As some within the House seem to have great trouble hearing, allow me to repeat: I make no claims of expertise in this area. So far, I've included two translations of this story, one by Erman, the other by Budge. It is their work (and not any attempted translation of my own) that I use here. If you click on a footnote labled "(E)", you will be taken to the top of the passage in Erman, which parallels the passage which you have just finished reading here. Likewise, if you click on one labeled "(B)", you will go to the equivalent passage in Budge. The footnotes below will explain the decisions I made in this rewrite; take them for what they're worth. In real life, I'm an Applied Mathematician, not an Egyptologist.

The Legend of Ra and Aset

Aset was once far less than the great goddess we know her as, today, but even then, within her heart were to be found words of power, that would bring magic into being. She grew weary of mankind, preferring the company of the multitude of gods to that of men, but even more, desired to be near the shining spirits, who dwelt among the stars in the sky. (1) She asked herself "Can I not, through the sacred name of G-d (2) make myself mistress of all the world and become a deity like unto Ra, ruling over heaven and earth?

Behold the sun rising! (3) Each day, Ra appeared, leading the sacred mariners who manned his boat, and took his place upon the throne of the two horizons, (4) just as you can see him doing now, but he was not well. He had grown old, unable to even control the flow of drool which fell from his mouth. Aset saw her opportunity, and seized it. Taking the soil which had been moistened with the spittle of the aging god, she formed it into a serpent which, partaking of his divinity, (5) could be used as a weapon against him. (6) Was she so bold as to bring her new creation into Ra's presence, resting upon her brow as if it were her crown, (7) for all to see? No. She left it upon the path she knew he took, when would he set out, feeling the desire to travel through his blessed realm. (8) The trap having been set, Aset stepped back, and waited. (E)

The sacred one arose, with the gods in his retinue at hand, going forth to greet the day. The serpent struck.

The fire of life began to leave the sun god, fleeing to where he could not follow, and he felt its loss. He who had dwelt in the palace of the Names (9) was overcome, his cries reaching Heaven itself, god crying out unto G-d. (10) The gods who attended him asked what had happened, but he could not answer, for his jaws trembled and his body quaked, the poison spreading through his flesh as quickly as the flooding Nile would penetrate all the corners of his land. (E)

When he, great among the gods, had regained his composure, he cried out to those who followed him, saying "Come unto me, oh ye who once were of one flesh with me, ye who have come forth from me, hear and make it known unto all creation (11) that a great misfortune has befallen me. My heart perceives it, yet I can not see its cause. I have not suffered this by my own hand, and do not know what has harmed me. Never have I felt such pain; sickness could not bring more woe. (E)

(How can this be?) I am a prince, the son of a prince, a sacred essence which has proceeded from G-d. I am numbered among the Lords of Creation, the son of a Lord, and my father planned my name with care. By many names am I known, as I appear in my many forms, and the divinity of every god finds its source in me. (From where, then, could they find the power to do me harm? (18). My reign was proclaimed with Tem and Heru as its heralds. (With the support of those so powerful, how can I be undone?) While my father and mother did speak my true name, it was thus hidden within me, by him who fathered me, who would not accept the notion that the words of power of any seer, should have power over me.

I came forth to look upon what I have created, this world I have made, when lo (!), something struck me, but I know not what. Is it fire that courses through my tissues, or is it water? My heart is on fire, my flesh quakes, and the trembling has seized all of my limbs. (E) Let there be brought unto me the children of the gods with healing words upon their lips, and power which reaches unto Heaven. The children of every god came unto him in tears. Aset came as well, with the breath of life in her mouth, with her healing words, with enchantments which destroyed sickness, even with words of power to make the dead live again. With no mention made of the role she had played in bringing about his current misfortune, she began to speak.

