The standing order

A large limestone flake, written on both faces in a practiced hieratic, from the walled village of the crews who cut the royal tombs, men titled servants in the Place of Truth. The composition it carries is otherwise known, in hieroglyphs, only from the burials of kings — partial on the gilded shrine of one, complete in side-chambers cut for it in three more, excerpted in a niche of a fifth — and, in hieratic, from papyri out of this same village. The fullest of the wall copies stands in the tomb this flake’s gang was then cutting. The flake is a working copy, abridged against the walls. The selection of what to keep is the copyist’s own.

The Majesty of Ra had grown old. His bones were of silver, his flesh of gold, his hair of true lapis; and mankind, whom his Eye had made, murmured against him, saying: behold, his Majesty has grown old. And his Majesty heard it, and said: bring me my Eye, and the fathers and the mothers who were with me when I was in the water; and bring them in secretly, that mankind may not see them come and flee away. And the gods said: send out thine Eye against them; no eye can stand before it when it goes down in the form of Hathor. So the Eye went out and slew mankind on the desert hills, and in the night season she waded in their blood, beginning at Henen-su. Then the Majesty of Ra said: it is good, it is good; nevertheless I must protect mankind against her. Let runners be brought me who run like the wind. And they ran to Abu at the head of the river and brought back the red fruit in great number, and it was crushed, and the serving-women bruised grain for beer, and the red was put into the beer with blood of the slain, so that it was as the blood of men; and they made of it seven thousand jars. And in the threefold beauty of the night his Majesty had the jars poured out at the place where she would wade, and the fields of the four heavens stood under it three palms deep. At dawn the goddess came and found the fields flooded, and her face was beautiful in them, and she drank, and her heart rejoiced, and she went away drunk, and gave no more heed to mankind. Then said the Majesty of Ra: I live, but my heart is too weary to remain with them. I have slain some of them; a remnant is left; the destruction I made was not so great as my power. And the gods with him said: do not be weary; thy might is according to thy will. But he said to Nun: my limbs are weak as at the first time, and I will not wait until it comes upon me a second time. So the goddess Nut was made a cow, and the Majesty of Ra was set upon her back; and when mankind saw him on the back of the cow they cried: remain with us, and we will overthrow thine enemies. But he went up, and the earth was in darkness. And when it grew light the men came out with their bows and shot the enemies of the god; and the Majesty of the god said: your violence is set behind you; the slaughter stands for the slaughter. So the slaughter of offering came into being. And he said: let a great field be at peace, and the field of peace came into being; I will gather plants in it, and the field of reeds came into being; I will make things in it like stars, and the stars came into being. Then the goddess trembled because of the height, and he said: let supports be made to bear her up; and the props of heaven came into being, and Shu was set beneath her, keeping the supports of the millions, which live in darkness.

And the Majesty of this god said to Geb: let war be kept against the serpents that are in thee; they shall fear me as long as I have being; but thou knowest their magic. Go to my father Nun and say to him: keep ward over the serpents that are in the earth and in the water. And make a writing for every nest of serpents that is there, saying: keep guard; do injury to nothing. They shall know that I am removing myself, but indeed I shall shine upon them. And since they wish for a father, be thou their father in this land for ever. Then the Majesty of this god said: call Thoth to me. And he said to Thoth: I go to make light in the hidden land and in the land of caves. Write down what is there, and punish there the workers of rebellion. Thou shalt stand in my place, and thou shalt be called: he who is in the place of Ra. I give thee to send out a messenger: and the ibis came into being. I give thee to embrace the two heavens with thy beauty and with thy rays: and the moon of Thoth came into being. Thou art in my place now, in the sight of all who see thee, and they shall give praise to thee as God.

“It is finished, from its beginning to its end, as it was found in writing. The chapter of the cow I have not copied; it is for the wall, drawn with its captions set among the figures: they keep ward; I protect daily; thou shalt not be motionless, my son. The chamber it is made for is below, in the dark of the mountain, where no day has come since the mountain was made. The masters say the words do their work there without us. I have copied the decree of the shining twice over, that I might not carry a fault down into that place. Made by the draughtsman [····] of the Place of Truth.”

The reverse carries a rougher hand: a tally of wicks issued to the two sides of the gang for the work below, day by day, with the balance carried forward. Every hour of light in the chamber the copy was made for was counted out in advance, on the same stone that carries the decree of the shining. The walls of the same burial hold the hour-books of the night, in which the god crosses the last six hours under a canopy formed by the body of the serpent Mehen; and in the books buried with private persons the serpent on the hill of the horizon turns down its eyes to the god at the close of day, a standing-still comes into the bark and a deep slumber into the ship, and it swallows three cubits of the great water, and is made to give up all that it has swallowed, and the bark sails on. The Indian hymns keep the same office: the dragon couched around the waters, holding them in as a herd is held, until the bolt opens them and they run down to the sea like lowing cattle. The Pali books keep the coil: seven windings about the seated one for the seven days of storm and darkness, loosened at the sight of the open and cloudless sky. In each account the serpent holds something through the dark; it is never recorded keeping anything. See finding 09. Transcription confidence: 93%.