Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
6. Moreover, the Stoics say that the sun is kept burning and nourished from the sea,3 whereas to the Moon the waters of springs and lakes send up a sweet and mild exhalation.
XLII. 1. The Egyptian myth runs that the death of Osiris took place on the seventeenth, when the fullmoon is most conspicuously at the full
2. Wherefore the Pythagoreans call this day also
" Interception," 4 and regard this number as expiable.
3. For the " sixteen " being square and the " eighteen " oblong 5 — which alone of plane numbers happen to have their perimeters equal to the areas contained by them ° — the mean, " seventeen," coming between them, intercepts and divorces them from one another, and divides the ratio of "nine" to "eight"1 by being cut into unequal intervals.
1 Cf. Ixii. 2 et al
2 Cf. the Stoic attributes of Heracles in xl. 7.
3 If this is intended for the Great Sea of Space, it would be credible. 4 avTitf>pa^y.
6 Square and Oblong were two of the fundamental " pairs of opposites " among the Pythagoreans. Cf. xlviii. 5.
4. And eight-and-twenty is the number of years which some say Osiris lived, and others that he reigned ; 2 for this is the number of the lights of the Moon, and it rolls out its own circle in this number of days.
5. And at what they call the Burials of Osiris they cut the tree-trunk and make it into a crescent-shaped coffin, because the Moon, when it approaches the Sun, becomes crescent-shaped and hides itself away.
6. And the tearing of Osiris into fourteen pieces they refer enigmatically to the days in which the luminary wanes after full-moon up to new-moon.
7. And the day on which it first appears, escaping from his beams and passing by the Sun, they call " Imperfect Good."
8. For Osiris is "Good-doer." The name, indeed, means many things, but chiefly what they call " Might energising and good-doing." And the other name of the God, — Omphis, Hermseus 3 says, means [also] when translated, " Benefactor."
XLIII. 1. Moreover, they think that the risings of the Nile have a certain analogy with the lights of the Moon.
2. For the greatest [rising], about Elephantine, is eight-and-twenty cubits, the same number as are the lights and measures of its monthly periods ; and the least, about Mendes and Xoi's, is of six cubits, [analogous] to the half -moon; while the mean, about Memphis, when it is the right quantity, [is] of fourteen cubits, [analogous] to the full-moon.
1 The sesquioctave. In areas 8 is half of 16, and 9 of 18 ; while in a proportional measuring- rod or canon of 27 units, intervals of 8, 9, and 10 units succeeding one another complete the 27. Cf. xiii. 8, 9. 3 Of. xnviii. 2.
3. And [they consider] the Apis the animated image of Osiris, and that he is conceived whenever generative light from the Moon fastens on a cow in heat.
4. For which cause also many of the markings of the Apis — lights shading off into darks — resemble the configurations of the moon.
5. Moreover, on the new-moon of the month Phamenoth l they keep festival, calling it " Entrance " 2 of Osiris into the Moon, as it is the beginning of spring.
6. By thus placing the power of Osiris in the Moon, they mean that Isis consorts with him while being [at the same time] the cause of his birth.3
7. For which cause also they call the Moon Mother of the cosmos, and think that she has a male-female nature, — for she is filled by the Sun and made pregnant, and again of herself sends forth and disseminates into the air generative principles.
8. For [they say] she does not always overmaster the destruction wrought by Typhon;4 but, though frequently mastered, even when bound hand and foot she frees herself again by her generative power, and fights the way through to Horus.
9. And Horus is the cosmos surrounding the earth — not entirely exempt from destruction either, nor yet from generation.
XLIV. 1. Some, moreover, make out of the myth a riddle of the phenomena of eclipses also.
2. For the Moon is eclipsed at the full, when the Sun has the station opposite it, she entering the shadow of the earth, — just as they say Osiris [entered] the coffin. And she again conceals the Sun and causes him to disappear, on the thirtieth [of the month], though she does not entirely destroy him, as neither did Isis Typhon.
1 Copt, the same — roughly corr. to March.
2 fH&affiv — or perhaps "Embarking."
3 That is, is both wife and mother.
4 Typhon being the Sun according to this theory.