Isis and Osiris (35-39)

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.[*] For the same reason many of the Greeks make statues of Dionysus in the form of a bull[*]; and the women of Elis invoke him, praying that the god may come with the hoof of a bull[*]; 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,[*] 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[*] has stated in his treatise on The Holy Ones. Furthermore,

May gladsome Dionysus swell the fruit upon the trees,

The hallowed splendour of harvest-time.

Not only the Nile, but every form of moisture[*] they call simply the effusion of Osiris; and in their holy rites the water jar in honour of the god heads the procession.[*] And by the picture of a rush they represent a king and the southern region of the world,[*] 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.

Bonds, even thrice as many, unnumbered,[*]

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

Moreover, the Greeks are wont to consecrate the ivy[*] 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,[*] 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,[*] 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[*] annexation of Dionysus, Osiris, andSerapis to Epaphus, as well as Anticleides’[*] statement that Isis was the daughter of Prometheus[*] and was wedded to Dionysus.[*] 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,[*] because it is the bringer of water.[*] They also hold the Lion in honour, and they

When for the first time the Sun comes into conjunction with Leo.[*]

As they regard the Nile as the effusion of Osiris,[*] 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.[*] 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[*]; 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, [*] 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,[*] which is proved by the upspringing of the plants. Among these is the melilotus,[*] 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

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,[*] signifies allegorically the south winds from Ethiopia; for whenever these gain the upper hand over the northerly or Etesian winds[*] 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,[*] 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[*]