Isis

Isis bribed Anty, the ferryman of the gods, to carry her to the Middle Island, where the divine tribunal had moved. The account appears in Papyrus Chester Beatty I, which sets out the dispute between Horus and Seth. Set had excluded Isis from the court. She changed herself into a beautiful young woman, and Set approached her secretly. She told him that her husband, a shepherd, had died and left her with a young son who cared for his father’s cattle. A stranger had then threatened to beat the boy, take the cattle, and drive him away. Isis asked Set whether he would help the son against the stranger. Set agreed that the father’s property should pass to his son, and that the stranger should not take it. Isis then revealed that the story concerned Set himself. Osiris was the dead father, Horus was the son, and Set was the stranger who had seized what belonged to another. Set had judged the same case that divided him from Horus. The gods therefore had to consider whether Horus should inherit Osiris’s authority.

After ten months of pregnancy, Isis gave birth to Horus in the papyrus marshes of Chemmis. The magical accounts of his childhood are preserved in sources such as the Metternich Stela. Seth had murdered Osiris, so Isis hid the infant from him and raised him to avenge his father. This child was called Horus the Child, or Horus, son of Isis, to distinguish him from Horus the Elder. Isis was sometimes forced to leave him while she searched for food. On one such occasion, she returned to find Horus too weak and ill to suckle. She mourned and said that her family were either in another realm or hostile to her. The marsh-dwellers shared her sorrow but could not help. A local wise woman then arrived, consoled Isis, and offered guidance. The magical accounts usually describe Horus as suffering from poison after the bite of an earth-dwelling snake. Seth is generally treated as the instigator, since sending a dangerous animal against an enemy was a recognised Egyptian curse. Isis called on Nut, her mother, and Geb, her father, who controlled the earth snakes. In other versions, she challenged the creator sun god to heal the innocent child. The creator sent one of his manifestations or attendant deities. Other gods protected Horus whenever Isis had to be absent, and the marsh inhabitants could take their place in literary spells. Through hiding, magic, and this protection, Isis kept Horus alive in Chemmis. He grew there as Horus the Child and later confronted Seth.

Isis left Horus in the marshes of Chemmis while she sought food. The protective spells for this danger are preserved on magical stelae, including the Metternich Stela. Isis had hidden the child from Seth’s hostility. When she returned, she found Horus too weak and ill to suckle. She lamented that her family were either in another realm or hostile to her. The marsh-dwellers shared her sorrow but could not help. A local wise woman arrived and consoled Isis. The danger is often presented as poisoning. An earth-dwelling snake bites the infant, and Horus suffers convulsions, dribbling, and a high temperature. Seth is usually treated as the force behind the attack, since sending a dangerous animal against an enemy was a recognised Egyptian curse. Isis calls upon powers that can protect and restore her child. In some spells, she appeals to Nut and Geb, who controls the earth snakes. In others, she challenges the creator sun god to heal the innocent child. Isis uses spells to drive the poison from Horus and restore his breath. The words name the danger and demand that it leave the child. Water poured over the words and images on magical statues and stelae could then be used for bathing or drinking. Horus is shown as a child mastering crocodiles, snakes, and scorpions. These images and spells protect him from the creatures that threaten him. Isis continues to hide Horus while bringing him up to avenge Osiris. She warns against Seth, changes her form when necessary, and uses magic to prevent him from finding or killing the child. Horus survives his hidden childhood and grows towards his conflict with Seth.

Seth and his followers plotted against Osiris in the twenty-eighth year of his reign. Plutarch records this version in Isis and Osiris, although some accounts give the twenty-eighth year of Osiris’s life instead. Seth secretly measured Osiris and had a chest made to fit him. At a feast, he offered the chest to whoever could lie inside it. After the others had tried, Osiris entered. The conspirators shut the lid, fastened it with nails, sealed it with molten lead, and cast it into the Nile. The river carried it through a mouth of the Nile to the sea. Isis was away at Coptos when she heard a lament from the north. She disguised herself and began searching for Osiris. She travelled through Egypt and foreign lands, asking whether anyone knew what had happened to the chest. She questioned children who had seen Seth’s accomplices carrying the body. They told her that it had been taken through a mouth of the Nile to the sea. Isis also learned that Nephthys, who had been in love with Osiris, had deceived him into lying with her. Isis inferred this from a melilot garland that Osiris had left with Nephthys. Seth later found the chest while hunting by moonlight. He recognised Osiris’s body, tore it into pieces, and scattered them across Egypt. Isis set out again to recover the parts. She travelled through the marshes in a boat made from papyrus. Wherever she found a part of Osiris, she buried it, which gave rise to reports of many tombs of Osiris throughout Egypt. In later accounts, the body was divided into fourteen or sixteen parts, while other traditions give twenty-six or forty-two, with one part for each district of Egypt. Where a part had been eaten by fish, Isis replaced it with a model.

