Known by the Mitsrim (Egyptians) as Osher, we know him today from the Greek rendition of his name, which was Osiris (Ὄσιρις).
The name is geographically connected with the tribe of Asher, because it was in the northern part of Asher's tribal territory that Eshet (Isis) found the fourteen parts of Osher's body after he had been murdered and dismembered by Set; however the tribal name is spelled with an Aleph (א), and the Yehudit spelling of Osher/Osiris is with an Ayin (ע), so the connection cannot be confirmed.
The Egyptian version of his legend goes as follows:
It is not difficult to identify which parts of this tale were borrowed for the birth and childhood of Mosheh, and then borrowed again for the birth and choldhood of Jesus; but can we also see Eshet in Mir-Yam (Miriam), both at the riverbank, and in the trio she makes later on, herself and her brothers Mosheh and Aharon (the latter name not all that far from Hor)? The four sacred kingships of Osher are equivalated in those of King David, the fourteen burial sites of Osher with those of Jesus. There are also hints of the Osher tale in the killing of the "concubine" in Judges 19 ff. And can we also recognise a source for Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and "King Lear"? (Shakespeare might have known the Wycliffe translation, though it was officially prohibited; he certainly knew Myles Coverdale's version and the Great Bible of 1539 - he quotes both regularly). Set recurs as Shet, the third son of Adam and Chavah (Eve).
Plutarch in "Osiris and Isis", uses the Greek names of the gods, and transports the tale to a Greek context, in a way that is very useful to us as a proof of the validity of comparative mythology:
When Ra reigned as king of Egypt, Thoth (Djehuty) prophesied that Ra's wife Nut would have a son who would reign as king. Ra cursed Nut and said, "Nut will give birth to no son on any day of any year, nor at night time either." Ra's curse could not be broken, but Thoth had a clever plan. He went to the moon god Khonsu, and offered to play a game of Senet with him. Khonsu was a great gambler, and bet some of his own moonlight. Thoth defeated Khonsu over and over, until he had won five days from Khonsu. Thoth fitted those five days between the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year, the year having 360 days. And so here were five days that were not part of any year. Nut gave birth to five children on those five days, Osher on the first day, Harmachis on the second day, Set on the third, Eshet on the fourth, and Nephthys on the fifth.
When Osher was born, a man of Thebes named Pamyles heard a voice telling him to spread the word that Osher the good and great king, the saviour of Humankind, had been born. And so Pamyles spread the word, and Nut entrusted the baby Osher to Pamyles, to raise and educate, with the help of Thoth. The five children grew up, and Osher married Eshet, and Set married Nephthys.
Eventually, Ra ascended into the heavens to sail across the sky every day, and Osher sat on the throne, and ruled Mitsrayim as a good and wise king, and Mitsrayim flourished under his rule, and the people (who had previously lived like wild animals) became civilised (learning to use the inundation to replenish the land). And the people worshiped Osher.
When Osher left Mitsrayim, to teach the people of other lands, Eshet ruled in his place. When Set plotted to steal Osher's throne, Eshet prevented him. Set became the leader of seventy-two wicked men, along with Aso the evil queen of Kush (Ethiopia). He secretly learned the measurements of the body of Osher, and had a beautiful wooden chest made that was exactly the right size to hold Osher. Then he invited Osher to a great feast. Everyone at the feast admired the wooden chest, and desired to own it. Set said that the chest would belong to whoever it fitted best. Each person at the feast lay down in the chest, but it fitted none of them. When Osher lay down in the chest, Set and his conspirators closed the lid, nailed it shut, poured molten lead over it to seal the cracks, and threw it into the Nile. And so Osher died in the 28th year of his reign.
The chest floated into the Great Green, the sea north of Mitsrayim, and came ashore at Byblos, in Ashur (Assyria). There it was flung by the waves into a tamarisk bush. The bush quickly grew into a mighty tree which enclosed the wooden chest. The king of Ashur marveled at the tree, and had it cut down and made into a pillar which supported the roof of his palace.
