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79.

They keep the customs of their fathers, adding none to them. Among other notable customs of theirs is this, that they have one song, the Linus-song,1 which is sung in Phoenicia and Cyprus and elsewhere; each nation has a name of its own for this, [2] but it happens to be the same song that the Greeks sing, and call Linus; so that of many things in Egypt that amaze me, one is: where did the Egyptians get Linus? Plainly they have always sung this song; but in Egyptian Linus is called Maneros.2 [3] The Egyptians told me that Maneros was the only son of their first king, who died prematurely, and this dirge was sung by the Egyptians in his honor; and this, they said, was their earliest and their only chant.

1 This is the hymn for a slain youth (said to typify the departure of early summer), Thammuz, Atys, Hylas, or Linus; the Semitic refrain ai lenu, “alas for us,” becomes the Greek αἴλινος, from which comes the name Linus.

2 Maneros, probably from the refrain ma-n-hra, “come back to us.”

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