E. A. Wallis Budge observed that "the story of Osiris is nowhere found in a connected form in Egyptian literature, but everywhere, and in texts of all periods, the life, sufferings, death, and resurrection of Osiris are accepted as facts universally admitted." (The Book of the Opening of the Mouth pg 9)

Despite the seeming prohibition on discussing the death of the God - although the Greek traveler Herodotus had observed the annual mysteries commemorating Osiris' death he felt that he must keep a "discreet silence" regarding their content (2.171.1) - we find many suggestive hints in material such as the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, and in the Book of the Dead. For instance, Utterance 532 from the Pyramid Texts mentions that Osiris was struck down by Set. Pyramid Text 819a reads, "This Great One had fallen on his side; he had been thrown down." PT 1005a-b says, "Osiris had been placed on his side by his brother Set, but the one who is in Nedit will move because his head has been put back in place by Re." PT 1255-56a-b reads, "Isis came. Nephthys came. The one of the West, the other of the East, the one as a tern, the other as a kite. They found Osiris as his brother had flung him on the ground in Nedit." PT 1007e reads, "Horus struck the one who struck you, bound the one who bound you." PT 1544-1545a-b reads, "O Osiris who is here! I hit for you the one who had hit you as an ox. I killed the one who had killed you as a breeding bull. I broke the one who had submitted you to the Red Bull of Upper Egypt. The one who had shot you with an arrow is now shot. The one who stunned you is now stunned." The Coffin Texts speak of the drowning of Osiris by Set: "permit me to have water as Set had water when he committed a flight against Osiris on the night of the great storm." (353) Coffin Text 4.396a-b speaks of a great cataclysmic storm and the brutal waters of Set which drowned Osiris. And CT 184 speaks of Osiris being "put in a box, in a chest, in a bag." And in the Pyramid Text of Unas we find perhaps the most explicit mention of Set's attack on Osiris in Egyptian literature, "Unas hath weighted his words with the hidden god who hath no name, on the day of hacking in pieces the firstborn."

However, it was not until the Greek author Plutarch that these various traditions were brought together and given a cohesive form. His narrative on the death and dismemberment of Osiris by Set runs as follows:

"It is said that Osiris, when he was king, at once freed the Egyptians from their primitive and brutish manner of life; he showed them how to grow crops, established laws for them, and taught them to worship Gods. Later he civilized the whole world as he traversed through it, having very little need of arms, but winning over most of the peoples by beguiling them with persuasive speech together with all manner of song and poetry. That is why the Greeks thought he was the same as Dionysos.

"When he was away Typhon conspired in no way against him since Isis was well on guard and kept careful watch, but on his return he devised a plot against him, making seventy-two men his fellow-conspirators and having as helper a queen who had come from Ethiopia, whom they name Aso. Typhon secretly measured the body of Osiris and got made to the corresponding size a beautiful chest which was exquisitely decorated. This he brought to the banqueting-hall, and when the guests showed pleasure and admiration at the sight of it, Typhon promised playfully that whoever would lie down in it and show that he fitted it, should have the chest as a gift. They all tried one by one, and since no one fitted into it, Osiris went in and lay down. Then the conspirators ran and slammed the lid on, and after securing it with bolts from the outside and also with molten lead poured on, they took it out to the river and let it go to the sea by way of the Tanitic mouth, which the Egyptians still call, because of this, hateful and abominable. They say that all these events occurred on the seventeenth day of the month of Athyr, when the sun passes through the scorpion, in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Osiris. But some state that this was the period of his life rather than of his reign.

"The first to hear of the misfortune and to spread the news of its occurrence were the Pans and Satyrs who live near Khemmis, and because of this, the sudden disturbance and excitement of a crowd is still referred to as 'panic'. When Isis heard of it she cut off there and then one of her locks and put on a mourning garment; accordingly the city is called Coptos to this day. Others think that the name indicates deprivation; for they use koptein to mean 'to deprive', and they suggest that Isis, when she was wandering everywhere in a state of distress, passed by no one without accosting him, and even when she met children, she asked them about the chest. Some of these had happened to see it and they named the river-mouth through which Typhon's friends had pushed the box to the sea. For this reason the Egyptians believe that children have the power of divination, and they take omens especially from children's shouts as they play near the temples and say whatever occurs to them.

