The ivy
was sacred to him, and was called his plant because it is always
green.
3. Osiris a God of Fertility
AS A GOD of vegetation Osiris was naturally conceived as a god of
creative energy in general, since men at a certain stage of
evolution fail to distinguish between the reproductive powers of
animals and of plants. Hence a striking feature in his worship was
the coarse but expressive symbolism by which this aspect of his
nature was presented to the eye not merely of the initiated but of
the multitude. At his festival women used to go about the villages
singing songs in his praise and carrying obscene images of him which
they set in motion by means of strings. The custom was probably a
charm to ensure the growth of the crops. A similar image of him,
decked with all the fruits of the earth, is said to have stood in a
temple before a figure of Isis, and in the chambers dedicated to him
at Philae the dead god is portrayed lying on his bier in an attitude
which indicates in the plainest way that even in death his
generative virtue was not extinct but only suspended, ready to prove
a source of life and fertility to the world when the opportunity
should offer.
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