Meanwhile, Set ruled as king of Mitsrayim; it was a time of great trouble in Mitsrayim. Eshet was stricken with grief, and put on the apparel of mourning, and cut off a lock of her hair. Then she went in search of her husband's body, as he had to be buried so that he could go to the Du'at (or Am Tu'at), the Land of the Dead. Eventually, some children told Eshet that they had seen the chest floating in the Nile. But Eshet was delayed while she gave birth to Hor (Horus), the son of Osher, in Buto on the island of Chemmis. Set learned of the birth of Hor, and plotted to kill him. Eshet hid the island, making it move from place to place, and went in search of Osher's body.
Eshet tracked the chest to Byblos. At Byblos, she talked to the queen's maid-servants, and braided their hair. The queen was delighted by the wonderful braided hair which smelled of sweet perfume, and invited Eshet to the palace. She took care of a baby prince, although she did not suckle the child, but allowed him to suck her thumb. She placed the child in a fire. The queen, seeing this, ran to her child and pulled him from the fire, thereby denying him immortality. Eshet revealed who she was, and asked the king for the pillar which contained the wooden chest. The pillar was split open and Eshet took the wooden chest which contained the body of Osher. The remainder of the pillar was placed in a temple, and for many ages travelers came to Byblos to see it.
Eshet took the wooden chest back to Mitsrayim and hid it in a secret place. Then she returned to her son in Buto. One day Set, while out hunting by moonlight, discovered the chest, opened it, and cut Osher's body into fourteen pieces, which he scattered throughout the land. The crocodiles would not touch the pieces of Osher, as they feared Eshet. Eshet, in a boat made of papyrus reeds, searched the land, and buried each piece of Osher, and a temple was built by men at each place where a piece of Osher was buried. Thirteen different cities claimed to be the burial place of Osher. Eshet found all but one piece, which had been eaten by a fish in the Nile. And this kind of fish has been accursed ever since. But Osher entered the Du'at, the Netherworld, and he rules as its good and just king.
Set still ruled Mitsrayim. As a child, Hor, the son of Osher and Eshet, and rightful heir to the throne, was killed by Set in the form of a scorpion, but Thoth brought him back to life, as his destiny, which was to be the ruler of Mitsrayim and the avenger of the crime against his father, had not yet been fulfilled. Hor grew to be a strong and brave warrior. Osher appeared to Hor in a vision, and urged him to overthrow Set.
The armies of Hor fought the armies of Set, and defeated them. Set was forced to flee. The final battle was fought at Edfu, where Hor lost an eye. But Hor killed Set and cut his body into pieces. And Hor ruled as the good and just king of Mitsrayim.
It is not difficult to identify which parts of this tale were borrowed for the birth and childhood of Mosheh, and then borrowed again for the birth and choldhood of Jesus; but can we also see Eshet in Mir-Yam (Miriam), both at the riverbank, and in the trio she makes later on, herself and her brothers Mosheh and Aharon (the latter name not all that far from Hor)? The four sacred kingships of Osher are equivalated in those of King David, the fourteen burial sites of Osher with those of Jesus. There are also hints of the Osher tale in the killing of the "concubine" in Judges 19 ff. And can we also recognise a source for Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and "King Lear"? (Shakespeare might have known the Wycliffe translation, though it was officially prohibited; he certainly knew Myles Coverdale's version and the Great Bible of 1539 - he quotes both regularly). Set recurs as Shet, the third son of Adam and Chavah (Eve).
The tale as told above is, of course,only one of many versions of the life and death of Osher. Click here for a fuller account, and for variant tales. In others, Osher was one of the five children of Geb, not Ra - and Geb will be crucial to many of the Biblical tales, with several important towns named for him, usually those where tumuli had been established in his name as burial sites. None more so than Giv'at Sha'ul (1 Samuel 11:4, 15:34 et al), Sha'ul being a variant of She'ol, which was the Yehudit name for the Underworld; Geb and Sha'ul are thus effectively interchangeable.
Plutarch in "Osiris and Isis", uses the Greek names of the gods, and transports the tale to a Greek context, in a way that is very useful to us as a proof of the validity of comparative mythology:
"They say that the Sun, when he became aware of Rhea's intercourse with Cronus, invoked a curse upon her that she should not give birth to a child in any month or year; but Hermes, being enamoured of the goddess, consorted with her.
Later, playing at draughts with the moon, he won from her the seventieth part of each of her periods of illumination, and from all the winnings he composed five days, and intercalated them as an addition to the three hundred and sixty days. The Egyptians even now call these five days intercalated and celebrate them as the birthdays of the gods. They relate that on the first of these days Osiris was born, and at the hour of his birth a voice issued forth saying, 'The Lord of All advances to the light.'
