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Thoth (Egyptian god)

Poems
Literature

What is the meaning of Thoth's feather of truth in a

poem entitled justice?
2 Answers

Michael Easker
Answered Jan 12

I’m going to echo the previous answer somewhat. I think it’s not a poem but a chapter of
the Book of the Dead, that can be written out to look like a poem, that you’re thinking
about.

It’s a very famous chapter, Chapter 125, called the Chapter of Negative Confession, by which
the soul of the deceased declares all of the bad things that he (or she?) didn’t do in life and
so don’t weigh its conscience down. Thus the deceased should have a light heart at its
judgement after death.

Thoth is there, in the judgement hall, with a balance—a scale—to test the negative
confession. The heart of the deceased is placed in one side of the balance and the feather,
which is the image of Ma’at, the goddess of natural law and right action—analogous to
truth in your question—in the other. If the deceased is relatively, I guess, innocent, and
therefore of a light heart, that heart will weigh less than the feather of Ma’at, which is in a
basket at least anyway, and the deceased will pass into the blessed lands; if not, into
torment.

So it’s not a poem, but a chapter in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, it’s not Thoth’s feather
but Ma’at’s (Ma’at may have been Thoth’s wife), it’s not a feather of truth but a feather of
moral rectitude and natural law and the piece is not entitled justice but modern scholars
have slapped the name of the Chapter of Negative Confessions on it. Or maybe we’re not
talking about the same thing.

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Henry Lions, Writer and Poet at Self-Employment (1977-present)

Answered Jan 9, 2018 · Author has 845 answers and 177.6k answer views

Thoth among other things was the god of writing, the feather or quill pen is the tool of his
trade and therefore of written testimony.
I don’t know the poem to which you refer, but in a poem called Justice I would guess the
feather would more likely be the feather of truth, the tool of Ma’at the goddess of wisdom
and truth who would weight that feather against the heart of a deceased person in order to
determine the justice of the afterlife they were to receive, exaltation or oblivion by being fed
to Ammit the eater of souls.

2.7k views · View 2 Upvoters

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