he animals betake themselves to their herbage, trees
and green crops abound, birds fly to their marshy thickets with wings
outstretched in adoration of thy double, the cattle skip, all the birds
which were in their nests shake themselves when thou risest for them;
the boats come and go, for every way is open at thy appearance, the
fish of the river leap before thee as soon as thy rays descend upon the
ocean." It is not without reason that all living things thus rejoice at
his advent; all of them owe their existence to him, for "he creates the
female germ, he gives virility to men, and furnishes life to the infant
in its mother's womb; he calms and stills its weeping, he nourishes it
in the maternal womb, giving forth the breathings which animate all that
he creates, and when the infant escapes from the womb on the day of
its birth, thou openest his mouth for speech, and thou satisfiest his
necessities. When the chick is in the egg, a cackle in a stone, thou
givest to it air while within to keep it alive; when thou hast caused
it to be developed in the egg to the point of being able to break it, it
goes forth proclaiming its existence by its cackling, and walks on its
feet from the moment of its leaving the egg." Atonu presides over the
universe and arranges within it the lot of human beings, both Egyptians
and foreigners. The celestial Nile springs up in Hades far away in the
north; he makes its current run down to earth, and spreads its waters
over the fields during the inundation in order to nourish his creatures.
He rules the seasons, winter and summer; he constructed the far-off sky
in order to display himself therein, and to look down upon his works
below. From the moment that he reveals himself there, "cities, towns,
tribes, routes, rivers--all eyes are lifted to him, for he is the
disk of the day upon the earth."* The sanctuary in which he is invoked
contains only his divine shadow;** for he himself never leaves the
firmament.

* These extracts are taken from the hymns of Tel el-Amarna.

** In one of the tombs at Tel el-Amarna the king is depicted
leading his mother Tii to the temple of Atonu in order to
see "the Shadow of Ra," and it was thought with some reason
that "the Shadow of Ra" was one of the names of the temple.
I think that this designation applied also to the statue or
symbol of the god; the _shadow_ of a god was attached to the
statue in the same manner as the