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Of him she had tidings of the ark, how it had been
thrown out by the sea upon the coasts of Byblos, and the
flood had gently entangled it in a certain thicket of heath.
And this heath had in a very small time run up into a
most beauteous and large tree, and had wrought itself
about it, clung to it, and quite enclosed it within its trunk.
Upon which the king of that place, much admiring at the
unusual bigness of the plant, and cropping off the bushy
part that encompassed the now invisible chest, made of it
a post to support the roof of his house. These things (as
they tell us) Isis being informed of by the divine breath of
rumor, went herself to Byblos; where when she was come,
she sate her down hard by a well, very pensive and full of
[p. 78]
tears, insomuch that she refused to speak to any person,
save only to the queen's women, whom she complimented
and caressed at an extraordinary rate, and would often
stroke back their hair with her hands, and withal transmit
a most wonderful fragrant smell out of her body into theirs.
The queen, perceiving that her women's bodies and hair
thus breathed of ambrosia, greatly longed to become acquainted with this new stranger. Upon this she being
sent for, and becoming very intimate with the queen, was
at last made nurse to her child. Now the name of this
king (they tell us) was Malcander; and the queen, some
say, was called Astarte, and some Saosis, and others Nemanun (which in Greek is as much as to say Athenaïs).
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 4.
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