Thoth

“ Has thy hideous descent left in thee no trace of manly feeling, and no knowledge of the heart of a woman? I would rather see the whole world desolate than mingle my blood with thine!"
Thoth listened to her with undisguised astonishment, and replied to her quite calmly—
"But what more couldst thou desire? Thou shalt be treated by every one, from myself downwards, with the most obsequious honour, thou shalt be queen of the world, and the founder of the greatest race the earth has ever borne. ”

“ Why not leave thy dread ancestors to their sleep?”
She spoke to him with a soft enticing voice, and looked up to him as to a superior.
“Daphne,” replied Thoth, “I have already yielded to thee the utmost that my nature will permit. It is useless to ask more. For two thousand years my race have toiled incessantly to create a new world. They await their reward. If I raise them from their sleep, they will never consent to forego their plans. If I raise them not—but I tell thee that is impossible. Rise they must, now all is ready, as surely as rises the sun.” ”

“ Then Thoth replied, "Hear me, oh king, with attention, and know that in one thing thy policy has utterly failed. The rest of thy people have become, from age, more vigorous and skilful, because their women have been treated with affection and honour. But thy royal race has dwindled. I am the son of a stranger woman, though my father was deceived and knew it not. That miserable being trembling there is thy true successor, according to thy laws of descent. Know that the degradation of women has failed, and thou must choose between love and death. ”

“ Tell me, apart from these women, what thinkest thou of our people?"
"They are truly a wonderful race, and surpass dreams in their knowledge of arts and sciences."
"And, apart from the women, what sayest thou of the government?"
"The people seem happy and contented, and they appear to live in the utmost obedience to their rulers through mere love and respect—except these women."
"That," replied Thoth, "is the plain truth. There is no city under the sun in which the people are so happy, contented, and so easily governed—except these women. ”

“ Thoth, accompanied by Daphne, advanced to the front, and as they did so they were saluted by a profound obeisance, in perfect silence.
Thoth took up his position beside the central throne, and placed Daphne on his right hand.
"Are all the fitting preparations made? Have all our ancestors been brought to the light and set upon their thrones?" ”

“ Now thou canst understand why it was my fellows—who were also of the rulers, though inferior to me—treated thee and thy companions with such contempt, and also thou canst to some extent explain the mystery of the women whom I showed to thee. Thou seest only the will of the first Thoth manifested through his descendants. Two principles he has planted in all his people—perfect obedience to his vice-regent, for we say that our king is not dead but asleep, and love of knowledge and of toil. Thus in all and in us of the ruling race, our strongest passion is hatred and contempt for women. ”

“ But, as I have explained to thee, I have formed the opinion that in his endeavour to exterminate love in the ruling class, the first Thoth made an error. Accordingly, we must save some of the best women of thy race, and if thou wilt thou shalt have the selection. Now thou canst judge of the truth of my promises, and I will make one promise more. Know that I have penetrated deeper than my ancestor into the mysteries of life and death, and thou and I can live in all the fulness of life for hundreds of years. Thus thou shalt be as a goddess ruling over the earth. ”

“ He entered into the presence of Thoth, the twice great, god of magic, and Thoth gave him the power to change himself into a great winged disk, a disk that glowed like a ball of fire, with great wings on either side like the colours of the sky at sunset when the blue shades from dark to light, and is shot with gold and flame. Men try to copy these hues when they carve the winged disk above the temple-doors, or make it into a breast-ornament of gold inlaid with turquoise and carnelian and lazuli. ”

“ Ra loathed the wicked, and wished them to be kept at a distance from him. Thoth was to be his vicar, to fill his place, and "Place of Ra," was to be his name. He gave him power to send out a messenger (hab) , so the Ibis (habi) came into being. All that Thoth would do would be good (khen) , therefore the Tekni bird of Thoth came into being. He gave Thoth power to embrace (anh) the heavens, therefore the Moon-god (Aah) came into being. ”

