The Nile is a river in Egypt, that runs by the city of Alexandria.
It was formerly called Melas, from Melas the son of Neptune; but
afterwards it was called Aegyptus upon this occasion. Aegyptus, the son
of Vulcan and Leucippe, was formerly king of the country, between whom
and his own subjects happened a civil war; on which account the river
Nile not increasing, the Egyptians were oppressed with famine. Upon
which the oracle made answer, that the land should be again blessed
with plenty, if the king would sacrifice his daughter to atone the
anger of the Gods. Upon which the king, though greatly afflicted in his
mind, gave way to the public good, and suffered his daughter to be led
to the altar. But so soon as she was sacrificed, the king, not able to
support the burden of his grief, threw himself into the river Melas,
which after that was called Aegyptus. But then it was called Nilus upon
this occasion.
Garmathone, queen of Egypt, having lost her son Chrysochoas while he
was yet very young, with all her servants and friends most bitterly
bemoaned her loss. At what time Isis appearing to her, she surceased
her sorrow for a while, and putting on the countenance of a feigned
gratitude, kindly entertained the goddess. She, willing to make a
suitable return to the queen for the piety which she expressed in her
reception, persuaded Osiris to bring back her son from the subterranean
regions. When Osiris undertook to do this, at the importunity of his
wife, Cerberus—whom some call the Terrible—barked so loud, that Nilus,
Garmathone’s husband, struck with a sudden frenzy, threw himself into
the river Aegyptus, which from thence was afterwards called Nilus.
In this river grows a stone, not unlike to a bean, which so soon as any
dog happens to see, he ceases to bark. It also expels the evil spirit
out of those that are possessed, if held to the nostrils of the party
afflicted.
There are other stones which are found in this river, called kollotes,
which the swallows picking up against the time that Nilus overflows,
build up the wall which is called the Chelidonian wall, which restrains
the inundation of the water and will not suffer the country to be
injured by the fury of the flood;—as Thrasyllus tells us in his
Relation of Egypt.
Upon this river lies the mountain Argyllus, so called for this reason.
Jupiter in the heat of his amorous desires ravished away the Nymph Arge
from Lyctus, a city of Crete, and then carried her to a mountain of
Egypt called Argillus, and there begat a son, whom he named Dionysus
(or Bacchus); who, growing up to years of manhood, in honor of his
mother called the hill Argillus; and then mustering together an army
of Pans and Satyrs, first conquered the Indians, and then subduing
Spain, left Pan behind him there, the chief commander and governor of
those places. Pan by his own name called that country Pania, which was
afterward by his posterity called Spania;—as Sosthenes relates in the
Thirteenth Book of Iberian Relations.