allegory in greece & egypt
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Egypt Exploration Society
Allegory in Greece and EgyptAuthor(s): J. Gwyn GriffithsReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 53 (Dec., 1967), pp. 79-102Published by: Egypt Exploration SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3855578 .
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ALLEGORY IN GREECE AND EGYPT'By J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
I. An inherited tradition
THERE re several statements in the DIO which show that Plutarch is both consciouslyand avowedly applying an allegoricalmethod in his treatment of the Egyptian myth.In no other work does he devote so much attention to the method and its meaning. In
one passage (9, 354 B-C) he suggests that the materialexpounded by him in this treatise
is particularlysuited to such a method:
A king chosenfromamongthe warriorsnstantlybecamea priestandshared n the philosophythat is hiddenfor the most part n mythsandstorieswhichshow dim reflexionsandinsightsof the
truth, just as they of coursesuggest themselveswhen they place sphinxes appositelybeforethe
shrines, intimating that their teaching about the gods holds a mysterious wisdom.
Although he adorned the Greek literarytradition in many ways, Plutarchcan hardlybtesaid to have originated any new tendency or movement. His allegoricalapproachwas no exception. He was hereusing a traditionwhich had persistedfor manycenturiesbefore him and which was at the height of its popularity during his lifetime. It is atradition which has survived into our own era. In Christianexegetic it is as old as thetreatmentof the Song of Songs as an allegoryof the relationbetween Christ and the
Church. At present it appears in some phases of the urge to 'demythologize' partsof the New Testament in the mannersuggested by Bultmann.
It was the interpretationof Homer'the Bible of the Greeks', that gave rise to
allegoristic,and the motive appearsto have been a moral one. In the sixth centuryB.C.some of the philosophers,notably Xenophanes, Pythagoras,and Heracleitus,attackedthe Homeric and Hesiodic conceptionof the gods. The rise of allegorical nterpretationwas an attemptto salvagethese reveredworksby suggestingthat the offendingepisodesreally bore hidden meanings which were at once acceptable and elevating. Theagenesof Rhegium, Anaxagoras, and Metrodorus of Lampsacus were among the earliest
allegorists,2 but Tate3 showed that Pherecydes of Syros (born c. 600 B.c.) 'read some
kind of new meaning into Homer', and he is earlier than Theagenes. Tate also makesthe suggestion that te early philosophers, when they expressed their teaching in
mythical language, which should be taken as 'symbolical and allegorical', 'may wellhave been the first to interpret the poetic traditions as though they were conscious
I This discussion has special reference to Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride, of which a new edition, with transla-tion and commentary, has been prepared by the writer and is now in the press. DIO = De Iside et Osiride;Ziegler, Plut. = 'Plutarchos von Chaironeia' in PW 21. I (I951), 636-962.
2 See Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, III 3rd ed. Leipzig, I880), 322 f.; Anne B. Hersman, Studies in Greek
Allegorical Interpretation (Chicago, o906), I0 ff.3 Class. Rev. 41 (1927), 214-15 ('The Beginnings of Greek Allegory').
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J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
allegories'. Tate's procedure seems a little dangerous in this respect; if generally
applied, it would put a very different face on much ancient mythopoeic thought.
Accordingto himi 'the function of allegorismwas originallynot negativeor defensive
but rather(as with Anaxagoras,Metrodorus, etc., in latertimes) positive or exegetical'.
