XLIV. 1. Some, moreover, make out of the myth a

riddle of the phenomena of eclipses also.
2. For the Moon is eclipsed at the full, when the Sun has the station opposite it, she entering the shadow of the earth,^ust as they say Osiris [entered] the
^ Copt, the same— roughly oorr. to March.
* Hnfituriw—^T perhaps *' &nbarking." ' That ifl, is both wife and mother.
* Typhon being the Sun according to this theory. VOL. L 21
322 THBICR-QREAIEST
ooifin. And she again conceals the San and canseB him to disappear, on the thirtieth [of the mooth], though she does not entirely destroj him, as nather did Lsis Typhon.
3. And when Nephthys conceiyes Anufaia, Isis adofili him. For Nephthys is that which is below the earth and non-manifest, while Islb [is] that which is above the earth and manifest
4 And the circle just touching them and oaDed " Horizon," as being common to both of them, has bes called Anubis, and is likened to a dog for its chazacter- istic; for the dog has the use of its sight both fay day and nightalike.
5. And Anubis seems to possess this power among Egyptians — ^just ae Hecate with Oreeks — ^being at oae and the same time chthonian and olympian.^
6. Some, however, think that Anubis is Kionos;' wherefore as be breeds all things out of HimaAlf and conceives (ruwv) [all] in himself, be got the name of Dog
7. There is, then, for the worshippers of Anubis some [mystery] or other that may not be spoken of
8. In olden times, indeed, the dog enjoyed the highest honours in Egypt; but seeing that whoi Cambyaes^ slew the Apis and cast it out, no [animal] approached or touched its carcase but only the dog, he [thus] lost the [distinction of] being first and most honoured of the rest of the animal&
9. There are some, however, who call the shadow of the earth into which they think the Moon falls and is eclipsed, Tjrphon.
^ That is, infernal and oelettiaL > In the sense of Time.
> This seems to suggest tbat Plutarcli, though he futhfoDy records what ''people say," bj no means wishes his readen to believe them. * But see xi 4 and zxxi 4
THE MYSTERIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 328
The Thiobt of thi Dualists
XLY. 1. From [all of] which it seems not unreasonable to conclude that no simple [explanation] by itself gives the right meaning, but that they all collectively do so.
2. For neither drought nor wind nor sea nor dark- ness is the essential of Typhon, but the whole hurtful and destructive [element] which is in nature.
3. For we must neither place the principles of the whole in soulless bodies, as [do] Democritus and Epi- curus, nor yet assume one Season {Logos) [only] and one Providence that prevails over and masters all things as demiurge [or artificer] of quality-less matter, as [do] the Stoics.
4. For it is impossible either that anything at all of no worth should exist where Gk)d is cause of all, or of worth where [He is cause] of nothing.
5. For "reciprocal" [is] cosmos' "harmony, as that of lyre or bow," according to Heracleitus,^ and ac- cording to Euripides:
There could not be apart good things and bad,
But there's a blend of both so as to make things fair.*
6. Wherefore this exceedingly ancient doctrine also comes down from the theologers and law-givers to poets and philosophers — [a doctrine] that has its origin set down to no man's name, and yet possessed of credit, strong and not so easy to efface, surviving in many places not in words or voices* only, but also in [secret]
1 Mollach, i. 319 ; Fairbanks (46), p. 37. The whole hgoi of Heradeitus runs: "They know not how differing agrees with itself, — back-flying (voxfrrorot) harmony as though of lyre or bow." That is, as a stretched string flies back again to its original position. ' Nauck, p. 294.
' That is, presumably, " in logoi and voices from heaven."
324 THRICE-ORKATE8T mcRifga
perfectioningB and [public] offeringB, both non-Gieek and Greek [ones] — ^that neither does the nniTene nuDi- lees and reaeon-lees and guidanoe-lesB float in ''Thai which acts of its own will,** nor is there one Beason [only] that roles and guides, as thou^ with rudder m it were and bits obedient to the reins ; hut that [the universe] is many things and these a blmd of evil things and good.
