Isis and Osiris XII: The Man of Many Turns

[sdi]

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This post is a bit of a revision to my exploration of the myth of Horus: in the month since then, I found a few lost bits and pieces of the Horus myth, and my interpretation of it has evolved a little bit. I think it also agrees even more closely with the Odysseus story than it did before, and it is easier to confidently associate characters and events between the two:

#	Plutarch, Isis and Osiris	Homer, Odyssey
1	[cf. 3]	Odysseus comes to Ææa. Circe turns half his men into pigs. Odysseus, with the help of Hermes, gains Circe's allegience. She restores his men.
2	Osiris comes to Horus from Duat in the form of a jackal to encourage him to fight and train him. Osiris tests Horus by asking what he believes is best. Horus answers, "to avenge one's parents for wrongdoing!" Osiris then asks what animal is most useful to a soldier. Horus answers, "a horse." Osiris is surprised by this and asks why he would prefer a horse to a lion. Horus answers, "A lion would be better in a pinch, but without a horse, how could you overtake and cut down a fleeing enemy?" Osiris believes that Horus is ready and rejoices.	Odysseus goes to Hades, summons Teiresias, and asks him for advice. Teiresias advises Odysseus. Odysseus steels himself for the challenges ahead and meets with various dead heroes and women.
3	Set's concubine Tewaret defects to Horus.	[cf. 1]
4	Tewaret is chased by a serpent. Horus's men slay it.	Odysseus returns to Ææa. Circe advises him concerning various monsters: the Sirens, the Wandering Rocks, Scylla, and Charybdis. Odysseus encounters and escapes from each.
5	Horus and Set engage in battle. Set turns into a red bull and gouges out Horus's eye. Horus cuts off Set's testicles. After many days, Horus defeats Set and takes him prisoner.	Odysseus comes to the island of Thrinacia and is stranded there many days. While Odysseus sleeps, his men slaughter and eat the cattle of Helios. Helios complains to Zeus, and Zeus destroys Odysseus's ship and his men.
6	Horus delivers Set to Isis as a prisoner, but Isis releases him instead of executing him. Horus is furious at this, beheads Isis, and takes the crown for himself.	Odysseus washes ashore on Ogygia and is held prisoner by Calypso, but he spurns her advances and spends his days longing for home.
7	Thoth replaces Isis's head with a cow's.	[cf. 9]
8	Set takes Horus to court over the legitimacy of his birth (and, consequently, of his claim to the throne). Thoth argues persuasively in favor of Horus. The gods find Horus to be the legitimate son of Osiris, but not of Isis (because he murdered her).	Athena beseeches Zeus to allow Odysseus to return home. Zeus agrees.
9	[cf. 7]	Hermes tells Calypso that Zeus demands she let Odysseus go. Calypso helps Odysseus build a raft.
10	The council of gods strip Horus of his mother's part (his flesh), give the throne to his father's part (his bones), and force Horus and Set to restore each other's missing parts.	Poseidon destroys Odysseus's raft. Odysseus, with the help of the White Goddess, swims three days and nights to Phæacia. Odysseus comes to the house of Alkinous; tells his story; and, with the help of Athena, pursuades Alkinous to ferry him to Ithaca.
11	Horus defeats Set in battle a second time.	Odysseus comes to Ithaca, finds his home ransacked by suitors after Penelope, and defeats them with the help of Athena.
12	Horus defeats Set in battle a third time, becomes undisputed king of Egypt, and reconciles with Set.	Tiresias foretells (but it does not occur in the Odyssey) that Odysseus must find a land where the sea is unknown and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Poseidon, and that if he does so, he will live comfortably to an old age and die peacefully.

The left column is taken from Plutarch, Isis and Osiris XIX, but I have amended it (sometimes a little speculatively) with the italicized sections as follows:

• 2. Diodorus Siculus (Library of History I lxxxviii) says that Osiris came to Horus "in the form of a wolf," which most likely refers to 𓃢𓏃𓏠𓅂 Khenti-Amentiu "Foremost of the Westerners," who was jackal-headed (woof woof) and equated with Osiris (J. Gwyn Griffiths, The Conflict of Horus and Seth IV ii). The confusion of canids isn't anything to wonder at: Lycopolis ("City of Wolves") was consecrated to Anubis and Wepwawet, both jackals.

• 5. Set turning into a red bull is attested in the Pyramid Texts (418a, 679d, 1543a–1550a, 1977b) and apparently is a commonplace of later Egyptian myth (Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde XLVIII p. 72), though I have not found direct references. The loss of Horus's eye and Set's testicles is attested in the Pyramid Texts (418a, 594a, 679d), and also of course suggested by their restoration (see [8]).

• 6–7. Plutarch censors this episode in Isis and Osiris XIX, but says Isis was beheaded immediately after in XX, and this is confirmed in the Papyrus Sallier IV. I have retained Horus taking Isis's crown and therefore claiming kingship, since otherwise Set would have no reason for taking him to court.

