The myth of Osiris was perhaps the most popular of all the
Egyptian stories. Pieces of this story have been found throughout Egypt. One of
the most appealing aspects of the Osiris myth is the human-like behavior of the
gods within the story. Many of the other gods of the Egyptian pantheon were
rather emotionless and their stories far less interesting. With the Osiris
story, the gods display a broad range of emotions that made them more real to
mere mortals.
Egyptian hieroglyphics do not normally include vowels, so
the exact transliteration and pronunciation remains unknown. The name Osiris is
Latinized Greek for the original Egyptian name, transliterated into Latin
script as Wsjr. Various versions include: Asar, Asaru, Aser, Ausar, Ausare,
Auser, Ausir, Usir, Usire, Wesir and Yasar. Gods sometimes had different names,
as did all of the latter-day pharaohs. So, we would need to know all of the
names of a pharaoh or a god before we could accumulate all of their background
information.
Like all very old myths, there are many versions of each of
the stories in the block of myths which comprise the Osiris legend.
The key players are,
•
Osiris—king of the gods and ruler of all Egypt.
•
Isis—sister and wife of Osiris.
•
Sett—brother of Osiris.
•
Nephthys—sister and wife of Sett.
• Horus—son
of Isis and Osiris, conceived after the death of the father.
The name “Isis” is Greek for the Egyptian frequently
transliterated as Aset or Iset. The “t” ending is frequently taken as feminine.
Sett is an obvious exception to this rule, but it may indicate that the gender
of this god may have changed in the distant past, or it may indicate a feminine
or matriarchal side.
“Sett” is an alternate spelling used in this book to keep
from confusing the god’s name with the common English word of the same
spelling. “Set” is the most common transliteration of the Egyptian. In Greek,
he is called Seth. Other transliterations include Setekh, Setesh, Sutekh and
Suty.
“Horus” is an alternate spelling of the Greek “Horos.”
Egyptian has been transliterated as Her, Heru and Hor.
“Nephyths” is Greek for Egyptian—Nebet-het or Nebt-het.
In the Beginning
Long before Ra, the sun god, had grown old and had left
Earth to dwell solely in the sky, he had ruled the Earth and all of its
inhabitants. He was able to see enough of the future to realize that any
children by Nut would overthrow him as king. This is similar to other myths
whereby god-kings feared being overthrown by their own children, including the
gods of Greek mythology. With his great power, Ra commanded that Nut should not
be able to bear any child on any day of the year.
This curse greatly distressed Nut. She knew that it could
not be reversed. She consulted Thoth (Greek for Tehuty or Djehuty), a god of
wisdom, education and writing. If anyone could solve her curse, he could.
Thoth reasoned a way to get around Ra’s command. In the act
of superior cunning, he challenged Khonsu, the Moon-god, to a contest of
checkers. For each game that Thoth would win, Khonsu had to give up a tiny
portion of his light. Game after game, Thoth continued to win, and Khonsu
ultimately lost a significant percentage of his light. Finally, Khonsu would
play no longer. Thoth gathered up all the light he had won and from it
fashioned five additional days that would belong to no year. Until then, a year
had consisted of 360 days—the number of degrees in a circle. These new days
would become festival days between one year and the next. Because of the
losses, Khonsu could no longer shine at constant brightness throughout the
month, but would have to grow dimmer toward the end of each month, and could only
grow in brightness after the end of each month.
Finally, Nut was able to have children. On the first
festival day, she bore Osiris. Then, on each successive day, she gave birth to
another god—Horus the Elder, Sett, Isis, and Nephthys. Ra’s curse had been
fulfilled to the letter, but also had been defeated on a technicality.
When Osiris came of age, he married his sister. Likewise,
Sett married Nephthys.
Conflict in the Land
Osiris, through the wisdom of his wife, became king of all
Egypt—a land called in the early days, Kemet (from km, which means black, like
the dark, rich soil of the Nile flooding).
Humans had not yet discovered agriculture and frequently had
turned to cannibalism in order to survive. They were a violent, warring lot,
and this greatly distressed Isis. She discovered wild wheat and barley which
grew throughout the land. Osiris developed methods of cultivating these as
crops and taught humans the art of agriculture. He also taught them how to bake
bread from the wheat and how to brew beer from the barley. He taught them the
arts of music and poetry.
With every good thing that Osiris and his wife did for the
people of the world, Sett became more and more envious. The more people loved
the god-king, and his wife, the more Sett wanted to destroy them and to take
the place of his brother on the throne.
Osiris had gone on a long trip to other nations to spread
the knowledge of civilization to other peoples. Isis ruled while he was away.
When the king returned, Sett was among the first to welcome his brother back,
but the younger, jealous God had conspired with 72 of his wicked friends to
defeat Osiris.
Sett had obtained the exact dimensions of his older brother
and had commissioned the construction of an elaborate box to be made of cedar
and ebony, plus gold and ivory. In celebration of his brother’s return, Sett
threw the richest possible feast and invited his most loyal friends. After
Osiris had grown relaxed and happy with song, food, and wine, Sett brought out
the elegant chest he had commissioned. He announced to the crowd that he would
give this fine box to whoever would fit inside the chest perfectly.
