tians to have the faculty of divination. Then she
found Anubis, child of Osiris, by Nepthys, wife of Typhon, who told her
how the ark was entangled in a tree which grew up around it and hid it.
The king had made of this tree a pillar to support his house. Isis sat
down weeping; the women of the queen came to her, she stroked their hair,
and fragrance passed into it. She was made nurse to the queen's child, fed
him with her finger, and in the night-time, by means of a lambent flame,
burned away his impurities. She then turned herself into a swallow and
flew around the house, bewailing her fate. The queen watched her
operations, and being alarmed cried out, and so robbed her child of
immortality. Isis then begged the pillar, took it down, took out the
chest, and cried so loud that the younger son of the king died of fright.
She then took the ark and the elder son and set sail. The cold air of the
river chilled her, and she became angry and cursed it, and so dried it up.
She opened the chest, put her cheek to that of Osiris and wept bitterly.
The little boy came and peeped in; she gave him a terrible look, and he
died of fright. Isis then came to her son Horus, who was at nurse at Buto.
Typhon, hunting by moonlight, saw the ark, with the body of Osiris, which
he tore into fourteen parts and threw them about. Isis went to look for
them in a boat made of papyrus, and buried each part in a separate place.

After this the soul of Osiris returned out of Hades to train up his son.
Then came a battle between Horus and Typhon, in which Typhon was
vanquished, but Isis allowed him to escape. There are other less important
incidents in the story, among them that Isis had another son by the soul
of Osiris after his death, who is the god called Harpocrates, represented
as lame and with his finger on his mouth.[192]

Plutarch declares that this story is symbolical, and mentions various
explanations of the allegory. He rejects, at once, the rationalistic
explanation, which turns these gods into eminent men,--sea-captains, etc.
"I fear," says he, "this would be to stir things that are not to be
stirred, and to declare war (as Simonides says), not only against length
of time, but also against many nations and families of mankind, whom a
religious reverence towards these gods holds fast bound like men
astonished and amazed, and would be no other than going about to remove so
great and venerable names from heaven to earth, and thereby shaking