Seth

Seth seized Horus during a pause in their long battle. He threw Horus onto his back on a mountain and tore out both his eyes. He buried them in the soil and left, believing that he had won. Hathor later found Horus weeping in the desert. She caught a gazelle, milked it, and told Horus to open his eyes. He obeyed, and the milk healed them.

The struggle concerned the kingship of Egypt. Horus claimed his father’s throne and accused Seth of being a usurper. A divine tribunal, presided over by Ra or Geb, heard the case. Isis, Thoth, and Anubis supported Horus, but the gods struggled to decide which claimant should rule. Seth was also portrayed as sexually abusing the young Horus. In one account, Horus told Seth that he would sleep with him only if Seth first shared some of his magical strength.

The conflict sometimes became a direct physical contest. Horus wounded Seth in the testicles. Some passages link the injury with Seth’s mutilation, while other readings describe the loss of seed from his testicles. The two gods later changed themselves into hippopotami and agreed to remain underwater for three months. Isis feared for Horus, since the hippopotamus was natural to Seth. She cast a harpoon into the water. It struck Horus first, so she released him. Her next cast caught Seth, who begged her to free him as his sister and in memory of their mother. Isis yielded, and Horus became enraged.

Horus sprang from the water and cut off Isis’s head. The gods resolved to punish him, but he hid on a mountain. Seth found him there and tore out his eyes. In this account, the buried eyes grew into lotus flowers before Hathor restored Horus’s sight. Other traditions describe Seth damaging, swallowing, trampling, or breaking the eye. Some treat it as the lunar eye of Horus.

Isis gave birth to Horus after a pregnancy of ten months in the marshes of Chemmis. She hid the child there from Seth, who sought to harm him. Friendly deities attended the birth. Hathor and Serqet helped Isis nourish and protect Horus. Other gods could take the form of ordinary marsh-dwellers when Isis needed help.

Isis was forced to leave the child to find food. When she returned, Horus was too weak and ill to suckle. A serpent, or in some accounts another deadly creature, had attacked him. Isis mourned and called for help. Her family were absent or hostile. The marsh-dwellers shared her grief but could do nothing. A local wise woman arrived and consoled her. The attack is generally connected with Seth, since sending a dangerous animal against an enemy was a recognised Egyptian curse. In some spells, Isis appealed to her mother Nut and her father Geb, who controlled the earth snakes.

In other versions, Isis appealed to the creator sun god and argued that her innocent son must be saved. The sun god sent Thoth to heal Horus. The child recovered and grew up in the marshes. Later, Horus sought to avenge his father and claimed his right to succeed Osiris as king. He brought his case before a divine tribunal presided over by Ra or Geb. Seth was accused of being a usurper. The dispute between Horus and Seth continued, but the poisoning of Horus ended with the child restored to health.

Seth stood in the prow of Ra’s solar barque as it crossed the sky and later entered the underworld. The boat carried Ra with protective deities. At night, it became the Night Boat, sometimes called the Boat of Millions. Gods, demons, and spirits of the blessed dead travelled with it through the dark caverns. They defended the sun god against the forces of chaos, including crocodiles, turtles, snakes, submerged sandbanks, and the monstrous serpent Apep, also called Apophis.

Apep attacked the barque and tried to obstruct Ra’s passage. Seth used his great strength and weapons against the serpent. He could be shown clubbing or spearing Apophis, while the other deities protected the boat. In the myth of the great quarrel, Seth claimed that he stood at the prow and defeated every enemy of Ra, casting them back into the abyss. Apophis was overcome, and Ra’s journey continued. The spirits of the dead could also be called upon to join the struggle. Temple rituals were performed to ensure the serpent’s defeat.

The Book of the Dead gives Seth a less restrained part in the victory. It says that he killed Apep partly by a ruse, then went to Ra and demanded recognition for his courage. Seth taunted Ra, telling him that he could leave hiding now that Apep was dead and bring out his divine symbols of power. He warned Ra to treat him well or he would turn his storms and thunder against him. Ra ordered the crew to drive Seth away. They obeyed, and Nut called him a windbag. Ra then made his divine appearance at dawn. Seth was therefore needed to defend the barque, while his violence and boasting made him dangerous to Ra and the crew.

