De Iside et Osiride

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. V. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).

These are nearly all the important points of the legend, with the omission of the most infamous of the tales, such as that about the dismemberment of Horus[*](Cf.Moralia, 1026 c, and De Anima, i. 6 (in Bernardakis’s ed. vol. vii. p. 7).) and the decapitation of Isis. There is one thing that I have no need to mention to you: if they hold such opinions and relate such tales about the nature of the blessed and imperishable (in accordance with which our concept of the divine must be framed) as if such deeds and occurrences actually took place, then

Much need there is to spit and cleanse the mouth,
as Aeschylus[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Aeschylus, no. 354.) has it. But the fact is that you yourself detest those persons who hold such abnormal and outlandish opinions about the gods. That these accounts do not, in the least, resemble the sort of loose fictions and frivolous fabrications which poets and writers of prose evolve from themselves, after
the manner of spiders, interweaving and extending their unestablished first thoughts, but that these contain narrations of certain puzzling events and experiences, you will of yourself understand. Just as the rainbow, according to the account of the mathematicians, is a reflection of the sun, and owes its many hues to the withdrawal of our gaze from the sun and our fixing it on the cloud, so the somewhat fanciful accounts here set down are but reflections of some true tale which turns back our thoughts to other matters; their sacrifices plainly suggest this, in that they have mourning and melancholy reflected in them; and so also does the structure of their temples,[*](Cf. Strabo, xvii. 1. 28 (p. 804).) which in one portion are expanded into wrings and into uncovered and unobstructed corridors, and in another portion have secret vesting-rooms in the darkness under ground, like cells or chapels; and not the least important suggestion is the opinion held regarding the shrines of Osiris, whose body is said to have been laid in many different places.[*](Cf. 358 a, supra, and 365 a, infra.) For they say that Diochites[*](The introduction of Diochites here is based upon an emendation of a reading found in one ms. only. The emendation is drawn from Stephanus Byzantinus, a late writer on a geographical topics.) is the name given to a small town, on the ground that it alone contains the true tomb; and that the prosperous and influential men among the Egyptians are mostly buried in Abydos, since it is the object of their ambition to be buried in the same ground with the body of Osiris. In Memphis, however, they say, the Apis is kept, being the image of the soul of Osiris,[*](Cf. 362 c and 368 c, infra.) whose body also lies there. The name of this city some interpret as the haven of the good and others as meaning properly the tomb
of Osiris. They also say that the sacred island by Philae[*](Cf. Diodorus, i. 22, and Strabo, xvii. p. 803, which seem to support the emendation Philae. Others think that the gates (the ms. reading) of Memphis are meant.) at all other times is untrodden by man and quite unapproachable, and even birds do not alight on it nor fishes approach it; yet, at one special time, the priests cross over to it, and perform the sacrificial rites for the dead, and lay wreaths upon the tomb, which lies in the encompassing shade of a persea-[*](The persea-tree was sacred to Osiris.) tree, which surpasses in height any olive.

Eudoxus says that, while many tombs of Osiris are spoken of in Egypt, his body lies in Busiris; for this was the place of his birth; moreover, Taphosiris[*](Cf. Strabo, xvii. 1. 14 (pp. 799 and 800). Tradition varies between Taphosiris and Taposiris, and there may be no tomb in the word at all.) requires no comment, for the name itself means the tomb of Osiris. I pass over the cutting of wood,[*](Cf. 368 a, infra.) the rending of linen, and the libations that are offered, for the reason that many of their secret rites are involved therein. In regard not only to these gods, but in regard to the other gods, save only those whose existence had no beginning and shall have no end, the priests say that their bodies, after they have done with their labours, have been placed in the keeping of the priests and are cherished there, but that their souls shine as the stars in the firmament, and the soul of Isis is called by the Greeks the Dog-star, but by the Egyptians Sothis,[*](Cf.Moralia, 974 f.) and the soul of Horus is called Orion, and the soul of Typhon the Bear. Also they say that all the other Egyptians pay the agreed assessment for the entombment of the

animals held in honour,[*](Cf. Diodorus, i. 84, ad fin., for the great expense often involved.) but that the inhabitants of the Theban territory only do not contribute because they believe in no mortal god, but only in the god whom they call Kneph, whose existence had no beginning and shall have no end.

Many things like these are narrated and pointed out, and if there be some wrho think that in these are commemorated the dire and momentous acts and experiences of kings and despots who, by reason of their pre-eminent virtue or might, laid claim to the glory of being styled gods, and later had to submit to the vagaries of fortune,[*](That is, to die, and thus to lose their claim to divinity; Cf. 360 b, infra. This is common Euhemeristic doctrine.) then these persons employ the easiest means of escape from the narrative, and not ineptly do they transfer the disrepute from the gods to men; and in this they have the support of the common traditions. The Egyptians, in fact, have a tradition that Hermes had thin arms and big elbows, that Typhon was red in complexion, Horus white, and Osiris dark,[*](Cf. 363 a and 364 b, infra.) as if they had been in their nature but mortal men. Moreover, they give to Osiris the title of general, and the title of pilot to Canopus, from whom they say that the star derives its name; also that the vessel which the Greeks call Argo, in form like the ship of Osiris, has been set among the constellations in his honour, and its course lies not far from that of Orion and the Dog-star; of these the Egyptians believe that one is sacred to Horus and the other to Isis.

