Hymns of Isidoros I-III
I.
O wealth-giver, Queen of the gods, Hermouthis, Lady, omnipotent Agathe
Tyche, greatly
renowned Isis, Deo, highest Discoverer of all life,
Manifold miracles were your care that you might bring
Livelihood to mankind and mortality to all;
And you have taught customs that justice might in some measure prevail;
You gave skills that men’s life might be comfortable,
And you discovered the blossoms that produce edible vegetation.
Because of you heaven and the whole earth have their being;
And the gusts of the winds and the sun with its sweet light.
By your power the channels of the Nile are filled, every one,
And the harvest season and its most turbulent water is poured
On the whole landthat produce may be unfailing.
All mortals who live on the boundless earth,
Thracians, Greeks, and Barbarians,
Express your fair name, a name greatly honored among all!
But each speaks his own language in his own land.
The Syrians call you Astarte, Artemis, Nanaia,
The Lycian tribes call you Leto, the Lady,
The Thracians also name you as Mother of the gods,
And the Greeks Hera of the Great Throne, Aphrodite,
Hestia the goodly, Rheia and Demeter.
But the Egyptians call you ‘Thiousis’ (becausee they know)
that you, being One, are all
Other goddesses invoked by the race of men.
Mighty one, I shall not cease to sing your great Power,
Deathless Savior, many-named, mightiest Isis,
Saving from war cities and all their citizens,
Men, their wives, possessions, and children.
As many as are bound fast in prison, in the power of death,
As many as are in pain through long, anguished, sleepless nights,
All who are wanderers in a foreign land,
And as many as sail pm the Great Sea in winter,
When men may be destroyed and their ships wrecked and sunk ….
All these are saved if they pray that you are present to help.
Hear my prayers, O One Whose Name has Great Power;
Prove yourself merciful to me and free me from all distress.
Isidoros wrote it.
II.
Hail Agathetyche, greatly renowned Isis, mightiest Hermouthis,
In you every city rejoices!
O Discoverer of life and cereal food wherein all mortals delight,
Because of your great blessings.
All who pray to you to assist their commerce,
Prosper in their piety forever;
All who are bound in mortal illnesses in the grip of death,
If they but pray to you, quickly attain your renewal of life.
How truly the Agathosdaimon, mighty Soknopis,
Dwells as your temple mate, that goodly bestower of wealth,
Creator of both earth and the starry heaven,
And of all the rivers, and very swift streams;
And Anchoes your son, who inhabits the height of heaven,
Is the rising Sun who shows forth the light.
All indeed who wish to beget offspring,
If they but pray to you, attain fruitfulness.
Persuading the gold-flowing Nile,
you lead it in season over the land of Egypt as a blessing for men.
Then all vegetation flourishes and you apportion to all
Whom you favor, a life of unspeakable blessing.
Remembering your gifts, men to whom you have granted wealth and great
blessings,
All duly set aside for you one tenth of these blessings
rejoicing each year at the time of your Panegyrie.
Thereafter you allow them, as the year rolls round again,
Everyone to rejoice in the month of Pakhons.
Joyful after your festival, they return home
Reverently and are filled with the sense of blessedness
That comes only from you.
Grant a share of your gifts also to me, Lady Hermouthis,
Your suppliant, happiness and especially the blessing of children.
Isidoros wrote it.
Hearing my prayers and hymns, the gods
Have rewarded me with the blessing of great happiness.
III.
O Ruler of the Highest Gods, Hermouthis, Lady,
Isis, pure, most sacred, mighty of mighty name, Deo,
O most hallowed Bestower of good things,
To all men who are righteous, you grant great blessings:
To possess wealth, a life that is pleasant, and most serene happiness:
Material gain, good fortune, and happy soundness of understanding.
All who live lives of greatest bliss, the best of men:
Sceptre-bearing kings and rulers,
If they depend on you, rule until old age,
Leaving shining and splendid wealth in abundance to their sons
And sons’ sons, and men who come after.
But the one whom the Heavenly Queen has held most dear of princes,
Rules both Asia and Europe, keeping the peace;
The harvests grow heavy for him with all kinds of good things, bearing
fruit …
And where indeed there are wars and slaughter of countless throngs,
Your strength and godly power annihilates the multitude against him;
But to the few with him it gives courage.
Hear me, Agathetyche, when I pray to you, Lady,
Whether you have journeyed into Libya or to the South Wind,
Or whether you are dwelling in the outermost regions of the North Wind
Ever sweetly blowing,
Or whether you dwell in the East Wind where are the risings of the Sun,
Or whether you have gone to Olympos where the Olympian gods dwell,
Or whether you are in heaven above, a judge with the immortal gods,
You are directing the world of men, looking down on the manifold deeds
of the wicked
And gazing down on those of the just.