• 8–10. I had mistakenly thought that Set took Horus to court over the legitimacy of his rule, but I was incorrect: it is over the legitimacy of his birth (Greek νοθεία notheia, "birth out of wedlock"). Plutarch censors this episode in Isis and Osiris XIX, but references the uncensored version in Desire and Grief VI and On the Generation of the Soul in the Timæus XXVII, and this is confirmed in the Papyrus Jumilhac. These vary in what parts, specifically, are assigned to the mother and father, but in any case the mother's part is always the outward part (skin, fat, flesh), and the father's part is always the inward part (blood, bones, marrow). The restoration of Horus's eye and Set's testicles is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts (36a, 39a, 65b, 95c, 535a–b, 578d, 591b, 595a–596c, 946a–c, 1614b). There is another version of the trial in The Contendings of Horus and Seth (Papyrus Chester Beatty I), but it conflicts with Plutarch's version of the myth (for example, Thoth is created from Horus "impregnating" Set, rather than pre-existing), and so I consider it a parallel tradition.

• 12. Horus displacing Set to become undisputed king is implied by Turin King List; Herodotus, Histories II cxliv; Manetho, History of Egypt; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History I xxv; etc. The reconciliation between Horus and Set is suggested by the Pyramid Texts (390b, 678a–c, 801b–c, 971a–b, 975a–b, 1453b, 2100a–b), but Diodorus Siculus (Library of History I xxi) says that Set was executed (but his version of the myth differs in a number of other ways, too, so it is less trustworthy).

I think I can fairly confidently say, now, that Odysseus is Horus's bones, Circe is Tewaret, Hermes and Athena are Thoth (who is always the advisor to the king, whether he be Ra, Osiris, Isis, or Horus), Teiresias is Khenti-Amentiu (the avatar of Osiris), the monsters following Circe are the serpent chasing Tewaret, Helios is Set as a red bull (and the cows are his testicles), Calypso is Isis, Odysseus's various ships (his original one, the raft, and the Phæacian ship) are Horus's flesh, and Poseidon is Set.

I had hurried past Osiris's questions to Horus, as I was unsure what to make of them. J. Gwyn Griffiths (The Conflict of Horus and Seth IV iii) suggests that the first question is meant to demonstrate Horus's piety and the second is meant to demonstrate his intelligence, which is no less reasonable than my supposition of blood-thirstiness.

The main change from my prior analysis is that the stripping of Horus's material part makes it obvious that Horus triumphs over matter in the first battle, not the second, as I had previously thought. In a way, this makes more sense: it means that the battles with Set are not the mastery of the virtues, but the climbing of the levels of the tetractys (that is, the reverse process of the birth of the gods): one transcends Earth and Water together, then transcends Air, and finally all becomes one again at the end of time. So we can therefore associate mastery of the civic virtues (e.g. separating men from beasts) with defeating Circe (who does not turn Odysseus's men into pigs, but rather makes their outward form reflect their inward form); similarly, the mastery of the purificatory virtues (e.g. transcending desire) can be associated with defeating Calypso (who appeals to Odysseus's sensual desires, and yet he spends all his time on the shore, longing for home).

That it is only the Osirian part of Horus that becomes king of Egypt is supportive of my hypothesis that Horus the Elder is the seed of the individual soul within Osiris when he is born of Nut. It is also strongly suggestive of the principle that all things return to their source: Fire to Fire, and Earth to Earth. To my recollection, Empedocles never mentions such a principle, though Plutarch does (On the Man in the Moon XXX), albeit in different terms.

In the version of the trial included in The Contendings of Horus and Seth, Horus "impregnates" Set and Thoth pops out of Set's forehead as a result, which is awfully reminiscent of the Athena myth and also agrees with my prior argument that Hermes is Odysseus's intelligence while Athena is Odysseus's wisdom.

Previously I said that the White Goddess was like those daimons who speed the rising soul on their way, but I think this is incorrect: if that's so, why does she remain in the sea, and why does Odysseus throw back her veil? No, I think the White Goddess is the mysteries themselves (appropriate, for the daughter of Cadmus!) and her veil is the mystery teachings; Odysseus makes use of them during his three-day-and-night-swim (that is, Plato's "three philosophical lives"), and he returns the veil because, as the Buddha remarks in his Parable of the Raft, teachings are for crossing over but not for holding on to: once one has transcended the material world, the teachings are simply no longer relevant.

I hadn't paid any attention to the sacrifice of the three animals to Poseidon at the end of the Odyssey. I wonder if these three are recapitulations of the three battles: that is, they express the reason why this is all the way it is. We are living offerings to divinity: the experiences we have, the teachings we learn, the states of consciousness we enter as we individuate and climb the latter of being: all of these are what we bring back to the Source at the end of time. We are god coming to know itself: one ram, one bull, one boar at a time.

I've been thinking about what the purpose and value of the mysteries are, and I think what I've come to appreciate most about all this is that it provides such a lovely map of mystical experience: one can confidently say "oh, this is where I am!" and it gives guidance on what you're dealing with and what you can expect to deal with next. At least the little bit I have memory and experience of seems to fit, anyway, and I have good hopes for what comes after.