Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt

«When it comes to the importance of death, this culture is admittedly an extreme example.» — Assmann admite que Egipto es un caso extremo, no el caso medio, para la importancia de la muerte.

«Few cultures in this world exclude death and the dead from their reality as radically as we do.» — el contraste con el que abre: pocas culturas excluyen la muerte tan radicalmente como la nuestra.

«Living with the dead and with death is one of the most normal manifestations of human culture, and it presumably lies at the heart of the stuff of human existence.» — sostiene que convivir con los muertos y con la muerte es la manifestación normal de la cultura humana, no la excepción.

«I want to reach beyond the world of tombs, funerary rituals, and funerary texts and into other areas of Egyptian thought, action, and conduct, such as ethics, historical consciousness, cosmology, conceptions of the divine, and so forth and inquire to what extent these areas were stamped by the typically Egyptian preoccupation with the theme of death.» — el segundo propósito declarado: salir del mundo de las tumbas y los textos funerarios hacia la ética, la conciencia histórica, la cosmología y la idea de lo divino.

«My interest here lies not in ancient Egypt for its own sake, but rather in what we can learn about the essence of culture more generally through the study of this extremely early, long lived, and richly documented culture, one linked to our own through various avenues of transmission.» — declara que su interés no está en Egipto por sí mismo sino en lo que el caso egipcio enseña sobre la cultura en general.

«I feel that one—and not the least important—task of Egyptology is to contribute to general cultural theory.» — adjudica a la egiptología la tarea de contribuir a la teoría general de la cultura.

«I thus pose, in the sense of a working hypothesis, the question of whether and in what sense death and the way a culture articulates it, treats it, and copes with it might perhaps not constitute the center of the consciousness of that culture and thus of culture generally speaking.» — enuncia como hipótesis, no como resultado, que la muerte pueda ser el centro de la conciencia cultural.

«Culture, it is said, is man’s second nature, which he needs because his first nature insufficiently provides him with the competencies and instincts he requires to survive as a living being.» — recoge la fórmula corriente de la cultura como segunda naturaleza del hombre.

«This negative anthropology, which defines man, along with other living beings, as defective, needing to compensate for his natural defect through cultural achievements, goes back to classical antiquity, for instance, Plato’s Protagoras; in the eighteenth century of our own era, it was represented especially by Herder, was taken up in the nineteenth by Nietzsche, and then in the twentieth constituted the fundamental principle of various thinkers and researchers, such as Martin Heidegger, Helmuth Plessner, and Arnold Gehlen.» — la antropología negativa que define al hombre por su carencia, cuya línea Assmann traza de Platón y Herder a Nietzsche, Heidegger, Plessner y Gehlen.

«Anyone who defines man as defective understands the function of culture as a project of supplementary and compensatory amendment.» — la consecuencia que extrae de esa antropología: quien define al hombre como defectuoso entiende la cultura como enmienda compensatoria.

«Thus, from necessity springs virtue, and from lack comes advantage.» — la fórmula con que la resume: de la necesidad brota la virtud, de la carencia la ventaja.

«In some ancient Near Eastern myths, we encounter another picture of man.» — señala que los mitos del Próximo Oriente antiguo ofrecen otra imagen del hombre, no la del ser deficiente.

«They are not, however, compensation for a lack; rather, they represent a human surplus that stems from the world of the gods and alienates man from the world of living beings.» — el giro de esa otra imagen: los dones del hombre no compensan una falta, son un excedente de saber divino.

«At the center of this surplus, divine, alienating, and thus problematic knowledge stands death.» — en el centro de ese saber excedente y problemático coloca la muerte.

«The immortal gods, however, need much more, they must know everything.» — el reverso: los dioses inmortales necesitan mucho saber precisamente porque no mueren.

«It must be noted that in this myth, it is not the case that Adapa knew about his own mortality and could not live with this knowledge, but rather that he had the knowledge of the gods, which was not fitting for a man.» — lo que Assmann subraya del mito de Adapa: el saber divino no le convenía a un hombre.

«Here, Siduri acts as spokesperson for a point of view that was widespread throughout the ancient world, one that closely linked death and merriment.» — lee a Siduri como portavoz de una sabiduría que enlaza estrechamente muerte y alegría.

«The life which thou seekest thou wilt not find; (For) when the gods created mankind, They allotted death to mankind, (But) life they retained in their keeping. Thou, O Gilgamesh, let thy belly be full; Day and night be thou merry; Make every day (a day of) rejoicing. Day and night do thou dance and play. Let thy raiment be clean, Thy head be washed, (and) thyself be bathed in water. Cherish the little one holding thy hand, (And) let thy wife rejoice in thy bosom!» — según la Epopeya de Gilgamesh que Assmann cita en la introducción, el consejo de Siduri al héroe: los dioses repartieron la muerte a los hombres y se quedaron la vida, así que conviene llenar el vientre, hacer de cada día una fiesta y gozar de la esposa; el volumen imprime los mismos versos otra vez, abreviados, en la plana 135.

«Man’s surplus knowledge does him no good. He must find his happiness in what is granted him, not in what is forever withheld from him.» — el saber excedente no le sirve al hombre de nada: su felicidad, dice Assmann, está en lo que le toca, no en lo que se le niega para siempre.

«Gilgamesh is unable to accept this advice to resign himself to his fate, and eventually, he finds Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian Noah, the only man who survived the Flood, and not only that, who was also accepted into the circle of the immortals.» — Gilgamesh no acepta el consejo de Siduri y llega hasta Utnapishtim, el único mortal admitido en el círculo de los inmortales.

«Thus, even here, there remained the human dilemma of knowing too much and living too briefly.» — el dilema humano que, según Assmann, queda en pie: saber demasiado y vivir demasiado poco.

«It was withheld from man, like all other mortal beings for good reason: it was not, as Nietzsche put it, “knowledge useful to life.”» — Assmann toma de Nietzsche la fórmula del saber útil para la vida, que es justamente el que al hombre se le niega.

«But over and above this, be it the secrets of sky and earth or of good and evil, man, and only man, knows that he must die.» — lo que distingue al hombre en su cuadro: solo él sabe que ha de morir.

«The gods do not know it, for they are immortal, and animals do not know it, for they have not eaten from the tree of knowledge.» — ni los dioses ni los animales conocen la muerte: los primeros porque son inmortales, los segundos porque no comieron del árbol del conocimiento.

«He who is mortal should not have this knowledge, for it is the knowledge of the gods.» — la contradicción que enuncia: el mortal no debería tener ese saber, porque es saber de dioses.

«The fifteenth-century Florentine philosopher Marsilio Ficino characterized man in precisely this sense, as an intermediate, hybrid being.» — atribuye a Marsilio Ficino la caracterización del hombre como ser intermedio e híbrido.

«Ficino calls this condition a disquietude of the soul, inquietudo animi.» — el nombre que Ficino da a esa condición: *inquietudo animi*, inquietud del alma.

«In doing so, he takes up a concept of Saint Augustine, who spoke in his Confessions of a disquietude of the heart, inquietudo cordis:» — Ficino retoma, según Assmann, la *inquietudo cordis* de san Agustín.

«This disquietude, thought Augustine, comes from God, who created man in his image, with the result that he can find no satisfaction in what is earthly, while Ficino astutely related it to death and explained it as a longing for immortality.» — lo que Agustín ponía en el origen de esa inquietud, leído aquí como anhelo de inmortalidad.

«This is the disquietude that drove Gilgamesh along, with the result that he rejected the well-intentioned advice of Siduri, the divine barmaid, to enjoy the brief lifetime allotted to him as best he could, and instead pressed on to the end of the world in search of immortality.» — la misma inquietud es la que, según Assmann, echó a andar a Gilgamesh.

«These ancient Near Eastern myths characterize the problem of human existence as a “too much” rather than a “too little.”» — los mitos del Próximo Oriente plantean el problema humano como un exceso, no como una falta.

«Of course, both anthropological traditions are correct, and they are in no way mutually exclusive.» — Assmann no arbitra entre las dos antropologías: la de la carencia y la del exceso le parecen compatibles.

«According to the latter tradition, culture arises from knowledge of death and mortality.» — según la segunda tradición, la cultura nace del conocimiento de la muerte y de la mortalidad.

«Culture represents the attempt to create a space and a time in which man can think his way out of the bounded horizon of his life and project the features of his action, experience, and plans out into broader horizons and dimensions of fulfillment, in which the needs of his mind can find gratification, and the painful, even unbearable consciousness of existential boundedness and fragmentation can find rest.» — define la cultura como el intento de crear un espacio y un tiempo donde el hombre piense más allá del horizonte de su vida.

«Man cannot live without fantasies of immortality, or at least of a certain continuation beyond the all too narrow horizon of our existence on earth: such fantasies create a horizon rearranged by illusions, in which human activity can be experienced as meaningful,» — sostiene que el hombre no puede vivir sin fantasías de inmortalidad, que reordenan el horizonte con ilusiones y hacen que la actividad humana se experimente como significativa.

«Understanding kills action, for in order to act we require the veil of illusion; such is Hamlet’s doctrine, not to be confused with the cheap wisdom of Johna-Dreams, who through too much reflection, as it were a surplus of possibilities, never arrives at action.» — según el pasaje del Nacimiento de la tragedia que Assmann cita, el conocimiento mata la acción porque para obrar hace falta el velo de la ilusión; el troceo del EPUB imprime Johna-Dreams donde Nietzsche escribe John-a-Dreams.

«What, both in the case of Hamlet and of Dionysiac man, overbalances any motive leading to action, is not reflection but understanding, the apprehension of truth and its terror.» — cierre de la misma cita: lo que desequilibra el motivo de la acción no es la reflexión sino el conocimiento, la aprehensión de la verdad y de su terror.

«I caused mortals to cease foreseeing doom. Chorus What cure did you provide them with against that sickness? Prometheus I placed in them blind hopes.» — según el diálogo de Prometeo y el Coro que Assmann cita, el titán quitó a los mortales la previsión de su ruina y les puso en cambio esperanzas ciegas.

«The “doom” whose precise anticipation was beneficently veiled by Prometheus was man’s future suffering, and especially the means and the hour of his death.» — glosa la ruina velada por Prometeo como el sufrimiento futuro del hombre y, sobre todo, el modo y la hora de su muerte.

«Only when veiled in this manner is knowledge about death bearable.» — solo velado de esa manera resulta soportable el saber sobre la muerte.

«These “blind hopes” are the opposite of the despair resulting from Cassandra’s visions.» — opone las esperanzas ciegas a la desesperación que producen las visiones de Casandra.

«Blind hope creates the “veil of illusion” indispensable to the human condition.» — la esperanza ciega crea el velo de ilusión que Assmann llama indispensable para la condición humana.

«Culture does not seem to be a compensation for man’s lack of instincts and environmental adaptability, but rather as a space in which man, with his surplus of knowledge and his troubled spirit, can devise himself, exceed himself, and for a certain time, at least, bring himself into equilibrium.» — niega que la cultura sea compensación de una falta de instintos: la describe como el espacio donde el hombre se equilibra.

«My thesis is that behind this Faustian searching and restlessness stands not a lack of natural endowments, but rather a surplus of self-awareness and knowledge that can no longer be brought into balance with nature.» — su tesis sobre la búsqueda fáustica: detrás está un exceso de autoconciencia que no logra ponerse en equilibrio con la naturaleza.

«Death makes all equal, but in the matter of attitude toward death, there unfolds a huge spectrum of cultural and individual differences.» — la muerte iguala a todos, pero para Assmann las actitudes ante ella son el terreno de las diferencias culturales e individuales.

«Christianity and the Gnostic movements represent the first type; in them, life on earth and posterity count for little, while the soul, immortality, and the afterlife are valorized.» — sitúa al cristianismo y a los movimientos gnósticos en el extremo donde el alma y el más allá quedan valorizados.

«But they also knew a third, an Elysium, in which a person was saved from death.» — los egipcios conocían además un tercer reino, un Elíseo, donde el difunto quedaba salvado de la muerte.

«Egypt, of course, belongs unconditionally to the first type, to the cultures with positive concepts of the afterlife, in which next-worldly existence is an intensified one, far from death and near to the divine.» — sitúa a Egipto sin reservas entre las culturas con concepto positivo del más allá, donde la existencia ultramundana es intensificada, lejos de la muerte y cerca de lo divino.

«Yet it is also striking that the Egyptians apparently staked all on remaining present here, on earth, in the recollection of posterity. Why else would they have built such lavish tombs?» — lo que le llama la atención: que además apostaran a permanecer presentes aquí, en el recuerdo de la posteridad, y de ahí sus tumbas.

«So far as we can tell, the Egyptians combined both possibilities. And not only that, but both possibilities were culturally elaborated in a way that was entirely unique.» — según Assmann, Egipto combinó las dos posibilidades y elaboró las dos de manera única.

«Already in the seventeenth century, Spinoza drew this very distinction between Egypt and Israel. He showed not only that the ancient Israelites and the Mosaic writings lacked the idea of immortality but also that they set something else in its stead: the concept that a man lived on in his children and grandchildren.» — adjudica a Spinoza, ya en el siglo XVII, la distinción entre Egipto e Israel: los israelitas antiguos no tenían idea de inmortalidad y pusieron en su lugar la pervivencia en hijos y nietos.

«Spinoza was thus the first to note the diametric opposition between Egypt and Israel in regard to this question.» — a Spinoza le atribuye la primera formulación de la oposición diametral entre Egipto e Israel en esta cuestión.

«As is well known, Simone Weil has also praised Egypt for its belief in immortality and criticized Israel for the materialism of its solution, which set history in the place of the afterlife and immortality.» — a Simone Weil le adjudica el elogio de Egipto por su creencia en la inmortalidad y la crítica a Israel por poner la historia en lugar del más allá.

«In fact, not only was there no meaningful afterlife in the Old Testament world, but also no sacred space of duration in this world, such as the Egyptians achieved by means of stony monumentality.» — lo que añade de su parte: en el mundo del Antiguo Testamento no había más allá con sentido ni espacio sagrado de duración como el que Egipto logró con la monumentalidad de piedra.

«The divine and death were kept as far apart as possible, man was close to the divine only during his earthly existence, and all the accounts of righteousness had to be settled in this life; there could be no talk of immortality, yet the life of the individual was surrounded by a mighty horizon of recollection and by a promise that extended not into the afterlife, but into the chain of generations.» — en ese mundo lo divino y la muerte se mantienen lo más apartados posible, y la promesa no se extiende al más allá sino a la cadena de las generaciones.

«One sees death as something other than life.» — la primera de las dos concepciones que distingue: la muerte como algo distinto de la vida.

«Life and death are mutually exclusive: where there is life, death has no business, and vice versa.» — en esa concepción vida y muerte se excluyen mutuamente.

«This theory has traditionally been connected primarily with the name of Epicurus, whose aim was to ban the cares of Gilgamesh from the human realm.» — adscribe esa teoría sobre todo al nombre de Epicuro, cuyo propósito lee como desterrar del ámbito humano las cuitas de Gilgamesh.

«Man’s thoughts are not to be concerned with death, for so long as he lives, death is not there, and when death is there, man is no longer alive; life and death have nothing to do with one another.» — el argumento epicúreo tal como lo resume: mientras el hombre vive la muerte no está, y cuando está la muerte el hombre ya no vive.

«Life displaces death, just as death annihilates life.» — la fórmula recíproca: la vida desplaza a la muerte y la muerte aniquila la vida.

«Epicurus’ teachings seem extreme in their rationalistic formulations, but behind them stands a widespread, basic attitude that to a large extent characterizes our own time and its relationship with death, and which Martin Heidegger generalized, in the well-known chapter on death in his Being and Time, as “everyday Being-towards-death.”» — detrás del racionalismo de Epicuro ve una actitud extendida que caracteriza a nuestro tiempo, y que Heidegger generalizó como ser-para-la-muerte cotidiano.

«It is not “pieced-on” to Dasein, but rather “always already” belongs to it.» — lo que Heidegger sostiene de la muerte según Assmann: no se le añade al Dasein, sino que le pertenece siempre ya.

«The concept that Heidegger classifies as “everyday” would presumably have seemed rather foreign to the ancient Egyptians and to many other cultures and epochs.» — el giro con que traduce la filosofía a la cultura comparada: lo que Heidegger llama cotidiano les habría resultado ajeno a los egipcios y a muchas otras culturas.

«As the German hymn has it, “in the midst of life, we are surrounded by death.”» — la concepción contraria, la de la vida entretejida con la muerte, la ilustra con el himno alemán que dice que en medio de la vida estamos rodeados de muerte.

«Life is based on the knowledge of our finitude, and at its end, death acts in our life in a way that gives it meaning and direction, but also in a way that destroys meaning, dissolving it and making us sick.» — el doble efecto que le adjudica a la finitud: da sentido y dirección a la vida y a la vez disuelve el sentido y enferma.

«In light of this distinction, we must, of course, assign the ancient Egyptians to the second type.» — a la luz de esa distinción adscribe a los egipcios al segundo tipo, el de la vida permeada por la muerte.

«Death was always viewed as something at the end of life, and also as a subjection to death that permeated life, that was always present to the Egyptians and spurred them to investments that were supposed to increase the share of life and diminish that of death.» — la muerte se veía como término de la vida y todo el esfuerzo iba a acrecentar el ámbito de la vida y reducir el de la muerte.

«The tomb served life, not death, as we already read in the earliest Egyptian wisdom text, the Instruction of Djedefhor:» — la tumba, dice, servía a la vida y no a la muerte, y lo apoya en la Enseñanza de Djedefhor.

«Heed: death counts little for us; heed: life counts much for us. The house of death counts for life.22 This maxim was remembered in Egypt for millennia, and it was still cited in texts of the Roman imperial era.23 But in all the rich tradition of Egyptian wisdom literature, it is the Instruction of Any, from the Ramesside Period, that is unique in treating this theme in detail and in words of its own: Do not leave your house without knowing where you can rest.» — según la Enseñanza de Djedefhor que Assmann traduce, la muerte cuenta poco y la vida mucho, y no hay que salir de casa sin conocer el lugar del propio reposo.

«Indeed, you do not know your death!» — cierre del mismo pasaje de Djedefhor: no conoces tu muerte.

«The timely construction of a tomb was a goal in life, one that afforded the certainty of not slipping, at death, out of the context of the life of the land as a social, geographical, and cultural space, but rather of having a place where one remained present after death, integrated into the community of the living.» — construir la tumba a tiempo era, según Assmann, lo que garantizaba seguir integrado en la comunidad de los vivos.

«With this brilliant discovery, Spinoza also furnished a splendid proof for our thesis that without the basic assumption of continued life in some form, human life cannot succeed, and that the cultural solutions to this problem can» — lee el hallazgo de Spinoza como prueba de su propia tesis: sin el supuesto de una vida continuada en alguna forma la vida humana no prospera; la frase se corta en el salto de plana y sigue en la 20 diciendo que esas soluciones culturales pueden ser diversísimas.

«A glance at the history of cultures shows that our own has taken an extreme stance on this question.» — según Assmann, la mirada comparada muestra que nuestra cultura adoptó una postura extrema sobre la relación entre vivos y muertos.

«This stance is connected with the expatriation of the dead, as Jean Baudrillard has impressively described in L’Échange symbolique et la mort.» — adjudica a Jean Baudrillard, en L’Échange symbolique et la mort, la descripción de esa postura como expatriación de los muertos.

«Our society has developed a culture in which the realm of the dead is excluded, denied, suppressed, and unacknowledged.» — lo que imputa a nuestra sociedad: una cultura en la que el reino de los muertos queda excluido, negado, suprimido y no reconocido.

«In the Instruction of Any, one maxim is devoted to the akh, a word that we otherwise translate as “transfigured spirit,” but which in this context unequivocally has the meaning “ghost,” in the sense of the Mesopotamian etemmu.» — según la Enseñanza de Any que Assmann cita, una máxima trata del *akh*, que aquí lee en el sentido del *etemmu* mesopotámico, el espectro.

«the ghost of the dead (etemmu) would haunt this world if he had not been properly buried» — la creencia mesopotámica que trae a comparación: el espectro del muerto rondaría este mundo si no se le hubiera enterrado como corresponde.

«But these are exceptions that only confirm the rule, late texts that point to Babylonian influence.» — acota el alcance de esos casos egipcios: los declara excepciones tardías que, dice, apuntan a influencia babilónica.

«The distinction between two realms, a realm of the living and a realm of the dead, which in Egypt was also the realm of the gods, was radically challenged in the context of the Amarna Period, the religious revolution undertaken by King Amenophis IV/Akhenaten» — la distinción entre reino de los vivos y reino de los muertos —que en Egipto era también el de los dioses— quedó desafiada en el Período de Amarna, la revolución religiosa de Amenofis IV/Akhenatón.

«Akhenaten’s revolution was the first example of the founding of a religion in the history of humankind.» — adjudica a la revolución de Akhenatón el primer caso de fundación de una religión en la historia de la humanidad.

«In the texts of this period, which profoundly altered Egyptian religion, though it was a brief episode of no more than twenty years in the entire history of Egypt, there is only one realm: that of the here and now, of the reality lit up by the sun god.» — en los textos de Amarna solo hay un reino, el del aquí y ahora, el de la realidad iluminada por el dios solar.

«There is no talk of the mythical, primeval time when the cosmos came into being, when the present-day world was produced after many changes related in the myths, or of a next world, where the dead go. This silence is so striking that some have understood it as a systematic exclusion.» — el silencio de esos textos sobre el tiempo primordial y sobre el más allá le parece tan llamativo que algunos lo han entendido como exclusión sistemática.

«Akhenaten’s monotheism was a radical doctrine of a single realm.» — el monoteísmo de Akhenatón, dice, fue una doctrina radical de un solo reino.

«Amarna religion abolished the afterlife. The dead continued to live, but they dwelled in their tomb, not in the netherworld; by day, they visited the temples of Amarna in an invisible or altered form, and by night, they returned to their tomb.» — la religión de Amarna abolió el más allá: los muertos seguían viviendo pero moraban en su tumba, visitaban de día los templos en forma invisible y de noche regresaban.

«When Amarna religion failed and the traditional religion was restored, those aspects of it which Akhenaten had particularly persecuted and excluded were now placed center stage and elaborated on. Thus, it was at this time that the genre of “books of the netherworld,” in which knowledge about the afterlife was systematically codified and handed down, experienced an enormous upswing.» — al caer Amarna, lo que Akhenatón había perseguido pasó al centro, y el género de los libros del inframundo tuvo un auge enorme.

«To the classic work known as the Amduat, which had been employed in the decoration of the funerary chambers of the royal tombs of Dynasty 18, there was now added a series of similar compositions depicting the next world in pictures and written descriptions: the Book of Gates, the Enigmatic Book, the Book of Caverns, the Book of the Earth, the Book of Nut, the Book of the Heavenly Cow, the Book of the Day, and the Book of the Night.» — la serie que se añadió al Amduat: Libro de las Puertas, Libro Enigmático, Libro de las Cavernas, Libro de la Tierra, Libro de Nut, Libro de la Vaca Celeste, Libro del Día y Libro de la Noche.

«All these books are surrounded by an aura of strictest mystery, and thus secrecy: in the New Kingdom, they occur almost exclusively in royal tombs, which were located in hidden places in the Valley of the Kings, where no human foot was supposed to tread.» — esos libros están rodeados de un aura de misterio estricto y aparecen casi solo en tumbas reales del Valle de los Reyes.

«From these dramatic events, which wrought far-reaching changes in the Egyptian world in the course of less than fifty years, we see that there are connections between the “demystification of the world” and Akhenaten’s doctrine of a single realm, connections familiar to us from the intellectual history of our own culture, and we see that death» — de esos hechos deduce una conexión entre la desmitificación del mundo y la doctrina del reino único de Akhenatón; la frase se corta en el salto de plana y sigue en la 25.

«plays a decisive role in the genesis and formation of concepts regarding an “other world.”» — continuación en la plana 25: la muerte desempeña un papel decisivo en la génesis y la formación de los conceptos de otro mundo.

«Death generates mystery; it is the threshold to another world and also a veil that hides it.» — la fórmula con que enuncia esa función: la muerte genera misterio, es umbral hacia otro mundo y a la vez velo que lo oculta.

«With its radical denial of a next world, the Amarna Period robbed death of its mystery, and by way of a reaction, the notion of mystery moved into the center of Egyptian beliefs about death.» — lee el efecto de rebote de Amarna: al negar el más allá le quitó a la muerte su misterio, y por reacción el misterio pasó al centro de las creencias egipcias.

«Knowledge of this mystery was now the royal path to immortality, and the royal tombs became repositories of this knowledge that brought deliverance.» — y el conocimiento de ese misterio pasó a ser el camino regio a la inmortalidad, con las tumbas reales como depósito de ese saber.

«Were the Egyptians obsessed with death, did they have an aversion to life? Or did they, on the contrary, merely suppress death under a mass of cultural forms and symbols? In this regard, we can perhaps distinguish between two ideal cultural types: cultures that accept death and cultures that rebel against it.» — la pregunta que se plantea —si los egipcios estaban obsesionados con la muerte o si más bien la reprimían bajo formas culturales— y los dos tipos ideales que propone: culturas que aceptan la muerte y culturas que se rebelan contra ella.

«Cultures that accept death tend to accord no special status to man among living beings, but rather to place him on the same level as everything alive and to view him as a part of nature, born of dust and returning to dust, sinking into nature’s great cycle of life and death.» — las culturas que aceptan la muerte no dan al hombre estatuto especial y lo ponen al nivel de todo lo vivo, nacido del polvo y devuelto al polvo.

«Cultures that deny death, however, view man as a spiritual being and place him in sharp contrast to the rest of nature.» — las que la niegan ven al hombre como ser espiritual y lo contraponen al resto de la naturaleza.

«Like the two basic attitudes, the two types of culture— those that accept death and those that deny it—are ideal types that have not found pure expression in historical reality. In reality, all is mixed, for in any given culture, people differ according to era, social level, geography, and even the times they assign to religious and to profane concerns.» — acota su propia tipología: los dos tipos son ideales y no se dan puros en la realidad histórica, donde todo está mezclado por época, estrato social y geografía.

«Thus, they cannot have drawn so very sharp a distinction between animal and man.» — la objeción que se hace a sí mismo a propósito de los cultos animales: si momificaban animales y les atribuían inmortalidad, no pudieron trazar una distinción tan tajante entre animal y hombre.

«For the Egyptians, the distinction was different from ours; for them, under certain circumstances, animals were part of the circle of the immortal, the spiritual, the imperishable.» — su respuesta: para los egipcios la distinción no pasaba entre hombre y animal sino entre lo espiritual e imperecedero y lo demás.

«What is decisive is the fact that they made the distinction.» — lo decisivo, dice, es que hicieran la distinción.

«Another objection concerns the unique presence of death in Egyptian culture.» — la segunda objeción que se plantea, sobre la presencia única de la muerte en la cultura egipcia.

«The Egyptians certainly did not accept death, but they also did not repress it.» — su respuesta a esa segunda objeción: los egipcios ni aceptaban la muerte ni la reprimían.

«In Egyptian culture, as in no other, we may observe what it means not to accept death and yet to place it at the center of every thought and deed, every plan and act, to make it, in every possible way, the theme of the culture they created.» — en la cultura egipcia, como en ninguna otra, la muerte está en el centro de lo que crearon.

«Like most of the traditional societies of our own time, earlier periods were convinced» — las sociedades tradicionales y las épocas anteriores estaban convencidas, dice, de que existía algo así como un reino de los muertos; la frase se corta en el límite de chunk y sigue en la plana 23.

«that there was something like a “realm of the dead,” and that it was important for the living to establish a culturally formed and ordered relationship with it.» — continuación de esa frase: para los vivos era importante establecer con ese reino una relación culturalmente formada y ordenada.

«The concept of a realm of the dead as an opposite to the realm of the living is the most general and widespread concept, quite independently of the question of whether this realm of the dead is conceived of as a shadowy realm devoid of life and meaning, or whether as a sphere of enhanced life, as a hell, a purgatory, or a paradise.» — llama al reino de los muertos el concepto más general y extendido, con independencia de que se lo imagine como reino de sombras o como esfera de vida acrecentada, infierno, purgatorio o paraíso.

«There is probably no culture in the world that does not stand in some kind of relationship with its dead» — dicho con su grado: probablemente no hay cultura en el mundo que no mantenga alguna clase de relación con sus muertos.

«Djedefhor, the oldest example of wisdom literature preserved to us, which goes on to say, as is typical, “the house of death (i.e., the tomb) is for life.» — según la Enseñanza de Djedefhor, que Assmann presenta como el ejemplo más antiguo conservado de literatura sapiencial, la casa de la muerte, es decir la tumba, es para la vida.

«Perhaps it was, but not in and of itself.» — responde con reserva a la idea de que para los egipcios la muerte fuera una transición suave: quizá lo fuera, pero no por sí misma.

«The original experience of death was in no way covered up or suppressed by the counterimages of religion. These counterimages made that which they negated, the darker aspects of the theme of death, all the more intensely borne in mind.» — las contraimágenes, dice, no encubrieron la experiencia original de la muerte: hicieron que sus aspectos más oscuros se tuvieran presentes con más intensidad.

«Along with the transfiguring texts of the mortuary religion, which sketch magnificent, linguistically articulated images, there are other texts that speak of loneliness and darkness, lack, deprivation, and paralysis. The dark side of death was not covered over but remained present.» — junto a los textos de transfiguración hay otros que hablan de soledad, oscuridad, carencia y parálisis: el lado oscuro de la muerte queda presente.

«The counterimages generated an excitement that sounded a call to action. This impetus was what was special about Egyptian religion.» — lo que atribuye de propio a la religión egipcia: sus contraimágenes generan una excitación que llama a la acción.

