Set is perhaps the most mysterious god of the ancient Egyptian pantheon:
a lord of contradictions and conflicts,
a god at once saving the world and rejected as a traitor,
an incarnation of Other which, unlike all remaining Egyptian deities,
was not even given a recognisable animal face.
The red dunes are my home
Far away from the black Earth
I have to wait for the barbarians
To come and worship me again
Nightly I save you all from the serpent
Which stalks the world with no end
But you still kill me and castrate
Turning me into my victim
I am trampled by those whom I save
Despised down and up the river
The double slayer, the isolator
Set, the lord of desert, is me
Riding the storms of sand so alien I am
You can't even give me the head
There would be no life and rebirth
Without my fratricide and fight with the bird
Yet, you break my statues
And spear them for a sign
Of ungodly displacement
And banishment to the edge of the night
I am trampled by those whom I save
Despised down and up the river
The double slayer, the isolator
Set, the lord of desert, is me