But some relate that a certain Pamyles, while he was drawing water in Thebes, heard a voice issuing from the shrine of Zeus, which bade him proclaim with a loud voice that a mighty and beneficent king, Osiris, had been born; and for this Cronus entrusted to him the child Osiris, which he brought up. It is in his honour that the festival of Pamylia is celebrated, a festival which resembles the phallic processions. On the second of these days Arueris was born whom they call Apollo, and some call him also the elder Horus. On the third day Typhon was born, but not in due season or manner, but with a blow he broke through his mother's side and leapt forth. On the fourth day Isis was born in the regions that are ever moist; and on the fifth Nephthys, to whom they give the name of Finality and the name of Aphroditê, and some also the name of Victory [νίκη - Nikê].
There is also a tradition that Osiris and Arueris were sprung from the Sun, Isis from Hermes, and Typhon and Nephthys from Cronus. For this reason the kings considered the third of the intercalated days as inauspicious, and transacted no business on that day, nor did they give any attention to their bodies until nightfall. They relate, moreover, that Nephthys became the wife of Typhon; but Isis and Osiris were enamoured of each other and consorted together in the darkness of the womb before their birth. Some say that Arueris came from this union and was called the elder Horus by the Egyptians, but Apollo by the Greeks.
One of the first acts related of Osiris in his reign was to deliver the Egyptians from their destitute and brutish manner of living. This he did by showing them the fruits of cultivation, by giving them laws, and by teaching them to honour the gods. Later he travelled over the whole earth civilizing it without the slightest need of arms, but most of the peoples he won over to his way by the charm of his persuasive discourse combined with song and all manner of music. Hence the Greeks came to identify him with Dionysus.
During his absence the tradition is that Typhon attempted nothing revolutionary because Isis, who was in control, was vigilant and alert; but when he returned home Typhon contrived a treacherous plot against him and formed a group of conspirators seventy-two in number. He had also the co-operation of a queen from Ethiopia who was there at the time and whose name they report as Aso. Typhon, having secretly measured Osiris's body and having made ready a beautiful chest of corresponding size artistically ornamented, caused it to be brought into the room where the festivity was in progress. The company was much pleased at the sight of it and admired it greatly, whereupon Typhon jestingly promised to present it to the man who should find the chest to be exactly his length when he lay down in it. They all tried it in turn, but no one fitted it; then Osiris got into it and lay down, and those who were in the plot ran to it and slammed down the lid, which they fastened by nails from the outside and also by using molten lead. Then they carried the chest to the river and sent it on its way to the sea through the Tanitic Mouth. Wherefore the Egyptians even to this day name this mouth the hateful and execrable. Such is the tradition. They say also that the date on which this deed was done was the seventeenth day of Athyr, when the sun passes through Scorpion, and in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Osiris; but some say that these are the years of his life and not of his reign.
The first to learn of the deed and to bring to men's knowledge an account of what had been done were the Pans and Satyrs who lived in the region around Chemmis, and so, even to this day, the sudden confusion and consternation of a crowd is called a panic. Isis, when the tidings reached her, at once cut off one of her tresses and put on a garment of mourning in a place where the city still bears the name of Kopto. Others think that the name means deprivation, for they also express 'deprive' by means of 'koptein.' But Isis wandered everywhere at her wits' end; no one whom she approached did she fail to address, and even when she met some little children she asked them about the chest. As it happened, they had seen it, and they told her the mouth of the river through which the friends of Typhon had launched the coffin into the sea. Wherefore the Egyptians think that little children possess the power of prophecy, and they try to divine the future from the portents which they find in children's words, especially when children are playing about in holy places and crying out whatever chances to come into their minds.
They relate also that Isis, learning that Osiris in his love had consorted with her sister through ignorance, in the belief that she was Isis, fand seeing the proof of this in the garland of melilote which he had left with Nephthys, sought to find the child; for the mother, immediately after its birth, had exposed it because of her fear of Typhon. And when the child had been found, after great toil and trouble, with the help of dogs which led Isis to it, it was brought up and became her guardian and attendant, receiving the name of Anubis, and it is said to protect the gods just as dogs protect men.