«Where others sat back and let matters take their course, the Egyptians took things into their own hands.» — el contraste que traza: donde otros dejaban seguir su curso a las cosas, los egipcios las tomaban en sus manos.

«For them, death was a call to action, the beginning and the end of a major realm of cultural praxis.» — para los egipcios, dice, la muerte era una llamada a la acción y el principio y el fin de un ámbito mayor de práctica cultural.

«In its central and normative, sophisticated aspects and motifs, culture is nothing other than the symbolic realization of a comprehensive horizon without which man cannot live.» — su definición de cultura: la realización simbólica de un horizonte abarcador sin el cual el hombre no puede vivir.

«This point is also true of societies that have on all points believed the opposite of what was true for the Egyptians, and it is the culture-theoretical hypothesis that underlies this book.» — declara que la hipótesis vale también para sociedades que creyeron lo contrario que los egipcios, y que es la hipótesis de teoría de la cultura del libro.

«To substantiate it, there must be comparative studies, and these in turn must be built on “thick descriptions” of culture-specific phenomena. Here, a step in this direction will be undertaken.» — declara el método que la hipótesis exigiría —estudios comparados sobre descripciones densas— y sitúa su libro como un paso en esa dirección.

«Rather, it was the distant goal of countless efforts, without which death would be an absolute opposition: isolation, termination, end, disappearance, darkness, filth, defectiveness, distance from the divine, decomposition, dismemberment, dissolution, in short, all that constitutes the opposite of those radiant images of a transfigured existence.» — la reserva completa: la transición suave era la meta lejana de esfuerzos incontables, sin los cuales la muerte sería aislamiento, término, fin, desaparición, oscuridad, suciedad, lejanía de lo divino, descomposición, desmembramiento y disolución.

«The Egyptian experience of death was not, overall, much different from that» — sostiene que, en conjunto, la experiencia egipcia de la muerte no difería mucho de la del resto del mundo; la frase se corta en el límite de chunk, con la plana 27 reemitida a los dos lados.

«elsewhere in the world, except for the astonishing, and in this respect probably unique, attitude that the Egyptians assumed toward this experience, an attitude based on trust in the power of counterimages, or rather in the power of speech, of representation, and of ritual acts, to be able to make these counterimages real and to create a counterworld through the medium of symbols.» — continuación de la misma frase: lo excepcional es la actitud egipcia ante esa experiencia, confiada en el poder de las contraimágenes y en el del habla, la representación y el rito para crear un contramundo mediante símbolos.

«The world of Egyptian mortuary religion was indeed a counterworld. But what was special, and perhaps unique, about this Egyptian counterworld is that it was not a construct of fantasy and belief, but one that required planning and architecture, along with all sorts of other arts, including anatomy, pharmacology, linen weaving, and everything else that the mummification process entailed, all of it set into motion, visible, tangible, massive, even colossal, with all its resultant costs and side effects.» — lo que llama propio del contramundo egipcio: no era construcción de fantasía y creencia sino empresa que exigía planeación, arquitectura, anatomía, farmacología y tejido de lino, visible, tangible y colosal, con sus costos y efectos secundarios.

«I do not mean, however, that these counterimages sketched by religion cover up the empirical world and» — acota su propia tesis: las contraimágenes de la religión no encubren el mundo empírico; la frase se corta en el salto de plana y sigue en la 28.

«In ancient Egyptian tradition, at least as it is preserved to us, the Osiris myth was never recounted as a coherent whole; rather, it served as a source of allusions for a large number of religious texts.» — según Assmann, el mito de Osiris nunca se narró como un todo coherente en la tradición egipcia conservada, aunque es el trasfondo de muchísimos textos religiosos.

«We may, indeed we must, conclude from these allusions and circumstances, that it was not a coherent story but rather a sequence of scenes that was unmistakably rooted in the mortuary cult.» — la conclusión que extrae: el mito no es una historia coherente sino una secuencia de escenas arraigadas en el culto mortuorio.

«The only texts that furnish us with a continuous narrative are written in Greek, by Diodorus1 and especially by Plutarch.» — los únicos textos con narración continua, dice, son los de Diodoro y sobre todo Plutarco.

«But in the coherence of their narratives, in their care about a single, meaningful, stimulating story, these authors seem to have strayed far from the Egyptian form of the myth.» — y su reserva sobre ellos: la coherencia misma de esos relatos griegos los aleja de la forma egipcia del mito.

«Osiris was king of Egypt, the successor of his father, the god Geb.» — Osiris como rey de Egipto y sucesor de su padre, el dios Geb.

«Unlike his divine predecessors in the royal office—the sun god Re, the air god Shu, and the earth god Geb—Osiris did not come to the throne as an only child but rather with a brother and rival, Seth.» — a diferencia de sus predecesores divinos en el oficio real, Osiris tuvo un hermano y rival, Seth.

«But his salvation lay in the fact that he also had two sisters, Isis and Nephthys.» — su salvación, dice, estuvo en tener dos hermanas, Isis y Neftis.

«And there was also Horus, who brought the number of the children of Nut to five, though strictly speaking, he was the child of Osiris and Isis.» — y Horus, hijo de Osiris e Isis, que completa la constelación.

«Osiris’ reign came to a violent end, for he was slain by his brother, Seth.» — el reinado de Osiris acaba de manera violenta: lo mata su hermano Seth.

«Thus did death come into the world, confronting the gods with a great problem.» — así entra la muerte en el mundo, dice, y con ella un gran problema para los dioses.

«As stated above, we encounter the actual myth, which begins at this point, not as a continuous narrative in the texts but as a cycle of scenes.» — repite que el mito propiamente dicho se encuentra como ciclo de escenas y no como relato.

«The first scene depicts the slain Osiris, his life destroyed and annihilated in the grossest of ways.» — la primera escena del ciclo: Osiris asesinado y su cuerpo tratado del modo más brutal.

«For Seth did not just slay Osiris, he hacked him to pieces and threw the individual limbs into the water, with the result that the Nile carried them to various places throughout the land.» — Seth no solo lo mata: lo despedaza y dispersa las partes por todo el país.

«It depicts death in its physical, bodily, biological form of manifestation.» — lee esa escena como la muerte en su forma física, corporal y biológica de manifestación.

«Just as it was Osiris’ undoing that he was the first of the divine rulers to have a brother and thus a rival for the throne, so his sisters became his salvation.» — la simetría que señala: lo que perdió a Osiris fue tener un hermano, y lo que lo salvó, tener hermanas.

«Isis’ activities with regard to the corpse of Osiris culminate in the posthumous conception of Horus.» — las acciones de Isis con el cadáver culminan, dice, en la concepción póstuma de Horus.

«In the accounts of Diodorus and Plutarch, Isis recovered all the body parts of the slain god except for his virile member, which had been swallowed by a fish.» — según los relatos de Diodoro y Plutarco que Assmann recoge, Isis no halla el miembro viril, tragado por un pez.

«She was thus obliged to replace this member with an artificial one that she was able to make into the instrument of a posthumous insemination.» — y por eso, en esos relatos, ha de reemplazarlo por uno artificial para la inseminación póstuma.

«The Egyptian texts, which seldom mention this scene, know nothing of this detail.» — la búsqueda negativa que declara: los textos egipcios, que rara vez mencionan la escena, no saben nada de ese detalle.

«Behind them lies not an actual dismemberment and rejoining of the corpse, as some scholars once assumed, but rather a specific image of the body, one that was quite characteristic of Egyptian culture and of the ancient Egyptian style of thinking.» — sostiene que detrás de esas imágenes no hay un desmembramiento real sino un rasgo del estilo egipcio de pensar.

«The image of death as dismemberment is derived (a) from the Egyptian image of the body as a multiplicity of members joined through the connective medium of blood into a living unity and (b) from the counterimage of redemption from death through collecting, joining, uniting, and knotting together.» — deriva la imagen de la muerte como desmembramiento de una concepción que hace la vida por recolección, unión y anudamiento.

«Thus, in the case of the body, they saw a “marionette,” an aggregated multiplicity of individual limbs, not an organic whole controlled from the center outward.5 “The body is ‘put together,’ ‘knotted together’ out of a number of parts; it is, so to say, what we call a ‘marionette.’» — la imagen que Assmann recoge del cuerpo egipcio: algo puesto y anudado junto, lo que llamamos una marioneta.

«We have a definite impression that the connective model was in the service of the state and the form it assumed, that of a pharaonic monocracy.» — dicho con su grado —una impresión definida, no una prueba—: el modelo conectivo servía al Estado de la monocracia faraónica.

«The Egyptians developed a sort of connective ethic aimed at binding the individual into the structure of the state.» — a los egipcios les atribuye una ética conectiva que integra al individuo en la estructura del Estado.

«The Egyptians recognized the function of the blood and blood vessels in integrating the limbs into a body.» — señala que los egipcios reconocían la función de la sangre y los vasos al integrar los miembros en un cuerpo.

«So long as the heart pumps blood through the vessels and its beating is perceptible (“speaks,” as the Egyptians put it) in all the veins, the parts of the body remain integrated and thus alive.» — la condición fisiológica que enuncia: mientras el corazón bombea sangre por los vasos, los miembros siguen integrados y vivos.

«The heart was thus the epitome and the guarantor or generator of connectivity in the bodily sphere.» — el corazón como epítome y garante de la conectividad en la esfera corporal.

«As a dead god, Osiris’ epithet was wrḏ-jb, the “weary of heart.”» — el epíteto de Osiris como dios muerto, *wrḏ-jb*, el cansado de corazón.

«Weariness of the heart belongs to the image of death as decay and dismemberment.» — el cansancio del corazón pertenece, dice, a la imagen de la muerte como descomposición y desmembramiento.

«To unite the limbs and animate the body, the heart must be (a) “alive” or “awake,” and (b) “in its place.”» — las dos condiciones que el corazón debe cumplir para unir y animar el cuerpo.

«In both conditions, that of weariness and that of absence, the heart fails to perform its centralizing function, and the person dissolves into a disparate multiplicity.» — si falta alguna de esas condiciones, dice, la persona se disuelve en una multiplicidad dispar.

«Death is a wearying of the heart.» — la fórmula breve: la muerte es un cansarse del corazón.

«The most important prerequisite was to restore the heart to its former place and to awaken it, so that it could again assume its centralizing and organizing functions.» — el requisito principal de la salvación: devolverle al corazón sus funciones centralizadoras y organizadoras.

«Your heart is placed in your body for you, that you might recall what you have forgotten.» — según el hechizo de restitución del corazón que Assmann traduce, el corazón se pone de nuevo en el cuerpo para que el difunto recuerde lo olvidado.

«The Egyptian language had two words for “heart,” which have long been regarded as synonyms.» — la lengua egipcia tiene dos palabras para corazón, tenidas largo tiempo por sinónimas.

«The one is jb and is related to the Hebrew word for “heart,” leb, lebab.» — la primera es *jb*, emparentada con el hebreo *leb*, *lebab*.

«The Egyptians assumed that this complex of internal organs was inherited by the child from its mother at birth, through a physical, biological process of transfer.» — lo que los egipcios suponían de ese complejo de órganos internos: que pasa de la madre al hijo por un proceso físico y biológico.

«The expression jb n mw.t = j “heart of my mother” rests on this physiological assumption.» — la expresión corazón de mi madre descansa, dice, en ese supuesto fisiológico.

«The word ḥA.tj, by way of contrast, refers to the heart in the narrower, more literal sense.» — la segunda palabra, *ḥA.tj*, designa el corazón en sentido más estrecho y literal.

«Thus, in the Judgment of the Dead, it is weighed on a scale.» — en el Juicio de los Muertos, dice, es el corazón *jb* el que se pesa en la balanza.

«Scholars have usually taken the term ḫpr.w as referring to phases of development during a lifetime, but recent research has made it plausible that this explanation rests on shaky ground.» — objeta la lectura corriente del término *ḫpr.w* diciendo que descansa en terreno inseguro.

«It must thus be maintained that where we find the jb-heart specified as “of the mother,” the ḥA.tj-heart must be taken as referring, in contradistinction, to the ḏ.t-body, the ḫpr.w-form, and existence on earth.» — la distinción que sostiene entre el corazón biológico y el mental.

«The jb-heart ensures the biological continuity that binds a person to his parents and children and enables the person to live on in his descendants, while the ḥA.tj-heart ensures the mental and personal identity that enables the deceased to recall his earthly life and to retain his personality in the afterlife.» — el reparto de funciones: el corazón *jb* asegura la continuidad biológica y el otro le permite al difunto conservar su personalidad en el más allá.

«Here as well, it is clear that for the Egyptians, this principle of “connectivity,” the attachment of an individual to a whole, was what characterized life in general.» — la conectividad, dice, caracteriza la vida egipcia en general y no solo el cuerpo.

«Life was connection, death was disintegration and isolation.» — la fórmula con que lo cierra: la vida era conexión, la muerte desintegración y aislamiento.

«The Egyptians thus did not really view the world with a dissecting gaze but with an integrating, one might almost say, an “embalming” gaze.» — objeta la imagen de la mirada disectora: la egipcia le parece más bien una mirada integradora, casi embalsamadora.

«Because we ourselves do not have this embalming glance, what we see in Egyptian art and in other phenomena of Egyptian culture is primarily the additive, the isolating, and the paratactic.» — la limitación que se atribuye al observador moderno: como no tenemos esa mirada, vemos lo aditivo, lo aislante y lo paratáctico.

«We are blind to the animating, the connective.» — y la dice sin atenuantes: somos ciegos a lo animador y lo conectivo.

«Just as the Egyptian reader had to supply the vowels, for the writing system noted only the consonants, so also he had to supply the conjunctions, for the connection between clauses was mostly paratactic, and in both cases he had no difficulty.» — la comparación con la escritura: el lector egipcio suplía vocales y conjunciones sin dificultad, igual que suplía la conexión.

«From this distinction and this interplay of dissolution and integration, we see that in Egypt, the boundaries between life and death ran in directions different from those to which we are accustomed.» — de ese juego deduce que los límites entre vida y muerte no eran los que nos son habituales.

«Death was the principle of dismembering, dissolving, isolating disintegration, while life was the principle of integrating animation, which conferred unity and wholeness.» — la muerte como principio de desmembrar y disolver, frente a lo que confiere unidad y totalidad.

«Thus, something lethal and fatal was inherent in all that served to isolate, while something life-conferring was inherent in all that integrated.» — la dualidad con que cierra: algo letal es inherente a todo lo que aísla, y algo vivificante a todo lo que integra.

«Mythic images have the function of overcoming paralysis and making it possible for action to be taken.» — la función que adjudica a las imágenes míticas: vencer la parálisis y abrir campo a la acción.

«The Egyptian embalming ritual ideally took seventy days.» — la duración ideal del ritual de embalsamamiento, setenta días.

«This transformation occurs in a great many ways (reduction to a skeleton, dismemberment, maceration, mummification, cremation, exposure, etc.), but the basic concept seems always to be the same.» — observa que los modos de la transformación varían mucho, pero el concepto de base permanece.

«Other cultures, the most extreme of which is that of Egypt, take this process into their own hands and prepare the corpse for eternity by artificial (surgical, chemical, magical) means.» — sitúa a Egipto en el extremo de las culturas que preparan el cadáver por medios artificiales, quirúrgicos, químicos y mágicos.

«The body was of course not cut into pieces, but for the purpose of preserving it, it was treated anything but “conservatively,” in the medical sense of the term.» — acota el sentido de esa intervención: el cuerpo no se abría en el sentido médico del término.

«Everything “foul,” that is, everything perishable that could represent a danger to the goal of achieving an eternal form, was removed from the body.» — lo que se retiraba del cuerpo: todo lo corruptible, todo lo perecedero.

«For this reason, in the few representations of the embalming ritual, this phase is represented as a purifying bath.» — en las pocas representaciones conservadas, dice, esa fase aparece como baño purificador.

«The Egyptian word for such a basin is šj, “lake,” and such a “lake” is mentioned repeatedly in the accompanying spells, some of which we shall cite in chapter 5.» — la palabra egipcia para esa pila, que reaparece en los hechizos que citará en el capítulo 5.

«Both turns of expression refer to the embalming, the one to its physical and the other to its spiritual-magical aspect.» — las dos expresiones remiten, dice, una al aspecto físico y otra al espiritual y mágico.

«The phrase “crossing the lake” refers to passing safe and sound through the purification phase.» — la fórmula cruzar el lago designa el paso a salvo por la fase de purificación.

«The mummy was more than a corpse, it was an image of the god Osiris and a sort of hieroglyph of the entire person, one that, as the Egyptians put it, was “filled with magic.”» — la momia, dice, era más que un cadáver: imagen de Osiris llena de magia.

«But far more important than the surgical intervention and chemical treatment was the verbal treatment of the deceased.» — el orden de importancia que establece: el tratamiento verbal del difunto pesaba mucho más que el quirúrgico.

«The lector priest—literally translated, the Egyptian title means “he who carries the book-roll”— accompanied the activities of the embalmers with the recitation of mortuary liturgies that he read from a roll of papyrus.» — el sacerdote lector, cuyo título egipcio dice que leía de un rollo de papiro.

«This merging of action and speech, and specifically, speech set down in writing, is entirely characteristic of the Egyptian mortuary cult.» — la fusión de acción y palabra le parece característica del culto mortuorio egipcio.

«In this treatment, the deceased is constantly talked to.» — en ese tratamiento, dice, al difunto se le habla sin parar.

«The deceased thus became a being endowed with consciousness and physical strength, capable of returning to life in a number of forms.» — por ese trato el difunto se vuelve un ser dotado de conciencia y de fuerza, capaz de volver en varias formas.

«One of these many different forms was the mummy, the reintegrated body, the corpus into which the gathered membra disiecta of the deceased were united.» — una de esas formas es la momia, el cuerpo cuyas partes quedan unidas.

«The verbal accompaniment to the embalming process centered on the theme of reuniting what had been torn apart.» — el acompañamiento verbal del embalsamamiento se concentra, dice, en reunir lo desgarrado.

«The Egyptian concept of the world rested on an unusually firm belief in the binding power of symbols.» — el supuesto que atribuye al mundo egipcio: la confianza en el poder vinculante de los símbolos.

«His constant epithet was, as stated, the “weary of heart,” which meant precisely this: the god whose heart does not beat but who nevertheless lives.» — el epíteto constante de Osiris, el cansado de corazón: aquel cuyo corazón no late y que sin embargo vive.

«It was rituals, images, and texts that awakened Osiris to new life and kept him alive.» — lo que despierta a Osiris y lo mantiene vivo son, dice, ritos, imágenes y textos.

«The connection between love and speech was the most potent connective energy the Egyptians knew, and at the same time, the most potent elixir of life.» — llama a la unión de amor y palabra la energía más potente, el elixir de vida.

«Thus, saving the dead Osiris from his dismembered condition was first and foremost a matter for Isis, the loving sister and wife, who searched for her missing husband and busied herself with his corpse, collecting it, protecting it, and endowing it with life.» — la tarea principal que adjudica a Isis: salvar a Osiris de su estado y dotar de vida al cuerpo.

«In this initial scene of redemption from death, Isis embodies the life-giving powers that stem from romantic attachment, and her care works like an animating sphere that can wake the dead with light and air.» — en esa escena inicial de redención, la atención de Isis despierta al muerto con luz y aire.

«Thus the preference for depicting Isis on the walls of coffins: her presence was supposed to transform the coffin into a sphere of life in which the deceased could see, breathe, and experience pleasure.» — lee la preferencia por pintar a Isis en el ataúd como conversión del ataúd en esfera de vida donde el difunto ve, respira y goza.

«In the Coffin Texts, the mortuary texts of the Middle Kingdom, there are brief hymns to Isis as embodiment of the end of the coffin where the head rested:» — en los Textos de los Sarcófagos hay himnos a Isis en el lugar donde reposaba la cabeza.

«One function of Isis’ “transfiguring” recitations was to gather the limbs of the body, which were conceived of as scattered, into, as it were, a single text that described them as a new entity.» — una función de las recitaciones transfiguradoras de Isis: reunir los miembros como una entidad nueva.

«In Egyptian, the same expression meant both “to transform into” and “to arise from.” The text plays on this double meaning: limb by limb, the gods turned into the body of the deceased, but they also arose from this body, and the deceased could say of himself that he formed, engendered, and brought forth the gods.» — señala el doble sentido del término egipcio, transformarse en y surgir de, sobre el que juega el texto: miembro a miembro los dioses se vuelven cuerpo del difunto y a la vez surgen de ese cuerpo.

«This process was not just a matter of reuniting the individual membra disiecta into the “text” of a body but of bringing this text into the form of a community of gods: that is the symbolic connectivity by means of which the sundered limbs were to be reunited into a single, living body.» — acota el alcance del proceso: no se trataba solo de reunir partes sino de hacer un cuerpo vivo único.

«It is not by chance that these songs remind us of the descriptive genre in Egyptian love poetry and in Near Eastern love poetry more generally.» — la enumeración de miembros no le parece casual: la relaciona con la poesía amorosa.

«In such poems, the body of the beloved is praised, limb by limb, and from head to toe in poetic, often highly ingenious comparisons.» — en esos poemas el cuerpo de la persona amada se elogia parte por parte con comparaciones muy ingeniosas.

«The most famous example is the Song of Songs,35 but there were also such poems in Egypt:» — el ejemplo más célebre que trae es el Cantar de los Cantares, junto a los poemas egipcios.

«But in the love poems, as in the case of mummification, it is not a matter of dismemberment but of bringing to life.» — el contraste que traza: a diferencia del desmembramiento, el poema amoroso enumera para dar vida.

«Just as the “transfiguration spells” breathe life into the corpse of the deceased, so the love poems breathe life into the body of the beloved.» — compara los hechizos de transfiguración con la poesía amorosa por el mismo aliento sobre el cuerpo.

«But restoration of corporal unity was only one side of the complex events that occurred during the Egyptian funerary ritual.» — acota: restaurar la unidad corporal era solo una parte del ritual funerario.

«Horus, the son, was responsible for this aspect of redemption from death.» — a Horus, el hijo, le adjudica la responsabilidad de la redención de la muerte.

«In its gender differentiation, this division of labor seems especially meaningful to me.» — dicho en primera persona y con su grado: la diferenciación de papeles por género le parece significativa.

«The conjugal and sibling love between Isis, Nephthys, and Osiris overcame death by endowing the body with life, while the filial love of Horus for Osiris overcame death by challenging the enemy, by indicting and passing judgment on him, thus vindicating and rehabilitating the slain one.» — distingue el amor conyugal y fraterno de Isis del amor filial de Horus, que vindica y rehabilita al asesinado.

«A solitary person is not capable of life, that is, alive in the full sense of the word.» — la tesis del capítulo sobre el aislamiento: una persona sola no es capaz de vida en el sentido pleno.

«By the same token, he is also not dead, so long as there are others to mention his name, so long as the bond of connectivity is not broken.» — y su reverso: tampoco está muerto mientras no se rompa el vínculo de conectividad.

«Thus, as the Egyptians understood it, a person lived in two spheres, which we can distinguish as the “physical sphere” and the “social sphere.”» — la persona egipcia vive, dice, en dos esferas: la física y la social.

«During life, persons feared damage to their social sphere at least as much as harm to their physical existence.» — en vida se temía el daño a la esfera social tanto como el daño físico.

«Evidently, a bad reputation was one of the worst things that could happen to a person.» — la mala fama figura, dice, entre las peores cosas que podían ocurrirle a alguien.

«As the Egyptians saw it, someone’s personality could be as badly harmed by negative words as by a physical attack.» — la personalidad podía dañarse por la palabra tanto como por un ataque físico.

«Death threatened not only physical but also social integrity.» — la muerte amenaza, por tanto, la integridad física y también la social.

«there corresponds, in the social sphere, the image of death as isolation, in which death represents the principle of expulsion, dishonoring, and degradation:» — en la esfera social le corresponde a la muerte la imagen de la expulsión, la deshonra y la degradación.

«It (i.e., death) is taking a man from his house to cast him into the desert.» — según el texto que Assmann traduce, la muerte es sacar a un hombre de su casa para arrojarlo al desierto.

«The principle of social connectivity endows the individual with life by integrating him into the community, just as the principle of physical connectivity, realized in life through the blood and during the mummification process through the magic of texts and amulets, integrates the multiplicity of limbs and thus endows the individual with life.» — el principio de conectividad social es, dice, lo que dota de vida al individuo.

«Internally, man is a multiplicity of members that must be joined into a unity, while externally, he is a member of a multiplicity, who is brought fully to life by the process of socialization, by integrating him into the constellations of social life as a member of the community.» — el paralelo entre las dos integraciones: hacia dentro el hombre es multiplicidad de miembros, hacia fuera miembro de la comunidad.

«Just as Isis is able to restore the physical unity of Osiris by searching for and joining his limbs and by mourning and transfiguring his body, so Horus is responsible for restoring the personal identity of Osiris by resocializing him into the community of the gods.» — y el reparto correspondiente: Isis restaura la unidad física y Horus reintegra al muerto en la comunidad de los dioses.

«In the mouth of Isis and Nephthys, the liturgical recitation of the deification of the limbs was combined with the lyrical language of» — en boca de Isis y Neftis la recitación litúrgica de la deificación de los miembros se combina con el lenguaje lírico del anhelo; la frase se corta en el límite de chunk y sigue en la plana 44.

«All of Horus’ activities on behalf of Osiris are aimed at restoring his honor, status, and dignity.» — todo lo que Horus hace por su padre apunta, dice, a restaurarle honor, estatus y dignidad.

«Horus sets Osiris at the forefront of the gods, he restores him to the rulership by means of the wrr.t-crown, he raises up the one who has been laid low so that he may go out against his enemy, and he has humiliated the enemy by obliging him to carry Osiris—the humiliation of the enemy has to do with the restoration of honor—and protects Osiris from any further assault by the enemy, so that the latter is unable to attack him again.» — las acciones concretas de Horus: pone a Osiris al frente de los dioses y deja al enemigo incapaz de atacarlo otra vez.

«Geb is the authority who has the final word in the succession to the rulership, for after the death of Osiris, the royal office reverts to him as predecessor of Osiris and father of the brothers who are in contention.» — a Geb le adjudica la autoridad final en el litigio por la sucesión.

«It is akh (in this context an untranslatable word, and one to which we shall often return) with the son in the presence of Osiris, and his heart turns to his dead father.» — define el *akh* en este contexto como el vínculo del hijo con su padre muerto.

«Horus will not be far from you: you are his ka.» — según el Texto de las Pirámides que Assmann traduce, Horus no estará lejos porque el muerto es su *ka*.

«Listen to Horus: he will not harm you.» — del mismo pasaje: escucha a Horus, que no te hará daño.

«Horus’ goal is the restoration of the social relationships of the deceased, the social connectivity that restores him as a person.» — la meta de Horus, dice, es restaurar las relaciones sociales que devuelven al muerto su condición de persona.

«The deceased father is the ka of Horus.» — la fórmula que subraya: el padre muerto es el *ka* de Horus.

«Horus has intervened for you, he has acted on behalf of his ka, which is you, that you may be satisfied in your name “Satisfied Ka.”» — según el mismo texto, Horus interviene por el muerto en su nombre de Ka Satisfecho.

«Horus has given you his children, that they may convey you,» — del mismo pasaje: Horus le da sus hijos para que lo transporten.

«Horus has bidden that he carry you in your name “Great Mat.”» — del mismo pasaje: Horus manda que lo lleven, en su nombre de Gran Estera.

«He creates respect for his father by means of the royal authority that he acquires after ascending the throne.» — Horus crea el respeto hacia su padre mediante la autoridad real que le da subir al trono.

«Osiris no longer lies slain and dismembered in Nedit.» — el resultado de esa intervención: Osiris ya no yace asesinado y desmembrado en Nedit.

«Osiris is helpless against this potential second attack so long as reverence and respect for him are not restored, so that those in the netherworld will support his paramount position and stake all on not allowing Seth to lay his hands on him.» — pero acota la fragilidad: Osiris está indefenso ante un segundo ataque.

«But only his son, for whom Osiris therefore longs, can create respect and recognition for him and reconstruct him as a social person.» — solo el hijo, dice, puede crear ese respeto y reconstruir a Osiris como persona social.

«Take back (the word) that came from your mouth!» — según el texto que Assmann traduce, Horus le pide a Osiris que retire la palabra salida de su boca.

«Then will the gods of the netherworld fear me, then will they defend their gates for me.» — del mismo pasaje: entonces los dioses del inframundo defenderán sus puertas.

«The dignity of Osiris, the father, rests in the position of his son Horus.» — la dignidad del padre descansa, dice, en la posición del hijo.

«He must understand that it is in his own interest to allow his son to remain in this world, to maintain his position there and “speak up for him.”» — lo que Osiris ha de entender: que le conviene dejar que su hijo hable por él.

«There was even a ritual whose exclusive goal was to dissuade the deceased father from his understandable wish to summon his son to himself» — menciona incluso un ritual destinado a impedir que el padre muerto llame al hijo consigo.

«I am here in this land to assume your throne, to hold together your despondent ones, to raise your orphans,» — según la declaración de Horus que Assmann traduce, el hijo está en la tierra para ocupar el trono del padre y criar a sus huérfanos.

«Horus has caused the gods to ascend to you. He has given them to you, that they may brighten your face. Horus has set you at the forefront of the gods, he has bidden that you seize the white crown, the Mistress» — del mismo Texto de las Pirámides: Horus hace subir a los dioses hasta el muerto, lo pone al frente de ellos y manda que tome la corona blanca; el volumen imprime dos veces este pasaje, en las planas 49 y 50.

«I, however, am here as an advocate in the tribunal of men, setting up your boundary stone, holding together your despondent ones, and serving as your image on earth, while your gateway is secured by means of that which I do.» — según el texto que Assmann traduce, Horus se declara abogado de su padre ante el tribunal de los hombres.