I hesitate, lest this be the moving of things immovable[*](Proverbial; cf. e.g. Plato, Laws, 684 d.) and not only warring against the long years of time, as Simonides[*](Cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii., Simonides, no. 193, and Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, ii. p. 340 in L.C.L.) has it, but warring, too,

against many a nation and race of men who are possessed by a feeling of piety towards these gods, and thus we should not stop short of transplanting such names from the heavens to the earth, and eliminating and dissipating the reverence and faith implanted in nearly all mankind at birth, opening wide the great doors to the godless throng, degrading things divine to the human level, and giving a splendid licence to the deceitful utterances of Euhemerus of Messene,who of himself drew up copies of an incredible and non-existent mythology,[*](Doubtless ἡ ἱερὰ ἀναγραφή (sacra scriptio); see Diodorus, v. 41-46, and vi. 1.) and spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods of our belief and converting them all alike into names of generals, admirals, and kings, who, forsooth, lived in very ancient times and are recorded in inscriptions written in golden letters at Panchon, which no foreigner and no Greek had ever happened to meet with, save only Euhemerus. He, it seems, made a voyage to the Panchoans and Triphyllians, who never existed anywhere on earth and do not exist!

However, mighty deeds of Semiramis are celebrated among the Assyrians, and mighty deeds of Sesostris in Egypt, and the Phrygians, even to this day, call brilliant and marvellous exploits manic because Manes,[*](Cf. Herodotus, i. 94, iv. 45, and W. M. Ramsay, Mitteilungen des deutsch. arch. Institutes in Athen, viii. 71.) one of their very early kings, proved himself a good man and exercised a vast influence among them. Some give his name as Masdes. Cyrus led the Persians, and Alexander the Macedonians,

in victory after victory, almost to the ends of the earth; yet these have only the name and fame of noble kings. But if some, elated by a great self-conceit, as Plato[*](Adapted from Plato, Laws, 716 a.) says, with souls enkindled with the fire of youth and folly accompanied by arrogance, have assumed to be called gods and to have temples dedicated in their honour, yet has their repute flourished but a brief time, and then, convicted of vain-glory and imposture,
Swift in their fate, Jike to smoke in the air, rising upward they flitted,[*](From Empedocles: Cf. H. Diels, Poetarum Philosophorum Fragmenta, p. 106, Empedocles, no. 2. 4.)
and now, like fugitive slaves without claim to protection, they have been dragged from their shrines and altars, and have nothing left to them save only their monuments and their tombs. Hence the elder Antigonus, when a certain Hermodotus in a poem proclaimed him to be the Offspring of the Sun and a god, said, the slave who attends to my chamberpot is not conscious of any such thing! [*](Plutarch tells the same story with slight variations in Moralia, 182 c.) Moreover, Lysippus the sculptor was quite right in his disapproval of the painter Apelles, because Apelles in his portrait of Alexander had represented him with a thunderbolt in his hand, whereas he himself had represented Alexander holding a spear, the glory of which no length of years could ever dim, since it was truthful and was his by right.

[*](In connexion with chapters 25 and 26 one may well compare 418 d - 419 a and 421 c-e, infra, and Eusebius, Praepar. Evang. iv. 21 - v. 5.)Better, therefore, is the judgement of those who hold that the stories about Typhon, Osiris, and Isis, are records of experiences of neither gods nor men, but of demigods, whom Plato[*](Cf. 361 c, infra.) and Pythagoras[*](Cf. Diogenes Laertius, viii. 32.)

and Xenocrates[*](Cf. Stobaeus, Eclogae, i. 2. 29.) and Chrysippus,[*](Cf.Moralia, 277 a, 419 a, and 1051 c-d; and von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ii. 1103 (p. 320).) following the lead of early writers on sacred subjects, allege to have been stronger than men and, in their might, greatly surpassing our nature, yet not possessing the divine quality unmixed and uncontaminated, but with a share also in the nature of the soul and in the perceptive faculties of the body, and with a susceptibility to pleasure and pain and to whatsoever other experience is incident to these mutations, and is the source of much disquiet in some and of less in others. For in demigods, as in men, there are divers degrees of virtue and of vice. The exploits of the Giants and Titans celebrated among the Greeks, the lawless deeds of a Cronus,[*](The vengeance which he wreaked on his father Uranus.) the stubborn resistance of Python against Apollo, the flights of Dionysus,[*](Homer, Il. vi. 135 ff. If φθόροι is read (destructions wrought by Dionysus) there would be also a reference to the death of Pentheus as portrayed in the Bacchae of Euripides. Cf. also Moralia, 996 c.) and the wanderings of Demeter, do not fall at all short of the exploits of Osiris and Typhon and other exploits which anyone may hear freely repeated in traditional story. So, too, all the things which are kept always away from the ears and eyes of the multitude by being concealed behind mystic rites and ceremonies have a similar explanation.

