The Age of Personal Piety — Sacerdotalism and Final Decadence (Part 2)

[paragraph continues] "he has eaten the Red (crown), he has swallowed the Green" (Buto goddess of the North); 1 and in the hereafter he is crowned with the White (southern) Crown. 2 There too he receives the southern (Upper Egyptian) district of the blessed Field of Rushes, 3 and he descends to the southern district of the Field of Offerings. 4 As priest of Re in the hereafter the king has a libation jar "which purifies the Southland." 5 Finally, "it is king Unis who binds with lilies the papyrus (the two flowers of North and South); it is king Unis who reconciles the Two Lands; it is king Unis who unites the Two Lands." 6 It is evident therefore that the Pyramid Texts contain passages which date from before the union of the Two Lands, that is before the thirty-fourth century B.C.; and also others which belong to the early days of the union when the hostilities had not yet ceased, but the kings of the South were nevertheless maintaining control of the North and preserving the united kingdom. All these are written from the southern point of view. It should not be forgotten also that some of them were composed as late as the Old Kingdom itself, like the formulæ intended to protect the pyramid, 7 which of course are not earlier than the rise of the pyramid-form in the thirtieth century B.C. Within the period of a century and a half covered by our five copies also, differences are noticeable. Evidences of editing in the later copies, which, however, are not found in the earlier copies, are clearly discernible. The processes of thought and the development of custom and belief which brought them forth were going on until the last copy was produced in the early twenty-fifth century B.C. They therefore represent a period of at least a

thousand years, and a thousand years, it should not be forgotten, which was ended some four thousand five hundred years ago. Such a great mass of documents as this from the early world exists nowhere else and forms a storehouse of experience from the life of ancient man which largely remains to be explored.

While their especial function may be broadly stated to be to insure the king felicity in the hereafter, they constantly reflect, as all literature does, the ebb and flow of the life around them, and they speak in terms of the experience of the men who produced them, terms current in the daily life of palace, street, and bazaar, or again terms which were born in the sacred solitude of the inner temple. To one of quick imagination they abound in pictures from that long-vanished world of which they are the reflection. While they are concerned chiefly with the fortunes of the king, these do not shut out the world around. Of the happiness of the king beyond the grave it is said: "This that thou hast heard in the houses and learned in the streets on this day when king Pepi was summoned to life." 1 Of this life in the houses and on the streets of five thousand years ago we catch fleeting glimpses: the swallows twittering on the wall, 2 the herdman wading the canal immersed to his middle and bearing across the helpless young of his flock, 3 the crooning of the mother to her nursing child at twilight, 4 "the hawk seen in the evening traversing the sky," 5 the wild goose withdrawing her foot and escaping the hand of the baffled fowler in the marsh, 6 the passenger at the ferry with nothing to offer the boatmen for a seat in the crowded ferry-boat, but who is allowed to embark and work his passage wearily bailing the leaky craft; 7

the noble sitting by the pool in his garden beneath the shade of the reed booth; 1 these pictures and many others are alive with the life of the Nile-dweller's world. The life of the palace is more fully and picturesquely reflected than that of the world outside and around it. We see the king in hours heavy with cares of state, his secretary at his side with writing kit and two pens, one for black and the other for the red of the rubrics; 2 again we discern him in moments of relaxation leaning familiarly on the shoulder of a trusted friend and counsellor, 3 or the two bathe together in the palace pool and royal chamberlains approach and dry their limbs. 4 Often we meet him heading a brilliant pageant as he passes through the streets of the residence with outrunners and heralds and messengers clearing the way before him; 5 when he ferries over to the other shore and steps out of the glittering royal barge, we see the populace throwing off their sandals, and then even their garments, as they dance in transports of joy at his coming; 6 again we find him surrounded by the pomp and splendor of his court at the palace gate, or seated on his gorgeous throne, adorned with lions’ heads and bulls’ feet. 7 In the palace-hall "he sits upon his marvellous throne, his marvellous sceptre in his hand; he lifts his hand toward the children of their father and they rise before this king Pepi; he drops his hand toward them and they sit down (again)." 8 To be sure these are depicted as incidents of the life beyond the grave, but the subject-matter and the colors with which it is portrayed are drawn from the life here and the experience here. It is the gods who cast off their sandals and their raiment to dance for joy at the arrival of the king, as he crosses the heavenly

[paragraph continues] Nile; but they of course are depicted as doing that which the Pharaoh's subjects were accustomed to do along the earthly Nile. It is the gods who dry the Pharaoh's limbs as he bathes with the Sun-god in the "lake of rushes," but here too the gods do for the Pharaoh what his earthly chamberlains had been wont to do for him.

But notwithstanding the fact that these archaic texts are saturated with the life out of which they have come, they form together almost a terra incognita. As one endeavors to penetrate it, his feeling is like that of entering a vast primeval forest, a twilight jungle filled with strange forms and elusive shadows peopling a wilderness through which there is no path. An archaic orthography veils and obscures words with which the reader may be quite familiar in their later and habitual garb. They serve too in situations and with meanings as strange to the reader as their spelling. Besides these disguised friends, there is a host of utter strangers, a great company of archaic words which have lived a long and active life in a world now completely lost and forgotten. Hoary with age they totter into sight for a brief period, barely surviving in these ancient texts, then to disappear forever, and hence are never met with again. They vaguely disclose to us a vanished world of thought and speech, the last of the unnumbered æons through which prehistoric man has passed till he finally comes within hailing distance of us as he enters the historic age. But these hoary strangers, survivors of a forgotten age, still serving on for a generation or two in the Pyramid Texts, often remain strangers until they disappear; we have no means of making their acquaintance or forcing them to reveal to us their names or the message which they bear, and no art of lexicography can force them all to yield up their secrets. Combined with these

words, too, there is a deal of difficult construction, much enhanced by the obscure, dark, and elusive nature of the content of these archaic documents; abounding in allusions to incidents in lost myths, to customs and usages long since ended, they are built up out of a fabric of life, thought, and experience largely unfamiliar or entirely unknown to us.

We have said that their function is essentially to insure the king's felicity in the hereafter. The chief and dominant note throughout is insistent, even passionate, protest against death. They may be said to be the record of humanity's earliest supreme revolt against the great darkness and silence from which none returns. The word death never occurs in the Pyramid Texts except in the negative or applied to a foe. Over and over again we hear the indomitable assurance that the dead lives. "King Teti has not died the death, he has become a glorious one in the horizon"; 1 "Ho! King Unis! Thou didst not depart dead, thou didst depart living"; 2 "Thou hast departed that thou mightest live, thou hast not departed that thou mightest die"; 3 "Thou diest not"; 4 "This king Pepi dies not"; 5 "King Pepi dies not by reason of any king . . . (nor) by reason of any dead"; 6 "Have ye said that he would die? He dies not; this king Pepi lives forever"; 7 "Live! Thou shalt not die"; 8 "If thou landest (euphemism for "diest"), thou livest (again)"; 9 "This king Pepi has escaped his day of death"; 10—such is the constant refrain of these texts. Not infrequently the utterance concludes with the assurance: "Thou livest, thou livest, raise thee up"; 11 or "Thou diest not, stand up,

raise thee up"; 1 or "Raise thee up, O this king Pepi, thou diest not"; 2 or an appendix is added as a new utterance by itself: "O lofty one among the Imperishable Stars, thou perishest not eternally." 3 When the inexorable fact must be referred to, death is called the "landing" or the "mooring" as we have seen it above, 4 or its opposite is preferred, and it is better to mention "not living" than to utter the fatal word; 5 or with wistful reminiscence of lost felicity once enjoyed by men, these ancient texts recall the blessed age "before death came forth." 6

While the supreme subject of the Pyramid Texts is life, eternal life for the king, they are a compilation from the most varied sources. Every possible agency and influence was brought to bear to attain the end in view, and all classes of ancient lore deemed efficacious or found available for this purpose were employed by the priests who put together this earliest surviving body of literature. Speaking chronologically, there are strata here representing the different centuries for a thousand years or more as we have seen; but speaking in terms of subject-matter, we must change the figure and regard the Pyramid Texts as a fabric into which the most varied strands have been woven. Whether we make a vertical or a horizontal section, whether we cut across the fabric transversely or longitudinally these varied elements are exposed and contrasted. Cutting transversely we discover the varied constituents side by side, the strands of the warp running in most cases from end to end of the fabric; whereas when we cut longitudinally we disclose the changes due to time as the woof is wrought into the fabric. We shall make the transverse cut first and ascertain the character of the

constituent strands, without reference to the time element. Our question is, what is the content of the Pyramid Texts?

It may be said to be in the main sixfold:

1. A funerary ritual and a ritual of mortuary offerings at the tomb.

2. Magical charms.

3. Very ancient ritual of worship.

4. Ancient religious hymns.

5. Fragments of old myths.

6. Prayers and petitions on behalf of the dead king.

There is of course some miscellaneous matter and some which falls under several of the above classes at once. Taking up these six classes we find that the priestly editors have arranged their materials in sections often of some length, each section headed by the words: "Utter (or Recite) the words." Each such section has been called by Sethe in his edition a "Spruch," and we call them "Utterances." Of these the first of the five pyramids, that of Unis, contains two hundred and twenty-eight, while the others contain enough additional "Utterances" to make up a total of seven hundred and fourteen. In their modern published form, including the variants, they fill two quarto volumes containing together over a thousand pages of text. 1

With the exception of the funerary and offering ritual, which is at the head of the collection, and with which we have already dealt in the preceding lectures, the material was arranged by the successive editors almost at haphazard. If such an editor had the materials before him in groups he made no effort to put together groups of like content, but he copied as he happened to come upon his

sources. He must have had before him a series of ancient books, each containing a number of groups of Utterances falling into all six of the above classes, but he copied each book from beginning to end before he took up the next one. Thus it is that we find groups of charms, or prayers, or hymns devoted to the same subject embedded in various places widely separated, or distributed throughout the entire collection, without any attempt to bring them together.

There can be no doubt that a considerable portion of the Pyramid Texts were intended to be employed as charms. Some of these were used by the mortuary priest at the interment; others were wielded by the deceased himself in self-defence. "King Pepi is a magician, King Pepi is one who is possessed of magic," 1 say the texts. The dead are called "the glorious by reason of (or 'by means of') their equipped mouths," 2 meaning that their mouths are equipped with the charms, prayers, and ritual of the Pyramid Texts. It is evident that the dead king was supposed to employ magic power, and the agency of this power was the Pyramid Texts themselves. They are sometimes unequivocally called magical charms. "This charm that is in the belly of king Pepi is on him when he ascends and lifts himself to the sky" affirms one passage, 3 and the Utterance referred to is an accompanying list of the limbs of the king, which are thus protected. Again in a remarkable passage the ancient text insists: "It is not this king Pepi who says this against you, ye gods; it is the charm which says this against you, ye gods," 4 and "this" is the text of the accompanying Utterance. The possession of such charms was vitally important, so that a special charm was included to prevent the departed

[paragraph continues] Pharaoh from being deprived of his charm or his magical power. 1

The distinction between a charm and a prayer in these texts is difficult for the reason that a text of a character originally in no way connected or identified with magical formula may be employed as such. We find a Sun-hymn 2 called a "charm" in the Pyramid Texts. Again the archaic hymn to Nut, 3 a fragment of ancient ritual, is later employed as a household charm. 4 The question is not infrequently one of function rather than one of content. The serpent-charms are distinguishable as such in the Pyramid Texts at the first glance in most cases; but the question whether a hymn or a prayer may not be designed to serve as a charm is sometimes not easily decided. The question is an important one, because some have averred that the whole body of Pyramid Texts is simply a collection of magical charms, and that therefore the repetition of any Utterance was supposed to exert magical power. Such a sweeping statement cannot be demonstrated. An ancient hymn supposed to be repeated by the dead king, when it is accompanied by no express statement that it is a charm, may have served the same function with regard to the god to whom it is addressed, which it served in the ancient ritual from which it was taken; and because some such hymns have been inserted in charms is no sufficient reason for concluding that all such hymns in the Pyramid Texts are necessarily charms. The Pyramid Texts themselves are one of the most important documents in which we may observe the gradual invasion of mortuary religious beliefs by the power of magic, but when the last of the Pyramid Texts was edited

in the twenty-fifth century B.C. the triumph of magic in the realm of such beliefs was still a thousand years away.

Besides the funerary and offering ritual employed at the tomb, and besides the charms unquestionably present, there is then a large residuum of ancient religious literature, consisting of ritual of worship, religious hymns, fragments of old myths, and finally prayers on behalf of the dead (Nos 3, 4, 5, and 6, above). An Osirian Utterance in the Pyramid Texts 1 occurs over a thousand years later as part of the ritual at Abydos on the wall of the Atum chapel in the Seti temple of Osiris. There can be little doubt that it was temple ritual also in the Pyramid Age. It is not unlikely that the religious hymns embedded in this compilation, like the impressive Sun-hymn in Utterance 456, 2 or the archaic hymn to the Sky-goddess, 3 or the hymn to Osiris as Nile, 4 also belonged to temple rituals. In this case they fall in the same class with temple ritual and should not be made a class by themselves. In so far as the fragments of the old myths fall into poetic form they too are not distinguishable from the religious hymns. These fragments in most cases recite current incidents in which some god enjoys some benefit or passes through some desirable experience or attains some triumph, and the same good fortune is now desired for the deceased king. Many of them, as we have already seen, relate to matters which unhappily are unintelligible without a full knowledge of the myth from which they are drawn.

While the content of the Pyramid Texts may be thus indicated in a general way, a precise and full analysis is a far more difficult matter. The form of the literature contained

is happily more easily disposed of. Among the oldest literary fragments in the collection are the religious hymns, and these exhibit an early poetic form, that of couplets displaying parallelism in arrangement of words and thought—the form which is familiar to all in the Hebrew psalms as "parallelism of members." It is carried back by its employment in the Pyramid Texts into the fourth millennium B.C., by far earlier than its appearance anywhere else. It is indeed the oldest of all literary forms known to us. Its use is not confined to the hymns mentioned, but appears also in other portions of the Pyramid Texts, where it is, however, not usually so highly developed.

Besides this form, which strengthens the claim of these fragments to be regarded as literature in our sense of the term, there is here and there, though not frequently, some display of literary quality in thought and language. There is, for example, a fine touch of imagination in one of the many descriptions of the resurrection of Osiris: "Loose thy bandages! They are not bandages, they are the locks of Nephthys," 1 the weeping goddess hanging over the body of her dead brother. The ancient priest who wrote the line sees in the bandages that swathe the silent form the heavy locks of the goddess which fall and mingle with them. There is an elemental power too in the daring imagination which discerns the sympathetic emotion of the whole universe as the dread catastrophe of the king's death and the uncanny power of his coming among the gods of the sky are realized by the elements. "The sky weeps for thee, the earth trembles for thee" say the ancient mourners for the king, 2 or when they see him in imagination ascending the vault of the sky they say:

"Clouds darken the sky, The stars rain down, The Bows (a constellation) stagger, The bones of the hell-hounds tremble, The [porters] are silent, When they see king Unis, Dawning as a soul." 1

A fundamental question which arises as one endeavors to interpret these ancient documents is that of the method of employment. How were they used? In all likelihood the entire collection was recited by the mortuary priests on the day of burial. The entire offering ritual (including in the different pyramids one hundred and seventy-eight "Utterances") was furthermore recited on all feast days, and probably also on all other days. The fact that each "Utterance" is headed by the words "recite the words" also indicates this manner of employing them. A large proportion are personal equipment of the dead king to be recited by him as occasion demanded. This is shown by the curious fact that a number of long sections were in the first person originally, and were so engraved on the pyramid walls; but these passages were afterward altered to the third person, usually by the insertion of the king's name over the old personal pronoun. It is evident that many of the charms were designed for use by the dead, as when a Sun-hymn is accompanied by directions stating that the king is to employ it as a charm, which, if he knows it, will secure him the friendship of the Sun-god. 2 When the whole collection was recited by the priest he of course personified the king, in all passages where the king speaks in the first person, just as he personified so many of the gods who are depicted speaking and acting in these texts; but the fact that a large body

of texts address the dead king in the second person clearly shows that they were uttered by the priest or some one on the king's behalf. In one case the speaker is the living and still reigning king who offers eye-paint to his departed royal ancestor. 1

On one other question in this connection there can be no doubt. These mortuary texts were all intended for the king's exclusive use, and as a whole contain beliefs which apply only to the king. 2 This is not to say, however, that some archaic texts in use among the people have not here and there crept into the collection. To these may possibly belong the addresses to the dead as if buried in the desert sand, or a few others like simple serpent charms, or passages according the king hereafter a destiny not strictly peculiar to him and one which ordinary mortals already believed attainable by them. It is a significant fact that the nobles of the age made practically no use of the Pyramid Texts in their own tombs.