«Father and son are dependent on one another.» — la fórmula que resume el vínculo: padre e hijo dependen uno del otro.

«Such was the Egyptian form of the contract between the generations.» — llama a ese vínculo la forma egipcia del contrato entre las generaciones.

«In order to do that, however, the father had to remain in the netherworld and not roam about haunting uncontrollably in the world above, while the son had to remain in the world above and not be summoned to the netherworld by the father.» — la condición del contrato: el padre ha de quedarse en el inframundo para que el hijo obre por él.

«Additionally, in the mortuary beliefs of the royal Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom, father and son divided the rulership between them, kingship over the dead going to the god Osiris, while Horus inherited kingship over the living from his deceased father:» — en las creencias mortuorias del ámbito real, dice, el poder se reparte entre el padre muerto y el hijo entronizado.

«This mutual dependence that crosses the threshold of death leads to the citation of an aphorism in a spell that accompanies an offering:» — esa dependencia mutua atraviesa el umbral de la muerte y se enuncia en la fórmula que acompaña a la ofrenda.

«The son is akh for his father when he stands up in support of him in this world and maintains contact with him.» — define cuándo el hijo es *akh* para su padre: cuando mantiene el contacto con él.

«An especially impressive and eloquent example of this filial piety that makes it possible to maintain contact with the deceased father and integrate him into the community of the living is a text of Sethos I, which he ordered carved on the stela of a chapel he erected for his father Ramesses I in Abydos.» — el ejemplo que destaca de piedad filial: lo que Sethos I hizo por su padre Ramsés I en Abidos.

«It was he who created my beauty (i.e., appointed me to the royal office), after he made my family great in the hearts (of men).» — según la inscripción de Sethos I que Assmann traduce, fue el padre quien creó su belleza y su prestigio en los corazones.

«He gave me his advice (i.e., instructed me in wisdom) to protect me, his teaching is a rampart in my heart.» — de la misma inscripción: la enseñanza del padre es un baluarte en el corazón del hijo.

«It is good to be active for one who is in the netherworld (dA.t).» — de la misma inscripción: es bueno obrar por quien está en el inframundo.

«The decoration of the chapel, as it is described in this text, constitutes the exact antithesis of the image of death as isolation.» — lee la decoración de la capilla como la antítesis exacta de la imagen de la muerte como aislamiento.

«Not only does the son take on the task of making contact with his father who has passed away, acting for him out of the love and devotion of his heart, his actions are first and foremost aimed at restoring the social constellations of the deceased by reuniting him with his loved ones.» — el hijo no solo asume el papel: restaura las constelaciones sociales reuniendo al difunto con los suyos.

«As the one who is now head of the household, it is the son who is responsible for seeing to it that the deceased and his family remain in contact with one another.» — al hijo, como el que ahora vive, le toca mantener el contacto entre el difunto y su familia.

«The memorial chapel was included in the festival processions of Abydos, so that it would be visited by the gods.» — la capilla memorial se incluía en las procesiones de fiesta para que los dioses la visitaran.

«The deceased father was thus not only united with his family but also integrated into the realm of the gods:» — de ese modo el padre muerto no quedaba aislado sino integrado en el reino de los dioses.

«I cause the majesty of Wennefer to appear, that he may visit his house eternally.» — según la inscripción que Assmann traduce, Sethos I hace que la majestad de Wennefer visite eternamente la casa de su padre.

«I have made it the foremost of the memorial chapels of the kings that have been erected since the time of Re.» — de la misma inscripción: la capilla se declara la primera desde el tiempo de Re.

«To keep a deceased person alive, it was above all important for the son to turn his heart to him.» — la condición que enuncia para mantener vivo a un difunto: que el hijo vuelva su corazón hacia él.

«Pleasing, good, and compassionate is a son who turns his heart to his father.» — según el texto que Assmann traduce, es grato, bueno y compasivo el hijo que vuelve su corazón hacia su padre.

«It is good for you when I am king.» — del mismo pasaje, dirigido al padre muerto: te va bien cuando yo soy rey.

«A good son is he who commemorates his father.» — y la definición que lo cierra: buen hijo es el que conmemora a su padre.

«I am exalted through all that you have done for me, I stand at the forefront of the realm of the dead, I have become divine and have increased perfection since your heart turned to me, while I am in the netherworld, in the company of the gods in the following of the sun god.» — según la inscripción que Assmann traduce, el hijo se declara exaltado por todo lo que el padre hizo por él.

«The father needs the son to “stand up (i.e., intervene) for him.”» — el padre necesita del hijo para que se levante e intervenga por él.

«All this is what is meant when it is said that father and son are akh for one another.» — el sentido que da a la fórmula: padre e hijo son *akh* uno para el otro.

«The riches of the dishonest one cannot last.» — según el texto sapiencial que Assmann traduce, la riqueza del deshonesto no dura.

«He who proceeds unjustly, at the end of his life, there will be no child of his with “bonding of the heart” (tkn-jb).» — quien obra injustamente, dice, acaba sin descendencia ligada por el corazón.

«Only he who can control himself has next of kin, while the unrestrained one (lit., “he whose heart is torn out”) has no heirs.» — solo quien se domina tiene herederos: el descontrolado, el de corazón arrancado, no los tiene.

«The punishment of the greedy one and the deceiver is a social isolation that begins with his own children.» — la sanción del codicioso, dice, es el aislamiento, y empieza por sus propios hijos.

«Belief in the possibility of such an effectiveness is the central tenet of Egyptian religion.» — llama principio central de la religión egipcia la creencia en esa eficacia.

«The basic statement that “one lives if his name is mentioned” defines the state of being alive as a social category.» — lee la fórmula uno vive si se menciona su nombre como definición de la vida en cuanto categoría social.

«In other words, the state of being alive depends on the extent to which a person is recognized by others as being alive: it is a status.» — de ahí su formulación: estar vivo no es un hecho, es un estatus.

«No aspect of the Egyptians’ experience of life was as intensely stamped by death as their ethics.» — sostiene que ningún aspecto de la vida egipcia quedó tan marcado por la muerte como su ética.

«The specifically Egyptian phenomenon was the close, indeed indissoluble relationship between tomb and righteousness.» — lo específicamente egipcio, dice, es la relación entre tumba y rectitud.

«In Egypt, the tomb was the “pre-school” of both ethics and literature.» — llama a la tumba la escuela previa de la ética y de la literatura.

«The point of the father-son constellation was mutual endowing with life.» — lo que está en juego en la constelación padre-hijo es, dice, la dotación mutua de vida.

«True life requires at least two persons.» — la fórmula breve: la vida verdadera requiere al menos dos personas.

«A pupil who was unable to hear was thus incapable of being guided by others, he was like one of the “living dead”:» — según el texto escolar que Assmann traduce, el discípulo incapaz de oír cuenta entre los muertos vivientes.

«Greed is a serious, incurable sickness that cannot be treated.» — según la enseñanza que traduce, la codicia es enfermedad grave e incurable.

«It alienates fathers, mothers, and full brothers; it drives out the wife.» — del mismo pasaje: la codicia enajena a padres, madres y hermanos, y echa fuera a la esposa.

«But that man endures who lives up to maat and who departs (i.e., dies) at his own pace.» — del mismo pasaje: perdura el hombre que vive conforme a lo debido.

«It is he who can thus make a testament, while the greedy one has no tomb.» — del mismo pasaje: ese puede hacer testamento, mientras que el codicioso no tiene tumba.

«The egoist not only had no friends, he had no future.» — el egoísta, dice, no solo no tenía amigos: no tenía futuro.

«There is a maxim that reads, The monument of a man is his virtue, the one with bad character is forgotten.» — según la máxima que Assmann traduce, el monumento del hombre es su virtud, y al de mal carácter se le olvida.

«He will be buried, and he will join the earth; but his name will not be erased» — del mismo texto: será enterrado y se unirá a la tierra, pero su nombre no se borrará.

«The true monument of a person was not a tomb of stone but his righteousness and the love of his fellow man.» — la conclusión que extrae: el monumento verdadero no es la tumba sino la rectitud y el amor al prójimo.

«It was needful to struggle against such a death so as not to be forgotten, not through heroic deeds that exceeded all norms, but through a righteous and virtuous life» — sostiene que contra esa muerte —la del olvido— no se lucha con monumentos sino con una vida recta y virtuosa.

«To the Egyptians, life meant connectivity, integration into the group, so that the individual thought and acted for others, so that they might think and act for him for all time.» — para los egipcios, dice, vivir significaba conectividad, integración en el grupo y reciprocidad.

«Death was to be forgotten, to fall loose from the social net of mutual thought and action.» — la muerte, en ese cuadro, es quedar olvidado y soltarse de la red de pensamiento y acción recíprocos.

«These satires are evidently not entirely serious, though the comic effect of their characterization is not altogether clear to us.» — dicho con su límite: las sátiras de los oficios no son del todo serias, aunque su efecto cómico no nos resulta claro.

«The scribe was the only man who did not dirty himself with his work, the only one whose work did not isolate him; quite the contrary, it intensively integrated him into society, for it was he who communicated orders and exercised control.» — el escriba aparece como el único que comunicaba órdenes y ejercía control.

«We thus maintain that just as the principle of connectivity breathed life into the body, binding the individual limbs into a body, so it breathed life into an individual as a person by integrating him into the constellations of society.» — el paralelo que sostiene: la conectividad da vida al individuo integrándolo en las constelaciones de la sociedad.

«It is easy to see that this concept of the person corresponded perfectly with the structure of a polytheistic religion.» — observa que ese concepto de persona encaja con la estructura de una religión politeísta.

«What they view as the worst evil are the concepts of isolation, loneliness, self-sufficiency, and independence.» — lo que los egipcios tienen por el peor mal, dice, son los conceptos de soledad e independencia.

«Even for godhood, loneliness is an unbearable condition.» — ni para la divinidad, dice, es soportable la soledad.

«Thus, in the Egyptian texts, the world beyond is not a spatially conceived landscape but rather a social sphere that needs to integrate the deceased into itself as a newcomer.» — el más allá aparece en los textos como esfera social que acoge al recién llegado.

«The other gods, however, react with astonishment, fear, and even terror at the appearance of a powerful being whose like they have never seen:» — los demás dioses, en cambio, reaccionan ante algo que nunca han visto.

«In this well-known spell, which is known as the Cannibal Hymn, the king is described as a being who physically incorporates the realm of the gods into himself:» — presenta el hechizo llamado himno caníbal, donde el rey incorpora a los dioses.

«He it is who eats men and lives on the gods, . . . The one he finds on his way he eats piecemeal.» — según el himno caníbal que Assmann traduce, el rey come hombres y vive de los dioses, y los devora por partes.

«This violent form of integration through incorporation occurs only in the Pyramid Texts. But it is important that through the process of “sacramental explanation,” which we shall discuss in chapter 15, the taking of nourishment came to be generally associated with the incorporation of the deceased into the realm of the gods.» — acota el alcance: esa forma violenta de integración por incorporación solo aparece en los Textos de las Pirámides.

«Eating and drinking were social acts that incorporated the recipient of what was given into a community that took meals together, a sort of “round table.”» — comer y beber eran actos sociales que incorporaban al difunto a una suerte de mesa común.

«This relationship was more important than the nourishment itself.» — y lo que subraya de ese acto: la relación importaba más que el alimento.

«We know that the offerings of the deceased came from the temples and altars of the gods, for example, from the altar of Re at Heliopolis, with the result that the deceased thereby entered into a relationship with the gods.» — de las ofrendas del difunto dice que su procedencia establece la relación con los dioses.

«The appearance of the deceased as king and ruler of those in the netherworld is the exact reversal not only of isolation but also of his loss of honor and status as a result of death.» — la aparición del difunto como rey revierte, dice, la pérdida de honor que trae la muerte.

«It is for this reason that praise of the deceased plays so important a role.» — de ahí, dice, el papel tan grande del elogio del difunto.

«the idea of a Judgment of the Dead (see chapter 3), which lent a strongly ethical character to the mortuary beliefs, became the decisive center of Egyptian mortuary religion.» — sitúa la idea del Juicio de los Muertos como centro decisivo de la religión mortuoria egipcia.

«The deceased no longer made his appearance before the inhabitants of the netherworld in the intimidating splendor of his royal insignia but rather in possession of the virtue and righteousness that proved him worthy to join their circle.» — a partir de entonces el difunto no comparece con insignias reales sino con su virtud.

«The Theban ruling house of Dynasty 21 invented a special form of integration into the society of those in the netherworld.» — a la casa reinante tebana de la dinastía 21 le adjudica la invención de una forma especial de integración en la sociedad del inframundo.

«This was the era of the divine state, ruled by Amun through oracular decisions in the form of a direct theocracy.» — llama a ese tiempo la era del Estado divino, gobernado por Amón en forma de teocracia directa.

«The members of the royal family went to their tombs with a document from this god, a decree that concerned their nextworldly destiny and assured them the status to which they aspired.» — los miembros de la familia real obtenían un decreto divino que les garantizaba el estatuto al que aspiraban.

«The narrower circle of the highest gods and goddesses, who constitute the deceased’s family—Re, Geb, Nut, and the goddess of the West (Isis)—receive him with gestures of joyous recognition, embrace him, and lead him to the» — el círculo estrecho de los dioses altos que constituyen la familia del difunto —Re, Geb, Nut y la diosa de Occidente— lo recibe con gestos de reconocimiento gozoso y lo abraza; la frase se corta en el salto de plana y sigue en la 68.

«The genre of divine decrees continued to develop in the Late Period, when they were copied onto a wooden stela and deposited in the tomb to assure the deceased acceptance, recognition, freedom of movement, and provisions.» — el género de los decretos divinos siguió desarrollándose, dice, hasta asegurar aceptación, libertad de movimiento y provisiones.

«In the especially richly decorated tombs of the Late Period (eighth to sixth centuries b.c.e.), it was customary to inscribe the doorposts and thicknesses of the many interior doorways with spells whose most important theme was the integration of the tomb owner into the social sphere of the next world:» — en las tumbas ricamente decoradas del Período Tardío se inscriben hechizos de integración en la esfera social del más allá.

«Not only is acceptance into the society of those in the next world especially important but also participation in the divine festivals of this world, especially the festival of Osiris at Abydos:» — lo que esos hechizos piden no es solo la aceptación entre los dioses sino la participación en la fiesta de Osiris en Abidos.

«One of the most popular mortuary spells of the Late Period depicts the integration of the deceased and his acceptance into the world beyond in the form of an initiation into a temple.» — uno de los hechizos mortuorios más difundidos del Período Tardío describe, dice, algo semejante a una iniciación en un templo.

«The common concept underlying these wishes (to which innumerable others could easily be added) is relief from the isolation into which death has plunged the individual.» — el concepto común a todos esos deseos: aliviar el aislamiento en que la muerte hunde al individuo.

«The image of death as enemy1 finds Osiris confronted by Seth, his murderer.» — la imagen de la muerte como enemigo pone a Osiris frente a Seth, su asesino.

«It is also closely connected with the second image of death, that of social isolation and the activities of the son.» — y la vincula estrechamente con la imagen del aislamiento social y con la acción del hijo.

«But the contending of Osiris with his murderer constitutes a constellation of its own, one that came to acquire an especially central status during the course of the history of Egyptian mortuary religion.» — el litigio de Osiris con su hermano le parece central para la religión mortuoria egipcia.

«The first stage is the finding of and care for the body and the restoration of its physical connectivity by Isis and Nephthys, and the second is the restoration of the person and his social connectivity by Horus.» — las primeras etapas del proceso: hallar el cuerpo, restaurarlo y devolverle Horus su conectividad social.

«The third stage, or better, the culmination of the second, is the legal contending with Seth, the murderer.» — la tercera etapa, dice, es el proceso legal contra Seth.

«The hymn to Osiris on stela Louvre 286 contains the most detailed continuous description of these three stages.» — el himno a Osiris de la estela del Louvre describe, según Assmann, esas tres etapas.

«He emerged garlanded at the command of Geb; he seized the rulership over the Two Banks, the White Crown firm on his head;» — según el himno a Osiris que Assmann traduce, Horus salió coronado por orden de Geb.

«Evil has befallen the troublemaker who committed violence, his judgment has overtaken him.» — del mismo himno: el mal ha caído sobre el perturbador y su juicio lo ha alcanzado.

«The dignitaries have taken their place, reverence is firmly established according to his laws;» — del mismo himno: los dignatarios ocupan su lugar y todo se hace según las leyes.

«With his son’s acquittal and the punishment of Seth, Osiris is once again fully alive.» — con la absolución del hijo y el castigo del culpable, dice, Osiris vuelve a estar plenamente vivo.

«Now it is death, which had torn him limb from limb, isolated him, and robbed him of his dignity, that is conquered.» — lo que queda vencido, dice, es la muerte que lo había despojado de su dignidad.

«But he is not dead: his limbs are reunited into a single body, his person is restored through his integration into the social constellation of the divine realm, and the wrong done to him by death is atoned for by the trial, conviction, and punishment of Seth, the embodiment of the cause of death.» — la fórmula del resultado: Osiris no está muerto.

«In mythic thought, as already noted, there is no such thing as a natural death.» — en el pensamiento mítico, repite, no hay tal cosa como una muerte natural.

«This evil is personified by Seth, who is held accountable.» — ese mal se personifica en Seth, a quien se pide cuentas.

«And so, they initiated a legal proceeding against death, with Seth as the accused and Osiris the complainant.» — y de ahí el proceso legal, con Seth como acusado y Osiris como demandante.

«Thus is death prosecuted. Death, in the person of Seth, is defeated, while the deceased, Osiris, gets his due and is installed as ruler of the netherworld, and his son Horus inherits his throne on earth.» — así se procesa a la muerte: en la persona de Seth queda derrotada, y Osiris pasa a gobernar mientras su hijo hereda el trono terrenal.

«We can thus conclude that this ritual slaughter was the typical conclusion of a mortuary liturgy.» — la conclusión que extrae: la matanza ritual es el cierre típico de una liturgia mortuoria.

«This fact is made clear in the concluding text, in which the ritualist presents himself and explains his cultic acts:» — el texto de cierre, dice, hace explícito ese sentido: el ritualista explica sus actos de culto.

«Atum has slain him (i.e., your enemy Seth) for you in that name of his, “Bull.” Atum has destroyed him for you in that name of his, “Long-horned Bull . . . .”» — según el texto ritual que Assmann traduce, Atum ha matado y destruido al enemigo bajo el nombre de Toro de Largos Cuernos.

«I have brought him to you as a bull with a rope around his neck.» — del mismo ritual: el oferente presenta al enemigo como un toro con una soga al cuello.

«The decisive difference between the second image of death, in which Osiris and Horus form a constellation, while Seth is only the object of Horus’ actions, and the third image of death, in which Osiris is directly confronted by Seth, lies in the fact that here, Osiris is active for the first time.» — la diferencia decisiva respecto de la segunda imagen de la muerte: aquí Osiris obra por primera vez.

«Osiris regains both rulership and life, for in this image of death, these two things are closely related.» — Osiris recupera a la vez el dominio y la vida, que en este cuadro están estrechamente ligados.

«Rulership must always be asserted against opposition.» — la fórmula política que enuncia: el dominio siempre ha de imponerse contra una oposición.

«The power of a ruler is proportionate to, and manifests itself in, his capacity to assert himself against his enemy.» — y su corolario: el poder de un soberano es proporcional a su capacidad de imponerse a su enemigo.

«This point found expression in the triangular relationship between Osiris, death (Seth), and Horus.» — esa relación se expresa, dice, en el triángulo de Osiris, la muerte en la persona de Seth, y Horus.

«On the more general, human level, the point was not continuity of office but the continuity of life itself, the overcoming of death and the vindication of the deceased against the powers responsible for his death, as personified by the figure of the enemy.» — en el plano humano general, lo que está en juego es la continuidad de la vida y la vindicación contra la figura del enemigo.

«The spell bears the title “Becoming a Falcon-Man, Transfiguring a Man in the Realm of the Dead, Giving Him Power over His Enemies,” and it begins with the remark, “A man shall speak while shod with sandals and clothed in red linen and his breastplate.”» — el título del hechizo que cita: Convertirse en hombre-halcón, con su lino rojo y su peto.

«But now I speak from my heart: How transfigured am I, how strong is my son (var., my ba)!» — según el hechizo que Assmann traduce, el difunto habla desde su corazón y se dirige a su hijo, o en otra versión a su *ba*.

«Then the transfigured ones rejoice, and the heart of Osiris is joyful, when he sees me and how I mount up as a falcon, after I walked on my legs when I was among men.» — del mismo hechizo: los transfigurados se alegran y el corazón de Osiris goza al ver al difunto tal como fue entre los hombres.

«There is reason to think that this scene has to do with the vindication of the deceased against a symbolic enemy, and that like Seth in the myth of Osiris, this enemy symbolizes death.» — dicho con su grado —hay razón para pensarlo, no certeza—: el enemigo de esa escena simboliza la muerte.

«Here, though, there is a break with the mythic model of the lawsuit about the succession to the throne, and the same basic concept, the confrontation of the deceased with his enemy as his death, is expressed in quite different terms.» — señala aquí una ruptura con el modelo mítico, que pasa a enunciarse en términos muy distintos.

«Within a few centuries, the idea of a “Judgment of the Dead” evolved from this model of vindication.» — en pocos siglos, dice, la idea del Juicio de los Muertos salió de ese modelo de vindicación.

«The concept of the Judgment of the Dead came to acquire a towering importance among the images of death that influenced the reality of life for the ancient Egyptians.» — y sostiene que el concepto llegó a ser de gran relevancia para los egipcios antiguos.

«Here, it is clear that we are dealing with a court of law before which each person had to appear after death.» — lo que el material le muestra: un tribunal póstumo ante el que todos habían de comparecer.

«He was accountable, before a “knowing” judge, for a lifetime that played before their eyes in a single hour, as though it were a biographical film.» — la escena que describe: el difunto rinde cuentas ante un juez que sabe, y su vida entera desfila como una película biográfica.

«Death as an enemy who had wronged the deceased became personal guilt for which he had to answer before a knowing god.» — el giro que señala: la muerte como enemigo se convierte en culpa personal juzgada ante un dios que sabe.

«recent research into the Coffin Texts has enabled the reconstruction of a cultic context within whose framework the Judgment of the Dead was ritually enacted.» — adjudica a la investigación reciente sobre los Textos de los Sarcófagos la reconstrucción del contexto cultual en que el Juicio se representaba.

«From these texts, it emerges that the ceremony of the Judgment of the Dead occurred at the end of the embalming ritual.» — de esos textos se desprende, dice, que la ceremonia tenía lugar al final del ritual de embalsamamiento.

«These recitations confront us with a concept of the Judgment of the Dead that was still largely based on the old royal model of the mythic lawsuit between Horus and Seth.» — esas recitaciones muestran, dice, que el concepto sigue todavía el viejo modelo del pleito entre Horus y Seth.

«He smote Seth, which meant that he had conquered death.» — golpear a Seth significaba, en ese modelo, haber vencido a la muerte.

«Seth therefore had to be repelled, humiliated, condemned, and punished.» — lo que había que hacerle a Seth: rechazarlo, humillarlo, condenarlo y castigarlo.

«Victory over the enemy had the same meaning as acquittal from the accusation of sin, and therein lay the distinctive common ground of the older and the newer concepts.» — la victoria sobre el enemigo y la absolución tienen el mismo valor, y ahí se enlazan el concepto viejo y el nuevo.

«Through his victory over Seth in the lawsuit over the succession to the throne, and also through his acquittal in the Judgment of the Dead, the deceased, who had suffered the first death, was saved from the second, ultimate death.» — por esa victoria y esa absolución el difunto queda a salvo de la segunda muerte, la definitiva.

«The Coffin Texts give us an unexpected insight into the ritual enactment of the Judgment of the Dead in the form of liturgical recitations.» — los Textos de los Sarcófagos, dice, dan una vista inesperada del Juicio en forma de recitación litúrgica.

«In many respects, the concept of the Judgment of the Dead, as codified in chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead, was the opposite of the original mythic model.» — en muchos aspectos, dice, la versión del Libro de los Muertos se opone al modelo mítico original.

«In chapter 125, the deceased was not the plaintiff but rather the defendant, and he had to vindicate himself before the divine judges, reciting a long list of potential transgressions and testifying that he had not committed them.» — en el capítulo 125 el difunto comparece como acusado y ha de negar las transgresiones.

«With every lie, the pan in which his heart lay would have sunk, and his lying heart would have been swallowed by a monster.» — con cada mentira, dice, el platillo del corazón bajaba y el corazón acababa devorado por un monstruo.

«This monster, though, did not stand for evil, but rather, defense against evil.» — acota lo que ese monstruo representa: no el mal, sino la defensa contra el mal.

«There is no distinction there between poor and rich, what matters is being found without fault.» — en el Juicio, dice, no hay distinción entre rico y pobre.

«Scale and weight stand before the lord of Eternity, no one is free of the need to settle accounts.» — según el texto que traduce, balanza y peso están ante la Eternidad, y todos han de rendir cuentas.

«These words clearly emphasize the inescapable, obligatory character of the Judgment of the Dead.» — lee esas palabras como subrayado del carácter inescapable y obligatorio del Juicio.

«If condemned, the deceased could not become a transfigured spirit; rather, he had to vanish from the created cosmos, and that was the second death.» — el condenado no podía volverse espíritu, y eso era la segunda muerte.

«We often encounter the concept of a second death in the context of funerary customs that entail a secondary burial.» — el concepto de segunda muerte aparece, dice, en costumbres funerarias con entierro secundario.

«If this transformation of the deceased into his eternal form of an ancestral spirit did not succeed, the second, ultimate death transpired.» — si la transformación del difunto fallaba, sobrevenía la segunda muerte, la última.

«The mythic model made it possible to break down the complex experience of death and make it “manageable” through differentiation.» — lo que el modelo mítico permitía: diferenciar la experiencia de la muerte y volverla manejable.

«The condition of lifelessness was explained as a liminal phase of the crisis of “betwixt and between,”13 here and not-here, of earthly life and the life to come.» — la falta de vida se explica en ese modelo como fase liminar entre la vida terrenal y la venidera.

«The life to come was made dependent on moral purity.» — y la vida venidera queda hecha depender de la pureza moral.

«Vindication meant restoration of personal identity and integrity.» — define la vindicación como restauración de la identidad y la integridad personales.

«The emergence of a Judgment of the Dead from the archaic image of death as an enemy was one of the most significant developments in the history of Egyptian religion, and the idea of such a judgment was one of the central religious ideas of» — llama a la emergencia del Juicio de los Muertos desde la imagen arcaica de la muerte como enemigo uno de los desarrollos más significativos de la historia de la religión egipcia; la frase se corta en el límite de chunk.

«If, as we did with the images of death treated earlier, we pose the question of how this image of death as enemy had an effect on life, determining the conduct of the individual, a problem with the mythical model immediately leaps to the eye: it fails to make explicit the moral expectations of the one who judged the dead.» — señala el punto donde el modelo mítico falla: no explicita las expectativas morales del juez de los muertos.

«There was no code of written or unwritten laws to serve as the basis for the verdict in the Judgment of the Dead, laws that persons could follow during life with the hope of satisfying the judge.» — la búsqueda negativa que declara: no había código escrito de leyes con el que satisfacer al juez.

«This problem was solved by the classical, or canonical, form that the Judgment of the Dead assumed in the New Kingdom.» — el problema quedó resuelto, dice, por el formulario clásico del Juicio en el Reino Nuevo.

«In that period, it was entirely clear that the Judgment of the Dead was regarded as general and inescapable.» — en ese período, dice, el Juicio queda claramente entendido como general e ineludible.

«Now, however, the regulations for admission into the other realm were codified.» — y las normas de admisión al otro reino quedan por fin codificadas.

«The deceased now stood before Osiris, who presided over the Judgment of the Dead, and his forty-two fellow judges.» — la escena resultante: el difunto ante Osiris y sus cuarenta y dos jueces.

«I hold this view to be essentially more plausible than the idea that chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead had the sole purpose of “magically outflanking” the Judgment of the Dead.» — dicho en primera persona y como grado de plausibilidad, no como prueba: tiene su lectura del Juicio por esencialmente más plausible que la alternativa.

«I in no way contest the magical character of these texts.» — acota su objeción antes de formularla: no discute en modo alguno el carácter mágico de esos textos.

«I contest only the notion that the Egyptians relied exclusively on magic in these matters.» — lo que sí objeta: la idea de que los egipcios se fiaran exclusivamente de la magia en estas materias.

«It is, in fact, extremely improbable, for it can easily be shown that in comparable circumstances, the Egyptians in no way relied exclusively on magic.» — y el grado con que lo dice: le parece extremadamente improbable.

«Medicine was never replaced by magic but only complemented by it.» — el paralelo con que lo apoya: la magia nunca reemplazó a la medicina, solo la complementó.

«Thus, in my view, everything speaks against the notion that in the case of the Judgment of the Dead, the Egyptians “outflanked” morality through magic, rather than employing it in a complementary fashion in this instance as well.» — en su opinión, dice, todo habla contra la idea de que la magia haya desplazado a la moral también en este caso.

«There is even an Egyptian text, a stela with an autobiographical tomb inscription from the fourteenth century b.c.e., that explicitly states that its author made the “laws” of the Judgment of the Dead the basis of his conduct during life:» — trae una estela egipcia que liga expresamente las leyes del Juicio con la conducta en vida.

«What Baki, the owner of the stela, calls the “laws of the Hall of the Two Truths” are nothing other than the eighty-two transgressions from which persons were obliged to distance themselves in the Judgment of the Dead.» — identifica lo que Baki, dueño de la estela, llama las leyes de la Sala de las Dos Verdades con la lista de transgresiones del Juicio.

