Plutarch is our principal authority for the legend of Osiris. A complete
version of the tale is not to be found in Egyptian texts, though these
confirm the accounts given by the Greek writers. The following is a
brief account of the myth as it is related in Plutarch's _De Iside et
Osiride_:
Rhea (the Egyptian Nut, the sky-goddess) was the wife of Helios (Ra).
She was, however, beloved by Kronos (Geb), whose affection she returned.
When Ra discovered his wife's infidelity he was wrathful indeed, and
pronounced a curse upon her, saying that her child should not be born
in any month or in any year. Now the curse of Ra the mighty could not
be turned aside, for Ra was the chief of all the gods. In her distress
Nut called upon the god Thoth (the Greek Hermes), who also loved her.
Thoth knew that the curse of Ra must be fulfilled, yet by a very cunning
stratagem he found a way out of the difficulty. He went to Silene,
the moon-goddess, whose light rivalled that of the sun himself, and
challenged her[2] to a game of tables. The stakes on both sides were
high, but Silene staked some of her light, the seventieth part of each
of her illuminations, and lost. Thus it came about that her light wanes
and dwindles at certain periods, so that she is no longer the rival of
the sun. From the light which he had won from the moon-goddess Thoth
made five days which he added to the year (at that time consisting of
three hundred and sixty days) in such wise that they belonged neither
to the preceding nor to the following year, nor to any month. On these
five days Nut was delivered of her five children. Osiris was born on the
first day, Horus on the second, Set on the third, Isis on the fourth,
and Nephthys on the fifth.[3] On the birth of Osiris a loud voice was
heard throughout all the world saying, "The lord of all the earth is
born!" A slightly different tradition relates that a certain man named
Pamyles, carrying water from the temple of Ra at Thebes, heard a
voice commanding him to proclaim the birth of "the good and great king
Osiris," which he straightway did. For this reason the education of
the young Osiris was entrusted to Pamyles. Thus, it is said, was the
festival of the Pamilia instituted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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