LITMIR.BIZ

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on the 17th day of the month Athor, when the sun was in Scorpio, in the 28th year of Osiris’s reign, though others say he was no more than twenty-eight years old at the time.

      “The first who knew the accident that had befallen their king were the Pans and Satyrs, who lived about Chemmis; and they, immediately acquainting the people with the news, gave the first occasion to the name of Panic terrors… Isis, as soon as the report reached her, cut off one of the locks of her hair and put on mourning.

      “At length she received more particular news of the chest. It had been carried by the waves of the sea to the coast of Byblos, and there gently lodged in the branches of a tamarisk bush, which in a short time had shot up into a large tree, growing round the chest and enclosing it on every side, so that it could not be seen; and the king of the country, having cut down the tree, had made the part of the trunk wherein the chest was concealed a pillar to support the roof of his house. Isis, having gone to Byblos, obtained possession of this pillar, and then set sail with the chest for Egypt. But intending a visit to her son Horus, who was brought up at Butus, she deposited the chest in the meantime in a remote and unfrequented place. Typho, however, as he was one night hunting by the light of the moon, accidentally met with it; and knowing the body enclosed in it, tore it into fourteen pieces, disposing them up and down in different parts of the country.

      “Being acquainted with this event, Isis set out once more in search of the scattered members of her husband’s body, using a boat made of the papyrus rush in order the more easily to pass through the lower and fenny parts of the country. And one reason assigned for the many different sepulchres of Osiris shown in Egypt is, that wherever any one of his scattered limbs was discovered, she buried it in that spot; though others suppose that it was owing to an artifice of the queen, who presented each of those cities with an image of her husband, in order that, if Typho should overcome Horus in the approaching conquest, he might be unable to find the real sepulchre. Isis succeeded in recovering all the different members, with the exception of one, which had been devoured by the lepidotus, the phagrus, and the oxyrhinchus; for which reason these fish are held in abhorrence by the Egyptians. To make amends, therefore, for this loss, she consecrated the phallus, and instituted a solemn festival to its memory.

      “A battle at length took place between Horus and Typho, in which the latter was taken prisoner. Isis, however, to whose custody he was committed, so far from putting him to death, set him at liberty; which so incensed Horus that he tore off the royal diadem she wore; but Hermes substituted in its stead a helmet made in the shape of an ox’s head. At length two other battles were fought, in which Typho was defeated.”

      This allegory is thus explained: —

      “Osiris means the inundation of the Nile.

      “Isis, the irrigated portion of the land of Egypt.

      “Horus, their offspring, the vapors and exhalations reproducing rain.

      “Butus, the marshy lands of Lower Egypt, where those vapors were nourished.

      “Typho, the sea which swallowed up the Nile water.

      “The conspirators, the drought overcoming the moisture, from which the increase of the Nile proceeds.

      “The chest in which Osiris’s body was confined, the banks of the river, within which it retired after the inundation.

      “The Tanaïtic mouth, the lake and barren lands about it, which were held in abhorrence from their being overflowed by the river without producing any benefit to the country.

      “The twenty-eight years of his life, the twenty-eight cubits to which the Nile rises at Elephantina, its greatest height.

      “The 17th of Athor, the period when the river retires within its banks.

      “The queen of Æthiopia, the southern winds preventing the clouds being carried southward.

      “The different members of Osiris’s body, the main channels and canals by which the inundation passed into the interior of the country, where each was said to be afterwards buried. That one which could not be recovered was the generative power of the Nile, which still continued in the stream itself.

      “The victory of Horus, the power possessed by the clouds in causing the successive inundations of the Nile.”

      Many animals, insects, and plants were considered sacred by the Egyptians: among them were the cynocephalus ape, sacred to Thoth; shrew-mouse, sacred to Mant; dog, sacred to Anubis; cat, sacred to Pashtor Bubastis; lion, sacred to Gom, or Hercules; hippopotamus, sacred to Mars; pig and ass, emblems of Typho; goat, sacred to Mendes; cow, sacred to Athor.

      The sacred oxen were Apis, Mnevis, and Basis, sacred to Osiris, Apollo, and Onuphis.

      The sacred birds of Egypt were the vulture, eagle, hawk, white and saffron-colored cocks, little egret, sacred to Osiris; ibis, sacred to Thoth; goose, emblem of Seb. Fabulous and unknown sacred birds were the phœnix, sacred to Osiris; the “pure soul” of the king (a bird with man’s head and arms), emblem of the soul; vulture with a snake’s head; hawk with man’s and ram’s head.

      The sacred reptiles were the tortoise, crocodile, asp, and frog. The fabulous serpents were snakes with human heads, with hawk’s head, and with lion’s head.

      The sacred fishes of Egypt were the oxyrhinchus, the eel, the lepidotus, satus, and mæotes. The scorpion was the emblem of the goddess Selk. Different species of beetles were held sacred to the sun, and adopted as an emblem of the world.

      Foremost amongst the sacred plants of the East, being not merely a symbol, but frequently the object of worship in itself, was the undying lotus, which, from the throne of Osiris, Isis, and Nepthys, rises in the midst of the waters, bearing on the margin of its blossom the four genii.

      “The Persians represent the sun as ‘rob’d with light, with lotus crown’d.’ Among the Chinese it symbolized Buddha, and is the emblem of female beauty. The Japanese deem it the emblem of purity, since it is not sullied by the muddy waters in which it often grows. With the flowers of the motherwort, it is borne before the body in their funeral processions. The Hindoo deities are often represented seated upon a lotus flower. Kamadeva, or Cupid, is depicted as floating down the blue Ganges —

      ‘Upon a rosy lotus wreath,

      Catching new lustre from the tide

      That with his image shone beneath.’”

      The consort of Vishnu, Laksmi, was also called the “Lotus-born,” because she was said to have ascended from the ocean on its blossom.

      Brahma was believed to have sprung from Narayana, – that is, “the Spirit of God moving on the waters,” – and he is thus described in a Hindoo poem: —

      “A form cerulean fluttered o’er the deep;

      Brightest of beings, greatest of the great,

      Who, not as mortals steep

      Their eyes in dewy sleep,

      But heavenly pensive on the lotus lay,

      That blossom’d at his touch, and shed a golden ray.”

      An ancient prayer, common to the inhabitants of Tibet and the slopes of the Himalayas, consists of unceasing repetitions of the words, Om mane padne haun, meaning, “Oh, the jewel in the lotus! Amen.”

      “The Grecian god of silence, Harpocrates, who was the Egyptian Aurora, or Dayspring, and was the son of Isis, was often represented on the lotus. The god Nofre Atmoo also bore the lotus on his head.”

      The lotus is regarded in Egyptian delineations as signifying the creation of the world. In the gallery of Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum there are several statues bearing sceptres formed of the lotus; and also a mummy holding in each hand of his crossed arms a lotus flower. There was also brought to England, some years ago, a bust of Isis emerging from a lotus flower, which has frequently been mistaken for one of Clytie changing into a sunflower.

      Three species of nymphæceæ, called lotus, were cultivated in Egypt. One of these still grows in immense quantities in Lower Egypt. This lotus has fragrant white blossoms, and

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