Chapter XCVIII: Chapter whereby one saileth a ship in the Netherworld

Oh thou Leg in the Northern Sky,(1.) and in that most conspicuous but inaccessible Stream; I rise up and come to light as a god, I am conspicuous but inaccessible.

I rise up and live, and bring myself to light as a god.

I cackle even as the Smen-goose, but I stoop(2.) like the Hawk at the nets of the Great Fowler.

I sail across the Sky, and Shu standeth erect and the Achmiu Stars(3.) are instantly active in raising the ladder which lifts the Setting Stars away from destruction.(4.)

And I bear that which repelleth mischief as I make my voyage over the Leg of Ptah.

I come from the Lake of Flame, from the Lake of Fire, and from the Field of Flame, and I live....

I stand erect in the Bark which the god is piloting ... at the head of Aarru,(5.) and the Achmiu Stars open to me ... and my fellow citizens(6.) present to me the sacred cakes with flesh.

NOTES.

There is but one papyrus of the older period which contains any portion of this chapter, and it does so very imperfectly.

On referring to M. Naville’s edition it will be seen that not only the title but the greater part of the chapter is destroyed. The later copies have texts so different from the original form, that it is unsafe to attempt a restoration except within very strict limits.

It is absurd to attempt a translation from a mixture of divergent and, at the same time, incorrect texts.

1. See note to chapter 74. The _Stream_ which is so conspicuous but cannot be reached is the Milky Way, and the _Leg_ is the constellation Cassiopeia in the Northern Sky.

2. _Stoop_, ⁂⁂⁂. This comparison occurs repeatedly in the Pyramid Texts, and others of the early periods.

3. _Achmiu Stars_ ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ so _Ab_, giving another proof that the word is to be taken as a _noun_, and not as a _negative_.

4. See chapter 30A, on “The Crocodile of the West who lives on the Setting Stars.”

5. So _Ab_, but perhaps wrongly. I dare not fill up the lacunæ of this text.

6. _Fellow-citizens._ The translation here is necessarily conjectural. But I understand by _fellow-citizens_ (συμπολῖται) the dwellers of that _city_ of which the deceased says, in chapter 17, “I arrive at my own city, ⁂⁂.”[92] And this _city_ is explained by the ancient scholion as being “the Horizon ⁂ [or, as Lepsius more accurately translates it, ‘der Sonnenberg’] of my father Tmu.” It is no earthly city that is thought of, but an eternal one.

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Footnote 92:

I take this opportunity of correcting my former translation, where the
preposition ⁂, which twice occurs in the passage, is both times
rendered by the same word, _from_. But the sense of a preposition
really depends upon the verb which it follows. The same English word
will not suit the French _de_ in ‘s’approcher _de_’ and ‘s’éloigner
_de_.’

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