PARAPHRASE OF THE HYMN TO ATON BY IKHNATON, AMENHOTEP IV. PRELUDE: INVOCATION TO ATON [Hail to thee Beautiful God of every day!] (1.1) Beautiful is thine arising in the horizon of the sky, Thou art beautiful to behold, great, glistering high above Thy rays do enfold the lands, even all that thou hast made. (Thy Love is great and mighty, Thy rays do beam into every uplifted countenance,) (11. 3-4) Thou art Ra, (the Sun God,) and thou carriest all away captive; Thou bindest them fast with thy love. (O God, who thyself didest fashion thyself) (1.7) [None is like unto thee in aught, journeying through eternity]. (1.9) Though thou be afar off, yet thy rays do reach down unto the earth; The whilst thou dwellest on high, in thy footsteps followeth the day. ODE I. I. NIGHT and Man When thou dost set in the western horizon of the sky, Where they do sleep in their secret chambers, Their heads are wrapped about, Their nostrils are stopped, None of them beholdeth his fellow beside him; Yea, and of all their worldly goods shall the thief reave them Although resting under their very heads, And naught shall they wot thereof. Lo, every lion cometh forth from his lair The world hath been swallowed up of silence, (11. 20-21) (1.23) (1.3) II.-DAY AND MAN Bright waxeth the earth when thou liftest up thine head at the horizon. When thou dost shine as Aton, lo, it is full day, For thou drivest forth the gloom of night. When thou shootest afar thy rays, Day by day, the two Lands, even Egypt, doth keep holiday And men awake, and stand upon their feet When thou dost raise them up; They wash them clean, they put on gay apparel, They uplift their hands, and worship, at thine arising. (Thou makest all hearts to live by thy beauty) (1.26) (Millions of lives are in thee, that thou mayest make them yet to live, Yea, it is the breath of life in the nostrils but to behold thy rays. All flowers do spring, and what is quickened in the soil It waxeth great, for that thou waxest likewise great in the heaven.) And gladly in all the world men go about their labors. (11. 50-53) III.-LIFE BELOW MAN All beasts and cattle do lie down, in their pastures, The birds flutter above their nests in the marshes, Their wings uplifted in adoration unto thy godhead. All the sheep and goats do skip upon their feet, The winged creatures great and small do fly And have their being when thou art risen for them on high. The ships speed down, the ships sail up the river. And thy beams rest upon the green waters of the great sea. IV.-DIVINE FATHERHOOD AND MOTHERHOOD (Thou art the Mother and the Father of all that thou hast made, All the creatures are drunken for joy in thy sight.) (1. 13) (1.54) Thou art the Creator of the first beginning of life in woman, Thou art the Maker of the fruitful seed in man, Thou dost give his soul to the manchild in the body of his mother; Soothing him that he may not cry aloud, Thou art a kindly Nurse, to him, yea, even in the womb. Thou givest breath to every one that thou hast made, that he may live. When he cometh forth into the light on the day of his birth, When the young chick chirpeth in the shell yet of the egg, When thou hast made all his members perfect Thou makest him in due time to break the shell that protecteth him, And lo, he issueth from the egg, To chirp with all his might that he is made alive and whole, And upon his two feet he runneth to and fro So soon as he hath burst forth from the shell! V.-MAN HIS SON, DOTH WORSHIP HIM (Men likewise do live indeed when thou sendest forth thy beams And every land keepeth gladsome holiday. Singing, music, and shoutings of great joy, Be in the hall of the Pyramid-temple of the Phoenix [That springeth again to young life forever in the zenith From the consumed ashes of his outgrown life] Unto thine holy house in the Horizon of Aton, the Seat of Truth, Wherewith thy most holy heart is satisfied, Plenteous oblations of food are ever offered unto thy Name. Lo, thy pure son performeth thy pleasing ceremonies before thee, O living and lifegiving Aton in his festal train, All that thou hast made danceth before thee. Thine august son rejoiceth, his heart is filled to bursting with joy At sight of thee O living Aton, (11. 27-39) Born forever day by day anew in the heaven of thy glory.) INTERLUDE PSALM OF THE WHOLE CREATION How manifold are all thy works! They were hidden, ere they were, in thee O only God, whose powers belong unto none other, That didest fashion the earth according to thy heart's desire, While thou wast yet alone; Yea, men and women, all cattle both great and small, And all things whatsoever upon the earth, That go from place to place upon their feet; All things whatsoever in the air above That fly hither and thither with their wings; Yea, and the foreign countries afar, Syria and Kush, [Thou alone hast made them all.] ODE II. I.-GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD Thou settest every man into his own place, Thou suppliest unto him all things whereof he hath need. That which is convenient for him; And thou it is, that hast numbered his days aforetime. The tongues of the nations do differ one from the other in speech, Their tempers diverse likewise, even as their fashion and outward appearance; For it is thou makest the strangers in the desert to be Thou makest Hapi, the Nile, in the Nether World of Tuat, For thou hast surely made them for thine own self; In the stranger countries afar off, It is thou makest their peculiar life; |