Eye of Horus

“ If it would tarry, do thou make my soul to look upon my body, [3] for thou shalt find the Eye of Horus standing by thee like those [beings who are like unto Osiris] .
“Hail, ye gods, who tow along the boat of the lord of millions of years, who bring [it] above the underworld and who make it to travel over Nut, who make souls to enter into [their] spiritual bodies, whose hands are filled with your ropes and who clutch your weapons tight, destroy ye the Enemy; thus shall the boat of the sun be glad and the great God shall set out on his journey in peace. ”

“ Anhûri-Shû of Sebennytos and Thinis; Harmerati, Horus of the two eyes, at Pharbaethos; Har-Sapdi, Horus the source of the zodiacal light, in the Wâdy Tumilât; and finally Harhûdîti at Edfû. Râ, the solar disk, was enthroned at Heliopolis, and sun-gods were numerous among the nome deities, but they were sun-gods closely connected with gods representing the sky, and resembled Horus quite as much as Râ. Whether under the name of Horus or of Anhûri, the sky was early identified with its most brilliant luminary, its solar eye, and its divinity was as it were fused into that of the Sun. ”

“ The Ka of the deceased comes with him because it is supported by Osiris, and it comes with one leg and one arm before him, and one leg and one arm behind him. The exact signification of these expressions is unknown, but about the translation of the words there is no doubt. We next see that the incense with which the mummy is censed represents the Eye of Horus, or the Sun, and the use of the expression dates from the time when Horus was the greatest of the gods of heaven, and the sun was regarded as his eye. ”

“ Then Nefert turned to a large group of the girls, who were sorting plants, and said: “Do you, children, know the origin of all these wholesome, healing herbs? The good Horus went out to fight against Seth, the murderer of his father, and the horrible enemy wounded Horus in the eye in the struggle; but the son of Osiris conquered, for good always conquers evil. But when Isis saw the bad wound, she pressed her son’s head to her bosom, and her heart was as sad as that of any poor human mother that holds her suffering child in her arms. ”

“ If sounds emanating from the mouth could possess creative power, it could be ascribed finally to any natural sound. The weeping of gods is frequently mentioned in such connection, and to the tears flowing from the eye of Horus especially did humanity owe many objects, particularly incense and similar articles. ”

“ Thine arm is to thee, Horus, great is thy strength to slaughter the enemies of thy father. Thy two thighs [FN#228] are to thee, Horus. Receive thou the rank and dignity of thy father Osiris. Ptah hath balanced for thee thy mouth on the day of thy birth. Thy heart (or, breast) is to thee, Horus, and the Disk maketh thy protection. Thine eye is to thee, Horus; thy right eye is like Shu, and thy left eye like Tefnut, who are the children of Ra. Thy belly is to thee, Horus, and the Children are the gods who are therein, and they shall not receive the essence (or, fluid) of the scorpion. ”

“ In the later variants the original significance of the Destruction of Mankind seems to have been lost sight of. The life-giving Great Mother tends to drop out of the story and her son Horus takes her place. He becomes the warrior-god, but he not only assumes his mother's rôle but he also adopts her tactics. Just as she attacked Re's enemies in the capacity of the sky-god's "Eye," so Horus as the other "Eye," the sun, to which he gave his own falcon's wings, attacked in the form of the winged disk. ”

“ Horus hath sprung from the essence of his divine father and from his decay. He hath become the Governor of Egypt. The gods shall work for him, and they shall toil for him for million of years. He shall make millions of years to live through his Eye, the only one of its lord, Nebertcher. ”

“ Let him be cut in pieces, and let his bones be given to the cats, the fragments of him to the reptiles.
"O Horus, the Striker, the great One of Valour, the Slayer, the Chief of the Gods, the Harpooner, the Hero, the only begotten, Captor of captives, Horus of Edfu, Horus the Avenger!
"He has destroyed the wicked One, he has made a whirlpool with the blood of his enemy, his shaft has made a prey. Behold ye, see ye Horus at the prow of his boat. Like Ra, he shines on the horizon. ”

