Once, twice, and thrice; then shivering at the breeze, She'll fetch the sacred waters of the Nile, Has heavenly visitations in her dreams— But I should never have done if I pretended to quote all the indignant ridicule that has been poured on these brutal superstitions. With all this, however, they continued in full vigour from our author's time to that of Commodus, who, as Lampridius says, enrolled himself amongst the priests of Isis, and condescended to carry her son (the dog-headed Anubis,) upon his shoulder. Constantine abolished them, with the other heathen rites: they were again revived, and for the last time, by that frivolous pedant Julian, (so liberally dubbed a philosopher,) who laboured to enforce their observation, in some of his epistles. * However severe the satirists may have been on these follies, they fall infinitely short of the Prophets. Isaiah, in particular, prosecutes them with a dignity of sarcasm, a bitterness of ridicule, that is altogether irresistible. "He planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it,-he burneth part thereof in the fire-yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire.' And the residue thereof he maketh a GOD! he falleth down unto it, and saith deliver me, for thou art my GOD! Chap. xliv. v. 17. And again, more tauntingly: They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith, and HE máketh a GOD! They fall down, yea they worship. They BEAR HIM UPON THE SHOULDER, THEY CARRY HIM, (pσ swi Te wμe, nai wopevovra) and set him in his place, and he standeth!' Chap. XLVI. v. 6, 7. St. Jerome applies this passage of the sacred writer, to the circumstance in the text, i. e. to the "carrying" about of Anubis on the shoulders of the chief priest. It is singular that he should do so; since the prophet is evidently speaking of the Babylonish divinities Bel and Nebo. The quotations, however, prove the great antiquity of these idolatrous processions. Oh precious soul! with whom the gods delight VER. 785. A boly hypocrite, who strolls abroad, With his Anubis, &c.] These gloomy and fantastic processions in quest of Osiris, (see Sat. vIII.) continued for several days; during which the female votaries of Isis, in sympathy for her loss, abstained from all commerce with their husbands. For cadurcus, which I have rendered sacred sheets, but which was more probably a kind of coverlet, some copies have caduceus; put, the critics say, by an allowable metonymy, for Mercury, the Osiris of Egypt. Of this I believe nothing. Whatever sacrifices an interested set of vagabonds from that country might make to Roman vanity, a sensible Egyptian would have smiled at this pretended identity of beings so characteristically distinct as Osiris and Mercury: the latter, therefore, must be sent packing with his caduceus, and the old reading recalled. But what is the meaning of argentea serpens, the silver snake? Holyday gives a long account from Macrobius, of a three-headed monster that stood in the temple of Osiris; and seems mightily pleased with the "exposition;" though he confesses he can find nothing concerning the snake-the only material point. But Macrobius speaks of Alexandria, where such allegorical groups might possibly exist at Rome nothing of this kind was to be found. The snake, I am persuaded, was nothing more than the asp, wreathed round the head of Isis and Osiris, as the well known symbol of eternity: at least, I recollect that when I was in Italy, a bust of the former was found, thus incircled; and was then thought, by the literati, to give light to this very passage. Holyday follows the commentators in supposing that the snake moved its head in sign of reconciliation. I rather think the priests insinuated that such a miracle had taken place, in sign of anger-and accordingly, we see them proceeding with prayers and tears to the work of propitiation. Girt by a linen-clad, a bald-pate crew Of howling vagrants, who their shrieks renew He sues for pardon, when the liquorish dame On high and solemn days; for great the crime And great the atonement due :-" the silver snake "Abhorrent of the deed, was seen to quake." Yet he propitiates heaven; back'd by a goose, Osiris, great Osiris, to forgive prayers induce Th' enormous deed, and let the culprit live. It should be observed, that it is Osiris, and not Isis, who is offended. The bawd (as Juvenal irreverently calls the goddesss a few lines above) understood her trade too well, to be seriously hurt at a peccadillo of this kind; but then it was necessary that her husband should be represented as extremely delicate on the subject—aliter non fit, Avite, liber; otherwise, no goose for the priest ! The goose is not mentioned at random: that bird was usually sacrificed to Isis, and in Egypt constituted the chief food of her priests. The Romans were at first a little scandalized at this treatment of the ancient guardian of their Capitol; bnt use soon reconciled them to it. No common personage! she knows full well The dark decrees of heaven; a priestess she, Mov'd by these claims, thus modestly set forth, VER. 803. Has left her bay, and basket ;] The Jews have here the same characteristic symbols they had in the third Satire: their baskets and their hay. Domitian had laid a heavy poll-tax on these people, and that they might not evade it, they were enjoined, I suppose, not to appear abroad without these badges of their condition. To avoid being detected, and insulted by the rabble when they entered the city, these poor persecuted wretches laid aside their de. grading accompaniments. This accounts for the epithet tremens, which Juvenal applies to this female fortune-teller, who, if she had been discovered, would, in spite of her lofty pretensions, have been severely punished for contempt of the imperial regulations. What is meant by magna sacerdos arboris, highpriestess of the tree, I cannot tell. Probably the Egerian grove, the degradation of which is so indignantly deplored in the third Satire, might, like the Norwood of our metropolis, be frequented by such of the vulgar as were anxious to inquire their fortunes. In that case, some favourite tree might be the place of rendezvous, and this Betty Squires, the most infallible oracle of it. The conjectures of some of the critics, that Juvenal alludes to the idolatrous propensity of the Jews for worshipping in woods; and of others, that he hints at the "grove of oaks by Dodona in Chaonia, which was consecrated to Jupiter," are alike unfounded. Of the first he knew nothing; and the second was much too far-fetch'd for his purpose. In a dove's reeking entrails; there, he sees But chiefly in Chaldeans she believes, What, in another, he'd to death pursue.] The scholiast says that this really happened. Egnatium Philosophum significat, qui filiam Barea Sorani, quam, cum ipsius ad magicam descendisset hortatu, Neroni detulit. I do not know his authority for this application. Tacitus, who tells the story of her condemnation, (Ann. lib. xv1. 32,) and who speaks of the testimony of Ægnatius upon the occasion, with every mark of horror; does not say that he instigated her to the practices for which she suffered: the anecdote may nevertheless be genuine. Vide Sat. 111. v. 174. VER. 824. Since Delphi now, &c.] When this was written, and indeed long before, oracles were rapidly falling into contempt. This accounts naturally enough for their silence, without having recourse to the pious fancies of the earlier Christians, which are evidently groundless. If the oracle of Jupiter Ammon survived the rest, as Juvenal says it did, it was probably because, like Voltaire's El Dorado, few, or none, could go to seek it. |