Chapter III: The Legendary History of Egypt (1)

_THE DIVINE DYNASTIES: RÂ, SHÛ, OSIEIS, SÎT, HOEUS--THOT, AND THE INVENTION OF SCIENCES AND WRITING--MENES, AND THE THREE FIRST HUMAN DYNASTIES._

_The Egyptians claim to Be the most ancient of peoples: traditions concerning the creation of man and of animals--The Heliopolitan Enneads the framework of the divine dynasties--Râ, the first King of Egypt, and his fabulous history: he allows himself to be duped and robbed by Isis, destroys rebellious men, and ascends into heaven.

The legend of Shu and Sibil--The reign of Osiris Onnophris and of Isis: they civilize Egypt and the world--Osiris, slain by Sit, is entombed by Isis and avenged by Horus--The wars of Typhon and of Horus: peace, and the division of Egypt between the two gods.

The Osirian embalmment; the kingdom of Osiris opened to the followers of Horus--The Book of the Dead--The journeying of the soul in search of the fields of Ialû--The judgment of the soul, the negative confession--The privileges and duties of Osirian souls--Confusion between Osirian and Solar ideas as to the state of the dead: the dead in the hark of the Sun--The going forth by day--The campaigns of Harmakhis against Sit.

Thot, the inventor: he reveals all sciences to men--Astronomy, stellar tables; the year, its subdivisions, its defects, influence of the heavenly bodies and the days upon human destiny--Magic arts; incantations, amulets---Medicine: the vitalizing spirits, diagnosis, treatment--Writing: ideographic, syllabic, alphabetic.

The history of Egypt as handed down by tradition: Manetho, the royal lists, main divisions of Egyptian history--The beginnings of its early history vague and uncertain: Menés, and the legend of Memphis--The first three human dynasties, the two Thimie and the Memphite--Character and, origin of the legends concerning them--The famine stela--The earliest monuments: the step pyramid of Saqgdrah._

THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EGYPT

_The divine dynasties: Râ, Shû, Osiris, Sît, Horus--Thot, and the invention of sciences and writing--Menés, and the three first human dynasties._

The building up and diffusion of the doctrine of the Ennead, like the formation of the land of Egypt, demanded centuries of sustained effort, centuries of which the inhabitants themselves knew neither the number nor the authentic history. When questioned as to the remote past of their race, they proclaimed themselves the most ancient of mankind, in comparison with whom all other races were but a mob of young children; and they looked upon nations which denied their pretensions with such indulgence and pity as we feel for those who doubt a well-known truth. Their forefathers had appeared upon the banks of the Nile even before the creator had completed his work, so eager were the gods to behold their birth. No Egyptian disputed the reality of this right of the firstborn, which ennobled the whole race; but if they were asked the name of their divine father, then the harmony was broken, and each advanced the claims of a different personage.[*] Phtah had modelled man with his own hands;[**] Khnûmû had formed him on a potter's table.[***]

* We know the words which Plato puts into the mouth of an
Egyptian priest: "O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always
children, and there is no old man who is a Greek! You are
all young in mind; there is no opinion or tradition of
knowledge among you which is white with age." Other nations
disputed their priority--the Phrygians, the Medes, or rather
the tribe of the Magi among the Medes, the Ethiopians, the
Scythians. A cycle of legends had gathered about this
subject, giving an account of the experiments instituted, by
Psamtik, or other sovereigns, to find out which were right,
Egyptians or foreigners.

** At Philæ and at Denderah, Phtah is represented as piling
upon his potter's table the plastic clay from which he is
about to make a human body, and which is somewhat wrongly
called the egg of the world. It is really the lump of earth
from which man came forth at his creation.

*** At Philas, Khnûmû calls himself "the potter who
fashions men, the modeller of the gods." He there moulds the
members of Osiris, the husband of the local Isis, as at
Erment he forms the body of Harsamtaûi, or rather that of
Ptolemy Cæsarion, the son of Julius Cæsar and the celebrated
Cleopatra, identified with Harsamtaûi.

Râ at his first rising, seeing the earth desert and bare, had flooded it with his rays as with a flood of tears; all living things, vegetable and animal, and man himself, had sprung pell-mell from his eyes, and were scattered abroad with the light over the surface of the world.[*] Sometimes the facts were presented under a less poetic aspect. The mud of the Nile, heated to excess by the burning sun, fermented and brought forth the various races of men and animals by spontaneous generation, having moulded itself into a thousand living forms. Then its procreative power became weakened to the verge of exhaustion. Yet on the banks of the river, in the height of summer, smaller animals might still be found whose condition showed what had once taken place in the case of the larger kinds. Some appeared as already fully formed, and struggling to free themselves from the oppressive mud; others, as yet imperfect, feebly stirred their heads and fore feet, while their hind quarters were completing their articulation and taking shape within the matrix of earth.[**]

* With reference to the substances which proceeded from the
eye of Râ, see the remarks of Birch, _Sur un papyrus magique
du Musée Britannique_. By his tears (_romîtû_) Horus, or his
eye as identified with the sun, had given birth to all men,
Egyptians (_romîtû, rotû_), Libyans, and Asiatics, excepting
only the negroes. The latter were born from another part of
his body by the same means as those employed by Atûmû in the
creation of Shû and Tafnûît.