"When Isis found that Osiris had loved and been intimate with her sister while mistaking her for herself, and saw a proof of this in the garland of melilot which he had left with Nephthys, she searched for the child (for Nephthys had exposed it instantly upon giving birth to it, in fear of Typhon); and when Isis found it with the help of dogs which had led her on with difficulty and pain, it was reared and became her guard and attendant, being called Anubis. He is said to keep watch over the gods as dogs do over men. They say that she learned as a result of this that the chest had been cast up by the sea in the land of Byblos and that the surf had brought it gently to rest in a heath-tree. Having shot up in a short time into a most lovely and tall young tree, the heath enfolded the chest and grew around it, hiding it within itself. Admiring the size of the tree, the king cut off the part of the trunk which encompassed the coffin, which was not visible, and used it as a pillar to support the roof. They say that Isis heard of this through the divine breath of rumour and came to Byblos, where she sat down near a fountain, dejected and tearful. She spoke to no one except the queen's maids, whom she greeted and welcomed, plaiting their hair and breathing upon their skin a wonderful fragrance which emanated from herself. when the queen saw her maids she was struck with longing for the stranger's hair and for her skin, which breathed ambrosia; and so Isis was sent for and became friendly with the queen and was made nurse of her child. The king's name, they say, was Malcathros; some say that the queen's name was Astarte, others Saosis, and others Neinanous, whom the Greeks would call Athenais.

"They say that Isis nursed the child, putting her finger in its mouth instead of her breast, but that in the night she burned the mortal parts of its body, while she herself became a swallow, flying around the pillar and making lament until the queen, who had been watching her, gave a shriek when she saw her child on fire, and so deprived it of immortality. The goddess then revealed herself and demanded the pillar under the roof. She took it from beneath with the utmost ease and proceeded to cut away the heath-tree. This she then covered with linen and poured sweet oil on it, after which she gave it into the keeping of the king and queen; to this day the people of Byblos venerate the wood, which is in the temple of Isis. The goddess then fell upon the coffin and gave such a loud wail that the younger of the king's sons died; the elder son she took with her, and placing the coffin in a boat, she set sail. When the river phaedrus produced a somewhat rough wind towards dawn, in a fit of anger she dried up the stream.

"As soon as she happened on a deserted spot, there in solitude she opened the chest and pressing her face to that of Osiris, she embraced him and began to cry. She then noticed that the boy had approached silently from behind and had observed her, whereupon she turned round and full of anger gave him a terrible look. The boy was unable to bear the fright, and dropped dead. Some say that it did not happen so, but, as we said before, that he fell into the sea and is honoured because of the goddess, being the same person as the Maneros of whom the Egyptians sing in their banquets. Some say the boy was called [Palaestinus or] Pelousius and that the city founded by the Goddess (Pelusium) was named after him; also that the Maneros of whom they sing was the discoverer of music and poetry. Others again say that it is not the name of a man at all, but an expression such as comes naturally to men as they drink and make merry: 'The best of luck to this and that!' For this sentiment, signified by the word Maneros, is expressed by the Egyptians on all festive occasions. For instance, there is the image of a dead man which is carried round in a chest and shown them: this is not, as some assume, a memorial of the suffering of Osiris, but they say that thus they exhort their inebriated companions to use the present and enjoy it, since everyone will very soon be like the image seen; this is why they bring it into the feast.

"Having journeyed to her son Horus who was being brought up in Buto, Isis put the box aside, and Typhon, when he was hunting by night in the moonlight, came upon it. He recognized the body, and having cut it into fourteen parts, he scattered them. When she heard of this, Isis searched for them in a papyrus boat, sailing through the marshes. That is why people who sail in papyrus skiffs are not harmed by crocodiles, which show either fear or veneration because of the goddess. From this circumstance arises the fact that many tombs of Osiris are said to exist in Egypt, for the goddess, as she came upon each part, held a burial cere­mony. Some deny this, saying that she fashioned images and distributed them to each city as though she was giving the whole body, so that he (Osiris) might be honoured by more people and that Typhon, if he overcame Horus, when he sought for the true tomb, might be baffled in his search because many tombs would be mentioned and shown. The only part of Osiris which Isis did not find was his male member; for no sooner was it thrown into the river than the lepidotus, phagrus and oxyrhynchus ate of it, fish which they most of all abhor. In its place Isis fashioned a likeness of it and consecrated the phallus, in honour of which the Egyptians even today hold festival." (On Isis and Osiris, 13-18)

The commemoration of these events formed the basis for the mysteries of Osiris at Abydos, which Plutarch described as "gloomy, solemn, and mournful sacrifices" (On Isis and Osiris, 69) and those of Isis and Osiris in the Roman West. Julius Firmicus Maternus, a Latin Christian writer of the fourth century, declared: "In the sanctuaries of Osiris, his murder and dismemberment are annually commemorated with great lamentations. His worshipers beat their breasts and gash their shoulders. When they pretend that the mutilated remains of the god have been found and rejoined they turn from mourning to rejoicing." (Error of the Pagan Religions, 22.1)

Similar stories were told about the death and dismemberment of Dionysos.

