concerned with the regularly and perpetually recurring phenomena. Whatever may be the case in other mythologies, "I look upon the sunrise and sunset, on the daily return of day and night, on the battle between light and darkness, on the whole solar drama in all its details, that is acted every day, every month, every in heaven and in earth, as the principal subject"1 of Egyptian mythology.

year,

Ra and his Family.

There can be no controversy about the meaning of Rā. Rā is not only the name of the sun-god, it is the usual word for sun. In other mythologies the sun-god is borne in a chariot or on horseback; in Egypt, his course across the sky is made in a boat. The sky (Nu) is accordingly conceived as an expanse of water, of which the Nile is the earthly representative. Rā is said to proceed from "Nu, the father of the gods." His adversary is Apap, who is represented as a serpent pierced with the weapons of the god. The conflict is not between good and evil, but the purely physical one between light and darkness. Shu and Tefnut are the children of Ra; Shu is Air, and Tefnut is some form of moisture, probably Dew.

1 Max Müller, "Science of Language," Second Series, p. 565.

2 In the legend of the Destruction of Mankind, Ra calls before him Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut, and the fathers and mothers who were with him when he was still in Nu.

Osiris and his Family.

The myth of Osiris,

has the same meaning.

though much more elaborate, Osiris is the eldest of the five children of Seb and Nut. "He is greater than his father, and more powerful than his mother." He wedded his sister Isis whilst they were yet in their mother's womb, and their offspring was the elder Horus. Set and Nephthys, another wedded pair, are their brother and sister. In this myth the antagonist of Osiris is Set, by whom he is slain, but he is avenged by his son Horus, and he reigns in the nether world, like the Indian Yama, and judges the dead from his throne in the hall of the Two-fold Right. And this he does daily.

The explanation of this myth exercised the imaginations of the ancients. The priests and poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties already identified Osiris with the highest of all Powers. In later times, as we see from the treatise ascribed to Plutarch, he was identified with various abstract "principles." By the help of the light which comparative mythology supplies, we are enabled to arrive at a truer sense of the myth.

The parents of Osiris are Seb and Nut, and about these there can be no mistake. Seb is the Earth, and Nut is Heaven. Seb is identified with the earth in the older texts, and in the later ones "the back of

Seb" is a familiar term for the earth. Seb is also the Egyptian name for a certain species of goose, and in accordance with the homonymous tendency of the mythological period of all nations, the god and the bird were identified; Seb was called "the great cackler,” and there are traces of the myth of a "mundane egg" which he "divided" or hatched. Nut is the name of a female goddess,1 frequently used synonymously with the other names of the sky, and she is as frequently pictured with her arms and legs extended over the earth, with the stars spread over her body. The marriage of Heaven and Earth is extremely common in mythologies; what is peculiar to the Egyptian myth is that Earth is not represented as the Mother of all things, θεῶν μήτηρ, ἄλοχ' Οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος, but the Father, and Heaven is here the Mother; though, as we have seen in speaking of Ra, Heaven was also conceived as a male power, like the Indian Varuna and the Greek Uranos. From the union of Seb and Nut sprung the mild Osiris, the Sun, and Isis, the Dawn, wedded before they were born, and the fruit of their marriage

1 In the legend of the Destruction of Mankind, Nu and Nut address each other as father and daughter. But in the Book of the Dead, 42, 20, Unbu (one of the names of Osiris) issues from Nu, his mother being Nut.

2 There is indeed a passage (Duemichen, Hist. Inschr. II. 44 e) in which Seb seems to be called the mother of Osiris. But as the words are immediately followed by "whom Nut brought forth,” I suspect an error in the text.

was Horus, the Sun in his full strength. Set the destroyer is also the son of Seb and Nut, but his triumph is in the west; he is Darkness, and his spouse Nephthys, a deity of mixed character, is the Sunset. There are the traces of a legend according to which Osiris mistook Nephthys for his wife Isis. Nephthys, who loved him, encouraged the illusion, and from their embraces Anpu (Anubis) was born. Anubis, like his mother, is a deity of a mixed character, partly belonging to the diurnal, partly to the nocturnal powers. It is said of him that "he swallowed his father Osiris." I believe that he represents the Twilight or Dusk immediately following the disappearance of the sun.

I am quite aware that texts may be quoted to prove that Osiris is the Moon, but these texts belong to a pantheistic period in which the god was recognized under all forms.1 It might rather be doubted whether the story of Osiris had not reference to the annual rather than to the daily sun. His death might be supposed to represent the reign of winter. Some of the Egyptian usages in commemoration of his death and resurrection, such as the sowing of plants and watching their growth, might be cited in support of this view. But the closer we look at these matters of

1 A hymn at Dendera says: "Hail to thee, Osiris, lord of eternity! When thou art in heaven thou appearest as the sun, and thou renewest thy form as the moon." Mariette, Dendera, Vol. IV.

detail, the less will they disturb our conviction that the victory of Set over Osiris is that of Night over Day, and the resurrection of Osiris is the rising of the Sun. And I do not think Osiris will be spoken of as dead throughout an Egyptian winter by any one who has had any experience of that delightful season.

There is a passage in the Book of the Dead1 which says that "Osiris came to Tattu (Mendes) and found the soul of Ra there; each embraced the other, and became as one soul in two souls." This may be a mythological way of saying that two legends which had previously been independent of each other were henceforth inextricably mixed up. This, at all events, is the historical fact. In the words of a sacred text, "Ra is the soul of Osiris, and Osiris the soul of Rā.”

Horus.2

But Horus also is one of the names of the Sun, and had his myths quite independently of Ra or Osiris. The most prominent ones in comparatively later times

1 Ch. xvii. 1. 42, 43.

2 M. Lefébure has published several important essays illustrative of the myths of Osiris and Horus. I should be glad to find real evidence of allusions to lunar eclipses, but it is impossible to reconcile the lunar hypothesis about these myths with the most elementary astronomy. How can a lunar eclipse, for instance, regularly coincide with a fixed day in a month of thirty days? The synodical month is nearly of this length, but the eclipses depend upon the nodes.