** The same story is told, but with reference to rats only,
by Pliny, by Diodorus, by Ælianus, by Macrobius, and by
other Greek or Latin writers. Even in later times, and in
Europe, this pretended phenomenon met with a certain degree
of belief, as may be seen from the curious work of Marcus
Fredericus Wendelinus, _Archipalatinus, Admiranda Nili_,
Franco-furti, mdcxxiii., cap. xxi. pp. 157-183. In Egypt all
the fellahîn believe in the spontaneous generation of rats
as in an article of their creed. They have spoken to me of
it at Thebes, at Denderah, and on the plain of Abydos; and
Major Brown has lately noted the same thing in the Fayûm.
The variant which he heard from the lips of the notables is
curious, for it professes to explain why the rats who infest
the fields in countless bands during the dry season,
suddenly disappear at the return of the inundation; born of
the mud and putrid water of the preceding year, to mud they
return, and as it were dissolve at the touch of the new
waters.

It was not Râ alone whose tears were endowed with vitalizing power. All divinities whether beneficent or malevolent, Sit as well as Osiris or Isis, could give life by weeping; and the work of their eyes, when once it had fallen upon earth, flourished and multiplied as vigorously as that which came from the eyes of Râ.

1 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gayet. The scene is
taken from bas-reliefs in the temple of Luxor, where the god
Khnûmû is seen completing his modelling of the future King
Amenôthes III. and his double, represented as two children
wearing the side-lock and large necklace. The first holds
his finger to his lips, while the arms of the second swing
at his sides.

The individual character of the creator was not without bearing upon the nature of his creatures; good was the necessary outcome of the good gods, evil of the evil ones; and herein lay the explanation of the mingling of things excellent and things execrable, which is found everywhere throughout the world. Voluntarily or involuntarily, Sit and his partisans were the cause and origin of all that is harmful. Daily their eyes shed upon the world those juices by which plants are made poisonous, as well as malign influences, crime, and madness. Their saliva, the foam which fell from their mouths during their attacks of rage, their sweat, their blood itself, were all no less to be feared. When any drop of it touched the earth, straightway it germinated, and produced something strange and baleful--a serpent, a scorpion, a plant of deadly nightshade or of henbane. But, on the other hand, the sun was all goodness, and persons or things which it cast forth into life infallibly partook of its benignity. Wine that maketh man glad, the bee who works for him in the flowers secreting wax and honey, the meat and herbs which are his food, the stuffs that clothe him, all useful things which he makes for himself, not only emanated from the Solar Eye of Horus, but were indeed nothing more than the Eye of Horus under different aspects, and in his name they were presented in sacrifice. The devout generally were of opinion that the first Egyptians, the sons and flock of Râ, came into the world happy and perfect;[*] by degrees their descendants had fallen from that native felicity into their present state.

* In the tomb of Seti I, the words _flock of the Sun, flock
of Râ_, are those by which the god Horus refers to men.
Certain expressions used by Egyptian writers are in
themselves sufficient to show that the first generations of
men were supposed to have lived in a state of happiness and
perfection. To the Egyptians _the times of Râ, the times of
the god_--that is to say, the centuries immediately
following on the creation---were the ideal age, and no good
thing had appeared upon earth since then.

Some, on the contrary, affirmed that their ancestors were born as so many brutes, unprovided with the most essential arts of gentle life. They knew nothing of articulate speech, and expressed themselves by cries only, like other animals, until the day when Thot taught them both speech and writing.

These tales sufficed for popular edification; they provided but meagre fare for the intelligence of the learned. The latter did not confine their ambition to the possession of a few incomplete and contradictory details concerning the beginnings of humanity. They wished to know the history of its consecutive development from the very first; what manner of life had been led by their fathers; what chiefs they had obeyed and the names or adventures of those chiefs; why part of the nations had left the blessed banks of the Nile and gone to settle in foreign lands; by what stages and in what length of time those who had not emigrated rose out of native barbarism into that degree of culture to which the most ancient monuments bore testimony. No efforts of imagination were needful for the satisfaction of their curiosity: the old substratum of indigenous traditions was rich enough, did they but take the trouble to work it out systematically, and to eliminate its most incongruous elements. The priests of Heliopolis took this work in hand, as they had already taken in hand the same task with regard to the myths referring to the creation; and the Enneads provided them with a ready-made framework. They changed the gods of the Ennead into so many kings, determined with minute accuracy the lengths of their reigns, and compiled their biographies from popular tales. The duality of the feudal god supplied an admirable expedient for connecting the history of the world with that of chaos. Tûmû was identified with Nû, and relegated to the primordial Ocean: Râ was retained, and proclaimed the first king of the world. He had not established his rule without difficulty. The "Children of Defeat," beings hostile to order and light, engaged him in fierce battles; nor did he succeed in organizing his kingdom until he had conquered them in nocturnal combat at Hermopolis, and even at Heliopolis itself.[*]

* The _Children of Defeat_, in Egyptian _Mosû batashû_, or
_Mosû batashît_, are often confounded with the followers of
Sit, the enemies of Osiris. From the first they were
distinct, and represented beings and forces hostile to the
sun, with the dragon Apôpi at their head. Their defeat at
Hermopolis corresponded to the moment when Shu, raising the
sky above the sacred mound in that city, substituted order
and light for chaos and darkness. This defeat is mentioned
in chap xvii. of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition,
vol. i. pl. xxiii. 1. 3, et seq.), in which connexion E. de
Rougé first explained its meaning. In the same chapter of
the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition, vol. i. pis.
xxiv., xxv., 11. 54-58), reference is also made to the
battle by night, in Heliopolis, at the close of which Râ
appeared in the form of a cat or lion, and beheaded the
great serpent.