While the Pyramid Texts have not been able to shake off the old view of the sojourn at the tomb, they give it little thought, and deal almost entirely with a blessed life in a distant realm. Let it be stated clearly at the outset that this distant realm is the sky, and that the Pyramid Texts know practically nothing of the hereafter in the Nether World. Echoes of other archaic notions of the place of the dead have been preserved here and there.

[paragraph continues] The oldest doubtless is contained in that designation of the dead which claims ignorance as to their whereabouts, and calls them "those whose places are hidden." 1 Another ancient belief conceives the dead as somewhere in the distant "west," but this belief plays practically no part in the Pyramid Texts, and is discernible there only in an archaic title of the mortuary Anubis of Siut, who occasionally has appended to his name the words "First or Lord of the Westerners," 2 a designation which served as the name of an old mortuary god at Abydos, who was later identified with Osiris, and his name appropriated by him also occurs a number of times in the Pyramid Texts. 3 But the "west" hardly attains even a subordinate rôle in the beliefs which dominate the Pyramid Texts. We hear of it once as a means of gaining access to the Sun-god: "These thy four ways which are before the tomb of Horus, wherein one goes to the (Sun-) god, as soon as the sun goes down. He (the Sun-god) grasps thy arm. . . ." 4 In one passage, too, the dead is adjured to go to the "west" in preference to the east, in order to join the Sun-god, but in this very passage he appears as one whose function was in the east. 5 An analogous passage affirms: "King Unis rests from life (dies) in the west, . . . King Unis dawns anew in the east." 6 The west is mentioned casually, also along with the other celestial regions where the Sun-god in his course finds the translated Pharaoh. 7 It is the east which with constant reiteration is affirmed to be the most sacred of all regions, and that to which the dead king

should fare. Indeed he is explicitly cautioned against the west: "Go not on those currents of the west; those who go thither, they return not (again)." 1 In the Pyramid Texts it may be fairly said that the old doctrine of the "west" as the permanent realm of the dead, a doctrine which is later so prominent, has been quite submerged by the pre-eminence of the east.

This "east," therefore, is the east of the sky, and the realm of the dead is a celestial one, using the term with none of its frequent theological significance in English. Two ancient doctrines of this celestial hereafter have been commingled in the Pyramid Texts: one represents the dead as a star, and the other depicts him as associated with the Sun-god, or even becoming the Sun-god himself. It is evident that these two beliefs, which we may call the stellar and the Solar hereafter, were once in a measure independent, and that both have then entered into the form of the celestial hereafter which is found in the Pyramid Texts. In the cloudless sky of Egypt it was a not unnatural fancy which led the ancient Nile-dweller to see in the splendor of the nightly heavens the host of those who had preceded him; thither they had flown as birds, rising above all foes of the air, 2 and there they now swept across the sky as eternal stars. 3 It is especially those stars which are called "the Imperishable Ones" in which the Egyptian saw the host of the dead. These are said to be in the north of the sky, 4 and the suggestion that the circumpolar stars, which never set or disappear, are the ones which are meant is a very probable one. 5 While there are Utterances in the Pyramid Texts which define

the stellar notion of the hereafter without any reference to the Solar faith, 1 and which have doubtless descended from a more ancient day when the stellar belief was independent of the Solar, it is evident that the stellar notion has been absorbed in the Solar. There is a trace of the process in the endeavor to reconcile the northern station of the "Imperishables" with the "east" as the place of the dead in the Solar faith. We find provision made that the deceased king "may ferry over to Re, to the horizon . . . to his station on the east side of the sky, in its northern region among the Imperishable (Stars)." 2 Thus the stellar and the Solar elements were combined, though the Solar beliefs predominate so strongly that the Pyramid Texts as a whole and in the form in which they have reached us may be said to be of Solar origin.

The Solar destiny was perhaps suggested by the daily disappearance and reappearance of the sun. We find the texts assuring us, "This king Pepi lives as lives he (= the Sun-god) who has entered the west of the sky, when he rises in the east of the sky." 3 It should be noted that the place of living again is, however, the east, and it is not only the east, but explicitly the east of the sky. Death was on earth; life was to be had only in the sky.

"Men fall, Their name is not. Seize thou king Teti by his arm, Take thou king Teti to the sky, That he die not on earth, Among men." 4

[paragraph continues] This idea that life was in the sky is the dominant notion, far older than the Osirian faith in the Pyramid Texts.

[paragraph continues] So powerful was it that Osiris himself is necessarily accorded a celestial and a Solar hereafter in the secondary stage, in which his myth has entered the Pyramid Texts.

The prospect of a glorious hereafter in the splendor of the Sun-god's presence is the great theme of the Pyramid Texts. Even the royal tomb, as we have seen, assumed the form of the Sun-god's most sacred symbol. The state theology, which saw in the king the bodily son and the earthly representative of Re, very naturally conceived him as journeying at death to sojourn forever with his father, or even to supplant his father, and be his successor in the sky as he had been on earth. The Solar hereafter is properly a royal destiny, possible solely to a Pharaoh; it is only later that ordinary mortals gradually assume the right to share it, though, as we shall see, this could be done only by assuming also the royal character of every such aspirant.

Passing as the king did to a new kingdom in the sky, even though the various notions of his status there were not consistent, he was called upon to undergo a purification, which is prescribed and affirmed in the texts with wearisome reiteration. It may take place after the king's arrival in the sky, but more often it follows directly upon his resuscitation from the sleep of death. It may be accomplished by libations or by bathing in the sacred lake in the blessed fields, with the gods even officiating at the royal bath with towels and raiment, or by the fumes of incense which penetrate the limbs of the royal dead. 1 Sometimes it is the water of the traditional Nile sources at Elephantine which, as especially sacred and pure, should be employed, 2 or the dead king appears there and the goddess of the cataract, Satis, performs the ceremonies

of purification. 1 That this purification might have moral aspects we shall later (p. 171) see. But it was chiefly intended to produce ceremonial cleanness, and when this was attained the king was prepared to undertake the journey to the sky.

We have already had occasion to remark that the region toward which he fared was the east of the sky, which in the Pyramid Texts is far more sacred than the west (pp. 100–102). Not only was the Sun-god born there every day as we have seen, but also the other gods. Over there was "this field, where the gods were begotten, over which the gods rejoice on these their New Year's Days," 2 and there likewise they were born. 3 Similarly according to one view, not infrequently occurring, the deceased king is born there. 4 It was there too that the eye of Horus fell when it was wrenched out by Set. 5 In this sacred place are the doors of the sky, 6 before which stands "that tall sycomore east of the sky whereon the gods sit." 7 Again we hear of "the two sycomores which are on yonder side of the sky," which the king seizes when "they ferry him over and set him on the east side of the sky." 8 Here in this sacred place too the dead king finds the Sun-god, or is found by him, 9 here he ascends to the sky, 10 and here the ferry lands which has brought him over. 11

When the deceased Pharaoh turned his face eastward toward this sacred region he was confronted by a lake lying along the east which it was necessary for him to cross in order to reach the realm of the Sun-god. It was on the further, that is eastern, shore of this lake that the eye of Horus had fallen in his combat with Set. 1 It was called the "Lily-lake," and it was long enough to possess "windings," 2 and must have stretched far to the north and south along the eastern horizon. 3 Beyond it lay a strange wonder-land, alive with uncanny forces on every hand. All was alive, whether it was the seat into which the king dropped, or the steering-oar to which he reached out his hand, 4 or the barque into which he stepped, 5 or the gates through which he passed. To all these, or to anything which he found, he might speak; and these uncanny things might speak to him, like the swan-boat of Lohengrin. Indeed it was a wonder-world like that in the swan-stories or the Nibelungen tales of the Germanic traditions, a world like that of the Morte d’Arthur, where prodigies meet the wayfarer at every turn.

To the dweller along the Nile the most obvious way to cross the Lily-lake is to embark in a ferry-boat. We find it among the rushes of the lake-shore with the ferryman standing in the stern poling it rapidly along. To do so he faces backward, and is therefore called "Face-behind," or "Look-behind." 6 He rarely speaks, but stands in silence awaiting his passenger. Numerous are the pleas and the specious petitions by which the waiting Pharaoh

seeks to cajole this mysterious boatman with averted face. We hear him assured that "this king Pepi is the herdman of thy cattle who is over thy breeding-place," 1 and who must therefore be ferried over at once in the ferryman's own interests. Or the king brings with him a magic jar the power of which the boatman cannot resist, 2 or the ferryman is assured that the Pharaoh is "righteous in the sight of the sky and of the earth" and of the isle to which they go. 3 Again the king is the dwarf or pygmy of the royal dances "who gladdens the (king's) heart before the great throne," 4 and he must therefore be hastened across to the court of Re to gladden the Sun-god. Indeed this is matter of common knowledge, as the ferryman is now told: "This is what thou hast heard in the houses and learned in the streets on this day when this king Pepi was summoned to life. . . . Lo, the two who are on the throne of the Great God (Re), they summon this king Pepi to life and satisfaction forever: they are Prosperity and Health. (Therefore) ferry over this king Pepi to the field of the good seat of the Great God." 5 We hear the boatman's challenge of the new-corner: "Whence hast thou come?" and the dead king must prove his royal lineage. 6 Or appeal may be made directly to Re: "O Re! Commend king Teti to 'Look-behind' ferryman of the Lily-lake, that he may bring that ferry-boat of the Lily-lake, for king Teti, in which he ferries the gods to yonder side of the Lily-lake, that he may ferry king Teti to yonder side of the Lily-lake, to the east side of the sky." 7 If in spite of all the king's efforts the shadowy boatman proves obdurate and refuses to bring his boat to the shore, then the king addresses the oar in the ferryman's hand: "Ho!

[paragraph continues] Thou who art in the fist of the ferryman," 1 and if his words are powerful enough, the oar brings in the boat for the king. Sometimes it is on the opposite shore in charge of four curly haired guardians. These four are peremptorily summoned to bring it over to the king: "If ye delay to ferry over the ferry-boat to this king Pepi, this king Pepi will tell this your name to the people, which he knows; 2 . . . king Pepi will pluck out these locks that are in the middle of your heads like lotus flowers in the garden." 3

Again, as so frequently in these texts, an unknown speaker in the king's behalf stands forth and threatens the boatman: "If thou dost not ferry over king Unis, then he will place himself upon the wing of Thoth. He, (even) he will ferry over king Unis to yonder side of the horizon." 4 There is also another ferryman of a boat bearing the remarkable name of "Eye of Khnum," 5 who may be called upon in emergency; and should all other means fail the sceptres of the Imperishable Stars may serve as ferryman 6 or the two sycomores in the east may be prevailed upon to perform the same office for the king. 7 Even Re himself is not unwilling to appear and ferry the dead king across. 8 In any case the dead cannot be left without a ship, for he possesses the cunning charm which brings them all together: "The knots are tied, the ferryboats are brought together for the son of Atum. The

son of Atum is not without a boat; king Mernere is with the son of Atum; the son of Atum is not without a boat." 1

From the earliest days the prehistoric peasant might cross the Nile on two reed floats bound firmly together side by side like two huge cigars. 2 One of the earliest folk-tales of the Sun-god's voyage depicted him as crossing the celestial waters on such a pair of floats, and however primitive they might be, their use by the Sun-god had become common and involuntary belief. It required but the proper "sympathetic" transference of their use by Re to the dead Pharaoh, to insure him certain passage like that of the Sun-god. Horus (who, we recall, is but another form of the Sun-god) ferries over to the east of the sky on the two floats and he commends the dead king to "these four youths who sit on the east side of the sky, these four youths who sit in the shade of the tower of Kati," 3 "these four youths who stand on the east side of the sky . . . (and) who bind together the two floats for Re, . . ." will also "bind together the two floats for this king Pepi." 4 Thus just as "the two floats of the sky are placed for Re that he may ferry over therewith to the horizon," so "the two floats of the sky are placed for

king Unis that he may ferry over therewith to the horizon to Re." 1

But even these many devices for crossing the eastern sea might fail and then the king must commit himself to the air and make the ascent to the sky. "Thy two wings are spread out like a falcon with thick plumage, like the hawk seen in the evening traversing the sky, "says the mysterious speaker to the king. 2 "He flies who flies; this king Pepi flies away from you, ye mortals. He is not of the earth, he is of the sky. . . . This king Pepi flies as a cloud to the sky, like a masthead bird; this king Pepi kisses the sky like a falcon, this king Pepi reaches the sky like the Horizon-god (Harakhte)." 3 The variant text has like a grasshopper, and in accordance with this we find that the dead king was born with the back of a grasshopper. 4 As the Egyptian grasshopper flies like a bird to vast heights, the back of a grasshopper was undoubtedly an appropriate adjunct to the royal anatomy. But it was the falcon, the sacred bird of the Sun-god, whose lofty flight was especially desired for the king. He is "the great falcon upon the battlements of the house of him of the hidden name." 5 "Thy bones are falconesses, goddesses dwelling in the sky," say they to the king; 6 or again, "Thou ascendest to the sky as a falcon, thy feathers are (those of) geese." 7 The speaker also sees him escaping from the hands of men as the wild goose escapes the hand of the fowler clutching his feet and flies away to the sky; 8 "the tips of his wings are those of the

great goose." 1 Thus he "flies as a goose and flutters as a beetle." 2 "His face is (that of) falcons and his wings are (those of) geese"; 3 "king Unis flaps his wings like a zeret-bird," 4 and the wind bears him on high. "King Unis goes to the sky, king Unis goes to the sky! On the wind! On the wind!" 5 "The clouds of the sky have taken him away, they exalt king Unis to Re." 6 He "has ascended upon the rain-cloud." 7 Or the priest sees strange forms in the cloud of incense that soars above him and he cries: "He ascends upon the smoke of the great incense-burning." 8

In the oblique rays of the sun also, shooting earthward through some opening in the clouds, they beheld a radiant stairway let down from the sky that the king might ascend. "King Pepi has put down this radiance as a stairway under his feet, whereon king Pepi ascended to this his mother, the living Uræus that is on the head of Re." 9 "Thou climbest, thou mountest the radiance, "says the speaker 10 as he beholds the king grasping the Solar rays. 11 Thus "stairs to the sky are laid for him that he may ascend thereon to the sky." 12 It is of course with the city of the sun that this stairway is associated: "The spirits of Heliopolis, they set up for him a stairway in order to reach the top." 13 Sometimes the Solar splendor seems stretched out to him like vast arms, and the king "is a flame (moving) before the wind to the ends of the sky, to the ends of the earth when the arm of the sunbeams is lifted with king Unis." 14 Lest any portion of the king's body should fail to rise with him, all of his members, or at least the more important

ones, twenty-six in number, are enumerated by name, beginning with the crown of his head and descending through face, eyes, nose, mouth, etc., to his toes, each member being identified with a different god, "when he ascends and lifts himself to the sky." This canny device is of irresistible magical potency, so that "every god who shall not lay steps for this king Pepi when he ascends" shall suffer loss of all his offerings. Moreover, the gods are bidden to remember that "It is not this king Pepi who says this against you, it is the charm which says this against you, ye gods." On the other hand, "every god who shall lay steps for king Pepi when he ascends" is promised all offerings, and if he extends a helping hand to the king as he climbs up, this god's "ka shall be justified by Geb." 1

Again the broad sunbeams slanting earthward seem like a ladder to the imagination of this remote people and they say, "King Unis ascends upon the ladder which his father Re (the Sun-god) made for him. " 2 Indeed we find the Sun-god making the ladder: "Atum has done that which he said he would do for this king Pepi II, binding for him the rope-ladder, joining together the (wooden) ladder for this king Pepi II; (thus) this king is far from the abomination of men." 3 Again it is the four sons of

[paragraph continues] Horus who "bind a rope-ladder for this king Pepi II; they join together a (wooden) ladder for king Pepi II. They send up king Pepi II to Khepri (the Sun-god) that he may arrive on the east side of the sky. Its timbers are hewn by Shesa, the ropes that are in it are joined together with cords of Gasuti, the Bull of the Sky (Saturn); the uprights at its sides are fastened with leather of ⌈—⌉, born of the Heset-cow; a great support is placed under it by 'Him-who-Binds-the-Great-One.' Lift ye up the ka of this king Pepi II; lead ye him to the two lions; make him ascend to Atum." 1 An old Solar legend places the ladder in charge of Set, or at least associates it closely with him. We find it called the "ladder which carried the Ombite (Set)"; 2 but it also appears occasionally under the guardianship of Kebehet, daughter of Anubis. 3 Sometimes the Sun-god summons all his divine subjects to assist in making the ladder. "It is done for this king Pepi by Atum as it was done for himself (Atum). He brings to this Pepi the gods belonging to the sky, he brings to him the gods belonging to the earth. They place their

arms under him. They make a ladder for king Pepi that he may ascend upon it to the sky." 1 The spectacle of the ascending king calls forth the admiration of the gods: "'How beautiful to see, how satisfying to behold,' say the gods, 'when this god (meaning the king) ascends to the sky. His fearfulness is on his head, his terror is at his side, his magical charms are before him.' 2 Geb has done for him as was done for himself (Geb). The gods and souls of Buto, the gods and souls of Hierakonpolis, the gods in the sky and the gods on earth come to him. They make supports for king Unis on their arm(s). Thou ascendest, O king Unis, to the sky. Ascend upon it in this its name 'Ladder.'" 3

Men and gods together are called upon in mighty charms to lift the king. "O men and gods! Your arms under king Pepi! Raise ye him, lift ye him to the sky, as the arms of Shu are under the sky and he raises it. To the sky! To the sky! To the great seat among the gods!" 4 Or the daughter of the ancient mortuary Anubis offers him her shoulder: "Kebehet places him on her shoulder, she puts him down among the gardens (like) the herdmen of the calves," 5 a picture which we often see in the mastaba reliefs, as the cowherd wades cautiously across the canal, immersed to the waist, with a calf borne tenderly upon his shoulders, while the solicitous mother beast follows anxiously behind licking the flanks of the calf. Should all other means fail, Isis and Nephthys will offer their hips upon which the king mounts, while his father Atum reaches down and seizes the arm of the Pharaoh; 6 or the earth itself may rise under the feet of the

waiting king and lift him to the sky, where Tefnut grasps his arm 1 and leads him into the celestial fields.

