Egyptian Literature/The Book of the Dead/Against Snakes

Layout 2

AGAINST SNAKES

[From the Papyrus of Nu (British Museum No. 10477, sheet 6).]

The Chapter of not [letting] Oisris Nu, triumphant, be bitten by snakes (or worms ) in the underworld. He saith:

“O Serpent! I am the flame which shineth upon the Opener(?) of hundreds of thousands of years, and the standard of the god Tenpu,” or (as others say) “the standard of young plants and flowers. Depart ye from me, for I am the divine Māftet.”^[1]

1. So far back as 1867 the late Dr. Birch identified the animal “maftet” with the lynx.