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They moreover believe that the several risings of
the river Nile bear a certain proportion to the variations of
light in the moon. For they say that its highest rise,
which is at Elephantine, is eight and twenty cubits high,
which is the number of its several lights and the measures
of its monthly course; and that at Mendes and Xois,
which is the lowest of all, it is six cubits high, which
answers the half-moon; but that the middlemost rise,
which is at Memphis, is (when it is at its just height) fourteen cubits high, which answers the full moon. They also
say that the Apis is the living image of Osiris, and that he
is begotten when a prolific light darts down from the moon
and touches the cow when she is disposed for procreation;
for which reason many things in the Apis bear resemblance
to the shapes of the moon, it having light colors intermixed
with shady ones. Moreover, upon the kalends of the
month Phamenoth they keep a certain holiday, by them
called Osiris's ascent into the moon, and they account it the
beginning of their spring. Thus they place the power of
Osiris in the moon, and affirm him to be there married with
Isis, which is generation. For which cause they style the
moon the mother of the world, and believe her to have the
nature both of male and female, because she is first filled
and impregnated by the sun, and then herself sends forth
generative principles into the air, and from thence scatters
[p. 104]
them down upon the earth. For that Typhonian destruction doth not always prevail; but it is very often subdued
by generation and fast bound like a prisoner, but afterwards gets up again and makes war upon Horus. Now
this Horus is the terrestrial world, which is not wholly
exempted from either generation or destruction.
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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