Pierced with wounds, Apôpi the serpent sank into the depths of Ocean at the very moment when the new year began. The secondary members of the Great Ennead, together with the Sun, formed the first dynasty, which began with the dawn of the first day, and ended at the coming of Horus, the son of Isis. The local schools of theology welcomed this method of writing history as readily as they had welcomed the principle of the Ennead itself. Some of them retained the Heliopolitan demiurge, and hastened to associate him with their own; others completely eliminated him in favour of the feudal divinity,--Amon at Thebes, Thot at Hermopolis, Phtah at Memphis,--keeping the rest of the dynasty absolutely unchanged.[*] The gods in no way compromised their prestige by becoming incarnate and descending to earth. Since they were men of finer nature, and their qualities, including that of miracle-working, were human qualities raised to the highest pitch of intensity, it was not considered derogatory to them personally to have watched over the infancy and childhood of primeval man. The raillery in which the Egyptians occasionally indulged with regard to them, the good-humoured and even ridiculous _rôles_ ascribed to them in certain legends, do not prove that they were despised, or that zeal for them had cooled. The greater the respect of believers for the objects of their worship, the more easily do they tolerate the taking of such liberties, and the condescension of the members of the Ennead, far from lowering them in the eyes of generations who came too late to live with them upon familiar terms, only enhanced the love and reverence in which they were held. Nothing shows this better than the history of Râ. His world was ours in the rough; for since Shu was yet nonexistent, and Nuit still reposed in the arms of Sibû, earth and sky were but one.[**]

* Thot is the chief of the Hermopolitan Ennead, and the
titles ascribed to him by inscriptions maintaining his
supremacy show that he also was considered to have been the
first king. One of the Ptolemies said of himself that he
came "as the Majesty of Thot, because he was the equal of
Atûmû, hence the equal of Khopri, hence the equal of Râ."
Atûmû-Khopri-Râ being the first earthly king, it follows
that the _Majesty of Thot_, with whom Ptolemy identifies
himself, comparing himself to the three forms of the God Râ,
is also the first earthly king.

** This conception of the primitive Egyptian world is
clearly implied in the very terms employed by the author of
The Destruction of Men. Nuit does not rise to form the sky
until such time as Râ thinks of bringing his reign to an
end; that is to say, after Egypt had already been in
existence for many centuries. In chap. xvii. of the Book of
the Dead (Naville's edition, vol. i. pl. xxiii. 11. 3-5) it
is stated that the reign of Râ began in the times when the
upliftings had not yet taken place; that is to say, before
Shu had separated Nûît from Sibû, and forcibly uplifted her
above the body of her husband.

Nevertheless in this first attempt at a world there was vegetable, animal, and human life. Egypt was there, all complete, with her two chains of mountains, her Nile, her cities, the people of her nomes, and the nomes themselves. Then the soil was more generous; the harvests, without the labourer's toil, were higher and more abundant;[*] and when the Egyptians of Pharaonic times wished to mark their admiration of any person or thing, they said that the like had never been known since the time of Râ.

* This is an ideal in accordance with the picture drawn of
the fields of Ialû in chap. ex. of the _Book of the Dead_
(Naville's edition, vol. i. pis. cxxi.~ cxxiii.). As with
the Paradise of most races, so the place of the Osirian dead
still possessed privileges which the earth had enjoyed
during the first years succeeding the creation; that is to
say, under the direct rule of Râ.

It is an illusion common to all peoples; as their insatiable thirst for happiness is never assuaged by the present, they fall back upon the remotest past in search of an age when that supreme felicity which is only known to them as an ideal was actually enjoyed by their ancestors. Râ dwelt in Heliopolis, and the most ancient portion of the temple of the city, that known as the "Mansion of the Prince"--Haït Sarû,--passed for having been his palace. His court was mainly composed of gods and goddesses, and they as well as he were visible to men. It contained also men who filled minor offices about his person, prepared his food, received the offerings of his subjects, attended to his linen and household affairs. It was said that the _oîrû maû_--the high priest of Râ, the _hankistît_--his high priestess, and generally speaking all the servants of the temple of Heliopolis, were either directly descended from members of this first household establishment of the god, or had succeeded to their offices in unbroken succession.

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the scenes represented
upon the architraves of the pronaos at Edfû (Rosellini,
_Monumenti del Culto_, pl. xxxviii. No. 1).

In the morning he went forth with his divine train, and, amid the acclamations of the crowd, entered the bark in which he made his accustomed circuit of the world, returning to his home at the end of twelve hours after the accomplishment of his journey. He visited each province in turn, and in each he tarried for an hour, to settle all disputed matters, as the final judge of appeal. He gave audience to both small and great, he decided their quarrels and adjudged their lawsuits, he granted investiture of fiefs from the royal domains to those who had deserved them, and allotted or confirmed to every family the income needful for their maintenance. He pitied the sufferings of his people, and did his utmost to alleviate them; he taught to all comers potent formulas against reptiles and beasts of prey, charms to cast out evil spirits, and the best recipes for preventing illness. His incessant bounties left him at length with only one of his talismans: the name given to him by his father and mother at his birth, which they had revealed to him alone, and which he kept concealed within his bosom lest some sorcerer should get possession of it to use for the furtherance of his evil spells.

