Ra

Egyptian texts give the sun different names and forms. Erman lists them: Re, the sun itself; Horus or Harakhte, first the god as a bird of prey with blazing eyes; Khepre, the god as a beetle; and Atum, the evening sun, as an old man. Budge calls Khepera, “the self-produced”, the third form of Ra and describes him as a man with a beetle on his head; the beetle is the one on Egyptian scarab amulets. In the Global Egyptian Museum’s account, the sun rose either as a child born from the sky goddess Nut or as Khepri coming up out of the primeval waters of Nun, and baboons cheered it in the east; in the evening, as the old man Atum, Ra was swallowed again by Nut. Budge writes that the sun crossed the sky in two boats, one for each half of its course, and the serpent Apophis, “the embodiment of all that is terrible” in Erman’s words, tried to halt the boat.

The Egyptians told stories of a time when Ra still ruled on earth over gods and men. In one that Erman translates, Ra has grown old, his mouth trembles and his spittle falls to the ground. Isis, who knew everything except his real name, kneads the spittle with earth into a serpent and lays it on his path, and it stings him. In pain, Ra recites his names to her, ending “I am Khepre in the morning, and Atum, who is in the evening.” None of them is the hidden one, and the poison burns worse than fire until he says, “My name shall pass from my body to thy body”, and tells her she may give it to her son Horus “as mighty magic against every poison”. In another legend Erman tells, Ra no longer wishes to rule ungrateful mankind and rises into the sky on the back of the cow-faced Nut. The story of the Eye he sent against mankind before that is on the eye of Ra page.