The difficultyin assessingthe conscious motives of the earlyallegoristsis that theythemselves do not discuss the aim and nature of allegory.The word AA^qyopias not
used until the time of Cicero and of Plutarch, nor is the verb AArqyopEc used in the
technical sense of allegorical interpretationuntil the same time, Plutarch being the
first to use it thus, unless he was precededby Heracleitus n his QuaestionesHomericae,2
a work which was written perhaps during Plutarch's lifetime. Theagenes applied
physical or mental qualities to the gods' names.3The scholiast on Homer (II. 20, 67)
says thattahis was the ancientmethod of a5roAoyla,and that Theagenesfirst wrote about
Homer. That he wrote about Homer is stated also by the scholiast on Aristophanes,
Birds, 822. In view of these two testimoniesTate's attemptto belittle the contribution
of Theagenes is not entirelyconvincing.4It is true that the Homeric scholiast'saccount
may be inaccurate.Theagenes, for example, may well have included the etymologicalmethod in his physical explanationsof the divine names.5Further, it is questionablewhether the mythic speculations of the early philosopherswere as closely related to
the allegorical approachas Tate implies.6In many respectsPlutarchwas indebted to Plato, so that any discussionof his use of
allegory must consider the possibility that Plato's vies on allegoristicwere accepted
by him partially or fully. At first sight Plato seems to have rejected the allegorical
approach.In the Republic,378 D it is said that the immoralstories about the gods are
not to be admitted into the State whether they contain 'deeper meanings' (7Trovotat)
or not, for the young would not be in a position to judge what was to be interpretedthus. A well-known passagein the opening of the PhaedrusdescribesSocratesdiscuss-
ing the myth of how Boreas carriedaway the maiden Orithyiafrom the banks of the
Ilissus. Socrates quotes an allegoricalexplanation,to the effect that Boreasrepresentsthe North Wind and that the girl was physicallyremovedby the force of the wind. He
tells Phaedrus, 'I regardsuch theories as no doubt attractive,but as the invention of
clever, industrious people who are not exactly to be envied.'7He urges the Delphic'Know thyself' as more profitableadvice to the serious-minded.
The etymologizingwhich had become a dominant method in allegoristicis one of
the themes of theCratylus;
but the treatmentis not a serious one, and the aim seems
to be to poke fun at the whole method.8Plato's attitude may be summed up by saying
Class. Quar. 28 (R934), 105 ('On the History of Allegorism').2 See F. Oelmann's edition (Teubner, o191).
3 Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem, ed. Dindorf, iv (Oxford, I877), 231.
4 Class. Quart. 28 (1934), 0o8: 'His barren record serves merely to illustrate the fact that grammariansand
biographersof Homer could make use of the labours of the philosophers for the purpose of expounding, eulogiz-
ing and defending the poet.' He does not seem to have noted the evidence of the Schol. on the Birds.
5 Cf. Paul Decharme, La Critiquedes traditionsreligieuses chez les Grecs (Paris, 1904), 275.6 Cf. the refusal of Decharme to enlist Heracleitus of Miletus among the early aJlegorists,op. cit. 273 n. I.
7 Plato, Phdr. 229 D (R. Hackforth's tr., Cambridge, 1952, 24).
8 See especially 406 c and cf. A. B. Hersman, op. cit. 8.
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that while he did not deny the possibility of allegoricalmeanings, he had little use for
them; nor did he employ the method himself with any seriousness.' Tate2 calls thisthe 'negative aspect' of allegorism, and maintains that Plato, in the Cratylus, for
example, supports its 'positive aspect', which implies a nobler method exemplified
by the mythical languageof divinely inspiredpoets. On the basis of his own definitionTate is doubtlessright. But it should be noted that his 'positive' categoryis not related
by ancient writers to the question of allegorical writing. In the Cratylus,for instance,it is regardedas something very different.
