On Providence (The Egyptian Tale)

It was written about the sons of Taurus, and the first part, as far as the riddle of the wolf, was read at the very time when the worse man was in power, having prevailed in the faction-fight. The following part was woven on after the return of the best men, who asked that the treatise should not remain cut short at their misfortunes, but, since what had been foretold seemed to be coming to pass according to God, that it should go on, on the same theme, to their better fortunes as well. So, since the overthrow of the tyranny was already being carried out, …

… one may especially admire that the treatment suffices for many themes. For many doctrines, among those undecided until now, have found room for examination in the fiction, and each has been worked out precisely; lives are written that will serve as examples of vice and of virtue; the treatise also contains a history of present affairs; and throughout, the myth has been worked out and embroidered for usefulness.

Book One. The myth is Egyptian. The Egyptians excel in wisdom. Perhaps, then, this too, though it is a myth, may hint at something more than a myth, because it is Egyptian. And if it is not even a myth but a sacred account, it would be all the more worth telling and writing down. Osiris and Typhos were brothers and sprang from the same seed. But kinship of souls and of bodies is not one and the same. What belongs to souls is not to have sprung on earth from the same two parents, but to have flowed from one source. The nature of the cosmos furnishes two kinds of soul, the one luminous, the other shapeless; and

the one gushes up from the ground, as though rooted somewhere below, and leaps out of the holes of the earth, to see whether it can do violence somewhere to the divine law; the other hangs from the back of heaven. It is sent down to adorn the region about the earth, but on its descent it is charged to take care lest, while it adorns and orders what is disordered and unadorned, it should itself, by drawing near, be filled with ugliness and disorder. And there stands a law of Themis declaring to souls that any soul which consorts with the lowest extremity of beings yet keeps its nature and remains undefiled shall flow back up the same road again and be poured back into its own source; just as those that in some way rushed out from the other portion must, by necessity of nature, find their lodging in their kindred caverns.

These are the noble and ignoble births of souls; and in this way a Libyan and a Parthian may be kin, and in this way those whom we call brothers may in no respect belong to each other in the kinship of souls. This was hinted in the two Egyptian boys as soon as they were born, and shown brilliantly as they grew up. The younger, born and reared by a divine dispensation, was even as a baby fond of listening and fond of stories — for a story is the philosophy of children — and as he grew he loved a learning that always outran his years. He lent his ears to his father, and whatever wise thing anyone knew he hungered after on every side, at first wanting, like a puppy, to know everything at once, as natures that promise great things do: they are eager and spring up before the time, already pledging to themselves the lovely end. Later, however, well before his youth, he was quieter than a well-bred old man; he listened with decorum, and when he himself had to speak, either to ask about what he had heard or for some other

reason, anyone could see him hesitating and blushing. He would step out of the road and give up his seat to the elders of the Egyptians, and that though he was the son of the man who ruled the great kingdom. He had modesty too, and above all it was in his nature to care for people, so that while he was still at that age it was hard to find an Egyptian for whom the lad had not obtained at least one good thing from his father. The elder, Typhos, was, in a word, wrong-handed in everything. All wisdom — the Egyptian, and that of the foreign teachers whom the king had brought in for his son Osiris — he refused with his whole mind and laughed at the thing as idle and enslaving to the mind. Seeing his brother walk in good order and live with modesty, he thought it was fear, because no one ever saw him punching with his fist or leaping with his heel

on anyone, or running a disorderly race — and that though he was nimble and lithe, and the body about his soul was a light burden. Nor did Osiris ever drink in gulps, or guffaw so that his laughter shook his whole body — the things Typhos did every day and thought the only deeds of free men: to do whatever one happened to wish. He resembled neither his family in nature nor any human being at all; to put it in a word, he was not even like himself, but some evil of every kind. Now he would seem sluggish and "a useless burden of the earth," waking from sleep only so far as to fill his belly and lay in other provisions for sleeping; now, neglecting even the moderate measure of what nature needs, he would caper unmusically and make trouble for those of his own age and those older. He admired bodily strength as the most perfect good, and used it badly, battering doors and throwing clods; and if anyone was wounded, or he did some other harm, he rejoiced as at a testimony

to his excellence. He lusted out of season and was most violent in assaulting for intercourse. Moreover, envy smouldered in him against his brother, and equally against the Egyptians, because they, the people, admired Osiris in speeches and songs, and at home and at the public shrines all everywhere asked every good thing for him from the gods; and he both was and seemed such. For this reason Typhos even formed a club of foolish boys, for no other purpose — for by nature he could love no one from the heart — but that he might have partisans who were not on Osiris's side. Anyone could easily buy his favour and get from Typhos whatever boys want, if only he whispered something that led to abuse of Osiris. So from childhood their nature promised the difference between their lives.

As the first fork of two roads, diverging little by little, makes the gap ever wider as it goes on, until at last they end in the greatest opposition, so one may see it happen with the young too: a small difference, as it goes on, leads very far apart. But these two did not part even little by little; they turned at once in opposite directions, each having received perfect virtue or perfect vice as his lot. As they grew, the opposition of their choices grew with them, and they gave clearer proofs, marked out in deeds. Osiris, as soon as he reached youth, shared the command with the appointed generals, though the law did not yet give arms to those of his age; but he governed by judgment, being as it were the mind and using the generals as hands. Then, as his nature grew like a plant, it bore ever more perfect fruit. Made commander of the bodyguard, entrusted with the hearings, governing the city, and presiding over the council, he handed back each office far more venerable than he received it. Typhos, appointed treasurer of funds — for their father had decided to test the nature of his sons in smaller tasks — disgraced himself and the man who chose him, being caught in theft

of public money, in taking bribes, and in reckless frenzy in his administration. Moved to another kind of office, to see whether he might after all fit somewhere, he did more shamefully still, and made the part of a good kingdom over which Typhos presided an entire year of ill-omened days. When he went on to other people, the wailing passed on to them. Such was Typhos at ruling men. In private he danced the cordax, gathering the most disorderly of the Egyptians and foreigners, men ready to say and hear, to suffer and to do anything, so that his dining-hall was a workshop of every kind of licentiousness. While awake he snored himself and delighted to hear others snore, thinking the thing some marvellous music; and praise and honours went to whoever drew out the licentious sound longest and rounded it best. One of them, the "bravest" of all, had lost all shame at everything, and, shrinking from nothing disgraceful, won many other prizes,

and some offices fell to him as the wage of shameful frankness. Such, then, was Typhos at home. But when he sat in the guise of one who conducts public affairs, he showed clearly that vice is manifold: it is at strife both with virtue and with itself, and both opposites are its portions. The slack fellow was at once in a rage, and, barking harder than an Epirote dog, he devised misfortune, now for a private person, now for a household, now for a whole city, and rejoiced at working the greater evil, as if washing away the disgrace of his laziness at home with people's tears. In one thing the evil was of benefit: often, at the very point of doing something terrible, his mind would wander and he would fall into strange notions, so that he resembled the nympholepts, contending vehemently about the shadow at Delphi; and in the meantime the man in danger was saved, and no further word was said about him. Or he would be seized by lethargy and be heavy-headed for a time, so that

he was absent, and the memory of recent events had slipped away; and he would wrangle with the administrators about how many grains of wheat a medimnus holds and how many cyathi a chous, displaying a superfluous and absurd sharpness. Sometimes even sleep rescued a man from disaster, falling on Typhos very opportunely; and he would have pitched headlong off his seat, had not some servant dropped his torch and propped him up. So a tragic all-night sitting often ended in comedy. For he did not even do business by day, being by nature hostile to the sun and light and akin to darkness. Though he knew clearly that everyone with even a little share of good sense had condemned his utter ignorance, he did not blame himself for the absurdity; instead he was for that reason the common enemy of people with sense, as though they wronged him because they knew how to judge — he who was helpless at giving counsel but most resourceful at plotting. Folly and madness were joined in him, banes of the soul that strengthened each other, from which other evils