But the possibility remained that the gates of the celestial country might not be opened to the new-comer. Over and over again we find the assurance that the double doors of the sky are opened before the Pharaoh: "Opened are the double doors of the horizon; unlocked are its bolts" 2 is a constant refrain in the Pyramid Texts. That art which opened the door for Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves had opened many a gate in the ancient East, thousands of years before the Arabian Nights made it familiar to us of the western world. The king faces the gates with these words: "O lofty one, (Gate) whom no one names! Gate of Nut! King Teti is Shu who came forth from Atum. O Nun! (the primeval waters) cause that this (gate) be opened for king Teti." 3 "He causes that those double doors of the sky be opened for king Teti (by the following charm):

"'Men fall, Their name is not. Seize thou king Teti by his arm; Take thou king Teti to the sky, That he die not on earth, Among men.'" 4

A similar method appealed to the fact that the sky-gates had once opened to each of the four eastern Horuses, and by sympathetic analogy they must now inevitably do the same for the king. "The double doors of the sky are opened, the double doors of the firmament are thrown open to Horus of the gods. . . . The double doors of the sky are opened to this king Pepi, the double doors of the

firmament are thrown open to this king Pepi." 1 In the same way the approaching king is identified with the four eastern Horuses one after the other, after which Re may be appealed to as his father: "O father of king Pepi, O Re! Take thou this king Pepi with thee for life to thy mother Nut, who opens the double doors of the sky to this king Pepi, who throws open the double doors of the firmament to this king Pepi." 2

The difficulty of the gates and the ascension might, however, be met by an appeal of men directly to the Sun-god: "'Ho Re,' say men, when they stand beside this king Pepi on earth while thou appearest in the east of the sky, 'give thy arm to king Pepi; take thou him with thee to the east side of the sky.'" 3

It will be seen that in spite of the conviction of life, abounding life, with which the Pyramid Texts are filled, they likewise reveal the atmosphere of apprehension which enveloped these men of the early world as they contemplated the unknown and untried dangers of the shadow world. Whichever way the royal pilgrim faced as he looked out across the eastern sea he was beset with apprehensions of the possible hostility of the gods, and there crowded in upon him a thousand fancies of danger and opposition which clouded the fair picture of blessedness beyond. There is an epic touch in the dauntless courage, with which the solitary king, raising himself like some elemental colossus, and claiming sway over the gods themselves, confronts the celestial realm and addresses the

[paragraph continues] Sun-god: "I know thy name. I am not ignorant of thy name. 1 'Limitless' is thy name. The name of thy father is 'Possessor-of-Greatness.' Thy mother is 'Satisfaction,' who bears thee every morning. The birth of 'Limitless' in the horizon shall be prevented, if thou preventest this king Pepi from coming to the place where thou art." 2 The king wielding his magical power thus makes himself sovereign of the universe and will stop the very rising ("birth") of the sun if he is halted at the gate of the Sun-god's realm. Far less impressive is the king's threat directed against the gods who oppose him as he mounts the ladder. "Every spirit and every god who shall oppose his arm to this king Pepi, when he ascends to the sky on the ladder of the god, the earth shall not be hoed for him, an offering shall not be brought for him, he shall not ferry over to the evening meal in Heliopolis, he shall not ferry over to the morning meal in Heliopolis." 3 Likewise Kebehet, the daughter of Anubis, perched on the two uprights of the ladder, is adjured to "open the way of king Unis, that king Unis may pass by," and in the same words the "Ostrich on the shore of the Lily-lake" and the "Bull of Re, having four horns," one toward each of the cardinal points, are warned to make way for him. 4

And so at last the departed king draws near the eastern shore of the Lily-lake, 5 and "this king Pepi finds the glorious by reason of their equipped mouths, 6 sitting on

the two shores of the lake, . . . the drinking-place of every glorious one by reason of his equipped mouth." Then they challenge the new arrival and the king replies: "I am a glorious one by reason of his equipped mouth." "'How has this happened to thee,' say they to king Pepi, . . . 'that thou hast come to this place more august than any place?' 'Pepi has come to this place more august than any place, because the two floats of the sky were placed,' says the morning-barque, 'for Re'"; 1 and at the story of his successful crossing as Re had crossed, the celestials break out into jubilee. 2 Thereupon the Pharaoh lands, takes up their manner of life, and sits before the palace ruling them. 3 Again we hear a solitary voice issuing from the world of the dead and challenging the king as he ascends and passes through the gates of the sky, led by Geb: "Ho! Whence comest thou, son of my father?" And another voice answers: "He has come from the Divine Ennead that is in the sky, that he may satisfy them with their bread." Again comes the challenge: "Ho! Whence comest thou, son of my father?" and we hear the reply: "He has come from the Divine Ennead that is on earth, that he may satisfy them with their bread." The questioner is still unsatisfied: "Ho! Whence comest thou, son of my father?" "He has come from the Zenedzender-barque." And then we hear the question for the last time: "Ho! Whence comest thou, son of my father?" "He has come from these his two mothers, the two vultures with long hair and hanging breasts, who are on the mountain of Sehseh. They draw their breasts over the mouth of king Pepi, but they do not wean him forever." Thereafter the challenging voice is silent 4 and the Pharaoh enters the kingdom of the sky.

Footnotes

71:1 BAR, I, 503.

71:2 BAR, III, 16, l. 5; Cairo Hymn to Amon, V, ll. 1–2, VIII, ll. 3–4; Piankhi Stela, l. 105 = BAR, IV, 871.

71:3 Pyr. § 1652.

72:1 Ut. 599 and 600. Their content with quotations is given below, pp. 76–77.

73:1 It was published, without indication of its original position, by Maspero, Annales du Service des antiquités, III, pp. 206 ff. and plate; see Schaefer, Zeitschrift für aegypt. Sprache, 41, 84, who demonstrates its original position. This had also been noted in the author's History of Egypt, Fig. 94.

73:2 The same inscription is found accompanying the eyes on the outside of the Middle Kingdom coffin of Sebek-o at Berlin. (See Steindorff, Grabfunde des Mittleren Reichs, II, 5, 1.)

73:3 It is evident that the identification of Osiris with the pyramid and temple in Pyr. §§ 1657–8 is secondary and another evidence of his intrusion in the Solar faith of which the Pyr. Texts furnish so many examples.

74:1 There is possibly another connection in which the pyramid form may be discerned as belonging to the Sun-god. The triangle of zodiacal light which some have claimed to be able to discover in the east at sunrise at certain times, and the writing of the Solar god, Soped's name with a triangle or pyramid after it, may have some connection with the use of the pyramid as a Solar symbol. The architectural evolution of the form through the compound mastaba, the terraced structure, like the so-called "terraced pyramid" of Sakkara, has long been understood.

74:2 Pyr. Ut. 534, all of which is a long prayer intended to prevent the appropriation of pyramid, temple, and their possessions by Osiris or the gods of his cycle. This important Utterance is taken up again in connection with the dedication of the pyramid, pp. 75–76.

76:1 Pyr. §§ 1276–7.

76:2 Pyr. § 1266.

76:3 Pyr. Ut. 599.

77:1 Pyr. Ut. 600.

77:2 Pyr. Ut. 601.

77:3 Pyr. § 2117.

77:4 Ut. 26–203.

79:1 Pyr. Ut. 453.

79:2 Pyr. Ut. 637.

79:3 Pyr. Ut. 54.

79:4 The ritual of offerings, properly so called, in the Pyramid Texts, begins at Ut. 26 and continues to Ut. 203. This ritual as a whole has received an Osirian editing and only Ut. 44 and 50 are clearly Solar. Each Spruch, or Utterance, contains the words to be used by the priest, with some designation of the offering, sometimes no more than the words "Horus-eye." Not infrequently directions as to the place p. 80 where the offering is to be put accompany the formula, with memoranda also of the quantity and the like. A little group of prayers and charms (Ut. 204–212) follows the offering-ritual. This group also concerns offerings, but it is all Solar except the first and last utterance. The other texts concerning material needs scattered through the Pyramid Texts, conceive the king as dwelling no longer in the tomb in most cases (e.g., Ut. 413). There is a group of twelve Utterances on food (Ut. 338–349), and a larger group concerned chiefly with the physical necessities (Ut. 401–426).

80:1 Pyr. §§ 101 c, d.

80:2 Pyr. § 204.

81:1 Pyr. §§ 2117–18, restored from Pap. Schmitt.

81:2 BAR, I, 173.

82:1 BAR, I, 241.

82:2 Borchardt, Das Grabdenkmal des Koenigs Sahure, pp. 94 ff.

83:1 Confer Reisner, Boston Mus. of Fine Arts Bulletin, IX, 16.

85:1 Maspero'S edition appeared in his journal, the Recueil, in volumes 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14; it later appeared in a single volume. Sethe's edition of the hieroglyphic text in two volumes (Die Altaegyptischen Pyramidentexte von Kurt Sethe, Leipzig, 1908–10) will be accompanied by further volumes containing translation and discussion of the texts, and with palæographic material by H. Schaefer.

85:2 Pyr. § 1245; see also § 1251.

86:1 Pyr. § 1878 b.

86:2 Pyr. § 747, same in § 1732.

86:3 Pyr. § 572.

86:4 Pyr. § 1488; this passage was first remarked by Sethe as showing the early date of the document, Zeitschr. für aegypt. Sprache, 38, 64.

86:5 Pyr. § 2037.

86:6 Pyr. § 239.

86:7 Pyr. § 295.

87:1 Pyr. § 410.

87:2 Pyr. Ut. 524.

87:3 Pyr. § 1084.

87:4 Pyr. § 1087.

87:5 Pyr. § 1179.

87:6 Pyr. § 388.

87:7 Pyr. Ut. 599–600; see infra, pp. 75–76.

88:1 Pyr. § 1189.

88:2 Pyr. § 1216.

88:3 Pyr. § 1348.

88:4 Pyr. § 912.

88:5 Pyr. § 1048.

88:6 Pyr. § 1484.

88:7 Pyr. § 335.

89:1 Pyr. § 130.

89:2 Pyr. § 954.

89:3 Pyr. § 730.

89:4 Pyr. Ut. 323.

89:5 Pyr., passim.

89:6 Pyr. § 1197.

89:7 Pyr. § 1123.

89:8 Pyr. § 1563.

91:1 Pyr. § 350.

91:2 Pyr. § 134.

91:3 Pyr. § 833.

91:4 Pyr. § 775.

91:5 Pyr. § 1464 c.

91:6 Pyr. § 1468 c–d.

91:7 Pyr. § 1477 b.

91:8 Pyr. § 2201 c.

91:9 Pyr. § 1975 b.

91:10 Pyr. § 1453 a–h.

91:11 Pyr. § 1262.

92:1 Pyr. § 867.

92:2 Pyr. § 875.

92:3 Pyr. Ut. 464.

92:4 See also Pyr. § 1090.

92:5 Pyr. § 1335.

92:6 Pyr. § 1466 d.

93:1 Exactly 1051.

94:1 Pyr. § 924 b.

94:2 Pyr. § 930 a.

94:3 Pyr. § 1318 c.

94:4 Pyr. § 1324.

95:1 Pyr. Ut. 678.

95:2 Pyr. Ut. 456.

95:3 Pyr. Ut. 429–435.

95:4 Erman, Zauberspr. für Mutter and Kind, 5, 8–6, 8.

96:1 Pyr. Ut. 637.

96:2 See above, pp. 13–14.

96:3 Pyr. Ut. 427–435.

96:4 Pyr. Ut. 581.

97:1 Pyr. § 1363.

97:2 Pyr. § 1365.

98:1 Pyr. § 393.

98:2 Pyr. Ut. 456.

99:1 Pyr. Ut. 605.

99:2 The presence of the word "mn" = "so and so" instead of the king's name (Pyr. § 147) does not necessarily indicate the use of the passage by any one, but simply shows that the priestly copyist, when first recording this text in his manuscript, did not know for what king it was to be employed. Then in copying it on the wall the draughtsman by oversight transferred the "so and so" from his manuscript to the wall, instead of changing it to the king's name.

100:1 Pyr. § 873 et al.

100:2 Pyr. §§ 745 a, 1833, 2198 b.

100:3 E. g., §§ 650, 759. See infra, p. 38.

100:4 Pyr. § 1355.

100:5 Pyr. §§ 1531–2; see also § 1703, where, by total inversion of the myth, the king is born in the west. Similarly in § 470 it is the western horn of the sky-bull that is removed for the passage of the dead.

100:6 Pyr. § 306.

100:7 Pyr. § 919.

101:1 Pyr. § 2175.

101:2 Pyr. § 1216.

101:3 See the author's History of Egypt, p. 64.

101:4 Pyr. § 1080.

101:5 Borchardt, in Erman, Handbuch der aegypt. Rel., p. 107.

102:1 Pyr. Ut. 328, 329, 503.

102:2 Pyr. § 1000.

102:3 Pyr. § 1469.

102:4 Pyr. § 604.

103:1 Pyr. §§ 27–29, 275, 920–1; Ut. 323.

103:2 Pyr. § 864.

104:1 Pyr. § 1116.

104:2 Pyr. § 1187.

104:3 Pyr. § 928.

104:4 Pyr. § 607.

104:5 Pyr. §§ 594–6, 947.

104:6 Pyr. §§ 1343, 1440.

104:7 Pyr. § 916.

104:8 Pyr. § 1433.

104:9 Pyr. § 919.

104:10 Pyr. §§ 326, 883, 1530.

104:11 Pyr. § 1541. The supremacy of the east is such that even the Osirian Isis and Nephthys appear as "the great and mighty pair, who are in the east of the sky" (Pyr. § 2200). In spite of the fact that Osiris is "First of the Westerners" he goes to the east in the Pyramid Texts, and the pair, Isis and Nephthys, carry the dead into the east (Pyr. Ut. 702). In Pyr. §§ 1496–8 the east combines with the south and "the middle of the sky" as places where the ascent to the sky may be made.

105:1 Pyr. § 595 b.

105:2 Pyr. § 2061 c.

105:3 Pyr. §§ 802, 1376–7. On the eastern position of this lake see also Pyr. Ut. 359. The chief references on the subject are Pyr. §§ 469 a, 543 b. 802 a, 1102 d, 1138 d, 1162 d, 1228 d, 1376 c, 1345 c, 1441 a, 1084 b; Ut. 359.

105:4 Pyr. § 6021.

105:5 Pyr. § 926.

105:6 Pyr. §§ 1201, 1227.

106:1 Pyr. § 1183.

106:2 Pyr. § 1185.

106:3 Pyr. § 1188.

106:4 Pyr. § 1189.

106:5 Pyr. §§ 1189–91.

106:6 Pyr. § 1091.

106:7 Pyr. §§ 599–600.

107:1 Pyr. Ut. 616.

107:2 To know the name of a god is to be able to control him.

107:3 Pyr. § 1223. See also: Pyr. §§ 597, 599, 697, 925, 946, 999, 1091, 1441, 1769, 1429, and Ut. 310, 516–522, 616.

107:4 Pyr. § 387; see also §§ 595–7, 1489, 1175.

107:5 This is of course parallel with the designation, "Eye of Horus," which may also be applied to the boat. See Pyr. §§ 946, 445, 1769.

107:6 Pyr. § 1432.

107:7 Pyr. § 1433.