Whereas Plutarch uses the words aAA-ryopew adAAMopla, and aAAq7yoplKJ4,3he also
employs some of the words which occur in Plato's treatmentof the subject. The verb
atvr7TromaL, hich Plutarchuses twice in the DIO, is employed several times by Plato4to discuss the enigmaticsayingsof a poetic nature.Plutarch'sattitude,however,is verydifferent from Plato's. In the De audiendispoetis the differenceextends to the wholeestimateof poetry;for Plutarch,althoughhe does not explicitlymention his opposition
to the austerejudgement of the Republic n banning poetryfrom the State, neverthelessbegins his discussion with a clear statement that it is a mistake to forbid the readingof poetry by the young.s Maintaining that in rO TE'prrov
one should seek and love r6
Xp3attov in one's study of poetry, he was nearer to Aristotle and the teaching of the
Peripateticschool.6He does not join forceswith Plato in attackingHomer and Hesiod,but claimsthat carefulstudy of the poet's literarymethodwill removemuch that seemsoffensive.He does not, however,adoptthe attitudeof the Stoics and regardHomer andHesiod as infallible teachers whose words should be defended at all costs. He is
occasionallyreadyto blame Homer's words. 'For not only,' he says, 'as it seems, con-
cerningthe land of the Egyptians, but also concerningpoetry, it is possible to say that
she gives to those who use her"manyexcellentdrugsmixedtogetherandmanybitter".'7He states emphatically that when poems say anything reprehensibleabout the godsor the daemons or about virtue, a whole-hearted rejection is possible.8 The textual
improvements of Cleanthes and Zeno are not acceptable to him;9 and he refuses to
give an astralmeaning to the story of the adulteryof Aphrodite and Ares, as thoughit signifiedthe coming togetherof two planets.10He goes on to saythatthe poet's inten-tion is to give a moral lesson on the evils of licentious ways and the transitorynatureof ill-gotten pleasures.Decharme"I xplainsPlutarch'sattitudeasimplyingthe rejectionof the physicalinterpretationsof the myths in favour of the moralinterpretations,which
(according to Decharme) ever since Theagenes of Rhegium were strongly prevalentamong most of Homer's commentators. There is surely a confusion here, however,
I Cf. A. B. Hersman, loc. cit.; Tate, Class. Quart. 23 (1929), 154; R. Hackforth, op. cit. 26.2 Loc. cit. 3 See Wyttenbach, Lex. Plut. I, 38.4 E.g. Lysis, 214 D; Charm. 162 A; Theaet. 152 c. A. B. Hersman calls attention to this usage, op. cit. 8 n.
I6 and 30. 5 De aud. poetis, I, 15 F.6 Cf. Ziegler, Plut. 806; and S. Weinstock, Philologus82 (I926), 137 ('Die platonische Homerkritik und ihre
Nachwirkung', 121-53).7 De aud. poetis, i, I5 B-C; cf. 4, 20 c. 8 Op. cit. 2, 16 D.9 Op. cit. 12, 33 C-D. So too the etymologies of Cleanthes and Chrysippus, II, 31 D-E.
10 Op. cit. 4, 19 E-F. This is the context where he refers to the rejected type of explanation as nrrovotatr
AAMrlyoplai. I Op. cit. 475.
8i
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as immoral. Plato, therefore, naturally comes in for a good deal of criticism. Since
Homer is to be regardedas a sacredwriter, the true understandingof him is arguedto
be imperative;those lackingin wisdom and learningwill not succeed in understandingthe allegories, but the duty is more urgent, in view of this, to seek the real meaning
of those stories regardedas worthyof reproach.An exampleof the method adoptedbyHeracleitus is his interpretationof the theomachies; physical and moral allegory is
applied. It is fairly clear, however, that even if Plutarch was familiar with the work of
Heracleitus,he cannot have been much attractedby it, since in his De audiendispoetishe shows that his own approachto Homer was very different. Hersman,' in a com-
parisonof Heracleitusand Cornutus,describesthe latter'swork as 'but a tiresomelist
of etymologiesof the namesof the gods and of their epithets that aims to show that the
whole hierarchyof the Greekreligionwas a figurativeexpressionof physicaldoctrine';
she is more attractedto his closing paragraph n which she finds that he 'expressesa firm belief in the wisdom of the ancients, and proclaimshis own pious purpose of