greater and readier still. A race of men to wipe them out neither exists nor could ever arise in nature. All these things the father saw and understood, and he was anxious for the Egyptians; for he was king, and priest, and wise — Egyptian accounts even say that he was a god. For the Egyptians do not disbelieve that countless gods reigned over them one after another before the country was ruled by men and the kings were reckoned by descent, Piromis son of Piromis. When, then, the divine laws were removing him to the greater gods, and the appointed day had come, there had been gathered for it, by proclamation long before, from every Egyptian city, the priests of every brotherhood and the native class of soldiers — these by the compulsion of the law — while the other parts of the peoples were allowed

to watch the election, though not to vote themselves. Swineherds were kept even from the spectacle, and anyone of foreign race who bore arms as a hireling of the Egyptians was likewise forbidden to be present. In this, too, the elder of the sons came off far worse: for Typhos's partisans were swineherds and foreigners, a plainly crazed and numerous crowd. But he yielded to custom, and did not even make an attempt, nor did he think the exclusion terrible but fitting, since the law had condemned it and it was already the nature of those classes. The king is installed for the Egyptians in the following way. There is a sacred mountain beside the great city of Thebes, and another mountain opposite it, with the stream of the Nile between them. Of the mountains, the one opposite

is the Libyan one, and the law is that the candidates for the kingship live on it during the time of preparation, so that they perceive nothing of the choice; the sacred mountain is the Egyptian one. On the summit there is a tent for the king, and beside him those of the priests who are wise in the great wisdom; and the order proceeds through all the nobility, distributing places by the rank of their initiations. These form a first circle about the king, as about a heart; the soldiers, another circle, come next to them. These are still about the hill which, on the long mountain, rises as another mountain, like a breast, and makes the king visible even to those standing farther off. Around the foot of this breast stand those who are allowed to be present at the spectacle. These only applaud whatever they perceive; the others hold the authority of the choice. When the king has performed the divine rites, and those whose task it is have set in motion the whole sacred procession, as though the deity were present and

were helping to think about the choice, when the name of one of the candidates for the kingship is proclaimed, the soldiers raise their hands, while the comasts, the temple-wardens and the prophets cast votes. This group is fewer in number but far more powerful: a prophet's vote counts as a hundred hands, a comast's as twenty, and a temple-warden's as ten. Then another of the royal names, and on it hands and votes. If the count is close, the king, by voting for one side, makes it far greater; or by adding himself to the lesser he brings it to equality. In that case the vote must be postponed and they must hold fast to the gods, sitting longer in attendance and purifying themselves more strictly, until the gods — not through veils, nor through signs on either side, but seen in person — declare the king themselves, and the people hear the divine proclamation with their own ears. These things happened in this way, as it chanced each time, now so, now otherwise. But in the case of Typhos and Osiris, though the priests had done nothing, the gods

were at once clearly seen from the very first, standing by in person and giving orders, each arranging his own worshippers, and it was plain to everyone for what purpose they were present. And yet even had they not been present, every hand and every vote was waiting for the name of the younger of the royal sons. But great things here are announced beforehand by greater preludes, and the divine gives signs for events that will turn out far beyond expectation, whether better or worse. Osiris, then, as was right, stayed where he was, in the place where he had spent the time from the beginning. The other writhed and fretted to know how the election went, and at last could not master himself so as not to make an attempt and corrupt the votes. So, sparing neither himself nor the royal laws, he committed himself to the stream, swept along, swimming, doing and suffering everything, a laughing-stock to those who saw him, and landed across the river. He thought he was unnoticed, except by those he approached and promised money; but everyone knew, and they cursed both him and his scheme. Yet it did not seem right to expose a deranged nature. And this

turned out most grievous for him: he was there himself, he heard it himself, as he was voted down by every judgment and rejected by every hand; and the gods even hurled a curse at him. Then Osiris came when sent for, having done nothing; and gods, priests, in short everyone, met him with sacred honours and sacred pipes at the bank where the barge that takes up the new king from the Libyan side was to put in. At once great signs came from heaven, and from the same place good voices, and every kind of sign by which the future is hunted, lesser and greater, announced the good news of the kingship to the Egyptians — except that the daemons of the worse portion did not seem likely to keep quiet or bear the happiness of men calmly, but seemed about to attack and were swelling with rage. And some plot was signified. When, then, the royal initiation had been completed by the gods and by his father, they foretold

to him clearly, as those who knew clearly, everything else — swarms of good things — but also that he must put his brother out of the way, since he had been born an evil fate for the Egyptians and for his father's house, if he was not to throw everything into confusion; so that he should neither see nor hear of the prosperity and plenty of Egypt under Osiris's reign, for nothing good was bearable to the nature of Typhos. They taught him the twofold substance of souls and the necessary opposition which souls from below bear to those from above. For this reason they thought it right that he should destroy and cut off a nature hostile to the good and divine order, feeling no shame before what people call kinship. When he softened, they told him how much he himself must suffer, and the Egyptians, and their neighbours, and all whom the Egyptians ruled: for the evil was not feeble, nor would ordinary care be enough to fence off and blunt his open and secret attacks. He had champions as well, a powerful band of envious daemons, whose kin he was and by whom he had been thrust forth into birth, so that they might have him as a tool of their wickedness toward men; on that road they had begotten him and reared him

and brought him to birth, and educated him in their own way, a Typhos who would be of great benefit to them. One thing more they think needed for him to lack nothing: to clothe him with the power of office, for so he will be perfect from perfect, both wishing and able to do great evils. "And you," said one of the gods, "they reckon men's gain and their own loss; for the misfortunes of nations are a feast for evil daemons." So again and often they admonished him to send his brother away and let him go to ruin somewhere far off, knowing and seeing Osiris's gentle nature; and because of it they were at last compelled to say that he would hold out for a time, but would give way before he knew it and betray himself and all men, buying with the fine name of brotherly love the greatest misfortunes in fact.

"But if you," he said, "are gracious and helpful, I shall not be afraid of my brother if he stays, and I shall be free of the anger of the daemons; for it is easy for you, if you wish, to heal even what has been overlooked." His father took him up: "You judge wrongly in this, my son. For the divine portion in the cosmos is busy with other things, acting for the most part according to the first power in it, and filled with intelligible beauty. For there is another, supercosmic race of gods there, which holds together all beings down to the last, while it remains itself unswerving and untouched by matter. That is the blessed spectacle for those who are gods by nature, and to see its source as well is more blessed still. That source, by remaining in itself, is overfull of good things, being overfull of itself; and for the others the good is to be turned toward the God who is there. Yet their activity is not simple or of one form; they also take care of portions of the cosmos, bringing the action that is in contemplation down, as far as it admits, into what is under their governance. The pure part of them is ranked immediately under that first substance,

and they in turn set in order those nearest them, and the succession of ranks descends in sequence to the last of beings, and all things enjoy the care of the first through the intermediaries. Yet not equally — otherwise there would be no last — but beings grow weaker as they descend, until at last there is discord and a counterfeiting of order, at the point where the being of beings ceases. Something like this happens with things here. The wandering element of the nature that is in becoming has received the last and most perishable part of the bodily lot; heaven has received the first and imperishable, and has been allotted the corresponding form of soul. What these are there," he said, pointing to the gods, "the daemon is among the much-shaken elements: a reckless and bold nature, which because of its great distance from there does not heed the good order of the divine. Since the dregs of beings are not sufficient for their own preservation — for they flow away beneath and do not abide in being, but imitate it by becoming —

and since the daemons, being kin to the nature here, have been allotted a destructive substance, the divine must of necessity watch over it and give certain beginnings of motion, which the world here follows well for a time, as long as the impulse lasts. Just as puppets worked by strings keep moving even after the one who gave the mechanism its start of motion has stopped, yet do not move without end — for they do not have the source of motion from within themselves, but move only while the power given them is strong and does not slacken as it proceeds farther from its origin — in the same way, my dear Osiris, think that the good and the divine both are and are not of this place, but are sent down from elsewhere. That is why good souls would appear here only rarely, and the visits of the gods

