Unless (by Jove) we are to understand the word treble as spoken
by the ancients in a proper sense. For the humid nature, being in
the beginning the chief source and origin of the universe, must of
consequence produce the three first bodies,—the earth, air, and fire.
For the story which is here told by way of surplusage to the tale—how
that Typhon threw the privity of Osiris into the river, and that Isis
could not find it, and therefore fashioned and prepared the resemblance
and effigies of it, and appointed it to be worshipped and carried about
in their processions, like as in the Grecian Phallephoria—amounts but
to this, to instruct and teach us that the prolific and generative
property of this God had moisture for its first matter, and that by
means of moisture it came to immix itself with things capable of
generation. We have also another story told us by the Egyptians,—how
that once Apopis, brother to the Sun, fell at variance with Jupiter and
made war upon him; but Jupiter, entering into an alliance with Osiris
and by his means overthrowing his enemy in a pitched battle, afterwards
adopted him for his son and gave him the name of Dionysus. It is easy
to show that this fabular relation borders also upon the verity of
physical science. For the Egyptians call the wind Jupiter, with which
the parching and fiery property makes war; and though this be not
the sun, yet hath it some cognation with the sun. But now moisture,
extinguishing the excessiveness of drought, increases and strengthens
the exhalations of wet, which give food and vigor to the air.
37. Moreover, the ivy, which the Greeks use to consecrate to Bacchus,
is called by the Egyptians _chenosiris_, which word (as they tell us)
signifies in their language Osiris’s tree. Ariston therefore, who wrote
of the colony of the Athenians, lighted upon a certain epistle of
Alexarchus, in which it is related that Bacchus, the son of Jupiter
and Isis, is not called Osiris by the Egyptians, but Arsaphes, which
denotes valiant. This is hinted at by Hermaeus also, in his first
book about the Egyptians; for he saith, the name of Osiris is to be
interpreted stout. I shall now pass by Mnaseas, who joins Bacchus,
Osiris, and Serapis together, and makes them the same with Epaphus. I
shall also omit Anticlides, who saith that Isis was the daughter of
Prometheus, and that she was married to Bacchus. For the fore-mentioned
proprieties of their festivals and sacrifices afford us a much more
clear evidence than the authorities of writers.
38. They believe likewise that of all the stars, the Sirius (or Dog) is
proper to Isis, because it bringeth on the flowing of the Nile. They
also pay divine honor to the lion, and adorn the gates of their temples
with the yawning mouths of lions, because the Nile then overflows its
banks,