"You asked what had come to pass, Holy Father". Not surprisingly, she knew the cause of his suffering. "What has happened? A snake has bitten thee. A thing which thou hast created has lifted up its head against thee. (Do not concern yourself, my Lord). My healing words will certainly cast it forth from thee, driving it away, out of thy radiance, and thy sight, and into the shadows. (B) (E)

The Great Name opened his mouth, and spoke to her of how he had decided to travel through the two lands, to view his creation, before he was bitten. "Is it fire? Is it water? I am colder than water, I am hotter than fire. The sweat pours from my body, I shake, my eyes will not focus and I can not see the sky above; the sweat covers my face as if it were summer. Then Aset said unto Ra, "Please tell me thy name, oh holy father, for he who is healed in thy name shall live".

What is a name, but that by which one is known? Ra answered Aset, saying "I am he who has made the heavens and the earth, and put the mountains in their place. All that is above them is my handiwork, as are the waters of the Nile, in all its vastness. I am he who brought into being that driving vital force, (12) that makes life fight for its existence against death (13), that gives men their virility and kings their courage, and brings the world with all of its struggles alive. I have stretched out the two horizons as a curtain, (14) placing the souls of the gods within them. I am he, who by opening his eyes, brings forth the light, and gathers the darkness by closing them. I am he, at whose command the Nile rises, and whose name is not known, even by the gods. I am he who makes the hours, and begins the days, bringing forward the festivals of the year in his wanderings. (15) I am he who calls forth the flooding of the Nile (so that the land may be renewed). I kindle the fire that burns within all who live, and feed the people. In the morning I am Khepera, by noon I am Ra, and as evening comes I am Tem". As he said this, the venom remained within his body, piercing him more deeply, and soon he could no longer walk. (B) (E)

What is a name, but that by which one is known? Perhaps the answer depends on who it is that knows one, and how well. Having listened to Ra, Aset responded. "What thou hast said, is not thy name. Tell me thy true, hidden name, and the poison shall depart thee, for he who I may call by his name is thus saved". The poison burned within Ra, fiercer than any furnace or flame, (E) until he said agreed to allow Aset to search within him, and to allow his true name to pass from his heart, to hers. Thus diminished, he hid himself from the other gods, and his place in his eternal boat was empty. When the time came for Ra to do as he said, Aset spoke unto her son Heru, saying that Ra was bound by oath to surrender to her his two eyes, the sun and the moon, (16) as he was, for as he had agreed to put himself under her power, her power now included his.

Thus was the name of the great god Ra taken from him, and thus did Aset become a goddess like unto Ra, the lady of enchantments, for the name of Ra was within her. She kept her promise. "Depart poison, go forth from Ra. May Heru watch over him, and his creation. (17) It is I who work, making the vanquished poison fall upon the earth, for the name of the great god hath been taken from him by me. May the poison die and Ra live." These are the words of Aset, she who became queen of the gods, knowing Ra by his true name. (B)

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Notes

(1) "shining spirits who dwelt among the stars in the sky" : khus. Budge writes, in "The Egyptian Book of the Dead", cited as a source in one of the versions of this story, that "Another important and apparently eternal part of a man was the khu, which, judging from the meaning of the word, may be defined as a "shining" or transparent intangible casing or covering of the body, which is frequently depicted in the form of a mummy. For the want of a better word khu has often been translated 'shining one', 'glorious', 'intelligence,' and the like, but in certain cases it may be tolerably well translated by 'spirit'. The pyramid texts show us that the khu's of the gods lived in heaven, and thither wended the khu of a man as ever the prayers said over the dead body enabled it to do so. " (p. lxvii, italics his)

The reader will note the title of Chapter 148 of "The Book of Coming forth by Day", listed on p. xliii in the introduction to Budge, is "[The chapter] of nourishing the khu in the underworld and of removing him from every evil thing". Kemetic Scripture, if you will, clearly places the khu in the underworld, with Wesir, who, according to his legend as related by Plutarch, dwells in the sky among the stars.

