DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0116
106
When it passes the same boundary of the two hemispheres in the
West.
137. The latter's being represented by the lion, explains the rea-
son why the spouts of fountains were always made to imitate lions'
heads; which Plutarch supposes to have been, because the Nile
overflowed when the sun was in the sign of the Lion:' but the
same fashion prevails as universally in Tibet as ever it did in
iEgypt, Greece, or Italy; though neither the Grand Lama nor any
. of his subjects know any thing of the Nile or its overflowings ;.
and the sigus of the zodiac were taken from the mystic symbols;
and not, as some learned authors have supposed, the mystic sym-
bols from the signs of the zodiac. The emblematical meaning,
which certain animals were employed to signify, was only some
particular property generalised ; and, therefore, might easily be in-
vented or discovered by the natural operation of the mind : but the
collections of stars, named after certain animals,, have no resem-
blance whatever to those animals ; which are therefore merely signs
of convention adopted to distinguish certain portions of the heavens,
which were probably consecrated to those particular personified attri-
butes, which they respectively represented. That they had only begun
to be so named in the time of Homer, and that not on account of any
real or supposed resemblance, we have the testimony of a passage
in the description of the shield of Achilles, in which the polar con-
stellation is said to be called the Bear or otherwise the Waggon ;z
objects so different that it is impossible that one and the same thing
should be even imagined to resemble both. We may therefore
rank Plutarch's explanation with other tales of the later /Egyptian
priests ; and conclude that the real intention of these symbols was
to signify that the water, which they conveyed, was the gift of the
diurnal sun, because separated from the salt of the sea, and distri-
1 KpW' 5e Kat KaTaxafffxara tuv Movtwv efiaffi Kpovvovs, &tl NciXos amyti veav
iSwp rais RiyvnTwv (tpoupais, t]\wv top teovTa itapoitvovTos. Symposiac. lib. iv.
P- . .... ...!..:, t'
1II. 2.487.
When it passes the same boundary of the two hemispheres in the
West.
137. The latter's being represented by the lion, explains the rea-
son why the spouts of fountains were always made to imitate lions'
heads; which Plutarch supposes to have been, because the Nile
overflowed when the sun was in the sign of the Lion:' but the
same fashion prevails as universally in Tibet as ever it did in
iEgypt, Greece, or Italy; though neither the Grand Lama nor any
. of his subjects know any thing of the Nile or its overflowings ;.
and the sigus of the zodiac were taken from the mystic symbols;
and not, as some learned authors have supposed, the mystic sym-
bols from the signs of the zodiac. The emblematical meaning,
which certain animals were employed to signify, was only some
particular property generalised ; and, therefore, might easily be in-
vented or discovered by the natural operation of the mind : but the
collections of stars, named after certain animals,, have no resem-
blance whatever to those animals ; which are therefore merely signs
of convention adopted to distinguish certain portions of the heavens,
which were probably consecrated to those particular personified attri-
butes, which they respectively represented. That they had only begun
to be so named in the time of Homer, and that not on account of any
real or supposed resemblance, we have the testimony of a passage
in the description of the shield of Achilles, in which the polar con-
stellation is said to be called the Bear or otherwise the Waggon ;z
objects so different that it is impossible that one and the same thing
should be even imagined to resemble both. We may therefore
rank Plutarch's explanation with other tales of the later /Egyptian
priests ; and conclude that the real intention of these symbols was
to signify that the water, which they conveyed, was the gift of the
diurnal sun, because separated from the salt of the sea, and distri-
1 KpW' 5e Kat KaTaxafffxara tuv Movtwv efiaffi Kpovvovs, &tl NciXos amyti veav
iSwp rais RiyvnTwv (tpoupais, t]\wv top teovTa itapoitvovTos. Symposiac. lib. iv.
P- . .... ...!..:, t'
1II. 2.487.