Lying on my bed
eating chocolate mummies
with peanut faces
as palm trees
on the Nile banks
glide past the cruiser’s
picture window,
I wonder if the fish
that ate the penis of Osiris
ever found another worm
so satisfying.
Osiris was the god of the afterlife, the underworld, death, life, regeneration, and resurrection. Osiris was considered not only a merciful judge of the dead in the afterlife, but also the underworld agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River. His black-green skin symbolizes re-birth. Although sometimes considered to be the son of the sun god Ra, he was usually regarded as the oldest son of the earth god Geb, and the sky goddess Nut and the brother and husband of Isis, as well as the brother of Set, Nephthys, and the elder Horus; the younger Horus and perhaps Anubis were his children.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Plutarch, Set and the Queen of Ethiopia conspired with 72 accomplices to assassinate Osiris. He was fooled into getting into a box, which Set then closed, sealed with lead, and threw into the Nile. Isis found him embedded in a tamarind tree trunk which was holding up the roof of a palace in Byblos on the Phoenician coast. She managed to remove the coffin and open it, but Osiris was already dead, but she used one of Geb's spells to resuscitate him and fashioned for him a golden phalllus. After impregnating her he died again and she hid his body in the desert. Months later, she gave birth to Horus. One night while hunting, Set came across the body of Osiris; enraged, he tore the body into fourteen pieces and scattered the parts throughout the land. Isis gathered up all the parts of the body, except the penis (which had been eaten by a catfish or a crab) and bandaged them together for a proper burial. The gods were impressed by the devotion of Isis and resurrected Osiris as the god of the underworld.
Set and Horus engaged in many battles to avenge Osiris and to determine the rightful ruler of Egypt. During the war, Set lost a testicle, which is why the desert is infertile. But Horus lost his left eye; part of Khonsu the moon god was used to forge a new one; and so the sun, the right eye of Horus, is brighter than the moon. In one of these struggles Set tried to seduce Horus in order to establish his dominance, but Horus put his hand between his thighs, caught Set's semen, and threw it in the river. Horus then spread his own semen on Set's favorite food. After Set ate the lettuce, the two went to the other gods to settle their argument, which had gone on for 80 years. Set claimed to have gained dominance over Horus and called forth his semen as proof, but the semen answered from the river, invalidating his claim. Then Horus claimed that he had domination over Set and called his semen forth, which answered from inside Set. However, Set still refused to relent, and so the matter was to be settled by a race in boats made of stone. Seti's stone boat sank in the race, but Horus' boat did not because it was actually made of wood but painted to look like stone. Geb, as judge, to end the dispute, apportioned the realm between them but then reversed himself and gave sole control to Horus.