ls untied them and showed them to me.
I was purified by the sprinkling of holy water, and I passed through the
places that were prohibited to ordinary folk, and a great offering of
cakes, ale, geese, oxen, &c., was offered up on my behalf to the gods
and goddesses of Abu. Then I found the god [Khnemu] standing in front of
me, and I propitiated him with the offerings that I made unto him, and I
made prayer and supplication before him. Then he opened his eyes,[1] and
his heart inclined to me, and in a majestic manner he said unto me: "I
am Khnemu who fashioned thee. My two hands grasped thee and knitted
together thy body; I made thy members sound, and I gave thee thy heart.
Yet the stones have been lying under the ground for ages, and no man
hath worked them in order to build a god-house, to repair the [sacred]
buildings which are in ruins, or to make shrines for the gods of the
South and North, or to do what he ought to do for his lord, even though
I am the Lord [the Creator]. I am Nu, the self-created, the Great God,
who came into being in the beginning. [I am] Hep [the Nile-god] who
riseth at will to give health to him that worketh for me. I am the
Governor and Guide of all men, in all their periods, the Most Great, the
Father of the gods, Shu, the Great One, the Chief of the earth. The two
halves of heaven are my abode. The Nile is poured out in a stream by me,
and it goeth round about the tilled lands, and its embrace produceth
life for every one that breatheth, according to the extent of its
embrace.... I will make the Nile to rise for thee, and in no year shall
it fail, and it shall spread its water out and cover every land
satisfactorily. Plants, herbs, and trees shall bend beneath [the weight
of] their produce. The goddess Rennet (the Harvest goddess) shall be at
the head of everything, and every product shall increase a hundred
thousandfold, according to the cubit of the year.[2] The people shall be
filled, verily to their hearts' desire, yea, everyone. Want shall cease,
and the emptiness of the granaries shall come to an end. The Land of
Mera (_i.e._ Egypt) shall be one cultivated land, the districts shall
be yellow with crops of grain, and the grain shall be good. The
fertility of the land shall be according to the desire [of the
husbandman], and it shall be greater than it hath ever been before." At
the sound of the word "crops" the king awoke, and the courage that then
filled his heart was as great as his form