The Coffin Texts of Ancient Egypt - Spell 1

Selected sources: B1P; B3Bo; B4C; B15C; BH5C; S10C; T1L; T9C; Y1C; Theban Tomb TT 319

HERE BEGINS THE BOOK OF VINDICATING A MAN⁽¹⁾ IN THE REALM OF THE DEAD

Ho NN!
You⁽²⁾ are the Lion,
You are RUTI (the Double Lion)⁽³⁾,
You are HORUS, Protector of his father⁽⁴⁾,
You are the fourth in this quatrain⁽⁵⁾ of gods,

who are powerful and useful(?)⁽⁶⁾,

who bring water⁽⁷⁾ and

(who) create the Nile⁽⁸⁾ through the power of their fathers⁽⁹⁾.

O NN!
Raise yourself on your left side,
Put yourself on the right side!⁽¹⁰⁾


Notes

1. T1L adds "and of not going upside down".
2. B4C, Y1C, S10C and the text in TT 319 omit the first verse and render the following four in first person sg. with the deceased as the speaker: "I am the lion, I am Ruti, I am Horus, protector of  my father, I am the fourth in this quartet of gods."
3. Wb 2, 403.11; LGG IV, 654 ff., a deity venerated in Letopolis and connected to the solar cycle, also an epithet of Shu and Tefnut, the children of the primeval creator god Atum.
4. T9C adds "You are Thoth the vindicated". 
5. Very metaphorical translation of the original alluding to the four written verses here and the deceased as the "fourth of this quartet of gods".
6. jtpw - Meeks, AL 78.0546. The word seems to occur only in one source from Illahun(?). R. O. Faulkner translates "strong" with question mark and derives it from a word meaning "doubtful".
7. Two sources add "who make inundation".
8. B1P changes Hp - "Nile" to HkAw - "magicians". Several others add jrr hy hnw - "who make cheers of jubilation" and T9C inserts jrr baba - "who burble" like the river (Wb 1, 447.1-4).
9. Atum, who first rose from the primeval ocean (Pyr. 1587), and Osiris are both connected to water and the annual flood (Pyr. 589; 788; 1360). In Ptolemaic times this idea evolves into the myth of Osiris being the Nile and having its source in the Netherworld (Fig. 1), although the idea of the river emerging from between the granite bolders at Bigge or Elephantine is an ancient one. B4C changes "their fathers" to "their divinity" and Y1C has "the children of their fathers".
10. The complete spell is reused in the New Kingdom as the first stanza of Book of the Dead chapter 169 titled "Formula for setting up the embalming-bed".

Fig. 1 Osiris as Nile in a cave on
the island of Bigge (lower left corner),
on the right Isis making libation to the
Ba of Osiris sitting in the sacred grove -
from a relief in the temple of Philae

Bibliography

A. de Buck, The Egyptian Coffin Texts I-VIII, OIP 34, 49, 64, 67, 73, 81, 87, 132 (1935-1961).
L. H. Lesko, Index of Spells on Egyptian Middle Kingdom Coffins and Related Documents (Berkeley 1979).
H. Willems (ed.), The World of the Coffin Texts. Proceedings of the Symposium held on the Occasion of the 100th Birthday of Adriaan de Buck, Leiden december 17–19, 1992, EU 9 (Leiden 1996)
R. van der Molen, A Hieroglyphic Dictionary of Egyptian Coffin Texts, PÄ 15 (Leiden / Boston / Köln 2000).
J. Assmann, Totenliturgien in den Sargtexten des Mittleren Reichs. Altägyptische Totenliturgien 1, Supplemente zu den Schriften der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 14 (Heidelberg 2002).
L. Gestermann, Die Überlieferung ausgewählter Texte altägyptischer Totenliteratur („Sargtexte“) in spätzeitlichen Grabanlagen, ÄA 68 (Wiesbaden 2005).
R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts. Spells 1-1185 (Oxford 2007).