They believe also that the sun and moon do not go
in chariots, but sail about the world perpetually in certain
boats; hinting hereby at their feeding upon and springing
first out of moisture. They are likewise of the opinion
that Homer (as well as Thales) had been instructed by
the Egyptians, which made him affirm water to be the
spring and first original of all things; for that Oceanus
[p. 95]
is the same with Osiris, and Tethys with Isis, so named
from τίτθη, a nurse, because she is the mother and nurse
of all things. For the Grecians call the emission of the
genital humor ἀπουσία, and carnal knowledge συνουσία: they
also call a son υἱός, from ὕδωρ, water, and ὗσαι, to wet; and
likewise Bacchus ὕης, the wetter, they looking upon him as
the lord of the humid nature, he being no other than
Osiris. For Hellanicus hath set him down Hysiris, affirming that he heard him so pronounced by the priests; for so
he hath written the name of this God all along in his history, and that, in my opinion, not without good reason,
derived as well from his nature as his invention.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.