The Name of Ra

Author: Traditional

Time Period: 5000 BCE–2500 BCE

Country or Culture: Egypt

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

The goddess Isis loves the gods and goddesses more than humans, and she wants to become as powerful as the god Ra (Re) and have control over the heavens and the earth. Isis decides that if she can learn the secret name of Ra, which grants him his powers, she will be able to achieve her goal. Ra travels through the sky every day, emerging from the eastern horizon in the morning and journeying across the sky until he exits below the western horizon every night. At this point, the god Ra has traveled this path so often that he has become old, and his spittle falls to the ground as he sits on his heavenly thrones each day. In order to trick him and learn his secret name, Isis collects this spittle and mixes it with earth, shaping it into a viper and placing it in the path that Ra walks every day. Because it contains the power of Ra, she does not need to rely on her magic to bring it to life.

Ra rises the next day and traverses this path accompanied by a host of other gods. As he passes the viper, it springs to life and strikes him with its fangs. His cry of pain is heard throughout the heavens, and one after another, the other gods ask him what is wrong. Ra is so weak from the poisonous bite that he is at first unable to answer them. When he finds the strength, he pleads with them to find someone with divine powers to heal him.

Among the gods and goddesses who come to his aid is Isis, who is well known for her prowess in healing. Ra describes his symptoms and Isis assures him that she can heal him as long as he tells her his name. He agrees and tells her all the various names humankind has given him based on the various powers he holds over the heavens and earth. He is not healed. Isis tells him that these names are not enough and that she cannot heal him without knowing his true name. Ra feels incredible pain from the viper’s poison, and he finally agrees to tell her. He hides himself from all the other gods and causes his name to pass directly from his body into hers. He instructs her not to tell anyone his name except her son, Horus.

Isis tells Horus that she has obtained the secret name of Ra and that she will use this power to make Ra give up his eyes to Horus. Because of this, the eyes of Horus are the eyes of Ra; one is the moon, and the other is the sun. Once this is accomplished, Isis casts a spell and uses the eye of Horus to remove the poison from Ra’s body.

This myth refers to Isis as the queen of the gods and instructs the reader to depend on her when trying to heal a person who has been poisoned. It includes a section saying that one should repeat the words of Isis’s spell over images of Horus and Isis in order to help them heal.

SIGNIFICANCE

Isis is a very important goddess in Egyptian mythology. As described in the myth above, she was often viewed as the queen of the gods and was associated with healing and childbirth. She was sometimes called the Female Ra and was often considered Ra’s equal. She was the wife of Osiris, the god of the dead and of the Nile River, and her son, Horus, is the traditional ruler of Egypt. This myth is particularly important because, in it, Isis overcomes an aged Ra and ultimately becoming just as powerful as the king of the gods. Here is an example of the strength of the goddesses of the Egyptian pantheon. This was perhaps a reflection of the power of Egyptian women, who were considered equal to men in the eyes of the law for much of ancient Egyptian history. Property was often passed from mother to daughter rather than from father to son, and if the pharaoh had no male heir, a woman could take the throne.

Isis is sometimes portrayed in art as having the head of a snake. The snake is traditionally an important symbol in Egyptian mythology. It can stand for the Eye of Ra, which is described as being a separate goddess who once punished humanity and then transformed into a snake when she returned to Ra. In a more general sense, it can be a symbol of any Egyptian goddess.

Another interesting aspect of this myth is the fact that Ra feels the effects of age. There is some debate over how time works in Egyptian myths. One theory is that myths about gods occur in one of two ways: for creation myths, they occur in an eternal present where the gods do not change, but in other myths, they are considered to exist in an actual historical time where they are subject to normal human problems and desires. Ra’s age in this myth falls into the latter category; this explains why he can be portrayed as being frail and fallible and still be considered a powerful god.

In Egyptian mythology, various parts of one god or goddess can manifest as a separate god or goddess, such as the Eye of Ra mentioned above. Osiris, Isis’s husband, is sometimes considered the soul or name of Ra, and there is some speculation that the secret name Isis learned was actually that of her husband.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

El-Aswad, el-Sayed. “Archaic Egyptian Cosmology.” Anthropos Institute 92 (1997): 69–81. Print.

Budge, Ernest A. Wallis. Egyptian Tales and Romances. 1931. New York: Arno, 1980. Print.

Knapp, Bettina. “The Archetypal Woman Fulfilled: Isis, Harmony of Flesh/Spirit/Logos.” Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures 50.1 (1996): 28–39. Print.

Murray, M. A. “The Name of Ra.” Ancient Egyptian Legends. London: Murray, 1920. 80–85. Print.

Pinch, Geraldine. Egyptian Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. Print.