«We may thus with some certainty start out from the assumption that» — dicho con reserva expresa —con alguna certeza— parte del supuesto de que el Juicio influía en la conducta terrenal; la frase se corta en el salto de plana y sigue en la 91.

«It is unimportant whether the Judgment of the Dead was conceived on the model of induction into a priesthood, or whether the latter was organized on the model of the concept of the Judgment of the Dead.» — declara irrelevante para su argumento de dónde salió el modelo del Juicio de los Muertos.

«Here, what is important is the connection as such, the influence of an image of death on the world of the living and the association between acceptance into the realm of the dead and acceptance into the priesthood of a temple.» — lo que sí le importa es la conexión con la admisión al sacerdocio de un templo.

«The common denominator of both forms of acceptance is the closeness to the gods that they entail.» — el denominador común de las dos formas de admisión: la cercanía a los dioses que suponen.

«One characteristic of the Judgment of the Dead, at least in the canonical form lent it by chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead, could have no counterpart in the priestly oath: the stress on publicity.» — lo que el juramento sacerdotal no tiene y el Juicio sí: el énfasis en la publicidad.

«The deceased was obliged to make his declaration of innocence before “all the world,” that is, the entire land of Egypt.» — el difunto había de declarar su inocencia ante todo el país de Egipto.

«They stood for the forty-two “nomes,” the districts into which Egypt was divided; we have already encountered their sacral importance for the idea of Egypt as a sacred land in connection with the “embalming glance” with which the Egyptians beheld the world.» — los cuarenta y dos jueces representan los nomos, los distritos con que los egipcios miraban el mundo.

«Egypt’s internal administrative divisions were changed from time to time between the Old Kingdom and the Byzantine Period; but the number forty-two, along with the names of the nomes and the nome capitals, became at some point in time canonical and attained the rank of a sacred ordering.» — la cifra cuarenta y dos, dice, se volvió canónica y alcanzó rango de ordenamiento sagrado aunque la administración cambiara.

«These figures clearly represented the entire land, the widest imaginable public for a confession.» — esas figuras representaban el país entero, el público ante el que se confiesa.

«This point was especially important to the Egyptians in the formation of their concept of a Judgment of the Dead: when the deceased declared his guilt or innocence before all the world, the public nature of this declaration endowed his pronouncement with the sanction of law.» — el carácter público le importaba a los egipcios, dice, porque da a la declaración la sanción de la ley.

«With the formulation of the concept of a postmortem judgment and its canonization in chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead in the second millennium B.C.E., the Egyptians took two momentous steps.» — con la formulación del Juicio póstumo, dice, los egipcios dieron dos pasos de consecuencias.

«They transferred the horizon of the fulfillment of human action and effort to the next world, and they placed the ultimate judgment of earthly conduct not in the hands of the state or posterity but in the hands of the gods.» — el primero: trasladar el horizonte del cumplimiento humano al más allá y ponerlo en manos de los dioses.

«Thus, they took an important step in the direction of a sacralization of ethics, which could no longer remain a matter of human philosophy of life but was now one of divine judgment and thus also divine will.» — el segundo: un paso hacia la sacralización de la ética, que pasa a ser voluntad divina.

«This step made its complete breakthrough only in biblical religion, where God appears not only as judge but also as lawgiver.» — acota el alcance: ese paso solo se cumple del todo en la religión bíblica, donde Dios es juez y legislador.

«But the Egyptian idea of the Judgment of the Dead removed final judgment regarding the success of a human life decisively away from worldly powers and interests and placed the norms of social existence on a transcendental basis.» — lo que sí concede a Egipto: su Juicio aleja la decisión de los poderes terrenales y la pone en base trascendente.

«With this step, there began an evolution in the area of images of death and in that of mortuary rituals, one that quickly affected the entire culture and ultimately radiated out into the world beyond Egypt.» — con ese paso, dice, empieza una evolución que rebasa a Egipto.

«They were in fact removed, not to dispose of them as unclean, but rather to bury them with the deceased in special vessels, the so-called canopic jars.» — precisa el dato: las vísceras se retiraban para enterrarlas en los llamados vasos canopos.

«But eating and drinking, and thus what is called kashrut in the Jewish faith, played no special role, not even in the priestly oath so closely related to this chapter of the Book of the Dead.» — la búsqueda negativa que declara: las reglas alimentarias no tienen papel especial en el Libro de los Muertos.

«Still, this situation could have changed in the later historical periods, when each nome had its own dietary taboos.» — y su acotación: la situación pudo cambiar en períodos posteriores, con tabúes alimentarios propios.

«I would not myself go that far, but the institution of the priestly oath, whose formulation is so astonishingly similar to that of Book of the Dead» — marca su propia cautela: no llegaría tan lejos, aunque tiene la institución del juramento sacerdotal por asombrosamente similar en su formulación a la del Libro de los Muertos; la frase se corta en el límite de chunk.

«The Egyptians were the first to recognize (so it was assumed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, not altogether incorrectly) that a state can only be founded on the basis of an unshakeable belief in the immortality of the soul.» — la tesis que Assmann adscribe a los siglos XVII y XVIII, con el matiz que él mismo le pone dentro del paréntesis: se suponía entonces, y no del todo sin razón, que los egipcios fueron los primeros en ver que un Estado solo puede fundarse en la creencia inquebrantable en la inmortalidad del alma.

«The Egyptian concept of salvation from death through vindication has never ceased to fascinate the human mind.» — el concepto egipcio de salvación de la muerte no ha dejado de fascinar, dice, al espíritu humano.

«If Egypt has succeeded in remaining present in the cultural memory of Europe, it is above all because of its concepts of death and of the ability to overcome death through moral investment.» — adjudica la permanencia de Egipto en la memoria europea a su idea de vencer la muerte por inversión moral.

«The concept of the person played an important role in the three preceding chapters.» — el concepto de persona, dice, es el eje de los tres capítulos anteriores.

«As I use it here, the concept of the person is a modern one, and there is nothing in the ancient Egyptian language that corresponds to it.» — declara el límite de su propio término: tal como lo usa, el concepto de persona no tiene correspondencia en egipcio antiguo.

«I mean by it a collection of individual aspects of a human being for which ancient Egyptian expressions do in fact exist.» — y lo que sí existe: expresiones egipcias para los aspectos que él reúne bajo ese nombre.

«In death, it seems, the person of the deceased emerged in its various aspects or constituent elements, which now took on a life of their own.» — dicho con su grado: en la muerte, al parecer, los aspectos de la persona cobran vida propia.

«Unlike the images of death as dismemberment and isolation, the process of dissociation was not catastrophic and destructive but rather, in a certain sense, desired and necessary.» — a diferencia del desmembramiento, esa disociación no le parece catastrófica sino en cierto sentido deseada y necesaria.

«What was crucial was that when they emerged and went off in different directions, these aspects of the person entered into a new relationship with, and remained connected to, one another.» — lo decisivo, dice, es que los aspectos disociados sigan conectados entre sí.

«The principal goal was to maintain the unity of the person, even under conditions of dissociation, with the connection of the ba and the corpse playing an especially important role in this regard.» — el objetivo principal es mantener esa unidad.

«Here, the concern is with the uniting of the ba and the corpse, and further, with the reintegration of the person, which is composed of no fewer than eight different elements, components, or aspects.» — en el hechizo que analiza se trata de unir elementos, componentes o aspectos distintos.

«First (verses 3–4), we see the constellation of the ba and the ḏ.t-body, which appears here instead of the more usual juxtaposition or combination of ba and XA.t-corpse.» — en los primeros versos aparece la constelación del *ba* y el cadáver.

«In verses 10–11, the concept “heart” is divided into the jb-heart and the ḥA.tj-heart.» — en los versos siguientes el corazón se desdobla en *jb* y *ḥA.tj*.

«Turning away from the heart, the concluding verses 12–15 enumerate, after the fashion of a litany, six aspects/components of the person: ka, ḏ.t-body, ba, XA.t-corpse, shadow, and mummy.» — la enumeración final de los componentes de la persona: *ka*, cuerpo, *ba*, cadáver, sombra y momia.

«In our own understanding of the human being, the decisive distinction is between body and soul, or between mind and body.» — el contraste con nuestro esquema, que distingue cuerpo y alma o mente y cuerpo.

«It is based on the figure of a bird (a heron with a feathered breast) used to indicate the word in the writing system, and which serves in art (in the form of a falcon with a human head) to represent this aspect of the person.» — la figura del ave sobre la que descansa la traducción de *ba*.

«It is also based on the concept of freedom of movement connected with the ba.» — y el concepto de libertad de movimiento ligado al *ba*.

«In the form of a ba, the deceased passed through the realm of death, and from there, into the hall of the Judgment of the Dead, into the house of Osiris, into the Field of Reeds and the Field of Offerings, and into the sun barque.» — en forma de *ba*, dice, el difunto puede subir a la barca solar.

«From an ethnological perspective, the ba belongs to the category of a “free soul” that could separate itself from the body.» — desde la etnología sitúa al *ba* entre las almas libres, capaces de separarse del cuerpo.

«It would seem, then, that in Egyptian thought, ba and body were opposites.» — dicho con reserva: parecería que en el pensamiento egipcio *ba* y cuerpo son opuestos.

«Ba and body constituted a unity that was broken up in death and had to be restored by mortuary rituals under conditions of separation.» — pero sostiene que formaban una unidad que la muerte rompe.

«The goal of the funerary rites was to bring about the separation of ba and corpse, so that they could once again be placed into a relationship with one another.» — la meta de los ritos funerarios, dice, es reordenar la relación entre esos aspectos separados.

«Thus, in an oft-used offering spell, we find the ka, the mummy, the ba, and the corpse all mentioned:» — en un hechizo de ofrenda muy usado aparecen mencionados el *ka*, la momia, el *ba* y el cadáver.

«Your ba endures in the sky, your corpse in the netherworld, your statues in the temples.» — del mismo hechizo: el *ba* permanece en el cielo, el cadáver abajo y las estatuas en los templos.

«Dozens of text passages can be cited in support of this point: Your ba to the sky, your corpse to the netherworld!» — según el hechizo que Assmann traduce y del que dice que hay docenas de paralelos, el *ba* va al cielo y el cadáver al inframundo.

«Your ba is in the sky, your corpse is in the netherworld.» — según otro pasaje traducido: el *ba* está en el cielo y el cadáver en el inframundo.

«May you control your ba, and your flesh and your corpse in Heliopolis.» — según el mismo texto: que el difunto controle su *ba*, su carne y su cadáver en Heliópolis.

«It is thus that we are to understand this wish that the deceased, like the sun god, might cross the sky and come to rest in Heliopolis as a corpse.» — la lectura que da de ese deseo: seguir al dios solar cruzando el cielo y reposar en Heliópolis como cadáver.

«The New Kingdom solar hymns and Books of the Netherworld constantly affirm that the ba of the sun god is in the sky and his corpse in the netherworld, precisely as stated of human beings in the mortuary spells.» — los himnos solares y los libros del Reino Nuevo repiten, dice, lo que enuncian los hechizos mortuorios.

«Clearly, then, the point of the dissociation of the ba and the ẖA.t, and of their assignment to the sky and the netherworld, was to enable the deceased to have a share in the sun god’s form of existence.» — el sentido de la disociación entre el *ba* y el cadáver: compartir la forma de existencia del dios solar.

«During the embalming process, the ba hovered over the corpse, ascending to the sky only at its end, at the time of the Opening of the Mouth and the offering in front of the entrance to the tomb.» — durante el embalsamamiento, dice, el *ba* revolotea sobre el cadáver y ante la entrada de la tumba.

«In a liturgy from the Coffin Texts that refers to the embalming ritual, the ba and the corpse are both said to be still on earth, and it is made clear how both these aspects are a part of the physical sphere of the deceased:» — una liturgia de los Textos de los Sarcófagos sitúa al *ba* y al cadáver en la esfera física del difunto.

«Spell 94 is entitled “Causing the Ba to Depart from the Corpse,”23 a sentiment that runs counter to the fear, frequently expressed in later texts, that the ba might distance itself from the corpse.» — el hechizo 94 se titula, dice, hacer que el *ba* se una al cadáver, contra el temor de que se aleje.

«Osiris has created it out of the discharges of his flesh and the semen of his phallus; it is the “ba in its blood.”» — según el texto que traduce, Osiris creó el *ba* de sus propios fluidos, el *ba* en su sangre.

«This concept shows clearly that the ba belonged to the physical sphere.» — ese concepto muestra, dice, que el *ba* pertenece a la esfera física.

«The ba left the corpse through the head.» — el *ba* abandona el cadáver por la cabeza.

«My neck will not be severed, my name will not be ignored» — según el hechizo que Assmann traduce, el difunto pide que no se le corte el cuello ni se ignore su nombre.

«my ba will spend the night watching over my corpse;» — del mismo hechizo: el *ba* pasará la noche velando el cadáver.

«The heart of your ba, may it remember your corpse, that it may gladden the egg that brought you forth.» — según la recitación que traduce: que el corazón del *ba* recuerde y alegre el huevo del que salió el difunto.

«Your heart comes to you, it is not far from you, your ba remembers you and unites with you.» — del mismo texto: el corazón viene al difunto y se une con él.

«It is often stated that this communication between the ba and the corpse is not to be hindered, with the result that the ba would be locked in or out:» — se dice a menudo, señala, que esa comunicación no debe estorbarse, porque el *ba* quedaría encerrado dentro o fuera.

«The concept of the ba spending the night upon the corpse now became one of the central leitmotifs of mortuary belief.» — la idea del *ba* pasando la noche sobre el cadáver se volvió, dice, uno de los leitmotivs centrales de la creencia mortuoria.

«picture of the world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and which arose from insights into ancient Egyptian concepts of death and immortality that modern Egyptology can only confirm.» — continuación en la plana 98 de la frase cortada en el límite de chunk: las preguntas que sacudieron la imagen cristiana del mundo en los siglos XVII y XVIII salían de intuiciones sobre los conceptos egipcios de muerte e inmortalidad que la egiptología moderna solo puede suscribir.

«The ka had nothing to do with the corpse; it was not part of the “physical sphere” of the individual.» — el *ka*, dice, no tiene relación con el cadáver ni pertenece a la esfera física del individuo.

«Freedom of movement,” an essential element of the ba concept, played no role with regard to the ka.» — la libertad de movimiento, esencial al *ba*, no desempeña papel alguno en el *ka*.

«It was the ba that could move freely between this realm and the next and, thanks to its knowledge, led the deceased out of the realm of death to Osiris and Elysium.» — es el *ba* el que se mueve libremente entre los reinos y lleva al difunto a Osiris y al Elíseo.

«The ka, however, was the vehicle of the vindication that restored the individual’s status as a social person, which had been destroyed by death.» — el *ka*, en cambio, es el vehículo que restaura el estatus social destruido por la muerte.

«From the point of view of comparative religion, the ba obviously fell into the category of a “free soul,” for freedom of movement was its prime characteristic.» — desde la religión comparada clasifica al *ba* como alma libre, con la libertad de movimiento por rasgo principal.

«It was said that the deceased “went to his ka.”» — la fórmula que registra: del difunto se decía que iba a su *ka*.

«Given these circumstances, it is not to be expected that we can arrive at an accurate definition of the ka concept that would satisfy all its occurrences in the texts.» — declara el límite de lo que puede darse: no cabe esperar una definición exacta del *ka* que valga para todas sus apariciones.

«The ka, for its part, did not form a pair with the body but with the “self” of a person.» — el *ka* no hace pareja con el cuerpo sino con el yo de la persona.

«In the Coffin Texts, this spell has only a single, rather badly preserved variant, in which it is stated that the deceased goes, not “with” but “to” his ka.» — en los Textos de los Sarcófagos, precisa, el hechizo dice ir a su *ka* y no con su *ka*.

«In the Hebrew Bible, this expression refers to a real situation: interment in a family tomb.» — la comparación que trae: en la Biblia hebrea la expresión equivalente designa el entierro en la tumba familiar.

«In ancient Egypt, the formula “going to one’s ka” also referred to the individual’s joining his forebears.» — en Egipto la fórmula ir al propio *ka* designa, dice, la reunión del individuo con sus antepasados.

«This meaning is made clear in tomb inscriptions of the Old Kingdom:» — ese sentido, dice, se aclara en las inscripciones de tumba del Reino Antiguo.

«His ka shall be far from him.» — según la maldición que Assmann traduce, el *ka* estará lejos del malhechor.

«You will unite with your ka of your earthly existence.» — según el texto que traduce, el difunto se unirá con su *ka* de la existencia terrenal.

«The ka of the deceased is equated with lifetime, just like “the heart of my existence on earth,” thus assuring an equation of the heart with the ka.» — en el texto que analiza, el *ka* del difunto queda equiparado con su tiempo de vida y con el corazón.

«Notwithstanding the association of the root kA with the word “bull,” the ka does not designate physical strength but rather the moral personality, the “normative” doppelgänger, a sort of superego connected with social categories of honor, dignity, and status, just as the heart is connected with the categories of virtue and righteousness.» — pese a la raíz que lo liga al toro, el *ka* representa, dice, la personalidad moral y no la fuerza física.

«it is not a matter of upraised but rather of horizontally outstretched arms.» — la precisión sobre el signo del *ka*: no son brazos alzados sino brazos extendidos en horizontal.

«Life is integration, community, and interaction, while death is decay, dissolution, and isolation.» — la fórmula que repite: la vida es integración, comunidad e interacción; la muerte, descomposición, disolución y aislamiento.

«the Egyptians held it as possible that there could be integration and association after death.» — lo que los egipcios tenían por posible: integración y asociación después de la muerte.

«It was necessary not only to maintain these elements as such and thus preserve the corpse from decay and the ba from destruction but also to construct a network of relationships that created specific connections between the “I” and the ka, the “I” and the heart, the ba and the corpse, and the ba and the shadow.» — no bastaba mantener los componentes: había que tejer entre ellos una red de relaciones.

«But to make this happen, these various aspects had to be placed into a relationship with one another so that they could remain connected to the “I” as an organizing personal center.» — y el motivo: solo así el yo sigue siendo centro personal organizador.

«In the mummification ritual, the heart was the only internal organ that was not removed.» — en la momificación, dice, el corazón era el único órgano interno que no se extraía.

«All depended on the heart’s not deviating from the mouth, and thus from the speaking “I.”» — todo dependía, dice, de que el corazón no se apartara del yo que habla.

«Thus, with regard to the heart, death is also pictured as dissociation, and salvation from the latter is represented as reintegration.» — en el caso del corazón, la muerte se representa como disociación y la salvación como reintegración.

«The Egyptians considered a dissociation between self and heart while still alive to be a life-threatening symptom.» — ya en vida, dice, la disociación entre el yo y el corazón se tenía por síntoma que amenaza la vida.

«One love song, for instance, describes lovesickness as an absence of the heart.» — una canción de amor describe el mal de amores, según Assmann, como ausencia del corazón.

«For the Egyptians, lovesickness, homesickness, worry, and fear were physical conditions that seemed like the grip of death, for to them, death was the ultimate dissociation of the heart and the self.» — para los egipcios, dice, el mal de amores, la nostalgia y la inquietud son la disociación última del corazón y el yo.

«The image of death as sleep is a familiar one in Western tradition. Hypnos and Thanatos, Sleep and Death, were twin brothers in Greek mythology. But while this image represents a blessed ultimate condition in the Western mythology of death, in Egypt, it was an image—like those of dismemberment, isolation, and dissociation—of a helplessness that had to be reversed through ritual.» — la imagen de la muerte como sueño exige, en Egipto, un rito que la revierta.

«Sleep was not a goal, but a starting point.» — el sueño, dice, no era meta sino punto de partida.

«The primary experience of death included the idea that in death, the body became not only a corpse but also an “image” of the deceased.» — la experiencia primaria de la muerte incluye, dice, que el cuerpo se vuelva cadáver y también imagen del difunto.

«Death itself always already appears as an image, for even the corpse has already become an image that merely resembles the body of the living person.» — la muerte misma aparece siempre ya como imagen que se parece al vivo.

«It is no longer a body, but only an image of a body.» — el cadáver deja de ser cuerpo y queda como imagen de un cuerpo.

«The true meaning of an image lies in the fact that it represents something that is absent and thus can only exist in the image.» — define el sentido de la imagen: representa algo ausente que solo puede existir en ella.

«Under these circumstances, the image of a deceased person is not an anomaly, but the original meaning of what an image is.» — de ahí que la imagen del muerto le parezca el sentido original de lo que una imagen es.

«Dead, a person is always already absent, death is an unbearable absence that is quickly filled with an image so as to make it bearable.» — muerto, el hombre está siempre ya ausente, y la imagen hace soportable esa ausencia.

«There was thus a concern to preserve the appearance of the corpse as image of the deceased, for instance, by covering it with a coat of plaster so as permanently to preserve the features.» — de ahí el empeño en conservar la apariencia del cadáver, con yeso para preservar los rasgos.

«The early stages of mummification did not yet aim at the chemical preservation of the corpse but rather, and above all, at the preservation of the external form by means of padding and wrapping, makeup, and paint.» — las primeras etapas de la momificación no buscaban conservar el cuerpo sino la forma exterior, con vendas, maquillaje y pintura.

«In the matter of “treating” the dead, art played as great a role as language.» — en el tratamiento del muerto, dice, el arte cumple un papel tan grande como el lenguaje.

«One principle reigned supreme: a depiction was not a depiction of a body, it was itself a body.» — el principio que rige ese arte: la representación no representaba un cuerpo, era un cuerpo.

«Words for “corpse” (mummy, body) and “representation” (statue, picture, form, etc.) were determined by one and the same hieroglyph in the Egyptian writing system.» — lo apoya en la escritura: las palabras para cadáver y para representación comparten determinativo.

«To be upright was synonymous with life and renewal.» — estar erguido, dice, era sinónimo de vida y renovación.

«In this period, the statue was thus part of the “hidden functioning” of the tomb (see chapter 8), just like the corpse in its coffin.» — la estatua formaba parte del funcionamiento oculto del sepulcro, como el cadáver en su ataúd.

«It was only at the very end of the Old Kingdom that the statue began to leave the “personal sphere” of the serdab and to be set up in the cult chamber, where it was visible.» — solo al final del período, dice, la estatua sale del serdab a la cámara de culto, donde queda visible.

«The mummy mask was thus no “mask” in the sense of dissimulation, of hiding a true identity; rather, it was the “head of a god,” a head that enabled the deceased to see and act as a god.» — la máscara de momia no es máscara en el sentido de disimulo: es, dice, la cabeza de un dios.

«The mask is called “lord of vision,” and it is stated, “he sees by means of you.”» — según el texto que Assmann traduce, la máscara se llama señor de la visión y el difunto ve por medio de ella.

«The apotropaic aspect of the mask is also stressed: it repels enemies for him.» — el aspecto apotropaico de la máscara, que aparta a los enemigos.

«The designation of the mask as “head,” and not “face,” is entirely justified.» — tiene por enteramente justificado que la máscara se llame cabeza y no cara.

«For this reason, the Opening of the Mouth ritual was carried out on both the statue and the mummy of the deceased.» — el ritual de la Apertura de la Boca se hacía, dice, tanto sobre la estatua como sobre la momia.

«Though it doubtless originated in the preparation of statues, for mummification and its accompanying rituals developed at a later date, by the time that our written and pictorial evidence for it were created, the ritual had long since been applied to mummies as well.» — y su reserva sobre el orden: el rito nació sin duda con las estatuas y después se aplicó también a las momias.

«In any case, unlike Mesopotamia, where there was a like-named ritual, the Opening of the Mouth ritual originated in the mortuary cult.» — el contraste con Mesopotamia: en Egipto el rito nace en el culto mortuorio.

«These mysteries centered on a statue, not a corpse, but this distinction played no role and was ritually rescinded.» — en esos misterios la distinción entre estatua y cadáver queda ritualmente anulada.

«To a great extent, and all the more so in the later stages of Egyptian history, the divine cult was a mortuary cult, not because the Egyptians believed their gods were dead (and that their dead were gods), but because there was no distinction between corpse and statue.» — de ahí que el culto divino sea también culto mortuorio: no hay distinción entre cadáver y estatua.

«Because of the equivalence of image and body, sacred animals also counted as images or bodies of gods.» — por la equivalencia entre imagen y cuerpo, dice, los animales sagrados cuentan como imágenes o cuerpos de dioses.

«The gods were powers whose identity or life force could occupy a host of physical receptacles, both statues and, in certain cases, animals.» — define a los dioses como potencias capaces de ocupar receptáculos físicos, estatuas y en ciertos casos animales.

«This power to be incarnated in representations and in theriomorphic “transformations” was also ascribed to the dead in their status of transfigured ancestral spirits.» — ese poder de encarnarse en representaciones se atribuye también a los muertos con estatuto de espíritus ancestrales transfigurados.

«For the dead, the statue was the medium of physical self-multiplication.» — para el muerto la estatua es, dice, el medio de la automultiplicación física.

«During life, the individual’s presence in his body stood in the way of such self-multiplication; in death, his absence dissolved this barrier, and the single body, which itself had become a statue through the mummification process, could now be multiplied into a host of statues that served as bodies.» — la explicación del contraste: en vida la presencia está ligada al cuerpo; en la muerte, la ausencia permite multiplicarse en estatuas.

«In this connection, we must also consider the well-known figurines called “shabty” or “ushabty.”» — introduce en ese contexto las figurillas llamadas *shabty* o *ushabty*.

«They were placed in a small wooden chest.» — dónde se colocaban: en un cofrecillo de madera.

«Shabty s are thus not to be understood as a means of avoiding obligatory labor, but rather, as a means of enabling the deceased to participate in this labor.» — objeta la lectura corriente: las *shabty* no eximen del trabajo obligatorio, habilitan para participar en él.

«If it had been desired to avoid such duty, there would have been appropriate spells:» — el argumento con que lo sostiene: si se hubiera querido esquivar ese deber, habría hechizos para ello.

«I know of no such spells.» — y la búsqueda negativa que declara en primera persona: no conoce ninguno.

«The spell became chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead,79 and it also appears in the mortuary liturgy of Pa-aa,80 which means it was recited in the mortuary cult:» — el hechizo pasó a ser el capítulo 6 del Libro de los Muertos y se recitaba en el culto mortuorio.

«That such shabty-figures could serve other forms of sharing and participation emerges from an archaeological find, a burial “in effigy” that the overseer of domains Qenamun, who had shared a wet nurse with King Amenophis II and also been his companion at arms, had arranged for himself by special favor of the king in the most sacred part of Abydos, so as to be buried in the immediate vicinity of the tomb of Osiris and the entrance to the netherworld.» — los hallazgos muestran, dice, que las *shabty* servían también para acercarse al sepulcro de Osiris y a la entrada del inframundo.

«From here, it is but a small step to the medieval Jewish concept of the golem, the artificial clay man who could be brought to life by means of letters written on his forehead and the recitation of secret spells, and whom its creator could send in his place on various missions.» — el paralelo que traza: de ahí es un paso corto al golem de la tradición judía medieval.

«But there is the possibility that another can go to the netherworld in his stead.» — según el relato que Assmann recoge, cabe que otro baje al inframundo en lugar del rey.

«Only one person, General Merire, an extremely wise, virtuous, and learned man, is capable of doing this.» — en ese relato solo el general Merire es capaz de hacerlo.

«He receives a promise from the king to care for his widow and his son, and he goes in his place to the realm of the dead.» — Merire recibe una promesa del rey y parte al reino de los muertos.

«There, he immediately learns that the king has most thoughtlessly broken all his promises.» — y allí se entera de que el rey ha roto todas sus promesas.

«But he forms a man of dirt, whom he is able to send in his place, with appropriate instructions, to the world above.» — entonces forma un hombre de barro y lo manda con instrucciones al mundo de arriba.

«The “organic” unity in which the various constituent elements were integrated with one another during life could not be restored by the mortuary rituals, nor was this attempted.» — la búsqueda negativa sobre los ritos: no restauraron la unidad orgánica de los componentes, ni lo intentaron.

«The shadow belonged with the ba, but it did not follow it to the sky.» — la sombra pertenece al *ba*, dice, pero no lo sigue al cielo.

«What the Egyptian aimed for was a life in and with all these aspects of his person, which he now no longer “embodied” but rather combined.» — lo que el egipcio buscaba: una vida ya no encarnada sino combinada.

«In this respect, the tomb was the “house of the ka”: first and foremost, it was at the service of the social self of the deceased, preventing his isolation by integrating him into both the sphere of those who owned tombs and the sphere of those yet to be born.» — la tumba como casa del *ka*, que impide el aislamiento del difunto respecto de los que aún han de nacer.

«Amarna Period, however, this taboo was lifted, and the texts sound an entirely new note expressive of pain and sadness.» — en el Período de Amarna, dice, se levantó el tabú y los textos adoptan un tono de dolor y tristeza.

«Thus, from the reign of Aya (ca. 1320 B.C.E.), we have the tomb of a man named Neferhotep (Theban Tomb 49).» — data el testimonio: desde el reinado de Aya, en la tumba tebana 49 de Neferhotep.

«The good shepherd is gone to the land of eternity . . .6» — según el canto de arpista que Assmann traduce, el buen pastor se ha ido a la tierra de la eternidad.

«The glib one, silence has befallen him.» — del mismo canto: al de lengua suelta le ha caído el silencio.

«There is no door, no window in it, no light to brighten, no north wind to refresh the heart.» — del mismo canto: no hay puerta ni ventana allí para refrescar el corazón.

«The sun does not rise there.» — del mismo canto: allí no sale el sol.

«The one with the booming voice is silent, he does not speak.» — del mismo canto: el de voz atronadora calla.

«He rests in his lonely place, and eternity is with him in darkness.» — del mismo canto: el difunto reposa en su lugar solitario y la eternidad está con él en tinieblas.

