote 120:

The legislation of Solon is said by Diogenes Laertius (who is however contradicted by notorious evidence) to have excluded from the position of guardian anyone who had the right of succession to the ward’s estate. And this was also the law of England with reference to guardians in socage. In France the next in succession had the charge of the estate, but was excluded from the custody of the person of the ward.

Footnote 121:

The true sense of the name has been missed by Birch, who reads it Teti, and by Brugsch, who reads it “Chonti, der Anfängliche.” At Beb-el-moluk it is written ⁂⁂⁂.

Footnote 122:

_D. Aegyptische Elle_, Taf. 1 and 2.

Footnote 123:

_Cf._ the forms ⁂`⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂ and ⁂⁂⁂⁂ (Naville, _Litanies_, pp. 55, 83, and the corresponding texts) of one of the Solar names.

Footnote 124:

On the other hand in the standard ⁂ of Dendera, the Crocodile is Sut, and the Feather upon his head is Osiris.

Footnote 125:

Her son Horus inherited these gifts. He is invoked (_Metternich Stele_, line 106), ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.

Footnote 126:

Rechmarā filled this office shortly before this, in the time of Thothmes III, and the inscriptions of his tomb give interesting information of the duties discharged. His clerks are praised for the virtue of discretion (18th Precept). Each heard the reports read by others, but without troubling himself with what did not concern him. See next note.

Footnote 127:

This office is often referred to by Greek writers as existing in the Persian hierarchy. Pseudartabas, the ‘King’s Eye,’ is one of the Dramatis Personæ in the _Acharnians_ of Aristophanes. Herodotus (1, 114) tells how Cyrus being chosen king by his playfellows, selected his principal officers, and one among the boys to be the ‘King’s Eye.’ Aeschylus does not forget in his _Persae_ (line 976) to make the Chorus bewail the loss of the King’s faithful Eye.

The most ancient personage who is known to me as the ‘King’s Eye’ in Egypt is Antuf, whose tablet (of the 12th dynasty) is in the Louvre (C. 26). His duties are detailed on this magnificent tablet, and they are very similar to those of Rechmarā. He is described not only as the King’s Eyes which see, but ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ the “Tongue which speaks, of the lord of the Palace.”

Footnote 128:

⁂⁂ in cursive writing might be mistaken for ⁂⁂ or for ⁂⁂, and the scribe, to show his learning, might interpolate the ⁂, but even this might be an error for ⁂.

Footnote 129:

The determinatives in ⁂⁂, ⁂⁂, express the sense of _division_, διαμελισμός, and the insect (a scolopendron) in ⁂⁂ exhibits the very notion which has given rise to the Latin _insecta_ and the Greek ἔντομον

Footnote 130:

For more particular details, see P.S.B.A., viii, p. 245, and following.

Footnote 131:

Ἀκούειν τι τοῦ λόγου, παρακούειν δε: _Ethic. Nich._, viii. 7.

Footnote 132:

There is no such god as _Min_ or _Minu_, except as an abbreviated (or perhaps primitive) _orthographic_ form of _Amon_. ⁂⁂⁂ and ⁂⁂ bear to ⁂⁂⁂ exactly the same relationship that ⁂⁂, ⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂, have to ⁂⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂ and ⁂⁂⁂⁂.

Neither _Amen_ nor the shorter form can be the phonetic equivalent of ⁂. The image of Horus with the Flail at Edfu is described (J. de Rougé, pl. C. III) as ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, _Horus as Amsu-Amen_, and I have elsewhere quoted from _Tempel insch._, I, 32, the ⁂⁂⁂ _Amsu- Men_ [or _Amen_] as well as ⁂⁂ _Amsu Horus_.

Footnote 133:

The Luynes papyrus reads ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, which affords good reason for thinking that in