The Mighty Bull of the Two Lands

Water

Aristotle observed that everything nourishing is moist, that warmth arises out of moisture, and that the seeds of all living things have a moist nature. (Metaphysics 1.983 B) So it is not surprising to find Dionysos associated with this element. According to Plutarch Dionysos was "the lord and master not only of wine, but of the nature of every sort of moisture" (On Isis and Osiris, 35) And he calls him outright Hyes "Moisture". (34) Philolaus said that Dionysos held sway over moist and warm creation, whose symbol was wine, it being a moist and warm element, and Varro declared that the soverignty of Dionysos was not only to be recognized in the juice of fruits whose crowning glory was wine, but also in the sperms of living creatures.

Tradition furnishes us with many connections to water. Dionysos was attended by the Halia or "sea women" who assisted him in his battle against Perseus at Argos. Nonnos relates how, "In the Erythraian Sea, the daughters of Nereus cherished Dionysos at their table, in their halls deep down under the waves. So he remained in the hall deep down in the waves under the waters, and he lay sprawled among the seaweed in Thetis' bosom." (Dionysiaca 21.170) At Brasia, it was said that Dionysos had washed ashore in a chest and at Methymna on Lesbos, fishermen found a prosopan "face" or "mask" of olive wood in their nets, which was afterwards worshipped in a procession to honor Dionysos Phallen. (Pasuanias 3.24.3-4, 10.19.3) Dionysos was said to come to Athens "from across the sea" on a dark ship on the second day of the Anthesteria, and Homer tells the story of Dionysos' attempted kidnapping by the pirates, and his turning them into dolphins. (Homeric Hymn 7) In Pagasae he was worshipped as Pelagios "God of the sea", in Chios, Sparta, and Sicyon as Aktaios "God of the Seacoast". He also had his grottoes, as at Euboea (Pausanias 2.23.1) and his temple En Limnais "in the marshes" (Athenaios 11.465 A).

Osiris, too, was connected with water, as Plutarch observed in his On Isis and Osiris: "all kinds of moisture are called the 'efflux of Osiris.' Therefore a water-pitcher is always carried first in his processions, and the leaf of a fir-tree represents both Osiris and Egypt." (36)

He was especially connected with the Nile, whose cyclic rise and fall found parallels in the God's own life: "As to what they relate of the shutting up of Osiris in a box, this appears to mean the withdrawal of the Nile to its own bed. This is the more probable as this misfortune is said to have happened to Osiris in the month of Hathor, precisely at that season of the year when, upon the cessation of the Etesian or north winds the Nile returns to its own bed, and leaves the country everywhere bare and naked." (Plutarch On Isis and Osiris, 39)

Herodotus called the Nile the "gift of Osiris" and Pausanias related that, "When the Nile begins to rise, the Egyptians have a tradition that it is the tears of Isis which make the river rise and irrigate the fields" (10.32)

The Pyramid Texts also speak of the Nile in connection with Osiris: "They come, the waters of life which are in the sky. They come, the waters of life which are in the earth. The sky is aflame for you, the earth trembles for you, before the divine birth of Osiris. The two mountains are split apart. The God comes into being, the God has power in his body. The month is born, the fields live." (2063) And "O Osiris! The inundation is coming; abundance surges in. The flood-season is coming, arising from the torrent isssuing from Osiris, O King may Heaven give birth to thee as Orion!" (2113-2117) And in a hymn to Osiris, Rameses IV says "You are the Nile, Gods and men live from your outflow."

Bull

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