Shu separated Nut, the sky goddess, from Geb, the earth god. They had embraced so closely that there was no room between them for anything to exist. Shu held Nut permanently apart, allowing her to give birth to the children she had already conceived. One account says that he acted at the creator’s command. Another says that jealousy caused the separation.

Nut gave birth during the five intercalary days before the Egyptian New Year. On successive days she bore Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis, and Nephthys. Seth was therefore born as the third child, on the third intercalary day. Another account names Nut and Geb as the parents of Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys without listing the births in this sequence.

Seth’s birth was violent. His emergence marked him as a tumultuous god associated with storms, deserts, and disorder. He was the brother of Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys, and the rival of Horus. He later married his twin sister Nephthys. Seth’s strength and thoughtless actions brought conflict, but the gods also required his force to defend the solar barque from the chaos monster.

Seth’s cult was linked with Upper Egypt, the eastern desert and its gold mines, and the western desert, where he remained Lord of the Desert. His birth placed him within the family of Nut and Geb, whose children included the gods around whom later conflicts centred. The feud between Seth and Horus became a central part of the family’s history, especially after Seth challenged Horus’s claim to rule.

Seth and his allies plotted against Osiris in the twenty-eighth year of Osiris’s reign. Seth secretly obtained the exact measurements of his brother’s body and had a beautiful chest made to fit him. At a feast, he displayed the chest and promised it to whoever could lie inside it. His seventy-two followers tried first, but it fitted none of them. When Osiris entered it, the conspirators shut and bolted the lid. They sealed it with molten lead and threw it into a branch of the Nile. The river carried it into the Mediterranean Sea.

Isis, Osiris’s wife, was away in the city of Coptos. She heard a terrible lament from the deities of the north and learned what had happened. She returned to the capital in grief and began searching for her husband’s remains. She found the chest at the bottom of the river and concealed it in desolate marshes, hoping to prevent Seth from taking Osiris’s body.

Seth later found the chest while hunting. Enraged, he cut Osiris’s body into thousands of pieces and ordered his helpers to scatter them throughout Egypt. Isis continued her search for many years. She eventually found all the pieces and carefully reassembled Osiris’s corpse.

Other accounts describe the murder differently. Diodorus Siculus says that Seth butchered Osiris, divided his body into twenty-six pieces, and gave one piece to each of his followers. Egyptian texts also describe Seth taking the form of a wild bull, a wild ass, or a crocodile, killing Osiris in a lonely place, trampling him, or casting his body into the Nile. Later accounts state that Osiris died by drowning.

Ra’s solar barque entered the night, carrying the sun god through the region equated with the underworld. In the Night Boat, deities stood on deck to defend the sun’s vulnerable nocturnal form. Protective deities and emblems could accompany the barque in smaller boats. Jackals, cobras, or other deities could also be shown towing it rather than rowing it.

Apophis, the monstrous chaos serpent, attacked the barque during the journey. He usually struck in the seventh or twelfth hour of the night. He was the chief enemy of Ra and tried to obstruct the solar barque. His attacks were among the dangers faced by the sun, alongside submerged sandbanks and hostile crocodiles, turtles, and snakes.

Powerful deities took their places in the prow to protect Ra. Seth, described as the strongest of the gods, confronted Apophis. In depictions of the encounter, Seth clubbed or speared the serpent. In another account, Seth claimed that he stood in the prow, vanquished all Ra’s enemies, and cast them back into the abyss. Apophis was defeated, allowing the solar barque to continue its passage through the night.

The struggle was also treated as a continuing danger rather than a single completed event. The spirits of the dead were expected to join the fight against Apophis, and temple rituals were performed to ensure his defeat. Stormy weather could be understood as a temporary victory for the serpent. The nightly contest ended with the sun’s passage continuing, but Apophis remained an enemy to be resisted.