You rise glorious at the heavens' edge, O living Aten!
You in whom all life began.
When you shone from the eastern horizon
You filled every land with your beauty.
You are lovely, great and glittering,
You go high above the lands you have made,
Embracing them with your rays
Holding them fast for your loving son
Though you are far away, your rays are here on Earth;
Though you fill men's eyes, your footprints are unseen.
When you sink beyond the western boundary of the heavens
The Earth is darkened as though by death;
Then men sleep in their bedchambers,
Their heads wrapped up, unable to see one another;
Their treasures are stolen from benieth their heads
And they know it not.
Every lion comes out from its lair,
All serpants emerge and sting.
Darkness is supreme and earth is silent;
Their maker rests within the horizon.
The earth brightens with your rising,
with the shining of your disc by day.
Before your rays the darkness is put to flight.
The people of the two lands celebrate the day,
You rouse them and raise them to their feet,
They wash their limbs, they dress themselves,
They light up their arms in praise of your appearing,
Then throughout all the land they beging their work.
Cattle browse peasefully,
Trees and plants are verdant,
Birds fly from their nests
And lift up their wings in your praise.
All animals frisk upon their feet
All winged things fly and alight once more-
They come to life with your rising.
Boats sell upstream and downstreem.
At your coming every highway is opened.
Before your face fish leap up from the river.
Your rays reach the green ocean.
You it is who place the male seed in woman
You who create the semen in man;
You quicken the son in the mother's belly,
Soothing him so he shall not cry.
Even in the womb you are his nurse.
You give breath to all your creation,
Opening the mouth of the newborn
And giving him nourishment.
When the chicken chirps from within the shell
You give him breath that he may live.
You bring his body to readiness
So that he may break from his egg.
And when he is hatched he runs on his two feet,
announcing his creation
How manifold are your works.
They are mysterious in men's sights.
O sole, incomparable god, all-powerful,
You created the earth in solitude
As your heart desired.
Men you created, and cattle great and small,
Whatever is on earth,
All that tread the ground on foot,
All that wing and lofty air.
You created the strange countires, Khor and Kush,
As well as the land of Egypt.
You set every man in his right place
With his food and his possesions
And his days that are numbered.
Men speak in many tounges,
In body and complexion they are various,
For you have distinguished between people and people.
In the Netherworld you make the Nile-flood,
Leading it out at your pleasure to bring life for the Egyptians.
Though lord of them all, lord of their lands,
You grow weary for them, shine for them,
The sun disc by day, great in your majesty.
To far lands also you have brought life,
Setting them a Nile-flood in the heavens
That falls like the waves of the sea,
Watering the fields where they dwell.
How excellent are your purposes , O lord of eternity!
You have set a Nile in the sky for the strangers.
For the cattle of every country that go on their feet,
But for Egypt the Nile wells from the Netherworld.
Your rays nourish fields and garden.
It is for you that we live.
You make the seasons for the sake of your creation,
Thet winter to cool them, the summer that they
may taste your heat.
You have made far skies so that you may shine in them.
Your disc in its solitude looks on all that you have made
Appearing in its glory and gleaming both near and far.
Out of your singleness you shape a million forms-
Towns and villages, fields, roads and the river.
All eyes behold you, bright dic of the day.
There is none other that knows you save Akhenaten,
your son.
You have given him insight of your purposes.
He understands your power.
All the creatures of the world are in your hand,
Just as you have made them.
With your rising they live.
With your setting they die.
You yorself are the span of life. Men live through you,
Their eyes filled with beauty till the hour of your settling.
All labour is set aside when you sink in the west.
You established the world for your son,
He who was born of your body,
King of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt
Living in truth, Lord of the Two Lands,
Neferkheprure, Wanre
The Son of Re,
Living in Truth, Lord of Diadems,
Akhenaten great in his length of days.
And for the King's Great Wife
She Whom he loves,
For the Lady of the Two Lands, Nefernfruaten-Nefertiti,
May she live and flower for ever and ever.
- Courtasy of a wall
SlightOfHand
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