And he knew the body, and rent it
into fourteen pieces, and scattered them abroad. But Isis sailed up
and down the marshes in a shallop made of papyrus, looking for the
pieces; and that is why when people sail in shallops made of
papyrus, the crocodiles do not hurt them, for they fear or respect
the goddess. And that is the reason, too, why there are many graves
of Osiris in Egypt, for she buried each limb as she found it. But
others will have it that she buried an image of him in every city,
pretending it was his body, in order that Osiris might be worshipped
in many places, and that if Typhon searched for the real grave he
might not be able to find it. However, the genital member of Osiris
had been eaten by the fishes, so Isis made an image of it instead,
and the image is used by the Egyptians at their festivals to this
day. "Isis," writes the historian Diodorus Siculus, "recovered all
the parts of the body except the genitals; and because she wished
that her husband's grave should be unknown and honoured by all who
dwell in the land of Egypt, she resorted to the following device.
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