"The world," says Menu, "was all darkness, undiscernible, undistinguishable, altogether in a profound sleep, till the Self-Existent, Invisible God (Brahm), making it manifest with five elements and other glorious forms, perfectly dispelled the gloom. Desiring to raise up creatures by an emanation from his own essence, he first created the waters, and inspired them with power of motion; by that power was produced a golden egg, blazing like a thousand stars, in which was born Brahma, the great parent of national beings, that which is the invisible cause, self-existent, but unperceived. This divinity having dwelt in the Egg through revolving years, himself meditating upon himself, divided into two equal parts, and from these halves he framed the heavens and the earth, placing in the midst the subtil ether, the eight points of the world, and the permanent receptacle of the waters." The above is Maurice's translation. Sir William Jones renders it:--"The sole, self-existent power, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first, with a thought created the waters, and placed in them a productive seed. That seed became an egg, bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams, and in that egg was born himself, in the form of Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits." Aristophanes, in his Comedy of the Birds, is thought to have given the notions of cosmogony, ancient even in his days. "Chaos, Night, black Erebus, and wide Tartarus first existed: there was neither earth, nor air, nor heaven; but in the bosom of Erebus black-winged Night produced an Aerial Egg, from which was born golden-pinioned Love (Phanes), and he, the Great Universal Father, begot our race out of dark Chaos, in the midst of wide-spreading Tartarus, and called us into light." We find this conception clearly embodied in one of the Orphic fragments, the Hymn to Protogones, who is equivalent to Phanes, the Life-giver, Priapus, or Generator. "I invoke thee, oh Protogones, two-fold, great, wandering through the ether; Egg-Born rejoicing in thy golden wings; Bull-faced, the Generator of the blessed and of mortal men; The much-renowned Light, the far celebrated Ericapæus; Ineffable, occult, impetuous all-glittering strength; Who scatterest the twilight cloud of darkness from the eyes, And roam'st through the world upon the flight of thy wings, Bringing forth the brilliant and all-pure light; wherefore I invoke thee, as Phanes, As Priapus the King, and as the dark-faced splendour,-- Come, thou blessed being, full of Metis (wisdom) and generation, come in joy To thy sacred, ever-varying mysteries."