I should mention that as I went browsing tonight, I came across another book, a bit newer than Budge's, that places the underworld above the sky. (No, I can't cite the source yet, as I didn't have pen and paper available to me at the time. Yes, obviously I have a lot more reading to do).

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(2) So it says, in translation, though the name she seeks is that of Ra, not that of Netjer, in its totality. Click here to return.

(3) The original just read "Behold!", which, judging from quick glance through "Ancient Egyptian Literature" (Miriam Lichtheim, Vol. I) could mean nothing more than "take notice, reader". However, in this context, the interpretation seemed fitting.

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(4) Throne of the two horizons: my guess is that this is a reference to the two sides of the Nile valley, which are bounded by cliffs. On either side of the valley, the sky will meet the top of the cliff, and thus the line of cliffs in the east, and that in the west, are the "horizons", that the rising and setting sun will rest upon, the horizon thus becoming the throne of Ra, who is within the sun, the sun resting upon the horizon as a king will rest upon his thrown.

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(5) The origin of the spittle giving the snake a divinity derived from Ra is pure speculation on my part, but here's an argument: Any fluid issuing from the body of a netjer would be part of the netjer. Spittle, in particular, comes from the mouth, like the words Ra spoke to create his world, and those within it, so perhaps that fluid that issued from his mouth would carry part of his power within it? The translations I based this paraphrase, however, do refer to the snake as being a "divine" or "holy" serpent; of the divinity of the snake, there is no need to speculate.

(Observe, also, that the formation of living beings, even gods, from the bodily fluids of the netjeru, is scarcely unknown. The reader may recall the formation of men from the tears of Ra, and of the deities who are sometimes said to have formed from the tears or mucus of Tem (who is also sometimes said to have given birth to them through self-impregnation, both according to the House of Netjer's homepage, and some reference which I have cleverly forgotten).

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(6)"Made it into the form of a spear" was the original. What else does one use a spear for, and what is the snake being used for, here?

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(7)"Set it upright before her" or "place it upon her brow". Either reading is suggestive of Erman's interpretation of this being a reference to the "uraeus snake" (a cobra) which rested upon the crown of the pharoahs, and, by implication, on Ra's, since Ra is the king (pharoah) of the netjeru. One may take this as a joke, the image of Aset, who would be queen, making her own crown using the essence of the one whose status she is obsessively covetous of.

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(8) Erman's translation refers to "his two lands", Budge's to "his double kingdom". Being neither literate in Egyptian, nor in possession of the hieratic original, I am twice removed from being able to offer better than a guess, here. However, if we look at the House' listing for Ma'at, we see reference to the "Hall of Ma'ati", ie. the "Hall of Double Truth", the word "double" signifying something more serious or intense. Serious, indeed - this was the place of judgment for the souls of the departed.

While I am currently at a loss to find a reference to this effect, I seem to recall seeing some mention that the realm of the gods paralleled the earth, or at least Egypt, in its geography, thus two kingdoms : the earthly one and the divine one, forming a double kingdom. (G-d, I hope that I'm not remembering some New Ager's webpage, but I just can't seem to place this one, yet). This reminds me of the Platonic idea of an ideal world of forms, which the real world mirrors imperfectly. Could the Egyptians have had a similar concept, the Egypt that we can walk on being a flawed reproduction of the divine Egypt? If so, then is that why the word "double" has the significance that it does? That a double truth is one true, not only in the human realm, but also in the divine, and thus representing a deeper, ultimate truth ?

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(9) At the risk of ethnocentricism, I might hazard a guess at the meaning of the allusion which Budge is confused by, here. (Literally, Ra is referred to as "he who had dwelt among the cedars"). A reading familiar to all who have attended a synagogue for Friday night services refers to the shattering of "the cedars of Lebanon". It has been a while, but I seem to recall that this is a reference to the overthrow of palaces, ie. of the kings who dwell in them, as G-d delivers Israel from her enemies.

