Tale of Horus and the pig
Coffin Text
The Tale of Horus and the Pig
c. 1900 BC
Why the Egyptians did not eat pork.
O Batit of the evening, you swamp-dwellers, you of Mendes, ye of Buto, you of
the shade of Re which knows not praise, you who brew stoppered beer---do you know
why Rekhyt [Lower Egypt] was given to Horus? It was Re who gave it to him in recompense
for the injury in his eye. It was Re--he said to Horus: "Pray, let me see your eye
since this has happened to it" [injured in the fight with Seth]. Then Re saw it.
Re said: "Pray, look at that injury in your eye, while your hand is a covering over
the good eye which is there." Then Horus looked at that injury. It assumed the form
of a black pig. Thereupon Horus shrieked because of the state of his eye, which
was stormy [inflamed]. Horus said: "Behold, my eye is as at that first blow which
Seth made against my eye!" Thereupon Horus swallowed his heart before him [lost
consciousness]. Then Re said: "Put him upon his bed until he has recovered." It
was Seth---he has assumed form against him as a black pig; thereupon he shot a blow
into his eye. Then Re said: "The pig is an abomination to Horus." "Would that he
might recover," said the gods. That is how the pig became an abomination to the
gods, as well as men, for Horus' sake....
Source:
From: A. de Buck, The Egyptian Coffin Texts, (Chicago, 1918), p. 326.
