Samizdat

“If thou wouldst destroy Âpep, thou shalt say this chapter over a figure of Âpep which hath been drawn in green colour upon a sheet of new papyrus, and over a wax figure (Theocritus has preserved for us a proof that the Greeks made use of wax figures at an early date. Thus in Pharmakeutria (1. 27 ff.) the lady spinning her wheel and addressing the Lynx says, “Even as I melt this wax, with the god to aid, so speedily may he by love be molten!” (Lang’s Translation, p. 12)) of Âpep upon which his name hath been cut and inlaid with green colour; and thou shalt lay them upon the fire so that it may consume the enemy of Râ.

And thou shalt put such a figure on the fire at dawn, and another at noon, and another at eventide when Râ setteth in the land of life, and another at midnight, and another at the eighth hour of the day, and another towards evening; [and if necessary] thou mayest do thus every hour during the day and the night, and on the days of the festivals and every day.

By means of this Âpep, the enemy of Râ, shall be overthrown in the shower, for Râ shall shine and Âpep shall indeed be overthrown.”

And the papyrus and the figure “having been burnt in a fire made of khesau grass, the remains thereof shall be mixed with excrement and thrown upon a fire; thou shalt do this at the sixth hour of the night, and at dawn on the fifteenth day [of the month].

And when the figure of Âpep is placed in the fire thou shalt spit upon him several times each hour during the day, until the shadow turneth round. Thou shalt do these things when tempests rage in the east of the sky as Râ setteth, in order to prevent the coming onward of the storms. Thou shalt do this and so prevent the coming of a shower or a rain-storm, and “thereby shall the sun be made to shine.”

E.A. Wallis Budge, Egyptian Magic, London, 1901. Pp. 80-2.