In the region, wood has traditionally been both very expensive, and of low quality, for the most part. Arable land was scarce, and trees require more water than grain, so trees would have been occupying scarce, well-watered, arable land, and for this reason, unusually many of them would have been fruit trees, by European standards. Only a madman would think of chopping down a fruit tree for lumber, in a desert region. Such a tree must mature for some years before it even begins to bear fruit, and that fruit is badly needed food. (In fact, Jewish law forbids such destruction, even as an act of war, contrary to certain Israeli government actions. I understand that Muslims view such an act, with equal dismay). Thus, much of the little wood which would have been available locally could not be touched until the tree had died, and deadwood is too rotten to serve as building material. One should consider oneself lucky, if it should even burn right.

Phoenicia, now known as Lebanon, produced a high quality, aromatic wood (cedar), which would have been valued almost anywhere, but was treasured in the Near East. It was also, again, scarce and expensive, the building material for the rich, used in temples and palaces, not in the homes of the poor. My guess is that "the cedars" refers, not to a forest, but to the timbers of the palace which Ra, as a king, would live in. Take this for the little it is worth, pending more reading, but I would guess that a literal interpretation, placing Ra's dwelling place in a cedar forest, would be unreasonable on geographic grounds. The dwelling places of the gods are placed within the "two horizons" (the walls on either side of the Nile valley?), and the only thing on the other side of those walls, was a pair of deserts, no place for a tree to live, in either case.

Thus, I would suggest, with a good chance of being wrong, "he who dwelt among the cedars" would mean "he who dwelt in his palace", a reference to Ra's royal status among the netjeru.

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(10) The "god" here is Ra, and "G-d" is Netjer in its totality. To whom else could Ra cry out?

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(11) One translation had Ra telling them to tell this to Khepera, the other had Khepera telling it to them. Looking at my little Egyptian dictionary, I find that kheper is a verb that means "to become, to come into being", so perhaps "telling it to Khepera" is an idiomatic expression meaning "to tell it to all of creation", ie. everybody? "That Khepera may tell it to you" - that your hearing of it may come into being, ie. so that you may hear?

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(12) Speaking of arguments that I don't want to endorse ... one may be left with the impression, from the next footnote, that I'm referring to the netjer Min as a force rather than a person. (Renee of "Per Ankh" dropped by the Netjer boards to argue such a point). No, I'm not. I'm referring to a force which Min, should he exist, would be setting in motion. The difference is not a small one. Imagine yourself wading through the water, and passing a leaf floating on its surface. An eddy coming off of you sets the leaf in motion. If that leaf was alive, and aware of its movement, it would know you only by that eddy. But you are far more than the currents in the water that it would know you by. Likewise, I would say, a god is more than a metaphysical force, like this driving force of life spoken of, here.

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(13) An old joke: Egypt is threatened with invasion, and the pharoah finds that his army is far too small. He calls his scribe, and begins to dictate : "the defense of our land will require the efforts of many strong and virile men ... is there something wrong?" The scribe has stopped writing. "Please forgive me, sire, but I must ask : is there one testicle or two in 'virile'?"

The line that I originally put in read "the 'bull of his mother', through whom all are begotten and the pleasures of love are known, is my creation", a combination of the corresponding lines from the versions of this tale to be found in Budge and Erman, but it didn't sound right. How jarring it would be, for Ra, as he lists all that he has created, to suddenly go "Oh, and penises - I invented those, too". Yet, here I had what appeared to be an unusually blunt reference to a personification of the male genitalia ("through who all are begotten"), based on the translations I had in hand! "The pleasures of love", indeed. The epithets could scarcely have been less subtle.

Pure speculation on my part, not to be taken seriously ... (I remind the reader that I am a Mathematician, not an Egyptologist).