“ His arms were spread like flapping wings, and his voice rose dreadfully:
“He failed me, he failed me!” he tried to bellow. “Horus, my falcon-headed deity, my power of the air, deserted me! Hell take him! Hell burn his wings and blast his piercing sight! Hell scorch him into dust for his false prophecies! I curse him—I curse Horus!”
The voice that should have roared across the silent room emitted, instead, this high-pitched, bird-like scream. The added touch of sound, the reality it lent, was ghastly. ”

“ Heaven and earth weep for thee, for great art thou among the gods.
There are not a few who adore thy soul—come to thy temple, nor fear thou.
Thy son Horus embraceth the circuit of heaven; Bebi [19] prevaileth; fear thou not.
Thy son Horus taketh vengeance before thee; he overthroweth for thee the evil ones and plotters.
Hail, oh lord, whose increase in brightness is daily beheld; the odour of thy limbs is like odours of Punt.
Praised are those who are dead and at peace; and the entire circle of the gods rejoiceth.
Come thou to thy wife in peace; her heart fluttereth for thy love ”

“ Horus is protected as the Mighty Ram [FN#247] who is hidden, and who goeth round about in front of his Eyes; and he who is under the knife is protected likewise. Horus is protected as the Great Hawk [FN#248] which flieth through heaven, earth, and the Other World (Tuat) ; and he who is under the knife is protected likewise. Horus is protected as the Holy Beetle, the mighty (?) wings of which are at the head of the sky; [FN#249] and he who is under the knife is protected likewise. Horus is protected as the Hidden Body, [FN#250] and as he whose mummy is in his sarcophagus ”

“ Horus is bitten, O Ra. Thy son is bitten, [O Osiris] . Horus is bitten, the flesh and blood of the Heir, the Lord of the diadems (?) of the kingdoms of Shu. Horus is bitten, the Boy of the marsh city of Ateh, the Child in the House of the Prince. The beautiful Child of gold is bitten, the Babe hath suffered pain and is not. [FN#238] Horus is bitten, he the son of Un-Nefer, who was born of Auh-mu (?) . Horus is bitten, he in whom there was nothing abominable, the son, the youth among the gods. ”

“ Sit rebels against the wrong of which he is the victim, involuntary though it was; he surprises and treacherously slays his brother, drives Isis into temporary banishment among her marshes, and reigns over the kingdom of Osiris as well as over his own. But his triumph is short-lived. Horus, having grown up, takes arms against him, defeats him in many encounters, and banishes him in his turn. The creation of the world had brought the destroying and the life-sustaining gods face to face: the history of the world is but the story of their rivalries and warfare. ”

“ After these things Horus, son of Ra, 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. ”

“ 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 Ra; 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 maa-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." ”

“ Thereupon Horus sought the aid of the god Thoth, the master of all magic, by whose aid he changed himself into a great sun-disk, with resplendent wings outstretched on either side. Straight to the sun he flew, and from the heavens he looked so fiercely upon his enemies and Ra's, that they neither heard nor saw aright. Each man judged his neighbour to be a stranger, and a cry went up that the foe were upon them. ”

“ On the gem are engraved the three symbols by which the Trinity—Osiris, Isis, and Horus; Father: Mother, and Child, the antetype of Humanity—became known and worshipped. The holy man divined that the boy was the incarnation of Horus sent thus to earth to teach men the way of knowledge, which is the only righteousness, since those who know all cannot sin. Where his house stood was built the first Temple of the Divine Trinity, and of this Horus became High Priest. He crowned the King in the land, and hung this gem round his neck as the symbol of his kingship and the approval of the gods. ”

“ Isis was also employed as a personification of wisdom, and to a certain extent she may be regarded as a symbol of the eternal will, her shrines bearing the enigmatic inscription—"I am the all that was, that is, that will be; no mortal can raise my veil." Horus was the son of10 Isis, and was instructed by his mother in the art of healing. Horus, synonymous with light, is the king or spirit of the sun. Astrological science and magic were earnestly and eagerly studied by the Egyptian priests. It was their belief that the different stars exercised a powerful influence on the human body. ”