But old age came on, and infirmities followed; the body of Râ grew bent, "his mouth trembled, his slaver trickled down to earth and his saliva dropped upon the ground." Isis, who had hitherto been a mere woman-servant in the household of the Pharaoh, conceived the project of stealing his secret from him, "that she might possess the world and make herself a goddess by the name of the august god." Force would have been unavailing; all enfeebled as he was by reason of his years, none was strong enough to contend successfully against him. But Isis "was a woman more knowing in her malice than millions of men, clever among millions of the gods, equal to millions of spirits, to whom as unto Râ nothing was unknown either in heaven or upon earth." She contrived a most ingenious stratagem. When man or god was struck down by illness, the only chance of curing him lay in knowing his real name, and thereby adjuring the evil being that tormented him. Isis determined to cast a terrible malady upon Râ, concealing its cause from him; then to offer her services as his nurse, and by means of his sufferings to extract from him the mysterious word indispensable to the success of the exorcism. She gathered up mud impregnated with the divine saliva, and moulded of it a sacred serpent which she hid in the dust of the road. Suddenly bitten as he was setting out upon his daily round, the god cried out aloud, "his voice ascended into heaven and his Nine called: 'What is it? what is it?' and his gods: 'What is the matter? what is the matter?' but he could make them no answer so much did his lips tremble, his limbs shake, and the venom take hold upon his flesh as the Nile seizeth upon the land which it invadeth." Presently he came to himself, and succeeded in describing his sensations. "Something painful hath stung me; my heart perceiveth it, yet my two eyes see it not; my hand hath not wrought it, nothing that I have made knoweth it what it is, yet have I never tasted suffering like unto it, and there is no pain that may overpass it.... Fire it is not, water it is not, yet is my heart in flames, my flesh trembleth, all my members are full of shiverings born of breaths of magic. Behold! let there be brought unto me children of the gods of beneficent words, who know the power of their mouths, and whose science reacheth unto heaven." They came, these children of the gods, all with their books of magic. There came Isis with her sorcery, her mouth full of life-giving breaths, her recipe for the destruction of pain, her words which pour life into breathless throats, and she said: "What is it? what is it, O father of the gods? May it not be that a serpent hath wrought this suffering in thee; that one of thy children hath lifted up his head against thee? Surely he shall be overthrown by beneficent incantations, and I will make him to retreat at the sight of thy rays." On learning the cause of his torment, the Sun-god is terrified, and begins to lament anew: "I, then, as I went along the ways, travelling through my double land of Egypt and over my mountains, that I might look upon that which I have made, I was bitten by a serpent that I saw not. Fire it is not, water it is not, yet am I colder than water, I burn more than fire, all my members stream with sweat, I tremble, mine eye is not steady, no longer can I discern the sky, drops roll from my face as in the season of summer." Isis proposes her remedy, and cautiously asks him his ineffable name. But he divines her trick, and tries to evade it by an enumeration of his titles. He takes the universe to witness that he is called "Khopri in the morning, Râ at noon, Tûmû in the evening." The poison did not recede, but steadily advanced, and the great god was not eased. Then Isis said to Râ: "Thy name was not spoken in that which thou hast said. Tell it to me and the poison will depart; for he liveth upon whom a charm is pronounced in his own name." The poison glowed like fire, it was strong as the burning of flame, and the Majesty of Râ said, "I grant thee leave that thou shouldest search within me, O mother Isis! and that my name pass from my bosom into thy bosom." In truth, the all-powerful name was hidden within the body of the god, and could only be extracted thence by means of a surgical operation similar to that practised upon a corpse which is about to be mummified. Isis undertook it, carried it through successfully, drove out the poison, and made herself a goddess by virtue of the name. The cunning of a mere woman had deprived Râ of his last talisman.

In course of time men perceived his decrepitude. They took counsel against him: "Lo! his Majesty waxeth old, his bones are of silver, his flesh is of gold, his hair of lapis-lazuli." As soon as his Majesty perceived that which they were saying to each other, his Majesty said to those who were of his train, "Call together for me my Divine Eye, Shû, Tafnûît, Sibû, and Nûît, the father and the mother gods who were with me when I was in the Nû, with the god Nû. Let each bring his cycle along with him; then, when thou shalt have brought them in secret, thou shalt take them to the great mansion that they may lend me their counsel and their consent, coming hither from the Nû into this place where I have manifested myself." So the family council comes together: the ancestors of Râ, and his posterity still awaiting amid the primordial waters the time of their manifestation--his children Shû and Tafnûît, his grandchildren Sibû and Nûît. They place themselves, according to etiquette, on either side his throne, prostrate, with their foreheads to the ground, and thus their conference begins: "O Nû, thou the eldest of the gods, from whom I took my being, and ye the ancestor-gods, behold! men who are the emanation of mine eye have taken counsel together against me! Tell me what ye would do, for I have bidden you here before I slay them, that I may hear what ye would say thereto." Nû, as the eldest, has the right to speak first, and demands that the guilty shall be brought to judgment and formally condemned. "My son Râ, god greater than the god who made him, older than the gods who created him, sit thou upon thy throne, and great shall be the terror when thine eye shall rest upon those who plot together against thee!" But Râ not unreasonably fears that when men see the solemn pomp of royal justice, they may suspect the fate that awaits them, and "flee into the desert, their hearts terrified at that which I have to say to them." The desert was even then hostile to the tutelary gods of Egypt, and offered an almost inviolable asylum to their enemies. The conclave admits that the apprehensions of Râ are well founded, and pronounces in favour of summary execution; the Divine Eye is to be the executioner. "Let it go forth that it may smite those who have devised evil against thee, for there is no Eye more to be feared than thine when it attacketh in the form of Hâthor." So the Eye takes the form of Hâthor, suddenly falls upon men, and slays them right and left with great strokes of the knife. After some hours, Râ, who would chasten but not destroy his children, commands her to cease from her carnage; but the goddess has tasted blood, and refuses to obey him. "By thy life," she replies, "when I slaughter men then is my heart right joyful!"

