#IIRC this is the part of the Latin translation that’s like ‘the seeds which flow from his limb‚ not allowing the sun to see’

[ava-does-dumbassery]

I’m more than halfway through my Middle Egyptian textbook, which means I know know more than one and a half languages, and now I can understand one of clauses in the Kahun fragment completely (unless I learn about constructions later that would look like exactly like the constructions I think these are and also work, in which case egg on my face for getting too confident).

(This isn’t one of the parts where Set says horny things. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the parts where Isis gives Horus advice. Sorry. I am aware that figuring out if Set is a bisexual icon or not is the only we’re all here /joke.)

Anyway so there’s this part, right here in the fragment:

And (nerd words incoming, you don’t really need to care about this part, the point is that I can explain how all the pieces of it fit together without being confused about anything and I’m very proud of that): nn (those shrugging arms and the jagged line beneath them) and rdit (the mouth, the arm, and that semicircle) are a negated infinite verb construction (“without [verb]ing”), and mA (the sickle, the eye, and the vulture) is probably a prospective form that’s acting as the direct object of rdit, since there’s only one vulture it in instead of two and the word after it, st (that folded linen glyph and that other semicircle) doesn’t make sense as the next word if it’s an infinitive and Ra (other mouth above arm, as well as the sun, the vertical stroke, and that bird perched on a stick) is also part of the sentence.

ANYWAY it should mean “without causing that Ra should see it,” or in a way that makes more sense to say in English “without letting Ra see it.” (The Latin translation just uses the word “sun” instead of Ra’s name, but capitalized, which makes sense because “Ra” and “sun” are literally the same word in Egyptian. I’m not sure which word is better here. Maybe the English connotations of just “sun” are better, the Contendings version of this myth makes a big deal about whether there’s daylight out or not when everything happens.)

Anyway, I feel pretty confident about this one part now, hoorayyyyyy progress! and hopefully I’ll be clearer on the rest of it soon.