Chapter XXIX Chapter Whereby the Heart of a Person May Not Be Taken From Him in the Netherworld
Back thou Messenger(1) of thy god! Art thou come to carry off by violence(2) this Whole Heart of mine, of the Living XYZZY(3) But I shall not surrender to thee this Heart of the Living. The gods have regards to my offerings and fall upon their faces, all together, upon their own earth.
Notes
The two most ancient copies of this chapter are found upon the coffins of Amamu, Plate XXX, and of Horhotep, Mission Arch. Française au Caire, t. 1, p. 157, lines 335-337. The papyrus of Ani is the only one of the early period in which it occurs. None of these texts is perfect. A part of the text of Amamu has been destroyed, but there remains enough to show that Horhotep has omissions. And in the text of Ani the word ⁂⁂⁂ has slipped in from the 28th chapter, and is entirely out of place where it now stands.
The scribes of a later period had to exercise their ingenuity on the subject. They changed ⁂⁂⁂ ḫenṭu into ⁂⁂⁂⁂ ḫenȧ, and this being itself a disagreeable word, they prefixed to it a negative ⁂ or ⁂⁂⁂.
1. Messenger, ⁂⁂⁂⁂, a word used here and elsewhere in religious texts in the same sense as מַלְאָךְ an angel, ambassador of God. The later texts have ⁂⁂⁂ ‘every god,’ by the change of ⁂ into ⁂.
2. By violence, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. Cf. ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, Harris Papyrus, 500, verso.
3. The Living ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ and saved, in opposition to the Dead and damned. This plural form is a mere sign of a common noun.