107:8 Pyr. § 363.

108:1 Pyr. § 1472.

108:2 The writer was once, like the Pharaoh, without a boat in Nubia, and a native from a neighboring village at once hurried away and returned with a pair of such floats made of dried reeds from the Nile shores. On this somewhat precarious craft he ferried the writer over a wide channel to an island in the river. It was the first time that the author had ever seen this contrivance, and it was not a little interesting to find a craft which he knew only in the Pyramid Texts of 5000 years ago still surviving and in daily use on the ancient river in far-off Nubia. There can be no doubt that this is the craft so often called the "two sḥnwy" (dual) in the Pyr. Texts.

108:3 Pyr. § 1105.

108:4 Pyr. § 1026.

109:1 Pyr. § 337. The floats were a favorite means of crossing; they are found frequently in the Pyramid Texts. See besides the above passages also §§ 342, 351, 358, 464, 926–7, 932–5, 999–1000, 1085–6, 1103, 1705.

109:2 Pyr. § 1048.

109:3 Pyr. §§ 890–1.

109:4 Pyr. § 1772.

109:5 Pyr. § 1778.

109:6 Pyr. § 137.

109:7 Pyr. § 913.

109:8 Pyr. § 1484.

110:1 Pyr. § 1122.

110:2 Pyr. § 366.

110:3 Pyr. § 461.

110:4 Pyr. § 463.

110:5 Pyr. § 309.

110:6 Pyr. § 336.

110:7 Pyr. § 1774.

110:8 Pyr. § 365.

110:9 Pyr. § 1108.

110:10 Pyr. § 751.

110:11 Pyr. § 547.

110:12 Pyr. § 365.

110:13 Pyr. § 1090.

110:14 Pyr. § 324.

111:1 All the preceding from Pyr. Ut. 539. It seems impossible to separate these primitive means of reaching the sky from the similar or identical means employed in later astral theology in the Mediterranean. They have survived in the grotesque tale of the ascent of Alexander in the late western (Latin) version of Pseudo-Callisthenes, from which they passed even into art. See Burlington Magazine, vol. VI, pp. 395, ff. The ladder of the next paragraph was a common device in astral mortuary theology. (See Cumont, Astrology and Religion, p. 184.)

111:2 Pyr. § 390; similarly the ladder is associated with Heliopolis in Pyr. § 978.

111:3 Pyr. § 2083.

112:1 Pyr. §§ 2078–81. The exhortation at the end is addressed to the four sons of Horus of Letopolis, Imset, Hapi, Dewamutef, and Kebehsenuf, who made the ladders. Some of the names and epithets are obscure; the two lions are Shu and Tefnut, see § 696 c and parallels. The Solar character of the ladder is evident in this passage also, which is one of the indications that the four sons of Horus are of Solar origin. Even in Osirianized passages the Solar origin of the ladder is unequivocal. See especially Pyr. § 472; also § 971 and infra, p. 153.

112:2 Pyr. § 1253. In § 971 it is called "ladder of Set," though as a pendant to this it is also called "ladder of Horus." Throughout this Utterance (478), however, it is afterward called the "ladder of Set," and it is evidently regarded as his, even though Osiris climbs it. Is this another form of the tradition that Set was forced to carry Osiris?

112:3 Pyr. § 468; besides the preceding references see also Pyr. § 1431, where the ladder is called "Ascender to the sky."

113:1 Pyr. §§ 1473–4.

113:2 For the interpretation of this equipment, see p. 61, note 3.

113:3 Pyr. §§ 476–9.

113:4 Pyr. § 1101.

113:5 Pyr. § 1348.

113:6 Pyr. §§ 379–380.

114:1 Pyr. § 990.

114:2 Pyr. § 194.

114:3 Pyr. § 603.

114:4 Pyr. § 604.

115:1 Pyr. § 1408.

115:2 Pyr. §§ 1479–80. There are four Utterances which are built up on the four Horuses: 325, 563, and 479, which are of the same general structure; and 573 of different structure, in which the identification of the king with the four Horuses perhaps takes place. On the latter see also infra, pp. 154–6.

115:3 Pyr. § 1496.

116:1 To know the name of a god was to hold sway over him.

116:2 Pyr. §§ 1434–5. Compare similar threatening of the Sun-god, infra, p. 308.

116:3 Pyr. § 978.

116:4 Pyr. §§ 468–471; see also §§ 504, 1432, and 914.

116:5 This was the case whether he ferried over by boat or employed the ladder; for the latter was set up in the east, and the ascent was made there; e.g., Pyr. § 928.

116:6 For the explanation of this term see p. 94.

117:1 Pyr. §§ 930–2.

117:2 Pyr. § 935.

117:3 Pyr. §§ 936–8.

117:4 Pyr. §§ 1116–19.

LECTURE IV

REALMS OF THE DEAD—THE EARLIEST CELESTIAL HEREAFTER

WE have followed the royal pilgrim as he passed through the celestial gates, where he awaited announcement of his arrival to the Sun-god, in whose realm he must now abide. We behold his heralds hastening to announce his advent. "Thy messengers go, thy swift messengers run, thy heralds make haste. They announce to Re that thou hast come, (even) this king Pepi." 1 We hear their message as they shout, "'Behold, he comes! Behold, he comes!' says Sehpu. Behold the son of Re comes, the beloved of Re comes,' says Sehpu, 'who was made to come by Horus.'" 2 The gods crowd down to the shore. "This king Pepi found the gods standing, wrapped in their garments, their white sandals on their feet. They cast off their white sandals to the earth, they throw off their garments. 'Our heart was not glad until thy coming,' say they." 3 Again they are overcome with awe as they hear the proclamation of the heralds and behold the king approaching. Re stands before the gates of the horizon leaning upon his sceptre, while the gods are grouped about him. "The

gods are silent before thee, the Nine Gods have laid their hands upon their mouths," says the herald voice. 1

It may be, however, that the king finds himself without any messenger to despatch to Re, and in this case the ferryman may be induced to announce his coming. 2 Otherwise, as he approaches the gate the gate-keeper is called upon to perform this office. "Ho, Methen! Keeper of the great gate! Announce this king Pepi to these two great gods" (Re and Horus). 3 He may even be obliged to intrust his case to the good offices of Re's body servant, affording an interesting side-light on the possible methods of gaining the royal ear in this distant age. "O ye who are over the offering and the libation! Commit king Unis to Fetekta, the servant of Re, that he may commit him to Re himself." 4 More often the gods themselves, who have greeted him with acclamation, or have stood in awed silence at his coming, proclaim it far and near, after they have announced him to Re: "O Re-Atum! This king Unis comes to thee, an imperishable glorious-one, lord of the affairs of the place of the four pillars (the sky). Thy son comes to thee. This king Unis comes to thee." Then Set and Nephthys hasten to the south, where they proclaim his coming "to the gods of the south and their spirits": "This king Unis comes indeed, an imperishable glorious-one. When he desires that ye die, ye die; when he desires that ye live, ye live." To the north Osiris and Isis say: "This king Unis comes indeed, an imperishable glorious-one, like the morning star over the Nile. The spirits dwelling in the water praise him. When he desires that he live, he lives; when he desires that he die, he dies." Thoth hastens to the west with the words: "This king

[paragraph continues] Unis comes indeed, an imperishable spirit, adorned with the jackal on the sceptre before the western height. 1 He numbers the hearts, he takes possession of the hearts. When he desires that he live, he lives; when he desires that he die, he dies." Finally Horus, speeding to the east, proclaims: "This king Unis comes indeed, an imperishable spirit. When he desires that he live, he lives; when he desires that he die, he dies." In conclusion of this fourfold announcement at the cardinal points, the voice again cries to Re, "O Re-Atum! Thy son comes to thee, Unis comes to thee. Lift him up to thee, enfold thou him in thy embrace. He is thy bodily son forever." 2

Thus received by his father, the question of the status of the royal pilgrim at once arises. His ambitions sometimes seem lowly enough, and he is even amusingly unceremonious in carrying them out. Yonder sits Re at his "divan" with his secretary at his side, the scribe having his two pens thrust behind his ears, while a large roll of papyrus is spread across his knees. As the king approaches a voice is heard: "O scribe, scribe! Break thy writing kit, smash thy two pens, destroy thy papyrus rolls. O Re! Expel him from his post and put king Pepi in his place." 3 Thus ensconced in a snug post as secretary of the ruler of the celestial realm, "King Unis sits before him (Re), king Unis opens his chests (of papers), king Unis breaks open his edicts, king Unis seals his decrees, king Unis despatches his messengers who weary not, king Unis does what he (Re) says to king Unis." 4 Thus the king becomes the counsellor of the Sun-god, "the wise one bearing the divine book on the right of

[paragraph continues] Re." 1 Again we find the dead Pharaoh serving as a priest "before Re, bearing this jar, which purifies the Southland before Re, when he comes forth from his horizon." 2 He may even appear as Uneg, the son and body-servant of Re, 3 and we behold him as "a star . . . long of stride, bringing the provisions of the (daily) journey to Re every day." 4

More often the greatest intimacy and familiarity now develop between the Sun-god and the newly arrived king; "every beautiful place where Re goes, he finds this king Pepi there." 5 Should there be any difficulties in the way, the dead king recites a magical hymn 6 in praise of the Sun-god, which smoothes the way to perfect fellowship with Re. The priestly editor has added the assurance: "Now he who knows this chapter of Re, and he doeth them, (even) these charms of Harakhte (the Horizon-god), he shall be the familiar of Re, he shall be the friend of Harakhte. King Pepi knows it, this chapter of Re; king Pepi doeth them, these charms of Harakhte. King Pepi is the familiar of Re, king Pepi is the companion of Harakhte." 7 Thus the departed Pharaoh may "sit at his (Re's) shoulder, and Re does not permit him to throw himself upon the earth (in obeisance), knowing that he (the king) is greater than he (Re)." 8 In the quaint imagination of the priestly editor, the king may even become the lotus flower, which the god holds to his nose. 9

But that association with Re in which the Egyptian took the greatest delight was the voyage with him across the sky in his daily journey to the west. As the cool Nile breezes and the picturesque life of the refreshing river

were the central picture in his earthly life, so he looked forward to finding the celestial Nile the source of the same joy in the life hereafter. "Thou embarkest in this barque of Re, to which the gods love to ascend, in which they love to embark, in which Re is rowed to the horizon." 1 The simplest form of this belief places the dead king among the crew of the Solar barque. "King Pepi receives to himself his oar, he takes his seat, he seats himself in the bow of the ship, . . . he rows Re to the west." 2 If there is no other way to secure passage in the beautiful "sunbeam-barque," 3 the once splendid Pharaoh is permitted to come along as little better than a stowaway and to bail out the craft. 4

The theological theory of the state in the Pyramid Age, as we have seen, represents the Pharaoh as the son of the Sun-god. The Pyramid Texts of course take full advantage of this circumstance, and often call upon Re to recognize and protect his son. The dead Pharaoh boldly approaches the Sun-god with the words: "I, O Re, am this one of whom thou didst say, . . . 'My son!' My father art thou, O Re. . . . Behold king Pepi, O Re. This king Pepi is thy son. . . . This king Pepi shines in the east like Re, he goes in the west like Kheprer. This king Pepi lives on that whereon Horus (son of Re) lord of the sky lives, by command of Horus lord of the sky." 5 As Re, however, was his own son, begotten every day and born every morning, the sonship of the Pharaoh ultimately leads to his identity with Re, and the priestly elaborators of the Pyramid Texts had no hesitation in reaching this result. This was the more easy in that they had made the king divine by subtle ceremonies, especially the burning

of incense, at his interment. 1 Even without encroaching upon the position of Re the dead Pharaoh is pictured as divine, and his divinity is proclaimed to the denizens of the other world. "Lift up your faces, gods dwelling in Dewat. 2 King Unis has come that ye may see him become a great god. . . . Protect yourselves all of you. King Unis commands men; king Unis judges the living in the court of the region of Re. King Unis speaks to this pure region which he has visited, that he may dwell therein with the judge of the two gods. King Unis is mighty beside him (Re). King Unis bears the sceptre; it purifies king Unis. King Unis sits with them that row Re; king Unis commands good that he may do it. King Unis is a great god." 3

This divinity is unmistakably defined more than once. "King Teti is this eye of Re, that passes the night, is conceived and born every day." 4 "His mother the sky bears him living every day like Re. He dawns with him in the east, he sets with him in the west, his mother Nut (the sky) is not void of him any day. He equips king Pepi II with life, he causes his heart joy, he causes his heart pleasure." 5 "Thou camest forth as king Pepi, king Pepi came forth as thou." 6 The dead king does not merely receive the office and station of Re, he actually becomes Re. "Thy body is in king Pepi, O Re; preserve alive thy body in king Pepi, O Re." 7 "King Teti is thou (Re), thou art king Teti; thou shinest in king Teti, king Teti shines in thee." 8 He is even identified with Atum limb by limb, 9 or with Atum and the Solar gods, who are themselves identified with Atum. 10 Thus he becomes king

of the sky in Re's place. "Thou embarkest therein (in the Sun-barque) like Re; thou sittest down on this throne of Re, that thou mayest command the gods; for thou art Re, who came forth from Nut, who begets Re every day." 1 There are indeed hints that the Pharaoh takes forcible possession of the Sun-god's throne, 2 and their identity does not exclude the idea of his being dispossessed, or even of his continued benefits to the Pharaoh, though these are sometimes mutual. The voice says to Re: "Make king Teti sound, and Teti will make thee sound; make king Teti green (fresh, youthful), and Teti will make thee green," and thus a mystical relationship with Hathor, the eye of Re, is established, "which turns back the years from king Teti" and they pass over him without increasing his age. 3

Perhaps the finest fragment of literature preserved in the Pyramid Texts is a Sun-hymn 4 in which the king is identified with the Sun-god. The hymn addresses Egypt in a long and imposing enumeration of the benefits which she enjoys under the protection and sovereignty of the Sun-god. Hence Egypt offers him her wealth and produce. Now in view of the fact that the Pharaoh is identified with the Sun-god, the Pharaoh, therefore, confers the same benefits on Egypt, and must therefore receive the same gifts from Egypt. The entire hymn is therefore repeated with the insertion of the Pharaoh's name wherever that of Re or Horus occurs in the original hymn, 5 and

thus the king appropriates to himself all the homage and offerings received by the Sun-god from Egypt.

But the imagination of the priests does not stop here. Equality or identity with Re is not enough, and we behold the translated Pharaoh a cosmic figure of elemental vastness, even superior to the Sun-god in the primeval darkness. The mysterious voice cries: "Father of king Teti! Father of king Teti in darkness! Father of king Teti, Atum in darkness! Bring thou king Teti to thy side that he may kindle for thee the light; that he may protect thee, as Nun (the primeval ocean) protected these four goddesses on the day when they protected the throne, (even) Isis, Nephthys, Neit, and Serket." 1 The dead king sweeps the sky as a devouring fire as soon as "the arm of the sunbeams is lifted with king Unis." 2 Again we see him towering between earth and sky: "This his right arm, it carries the sky in satisfaction; this his left arm, it supports the earth in joy." 3 The imagination runs riot in figures of cosmic power, and the king becomes "the outflow of the rain, he came forth at the origin of water"; 4 or he gains the secret and the power of all things as "the scribe of the god's-book, which says what is and causes to be what is not." 5 He came forth before the world or death existed. "The mother of king Pepi became pregnant with him, O Dweller in the ⌈nether sky⌉; this king Pepi was born by his father Atum before the sky came forth, before the earth came forth, before men came forth, before gods were born, before death came forth. This king Pepi escapes the day of death as Set

escaped the day of death. This king Pepi belongs to your ⌈company⌉, ye gods of the ⌈nether sky⌉, who cannot perish by their enemies; this king Pepi perishes not by his enemies. (Ye) who die not by a king, this king Pepi dies not by a king; (ye) who die not by any dead, king Pepi dies not by any dead." 1 When in process of time the gods were born, the king was present at their birth.

