Lecture IX. The Popular Religion Of Egypt. 201
“The poison glowed like fire; it was hotter than the flame
of fire. The majesty of Ra said:‘I grant thee leave that thou
shouldest search within me, O mother Isis! and that my name
pass from my bosom into thine.’
“So the god hid himself from the (other) gods; his everlasting
bark was empty. When the moment arrived for extracting the
heart (whereon the name was written), Isis said to her son Horus: [219]
‘He must yield up unto thee his two eyes (the sun and moon).’
“So the name of the great god was taken from him, and Isis,
the great enchantress, said:‘Depart, O poison, leave Ra: let the
eye of Horus go forth from the god and shine out of his mouth. I,
I have done it; I throw on the earth the victorious poison, for the
name of the great god is extracted from him. Let Ra live and the
poison die!’So spake Isis, the great one, the regent of the gods,
who knows Ra and his true name.”
The writer of the papyrus adds that the recital of this legend
is an excellent charm against the poison of a snake, especially if
it is written and dissolved in water, which is then drunk by the
patient; or if it is inscribed on a piece of linen, and hung around
his neck.^176
The contrast is striking between the introduction to the legend
and the euhemeristic spirit that elsewhere prevails in it, and can
be explained, even in the case of such disregarders of consistency
as the Egyptians, only on the supposition that the Ra of folk-lore
and the Ra of theology were held to be the same merely in name.
Not even a pretence is made of regarding Isis as a goddess; she is
simply a common witch, who resorts to magic in order to force
Ra to hand over his name and therewith his powers to her son
Horus. The virtue of the name, and the power conferred by a
knowledge of it, are features common to the folk-lore of most
countries. They take us back to that primitive phase of thought
(^176) The legend was first published by Pleyte and Rossi,“Les Papyrus hiératiques
de Turin,”pls. 31, 77, 131-8. It was translated by Lefébure in theZeitschrift
für Aegyptische Sprache, 1883, pp. 27-33.