DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3483#0018
INTRODUCTION.
13
the great solar heat, by a blind scarab; a client flying for relief
to his patron, and finding none from him, by a sparrow and owl;
an inexorable tyrant estranged from his people, by a vulture; a
man initiated into the mysteries, by a grasshopper which they ima-
gined had no mouth.
They certainly employed hieroglyphics as a concise method
to communicate their ethical instructions. That a. judge should
be alike insensible to interest, or to compassion, they de-
signed a man without hands, and with declining eyes. Of
their delight in sculptured gems we have a pleasing proof
in the circumstance recorded by iElian, that the chief of their
judges wore round his neck an image of Truth engraven on a
sapphire. The Peach tree was said to be more fruitful when
transplanted, than on its native spot, and hence they charac-
terised a person who had passed much of his life in travelling by
a peach tree in luxuriant fruit. They designated a melancholy
man by a hare sitting in her form, as being a most timorous and
solitary creature. But the hieroglyphic was not a single detached
emblem only, they often contrived to unite a series of them so
as to form an inscription, which the eye might perpetuate on
the memory. We learn this from one, preserved by Clemens of
Alexandria, who informs us that it was engraven on one of the
gates of the temple of Diospolis, in Egypt. On one side appeared
a child (the symbol of birth,) and an old man (the symbol of
death,) a hawk (the accepted symbol of the divinity,) a fish
(the symbol of hatred,) and on the other side a frightful croco-
dile (the symbol of effrontery and insolence.) All these sym-
bols united, expressed—O thou who art born and who diesty
remember that God hateth those whose insolent forehead never
blusheth!
13
the great solar heat, by a blind scarab; a client flying for relief
to his patron, and finding none from him, by a sparrow and owl;
an inexorable tyrant estranged from his people, by a vulture; a
man initiated into the mysteries, by a grasshopper which they ima-
gined had no mouth.
They certainly employed hieroglyphics as a concise method
to communicate their ethical instructions. That a. judge should
be alike insensible to interest, or to compassion, they de-
signed a man without hands, and with declining eyes. Of
their delight in sculptured gems we have a pleasing proof
in the circumstance recorded by iElian, that the chief of their
judges wore round his neck an image of Truth engraven on a
sapphire. The Peach tree was said to be more fruitful when
transplanted, than on its native spot, and hence they charac-
terised a person who had passed much of his life in travelling by
a peach tree in luxuriant fruit. They designated a melancholy
man by a hare sitting in her form, as being a most timorous and
solitary creature. But the hieroglyphic was not a single detached
emblem only, they often contrived to unite a series of them so
as to form an inscription, which the eye might perpetuate on
the memory. We learn this from one, preserved by Clemens of
Alexandria, who informs us that it was engraven on one of the
gates of the temple of Diospolis, in Egypt. On one side appeared
a child (the symbol of birth,) and an old man (the symbol of
death,) a hawk (the accepted symbol of the divinity,) a fish
(the symbol of hatred,) and on the other side a frightful croco-
dile (the symbol of effrontery and insolence.) All these sym-
bols united, expressed—O thou who art born and who diesty
remember that God hateth those whose insolent forehead never
blusheth!