The king of the
country, admiring the growth of the tree, had it cut down and made
into a pillar of his house; but he did not know that the coffer with
the dead Osiris was in it. Word of this came to Isis and she
journeyed to Byblus, and sat down by the well, in humble guise, her
face wet with tears. To none would she speak till the king's
handmaidens came, and them she greeted kindly, and braided their
hair, and breathed on them from her own divine body a wondrous
perfume. But when the queen beheld the braids of her handmaidens'
hair and smelt the sweet smell that emanated from them, she sent for
the stranger woman and took her into her house and made her the
nurse of her child. But Isis gave the babe her finger instead of her
breast to suck, and at night she began to burn all that was mortal
of him away, while she herself in the likeness of a swallow
fluttered round the pillar that contained her dead brother,
twittering mournfully. But the queen spied what she was doing and
shrieked out when she saw her child in flames, and thereby she
hindered him from becoming immortal.
Pages:
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031