leading the young to religion, but not to superstition'. It is surprising, nonetheless,that although Mrs. Hersmanis mainly concernedwith Plutarch'sallegoristic,she fails
to see that of these two writers Cornutus is much the closer to Plutarch. This is true
not only of his interest in, and approachto, mythology, which dominates his book;
it is also true of that partof it which is devoted to the poets, for Tate2has shown that
Cornutushere deviatesfrom the Stoic position to the extent of censuringboth Homer
and Hesiod for adding fictitious matter to the materialthey inherited.Tate has prob-
ably gone too far when he says3 that Cornutus consequently drew back 'from the
extremes to which the earlier Stoics had pushed the method of allegoricalinterpreta-
tion'. He can point to an occasional example where he dissents from the eminent
Stoics. In chapter20 Cornutusdisagreeswith the Stoic explanationof Tritogeneia as
deriving from the rptia e'v of philosophy; cf. DIO 75, 381 E-F; in chapter31 he dis-
sents from the way takenby Cleanthesto explainthe laboursof Heracles.On the other
hand he refersto the works of the earlierStoic philosophersas a commendablesource
for the allegoricalsystem which he himself is employing (Ch. 35); and his own ex-
planationsare mostly in line with those propagatedby this group. Decharme says4of
Cornutusrightly,'I1est tout plein des doctrinesde Zenon,de Cleantheet de Chrysippe.'
II. Plutarch's practice
Where then does Plutarchbelong? Tates classifieshim as one who rejectedallegoris-tic in toto. 'Thus Plutarch,' he says, 'who did not care for allegoricalinterpretations,
explains the Homeric quarrels of the gods by pointing out that Homer elsewhere
describesthe gods as delightingall their days in their peacefulabode.'6Plutarchaccepts
the latter notion as truth and rejects the former as fictitious opinion. Tate7points out
Op. cit. 21. 2 'Cornutus and the Poets', Class. Quart. 23 (1929), 41-45.
3 Class. Quart. 23 (1929), 44.4 Op. cit. 26I. s Class. Quart. 24 (1930), 8.
6 The reference is to De aud. poetis, 2, 17 D.
7 Class. Quart. 24 (1930), 2. Cf. eundem, Class. Quart. 28 (1934), IIo: 'Plutarch himself... would have none
of it.' He refers here to De aud. poetis, 4, 19 E and II, 3 E.
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that 'Plutarch regards the etymologies of Cleanthes and Chrysippus as belonging
properly, not to philosophy, but to the specialized studies of the grammarians'.Thetruth is that Plutarch does reject allegoristic in the De audiendispoetis: he does notfavour there the physical or moral allegorists, nor does he recommend the subtle
etymologies of the Stoics, some of which were borrowed from Plato in spite of thelatter's distaste for the allegoricalapproach.i Hersman2states that the De audiendis
poetis'containsonly one or two allegoricalexplanations';but she does not specifythem.She is correct,however,in her assessment of the DIO as a worksteeped in allegoristic,and it is somewhat remarkable hat the contrast between it and the earlier work hasnot received more attention.
Decharme3discusses in this connexiona fragmentascribedto Plutarchby Eusebius,4where it is said that the Orphic poems, together with the traditions of Egypt and
Phrygia, show the physiology (or philosophy) to be mysterious and presented enig-matically, and that the secret thought of the wise men of old was available in the
mysteriesand sacrifices.E. H. Giffordsthus translatesthe beginning of the passage:The physiology(var. philosophy)of the ancientsboth among Greeks and Barbarianswas a
physicaldoctrineconcealed n legends,for the mostparta secret andmysteriousheologyconveyedin enigmasandallegories,containing tatements hat wereclearer6 o the multitude han the silent
omissions,and its silent omissionsmore liable to suspicionthan the open statements. This isevident n the Orphicpoems,andin the EgyptianandPhrygian tories;but the mind of the ancientsis most clearlyexhibited n the orgiasticrites connectedwith the initiations,and in what is sym-bolically acted in the religious services.
