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And in the first place where she could take rest, and found herself to be now at liberty and alone, she opened the ark, and laid her cheeks upon the cheeks of Osiris, and embraced him and wept bitterly. The little boy seeing her came silently behind her, and peeping saw what it was; which she perceiving cast a terrible look upon him in the height of her passion; the fright whereof the child could not endure, and immediately died. But there are some that say it was not so, but that in the forementioned manner he dropped into the sea, and was there drowned. And he hath divine honors given him to this very day upon the Goddess's account; for they assure us that Maneros, whom the Egyptians so often mention in their carols at their banquets, is the very same. But others say that the boy was named Palaestinus or Pelusius, and that the city of that name was so called from him, it having been built by the Goddess. They also relate that this Maneros, so often spoken of in their songs, was the first that invented music. But some there are that would make us believe that Maneros was not the name of any person, but a certain form of speech, made use of to people in drinking and entertaining themselves at feasts, by way of wishing that all things might prove auspicious and agreeable to them; for that is the thing which the Egyptians would express by the word Maneros, when they so often roar it forth. In like manner they affirm that the likeness of a dead man, which is carried about in a little box and shown at feasts, is not to commemorate the disaster of Osiris, as some suppose, but was designed to encourage men to make use of and to enjoy the present things whilst they have them, since all men must quickly become such as they there see; for which reason they bring it into their revels and feasts.

[p. 80]

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load focus Greek (Gregorius N. Bernardakis, 1889)
load focus English (Frank Cole Babbitt, 1936)
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