The Gods of the Egyptians, Volume 2 by E. A. Wallis Budge

Author:E. A. Wallis Budge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 1969-04-06T05:00:00+00:00

MERSEKERT SUCKLING HORUS.

THE GODDESS ISIS-SEPT.

The region where all these things took place was situated in the Delta, and the Island in the Papyrus Swamps, where Isis brought forth her child and hid him, was near the famous double city of Pe-Ṭep, which was commonly called Buto by the Greeks. It is impossible to assign a date to the composition of the story briefly narrated above, but it is, no doubt, as old as the legends about the death and resurrection of Osiris, and it must form an integral portion of them, and date from the period when Libyan gods and goddesses were worshipped in the Delta and in certain parts of Upper Egypt before the great development of Sun-worship. The chief importance of the story consists in the fact that it makes Isis to be both woman and goddess, just as the story of Osiris makes that deity to be both god and man, and it is quite conceivable that in the predynastic times the sorrows of Isis, like those of Osiris, formed the subject of miracle plays which were acted annually in all the centres of the worship of Isis. Isis as the faithful and loving wife, and as the tender and devoted mother won the hearts of the Egyptians in all periods of their history, and we can only regret that the narrative of the wanderings and sorrows of the goddess is not known to us in all its details. Her persecution by Set after her husband’s death was a favourite theme of ancient writers, who delighted in showing how the goddess outwitted her terrible adversary; thus on one occasion she was so hard pressed by him that she changed her body into that of the cow-goddess ḤERU-SEKHA, , and her son Horus into an Apis Bull, ,6 and went away with him to the Apis temple, , in order that she might see his father Osiris, who was therein.

Another great human element in the story of Isis which appealed strongly to the Egyptians was the desire of the goddess to be avenged on the murderer of her husband, and it is this which is referred to in the words of Isis, who says, “I rejoiced over him “with exceedingly great joy, for I saw in him one who would make “answer for his father.” The manner in which Horus “made answer for “and avenged his father is told in the Sallier Papyrus (translated by Chabas,7) where it is said that Horus and Set fought together, standing on their feet, first in the forms of men and next in the forms of two bears. For three days and for three nights the fight between them raged, and Horus gained the victory over Set, but when Isis saw that Set was being overpowered her heart was touched on his account, and she cried out and ordered the weapons which her son was wielding against her brother to fall down, and they did so, and Set was released. When Horus

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