Egyptian Book of the Dead

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER VIII. Chapter of opening the Tuat by day. The Hour( 1 ) discloseth what the head of Thoth keepeth close, who giveth might to the Eye of Horus.( 2 ) And I call upon the Eye of Horus which gleams as an ornament upon the brow of Râ, the father of the gods. I am that Osiris, the Lord of Amenta, and Osiris knoweth his day, and that it is in his lot that he should end his being, and be no more.( 3 ) I am Sutu, the father of the gods, the imperishable one. Stay, Horus, for he is counted among the gods. 18 Notes. 1. Time. 2. See note on Chapter 17, 27. It must be sufficient here to say that Thoth is a personification of the moon, and that the relations of solar and lunar phenomena are the sources of a great deal of Egyptian mythology. 3. This is one of the most difficult passages in the Book of the Dead, but I do not see how it can be grammatically understood otherwise. It is understood from the passage from Light to Darkness and the converse. ‘In his lot,’ literally ‘in him.’ ‘End his being’: more strictly, ‘bring to an end his activity’; [Source image: ⁂] [Source image: ⁂] [Source image: ⁂] . ‘ Being ’ (though inevitable in a modern language) is much too abstract a word for these ancient texts. [Source image: ⁂] implies ‘motion, activity,’ and [Source image: ⁂] is not a simple negation, but implies ‘completion, end’ (τελέω, τέλος), though not ‘cessation.’ Our modern acceptation of the word ‘perfect’ is often wrongly applied to [Source image: ⁂] . We should think rather of such phrases as ‘annum perficere,’ ‘sole perfecto.’