Chapter 43 (part 88)

Horus , the son of Osiris and Isis, appears in Egyptian texts usually as Heru-p-khart, " Horus the child," who afterwards became the "avenger of his father Osiris," and occupied his throne, as we are told in many places in the Book of the Dead. In the pyramid texts the deceased is identified with Heru-p-khart, and a reference is made to the fact that the god is always represented with a finger in his mouth. The curious legend which Plutarch relates concerning Harpocrates and the cause of his lameness' is probably [1. A very interesting figure of this god represents him holding his eyes in his hands; see Lanzone, op. cit. , p. 618. 2 I.e. , Horus between the mountains of Bekhatet and Manu, the most easterly and westerly points of the sun's course, and the places where he rose and set. 3. For figures of these various forms of Horus, see Lanzone, op. cit. , tav. 214 ff. 4. ###. Recueil de Travaux , t. v., p. 44 (l. 301). 5. {Greek Th`n d? I?^sin meta` th`n teleuth`n e!ks O?si'ridos suggenome'nou, tekei^n h?lito'mhnou, kai` a?ðenh^ toi^s ka'twðen gyi'ois to`n A!rpokra'thn .} De Iside et Osiride , § xix.] based upon the passage in the history of Osiris and Isis given in a hymn to Osiris of the XVIIIth dynasty. Set or Sutekh the eighth member of the company of the gods of Annu, was the son of Seb and Nut, and the husband of his sister Nephthys. The worship of this god is exceedingly old, and in the pyramid texts we find that be is often mentioned with Horus and the other gods of the Heliopolitan company in terms of reverence. He was also believed to perform friendly offices for the deceased, and to be a god of the Sekhet-Aaru, or abode of the blessed dead. He is usually depicted in human form with the head of an animal which has not yet been identified; in later times the head of the ass was confounded with it, but the figures of the god in bronze which are preserved in the British Museum and elsewhere prove beyond a doubt that the head of Set is that of an animal unknown to us. In the early dynasties he was a beneficent god, and one whose favour was sought after by the living and by the dead, and so late as the XIXth dynasty kings delighted to call themselves "beloved of Set." About the XXIInd dynasty, however, it became the fashion to regard the god as the origin of all evil, and his statues and images were so effectually destroyed that only a few which escaped by accident have come down to us. Originally Set, or Sut, represented the natural night and was the opposite of Horus; that Horus and Set were opposite aspects or forms of the same god is proved by the figure given by Lanzone ( Dizionario , tav. 37, No. 2), where we see the head of Set and the head of Horus upon one body.