Egyptian religious poetry

54 EGYPTIAN RELIGIOUS POETRY

balance against the feather-emblem of Truth, he was at once admitted to the blissful Kingdom of Osiris, where want and trouble could not exist. The other belief, which seems to have been held at the same time and with equal fervour, was that of reincarnation, a belief which survived in full force till the latest period. Herodotus records it as being a common belief in his time :

The Egyptians were the first who asserted the doctrine that the soul of man is immortal, and that when it has passed through the different kinds of terrestrial, marine, and aerial beings, it again enters into the body of a man who is born, and that this revolution is made in three thousand years. Some of the Greeks haye adopted this opinion, some earlier, some later, as if it were their own ; but although I know their names I will not mention them.

[Bk. ii, 123]

Occasionally also there are records of another belief which is a complete contrast with the official eschatology. This is best expressed in a prayer :

Grant that I may enter the Land of Eternity as was done for thee and thy father Atum, whose corpse was not corrupted, it did not perish. For I have never done anything which thou hatest, and I have shouted aloud with those who love thy ka. Let me not become worms, but deliver me as was done for thee. Let me not rot, as thou hast caused every god to rot, every goddess, every animal, every reptile. When the soul has gone out at death, when it goes away, it (the body) rots, all its bones are corrupt, they stink, the limbs crumble away, the bones liquefy, the flesh is an evil-smelling mass ; it becomes the brother of decay, it becomes a multitude of worms, altogether worms, it comes to an end. He (the dead man) perishes in the sight of Shu like every god, like every goddess, like every bird, like every fish, like every snake, like every creeping thing, like every animal whatever.

[p.B.D., ch. cliv]