All Others Are at the Bar Whispering Scare Stories How can you tell it like that? Bad man, mad man, no god, he? Right man, Fright man, scare the nothingness into Apep? What role does he play? And were you on the boat when he played it? Two sides to every thing, at least. What mighty strength there, and who knows the nature of that strength? Two sided, double edged, flint hard, and then some... For his 'pesh kent' knife, he hones that steel, and only he is strong enough to hone it. Just fierce like that? No? He's got many sides, and one of them you might like. But he doesn't care if you like, unless you like, and then... and then it's all interest and no holding back. This is a God who doesn't hold back. 'Lord of the limit', that's him He came to the boundary and then set it over twenty feet. Or was it more? It depends on his mood. If you don't like his mood, He won't order a new attitude, He has his own pride. He sat all day in the shade of the noon day sun bragging "I am the only one who can take down Apep, the would be destroyer of the world." And he is. Believe him, even if you think he brags too much. Say he likes the sound of his voice too much, that booming thunder? He does like the way it sounds. BOOM! Crack! Yes, he dazzles! And maybe he won't hear your applause! But he laughs, and laughs big. Didn't you hear that too? He was laughing the day he made Osirus that pretty box. He was the only one who could do THAT job, too. No one else wanted to do it, the job that had to be done. But he did it, and Osirus got his title, 'god of the dead'. Just another hard day's work. So death is dead, and gone to the other side. It's just that way. What rises? The stars, and did he fuel them, too? Put in the gas to power their flame? You know it. If it's got POWER in it, it's got his stamp. Juice it, goose it, flame it, name it, that TNT, he made it. And then he sold it to you. But did you buy it? So you're out on the intersection of somewhere and nowhere and now you want his gas? Lust for it, and it might be yours, show him you really want it, and he might smile, smile that toothy grin and... take delight and... (all others are at the bar whispering scare stories...) It wasn't you, was it? Not that he cares. He'll take the fare anyway and be smiling all the way across the journey of the million years, give or take a few... I'm on his boat, are you? JAL, 6-11-06

(Note of June 18, 2006)
On the whole, I think I've got the Egyptian myths correct. However, as I was crawling some Egyptian archaelogical websites today, I learned one thing that rather makes this poem a little problematic: To be on the boat with Set isn't so good, for to do so, you might have to be DEAD!

http://www.cofc.edu/~piccione/piccione_senet.pdf

"The Egyptians believed that in death they would join the sun god on his bark as it set in the western horizon at dusk. The deceased and the sun god would then journey together through the subterranean regions of the underworld. Here dwelt a host of divinities and the souls of deceased people..."
(He does omit the part about Ra being rather helpless in this region, and needing Set to do the battle.)

Now in another page Piccione says of the senet game that it was played "to experience the netherworld journey without having to die first, in order to unite with Ra while still alive and achieve a living apotheosis with the creator-god." Apotheosis means "elevation to divine status" according to m-w.com. So maybe dying isn't necessary and we can be divine on that boat with Set and Ra.

Um, well... Ah, let's just say I'm learning new stuff everyday!

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