7. Or, rather, seeing that Nature produoea nothing generally speaking, unmixed down here, it is not thai from two jars a single mixer, like a tavem-keepa; pouring things out like drinks, mixes them up tor ob^ but that from two opposite principles and two antago- nistic powers — the one leading [things] to the rig}it and on the straight [road], the other upsetting and undoing [them] — both life has been made mixed. and cosmos (if not the whole, at anyrate thia [cosmos] which surrounds the earth and comes aft^r the Moon) irregular and variable, and susceptible of changes of every kind.
8. For if nothing has been naturally brought into existence without a cause, and Qood cannot furnish cause of Bad, the nature of Bad as well as GKxmI must have a genesis and principle peculiar to itself.
XLVI.^ 1. And this is the opinion of moat of the most wise.
2. For some think there are two craft-rival Gods, as it were,— one the artificer of good [things], the other of [things] worthless. Others call the better ''Grod" and the other " Daimon/' as Zoroaster the Mage, who, they tell us, lived five thousand years before the Trojan War.
1 For a criticiBm and notes on thif chapter and the fdUowii^ see Cumont (F,\ TexU$ $i ManumenU FigutA rdatifi awe Mytikm ds AfOAra (Bnixelles, 1896X ii 33^35.
THE MY8TKRUS8 OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 325
3. Zoroaster, then, caUed the one Oromaxes, and the other Areimanioe, and farther announced that the one resembled light eapedally of things sensible, and the other, contrariwise, darkness and ignorance, while that between the two was Mithres ; wherefore the Persians call Mithr€s the Mediator.
4. He taught them, moreover, to make offerings of gladsome prayers to the one, and to the other of melancholy de-precations.
5. For bruising a certain plant called *" moly " ^ in a mortar, they invoke Hades and Darkness ; then mixing it with the blood of a wolf whose throat has been cut, they carry it away and cast it into a simless spot
6. For they think that both of plants some are of the Good Qod and others of the Evil Daimon ; and of animals, dogs, for instance, and birds* and hedgehogs of the Oood, and water-rats of the Bad; wherefore they consider fortunate the man who kills the largest number [of the last].
XLVIL 1. Not that they also do not tell many mythic stories about the Gods ; such as are, for example, the following :
Oromazes, bom from the purest light, and Areimanios, of the nether darkness, are at war with one another.
2. And the former made six Gods : the first of good mind, the second of truth, the third of good order, and of the rest, one of wisdom, one of wealth, and the producer of things sweet following things fair ; while the latter [made] craft-rivals as it were to those equal in number.
3. Then Oromazes having tripled himself, removed himself from the sun so far as the sun is distant from the earth, and adorned the heaven with stars ; and he
^ Thought by some to be the Cappadocian equivalent of the haoma or aama plant * That is
326 THRICE-OREATEST HBRMS8
established one star above all as warder mnd loc&-oat» [namely] Sinus.
4. And having made four-and-twentj other gods^ he put them into an ^g.
Whereupon those that were made from Areunanios, just the same in number, piercing through the egg . . .^ — whence the bad have been mingled with the good.
5. But a time appointed by Fate will come when Areimanioe's letting loose of pestilence and famine must be utterly brought to an end, and made to vamdi by these [good gods], and the earth becoming plane and level, there must ensue one mode of life and one way of government for men, all being happy and one-tongaed.'
6. Theopompus, however, says that, according to the Magi, for three thousand years alternately one oi the Gods conquers and the other is conquered, and for jel another three thousand years they fight and war, and each undoes the work of the other.
7. But that in the end Hades fails, and men shall be happy, neither requiring food nor casting shadow;' while the God who has contrived these things is still and at rest for a time — not otherwise long for a Giod, but proportionate to a man's sleeping.
8. The style of myth among the Magi, then, is some- what after this manner.
' A lacuna occurs here in the text
' This may refer to the conBciousness of the spiritoal life.
' There are thus three thousand years in which Ahnim Mazda has the upper hand, three thousand in which Ahiiman it victorious, three thousand in which the forces are balanced, and in the tenth thousand years comes the Day of Light. Cf. Pittit Sophia^ 243: "Jesus answered and said unto Mary: 'A Diay of Light is a thousand years in the world, so that thirtf-«ix myriads of years and a half myriad of years of the world make a single Year of Light' " The not casting of a shadow was supposed to be a characteristic of souls not attached to body; but it refeit here rather to those who are '^ straight" with the Spiritoal Son.
THE MYSTERIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 327