Set or Typho is represented as the brother of Osiris whom he slew.
Without here going into the question of relationship between Typhaon
and Typhoeus, we may feel tolerably certain that the fire-breathing
hurricane-monster Typhaon of Homer, and the hundred-headed,
fierce-eyed roarer Typhoeus--son of Tartarus, father of Winds and
Harpies--represent the same ferocities of Nature. No fitter place
was ever assigned him than the African desert, and the story of
the gods and goddesses fleeing before Typhon into Egypt, and there
transforming themselves into animals, from terror, is a transparent
tribute to the dominion over the wilderness of sand exercised by the
typhoon in its many moods. The vulture-harpy tearing the dead is his
child. He is many-headed; now hot, stifling, tainted; now tempestuous;
here sciroc, there hurricane, and often tornado. It may be indeed that
as at once coiled in the whirlwind and blistering, he is the fiery
serpent to appease whom Moses lifted the brasen serpent for the worship
of Israel. I have often seen snakes hung up by negroes in Virginia,
to bring rain in time of drouth. Typhon, as may easily be seen by the
accompanying figure (14), is a hungry and thirsty demon. His tongue is
lolling out with thirst. [136] His later connection with the underworld
is shown in various myths, one of which seems to suggest a popular
belief that Typhon is not pleased with the mummies withheld from him,
and that he can enjoy his human viands only through burials of the
dead. In Egypt, after the Coptic Easter Monday--called Shemmen-Nesseem
(smelling the zephyr)--come the fifty-days' hot wind, called Khamseen
or Cain wind. After slaying Abel, Cain wandered amid such a wind,
tortured with fever and thirst. Then he saw two birds fight in the
air; one having killed the other scratched a hole in the desert sand
and buried it. Cain then did the like by his brother's body, when a
zephyr sprang up and cooled his fever. But still, say the Alexandrians,
the fifty-days' hot Cain wind return annually.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account