Manuscript: | M120 |
Sigla: | PCM 1 6 |
Text no. Position of the text within the manuscript. | 1 |
Coptic Scriptorium: | |
Date: | 501 – 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, child of 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. |
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); JS (9/1/2023) |