Thereafter Isis, as they relate, learned that the chest had been cast up by the sea near the land of Byblus and that the waves had gently set it down in the midst of a clump of heather. The heather in a short time ran up into a very beautiful and massive stock, and enfolded and embraced the chest with its growth and concealed it within its trunk. The king of the country admired the great size of the plant, and cut off the portion that enfolded the chest (which was now hidden from sight), and used it as a pillar to support the roof of his house. These facts, they say, Isis ascertained by the divine inspiration of Rumour, and came to Byblus and sat down by a spring, all dejection and tears; she exchanged no word with anybody, save only that she welcomed the queen's maidservants and treated them with great amiability, plaiting their hair for them band imparting to their persons a wondrous fragrance from her own body. But when the queen observed her maidservants, a longing came upon her for the unknown woman and for such hairdressing and for a body fragrant with ambrosia. Thus it happened that Isis was sent for and became so intimate with the queen that the queen made her the nurse of her baby. They say that the king's name was Malcander; the queen's name some say was Astartê, others Saosis, and still others Nemanûs, which the Greeks would call Athenaïs.
They relate that Isis nursed the child by giving it her finger to suck instead of her breast, and in the night she would burn away the mortal portions of its body. She herself would turn into a swallow and flit about the pillar with a wailing lament, until the queen who had been watching, when she saw her babe on fire, gave forth a loud cry and thus deprived it of immortality. Then the goddess disclosed herself and asked for the pillar which served to support the roof. She removed it with the greatest ease and cut away the wood of the heather which surrounded the chest; then, when she had wrapped up the wood in a linen cloth and had poured perfume upon it, she entrusted it to the care of the kings; and even to this day the people of Byblus venerate this wood which is preserved in the shrine of Isis. Then the goddess threw herself down upon the coffin with such a dreadful wailing that the younger of the king's sons expired on the spot. The elder son she kept with her, and, having placed the coffin on board a boat, she put out from land. Since the Phaedrus river toward the early morning fostered a rather boisterous wind, the goddess grew angry and dried up its stream.
In the first place where she found seclusion, when she was quite by herself, they relate that she opened the chest and laid her face upon the face within and caressed it and wept. The child came quietly up behind her and saw what was there, and when the goddess became aware of his presence, she turned about and gave him one awful look of anger. The child could not endure the fright, and died. Others will not have it so, but assert that he fell overboard into the sea from the boat that was mentioned above. He also is the recipient of honours because of the goddess; for they say that the Maneros of whom the Egyptians sing at their convivial gatherings is this very child. Some say, however, that his name was Palaestinus or Pelusius, and that the city founded by the goddess was named in his honour. They also recount that this Maneros who is the theme of their songs was the first to invent music. But some say that the word is not the name of any person, but an expression belonging to the vocabulary of drinking and feasting: 'Good luck be ours in things like this!', and that this is really the idea expressed by the exclamation 'maneros' whenever the Egyptians use it. In the same way we may be sure that the likeness of a corpse which, as it is exhibited to them, is carried around in a chest, is not a reminder of what happened to Osiris, as some assume; but it is to urge them, as they contemplate it, to use and to enjoy the present, since all very soon must be what it is now and this is their purpose in introducing it into the midst of merry-making.
As they relate, Isis proceeded to her son Horus, who was being reared in Buto, and bestowed the chest in a place well out of the way; but Typhon, who was hunting by night in the light of the moon, happened upon it. Recognizing the body he divided it into fourteen parts and scattered them, each in a different place. Isis learned of this and sought for them again, sailing through the swamps in a boat of papyrus. This is the reason why people sailing in such boats are not harmed by the crocodiles, since these creatures in their own way show either their fear or their reverence for the goddess.
The traditional result of Osiris's dismemberment is that there are many so‑called tombs of Osiris in Egypt; for Isis held a funeral for each part when she had found it. Others deny this and assert that she caused effigies of him to be made and these she distributed among the several cities, pretending that she was giving them his body, in order that he might receive divine honours in a greater number of cities, band also that, if Typhon should succeed in overpowering Horus, he might despair of ever finding p47the true tomb when so many were pointed out to him, all of them called the tomb of Osiris.
