LVI. 1. Now the better and diviner Nature is from

these :— {to wit] the Intelligible and Matter, and that from them which Oreeks call Cosmos.
2. Plato,^ indeed, was wont to call the Intelligible Idea and Model and Father ; and Matter Mother and Nurse — both place and ground of Genesis; and the ofbpring of both Genesis.
3. And one might conjecture that Egyptians [also revered^ the fairest of the triangles, likening Uie nature of the universe especially to this; for Plato also, in his Bepublie,* seems to have made additimal use of this in drawing up his marriage scheme.^
4. And this triangle has its perpendicular [side] of '' three," its base of " four," and its hypotenuse of '^five"; its square being equal to the [sum of the] squares on the containing sides.'
5. We must, accordingly, compare its perpendicular to male, its base to female, and its hypotenuse to the offspring of both ; and [conjecture] Osiris as source, IsiB as receptacle, and Horus as result
> All thU according to the Mathematici, presumably ; the ^ eye " of Horus would rather ngnify ** mentality."
> Tffiunu, 50c.
' There U a lacuna in the text
« Rep., 545 D ff. See also Adam (J.), The Nuptial Nwrnhtr ^ Plato : it$ Solution and Signifieanee (London, 1891).
* That is to aaj, that in Plutarch's opinion Plato derived (be idea originally from Egypt
• That is, 9+16=25.
THE MYSTERIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 337
6. For the " three " is the first '* odd " ^ and perfect ; « while the " four " [is] square from side " even " two ; • and the '* five " resembles partly its father and partly its mother, being composed of ''three " and " two."
7. And panta [all] is only a slight variant of penU [five] ; and they call counting pempasasthai [reckoning by fives].
8. And five makes a square equal to the number of letters among Egyptians,* and a period of as many years as the Apis lives.
9. Thus they usually call Horus also Min ^ — that is, "being seen"; for cosmos is a sensible and see-able thing.
10. And Isis is sometimes called Muth,® and again Athyri^ and Methyer. And by the first of the names they mean ** Mother " ; by the second, " Cosmic House " of Horus, — as also Plato [calls her] " Ground of Genesis " and " She who receives " ; and the third is compounded from "Full" and "Cause,"— for Matter is full of
1 " One " being reckoned neither odd nor even. 3 rtrpirfwvs hwh vXf upat kprUv r%s 9vdi9t,
* That is, the Egjrptian alphabet oonristed of 86 letters.
* In the Ritual (chap. xvii. 30), the deceased is made to saj : ** I am the God Amsa (or Min) in his coming forth ; may his two plumes be set upon my head for me." And in answer to the question : " Who, then, is this f "—the text goes on to say : «Amsu is Horns, the avenger of his father, and his coming forth is his birth. The plumes upon his head are Isis and Nephthys when they go forth to set themselves there, even as his protectors^ and they provide that which his head lacketh ; or (as others say), they are the two exceeding great uraei which are upon the head of their father Tem, or (as others say), his two eyes are the two plumes which are upon his head." (Budge, op, ea., iL S68.)
* Eg. Mut, the Bjiygj of Amen. Mut means "Mother" ; she was the World-mother. See Budge, op. of., ii 88 ff.
» Cf, Ixix. 4, " Athyr " probably meaning Hathor. VOL. I. 22
338 THRICE-OREAIBST WICRMIW
Goemoe, and consorts with the Good and Pan and Ordered.