wanes. The fourteen pieces into which Osiris was broken refer to the fourteen days in which the moon wanes.] [§ XLIII. The height of the Nile in flood at Elephantine is twenty-eight cubits, at Mendes and Xoïs low Nile is seven cubits, and at Memphis middle Nile is fourteen cubits; these figures are to be compared with the twenty-eight days of the Moon’s revolution, the seven-day phase of the Moon, and the fourteen days’ Moon, or full moon. Apis was begotten by a ray of light from the Moon, and on the fourteenth day of the month Phamenoth[1] Osiris entered the Moon. Osiris is the power of the Moon, Isis the productive faculty in it.]
[Fifth Explanation of the Story.]
[§ XLIV. The philosophers say that the story is nothing but an enigmatical description of the phenomena of Eclipses. In § XLV. Plutarch discusses the five explanations which he has described, and begins to state his own views about them. It must be concluded, he says, that none of these explanations taken by itself contains the true explanation of the foregoing history though all of them together do. Typhon means every phase of Nature which is hurtful and destructive, not only drought, darkness, the sea, &c. It is impossible
- ↑ Marked in the papyrus Sallier IV. as a particularly unlucky day,
