In his lecture[3] on the Book of the Dead, Renouf insists on the difficulty of translating it: “Nothing can exceed the simplicity and the brevity of the sentences; and yet the difficulties which a translator has to overcome are very great. In the first place, the text is extremely corrupt. The unsatisfactory condition of the text is owing to different causes. The reasons which writers on Hebrew, Greek or Latin palæography have enumerated for the purpose of accounting for mistakes in manuscripts, apply with much greater force to the funereal manuscripts of the Egyptians; for as these were not intended to be seen by any mortal eye, but to remain for ever undisturbed in the tomb, the unconscientious scribe had no such check upon his carelessness as if his work were liable to be subjected to the constant inspection of the living. But the most conscientious scribe might easily commit numerous errors. Many of them are to be traced to a confusion between signs which resemble each other in the cursive, or as it is called, the hieratic character, but not in hieroglyphic writing. “Besides the errors of copyists, there are different readings, the origin of which is to be traced to the period during which the chapters were handed down by word of mouth only. There are copies which bear evidence that a critical choice has been made between the different readings of a passage, but the common practice was to admit the inconsistent readings into the text itself.... “Some of the variants have unquestionably arisen from the difficulty of understanding the ancient texts. I have no doubt whatever that some of the chapters of the Book of the Dead were as obscure to Egyptians living under the eleventh dynasty as they are to ourselves.... The most accurate knowledge of the Egyptian vocabulary and grammar will however not suffice to pierce the obscurity arising from what M. de Rougé called symbols or allegories, which are in fact simple mythological allusions. The difficulty is not in literally translating the text, but in understanding the meaning which lies concealed beneath familiar words.”