Page:Books on Egypt and Chaldaea, Vol. 32--Legends of the Gods.pdf/115

 of the Cat is again referred to, and Rā is asked if he does not remember the cry which came from the bank of Neṭit. The allusion here is to the cries which Isis uttered when she arrived at Neṭit near Abydos, and found lying there the dead body of her husband.

At this point on the Stele the spells are interrupted by a long narrative put into the mouth of Isis, which supplies us with some account of the troubles that she suffered, and describes the death of Horus through the sting of a scorpion. Isis, it seems, was shut up in some dwelling by Set after he murdered Osiris, probably with the intention of forcing her to marry him, and so assist him to legalize his seizure of the kingdom. Isis, as we have already seen, had been made pregnant by her husband after his death, and Thoth now appeared to her, and advised her to hide herself with her unborn child, and to bring him forth in secret, and he promised her that her son should succeed in due course to his father’s throne. With the help of Thoth she escaped from her captivity, and went forth accompanied by the Seven Scorpion-goddesses, who brought her to the town of Per-Sui, on the edge of the Reed Swamps. She applied to a woman for a night’s shelter, but the woman shut her door in her face. To punish her one of the Scorpion-goddesses forced her way into the woman’s house, and stung her child to death. The grief of the woman was so bitter and sympathy-compelling that Isis laid her hands on the child, and, having uttered one of her most potent