Eusebiusattributesthese words to Plutarch'swork De DaedalisPlataeensibus, nd givesinstances of the explanationsfound therein. The legend that Hera was stolen away,
while yet a virgin, by Zeus, but that their clandestinelove was kept secret throughthekindness of Leto, is explained by the fact that Hera is the earth and Leto is night.A story that told of a quarrelbetween Hera and Zeus is said to referreallyto a distur-bance and confusion of the elements, Zeus being heat and fire, and Hera being rainand wind. Eusebius adds the comment that both the originalindecencyof the legendsand the physiologicalexplanationsare debasing and unworthy.
Decharme7finds in this une couleurtoute stoicienne'; for Chrysippus, Zeus is theluminous ether; for Cornutus,he is, as for the authorof the De DaedalisPlataeensibus,the celestial fire. The whole Stoa recognizedin Hera the air which is under the sky,the terrestrialatmosphere,alwaysagitatedby winds or chargedwith rain. How could
Plutarch,who neverceasedto combatthe Stoics,who declares heirtheologyridiculous,who rejects their physical explanationsof the Homeric legends, how could he, asks
Decharme, be caught in such a contradiction?He suggests that this fragmenteither
I e.g. the equation of Hera and Aer (Cratyl. 404 B), often used by the Stoics. Cf. DIO 32, 363 D. See furtherF. Wehrli, Zur GeschichtederallegorischenDeutungHomersimnAltertum (Diss. Zirich, 1928), 86 f.
2 Op. cit. 38 f. 3 Op. cit. 475 ff. 4 Praep. Evang. 3, I.5 EusebiiPamphili Evangelicae Praeparationis, III,Part i (Oxford, 1903), 91.6 Karl Mras, however, Eusebius Werke, Bd. 8 (Die griech. christl. Schriftsteller, 43, i, Berlin, 1954),
106 reads (d)oraiacTEpa, following Reitzenstein, Poimandres, 164. The text is given also by Bernardakis, Plu.vol. vII (Teubner, 1896), 43 ff. 7 Op. cit. 476.
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has been wrongly ascribedto him or belongs to a dialogue in which one of the inter-
locutors held an opinion peculiarto himself. 'En realite',he concludes, 'Plutarquen'a
jamais confondu les personnesdivines avec les elements de la nature.'This statement will certainlynot stand examinationin the light of the DIO. In 66,
377 D it is true that a vigorous protest is made against the tendency to identify godswith naturalproducts, such as Dionysus with wine. But Osiris is identified with mois-
ture, and physicalallegoryis freely indulged in. The citation in Eusebius tallies closelywith the teaching of the DIO about the mysteries.
Elsewhere too his allegoristic is in evidence. Bernardakis'cites chapter 27 of theDe facie in orbe lunae (942 F; 950 E; I008 A). The Vita Homeri,which Bernardakis s
there defending as genuine, is no longer consideredso; but in the passagehe refersto2
Theon is addressing Sulla and Lamprias,and he propoundsa physical explanationofthe myth of Demeter and Kore: the earth is the realmof Demeter and the moon thatof Kore; the coming of the moon into the shadow of the earth betokens the union of
mother and daughter.3 It is impossible, he says, for Kore to leave Hades, since she isherself the end of Hades. Here Homer Od. iv, 563 is quoted, and he is said to have
expressedthis 'enigmatically' eirtKpviabdtevos), but not ineffectively,in his referencetothe Elysianplain and the ends of the earth.This is a clearcase of physicalallegory,andthe only way to deny its validityin the presentargument s to maintainthat it is Theon's
view, and not Plutarch's. He is himself responsiblefor the views expressed in the DePrimo Frigido,which is dedicated to the Aristotelian Favorinus and which criticizes
many statements made by the Stoics. But he uses a physical allegory when he says(I4, 950 E)4thatHomer5 physicallyrather hanmythically(qvMaKWJSAAXov3 V0WKCS) set
Hephaestus in opposition to the river and Apollo to Poseidon. He suggestssimilarlyin the QuaestionesPlatonicae, i007F-Io08E, that the epithet 'highest of the lords'
(i7aros- KpEtOvTwv), whichHomerusesof Zeus, denotesphysicalposition o startwith ;6but this explanationis not fully allegorical.