As we read Homer, we notice that in many different places he distinctively calls the good godlike [*](The word is found forty-four times in Homer.) and peers of the gods [*](Homer employs this expression sixty-two times.) and having prudence

gained from the gods,[*](See Homer, Od. vi. 12.) but that the epithet derived from the demigods (or daemons) he uses of the worthy and worthless alike[*](Cf. 415 a, infra.); for example:
  1. Daemon-possessed, come on! Why seek you to frighten the Argives
  2. Thus ?[*](Iliad, xiii. 810.)
and again
When for the fourth time onward he came with a rush, like a daemon[*](Ibid. v. 438, xiv. 705, xx. 447.);
and
  1. Daemon-possessed, in what do Priam and children of Priam
  2. Work you such ill that your soul is ever relentlessly eager
  3. Ilium, fair-built city, to bring to complete desolation ?[*](Ibid. iv. 31.)
The assumption, then, is that the demigods (or daemons) have a complex and inconsistent nature and purpose; wherefore Plato[*](Plato, Laws, 717 a, assigns the Even and the Left to the chthonic deities, and Plutarch quite correctly derives his statement from this.) assigns to the Olympian gods right-hand qualities and odd numbers, and to the demigods the opposite of these. Xenocrates also is of the opinion that such days as are days of ill omen, and such festivals as have associated with them either beatings or lamentations or fastings or scurrilous language or ribald jests have no relation to the honours paid to the gods or to worthy demigods, but he believes that there exist in the space about us certain great and powerful natures, obdurate, however, and morose, which take pleasure in such things as these, and, if they succeed in obtaining them, resort to nothing worse.

Then again, Hesiod calls the worthy and good

demigods holy deities and guardians of mortals [*](Hesiod, Works and Days, 123 and 253. Cf. Moralia, 431 e, infra.) and
Givers of wealth, and having therein a reward that is kingly.[*](Works and Days, 126, repeated in 417 b, infra.)
Plato[*](Symposium, 202 e. Cf. also Moralia, 415 a and 416 c-f, infra, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiq. i. 77.) calls this class of beings an interpretative and ministering class, midway between gods and men, in that they convey thither the prayers and petitions of men, and thence they bring hither the oracles and the gifts of good things.

Empedocles[*](Part of a longer passage from Empedocles; Cf. H. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 267, Empedocles, no. 115, 9-12. Cf. also Moralia, 830 f.) says also that the demigods must pay the penalty for the sins that they commit and the duties that they neglect:

  1. Might of the Heavens chases them forth to the realm of the Ocean;
  2. Ocean spews them out on the soil of the Earth, and Earth drives them
  3. Straight to the rays of the tireless Sun, who consigns them to Heaven’s
  4. Whirlings; thus one from another receives them, but ever with loathing;
until, when they have thus been chastened and purified, they recover the place and position to which they belong in accord with Nature.

Stories akin to these and to others like them they say are related about Typhon; how that, prompted by jealousy and hostility, he wrought terrible deeds and, by bringing utter confusion upon all things, filled the whole Earth, and the ocean as well, with ills, and later paid the penalty therefor.

But the avenger, the sister and wife of Osiris, after she had quenched and suppressed the madness and fury of Typhon, was not indifferent to the contests and struggles which she had endured, nor to her own wanderings nor to her manifold deeds of wisdom and many feats of bravery, nor would she accept oblivion and silence for them, but she intermingled in the most holy rites portrayals and suggestions and representations of her experiences at that time, and sanctified them, both as a lesson in godliness and an encouragement for men and women who find themselves in the clutch of like calamities. She herself and Osiris, translated for their virtues from good demigods into gods,[*](Cf. 363 e, infra.) as were Heracles and Dionysus later,[*](Cf.Moralia, 857 d.) not incongruously enjoy double honours, both those of gods and those of demigods, and their powers extend everywhere, but are greatest in the regions above the earth and beneath the earth. In fact, men assert that Pluto is none other than Serapis and that Persephonê is Isis, even as Archemachus[*](Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iv. p. 315, no. 7.) of Euboea has said, and also Heracleides Ponticus[*](Ibid. ii. 198 or Frag. 103, ed. Voss.) who holds the oracle in Canopus to be an oracle of Pluto.

