Re told the gods that many men had fled into the desert because they were afraid of what he would say to them. And the gods recommended that Re should send someone in pursuit of them but not his Eye since mankind had been made from the tears of Re’s Eye and the Eye might feel sorry for its ‘children’. Instead, Hathor should go in the form of a fierce lioness, who would devour the evil ones in the desert.

Hathor performed her task with such gusto that Re became alarmed. Having tasted blood, she was loath to give up her slaughter. She told Re how pleasant it was to her to have prevailed over mankind and to have earned a new name – Sekhmet or ‘She-who-prevails’. But Re did not want her to prevail over all of mankind, for he had wished only to teach them a lesson, not to destroy them utterly. And so he sent his swiftest messengers to Elephantine to bring him quantities of the red ochre that was found in that region. When the red ochre had been brought to him, Re ordered his High Priest in Heliopolis to grind it up. Meanwhile, barley beer had been prepared by maidservants. The red ochre was added to the beer so that it looked like human blood, and seven thousand jars of the mixture were made ready for inspection by Re and his entourage.

On the morning of the day upon which Hathor intended to complete her destruction of mankind, Re inspected the beer and deemed it excellent. He announced: ‘I will save mankind with it!’ and ordered that it should be carried to the place where Hathor intended to slay the remainder of mankind. There, the blood-red beer was poured over the land until the fields were flooded elbow-deep with this soporific. When Hathor arrived, she found the land covered with what she thought was human blood. Her face glowed in its reflection as she drank deeply, and became so drunk that she forgot all about destroying mankind.