Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/221

 "in the briefest possible terms, denuded of such particulars as are quite useless and superfluous"; denuded also, as we are told later, "of its most blasphemous features," "such as the dismemberment of Horus and the decapitation of Isis." Piety absolutely rejects these tales concerning beings who participate "in that blessed and eternal nature which marks our conception of the Divine"; although Philosophy will not be equally severe on these legends, regarding them not solely as unsubstantial tales and empty fictions spun, like spiders' webs, by poets and romancers out of their own imagination, but also as indirectly reflecting the pure light of some ancient narrative whose meaning has now been utterly broken up as are the sun's rays when reproduced in the multitudinous hues of the rainbow. Plutarch clearlyfor [Greek: anachôrêsei] (cf. [Greek: anaklasis dê pou peri tên Irin], Amatorius, 765 E), but even then the meaning is difficult to elicit, and it is not confidently claimed that the rendering in the text has elicited it. Three translations are appended: "For as mathematicians assure us that the rainbow is nothing else but a variegated image of the sun, thrown upon the sight by the reflexion of his beams from the clouds, so ought we to look upon the present story as the representation, or reflexion rather, of something real as its true cause" (Plutarchi De Iside et Osiride Liber: Græce et Anglice, by, A.M., Cambridge, 1744).—"Und so wie die Naturforscher den Regenbogen für ein Gegenbild der Sonne erklären, das durch das Zurücktreten der Erscheinung an die Wolke bunt wird, so ist hier die Sage das Gegenbild einer Wahrheit, welche ihre Bedeutung auf etwas anderes hin abspiegelt" (Plutarch über Isis und Osiris herausgegeben von, Berlin, 1850).—Legendum [Greek: anachrôsei] vel [Greek: anaklasei], ut Reisk. "Et]*