Illustration from the Encyclopaedia Biblica
A Hymn of Praise to Aten* when he rises like a great falcon in the heights of the Two Horizons. Homage to you, Aten, Beautiful One of every day! You shoot up at sunrise without fail - how many are your works, O Great Creator. Your radiance is in your face, and as far as bright copper metal it does not resemble your splendours.
Self-existent One, you moulded your members into physical forms; giving birth, but he was not born; One by himself by reason of his power or abilities, Traverser of Eternity, He who is over the ways of millions of years, maintaining his Divine Form.
As are the beauties of the celestial regions even so are your beauties. More brilliant is your complexion than that of heaven. You sail across the heavens, all faces look at you as you go, though you yourself are hidden from their eyes.
You manifest the symbol of your power at break of day in beams of light, strong is your Divine Boat under your majesty. In a little day you journey over a road of millions and hundreds of thousands of minutes. When your day passes, you set.
The hours of the night likewise you make to fulfil themselves. No interruption takes place in your toil. All eyes direct their gaze upon you, they cease not to do so. You quickly rise up early in the morning, your sparkling rays flash in the eyes.
Praise be to you, O Aten of the day, Creator of mortals and Creator of their life. Praise be to you!
You are like a Great Hawk whose feathers are many-coloured, you, O Creator, who raise yourself up from non-existence! He exists by his own power, he was not born, he who dwells in the heights. Humankind cries out joyfully at his rising and at his setting likewise. He is the fashioner of what the ground produces, conqueror of the Two Lands, from the great one to the little one.