… I once witnessed an initiation in which there were two pairs of eyes, and the lower pair had to close when the upper was looking; and when the upper closed, the lower in turn were opened. Think, then, that this is a riddle of contemplation and action: beings of the middle rank use each in turn, while the more perfect use the better more, and consort with the worse only so far as is necessary. These too, then, are works of gods, who do what is necessary for the cosmos, though these are not goods of the first rank, since men too now manage their households, less or more, and now practise philosophy — and in the latter they are more divine. From this, understand what I am telling you. Do not demand that the gods sit in constant attendance on you, when they have the task of providing

after the model of the makers of machines: to give the beginning of good motion in a state. This is what they do when they fit together a kingship, sending kindred souls down here. For this is a divine and magnificent providence, to care for many myriads of people through one man. From then on, they must be about their own affairs; but you, held fast among alien things, must remember where you come from, and that you fulfil this as a service to the cosmos; you must try to lead yourself upward, and

not let things here leave the better nature behind. They do stretch out a hand where it is in their power. But when matter stirs up its own offshoots for war against the soul, the resistance on this side, without the gods, is small; for each is strong on its own ground. The daemons will first want to make the soul their own, and the attempt goes as follows. It is impossible to be on earth without also having some irrational portion of soul. The many put it in front; the wise man keeps it hanging at his side; but all must have it. Through this, as through something akin to them, the daemons come to the living being, arranging a betrayal; for what happens is exactly like a siege. As coals are affected by torches — they catch fire faster because they are already fit for fire — so the nature of a daemon, being passionate, or rather being passion alive and moving, when it draws near a soul stirs the passion in it and brings the potency into act; for each thing acts by contact, and everything acted upon is made like the agent. So daemons kindle desire, so anger, and the evils akin to these, consorting with souls through the parts that belong to them, which by nature perceive their presence, are moved, and are strengthened by them to rise up against the mind, until they master the whole soul or give up

the attempt. This is the greatest of contests. There is no time, no manner, no place that they leave untried in their assaults; they attack from where no one would expect it; everywhere there are engines, they subdue everything; everywhere there are snares; the war is stirred up from within, until they take the soul or give up. The gods watch these fine contests from above, and in them you will be crowned — would that you might be in the second as well! But there is reason to fear that you may win these and be taken in the others. For when the divine portion of the soul does not follow the worse, but often beats it back and throws it toward itself, nature in time lets that part too be tempered so as to withstand the assaults and, as though glazed, no longer admit the inflows from the daemons. Then the living being truly becomes divine and one whole. And this is "a heavenly plant" on earth, which has received no alien graft so as to bear its fruit, but has changed that too into its own nature. But they, having despaired of it,

then in earnest fight the second contest, to cut it down and wipe it off the earth as something that does not belong to them; for they are ashamed of their defeat if one of another race goes about in their territory as master, being and appearing a trophy of victory over them. Such a man does them damage not only in himself, but draws others too away from their dominion; for when virtue is shown, worse things must perish. For this reason they plot to destroy private man and ruler alike, anyone at all who has slipped the reins of the laws of matter. But here you, being king, could guard yourself more easily than any private person. For they attack from outside, when the inward attempts have failed, by war and faction and whatever injures the body — and by these a king who takes forethought for himself would be least likely to be taken. For it is invincible when strength and wisdom come together; but when they are parted from each other, ignorant force and weak good sense are easy to overcome.

You must surely admire, my son, the conception of our fathers in the sacred images. We Egyptians make the form of the god Hermes double, setting a young man beside an old one, because we think that whoever of us is to be a good overseer must be both intelligent and valiant, since either without the other is incomplete for doing good. For this reason too the Sphinx is set up by us in front of the sacred precincts, a sacred symbol of the union of the goods:

a beast in strength, a human being in wisdom. For strength bereft of intelligent leadership is carried along in a frenzy, confusing and disturbing everything; and mind is useless for action when it is not served by hands. Virtue and fortune come together rarely, but for great things, as they came together in you. So no longer trouble the gods, when you can be saved from your own resources if you wish. It is not right for them to be always away from their own place, lingering among things alien and worse — unless it is also impious to use badly the resources sown in us for our preservation, and for things on earth to be kept in order and in keeping with the order given. For that is to force them to come again, before the appointed times, to care for things here. At those times, when the harmony which they tuned is loosening and growing old, they come again to tighten it, and to rekindle it, as it were, when it is growing cold; and they do this gladly, fulfilling this as a service

to the nature of the cosmos. They also come at other times, when it has been corrupted and broken by the wickedness of those who received it, when things here can be saved in no other way. So God is not moved for small matters, nor when this or that goes wrong. Truly great is that one man for whose sake one of the blessed race will come here. But when the whole order and the great things are perishing, then they must come, to give the beginning of another ordering. So let people who have evils of their own choosing not be indignant, nor blame the gods for not providing for them; for providence demands that they too contribute their own part. In the region of evils it is no wonder that there are evils; the wonder is if anything here is not such. This

… to be at strife with one another over the turning toward virtue and its use. Farewell. As for your brother, if you are wise, prevent your own fate and the Egyptians' by destroying him first; for you may. But if you give in and grow soft, you will wait for the gods too late." With these words he departed by the same road as the gods. The son was left behind, a being too good for the earth, who at once set himself eagerly to banish evils from it, using no force at all; he sacrificed to Persuasion, the Muses and the Graces, bringing everyone willingly into harmony with the law. And when the gods, out of reverence for the king, supplied in abundance all that the air bears and all the gifts of river and earth, he let the people have the enjoyments, while he himself gave up all ease and chose all toil, taking little sleep and a very great share of cares — in a word, being without leisure for the sake of everyone's leisure. That is why he filled individuals, households, kindreds, cities and whole nomes — all people, both those within and those outside — with good things. For he plainly practised virtue,

directing every study and every pursuit to be practised for this one end, and he offered rewards to the best at ruling people and making those they ruled like themselves. Whatever is honoured must grow, and whatever is neglected must perish. So the love of all education grew with it, both the education of the mind and that of the tongue. Those who excelled in such things were no longer to be seen among the common herd, but shone with honours from the king, as men who furnished an art that serves wisdom, since mind goes forth clothed in words; and being dressed well or badly shows the same man seemly or unseemly. So Osiris thought it right to honour preparatory education too, for he thought education the source of virtue. Piety, above all, then more than at any other time made its home among the Egyptians. These are goods of the soul, and the Egyptians flourished in them under Osiris's kingship, so that the land was like a school of virtue, the children looking to the one leader, doing the one thing they saw and saying the one thing they heard. Wealth he himself neglected; but he took every care that all should have it, being most incorruptible and most generous. He remitted taxes for cities, and to those in need

he gave; he raised up what had fallen and healed what was about to fall. One city he raised to greatness, another he adorned with beauty, another that did not exist he founded, another that had been deserted he resettled. Each individual, of course, had to enjoy the common goods; but he did not tire of stooping to care for this or that person too, so that in his time no human being was seen weeping. Nor was Osiris ignorant of who needed what, and what kept so-and-so from being happy. One man longed for just honour, and he gave it; another, because he devoted himself to books and had no leisure to earn his bread, he gave meals in the prytaneum; another cared nothing for human honour and was very well fed by his surplus, but perhaps was ashamed at the public burdens — this too he did not fail to know, but released him from the burden, not because he was pestered but rather pestering the man by giving before being asked, thinking out of reverence for wisdom that such a man should be his own master and free, like a sacred animal released to a god. In short, no one missed his due — unless he was owed some punishment;

