Thot formed no exception to this rule. He was lord of the voice, master of words and of books, possessor or inventor of those magic writings which nothing in heaven, on earth, or in Hades can withstand.[***] *** Cf. in the tale of Satni (Maspero, _Contes populaires de l'Ancienne Egypte_, 2nd edit., p. 175) the description of the book which Thot has himself written with his own hand, and which makes its possessor the equal of the gods. "The two formulas which are written therein, if thou recitest the first thou shalt charm heaven, earth, Hades, the mountains, the waters; thou shalt know the birds of the sky and the reptiles, how many soever they be; thou shalt see the fish of the deep, for a divine power will cause them to rise to the surface of the water. If thou readest the second formula, even although thou shouldest be in the tomb, thou shalt again take the form which was thine upon earth; thou shalt even see the sun rising in heaven, and his cycle of gods, and the moon in the form wherein it appeareth." He had discovered the incantations which evoke and control the gods; he had transcribed the texts and noted the melodies of these incantations; he recited them with that true intonation--_ma khrou_--which renders them all-powerful, and every one, whether god or man, to whom he imparted them, and whose voice he made true--_sma khrou_--became like himself master of the universe. He had accomplished the creation not by muscular effort to which the rest of the cosmogonical gods primarily owed their birth, but by means of formulas, or even of the voice alone, "the first time" when he awoke in the Nu. In fact, the articulate word and the voice were believed to be the most potent of creative forces, not remaining immaterial on issuing from the lips, but condensing, so to speak, into tangible substances; into bodies which were themselves animated by creative life and energy; into gods and goddesses who lived or who created in their turn. By a very short phrase Tumu had called forth the gods who order all things; for his "Come unto me!" uttered with a loud voice upon the day of creation, had evoked the sun from within the lotus. Thot had opened his lips, and the voice which proceeded from him had become an entity; sound had solidified into matter, and by a simple emission of voice the four gods who preside over the four houses of the world had come forth alive from his mouth without bodily effort on his part, and without spoken evocation. Creation by the voice is almost as great a refinement of thought as the substitution of creation by the word for creation by muscular effort. In fact, sound bears the same relation to words that the whistle of a quartermaster bears to orders for the navigation of a ship transmitted by a speaking trumpet; it simplifies speech, reducing it as it were to a pure abstraction. At first it was believed that the creator had made the