“ She had used her spells on men, and was tired of exercising her powers on them, and she craved the opportunity of making herself mistress of gods and spirits as well as of men. She meditated how she could make herself mistress both of heaven and earth, and finally she decided that she could only obtain the power she wanted if she possessed the knowledge the secret name of Rā, in which his very existence was bound up. Rā guarded this name most jealously, for he knew that if he revealed it to any being he would henceforth be at that being’s mercy. ”

“ Then he came to Isis and told her that no harm could possibly have happened to Horus, for he was under the protection of the Boat of Rā; but his words failed to comfort Isis, and though she acknowledged the great­ness of his designs, she complained that they savoured of delay. “What is the good,” she asks, "of all thy spells, and incantations, and magical formulae, and the great command of maā-kheru, if Horus is to perish by the poison of a scorpion, and to lie here in the arms of Death? Evil, evil is his destiny, for it hath entailed the deepest misery for him and death.” ”

“ Isis and Nephthys weave magical protection for thee in the city of Saut, for thee their lord, in thy name of ‘Lord of Saut,’ for their god, in thy name of ‘God.’ They praise thee; go not thou far from them in thy name of ‘Tua.’ They present offerings to thee; he not wroth in thy name of ‘Tchentru.’ Thy sister Isis cometh to thee rejoicing in her love for thee. ”

“ To punish her one of the Scorpion-goddesses forced her way into the woman’s house, and stung her child to death. The grief of the woman was so bitter and sympathy-compelling that Isis laid her hands on the child, and, having uttered one of her most potent spells over him, the poison of the scorpion ran out of his body, and the child came to life again. The words of the spell are cut on the Stele, and they were treasured by the Egyptians as an infallible remedy for scorpion stings. ”

“ Men wish to walk, but they are unable to move; the young man drags along his limbs, the hearts of the aged are crushed with despair, their legs fail them, they sink to the ground, and they clutch their bodies with their hands in pain. The councillors are dumb, and nothing but wind comes out of the granaries when they are opened. Everything is in a state of ruin,” A more graphic picture of the misery caused by the famine could hardly be imagined. The king then goes on to ask Maṭâr where the Nile is born? ”

“ To this day water in which the written words of a text from the Ḳur’ận have been dissolved, or water drunk from a bowl on the inside of which religious texts have been written, is still regarded as a never-failing charm in Egypt and the Sûdân. Thus we see that the modern custom of drinking magical water was derived from the ancient Egyptians, who believed that it conveyed into their bodies the actual power of their gods. ”

“ The message of the cult of Isis as preached by her priests was one of hope and happiness, and coming to the Greeks and Romans, as it did, at a time when men were weary of their national cults, and when the speculations of the philosophers carried no weight with the general public, the people everywhere welcomed it with the greatest enthusiasm. ”

“ In the oldest times the combat was merely the natural opposition of light to darkness, but later the Sun-god became the symbol of right and truth as well as of light, and Set the symbol of sin and wickedness as well as of darkness, and ultimately the nature myth was forgotten, and the fight between the two gods became the type of the everlasting war which good men avenge against sin. In Coptic literature we have the well-known legend of the slaughter of the dragon by St. George, and this is nothing but a Christian adapta­tion of the legend of Horus and Set. ”

“ Thoth also promised Isis that Rā himself should act as the advocate of Horus, even as he had done for his father Osiris. He was also careful to allude to the share which Isis had taken in the restoration of Horus to life, saying, “It is the words of power of his mother which have lifted up his face, and they shall enable him to journey wheresoever he pleaseth, and to put fear into the powers above. I myself hasten [to obey them] .” Thus everything turned on the power of the spells of Isis, who made the sun to stand still, and caused the dead to be raised. ”

“ Then the goddess Nut trembled in all her body, and Rā, fearing that she might fall, caused to come into being the Four Pillars on which the heavens are supported. Turning to Shu Rā entreated him to protect these supports, and to place himself under Nut, and to hold her up in position with his hands. Thus Shu became the new Sun-god in the place of Rā, and the heavens in which Rā lived were supported and placed beyond the risk of falling, and mankind would live and rejoice in the light of the new sun. ”