Plutarch informs us that the "Phrygians believe that the god sleeps in winter and is awake in summer, and with Bacchic frenzy they celebrate in the one season the festival of his being lulled to sleep Kateunasmous and in the other his being aroused or awakened Anegerseis. The Paphlagonians declare that he is fettered and imprisoned during the winter, but that in the spring he moves and is freed again." (On Isis and Osiris 69) More explicitly, an oracle which preceded the founding of the Dionysian colony of Perinthos said, "After Bakhos, who cried 'euhoi' is struck, blood and fire and dust will mix." Himeros speaks of the death of the God in the following manner, "Dionysos lay there struck down, still moaning under the blow. The vine hung down, the wine was disconsolate, the grape as though bathed in tears." (Orationes XLV 4)

Pausanias informs us of who the instigators of the God's murder were, "From Homer the name of the Titans was taken by Onomacritos, who in the orgies he composed for Dionysos made the Titans the authors of the God's sufferings." (8.37.5)

Diodorus Siculus adds more detail to the story: "The Titans, who are the Sons of Gaia, tore to pieces Dionysos-Zagreus, the child of Zeus and Persephone, and boiled him, but his members were brought together again by Demeter and he experienced a new birth as if for the first time. And with these stories, the teachings agree which are set forth in the Orphic poems and are introduced into their rites, but it is not lawful to recount them in detail to the uninitiated." (3.62)

From Hyginus we get an even more full account: "Liber, son of Jove and Proserpina, was dismembered by the Titans, and Jove gave his heart, torn to bits, to Semele in a drink. When she was made pregnant by this, Juno, changing herself to look like Semele's nurse, Beroe, said to her: 'Daughter, ask Jove to come to you as he comes to Juno, so you may know what pleasure it is to sleep with a God.' At her suggestion Semele made this request of Jove, and was smitten by a thunderbolt." (Fabulae 167)

But the fullest account of the story was preserved in Nonnos' monumental treatment of the God's myths, the Dionysiaca, as follows:

"[Demeter hid Persephone in a cave in Sicily to try to prevent her mating with any of the Gods] Ah, maiden Persephoneia! You could not find how to escape your mating! No, a drakon was your mate, when Zeus changed his face and came, rolling in many a loving coil through the dark to the corner of the maiden's chamber, and shaking his hairy chaps: he lulled to sleep as he crept the eyes of those creatures of his own shape who guarded the door. He licked the girl's form gently with wooing lips. By this marriage with the heavenly drakon, the womb of Persephone swelled with living fruit, and she bore Zagreus the horned baby, who by himself climbed upon the heavenly throne of Zeus and brandished lightning in his little hand, and newly born, lifted and carried thunderbolts in his tender fingers.

"But he did not hold the throne of Zeus for long. By the fierce resentment of implacable Hera, the Titans cunningly smeared their round faces with disguising chalk, and while he contemplated his changeling countenance reflected in a mirror they destroyed him with an infernal knife. There where his limbs had been cut piecemeal by the Titan steel, the end of his life was the beginning of a new life as Dionysos. He appeared in another shape, and changed into many forms: now young like crafty Kronides shaking the aegis-cape, now as ancient Kronos heavy-kneed, pouring rain. Sometimes he was a curiously formed baby, sometimes like a mad youth with the flower of the first down marking his rounded chin with black. Again, a mimic lion he uttered a horrible roar in furious rage from a wild snarling throat, as he lifted a neck shadowed by a thick mane, marking his body on both sides with the self-striking whip of a tail which flickered about over his hairy back. Next, he left the shape of a lion's looks and let out a ringing neigh, now like an unbroken horse that lifts his neck on high to shake out the imperious tooth of the bit, and rubbing, whitened his cheek with hoary foam. Sometimes he poured out a whistling hiss from his mouth, a curling horned serpent covered with scales, darting out his tongue from his gaping throat, and leaping upon the grim head of some Titan encircled his neck in snaky spiral coils. Then he left the shape of the restless crawler and became a tiger with gay stripes on his body; or again like a bull emitting a counterfeit roar from his mouth he butted the Titans with sharp horn. So he fought for his life, until Hera with jealous throat bellowed harshly through the air - that heavy-resentful step-mother! And the gates of Olympos rattled in echo to her jealous throat from high heaven. Then the bold bull collapsed: the murderers each eager for his turn with the knife chopt piecemeal the bull-shaped Dionysos.