Of the parts of Osiris's body the only one which Isis did not find was the male member, for the reason that this had been at once tossed into the river, and the lepidotus, the sea-bream, and the pike had fed upon it; and it is from these very fishes the Egyptians are most scrupulous in abstaining. But Isis made a replica of the member to take its place, and consecrated the phallus, in honour of which the Egyptians even at the present day celebrate a festival.
Later, as they relate, Osiris came to Horus from the other world and exercised and trained him for the battle. After a time Osiris asked Horus what he held to be the most noble of all things. When Horus replied, 'To avenge one's father and mother for evil done to them,' Osiris then asked him what animal he considered the most useful for them who go forth to battle; and when Horus said, 'A horse,' Osiris was surprised and raised the question why it was that he had not rather said a lion than a horse. Horus answered that a lion was a useful thing for a man in need of assistance, but that a horse served best for cutting off the flight of an enemy and annihilating him. When Osiris heard this he was much pleased, since he felt that Horus had now an adequate preparation. It is said that, as many were continually transferring their allegiance to Horus, Typhon's concubine, Thueris, also came over to him; and a serpent which pursued her was cut to pieces by Horus's men, and now, in memory of this, the people throw down a rope in their midst and chop it up.
Now the battle, as they relate, lasted many days and Horus prevailed. Isis, however, to whom Typhon was delivered in chains, did not cause him to be put to death, but released him and let him go. Horus could not endure this with equanimity, be laid hands upon his mother and wrested the royal diadem from her head; but Hermes put upon her a helmet like unto the head of a cow.
Typhon formally accused Horus of being an illegitimate child, but with the help of Hermes to plead his cause it was decided by the gods that he also was legitimate. Typhon was then overcome in two other battles. Osiris consorted with Isis after his death, and she became the mother of Harpocrates, untimely born and weak in his lower limbs.
Plutarch comments elsewhere:
Later, playing at draughts with the moon, he won from her the seventieth part of each of her periods of illumination, and from all the winnings he composed five days, and intercalated them as an addition to the three hundred and sixty days. The Egyptians even now call these five days intercalated and celebrate them as the birthdays of the gods. They relate that on the first of these days Osiris was born, and at the hour of his birth a voice issued forth saying, 'The Lord of All advances to the light.'
But some relate that a certain Pamyles, while he was drawing water in Thebes, heard a voice issuing from the shrine of Zeus, which bade him proclaim with a loud voice that a mighty and beneficent king, Osiris, had been born; and for this Cronus entrusted to him the child Osiris, which he brought up. It is in his honour that the festival of Pamylia is celebrated, a festival which resembles the phallic processions. On the second of these days Arueris was born whom they call Apollo, and some call him also the elder Horus. On the third day Typhon was born, but not in due season or manner, but with a blow he broke through his mother's side and leapt forth. On the fourth day Isis was born in the regions that are ever moist; and on the fifth Nephthys, to whom they give the name of Finality and the name of Aphroditê, and some also the name of Victory [νίκη - Nikê].
There is also a tradition that Osiris and Arueris were sprung from the Sun, Isis from Hermes, and Typhon and Nephthys from Cronus. For this reason the kings considered the third of the intercalated days as inauspicious, and transacted no business on that day, nor did they give any attention to their bodies until nightfall. They relate, moreover, that Nephthys became the wife of Typhon; but Isis and Osiris were enamoured of each other and consorted together in the darkness of the womb before their birth. Some say that Arueris came from this union and was called the elder Horus by the Egyptians, but Apollo by the Greeks.
One of the first acts related of Osiris in his reign was to deliver the Egyptians from their destitute and brutish manner of living. This he did by showing them the fruits of cultivation, by giving them laws, and by teaching them to honour the gods. Later he travelled over the whole earth civilizing it without the slightest need of arms, but most of the peoples he won over to his way by the charm of his persuasive discourse combined with song and all manner of music. Hence the Greeks came to identify him with Dionysus.
