The first to learn of the deed and to bring to
men's knowledge an account of what had been done
were the Pans and Satyrs who lived in the region
around Chemmis,
1 and so, even to this day, the sudden
confusion and consternation of a crowd is called a
panic.
2 Isis, when the tidings reached her, at once
cut off one of her tresses and put on a garment of
mourning in a place where the city still bears the
name of Kopto.
3 Others think that the name means
deprivation, for they also express ‘deprive’ by
means of ‘koptein.’
4 But Isis wandered everywhere
at her wits' end ; no one whom she approached did
she fail to address, and even when she met some little
children she asked them about the chest. As it
[p. 39]
happened, they had seen it, and they told her the
mouth of the river through which the friends of
Typhon had launched the coffin into the sea. Wherefore the Egyptians think that little children possess
the power of prophecy,
5 and they try to divine the
future from the portents which they find in children's
words, especially when children are playing about in
holy places and crying out whatever chances to come
into their minds.
They relate also that Isis, learning that Osiris in his
love had consorted with her sister6 through ignorance,
in the belief that she was Isis, and seeing the proof of
this in the garland of melilote which he had left with
Nephthys, sought to find the child ; for the mother,
immediately after its birth, had exposed it because of
her fear of Typhon. And when the child had been
found, after great toil and trouble, with the help of
dogs which led Isis to it, it was brought up and became
her guardian and attendant, receiving the name of
Anubis, and it is said to protect the gods just as dogs
protect men.7
