Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

IV.] The Birthday of Osiris. 129

therefore the intervals were gratefully accepted
as a kind of breathing-space, wherein time,
like the sun at the solstice, appears for a
while to rest, and man, like the immortals,
might enjoy, without impairing, the treasure
of life. Accordingly the panegyric, or time
of praise, separating, or rather uniting year
with year, took place not in the gloom of
winter as with us, but in the full height and
glow of summer ; at the period at once of
accomplishment and renovation, when the sun
was in his fullest strength, and the rising of
the waters of the Nile began to renew their
life-giving floods. On the first day of the
sacred interval of continuous praise was cele-
brated the birth of Osiris, the Lord of Light,
Prime Mover of Creation. On the second,
Horus ; God, of God ; Light, of Light; the
eldest of creation, to use the expression of the
Egyptian Ritual. On the third, Seb, Creator-
Spirit of earth. On the fourth, Isis, with
her double relation of human and divine