Going forth by black (FW65, No. 6 – I.3, 58.23-68 bottom)

Here we can confront an allusion to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and thus stand for a moment at the juncture of my professional life and my interest in FW. I really would like to work something up one day on the Book of the Dead in FW, although the angle would have to be carefully chosen. JJ's knowledge, as far as I know, is based on a few publications of Budge, all of which, to varying degrees, no longer stand up to critical scrutiny within Egyptology. This seems to be a unique challenge to studying FW's reception of something: it is not the thing in itself, but the thing as mediated through accounts available at JJ's specific time and place, that matters. Everything about the Book of the Dead is chosen as a vehicle for the HCE saga, and its appropriateness based on the basic idea of "going forth by day

We seem to us (the real Us!) to be reading our Amenti in the sixth sealed chapter of the going forth by black. (62.26-27)

The voice speaking is the usual narrator of this channel, who filters through all of the second-hand accounts and rumors about what happened between HCE and the cad in the park. Which then merges with a forensic investigation about a second thing that happened to HCE once he fled Dublin (for London? or Trieste? Or Dublin?). Different media are being studied by this voice: film reels, pure hearsay, the interviews of people on the street. With "We seem to us...", perhaps the voice is admitting that it is difficult to decipher these accounts, and that what happened to HCE seems to be covered up by strange writings, enigmatic signs, ancient lors: the chapter is "sealed."

Why sixth? BD spell 6 is the Shabti spell, which is meant to magically activate small servant figures called shabti or ushabti that will work for the deceased in the afterlife. It is hard to see the relevance for the present passage in FW. Maybe instead this is a reference to the sixth seal of the Book of Revelation, which could be a reference to the fall of Rome, and talks about the sun going black. I think this explains why it is the book of "going forth by black." This is a reversal of what the BD really was: "the book of going forth by day," which means (for JJ) resurrection in the afterlife, or more specifically for the Egyptians, for enabling the soul (ba) to travel freely throughout all realms of existence after death, to be able to transform into different forms, to be identified with Osiris in the afterlife and to worship him and the sun god Re, and, finally, to be enabled to live a productive and flourishing life in the beyond. In sum, we are not yet reading instructions for resurrection, but are faced with the demise of HCE.

Amenti. This is based on a common Egyptian word for the underworld and is the same as the word for "west" (following the sun as it sets leads you in to the other world). I'm trying to figure out what the immediate meaning is here. It looks Italian or Latin, and there is a Latin verb amento which is used for furnishing something with a strap or thong in order to hurl it (like a javelin). Does not seem to be relevant. JJ obviously means the name for the Egyptian realm of the dead, but how can one be "reading" that? Why is it "our"?

Note also that "the going forth by black" is not capitalized as it it is a title. It must be a reference to HCE's descent into ignominy. So is the narrator saying, in studying the accounts of HCE's decline, specifically in the still-sealed (uninterpretable, still mysterious, undeciphered) sixth chapter of the account, that it is as though we are beholding death?