“ Now the gods were, as a rule, able to defend themselves against the attacks of Set and his fiends, and the poisonous snakes and insects which were their emissaries, by virtue of the “fluid of life,” which was the peculiar attribute of divinity, and the efforts of Egyptians were directed to the acquisition of a portion of this magical power, which would protect their souls and bodies and their houses and cattle, and other property, each day and each night throughout the year. When a man cared for the protection of himself only he wore an amulet of some kind, in which the was localized. ”

“ This process of thinking out the existence of things is expressed in Egyptian by words which mean "laying the foundation in the heart."
In arranging his thoughts and their visible forms Kheperȧ was assisted by the goddess Maāt, who is usually regarded as the goddess of law, order, and truth, and in late times was held to be the female counterpart of Thoth, "the heart of the god Rā." In this legend, however, she seems to play the part of Wisdom, as described in the Book of Proverbs, [3] for it was by Maāt that he "laid the foundation." ”

“ From Egypt it was carried to the Islands of Greece and to the mainland, to Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal, and then crossing the western end of the Mediterranean it entered North Africa, and with Carthage as a centre spread east and west along the coast. Wherever the cult of Isis came men accepted it as something which supplied what they thought to be lacking in their native cults; rich and poor, gentle and simple, all welcomed it, and the philosopher as well as the ignorant man rejoiced in the hope of a future life which it gave to them. ”

“ It has already been seen that the god Rā, when retiring from the government of this world, took steps through Thoth to supply mankind with words of power and spells with which to protect themselves against the bites of serpents and other noxious reptiles. The legend of the Destruction of Mankind affords no explanation of this remarkable fact, but when we read the following legend of Rā and Isis we understand why Rā, though king of the gods, was afraid of the reptiles which lived in the kingdom of Ḳeb. ”

“ I have done my will in everything in this earth. I have spread myself abroad therein, and I have made strong my hand. I was One by myself, for they (i.e., the gods) had not been brought forth, and I had emitted from myself neither Shu nor Tefnut. I brought my own name [1] into my mouth as a word of power, and I forthwith came into being under the form of things which are and under the form of Kheperȧ. I came into being from out of primeval matter, and from the beginning I appeared under the form of the multitudinous things which exist ”

“ The legend takes us back to the time when the gods of Egypt went about in the country, and mingled with men, and were thoroughly acquainted with their desires and needs. The king who reigned over Egypt was Rā, the Sun-god, who was not, however, the first of the Dynasty of Gods who ruled the land. ”

“ After these things Horus, son of Rā, and Horus, son of Isis, each took the form of a mighty man, with the face and body of a hawk, and each wore the Red and White Crowns, and each carried a spear and chain. In these forms the two gods slew the remnant of the enemies. ”

“ I became three gods; thus the two other gods who came into being on this earth sprang from me, and Shu and Tefnut rejoiced (or, were raised up) from out of Nu in which they were. My father Nu saith:—They covered up (or, concealed) my Eye with the plant-like clouds which were behind them (i.e., Shu and Tefnut) for very many ḥen periods. Plants and creeping things [sprang up] from the god Rem, through the tears which I let fall. I cried out to my Eye, and men and women came into existence. ”

“ Now the King of Egypt was always called Horus, and the priests of Edfû wishing to magnify their local god, Horus of Beḥuṭet, or Horus of Edfû, attributed to him the conquests of this human, and probably predynatstic, king. We must remember that the legend assumes that Rā was still reigning on earth, though he was old and feeble, and had probably deputed his power to his successor, whom the legend regards as his son. ”

