Saturday, June 27, 2009

Nut's Children

Bile sebut ttg EGYPT.. Mesti sume org terpikir ttg pyramid, Sungai Nil, Firaun dan Mumia.. Mostly..sume org dah tau ttg ni kan.. But now..fa nk kongsi ttg cerite rakyat masyarakat Mesir pd zaman dulu..Fa ske ngt sejarah Egypt, Roman, Viking (Lanun) and Greece.. Ni antara buku koleksi yg fa syg ngt..

The ancient Egyptians told many stories about their gods and about the world around them. Often these stories would try to explain something that the people did not really understand. Nut’s Children tries to explain why the Moon waxes and wanes.


Alkisah…



In long time ago times, RE, the chief of all the gods, still reigned on Earth as a living pharaoh (firaun). He lived in a huge palace on the banks of the Nile (Sungai Nil) and all the people of Egypt came to bow down before him. All his courtiers did exactly what he ask, and he spent his time hunting, playing games and feasting. IT WAS A WONDERFUL LIFE!

However, one day..

A courtier came to him and told him about a conversation he had overhead. THOTH, god of wisdom and magic, had told the goddess NUT that one day her son would be pharaoh of Egypt.

RE was furious. How could anyone but he possibly be Pharaoh? No-one else was worthy of the task, and besides, he had no intention of ever giving up the throne. He raged about in his chambers, shouting at the top of his voice.
“How dare they suggest such a thing! Why, they are probably plotting to get rid of me at this very moment. But no child of NUT will de-throne me!!”
He thought and thought about a way to protect his throne. Eventually, summoning all the magic power his possessed, he spoke these words:
“I lay this curse upon her: no child of NUT will be born on any day or any night of a year.”

News traveled quickly amongst the gods, so NUT soon heard of RE’s curse. She was quite heart-broken. She badly wanted a child but she knew that RE’s magic was very strong. How could she break the curse? The only person who might be able to help her was THOTH, wisest of all gods, so she set off to see him at once.
THOTH loved NUT dearly and, when he saw her tears, he decided at once to do all he could to help her.
“I cannot lift RE’s curse,” he said, “but I may be able to get round it. Just wait here.”


THOTH knew that KHONSU, the Moon god, was a great gambler, so he went to visit him and challenged him to a game of senet (mcm game chess tp ade 7 each side).
KHONSU did not stop to think for a moment. He could not resist the challenge.
“O, THOTH” he said. “You may be the wisest of all gods, but I am the greatest senet player there has ever been. I have never lost a game. I will certainly play you and I will win every game easily!”

The two sat down to play. From the very start, THOTH won every game. All seven of his pieces seemed to reach the far end of the board before KHONSU’s pieces had even moved.
“You have just been lucky up till now, THOTH,” said KHONSU. “I wager an hour of my light that I will win the next game.”
But still he lost! THOTH kept on winning and KHONSU kept on wagering his own light until THOTH had won enough of KHONSU’s light to make up five whole days. Then THOOTH stood up, thanked KHONSU for the game and left, taking KHONSU’s light with him.

“What a coward,” muttered KHONSU to himself. “My luck was just starting to change. I would certainly have won the next game!”
THOTH fitted the five extra days in between the end of that year and the beginning of the next. Until that time the year had been made up to 12 months, each with 30 days, making a total of 360 days in the year. That number remained the same, but the five extra days set the calendar right.

NUT was overjoyed when THOTH told her what he had done. Because the five extra days were not days in any year, NUT’s children could be born on these days without breaking RE’s curse. On the first day, NUT gave birth to OSIRIS, who was to be Pharaoh after RE; on the second day to HARMACHIS, who is immortalized as the SPHINX; on the third day SET, who latter killed OSIRIS and become Pharaoh for a while; on the fourth day ISIS, who was to be the wife of OSIRIS, and on the fifth day NEPHTHYS, who was to be SET’s wife. (kawin adik bradik utk kekalkan keturunan tuhan)

As for KHONSU the moon god, he was so weakened after the game with THOOTH that he lost much of his strength for ever. He could no longer shine brightly all the time. Even today the Moon only shines brightly on a few days of the month and has to spend the rest of the time gathering its strength together.

Wow!! Such an interesting story..Egypt kaya dgn crite ttg tuhan2 die.. dan anak2 NUT antare yg plg terkenal..Fa ade bnyk lg koleksi cerite camni.. To be continue later ya..
=)

4 comments:

Fauzan Ahmad said...

i'm 1st... hehe

Siti Payung said...

nice, haha

Anonymous said...

Thumbs UP!!! I am beginning to understand better the Myth of Osiris

fa said...

=) i love ancient history a lot!! very interesting!!

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