The passage which we have quoted from the beginning of Eusebius' extract fromPlutarch'sDe DaedalisPlataeensibuss similar in approach,as we have noted, to theattitude shown in the DIO; see especially9, 354 B-C which has alsobeen quoted above.One can go further than this and maintainthat the DIO contains examples of everykind of allegoristicpreviouslyknownto Greekliterature,manyof them being presentedas acceptableto Plutarch himself. Etymology, a favouritearm of the Stoic allegorists,is used
frequently.For
instance,Clea is told
(2, 351 F)that she
worshipsa
goddessexceptionallywise and wisdom-loving, as 'her name certainlyseems to imply that toher more than anyone belong knowledge and understanding'.The name, he adds, is
Plutarchi Moralia, vII (Teubner, I896), p. ix.2 See Moralia, v, 3 (ed. Hubert and Pohlenz, Teubner, 1955), 81-82; ed. Cherniss (Loeb, vol. xII), pp. 194 f.3 Cf. Ziegler's summary, Plut. 854; and R. Wiggers, Beitrage zur Entwicklungsgeschichteesphilosophischen
Mythos der Griechen(Diss. Rostock, 1927), 37 f. He regards this as a philosophical myth derived partly fromXenocrates and partly from Poseidonius. H. von Arnim, Plutarch iiberDdmonenundMantik (Amsterdam, 1921),66 does not believe Xenocrates to have been the source.
4 Ed. C. Hubert, op. cit. IoI-2. 5 The ref. is to II. 21, 342 ff. and 435 ff.6 He is here dealing with some of the argument of Plato, Resp. 443 D. Cf. R. M. Jones, The Platonism of
Plutarch, 104-5.
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J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
Greek, and he is obviously connecting Isis with a form ofolSa, 'know'. Later in the
work his etymological interpretationof the goddess is elaborated,althoughon different
lines-a readiness to swap horses which we noted in Cornutus. In 60, 375c Isis is
derived froml'EaOaL (here L'EaTat)to hasten' with understanding(pEr' rLa-rrf'Lrs),
'since she is soulful and intelligent movement'. There follows a plethoraof analogousetymologies. Plutarch is here adopting the approachwhich is made light of in the
Cratylus,but which the Stoics used fervently. In the same way he explains Typhon,which he also assumesto be a Greekname, as one who is 'demented by his ignoranceand deceit' (2, 35 F). It is through his allegoricalmethod, rigorously applied, that
Plutarch is able to maintain, concerning Egyptian cults, that 'nothing irrational or
fabulous or based on superstition, as some believe, was embodied in the religious
services, but ideas which either had moral and necessarycauses or were not devoid
of historical or physicalplausibility,such as that connectedwith the onion' (8, 353 E-F).
This is an instructive example, for a tale about the onion is rejected; it is utterly in-
credible, he says, that Dictys, the nurslingof Isis, fell into the riverand was drownedbecause she tried to lay hold of a clump(?) of onions. The priests, however, abstain
fromthe onion; they loatheandavoidit asthe only plantthatgrowsand flourisheswhen
the moon is on the wane.A factualnote is added:it is not useful eitherfor those purify-
ing themselves (by fasting) or for those keeping festival, for in the former it producesthirst and in the latter tears. In this case Plutarch, in disbelieving the story, clearly
regards it as having been fabricated by the priests to justify a custom regarded as
salutary.Here is an exampleof allegoristicwhich involvesrejectionof myth by suggest-
ing its aetiology.In one instancePlutarchconsciously paradesan improvementon an allegorical nter-
pretationpreviouslymade by writerswhom he does not name. He is discussing a state-
ment by Heracleitusthat Hades and Dionysus are the same:
For hosewhoclaimhat hebody s calledHades ince he soulbecomes esidetself,asitwere,and intoxicatedwithin it, are allegorizingoo subtly(yAXlaxpwsaAAyopovian).t is betterto equate
OsiriswithDionysus, ndSarapiswithOsiris, ince he latter cquiredhisnamewhenhechangedhis nature. (28, 362A-B)
It would clearlybe wrongto explainthe improvementhere as a rejectionof allegoryin
general, althoughthis particular nstance of it is dismissed.
