CHAPTER XCIII.

_Chapter whereby one avoideth being conveyed to the East in the

Netherworld._

Oh thou Phallus of Rā, who fliest from the storm, disablement ariseth

from Baba who useth against me might beyond the mighty and power beyond

the powerful.

If I am conveyed away, if I am carried off to the East; if all evil and

injurious things of a feast day of fiends are perpetrated upon me

through the waving of the Two Horns, then shall be devoured the Phallus

of Rā and the Head of Osiris.

And should I be led to the fields wherein the gods destroy him who

answereth them, then shall the horns of Chepera be twisted back, then

shall blindness(1.) arise in the eyes of Tmu and destruction,(2.)

through the seizure of me, and through my being carried off to the East,

through there being made over me a feast day of the fiends, through all

the murderous work perpetrated upon me.(3.)

NOTES.

This chapter contains one of those threats (of which there are other

instances) made to the gods. The speaker is in fact so identified with

divinity that any evil which happens to him must be conceived as

involving the same calamity to the gods and to the universe.

There is a very considerable difference between the earlier and the

later texts. There is very great confusion in the text of the Turin

_Todtenbuch_ as compared with that of the Cadet papyrus.

1. _Blindness_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂ in the earlier and ⁂⁂ in the

later texts. The latter form, which has for determinative pearls or

globules of some kind, reminds one of the disease formerly called _gutta

serena_.

2. _Destruction_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. But this word is written in

different ways in the papyri. With ⁂ as a suffix it would mean ‘my

destroyer.’ _Ca_ gives ⁂ as a determinative, and thus creates a god

_Hetmu_, or at least a name punning upon that of Tmu, to which it is

united.

3. The more recent texts, like those of the Turin _Todtenbuch_, insert a

negative particle before the mention of each disaster. They pray that

the Phallus of Rā may _not_ be devoured, that the blindness may _not_

come upon Tmu, and so on.

------------------------------------