A Guide to Mythology

by Helen A. Clarke

MYTH OF OSIRIS AND ISIS

(Egyptian)

Osiris and Isis were at one time induced to descend to the earth to bestow gifts and blessings on its inhabitants. Isis showed them first the use of wheat and barley, and Osiris made the instruments of agriculture and taught men the use of them, as well as how to harness the ox to the plough. He then gave men laws, the institution of marriage, a civil organization, and taught them how to worship the gods. After he had thus made the valley of the Nile a happy country, he assembled a host with which he went to bestow his blessings upon the rest of the world. He conquered the nations everywhere but only with music and eloquence. His brother Typhon saw this, and sought during his absence to usurp his throne. But Isis, who held the reins of government, frustrated his plans. Still more imbittered, he now resolved to kill his brother. Having organized a conspiracy of seventy-two members, he went with them to the feast which was celebrated in honor of the king’s return. He then caused a box or chest to be brought in, which had been made to fit exactly the size of Osiris, and declared that he would give that chest of precious wood to whosoever could get into it. The rest tried in vain, but no sooner was Osiris in it than Typhon and his companions closed the lid and flung the chest into the Nile. When Isis heard of the cruel murder she wept and mourned; and then, with her hair shorn, clothed in black, and beating her breast, she sought diligently for the body of her husband. In the search she was assisted by Anubis. They sought in vain for some time; for when the chest, carried by the waves to the shores of Byblos, had become entangled in the reeds that grew at the edge of the water, the divine power that dwelt in the body of Osiris imparted such strength to the shrub that it grew into a mighty tree, enclosing in its trunk the coffin of the god. This tree, with its sacred deposit, was shortly after felled, and erected as a column in the palace of the King of Phœnicia. But at length, by the aid of Anubis and the sacred birds, Isis ascertained these facts, and then went to the royal city. There she offered herself at the palace as a servant, and, being admitted, threw off her disguise, and appeared as the goddess, surrounded with thunder and lightning. Striking the column with her wand, she caused it to split open and give up the sacred coffin. This she seized, and returned with it, and concealed it in the depth of a forest; but Typhon discovered it, and cutting the body into fourteen pieces, scattered them hither and thither. After a tedious search, Isis found thirteen pieces, the fishes of the Nile having eaten the other. This she replaced by an imitation of sycamore wood, and buried the body at Philæ, which became ever after the burying place of the nation, and the spot to which pilgrimages were made from all parts of the country. A temple of surpassing magnificence was also erected there in honor of the god, and at every place where one of his limbs had been found minor temples and tombs were built in commemoration of the event.

THE DEATH OF ADONIS[4]

(From Bion’s Lament for Adonis)

Low on the hills is lying the lovely Adonis, and his thigh with the boar’s tusk, his white thigh with the boar’s tusk, is wounded, and sorrow on Cypris he brings, as softly he breathes his life away.

To Cypris his kiss is dear, though he lives no longer, but Adonis knew not that she kissed him whenas he died.

Woe, woe for Adonis, the Loves join in the lament!

A cruel, cruel wound on his thigh hath Adonis, but a deeper wound in her heart Cytherea bears. About him his dear hounds are loudly baying, and the nymphs of the wild wood wail him; but Aphrodite with unbound locks through the glades goes wandering—wretched, with hair unbraided, with feet unsandalled, and the thorns as she passes wound her and pluck the blossom of her sacred blood. Shrill she wails as down the long woodlands she is borne, lamenting her Assyrian lord, and again calling him and again.

Woe, woe for Cytherea, the Loves join in the lament!

...

No more in the oak woods, Cypris, lament thy lord. It is no fair couch for Adonis, the lonely bed of reeds!

Now lay him down to sleep in his own soft coverlets, in a couch all of gold, that yearns for Adonis, though sad is he to look upon. Cast on him garlands and blossoms: all things have perished in his death, yea, all the flowers are faded. Sprinkle him with ointments of Syria, sprinkle him with unguents of myrrh. Nay, perish all perfumes, for Adonis, who was thy perfume, hath perished.

He reclines, the delicate Adonis, in his raiment of purple, and around him the Loves are weeping, and groaning aloud, clipping their locks for Adonis. And one upon his shafts, another on his bow is treading, and one hath loosed the sandals of Adonis, and another hath broken his own feathered quiver, and one in a golden vessel bears water, and another laves the wound, and another from behind him with his wings is fanning Adonis.

Woe, woe for Cytherea, the Loves join in the lament!

...

And woe, woe for Adonis, shrilly cry the Muses, neglecting Pæan (Apollo), and they lament Adonis aloud, and songs they chant to him, but he does not heed them, not that he is loath to hear, but that the Maiden of Hades doth not let him go.

Cease, Cytherea, from thy lamentations, to-day refrain from thy dirges. Thou must again bewail him, again must weep for him another year.

CHAPTER V
MYTHS OF THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS

We come now to myths in which the Sun and the Moon, and other objects of nature, play the most important part. We find myths of this sort all over the globe, some of them crude and simple, and some of them in the form of very beautiful stories.

The Incas of Peru believed they were descended from the Sun, so with them the Sun was their totem instead of an animal or a plant. But there came a time when the Incas established a higher god than the Sun. They deposed the Sun because it could move only in one part of the heavens and so must have a ruler over it. So then to the question: “What are the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars,” they answered: “They are men and women. At evening they swim in the waters, they go down from sight in the west. In the morning the Sun cometh forth at Wau-bunong, the Place of Breaking Light.”

According to the Cherokee Indians, a number of beings were employed in constructing the Sun, the first planet made. “It was the intention of the Creator that men should live always, but the Sun, having surveyed the land, and, finding an insufficiency for their support, changed this design, and arranged that they should die. The daughter of the Sun was the first to suffer under this law. She was bitten by a serpent, and died. Thereupon the Sun decreed that men should live always. At the same time, he commissioned a few persons to take a box, and seek the spirit of his daughter, and return with it encased therein. In no wise must the box be opened. But the box was opened. Immortality fled. Men must die.”

The Sun-God was not always able to carry everything before him, as the story of his battle with the Hare-God shows, as well as the various stories about his being ensnared and his course regulated. In some countries, the Sun is the husband of the Moon, in others the Moon is the husband of the Sun. Again the Moon will be the sister of the Sun or the Sun the sister of the Moon.