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a bronze statuette of the
Saïte period in the Gizeh Museum (Mariette, _Album
photographique du Musée de Boulaq_, pl. 6).

That is why she was afterwards called Sokhît the slayer, and represented under the form of a fierce lioness. Nightfall stayed her course in the neighbourhood of Heracleopolis; all the way from Heliopolis she had trampled through blood. As soon as she had fallen asleep, Râ hastily took effectual measures to prevent her from beginning her work again on the morrow. "He said: 'Call on my behalf messengers agile and swift, who go like the wind.' When these messengers were straightway brought to him, the Majesty of the god said: 'Let them run to Elephantine and bring me mandragora in plenty.'"[**]

** The mandragora of Elephantine was used in the manufacture of an intoxicating and narcotic drink employed either in medicine or in magic. In a special article, Brugsch has collected particulars preserved by the texts as to the uses of this plant. It was not as yet credited with the human form and the peculiar kind of life ascribed to it by western sorcerers.

When they had brought him the mandragora, the Majesty of this great god summoned the miller which is in Heliopolis that he might bray it; and the women-servants having crushed grain for the beer, the mandragora, and also human blood, were mingled with the liquor, and thereof was made in all seven thousand jars of beer. Râ himself examined this delectable drink, and finding it to possess the wished-for properties: "'It is well,' said he; 'therewith shall I save men from the goddess;' then, addressing those of his train: 'Take these jars in your arms, and carry them to the place where she has slaughtered men.' Râ, the king, caused dawn to break at midnight, so that this philtre might be poured down upon the earth; and the fields were flooded with it to the depth of four palms, according as it pleased the souls of his Majesty." In the morning the goddess came, "that she might return to her carnage, but she found that all was flooded, and her countenance softened; when she had drunken, it was her heart that softened; she went away drunk, without further thought of men." There was some fear lest her fury might return when the fumes of drunkenness were past, and to obviate this danger Râ instituted a rite, partly with the object of instructing future generations as to the chastisement which he had inflicted upon the impious, partly to console Sokhît for her discomfiture. He decreed that "on New Year's Day there should be brewed for her as many jars of philtre as there were priestesses of the sun. That was the origin of all those jars of philtre, in number equal to that of the priestesses, which, at the feast of Hâthor, all men make from that day forth."

Peace was re-established, but could it last long? Would not men, as soon as they had recovered from their terror, betake themselves again to plotting against the god? Besides, Râ now felt nothing but disgust for our race. The ingratitude of his children had wounded him deeply; he foresaw ever-renewed rebellions as his feebleness became more marked, and he shrank from having to order new massacres in which mankind would perish altogether. "By my life," says he to the gods who accompanied him, "my heart is too weary for me to remain with mankind, and slay them until they are no more: annihilation is not of the gifts that I love to make." And the gods exclaim in surprise: "Breathe not a word of thy weariness at a time when thou dost triumph at thy pleasure." But Râ does not yield to their representations; he will leave a kingdom wherein they murmur against him, and turning towards Nû he says: "My limbs are decrepit for the first time; I will not go to any place where I can be reached." It was no easy matter to find him an inaccessible retreat owing to the imperfect state in which the universe had been left by the first effort of the demiurge. Nû saw no other way out of the difficulty than that of setting to work to complete the creation. Ancient tradition had imagined the separation of earth and sky as an act of violence exercised by Shu upon Sibû and Nûît. History presented facts after a less brutal fashion, and Shû became a virtuous son who devoted his time and strength to upholding Nûît, that he might thereby do his father a service. Nûît, for her part, showed herself to be a devoted daughter whom there was no need to treat roughly in order to teach her her duty; of herself she consented to leave her husband, and place her beloved ancestor beyond reach. "The Majesty of Nû said: 'Son Shu, do as thy father Râ shall say; and thou, daughter Nûît, place him upon thy back and hold him suspended above the earth!' Nûît said: 'And how then, my father Nû?' Thus spake Nûît, and she did that which Nû commanded her; she changed herself into a cow, and placed the Majesty of Râ upon her back. When those men who had not been slain came to give thanks to Râ, behold! they found him no longer in his palace; but a cow stood there, and they perceived him upon the back of the cow." They found him so resolved to depart that they did not try to turn him from his purpose, but only desired to give him such a proof of their repentance as should assure them of the complete pardon of their crime. "They said unto him: 'Wait until the morning, O Râ! our lord, and we will strike down thine enemies who have taken counsel against thee.' So his Majesty returned to his mansion, descended from the cow, went in along with them, and earth was plunged into darkness. But when there was light upon earth the next morning, the men went forth with their bows and their arrows, and began to shoot at the enemy. Whereupon the Majesty of this god said unto them: 'Your sins are remitted unto you, for sacrifice precludes the execution of the guilty.' And this was the origin upon earth of sacrifices in which blood was shed."

