Lucretius. Hathor, like the mother of the Aeneadae, is "sole mistress of the nature of things, and without her nothing rises up into the divine borders of light, nothing grows to be glad or lovely;" "through her every kind of living thing is conceived, rises up and beholds the light of the sun."[1] But we know the Roman poet's apology[2] for these poetical conceptions, "however well and beautifully they may be set forth." "If any one thinks proper to call the sea Neptune, and corn Ceres, and chooses rather to misuse the name of Bacchus than to utter the term that belongs to that
- ↑ Per te genus omne animantum
Concipitur visitque exortum lumina solis;
Te dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli
Adventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellus
Smnmittit flores tibi rident aequora ponti
Placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum. …
Quae quoniam rerum naturam sola gubernas
Nec sine te quicquam dias in luminis oras
Exoritur neque fit laetum neque amabile quicquam, &c.
De Rerum Natura, i. 4—9, 21—24: Munro.I do not quote these lines to prove that the hymns of Dendera are atheistic or epicurean, but that they are not inconsistent with an entire disbelief in religion. All these hymns are absolutely epicurean.
- ↑ Hic siquis mare Neptunum Cereremque vocare
Constituit fruges et Bacchi nomine abuti
Mavolt quam laticis proprium proferre vocamen,
Concedamus ut hie terrarum dictitet orbem
Esse deum matrem, dum vera re tamen ipse
Beligione animum turpi contingere parcat.
Ib. ii. 662—657.
