52

where she opened it and embraced the body of her husband, weeping
bitterly. Then she sought her son Horus in Buto, in Lower Egypt, first
having hidden the chest in a secret place. But Typhon, one night hunting
by the light of the moon, found the chest, and, recognizing the body, tore
it into fourteen pieces, which he scattered up and down throughout the
land. When Isis heard of this she took a boat made of papyrus 117--a plant
abhorred by crocodiles--and sailing about she gathered the fragments of
Osiris's body.118 Wherever she found one, there she built a tomb. But
now Horus had grown up, and being encouraged to the use of arms by
Osiris, who returned from the other world, he went out to do battle with
Typhon, the murderer of his father. The fight lasted many days, and
Typhon was made captive. But Isis, to whom the care of the prisoner was
given, so far from aiding her son Horus, set Typhon at liberty. Horus in
his rage tore from her head the royal diadem; but Thoth gave her a
helmet in the shape of a cow's head. In two other battles fought between
Horus and Typhon, Horus was the victor. 119

Identity of the deceased with Osiris.

This is the story of the sufferings and death of Osiris as told by Plutarch.
Osiris was the god through whose sufferings and death the Egyptian
hoped that his body might rise again in some transformed or glorified
shape, and to him who had conquered death and had become the king of
the other world the Egyptian appealed in prayer for eternal life through
his victory and power. In every funeral inscription known to us, from the
pyramid texts down to the roughly written prayers upon coffins of the
Roman period, what is done for Osiris is done also for the deceased, the

117 The ark of "bulrushes" was, no doubt, intended to preserve the child Moses from crocodiles.
118 {Greek Mo'non de` tw^n merw^u tou^ O?si'ridos th`n I?^sin ou`x e`urei^n to` ai?doi^n e`uðu`s
ga`r ei's to`n potamo`n r!ifh^nai kai` geu'sasðai to'n te lepidwto`n au`tou^ kai` to`n fa'gron kai`
to`n o?ksu'rugxon. k.t.l.}. By the festival celebrated by the Egyptians in honour of the model of the
lost member of Osiris, we are probably to understand the public performance of the ceremony of
"setting up the Tet in Tattu", which we know took place on the last day of the month Choiak; see
Loret, Les Fêtes d'Osiris au mois de Khoiak (Recueil de Travaux, t. iv., p. 32, § 87); Plutarch, De Iside,
§ xviii.
119 An account of the battle is also given in the IVth Sallier papyrus, wherein we are told that it took

place on the 26th day of the month Thoth. Horus and Set fought in the form of two men, but they
afterwards changed themselves into two bears, and they passed three days and three nights in this
form. Victory inclined now to one side, and now to the other, and the heart of Isis suffered bitterly.
When Horus saw that she loosed the fetters which he had laid upon Set, he became like a "raging
panther of the south with fury," and she fled before him; but he pursued her, and cut off her head,
which Thoth transformed by his words of magical power and set upon her body again in the form of
that of a cow. In the calendars the 26th day of Thoth was marked triply deadly. See Chabas, Le
Calendrier, p. 28 ff