Chapter LXXXIII Chapter Whereby One Assumeth the Form of the Bennu Bird
Let me wheel round in whirls, let me turn like the Turning One, let me flourish like a flower and keep myself hidden like the Hider.(1)
I am the Barley corn of every god.
I am the four Yesterdays of those seven Uræus deities who are born in Amenta; Horus who giveth light by means of his own body; the god who is against Sutu when Thoth is between them, as in that dispute of the Prince of Sechem with the Spirits of Annu where the river is between them.(2)
I come forth by day and disclose myself at the head of the gods.
I am the god who chaseth all boastfulness.(3)
Notes
1. There is here a play on the words pa, ḫeper, ruṭ and šet. The Turning One is the god Chepera. The Tortoise ⁂⁂⁂ derives its name (the hider), from the habit of drawing its body within its shell. On the flight of the Bennu see the first note of next chapter.
2. The Nile lies between the opposite shores of the Nomes of Letopolis (Sechem) and Heliopolis (Annu).
3. The later recensions have “I am Chonsu who putteth a stop to all boastfulness.” But in the early copies Chonsu is taken in its primitive sense the chaser and does not require the verb ⁂ to govern ‘boastfulness.’