to him he did not give his due. For he made it his ambition to overcome even the most shameless by gentleness of mind and kind deeds, and in this way he thought he would get the better of his brother and his conspiracy, changing their natures by the abundance of his virtue — in this one thing mistaken in his judgment. For envy is not stopped by virtue, but rather kindled. If it is its nature to grow upon good things, then the more good things advance, the more its grief at them grows too; and this is what the sullen brother suffered at the reign of Osiris. As soon as Osiris took over the government, he nearly perished, beating his wretched head on the ground and dashing it against columns. For many days he took no food, though he was most gluttonous; he refused drink, though he was most fond of wine. He longed for sleep but got none; he was held by wakefulness, and

tried hard to drive it off, shutting his eyes on purpose to free his soul from the goads of memory. But memory is most contentious toward one who wishes to lay it down, so that even with his eyes shut the image of his ills was there; and if sleep ever crept upon him, he fared more wretchedly in a dream, seeing before his eyes that hill, those votes, all those hands for his brother. When he started up, glad in his hatred of the hard vision, his ears buzzed for a long time with the sound of the acclaimers. Nor could he bear to stay still, his soul fretting; and when he peeped out of the house, misfortunes met him: in speeches, in deeds, in songs, Osiris was all in all — how handsome to look at, how wise in speech, the new king; his greatness of mind not boastful, his gentleness not abject. So he fell sick again and shut himself in, not knowing what to do with his life, neither he nor … His wife too, another monstrous evil, her own beautician, insatiable of theatre and marketplace, wishing and believing that everyone's eyes were fastened on her, had made her husband's fall from the kingship a greater misfortune still, for she thought that otherwise

she would display her public life on a larger stage and luxuriate in the power. Typhos had been captured by her, though he was already an old man, like a boy just beginning in love; and part of his misfortune was his shame before the woman, to whom he had boasted that he would hold the greatest office and share the power with her. Even in private life she was a most conspicuous creature, eager to be admired for the most opposite things: the most feminine of women at inventing luxuries, improving on beauty and adding to nature; the most reckless of men at taking up a scheme and daring an attempt, a busybody and an innovator. For these and other ends she had provided herself with women companions and men clients, all of one mind, and used them for whatever each was fitted, at home and abroad. As for Osiris's wife, that she was a wife who kept to the women's quarters people were reminded only by her little son when he was seen; and yet the child, Horus,

was a rare sight. For Osiris thought a wife's one virtue was that neither her body nor her name should pass beyond the courtyard door. So even reaching the summit of fortune did not move the modest woman from her settled ways; rather she was hidden all the more under the greatness of their power. Nor did he himself exult as though he were happier on that account; he knew that even if he had not obtained it he would have been no less happy. For each person is himself the steward of such happiness, if he wishes to be good. That is why one may see those who live with virtue, private persons and rulers alike, equally content; for every life is material for virtue. It is as we see the actors of tragedy on the stage: whoever has trained his voice well will play Creon and Telephus alike, and the rags will make no difference to his crying out grandly and finely and filling the theatre with the sound of his song; he will present the maidservant and the mistress with the same art, and whatever mask he puts on, the producer of the play requires him to play it well. So God and fortune put lives on us like masks in the great drama of the cosmos, and no life is better or worse than another; each uses it as he can. The good man can live well anywhere, whether he plays the beggar or

the monarch, and will care nothing about the mask. For the tragic actor would be ridiculous if he fled one part and chose another. If he is admired in the part of the old woman, he is crowned and proclaimed; if he disgraces himself in the part of the king, he is hissed and whistled off, and sometimes even pelted with stones. For no life is our own; we wear borrowed lives from outside, while we, the one who uses them from within, make them and show them better or worse ourselves, contestants in living dramas. So we may put them on and change them like clothes. Osiris, then — for he had been taught what is one's own and what is another's — understood that the soul is the measure of happiness. So he kept himself and his household the same in their judgments, as private persons and as rulers, undismayed by externals. But the others

lived by sense, and mind was absent. Lovers of fortune and careless, thinking what was another's their own, they were full of conceit, having waited eagerly for the kingship; and when it did not come to them, they despaired of themselves and thought nothing worth living for. It is worth saying again and often that it is the rule of people without education not to wait for their portion of life, as at table, to come round to them so that they may take it, but to snatch it first and filch it. If such a man gets it, he will be ridiculous as a disorderly fellow-guest and hateful to the one who orders the banquet, disturbing the order by his ill-breeding as far as in him lies; if he fails, he suffers the same and besides will cry like a little boy, clinging to the portion that was carried past and went to his neighbour. All this, or the like, befell Typhos: he was hateful to the gods, he wailed himself, and the matter had become a laughing-stock to the people. Not even the fact that he lay prostrate for many months and was expected to die any day aroused pity; it roused anger in the braver and laughter in the softer-minded, so that the thing was already a proverb and a question put to the pale: "Is your brother doing well?"

He would have perished justly by his own hand, given over to his evil; but as it was, his murderous wife, all too much a woman in dire straits, brought both herself and him back. She always handled him easily; she drew him away from weeping by occupying him with herself, driving out passion with passion and walling off grief with pleasure. So he struggled back to his feet, yielding in turn to the most opposite evils: now he wailed, now he lusted. More licentious boys, and more of them, then poured into the house, and revels and drinking-bouts, to waste the time with them and to soothe the fog of his soul; and they devised

other things, so that they might have the least leisure to remember the good deeds of Osiris. They made swimming-pools, and islands in the pools, and on the islands artificial hot baths, so that they might strip naked with the women in each other's presence and couple shamelessly. While they were about these things, the attempt at tyranny came into their minds, at the prompting of evil daemons, who showed them the way and now openly helped to manage the rest, being present and going about with them. For they could not bear to see their own cause ebbing away dishonoured: wisdom was practised, piety was growing, injustice had been driven out, concord had settled in, and all good things were flowering. Weeping was henceforth a mere word to the Egyptians; all was auspicious, all in good order, the state, like a single living being, having the law as its soul and moving according to it, its parts in harmony with the whole. These things drive the daemons mad; on these they fasten,

the daemons, using people akin to them as instruments. The evil is brewed in two women's quarters. In the royal city there was the commander of the foreigners, who, with his host, had been judged fit to serve as soldiers of the Egyptians. At that time they were waging an unsuccessful war against a part of their own people that had revolted, and some Egyptian villages had suffered badly, the daemons having arranged this for the drama. Visiting this man's wife by day and by night, Typhos's wife — that wily trickster, monkey-like — easily persuades the barbarian, an old and foolish woman, that she cares for her and foresees an evil coming upon them if things go as Osiris intends. For he charges them, she says, with treason, and thinks the war a staged war, the barbarians having divided into two camps by common agreement. "So he has decided," she says, "to bring him back by every force and device, and as soon as he is parted from his arms, to relieve him of command and destroy him miserably, and you, and your children, these noble ones, these lovely nurslings;

these too he has decided to slaughter before they are grown"; and with that she would weep, stroking the children's chins, putting on goodwill through pity. The old Scythian woman wailed at once, thinking she would see the horrors before her eyes and suffer them herself. The other set before her one fright after another, each day a new one, pretending to report secret plans against them: that the Scythian race would be utterly wiped out of the country, and that Osiris was working at this every day, secretly filling up the muster-rolls and making other provisions so that the Egyptians might live by themselves, having either killed or driven out the barbarians. This would be easiest once he had made their commander a private man by sending the tablet of dismissal and brought him under the law; once he had been dealt with, Osiris thinks the rest will be small work. "And now Typhos," she says, "weeps at home; for he is on your side and has always taken the barbarians' part in public life — and it was because of them that we missed the kingship, since they were not present at the time of the proclamation. Otherwise one might now be insulting the Egyptians in one's cups, and you would have their goods, using the masters as slaves. But we were not helped by you then, and now we are unable to help. We have indeed met with misfortune,

