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THE BOOK OF THE DEAD

PRESERVATION FROM SCALDING

[From the Papyrus of Nu (British Museum No. 10,477, sheet 12).]

The Chapter of not being scalded with water. The overseer of the palace, the chancellor-in-chief, Nu, triumphant, saith:

“I am the oar made ready for rowing, wherewith Rā transported the boat containing the divine ancestors, and lifted up the moist emanations of Osiris from the Lake of Fire, and he was not burned. I lie down like a divine Khu, [and like] Khnemu who dwelleth among lions. Come, break away the restraints from him that passeth by the side of this path, and let me come forth by it.”


ON COMING FORTH BY DAY

[From the Papyrus of Nebseni (British Museum No. 9,900, sheets 23 and 24).]

The Chapter of coming forth by day in the underworld. Nebseni, the lord of reverence, saith:

“I am Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow, [and I have] the power to be born a second time; [I am] the divine hidden Soul who createth the gods, and who giveth sepulchral meals unto the denizens of the Tuat (underworld), Amentet, and heaven. [I am] the rudder of the east, the possessor of two divine faces wherein his beams are seen. I am the lord of the men who are raised up; [the lord] who cometh forth from out of the darkness, and whose forms of existence are of the house wherein are the dead. Hail, ye two hawks who are perched upon your resting-places, who hearken unto the things which are said by him, who guide the bier to the hidden place, who lead along Rā, and who follow [him] into the uppermost place of the shrine which is in the celestial heights! [Hail,] lord of the shrine which standeth in the middle of the earth. He is I, and I am he, and Ptah hath covered his sky with crystal. [Hail] Rā, thou who art content, thy heart is glad by reason of thy beautiful law of the day; thou enterest in by Khemennu(?) and comest forth at the east, and the