The mergence of the king into the very body and being of Re is analogous to his assimilation by the gods as a group. One of the most remarkable passages in the Pyramid Texts employs the ceremony and the suggestiveness of incense-burning as a sympathetic agency by which, as the odorous vapor arises from earth to the gods, it bears aloft the fragrance of the king to mingle with that of the gods, and thus to draw them together in fellowship and association. The passage is of importance as a very early priestly interpretation of the significance of incense as fellowship with the gods. The passage reads:

"The fire is laid, the fire shines; The incense is laid on the fire, the incense shines. Thy fragrance comes to king Unis, O Incense; The fragrance of king Unis comes to thee, O Incense. Your fragrance comes to king Unis, O ye gods; The fragrance of king Unis comes to you, O ye gods. King Unis is with you, ye gods; Ye are with king Unis, ye gods. King Unis lives with you, ye gods; Ye live with king Unis, ye gods. King Unis loves you, ye gods; Love ye him, ye gods." 2

This fellowship thus mystically symbolized is in sharp contrast with a dark and forbidding picture, surviving from vastly remote prehistoric days, in which we see the savage Pharaoh ferociously preying upon the gods like a blood-thirsty hunter in the jungle. The passage begins with the terrifying advent of the Pharaoh in the sky:

"Clouds darken the sky, The stars rain down, The Bows (a constellation) stagger, The bones of the hell-hounds tremble, The ⌈porters⌉ are silent, When they see king Unis dawning as a soul, As a god living on his fathers, Feeding on his mothers. King Unis is lord of wisdom, Whose mother knows not his name. The honor of king Unis is in the sky, His might is in the horizon, Like Atum his father who begat him. When he begat him, he was stronger than he..    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    . 1 King Unis is one who eats men and lives on gods, Lord of messengers, who ⌈despatches⌉ his messages; It is 'Grasper-of-Forelocks' living in Kehew Who binds them for king Unis. It is the serpent 'Splendid-Head' Who watches them for him and repels them for him. It is 'He-who-is-upon-the-Willows' Who lassoes them for him. It is 'Punisher-of-all-Evil-doers' Who stabs them for king Unis. He takes out for him their entrails, He is a messenger whom he (king Unis) sends to ⌈punish⌉.

Shesmu cuts them up for king Unis And cooks for him a portion of them In his evening kettles (or 'as his evening kettles = meal'). King Unis is he who eats their charms, And devours their glorious ones (souls). Their great ones are for his morning portion, Their middle(-sized) ones are for his evening portion, Their little ones are for his night portion. Their old men and their old women are for his incense-burning. It is the 'Great-Ones-North-of-the-Sky' Who set for him the fire to the kettles containing them, With the legs of their oldest ones (as fuel). The 'Dwellers-in-the-Sky' revolve for king Unis (in his service). ⌈The kettles are replenished⌉ for him with the legs of their women. He has encircled all the Two Skies (corresponding to the Two Lands), He has revolved about the two regions. King Unis is the 'Great Mighty-One' Who overpowers the 'Mighty Ones'.    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    . Whom he finds in his way, him he devours. . . . 1 The protection of king Unis is before all the noble (dead) Who dwell in the horizon. King Unis is a god, older than the eldest. Thousands revert to him, Hundreds are offered to him. Appointment as 'Great One' is given to him By Orion, father of gods. King Unis has dawned again in the sky, ⌈Shining⌉ as lord of the horizon..    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    . He has taken the hearts of the gods; He has eaten the Red, He has swallowed the Green. King Unis is nourished on satisfied organs, He is satisfied, living on their hearts and their charms..    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    . Their charms are in his belly. The dignities of king Unis are not taken away from him;

He hath swallowed the knowledge of every god. The lifetime of king Unis is eternity, His limit is everlastingness in this his dignity of: 'If-he-wishes-he-does, If-he-wishes-not-he-does-not,' 1 Who dwells in the limits of the horizon for ever and ever. Lo, their (the gods’) soul is in the belly of king Unis, Their Glorious Ones are with king Unis. The plenty of his portion is more than (that of) the gods..    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    . Lo, their soul is with king Unis." 2

In this remarkable picture the motive of the grotesque cannibalism is perfectly clear. The gods are hunted down, lassoed, bound, and slaughtered like wild cattle, that the king may devour their substance, and especially their internal organs, like the heart where the intelligence had its seat, in the belief that he might thus absorb and appropriate their qualities and powers. When "he has taken the hearts of the gods," "he has swallowed the knowledge of every god," and "their charms are in his belly"; and because the organs of the gods which he has devoured are plentifully satisfied with food, the king cannot hunger, for he has, as it were, eaten complete satiety.

This introduces us to a subject to which the Pyramid Texts devote much space—the question of the food supply in the distant realm of the Sun-god. To explain the apparently aimless presentation of food at the tomb, where, in the Solar belief the dead no longer tarried, it was assumed that the food offered there was transmitted to the dead in various ways. Sometimes it is Thoth who conveys the food from the tomb to the sky and delivers

it to the dead king; 1 again it is the two Solar barques who transport it thither. 2 The "Imperishable Stars" too may convey the food offered on earth to the kas in the sky 3 or the ferryman may be prevailed upon to do so. 4 In any case the chief dread felt by the Egyptian for the hereafter was fear of hunger, and especially the danger that he might be reduced to the detestable extremity of consuming his own uncleanness. "The abomination of king Unis is offal; he rejects urine, he eats it not." 5

More commonly the celestial region where he tarries furnishes all his necessities. As son of Re, born of the Sky-goddess, he is frequently represented as suckled by one of the Sky-goddesses or some other divinity connected with Re, especially the ancient goddesses of the prehistoric kingdoms of South and North. These appear as "the two vultures with long hair and hanging breasts; . . . they draw their breasts over the mouth of king Pepi, but they do not wean him forever"; 6 or we find them as the two crowns of the two kingdoms personified as goddesses: "This king Pepi knows his mother, he forgets not his mother: (even) the White Crown shining and broad that dwells in Nekheb, mistress of the southern palace . . . and the bright Red Crown, mistress of the regions of Buto. O mother of this king Pepi . . . give thy breast to this king Pepi, suckle this king Pepi therewith." To this the goddess responds: "O my son Pepi, my king, my breast is extended to thee, that thou mayest suck it, my king, and live, my king, as long as thou art little." 7 This

incident exhibits more of the naturally and warmly human than anything else in the Solar theology.

Besides this source of nourishment, and the very bodies of the gods themselves, 1 there were also the offerings of all Egypt, as we have seen in the ancient Sun-hymn, where the dead king receives all that is offered by Egypt to Re (pp. 13–14). It is taken for granted that the celestial revenues belong to the king, and that they will meet all his wants. We hear the voice calling for the mortuary revenues in his behalf: "An offering which the king gives! An offering which Anubis gives! Thy thousand of young antelope from the highland, they come to thee with bowed head. An offering which the king gives! An offering which Anubis gives! Thy thousand of bread! Thy thousand of beer! Thy thousand of incense, that came forth from the palace hall! Thy thousand of everything pleasant! Thy thousand of cattle! Thy thousand of everything thou eatest, on which thy desire is set!" 2 The Pyramid Texts delight to picture the plenty which the king is to enjoy. "Plenty has extended her arm toward king Teti. The two arms of king Teti have embraced fisher and fowler, (even) all that the field furnishes to her son, the fisher-fowler." 3 We even see him going about with sack and basket collecting quantities of food, 4 food of the gods which cannot perish, "bread which cannot dry up" and "beer which cannot grow stale." 5 For the voice prays to the Sun-god: "Give thou bread to this king Pepi from this thy eternal bread, thy everlasting beer," 6 and we read that "this king Pepi receives his

provision from that which is in the granary of the Great God (Re)" 1 and his "bread is the bread of the god which is in the palace hall." 2 There in "the good seat of the Great God, in which he does the things to be done with the revered (dead), he appoints them to food and assigns them to fowling . . .; he appoints king Pepi to food, he assigns king Pepi to fowling." 3 He is surrounded by plenty: "He who is behind him belongs to food, lie who is before him belongs to snared fowl," 4 and thus "that land into which king Unis goes—he thirsts not in it, he hungers not in it forever," 5 for there "Appetite belongs to the morning meal of the king, Plenty belongs to his evening meal." 6 Again a voice summons him: "Ho, king Pepi! . . . Raise thee up! Arise! Sit down to thy thousand of bread, thy thousand of beer, thy thousand of oxen, thy thousand of geese, thy thousand of everything whereon the god lives." 7 There can be no failure of the source of supply: "a god does not escape from what he has said. (Therefore) he will furnish to thee thy thousand of bread, thy thousand of beer, thy thousand of oxen, thy thousand of geese, thy thousand of everything on which the god lives." 8

There were, to be sure, certain contingencies to be guarded against, lest some one else should secure the provisions intended for the king. "This king Pepi eats this his sole bread alone; he does not give it to the one behind him;" 9 nor does he permit the fowl of the air to plunder him of his portion. 10 If necessary he may resort to magical means, so cunningly devised that he is enabled to banish hunger and thirst and drive them far away.

[paragraph continues] "Hunger! Come not to king Teti. Hasten to Nun (the primeval flood), go to the flood. King Teti is sated; he hungers not by reason of this bread of Horus which he has eaten, which his eldest daughter made for him. He is satisfied therewith, he takes this land therewith. King Teti thirsts not by reason of Shu; he hungers not by reason of Tefnut. Hapi, Dewamutef, Kebehsenuf, and Imset (the four sons of Horus), they expel this hunger which is in the body of king Teti, and this thirst which is in the lips of king Teti." 1

Finally one of the most, if not the most, important of the numerous sources from which the departed Pharaoh hoped to draw his sustenance in the realm of Re was the tree of life in the mysterious isle in the midst of the Field of Offerings, in search of which he sets out in company with the Morning Star. The Morning Star is a gorgeous green falcon, a Solar divinity, identified with "Horus of Dewat." He has four faces, corresponding to the four Horuses of the East, with whom he is doubtless also identified. 2 We find him standing in the bow of his celestial barque of seven hundred and seventy cubits in length, and there the voice addresses him: "Take thou this king Pepi with thee in the cabin of thy boat. . . . Thou takest this thy favorite harpoon, thy staff which ⌈pierces⌉ the canals, whose points are the rays of the sun, whose barbs are the claws of Mafdet. King Pepi cuts off therewith the heads of the adversaries, dwelling in the Field of Offerings, when he has descended to the sea. Bow thy head, decline thy arms, O Sea! The children of Nut are these

[paragraph continues] (Pepi and the Morning Star) who have descended to thee, wearing their garlands on their heads, wearing their garlands at their throats." Here the homage of the sea is claimed because Pepi and the Morning Star are bent upon a beneficent errand for Isis and Horus. 1 The story then proceeds: "This king Pepi opened his path like the fowlers, he exchanged greetings with the lords of the kas, he went to the great isle in the midst of the Field of Offerings over which the gods make the swallows fly. The swallows are the Imperishable Stars. They give to this king Pepi this tree of life, whereof they live, that ye (Pepi and the Morning Star) may at the same time live thereof." 2

But the most sinister enemies may contrive to deprive the king of the sustenance which we have seen to be so elaborately provided. They may even lurk in his own body, especially in his nostrils, where they may appropriate the food intended for the king. 3 In this early age, however, enemies and dangers in the hereafter have not been multiplied by the priests as they were later in the Book of the Dead. There are precautions against them, like the dread name received by the king, a name so potent that his enemies all fear it and flee away. "Re calls thee in this thy name of which all the Glorious are afraid. Thy terror is against hearts like the terror of Re when he rises in the horizon." 4 Besides the name the dead king also receives a peculiar costume or a "recognizance," which at once distinguishes and protects him against attack from those who might mistake him for an enemy. 5

[paragraph continues] Charms, as we have already shown, were among the equipment furnished by the Pyramid Texts, and not a few of these are of a protective character. The enemy against which these are most often directed in the Pyramid Texts is serpents. It was of course natural that the dead, who were buried in the earth, out of which serpents come forth, should be especially exposed to this danger. In the case of the king also, there was another reason. In the myth of Re, he was stung by a serpent and forced to reveal his name to Isis. The departed Pharaoh who is identified with Re must necessarily meet the same danger, and from it he is protected by numerous serpent charms in the Pyramid Texts. In such charms it is quite in accordance with the Solar tale to find Re invoked to exorcise the dangerous reptile. "O serpent, turn back, for Re sees thee" were words which came very naturally to the lips of the Egyptian of this age. 1 While all the great goddesses of Egypt are said to extend their protection over the king, it is especially the Sky-goddess Nut who shields him from all harm. 2

The men in whose hands the Pyramid Texts grew up took the greatest delight in elaborating and reiterating in ever new and different pictures the blessedness enjoyed by the king, thus protected, maintained, and honored in the Sun-god's realm. Their imagination flits from figure to figure, and picture to picture, and allowed to run like some wild tropical plant without control or guidance, weaves a complex fabric of a thousand hues which refuse

to merge into one harmonious or coherent whole. At one moment the king is enthroned in Oriental splendor as he was on earth, at another he wanders in the Field of Rushes in search of food; here he appears in the bow of the Solar barque, yonder he is one of the Imperishable Stars acting as the servant of Re. There is no endeavor to harmonize these inconsistent representations, although in the mass we gain a broad impression of the eternal felicity of a godlike ruler, "who puts his annals (the record of his deeds) among his people, and his love among the gods." 1 "The king ascends to the sky among the gods dwelling in the sky. He stands on the great [dais', he hears (in judicial session) the (legal) affairs of men. Re finds thee upon the shores of the sky in this lake that is in Nut (the Sky-goddess). 'The arriver comes!' say the gods. He (Re) gives thee his arm on the stairway to the sky. 'He who knows his place comes,' say the gods. O Pure One, assume thy throne in the barque of Re and sail thou the sky. . . . Sail thou with the Imperishable Stars, sail thou with the Unwearied Stars. Receive thou the ⌈tribute⌉ of the Evening Barque, become thou a spirit dwelling in Dewat. Live thou this pleasant life which the lord of the horizon lives." 2 "This king Pepi goes to the Field of Life, the birthplace of Re in the sky. He finds Kebehet approaching him with these her four jars with which she refreshes the heart of the Great God (Re) on the day when he awakes (or 'by day when he awakes'). She refreshes the heart 3 of this king Pepi therewith to life, she purifies him, she cleanses him. He receives his provision from that which is in the granary of the Great God;

he is clothed by the Imperishable Stars." 1 To Re and Thoth (the sun and the moon) the voice cries: "Take ye this king Unis with you that he may eat of that which ye eat, and that he may drink of that which ye drink, that he may live on that whereon ye live, that he may sit in that wherein ye sit, that he may be mighty by that whereby ye are mighty, that he may sail in that wherein ye sail. The booth of king Unis is plaited (erected) in the reeds, the pool of king Unis is in the Field of Offerings. His offering is among you, ye gods. The water of king Unis is wine like (that of) of Re. King Unis circles the Sky like Re, he traverses the sky like Thoth." 2 The voice summons the divine nourishment of the king: "Bring the milk of Isis for king Teti, the flood of Nephthys, the circuit of the lake, the waves of the sea, life, prosperity, health, happiness, bread, beer, clothing, food, that king Teti may live therefrom." 3 "Lo, the two who are on the throne of the Great God (Re), they summon this king Pepi to life and satisfaction forever; they (the two) are Prosperity and Health." 4 Thus "it is better with him to-day than yesterday," 5 and we hear the voice calling to him: "Ho! King Pepi, pure one! Re finds thee standing with thy mother Nut. She leads thee in the path of the horizon and thou makest thy abiding place there. How beautiful it is together with thy ka for ever and ever." 6

Over and over again the story of the king's translation to the sky is brought before us with an indomitable conviction and insistence which it must be concluded were thought to make the words of inevitable power and effect. Condensed into a paragraph the whole sweep of the king's

celestial career is brought before us in a few swift strokes, each like a ray of sunshine touching for but an instant the prominences of some far landscape across which we look. Long successions of such paragraphs crowd one behind another like the waves of the sea, as if to overwhelm and in their impetuous rush to bear away as on a flood the insistent fact of death and sweep it to utter annihilation. It is difficult to convey to the modern reader the impression made by these thousands of lines as they roll on in victorious disregard of the invincibility of death, especially in those epitomizations of the king's celestial career which are so frequent, the paragraphs here under discussion. In so far as they owe their impressiveness to their mere bulk, built up like a bulwark against death, we can gain the impression only by reading the whole collection through. The general character of such individual epitomizing paragraphs is perhaps suggested by such as the following. The voice addresses the king: "Thy seats among the gods abide; Re leans upon thee with his shoulder. Thy odor is as their odor, thy sweat is as the sweat of the Eighteen Gods. Thou dawnest, O king Teti, in the royal hood; thy hand seizes the sceptre, thy fist grasps the mace. Stand, O king Teti, in front of the two palaces of the South and the North. Judge the gods, (for) thou art of the elders who surround Re, who are before the Morning Star. Thou art born at thy New Moons like the moon. Re leans upon thee in the horizon, O king Teti. The Imperishable Stars follow thee, the companions of Re serve thee, O king Teti. Thou purifiest thyself, thou ascendest to Re; the sky is not empty of thee, O king Teti, forever." 1 "King Teti purifies himself; he receives to himself his pure seat that is in the sky. He

abides, the beautiful seats of king Teti abide. He receives to himself his pure seat that is in the barque of Re. The sailors who row Re, they (also) row king Teti. The sailors who carry Re around behind the horizon, they carry (also) king Teti around behind the horizon." 1 "O king Neferkere! the mouth of the earth opens to thee, Geb (the Earth-god) speaks to thee: 'Thou art great like a king, mighty like Re.' Thou purifiest thyself in the Jackal-lake, thou cleansest thyself in the lake of Dewat. 'Welcome to thee,' say the Eighteen Gods. The eastern door of the sky is opened to thee by Yemen-kau; Nut has given to thee her arms, O king Neferkere, she of the long hair and pendent breasts. She guides thee to the sky, she does not put king Neferkere down (again) to the earth. She bears thee, O king Neferkere, like Orion; she makes thy abiding place before the Double Palace (of Upper and Lower Egypt transferred to the sky). King Neferkere descends into the barque like Re, on the shores of the Lily-lake. King Neferkere is rowed by the Unwearied Stars, he commands the Imperishable Stars." 2