Ptolemy Soter saw in a dream the colossal statue of Pluto in Sinope, not knowing nor having ever seen how it looked, and in his dream the statue bade him convey it with all speed to Alexandria. He had no information and no means of knowing where the statue was situated, but as he related the vision to his friends there was discovered for him a much travelled man by the name of Sosibius, who said that

he had seen in Sinopê just such a great statue as the king thought he saw. Ptolemy, therefore, sent Soteles and Dionysius, who, after a considerable time and with great difficulty, and not without the help of divine providence, succeeded in stealing the statue and bringing it away.[*](Cf.Moralia, 984 a; Tacitus, Histories, iv. 83-84, who tells the story more dramatically and with more detail; Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus, iv. 48 (p. 42 Potter); Origen, Against Celsus, v. 38.) When it had been conveyed to Egypt and exposed to view, Timotheus, the expositor of sacred law, and Manetho of Sebennytus, and their associates, conjectured that it was the statue of Pluto, basing their conjecture on the Cerberus and the serpent with it, and they convinced Ptolemy that it was the statue of none other of the gods but Serapis. It certainly did not bear this name when it came from Sinope, but, after it had been conveyed to Alexandria, it took to itself the name which Pluto bears among the Egyptians, that of Serapis. Moreover, since Heracleitus[*](Cf. Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, i. 81, Heracleitus no. 14.) the physical philosopher says, The same are Hades and Dionysus, to honour whom they rage and rave, people are inclined to come to this opinion. In fact, those who insist that the body is called Hades, since the soul is, as it were, deranged and inebriate when it is in the body, are too frivolous in their use of allegory. It is better to identify Osiris with Dionysus[*](Cf. 356 b, supra, and 364 d, infra.) and Serapis with Osiris,[*](Cf. 376 a, infra, and Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Sarapis (vol. i. a, col. 2394).) who received this appellation at the time when he changed his nature. For this reason Serapis is a god of all peoples in common, even as Osiris is; and this they who have participated in the holy rites well know.

It is not worth while to pay any attention to the Phrygian writings,[*](Cf. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, iii. 16 (42).) in which it is said that Serapis was the son of Heracles, and Isis was his daughter, and Typhon was the son of Alcaeus, who also was a son of Heracles; nor must we fail to contemn Phylarchus, who writes that Dionysus was the first to bring from India into Egypt two bulls, and that the name of one was Apis and of the other Osiris. But Serapis is the name of him who sets the universe in order, and it is derived from sweep (sairein), which some say means to beautify and to put in order. [*](Cf. Pauly-Wissowa, l.c., col. 2396-2397, for other etymologies. The derivation from sairein (sweep) is wholly fanciful.) As a matter of fact, these statements of Phylarchus are absurd, but even more absurd are those put forth by those who say that Serapis is no god at all, but the name of the coffin of Apis; and that there are in Memphis certain bronze gates called the Gates of Oblivion and Lamentation,[*](Cf. Diodorus, i. 96, and Pausanias, i. 18. 4, with Frazer’s note.) which are opened when the burial of Apis takes place, and they give out a deep and harsh sound; and it is because of this that we lay hand upon anything of bronze that gives out a sound.[*](Cf.Moralia, 995 e-f; Aristotle, Frag. 196 (ed. Rose); or Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras, 41.) More moderate is the statement of those who say that the derivation[*](This derivation (from seuesthai or sousthai) is also fanciful.) is from shoot (seuesthai) or scoot (sousthai), meaning the general movement of the universe. Most of the priests say that Osiris and Apis are conjoined into one, thus explaining to us and informing us that we must regard Apis as the bodily image of the soul of Osiris.[*](Cf. 359 b, supra, and 368 c, infra, and Diodorus, i. 85.) But

it is my opinion that, if the name Serapis is Egyptian, it denotes cheerfulness and rejoicing, and I base this opinion on the fact that the Egyptians call their festival of rejoicing sairei. In fact, Plato[*](Plato, Cratylus, 403 a-404 a, suggests various derivations of the name Hades.) says that Hades is so named because he is a beneficent and gentle god towards those who have come to abide with him. Moreover, among the Egyptians many others of the proper names are real words; for example, that place beneath the earth, to which they believe that souls depart after the end of this life, they call Amenthes, the name signifying the one who receives and gives. Whether this is one of those words which came from Greece in very ancient times and were brought back again[*](Cf. 375 e-f, infra.) we will consider later,[*](Cf. 375 d, infra.) but for the present let us go on to discuss the remainder of the views now before us.