Why would such a thing be called "the Bull of his mother?" First of all, let us remember that the only use of a bull, as opposed to an ox, in agricultural terms, lies in its ability to impregnate cows, and help make new cattle, much as the male genitalia, through their role in impregnating women, help make new children. One would not hitch a bull to a plow. It would be far too likely to turn on, and kill the unfortunate peasant behind him. Nor would one raise one for his meat. The castrated ox is far superior for both of these purposes, being docile enough to be a good, strong work animal, and being able to put on weight far more easily.

Why would this "bull" be "the bull of his mother"? It is interesting to note that, as Erman mentions, the same hieroglyph was used for "mother" and the goddess Mut, prior to the reign of Akhenaton, who insisted that the hieroglyph be changed, because of this reference. (See pp. 262-263) Mut, as the page linked to above mentions, is a patroness of mothers. Could the phrase "the bull of his mother" originally have read "the bull of Mut"? If we see Mut as being concerned with the increase in numbers of the people of Egypt, raising people rather than cattle, the possible connection might seem obvious. Could this idiom have then arisen as a corruption, after the hieroglyphs for Mut and mother were made distinct, beginning in an era when the goddess was not to be mentioned?

This all looked nice and tidy, and seemed to come with the blessing of two experts in the field, albeit ones from over a century ago. Even so, even as a layman, I couldn't help but wonder if appearances were deceptive. Note that the phrases modifying the epithets in the two translations are hardly synonymous, though they do both suggest a common meaning. I couldn't help but wonder whether those phrases were in the original, or were 19th century embellishments added for the sake of clarification, especially given the notorious Victorian era reluctance to speak of anything suggesting a sexual meaning, without the lavish use of euphemisms. Were they repeating what they were reading, or giving a polite description of what they were seeing?

Maybe the original was a reference to a reference? I took a look through websites in which the phrase "the bull of his mother" appears. (Not the most authoritative of sources, to be sure, but they will have to do until I have time to look through the literature). Invariably, the text translated accompanied a picture of a god portrayed in ithyphallic form, ie. with an unnaturally oversized, erect phallus, in scale, a few feet long (which supports the seemingly obvious reference mentioned above). Anybody who is at a loss as what the significance of that might be, has never been in a men's locker room. The association of phallus size with masculinity and all that it represents seems to be a cross-cultural cliche. One deity name that was mentioned in connection to such portrayals was that of Min, who, according to the sites I saw, was always shown in ithyphallic form.

Not surprisingly, Min proves to be a fertility god, according to Erman, who on p. 65 also mentions the ceremony in which the new pharoah, during his coronation, pays worship "to his father Min". To him, the peasants sacrificed their first fruits (see p.245). He was "the protector of desert paths" (p. 473), who "though he was peculiarly the god of nature, took the travellers of the desert under his protection". (p.23) Let it be noted that this protection was not only from sunstroke and duststorms, a temple to him being located inside the fortress at Sauu, through which caravans enroute to the east would pass, after leaving his city of Coptos. Thus, this fertility god is a god of war as well.

Such a combination of attributes, an agricultural god also being a war god, often seems to astonish Westerners, who seem curiously unaware of their own religious heritage, which included just such a combination in the Roman Mars (and still does), a god of farming and war. In the Roman case, the connection is almost a cliche : the Roman citizen, who traditionally was a farmer in peacetime, most often fought over disputed farmland. If the citizen was both a farmer and a soldier, why would not the god who fought beside him be as well?

In the case of Min, at least at the present moment, I am reduced to speculation, so here's my guess. In a sense, all Egyptians were desert travellers who needed Min's protection. Before each inundation, the peasant could look uncomfortably in the direction of the valley walls, and see the desert encroaching. Erman mentions that the sand of the surrounding deserts could be seen trickling down into the valley, through grooves in the sides of the valley (p.8), which can scarcely have been of great comfort. For the moment, try to place yourself in his position. Suppose that you were on a long, narrow valley by the side of a vast and sterile sea, the floor of which was well below sea level. Now, suppose that you looked toward the wall of your valley, and saw water trickling in. This sight wouldn't be very reassuring, would it ? One could say, that the Egyptian lived in such a valley.