«Horus does not mourn: his words describe the restoration of honor, the punishment of the enemy, the elevation and enthronement of Osiris, but never longing, love, or grief.» — observa que Horus no hace duelo: sus palabras describen actos, nunca anhelo, amor ni pena.

«Mourning occurs in the intimate space of the physical constellation of spouses, not in the social space of honor, sovereignty, and vindication, for which the son is responsible.» — el duelo pertenece al espacio íntimo, distinto del ámbito de que el hijo responde.

«Even a deceased woman played the role of Osiris, and in the rituals, Isis, Nephthys, and Horus acted on her behalf, as well.» — también una difunta asumía el papel de Osiris, dice, y Horus obraba por ella.

«Only the two women, the two “mourning birds,” as they were called, had the power to wake the dead in this way.» — solo las dos mujeres, las dos aves plañideras, tenían el poder de despertar así a los muertos.

«Isis’ feminine grief did not infringe upon the order of things, but rather, restored it.» — el duelo femenino de Isis, en cambio, no infringe el orden: lo restaura.

«Her love did not fetch Osiris back from the netherworld, but it made it possible for him to come back to life there.» — y su límite: el amor de Isis no trae a Osiris de vuelta, le permite volver a la vida allí.

«Before me is darkness, though Re is in the sky.» — según la lamentación que Assmann traduce: ante mí hay tinieblas aunque Re esté en el cielo.

«My heart burns, for you depart into evil, my heart burns, for you turn away from me, though there is nothing that you have found against me.» — de la misma lamentación: arde el corazón porque el otro parte sin que se le haya hallado falta.

«For the widow robbed of this sight, darkness reigns, though the sun is in the sky.» — la glosa que da: para la viuda privada de esa vista hay tinieblas aunque el sol esté en el cielo.

«We call, but the Land of Silence, its gateways lead into a house of darkness.» — según el texto que traduce: llamamos, pero las puertas de la Tierra del Silencio llevan a una casa de oscuridad.

«Not only are personal need and grief, darkness, and deprivation themes of these laments but also empathetic depictions of the situation that has befallen the deceased.» — en esos textos aparecen, dice, no solo la pena personal sino descripciones empáticas de lo que le ha ocurrido al difunto.

«It was not their formulation, but the fact that they were recorded in the monumental form of tomb inscriptions, that was new in the postAmarna era.» — lo nuevo tras Amarna no es la formulación sino el hecho de inscribirlas; el troceo une el guion de fin de renglón y devuelve postAmarna donde la fuente imprime post-Amarna.

«It is surely no accident that at the same point in time, another innovation in the canon of tomb decoration made its appearance, one that also represented the afterlife as a realm of death and not a paradise.» — dicho con su grado: no le parece casual que en ese momento el más allá se represente como muerte y no como paraíso.

«These motifs are surely far older than the Amarna Period, when they are first mentioned in tomb inscriptions.» — acota la cronología: los motivos son sin duda mucho más viejos que el momento en que se inscriben por primera vez.

«But “Welcome, safe and sound!” is said to the one who has reached the West.» — según la fórmula que traduce, al que llega al Occidente se le dice bienvenido, sano y salvo.

«This song appears in the tomb of a Paatenemheb from the Amarna Period,21 as well as on a papyrus containing love songs,22 another genre of songs sung at banquets, and it in fact expresses itself bluntly regarding the transitoriness of earthly life and the inevitability of death:» — sitúa el canto en una tumba y lo lee como expresión de la inevitabilidad de la muerte.

«He is happy, this good prince! Death is a kindly fate.» — según el canto que traduce: feliz es este buen príncipe, la muerte es destino benévolo.

«I have heard the words of Imhotep and Hardedef, Whose sayings are recited whole.» — del mismo canto: he oído las palabras de Imhotep y de Hardedef, cuyos dichos se recitan enteros.

«In this respect, the myth of Isis and Osiris is the exact reversal of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The manly grief of Orpheus could master Orcus, the god of» — llama al mito de Isis y Osiris la inversión exacta del de Orfeo y Eurídice: el duelo viril de Orfeo pudo dominar al Orco; la frase se corta en el límite de chunk y sigue en la plana 129.

«death, but it could not reach Eurydice herself and call her back to life, or help her in the netherworld.» — continuación de esa frase: el duelo de Orfeo no alcanza a Eurídice ni la ayuda en el inframundo.

«Crossing the boundary of death, Orpheus’ masculine grief constituted the enormous exception that overturned the established order of things.» — el duelo masculino de Orfeo, al cruzar el límite de la muerte, constituye la excepción enorme que trastorna el orden establecido.

«It thus seems legitimate to me to reconstruct the» — declara en primera persona que le parece legítimo reconstruir el simbolismo egipcio con ayuda de conceptos cristianos; la frase se corta en el salto de plana y sigue en la 130.

«Lo, none is allowed to take his goods with him, Lo, none who departs comes back again!» — según el canto que Assmann traduce: a nadie se le deja llevarse sus bienes y ninguno que parte vuelve.

«The image of death as separation, termination, and reversal could not have been expressed more bluntly, for Egyptian ears, than in the words of the ba» — la imagen de la muerte como separación y término no se dice en ninguna parte con más crudeza, señala, que en las palabras del *ba*.

«They conceived a terror of the realm of the dead that was every bit as unqualified as that of the other peoples of the Mediterranean world—Sumerians, Babylonians, Israelites, Greeks, and Romans.» — el terror egipcio al reino de los muertos le parece comparable al de israelitas, griegos y romanos.

«Siduri’s wise advice to enjoy life, in consideration of its finality and its irretrievability, is discernible in some inscriptions on statues that were set up in temples during Dynasty 22.» — el consejo de Siduri reaparece, dice, en inscripciones de templo de la dinastía 22.

«The Egyptians did not repress this question; rather, they allowed it to be expressed,» — lo que subraya: los egipcios no reprimieron esa duda, dejaron que se expresara.

«The Egyptian realm of the dead was essentially none other than a land of no return, a Sheol or a Hades.» — define el reino egipcio de los muertos como un Sheol o un Hades en lo esencial.

«The counterimage of a paradise in no way covered over the dreadful image of a Sheol.» — y su límite: la contraimagen del paraíso no tapó en absoluto la imagen terrible del Sheol.

«To see a moment of sunlight is worth more than eternity as ruler of the realm» — según el aforismo que traduce, ver un instante de luz solar vale más que la eternidad como señor del reino de los muertos.

«I would rather be the most common slave in the fields for some landless peasant than rule these lifeless dead as their king.» — según el lamento de Aquiles que Assmann trae a comparación, preferiría ser el más común de los vivos antes que rey de los muertos.

«The Egyptian aphorism in fact amounts to a similar pronouncement.» — y su juicio: el aforismo egipcio viene a decir algo semejante.

«To be sure, the opposition is not that between “slaves” and “ruler,” but rather between “moment” and “eternity”: better a moment here than an eternity there.» — acota la comparación: la oposición no es exactamente la misma.

«Such an opposition seems to be a crass contradiction of the official Egyptian view: in the widow’s lament, sentiments are expressed that could be classified as “heretical.”» — dicho con su grado: tal oposición parece contradecir la visión oficial y podría clasificarse de herética.

«But in Egypt, there was no orthodoxy.» — y la objeción con que lo desactiva: en Egipto no había ortodoxia.

«The aphorism had its reality in the mouth of the wife, who wished to live here on earth in the company of her husband, and this intimacy, however brief it might have been, took priority over all the promises of the mortuary religion.» — sitúa la realidad del aforismo en la intimidad conyugal, por delante de las promesas de la religión mortuoria.

«For I knew that darkness reigns in the valley (of the dead).» — según la estela que traduce: yo sabía que las tinieblas reinan en el valle de los muertos.

«The one who follows his heart is thus not foolish.» — del mismo texto: no es necio el que sigue a su corazón.

«The West commands: Give reward to the one who follows his heart.» — del mismo texto: el Occidente manda recompensar al que sigue a su corazón.

«The heart is a god, the belly is his chapel, he rejoices when the limbs are in festival.» — del mismo texto: el corazón es un dios y los miembros están de fiesta.

«I do not know the place where I am since I came to this valley.» — según la misma estela: no conozco el lugar desde que llegué a este valle.

«No one sees him among gods and men.» — según el texto sobre la muerte que traduce: nadie lo ve entre dioses ni hombres.

«No one staves off his curse from the one he chooses.» — del mismo texto: nadie aparta su maldición del que él elige.

«He steals the son from his mother, rather than the old man who is drawing nigh to him.» — del mismo texto: roba el hijo a su madre en lugar del viejo que se le acerca.

«All the fearful plead before him, but he turns not his face to them;» — del mismo texto: todos los temerosos suplican ante él y no les vuelve el rostro.

«He is not seen, so no gift can be given to him.» — del mismo texto: no se le ve, y por eso no se le puede dar don alguno.

«In any event, it is indicated that even here, the libation and the prayer of the bereaved can have some good effect.» — dicho con reserva: se indica que libaciones y plegarias pueden tener algún buen efecto.

«These texts, however, conceive of “that day ‘Come!’” differently from the stela of Taimhotep.» — distingue el modo en que esos textos conciben el día del llamado, frente a la estela de Taimhotep.

«But the concept of the Judgment of the Dead harbors the promise of redemption.» — lo que el concepto del Juicio contiene, dice, es la promesa de redención.

«It is now clear that this is a matter of salvation from a fate of death that awaited everyone, and which even the Egyptians took note of with perfect clarity.» — y su juicio: los egipcios advirtieron el asunto con perfecta claridad.

«however, this fate did not remain the final word that religion in Egypt had to say about death.» — ese destino no fue la última palabra de la religión egipcia sobre la muerte.

«With regard to this capacity to think both of death as inescapable and of the Judgment of the Dead as a path to salvation, toward which Egyptian thought was developing in the course of the New Kingdom, we may cite one of the most splendid hymns to the god Osiris that is preserved to us.» — trae un himno a Osiris conservado como ejemplo de esa capacidad de pensar las dos cosas a la vez.

«Here, for once, the god is not praised in the splendor of his mythological epithets but as the god of death:» — en ese himno, dice, el dios no se alaba como de costumbre sino como dios de la muerte.

«They come in millions and millions, in the end, there is the landing in your presence.» — según el himno a Osiris que traduce: llegan por millones y arriban a su presencia.

«All the world comes to you alike, you are their lord, there is none other than you.» — del mismo himno: el mundo entero acude a ti, no hay otro fuera de ti.

«Here, however, it is not a bereaved widow who speaks to her deceased husband, but rather, a deceased woman to her bereaved husband. The text occurs on a mortuary stela and stems from the first century B.C.E.:» — precisa quién habla en ese texto: no una viuda que habla a su marido muerto, sino una difunta a su marido viudo, en una estela mortuoria del siglo I a.C.

«You sit (in judgment), maat before you, and judge the hearts on the scale.» — del mismo texto: el dios se sienta a juzgar con *maat* ante sí y pesa los corazones en la balanza.

«I have done nothing that you abhor— may your ka therefore love me and not reject me.» — del mismo texto: nada he hecho que aborrezcas, ámame y no me rechaces.

«His ba ascends, after he is dead, and it descends, after he passes away:» — el *ba* asciende después de la muerte, según el texto que traduce.

«All that has lived is dead there, has dwindled away when all the worms have done their work.» — del mismo texto: todo lo que vivió está allí muerto y los gusanos han hecho su obra.

«I am Khepri, and my limbs continue forever.» — del mismo texto: soy Khepri y mis miembros duran por siempre.

«I do not decay, I do not swell up, I do not decompose and turn into worms.» — del mismo texto: no me pudro ni me hincho ni me vuelvo gusanos.

«This depiction of salvation from death alludes to the process of embalming, of preserving the corpse from decomposition and decay, which turns it into the imperishable body of Khepri, the morning sun.» — la lectura que da: esa salvación alude al paso al cuerpo imperecedero de Khepri, el sol de la mañana.

«The deceased owes his redemption from death to the grace of the god, who recognizes him as a peer and receives him into his kingdom.» — y a qué la atribuye: a la gracia del dios que recibe al difunto en su reino.

«The realm of death was “another land, which men do not know.”» — según la fórmula que traduce, el reino de la muerte es otra tierra que los hombres no conocen.

«From these texts, it clearly emerges that the deceased first arrives in a realm of death that is anything but a paradise but also not a hell, a place of punishment where sinners are annihilated, but simply a place where the dead are dead.» — lo que deduce de esos textos: el reino de los muertos no es paraíso ni infierno, sino sencillamente el lugar donde los muertos están muertos.

«The dead walked upside down, they ate excrement and drank urine.» — la condición invertida de los muertos en esos textos: andan cabeza abajo, comen excremento y beben orina.

«The gods of the realm of the dead subject the newcomer to an interrogation.» — los dioses del inframundo someten al recién llegado a un interrogatorio.

«The gods inform the deceased that the bread and beer on which he desires to live are perishable.» — y le hacen saber que el pan y la cerveza con que quiere vivir son perecederos.

«The tree goddess is a personification of the nourishment on which the transfigured ancestral spirits live in the afterlife.» — define a la diosa del árbol como personificación del sustento en el más allá.

«The netherworld is a space of death, as these texts make clear.» — el inframundo es, según esos textos, un espacio de muerte.

«He beholds, the one who beholds in the vicinity of the city — you behold in the vicinity of that city of which it is true that no one who beholds it lands (=dies), but everyone who has come to it has become a god.» — según el texto que traduce: el que contempla la ciudad se ha vuelto dios.

«I have come to you, knowing your will» — según la estela que Assmann traduce, el difunto llega ante el dios diciendo que conoce su voluntad; la frase se corta en el límite de chunk y sigue en la plana 141 con la mención de su papel en el inframundo.

«You walk on your legs, not going upside down, not eating what you abominate.» — según el hechizo que Assmann traduce, el difunto camina sobre sus piernas y no come lo que aborrece.

«The food that is given you is the food of Re, and water is given you from the lord of the Inundation.» — del mismo hechizo: el alimento viene de Re y el agua del señor de la Inundación.

«This body of water that the deceased must cross in order to attain eternal life separates the two aspects of the netherworld as a place of death and a place of life.» — lee la masa de agua como límite entre un lugar de muerte y un lugar de vida.

«turned into a matter of spaces, while the idea of the Judgment of the Dead turns it into a matter of ethics and law.» — el contraste que traza: la visión espacial del juicio frente a su dimensión ética y jurídica.

«In the conceptual horizon of the Judgment of the Dead, the deceased was obliged to distance himself from his guilt so as not to fall victim to the Devouress.» — en el horizonte del Juicio, dice, el difunto ha de distanciarse de su culpa para no caer en manos de la Devoradora.

«Here, mortal danger threatened him from the guardians and “policemen” in the netherworld, whom Osiris had bidden to ward off evil.» — el peligro mortal viene de los guardianes a quienes Osiris encargó apartar el mal.

«He escapes this danger, for he is able to name all the individual elements of this net in a mysterious spirit language, which proves him to be an initiated member of the divine realm, a transfigured ancestral spirit:» — escapa nombrando las partes de la red, prueba de que es espíritu ancestral transfigurado.

«I know the name of the peg in it (i.e., the net): it is the middle finger of Sokar.» — según el hechizo de la red que Assmann traduce, la clavija es el dedo medio de Sokar.

«I know the tension-peg in it: It is the leg of Shesemu.» — del mismo hechizo: la clavija de tensión es la pierna de Shesemu.

«I know the strut in it: it is the hand of Isis.» — del mismo hechizo: el puntal es la mano de Isis.

«I know the name of the blade in it: it is the butcher’s knife of Isis, with which she cut the intestines of Horus.» — del mismo hechizo: la hoja es el cuchillo con que Isis cortó las entrañas de Horus.

«In order to use this ferry, the deceased must wake the ferryman, who proves to be quite unwilling and again subjects the deceased to a lengthy interrogation.» — el barquero, reacio, somete al difunto a un interrogatorio largo.

«It is Horus who has made it.» — del mismo interrogatorio: es Horus quien lo ha hecho.

«The principle is overall the same: a list of this-worldly things on one side, and a list of other-worldly things, persons, and events on the other side.» — el principio que extrae de esos interrogatorios: cada cosa terrenal corresponde a algo del otro lado.

«Knowledge is redemption from death, and it points the way to eternal life.» — la fórmula que resume ese capítulo: el conocimiento es redención de la muerte y señala el camino a la vida eterna.

«He does not say that he will immediately redeem Osiris from the realm of the dead and transplant him to an Elysian place where he will rule and find eternal satisfaction of his wishes.» — lo que Atum no promete, según el diálogo que traduce: la redención inmediata ni la satisfacción eterna de los deseos de Osiris.

«Instead, he says that he will transform these very wishes, so that Osiris will no longer yearn for water, air, bread, beer, and sexual pleasure, but rather live in a condition of transfiguration and peace of heart.» — lo que sí promete: transformar los deseos en transfiguración y paz de corazón.

«He has replaced desires with peace of heart, and human nature with transfiguration.» — la permuta que enuncia el texto: los deseos por la paz, la naturaleza humana por la transfiguración.

«I will not tolerate that you suffer need.» — del mismo diálogo: no toleraré que padezcas necesidad.

«But every (other) god has taken a place in the Barque of Millions.» — la objeción de Osiris en ese diálogo: los demás dioses ya tienen sitio en la Barca de Millones.

«Your throne belongs to your son Horus, so said Atum.» — del mismo diálogo: tu trono es de tu hijo Horus, dijo Atum.

«He rules on your throne and will inherit the throne on the Isle of Fire.» — del mismo diálogo: Horus gobierna en ese trono y heredará el trono de la Isla del Fuego.

«But I shall destroy everything I have created.» — del mismo diálogo, en boca de Atum: destruiré todo lo que he creado.

«This world will return to primeval waters, to the primeval flood, as at its beginning.» — del mismo diálogo: el mundo volverá a las aguas primordiales, como en su comienzo.

«Greetings to you, my father Osiris! Your body continues, you do not decay, you do not rot, you do not disintegrate, you do not stink and decompose, you will not turn into worms.» — según el texto que Assmann traduce: saludos a ti, padre Osiris; tu cuerpo perdura, no te pudres ni te descompones ni te vuelves gusanos; el volumen imprime dos veces el mismo saludo, en las planas 141 y 293.

«water that the deceased desires to cross in the form of a bird: I have flown up as a swallow, I have cried out as a goose, I have alighted on that great shore;» — según el hechizo que Assmann traduce, el difunto cruza el agua en forma de ave: voló como golondrina, gritó como ganso y posó en aquella gran ribera.

«How good is what I have done for Osiris!» — del mismo diálogo, en boca de Atum: qué bueno es lo que he hecho por Osiris.

«I have granted that he rule the desert, and his son Horus is indeed his heir on his throne on the Isle of Fire.» — del mismo diálogo: le he concedido gobernar el desierto y su trono en la Isla del Fuego.

«I have assigned him a place in the Barque of Millions, while Horus remains on his royal throne to erect his monuments.» — del mismo diálogo: le he asignado un lugar en la Barca de Millones.

«But will the ba of Seth not be sent to the West, unlike all (the other) gods?» — la pregunta de Osiris en ese diálogo: ¿no será enviado al Occidente el *ba* de Seth, a diferencia de los demás dioses?.

«The image of death as inversion, as the reversal of the familiar order of life, intensely affected the Egyptians’ perception of reality during their lifetimes.» — sostiene que la imagen de la muerte como inversión marcó también la percepción egipcia de la realidad en vida.

«These works are laments over the collapse of social order, and they typically claim that “he who was once below is now above”:» — esas obras son lamentos por el hundimiento del orden, con la fórmula del que estaba abajo y ahora está arriba.

«He who (once) could not afford a coffin (now) has a tomb.» — según el lamento que Assmann traduce, quien no podía pagarse un ataúd tiene ahora tumba.

«The rise of the lowly corresponds to the fall of the mighty:» — la simetría que señala: al ascenso de los humildes corresponde la caída de los poderosos.

«The ones who (once) owned clothes are now in rags.» — del mismo lamento: los que tenían vestidos andan ahora en harapos.

«He who was (once) rich is (now) one who has nothing.» — del mismo lamento: el que era rico es ahora el que nada tiene.

«The most gripping testimony to such an experience is preserved to us in the Dialogue of a Man with His Ba.» — señala el testimonio que le parece más estremecedor de esa inversión: el Diálogo de un hombre con su *ba*.

«This point is clearly stated in the best-known text of this genre, the Prophecy of Neferti:» — y la Profecía de Neferti como el texto donde eso se enuncia con claridad.

«I show you the land in deep sickness: the weak is now strong,» — según la Profecía de Neferti que traduce: te muestro la tierra en honda aflicción, el débil es ahora fuerte.

«The poor will eat bread, servants will be elevated.» — de la misma profecía: los pobres comerán pan y los siervos serán elevados.

«Thus, to him, death seems like redemption from a dead world:» — la lectura que da del Diálogo: al hombre la muerte le parece redención de un mundo muerto.

«Death as transition, as passage: this image of death had its influence even on tomb architecture.» — la imagen de la muerte como tránsito dejó huella, dice, hasta en la arquitectura de las tumbas.

«The next spell (Pyramid Texts spell 214) begins with a warning that is to be repeated four times:» — el hechizo 214 de los Textos de las Pirámides abre con una advertencia que ha de repetirse cuatro veces.

«It is thus made clear that this departure entails danger.» — y lo que esa repetición deja claro: que la partida entraña peligro.

«What matters is not to end up on the side of death.» — lo que importa, dice, es no acabar del lado de la muerte.

«O N., you have not departed dead, you have departed alive!» — según el Texto de las Pirámides que traduce: no has partido muerto, has partido vivo.

«I have seen to it that his ba remains confined to the barque,» — la respuesta de Atum: ha cuidado de que el *ba* de Seth quede confinado a la barca; la frase se corta en el salto de plana y sigue en la 152 diciendo que así no aterra al cuerpo del dios.

«One will live in the realm of the dead.71 The beggar will heap up riches.» — de la misma profecía: se vivirá en el reino de los muertos y el mendigo amontonará riquezas.

«O endowed one . . . ! You have not departed dead, you have departed alive. Seat yourself on the throne of Osiris, your aba-scepter in your hand, that you may command the living!» — según la liturgia mortuoria que Assmann traduce y llama la más antigua y difundida: no has partido muerto sino vivo, siéntate en el trono de Osiris con tu cetro *aba* en la mano para mandar sobre los vivos.

«Thus begins the oldest and most widespread, indeed, the classic mortuary liturgy that we find already in the sequence of Pyramid Text spells that begins with spell 213,2 and which introduces us to the» — sitúa esa liturgia en la secuencia de Textos de las Pirámides que abre con el hechizo 213; la frase se corta en el salto de plana y sigue en la 158.

«The journey thus begins with a decided distancing from places of danger and evil.» — el viaje del difunto arranca, dice, con un alejamiento decidido de los lugares de peligro y de mal.

«Here, we encounter another image of confrontation with death as an enemy, as we have learned in chapter 3.» — y ahí reaparece la imagen de la muerte como enemigo, ya tratada en el capítulo 3.

«That this dangerous place and the evil beings that inhabit it and try to draw the deceased onto their side have to do with death is clearly expressed in one of the Coffin Texts:» — lo apoya en uno de los Textos de los Sarcófagos, que liga ese lugar peligroso y sus seres malignos con la muerte.

«The deceased has departed, and the continuation of his journey to the afterlife thus entails, first and foremost, a distancing from death.» — el sentido del viaje: la partida del difunto es un alejarse de la muerte.

«We do not know who “that ba” and his accomplices were.» — declara su ignorancia: no se sabe quiénes eran aquel *ba* y sus cómplices.

«The deceased is certain he will be saved from death, for he began his journey not of his own volition but at the bidding of a god.» — el difunto está cierto, dice, de que será salvado de la muerte por mandato de un dios.

«The deceased did not want to be abducted to that place.» — lo que el difunto no quería: ser llevado a aquel lugar.

«The boundary is drawn, and the deceased is conveyed securely to the correct side:» — se traza la frontera y se lleva al difunto con seguridad al lado correcto.

«Geb has already issued the command that any defamation of his character will be punished by total loss of status.» — según el texto que traduce, Geb ordenó que toda difamación se castigue con la pérdida total de estatus.

«This measure also serves to assure the correct route and to avoid unpleasant alternatives:» — la función que le adjudica a esa medida: asegurar la ruta correcta y evitar alternativas desagradables.

«What is in any case important is that the deceased end up in the arms of his father, Atum.» — lo que en todo caso importa, dice, es que el difunto acabe en brazos de su padre Atum.

«He must not fear that after his departure, ill will be spoken of him, that is, that his enemies will profit from his absence.» — y lo que no ha de temer: que la malevolencia se aproveche de su ausencia.

«Osiris, you have no power over him, your son has no power over him.» — según el hechizo que traduce: Osiris no tiene poder sobre él, ni su hijo.

«Horus, you have no power over him, your father has no power over him.» — del mismo hechizo: tampoco Horus tiene poder sobre él, ni su padre.

«Later, with the collapse of the Old Kingdom, the royal mortuary texts became available to other social strata, and this motif of distancing from Osiris disappeared.» — data la desaparición del motivo del alejamiento de Osiris: con el hundimiento del Reino Antiguo.

«Now, it could no longer be a matter of distinguishing the destiny of the deceased king from that of ordinary mortals.» — el cambio que data: ya no cabía distinguir el destino del rey muerto del de los mortales comunes.

«Instead of the distinction between high and low, divine and human, royal and nonroyal, there was the distinction between good and evil, as well as that between the knowing and the unknowing.» — lo que sustituye a las distinciones sociales: la del bien y el mal, y la del que sabe y el que no.

«With that, the entire picture of the cosmos was altered.» — y su consecuencia: con eso quedó alterada la imagen entera del cosmos.

«Now, sky and earth no longer represented the distinction between afterlife and this life.» — cielo y tierra dejan de representar la distinción entre el más allá y esta vida.

«A formula that made its appearance in the Middle Kingdom and is attested to us hundreds of times, down to the end of the history of Egyptian religion, describes the status to which he aspired as Transfigured (akh) in the sky with Re,» — la fórmula aparecida en el Reino Medio que define el estado transfigurado del difunto en el cielo con Re.

«They acted on the side of good, not evil, and they belonged to Osiris, not Seth.» — los guardianes obran, dice, del lado del bien y pertenecen a Osiris, no a Seth.

«These powers could do no harm to the righteous.» — y su límite: esas potencias no pueden dañar al justo.

«For this reason, the threshold could never be high enough, the boundary could never be secure enough, and the character of the guardians could never be terrifying enough.» — de ahí, dice, que el umbral nunca pudiera ser bastante alto ni los guardianes bastante temibles.

«For if the deceased could get there safe and sound, threat turned into protection for him, and the more fearsome the threat, the more effective was his protection, the more unassailable his security, the more insuperable the distance he put between himself and death.» — el reverso: si el difunto pasa a salvo, la amenaza se vuelve protección y crece la distancia entre él y la muerte.

«In the Pyramid Texts, the deceased king strove to unite with the sun god.» — en los Textos de las Pirámides la meta del rey muerto es unirse al dios solar.

«His path led him unequivocally upward, to the sky, to the “imperishable” stars in the northern sky, the stars that never set.» — su camino sube inequívocamente hacia las estrellas que nunca se ponen.

«But in the Coffin Texts, it was a matter of a passage through the netherworld and admittance into the presence of Osiris.» — en los Textos de los Sarcófagos, en cambio, el paso lleva a la presencia de Osiris.

«The difference between the older, royal and the newer, common concept of death as transition can best be illustrated by comparing two liturgies, one of them from the Pyramid Texts, and the other one representing the later version of the concept.» — la diferencia que traza entre la versión real más antigua y la posterior de la muerte como tránsito.

«The threats intensify to the point of predicting a cosmic catastrophe.» — las amenazas llegan, dice, a predecir una catástrofe cósmica.

«The highlands will be joined together, the riverbanks will be united, the roads will be impassable to travelers, and slopes will be inaccessible to those who wish to climb.» — según el texto que traduce: las tierras altas se juntarán y quedarán intransitables para quien quiera subir.

«And yet the chiefs of Light-land, that is, of the liminal area between sky, earth, and netherworld, where the sun rises and sets, greet the newcomer as son of the “beautiful West”» — los jefes de la Tierra de la Luz reconocen al recién llegado como hijo del bello Occidente.

«The appearance of the deceased in the realm of the dead arouses surprise, astonishment, and even terror.» — la aparición del difunto en aquel reino provoca, dice, asombro y aun terror.

«The goddess of the West appears in the role of provisioner of the deceased.» — la diosa de Occidente aparece, dice, en el papel de proveedora del difunto.

«In all its variations, this is the principal motif of the idea of transition:» — ese es, en todas sus variantes, el motivo principal de la idea de tránsito.

«the deceased’s journey into the afterlife always leads to a place where he is forever provided with food and drink.» — el viaje al más allá lleva siempre, dice, a un lugar con comida y bebida.

«Along with the goddess of the West, Nut and Hathor also play the role of the goddess of provisions;» — junto a la diosa de Occidente desempeñan ese papel Nut y Hathor.

«There is also the tree goddess, who is usually a manifestation of Nut but who can also be Hathor.» — y también la diosa del árbol, que puede ser Hathor.

«The priest now speaks, announcing to even the most distant gods that the goddess of the West has recognized the deceased as the son of Osiris:» — el sacerdote anuncia entonces que la diosa de Occidente reconoce al difunto como hijo de Osiris.

«whom Osiris has made his son, whom Isis has made her child.» — según el texto que traduce: a quien Osiris ha hecho su hijo y a quien Isis ha hecho su criatura.

«It is again clearly stated that the deceased is the son not only of Osiris but also of the goddess of the West, so that the latter is none other than Isis herself, the wife of Osiris.» — se enuncia de nuevo, dice, que el difunto es hijo de Osiris y de la diosa de Occidente identificada con Isis.