Now Osiris and Isis changed from good minor deities into gods.[*](Cf. 361 e, supra.) But the power of Typhon, weakened and crushed, but still fighting and strugglingagainst extinction, they try to console and mollify by certain sacrifices; but again there are times when, at certain festivals, they humiliate and insult him by assailing red-headed men with jeering, and by throwing an ass over the edge of a precipice, as the people of Kopto do, because Typhon had red hair and in colour resembled an ass.[*](Cf. 359 e, supra, and 364 a, infra; for Kopto Cf. 356 d.) The people of Busiris[*](Cf.Moralia, 150 e-f.) and Lycopolis do not use trumpets at all, because these make a sound like an ass[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animalium, x. 28.); and altogether they

regard the ass as an unclean animal dominated by some higher power because of its resemblance to Typhon,[*](Cf.Moralia, 150 f.) and when they make cakes at their sacrifices in the month of Paÿni and of Phaophi they imprint upon them the device of an ass tied by a rope.[*](Cf. 371 d, infra.) Moreover, in the sacrifice to the Sun they enjoin upon the worshippers not to wear any golden ornaments nor to give fodder to an ass. It is plain that the adherents of Pythagoras hold Typhon to be a daemonic power; for they say that he was born in an even factor of fifty-six; and the dominion of the triangle belongs to Hades, Dionysus, and Ares, that of the quadrilateral to Rhea, Aphroditê, Demeter, Hestia, and Hera, that of the dodecagon to Zeus,[*](As the chief of the twelve gods presumably; Cf. Herodotus, ii. 4.) and that of a polygon of fifty-six sides to Typhon, as Eudoxus has recorded.

The Egyptians, because of their belief that Typhon was of a red complexion,[*](Cf. 359 e, supra, and 364 a, infra.) also dedicate to sacrifice such of their neat cattle as are of a red colour,[*](Cf. Diodorus, i. 88.) but they conduct the examination of these so scrupulously that, if an animal has but one hair black or white, they think it wrong to sacrifice it[*](Cf. Herodotus, ii. 38, and Diodorus, i. 88.); for they regard as suitable for sacrifice not what is dear to the gods but the reverse, namely, such animals as have incarnate in them souls of unholy and unrighteous men who have been transformed into other bodies. For this reason they invoke curses on the head of the victim and cut it off, and in earlier times they used to

throw it into the river, but now they sell it to aliens.[*](To Greeks, says Herodotus, ii. 39. Cf. Deuteronomy xiv. 21, Thou shalt give it (sc. anything that dieth of itself) unto the stranger that is in thy gates . . . or thou mayest sell it unto an alien. ) Upon the neat animal intended for sacrifice those of the priests who were called Sealers [*](Cf. Herodotus, ii. 38, and Porphyry, De Abstinentia, iv. 7.) used to put a mark; and their seal, as Castor records, bore an engraving of a man with his knee on the ground and his hands tied behind his back, and with a sword at his throat.[*](Cf. Diodorus, i. 88. 4-5.) They think, as has been said,[*](362 f, supra.) that the ass reaps the consequences of his resemblance because of his stupidity and his lascivious behaviour no less than because of his colour. This is also the reason why, since they hated Ochus[*](Cf. 355 c, supra, and Aelian, Varia Historia, iv. 8.) most of all the Persian kings because he was a detested and abominable ruler, they nicknamed him the Ass; and he remarked, But this Ass will feast upon your Bull, and slaughtered Apis, as Deinon has recorded. But those who relate that Typhon’s flight from the battle was made on the back of an ass and lasted for seven days, and that after he had made his escape, he became the father of sons, Hierosolymus and Judaeus, are manifestly, as the very names show, attempting to drag Jewish traditions[*](Cf. Tacitus, Histories, v. 2.) into the legend.

Such, then, are the possible interpretations which these facts suggest. But now let us begin over again, and consider first the most perspicuous of those who have a reputation for expounding matters more philosophically. These men are like the Greeks who say that Cronus is but a figurative name for Chronus[*](Cf. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, ii. 25 (64).) (Time), Hera for Air, and that the birth of Hephaestus symbolizes the change of Air into Fire.[*](Cf. 392 c, infra.) And thus among the Egyptians such men say that Osiris is the

Nile consorting with the Earth, which is Isis, and that the sea is Typhon into which the Nile discharges its waters and is lost to view and dissipated, save for that part which the earth takes up and absorbs and thereby becomes fertilized.[*](Cf. 366 a, infra.)

