CHAPTER XXXIV

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_Chapter whereby a person is not devoured by the dweller in the shrine._(1.)

O Uræus! I am the Flame which shineth, and which openeth out eternity,(2.) the column of Tenpua(3.) [_otherwise said_—the column on which are blossoming plants.]

Away from me! I am the Lynx goddess.(4.)

NOTES.

1. It is not possible to say what is here actually meant by ⁂⁂⁂ _ḥat._ Every word almost in this tiny chapter was a puzzle to the Egyptian scribes, who altered the text in a hundred ways. The Turin text provides against the persons being _bitten by the Eater of the head_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, instead of ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ as even Bekenrenef has it.

2. _Open out Eternity_ ⁂⁂⁂⁂. This is the oldest and most approved reading even in later times. But in _Pe_ the flame ‘shineth on the brow of the Glorified ones.’

3. A quite unknown deity and most probably a mere blunder. The MS. which contains it, _Ca_, suggests another reading _Tenpua_ with ⁂, the determinative of _plants_. This not proving satisfactory, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ _renpit_ was substituted. But all this was mere conjectural emendation.

4. _The Lynx goddess_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂ Maftit. The name of this deity is generally translated Lynx, and it is certainly applied to an animal of the feline species closely resembling the cat. But the notion expressed by the name is that of _swift speed_ ⁂⁂⁂⁂. (See Dümichen, _Rec._ IV, 100, where this verb is in parallel with others of the same sense.)

This deity is again mentioned in the 39th chapter as taking part in the conflict with the dragon of darkness, and it is named in the strange magic formulæ already found in the Pyramid texts. She is called ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ (Teta 310), and she apparently defends the deceased (_ib._, l. 303) against two serpent divinities, one of whom at least, ⁂⁂⁂ _T’eser-ṭepu_ (_praeclaro capite_), is known to us as one of the forty-two assessors of Osiris (_Todtenbuch_, 125-33).

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