Plutarch De Iside et Osiride 57

[57] It might appear that Hesiod, ¹ in making the very first things of all to be Chaos and Earth and Tartarus and Love, did not accept any other origins but only these, if we transfer the names somewhat and assign to Isis the name of Earth and to Osiris the name of Love and to Typhon the name of Tartarus; for the poet seems to place Chaos at the bottom as a sort of region that serves as a resting-place for the Universe.

This subject seems in some wise to call up the myth of Plato, which Socrates in the Symposium ² gives at some length in regard to the birth of Love, saying that Poverty, wishing for children, insinuated herself beside Plenty while he was asleep, and having become pregnant by him, gave birth to Love, who is of a mixed and utterly variable nature, inasmuch as he is the son of a father who is good and wise and self-sufficient in all things, but of a mother who is helpless and without means and because of want always clinging close to another and always importunate over another. For Plenty is none other than the first beloved and desired, the perfect and self-sufficient; and Plato calls raw material Poverty, utterly lacking of herself in the Good, but being filled from him and always yearning for him and sharing with him. The World, or Horus, ³ which is born of these, is not eternal nor unaffected nor imperishable, but, being ever reborn, contrives to remain always young and never subject to destruction in the changes and cycles of events.

[57] And it may be, Hesiod also, when he makes the first things of all to be chaos, earth, hell, and love, may be thought to take up no other principles than these, if we apply these names as we have already disposed them, to wit, that of earth to Isis, that of love to Osiris, and that of hell to Typhon; for he seems to lay the chaos under all, as a kind of room or place for the world to lie in. And the subject we are now upon seems in a manner to call for Plato’s tale, which Socrates tells us in the Symposium about the production of Eros (or Love), where he saith, that once on a time Poverty, having a mighty desire of children, laid her down by Plenty’s side as he was asleep, and that she thereupon conceiving by him brought forth Eros, who was of a nature both mixed and various, as coming of a father that was good and wise and had sufficiency of all things, but of a mother that was very needy and poor; and that by reason of her indigence she still hankered after another, and was eagerly importunate for another. For this same Plenty is no other than the first amiable, desirable, complete, and sufficient being; and matter is that which he called Poverty, she being of herself alone destitute of the property of good, but when she is impregnated by it, she still desires and craves for more. Moreover, the world (or Horus) that is produced out of these two, being not eternal, nor impassible, nor incorruptible, but ever a making, does therefore machinate, partly by shifting of accidents and partly by circular motions, to remain still young and never to die.