A valley, by definition, is lower than the surrounding country, and to the west of the Nile valley lay the shifting dunes of the Libyan desert, which, even in the recent past, have been known to swallow those depressions we know of as oases, whole, with man helpless to do much more than watch, and get out of the way. The dunes do give the appearance of waves upon a sea, and to compare them to such would not be altogether inappropriate, as sand, like other granular solids, can, sometimes, take on the characteristics of a liquid, in ways that even 21st century physics finds difficult to predict. A dweller in that valley, then, might see the desert as a thing always trying to invade the valley, personified during the New Kingdom period by the newly demonised Set. As the land turned dry, prior to the Nile floods, our inhabitant might see the tide of battle, in this invasion, turning in favor of a powerful invader, against the black land of Egypt.

The flood would come, and the land would return to life. Growth would drive the desert back, repelling the invading desert from the soil of Egypt, much as the armies of the pharoah would repell invading bands of Libyans from the West. One could easily picture Min leading an army against the invading forces of Set, as a metaphor, his duties paralleling those of pharoah. How natural, perhaps, that the pharoah would "solemnise to his father Min", as Erman puts it, during his coronation festivities. In a sense, isn't he about to become Min?

An argument might be made that the pharoah was guarding a desert way, himself, doing his "father's" work, with that father's help. One might see the land of Egypt itself as a path through the desert, trod by all who lived and travelled within it, considering how narrow it was. If so, then one might say that he who brings fertility, by keeping the desert back, would protect the peasant from the greatest danger of the desert of all - the expansion of the desert itself. Were the desert to swallow all of the fertile lands, the only thing that would save the peasant from a certain death from starvation, would be the certainty of a much earlier death from dehydration.

I would argue then, that the attributes of Min, then, far from being a random grab bag of duties, form a coherent whole, which tells us something about what it is that this netjer, who seems so closely related to our expression ("the bull of his mother") represents, in a metaphorical sense. This, in turn, may tell us something about what the expression meant to an Egyptian, which is what I'm about to take my admittedly semi-informed guess about. Aside : bolstering the connection between the phrase and the god, as viewed from my limited, translation-informed vantage point, is the observation that the sacred animal of Min was a bull (a white bull, to be specific, see Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, 1959 edition, p. 38).

To an Egyptian, according to Erman (see pp. 244 - 245), no nobler beast could have been chosen; "the bull held the same place of old as the lion does now in our poetry; in Egypt 'the strong bull' was the incorporation of strength and resistless power, and the poets describe how, with his horns lowered, he rushes on his enemy and tramples him underfoot". Not to mention goring him, but one supposes the point had been made. Not surprisingly, we find Ramessu II (Ramesus) calling himself "the strong bull" in an inscription (p. 57), this apparently being a common epithet for monarchs to claim in Egypt. Probably all the better, as far as his subjects were concerned. One would just as soon have one's monarch trampling his enemies (ie. the enemies of one's country) underfoot, as the alternative would have been for one's own people to be trampled underfoot, instead.

So, what is the common, uniting thread?

In all of these cases, one might say, life promotes itself aggressively, as it must, if it is not to disappear. The king's life, as a king, is with his land, and it is on behalf of his land that he fights. If kings are not willing to destroy the enemies who attack their realms, the ancients might argue, it will their kingdoms and people that will be destroyed, instead. That social setting, which brought forth their kingship (gave birth to their offices, one might say), will be no more. Man, as an animal, gains his life through his birth. If men stopped pursuing women, or lost the drive to father children, births would cease, and humanity would die out. Likewise, with other species. If new life does not appear, to replace the old which was lost as the soil dried, prior to the latest inundation of the Nile, then the desert will win. One might envision that as life fighting to conquer the lifeless soil. In each case, we can see a masculine principle of the preservation and promotion of some sort of life, through focused aggression. A generalised sort of virility, one might say, of man, king, and god alike.

