Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/175

 different points of view may be considered either as the daughter or mother, sister or spouse, of the Sun. The Hathors, as represented in the pictures, have the appearance of fair and benevolent maidens; they are not the daughters of Night, like the Erinyes, but they are names of one and the same physical phenomenon, and are spoken of in very much the same relation to human destiny.

The Homeric poems constantly speak of the together with the. The Greek Moira has its counterpart in the Egyptian Shai. In the pictures of the Psychostasia which occur in many copies of the Book of the Dead, two personages are seated together; the male is called Shai, the female Renenet. They clearly preside over the meschen, or, as we should say, the cradle, of the infant. Several important texts, which he has quoted in his recent translation of the tale of the Doomed Prince, have induced M. Maspero to translate Shai fate, and Renenet fortune. I believe that the word sha means "divide, portion out;" hence shai, "the divider," and intransitively "the division, part, lot, fate." Renenet, as quoted by M. Maspero, may fairly be translated "fortune," but it has several other well-known meanings. It is used in the sense of "young" and "maiden;" and Renenet is the name of the goddess of the eighth month and of harvest. All these meanings can be harmonized if we think of the Greek. Hora is the time fixed by natural