Choice of life.txt

choice_of_life.txt
Source:	lit_arch
Date:	1759 CE
Area:	B6

choice_of_life.txt is a text document stored in terminal B06 in B6.

Contents

The whole assembly stood awhile silent and collected.  "Let us return," said Rasselas, "from this scene of mortality. How gloomy would be these mansions of the dead to him who did not know that he should never die; that what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks shall think on forever

[ARCHIVE: 1759CE-F991] [JOHNSON, SAMUEL] [ERROR 556] Homage to you, Osiris, Lord of Eternity, King of the Gods, whose names are manifold/ whose forms are holy, you being of hidden form in the temples, whose Ka is holy. All the gods praise you, for you are the %&$%$ (/ Those that lie here stretched before us, the wise and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to remember the shortness of our present state; they were perhaps snatched away while they were busy, like us, in the choice of life."

Notes

• The document derives from two different sources:
  • The text for which the document is named ("The whole assembly... 'think on forever'" and "'Those that lie... choice of life.'") is an excerpt from Chapter 48 of the book Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by English writer Samuel Johnson.
  • The "error" text ("Homage to you...you are the") is taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a set of spells and texts meant to prepare and send off the deceased into the afterlife, specifically from the Hymn to Osiris. Strangely, the "All the gods praise you, for you are the" text appears to be original, as there is no similar text or summation found, save for the following text from the hymn

    The companies of the gods praise you, and the gods of the tuat (other world) smell the earth in paying homage to you.