Saturday, February 26, 2011

The Story of Rut-tetet and the Three Sons of Rā-Full story


The Story of Rut-tetet and the Three Sons of Rā
The last section of the Westcar Papyrus deals with the birth of the three sons of Rā, who have been mentioned above. When the day drew nigh in which the three sons were to be born, Rā, the Sun-god, ordered the four goddesses, Isis, Nephthys, Meskhenet, and Heqet, and the god Khnemu, to go and superintend the birth of the three children, so that when they grew up, and were exercising the functions of rule throughout all Egypt, they should build temples to them, and furnish the altars in them with offerings of meat and drink in abundance. Then the four goddesses changed themselves into the forms of dancing women, and went to the house wherein the lady Rut-tetet lay ill, and finding her husband, the priest of Rā, who was called Rāuser, outside, they clashed their cymbals together, and rattled their sistra, and tried to make him merry. When Rāuser objected to this and told them that his wife lay ill inside the house, they replied, "Let us see her, for we know how to help her"; so he said to them and to Khnemu who was with them, "Enter in," and they did so, and they went to the room wherein Rut-tetet lay. Isis, Nephthys, and Heqet assisted in bringing the three boys into the world. Meskhenet prophesied for each of them sovereignty over the land, and Khnemu bestowed health upon their bodies. After the birth of the three boys, the four goddesses and Khnemu went outside the house, and told Rāuser to rejoice because his wife Rut-tetet had given him three children. Rāuser said, "My Ladies, what can I do for you in return for this?" Having apparently nothing else to give them, he begged them to have barley brought from his granary, so that they might take it away as a gift to their own granaries; they agreed, and the god Khnemu brought the barley. So the goddesses set out to go to the place whence they had come.
Isis and Nephthys were the daughters of Keb and Nut, and sisters of Osiris and Set; the former was the mother of Horus, and the latter of Anubis.
A goddess who presided over the birth of children.
A very ancient Frog-goddess, who was associated with generation and birth.
A god who assisted at the creation of the world, and who fashioned the bodies of men and women.
When they had arrived there Isis said to her companions: "How is it that we who went to Rut-tetet [by the command of Rā] have worked no wonder for the children which we could have announced to their father, who allowed us to depart [without begging a boon]?" So they made divine crowns such as belonged to the Lord (i.e. King), life, strength, health [be to him!], and they hid them in the barley. Then they sent rain and storm through the heavens, and they went back to the house of Rāuser, apparently carrying the barley with them, and said to him, "Let the barley abide in a sealed room until we dance our way back to the north." So they put the barley in a sealed room. After Rut-tetet had kept herself secluded for fourteen days, she said to one of her handmaidens, "Is the house all ready?" and the handmaiden told her that it was provided with everything except jars of barley drink, which had not been brought. Rut-tetet then asked why they had not been brought, and the handmaiden replied in words that seem to mean that there was no barley in the house except that which belonged to the dancing goddesses, and that that was in a chamber which had been sealed with their seal. Rut-tetet then told her to go and fetch some of the barley, for she was quite certain that when her husband Rāuser returned he would make good what she took. Thereupon the handmaiden went to the chamber, and broke it open, and she heard in it loud cries and shouts, and the sounds of music and singing and dancing, and all the noises which men make in honour of the birth of a king, and she went back and told Rut-tetet what she had heard. Then Rut-tetet herself went through the room, and could not find the place where the noises came from, but when she laid her temple against a box, she perceived that the noises were inside it. She then took this box, which cannot have been of any great size, and put it in another box, which in turn she put in another box, which she sealed, and then wrapping this in a leather covering, she laid it in a chamber containing her jar of barley beer or barley wine, and sealed the door. When Rāuser returned from the fields, Rut-tetet related to him everything that had happened, and his heart was exceedingly glad, and he and his wife sat down and enjoyed themselves.
A few days after these events Rut-tetet had a quarrel with her handmaiden, and she slapped her well. The handmaiden was very angry, and in the presence of the household she said words to this effect: Dost thou dare to treat me in this way? I who can destroy thee? She has given birth to three kings, and I will go and tell the Majesty of King Khufu of this fact. The handmaiden thought that, if Khufu knew of the views of Rāuser and Rut-tetet about the future of their three sons, and the prophecies of the goddesses, he would kill the children and perhaps their parents also. With the object in her mind of telling the king the handmaiden went to her maternal uncle, whom she found weaving flax on the walk, and told him what had happened, and said she was going to tell the king about the three children. From her uncle she obtained neither support nor sympathy; on the contrary, gathering together several strands of flax into a thick rope he gave her a good beating with the same. A little later the handmaiden went to the river or canal to fetch some water, and whilst she was filling her pot a crocodile seized her and carried her away and, presumably, ate her. Then the uncle went to the house of Rut-tetet to tell her what had happened, and he found her sitting down, with her head bowed over her breast, and exceedingly sad and miserable. He asked her, saying, "O Lady, wherefore art thou so sad?" And she told him that the cause of her sorrow was the handmaiden, who had been born in the house and had grown up in it, and who had just left it, threatening that she would go and tell the king about the birth of the three kings. The uncle of the handmaiden nodded his head in a consoling manner, and told Rut-tetet how she had come to him and informed him what she was going to do, and how he had given her a good beating with a rope of flax, and how she had gone to the river to fetch some water, and how a crocodile had carried her off.
There is reason to think that the three sons of Rut-tetet became the three kings of the fifth dynasty who were known by the names of Khāfrā, Menkaurā, and Userkaf. The stories given above are valuable because they contain elements of history, for it is now well known that the immediate successors of the fourth dynasty, of which Khufu, Khāfrā, and Menkaurā, the builders of the three great pyramids at Gīzah, were the most important kings, were kings who delighted to call themselves sons of Rā, and who spared no effort to make the form of worship of the Sun-god that was practised at Anu, or Heliopolis, universal in Egypt. It is probable that the three magicians, Ubaaner, Tchatchamānkh, and Teta were historical personages, whose abilities and skill in working magic appealed to the imagination of the Egyptians under all dynasties, and caused their names to be venerated to a remote posterity.

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