now that dangers are drawing near our friends." Having thus outgeneralled the old woman and frightened her to the extreme, as though the dangers were inescapable, when it was enough she brings forward another device to bring the barbarian back out of her fear — the woman having now learned to follow her as she led her mind about — and little by little she strengthened her and filled her with hopes. "But the plan is a great one," she said, "and needs a new kind of daring, so that we may not depend on Osiris to live, and not to live, whenever he pleases." She hinted at the rising dimly at first, then pointed to it, then uncovered it, accustoming her little by little both to hearing it and to daring it, until at last she made the frightened woman bold, showing that Osiris's power is nothing if they so wish. "For law," she said, "and the habit of honour, and what is ancient and ancestral, make the sluggish willing slaves; but the one who throws off the reins finds it weak, and he is free who has the strength, if he is not cowed in his mind by habit. Do not you suffer that, when you are in arms and Osiris is nothing, but prays to the gods, and now does business with

embassies, now judges cases, now does some other peaceful thing. If we join forces and combine — we our noble birth and you your hands — Osiris will never do harm to any Scythian. And you will not seem to be counterfeiting anything great, nor disturbing the affairs of the Egyptians, nor changing the constitution, but establishing it and arranging it better for everyone, by obtaining the rule for Typhos, who was born of the same stock as Osiris, but is older and has more right to reign over Egypt. So the Egyptians are not even likely to rise against you, since the change in the ancestral constitution will not be great. The outward form of rule will be ours, the benefit yours, and you will feast on all Egypt as on a table. Only you undertake to persuade your husband." "And you," she said, "will help me persuade him." So they did. And when he was reported riding ahead, on the one side runners sent on purpose murmured secretly about the plot, announcing by a pretence of secrecy, more plainly than those who shout aloud, what they made as if to hide; on the other, obscure letters troubled him, urging caution. And one man said openly that they must save themselves from the ambush, another more plainly, and yet another and another — all of them

partisans of Typhos and fellow conspirators of the women. On top of everything came the finishing stroke: the women, the authors of the drama, come out to meet him, and Typhos himself, coming out of the city as though for another purpose, meets him secretly, makes a compact about the rule, and persuades him to go straight from there to the deed, even if the royal city had to perish together with Osiris. This too he allowed, since the rest of Egypt would be enough for him; "and besides," he says, "so that your soldiers may grow rich, having enslaved a prosperous city and plundered the wealth of the illustrious in Egypt." This city the good Typhos pledged away in his hatred of its inhabitants for their goodwill toward Osiris; but the Scythian said he would not do it. He had reverence, he said, for the sacred council, the sober people, and the honoured things in the city; he was marching against Osiris not willingly but under necessity, Osiris himself having made the necessity; and if he succeeded in mastering him while the city was saved and the country remained unharmed, he would count it gain that no necessity of a greater evil had arisen. The myth says it will not linger over the sufferings of Osiris; for it is not its nature to dwell persistently on a painful story. Days of ill omen are kept from that time until now because of the sacred tears, and those permitted to see behold their images moving. But this, it says, is worthy also

of common hearing: for his country, for the temples, for the laws, he gave himself up to those who threatened, unless they got him, to destroy everything, and crossed the stream on a merchant ship. At once a guard was set about him, wherever on earth he was, and a barbarian assembly met about what he must suffer. There Typhos begged that he be put to death as quickly and as violently as possible; but the barbarians, though they believed they had been wronged, thought it an outrage and respected his virtue. They imposed exile; then they were ashamed of this too, and wanted the thing to be not exile but removal. They let him keep his money and possessions, though Typhos held these out to them; they touched them no more than temple property. So he was sent off under the escort of a god and of good heroes, to return at the fated times. For it was not right that the worse should prevail in Egypt, and everything change in the shortest time into disorder and dejection, while the sacred soul was in the land; and so that these things might happen, those whose work they are — the daemons — had from the start set themselves against him; and he whom they had put forward, long ago into birth and lately into tyranny, served them by feasting them with every kind of misfortune. Taxes many times greater were at once imposed on the cities, debts that did not exist were invented, and long-buried

debts were dug up. The river-dweller was assigned some inland public burden, and ships were demanded of the inlander, so that no one might have leisure to enjoy what he had. These were the most public of the evils, and there was another still more common. Those who were to be his governors over the provinces he sent out as buyers, selling the cities publicly. Those who had leased the governorship of a province — and especially the youngest of them — since the lease was agreed for one year, thought fit in that year to gather provisions for a dissolute old age. For this too was one of the practices under Typhos: the term of office was fixed by written contract with those who put down the silver. Before, one man was removed from office on a charge of wickedness, while for another the reward of virtue was higher honour, rule over more people, and a longer term. So from then on everyone everywhere wailed, each having an evil of his own to tell; in the assemblies of the peoples and in the council-chambers they were crushed by every kind of evil, so that a single cry, as it were, rose from Egypt to heaven, the echo of the common lament. The gods pitied the race and prepared to defend it. Yet they thought it best not to do so before virtue and vice had been tested still more clearly side by side, so that even people who make the least use of mind might judge by their senses which is better and which worse, and pursue the one and shun the other.

So Typhos set about cutting the kingship of Osiris entirely out of people's memory, and pursued this by many other ways and not least this: he reopened cases already judged, and the one who had been convicted must win. He dealt with embassies, among which anyone who had been helped by that divine tongue was an enemy, and he and his city and his people had to meet with misfortunes. In this helpless state there were two means of approach to him. One was if someone paid money to his wife. She sat as though at a most conspicuous counter, using her women companions as go-betweens for both her body and her business, having turned what of old the Egyptians called a court of justice into a market of verdicts; whoever had dealt with her found Typhos gracious, for in other respects he was tame and docile toward the women's quarters, and knew how grateful he must be to them for having won him the tyranny. This was one resource in difficulty for those who found him hard; another was if one approached one of the murderous company of Typhos's intimates. These were called great and blessed — shrivelled and counterfeit little men. One had to come forward to them and pour out some abuse of Osiris,

fitted out with cleverness; and this was done by those who cared least for virtue and thought it no shame to make gain from every quarter. At once they changed their fortune as they had changed their judgment; for the saying flowed into the tyrant's house and was paraded at table, and so he returned favour for favour. One man did this, and a second, and they profited, but they knew they were hateful to the gods and to sober people; most held out. There was one man, of weight, but brought up by philosophy in a rather rustic way and unpractised in the manners of the city. This man had obtained from Osiris, like everyone else, very many good things: that he himself should be free of public burdens, and that his country should bear its burdens more easily. When many people at that time, for many reasons, were composing verses and writing speeches and hymns to Osiris, showing Osiris gratitude for his kindness, he was as grateful as they, and more, since he was more able; he composed and wrote and sang to the lyre in the Dorian mode, which alone he thought could hold the weight of character and diction. Yet he did not bring it out to the crowd; but if there was a hearing that understood manly words, would not put up with being tickled, and was pierced

to the heart, to that hearing he joined his words. He knew that Osiris above all was an exact judge of such things heard, of speeches for a day and speeches for a long time; yet he refused to say anything about Osiris to Osiris, both because he did not think a speech an equal return for a deed, and because, from the rustic way in which he had been brought up, he shrank from a reputation for flattery. But when Typhos had seized Egypt by force and was ruling as tyrant, this man became more rustic still: then he brought them out, then he showed his speeches, while everyone shuddered to hear them; for he thought it impious not to be openly a hater of those who had done terrible things to the benefactor. He called down the most murderous curses on Typhos, in speech and in writing, and at home and in the marketplace he who had once been blamed for silence was a chatterer. Everywhere in his speeches was Osiris, everywhere in gatherings; wherever he was, Osiris's deeds were sung, and he pressed his stories on those who could not bear them. He paid no heed to old men and friends who admonished him, nor did fear shake him from his impulse; he seemed like a madman, with a kind of free madness. So

he did not stop until he had stood beside Typhos himself, as close as possible, when the chosen men from everywhere were gathered with him, and had drawn out a long speech in praise of his brother, advising him to show virtue, since it belonged to him so closely. Typhos was burning and plainly maddened, but out of shame before the assembly he held his hands, temperate by necessity. One could guess his mind from his face, which changed through varied forms of passion; so in a very short time he became every colour. From then on he was more hostile and did worse. He tore down the good things of Osiris's reign and contrived further evils, shaking the cities whose cause the man pleaded, and devising some evil of his own for him, so that he might never be released to go home, but must stay by compulsion to lament, seeing those he hated prospering. While the stranger was in this plight, a god strengthened him, appearing clearly and bidding him endure. Not years, he said, but months were fated, in which the Egyptian sceptres would hold up the claws of the beasts and hold down the heads of the sacred birds.