Such in the main outlines were the beliefs held by the Egyptian of the Old Kingdom (2980–2475 B.C.) concerning the Solar hereafter. There can be no doubt that at some time they were a fairly well-defined group, separable as a group from those of the Osirian faith. To the Osirian faith, moreover, they were opposed, and evidences of their incompatibility, or even hostility, have survived. We find it said of Re that "he has not given him (the king) to Osiris, he (the king) has not died the death; he has become a Glorious One in the horizon"; 3 and still more unequivocal is the following: "Re-Atum does not give thee to Osiris. He (Osiris) numbers not thy heart, he

gains not power over thy heart. Re-Atum gives thee not to Horus (son of Osiris). He numbers not thy heart, he gains not power over thy heart. Osiris! thou hast not gained power over him, thy son (Horus) has not gained power over him. Horus! thou hast not gained power over him, thy father (Osiris) has not gained power over him." 1 It is evident that to the devotee of the Solar faith, Osiris once represented the realm and the dominion of death, to which the follower of Re was not delivered up. In harmony with this is the apprehension that the entire Osirian group might enter the pyramid with evil intent. As a great Solar symbol it was necessary to protect the pyramid from the possible aggressions of Osiris, the Osirian Horus, and the other divinities of the Osirian group. 2 At a very early age the beliefs of both the Solar and the Osirian religion merged as we have seen in the first lecture. While the nucleus of each group of myths is fairly distinguishable from the other, the coalescence of the Solar and Osirian conceptions of the hereafter has left us a very difficult process of analysis if we undertake to separate them. There is a certain body of beliefs regarding the hereafter which we may designate as Solar, and another group which are unquestionably Osirian, but the two faiths have so interpenetrated each other that there is much neutral territory which we cannot assign to either, to the entire exclusion of the other. It is clear that in the Solar faith we have a state theology, with all the splendor and the prestige of its royal patrons behind it; while in that of Osiris we are confronted by a religion of the people, which made a strong appeal to the individual believer. It is not impossible that the history of the early sequence of these beliefs was thus: We

should begin with a primitive belief in a subterranean kingdom of the dead which claimed all men. As an exclusive privilege of kings at first, and then of the great and noble, the glorious celestial hereafter which we have been discussing, finally emerged as a Solar kingdom of the dead. When the growing prestige of Osiris had displaced the older mortuary gods (like Anubis) Osiris became the great lord of the Nether World, and Osiris and his realm entered into competition with the Solar and celestial hereafter. In the mergence of these two faiths we discern for the first time in history the age-long struggle between the state form of religion and the popular faith of the masses. It will be the purpose of the next lecture to disengage as far as may be the nucleus of the Osirian teaching of the after life, and to trace the still undetermined course of its struggle with the imposing celestial theology whose doctrine of the royal dead we have been following.

Footnotes

118:1 Pyr. §§ 1539 40; this passage has been Osirianized, but it will be found in its original form in §§ 1991–2.

118:2 Pyr. § 1492; the same formula is repeated with the names of Set, Geb, the souls of Heliopolis and the souls of Buto in the place of the name of Horus.

118:3 Pyr. § 1197.

119:1 Pyr. §§ 253–5.

119:2 Pyr. § 597.

119:3 Pyr. § 952.

119:4 Pyr. § 120.

120:1 The jackal is an old god of the west, and the reference is to a jackal's head, which commonly appears on the head of a sceptre.

120:2 Pyr. Ut. 217.

120:3 Pyr. § 954.

120:4 Pyr. §§ 490–1.

121:1 Pyr. § 267.

121:2 Pyr. § 1179.

121:3 Pyr. § 952.

121:4 Pyr. § 263.

121:5 Pyr. § 918.

121:6 See above, pp. 13–14.

121:7 Pyr. §§;855–6.

121:8 Pyr. § 813.

121:9 Pyr. § 266.

122:1 Pyr. § 1687.

122:2 Pyr. § 906 = §§ 1573–4. See also § 889.

122:3 Pyr. § 1346.

122:4 Pyr. § 335 = § 950.

122:5 Pyr. §§ 886–8.

123:1 Pyr. § 25.

123:2 See p. 144, n. 2.

123:3 Pyr. Ut. 252.

123:4 Pyr. § 698; also § 704.

123:5 Pyr. §§ 1835–6.

123:6 Pyr. § 1875.

123:7 Pyr. § 1461 b.

123:8 Pyr. § 703–4.

123:9 Pyr. § 135.

123:10 Pyr. §§ 147–9.

124:1 Pyr. § 1688.

124:2 Pyr. § 306

124:3 Pyr. §§ 704–5. Compare also Utterance 573, in which the king is probably identified with the four Horuses, that Re may protect and preserve him alive.

124:4 Pyr. Ut. 587; see infra, pp. 13–14.

124:5 This entire Utterance, 587, is really but a longer example of the sympathetic operation of the god's activities, of which we have innumerable examples throughout the Pyramid Texts. The god p. 125 crosses the Lily-lake, the king crosses; the god is purified, the king is purified; the god sails the sky, the king sails the sky, etc., etc.

125:1 Pyr. Ut. 362.

125:2 Pyr. § 324.

125:3 Pyr. § 1156.

125:4 Pyr. § 1146.

125:5 Pyr. § 1146.

126:1 Pyr. §§ 1466–8.

126:2 Pyr. §§ 376–8. The variant in the last line has: "Ye love this Pepi, ye gods." The poem was of course accompanied by the burning of incense; also by an offering of bread which immediately followed. A formula of the ascension, as frequently with the burning of incense, then follows.

127:1 The passage omitted is an obscure description of the equipment of the dead king, which, however, contains an important statement that the king "lives on the being of every god, eating their organs who come with their belly filled with charms."

128:1 This line is found three times: §§ 278 a, 407, 444 e.

129:1 This is a name or rank expressed in a couplet.

129:2 Pyr. Ut. 273.

130:1 Pyr. § 58.

130:2 Pyr. § 717.

130:3 Pyr. § 1220.

130:4 Pyr. Ut. 521. Hence it is that even in the sky the deceased Pharaoh is concerned that the food supply of his "altars that are on earth" shall be continued. See Pyr. § 1482.

130:5 Pyr. § 718.

130:6 Pyr. §§ 1118–19.

130:7 Pyr. §§ 910–913.

131:1 As above (pp. 127–9). The phrase "Whom he finds in his way he eats him for himself," referring to divine victims whom he devours as food, is found no less than three times (Pyr. §§ 278 a, 407, 444 e).

131:2 Pyr. §§ 806–7.

131:3 Pyr. § 555.

131:4 Pyr. § 556.

131:5 Pyr. § 859.

131:6 Pyr. § 1117.

132:1 Pyr. § 1182.

132:2 Pyr. § 866.

132:3 Pyr. §§ 1191–2.

132:4 Pyr. § 1394.

132:5 Pyr. § 382.

132:6 Pyr. § 1876.

132:7 Pyr. §§ 2026–7.

132:8 Pyr. § 2006.

132:9 Pyr. § 1226.

132:10 Ibid.

133:1 Pyr. Ut. 338; see also Ut. 339, 340, 400, 438. The charm quoted above may be Osirian, in view of "the bread of Horus," but the distinction between Osirian and Solar elements is here of slight consequence.

133:2 Pyr. § 1207.

134:1 This introduction of an Osirian incident here does not alter the clearly Solar character of the story, in which Pepi goes in search of the tree of life with the Morning Star, a Sun-god, carrying a spear of sunbeams.

134:2 Pyr. §§ 1209–16.

134:3 Pyr. § 484.

134:4 Pyr. § 2025.

134:5 Pyr. §§ 2044, 2004.

135:1 Pyr. § 226; see also § 231 and other serpent charms in Ut. 226–237, 240, 242 et al.

135:2 Pyr. Ut. 443–7, 450–2, 484, 589, 681, and § 2107. Many of these are strongly colored by Osirian theology; indeed Ut. 443–7 are largely Osirian, but the original character of Nut's functions in the celestial and Solar theology is clear.

136:1 Pyr. § 1160.

136:2 Pyr. §§ 1169–72.

136:3 Confer the reanimation of the heart of the dead Bata by the use of a jar of water in the Tale of the Two Brothers, infra, p. 359.

137:1 Pyr. §§ 1180–2.

137:2 Pyr. §§ 128–130.

137:3 Pyr. § 707.

137:4 Pyr. § 1190.

137:5 Pyr. § 122.

137:6 Pyr. § 2028.

138:1 Pyr. §730–3.

139:1 Pyr. Ut. 407.

139:2 Pyr. §§ 2169–73.

139:3 Pyr. § 350.

140:1 Pyr. §§ 145–6.

140:2 See above, p. 75.

LECTURE V

THE OSIRIANIZATION OF THE HEREAFTER

Probably nothing in the life of the ancient Nile-dwellers commends them more appealingly to our sympathetic consideration than the fact that when the Osirian faith had once developed, it so readily caught the popular imagination as to spread rapidly among all classes. It thus came into active competition with the Solar faith of the court and state priesthoods. This was especially true of its doctrines of the after life, in the progress of which we can discern the gradual Osirianization of Egyptian religion, and especially of the Solar teaching regarding the hereafter.

There is nothing in the Osiris myth, nor in the character or later history of Osiris, to suggest a celestial hereafter. Indeed clear and unequivocal survivals from a period when he was hostile to the celestial and Solar dead are still discoverable in the Pyramid Texts. We recall the exorcisms intended to restrain Osiris and his kin from entering the pyramid, a Solar tomb, with evil intent (p. 75). 1 Again we find the dead king as a star in the sky, thus addressed: "Thou lookest down upon Osiris commanding the Glorious (= the dead). There thou standest, being far from him, (for) thou art not of them (the dead), thou belongest not among them." 2 Likewise it is said of the Sun-god: "He has freed king Teti from Kherti, he has

not given him to Osiris." 1 It is perhaps due to an effort to overcome this difficulty that Horus, the son of Osiris, is represented as one "who puts not this Pepi over the dead, he puts him among the gods, he being divine." 2 The prehistoric Osiris faith, probably local to the Delta, thus involved a forbidding hereafter which was dreaded and at the same time was opposed to celestial blessedness beyond. To be sure, the Heliopolitan group of gods, the Divine Ennead of that city, makes Osiris a child of Nut, the Sky-goddess. But his father was the Earth-god Geb, a very natural result of the character of Osiris as a Nile-god and a spirit of vegetable life, both of which in Egyptian belief came out of the earth. Moreover, the celestial destiny through Nut the Sky-goddess is not necessarily Osirian. It is found, along with the frequent and non-Osirian or even pre-Osirian co-ordination of Horus and Set, associated in the service of the dead. 3 The appearance of these two together assisting the dead cannot be Osirian. 4 To be protected and assisted by Nut, therefore, does not necessarily imply that she is doing this for the dead king, because he is identified with Osiris, her son. It is thus probable that as a Sky-goddess intimately associated with Re, Nut's functions in the celestial life hereafter were originally Solar and at first not connected with the Osirian faith.

When Osiris migrated up the Nile from the Delta, we recall how he was identified with one of the old mortuary gods of the South, the "First of the Westerners" (Khenti-Amentiu), and his kingdom was conceived as situated in the West, or below the western horizon, where it merged into the Nether World. He became king of a realm of

the dead below the earth, and hence his frequent title, "Lord of Dewat," the "Nether World," which occurs even in the Pyramid Texts. 1 It is as lord of a subterranean kingdom of the dead that Osiris later appears. 2

As there was nothing then in the myth or the offices of Osiris to carry him to the sky, so the simplest of the Osirian Utterances in the Pyramid Texts do not carry him thither. There are as many varying pictures of the Osirian destiny as in the Solar theology. We find the dead king as a mere messenger of Osiris announcing the prosperous issue and plentiful yield of the year, the harvest year, which is associated with Osiris. 1 That group of incidents in the myth which proves to be especially available in the future career of the dead king is his relations with Horus, the son of Osiris, and the filial piety displayed by the son toward his father. We may find the dead king identified with Horus and marching forth in triumph from Buto, with his mother, Isis, before him and Nephthys behind him, while Upwawet opened the way for them. 2 More often, however, the dead king does all that Osiris did, receiving heart and limbs as did Osiris, 3 or becoming Osiris himself. This was the favorite belief of the Osiris faith. The king became Osiris and rose from the dead as Osiris did. 4 This identity began at birth and is described in the Pyramid Texts with all the wonders and prodigies of a divine birth.

"The waters of life that are in the sky come; The waters of life that are in the earth come. The sky burns for thee, The earth trembles for thee, Before the divine birth. The two mountains divide, The god becomes,

[paragraph continues] The god takes possession of his body. The two mountains divide, This king Neferkere becomes, This king Neferkere takes possession of his body."

[paragraph continues] Osiris as Nile is thus born between the two mountains of the eastern and western Nile shores, and in the same way, and as the same being, the king is born. 1 Hence we find the king appearing elsewhere as the inundation. 2 It is not the mere assumption of the form of Osiris, 3 but complete identity with him, which is set forth in this doctrine of the Pyramid Texts. "As he (Osiris) lives, this king Unis lives; as he dies not, this king Unis dies not; as he perishes not, this king Unis perishes not." These asseverations are repeated over and over, and addressed to every god in the Ennead, that each may be called upon to witness their truth. Osiris himself under various names is adjured, "Thy body is the body of this king Unis, thy flesh is the flesh of this king Unis, thy bones are the bones of this king Unis." 4 Thus the dead king receives the throne of Osiris, and becomes, like him, king of the dead. "Ho! king Neferkere (Pepi II)! How beautiful is this! How beautiful is this, which thy father Osiris has done for thee! He has given thee his throne, thou rulest those of the hidden places (the dead), thou leadest their august ones, all the glorious ones follow thee." 5

The supreme boon which this identity of the king with Osiris assured the dead Pharaoh was the good offices of Horus, the personification of filial piety. All the pious

attentions which Osiris had once enjoyed at the hands of his son Horus now likewise become the king's portion. The litigation which the myth recounts at Heliopolis is successfully met by the aid of Horus, as well as Thoth, and, like Osiris, the dead king receives the predicate "righteous of voice," or "justified," an epithet which was later construed as meaning "triumphant." 1 Over and over again the resurrection of Osiris by Horus, and the restoration of his body, are likewise affirmed to be the king's privilege. "Horus collects for thee thy limbs that he may put thee together without any lack in thee." 2 Horus then champions his cause, as he had done that of his father, till the dead king gains the supreme place as sovereign of all. "O Osiris king Teti, arise! Horus comes that he may reclaim thee from the gods. Horus loves thee, he has equipped thee with his eye. . . . Horus has opened for thee thy eye that thou mayest see with it. . . . The gods . . . they love thee. Isis and Nephthys have healed thee. Horus is not far from thee; thou art his ka. Thy face is gracious unto him. . . . Thou hast received the word of Horus, thou art satisfied therewith. Hearken unto Horus, he has caused the gods to serve thee. . . . Horus has found thee that there is profit for him in thee. Horus sends up to thee the gods; he has given them to thee that they may illuminate thy face. Horus has placed thee at the head of the gods. He has caused thee to take every crown. . . . Horus has seized for thee the gods. They escape not from thee, from the place where thou hast gone. Horus counts for thee the gods. They retreat not from thee, from the place which thou hast seized. . . . Horus avenged thee; it was not long till he avenged thee. Ho, Osiris king Teti! thou art

a mighty god, there is no god like thee. Horus has given to thee his children that they might carry thee. He has given to thee all gods that they may serve thee, and thou have power over them." 1 A long series of Utterances in the Pyramid Texts sets forth this championship of the dead king as Osiris by his son Horus. 2 In all this there is little or no trace of the celestial destiny, or any indication of the place where the action occurs. Such incidents and such Utterances are appropriated from the Osirian theology and myth, with little or no change. But the Osirian doctrine of the hereafter, absorbed into these royal mortuary texts by the priesthood of Heliopolis, could not, in spite of its vigorous popularity, resist the prestige of the state (or Solar) theology. Even in the Osirian Utterances on the good offices of Horus just mentioned we twice find the dead king, although he is assumed to be Osiris, thus addressed: "Thou art a Glorious One (Y’ḫwty) in thy name of 'Horizon (Y’ḫt) from which Re comes forth.'" 3 The Osirian hereafter was thus celestialized, as had been the Osirian theology when it was correlated with that of Heliopolis. We find the Sky-goddess Nut extending to the Osirian dead her protection and the privilege of entering her realm. Nut "takes him to the sky, she does not cast him down to the earth." 4 The ancient hymn in praise of the Sky-goddess embedded in the Pyramid Texts 5 has received an introduction, in which the king as Osiris is commended to her protection, and the hymn is broken up by petitions inserted at intervals craving a celestial destiny for the dead king, although this archaic hymn had originally no demonstrable connection

with Osiris, and was, as far as any indication it contains is concerned, written before the priestly theology had made Osiris the son of the Sky-goddess. 1 Similarly Anubis, the ancient mortuary god of Siut, "counts Osiris away from the gods belonging to the earth, to the gods dwelling in the sky"; 2 and we find in the Pyramid Texts the anomalous ascent of Osiris to the sky: "The sky thunders (lit. speaks), earth trembles, for fear of thee, Osiris, when thou makest ascent. Ho, mother cows yonder! Ho, suckling mothers (cows) yonder! Go ye behind him, weep for him, hail him, acclaim him, when he makes ascent and goes to the sky among his brethren, the gods." 3 His transition to the Solar and celestial destiny is effected in one passage by a piece of purely mortuary theologizing which represents Re as raising Osiris from the dead. 4 Thus is Osiris celestialized until the Pyramid Texts even call him "lord of the sky," 5 and represent him as ruling there. The departed Pharaoh is ferried over, the doors of the sky are opened for him, he passes all enemies as he goes, and he is announced to Osiris in the sky precisely as in the Solar theology. There he is welcomed by Osiris, 6 and he joins the "Imperishable Stars, the followers of Osiris," 7 just as in the Solar faith. In the same way he emerges as a god of primeval origin and elemental powers. "Thou bearest the sky in thy hand, thou layest down the earth with thy foot." 8 Celestials and men acclaim the dead, even "thy wind is incense, thy north wind is smoke," 9 say they.

