LXX. 1. And the season of the year suggests that the

appearance of mourning is assumed at the hiding away of grains [in the earth], — ^which the ancients did not
> A surname of Demeter, by which she was wonhii^wd aft Athens by the Gephyrseans who had emigrated thither from Bosotia (Herod., v. 61).
> 8c into Hades.
' Copt Hathor — oorr. roo^y to NoYember, or rather last half of October and first of November. Cf. also Ivi 10.
* That is, the month of Demeter.
^ Miiller, i 338. T. flourished Snd half of 4th century b.gl
* That ia, presumably, the Celts.
THE BiYSTERIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 851
consider gods, but gifts of the Oods, indispensable [indeed] if we are to live otherwise then savagely and like the brutes.
2. And at the season when, you know, these [ancients] saw the [fruits] entirely disappearing from the trees and ceasing, and those they had sown them- selves stiU scanty and poor, — in scraping away the earth with their hands, and pressing it together again, and depositing [the seed] in uncertainty as to whether it would come up again and have its proper consumma- tion, they used to do many things siDoilar to those who bury and mourn.
3. Then, just as we say that one who buys Plato's books "buys Plato," and that one who presents the creations of Menander " acts Menander," so did they not hesitate to call the gifts and creations of the Gtods by the names of the Qods — honouring them and reverencing them by use.
4. But those [who came] after, receiving [these names] like boors and ignorantly misapplying what happens ^ to the fruits to the Gods [themselves], and not merely calling but believing the advent and hiding away of the necessaries [of life] generations and destructions of gods, filled their heads with absurd, indecent, and confused opinions, although they had the absurdity of their un- reason before their eyes.
5. Excellent, however, was the view of Xenophanes * of Colophon that Egyptians don't mourn if they believe in Grods and don't believe in Gods it they mourn ; nay, that it would be ridiculous for them in the same breath to mourn and pray for the seed to appear again, in order that it might again be consumed and mourned for.
» ra »i«if— lit., " the pasBions."
* X. flourisheid about end of 6th and beginning of 5th century b.c.
352 THRICE-GRKATSST HKRMK8