The stranger had seen this writing engraved on obelisks and holy shrines, and the god explained to him the meaning of the hieroglyph as well, and gave him a sign of the time. "When," he said, "those who are now in power attempt to innovate even in matters of our worship, expect that after a short while the Giants" — meaning these foreigners — "will be out of the way, driven by their own avenging spirits. And if some part of the faction is left over and not all wiped out at once, and Typhos himself remains in the palace, do not despair of the gods even so. Here is another token for you: when we purify the air about the earth with water and fire, polluted by the breath of the godless, then justice will follow on the rest as well; expect at once the better order, with Typhos out of the way. For such monsters we drive out with fire-bolts and thunder." Then what had long been hard seemed happy to the stranger, and he no longer fretted at his compulsory stay, through which he was to be an eyewitness of the gods' visitation. For it was not humanly possible to guess

how a massed force under arms, whose custom it was to carry iron even in peace, should be beaten with no one opposing it. He reasoned how it might happen, but it seemed beyond reasoning. But when, not long after, a wicked kind of cult — a counterfeit of holiness, like counterfeit coin, which an ancient law banishes from the cities, shutting the impiety outside and far from the walls — when Typhos undertook to bring this in, not in person, for fear of the Egyptian people, but through the barbarians, and to give it a temple in the city, abolishing the ancestral laws, at once the stranger took it to heart that this, then, was the god's prediction: "Perhaps I shall see what follows too." And he looked forward, having learned it on that occasion, to some things that would happen at once concerning Osiris, and others in years not yet come, when it should be the mind of the boy Horus to choose an alliance with the wolf rather than the lion. Who the wolf is, is a sacred account, which it is not holy to disclose even in the form of a myth.

Book Two. From this point the gods began to give signs, since everything everywhere was full of every evil, and belief in providence had already drained out of people's minds, the impious suspicion being borne out by what they saw. Nowhere did any human defence appear, while the barbarians used the city as a camp. But their general was terrified by night — the Corybantes, I suppose, assailing him — and panics seized the army by day. This, happening often, made them

out of their minds; unable to master their judgment, singly and in a body, they all resembled people possessed by the nymphs: now drawing their swords as though already at war, now again lamenting piteously and begging to be saved; leaping up, now they seemed to flee, now to pursue, as if some rising had broken into the city. Yet there was neither a weapon there nor anyone defending it; they were ready prey, given over to Typhos. This much is very clear: that even those who are well prepared, if they are not to have prepared in vain, need God, and that victory comes from nowhere else. That the better-prepared side is likely to win — those who judge thoughtlessly in this way rob the higher cause of its due. For when our own part is complete, God seems superfluous, and when the better-prepared prevail, with no apparent cause other than …

But when what happens has no intermediary and has only the invisible cause, we have nothing but a visible, not merely spoken, proof that gods care for human beings. Of this kind was what happened then. The bold, the victorious, the armoured men, whose every game and every serious pursuit was practice for war and battle, who went to the marketplace in cavalry order and moved by companies at the trumpet — for if one of them needed a huckster or a cobbler, or wanted his sword polished, all went armed for each man's need, so that the phalanx might not be broken up in the streets — these men, who had disarmed people already fallen in spirit, though no one even dreamed of defeating them, fled in flight at a common signal and withdrew from the city, stealing away children, wives and their most precious things, as though it were impossible to plunder openly even the Egyptians' goods. The people, seeing them packing up, did not yet understand what was happening, but despaired of themselves still more; some shut themselves in their houses just as they were, waiting there for the fire; others, choosing iron instead of fire as a lighter instrument of death, bought it, not for any deed but to offer themselves to the slaughter when it came; others set about sailing away and thought of islands, villages and cities beyond the borders. For any place then seemed safer than great Thebes, in which

the palace of the Egyptians had been built. The gods led them on only slowly and little by little … A poor woman, very old, used to sit beside one of the side gates and had a trade, not a fortunate one but a necessary one: to stretch out her hands in case anyone dropped in an obol. She had come very early to her beggar's seat — for the needs of life are terrible at cheating nature of sleep — and as she sat she would, as one does, send off those who were rousing themselves for their work with words of good omen, announcing the good news of the day, praying, and promising that God would be gracious. Seeing from a distance what the Scythians were doing, since it was now clear day and they did not stop, running out and running back like thieves, all carrying baggage, she took it to heart that this was the last sun on which she would see Thebes. For she supposed they were doing this so as to leave nothing of theirs in the city as a pledge, so that as soon as they had moved out they might begin their unjust deeds without fear of losing anything, when …

she overturned her money-cup, and after much wailing and calling on the gods, "But you," she said, "who were driven from your fathers' land and were wandering, Egypt received as suppliants; and she treated you not only as was fitting for suppliants, but thought you worthy of citizenship, shared her honours with you, and last of all made you masters of affairs — so that some Egyptians already play the Scythian, since the pretence even pays. Your ways are held in more honour than the natives'. But why these things? Why are you moving out? Why are you packing and carrying off your goods? Surely the gods do not judge in favour of ingratitude toward benefactors. For they exist, and they will come, even behind Thebes." Having said this, she threw herself face down. A Scythian stood over her with his knife drawn to strike off the woman's head, suspecting that she was reviling them and exposing the night's work; for he thought they were still doing it unnoticed, since none of those who had seen it dared to expose it. And she would have been the iron's work. But someone appeared, whether a god or one sent by a god — at any rate a man was seen, who was plainly indignant; drawing the Scythian upon himself, he met him as he rushed on, forestalled the blow, seized him and threw him down. Another Scythian went at him, and quickly

suffered the same. From then on there was shouting, and people came running together: on one side barbarians, the baggage-carriers, letting go of the mules — as many as the moment of departure had caught, whether about to leave or already gone ahead; for they came back to help their own as quickly as they could; on the other a crowd of the people, a large one. One man is struck and dies, another kills a Scythian, and another Scythian kills the killer; on each side someone was always falling and someone killing. For the people any chance thing was a weapon of necessity; and they could strip the fallen and use their swords, which they took from them. For they were far more numerous than the foreigners: the main body had camped as far from the city as possible, so as to have the least fear of an ambush — a fear the god had not stirred up in them for nothing, to make them let go of the city they held in their hands — while the rest, the smaller part of the host, were up and down the city looking after their belongings so that nothing should be left behind. So the people, many times their number, fell on fewer of them: those who happened to be near the gates, and those who kept arriving to leave. The shout grew louder, and here the gods' part became clearly manifest. For