If you are present here too, you witness men’s individual virtue,
Delighting in the sacrifices, libations, and offerings,
Of the men who dwell in the Nome of Soukhos, the Arsinoites,
Men of mixed races who all, yearly, are present
On the twentieth of the month of Pakhons and of Thoth,
Bringing a tenth for you and for Ankhoes, and Soknopis, most sacred of
gods,
at your feast.
O hearer of prayers, black-robed Isis, the Merciful,
And you Great Gods who share the temple with her,
Send Paian to me, healer of all ills!
Isidoros wrote it.
Ovid's hymn to Isis
O Isis, lady of Paraetonium,
And of Canopus' fertile
Fields, of Memphis, and
Palm-bearing Pharos, where the rushing Nile
Flows down in his broad channel
And glides through seven gates
Into the sea, I call you, by your sistra,
By the face of the holy one
Anubis, by your faithful
Osiris - may he always love your rites!
May lazy serpents slide
Around your altar gifts!
May horned Apis walk in your procession!
- Ovid,
Amores 2.13
Three passages
from Apuleius' Metamorphoses
"Queen of heaven, at one time you appear in the guise of Ceres,
bountiful and primeval bearer of the crops. In your delight at
recovering your daughter, you dispensed with the ancient, barbaric diet
of acorns and schooled us in civilized fare; now you dwell in the
fields of Eleusis. At another time you are heavenly Venus; in giving
birth to Love when the world was first begun, you united the opposing
sexes and multiplied the human race by producing ever abundant
offspring; now you are venerated at the wave-lapped shrine of
Paphos.
At another time you are Phoebus' sister, by applying soothing remedies
you relieve the pain of childbirth, and have brought teeming numbers to
birth; now you are worshiped in the fame shrines of Ephesus. At
another time you are Proserpina, whose howls at night inspire dread and
whose triple form restrains the emergence of ghosts as you keep the
entrance to earth above firmly barred. You wander through diverse
groves, and are appeased by varying rites. With this feminine light of
yours you brighten every city and nourish
the luxuriant seeds with your moist fire, bestowing your light
intermittently according to the wandering paths of the sun. But
by
whatever name or rite or image it is right to invoke you, come to my
aid at this time of extreme privation, lend stability to my
disintegrating fortunes, grant respite and peace to the harsh
afflictions which I have endured." - Lucius' plea to Isis.
"I am the mother of the world of nature, mistress of all the
elements,
first-born in this realm of time. I am the loftiest of deities, queen
of departed spirits, foremost of heavenly dwellers, the singled
embodiment of all gods and goddesses. I order with my nod the luminous
heights of heaven, the healthy sea-breezes, the sad silences of the
infernal dwellers. The whole world worships this single godhead under a
variety of shapes and liturgies and titles. In one land the Phyrgians,
first-born of men, hail me as the Pessinuntian mother of the gods;
elsewhere the native dwellers of Attica call me Cecropian Minerva; in
other climes the wave-tossed Cypriots name me Paphian Venus; the Cretan
Archers, Dictynna Diana; the tri-lingual Sicilians, Ortygian
Proserpina; The Eleusinians, the ancient goddess Ceres. Some call
me
Juno; others Bellona, others Hecate, and others still Rhamnusia.
But
the peoples on whom the rising sun-god shines with his first rays -
eastern and western Ethiopians , and the Egyptians who flourish with
their time honored learning -
worship me with the liturgy that is my own, and call me by my true
name, which is queen Isis." - Isis to Lucius.
" O' holy, perennial savior of the human race, you are ever generous in
your care for mortals, and you bestow a mother's sweet affection upon
wretched people in misfortune. No day, no period of sleep, no
trivial
moment hastens by which is not endowed with your kind deeds. You do not
refrain from protecting mortals on sea and land, or from extending your
saving hand to disperse the storms of life. With that hand you
even
wind back the threads of the Fates, however irretrievably twisted.
You
appease the storms raised by Fortune, and restrain the harmful courses
of the stars. The gods above cultivate you, the spirits below
court
you. You rotate the world, lend the sun its light, govern the
universe, crush Tartarus beneath your heel. The stars are
accountable
to you, the seasons return at your behest, the deities rejoice before
you, the elements serve you. At your nod breezes blow, clouds
nurture
the earth, seeds sprout, and buds swell. The birds coursing
through
the sky, the beats wandering on the mountains, the snakes lurking in
the
undergrowth, the monsters that swim in the deep all tremble at your
majesty. But my talent is too puny to sing your praises, and my
patrimony too meagre to offer you sacrificial victims; I have neither
the richness of speech, nor a thousand mouths and as many tongues, nor
an endless and uninhibited flow of words to express my feelings about
your majesty. Therefore I shall be sure to perform the one thing
that
a pious but poor person can do: I shall preserve your divine
countenance and your most holy godhead in the recess of my heart, and
there I shall for ever guard it and gaze on it with the eyes of the
mind." - Lucius' prayer to Isis.