«The deceased presents himself as a healer and avenger, and thus in the role of Horus,» — el difunto se presenta como sanador y vengador, y por tanto en el papel de Horus.

«He wishes to heal the wounds that Seth has inflicted on Osiris and to restore his dignity.» — lo que se propone: sanar las heridas y restaurar la dignidad.

«There follows a lengthy speech of the goddess of the West, in which she promises to initiate the deceased into the various mysteries of the netherworld:» — sigue un discurso largo de la diosa, que promete iniciarlo en los misterios del inframundo.

«With these words, the officiant strides forcefully into the foreground, commenting on the speech made by the goddess of the West.» — con esas palabras el oficiante entra con fuerza y comenta el discurso de la diosa de Occidente.

«He presents himself as the son of the deceased, describing this role with formal turns of expression that would regularly recur in texts from that time on (omitted in the translation).» — el oficiante se presenta como hijo del difunto.

«The father was to act as the supporter and protector of the bereaved son, and to do so in the afterlife, among the “provisioned ones,” that is, the other dead, who, as ancestral spirits, were the recipients of provisions and capable of exerting influence.» — el padre había de obrar como sostén y protector del hijo desde el más allá.

«What matters to the son is the connection, but at the same time also the distance, that is to prevail between him and his deceased father.» — lo que le importa al hijo, dice, es la conexión con su padre muerto.

«He shall not cry out, but shall think of my abomination: My abomination is outcry.» — según el texto que traduce, en boca de Osiris: no ha de gritar, porque el clamor es su abominación.

«Osiris is thus declared to be the lord of silence.» — de ahí que Osiris quede declarado señor del silencio.

«Outcry and mourning are taboo in his home.» — clamor y duelo quedan vedados en su casa.

«If the deceased is to enter into his realm of silence, mourning must stop.» — la condición que se sigue: para entrar en ese reino de silencio, el duelo ha de cesar.

«The deceased father is brought in to Osiris and accepted into the tribunal of the god, where he can now effectively represent his bereaved son.» — el padre muerto es admitido, dice, para representar a su hijo doliente ante el tribunal.

«This ritual teaches us a great deal about the concept of death as a transition into another space and another condition.» — lo que ese ritual enseña, según él: la muerte como paso a otro espacio y otra condición.

«The deceased can cross the threshold only when he ceases grieving.» — el difunto solo cruza el umbral cuando deja de afligirse.

«He must express his grief in order to find consolation.» — y su reverso: ha de expresar la pena para hallar consuelo.

«He then also denounces this enemy to Osiris.» — el oficiante denuncia después a ese enemigo ante Osiris.

«Osiris, act for yourself, for your ka, that it may be satisfied.» — según el texto que traduce: Osiris, obra por ti mismo, por tu *ka*, para que quede satisfecho.

«The deceased passes into an afterlife from which he is able to care for those he has left behind, a place where he has status and position.» — el difunto pasa a un más allá en el que tiene estatus y posición.

«One can “descend” to him and call upon him, and he himself, though he perhaps cannot return in person, can be effective for his family» — a él se puede descender e invocarlo, y puede obrar en favor de su familia.

«In Egypt, people made much use of this possibility.» — y en Egipto, dice, se hizo mucho uso de esa posibilidad.

«A servant speaks before his lord, (namely) his son Heni, saying: Take heed a million times, for taking heed is useful for the one who provides you with offerings,» — según la carta a un muerto que Assmann traduce, el hijo Heni habla ante su señor y le recuerda quién le provee de ofrendas.

«There are no limits to what occurs; but see: It was not I who first did harm to him.» — de la misma carta: no hay límite a lo que ocurre, pero mira, no fui yo quien primero le hizo daño.

«May your son manage your house, as you managed the house of your father.» — de otra carta: que tu hijo administre tu casa como tú administraste la de tu padre.

«The deceased is reminded of his last words on his deathbed, when he expressly confirmed his wish to see his son Ay as heir of his house.» — en esa carta se le recuerdan al muerto sus últimas palabras en el lecho, que hacían al hijo heredero.

«A third example stems from the end of Dynasty 11.» — data el tercer ejemplo: fines de la dinastía 11.

«The illness from which the servant is suffering is not attributed to the influence of the ancestral spirit who is addressed in this letter.» — acota la lectura de esa carta: la enfermedad del sirviente no se atribuye al espíritu ancestral.

«He is merely reproached for having failed to help.» — lo único que se le reprocha, dice, es no haber ayudado.

«He is to bring charges in a court of law in the realm beyond the grave and prosecute the guilty.» — lo que se le pide: presentar cargos en un tribunal y perseguir al culpable.

«The role of an ancestral spirit is that of a legal adviser and joint plaintiff in that otherworldly realm.» — define el papel del espíritu ancestral: asesor legal y codemandante en el más allá.

«He is supposed to look after the affairs of his house.» — y también velar por los asuntos de su casa.

«From these examples, we see what an important and concrete reality the afterlife represented in the beliefs of the Egyptians.» — lo que esos ejemplos muestran: la importancia de la realidad del más allá en las creencias egipcias.

«The deceased were powerful ancestral spirits, and we see what possibilities were ascribed to them to lend support to those they had left behind in the realm of the living.» — los muertos eran espíritus ancestrales poderosos, capaces de obrar en el reino de los vivos.

«This world and the next were two realms that were intimately interconnected.» — este mundo y el otro son, dice, dos reinos íntimamente conectados.

«Tombs were places where people contacted the dead and could “descend to them,” as the Coffin Text puts it.» — las tumbas eran, dice, los lugares donde se entraba en contacto con los muertos.

«The afterlife was an ordered world, with clear hierarchical and legal structures.» — el más allá era un mundo ordenado, con estructuras jerárquicas y legales claras.

«The deceased did not sink indiscriminately into a dusty realm of shadows, nor did they free themselves gradually from the living and vanish into a cosmic distance; rather, they made their way, consciously and well equipped, to the court of Osiris in hope of recognition, provisioning, and promotion.» — los muertos no se hundían indistintamente: buscaban reconocimiento, provisión y ascenso.

«Instead of citing further letters to the dead, I should like to close with a rather unique text.» — declara el corte que hace: en vez de más cartas a los muertos, cierra con un texto singular.

«You shall not punish him for any offense, rather, you shall recollect his good deeds.» — según ese texto: no lo castigues por ofensa alguna, recuerda sus buenas obras.

«To understand this text, it suffices to cite a passage from the Instruction of Any:» — para entenderlo basta, dice, un pasaje de la Enseñanza de Any.

«Satisfy the ancestral spirit, do what he wishes.» — según la Enseñanza de Any que traduce: contenta al espíritu ancestral, haz lo que él desea.

«Keep yourself clear of what he abominates, that you may remain unscathed by his many hurts.» — de la misma enseñanza: mantente lejos de lo que él aborrece.

«The images of death considered to this point—dismemberment, isolation, enemy, dissociation, transition, and reversal—have revealed the ambivalence of Egyptian concepts regarding death and the afterlife.» — las imágenes tratadas hasta aquí revelan, dice, la ambivalencia egipcia respecto de la muerte y el más allá.

«They portray death as a destructive attack on the continuity of life, while at the same time, they depict counterimages of salvation and restoration.» — todas presentan la muerte como ataque destructivo y todas traen su imagen de salvación y restauración.

«Entirely different, however, is the image of death to which we turn in this chapter.» — y anuncia la imagen enteramente distinta a la que dedica el capítulo.

«In Egypt, as elsewhere, there is truth to the expression saxa loquuntur, “the stones speak.”» — en Egipto, dice, vale la fórmula latina *saxa loquuntur*, las piedras hablan.

«They speak, for they are inscribed: the walls of tombs, the bases of statues, altars, offering tables, stelae (which were intended purely to be inscribed), and “false doors”—all of which indicated places where offerings were made—as well as coffins and sarcophagi.» — y por qué hablan: porque están inscritas, ataúdes y sarcófagos incluidos.

«On coffins, a deity speaks to the deceased, both as coffin and as mother.» — en los ataúdes una divinidad habla al difunto a la vez como ataúd y como madre.

«She greets him as her son, whom she accepts forever into her body.» — lo saluda como hijo y lo acoge para siempre en su cuerpo.

«Thus, we read in the oldest coffin inscriptions, those on the coffins of kings of the Old Kingdom: “King Teti is my eldest son, who has opened my womb, my beloved, in whom I take pleasure.”» — según la inscripción de ataúd más antigua que cita: hijo mío, en quien me complazco.

«We have such speeches of the mother to her son in the thousands; they are the canonical kernel of the inscriptions on coffins.» — esos discursos de la madre abundan, dice, entre las inscripciones de ataúd.

«By far the most comprehensive speech of the coffin-and mother-goddess to the deceased is that on the lid of the outermost of the three granite sarcophagi of King Merneptah, from the end of the thirteenth century b.c.e.» — identifica el discurso más extenso y lo data a fines del siglo XIII a.C.

«Here, and here only, to the best of my knowledge, it is the goddess Neith, not Nut, who appears in this role.» — dicho con su grado —hasta donde él sabe— es el único caso en que la diosa de ese papel es Neith.

«Notwithstanding this unusual circumstance, this text can count as representative of the concepts associated with the coffin.» — y su acotación: pese a lo inusual del caso, el texto sigue siendo representativo.

«When you enter me, I embrace your image, I am the coffin that shelters your mysterious form.» — según el discurso de la diosa que Assmann traduce: al entrar en mí te abrazo y albergo tu forma misteriosa.

«Neith wishes to place these powers at the disposal of the deceased.» — lo que Neith quiere: poner esos poderes a disposición del difunto.

«Here ends the first part of the text, which depicts the constellation of coffin and corpse as the union of mother and child.» — resume la primera parte del texto como unión de madre e hijo.

«In the preceding verses, it was a matter of healing physical dismemberment and restoring the body, while the verses that follow deal with the healing of social isolation and with the reintegration of the deceased into constellations of protective deities.» — el contraste que traza entre la curación física y la reintegración en constelaciones de deidades protectoras.

«Behind all this is a ritual that followed immediately upon the embalming and mummification, the ritual of the nocturnal wake.» — detrás de todo eso ve el ritual del velatorio nocturno.

«Because she is herself the coffin, she can justifiably say of herself that she causes the deities represented on the coffin to appear for the king.» — como ella misma es el ataúd, dice, hace aparecer a las deidades para el rey.

«The mention of Geb calls to mind the mythic lawsuit over the succession to the throne, the classic form in which the struggle with death as enemy was depicted:» — la mención de Geb evoca, dice, el litigio mítico por la sucesión donde se figura la lucha con la muerte como enemigo.

«He praises you as king of the gods.» — según el texto que traduce: Thoth te alaba como rey de los dioses.

«Thoth makes note of it, according to what Re-Atum says.» — del mismo texto: Thoth lo consigna conforme a lo que dice Re-Atum.

«The fact that Neith has here usurped the traditional role of Nut does not prevent Nut from herself appearing in this role.» — observa que Neith usurpa aquí el papel de Nut sin impedir que esta aparezca.

«Perhaps Neith was conceived as embodying the outer, boxshaped sarcophagus, while Nut embodied the inner, mummiform sarcophagus.» — dicho como conjetura: quizá Neith encarnara el sarcófago exterior y Nut el interior, momiforme; el troceo une el guion de fin de renglón y devuelve boxshaped donde la fuente imprime box-shaped.

«I call your mother Nut to you, and Tefnut on your left side, that they may throw their arms around you and recognize their son in you.» — según el discurso de la diosa que traduce: llamo a tu madre Nut y a Tefnut para que reconozcan en ti a su hijo.

«I cause your mother to spread herself over you, and I cause her to take you into herself as “She Who Takes the Great One into Herself.”» — del mismo discurso: hago que tu madre se extienda sobre ti y te incorpore.

«Neith’s speech is a description of the decorative program of a coffin, but of one that belongs to a period six hundred years in the past.» — lee el discurso de Neith como descripción de un programa decorativo seiscientos años anterior.

«Next, Neith causes Horus to make his appearance, and in accordance with his traditional role as son, he addresses his speech to his deceased father, restoring his dignity and status by humiliating and annihilating his enemies:» — en ese discurso Neith hace comparecer a Horus, que humilla y aniquila a los enemigos.

«He brings you your enemies as prisoners and annihilates them beneath you, forever.» — del mismo texto: te trae a tus enemigos como prisioneros y los aniquila bajo ti para siempre.

«Lastly, she turns to her son, the god Osiris, to pray on behalf of the Osiris King Merneptah:» — por último la diosa se vuelve a su hijo en favor del Osiris rey Merneptah.

«To me, to me, my son with hidden name, Osiris, king of the gods!» — del mismo texto: a mí, a mí, hijo mío, rey de los dioses.

«It testifies to a special relationship of King Merneptah to Neith, the goddess of Sais, whom he has chosen as the protective deity of his corpse.» — lo que ese texto atestigua: una relación especial de Merneptah con Neith como deidad protectora de su cadáver.

«In all these welcoming and embracing forms, she promises the deceased security, eternal renewal, air, water, and nourishment.» — en todas esas formas de acogida la diosa promete, dice, aire, agua y alimento.

«In New Kingdom tombs, we often encounter a scene in which the goddess of the West embraces the deceased and welcomes him as her son.» — en las tumbas del Reino Nuevo aparece a menudo, dice, la escena de la diosa que abraza al difunto y lo acoge como hijo.

«Thus, for example, Hathor greets a Djehutiemheb in a tomb from the reign of Ramesses II (ca. 1250 B.C.E.):» — el ejemplo que trae: Hathor saluda a Djehutiemheb en tiempos de Ramsés II.

«The goddess then lists a lengthy series of deities to whom she will “commend” the deceased, so that they will care for him in every way possible.» — la diosa enumera después una larga serie de deidades para proteger al difunto.

«What is at stake here is the incorporation of the deceased into the realm of the gods, and thus the reversal of isolation;» — lo que está en juego, dice, es la incorporación al ámbito divino, la reversión del aislamiento.

«Her identity is made clear in the caption, yet Paser addresses his mother as a manifestation of the goddess of the West:» — la leyenda aclara, dice, que la madre de Paser se identifica con la diosa de Occidente.

«Death as return to the womb was a central concept, one that extended into every area of Egyptian culture,» — la muerte como retorno al vientre le parece un concepto central que penetra todas las áreas de la cultura egipcia.

«But while the concept of the Judgment of the Dead experienced considerable development over time, that of death as return to the womb exhibited an astonishing consistency.» — el contraste que traza: mientras el Juicio evolucionó, este concepto muestra una consistencia asombrosa.

«It found verbal expression already in the inscriptions on royal coffins of the twenty-fourth and twenty-third centuries B.C.E., but it was presumably older still,» — lo data con su grado: se enuncia ya en las inscripciones más antiguas, y presumiblemente es más viejo aún.

«It is this drive for immortality that I wish to understand as a sort of generator of culture and meaning, as the necessary complement to the unbearable knowledge of mortality that is unique to humankind.» — declara en primera persona lo que quiere sostener: ese impulso a la inmortalidad es lo que genera cultura y sentido.

«The two images of death—as enemy and as return to the womb— are, to our way of thinking, as opposed as two images could possibly be.» — las dos imágenes de la muerte, como enemigo y como retorno, le parecen todo lo opuestas que dos imágenes pueden ser.

«Nevertheless, these two images of death as enemy and as return do not stand in opposition to one another as alternative solutions; rather, they belong together, and the entirety of their culture-forming significance unfolds only in their complementary connection.» — y sin embargo, dice, se complementan, y solo juntas despliegan su sentido.

«The destiny of the sun, however, represents the maternal principle, the cycle of the regeneration of nature, the cyclical, reversible time of the life of the cosmos.» — el destino del sol representa, dice, el principio materno y el tiempo cíclico del cosmos.

«But unlike the apparent course of the sun around the earth, a lifetime does not, by its nature, complete a cyclical course, and it bears little resemblance to the solar course.» — y su límite: la vida humana, a diferencia del curso aparente del sol, no es cíclica.

«Osiris represents the paternal principle, the norms of culture, the linear time of human action and suffering.» — Osiris representa el principio paterno y el tiempo lineal de la acción y el padecer humanos.

«The mystery of solar immortality is the circular path that leads the sun god from birth to death in the course of each and every cycle of day and night.» — el misterio de la inmortalidad solar es, dice, el camino circular del día y la noche.

«Imitating Osiris, however, he will assume the form of the “deceased father” whose son occupies his place in this world and preserves his memory.» — imitando a Osiris, en cambio, el hijo asume la forma del padre muerto y conserva su memoria.

«The individual must exert all his powers to achieve a similarity to the cyclical.» — el individuo ha de emplear todas sus fuerzas, dice, para lograr semejanza con lo cíclico.

«For the Egyptians, this interpretation of the apparent course of the sun around the earth served as natural evidence for their hope of immortality.» — esa lectura del curso solar les servía a los egipcios, dice, de evidencia natural para su esperanza de inmortalidad.

«The mother goddess Nut gives birth to him in the morning and receives him again in the evening.» — el papel de Nut: da a luz al sol cada mañana y lo recibe al atardecer.

«By way of contrast, there is the other image of death as vindication, which has to do with the historical time of earthly existence, with the preservation of one’s achievements during life, of one’s status, and of one’s individual identity.» — y por contraste la otra imagen, la de la vindicación y la identidad individual.

«The Egyptians felt equally bound and obligated to both principles, the normative, moral, paternal principle and the cosmic, regenerative, maternal principle.» — los egipcios, dice, se sentían obligados por igual al principio paterno y al materno, cósmico y regenerador.

«These texts always refer to the ultimate death, not the threshold represented by physical death.» — precisa a qué muerte se refieren esos textos: a la última, no al umbral de la muerte física.

«For the latter leads to life for one who is buried in his tomb in the homeland, while his children hold his position in this life.» — y el motivo: la muerte física lleva a la vida para el que es enterrado.

«This point is already made in the Instruction of Hardjedef, the oldest preserved work of wisdom literature:» — lo remite a la Enseñanza de Hardjedef, que llama la obra sapiencial más antigua conservada.

«Burial in one’s hometown was an ambitious goal that was granted only to the righteous.» — ser enterrado en la ciudad natal era, dice, una meta ambiciosa concedida solo al justo.

«The one who achieved it was praised after death:» — y al que lo lograba se le alababa tras la muerte.

«The highest aspiration of an ancient Egyptian was to grow old and be buried in his hometown:» — la aspiración más alta del egipcio antiguo era, dice, morir y ser enterrado en su ciudad.

«It is good to tread the way of the god.» — según el texto que traduce: es bueno andar el camino del dios.

«He who places his (i.e., the god’s) way in his heart flourishes on it, . . .» — del mismo texto: prospera quien pone en su corazón el camino del dios.

«He arrives at the necropolis with blissful heart, in a beautiful embalming, the work of Anubis.» — del mismo texto: llega a la necrópolis con el corazón dichoso, tras la obra de Anubis.

«This connection between return and burial is a theme of the two bestknown literary narratives of the Middle Kingdom,» — señala que ese enlace entre retorno y entierro es tema de las narraciones del Reino Medio.

«A ship will come from the Residence with sailors whom you know.» — según el relato que traduce: vendrá una nave de la Residencia con marineros que conoces.

«You will go with them to the Residence and die in your city.» — del mismo relato: irás con ellos a la Residencia y morirás en tu ciudad.

«See, you will reach the Residence in two days, you will embrace your children, you will be rejuvenated in your coffin!» — del mismo relato: llegarás a la Residencia en dos días y rejuvenecerás en tu ataúd.

«It must not be that you die in a foreign land.» — del mismo relato: no ha de ser que mueras en tierra extranjera.

«To do this, Thoth has recourse to the moral of Sinuhe, that nothing is more important than to be buried in the homeland.» — según el relato que traduce, Thoth arguye que nada importa más que ser enterrado en la patria.

«The creator has guided the hearts of his creatures to the tomb.» — del mismo relato: el creador ha guiado los corazones de sus criaturas hacia la tumba.

«It happened that the god hurried to his Two Lands, to the primeval place (bw pAwtj) where he was born,» — del mismo relato: el dios se apresuró a la tierra donde nació.

«This means that every god, when they become old . . . , they go to the lands in which they were born,» — la glosa que da: todo dios, al envejecer, vuelve a la tierra de su nacimiento.

«The most important, but also the briefest and least certain form was the organized mortuary cult;» — de las formas de trato con los muertos, la principal es para él el culto mortuorio organizado.

«A third form was spontaneous, unorganized visits to tombs; we have evidence of these from numerous graffiti left behind by literate Egyptians,» — la tercera forma: las visitas espontáneas a las tumbas, atestiguadas por los grafitos de egipcios letrados.

«Just as Thoth wishes to bring the wandering goddess back to Egypt in the Demotic tale of the Solar Eye, so the Story of Sinuhe solicits the return of officials who fled in connection with the assassination of Amenemhet I,» — el paralelo que traza con Sinuhé, cuyo relato arranca con el asesinato de Amenemhet I.

«He who follows the king becomes owner of a tomb.» — según el texto que traduce: quien sigue al rey se hace dueño de una tumba.

«He who opposes the king, for him there is no tomb.» — del mismo texto: para el que se opone al rey no hay tumba.

«Royalty thus had at hand a strong incentive not only for loyalty but also for its subjects’ sense of obligation to the Residence, that is to say, a means of binding the individual to his city.» — lo que la monarquía obtenía de ahí: un incentivo que ata la tumba al deber hacia la propia ciudad.

«This situation must be seen against the background of the recurrent problem of anachoresis, that is, flight from the workplace and internal migration.» — sitúa el asunto en el trasfondo de la anacoresis y la migración interna.

«For an Egyptian, a proper burial was thus a burial in his hometown.» — para un egipcio, dice, entierro propio es entierro en su ciudad natal.

«Still, the meaning of a conviction so central and so deep as that of the redemptive power of a burial in one’s place of birth did not stop with its usefulness as a political instrument.» — acota su propia explicación política: una convicción tan central no se agota en su utilidad como instrumento político.

«It seems to me that Alcmaeon’s sentence yields a comprehensible sense only in light of the Egyptian concept of death.» — dicho en primera persona y como parecer: la frase de Alcmeón le rinde sentido a la luz del concepto egipcio de la muerte.

«The great model of regeneration is the sun god, who descends nightly into these depths to unite with his corpse, which is resting there, and to renew himself through this union.» — el modelo mayor de regeneración es, dice, el dios solar que se renueva uniéndose a su cadáver.

«The books of the Netherworld are descriptions of the sun’s course, specifically its nocturnal phase, in which the sun god sinks into the cosmic depths.» — define los libros del inframundo como descripciones del descenso del dios solar a las profundidades cósmicas.

«I do not believe that the concept of the reversibility of time belongs to the motif of a topsy-turvy world.» — y su objeción, en primera persona: no cree que la reversibilidad del tiempo pertenezca a ese motivo.

«The concept of temporal reversibility, of cyclical renewal, did not belong to the properties of a reversed world but to the order of the cosmos, which could not endure without cyclical time.» — la sitúa, en cambio, en el orden cósmico cíclico.

«The mystery of the connection of the end to the beginning does not stand the order of this world on its head.» — el misterio de unir el fin al principio no pone, dice, el orden del mundo cabeza abajo.

«Regeneration did not mean traveling a reversed path from death to birth, but rather, being born anew through death.» — la regeneración no es recorrer un camino invertido: es nacer de nuevo por la muerte.

«It seems to me that there is another central motif here, one that Hornung has also connected with the idea of regeneration: the motif of the primeval waters.» — dicho como parecer: le parece que hay otro motivo central, el de las aguas primordiales.

«The Egyptians thus believed that even during their lifetimes, they had a share in the rejuvenating circularity of cosmic time.» — los egipcios creían, dice, compartir ya en vida la circularidad regeneradora del tiempo cósmico.

«What this image of death does not imply—and this needs to be stressed by way of a conclusion—is the concept suggested by the expression “passing on”:» — lo que esa imagen de la muerte no implica: la idea de un pasar al otro lado.

«The Egyptians did not normally view existence on earth as a foreign exile from which death was a release—with the sole possible exception of one text that is extraordinary in every respect, the Dialogue of a Man with His Ba, in which, among other things, it is stated:» — la búsqueda negativa que declara con su excepción: normalmente los egipcios no veían la existencia terrenal como exilio.

«Death was not normally viewed in this way.» — y lo repite: la muerte no se veía normalmente de ese modo.

«That this renewal is a mystery, and perhaps even the deepest mystery in Egyptian religion, is assured by the texts and representations that depict it.» — dicho con su grado: que esa renovación sea misterio lo sostienen, dice, los textos y las representaciones.

«the mystery of the nocturnal regeneration of the sun occurs in a single text genre, one that is thoroughly exclusive and cloaked in the aura of mystery:» — la regeneración nocturna del sol queda envuelta, dice, en un aura de misterio.

«Thus, the external fact of the place where it was represented already reveals that the renewal of the sun god in the depths of the world has to do with a mystery.» — y el lugar mismo donde se consigna revela, dice, que se trata de un misterio.

«The Egyptian tomb—not just the royal tomb but the tomb in general —served two functions that were diametrically opposite and mutually exclusive: “mystery” and “memory.”» — la tumba egipcia cumple, dice, dos funciones opuestas y mutuamente excluyentes: misterio y memoria.

«On the one hand, the tomb served as a visible sign intended to keep the recollection of the deceased alive in the memory of posterity.» — la primera: mantener al difunto en la memoria de la posteridad.

«Thus, a typical monumental Egyptian tomb contained accessible rooms but also shafts that led more or less deeply down into the rock bed, to a sarcophagus chamber that was walled up after the burial.» — de ahí que la tumba monumental típica tuviera una cámara tapiada tras el entierro.

«In most cases, the shaft was filled up as well so as to shut off the sarcophagus chamber all the more effectively.» — y el pozo se rellenaba, dice, para cerrarla con más eficacia.

«In this architectonic attempt to create a mysterious, inaccessible, protective space for the mummy, we can perceive the tangible expression of the image of death as mystery.» — lee ese empeño arquitectónico como expresión de la muerte como misterio.

«Embalmed and mummified, the deceased vanished from the profane world of the living and entered the mystery of the netherworld.» — embalsamado y momificado, el difunto desaparece del mundo profano y entra en el misterio del inframundo.

«Architectonically realized by the sarcophagus chamber of a monumental tomb, this mystery had two aspects: the solar aspect of renewal and the Osirian aspect of protection, of absolute hiddenness.» — el misterio tiene, dice, un aspecto solar y otro osiríaco de protección y ocultamiento absoluto.

«As noted, it determined the decoration of the royal tombs of the New Kingdom, in which the antagonistic double function of the tomb—mystery and memory—emerges far more clearly than in the tombs of officials.» — la doble función se ve, dice, más claramente en la decoración real que en las tumbas de funcionarios.

«In the case of royal burials, the two functions are strictly separated, and each is realized in a special structure.» — en los enterramientos reales las dos funciones quedan estrictamente separadas.

«The cult and memorial function was realized in the form of a mortuary temple, or “mansion of millions of years,”1 which was constructed visibly and on as monumental a scale as possible at the edge of the cultivation.» — la función de culto y memoria se realizaba visiblemente al borde del cultivo.

«The mystery function was assured by a rock-cut tomb in the Valley of the Kings, a tomb that was hermetically sealed, rigorously guarded, and located in as hidden a place as possible.» — la de misterio, con una tumba herméticamente cerrada en el lugar más oculto posible.

«Re sets in the western mountain and lights the netherworld with his rays.» — según el texto que traduce, Re se pone en la montaña occidental y alumbra el inframundo con sus rayos.

«We must thus recognize this mummy as the form of the dead sun god, who does not become Osiris, like the other dead, but who “rests in Osiris,” that is, who unites with Osiris only temporarily and then once again separates himself from him.» — la lectura que da de la momia con cabeza de carnero: el dios solar muerto que solo descansa temporalmente en Osiris.

«Another name of this ram-headed mummy is “He with the ram’s head.”» — el otro nombre de esa momia: el de cabeza de carnero.

«He who divulges it dies a sudden death, for it is a great mystery: it is Re and it is Osiris.» — según la fórmula de secreto que traduce: quien lo divulgue muere de muerte súbita, porque es Re y es Osiris.

«The concept of regeneration was enormously widespread in Egypt, as widespread as the scarabs and the many other amulets and symbols that lent it expression.» — la idea de regeneración estaba enormemente extendida, dice, y no así los textos que la expresan.

«For this reason alone, we must consider them to be a sort of secret literature and lore, removed from common use by the very place where they were recorded.» — y por eso los tiene por literatura secreta, ligada al sitio donde se consignaba.

«A strict boundary was drawn that on the one hand separated royal and nonroyal mortuary literature, and on the other hand, among the royal texts themselves, also distinguished what a king could cause to be represented in his mortuary temple from what was represented in his tomb.» — el límite estricto que señala entre la literatura real y la no real, y entre lo representado en una tumba y otra.

«The sun god, for instance, is called “the one whose mystery is hidden,” referring to his corpse, which rests in the depths as Osiris.» — el epíteto del dios solar que trae: aquel cuyo misterio está oculto, y que reposa en las profundidades como Osiris.

«On the other hand, the tomb was supposed to shelter the mummy and, to the extent possible, to keep it» — la segunda función: albergar la momia y mantenerla, en lo posible, a salvo de todo contacto profanador; la frase se corta en el salto de plana y sigue en la 206.

«safe from any profaning touch. It was supposed to be a hidden, inaccessible place where the deceased was protected forever.» — continuación en la plana 206: la tumba había de ser un lugar oculto e inaccesible donde el difunto quedara protegido para siempre.