“ And Ra said unto Thoth, "Indeed [Heru-] Behutet is like a Master-fighter in the slaughter of his enemies . . . . . ."
And Thoth said unto Ra, "He shall be called 'Neb-Ahau'" (i.e., Master- fighter) ; and for this reason he hath been thus called by the priest of this god unto this day.
And Isis made incantations of every kind in order to drive away the fiend Ra from An-rut-f, and from the Great God in this place. And Thoth said [unto Ra] , "The priestess of this god shall be called by the name of 'Nebt-Heka' for this reason." ”

“ She had seen enough of Thoth's power to believe to the full in the truth of his narrative. She had seen him with a touch of his staff strike dead the ogress, and she had had abundant proofs of the absolute obedience of his people.
For a time, however, she wondered how a few hundred men could possibly destroy all the nations of the earth. She thought of Thoth and his dread compatriots flying through the air, and discharging missiles on the helpless people beneath ”

“ The priests of Thoth were said to have descended in a direct line from father to son for three hundred and forty-five generations. This habit is another one common to gypsies, who rarely marry any but their own people. To the priests of the temple of Thoth many books called Hermetic were ascribed that were so dedicated to the honour of the god that the name of the writer is merged into his. ”

“ The original idea, however, seemed worth developing; and when I took it up again after an interval of ten years, I substituted Daphne and love for Philetos and friendship, and put more of the elements of common humanity into the characters. I discarded the supernatural altogether, for however wonderful Thoth’s powers are, there is nothing beyondviii the possibility of modern science. Even the destruction of the city in the end is due to the want of a guiding mind. ”

“ They were of an ordinary stature and olive-tinged complexion.
They stood still and saluted the masks with the most profound respect; and Daphne observed that the jewelled staff carried by Thoth especially commanded their reverence.
All the buildings, roads, and gardens seemed in the most admirable state of preservation and good order. The city was evidently inhabited by people in the height of prosperity; and the thing which most surprised Daphne was the apparent sparseness of the population. Her curiosity was aroused, and she asked Thoth if this place had also been ravaged by the plague ”

“ In a few words Thoth explained to Daphne that by means of this brazen bird, as he termed it, a man could be carried with the greatest swiftness through the air. He commanded one of the men to enter the machine, and, to the astonishment of the maidens, in a few moments the bird rose in the air. ”

“ She had seen in the man’s eyes a most terrible manifestation of passion, and she had no doubt that she would be treated128 even more dreadfully than the women she had seen in the abode of horror and lust. Worse than all, she despised herself for the way in which she had in reality led up to such a climax.
Regretful thoughts succeeded one another rapidly. Thoth was evidently a great ruler, who had been accustomed to the most slavish obedience. He was, or had been, desirous of effecting a revolution in the treatment of women, and he had for months treated her with deference and tenderness. ”

“ Know always that it is my intention to pay honour to thee, and through thee to all women. But the women thou must see first of all will perchance again alarm thee. Art thou strong enough?"
Daphne shuddered, but she was determined to understand the affair, and she replied, "Lead the way."
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Thoth conducted her to a part of the city to which they had never before been, and they stopped at a narrow gate in a lofty wall. Thoth unlocked the gate, and they entered a spacious garden, in the midst of which was placed a huge building. ”

“ Thou dost not think,” she said, anxiously, “that the plague has destroyed all the Greeks?”
“No,” he replied; “I have no doubt that by this time it is spent, and that many survive.”
“Then,” she said, “if we fail, flee with me. In any case thou wilt be an outcast from thy tribe. And I am very young, and life is very sweet. I would fain see my country and fellows again. And in some remote corner of the earth we might escape with a few companions from the general doom, by thy wisdom.”
She looked at Thoth in a beseeching manner, and his heart became hot with love. ”

“ It was impossible, even for the Sun-god, to destroy this "Great Devil," but by reciting each morning the powerful spell with which Thoth had provided him he was able to paralyse all Āapep's limbs and to rise upon this world. Since then the "great gods," even though benevolently disposed towards them, were not able to deliver the dead from the devils that lived upon the "bodies, souls, spirits, shadows and hearts of the dead," the Egyptians decided to invoke the aid of Thoth on behalf of their dead and to place them under the protection of his almighty spells. ”

