XIII. 1. And [they say] that when Osiris was king,

he straightway set free the Egyptians from a life from which they could find no way out and like unto ttiat of wild beasts,^ both setting fruits before them, and laying down laws, and teaching them to honour the Gk)da.
2. And that subsequently he went over the ^riiole earth, clearing it,* not in the least requiring arms, but drawing the multitude to himself by charming them with persuasion and reason {loffosy with song and every art the Muses give;® and that for this
1 That is, the biHhdaj of Typhon.
' A strange sentence ; but as the kings were oonndered Gods, they probably worshipped themselves, or at least their own is, and consulted themselves as oracles.
* Presumably as being opposite, or as hating one another. « Cf. liv. 4.
^ Metaphors reminiscent of the symbolism of the so-called Bock of the Dead.
* Sc, of wild beasts ; but may also mean " softening it^" whea Osiris stands for Water, and again '* making it mild," or ** civilising it." ' He himself being the Logoa.
" fimfffunis — music, in the modem meaning of the term, was oalhf one of the arts of the Muses, the nine daughters of Zeaa
THE MYSTERIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 281
cause he seems to the Greeks to be the same as Dionysus.^
3. And [they say] that while he was away, Typhon attempted no revolution, owing to Isis keeping very careful guard, and having the power ^ in her hands, holding it fast ; but that when he [Osiris] came back, he made with art a wile for him, con-juring seventy-two men, and having as co-worker a queen coming out of iSthiopia, whom they call Aso.'
4 But that after measuring out for himself in secret the body of Osiris,^ and having devised, according to the size,'^ a beautiful and extraordinarily ornamented chest,^ brought it into the banqueting hall.^
1 Aii-wvff^t — that is, '* he of the Mount (wv^n) of Zsub"
* That is " Bovereignty."
* Probably the prototype of the Alchemical Azoth. ^Ethiopia was the land of the black folk south of Egypt, the lasidpar excellence of the black magicians as opposed to the good ones of the Egyptians (this, of course, being the Egyptian point of view). The Osiris-myth was in Egyptian, presumably, as easily interpretable into the language of magic and con-juration as into other values. Compare the Demotic folk-tales of Khamuas, in Griffith's Stwiea of the High Prieets of Memphis, for how this view of it would read in Egyptian. i£thiopia would also mean the Dark Earth as opposed to the Light Heaven.
^ The '* body of Osiris" may mean the cosmos (great or little}, as the ** body of Adam," its copy in the Kabalah.
^ Or, ''according to the greatness" — using ** greatness ** in its Qnostic signification, as here meaning the great cosmos and also the cosmic body of man.
* In Pythagorean terms, ** an odd-ly ordered rectangular encase- ment''— referring, perhaps, to a certain configuration of cosmic permanent atoms. But see the plate which Isaac Myer calls ** A Medieval Idea of the Makrokosm, in the Heavenly 2i0diacal Ark," but which intiUes itself **Forma Exterior Area Noi ex Deecriptione Moeie,^^ This is a coffin, and within it lies the dead Christ The plate is prefixed to p. 439 of Myer's Qdbbalah (Philadelphia, 1888). It also presumably refers to the " germ " of the cosmic robe of the purified man, the " robe of glory." In mysticism the metaphors cannot be kept unmixed, for it is the apotheosis of syncretism.
^ Lit., the '^ drinking together," referring perhaps to the oon-
282 THRICE-OREATEST HERMB8
5. And that when they were delighted at the sight and wondered, Typhon, in sport, promiaed to give the chest to him who could make himself ezactlj equal to it by laying himself down in it^
6. And that when all were trying, one after another, since no one fitted, Osiris stepped in and laid himself down.
7. And they who were present running up, dashed on the lid, and, after some [of them] had closed it down with fastenings, and others had poured hot lead over it^ they carried it out to the River,' and let it go into the Sea by way of the Tanitic ' mouth, which [they say] Egyptians call even to tins day by a hateful and abominable name.
8. These things they say were done on the seven- teenth of the month Athur,^ in which [month] the Sun passes through the Scorpion ; it being the eight- and-twentieth year of Osiris' reign.
9. Some, however, say that he had lived and not reigned so long.^