«They guard the mystery of the Great God, which those in the netherworld do not see.» — según el texto que traduce: guardan el misterio del Gran Dios, que los del inframundo no ven.

«During the night, however, the sun god does not just unite with his mystery, that is, with Osiris as his corpse; as we have seen, he also enters the body of the great mother-and sky-goddess, who gives birth to him anew each morning.» — de noche, dice, el dios solar no solo se une al misterio: entra en la diosa madre-cielo que lo pare de nuevo cada mañana.

«As the texts cited to this point indicate, the mystery of the sun god is on the one hand his corpse, which rests in the depths of the world, and on the other hand, the process of renewal that he himself undergoes when he unites with this corpse and experiences rebirth in the womb of the mother-and sky-goddess.» — la doble naturaleza del misterio solar: su propio cadáver y su renovación en el vientre de la diosa madre y del cielo.

«It is evidently a matter of a misunderstanding.» — y su juicio sobre ese tabú del nombre de Osiris: evidentemente se trata de un malentendido.

«While the cult of Osiris knew no taboo regarding the god’s name, it was filled with other taboos.» — acota la negativa: el culto de Osiris no tenía tabú del nombre, pero estaba lleno de otros.

«Osiris was lord of silence, and no one was to raise his voice in his vicinity.» — Osiris era señor del silencio, y nadie había de alzar la voz cerca de él.

«It was the locus of the reliquary cult of the parts of Osiris’ body, which had been torn asunder by Seth and then buried by Isis in each of the nomes.» — identifica el lugar del culto de reliquias con las partes de Osiris que Isis enterró en cada nomo.

«She therefore created a corpse in the form of Osiris around each individual limb and prepared the priesthood of each nome by disclosing that she had entrusted to them alone the burial of her husband under conditions of strictest secrecy.» — según el relato que recoge, Isis hizo copias del cadáver y las enterró en el mayor secreto.

«Hence the long and dangerous road to reach Osiris in “Busiris,” which we must picture as located in the heart of the netherworld.» — de ahí, dice, el camino largo y peligroso hasta Osiris en el corazón del inframundo.

«A decree of Nectanebo II forbade, on pain of mutilation, the quarrying of stone in this area, which was a place of the greatest sanctity.» — un decreto de Nectanebo II prohibió, dice, extraer piedra en un lugar de máxima santidad.

«The gate or portal symbolizes transition. It leads the ba, which travels the roadway, to the “place that conceals the Weary One.”» — la puerta simboliza el tránsito al lugar que oculta al Cansado.

«The gates were guarded by monsters that, despite their hideous appearance, did not embody evil but rather served good, the next-worldly “police force” that was supposed to protect Osiris from the attacks of Seth.» — las puertas estaban guardadas por monstruos que protegían a Osiris de los ataques de Seth.

«The deceased averted the terror of the guardians by naming their names and also by knowing the names of the gates, and he obtained free passage through the gates by demonstrating his purity.» — el difunto apartaba el terror de los guardianes nombrándolos y mostrando su pureza.

«In the Demotic Story of Setne, Osiris sat enthroned in the seventh of seven halls through which the deceased had to pass in order to arrive at the place of vindication.» — según el relato demótico de Setne que recoge, hay que pasar por las salas para llegar al lugar de la vindicación.

«This is death as mystery, and the deceased identified himself with it.» — a eso llama la muerte como misterio, con el que el difunto se identificaba.

«In the innermost ring of this most secluded and hence most sacred cosmic sphere, he will dwell with and as Osiris.» — en el anillo más interior, dice, el difunto habita con Osiris y como Osiris.

«the tombs of officials are connected with the Osirian aspect of absolute hiddenness.» — las tumbas de funcionarios se ligan, dice, al aspecto osiríaco del ocultamiento absoluto.

«In other words, with their architecture and their decoration, the royal tombs realize a symbolic description of the netherworld and the nocturnal journey of the sun, while the private tombs realize a cavern or crypt in the depths of the earth.» — el contraste que traza entre la realización simbólica de las tumbas reales y la de las privadas.

«The sarcophagus chambers of the private tombs were seldom decorated, but in the Book of the Dead, there are two vignettes that are to be understood as representations of an ideal sarcophagus chamber.» — explica la escasez de decoración en las cámaras privadas, con dos viñetas como modelo ideal.

«In reference to Anubis, however, it has a different meaning.» — acota que, referido a Anubis, el epíteto significa otra cosa.

«The caption identifies him as zaH Spzz, “august mummy.”» — la leyenda identifica al Osiris momificado como *zaH Spzz*, momia augusta.

«The word “mystery” is especially closely connected with Anubis, the embalmer,23 whose characteristic epithet is “He who is over the mystery.”» — el epíteto de Anubis: el que está sobre el misterio.

«This epithet also occurs as a title of officials, in which case we usually translate it as “confidential adviser.”» — y observa que el mismo epíteto aparece como título de funcionario, que suele traducirse por consejero confidencial.

«The word for mummy mask, which is attested only here, can be rendered “head of the mystery,” or even “mysterious head.”» — la palabra para máscara de momia, que también puede verterse como cabeza misteriosa.

«The mystery over which Anubis watches is the mummified corpse.» — y el misterio que Anubis vigila: el cadáver momificado.

«In the Old and Middle Kingdoms, the decoration was confined to thematic areas (1) and (2), and less often, (3).» — en el Reino Antiguo y el Medio la decoración se limitaba, dice, a dos áreas temáticas y rara vez a una tercera.

«In the Old Kingdom, thematic area (4) occurred only in the royal sphere, and specifically, in the form of texts carved on the walls of the subterranean chambers of the pyramids beginning with Wenis, the last king of Dynasty 5.» — la cuarta área solo aparece en la esfera real del Reino Antiguo, desde el último rey de la dinastía 5.

«In the Middle Kingdom, nonroyal deceased also acquired a share in this mortuary literature, which was inscribed on the interior walls of their coffins.» — en el Reino Medio también los no reales reciben literatura mortuoria, en las paredes interiores de sus ataúdes.

«From that time on, we can see that thematic area (4), which was connected with the concept of mystery, was regularly connected with the sarcophagus chamber of the tomb, the place where the corpse lay and which, as we have seen, was the epitome of protection and mystery.» — desde entonces, dice, la cámara del sarcófago es el epítome de la protección y el misterio.

«In Dynasty 18, thematic area (3) became canonical, along with (1) and (2).» — en la dinastía 18 la tercera área se canoniza junto a las dos primeras.

«The corresponding scenes from (3) were located in the passage (the long corridor) of the tomb, where as a rule, the funeral was represented on the left (on the south wall, for the tomb was oriented toward the west) and the Opening of the Mouth on the right.» — dónde se situaban esas escenas en el pasillo de la tumba, con la Apertura de la Boca a la derecha.

«Otherwise, thematic area (4) remained strictly confined to the mortuary texts, which were now deposited with the deceased in the sarcophagus chamber, in the form of a papyrus roll (Book of the Dead).» — por lo demás la cuarta área queda confinada, dice, al rollo de papiro del Libro de los Muertos.

«Two scenes that already belonged to (4) were taken up anew: adoration of the sun god, mostly on the architrave of the entrance, and adoration of Osiris, mostly at the end of the funeral procession.» — y las dos escenas de adoración al sol y a Osiris que se reintroducen al final de la procesión funeraria.

«It can thus be maintained that as a rule, until the end of Dynasty 18, thematic area (4) was confined to the hermetically sealed sarcophagus chamber.» — la regla que enuncia: la cuarta área temática quedaba confinada a la cámara del sarcófago herméticamente sellada.

«This means that now, the cult chambers of the tomb shared in the sacredness and the mysteriousness of the sarcophagus chamber, and this innovation put an end to the uncrossable boundary between the sarcophagus chamber and the cult chambers, which until then had determined the layout of the tomb.» — con eso las cámaras de culto comparten la sacralidad y cae la barrera que ordenaba la tumba.

«Instead of the inaccessible shaft, an easily accessible, winding passageway with stairs now led from the upper cult chambers to the entrance to the sarcophagus chamber, which remained walled up.» — el cambio material: en vez del pozo inaccesible, un pasaje sinuoso y accesible.

«The character of the tomb as a temple was emphasized by a number of new scenes in which the tomb owner is depicted not as the object of the mortuary cult (2), but as the subject of divine cult (4).» — y el efecto: el dueño de la tumba aparece como sujeto del culto divino, y la tumba subraya su carácter de templo.

«This profound and dramatic change in the Egyptian concept of the tomb can be explained in various ways.» — dicho con su grado: ese cambio hondo en la idea egipcia de la tumba admite varias explicaciones.

«The registers were located within a scene; they did not serve to separate different scenes.» — la precisión sobre los registros: van dentro de una escena y no separan escenas distintas.

«We are not, however, to conclude from this relationship that the upper scenes continue the scenes below: that would be a horizontal form of relationship.» — y la advertencia que añade: no hay que concluir que las escenas de arriba continúen las de abajo.

«The upper scenes are rather to be understood as an interpretation of those below.» — su lectura: las de arriba son interpretación de las de abajo.

«In a tomb from the transitional period from Dynasty 18 to Dynasty 19, whose architecture already lays considerable stress on the new, sacral character but from which the principle of rows of representations is still missing, the vertical axis of the wall decoration found a solution from which the origin of the principle of rows of representation clearly emerged.» — en una tumba del período de transición ve emerger con claridad el origen del principio de las filas de representación.

«It already occurred to the tomb owner, or to the artists in his employ, to connect the scenes of transition from this world into the tomb with scenes of transition from the tomb into the next life.» — adjudica al dueño de la tumba o a su artista la idea de enlazar el tránsito del mundo a la tumba con el de la tumba al más allá.

«In later tombs, the principle of the stela decoration was extended to the walls.» — en tumbas posteriores, dice, el principio decorativo de las estelas se extiende a los muros.

«The wish for representation and continuation in the memory of society gave way before the wish for divine presence.» — el desplazamiento que señala: el deseo de representación cede ante el de presencia divina.

«In a harper’s song from Theban Tomb 50, we read: The gods you served on earth, you now step face to face with them.» — según el canto de arpista de la tumba tebana 50 que traduce: ahora el difunto se pone cara a cara con los dioses.

«It has to do with a hymn to Hathor as goddess of the Theban necropolis, in which it is related that the goddess appeared to the tomb owner in a dream to reveal the place where he was to locate his tomb.» — el himno a Hathor que trae, aparecida en sueño para señalar el lugar de la tumba.

«The cult chambers and crypt were connected with Osiris (or the Memphite funerary god Sokar, who in this period was entirely merged with Osiris), while the court and the pyramid were connected with the sun god.» — el reparto que señala: cámaras de culto y cripta con Osiris, patio y pirámide con el dios solar.

«In the Ramesside Period, the mystery aspect of the tomb as a place of divine presence came to the fore, determining its decoration and architecture.» — en el Período Ramésida, dice, el aspecto de misterio pasa a dominar la decoración y la arquitectura.

«This change took place at the expense of the memorial aspect of the tomb.» — y a costa de qué: del aspecto memorial de la tumba.

«great innovation in the decorative program of the tombs of the Ramesside Period was that thematic area (4) now also became canonical and came to dominate the decorative program of the tombs, even in their outer areas,» — la gran innovación del programa decorativo en el Período Ramésida: la cuarta área temática se vuelve canónica y domina la decoración incluso en las zonas exteriores; la frase se corta en el salto de plana.

«In accordance with the image of death as mystery, the deceased not only crossed over, or returned, to the netherworld, he was initiated into it.» — conforme a la imagen de la muerte como misterio, dice, el difunto era iniciado en él.

«In their rubrics, many spells of the Book of the Dead identify themselves as initiations into the mysteries of the netherworld.» — muchos hechizos del Libro de los Muertos se presentan en sus rúbricas como iniciaciones en los misterios del inframundo.

«The rubric to chapter 137 B of the Book of the Dead reads: A great mystery of the West, an initiation into the mysteries of The-One-in-the-Netherworld.» — la rúbrica del capítulo 137 B que trae como ejemplo.

«For it is a great mystery of the West, an initiation into the mysteries of the netherworld, for the gods, the transfigured spirits, and the dead view it as service for Khentamentiu.» — según esa rúbrica: es un gran misterio del Occidente que los dioses ven como servicio a Khentamentiu.

«In particular, the Books of the Netherworld in the royal tombs purport to be initiations into the mysteries of the realm of the dead.» — los libros del inframundo se presentan, dice, como iniciaciones en los misterios del reino de los muertos.

«They were part of the decorative program of the royal tombs, and in them, the king is greeted by the gods as one who knows our forms and our past, who knows the initiation into the mysteries of the netherworld, for you are one who has penetrated into the sacredness of the mysteries.» — formaban parte del programa decorativo de las tumbas reales, donde el rey declara haber penetrado la sacralidad de los misterios.

«It is thus reasonable to suppose that the initiation of priests into certain cults was the prototype for the initiation of the deceased into the world beyond.» — dicho como suposición razonable: la iniciación sacerdotal sería el prototipo de la iniciación del difunto.

«If we look more closely into the spells of the Book of the Dead, this analogy is confirmed.» — y el contraste que hace: mirando de cerca los hechizos, la analogía se sostiene.

«He enters into an otherworldly cultic community.» — el difunto entra, dice, en una comunidad cultual del otro mundo.

«It is difficult to believe that the mystery into which the deceased was initiated and the mystery into which the living priest was initiated could have been entirely unrelated to one another, considering that the concept of “initiation” played so great a role in both spheres.» — su objeción, dicha como dificultad para creer: cuesta tener por independientes el misterio del difunto y el del sacerdote.

«It is said about you, “He has dragged Sokar, he44 has placed the henu-barque on its stand and circled the walls in its following.» — según el texto que traduce: de ti se dice que arrastraste a Sokar y rodeaste los muros en su séquito.

«Perfect was your encounter with the gods; your (family) will also be well regarded because of your perfection, for you are one who may enter Heliopolis and know the mysteries that are therein!» — del mismo texto: perfecto fue tu encuentro con los dioses, entra en Heliópolis y conoce los misterios que allí hay.

«for you are one who was akh-effective, when you were on earth, for your lord Amun.» — del mismo texto: eres uno que fue *akh* eficaz para tu señor Amón.

«Already during one’s lifetime, participation in the festival rites, or initiation into the “mysteries” of the sacred places—Abydos, Busiris, Saqqara, Heliopolis, Memphis, and Thebes—affords opportunities to be serviceable to the gods in a way that is decisive for the next-worldly fate of the one who does it, for these gods will in turn care for him after death.» — lo que la participación en los ritos de fiesta aseguraba ya en vida: que los dioses cuiden al difunto después.

«Certain motifs associated with this concept are old, going back to the Coffin Texts.» — data esos motivos: son antiguos y se remontan a los Textos de los Sarcófagos.

«The “spells for knowing the souls of the sacred places”46 show that in the afterlife, it was of the greatest importance to be initiated into the mysteries of the sacred places, an initiation that we are probably to imagine took place during life.» — dicho con su grado: los hechizos para conocer las almas de los lugares sagrados apuntan a que la iniciación ocurría en vida.

«In this spell, just as in the harper’s song, it is a matter of carrying out festival rituals that require a certain liturgical competence:» — en ese hechizo, como en el canto del arpista, se enumeran ritos que exigen cierta competencia litúrgica.

«I am a wab-priest in Busiris, one who elevates (?) He-on-the-Hill.» — según el hechizo que traduce, el difunto se declara sacerdote *wab* en Busiris.

«Earlier in the spell, the deceased, who appears in the role of Thoth, and thus as the divine lector priest, declares to the god Osiris, who is being addressed, that he has participated along with Horus in the sacred rituals in Rasetau, Letopolis, and Heliopolis.» — antes en el hechizo el difunto declara haber participado con Horus en ritos de Rasetau, Letópolis y Heliópolis.

«At Letopolis, the ritual had to do with the left shoulder of Osiris:» — y precisa que en Letópolis el rito tocaba al hombro izquierdo de Osiris.

«The Egyptian texts, however, tell us nothing about the initiation of a priest into the mysteries of the sacred places.» — la búsqueda negativa que declara: los textos egipcios no dicen nada sobre la iniciación de los sacerdotes en los misterios de los lugares sagrados.

«It is not until the reign of Hadrian, that is, in the first half of the second century C.E., that we encounter such a text, and we find ourselves no longer in an Egyptian, but an Egyptianizing, context.» — y su fecha: los textos sobre iniciación no aparecen hasta el reinado de Adriano, en contexto egiptizante.

«There is good reason to think that ancient Egyptian burial customs lived on in the Hellenistic Isis mysteries, though in the latter case, they were enacted and interpreted not as a burial of the deceased but as an initiation of the living.» — dicho con su grado: hay buenas razones para pensar en una continuidad entre las costumbres funerarias egipcias y los misterios helenísticos de Isis, ahora como iniciación de los vivos.

«And since, according to Egyptian belief, every individual became an Osiris by means of the mortuary rituals, his hope for immortality depended on Isis as well.» — y de ahí que la esperanza individual de inmortalidad dependiera también de Isis.

«For when a lifetime is over and men stand on the threshold where light ends, then the goddess calls back from the netherworld those to whom the great mystery of religion was confidently entrusted, and she sets those who have in a certain sense been reborn through their providence once again on the course of a new life.» — según el texto que traduce, al terminar la vida la diosa llama de vuelta a las almas hacia una vida nueva.

«Initiation thus clearly had the sense of a prefiguration of death, one that conveyed to the mystic a divine presence that otherwise, according to the Egyptian view of things, was imparted only to the ritually “transfigured” dead.» — la iniciación tiene, dice, el sentido de una muerte anticipada, con lo que solo se concedía a los muertos transfigurados.

«When the day of the initiation finally comes, Lucius is first bathed (baptized), and the priest “expresses the forgiveness of the gods.”» — según el relato de iniciación que recoge, llegado el día el sacerdote expresa el perdón de los dioses.

«The bath thus has the sacramental sense of a remission of sins.» — y el baño tiene, dice, el sentido sacramental de una remisión de pecados.

«In any case, the process seems to be a symbolic journey through the netherworld, in which the netherworld is depicted, in an entirely Egyptian sense, as the subterranean realm of the midnight sun.» — dicho con reserva: el proceso parece un viaje simbólico por el inframundo como reino subterráneo del sol de medianoche.

«We may imagine that the mystic was led into similarly decorated rooms—perhaps the crypts—of a temple.» — lo dice como imaginación, no como dato: cabe figurarse al místico llevado a las salas decoradas, quizá las criptas, de un templo.

«The Books of the Netherworld were not, however, just patterns for the decoration of the royal tombs. They were also a sort of scholarly literature whose purpose was to codify and transmit knowledge of the netherworld.» — acota la función de los libros del inframundo: no eran solo decoración de tumba.

«But there is much in favor of, and nothing against, the idea that they also served in the instruction or initiation of the living.» — y el balance que hace: mucho a favor y nada en contra de que sirvieran a la instrucción o iniciación de los vivos.

«To me, it seems that in Egypt, the mystery of death and the mystery of cult and the holy coexisted so closely that they probably even interpenetrated one another.» — dicho en primera persona y como parecer: en Egipto los misterios de la muerte y los del culto coexistían y aun se interpenetraban.

«It seems quite likely to me that there were also such crypts decorated with Books of the Netherworld at Heliopolis.» — dicho con su grado: le parece bastante probable que hubiera criptas con libros del inframundo en Heliópolis.

«Such scholarly literature regarding the world beyond is also to be found in the nonroyal mortuary literature.» — esa literatura erudita sobre el más allá aparece, dice, también en la literatura mortuoria no real.

«The oldest work of this sort is the Book of Two Ways, a map with integrated texts; in the Middle Kingdom, and exclusively at el-Bersha, it was depicted on the floors of inner coffins.» — identifica el Libro de los Dos Caminos como la obra más antigua de ese tipo, en el suelo de los ataúdes interiores.

«We encounter such a relationship between initiation during life and grave goods in Greece, in the framework of the Orphic and Dionysian mysteries.» — el paralelo griego que trae: la misma relación entre iniciación en vida y ajuar funerario en los misterios órficos y dionisíacos.

«Small golden plaques were placed in the tombs of initiates, plaques incised with texts sketching a detailed scenery of the next world and affording the deceased orienting indications, precisely in the sense of a guidebook to the world beyond.» — las laminillas de oro puestas en las tumbas como guías al más allá.

«They mention the house of Hades, to the right of which are two springs.» — según esas laminillas, a la derecha de la casa de Hades hay dos fuentes.

«Next to one of them is a brightly shining cypress tree (a manifestation of a topsy-turvy world, for cypresses are dark), while guards stand over the other.» — junto a una hay un ciprés luminoso y sobre la otra montan guardia unos guardianes.

«This other spring is fed by the Lake of Memory, from which the thirsty souls drink.» — la segunda fuente la alimenta el Lago de la Memoria, del que beben las almas sedientas.

«To do this, they must enter into a dialogue with the guards, like those we know from dialogues in the Egyptian sources.» — y el paralelo que señala: para beber han de dialogar con los guardianes, como en las fuentes egipcias.

«They then arrive at a sacred road that they travel with other initiates.» — después llegan a un camino sagrado que recorren con otros iniciados.

«Other texts contain a dialogue of the deceased with the queen of the netherworld and describe a road that leads him or them to the sacred grove and meadow of Persephone.» — otros textos traen un diálogo del difunto que lleva al bosque y al prado sagrados de Perséfone.

«Initiation into the mysteries of a deity entailed the deification of the mystic.» — la iniciación en los misterios de una deidad implicaba, dice, la deificación del místico.

«“Conducting into the presence of” and “becoming” Osiris comprise precisely these two aspects of initiation into the mysteries of Osiris.» — los dos aspectos que distingue en esa iniciación: ser conducido ante Osiris y llegar a ser Osiris.

«Egyptians of the Roman Period might easily have assented to both interpretations.» — dicho como conjetura: los egipcios de época romana habrían podido asentir a las dos lecturas.

«This type of representation is the most beautiful and the most impressive expression of that dissociation and doubling that lies in the experience of death, and which we discussed in chapter 4 under the rubric “image and death.”» — su juicio sobre ese tipo de representación: la expresión más bella de lo tratado bajo el rótulo imagen y muerte.

«He who knew these things overcame the dangers of the realm of death and managed the passage into Elysium and the “going forth by day.”» — la fórmula que cierra: quien conocía esas cosas superaba los peligros y alcanzaba el salir de día.

«In the Pyramid Texts, the king, who had ascended to the sky, had no such wishes.» — en los Textos de las Pirámides, dice, el rey no formulaba el deseo de salir de día.

«Not only does the Book of the Dead bear this formula as its title (“The Spells of Going Forth by Day”), but one-seventh of its spells are also so titled.» — lo apoya en el título del Libro de los Muertos y en el de muchos de sus hechizos.

«Just as ascent to the sky and distancing from earth and the world of man was the central idea of royal mortuary belief, going forth by day and return to the world above was the central idea of popular mortuary belief.» — el paralelo que traza: como el ascenso al cielo lo fue de la creencia real, salir de día es la idea central de la creencia mortuoria popular.

«During the New Kingdom, as the concept of going forth by day moved center stage in Egyptian mortuary belief, the false door also changed its form.» — con ese cambio de concepto cambió también, dice, la forma de la puerta falsa.

«Both frames were inscribed with “offering formulas.”» — los dos marcos llevaban inscritas fórmulas de ofrenda.

«The lines of the inner frame never mention the sun god; here, Anubis dominates, along with Osiris, Sokar, and Ptah-Sokar.» — la búsqueda negativa que declara: las líneas del marco interior nunca mencionan al dios solar.

«The wishes in the lines of the inner frame had to do with leaving and entering, and with the welfare of the deceased in the afterlife.» — esos deseos del marco interior giran, dice, en torno al bienestar del difunto en el más allá.

«After the Amarna Period, the false door disappeared from Theban tomb architecture, making way for a new form: the false door stela.» — tras Amarna la puerta falsa desaparece y la sustituye la estela de puerta falsa.

«Characteristic of these stelae was the fact that their decoration was not organized according to the scheme of outside and inside but to that of above and below.» — lo característico de esas estelas: la decoración se ordena por arriba y abajo.

«In the upper field, the tomb owner addresses the gods, while in the lower field, he is the beneficiary of the mortuary cult.» — el reparto de los campos: arriba el dueño de la tumba se dirige a los dioses, abajo es beneficiario del culto mortuorio.

«A sure indication of this development is supplied by the requests attached to the mortuary prayer known as the “ḥtp-dj-njzwt formula.”» — el indicio firme que aduce para ese desarrollo: la fórmula de ofrenda *ḥtp-dj-njzwt*.

«We may thus conclude that it was on the occasion of religious festivals that the deceased expected to receive offerings from those he had left behind.» — la conclusión que extrae sobre las fiestas religiosas como ocasión del reencuentro del difunto con los suyos.

«It was only in the New Kingdom that the idea of going forth by day came to prevail over all other concepts of life after death.» — data el cambio: solo en el Reino Nuevo la idea de salir de día prevalece sobre las demás nociones de vida después de la muerte.

«From the Egyptian point of view, the capacity to transform was one of the most important means of freeing oneself from the realm of death.» — desde el punto de vista egipcio, dice, la capacidad de transformarse es lo que salva del reino de la muerte.

«The ability to transform saved the deceased from the topsy-turvy world, prevented him from having to eat excrement, and freed him from the motionless state of rigor mortis, from being locked up in the coffin and the sarcophagus chamber, from the bonds of the mummy bandages.» — lo que esa capacidad le ahorra al difunto, hasta las ataduras de las vendas.

«It endowed him with the freedom to move about in all the realms of the cosmos, including occasionally, but in no way centrally, the world above:» — y lo que le da: libertad de movimiento, con el mundo de arriba incluido aunque no como centro.

«Truly, the illustrious god, the one in his egg, has ordained that N. is to breathe on the day of the great ceremony (jrw ʿA).» — según el texto que traduce, el dios ilustre manda respirar en la gran ceremonia.

«Typically, it is the Field of Offerings or the Field of Reeds, the Elysian goal of the deceased’s journey in the world beyond, to which he is granted the ability to return, as though it were a matter of an especially this-worldly place in the world beyond.» — el Campo de Ofrendas aparece típicamente, dice, como la meta elísea del más allá.

«The transfigured ancestral spirit accomplishes this shuttling back and forth between the two realms through his capacity to assume various forms.» — el espíritu ancestral transfigurado se desplaza entre los reinos asumiendo formas diversas.

«The formula “going forth by day” no longer referred to a single occasion of salvation from the realm of death, but to the deceased’s daily preoccupation with his freedom of movement between the world above and the world below.» — el cambio de sentido de la fórmula salir de día en el Reino Nuevo, entre el mundo de arriba y el de abajo.

«The one who knows this spell enters (again), after going forth by day, in any form in which he wishes to emerge from the Field of Reeds.» — según el hechizo que traduce, el que lo conoce entra y sale del Campo de Juncos.

«I have spent the day on the “Isle of Fire” (i.e., the world above).» — del mismo hechizo: he pasado el día en la Isla del Fuego.

«The spell itself deals with the deceased’s return to the netherworld in the evening.» — y lo que el hechizo regula: el regreso al inframundo al anochecer.

«The one who recites this spell finds entry into the West after his exit; but the one who does not know this spell as one who understands how to go out by day finds no entry thereafter.» — según el mismo hechizo: quien lo recita halla entrada, y quien no lo conoce no la halla.

«The deceased also refers to his status as a transfigured spirit, which was bestowed on him at the Judgment of the Dead:» — el difunto invoca además su condición de transfigurado en el Juicio de los Muertos.

«The Egyptian word ba, which we translate as “soul,” is a concept having to do with power, and it refers first and foremost to the capacity to assume or breathe life into various forms:» — el término *ba*, dice, lleva la capacidad de insuflar vida a formas diversas.

«The deceased leaves the netherworld as neither a mummy nor a ghost. Nor is he reborn to a new life on earth.» — lo que el difunto no es, según su lectura: ni momia ni fantasma, ni renacido a una vida nueva en la tierra.

«The deceased has behind him all that is connected with transformation into an ancestral spirit and with transition into eternal life.» — el difunto tiene tras de sí, dice, todo lo ligado a la transformación y al paso a la vida eterna.

«He wishes to leave the netherworld each morning to visit the world above and to return again each evening.» — y lo que desea: salir del inframundo cada mañana y volver cada noche.

«Spell 76 has the title “Spell for assuming any form one wishes,” and it functions as an introduction to the cycle of spells that follows.» — el hechizo 76 introduce, dice, el ciclo de hechizos que sigue.

«Egyptians thus did not conceive of the dead as dwelling in their tomb, but rather in a distant realm beyond, from which they emerged and came to their tomb in the land of the living to receive their mortuary meals.» — la búsqueda negativa que declara: los egipcios no concebían a los muertos morando en sus tumbas, sino en un reino distante.

«Amarna religion is renowned above all for its exclusive monotheism.» — la religión de Amarna es célebre, dice, sobre todo por su monoteísmo exclusivo.

«The introduction of “this-worldliness” was the decisive change in Egyptian mortuary belief.» — llama decisiva la introducción de esa intramundanidad en la creencia mortuoria egipcia.

«Hornung is entirely correct in drawing attention to the revolutionary character of this mortuary belief.» — le concede a Hornung que acierta al señalar el carácter revolucionario de esa creencia mortuoria.

«In fact, it entailed a reversal of the polarity of hopes for the afterlife, which were now directed entirely toward the realm of the living.» — lo que ese vuelco supone: la polaridad de las esperanzas se invierte hacia el reino de los vivos.

«This belief, however, was not an achievement of the Amarna Period; rather, it characterized all the mortuary belief of the New Kingdom, and it was in precisely this respect that it signified a revolutionizing of the traditional mortuary religion.» — y su objeción: esa creencia no es un logro exclusivo de Amarna.

