Akhenaten’s Hymn to Light
Sidebar to: Monotheism048
Worshiping the Living One, the Sun Horus of the Akhet, who
becomes active in the Akhet in his identity as the Light that is
in the Sun-disk, alive forever continually, the living sun-disk,
the great one who is in jubilee, lord of all that the sun-disk
encircles, lord of the sky, lord of the land, lord of the House of
the sun-disk in Akhetaten;
and the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, living by what is right,
lord of the Two Lands, Neferkheperure-Waenre, son of Re,
living by what is right, lord of appearances, Akhenaten, long in
his lifetime;
and the chief Queen, whom he loves, lady of the Two Lands,
Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti, alive, healthy, and young forever
continually, saying:
Your appearance from the Akhet of the sky is perfect,
oh living sun-disk who determines life.
For you are risen from the eastern Akhet
and have filled every land with your perfection.
For you are beautiful, great, glittering, high above every land,
and your rays embrace the lands to the end of all you have made.
For you are in the sun, reaching to their end
and subduing them for the son you love.
For you are far, yet your rays are on earth:
you are in their face.
When your movements fade and you go to rest in the
western Akhet,
the land is in darkness, in the manner of death,
asleep in the bed, heads covered;
no eye can see another.
Were all their things to be stolen, even from under their heads,
they would not realize it.
Every lion is out of his den,
all serpents bite.
Darkness blankets, the land is in stillness,
once the one who makes them has gone to rest in his Akhet.
When the land grows bright and you are risen from the Akhet
and shining in the sun-disk by day,
you dispel the darkness and give your rays,
and the Two Lands are in a festival of light:
awake and standing on their feet, as you have raised them,
their bodies clean, their clothes put on,
their arms in adoration of your appearing,
and the whole land doing their work;
all flocks at rest on their grasses,
trees and grasses flourishing;
birds flown from their nest,
their wings in adoration of your life-force;
all flocks prancing on foot,
all that fly and alight living as you rise for them;
ships going downstream and upstream too,
every road open at your appearance;
fish on the river leaping to your face,
your rays even inside the sea.
You who make fetuses evolve in women,
who makes semen into people!
You who bring the son to life in the belly of his mother,
who quiets him by ending his crying!
You nurse in the belly,
who gives air to bring life to everyone he makes!
When he descends from the belly to breathe on the day he is born,
you open his mouth fully and make what he needs.
For the chick in the egg speaks in the shell
and you give him air inside it to bring him to life;
and when you have made him complete in the egg to break it,
he emerges from the egg to speak in his completeness,
and walks on his legs when he emerges from it.
How manifold is that which you make, even those
hidden from sight, oh sole god, with no other except him!
You alone create the earth to your desire:
people, cattle, and all flocks,
everyone on earth who walks on feet,
everyone in the heavens flying with their wings,
foreign lands from Syria to Kush, and the land of Egypt;
You give every man to his place and make what they need:
every one having his food, his lifetime reckoned,
tongues parted in speech, their characters too,
their skins distinguished, as you distinguish foreigners;
You make the inundation in the netherworld and bring it
forth as you desire, to give life to the subjects, just as you
make them for you—you lord of them all, who exhausts
himself for them
When you have gone no eye can exist,
for you make their sight such that you yourself
cannot be seen except by the sole son you have made.
You are in my heart, but there is no other who knows you
except for your son, Neferkheperure-Waenre,
whom you have made aware of your designs and your
strength.
The land evolves from your action, as you make them:
when you rise they live, when you go to rest they die.
You are lifetime in yourself,
and one lives only through you,
eyes continually on perfection until you go to rest,
all work laid down when you go to rest in the west—
you who rise and make all things grow for the King,
sustaining everyone who hurries on foot since you founded the
land, for your son, who came from your self:
the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, living by what is right, lord
of the Two Lands, Neferkheperure-Waenre, son of Re, living by
what is right, lord of appearances, Akhenaten, long in his lifetime;
and the chief Queen, whom he loves, lady of the Two Lands,
Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti, alive and young forever continually.
(translated by James P. Allen)