LXXV. 1. Nay, not even has the crocodile had honour

paid it without some show of credible cause, for it alone is tongue-less.^
For the Divine Reason {Logos) stands not in need of voice, and:
'' Moving on a soundless path with justice guides [all] mortal things."'
2. And they say that it alone, when it is in the water, has its eyes covered by a smooth and transparent mem- brane that comes down from the upper lid,' so that they see without being seen, — an attribute of the First God.^
3. And whenever the female lays her eggs on the land, it is known that this will be the limit of the Nile's
the Scarabaus sour is the type. ... A remarkable peculiarity exists in the structure and situation of the hind legs, which are placed so near the extremity of the body, and so far from each other as to give the insect a most extraordinary appearance when walking. This peculiar formation is, nevertheless, particularly serviceable to its possessors in rolling the balls of excrementitiouB matter in which they enclose their eggs. . . . These balls are at first irregular and soft, but, by degrees, and during the process of rolling along, become rounder and harder ; they are propelled by means of the hind legs. Sometimes these balls are an inch and a half, or two inches in diameter, and in roUing this along the beetles stand almost upon their heads, with the heads turned from the balls." The scarabssus was called hhefrerd in Egyptian, and was the symbol of Kheperd the Great God of creation and resurrec- tion ; he was the ** father of the gods," and the creator of all things in heaven and earth, self-begotten and self -bom ; he was usually identified with the rising sun and new-birth generally.
^ **Physiologus" again, doubtless ; it might, however, be said that its tongue is rudimentary.
« Euripides, 2Vo., 887.
» Lit., "brow."
« That is, the First-bom Reason.
358 THRICE-QREATEST WKRMES
increua For as thej cannot laj in the water, and fear to do BO far from it, they so aocoratelj fore-feel what will be, that they make use of the rise of the river for laying their eggs and hatching them, and yet keep than dry and beyond the danger of being wetted.
4. And they lay sixty [eggs] and hatch them oat in as many days, and the longest-lived of them live as many years, — which is the first of the measaiee for those who treat systematically of celestial [phenomena].^
5. Moreover, of those that have hononre paid them for both [reasons] '—of the dog, we have alreadj treated above.*
6. As for the ibis, while killing the death-dealing of the reptiles,^ it was the first to teach them the nse d me icinal evacuation, when they observed it being that rinsed out and purged by itself.*
7. While those of the priests who are most punctilioas in their observances, in purifying themselves, take tiie water for cleansing from a place where the ibis has drunk ; for it neither drinks unwholesome or poisoned* water, nor [even] goes near it
8 Again, by the relative position of its lege to one another, and [of these] to its beak, it forms an equilateral triangle ; and yet again, the vari^ation and admixtare of its black with its white feathers suggest the gibboos moon.^
9. Nor ought we to be surprised at Egyptians being so fond of meagre likenesses ; for Greeks too in both their
* That in, presumably, either the 00 of the Chaldeans, or the 3 X 4 X 5 of the " most perfect " triangle of the MathematicL
' Namely, the utilitarian and Bymbolical ;
» cy. xiv. 6.
« Cf, Rawlinson's Herodotut, ii. 124, 186.
* There ia a similar legend in India, I am told.
* May also mean "bewitched."
^ That is, the moon in its third quarter.
THE MYSTERIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 359
pictured and plastic reeemblances of Gods use many such [vague indications].
10. For instance, in Crete there was a statue of Zeus which had no ears, — ^for it behoves the Buler and Lord of all to listen to no one.
11. And Pheidias used the serpent in the [statue] of Athena, and the tortoise in that of Aphrodite at £lis» — because on the one hand virgins need protecting, and on the other because keeping-at-home and silence are becoming to married women.
12. Again, the trident of Poseidon is a symbol of the . third r^on, which the sea occupies, assigned [to him]
after the heaven and air. For which cause also they invented the names Amphi-trite and Trit-ons.^
13. And the Pythagoreans have embellished both numbers and figures with appellations of Gods.
For they used to call the equilateral triangle Athena — Head-bom and Third-bom* — because it is divided by three plumb-lines' drawn from the throe angles.
14. And [they called] " one " Apollo, from privation of multitude,^ and owing to the singleness^ of the monad; and '*two" Strife and Daring, and ''three" Justice [or Sightness], — for as wronging and being wronged were according to deficiency and excess, right- ness [or justice] was bom to equality between them.^
» From T^k»," third."
* K9pv^aynni ital rpiroT^rfiay, — ^that is, Korjphagennes and Tritogeneia.
' rptffl Ka94r9tt, — a it^0cTOf {$e, ypm/ifili) IB generally a perpen- dicular ; but here the reference must be to this appended figure :
A.
* That 18, presumably, &-v^AA«r, from & (priv.) and vaxx^I (many).
* 8i' Avx^nrro, — the play being apparently A-vox («xo)-n|ff.
* Lit, in the midst.
360 THRICB-QREATEST HKRMKS
15. And what is called the TetraktjB, the nx-and- thirty, was [their] greatest oath (as has been said oTer and over again), and is called Cosmos, — which is produced bj adding together the first four even and [the first] four odd [numbers].^