“ The government was to be entirely in the hands of the wisest man, and this wisest man was to be first-born of this new royal race. For Thoth the first, as he is called of us, forced the woman who deceived him to become the mother of his children. And he believed, through the secrets which he had wrested from nature, that, by the careful choice of a mother, he could combine for the future the right by birth with the right by power and wisdom. ”

“ Each of the great gods is said to be neb maāt, literally, "lord or master of Maāt;" but it is equally said that "she knows no lord or master." If she is brought into closer connection with Thoth than with other gods, this is because Thoth is essentially the "Measurer;" and if certain texts speak of the winds as proceeding from either Thoth or Maāt, it is not because these personages are wind-gods, but because the cardinal points from which the winds come are naturally the domain of the god who has measured and mapped out the universe, and because the winds themselves are obedient to Law. ”

“ To Marduk the prophet-god Nabu in his turn became son, and his consort Tashmit (“causing to hear”) was the personification of Revelation. Egyptian thought ascribed this function to Thoth, who played somewhat different parts in different systems, but emerges as the representative of the immanent intelligence of the world, brother of Maāt and the giver of laws and culture to man. [60] Thoth “the thrice-great” passed into Hermes Trismegistus whom Christian fathers could recognize, [61] when the supremely beautiful figure of Greek theology, Apollo, had lost his dignity and ceased to be desired. ”

“ Cups, Swords and Money have always been used in connection with prophesying. Second, the emblems of Swords, Sceptres (or Stylus) , Cups and Money have always represented Mercury, Thoth and Nebo as their emblems or attributes. Third, the worship of Thoth was introduced into Italy by the priests of that cult, as is proved historically by the remains of their Temple at Puozzoli, as well as the Temple there to Mercury, near which place the Tarots are still found in common use in their original form, displaying pictures of the Egyptian deities. ”

“ That is but a foolish ceremony, the reason of which has long been lost,—it is the husk of the kernel of Thoth’s reason. He discovered a perfect method of suspending life for an indefinite period, and in the prime of his life his son and vice-regent, in accordance therewith, laid him down to sleep. He and his brethren also, at the appointed age, were clothed with the appearance of death, and a new vice-regent appointed. For one day in every generation our great father is roused from his155 sleep, to invest his vice-regent with authority. ”

“ Thor was the Sun, a counterpart of Osiris and Bel, 368-u. Thot, of the Bohemians, corresponds to the Hebrew Tetragram, 732-m. Thoth named by other nations Taaut, Hermes, Trismegistus and Adris; doings of, 364. Thoth of the Egyptians the same as Hermes, 586-l. Thoth or Phtha, an Egyptian skilled in the Mysteries of India, Persia, Ethiopia, 364-u. Thoth, the Egyptian God of Healing, leans on a stick with coiled snake, 501-m. Thoth the terrestrial repetition of the first Hermes, 255-u. Thought, a Force, 2-u. Thought in the Soul: the second in the Masonic Trinity, 575-l. Thought is a Power ”

“ The baboon is also a frequent emblem of his, but he is never figured with the {33} baboon head. The ibis appears standing upon a shrine as early as on a tablet of Mena; Thōth is the constant recorder in scenes of the judgment, and he appears down to Roman times as the patron of scribes. The eighteenth dynasty of kings incorporated his name as Thōthmes, 'born of Thōth,' owing to their Hermopolite origin.
Sekhmet is the lion goddess, who represents the fierceness of the sun's heat. She appears in the myth of the destruction of mankind as slaughtering the enemies of Ra. ”

“ The Abode of Bliss (in Egyptian Sechnit aanru, also written aahlu) , as depicted in the Turin papyrus of the Book of the Dead, shows us the departed one with his family, and Thoth, the scribe of the gods, behind them, in the act of sacrificing to three gods, the latter being decorated with the feather of truth. He then crosses the water. On the other side, he offers a perfuming pan to his soul which appears in the shape of a man-headed bird. There are also the three mummy-form gods of the horizon, with an altar of offerings before the hawk, symbolising Ra, "the master of heaven." ”