The coarse literal meaning which I had my doubts about, and the metaphor underlying what I would take to have been the intended meaning, are not unrelated, then. The phallus is the most obvious symbol of masculinity, especially in its aggressively creative aspects, that one can imagine. With it, a man fathers children, and shares with his wife, as Budge puts it "the pleasures of love", which helps reinforce the bond between husband and wife out of which grows the greater conjugal love of marriage and family. Without it, the castrated young animal fails to develop those aggressive habits which we associate with masculinity. Virility, which I would argue is being referred to metaphorically, in the broadest sense, like the body part which Erman and Budge seem to be referring to so bluntly, does indeed "beget all", through the actions it motivates. (One is reminded of the old line that "a man is just a sperm's way of making more sperm", much like "a human being is just a gene's way of reproducing itself", both of which are true, in an evolutionary sense).

As for "the pleasures of love", may I suggest to anybody who needs a full explanation, that a certain discussion with his father is long overdue? Let it be said, though, that sexual pleasure is at least as much in the mind, as in the body, and without the drive we speak of, pleasure will be absent in the man, and, quickly, in the woman as well, as soon as she perceives this. Thus, the metaphorical significance seems more appropriate than what we might, at first glance take to be what is literally alluded to by the phrase "the bull of his mother". This is why I used the attempted paraphrase you see.

Having written this, I now fully expect, when I have time to show this topic the respect it deserves (and do more extensive reading), to discover that this is all total nonsense. Already, though, I can think of a possible objection, and an answer to it. The reader might offer the following argument. "Take a look at the listing for Min, again, and look through the literature to confirm what you see written, there. Note that the possibility of a connection between Min and Set is suggested, based on a common trait. There is a certain type of long leafed lettuce, not specified in the listing, thought of as an aphrodisiac, alleged to be the favorite food of both. Set, being a personification of the desert, could hardly be called an embodiment of life, and its willingness to promote itself aggressively."

What's your preference?

1. Yes, please address that question.
2. Forget it, let's move on.

(14) Very literal, as metaphors go? I've guessed that "the two horizons" are the two lines of cliffs lining the Nile valley. As I read some more, it will be interesting to see if I guessed right. OK, maybe only to me, but I'm writing this silly thing.

If these are the cliffs, then the appearance would be of two opaque curtains on either side of the valley. The different hills would cause the lines to move in and out, like the folds of a curtain.

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(15) "In the course of his wanderings" : the heliocentric theory of Copernicus was well off into the future, at the time the original was being written. The year was marked, by the apparent motion of the sun in the sky, and the calendar, with all of its dates, with it. It is thus that the sun would "call forth the holidays", which is why I inserted this phrase.

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(16) In the listing for Udjat (ie. the sacred eye) in the image gallery, it is mentioned that the two sacred eyes are sometimes considered to be the sun and the moon, which are viewed as being the original emanations of the creator. Would the significance here be the same as it would be in the West, ie. that Aset is telling Heru that Ra has just handed over control of the world to her? (The sun and the moon being the oldest parts of the world, and thus, those Ra would be most loath to cede control over?)

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(17) In the original, she calls for the eye of Heru to shine outside the mouth of Ra, a curious image for the modern reader to ponder. What might it mean? Cautioning the reader that this is a very old memory that I am dredging up, I recall a pre-scientific belief that one was able to see, because rays emitted from the eye would reach what was seen. (How those who believed this, explained the impossibility of seeing in the dark, I am not sure). So, given this belief, the instruction that "the eye of Heru shine outside his mouth" becomes a call to have Horus watch the mouth of Ra, and, by implication, all that comes forth from it. Heru is a protector, so this gaze is one of protection. Words are among that which issues forth from the mouth of Ra, including those words which continue the work of creation. Thus, Heru is becoming the protector of the Land and its inhabitants, by Aset's command, if I understand this correctly.

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