Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator), 35

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[35] That Osiris is identical with Dionysus who could more fittingly know than yourself, Clea ? For you are ii t the head of the inspired maidens of Delphi, and have been consecrated by your father and mother in the holy rites of Osiris. If, however, for the benefit of others it is needful to adduce proofs of this identity, let us leave undisturbed what may not be told, but the public ceremonies which the priests perform in the burial of the Apis, when they convey his body on an improvised bier, do not in any way come short of a Bacchic procession; for they fasten skins of fawns about themselves, and carry Bacchic wands and indulge in shoutings and movements exactly as do those who are under the spell of the Dionysiac ecstasies.¹ For the same reason many of the Greeks make statues of Dionysus in the form of a bull²; and the women of Elis invoke him, praying that the god may come with the hoof of a bull³; and the epithet applied to Dionysus among the Argives is Son of the Bull. They call him up out of the water by the sound of trumpets,⁴ at the same time casting into the depths a lamb as an offering to the Keeper of the Gate. The trumpets they conceal in Bacchic wands, as Socrates⁵ has stated in his treatise on The Holy Ones. Furthermore, the tales regarding the Titans and the rites celebrated by night agree with the accounts of the dismemberment of Osiris and his revivification and regenesis. Similar agreement is found too in the tales about their sepulchres. The Egyptians, as has already been stated,⁶ point out tombs of Osiris in many places, and the people of Delphi believe that the remains of Dionysus rest with them close beside the oracle; and the Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the shrine of Apollo whenever the devotees of Dionysus⁷ wake the God of the Mystic Basket.⁸ To show that the Greeks regard Dionysus as the lord and master not only of wine, but of the nature of every sort of moisture, it is enough that Pindar⁹ be our witness, when he says

May gladsome Dionysus swell the fruit upon the trees,

The hallowed splendour of harvest-time.

For this reason all who reverence Osiris are prohibited from destroying a cultivated tree or blocking up a spring of water.

De Iside et Osiride. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1936.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Isis and Osiris (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. V. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ Ἴσιδος και Ὀσίριδος Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol II. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1889.) — 35 focus

[35] ὅτι μὲν οὖν ὁ αὐτός ἐστι Διονύσῳ, τίνα μᾶλλον ἢ σὲ γιγνώσκειν, ὦ Κλέα, δὴ¹ προσῆκόν ἐστιν, ἀρχικλὰ² μὲν οὖσαν ἐν Δελφοῖς τῶν Θυιάδων, τοῖς δʼ Ὀσιριακοῖς καθωσιωμένην ἱεροῖς ἀπὸ πατρὸς καὶ μητρός; εἰ δὲ τῶν ἄλλων ἕνεκα δεῖ μαρτύρια παραθέσθαι, 10 τὰ μὲν ἀπόρρητα κατὰ χώραν ἐῶμεν, ἃ δʼ ἐμφανῶς δρῶσι θάπτοντες τὸν Ἆπιν οἱ ἱερεῖς, ὅταν παρακομίζωσιν ἐπὶ σχεδίας τὸ σῶμα, βακχείας οὐδὲν ἀποδεῖ. καὶ γὰρ νεβρίδας περικαθάπτονται καὶ θύρσους φοροῦσι, καὶ βοαῖς χρῶνται καὶ κινήσεσιν ὥσπερ 15 364f οἱ κάτοχοι τοῖς περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον ὀργιασμοῖς. διὸ καὶ ταυρόμορφον³ Διόνυσον ποιοῦσιν ἀγάλματα⁴ πολλοὶ τῶν Ἑλλήνων· αἱ δʼ Ἠλείων γυναῖκες καὶ παρακαλοῦσιν εὐχόμεναι ποδὶ βοείῳ⁵ τὸν θεὸν ἐλθεῖν πρὸς αὐτάς. Ἀργείοις δὲ βουγενὴς Διόνυσος ἐπίκλην, 20 ἐστίν· ἀνακαλοῦνται δʼ αὐτὸν ὑπὸ σαλπίγγων ἐξ ὕδατος, ἐμβάλλοντες εἰς τὴν ἄβυσσον ἄρνα τῷ Πυλαόχῳ τὰς δὲ σάλπιγγας ἐν θύρσοις ἀποκρύπτουσιν, ὡς Σωκράτης⁶ ἐν τοῖς περὶ Ὁσίων εἴρηκεν. ὁμολογεῖ δὲ καὶ τὰ Τιτανικὰ καὶ Νυκτέλια⁷ τοῖς λεγομένοις Ὀσίριδος διασπασμοῖς καὶ ταῖς ἀναβιώσεσι καὶ παλιγγενεσίαις· 365a ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὰ περὶ τὰς ταφάς. Αἰγύπτιοί τε γὰρ Ὀσίριδος πολλαχοῦ θήκας, ὥσπερ εἴρηται, δεικνύουσι, καὶ Δελφοὶ τὰ τοῦ Διονύσου 5 λείψανα παρʼ αὐτοῖς παρὰ τὸ χρηστήριον ἀποκεῖσθαι νομίζουσι· καὶ θύουσιν οἱ Ὅσιοι θυσίαν ἀπόρρητον ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος, ὅταν αἱ Θυιάδες ἐγείρωσι τὸν Λικνίτην, ὅτι δʼ οὐ μόνον τοῦ οἴνου Διόνυσον, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάσης ὑγρᾶς φύσεως Ἕλληνες 10 ἡγοῦνται κύριον καὶ ἀρχηγόν, ἀρκεῖ Πίνδαρος⁸ μάρτυς εἶναι λέγων