“ XIV. Then the god Thoth spake, after he had looked upon the enemies lying upon the ground, saying, "Let your hearts rejoice, O ye gods of heaven! Let your hearts rejoice, O ye gods who are in the earth! Horus, the Youthful One, cometh in peace, and he hath made manifest on his journey deeds of very great might, which he hath performed according to 'the Book of Slaying the Hippopotamus.'" And from that day figures of Heru-Behutet in metal have existed. ”

“ When we come 150 to read the story which Naville brings before us, it looks as though the greatest antiquity must be conceded to it from the fact that the god Horus—the rising sun—is accompanied by the Hor-shesu, the followers or worshippers of Horus. These people are almost prehistoric, even in Egyptian history. De Rougé says of them, as I have previously pointed out, C'est le type de l'antiquité la plus reculée. They represent, possibly, the old sun-worshippers at a time when as yet there was no temple of the sun. ”

“ Then the associates of Set came together and took counsel, and took upon themselves the likeness of crocodiles and hippopotamuses, for these great beasts can live under water and no human weapon can pierce their hides. They came up the river, the water swirling behind them, and rushed upon the Boat of Ra to overturn it. But Horus had gathered together his band of armourers and weapon-smiths, and they had prepared arrows and spears of metal, smelted and welded, hammered and shaped, with magical words and spells chanted over them. ”

“ Horus was bitten (i.e., stung) in Sekhet-An, to the north of Hetep- hemt, whilst his mother Isis was in the celestial houses making a libation for her brother Osiris. And Horus sent forth his cry into the horizon, and it was heard by those who were in . . . . . . Thereupon the keepers of the doors who were in the [temple of] the holy Acacia Tree started up at the voice of Horus. And one sent forth a cry of lamentation, and Heaven gave the order that Horus was to be healed. And [the gods] took counsel [together] concerning the life [of Horus, saying,] "O goddess Pai (?) ”

“ Horus was the hawk-god of Upper Egypt, especially of Edfu and Hierakonpolis. Though originally an independent god, and even keeping apart as Hor-ur, 'Horus the elder,' throughout later times, yet he was early mingled with the Osiris myth, probably as the ejector of Set who was also the enemy of Osiris. He is sometimes entirely in hawk form; more usually with a hawk's head, and in later times he appears as the infant son of Isis entirely human in form. ”

“ Horus promptly cut off the heads of Set and his fiends in the presence of Rā and Isis, and he dragged Set by his feet through the country with his spear sticking in his head and neck. After this Isis appointed Horus of Beḥuṭet to be the protecting deity of her son Horus. The fight between the Sun-god and Set was a very favourite subject with Egyptian writers, and there are many forms of it. Thus there is the fight between Ḥeru-ur and Set, the fight between Rā and Set, the fight between Ḥeru-Beḥuṭet and Set, the fight between Osiris and Set, and the fight between Horus, son of Isis, and Set. ”

“ Horus stands by and beholds their torments, for these are the enemies of Osiris and of Ra, doers of evil upon the earth and blasphemers of the gods. No help can come to them, no escape is possible; doomed are they by their own actions to the sword and fire. ”

“ Furthermore, he would give Horus power to repulse any attacks which might be made upon him by beings in the heights above, or fiends in the depths below, and would ensure his succession to the Throne of the Two Lands, i.e., Egypt. ”

“ The goddess Net, or Neith, who is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts of Unas, is a figure in which we descry a personification of moisture or rain, because of her possession of the arrow, the symbol of lightning. The hawk-headed Horus, probably originally a hawk totem, is one of the manifestations of the sun-deity, from whom he may have evolved, or with whom he may have been confounded. ”

“ He is Horus, the powerful bull, son of truth, the king, sun creator of the world, who hath been established on the throne of Seb by his father, the god Toum, who hath given him the dignity of Thoré, in magnifying his name among the inhabitants of On and of the whole world, the son of the sun, Thothmes, giving life like the sun for ever. ”