Primary Source Response #1

Hymn to Aton

Thou arisest fair in the horizon of Heaven, O living Aton, Beginner of Life.

When thou dawnest in the East, thou fillest every land with thy beauty.

Thou art indeed comely, great, radiant and high over every land.

Thy rays embrace the lands to the full extent of all that thou hast made,

for thou art Re and thou attainest their limits and subduest them for thy beloved son.

Thou art remote yet thy rays are upon the earth.

Thou art in the sight of men, yet thy ways are not known.

When thou set test in the Western horizon, the earth is in darkness after the manner of death.

Men spend the night indoors with the head covered, the eyes not seeing its fellow.

Their possessions might be stolen, even when under their heads, and they would be unaware of

it.

Every lion comes forth from its lair and all snakes bite.

Darkness lurks, and the earth is silent when their Creator rests in his habitation.

The earth brightens when thou arisest in the Eastern

horizon and shinest forth as Aton in the daytime.

Thou drivest away the night when thou givest forth

thy beams.

The Two Lands are in festival.

They awake and stand upon their feet for thou hast

raised them up.

They wash their limbs, they put on raiment and raise

their arms in adoration at thy appearance.

The entire earth performs its labours.

All cattle are at peace in their pastures.

The trees and herbage grow green.

The birds fly from their nests, their wings (raised) in

praise of thy spirit.

All animals gambol on their feet, all the winged

creation live when thou hast risen for them.

The boats sail upstream, and likewise downstream.

All ways open at thy dawning.

The fish in the river leap in thy presence.

Thy rays are in the midst of the sea.

Thou it is who causest women to conceive and makest seed into man,

who givest life to the child in the womb of its mother,

who comfortest him so that so he cries not therein, nurse that thou art, even in the womb,

who givest breath to quicken all that he hath made.

When the child comes forth from the body on the day of his birth,

then thou openest his mouth completely and thou furnishest his sustenance.

When the chick in the egg chirps within the shell, thou givest him the breath within it to sustain

him.

Thou createst for him his proper term within the egg, so that he shall break it and come forth

from it to testify to his completion as he runs about on his two feet when he emergeth.

How manifold are thy works!

They are hidden from the sight of men, O Sole God, like unto whom there is no other!

Thou didst fashion the earth according to thy desire when thou wast alone – all men, all cattle

great and small, all that are upon the earth that run upon their feet or rise up high flying with

their wings.

And the lands of Syria and Kush and Egypt – thou appointest every man to his place and satisfies

his needs.

Everyone receives his sustenance and his days are numbered.

Their tongues are diverse in speech and their qualities likewise, and their colour is differentiated

for thou hast distinguished the nations.

Thou makest the waters under the earth and thou bringest them forth at thy pleasure to sustain

the people of Egypt even as thou hast made them live for thee, O Devine Lord of them all, toiling

for them, the Lord of every land, shining forth for them, the Aton Disk of the day time, great in

majesty!