I am Nu, the self-created, the Great God, who came into being in the beginning. [I am] Hep [the Nile-god] who riseth at will to give health to him that worketh for me.  I am the Governor and Guide of all men, in all their periods, the Most Great, the Father of the gods, Shu, the Great One, the Chief of the earth.  The two halves of heaven are my abode.  The Nile is poured out in a stream by me, and it goeth round about the tilled lands, and its embrace produceth life for every one that breatheth, according to the extent of its embrace....  I will make the Nile to rise for thee, and in no year shall it fail, and it shall spread its water out and cover every land satisfactorily.  Plants, herbs, and trees shall bend beneath [the weight of] their produce.  The goddess Rennet (the Harvest goddess) shall be at the head of everything, and every product shall increase a hundred thousandfold, according to the cubit of the year.[2] The people shall be filled, verily to their hearts’ desire, yea, everyone.  Want shall cease, and the emptiness of the granaries shall come to an end.  The Land of Mera (i.e. Egypt) shall be one cultivated land, the districts shall be yellow with crops of grain, and the grain shall be good.  The fertility of the land shall be according to the desire [of the husbandman], and it shall be greater than it hath ever been before.”  At the sound of the word “crops” the king awoke, and the courage that then filled his heart was as great as his former despair had been.

[Footnote 1:  The king was standing before a statue with movable eyes.]

[Footnote 2:  i.e. the number of the cubits which the waters of the Nile shall rise.]

Having left the chamber of the god the king made a decree by which he endowed the temple of Khnemu with lands and gifts, and he drew up a code of laws under which every farmer was compelled to pay certain dues to it.  Every fisherman and hunter had to pay a tithe.  Of the calves cast one tenth were to be sent to the temple to be offered up as the daily offering.  Gold, ivory, ebony, spices, precious stones, and woods were tithed, whether their owners were Egyptians or not, but no local tribe was to levy duty on these things on their road to Abu.  Every artisan also was to pay tithe, with the exception of those who were employed in the foundry attached to the temple, and whose occupation consisted in making the images of the gods.  The king further ordered that a copy of this decree, the original of which was cut in wood, should be engraved on a stele to be set up in the sanctuary, with figures of Khnemu and his companion gods cut above it.  The man who spat upon the stele [if discovered] was to be “admonished with a rope.”

THE LEGEND OF THE WANDERINGS OF ISIS