There is also a religious lament sung over Cronus.[*](For Cronus as representing rivers and water see Pauly-Wissowa, xi. 1987-1988.) The lament is for him that is born in the regions on the left, and suffers dissolution in the regions on the right; for the Egyptians believe that the eastern regions are the face of the world, the northern the right, and the southern the left.[*](Cf.Moralia, 282 d-e and 729 b.) The Nile, therefore, which runs from the south and is swallowed up by the sea in the north, is naturally said to have its birth on the left and its dissolution on the right. For this reason the priests religiously keep themselves aloof from the sea, and call salt the spume of Typhon; and one of the things forbidden them is to set salt upon a table[*](Ibid. 685 a and 729 a.); also they do not speak to pilots,[*](Ibid. 729 c.) because these men make use of the sea, and gain their livelihood from the sea. This is also not the least of the reasons why they eschew fish,[*](Cf. 353 c, supra.) and they portray hatred by drawing the picture of a fish. At Saïs in the vestibule of the temple of Athena was carved a babe and an aged man, and after this a hawk, and next a fish, and finally an hippopotamus. The symbolic meaning of this was[*](There is a lacuna in one ms. (E) at this point (God hateth . . . of departing from it). The supplement is from Clement of Alexandria; see the critical note.): O ye that are coming into the world

and departing from it, God hateth shamelessness. The babe is the symbol of coming into the world and the aged man the symbol of departing from it, and by a hawk they indicate God,[*](Cf. 371 e, infra.) by the fish hatred, as has already been said,[*](Cf. 353 c, supra.) because of the sea, and by the hippopotamus shamelessness; for it is said that he kills his sire[*](Cf. Porphyry, De Abstinentia, iii. 23.) and forces his mother to mate with him. That saying of the adherents of Pythagoras, that the sea is a tear of Cronus,[*](Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, v. 50. 1 (p. 676 Potter), and Aristotle, Frag. 196 (ed. Rose).) may seem to hint at its impure and extraneous nature.

Let this, then, be stated incidentally, as a matter of record that is common knowledge.

But the wiser of the priests call not only the Nile Osiris and the sea Typhon, but they simply give the name of Osiris to the whole source and faculty creative of moisture,[*](Cf. 365 b, infra.) believing this to be the cause of generation and the substance of life-producing seed; and the name of Typhon they give to all that is dry, fiery, and arid,[*](Cf. 369 a and 376 f, infra.) in general, and antagonistic to moisture. Therefore, because they believe that he was personally of a reddish sallow colour,[*](Cf. 359 e and 363 b, supra.) they are not eager to meet men of such complexion, nor do they like to associate with them.

Osiris, on the other hand, according to their legendary tradition, was dark,[*](Cf. 359 e, supra.) because water darkens everything, earth and clothes and clouds, when it comes into contact with them.[*](Cf.Moralia, 950 a.) In young people the presence of moisture renders their hair black, while greyness, like a paleness as it were, is induced by

dryness in those who are passing their prime.[*](Cf. Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, v. 1 (780 b 6).) Also the spring-time is vigorous, prolific, and agreeable; but the autumn, since it lacks moisture, is inimical to plants and unhealthful for living creatures.

The bull kept at Heliopolis which they call Mneuis,[*](Cf. Diodorus, i. 21; Eusebius, Praepar. Evang. iii. 13. 1-3; Strabo, xvii. 1. 22; Aelian, De Natura Animalium, xi. 11.) and which is sacred to Osiris (some hold it to be the sire of Apis), is black and has honours second only to Apis. Egypt, moreover, which has the blackest of soils,[*](Cf. Herodotus, ii. 12.) they call by the same name as the black portion of the eye, Chemia, and compare it to a heart[*](Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, i. 22.); for it is warm and moist and is enclosed by the southern portions of the inhabited world and adjoins them, like the heart in a man’s left side.

They say that the sun and moon do not use chariots, but boats[*](Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, v. 41. 2 (p. 566 Potter); Eusebius, Praepar. Evang. iii. 11. 48.) in which to sail round in their courses; and by this they intimate that the nourishment and origin of these heavenly bodies is from moisture. They think also that Homer,[*](Il. xiv. 201.) like Thales, had gained his knowledge from the Egyptians, when he postulated water as the source and origin of all things; for, according to them, Oceanus is Osiris, and Tethys is Isis, since she is the kindly nurse and provider for all things. In fact, the Greeks call emission apousia [*](Cf. Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, i. 78.) and coition synousia, and the son (hyios) from water (hydor) and rain (hysai); Dionysus also they call Hyes[*](Cf. the name Hyades of the constellation.) since he is lord of the nature of moisture; and he is no other than Osiris.[*](Cf. 356 b, 362 b, supra, and 365 a, infra.) In fact, Hellanicus seems

to have heard Osiris pronounced Hysiris by the priests, for he regularly spells the name in this way, deriving it, in all probability, from the nature of Osiris and the ceremony of finding him.[*](See 366 f, infra.)