Several of the guests tried to fit within the finely made
chest, but some were too short, too tall, too fat or too thin. Finally, Osiris
asked if he could try out the box. As the king hunkered down into the box, all
of the guests gathered around in anticipation.
Osiris cried out that the fit was snug. “The chest is mine!”
Sett hissed with glee, “Yes, my brother. And it will be
yours forever.” With that, Sett slammed the lid down and as many guests as
could reach the box helped to nail the lid shut. They sealed every crack with
molten lead and tossed the chest into the Nile.
The Search for Osiris
The river carried the chest downstream, and it came to rest
at the base of a tamarisk tree. Soon, the tree grew around the chest, hiding it
from view. The mayor of the town saw that the tree had grown more beautiful
than any other and claimed it for himself, not realizing that it contained the
body of Osiris.
Isis looked far and wide for her husband’s body. Following
all of the clues, she came to the town where the tamarisk tree grew. Isis, in
disguise, went to work for the mayor’s wife. While there, she grew fond of
their children and offered to make one of them immortal. While she was passing
the child through flame to burn away the mortal flesh, the mother attacked
Isis, not understanding the great honor the goddess had intended to bestow on
her child. Thus, the mayor’s child lost its chance at immortality.
Suddenly, Isis took off her disguise and revealed her true
nature. The mayor and his wife fell down in terror asking what they could do
for the goddess to win her pleasure. Isis asked only for the tree and its
contents. When she retrieved her husband’s body, she let the mayor and his wife
keep the tree, and it became the most prized possession in the town because it
had held the physical body of a god.
Isis attempted to use her own magic and that of Thoth to
restore her husband’s form long enough to conceive a son. Before she could
finish, Sett discovered the body of Osiris and cut it into fourteen parts and
scattered them up and down the Nile Valley.
Again, Isis searched, this time for the various parts of her
husband’s body. After she had gathered them, she had Thoth help her make her
husband whole long enough to acquire his seed. She immediately became pregnant
with a son, whom she would come to name Horus.
Horus Against Sett
For years, Isis protected her son from discovery by Sett and
his evil friends. When Horus came of age, he set out to challenge his uncle for
the throne of Egypt.
The conflict between Horus and Sett took many forms. In one
instance, both agreed to take the appearance of hippopotami and to fight each
other under water. Isis, fearing for her son, fashioned several harpoons and
took flight to throw them at Sett. When she threw the first one, Horus cried
out, “Mother, stop! You’ve hit your own son!” After a few minutes of searching,
she found Sett and threw one harpoon after another. The first several either
missed or bounced off. Finally, a harpoon struck Sett squarely and wounded him.
Sett cried out for mercy and Isis took pity on him. She
helped him to the shore and nursed his wounds.
When Horus heard what his mother had done, he grew so angry
with her that he cut off her head and hid it from her in the desert mountains,
west of the Nile Valley.
Realizing the mistake Horus had made, Ra, the sun god, came
to the aid of Isis and helped to restore her head. In addition, he fashioned a crown
of a cow’s head and horns to give her added protection. Ra then punished Horus
for what he had done to his mother.
Despite the leniency shown him, Sett still wanted to
overcome his nephew. While Horus was recovering from the wounds Ra had given
him, Sett plucked out his eyes so that the young god was suddenly blind.
Thoth, referring to the ancient texts, found a formula from
which he fashioned two replacements so that Horus could once again see.
In yet another story, Ra commanded the Ennead (council of
gods) to ferry to the Island-of-the-Middle-Ground and to judge between the two
opposing sides—Horus and Sett. Ra also commanded them to tell Nemty (Anti or
Antaeus), the ferryman, not to take on as a passenger any woman with the
likeness of Isis. So, Horus, Sett and the members of the Ennead crossed over to
the island and attempted to negotiate a peace.
Isis, fearing that she and her son would lose to Sett,
turned herself into an old woman and tempted Nemty with a single, gold ring as
payment for passage to the island.
Once on the island, Isis turned herself into an pretty
maiden so that Sett would be attracted to her. Sett took a break from the
meeting to be with the beautiful maiden, and Isis told him that her husband had
died and that a stranger had claimed all her husband’s property. The same
stranger had threatened to beat her son and to throw him out. She begged Sett
to become her son’s protector.
Overcome with sympathy, Sett objected to the stranger’s
attempt to take their property, especially with the son of the former owner
still there. Sett said that the stranger should be beaten with a rod, expelled,
and the son be put in his father’s position.
At that moment, Isis turned herself into a bird and soared
upward to a light in an acacia tree. She called out to Sett, “Be ashamed! Your
own mouth has said it, and your own cleverness has judged you. What more can
you say now?”
Sett became humiliated and protested to Ra how Isis had
deceived him. Ra told Sett, “See you have judged yourself. What more do you
want then?”
Sett condemned Nemty and demanded that the ferryman be
punished because he had taken Isis to the island. So, Nemty was summoned before
the Ennead, and his toes were removed. And Nemty gave up gold from that day
forward.
In a final series of battles, Sett was ultimately defeated
and the members of his forces were scattered across the world.
