Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 12 (Egyptian and Indo-Chinese).djvu/52

26 the cabin. This detail still awaits explanation. The deity may either be the only occupant of the boat, which moves by itself or is paddled by him; or he may be accompanied by many prominent gods, especially the nine gods of the Heliopolitan ennead

the personifications of wisdom, etc. In the latter case the great ship, which one text6 describes as seven hundred and seventy cubits in length, is rowed by numerous gods and souls of kings and other (originally especially prominent) dead, the “followers of Horus,” or “of Rê‘,”7 i.e. of the god to whom the ship of the sun belonged. The Book of the Gates8 reverts to an ancient idea by explaining that “the never-vanishing stars” (i.e. again the elect souls) become the rowers of the sun by day. Then the sun may rest in the cabin as a disk in which the god himself may be enthroned, or as the uraeus asp, the symbol of fire; in the latter form he may also twine around the prow, cabin, or any other part of the vessel. In one instance a double asp actually forms the boat which carries the stairs of the sun, i.e. the symbol of its daily way (see below on the double nature of the asp). An extremely ancient idea, which occurs, for instance, as early as the famous ivory tablet of King Menes, is the blending of the human shape of the sun with his hawk form, so that the

solar bird sails in the cabin of the huge ship as though it had no wings.

On its daily way the ship of the sun has adventures and