δενδρέων δὲ νομὸν Διόνυσος πολυγαθὴς

αὐξάνοι, ἁγνὸν φέγγος ὀπώρας. 365b

διὸ καὶ τοῖς τὸν Ὄσιριν σεβομένοις ἀπαγορεύεται 15 δένδρον ἥμερον ἀπολλύναι καὶ πηγὴν ὕδατος ἐμφράττειν.

Translations (1)

Of Isis and Osiris, or of the Ancient Religion and Philosophy of Egypt. Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. IV. Goodwin, William W., editor; Baxter, William, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 35 focus

[35] And that therefore he is one and the same with Bacchus, who should better know than yourself, Dame Clea, who are not only president of the Delphic prophetesses, but have been also, in right of both your parents, devoted to the Osiriac rites? And if, for the sake of others, we shall think ourselves obliged to lay down testimonies for the proof of our present assertion, we shall notwithstanding remit those secrets that must not be revealed to their proper place. But now the things which the priests do publicly at the interment of the Apis, when they carry his body on a raft to be buried, do nothing differ from the procession of Bacchus. For they hang about them the skins of hinds, and carry branches in their hands, and use the same kind of shoutings and gesticulations that the ecstatics do at the inspired dances of Bacchus. For which reason also many of the Greeks make statues of Dionysos Tauromorphos (or Bacchus in the form of a bull). And the Elean women, in their ordinary form of prayer, beseech the God to come to them with his ox’s foot. The Argives also have a Bacchus named Bougenes (or ox-gotten); and they call him up out of the waters by sounding of trumpets, flinging a young lamb into the abyss for him that keeps the door there; and these trumpets they hide within their thyrsi (or green boughs), as Socrates, in his Treatise of Rituals, relates. Likewise the tales about the Titans, and what they call the Mystic Night, have a strange agreement with what they tell us of the discerptions, resurrections, and regenerations of Osiris; as also what relates to their sepulchres. For not only the Egyptians (as hath been already spoken) do show in many several places the chests in which Osiris lies; but the Delphians also believe that the relics of Bacchus are laid up with them just by the oracle-place; and the Hosii (or holy men) perform a secret sacrifice within the temple of Apollo, when the Thyiades rouse the God of the fan (as they call him). Now that the Greeks do not esteem Bacchus as the lord and president of wine only, but also of the whole humid nature, Pindar alone is a sufficient witness, when he saith,

May joyous Bacchus send increase of fruit,

The chaste autumnal light, to all my trees.

For which cause it is forbidden to such as worship Osiris, either to destroy a fruit-tree or to stop up a well.

Notes on the current edition

Isis and Osiris

1. Cf. Diodorus, i. 11.

2. A partial list in Roscher, Lexikon d. gr. u. röm. Mythologie, i. 1149.

3. Cf. Moralia, 299 a, where the invocation is given at greater length; also Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, iii. p. 510 (L.C.L.).

4. Cf. Moralia, 671 e.

5. Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iv. p. 498, Socrates, no. 5.

6. 358 a and 359 a, supra.

7. That is, the inspired maidens, mentioned at the beginning of the chapter.

8. Callimachus, Hymn to Demeter (vi.), 127; Anth. Pal. vi. 165; Virgil, Georg. i. 166.

9. Frag. 153 (Christ). Plutarch quotes the line also in Moralia, 745 a and 757 f.

Plutarch De Iside et Osiride 35

Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator)

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