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Osiris therefore and Isis passed from the number of
good Daemons into that of Gods; but the power of Typhon
being much obscured and weakened, and himself besides in great dejection of mind and in agony and, as it were, at
[p. 91]
the last gasp, they therefore one while use certain sacrifices to comfort and appease his mind, and another while
again have certain solemnities wherein they abase and
affront him, both by mishandling and abusing such men as
they find to have red hair, and by breaking the neck of an
ass down a precipice (as do the Coptites), because Typhon
was red-haired and of the ass's complexion. Moreover,
those of Busiris and Lycopolis never make any use of
trumpets, because they give a sound like that of asses.
And they altogether esteem the ass as an animal not clean
but daemoniac, because of its resemblance to Typhon;
and when they make cakes at their sacrifices upon the
months of Payni and Phaophi, they impress upon them an
ass bound. Also, when they do their sacrifices to the Sun,
they enjoin such as perform worship to that God neither
to wear gold nor to give fodder to an ass. It is also most
apparent that the Pythagoreans look upon Typhon as a
daemoniac power; for they say he was produced in an
even proportion of numbers, to wit, in that of fifty-six.
And again, they say that the property of the triangle
appertains to Pluto, Bacchus, and Mars; of the quadrangle
to Rhea, Venus, Ceres, Vesta, and Juno; of the figure of
twelve angles to Jupiter; and of the figure of fifty-six
angles to Typhon;—as Eudoxus relates.
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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