| Manuscript: | M120 |
| Sigla: | Hs. Schmidt 1 |
Text no. 
Position of the text within the manuscript. | 1 |
| Coptic Scriptorium: | |
| Date: | 301 – 700 |
| Text position: | Ro ll. 1-25 |
| Type of text: | Sleep (?) (healing, magical, formulary) |
| Original title: | |
| Original title (translated): | |
| Conventional title: | Formula for sleep (or love spell ?) |
| Language: | Egyptian (Coptic) |
| Dialect: | Sahidic (non-standard) |
| Script: | Coptic |
| Image: |
| Text: | Translation: |
| ↓ |
[1] ⳨ Listen to Horus, crying, listen to Horus, [2] groaning: “I have suffered, melting for seven [3] women (?) from the third ⟨hour⟩ of the day until the [4] fourth hour of the night. Not one of them sleeps, [5] not one of them dozes.” Isis, his [6] mother, replied to him from within the temple of Habin, [7] her face turned towards seven women (?), [8] seven women (?) turned towards her face. “Horus, why are you crying? Horus, why are you [10] groaning?” “Do you not want me to cry? Do you [11] want me to not groan from the third hour [12] of the day to the fourth hour of the night? I am melting [13] for seven women (?). Not one of them sleeps, [14] not one of them dozes.” “Even if (?) [you] did not [find me], [15] and you did not find my name, take a cup [and] [16] a little water, whether a little [17] breath or a breath of your mouth or a breath of [your nose], [18] and recite down over them, ‘O … [19] O two angels through whom [20] sleep was set upon Ebed-Melech for seventy-two [years], [21] set sleep upon NN, make [22] his head heavy like a millstone, upon his [23] eyes like a sack of sand, until I complete [24] my demand, and I fulfil the desire of my heart, [25] now, now, quickly quickly!’” |
| Tableau: | |
| Tracing by: |
| Apparatus: | 2. ⲟⲩⲟⲑ i.e. Sahidic ⲟⲩⲱⲑ+ l. ⲉ⸗ⲓ̈-ⲟⲩⲱⲑ ? cf. l. 12 : translate “desiring” ? (“indem ich begehre”, “di desiderio”) l. ⲟⲩⲱϣ or ⲱⲧϩ ? Kropp, Pernigotti : l. ⲱⲧϩ Martín Hernández/Torallas Tovar : l. ⲟⲩⲁⲁⲧ⸗⊘ Blumell/Dosoo |
| Notes: | 3, 7, 8, 13. ⲛⲟⲩⲥⲉ This word does not seem to be otherwise attested in Coptic. It may derive from the Demotic nsy (“prostitute (?)”; see Blumell/Dosoo 228-229, n. 76), or else from a contraction of the Greek παρθένος (“maiden”). We here choose the neutral translation “women”. |
| Bibliography: | Blumell, Lincoln and Korshi Dosoo. "Horus, Isis, and the Dark-Eyed Beauty: A Series of Magical Ostraca in the Brigham Young University Collection." Archiv für Papyrusforschung 64 (2018): 199-259. Kropp, Angelicus. Ausgewählte koptische Zaubertexte. Textpublikation. Vol. 1. Bruxelles: Édition de la Fondation Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth, 1931, p. 11-12, no. A. Kropp, Angelicus. Ausgewählte koptische Zaubertexte. Übersetzungen und Anmerkungen. Vol. 2. Bruxelles: Édition de la Fondation Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth, 1931, p. 3-6, no. 1. Meyer, Marvin W., and Richard Smith. Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power. Princeton (New Jersey): Princeton University Press, 1999, p. 94-95, no. 48. Pernigotti, Sergio. “La magia copta: I testi.” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 18.5, edited by Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1995, p. 3698, no. 1. Pernigotti, Sergio. Testi della Magia Copta. Imola: Editrice La Mandragora, 2000, p. 52-53, no. 17. Martín Hernández, Raquel, and Sofía Torallas Tovar. "'You Who Impose Sleep Upon Abimelech For Seventy Two Years': An Egyptian Spell Against Insomnia." In Contesti magici = Contextos mágicos Convegno internazionale Contesti magici, contextos magicos edited by Marina Piranomonte and Francisco Marco Simón. Rome, 2012, p. 309-312. |
| Editor: | EL’s edition from photograph of the original, incorporating Kropp (14/10/2018) (26/7/2021); KD, EL, RBS (28/7/2021); KD and Roxanne Bélanger Sarrazin from photograph (28/7/2021); team (30/7/2021) |