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For which reason they assign him the ass, the most
brutal and sottish of all the tame beasts, and the crocodile
and river-horse, the most savage and fierce of all the wild
beasts. Of the ass we have spoken already. They show
us at Hermopolis the statue of Typhon, which is a river-horse with a hawk on his back fighting with a serpent;
where they set out Typhon by the river-horse, and by the
hawk that power and principle which Typhon possesses
himself of by violence, and thereupon ceases not to disturb
others and to be disturbed himself by his malice. For
which reason also, when they are to offer sacrifice upon
the seventh day of the month Tybi, at the festival which
they call the Arrival of Isis out of Phoenicia, they print
the river-horse bound upon their sacred cakes. Besides
this, there is a constant custom at the town of Apollo, for
every one to eat some part of a crocodile; and having
[p. 111]
upon a certain set day hunted down as many of them at
they are able, they kill them, and throw down their carcasses before the temple. And they tell us that Typhon
made his escape from Horus in the form of a crocodile
for they make all bad and noxious things—whether animals, plants or passions—to be the works, the members
and the motions of Typhon.
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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