"After the first Dionysos had been slaughtered, Father Zeus learnt the trick of the mirror with its reflected image. He attacked the mother of the Titans with avenging brand, and shut up the murderers of horned Dionysos within the gate of Tartaros: the trees blazed, the hair of suffering Gaia was scorched with heat. He kindled the East: the dawnlands of Baktria blazed under blazing bolts, the Assyrian waves est afirethe neighbouring Kaspion Sea and the Indian mountains, the Red Sea rolled billows of flame and warmed Arabian Nereus. The opposite West also fiery Zeus blasted with the thunderbolt in love for his child; and under the foot of Zephyros the western brine half-burn spat out a shining stream; the Northern ridges - even the surface of the frozen Northern Sea bubbled and burned: under the clime of snowy Aigokeros the Southern corner boiled with hotter sparks.

"Now Okeanos poured rivers of tears from his watery eyes, a libation of suppliant prayer. Then Zeus clamed his wrath at the sight of the scorched earth; he pitied her, and wished to wash with water the ashes of ruin and the fiery wounds of the land.

"Then Rainy Zeus covered the whole sky with clouds and flooded all the earth." (6.155)

According to Philodemos, after Dionysos was torn apart by the Titans, Rhea the mother of the Gods, sought for the dismembered pieces, and then put them back together again. (De pietate 44) Diodorus Siculus wrote that Demeter (who was often equated with Rhea and Isis) gathered together the pieces, drawing a parallel to the vine which after it has been heavily pruned during the wine harvest, must be restored by the earth in order for it to bear fruit once again in due season. (3.62.7-8)

The dismemberment and reconstitution of Dionysos was given deep, eschatological signifigance in the Bacchic and Orphic mysteries.

The Neoplatonic philosopher Olympiodoros wrote that when Zeus burned up the Titans with his lightning-bolts a vapor arose, soot formed, and from the soot, a stuff. Of this stuff men were made. "Our body is Dionysian, we are a part of him, since we sprang from the soot of the Titans who ate his flesh." (Olympiodors In Platonis Phaedonem comentarii 61C)

Plato wrote that during Dionysian initiation, the initiates "search eagerly within themselves to find the nature of their God, they are successful, because they have been compelled to keep their eyes fixed upon the God ... they are inspired and receive from him character and habits, so far as it is possible for a man to have part in God."

Macrobius in the Saturnalia observed that, "In their Mystery-tradition Dionysos is represented as being torn limb from limb by the fury of the Titans, and after the pieces have been buried, as coming together again and whole and one. By offering itself for division from its undivided state, and by returning to the undivided from the divided, this Dionysian process both fulfills the duties of the cosmos and also performs the mysteries of its own nature."

Plutarch, in On the E at Delphi 23, wrote, "As for his passage and distribution into waves and water, and earth, and stars, and nascent plants and animals, they hint at the actual change undergone as a rending and dismemberment, but name the God himself Dionysos or Zagreus or Nyctelios or Isodaites. Deaths too and vanishings do they construct, passages out of life and new births, all riddles and tales to match the changes mentioned. So they sing to Dionysos dithyrambic strains, charged with sufferings and a change wherein are wanderings and dismemberment. For Aeschylus says, 'In mingled cries the dithyramb should ring, With Dionysos revelling, its King.' (Fr. 392) But Apollo has the Paean, a set and sober music. Apollo is ever ageless and young; Dionysos has many forms and many shapes as represented in paintings and sculpture, which attribute to Apollo smoothness and order and a gravity with no admixture, to Dionysos a blend of sport and sauciness with seriousness and frenzy: 'God that sett'st maiden's blood. Dancing in frenzied mood, Blooming with pageantry! Evoe! we cry,' So do they summon him, rightly catching the character of either change. But since the periods of change are not equal, that called "satiety" being longer, that of "stint" shorter, they here preserve a proportion, and use the Paean with their sacrifice for the rest of the year, but at the beginning of winter revive the dithyramb, and stop the Paean, and invoke this God instead of the other, supposing that this ratio of three to one is that of the 'Arrangement' to the 'Conflagration'."

Copyright 2005 Sannion
All rights reserved
Posted with permission

Put into a Chest to be Drowned

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