1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Griffith. The
three talismans here represented are two crowns, each in a
naos, and the burning fiery uræus.
Were there ever duller legends and a more senile phantasy! They did not spring spontaneously from the lips of the people, but were composed at leisure by priests desirous of enhancing the antiquity of their cult, and augmenting the veneration of its adherents in order to increase its importance. Each city wished it to be understood that its feudal sanctuary was founded upon the very day of creation, that its privileges had been extended or confirmed during the course of the first divine dynasty, and that these pretensions were supported by the presence of objects in its treasury which had belonged to the oldest of the king-gods. Such was the origin of tales in which the personage of the beneficent Pharaoh is often depicted in ridiculous fashion. Did we possess all the sacred archives, we should frequently find them quoting as authentic history more than one document as artificial as the chronicle of Aît-nobsû. When we come to the later members of the Ennead, there is a change in the character and in the form of these tales. Doubtless Osiris and Sît did not escape unscathed out of the hands of the theologians; but even if sacerdotal interference spoiled the legend concerning them, it did not altogether disfigure it. Here and there in it is still noticeable a sincerity of feeling and liveliness of imagination such as are never found in those of Shû and of Sibû. This arises from the fact that the functions of these gods left them strangers, or all but strangers, to the current affairs of the world. Shû was the stay, Sibû the material foundation of the world; and so long as the one bore the weight of the firmament without bending, and the other continued to suffer the tread of human generations upon his back, the devout took no more thought of them than they themselves took thought of the devout. The life of Osiris, on the other hand, was intimately mingled with that of the Egyptians, and his most trivial actions immediately reacted upon their fortunes. They followed the movements of his waters; they noted the turning-points in his struggles against drought; they registered his yearly decline, yearly compensated by his aggressive returns and his intermittent victories over Typhon; his proceedings and his character were the subject of their minute study. If his waters almost invariably rose upon the appointed day and extended over the black earth of the valley, this was no mechanical function of a being to whom the consequences of his conduct are indifferent; he acted upon reflection, and in full consciousness of the service that he rendered. He knew that by spreading the inundation he prevented the triumph of the desert; he was life, he was goodness—Onnofriû—and Isis, as the partner of his labours, became like him the type of perfect goodness. But while Osiris developed for the better, Sit was transformed for the worse, and increased in wickedness as his brother gained in purity and moral elevation. In proportion as the person of Sît grew more defined, and stood out more clearly, the evil within him contrasted more markedly with the innate goodness of Osiris, and what had been at first an instinctive struggle between two beings somewhat vaguely defined—the desert and the Nile, water and drought—was changed into conscious and deadly enmity. No longer the conflict of two elements, it was war between two gods; one labouring to produce abundance, while the other strove to do away with it; one being all goodness and life, while the other was evil and death incarnate.
A very ancient legend narrates that the birth of Osiris and his brothers took place during the five additional days at the end of the year; a subsequent legend explained how Nûît and Sibû had contracted marriage against the express wish of Râ, and without his knowledge. When he became aware of it he fell into a violent rage, and cast a spell over the goddess to prevent her giving birth to her children in any month of any year whatever. But Thot took pity upon her, and playing at draughts with the moon won from it in several games one seventy-second part of its fires, out of which he made five whole days; and as these were not included in the ordinary calendar, Nûît could then bring forth her five children, one after another: Osiris, Haroêris, Sit, Isis, and Nephthys. Osiris was beautiful of face, but with a dull and black complexion; his height exceeded five and a half yards.[*]
* As a matter of fact, Osiris is often represented with
black or green hands and face, as is customary for gods of
the dead; it was probably this peculiarity which suggested
the popular idea of his black complexion. A magic papyrus of
Ramesside times fixes the stature of the god at seven
cubits, and a phrase in a Ptolemaic inscription places it at
eight cubits, six palms, three fingers.
He was born at Thebes, in the first of the additional days, and straightway a mysterious voice announced that the lord of all—nibû-r-zarû—had appeared. The good news was hailed with shouts of joy, followed by tears and lamentations when it became known with what evils he was menaced.[*] The echo reached Râ in his far-off dwelling, and his heart rejoiced, notwithstanding the curse which he had laid upon Nûît. He commanded the presence of his great-grandchild in Xoïs, and unhesitatingly acknowledged him as the heir to his throne. Osiris had married his sister Isis, even, so it was said, while both of them were still within their mother's womb;[**] and when he became king he made her queen regent and the partner of all his undertakings.
* One variant of the legend told that a certain Pamylis of
Thebes having gone to draw water had heard a voice
proceeding from the temple of Zeus, which ordered him to
proclaim aloud to the world the birth of the great king, the
beneficent Osiris. He had received the child from the hands
of Kronos, brought it up to youth, and to him the Egyptians
had consecrated the feast of Pamylies, which resembled the
Phallophoros festival of the Greeks.
** De Iside et Osiride, Leemans' edition, § 12, pp. 20,
21. Haroêris, the Apollo of the Greeks, was supposed to be
the issue of a marriage consummated before the birth of his
parents while they were still within the womb of their
mother Rhea-Nûît. This was a way of connecting the personage
of Haroêris with the Osirian myths by confounding him with
the homonymous Harsiêsis, the son of Isis, who became the
son of Osiris through his mother's marriage with that god.
The Egyptians were as yet but half civilized; they were cannibals, and though occasionally they lived upon the fruits of the earth, they did not know how to cultivate them. Osiris taught them the art of making agricultural implements—the plough and the hoe,—field labour, the rotation of crops, the harvesting of wheat and barley,[*] and vine culture.
* Diodoeus even ascribes to him the discovery of barley and
of wheat; this is consequent upon the identification of Isis
with Demeter by the Greeks. According to the historian, Leo
of Pella, the goddess twined herself a crown of ripe ears
and placed it upon her head one day when she was sacrificing
to her parents.