“ Thus it seems as if Isis, the great magician, was at some time stung by a scorpion.
The next section is very difficult to understand. Rā-Harmakhis is called upon to come to his daughter, and Shu to his wife, and Isis to her sister, who has been poisoned. Then the Aged One, i.e., Rā, is asked to let Thoth turn back Neḥa-ḥer, or Set. "Osiris is in the water, but Horus is with him, and the Great Beetle overshadows him,” and every evil spirit which dwells in the water is adjured to allow Horus to proceed to Osiris. ”

“ It is probable that the demands made upon Khensu Kefer-ḥetep by the Egyptians who lived in Thebes and its neighbourhood were so numerous that it was impossible to let his statue go into outlying districts or foreign lands, and that a deputy-god was appointed to perform miracles outside Thebes. This arrangement would benefit the people, and would, moreover, bring much money to the priests. The appointment of a deputy-god is not so strange as it may seem, and modern African peoples are familiar with the expedient. ”

“ Isis saw that it was impossible to make Rā declare his name to her by ordinary methods, and she therefore thought out the following plan. It was well known in Egypt and the Sûdân at a very early period that if a magician obtained some portion of a person’s body, e.g., a hair, a paring of a nail, a fragment of skin, or a portion of some efflux from the body, spells could be used upon them which would have the effect of causing grievous harm to that person. Isis noted that Rā had become old and feeble, and that as he went about he dribbled at the mouth, and that his saliva fell upon the ground. ”

“ At this place in the legend a text is inserted called the “Chapter of the Cow.” It describes how the Cow of Heaven and the two Boats of the Sun shall be painted, and gives the positions of the gods who stand by the legs of the Cow, and a number of short magical names, or formulae, which are inexplicable. The general meaning of the picture of the Cow is quite clear. The Cow represents the sky in which the Boats of Rā sail, and her four legs are the four cardinal points which cannot be changed. ”

“ When the remnant of the enemies of Rā saw that they were likely to be slain, they doubled back to the South, but Horus pursued them, and drove them down the river before him as far as Thebes. One battle took place at Tcheṭmet, and another at Denderah, and Horus was always victorious; the enemies were caught by chains thrown over them, and the deadly spears of the Blacksmiths drank their blood. ”

“ The legend begins with the statement that in the 18th year of the reign of King Tcheser, when Maṭâr, the Erpā Prince and Ḥā, was the Governor of the temple properties of the South and North, and was also the Director of the Khenti men at Elephantine (Aswân) , a royal despatch was delivered to him, in which the king said: “I am in misery on my throne. My heart is very sore because of the calamity which hath happened, for the Nile hath not come forth [3] for seven years. There is no grain, there are no vegetables, there is no food, and every man is robbing his neighbour. ”

“ Shu and Tefnut were united, and their offspring were Ḳeb, the Earth-god, and Nut, the Sky-goddess. We have now five gods in existence; Kheperȧ, the creative principle, Shu, the atmosphere, Tefnut, the waters above the heavens, Nut, the Sky-goddess, and Ḳeb, the Earth-god. Presumably about this time the sun first rose out of the watery abyss of Nu, and shone upon the world and produced day. In early times the sun, or his light, was regarded as a form of Shu. ”

“ Khnemu then went on to complain that, although the ground under the king’s feet was filled with stones and metal, men were too inert to work them and to employ them in repairing or rebuilding of the shrines of the gods, or in doing what they ought to do for him, their Lord and Creator. ”

“ The spells, which are cut in hieroglyphics on all the parts of the stele not occupied by figures of gods, were of the most potent character, for they contained the actual words by which the gods vanquished the powers of darkness and evil. These spells form the texts which are printed on p. 142 ff., and may be thus summarized:-— The first spell is an incantation directed against reptiles and noxious creatures in general. ”

“ All such creatures were regarded
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as incarnations of evil spirits, which attack the dead as well as the living, and therefore it was necessary for the well-being of the former that copies of spells against them should be written upon the walls of tombs, coffins, funerary amulets, etc. The gods were just as open to the attacks of venomous reptiles as man, and Rā himself, the king of the gods, nearly died from the poison of a snake-bite. ”