Thus it was that when on the point of separating for ever, the god and men came to an understanding as to the terms of their future relationship. Men offered to the god the life of those who had offended him. Human sacrifice was in their eyes the obligatory sacrifice, the only one which could completely atone for the wrongs committed against the godhead; man alone was worthy to wash away with his blood the sins of men.[*] For this one time the god accepted the expiation just as it was offered to him; then the repugnance which he felt to killing his children overcame him, he substituted beast for man, and decided that oxen, gazelles, birds, should henceforth furnish the material for sacrifice.[**]

* This legend, which seeks to explain the discontinuance of
human sacrifices among the Egyptians, affords direct proof
of their existence in primitive times. This is confirmed by
many facts. We shall see that _ûashbîti_ laid in graves were
in place of the male or female slaves who were originally
slaughtered at the tombs of the rich and noble that they
might go to serve their masters in the next world. Even in
Thebes, under the XIXth dynasty, certain rock-cut tombs
contain scenes which might lead us to believe that
occasionally at least human victims were sent to doubles of
distinction. During this same period, moreover, the most
distinguished hostile chiefs taken in war were still put to
death before the gods. In several towns, as at Eilithyia and
at Heliopolis, or before certain gods, such as Osiris or
Kronos-Sibû, human sacrifice lasted until near Roman times.
But generally speaking it was very rare. Almost everywhere
cakes of a particular shape, and called [Greek word], or
else animals, had been substituted for man.

** It was asserted that the partisans of Apôpi and of Sît,
who were the enemies of Râ, Osiris, and the other gods, had
taken refuge in the bodies of certain animals. Hence, it was
really human or divine victims which were offered when
beasts were slaughtered in sacrifice before the altars.

This point settled, he again mounted the cow, who rose, supported on her four legs as on so many pillars; and her belly, stretched out above the earth like a ceiling, formed the sky. He busied himself with organizing the new world which he found on her back; he peopled it with many beings, chose two districts in which to establish his abode, the Field of Reeds--_Sokhît Ialû_--and the Field of Rest--_Sokhît Hotpît_--and suspended the stars which were to give light by night. All this is related with many plays upon words, intended, according to Oriental custom, as explanations of the names which the legend assigned to the different regions of heaven. At sight of a plain whose situation pleased him, he cried: "The Field rests in the distance!"--and that was the origin of the Field of Rest. He added: "There will I gather plants!"--and from this the Field of Reeds took its name. While he gave himself up to this philological pastime, Nûît, suddenly transported to unaccustomed heights, grew frightened, and cried for help: "For pity's sake give me supports to sustain me!" This was the origin of the support-gods. They came and stationed themselves by each of her four legs, steadying these with their hands, and keeping constant watch over them. As this was not enough to reassure the good beast, "Râ said, 'My son Shû, place thyself beneath my daughter Nûît, and keep watch on both sides over the supports, who live in the twilight; hold thou her up above thy head, and be her guardian!'" Shû obeyed; Nûît composed herself, and the world, now furnished with the sky which it had hitherto lacked, assumed its present symmetrical form.

Shû and Sibû succeeded Râ, but did not acquire so lasting a popularity as their great ancestor. Nevertheless they had their annals, fragments of which have come down to us. Their power also extended over the whole universe: "The Majesty of Shû was the excellent king of the sky, of the earth, of Hades, of the water, of the winds, of the inundation, of the two chains of mountains, of the sea, governing with a true voice according to the precepts of his father Râ-Harmakhis."

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin.

Only "the children of the serpent Apôpi, the impious ones who haunt the solitary places and the deserts," disavowed his authority. Like the Bedawîn of later times, they suddenly streamed in by the isthmus routes, went up into Egypt under cover of night, slew and pillaged, and then hastily returned to their fastnesses with the booty which they had carried off. From sea to sea Ka had fortified the eastern frontier against them. He had surrounded the principal cities with walls, embellished them with temples, and placed within them those mysterious talismans more powerful for defence than a garrison of men. Thus Aît-nobsû, near the mouth of the Wady-Tûmilât, possessed one of the rods of the Sun-god, also the living uraeus of his crown whose breath consumes all that it touches, and, finally, a lock of his hair, which, being cast into the waters of a lake, was changed into a hawk-headed crocodile to tear the invader in pieces.[*]

* Egyptians of all periods never shrank from such marvels.
One of the tales of the Theban empire tells us of a piece of
wax which, on being thrown into the water, changed into a
living crocodile capable of devouring a man. The talismans
which protected Egypt against invasion are mentioned by the
Pseudo-Callisthenes, who attributes their invention to
Nectanebo. Arab historians often refer to them.

