Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/470

 1 62 Colour Symbolism.

These " pools " were called by the ancient Egyptians the " malachite pools," or " malachite lakes," in which, as they believed, the gods dwelt as birds. ^ These " birds " are the " Imperishable Stars." The life-giving malachite animated the god-stars. Pyramid Text 567 makes reference to the stars as a source of malachite powder : the powder drops like dew from heaven ; dew is thus identified with life- giving malachite.^ The fertilising star-tear that fell into the Low Nile on the " Night of the Drop " was evidently a malachite tear.^ The Green Nile was made green with malachite from the god-pools of green malachite in the celestial regions. The Green Osiris of the Green Nile was, as I hold, the personification of malachite. The celestial malachite in the Green Nile made vegetation green. It also made the dead " grow green again."

When the Ancient Egyptians discovered that there is copper in malachite, their theorising priests appear to have regarded copper as the very " life of life." ^ The green god-stone might be broken and burned, but the imperish- able principle of life contained in it could not be destroyed ; changing, it assumed a more permanent form. As the Green Nile became the Red Nile so did the green malachite become red copper. Copper was another form of malachite. The Red Horus was another form of the Green Osiris. In time men prayed for " souls of copper," and copper statues were provided for the Pharaohs. King Pepi I. had a copper statue made for himself. As early as the First Dynasty copper pots — apparently symbols of the mother goddess — were made for the dead. Copper was sacred, too, in Asia. It was the metal of Astarte and other " Queens

' Pyramid Texts, 1748, etc.

- In the sarcophagus room of the tomb of the Pharaoh Unis (Pyramid Age) the stars are green.

^ The sun-rays were Ra's tears, and sunUght was sometimes sym- boUsed by a green feather. The green feather appears on the head of the god Shu.


 * The Greeks beheved that a metal had a body, soul and spirit.