During his absence the tradition is that Typhon attempted nothing revolutionary because Isis, who was in control, was vigilant and alert; but when he returned home Typhon contrived a treacherous plot against him and formed a group of conspirators seventy-two in number. He had also the co-operation of a queen from Ethiopia who was there at the time and whose name they report as Aso. Typhon, having secretly measured Osiris's body and having made ready a beautiful chest of corresponding size artistically ornamented, caused it to be brought into the room where the festivity was in progress. The company was much pleased at the sight of it and admired it greatly, whereupon Typhon jestingly promised to present it to the man who should find the chest to be exactly his length when he lay down in it. They all tried it in turn, but no one fitted it; then Osiris got into it and lay down, and those who were in the plot ran to it and slammed down the lid, which they fastened by nails from the outside and also by using molten lead. Then they carried the chest to the river and sent it on its way to the sea through the Tanitic Mouth. Wherefore the Egyptians even to this day name this mouth the hateful and execrable. Such is the tradition. They say also that the date on which this deed was done was the seventeenth day of Athyr, when the sun passes through Scorpion, and in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Osiris; but some say that these are the years of his life and not of his reign.
The first to learn of the deed and to bring to men's knowledge an account of what had been done were the Pans and Satyrs who lived in the region around Chemmis, and so, even to this day, the sudden confusion and consternation of a crowd is called a panic. Isis, when the tidings reached her, at once cut off one of her tresses and put on a garment of mourning in a place where the city still bears the name of Kopto. Others think that the name means deprivation, for they also express 'deprive' by means of 'koptein.' But Isis wandered everywhere at her wits' end; no one whom she approached did she fail to address, and even when she met some little children she asked them about the chest. As it happened, they had seen it, and they told her the mouth of the river through which the friends of Typhon had launched the coffin into the sea. Wherefore the Egyptians think that little children possess the power of prophecy, and they try to divine the future from the portents which they find in children's words, especially when children are playing about in holy places and crying out whatever chances to come into their minds.
They relate also that Isis, learning that Osiris in his love had consorted with her sister through ignorance, in the belief that she was Isis, fand seeing the proof of this in the garland of melilote which he had left with Nephthys, sought to find the child; for the mother, immediately after its birth, had exposed it because of her fear of Typhon. And when the child had been found, after great toil and trouble, with the help of dogs which led Isis to it, it was brought up and became her guardian and attendant, receiving the name of Anubis, and it is said to protect the gods just as dogs protect men.
Thereafter Isis, as they relate, learned that the chest had been cast up by the sea near the land of Byblus and that the waves had gently set it down in the midst of a clump of heather. The heather in a short time ran up into a very beautiful and massive stock, and enfolded and embraced the chest with its growth and concealed it within its trunk. The king of the country admired the great size of the plant, and cut off the portion that enfolded the chest (which was now hidden from sight), and used it as a pillar to support the roof of his house. These facts, they say, Isis ascertained by the divine inspiration of Rumour, and came to Byblus and sat down by a spring, all dejection and tears; she exchanged no word with anybody, save only that she welcomed the queen's maidservants and treated them with great amiability, plaiting their hair for them band imparting to their persons a wondrous fragrance from her own body. But when the queen observed her maidservants, a longing came upon her for the unknown woman and for such hairdressing and for a body fragrant with ambrosia. Thus it happened that Isis was sent for and became so intimate with the queen that the queen made her the nurse of her baby. They say that the king's name was Malcander; the queen's name some say was Astartê, others Saosis, and still others Nemanûs, which the Greeks would call Athenaïs.
They relate that Isis nursed the child by giving it her finger to suck instead of her breast, and in the night she would burn away the mortal portions of its body. She herself would turn into a swallow and flit about the pillar with a wailing lament, until the queen who had been watching, when she saw her babe on fire, gave forth a loud cry and thus deprived it of immortality. Then the goddess disclosed herself and asked for the pillar which served to support the roof. She removed it with the greatest ease and cut away the wood of the heather which surrounded the chest; then, when she had wrapped up the wood in a linen cloth and had poured perfume upon it, she entrusted it to the care of the kings; and even to this day the people of Byblus venerate this wood which is preserved in the shrine of Isis. Then the goddess threw herself down upon the coffin with such a dreadful wailing that the younger of the king's sons expired on the spot. The elder son she kept with her, and, having placed the coffin on board a boat, she put out from land. Since the Phaedrus river toward the early morning fostered a rather boisterous wind, the goddess grew angry and dried up its stream.
