The Song of Seshat

By Charlotte Babb

They have forgotten my name

But I remember

They call me The Female Scribe

As though I was not

The Original One who invented writing at the beginning

Who taught Djeuty to write

That baboon

Not the "Thrice-Great One" Ibis

So revered of the Greeks




Foremost in the Library, indeed

My pupil became my father-spouse-brother

Thus the Moon loses his face and

Nut bears her five children

On the five days added to the year.




And I am divided against myself

the Great and the Small

To hedge their bets

Do they not remember the Letter and the Spirit

The Words and the Meaning?




Forgotten, with no priests to call my name

I teach the pharaoh to face his fate

How to be born of the Mind

How to bear the weight of the Crown and the Eye

How to negotiate with those who come through me

Foremost in the House of Foreigners

I measure his reign by the words of Ra

I record his deeds

Measure his spoils of war

His inundations of the Nile

And the number of hairs on his head

His name is known

Because I have recorded it on my palm leaf

On the Ished Tree of Life

His years are long,

As many as the tadpoles in the flood

Because I have written it so.

Yet he forgets my name, calling me only Mother




Mistress of Builders

I taught my priests to measure the polar star

To find true north when no star pointed the way

The King himself Stretches the Cord

Marking the foundations of temples

To other gods and his tomb

But only with my help




Offerings to me are laid In the foundations

The builders know me

They honor me with the talismans of the tools of their trade

Because I am the one who makes the building stand

In this physical world, and in the unseen world

I am the Lady of the City of Eight,

The Birthplace of the Gods

But in the condominiums of the gods

They forget my name

They don't remember

Why I wear the leopard skin of the blessed dead

Of the funerary priests

With its markings of the myriad stars of Nut

I am the mother of the dead

The soul passes through my womb

To be born again




I am old, great-grandmother to Isis,

Who lately came to me with her brother-husband

In pieces so that I might Re-Member him

I am the Mother of the Dead

Bearing those who die into the next life

Though she forgets my name

She forgets on whom she called

Though she stole the magical name of Ra

Yet, I know, both his Name and Mine.

The mourner who remembers




But they forget my name and

Why my cartouche is the…

What? A seven-petaled flower?

I am the Lady of the House of Books

They would know that no such flower exists.

If they would read what is in the Library

I am the Right and True flower in the Hand of Ra

The blue lotus of healing

Have they also forgotten the number of months in the year,

My feathered horns?




It is then a marijuana leaf?

Hemp that makes the cord

The pharaoh and his vizier stretch?

No, that cord is leather

But they have forgotten

Yet my builders know how to use

A hempen rope to move the slabs of rock

For I have taught them physics and geometry and engineering

I am the Lady of the Builders




Can my crown then be perhaps

A star, and the horns of the crescent moon

Although they look more like the horns of the Apis bull

Or a bow?

I am She of the Seven Horns, or She who Lays by the Two Horns

Nine is my number, yet

They do not know my name


For I am she who counts the stars

I am she who knows the Secrets

The Lady of Years

The Lady of Fate

I am she who writes the deeds of the world

Recording them forever in my library of wisdom




Many call me by many names

Some call me Oyá, and they bring me nine flowers, the color purple

Some call me lwa Ayizan, the female priest,

Who keeps the tradition with her palm leaves, as I do

Some call me St. Clare of Assisi, who was given a palm branch on Palm Sunday

Saint Therese of Lisieux, The Little Flower, who wrote much and loved flowers.




Golden they call me

Great of Magic

The Lady of Heaven

The Eye of RA—

As if we goddesses were all the same

As if they cannot remember our names

Nit, Au Set, Hat-Hor, Hekt and Wadjet are my sisters,

Makers of Magic: Secret, Hidden, the Mysteries

With Nit the Creatrix and Nekt-Hebt the Death Mother

I am Time, Existence, History, and Memory

Egypt lives because I remember




And I remember

I remember Who I am

I Remember My NAME

My pen is Eternity, my ink is Forever

As long as I remember Your name

You will live

References
Djeuty. (2002) Houser of Netjer. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from 
http://www.kemet.org/glossary/djehuty.html
Seshat. (2002) Houser of Netjer. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from 
http://www.kemet.org/glossary/djehuty.html
Dean, D. (2002) Seshat: Names and Titles. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from  
http://seshat.org/seshat/page2.html
Dean, D. (2002).Seshat: Names and Titles. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from  
http://seshat.org/seshat/page3.html
Dean, D. (2002) Seshat: Symbols. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from  
http://seshat.org/seshat/page3.html
Dean, D. (2002) Seshat: Functions. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from  
http://seshat.org/seshat/page4.html
Dean, D. (2002) Seshat: Connections. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from 
http://seshat.org/seshat/page5.html 
Seshat (n.d.) September 28, 2005 from http://membres.lycos.fr/anacharsis/seshat.html 
(automatically translated by Google)