The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

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Lecture IX. The Popular Religion Of Egypt. 205


Meanwhile, on the 7th of Tybi, their leader“Set had come
forward and cried horribly, uttering curses upon the deed of
Hor-Be%udet in slaying the enemy. And Ra said to Thoth:‘The
horrible one cries loudly on account of what Hor-Be%udet has
done against him.’Thoth replied to Ra:‘Let the cries be called
horrible from this day forward.’Hor-Be%udet fought long with
Set; he flung his iron at him, he smote him to the ground in
the city which henceforward was called Pa-Re%e%ui (the House
of the Twins).^178 When Hor-Be%udet returned, he brought Set
with him; his spear stuck in his neck, his chain was on his hand;
the mace of Horus had smitten him, and closed his mouth. He
brought him before his father Ra.
“Then Ra said to Thoth:‘Let the companions of Set be given
to Isis and Horus her son, that they may deal with them as they
will.’... So Horus the son of Isis cut off the head of Set and his
confederates before his father Ra and all the great Ennead. He [224]
carried him under his feet through the land, with the axe on his
head and in his back.”
Set, however, was not slain. He transformed himself into a
serpent, and the battles succeeded which ended with the victory at
Shas-%er in the land of Uaua. After this“Harmakhis came in his
bark and landed at Thes-Hor (the Throne of Horus or Edfu). And
Thoth said:‘The dispenser of rays who cometh forth from Ra
has conquered the enemy in his form (of a winged disc); let him
be named henceforward the dispenser of rays who cometh forth
from the horizon.’And Ra said to Thoth:‘Bring this sun (the
winged disk) to every place where I am, to the seats of the gods


(^178) “The City of the Twins”seems to be the same as$a-Zaui,“the House of
the Twins,”which Dümichen identifies with the Greek Khnubis, close to Esna.
An inscription at Esna says that it was also termed Pa-Sa%ura,“the House of
Sa%ura”(of the Fifth Dynasty), a name which Dümichen finds in that of the
modern village of Sahera, south of Esna. On a prehistoric slate found at Abydos
the name of the city appears to be indicated by the figures of two twins inside
the cartouche of a town (de Morgan,Recherches sur les Origines de l'Égypte,
i. pl. iii., first register).

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