chapter 71
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6. _The god within the Tamarisk._ The rising sun under his various names is frequently represented as being in a tree or bush, which partly conceals him. This is a mythological way of treating the light cloud or mist which so commonly accompanies the sun’s first appearance. _Tamarisk_ is only a provisional translation of ⁂⁂⁂. The god Apuat, who is identical with Osiris, is said in the Pyramid Texts (_Unas_ 107, _Teta_ 66) to come forth from the ⁂⁂⁂.
7. _Who connecteth._ This I believe to be the sense of ⁂⁂⁂ if the next word is ⁂⁂. But the text is quite uncertain.
⁂⁂⁂ is a _rope_ or _cable_ (Bonomi, Sarc. II, c, 34), and like the Latin _copula_ or the Semitic חבל, حبل has the sense of _tie_, _bond_, _connection_.[63]
When the prince of Tennu (_Berlin Pap._ 1, line 31) proposed a family alliance to Senehat, he said to him ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ _lie-toi avec moi!_ And he gave him his daughter to wife.
In the expression ⁂⁂⁂⁂, _nefrit_ signifies _continuously_, _connectedly_, and the sense of _until_ is only completed by the addition of the preposition ⁂.
Instead of ⁂⁂ ‘the Solar orb,’ some MSS. read ⁂⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂, or ⁂⁂⁂ and in each of these cases ⁂⁂ must be understood as an adjective raised to the comparative degree by the preposition ⁂: “More beautiful [my] splendour (colour, hair or veil) than Yesterday.” None of these readings seem very attractive.
8. Here follows the identification of the limbs of the deceased person with those of various gods. There are many similar texts belonging to all the periods of the Egyptian religion. For the Pyramid Texts, _see e.g. Unas_, line 218 &c., _ib._ line 570, &c., _Pepi I_, line 565, &c. Compare the _Coffin of Amamu_, pl. XXIV, line 11, &c., Naville, _Litanie de Râ_, p. 96, and Golenischeff, _Metternichstele_, lines 9-35.
9. _Strength_ ⁂⁂⁂⁂, literally a _wall_ or _tower_, like the מגדל־עז of Ps. XI, 4.
10. ⁂⁂⁂ ‘continuously, continuously.’
11. The interjection ⁂⁂ seems to imply that a second person is addressed. The passage would otherwise be translated, “I have set myself in motion,” which would be more consistent with the doctrine contained in this chapter.
12. All the more recent copies have ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, the Sanctuary of Ptah at Memphis.
13. _Âbaba-k ṭer-ek._ This is only one of the readings of a formula which had soon become utterly unintelligible to the copyists. Hieratic copies like _Louvre_ 3079, published by M. de Rougé, B.M. 10,257 (Rollin) and Leyden, T. 16, record several conjectural emendations, to which modern scholars might add others, were they so disposed.
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Footnote 61:
Another reading is Unneferu.
Footnote 62:
See note 1 on chapter 28 .
Footnote 63:
“حبل non modo _funem_, sed et in Alcorano saepe _foedus_ significat.” Gesenius, _Thesaur in voc._ חבל.
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