LXII. 1. The Egyptian [names] also resemble these

[Greek ones]. For they often call Isis by the name of Athena, which expresses some such meaning as " I have come from myself" — ^which is [again] indicative of self -motive course.
2. While ''Typhon/' as has been said,^ is called S^th and Bebon and Smu, — ^the names being intended to' signify a certain forcible and preventative checking, opposition or reversing.
3. Moreover, they call the loadstone ^Bone of Horus,*' and iron ''[Bone] of l^hon/' as Manethds relates; for just as iron often resembles that which is attracted to and follows after the loadstone, and often is turned away from it, and repelled to an opposite direction, so the saving and good and reason-possessing motion of the Cosmos both turns towards itself and makes more gentle by persuasion that harsh and tjrphonean [motion] ; and then again after raising it into itself, it reverses it and plunges it into the infinitude.
4. Moreover, Eudoxus' says that the Egyptians tell a myth about Zeus that, as in consequence of his having his legs grown together,^ he could not walk, for shame he lived in solitude ; and so Isis, by cutting in two and separating these limbs of his body, made his going even-footed.*
5. By those things, moreover, the myth enigmatically
» Qf. xli., xlix. (end).
s Qf. the and note to J., in '^ Mjth, of Man in the Myateriea," p. 188. > Cf. XXX., Ixix., et aL
* The inviflible serpent-form of the Qod.
* Cf. Plat., 2Vm., 44d and 45 a ; and liv. 5 above oonoeming the birth of the Elder Horns.
344 THRICE-OREATBST HERMES
hints that the Mind and Beaaon {Logott) of Ood after it bad progreased ^ in itself in the invisible and anmani- fest, came forth into genesis by means of motion.
Tn Stmbousm of thi Sdtbum
LXIIL 1. The sistrom (oreZTrpor) also shows that existent things must be shaken up (raco^) and nerer have cessation from impulse, but as it were be wakened up and agitated when tiiey fall asleep and die awaj.
2. For they say they turn aside and beat off Typhon with sistra, — signifying that when corruption binds nature fast and brings her to a stand, [then] generation frees her and raises her from death by means of motioD.
3. Now the sistrum has a curved top, and its aidi contains the four [things] that are shaken. For the part of the cosmos which is subject to graention and corruption, is circumscribed by the sphere of the moon, and all [things] in it are moved and changed by the four elements — ^6re and earth and water and air.
4. And on the arch of the sistrtun, at the top, they put the metal figure of a cat with a human face, and at the bottom, below the shaken things, the face some- times of Isis and sometimes of Nephthys, — symbolis- ing by the faces generation and consummation (for these are the changes and motions of the elements), and by the cat the moon, on account of the variable nature,' night habits, and fecundity d the beast
1 Or '* walked," soggestiiig some idea of ang^ motion in itadf — the motion of ''samenefls," symbolised by a serpent with ite tail in its mouth. The seipent wsa one symbols of the Logos, and this perhaps aoooonts for the ^\^gi grown together."
> rh irtmlKw. King translates this ** pied ccdoor," and dedoees that ** the original colour of the cat was tabby " ; bat^ as the school-boy says, I don*t see it.
THE MYSTERIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 345
5. For it is fabled to bring forth one, then two, and [then] three, and four, and five [at a birth], and then adds one by one until seven ;^ so that in all she brings forth eight-and-twenty, the number of lights of the moon.
6. This, however, is probably somewhat too mythical ; anyway, the pupils of its eyes seem to become full and dilate at the full-moon, and to contract and shut out the light during the wanings of that luminary.
7. And by the human face of the cat is signified the intellectual and reasonable nature of the changes that take place in connection with the moon.
The Trub "Logos," again, according to Plutarch