when the uproar inside the city, however great it was, reached the army of the foreigners as well, each side had long feared the other as plotting. Every man of the people thought this was the appointed day on which Egypt was to be handed over to the barbarians, as had been agreed, and resolved to act and to suffer and to have valour as his burial shroud, rather than suffer what not even a god could have thought fit. So all were driven toward whatever was being done, each wanting to be in it himself, thinking it gain to risk his life while the barbarians were left … The barbarians had stolen out; and thinking they had been found out, they gave up those left behind for lost — though that was perhaps a large part of the army — and fearing for themselves, lest the enemy should come out against them, they fled and encamped farther off, grateful to have saved the larger part when they had been about to risk the whole. Of those left behind, some were in houses; these, because they had long been god-struck and full of suspicion, thought that the Scythians outside were suffering some irremediable evil at the hands of the Egyptians, that a sally had been made against those who had left as against fugitives, and that their camp would at once be plundered; and they thought it would help them to stay where they were

and lay down their arms and sit as suppliants; for it would seem that they alone had stayed behind because they had done no harm to the Egyptians, while the others, fearing to suffer justly for what they had done, had left the city. Only those at the gates, around whom the danger was, knew the truth: that nothing strong was drawn up on the Egyptian side, no hoplite, no weapon, no javelin-man, no javelin. They resolve, as things stood, to master the gates if they could and call back those who had fled in groundless fear; for the whole city could be snatched up like a nest. A fierce battle is joined over it, in which the Egyptians win and sing a paean of victory. This was another blow to the barbarians inside and outside alike: each thought the Egyptians had finished off the other — these thought it of those, and those of these — so that they mourned each other. The victors lost no time in fitting doors to all the gates — no small task in Thebes; the Greeks sing of it as "hundred-gated" — and one of those who had taken part in the fight at the gates ran out from among the arms for this very purpose, reported it, and promised the

Scythians the city. But they let the chance slip in vain, praising and blaming fortune in one moment. For as long as they thought they had escaped the nets, they rejoiced at their safety; afterwards, however, they wanted to break through the wall in order to get into the city again. So invincible a thing is the wisdom of God; neither is a weapon strong nor a mind resourceful for anyone whom God does not help, so that some have even been their own enemies' generals. And it seems to me finely said that a human being is God's plaything, who is always playing with affairs and moving them like pieces on a board. I think Homer was the first of the Greeks to see this, when he staged a contest and set prizes for every kind of competition in honour of Patroclus lying dead; and in every one those who were more expected to win come off worse. Teucer takes second prize to an obscure archer, and

"last comes the best man, driving his single-hoofed horses," and in speed of foot a young man is beaten by an old one, and in the heavy contest Ajax is put to shame — though the poet himself proclaims him by far the best of all those gathered at Ilium, except Achilles. "But skill," he says, "and practice, and age, and natural excellence are all small things beside the divine." The Egyptians, when they had clearly mastered the gates and put the wall between themselves and the enemy, turned on those who had been left behind, apart from one another, many at once: they pelted them, threw javelins, struck and stabbed them; those who had seized some strong place they smoked out like wasps, temples, priests and all — while Typhos complained loudly and shouted, since in matters of belief about the divine too he had turned Scythian, and wanted to send heralds to the barbarians, and was working again to bring the enemy army in, as though nothing irremediable had happened. But the people, all self-commanded and without a general — except that each man, from the gods, was himself

general and soldier, captain and ranker. What would not happen when God wills and gives people the impulse to save themselves by every means? So they no longer entrusted the gates to Typhos, and in other respects the tyranny was lifeless, since what had set it up had been thrown out of the city. There was first an assembly around the great priest; sacred fire was lit, and prayers were offered, of thanksgiving for what had been accomplished and of supplication for what was still to be done. Then they asked for Osiris, since there was no other salvation for their affairs before that. The priest promised him, the gods granting it, and any others who had fallen with him on the charge of being of his mind. It was decided to humour Typhos for a time. Since he had not quickly suffered what was fitting — and what was fitting was that he should become the slaughtered victim and first offering of the war, he who was most to blame for the Egyptians' serving the Scythians for a time — since Justice, being wise and knowing how to husband her times, deferred him, he thought he would get off from the gods entirely. Keeping up the outward form of the tyranny, he collected money more diligently and more shamefully, so that now for the second time he was taking contributions even from his servants, now threatening that he would do some monstrous evil while he could, now again humble

and lamenting, "so that I may not fall from the tyranny," as he said. So crazed was he, and so truly befogged in mind, that he hoped to win over the priest with flattery and money; but for the priest it was not lawful to set silver before the ancestral things. The foreigners, who had been driven off by force and were very far from Thebes, he brought back again by envoys, suppliants and gifts; and every deed and stratagem of his was a brilliant proclamation that he would once more sell out the affairs of Egypt to the barbarians. He plainly wanted above all to be safe himself, as far as depended on his dearest Scythians; failing that, he would gladly not live, rather than see Osiris granted his return and back in power. Now the barbarians were plainly advancing not to reshape the affairs of the Egyptians, as they had done before, but to destroy them root and branch and govern the country in Scythian fashion; and, in a word, the business had the hardest features of both evils, war and faction: of faction, the yieldings and betrayals from within, which wars hardly know; of war, that the danger is common to all — for factions, claiming to save the common good, woo the leadership away from its holders for others, but now the worse features of both were present. So no Egyptian was left to whom the tyrant did not seem odious in his thinking

and in his acts; even the thoroughly wicked were sobered by fear. This was what the gods had resolved to wait for, so that no spark of the opposite party might lie hidden in the state, smouldering, with some excuses for the evil, if not just, at least plausible. Then at last a meeting of gods and elders is held about Typhos, and things long whispered by everyone privately are uncovered: women speaking both tongues, who interpreted for women who did not understand each other — the barbarian's mind to the Egyptian woman, and each to the other — and eunuchs and clerks; all the things prepared against Osiris by Typhos and his wife; and the most terrible proofs of what they had recently attempted: the seizure of strategic places, which he had handed over, and his all but bringing on a siege, so that the terrors might encircle the sacred city; and all his efforts to have the Scythians cross the river to the other side as well, so that the affairs of Egypt might fare badly not from one side only but be seized everywhere from every side, and the people have no leisure to seek Osiris. When these things had been brought to light, the men condemn him to custody, and to stand a second trial over him on what he must suffer or pay;

and the gods praised the councillors present for judging sufficiently, but they themselves voted that, when Typhos should leave this life, they would hand him over to the Avengers and cast him into Cocytus, and at last he would be a murderous daemon of Tartarus, one of the company of the Titans and Giants; that he should never see Elysium even in a dream, and hardly ever look up and behold the sacred light, the sight of good souls and happy gods. So much for Typhos; for all of it may be spoken. What sacred and ineffable thing could there be about an earthly nature? But the story of Osiris is sacred and divine, so that there is danger in setting it out in narrative. Yet his birth and nurture, his preparatory and full education, his greater commands, how he was installed in the great office when gods and divine men held the election, how he ruled it, how the conspiracy was formed against him, how far it prevailed and how it did not achieve everything — these are not unworthy of being told to all, and have been told. Let this be added

too: that the exile was not without profit to the all-blessed man; for at that time he was initiated into, and beheld, the most perfect rites of the gods above, and held up his mind to contemplation, having laid public life aside. Let there be told also his sacred return, and the garlanded peoples who brought him back together with the gods, crossing a whole continent to escort them in procession as they came down; the all-night festivals, the torch processions, the distribution of honours, the year named after him; and his second sparing of his hostile brother, whom he begged off from the people's inflamed anger, asking the gods to save him, acting more leniently than justly. Up to this point let the account of Osiris venture; what follows, says one who touches sacred lore with reverence, let it lie well guarded. What lies beyond would belong to a bold mind and tongue; let it stay in reverent silence, untouched by writings, "lest those for whom it is not lawful cast an eye on it." For both the one who discloses and the one who sees incur the anger of the divine. Boeotian stories tell of those who leapt in and looked on the rites of Dionysus being torn apart. Not knowing is the solemnity of rites; for this reason night is entrusted with the mysteries, and for this reason untrodden caves are dug — times