Isis fled towards the marshes while pregnant, with seven scorpions as her protectors. The story is preserved in the Metternich Stela, a magical monument. In one account, Seth had confined Isis after murdering Osiris. Thoth helped her escape and advised her to hide with her unborn child. He said that her son would grow in strength, avenge his father, and take his father’s throne. The seven scorpions were probably a sevenfold manifestation of Serqet. Isis came to a village and sought shelter for the night. A wealthy woman refused to admit her. A poor marsh girl welcomed Isis into her hut. The scorpions were angered by the wealthy woman’s refusal and decided to punish her. They placed all their poison in the tail of Tfn, the leading scorpion. Tfn entered the wealthy woman’s house and stung her infant son. The woman’s cries woke Isis. Isis took pity on the child and placed her hands upon him. She knew the true names of the seven scorpions and used this knowledge to drive the burning poison from his body. The child breathed again. In the spell, Isis orders the poisons of Tefent and Befent to come out and stop entering the child’s body. She declares that she is Isis, mistress of words of power. The wealthy woman was grateful and gave all her possessions to the poor girl who had offered shelter. The story presents the scorpions as Isis’s protectors, yet their punishment harms an innocent child. Isis ends the danger through her knowledge and her power over spells.

Horus and Seth changed themselves into hippopotami and entered the water. The contest is recorded in Papyrus Chester Beatty I, while a related version appears in Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris. They agreed that the one who left before three months had passed would lose. Isis feared for Horus because the hippopotamus was a form natural to Seth, and she believed that Seth would kill her son. She cast a harpoon tied to a rope into the water. It struck Horus, so she released it when he cried out. Her next cast struck Seth. Seth called to Isis as his sister and appealed to their common mother. He asked her to release him, and she yielded to his plea. Horus was enraged by this act. He came out of the water, seized Isis, and cut off her head. The gods decided to punish him for the deed, but Horus escaped to a mountain and hid there. Seth found Horus on the mountain. He tore out Horus’s eyes and buried them in the soil. In another part of the conflict, Hathor found Horus weeping in the desert. She caught a gazelle, milked it, and put the milk into his eyes. Horus followed her instruction and was healed. A different account says that Horus defeated Seth, called Typhon in that version, and handed him to Isis in chains. Isis released him instead of killing him. Horus then seized his mother and removed her royal crown, or cut off her head. Thoth, also called Hermes in the other account, restored her. He placed a cow’s head, or the head of an ox, upon her body as a substitute.

The conspirators sealed Osiris inside a chest and threw it into a branch of the Nile. Plutarch records the search at Byblos in Isis and Osiris, although Egyptian sources preserve earlier elements of Osiris’s death. The water carried the chest into the Mediterranean Sea. Isis, who was away in Coptos, learned what had happened and searched for him. The chest reached the coast of Byblos in Phoenicia and came ashore beneath a tamarisk tree. The tree grew around it until the chest was completely enclosed. The king of Byblos admired the tree’s unusual size. He ordered it to be cut down and made the part containing the hidden chest into a pillar for the roof of his palace. Isis learned that the chest had reached Byblos through divine revelation, or, in another account, through the report of demons. She went to the city and sat beside a fountain. She spoke to nobody except the queen’s attendants. She greeted them kindly, plaited their hair, and passed some of her own bodily scent to them. The queen noticed the scent and summoned Isis. The queen had recently given birth to a son and appointed Isis as his nurse. Isis tried to remove the mortal quality from the child’s body. She suckled him with only her finger. At night, she placed him in a sacred purifying flame. One day, the queen saw the child surrounded by fire and cried out. This interrupted the process, so the child received less immortality than he might otherwise have gained. Isis revealed who she was and asked for the pillar supporting the palace roof. The pillar was taken down, and Isis opened it without difficulty. She removed the chest and wrapped the remaining wood in fine linen. She poured perfumed oil over it and returned it to the king and queen. The people of Byblos were said to preserve and worship the wood in a temple. Isis then lamented Osiris with loud and terrifying cries.