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Isis nursed the child by putting her finger into his
mouth instead of the breast; and in the night-time she
would by a kind of lambent fire singe away what was
mortal about him. In the mean while, herself would be
turned to a swallow, and in that form would fly round
about the post, bemoaning her misfortune and sad fate;
until at last, the queen, who stood watching hard by,
cried out aloud as she saw her child all on a light flame,
and so robbed him of immortality. Upon which the Goddess discovered herself, and begged the post that held up
the roof; which when she had obtained and taken down,
she very quickly cropped off the bushy heath from about it
and wrapping the trunk in fine linen and pouring perfumed
oil upon it, she put it into the hands of their kings; and
therefore the Byblians to this very day worship that piece
of wood, laying it up in the temple of Isis. Then she
threw herself down upon the chest, and her lamentations
were so loud, that the younger of the king's two sons died
for very fear; but she, having the elder in her own possession, took both him and the ark, and carried them on
shipboard, and so took sail. But the river Phaedrus
sending forth a very keen and chill air, it being the dawning
[p. 79]
of the morn, she grew incensed at it, and dried up its
current.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 4.
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