(M3) The special purpose for which these texts were engraved on the pyramids was to ensure the eternal life and felicity of the dead kings who slept beneath these colossal monuments. Hence the dominant note that sounds through them all is an insistent, a passionate protest against the reality of death: indeed the word death never occurs in the Pyramid Texts except to be scornfully denied or to be applied to an enemy. Again and again the indomitable assurance is repeated that the dead man did not die but lives. “King Teti has not died the death, he has become a glorious one in the horizon.” “Ho! King Unis! Thou didst not depart dead, thou didst depart living.” “Thou hast departed that thou mightest live, thou hast not departed that thou mightest die.” “Thou diest not.” “This King Pepi dies not.” “Have ye said that he would die? He dies not; this King Pepi lives for ever.” “Live! Thou shalt not die.” “Thou livest, thou livest, raise thee up.” “Thou diest not, stand up, raise thee up.” “O lofty one among the Imperishable Stars, thou perishest not eternally.”(3) Thus for Egyptian kings death was swallowed up in victory; and through their tears Egyptian mourners might ask, like Christian mourners thousands of years afterwards, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (M4) Now it is significant that in these ancient documents, though the myth or legend of Osiris is not set forth at length, it is often alluded to as if it were a matter of common knowledge. Hence we may legitimately infer the great antiquity of the Osirian tradition in Egypt. Indeed so numerous are the allusions to it in the Pyramid Texts that by their help we could reconstruct the story in its main outlines even without the narrative of Plutarch.(4) Thus the discovery of these texts has confirmed our belief in the accuracy and fidelity of the Greek writer, and we may accept his account with confidence even when it records incidents or details which have not yet been verified by a comparison with original Egyptian sources. The tragic tale runs thus: