Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/255

 Lucretius. Hathor, like the mother of the Aeneadae, is "sole mistress of the nature of things, and without her nothing rises up into the divine borders of light, nothing grows to be glad or lovely;" "through her every kind of living thing is conceived, rises up and beholds the light of the sun." But we know the Roman poet's apology for these poetical conceptions, "however well and beautifully they may be set forth." "If any one thinks proper to call the sea Neptune, and corn Ceres, and chooses rather to misuse the name of Bacchus than to utter the term that belongs to that