Original: Plutarch, _De Iside et Osiride_.
Translated: Mead, _Thrice-greatest Hermes_, i, 278.
The treatise on Isis and Osiris was written by Plutarch, himself an
initiate into the Osiris-mysteries, to a fellow-initiate, a woman
named Klea. It was written at Delphi in the second century A.D.
It is the only connected account remaining of the death of Osiris and
the wanderings of Isis. Though of so late a date, it is found to be
correct on the whole when checked by the inscriptions and sculpture
of Pharaonic times.
The so-called Ritual of Denderah is our principal authority for the
worship of Osiris in the chief temples of Egypt on the festivals of
the month of Khoiakh. The Ritual is sculptured on the walls of the
temple of Denderah, and gives in great detail the rites in use, and
even the size and material of the symbolical images. The inscription
dates to the Ptolemaic period, but the Ritual is considerably earlier.
"Mystery-plays" of the death of Osiris and of the repulse of Set by
Horus appear to have been enacted on certain great occasions at the
chief centres of worship. The principal part was that of Horus,
which was acted by the Pharaoh himself in the capital, and by the
chief local notabilities in provincial centres.