The employment of these talismans was dangerous to those unaccustomed to use them, even to the gods themselves. Scarcely was Sibû enthroned as the successor of Shu, who, tired of reigning, had reascended into heaven in a nine days' tempest, before he began his inspection of the eastern marches, and caused the box in which was kept the uræus of Râ to be opened. "As soon as the living viper had breathed its breath against the Majesty of Sibû there was a great disaster--great indeed, for those who were in the train of the god perished, and his Majesty himself was burned in that day. When his Majesty had fled to the north of Aît-nobsû, pursued by the fire of this magic urasus, behold! when he came to the fields of henna, the pain of his burn was not yet assuaged, and the gods who were behind him said unto him: 'O Sire! let them take the lock of Râ which is there, when thy Majesty shall go to see it and its mystery, and his Majesty shall be healed as soon as it shall be placed upon thee.' So the Majesty of Sibû caused the magic lock to be brought to Piarît,--the lock for which was made that great reliquary of hard stone which is hidden in the secret place of Piarît, in the district of the divine lock of the Lord Râ,--and behold! this fire departed from the members of the Majesty of Sibû. And many years afterwards, when this lock, which had thus belonged to Sibû, was brought back to Piarît in Aît-nobsû, and cast into the great lake of Piarît whose name is _Aît-tostesû_, the dwelling of waves, that it might be purified, behold! this lock became a crocodile: it flew to the water and became Sobkû, the divine crocodile of Aît-nobsû." In this way the gods of the solar dynasty from generation to generation multiplied talismans and enriched the sanctuaries of Egypt with relics.

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Griffith. The
three talismans here represented are two crowns, each in a
naos, and the burning fiery uræus.

Were there ever duller legends and a more senile phantasy! They did not spring spontaneously from the lips of the people, but were composed at leisure by priests desirous of enhancing the antiquity of their cult, and augmenting the veneration of its adherents in order to increase its importance. Each city wished it to be understood that its feudal sanctuary was founded upon the very day of creation, that its privileges had been extended or confirmed during the course of the first divine dynasty, and that these pretensions were supported by the presence of objects in its treasury which had belonged to the oldest of the king-gods. Such was the origin of tales in which the personage of the beneficent Pharaoh is often depicted in ridiculous fashion. Did we possess all the sacred archives, we should frequently find them quoting as authentic history more than one document as artificial as the chronicle of Aît-nobsû. When we come to the later members of the Ennead, there is a change in the character and in the form of these tales. Doubtless Osiris and Sît did not escape unscathed out of the hands of the theologians; but even if sacerdotal interference spoiled the legend concerning them, it did not altogether disfigure it. Here and there in it is still noticeable a sincerity of feeling and liveliness of imagination such as are never found in those of Shû and of Sibû. This arises from the fact that the functions of these gods left them strangers, or all but strangers, to the current affairs of the world. Shû was the stay, Sibû the material foundation of the world; and so long as the one bore the weight of the firmament without bending, and the other continued to suffer the tread of human generations upon his back, the devout took no more thought of them than they themselves took thought of the devout. The life of Osiris, on the other hand, was intimately mingled with that of the Egyptians, and his most trivial actions immediately reacted upon their fortunes. They followed the movements of his waters; they noted the turning-points in his struggles against drought; they registered his yearly decline, yearly compensated by his aggressive returns and his intermittent victories over Typhon; his proceedings and his character were the subject of their minute study. If his waters almost invariably rose upon the appointed day and extended over the black earth of the valley, this was no mechanical function of a being to whom the consequences of his conduct are indifferent; he acted upon reflection, and in full consciousness of the service that he rendered. He knew that by spreading the inundation he prevented the triumph of the desert; he was life, he was goodness--_Onnofriû_--and Isis, as the partner of his labours, became like him the type of perfect goodness. But while Osiris developed for the better, Sit was transformed for the worse, and increased in wickedness as his brother gained in purity and moral elevation. In proportion as the person of Sît grew more defined, and stood out more clearly, the evil within him contrasted more markedly with the innate goodness of Osiris, and what had been at first an instinctive struggle between two beings somewhat vaguely defined--the desert and the Nile, water and drought--was changed into conscious and deadly enmity. No longer the conflict of two elements, it was war between two gods; one labouring to produce abundance, while the other strove to do away with it; one being all goodness and life, while the other was evil and death incarnate.

A very ancient legend narrates that the birth of Osiris and his brothers took place during the five additional days at the end of the year; a subsequent legend explained how Nûît and Sibû had contracted marriage against the express wish of Râ, and without his knowledge. When he became aware of it he fell into a violent rage, and cast a spell over the goddess to prevent her giving birth to her children in any month of any year whatever. But Thot took pity upon her, and playing at draughts with the moon won from it in several games one seventy-second part of its fires, out of which he made five whole days; and as these were not included in the ordinary calendar, Nûît could then bring forth her five children, one after another: Osiris, Haroêris, Sit, Isis, and Nephthys. Osiris was beautiful of face, but with a dull and black complexion; his height exceeded five and a half yards.[*]

* As a matter of fact, Osiris is often represented with
black or green hands and face, as is customary for gods of
the dead; it was probably this peculiarity which suggested
the popular idea of his black complexion. A magic papyrus of
Ramesside times fixes the stature of the god at seven
cubits, and a phrase in a Ptolemaic inscription places it at
eight cubits, six palms, three fingers.

