I saw not. Fire it is not, water it is not, yet am I colder than
water, I burn more than fire, all my members stream with sweat, I
tremble, mine eye is not steady, no longer can I discern the sky, drops
roll from my face as in the season of summer." Isis proposes her remedy,
and cautiously asks him his ineffable name. But he divines her trick,
and tries to evade it by an enumeration of his titles. He takes the
universe to witness that he is called "Khopri in the morning, Ra at
noon, Tumu in the evening." The poison did not recede, but steadily
advanced, and the great god was not eased. Then Isis said to Ra: "Thy
name was not spoken in that which thou hast said. Tell it to me and the
poison will depart; for he liveth upon whom a charm is pronounced in his
own name." The poison glowed like fire, it was strong as the burning
of flame, and the Majesty of Ra said, "I grant thee leave that thou
shouldest search within me, O mother Isis! and that my name pass from my
bosom into thy bosom." In truth, the all-powerful name was hidden within
the body of the god, and could only be extracted thence by means of
a surgical operation similar to that practised upon a corpse which
is about to be mummified. Isis undertook it, carried it through
successfully, drove out the poison, and made herself a goddess by virtue
of the name. The cunning of a mere woman had deprived Ra of his last
talisman.

In course of time men perceived his decrepitude. They took counsel
against him: "Lo! his Majesty waxeth old, his bones are of silver, his
flesh is of gold, his hair of lapis-lazuli." As soon as his Majesty
perceived that which they were saying to each other, his Majesty said to
those who were of his train, "Call together for me my Divine Eye, Shu,
Tafnuit, Sibu, and Nuit, the father and the mother gods who were with
me when I was in the Nu, with the god Nu. Let each bring his cycle along
with him; then, when thou shalt have brought them in secret, thou shalt
take them to the great mansion that they may lend me their counsel and
their consent, coming hither from the Nu into this place where I have
manifested myself." So the family council comes together: the ancestors
of Ra, and his posterity still awaiting amid the primordial waters
the time of their manifestation--his children Shu and Tafnuit, his
grandchildren Sibu and Nuit. They place themselves, according to
etiquette, on either side his throne, prostrate, with their foreheads to
the ground, a