and places that know how to hide divine work that may not be spoken. Only this, perhaps, is it lawful to say, and we say it, uncovering as far as we can what is not profane: that Osiris was more glorious in old age than in youth, and received from the gods as his reward to preside over the state with a greater token, so as to be shown above suffering anything at human hands; and the happiness which he had handed on to the Egyptians and found faded by the Typhonian times he not only recovered, but by what he added made it beyond comparison with the former, so that the former seemed to have been a prelude to what was to come and only a promise — the age once celebrated by the poets of the Greeks, of whom the maiden now among the stars (Justice, I think, they call her) "was formerly on earth, and met men face to face; never did she shun the tribes of men or of women of old, but sat among them, immortal though she was," and lived under one roof with men. "For they did not yet know grievous strife, nor blameful division, nor the din of battle;

but they lived simply; the harsh sea lay apart, and ships did not yet bring livelihood from afar; but oxen and ploughs, and Justice herself, mistress of peoples, giver of just things, supplied everything" — as long as the earth still fed the golden race. They did not use the sea, he says; people were golden and enjoyed the company of gods. But when ships came into active use for life, Justice withdrew so far from the earth that she is barely seen at night in a clear sky. And yet even now, when she is seen, she holds out to us an ear of grain, not a rudder. Perhaps now she may come down and speak with us face to face again, when farming is earnestly pursued and seafaring is earnestly avoided. These things, then, sung of her long ago by the poets, belonged to no other time than that of the more glorious kingship

of Osiris. If the gods did not, in bringing him back from his removal, put everything into his hands all at once, let us make nothing of that. The nature of a state does not admit sudden change, toward the best any more than toward the worse. For vice is self-taught; virtue is acquired with toil. There had to be an interval for those who purify beforehand, for the divine to proceed at leisure and in order; and he had, before he was busy, to see many things and hear many things. Much, surely, is hidden from a king himself … But we must now take care not to dance out any of the things not to be spoken. May the gods be gracious to us. As for the things told of old in myths about brothers, and what is now

seen, something marvellous appears, worth pondering: whether, when somewhere a nature arises that differs not a little but very greatly, either better or worse — an unmixed virtue, say, compared with vice, or vice compared with virtue — its opposite also grows up close by, beside it, so that things so far apart come from one hearth and the two shoots have one root. Let us inquire of philosophy, then, what she will give as the cause of this paradox. She will perhaps answer, borrowing something from poetry too: "O men, two jars stand on the floor of Zeus, of the gifts he gives, one of evils, the other of blessings." For the most part he pours from each in equal measure, or a little less from one, and mixes them, so that people have them in proportion to their nature. But when at some time he pours unmixed from one portion, and there comes to be

one of the children who is wholly blessed or wholly wretched, then for the rest what remains is wholly the other. For God the steward will make up the deficit, since the outlay from the two jars must be equal; or rather, from the beginning there are in families equal seeds from both, and both become one by reason of their common nature. But when one of them, separated out in whatever way, has spent one part in advance, it leaves the rest unmixed. Saying this, she might persuade us, since we see also that the fruit of the fig is the sweetest of all, while its leaves, bark, root and trunk are all full of acrid sap. For the nature of the tree seems to spend whatever worse it has entirely on the inedible parts, and to leave the best pure in the fruit. For this reason, too, farmers' sons — let us put up with homely images as well, if they will help us more toward accepting the truth — taught by nature

without being taught, plant foul-smelling plants beside fragrant ones and sharp beside sweet, so that these, drawing to themselves by kinship whatever bad the earth has interwoven in it, may leave the better juice and scent alone and purified in the better roots. And this is a purification of the garden-bed. From the argument it follows, then, like a geometrical corollary that comes to light along with another theorem, that utterly wicked elder children are born in families. And this becomes a purification of the seeds in a kindred, when it prepares the birth of an unpolluted and pure virtue. So it turns out that what is most closely related seems most alien of all. This does not much tend to happen among those who are in a natural state, half-bad and half-good; but it did happen with those who went beyond nature and were allotted separately the portions that nature holds interwoven and gives; and in these it would have been a wonder if it had not happened. So much is enough from this argument. Another question that comes round seems to require another argument. That

the same things often happen in different places and times, and that people in old age become spectators of things they heard about as children, when books told of their grandfathers — this seems to me the most paradoxical of all, and, if it is not to remain a paradox, worth explaining. Let us speak, then, having found a fitting starting-point; for this is neither a small nor an easy piece of philosophy. Let us think of the cosmos as one whole made up of its parts. We shall think of it as flowing together and breathing together, for so it would preserve its oneness; and we shall hold that its parts are not without sympathy for one another. For how could they be one unless they were joined by nature? They will act and be acted upon from and on one another; and some will only act, others only be acted upon. Coming to the question with this hypothesis, we would reasonably make the blessed body that moves in a circle the cause of things here

below. For both are parts, and stand in some relation to one another. If there is coming-to-be in the things around us, the cause of coming-to-be is in the things above us, and from there the seeds of events come down here. If someone should add — astronomy supplying the proofs — that there are periods of the stars and spheres that bring them back to their former positions, some simple and some compound, he would be in one respect an Egyptian and in another a Greek, and would be perfectly wise from both, joining mind to science. Such a man, then, would not deny that when the same motions return, the effects return together with their causes, and that lives on earth are the same as those of old — births, upbringings, minds and fortunes. So we should not wonder if we see a very ancient history come alive — and indeed we have seen it — fitting at every point, both in

what had already blossomed and in what blossomed in the months that followed, with what the story disclosed, while the forms hidden in matter fitted the secrets of the myth. What these are it is not yet lawful for me to declare. One will guess one thing, another another, and people will bend over the Egyptian writings in their greed for the future with which the myth has trumpeted in their ears, drawing from there the riddling likeness to present events. But these guesses neither agree with one another nor reach the truth, nor will those who attempt them act piously; these things must for now stay buried, "for the gods keep hidden the livelihood of men."

Pythagoras of Samos the wise — but he says he was not wise, only a spectator of the things that are and come to be; for he had been summoned into the cosmos as into a sacred festival, to watch what happens. Let us reason from this what kind of spectator would keep good order. Or need one say something clear and obvious: that it is the one who waits in his place for each thing shown as it comes out in order from behind the curtain? But if someone forces his way into the stage-building, or, as the saying goes, plays the peeping dog at it, wanting to look over the whole apparatus at once through the proscenium, against him the judges arm the whip-bearers; and even if he escapes notice, he would know nothing clearly, having barely seen things confused and indistinct. There are indeed some things

that the law in the theatres has announced beforehand, and someone must come out first and tell the people what they will shortly see. He does no wrong, for he serves the president of the games, from whom he learned what he knows; he did not meddle to find it out, nor move the immovable for that purpose. And having learned it, he must keep silent until he is urged to make it public, since the law does not always allow even the contestants to know the time of the contest; they must wait for the signal for their entrance to be sent down. In the same way, let the one to whom God communicates the preparations of what lies in store in the nature of life revere the honour and keep silence no less — if not more — than those who have not heard. For one who is in ignorance will conjecture; and the likely

has more room and is the safest, and there is more talk about it; but knowledge of the truth is fixed, and its account is fixed. Yet this too the wise man will keep hidden, since God has deposited it with him as a kind of trust. People, too, hate babblers. And one whom God does not think fit to be an initiate, let him neither leap ahead nor eavesdrop; for people hate busybodies too. Nor is it reasonable for one to fret who will shortly get the same as others. A short time decides what each deserves, and in the end events become common sights and common hearing: "The days to come are the wisest witnesses."