Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/251

 Other characteristics of the same animals had impressed the minds of the Egyptians, and their symbolism is based on the peculiar observations made by them. Some of the inscriptions enable us to understand parts of the symbolism. Who of us would like to be called a crocodile, a jackal, or even a young bull? Yet the Egyptian poet gives these names to Tehutimes III. in a song of triumph, and he at the same time enlightens us as to the meaning of these words: the crocodile is terrible in the waters, and not to be encountered without disaster; the young bull whets his horns, and is not to be attacked without peril; and so on. The "bull" is a favourite name for a king or a god. However foreign the symbol may be to our own poetical conceptions, we can easily understand how an ancient agricultural people was impressed by certain qualities of the animal, his might, his courage, the terror he inspires when angry, the protection he affords to the herd, and his marital or paternal relations to it. The rays of the sun and the moon's crescent have at all times suggested the notion of horns. The cow in Egypt, as well as in India, represents the Sky, the Dawn and other powers. The hawk was among birds what the bull was among quadrupeds, and they admired his rapid, lofty and unerring flight, the piercing sight