That Osiris is identical with Dionysus who could more fittingly know than yourself, Clea ? For you are ii t the head of the inspired maidens of Delphi, and have been consecrated by your father and mother in the holy rites of Osiris. If, however, for the benefit of others it is needful to adduce proofs of this identity, let us leave undisturbed what may not be told, but the public ceremonies which the priests perform in the burial of the Apis, when they convey his body on an improvised bier, do not in any way come short of a Bacchic procession; for they fasten skins of fawns about themselves, and carry Bacchic wands and indulge in shoutings and movements exactly as do those who are under the spell of the Dionysiac ecstasies.[*](Cf. Diodorus, i. 11.) For the same reason many of the Greeks make statues of Dionysus in the form of a bull[*](A partial list in Roscher, Lexikon d. gr. u. röm. Mythologie, i. 1149.); and the women of Elis invoke him, praying that the god may come with the hoof of a bull[*](Cf.Moralia, 299 a, where the invocation is given at greater length; also Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, iii. p. 510 (L.C.L.).); and the epithet applied to Dionysus among the Argives is Son of the Bull. They call him up out of the water by the sound of trumpets,[*](Cf.Moralia, 671 e.) at the same time casting into the depths a lamb as an offering to the Keeper of the Gate. The trumpets they conceal in Bacchic wands, as Socrates[*](Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iv. p. 498, Socrates, no. 5.) has stated in his treatise on The Holy Ones. Furthermore,

the tales regarding the Titans and the rites celebrated by night agree with the accounts of the dismemberment of Osiris and his revivification and regenesis. Similar agreement is found too in the tales about their sepulchres. The Egyptians, as has already been stated,[*](358 a and 359 a, supra.) point out tombs of Osiris in many places, and the people of Delphi believe that the remains of Dionysus rest with them close beside the oracle; and the Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the shrine of Apollo whenever the devotees of Dionysus[*](That is, the inspired maidens, mentioned at the beginning of the chapter.) wake the God of the Mystic Basket.[*](Callimachus, Hymn to Demeter (vi.), 127; Anth. Pal. vi. 165; Virgil, Georg. i. 166.) To show that the Greeks regard Dionysus as the lord and master not only of wine, but of the nature of every sort of moisture, it is enough that Pindar[*](Frag. 153 (Christ). Plutarch quotes the line also in Moralia, 745 a and 757 f.) be our witness, when he says
  1. May gladsome Dionysus swell the fruit upon the trees,
  2. The hallowed splendour of harvest-time.
For this reason all who reverence Osiris are prohibited from destroying a cultivated tree or blocking up a spring of water.

Not only the Nile, but every form of moisture[*](Cf. 366 a, 371 b, infra, and 729 b.) they call simply the effusion of Osiris; and in their holy rites the water jar in honour of the god heads the procession.[*](Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, vi. 31. 1 (p. 758 Potter).) And by the picture of a rush they represent a king and the southern region of the world,[*](Such a symbol exists on Egyptian monuments.) and the rush is interpreted to mean the watering and fructifying of all things, and in its nature it seems to bear some resemblance to the generative member.

Moreover, when they celebrate the festival of the Pamylia which, as has been said,[*](355 e, supra.) is of a phallic nature, they expose and carry about a statue of which the male member is triple[*](Cf. 371 f, infra, Herodotus, ii. 48, and Egyptian monuments.); for the god is the Source, and every source, by its fecundity, multiplies what proceeds from it; and for many times we have a habit of saying thrice, as, for example, thrice happy, [*](Homer, Od. v. 306, and vi. 154. It is interesting that G. H. Palmer translates this most happy. ) and
Bonds, even thrice as many, unnumbered,[*](Ibid. viii. 340.)
unless, indeed, the word triple is used by the early writers in its strict meaning; for the nature of moisture, being the source and origin of all things, created out of itself three primal material substances, Earth, Air, and Fire. In fact, the tale that is annexed to the legend to the effect that Typhon cast the male member of Osiris into the river, and Isis could not find it, but constructed and shaped a replica of it, and ordained that it should be honoured and borne in processions,[*](Cf. 358 b, supra.) plainly comes round to this doctrine, that the creative and germinal power of the god, at the very first, acquired moisture as its substance, and through moisture combined with whatever was by nature capable of participating in generation.

There is another tale current among the Egyptians, that Apopis, brother of the Sun, made Avar upon Zeus, and that because Osiris espoused Zeus’s cause and helped him to overthrow his enemy, Zeus adopted Osiris as his son and gave him the name of Dionysus. It may be demonstrated that the legend contained in this tale has some approximation to truth so far as

Nature is concerned; for the Egyptians apply the name Zeus to the wind,[*](Cf. Diodorus, i. 12. 2.) and whatever is dry or fiery is antagonistic to this. This is not the Sun, but it has some kinship with the Sun; and the moisture, by doing away with the excess of dryness, increases and strengthens the exhalations by which the wind is fostered and made vigorous.

