goddess Serqet, and advised Isis to pray to heaven for help. Pray that
the sailors in the Boat of Ra may cease from rowing, for the Boat
cannot travel onwards whilst Horus lies dead. Then Isis cried out to
heaven, and her voice reached the Boat of Millions of Years, and the
Disk ceased to move onward, and came to a standstill. From the Boat
Thoth descended, being equipped with words of power and spells of all
kinds, and bearing with him the "great command of maa-kheru," i.e., the
WORD, whose commands were performed, instantly and completely, by every
god, spirit, fiend, human being and by every thing, animate and
inanimate, in heaven, earth, and the Other World. Then he came to Isis
and told her that no harm could possibly have happened to Horus, for he
was under the protection of the Boat of Ra; but his words failed to
comfort Isis, and though she acknowledged the greatness of his designs,
she complained that they savoured of delay. "What is the good," she
asks, "of all thy spells, and incantations, and magical formulae, and
the great command of maa-kheru, if Horus is to perish by the poison of
a scorpion, and to lie here in the arms of Death? Evil, evil is his
destiny, for it hath entailed the deepest misery for him and death."

In answer to these words Thoth, turning to Isis and Nephthys, bade them
to fear not, and to have no anxiety about Horus, "For," said he, "I
have come from heaven to heal the child for his mother." He then
pointed out that Horus was under protection as the Dweller in his Disk
(Aten), the Great Dwarf, the Mighty Ram, the Great Hawk, the Holy
Beetle, the Hidden Body, the Divine Bennu, etc., and proceeded to utter
the great spell which restored Horus to life. By his words of power
Thoth transferred the fluid of life of Ra, and as soon as this came
upon the child's body the poison of the scorpion flowed out of him, and
he once more breathed and lived. When this was done Thoth returned to
the Boat of Ra, the gods who formed its crew resumed their rowing, and