While the Heliopolitan priests thus solarized and celestialized

the Osirian mortuary doctrines, although they were essentially terrestrial in origin and character, these Solar theologians were in their turn unable to resist the powerful influence which the popularity of the Osirian faith brought to bear upon them. The Pyramid Texts were eventually Osirianized, and the steady progress of this process, exhibiting the course of the struggle between the Solar faith of the state temples and the popular beliefs of the Osirian religion thus discernible in the Pyramid Texts, is one of the most remarkable survivals from the early world, preserving as it does the earliest example of such a spiritual and intellectual conflict between state and popular religion. The dying Sun and the dying Osiris are here in competition. With the people the human Osiris makes the stronger appeal, and even the wealthy and subsidized priesthoods of the Solar religion could not withstand the power of this appeal. What we have opportunity to observe in the Pyramid Texts is specifically the gradual but irresistible intrusion of Osiris into the Solar doctrines of the hereafter and their resulting Osirianization.

Even on his coffin, preserved in the pyramid sepulchre, the departed king is called "Osiris, lord of Dewat." 1 The Osirian influence is superficially evident in otherwise purely Solar Utterances of the Pyramid Texts where the Osirian editor has inserted the epithet "Osiris" before the king's name, so that we have "Osiris king Unis," or "Osiris king Pepi." 2 This was at first so mechanically done that in the offering ritual it was placed only at the head of each Utterance. In the earliest of our five versions of the Pyramid Texts, that of Unis, we find "Osiris" inserted before the king's name wherever that name stands at the

head of the Utterance, but not where it is found in the body of the text. Evidently the Osirian editor ran hastily and mechanically through the sections, inserting "Osiris" at the head of each one which began with the king's name, but not taking the trouble to go through each section seeking the king's name and to insert "Osiris" wherever necessary in the body of the text also. 1

In this way the whole Offering Ritual was Osirianized in Unis's pyramid, but the editor ceased this process of mechanical insertion at the end of the ritual. A similar method may be observed where the same Utterance happens to be preserved in two different pyramids, one exhibiting the mechanical insertion of "Osiris" before the king's name, while the other lacks such editing. This is especially significant where the content of the Utterances is purely Solar. 2

But the Osirianization of the Pyramid Texts involves more than such mechanical alteration of externals. We find one Utterance 3 in its old Solar form, without a single reference to Osiris or to Osirian doctrine, side by side with the same Utterance in expanded form filled with Osirian elements. The traces of the Osirian editor's work are evident throughout, but they are interestingly demonstrable

in a series of five stanzas each addressed to a different god, whose name begins the stanza. The last stanza of the five begins with two gods’ names, however, the second being "Sekhem, son of Osiris," although in the apostrophe, which constitutes this fifth stanza, the two gods are addressed by pronouns in the singular number! It is evident that, like the other four stanzas, the fifth also began with the name of a single god, but that the Osirian editor has inserted the name of an Osirian god as a second name, forgetting to change the pronouns. 1 The insertion is enhanced in significance by the fact that all five gods in these five stanzas are Solar gods, and the last one, after which the name of Osiris was inserted, is identified with Re.

The process was carried so far that it was sometimes applied to passages totally at variance with the Osirian doctrine. In the old Solar teaching we not infrequently find Horus and Set side by side on an equal basis, and both represented as engaged in some beneficent act for the dead. 2 Now when the dead king is identified with Osiris, by the insertion of the name "Osiris" before that of the king, we are confronted by the extraordinary assumption that Set performs pious mortuary offices for Osiris, although the Osiris myth represents Set as mutilating the body of the dead Osiris and scattering his limbs far and wide. Thus an old purification ceremony in the presence of the gods and nobles of Heliopolis (and hence clearly Solar) represents the dead as cleansed by the spittle of Horus and the spittle of Set. This ceremony

had, of course, nothing to do with the Osirian ritual, but when the ritual introducing this ceremony was Osirianized, we find "King Osiris, this Pepi" inserted before the formula of purification, thus assuming that Osiris was purified by his arch-enemy, the foul Set! 1 Similarly, Set may appear alone in old Solar Utterances on familiar and friendly terms with the dead king, so that the king may be addressed thus: "He calls to thee on the stairway of the sky; thou ascendest to the god; Set fraternizes with thee," even though the king has just been raised as Osiris from the dead! 2

The ladder leading to the sky was originally an element of the Solar faith. That it had nothing to do with Osiris is evident, among other things, from the fact that one version of the ladder episode represents it in charge of Set. 3 The Osirianization of the ladder episode is clearly traceable in four versions of it, which are but variants of the same ancient original. 4 The four represent a period of nearly a century, at least of some eighty-five years. In the oldest form preserved to us, in the pyramid of Unis, 5 dating from the middle of the twenty-seventh century, the Utterance opens with the acclamation of the gods as Unis ascends. "'How beautiful to see, how satisfying to behold,' say the gods, when this god ascends to the sky, when Unis ascends to the sky. . . .' The gods in the sky and the gods on earth come to him; they make supports for Unis on their arm. Thou ascendest, O Unis,

to the sky. Ascend upon it in this its name of 'Ladder.' The sky is given to Unis, the earth is given to him by Atum." Such is the essential substance of the Utterance. 1 The ladder here barely emerges and the climber is the Pharaoh himself, though Atum is prominent. A generation later, in the pyramid of Teti the ladder is more developed and the original climber is Atum, the Sun-god; but the Osirian goddesses, Isis and Nephthys, are introduced. Finally, in the pyramid of Pepi I, at least eighty-five years after that of Unis, the opening acclamation of the old gods as they behold the ascent of the Pharaoh is put into the mouths of Isis and Nephthys, and the climber has become Osiris. 2 Thus Osiris has taken possession of the old Solar episode and appropriated the old Solar text. This has taken place in spite of embarrassing complications. In harmony with the common co-ordination of Horus and Set in the service of the dead, an old Solar doctrine represented them as assisting him at the ascent of the ladder which Re and Horus set up. But when the ascending king becomes Osiris, the editor seems quite unconscious of the incongruity, as Set, the mortal enemy and slayer of Osiris, assists him to reach his celestial abode! 3

Nowhere is the intrusion of Osiris in the Pyramid Texts more striking than in the Utterances devoted to the services of the four Eastern Horuses on behalf of the dead. A favorite means of ascension, of opening the sky-gates,

of ferrying over, of purification and the like, was to have all these things first done for each of the four Horuses in succession, and then by sympathetic inevitability also for the dead king. Four considerable Utterances are built up in this way, each containing an account of the things done by each of the four Horuses, and then likewise by the king. 1

In the oldest form of these Utterances, as found in the pyramid of Teti, the quartette comprise the following:

1. Horus of the Gods.

2. Horus of the Horizon (Harakhte).

3. Horus of the Shesmet.

4. Horus of the East. 2

[paragraph continues] The exclusively Solar character of each of these Horuses is evident from the connections in which they appear in the Pyramid Texts, while in the case of two of them (Horus of the Horizon and Horus of the East) the name renders it evident. Indeed, in the Teti pyramid the four appear as heralds announcing the name of Teti to the Sun-god, in a passage which is hostile to Osiris, and affirms that the Sun-god "has not given him (the king)

to Osiris." 1 Two generations after Teti we find the same four Horuses, unaltered, 2 side by side with a further development of the group exhibiting an intruder; it appears thus:

1. Horus of the Gods.

2. Horus of the East.

3. Horus of the Shesmet.

4. Osiris. 3

Osiris has thus pushed his way into this Solar group to the displacement of the most unequivocally Solar of them all, Horus of the Horizon (Harakhte). The intrusion of Osiris here is the most convincing example of his power, and the most clearly discernible in the whole range of the process which Osirianized the Pyramid Texts. We can now understand why it is that when the dead is identified with the four Horuses, he is preserved from decay by Isis and Nephthys as the four Horuses had been likewise preserved by the same Osirian goddesses. When once the group has been Osirianized it is to be expected that they shall enjoy the good offices of the wife and sister of Osiris. 4 The exclusion of one of the four Horuses, by the intrusion of Osiris, leaving really only three, is doubtless the reason why we find in another Osirianized Utterance that only three of them appear. 5

As the four Solar Horuses of the East were Osirianized, so in all probability were the four mortuary genii, commonly known as the "four sons of Horus." We find this second four (whom we shall call the four genii to distinguish them from the four Solar Horuses) figuring prominently in the ascension. Indeed they make the ladder, which is a purely celestial and Solar matter, as we have

seen (p. 111), and they make it together with Atum, the primeval Sun-god. Similarly we find them all in a list of Solar gods, 1 and they appear also in charge of the Solar ferry-boat, 2 in which they ferry over the dead. 3 The four Horuses also have much to do with the celestial ferry, and it would appear, though this is merely a conjecture, that the four genii are an artificial creation parallel with the four Horuses, and perhaps their sons. 4 In any case the dead may be identified with one of them as with the four Horuses. 5 The four genii were, however, fully Osirianized, they avenge Osiris and smite Set, 6 and they carry the body of the dead king as Osiris. 7 In the later mortuary ritual of the Osirian faith they played a prominent rôle, and are especially well known as the four genii who had charge of the viscera of the dead, which they protect in the hereafter in the four so-called "Canopic" jars, each one of which is surmounted by the head of one of the four genii. This function in the Osirian faith is foreshadowed in the Pyramid Texts in a passage where we find them expelling hunger and thirst from the belly and lips of the dead. 8

As the four Horuses and the four genii, who had so much to do with the ascension and the celestial ferry, were Osirianized, so eventually was the ancient Solar ferryman "Face-Behind-Him," who receives the title "Doorkeeper of Osiris" and the Solar ferry becomes the property

of Osiris, to whom the ferryman is adjured to say, "Let this thy (Osiris's) ship be brought for this king Pepi." 1 The two floats of reeds suffered much the same fate. These, as we have seen (p.108), are clearly Solar when they first appear. 2 Indeed, in the pyramid of Teti they are found in an Utterance 3 explicitly hostile to Osiris, in which it is stated that the Sun-god does not deliver the dead king to Osiris. Nevertheless the reed floats are also completely Osirianized in the Pyramid Texts. We find them laid down for Osiris, by the gods of the cardinal points, in an Utterance purely Osirian in character, 4 and within a century after they appear still purely Solar in the pyramid of Unis, they were employed in that of Pepi I for the crossing of Osiris. 5

If the ladder, the ferry-boat, and the reed floats, the instrumentalities for reaching the skies, a place with which Osiris had properly nothing to do, were thus early Osirianized, we cannot wonder that the sky itself and its denizens were likewise appropriated by Osiris till the "Imperishable Stars" are called "followers of Osiris." In the same way, when the king is born, like Osiris, as Nile, 6 we may find him transferred to the sky and flooding the heavens as the Nile inundation; he makes all the sky fresh and verdant. "King Unis comes to his pools that are in the region of the flood at the great inundation, to the place of peace with green fields, that is in the horizon. Unis makes the verdure to flourish in the two regions of the horizon." 7 Finally Osiris is not only identified with the dead king, but also even with his temple and pyramid, 8 the great Solar symbol, from which these

same Pyramid Texts contain formulæ for exorcising Osiris and his kin (see p. 75). 1

An important link between the celestial and the Osirian doctrine of the hereafter was the fact that the Sun-god died every day in the west. There was at Abydos, as we have already seen (p. 38), an old mortuary god known as "First of the Westerners," who was early absorbed by Osiris, so that "First of the Westerners" became an epithet appended to the name of Osiris. Before this conquest by Osiris took place, however, the "First of the Westerners" as a local god of Abydos had already become involved in the celestial hereafter. An ancient Abydos offering formulary preserved in the Pyramid Texts addresses the dead thus: "The earth is hacked up for thee, the offering is placed before thee. Thou goest upon that way whereon the gods go. Turn thee that thou mayest see this offering which the king has made for thee, which the First of the Westerners has made for thee. Thou goest to those northern gods, the Imperishable Stars." 2 It is evident that the First of the Westerners is closely associated with the celestial hereafter in this passage. Later, when Osiris was identified with the First of the Westerners, the latter's connection with the celestial hereafter will have assisted in celestializing the Osirian mortuary beliefs.

Now, while all this also resulted in Osirianizing the celestial and Solar mortuary teachings, they still remained celestial. When the dead Osiris is taken up by Re, 3 it is evident that Re's position in these composite mortuary doctrines is still the chief one. The fact remains, then, that the celestial doctrines of the hereafter dominate the Pyramid Texts throughout, and the later subterranean

kingdom of Osiris and Re's voyage through it are still entirely in the background in these royal mortuary teachings. Among the people Re is later, as it were, dragged into the Nether World to illumine there the subjects of Osiris in his mortuary kingdom, and this is one of the most convincing evidences of the power of Osiris among the lower classes. In the royal and state temple theology, Osiris is lifted to the sky, and while he is there Solarized, we have just shown how he also tinctures the Solar teaching of the celestial kingdom of the dead with Osirian doctrines. The result was thus inevitable confusion, as the two faiths interpenetrated.

In both faiths we recall that the king is identified with the god, and hence we find him unhesitatingly called Osiris and Re in the same passage. The following extensive passages well illustrate the often inextricable confusion resulting from the interweaving of these unharmonized elements. The text opens with the resurrection of Osiris at the hands of Horus, but we soon perceive that this incident has been engrafted upon ancient Solar doctrines. "Arise for me, O king. Arise for me, O Osiris king Mernere. I am he, I am thy son, I am Horus. I come to thee, I purify thee, I make thee alive, I gather for thee thy bones. . . . For I am Horus, thy avenger. I have smitten for thee him who smote thee. I have avenged thee, king Osiris Mernere, on him who did thee evil. I have come to thee with a commission of Heru. He has put thee, king Osiris Mernere, upon the throne of Re-Atum, that thou mayest lead the people. Thou embarkest in this barque of Re, to which the gods love to descend, in which they love to embark, in which Re is rowed to the horizon. Thou embarkest therein like Re, thou sittest down on this throne of Re that thou mayest

command the gods. For thou art Re who came forth from Nut, who begets Re every day. This Mernere is born every day like Re." Then follows a picture of enthronement and felicity in the realm of Re, in which there is no reference to Osiris. It then proceeds: "They (the 'two great gods who are in charge of the Field of Rushes') recite for thee this chapter which they recited for Re-Atum who shines every day. They put this Mernere upon their thrones before every Divine Ennead, like Re and like his successor. They cause this Mernere to become like Re in this his name of Kheprer (Sun-god). Thou ascendest to them like Re in this his name of Re. Thou wanderest away from them like Re in this his name of Atum. 1 The two Divine Enneads rejoice, O king Osiris Mernere. They say, 'Our brother here comes to us,' say the two Divine Enneads concerning Osiris Mernere, O king Osiris Mernere. 'One of us comes to us,' say the two Divine Enneads concerning thee, O king Osiris Mernere. 'The first-born of his mother!' say the two Divine Enneads concerning thee, O king Osiris Mernere. 'He to whom evil was done by his brother Set comes to us,' say the two Divine Enneads. 'But we shall not permit that Set be delivered from bearing thee forever, O king Osiris Mernere,' say the two Divine Enneads concerning thee, O king Osiris Mernere. Lift thee up, O king Osiris Mernere. Thou livest." 2 It will be noticed that the Osirian passage which follows so abruptly upon the Solar is Osirian in content, and its Osirian character does not consist in the simple insertion of the name of Osiris before that of the king.

