* The harper is often represented performing this last office.  In the tomb of Nofirhotpu, and in many others, the daughters or the relatives of the deceased accompany or even replace the harper; in this case they belonged to a priestly family, and fulfilled the duties of the “Female Singers” of Amon or some other god.

“O instructed mummies, ennead of the gods of the coffin, who listen to the praises of this dead man, and who daily extol the virtues of this instructed mummy, who is living eternally like a god, ruling in Amentit, ye also who shall live in the memory of posterity, all ye who shall come and read these hymns inscribed, according to the rites, within the tombs, repeat:  ’The greatness of the under-world, what is it?  The annihilation of the tomb, why is it?’ It is to conform to the image of the land of Eternity, the true country where there is no strife and where violence is held in abhorrence, where none attacks his neighbour, and where none among our generations who rest within it is rebellious, from the time when your race first existed, to the moment when it shall become a multitude of multitudes, all going the same way; for instead of remaining in this land of Egypt, there is not one but shall leave it, and there is said to all who are here below, from the moment of their waking to life:  ’Go, prosper safe and sound, to reach the tomb at length, a chief among the blessed, and ever mindful in thy heart of the day when thou must lie down on the funeral bed!’” The ancient song of Antuf, modified in the course of centuries, was still that which expressed most forcibly the melancholy thought paramount in the minds of the friends assembled to perform the last rites.  “The impassibility of the chief* is, in truth, the best of fates!”

     * Osiris is here designated by the word “chief,” as I have
     already pointed out.

[Illustration:  029.jpg ONE OF THE HARPERS OF THE TOMB OF RAMSES III.]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken Byjnsinger in
     1881.

“Since the times of the god bodies are created merely to pass away, and young generations take their place:  Ra rises in the morning, Tumu lies down to rest in the land of the evening, all males generate, the females conceive, every nose inhales the air from the morning of their birth to the day when they go to their place!  Be happy then for one day, O man!—­May there ever be perfumes and scents for thy nostrils, garlands and lotus-flowers for thy shoulders and for the neck of thy beloved sister* who sits beside thee!  Let there be singing and music before thee, and, forgetting all thy sorrows, think only of pleasure until the day when thou must enter the country of Maritsakro, the silent goddess, though all the same the heart of the son who loves thee will not cease to beat!  Be happy for one day, O man!—­I have heard related what befell our ancestors; their walls are destroyed, their place is no more, they are as those who have ceased to live