XXXIX. 1. The conspiracy and despotism of Typhon,

moreover, was the power of drought getting the mastery over and dispersing the moisture which both generates the Nile and increases it.
> Cf. xu. 6. « Cf. xiv. 6. » Of. xi. 4.
316 THRICE-OREATEST FKRIfRB
2. While his helper, the .£thiopian queen,^ riddki southerly winds from Ethiopia. For when these prewl over the Annuals* (which drive the clouds towardi Ethiopia), and prevent the rains which swell the Nik from bursting, — ^Typhon takes possession and aoofcbes; and thus entirely mastering the Nile he forces him oat into the sea, contracted into himself through weaknesi and flowing empty and low.
3. For the fabled shutting-up of Osiris into tbs coffin is, perhaps, nothing but a riddle of the occultatiflo and disappearance of water. Wherefore they say tbst Osiris disappeared in the mouth of Athyr,' — iHien, the Anpn^lft ceasing entirely, the Nile sinks, and the land is denuded, and, night lengthening, darknasn increases, and the power of the light wanes and is mastered, and the priests perform both other melan- choly rites, and, covering a cow made entirely of gpld^ with a black coat of fine linen as a mask of mourning for the Goddess — for they look on the '"cow" as an image of Isis and as the earth — they exhibit it far four days from the seventeenth consecutively.
4. For the things mourned for are four: first, the Nile failing and sinking ; second, the northern winds being completely extinguished by the southern gaining the mastery; third, the day becoming less than the night; and, finally, the denudation of the earth, together with the stripping of the trees which shed their leaves at that time.
5. And on the nineteenth, at night they gp down to the sea; and the keepers and priests cany out the
* Abo ; cf, xiiL 3.
> The *' Etesian" winds, which in Egypt blew from the N.W. during the whole summer.
' Copt. Hathor — corr. roughly with November.
* Of. " the golden calf " incident of the Exodus story.
THE MTSTERIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 317
sacred cheet, having within it a small golden vessel, into which they take and poor fresh water ; and shouts are raised by the assistants as though Osiris were found.
6. Afterwards they knead productive soil with the water, and mixing with it sweet spices and fragrant incense, they mould it into a little moon-shaped image of very costly stufGa. And they dress it up and deck it out, — showing that they consider these Gods the essence of earth and water.
XL 1. And when again Isis recovers Osiris and makes Horus grow, strengthened with exhalations and moist clouds, — T^phon is indeed mastered, but not destroyed.
2. For the Mistress and Goddess of the earth did not allow the nature which is the opposite of moisture to be destroyed entirely, but she slackened and weakened it, wishing that the blend should continue ; for it was not possible the cosmos should be perfect, had the fiery [principle] ceased and disappeared.
3. And if these things are not said contrary to proba- bility, it is probable also that one need not reject that logos also, — how that Typhon of old got possession of the share of Osiris ; for Egypt was [once] sea.^
4. For which cause many [spots] in its mines and mountains are found even to this day to contain shells ; and all springs and all wells — and there are great numbers of them — have brackish and bitter water, as though it were the stale residue of the old-time sea collecting together into them.
5. But Horus in time got the better of Typhon, — that is, a good season of rains setting in, the Nile driving out the sea made the plain reappear by filling it up again with its deposits, — a fact, indeed, to which our
^ Another proof of the common persuasion that there had been a Flood in "Egypt,
ry
318 THKICS-ORKATBST
sensee bear witness ; for we see even now that as tibs river brings down fresh mud, and adrances the land little by little, the deep water gradoallj diminishet, and the sea recedes through its bottom being hajghtfiad by the deposits.
6. Moreover, [we see] Pharos, which Homer ^ knew as a day's sail distant from Egypt, now part [and paieel] of it ; not that the [island] itself has sailed to land,' or extended itself shorewards, but becanae the inter- vening sea has been forced back by the river's mahapng of and adding to the mainland.
7. These [explanations], moreover, resemble the tiiso- logical dogmas laid down by the Stoics, — for they also say that the generative and nutritive Breath [or Spint] is Dionysus; the percussive and separatiye, Heraelei; the receptive, Ammon [Zeus]; that which extends through earth and fruits, Demeter and Kor6 ; and that [which extends] through sea, Poseidon.'
Thk Theobt of thi Mathucatici