Perhaps even worse confusion is exhibited by the following Utterance:

"O this Pepi! Thou hast departed. Thou art a Glorious One, thou art mighty as a god, like the successor of Osiris. Thy soul hast thou in the midst of thee. Thy power (or 'control') hast thou behind thee. Thy crown hast thou on thy head. . . . The servants of the god are behind thee, the nobles of the god are before thee."

"They recite: 'The god comes! The god comes! This Pepi comes upon the throne of Osiris. This Glorious One comes, the Dweller in Nedyt, the mighty one, the dweller in Thinis (Osiris).'"

"Isis speaks to thee, Nephthys greets thee. The Glorious come to thee, bowing down; they kiss the earth at thy feet, because the terror of thee, O this Pepi, is in the cities of Seya."

"Thou ascendest to thy mother Nut; she seizes thy arm. She gives to thee the way to the horizon, to the place where Re is. The double doors of the sky are opened for thee, the double doors of Kebehu (the sky) are opened for thee."

"Thou findest Re standing (there); he greets thee. He seizes thy arm, he leads thee into the double palace of the sky. He places thee upon the throne of Osiris."

"Ho, this Pepi! The Horus-eye comes to thee, it addresses thee. Thy soul that is among the gods comes to thee; thy power (or control') that is among the Glorious comes to thee. The son has avenged his father, Horus has avenged Osiris. Horus has avenged Pepi on his enemies."

"Thou risest, O this Pepi, avenged, equipped as a god, endued with the form of Osiris, upon the throne of the First of the Westerners. Thou doest what he was accustomed

to do among the Glorious, the Imperishable Stars."

"Thy son stands on thy throne equipped with thy form. He does what thou wast accustomed to do formerly before the living, by command of Re, the great god. He ploughs barley, he ploughs spelt, he presents thee therewith."

"'Ho, this Pepi! All satisfying life is given to thee, eternity is thine,' says Re. Thou speakest thyself; receive to thee the form of the god wherewith thou shalt be great among the gods who are in control of the lake."

"Ho, this Pepi! Thy soul stands among the gods, among the Glorious. The fear of thee is on their hearts."

"Ho, this Pepi! This Pepi stands upon thy throne before the living. The terror of thee is on their hearts."

"Thy name lives upon earth, thy name grows old upon earth. Thou perishest not, thou passest not away for ever and ever." 1

While there is some effort here to correlate the functions of Re and Osiris, it can hardly be called an attempt at harmonization of conflicting doctrines. This is practically unknown in the Pyramid Texts. Perhaps we may regard it as an explanation of Osiris's presence in the sky when we find a reference to the fact that "he ascended . . . to the sky that he might join the suite of Re." 2 But the fact that both Re and Osiris appear as supreme kings of the hereafter cannot be reconciled, and such mutually irreconcilable beliefs caused the Egyptian no more

discomfort than was felt by any early civilization in the maintenance of a group of religious teachings side by side with others involving varying and totally inconsistent suppositions. Even Christianity itself has not escaped this experience.

There is a marked difference between Osiris and Re. Osiris is in function passive. Rarely does he become an active agent on behalf of the dead (as, e.g., in Pyr. Ut. 559). The blessedness of the Osirian destiny consisted largely in the enjoyment of the good offices of Horus, who appears as the son of the dead as soon as the latter is identified with Osiris. On the other hand, Re is a mighty sovereign, often directly interposing in favor of the dead, while it is the services of others on behalf of Osiris (not by Osiris) which the dead (as Osiris) enjoys. Osiris is a god of the dead; Re, on the other hand, is the great power in the affairs of living men, and there we behold his sovereignty expanding and developing to hold sway in a more exalted realm of moral values—a realm of which we shall gain the earliest glimpses anywhere vouchsafed us as we endeavor to discover more than the merely material agencies, and the material ends, which we have seen dominating the Egyptian conception of the hereafter.

Footnotes

142:1 Pyr. §§ 1266–7.

142:2 Pyr. § 251.

143:1 Pyr. § 350.

143:2 Pyr. § 969.

143:3 Pyr. Ut. 443.

143:4 See infra, pp. 152–3.

144:1 Pyr. § 8 d.

144:2 The situation of Dewat is a difficult problem. As the Nile flows out of it, according to later texts, especially the Sun-hymns, and the common designation of the universe in the Empire is "sky, earth, and Dewat," it is evident that it was later understood to be the Nether World. Such is the conclusion of Sethe in his still unpublished Antrittsvorlesung. See also Jéquier, Le livre de ce qu’il y a dans l’Hades, Paris, 1894, especially pp. 3–6; also Lefebure, in Sphinx, vol. I, pp. 27–46. In the Pyramid Texts it is evidently in the sky in a considerable number of passages. It can be understood in no other way in passages where it is parallel with "sky," like the following:

"The sky conceived thee together with Orion; Dewat bears thee together with Orion." (Pyr. § 820 = the same in Pyr. § 1527.)

[paragraph continues] Or again:

"Who voyages the sky with Orion, Who sails Dewat with Osiris." (Pyr. § 882.)

Similarly "Dewat seizes thy hand, (leads thee) to the place where Orion (= the sky) (Pyr. § 802); and Orion and Sothis in the "horizon" are encircled by Dewat (Pyr. § 151). Here Dewat is in the horizon, and likewise we find the dead "descends among" the dwellers in Dewat after he has ascended to the sky (Pyr. § 2084 c). It was thus sufficiently accessible from the sky, so that the dead, after he ascended, bathed in the "lake of Dewat" (Pyr. § 1164), and while in the sky he became a "glorious one dwelling in Dewat" (Pyr. § 1172 b). When he has climbed the ladder of Re, Horus and Set take him to Dewat (Pyr. § 390). It is parallel with ’kr, where ’kr is a variant of Geb, the earth (Pyr. § 1014 = § 796), which carries it down to earth again. It might appear here that Dewat was a lower region of the sky, in the vicinity of the horizon, below which it also extended. It is notable that in the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom there appears a "lower Dewat" (Lacau, Rec. 27, 218, l. 47). The deceased says: "My place is in the barque of Re in the middle of lower Dewat" (ibid., l. 52). Dewat thus merged into the Nether World, with which it was ultimately identified, or, being originally the Nether World, it had its counterpart in the sky.

145:1 Pyr. §§ 1195.

145:2 Pyr. §§ 1089–90; §§ 1373–5. Both these passages merge into an ascension of Solar character.

145:3 Pyr. § 364, followed by celestial ascent and association with Re.

145:4 Pyr. Ut. 373.

146:1 Pyr. §§ 2063–5.

146:2 Pyr. §§ 507–9.

146:3 Pyr. § 1804.

146:4 Pyr. Ut. 219.

146:5 Pyr. §§2022–3. There is little distinction between the passages where the dead king receives the throne of Osiris, because identified with him and others in which he receives it as the heir of Osiris. He may take it even from Horus, heir of Osiris, e.g., Pyr. Ut. 414.

147:1 Pyr. Ut. 260. See above, p. 35.

147:2 Pyr. § 635.

148:1 Pyr. Ut. 364. See also 1683–6.

148:2 Pyr. Ut. 356, 357, 364, 367–372.

148:3 Pyr. § 621 = § 636.

148:4 Pyr. § 1345.

148:5 Pyr. Ut. 427–435.

149:1 The protection and assistance of Nut are further elaborated in Ut. 444–7 and 450–2.

149:2 Pyr. § 1523.

149:3 Pyr. Ut. 337.

149:4 Pyr. § 721.

149:5 Pyr. §§ 964, 968.

149:6 Pyr. § 2000.

149:7 Pyr. § 749.

149:8 Pyr. § 2067.

149:9 Pyr. § 877.

150:1 Pyr. § 8 d.

150:2 Pyr. Ut. 578 and 579.

151:1 "Osiris Unis" occurs in the body of the Utterance in 18 c (once) and 30 b (once); but the following references will show how regularly it is found at the head of the Utterance and not in the body of the text in the pyramid of Unis. In Ut. 45–49, once each at beginning; in Ut. 72–76 and 78–79, once each at beginning; omitted in Ut. 77, 81, and 93, where Unis's name does not begin the Utterance. In Ut. 84, 85, 87–92, 94, 108–171, and 199 "Osiris-Unis" heads each Utterance. After Ut. 200 "Osiris-Unis" does not occur at all. It is evident that this mechanical method of Osirianization did not extend beyond the Offering Ritual, which also terminates at this place.

151:2 Pyr. Ut. 579 and 673.

151:3 Pyr. Ut. 571.

152:1 Pyr. Ut. 570.

152:2 See above, pp. 40 f. The best examples are: Pyr. §§ 204, 206, 370, 390, 418, 473, 487, 594, 535, 601, 683, 798, 801 = §§ 1016, 823, 848–850, 946, 971, 1148.

153:1 Pyr §§ 848–850.

153:2 Pyr. § 1016.

153:3 Pyr. § 478; compare also "Set lifts him (the dead) up" (Pyr. § 1148). In Pyr. § 1253 we find "ladder which carried the Ombite (Set)."

153:4 Pyr. Ut. 306 (Unis, Mernere, Pepi II), 480 (Teti), 572 (Pepi, Mernere), 474 (Pepi).

153:5 Pyr. Ut. 306.

154:1 The brief intimation of a mysterious enemy plotting against the life of the king, appended at the end of the Utterance, is perhaps an intrusive Osirian reference; but it does not affect the clearly celestial and Solar character of the Utterance. It is omitted in Ut. 480, but appears more fully developed in the Osirianized Utterances 572 and 474, but in none of the Utterances to which it is appended is the name of Osiris mentioned, while the epithet which is employed, "Ymnw (Hidden one?) of the Wild Bull," is usually Solar.

154:2 Pyr. Ut. 474.

154:3 Pyr. Ut. 305.

155:1 These Utterances are 325, 563, 479, and 573. In Ut. 573 variant forms of their names appear. In 1085–6 the four Horuses appear ferrying over on the two floats of the sky; they are found again in 1105 and in 1206, "these four youths who stand on the east side of the sky" bind the two floats for Re and then for the dead. We should doubtless recognize them also in the four curly haired youths who are in charge of the ferry-boat to the eastern sky in Ut. 520. (But in Ut. 522 the four in charge of the ferry-boat are the four genii, the "sons of Horus," and confusion must be guarded against.) The four Horuses in 1258 (Ut. 532), who are identified with the dead and kept from decay by Isis and Nephthys, are treated above. For the sake of completeness, compare the four children of Geb in Pyr. §§ 1510–11, and especially the four children of Atum who decay not (Pyr. §§ 2057–8), just as in 1258.

155:2 Pyr. Ut. 325 and 563.

156:1 Pyr. § 348.

156:2 Pyr. Ut. 563.

156:3 Pyr. Ut. 479.

156:4 Pyr. Ut. 532.

156:5 Pyr. §§ 1132–8.

157:1 Pyr. §§ 147–9.

157:2 Pyr. Ut. 522.

157:3 Pyr. § 1092.

157:4 I am aware that the four genii are called "the offspring of Horus of Letopolis" (Pyr. § 2078).

157:5 Pyr. § 1483.

157:6 Pyr. Ut. 541.

157:7 Pyr. Ut. 544–6, 645, 648. We find them bringing to the dead his name "Imperishable," at which time they are called the "souls" of Horus (Pyr. § 2102).

157:8 Pyr. § 552.

158:1 Pyr. § 1201.

158:2 Pyr. Ut. 263–6.

158:3 Pyr. Ut. 264.

158:4 Pyr. Ut. 303.

158:5 Pyr. § 556.

158:6 Pyr. §§ 2063–5.

158:7 Pyr. §§ 508–9.

158:8 Pyr. §§ 1657–8.

159:1 Pyr. §§ 1266–7.

159:2 Pyr. Ut. 441.

159:3 Pyr. § 819.

161:1 "Ascendest" and "wanderest" are in Egyptian puns on the names of Re and Atum.

161:2 Pyr. Ut. 606.

163:1 Pyr. Ut. 422.

163:2 Pyr. § 971 e. The only passage which may fairly be called an effort to harmonize conflicting doctrine is that on p. 102, where the place of the Imperishable Stars in the north is pushed over toward the east to harmonize with the doctrine of the eastern sky as the place of the abode of the celestial dead. Pyr. § 1000.

LECTURE VI

THE EMERGENCE OF THE MORAL SENSE—MORAL WORTHINESS AND THE HEREAFTER—SCEPTICISM AND THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING

Nowhere in ancient times has the capacity of a race to control the material world been so fully expressed in surviving material remains as in the Nile valley. In the abounding fulness of their energies they built up a fabric of material civilization, the monuments of which it would seem time can never wholly sweep away. But the manifold substance of life, interfused of custom and tradition, of individual traits fashioned among social, economic, and governmental forces, ever developing in the daily operations and functions of life—all that made the stage and the setting amid which necessity for hourly moral decisions arises—all that creates the attitude of the individual and impels the inner man as he is called upon to make these decisions—all these constitute an elusive higher atmosphere of the ancient world which tomb masonry and pyramid orientation have not transmitted to us. Save in a few scanty references in the inscriptions of the Pyramid Age, it has vanished forever; for even the inscriptions, as we have seen, are concerned chiefly with the material welfare of the departed in the hereafter. What they disclose, however, is of unique interest, preserving as it does the earliest chapter in the moral development of man as known to us, a chapter marking perhaps the most

important fundamental step in the evolution of civilization. Moreover, these materials from the Pyramid Age have never been put together, and in gathering them together for these lectures I have been not a little surprised to find them as numerous as they are.

They are, indeed, sufficiently numerous, and so unequivocal as to demonstrate the existence nearly three thousand years before Christ of a keen moral discernment, already so far developed that we must conclude it had begun far back in the fourth millennium B.C. Indeed the Egyptian of the Pyramid Age had already begun to look back upon a time when sin and strife did not exist, to "that first body" of "the company of the just," "born before arose," "strife," "voice," "blasphemy," "conflict," or the frightful mutilations inflicted upon each other by Horus and Set. 1 With this age of innocence, or at least of righteousness and peace, we must associate also the time of which they spoke, "before death came forth." 2 The development of moral discernment had indeed gone so far in the Pyramid Age that the thought of the age was dealing with the origin of good and evil, the source of human traits. We recall that our Memphite philosopher and theologian attributed all these things to the creative word of his god, "which made that which is loved and that which is hated," "which gave life to the peaceful and death to the guilty." 3 Akin to this is the emergence, in this age, of the earliest abstract term discernible in the ancient world, the word for "truth, right, righteousness, justice," all of which are connoted by one word.

Furthermore, in the daily secular life of this remote age, even in administration, moral ideals already had great

influence. In the Feudal Age, a thousand years after the rise of the Old Kingdom, at the installation of the vizier, that official used to be referred to the example of an ancient vizier who had already become proverbial in the Pyramid Age. The cause of his enduring reputation was that he had decided a case, in which his relatives were involved, against his own kin, no matter what the merits of the case might be, lest he should be accused of partial judgment in favor of his own family. 1 A similar example of respect for moral ideals in high places is doubtless to be recognized in the Horus-name of king Userkaf (twenty-eighth century B.C.). He called himself "Doer-of-Righteousness" (or Justice).

Among the people the most common virtue discernible by us is filial piety. Over and over again we find the massive tombs of the Pyramid Age erected by the son for the departed father, as well as a splendid interment arranged by the son. 2 Indeed one of the sons of this age even surpasses the example of all others, for he states in a passage of his tomb inscription: "Now I caused that I should be buried in the same tomb with this Zau (his father), in order that I might be with him in the same place; not, however, because I was not in a position to make a second tomb; but I did this in order that I might see this Zau every day, in order that I might be with him in the same place." 3

It is especially in the tomb that such claims of moral worthiness are made. This is not an accident; such claims are made in the tomb in this age with the logical purpose of securing in the hereafter any benefits accruing from such virtues. Thus, on the base of a mortuary