He was born at Thebes, in the first of the additional days, and straightway a mysterious voice announced that the lord of all--_nibû-r-zarû_--had appeared. The good news was hailed with shouts of joy, followed by tears and lamentations when it became known with what evils he was menaced.[*] The echo reached Râ in his far-off dwelling, and his heart rejoiced, notwithstanding the curse which he had laid upon Nûît. He commanded the presence of his great-grandchild in Xoïs, and unhesitatingly acknowledged him as the heir to his throne. Osiris had married his sister Isis, even, so it was said, while both of them were still within their mother's womb;[**] and when he became king he made her queen regent and the partner of all his undertakings.

* One variant of the legend told that a certain Pamylis of
Thebes having gone to draw water had heard a voice
proceeding from the temple of Zeus, which ordered him to
proclaim aloud to the world the birth of the great king, the
beneficent Osiris. He had received the child from the hands
of Kronos, brought it up to youth, and to him the Egyptians
had consecrated the feast of Pamylies, which resembled the
Phallophoros festival of the Greeks.

** _De Iside et Osiride_, Leemans' edition, § 12, pp. 20,
21. Haroêris, the Apollo of the Greeks, was supposed to be
the issue of a marriage consummated before the birth of his
parents while they were still within the womb of their
mother Rhea-Nûît. This was a way of connecting the personage
of Haroêris with the Osirian myths by confounding him with
the homonymous Harsiêsis, the son of Isis, who became the
son of Osiris through his mother's marriage with that god.

The Egyptians were as yet but half civilized; they were cannibals, and though occasionally they lived upon the fruits of the earth, they did not know how to cultivate them. Osiris taught them the art of making agricultural implements--the plough and the hoe,--field labour, the rotation of crops, the harvesting of wheat and barley,[*] and vine culture.

* Diodoeus even ascribes to him the discovery of barley and
of wheat; this is consequent upon the identification of Isis
with Demeter by the Greeks. According to the historian, Leo
of Pella, the goddess twined herself a crown of ripe ears
and placed it upon her head one day when she was sacrificing
to her parents.

Isis weaned them from cannibalism, healed their diseases by means of medicine or of magic, united women to men in legitimate marriage, and showed them how to grind grain between two flat stones and to prepare bread for the household. She invented the loom with the help of her sister Nephthys, and was the first to weave and bleach linen. There was no worship of the gods before Osiris established it, appointed the offerings, regulated the order of ceremonies, and composed the texts and melodies of the liturgies. He built cities, among them Thebes itself, according to some; though others declared that he was born there. As he had been the model of a just and pacific king, so did he desire to be that of a victorious conqueror of nations; and, placing the regency in the hands of Isis, he went forth to war against Asia, accompanied by Thot the ibis and the jackal Anubis. He made little or no use of force and arms, but he attacked men by gentleness and persuasion, softened them with songs in which voices were accompanied by instruments, and taught them also the arts which he had made known to the Egyptians. No country escaped his beneficent action, and he did not return to the banks of the Nile until he had traversed and civilized the world from one horizon to the other.

Sît-Typhon was red-haired and white-skinned, of violent, gloomy, and jealous temper.[*] Secretly he aspired to the crown, and nothing but the vigilance of Isis had kept him from rebellion during the absence of his brother. The rejoicings which celebrated the king's return to Memphis provided Sit with his opportunity for seizing the throne.

* The colour of his hair was compared with that of a red-
haired ass, and on that account the ass was sacred to him.
As to his violent and jealous disposition, see the opinion
of Diodorus Siculus, book i. 21, and the picture drawn by
Synesius in his pamphlet Ægyptius. It was told how he tore
his mother's bowels at birth, and made his own way into the
world through her side.

2 Drawing by Boudier of the gold group in the Louvre
Museum. The drawing is made from a photograph which belonged
to M. de Witte, before the monument was acquired by E. de
Rougé in 1871. The little square pillar of lapis-lazuli,
upon which Osiris squats, is wrongly set up, and the names
and titles of King Osorkon, the dedicator of the triad, are
placed upside down.

He invited Osiris to a banquet along with seventy-two officers whose support he had ensured, made a wooden chest of cunning workmanship and ordered that it should be brought in to him, in the midst of the feast. As all admired its beauty, he sportively promised to present it to any one among the guests whom it should exactly fit. All of them tried it, one after another, and all unsuccessfully; but when Osiris lay down within it, immediately the conspirators shut to the lid, nailed it firmly down, soldered it together with melted lead, and then threw it into the Tanitic branch of the Nile, which carried it to the sea. The news of the crime spread terror on all sides. The gods friendly to Osiris feared the fate of their master, and hid themselves within the bodies of animals to escape the malignity of the new king. Isis cut off her hair, rent her garments, and set out in search of the chest. She found it aground near the mouth of the river[*] under the shadow of a gigantic acacia, deposited it in a secluded place where no one ever came, and then took refuge in Bûto, her own domain and her native city, whose marshes protected her from the designs of Typhon even as in historic times they protected more than one Pharaoh from the attacks of his enemies. There she gave birth to the young Horus, nursed and reared him in secret among the reeds, far from the machinations of the wicked one.[**]

* At this point the legend of the Saïte and Greek period
interpolates a whole chapter, telling how the chest was
carried out to sea and cast upon the Phoenician coast near
to Byblos. The acacia, a kind of heather or broom in this
case, grew up enclosing the chest within its trunk. This
addition to the primitive legend must date from the XVIIIth
to the XXth dynasties, when Egypt had extensive relations
with the peoples of Asia. No trace of it whatever has
hitherto been found upon Egyptian monuments strictly so
called; not even on the latest.