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Craddle and astrology.

by Egenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Craddle and astrology. In an Egyptian life the paranormal was always present and it dominated every moment of a human life. The Egyptian were firmly convinced that a person did just have the time to be born to find himself under the power of thousands of arcane influences.
However the wise men of the times asserted that if they knew the date of the baby birth and also if they could exactly assess how all the planets and the stars were set for him, they could foretell what his life would be, and tell everything about it: To say it in Greek “from its Alpha to its Omega”.
Obviously in that they would be backed by the gods who superintended to this art. One was the Destiny goddess whose name was Shai and with her always present was Renenet considered to be the goddess of Fortune. Both were there when a human being was born, and after his death they also assisted when his heart was weighted on the divine scale for the last judgment: Some time also another goddess was with them, Meskhenet, who appeared to have not only the vision of the child future but also the power to intervene on it.
Many legends were told about Meskhenet: For instance people narrated that with Isis, Nephtis and Heqet all disguised as mortal women, they went to Ra-user’s house. Here his wife was in labor and they assisted her while she gave birth to a triplets. Then, when each baby was born Meskhenet announced “He will be a king and will rule all the land”. Her prophecy became true. The three baby became three Pharaohs of the V dynasty.
But not only Meskhenet made profecy; also the Seven Hathors had the same power. However their predictions were always about dire events. They were the worst jinx of their time. We can also learn it by the tale “Story of two brothers” which related that when Khnemu, on Ră-Harmachis’ request, created for Bata a wife more handsome than all the women in this world (and how could she be otherwise when Khnemu had put in her all the most splendid beauty existing in the Egyptian Pantheon) the Seven Hathors came to see her and declared “She will be killed by a knife”. And so she was because, when the king who married her learned from her husband (I suppose that this one must have been Bata) how she had deserted his house and all the pains she had inflicted to him, he gathered all his courtiers, make them judge her and when they condemned the woman to death he ordered to execute her by a stab in her heart.
In another tale the Seven Hathors, more jinx than ever, were called to foretell the destiny of a baby who had just been born to a certain king. They went and predicted that he would be killed by a crocodile, a serpent or a dog. Thus, put on guard against those dangers, the young man succeeded to escape the crocodile and avoid the serpent’s bite. But here the papyrus is ruined and the story is interrupted. It is however clear that he could never escape the fatal influence of the Seven Hathors and it is highly probable that he died by a dog bite..



BIBLIOGRAPHY
E.A. WALLIS BUDGE, Egyptian Magi, Bury St.Edmunds, Suffolk, 1975, first published in 1899, pp. 222-223