Moreover, the Greeks are wont to consecrate the ivy[*](Diodorus, i. 17. 4.) to Dionysus, and it is said that among the Egyptians the name for ivy is chenosiris, the meaning of the name being, as they say, the plant of Osiris. Now, Ariston,[*](Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 324.) the author of Athenian Colonization, happened upon a letter of Alexarchus, in which it is recorded that Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Isis, and is called not Osiris, but Arsaphes, spelled with an a, the name denoting virility. Hermaeus,[*](Ibid. iv. p. 427.) too, makes this statement in the first volume of his book The Egyptians; for he says that Osiris, properly interpreted, means sturdy. I leave out of account Mnaseas’s[*](Ibid. iii. p. 155.) annexation of Dionysus, Osiris, andSerapis to Epaphus, as well as Anticleides’[*](Cf. Jacoby, Frag. Gr. Hist. 140, no. 13.) statement that Isis was the daughter of Prometheus[*](Cf. 352 a, supra.) and was wedded to Dionysus.[*](Cf. Herodotus, ii. 156.) The fact is that the peculiarities already mentioned regarding the festival and sacrifices carry a conviction more manifest than any testimony of authorities.

Of the stars the Egyptians think that the Dog-star is the star of Isis,[*](Cf. 359 d, supra, and 376 a, infra.) because it is the bringer of water.[*](In the Nile.) They also hold the Lion in honour, and they

adorn the doorways of their shrines with gaping lions’ heads,[*](Cf.Moralia, 670 c; Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, i. 21.) because the Nile overflows
When for the first time the Sun comes into conjunction with Leo.[*](Aratus, Phaenomena, 151. The Dog-star rises at about the same time.)

As they regard the Nile as the effusion of Osiris,[*](Cf. the note on 365 b, supra.) so they hold and believe the earth to be the body of Isis, not all of it, but so much of it as the Nile covers, fertilizing it and uniting with it.[*](Cf. 363 d, supra.) From this union they make Horus to be born. The all-conserving and fostering Hora, that is the seasonable tempering of the surrounding air, is Horus, who they say was brought up by Leto in the marshes round about Buto[*](Cf. 357 f, supra.); for the watery and saturated land best nurtures those exhalations which quench and abate aridity and dryness.

The outmost parts of the land beside the mountains and bordering on the sea the Egyptians call Nephthys. This is why they give to Nephthys the name of Finality, [*](Cf. 355 f, supra, and 375 b, infra.) and say that she is the wife of Typhon. Whenever, then, the Nile overflows and with abounding waters spreads far away to those who dwell in the outermost regions, they call this the union of Osiris with Nephthys,[*](Cf. the note on 356 e, supra.) which is proved by the upspringing of the plants. Among these is the melilotus,[*](Cf. 356 f, supra.) by the wilting and failing of which, as the story goes, Typhon gained knowledge of the wrong done to his bed. So Isis gave birth to Horus in lawful wedlock, but Nephthys bore Anubis clandestinely. However, in the chronological lists of the kings they record that

Nephthys, after her marriage to Typhon, was at first barren. If they say this, not about a woman, but about the goddess, they must mean by it the utter barrenness and unproduetivity of the earth resulting from a hard-baked soil.

The insidious scheming and usurpation of Typhon, then, is the power of drought, which gains control and dissipates the moisture which is the source of the Nile and of its rising; and his coadjutor, the Queen of the Ethiopians,[*](Cf. 356 b, supra.) signifies allegorically the south winds from Ethiopia; for whenever these gain the upper hand over the northerly or Etesian winds[*](Cf.Moralia, 898 a, and Diodorus, i. 39.) which drive the clouds towards Ethiopia, and when they prevent the falling of the rains which cause the rising of the Nile, then Typhon, being in possession, blazes with scorching heat; and having gained complete mastery, he forces the Nile in retreat to draw back its waters for weakness, and, flowing at the bottom of its almost empty channel, to proceed to the sea. The story told of the shutting up of Osiris in the chest seems to mean nothing else than the vanishing and disappearance of water. Consequently they say that the disappearance of Osiris occurred in the month of Athyr,[*](The month of November.) at the time when, owing to the complete cessation of the Etesian winds, the Nile recedes to its low level and the land becomes denuded. As the nights grow longer, the darkness increases, and the potency of the light is abated and subdued. Then among the gloomy rites which the priests perform, they shroud the gilded image of a cow with a black linen vestment, and display her as a sign of mourning for the goddess, inasmuch as they regard both the cow and the earth[*](Cf. 366 a supra.)

as the image of Isis; and this is kept up for four days consecutively, beginning with the seventeenth of the month. The things mourned for are four in number: first, the departure and recession of the Nile; second, the complete extinction of the north winds, as the south winds gain the upper hand; third, the day’s growing shorter than the night; and, to crown all, the denudation of the earth together with the defoliation of the trees and shrubs at this time. On the nineteenth day they go down to the sea at nighttime; and the keepers of the robes and the priests bring forth the sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water which they have taken up, and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris is found. Then they knead some fertile soil with the water and mix in spices and incense of a very costly sort, and fashion therefrom a crescent-shaped figure, which they clothe and adorn, thus indicating that they regard these gods as the substance of Earth and Water.