Buch lesen: «Treasury of Egyptian Mythology: Classic Stories of Gods, Goddesses, Monsters & Mortals»

Humans wandered through the Nile valley thousands and thousands of years ago. But around the year 7000 B.C., humans settled there for good. They lived in small, scattered tribes. They foraged and hunted for food, and they raised domesticated animals, such as cows and sheep. In those days Egypt had plenty of grassy land for animals to feed on, especially to the west of the Nile valley, and it also had a mild, wet climate.

Egyptian farmers relied on three seasons. One season was the flood, when the Nile would overflow its banks. As the floods withdrew, they left behind a muddy substance called silt. Silt is rich in minerals, and it made the soil fertile. Next came the planting and growing season. Finally came the hot and dry harvest season, the time when farmers gathered their crops.

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PREFACE

By the time of the Old Kingdom (2575–2125 B.C.), the ibis was often replaced by three symbols:

The “snake” stands for the first sound of “June.” The “twisted flax” stands for a harsh h sound like the one we make when we exhale on glasses before cleaning them, and the “quail chick” stands for the sound(s) following l in “glue.”

By the Middle Kingdom (2010–1630 B.C.), the first symbol was often replaced with , representing the first sound of “dog.” And in the late period (664–332 B.C.) the first symbol was often , perhaps representing the first and maybe second sounds of “tell.”

So the initial sound of Tehuti’s name changed three times. And linguists argue over what the rest of the sounds in his name were.

When the Greeks invaded, they recorded myths using their alphabet. But Egyptian and Greek did not have exactly the same sounds, so transcribing from one alphabet to the other was only approximate. In addition, Greek spellings were based on more modern pronunciations than those of early Egypt.

For the names in this book, I chose to use the older Egyptian names, not filtered through Greek: hence Tehuti. Nevertheless, I call the country “Egypt” instead of the hardly known ancient name Kemet. And since the Greek names are more familiar, I provide a reference chart below and list the gods’ and goddesses’ names both ways in the Table of Contents and on the opening pages of each chapter.

Ra: Ra’s first eye felt betrayed when Ra took a second. But Ra, ever resourceful, turned that old eye into a cobra and put her on the front of his crown, where she felt important again.

RA (HELIOS)

God of Radiance

But something there is that doesn’t like order. Order can be tolerated temporarily, but on and on like that? Infinite order? How unutterably intolerable. Boring, really.

A hint came. A slight poke. Then another, a little firmer. A full-fledged beat now. More of them. Insistent beats, breaking up the hum, moving the water imperceptibly at first, then in tiny waves, then bigger ones, huge ones now, tsunamis, yet still in a pattern, still ordered, one after another at regular intervals. Thump thump thump thump.

A heart formed around this pulse, for every rhythm evokes an origin.

And in that heart nestled a thought. After all, some think with the head and others think with the heart. This was definitely a heart thought.

Ah, the first and the profound disorder: thought.

A strong ocean wave at sunset illustrates the majesty and power of water.

This single thought rubbed fast and faster until it warmed and finally ignited into language. The god Ra sprang to life with a word already in his mouth. More bubbled up. Words now crowded his mouth. They trampled his tongue and pushed against his teeth, his lips. He had so many words to enunciate. The need hammered at him. From that very need came lungs and a voice box and muscles to make it all move. Ra shouted the first word, over and over, and those shouts rose in molten mass up and up and spewed forth through the waters of Nun in a fiery explosion.

That was the first firmament, the mound of creation that Ra called benben—it all started with a single tip, like a volcano mouth. Ra stood upon it in triumph and knew he must speak more. For in his voice lay all creation. He must create, he must never stop creating.

Ra spat and the moisture from within him formed the goddess Tefnut, and the breathy force that propelled that moisture formed the god Shu. The products of his new mouth, his new lungs.

So there were three of them now, three deities distinct from the vast wallow of Nun. It felt wonderful to be a triad; it felt sturdy, invincible even. With three backs together, you could face everything at once. With three, you could explore the three dimensions simultaneously. Though there was no music yet, though there were no colors yet, Ra sensed the possibilities of three at some level he was not yet ready to understand.

Ra, his spittle-born daughter Tefnut, and his breath-born son Shu, mingle as one and as three at the same time. They form the first of many triads among the Egyptian gods.

When Ra realized they were absent, he felt bereft. The difference between being alone in the vastness and being with his two children was the difference between sorrow and delight. He was lonely. And, worse, he grew anxious. There could be nothing out there to hurt the children, for, after all, there could be nothing out there period. What existed existed only because Ra had made it. Yet anxiety made this god itch all over until he wanted to scream and scratch his own skin off. He needed those children. He loved them.

At this time Ra had only one eye. He plucked it out from his forehead and sent his eye searching for Shu and Tefnut, for his darlings.

Then he settled down and waited for the eye to return. He waited and waited. While he waited, blind and cold, he curled in on himself and wondered what he would do if his eye didn’t find the children. It might search in vain forever. But the children could come back on their own anyway—that was possible. But that was terrible, too, for their father wouldn’t even be able to see them. Ra rolled in wretchedness.

And so Ra fashioned for himself a new eye, as he waited and waited some more.

Meanwhile the first eye of Ra, the original eye, lit up the world and flew across the firmament. It hugged the sands. It seeped into rock crevices. And now it soared across the waters, rising with each wave, falling as it crested. The old eye checked everywhere, everywhere and at last found the cowering cubs, who had grown all gangly and awkward, almost full size by now, and led them back to their father, dripping and skinny and needy.

Tefnut and her brother Shu coiled up in fear, lost without the warmth and light of their father Ra. This is how Ra’s original eye found them—shivering.

Ra’s tears of relief and love fell freely, bursting as they hit the earth and, thus, releasing human beings into the world. And a whole lot of trouble.

But the old eye of Ra, the original eye, was glad to see that humans were corruptible. That eye wanted Ra’s creations to make trouble for him, for Ra had been disloyal—Ra had replaced the old eye with the new eye. The old eye smoldered in fury.

And so a new order was formed. The sun god Ra defined the fundamental rhythm of life. But disorder could never disappear now; life entails it. And Ra’s words ensured it.

Pay attention, all.

Behold my majesty.

I am the Lord of Radiance.

I am the father of all, the lover of strength, the giant of victory.

So now, let us conquer.

Conquer? What could that mean? Who was there to conquer? Where was the disorder, the discord, that would require vanquishing? Ra couldn’t see it yet. But he knew beyond a doubt it was coming.