«At Amarna, the world of the living replaced the traditional concepts of a next-worldly realm, whereas otherwise in the New Kingdom, it complemented the “classical” realms of sky and netherworld, playing the principal role in hopes for life after death.» — en Amarna, dice, el mundo de los vivos sustituye a los conceptos tradicionales del más allá.

«Now, there was added the idea of entering and leaving, and that of a return to the world above.» — la idea que se añade después: entrar y salir del reino de los muertos hacia el mundo de arriba.

«In a number of New Kingdom Theban tombs, there are representations of such a visit by the tomb owner to his house.» — en varias tumbas tebanas del Reino Nuevo aparecen, dice, visitas del dueño a su casa.

«These are the words with which the wife of the tomb owner greets him as he returns home, but they clearly refer to the living,» — precisa el destinatario: las palabras de la esposa se dirigen al vivo, no al muerto.

«Still, we may presume that the tomb owner commissioned this scene from his existence on earth because he wished to keep repeating it in his capacity as a transfigured deceased person.» — dicho como presunción: cabe suponer que el dueño encargó la escena para repetirla ya como difunto transfigurado.

«In the mortuary wishes of the New Kingdom, a visit to the garden played an even greater role than a visit to the house itself.» — en los deseos mortuorios del Reino Nuevo pesa más, dice, la visita al jardín que la visita a la casa.

«The following text, which occurs with many variants in Dynasty 18, can be viewed as the classic expression of this wish:» — presenta el texto que tiene por expresión clásica de ese deseo, con muchas variantes en la dinastía 18.

«This text describes the garden as a paradise, just like the Field of Reeds and the Field of Offerings, which the deceased visits in the Coffin Texts; it is a place of refreshment and unending plenitude of nourishment.» — ese texto describe el jardín como paraíso de frescura y alimento sin fin.

«Here, however, it is unequivocally a garden in the realm of the living, one planted by the tomb owner himself, and not a place in the next world.» — y precisa que se trata inequívocamente de un jardín de este mundo, no del otro.

«Such a tomb garden, one that corresponds exactly to the descriptions in the mortuary wishes, is in fact archaeologically known:» — y añade que ese jardín funerario está atestiguado arqueológicamente.

«The expression “your house in the district of Ahmose-Nofretari” can only refer to the tomb, for the district was part of the Theban necropolis.» — la lectura que da de la casa en el distrito: se refiere al propio sepulcro.

«The garden thus had an unmistakably sacral character.» — y el carácter que le adjudica: inequívocamente sacro.

«It was a place in this world, not in the next one, like the Field of Reeds and the Field of Offerings, but it was a sacred place where rituals were carried out, and where deities important to the deceased were present.» — el contraste que traza: un lugar de este mundo, no del otro, donde están presentes las deidades que importan al difunto.

«The garden with its pool was first and foremost a place of plenitude, a source of never-ending nourishment.» — el jardín con su estanque aparece, dice, como fuente de alimento sin término.

«As personifications of fertility and provisioning, the goddess of the fields and Hapy (the Nile inundation), along with the “mistress of fishing,” represented the most important aspect of Elysium in the eyes of the Egyptians: plenitude of nourishment and eternal inexhaustibility of provisions for the deceased.» — la diosa de los campos y Hapy personifican, dice, la inagotabilidad eterna de las provisiones del difunto.

«In earlier periods, the Egyptian sought these essentials for his immortality especially in the next world; now, in the New Kingdom, he sought it in this world, in the world of the living, which thus assumed traits of paradise.» — el desplazamiento que traza entre lo que el egipcio buscaba antes y lo que busca en el Reino Nuevo.

«We can elucidate the shift of accent between this world and the next one with the help of a single detail: the figure of the tree goddess.» — propone aclarar ese desplazamiento con la figura de la diosa del árbol.

«In mortuary wishes of Dynasty 18, however, the sycamore under which the deceased wishes to rest in the form of a ba56 stands in a this-worldly (tp-tA) garden: . . .57 May my ba alight on the branches of the trees I have planted, may I refresh myself under the branches of my sycamores and eat of the bread that they give.» — en los deseos mortuorios de la dinastía 18 el sicómoro se sitúa en un jardín terrenal.

«Clearly, these texts speak not of the tree goddess but of an entirely thisworldly tree, whose real-worldly, profane character is emphasized by the possessive pronoun (“your sycamores”).» — y precisa: esos textos hablan de un árbol de este mundo, marcado por el posesivo.

«Dynasty 18 was the high point of the this-worldly orientation of mortuary belief, which, as we have seen, reached its culmination in the religion of Amarna.» — llama a la dinastía 18 el punto más alto de esa orientación terrenal, que culmina en la religión de Amarna.

«Ramesside texts also speak of the sycamore in this world, but they make note of the great tree goddess: May I go to my “canal pool,”» — los textos ramésidas hablan también, dice, de la gran diosa del árbol.

«Here again, it is clearly a matter of a this-worldly garden with a pool.» — y también ahí se trata, dice, de un jardín de este mundo con su estanque.

«They do not defer events into the next world; rather, they express the religious meaning of things that occur in this world.» — lo que esos textos no hacen: diferir los sucesos al más allá.

«The actual sycamore of the tomb garden now became the manifestation, or, as the Egyptians put it, the “name” of the goddess Nut.» — el sicómoro real del jardín funerario se vuelve, dice, manifestación de Nut.

«In Theban Tomb 41, Amenemope turns to her with the following prayer:» — en la tumba tebana 41, dice, Amenemope se dirige a la diosa del árbol con una plegaria.

«The sacralization of the world of the living was clearest in the festival culture of the New Kingdom.» — la sacralización del mundo de los vivos se ve, dice, con más claridad en el Reino Nuevo.

«As the Egyptians conceived it, for the duration of a festival, the opposition between this world and the next was eliminated, or at the very least, diminished.» — durante las fiestas, dice, la oposición entre los dos mundos se anula o al menos se atenúa.

«In the Middle Kingdom, the wish to participate in festivals after death was connected exclusively with the so-called Osiris mysteries at Abydos:» — en el Reino Medio ese deseo de participar en las fiestas se liga a los llamados misterios de Osiris en Abidos.

«These wishes found their most important and most explicit expression in the so-called Abydos formula, which is attested from the Middle Kingdom in any number of variants.» — y esos deseos se formulan sobre todo en la fórmula de Abidos, con muchas variantes.

«Without this lengthy text and its history, we would be unable to make a correct evaluation of the theme of “festival participation” in the mortuary belief of the New Kingdom.» — declara la dependencia de su argumento: sin ese texto largo no cabría valorar el tema de la fiesta en el Reino Nuevo.

«It is thus clear that the prominence of Abydos and its rituals in this spell was not conditioned by where the stelae were set up, or by the function of the stelae; rather, they reflect the general meaning of the theme “Abydos” in Egyptian mortuary belief in that period.» — lee la prominencia de Abidos como reflejo del peso general del tema en la creencia mortuoria de la época.

«According to Ikhernofret’s stela, the festivities included the following four acts:» — según la estela de Ikhernofret, la fiesta comprendía cuatro actos.

«I arranged the procession of Wepwawet, when he went to the aid of his father.» — según esa estela: dispuse la procesión de Wepwawet en auxilio de su padre.

«Wepwawet was represented as a jackal standing on a standard that was carried in front of the king in processions during the Archaic Period for the purpose of “opening the way” for him during his processions.» — Wepwawet se representaba, dice, como chacal erguido que abre camino en las procesiones.

«This subduing of the enemy was a ritual that consisted of recitations accompanied by actions, such as mutilation and burning of wax figures, or “breaking the red pots,” or a ritual slaughter.» — y el sometimiento del enemigo era, dice, un rito o una matanza ritual.

«I arranged the Great Procession and accompanied the god on his way.» — de la misma estela: dispuse la Gran Procesión y acompañé al dios en su camino.

«I caused the divine barque to sail, and Thoth granted that the journey went well.» — de la misma estela: hice navegar la barca divina y Thoth cuidó de que el viaje fuera bien.

«I outfitted the barque “Appearing in Maat” of the lord of Abydos with a cabin and put on his crown.» — de la misma estela: equipé la barca Apareciendo en Maat y le puse su corona.

«The meaning of this act, however, is something else entirely.» — y su acotación: el sentido de ese acto es enteramente otro.

«Just as the procession to U-poqer was celebrated as a funeral procession and the night spent there as the “night of vindication,” so the return was interpreted as a triumphal entry of the vindicated and resurrected Osiris into his palace.» — lee el regreso del dios como entrada triunfal del Osiris vindicado y resucitado en su palacio.

«The sanctity of Abydos dates back to the First Intermediate Period, the period after the collapse of the Old Kingdom and a time of deepreaching cultural reorientation, as Egyptians reached back in time to before the Old Kingdom, to the earliest Egyptian royal necropolis, interpreting it as the ideal necropolis and the center of mortuary belief, where the netherworld and the world above communicated in a mysterious manner.» — data la santidad de Abidos y la describe como necrópolis ideal donde inframundo y mundo de arriba se comunican; el troceo une el guion de fin de renglón y devuelve deepreaching donde la fuente imprime deep-reaching.

«In the Old Kingdom, this center had been Memphis, with its Residence cemeteries stretching out along the edge of the western desert.» — en el Reino Antiguo ese centro estaba, dice, en Menfis y sus cementerios residenciales.

«They were succeeded by Abydos and its Osiris mysteries, which were none other than the annually repeated royal funerary ritual of the Pyramid age, now transposed to the divine level.» — y les sucedió Abidos con su Osiris, con los mismos ritos trasladados al plano divino.

«In the New Kingdom, when Memphis regained its importance, the festival of Sokar was elevated into a mortuary festival of importance throughout Egypt.» — al recobrar Menfis su importancia, dice, la fiesta de Sokar se vuelve fiesta mortuoria de alcance nacional.

«Thebes also laid claim to this rank with its mortuary festival, the “Beautiful Festival of the Valley.”» — y Tebas reclamó el mismo rango con la Bella Fiesta del Valle.

«At Amarna, the presence of the king took the place of divine presence on festival occasions:» — en Amarna la presencia del rey ocupa, dice, el lugar de la presencia divina en las fiestas.

«It seems that at this time, there took shape a canon of major festivals in which the deceased wished to participate after their death.» — dicho con reserva: parece que entonces se formó un canon de fiestas mayores en que los difuntos querían participar.

«The most explicit text is the already oft-cited prayer to Osiris in the tombs of Paser (Theban Tomb 106), Tjay (Theban Tomb 23), and Heqmaatrenakht (Theban Tomb 222).» — identifica el texto más explícito y las tumbas donde aparece.

«It demonstrates the inner connection between the themes of receiving offerings, returning to the living, strolling in the garden, and participating in festivals:» — lo que ese texto muestra: la conexión interna entre recibir ofrendas y participar en las fiestas.

«This wish to participate in major festivals was typically expressed by representations and texts that imaged the deceased at the center of the festival events.» — el deseo se expresaba, dice, representando al difunto en el centro de los actos festivos.

«We may imagine that at this time, it was the custom, during the major festivals of the necropolis, to bring a list of prominent tomb owners and to call out their names, evidently in connection with visits to their tombs.» — lo dice como figuración: cabe imaginar que entonces se llamaba por su nombre a los dueños de las tumbas.

«Presumably, those who went on pilgrimage to these festivals during their lifetimes and played a particular role in them could have had themselves included in such a list, which was supposed to guarantee their participation in the festival forever.» — dicho como presunción: quien peregrinaba y quedaba en la lista aseguraba su participación perpetua en la fiesta.

«In this way, the festival was the medium of an advantage in the next life that was already acquired on earth, as was also the case later with the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries.» — la fiesta era así, dice, el medio de una ventaja en la otra vida, comparable a los misterios órficos y eleusinos.

«Here, for the first time, we are able to grasp a central point in the connection between Egyptian festivals and Greek mysteries that Greek writers constantly stressed.» — y ahí sitúa, por primera vez, la conexión que los autores griegos subrayaban entre fiestas egipcias y misterios.

«During life, the festival already opened up a next-worldly space where the deceased could hope to return after death.» — ya en vida la fiesta abría, dice, el espacio al que el difunto volvería tras la muerte.

«These wishes have to do with divine presence: not a presence that awaited the deceased in the afterlife but one imparted to the individual during festivals celebrated on earth.» — esos deseos tienen que ver, dice, con la presencia divina durante las fiestas celebradas en la tierra.

«From its very beginning, the false door served to connect the realm of the dead to that of the living, the next world to this one, whatever the concept of the afterlife in the various eras of the history of Egyptian religion.» — la puerta falsa conecta, dice, el reino de los muertos con el de los vivos desde el comienzo mismo de la historia de la religión egipcia.

«The deceased was a wanderer between two worlds, and the world of the living was, above all, a place where a tomb was built, a structure that gave access to the world beyond.» — el difunto es un caminante entre dos mundos, y la tumba le da acceso al más allá.

«The sun god visited it in the ninth hour of the day, so it lay in the southwest sky, but it was also connected with the netherworld.» — el Campo de Juncos era visitado por el dios solar y estaba ligado también al inframundo.

«Thus, as its inhabitants conceived it, Egypt became a land where not only men lived, but where the blessed dead also returned to stroll by the pool in their garden.» — cómo concebían Egipto sus habitantes: la tierra donde los muertos benditos vuelven a pasear junto al estanque de su jardín.

«They, too, had a ba, a bird-shaped soul that swooped down from the celestial heights to alight, not on trees, but on their cult images, so as to breathe life into them.» — también los dioses tenían *ba*, dice, en forma de ave que se posa en sus imágenes de culto y les insufla vida.

«From this practice, there emerged the idea that all Egypt was the templum mundi, the temple of the world, a sacred place of divine presence, hierotate chora, the land that was a holy of holies, as Porphyry called it, in relation to which the surrounding world was a place of relative profanity.» — de esa práctica nace, dice, la idea de Egipto entero como *templum mundi*, santo de los santos según lo llamó Porfirio, frente a un mundo circundante de relativa profanidad.

«Anyone who saw it became a god, so state the texts we treated in chapter 5.» — según los textos que cita, quien veía el Campo de Juncos se volvía dios.

«By far the most important, and the central, medium of this treatment of death was language.» — el medio central de ese tratamiento de la muerte es, dice, el lenguaje.

«The place where they were performed belonged to the realm of the living, in the place of embalming and in the accessible cult chambers of the tomb, though the place where they were recorded was in many cases the inaccessible sarcophagus chamber.» — distingue el lugar donde se ejecutaban los ritos del lugar donde se consignaban.

«Mortuary literature, however, belonged where it was recorded: on the walls of the sarcophagus chamber (Pyramid Texts),3 on the coffin (Coffin Texts),4 or on Book of the Dead papyri.» — la literatura mortuoria pertenece, dice, al sitio donde se registró: muros, ataúdes o papiros del Libro de los Muertos.

«In ancient Egypt, it was possible to “do things with words” by writing specific texts in specific places, and productive use was made of this means of dealing with death.» — en Egipto, dice, se podían hacer cosas con palabras, y ese era el modo de tratar con la muerte.

«I understand mortuary liturgies to be texts intended to be recited in the mortuary cult and mortuary literature to be texts placed in the tomb in order to be of use to the deceased in the afterlife.» — declara en primera persona su definición de liturgia mortuoria.

«Egyptian mortuary literature is a unique phenomenon among the mortuary customs of the world.» — tiene la literatura mortuoria egipcia por un fenómeno único entre las costumbres funerarias del mundo.

«Thus, for example, the tombs of members of Bacchic mystery cults contained gold tablets with instructions for their postmortem journey, the so-called mortuary passports, and a charred papyrus has even been found.» — y el paralelo que admite: las tumbas de miembros de cultos mistéricos también traen textos.

«The Egyptian custom of mortuary literature goes back to Wenis, the last king of Dynasty 5, who ruled in the middle of the twenty-fourth century b.c.e.» — data el origen de la costumbre en el rey Wenis, a mediados del siglo XXIV a.C.

«It was during his reign that someone came up with the idea of inscribing the subterranean chambers of his pyramid with texts that were characterized as “spells” by the constantly repeated phrase “to be recited.”» — en su reinado, dice, se le ocurrió a alguien inscribir las cámaras subterráneas.

«The pyramid of Wenis contains 227 spells, a number that was increased to 759 in the later pyramids.» — las cifras: 227 hechizos en la pirámide de Wenis, hasta 759 en las posteriores.

«The wall inscriptions in the subterranean chambers (Figure 4) were thus conceived as a permanent recitation that was to surround the deceased on all sides.» — la función que atribuye a esas inscripciones: rodear al difunto por todos lados con recitación permanente.

«If we wish to trace the function of the mortuary literature, we need to return to the original situation in the pyramid of Wenis and examine their form, their themes, and where they were distributed in the chambers.» — el método que propone: volver al caso de Wenis y mirar cómo se distribuyen los textos por las cámaras.

«The sarcophagus chamber of the pyramid of Wenis is entered from the east.» — la orientación de la cámara del sarcófago de Wenis.

«This wall is uninscribed; only in the tympanum are there protective spells against serpents.» — ese muro queda sin inscribir, salvo hechizos protectores contra serpientes en el tímpano.

«To the right, on the north wall, is the ritual for the funerary meals, with its seemingly endless list of offerings presented to the king, offerings that are accompanied by brief spells (spells 23–212).» — en el muro norte, el ritual de las comidas funerarias.

«To the left, on the south wall, are spells addressed to the king, describing his transformation into a jackalheaded star god and his entry into the course of the sun (spells 213– 219).» — en el muro sur, los hechizos de transformación del rey ligados al curso solar; el troceo une el guion de fin de renglón y devuelve jackalheaded, forma que el volumen imprime también sin guion en la plana 224.

«It appears in all the pyramids of the Old Kingdom, on many coffins of the Middle Kingdom, and then again in tombs of the Saite Period; it is thus the oldest, and also the most widespread and classical example of a mortuary liturgy.» — ese texto aparece, dice, en todas las pirámides del Reino Antiguo y es su ejemplo de liturgia mortuoria.

«The Egyptian term for this text genre was sAḫw, “making an akh,” and it referred to a recitation whose goal was to transform the deceased into a transfigured ancestral spirit.» — el término egipcio del género, *sAḫw*, cuyo fin es hacer del muerto un espíritu ancestral transfigurado.

«Scholars have connected the root Aḫ with the verb jAḫ “to shine,” which adds the idea of light to that of transfiguration.» — la etimología que recoge, que enlaza la idea de luz con la de transfiguración.

«The decoration of the sarcophagus chamber of Wenis is thus concerned entirely with provisioning (north wall) and transfiguration (south wall).» — el reparto temático de esa cámara: provisión en un muro, transfiguración en el otro.

«The antechamber is inscribed with spells (247–312) whose theme is ascent to the sky and crossing it.» — en la antecámara, los hechizos del ascenso al cielo y su travesía.

«Here, the deceased is no longer addressed: he himself speaks, or he is proclaimed in the third person;» — el cambio de persona que observa: allí ya no se habla al difunto, se habla de él.

«These texts deal with the appearance of the king in the realm of the gods, and they are not intended for liturgical use.» — y su conclusión: esos textos no estaban destinados al uso litúrgico.

«Perhaps we are to see these many “transformations” as a presentiment of the later idea of “going forth by day.”» — dicho como conjetura: quizá esas transformaciones anticipen la idea de salir de día.

«The voice that is permanently frozen in the inscriptions of Wenis thus addresses the deceased in the sarcophagus chamber, while in the antechamber and in the entrance corridor, it addresses the realm of the gods.» — la voz congelada en las inscripciones se dirige, dice, al difunto o al reino de los dioses según la cámara.

«there began a tradition that remained alive in various forms—wall inscriptions, coffin inscriptions,» — la continuidad que le adjudica: una tradición viva en formas diversas —muros, ataúdes—; la frase se corta en el salto de plana y sigue en la 259 diciendo que llega hasta el fin de la historia faraónica.

«These statements are thus not to be understood as descriptive or narrative in nature but rather as appellative.» — la lectura que da de esas declaraciones: no son descriptivas sino apelativas.

«The typical interpersonal form of mortuary liturgies is 0 : 2 : 2, with occasional third parties» — la forma interpersonal típica de las liturgias mortuorias, con terceros ocasionales.

«These are clearly distinguished from two other forms that do not appear, or appear only exceptionally, in this text genre:» — y las dos formas que distingue de ella, excepcionales en el género.

«The latter form is extremely widespread in the mortuary literature, and it is the usual form assumed by nonliturgical mortuary spells.» — la segunda de esas formas está muy extendida, dice, en los hechizos mortuorios no litúrgicos.

«More interesting in our context here is the form 1 : 2 : 2, in which an explicitly identified speaker addresses the deceased.» — le interesa más la forma en que el hablante se dirige al difunto.

«In the context of mortuary liturgies, this form performs two different functions: as a “concluding text,” in which the speaker finally sets aside his incognito and reveals his identity and his relationship to the addressee, and as “lamentations” put in the mouth of Isis and Nephthys, a typical element in the liturgy of the wake.» — las dos funciones que esa forma cumple en las liturgias mortuorias.

«But there are also important differences between hymns and mortuary liturgies.» — las diferencias que marca entre himnos y liturgias mortuorias.

«Hymns lack, for instance, the appellative element, or, in any event, it does not play the same dominant role in them.» — a los himnos les falta, dice, el elemento apelativo con ese papel dominante.

«The interjection hA “O” seems to be confined almost exclusively to mortuary liturgies, and it is used neither for the living15 nor (at least in earlier texts) for deities.» — dicho con su grado: la interjección *hA* parece propia de las liturgias mortuorias.

«It is thus certainly no accident that Sir Alan Gardiner, the great Egyptologist, was also one of the founding fathers of linguistic pragmatism and the theory of the speech act.» — y el juicio que añade: no le parece casual la coincidencia de la egiptología con la teoría del acto de habla.

«An important indication of how mortuary liturgies were used (their “situational embedding”) is supplied by representations.» — las representaciones dan, dice, un indicio importante de cómo se usaban las liturgias mortuorias.

«We have depictions of offering rituals with the recitation of mortuary liturgies from all periods, though we most often encounter them in tombs of the Old Kingdom.» — y dónde se encuentran: sobre todo en tumbas del Reino Antiguo.

«Hnw was not an expression of joy but rather of emotion at the presence of a superhuman power, such as the pharaoh, a deceased person, or a god.» — precisa el sentido de *hnw*: no expresa alegría, sino emoción ante una presencia sobrehumana.

«“Transfigurations,” or mortuary liturgies, were thus lengthy texts that were read out loud from rolls of papyrus.» — define las transfiguraciones como textos largos leídos de rollos de papiro.

«The fact that they were handed down in writing and recited from written copies demonstrates the special status of their language.» — la transmisión escrita muestra, dice, el estatuto especial de su lengua.

«When it came to these spells, no failure of memory could be allowed to slip in.» — y su exigencia: en esos hechizos no cabía deslizar error alguno.

«The writing was not “read” but “sung.” In this way as well, this sort of ritual writing corresponds perfectly to a musical score, which also is not read but performed.» — la comparación que hace: la escritura no se leía, se cantaba, como una partitura.

«They distrusted recollection, and they made use of writing as the memory cache for their cultic texts.» — los egipcios desconfiaban de la memoria, dice, y se apoyaban en la escritura para sus textos de culto.

«Naturally, scholars have considered this claim to be exaggerated, but a glance at the text reveals that this collection is much older than its alleged original, and that its contents are already to be found on coffins of the early second millennium.» — registra la reserva de los estudiosos ante esa afirmación.

«It is difficult to date this gulf between normally spoken and written Egyptian and the stage of the language preserved in the papyrus rolls of the lector priests.» — declara la dificultad de fechar la brecha lingüística.

«At this time, the old expression md.t nṯr, “divine language,” which had designated the hieroglyphs, must have been extended to refer to Old and Middle Egyptian, which had become foreign languages: the language of the cult was the language of the gods, and thus a foreign language.» — el desplazamiento de la vieja expresión lengua divina, que pasa a cubrir la lengua extranjera.

«Had Isis not awakened her husband, Osiris, with her laments and turned him into a powerful, immortal spirit with her transfigurations, all earthly, cultic actions and recitations in this regard would have been pointless.» — el condicional con que enuncia la dependencia del rito: sin el despertar de Osiris por Isis, los actos cultuales no tendrían objeto.

«The name of the text genre that comprised these protective rituals was indicative: they were called bA.w Rʿ.w “demonstrations of the power of Re,” for it was believed that by reciting them, the power of the sun god himself was brought into play, the power with which he overcame cosmic opposition during his daily course around the earth.» — el nombre del género que reúne esos rituales, ligado al curso diario del sol en torno a la tierra.

«The verbal treatment of death was only one (albeit central) special case of ritual recitation of the “demonstrations of the power of Re.” In general, this was nothing less than the attempt to keep the world in motion through language.» — el tratamiento verbal de la muerte es, dice, parte de un empeño mayor: mantener el mundo en movimiento por el lenguaje.

«Cult was thus not carried out in the sense of a communication between man and god but as the enacting of a drama in the divine world, between god and gods.» — lee el culto como dramatización entre dioses y no como comunicación.

«The basic principle of ancient Egyptian ritual practice could not be expressed more clearly.» — su juicio sobre esa formulación: el principio del rito egipcio no podría enunciarse con más claridad.

«The transforming, transfiguring power of the performance lay in the recitations that accompanied the actions.» — el poder transfigurador de la ejecución reside, dice, en las recitaciones que acompañan a los actos.

«When the priest spoke, one god spoke to another, and the words manifested their transforming, performative, theurgic power, that is, their power to create divine presence.» — cuando el sacerdote hablaba, dice, un dios hablaba a otro, y de ahí el poder de crear presencia divina.

«In its meaning and its essence, sacred recitation was thus divine speech, cached in the medium of writing and realized in the context of cultic role playing.» — define la recitación sagrada como discurso divino realizado en el juego de papeles del culto.

«The priest did not utter it as something of his own, and he did not approach a divine image as a man.» — y su límite: el sacerdote no la pronunciaba como propia.

«The cosmos—reality—was made up of such “constellations.” They were the structural elements comprising the entirety of the “world,” which was continuously coming into being.» — define el cosmos egipcio como hecho de constelaciones en continuo llegar a ser.

«Language made it possible to describe them and to integrate them through narrative: this was the origin of myths.» — y al lenguaje le adjudica describir esas constelaciones, de donde salen los mitos.

«The life-giving, animating effect of the divine word finds its clearest expression in the Books of the Netherworld.» — el efecto vivificante de la palabra divina llega a su expresión mayor, dice, en los libros del inframundo.

«In them, we encounter yet another image of death, one to which we have not devoted a chapter but which we wish to mention here,» — en ellos aparece otra imagen de la muerte, que solo menciona de paso.

«The image is connected with the nocturnal journey of the sun god through the netherworld.» — ligada al viaje nocturno del dios solar por el inframundo.

«These texts had a salvatory, transfiguring power, they awakened those lying in the sleep of death, they raised those who were stretched out, they opened the netherworld and effected divine presence: The spells of the ancestors relate true things.» — a esos textos les adjudica poder salvador y transfigurador.

«One gets the impression of a sharp discontinuity, as though the Middle Kingdom in no way continued the tradition of the pyramids of the Old Kingdom and instead created entirely new texts. But this is an optical illusion created by the selection of texts in de Buck’s edition.» — objeta una impresión: la discontinuidad aparente entre los textos del Reino Antiguo y el Medio se debe, dice, a la selección de la edición de De Buck.

«One innovation in the Coffin Texts leaps immediately to the eye.» — señala una innovación de los Textos de los Sarcófagos que salta a la vista.

«They belong to a different writing culture from that of the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom.» — y la adscribe a una cultura escrita distinta de la de los Textos de las Pirámides.

«The Pyramid Texts are inscriptions, while the Coffin Texts are manuscripts, displaying all the refinement in the art of manuscript writing that had developed in the offices of the administrative bureaucracy.» — la diferencia material que traza: los primeros son inscripciones, los segundos manuscritos ligados a la burocracia.

«This refinement includes the use of lists and tables, and especially of red and black ink to make it possible to distinguish “texts” and “paratexts” from one another.» — ese refinamiento permite, dice, distinguir textos de paratextos.

«The “texts” are the actual spells; these are written in black and correspond to what the decorators of the pyramids had (or would have) written on the walls.» — los textos son los hechizos, escritos en negro.

«The “paratexts,” written in red, have no counterpart in the pyramids.» — los paratextos van en rojo y no tienen equivalente en las pirámides.

«These are titles and postscripts that inform us of the purpose and the effects of the respective spells, as well as instructions for reciting them, in cases where the spell was to be recited under specific conditions or with the use of specific objects.» — esos títulos y colofones informan, dice, del uso de objetos concretos.

«Typical goals, for instance, are “not to die a second time,” “not to eat excrement in the realm of the dead,” “not to go upside down,” “to transform into . . . ,” “to have disposal of air and water,” “to vindicate a man,” and so forth and so on.» — los fines típicos que enumera, empezando por no morir por segunda vez.

«This innovation shows that the principal purpose of the coffin decoration was no longer, as in the pyramids, the recording of a voice that permanently addressed the deceased or with which the deceased himself wished permanently to speak.» — lo que esa innovación muestra: la decoración del ataúd ya no busca una voz permanente.

«The voice was unable to express this distinction between text and paratext, red and black ink.» — y el motivo: la voz no puede marcar la distinción que hacen la tinta roja y la negra.

«These bureaucratic forms of recording texts are directed at the eye of the reader.» — esas formas burocráticas de registro apuntan, dice, al ojo del lector.

«Here, it is not a recitation that is made permanent but a store of knowledge that is put on stand-by.» — el contraste que traza: no se perpetúa una recitación, se deja el conocimiento en reserva.