In the first place where she found seclusion, when she was quite by herself, they relate that she opened the chest and laid her face upon the face within and caressed it and wept. The child came quietly up behind her and saw what was there, and when the goddess became aware of his presence, she turned about and gave him one awful look of anger. The child could not endure the fright, and died. Others will not have it so, but assert that he fell overboard into the sea from the boat that was mentioned above. He also is the recipient of honours because of the goddess; for they say that the Maneros of whom the Egyptians sing at their convivial gatherings is this very child. Some say, however, that his name was Palaestinus or Pelusius, and that the city founded by the goddess was named in his honour. They also recount that this Maneros who is the theme of their songs was the first to invent music. But some say that the word is not the name of any person, but an expression belonging to the vocabulary of drinking and feasting: 'Good luck be ours in things like this!', and that this is really the idea expressed by the exclamation 'maneros' whenever the Egyptians use it. In the same way we may be sure that the likeness of a corpse which, as it is exhibited to them, is carried around in a chest, is not a reminder of what happened to Osiris, as some assume; but it is to urge them, as they contemplate it, to use and to enjoy the present, since all very soon must be what it is now and this is their purpose in introducing it into the midst of merry-making.
As they relate, Isis proceeded to her son Horus, who was being reared in Buto, and bestowed the chest in a place well out of the way; but Typhon, who was hunting by night in the light of the moon, happened upon it. Recognizing the body he divided it into fourteen parts and scattered them, each in a different place. Isis learned of this and sought for them again, sailing through the swamps in a boat of papyrus. This is the reason why people sailing in such boats are not harmed by the crocodiles, since these creatures in their own way show either their fear or their reverence for the goddess.
The traditional result of Osiris's dismemberment is that there are many so‑called tombs of Osiris in Egypt; for Isis held a funeral for each part when she had found it. Others deny this and assert that she caused effigies of him to be made and these she distributed among the several cities, pretending that she was giving them his body, in order that he might receive divine honours in a greater number of cities, band also that, if Typhon should succeed in overpowering Horus, he might despair of ever finding p47the true tomb when so many were pointed out to him, all of them called the tomb of Osiris.
Of the parts of Osiris's body the only one which Isis did not find was the male member, for the reason that this had been at once tossed into the river, and the lepidotus, the sea-bream, and the pike had fed upon it; and it is from these very fishes the Egyptians are most scrupulous in abstaining. But Isis made a replica of the member to take its place, and consecrated the phallus, in honour of which the Egyptians even at the present day celebrate a festival.
Later, as they relate, Osiris came to Horus from the other world and exercised and trained him for the battle. After a time Osiris asked Horus what he held to be the most noble of all things. When Horus replied, 'To avenge one's father and mother for evil done to them,' Osiris then asked him what animal he considered the most useful for them who go forth to battle; and when Horus said, 'A horse,' Osiris was surprised and raised the question why it was that he had not rather said a lion than a horse. Horus answered that a lion was a useful thing for a man in need of assistance, but that a horse served best for cutting off the flight of an enemy and annihilating him. When Osiris heard this he was much pleased, since he felt that Horus had now an adequate preparation. It is said that, as many were continually transferring their allegiance to Horus, Typhon's concubine, Thueris, also came over to him; and a serpent which pursued her was cut to pieces by Horus's men, and now, in memory of this, the people throw down a rope in their midst and chop it up.
Now the battle, as they relate, lasted many days and Horus prevailed. Isis, however, to whom Typhon was delivered in chains, did not cause him to be put to death, but released him and let him go. Horus could not endure this with equanimity, be laid hands upon his mother and wrested the royal diadem from her head; but Hermes put upon her a helmet like unto the head of a cow.
Typhon formally accused Horus of being an illegitimate child, but with the help of Hermes to plead his cause it was decided by the gods that he also was legitimate. Typhon was then overcome in two other battles. Osiris consorted with Isis after his death, and she became the mother of Harpocrates, untimely born and weak in his lower limbs.
Plutarch comments elsewhere:
"For my part, I think also that their naming unity Apollo, duality Artemis, the hebdomad Athena, and the first cube Poseidon, bears a resemblance to the statues and even to the sculptures and paintings with which their shrines are embellished. For their King and Lord Osiris they portray by means of an eye and a sceptre; there are even some who explain the meaning of the name as 'many-eyed' on the theory that OS in the Egyptian language means 'many' and iri 'eye'; and the heavens, since they are ageless because of their eternity, they portray by a heart with a censer beneath. In Thebes there were set up statues of judges without hands, and the statue of the chief justice had its eyes closed, to indicate that justice is not influenced by gifts or by intercession."
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