Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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3 ryv 6ffid» — but Plutarch is mistaken, for in Cratylus, 401 c it is a question of ovyuiv and to-idv and not of ixtiiv and ialav.
4 Ufufvov, picking up the Wflcu above in paragraph 2.
6 Cf. Crat., 415 D, where the word-play is dptrj? and dtt-ptrr^
(ever-flowing).
6 Cf. Crat., 415 C — where the play is KaK-ia, = naKws ibv (If van) — badly going.
7 airop-la — the word-play being a (not) and irop-eiW0<u (going) — ibid., c, D.
8 " Sft\ia signifies that the soul is bound with a strong chain (8e<r/tbs), for \teu> means strength, and therefore Sei\la expresses the greatest and strongest bond of the soul" (ibid.). See Jowett, i. 359 f.
mounting upwards,1 is called Anubis, and sometimes also Hermanubis,2 belonging in his former capacity to things above and in his latter to things below [them].
3. Wherefore also they offer him in his former capacity a white cock,3 and in his latter a saffron-coloured one, — thinking that the former things are pure and the latter mixed and manifold.
4. Nor ought we to be surprised at the manipulation of the names back into Greek.4 For tens of thousands of others that disappeared with those who emigrated from Greece, continue unto this day and sojourn with foreigners ; for recalling some of which they blame the poets' art as " barbarising," — I mean those who call such words "glosses."5
5. Further, they relate that in what are called the
" Books of Hermes," it is written that they call the
Power that rules the ordained revolution of the Sun,
Horus, while the Greeks [call it] Apollo ; and the Power
that rules the Breath [or Spirit], some [call] Osiris,
others Sarapis, and others Sothis in Egyptian.
6. The last means "conception" (Kvya-iv) or "conceiving " (TO Kveiv)? Wherefore also, by inversion of the name, the star [Sothis] which they consider the special one of Isis, is called Dog (KVOOV) in Greek.
7. We should, however, least of all be jealous about the names ; still if we were, I would sooner give up
1 That is, things in Hades (the Invisible) — not Tartarus.
2 Horus was endowed with many characteristics of other gods.
Thus with Anpu or Anubis he becomes Heru-em-Anpu, i.e.
Horus as Anubis, and is said to dwell in the " divine hall." This
is the Hermanubis of Plutarch. Cf. Budge, op. cit., i. 493.
3 " A cock to JEsculapius." * Cf. xxix. 8.
5 7\<tfTToj — a technical term for obsolete or foreign words that need explanation.
6 Cf. xxi. 2.
" Sarapis " than " Osiris " ; for though I think the former is a foreign one and the latter Greek, yet are they both [names] of One God and One Power.
LXIL 1. The Egyptian [names] also resemble these [Greek ones]. For they often call Isis by the name of Athena, which expresses some such meaning as " I have come from myself" — which is [again] indicative of self-motive course.
2. While " Typhon," as has been said,1 is called Seth and Bebon and Smu, — the names being intended to signify a certain forcible and preventative checking, opposition or reversing.
3. Moreover, they call the loadstone " Bone of Horus," 2 and iron " [Bone] of Typhon," as Manethos relates ; for just as iron often resembles that which is attracted to and follows after the loadstone, and often is turned away from it, and repelled to an opposite direction, so the saving and good and reason-possessing motion of the Cosmos both turns towards itself and makes more gentle by persuasion that harsh and typhonean [motion] ; and then again after raising it into itself, it reverses it and plunges it into the infinitude.
4. Moreover, Eudoxus 3 says that the Egyptians tell a myth about Zeus that, as in consequence of his having his legs grown together,* he could not walk, for shame he lived in solitude ; and so Isis, by cutting in two and separating these limbs of his body, made his going even-footed.5
5. By those things, moreover, the myth enigmatically
» Cf. xli., xlix. (end).
2 Cf. the "bone of the sea-hawk" in Hipp., Philo., v. 9 and 17 ; and note to J., in " Myth of Man in the Mysteries," p. 189.
3 Cf. xxx., Ixix., et al.
4 The invisible serpent-form of the God.
5 Cf. Plat., Tim., 44 D and 45 A ; and liv. 5 above concerning the birth of the Elder Horus.