With regardto Sarapishe proceedsto interpretthe god etymologicallyas 'the name
of him who orders the universe, being derived from aalpetv (to sweep)', and he will
not countenancethe statementsof Phylarchusthat the derivation s from words mean-
ing 'to beautify' and 'to order' (29, 362 c). The possibility that the word is Egyptian
promptshim to say, 'For my part I believe that if the name Sarapis s indeed Egyptian,it denotesjoy andgladness(charmosyne),akingmy clue fromthe factthatthe Egyptians
call the Charmosyna, he festivalof gladness, Sairei' (29, 362 D). Amenthes he explainsas 'the place under the earth, to which they believe souls go after death', the word
signifying 'he who takes and gives' (29, 362 D).
When he goes on to treat of the physical allegoriesbased on etymology, similar to
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thoseemployedby the philosopherswho explainedCronusas time,Hera as air,and
Hephaestusas fire, it is noticeable hat Plutarch's one is respectful.The followingis thecounterpartitedbyhimasprevailing mong heEgyptianswithregardo Osirian
theology:
So among he EgyptiansOsiris s the Nile, unitingwith Isis as the earth,whileTyphonis the sea,into which the Nile fallsandso disappears nd is dispersed, ave forthatpartwhichthe earth akes
up and receives, becomingfertile through it. (32, 363D)
A modifiedandgeneralized ersionof this interpretationeemsto receivePlutarch's
approvaln the important hapter33 wherethe wiser of thepriestsaresaidto regardOsiris as the whole principleand powerof moisture.Plutarch'spreferencehere is
typicallyGreekandis in line withthe tendencyof Greekphilosophyromthe time ofthe Milesians o look for the primary lements.It is not surprisinghathe later(34,364B-D)mentions he beliefthat Thalesreceived romEgypthis ideathatwaterwas
the sourceof everything.This happens o be a casewherea parallelexplanationwascertainlyfound amongthe Egyptians,but probablyin its firstratherthan second form.Osiriswasexplainedby themas the Nile or as freshwaterrather hanas theprincipleof moisture.WhatPlutarch scribeso theEgyptianpriests s therefore Greekrefine-ment,on the linesof Stoicallegoristic, f the native dea.
Detailsadded o thephysicalallegory re hatNephthysrepresentsheouterbordersof the earthand the partsnearthe mountainsandthe sea (38, 366B),whilethe helpgiven to Typhon by the Queen of the Ethiopiansdenotes'southernbreezesfrom
Ethiopia' (39, 366 c). The enclosureof Osirisin the chestmeans 'the concealmentand disappearancef water' (39, 366D). After comparingStoic interpretations f
Dionysus, Heracles,Ammon,Demeter,and Poseidon,Plutarchdeviatesstrangelyfrom this lineof exegesis o ascribe uddenlya verydifferentallegoryo the Egyptiansor possibly o anothergroupof Greekphilosophers.t is still a physicalallegory,butnowTyphon epresentshesolarworld, ndOsiris helunar 41, 367C-D). Frischhasdealtacutelywith theimplications f thisviolentswitch-over stheyaffect hepossiblesources which Plutarchwas using. The followingof a Stoic source,but a differentone, is probably ndicated.The new interpretationtill appears o be dealtwith inakindlymanneruntilwereach5I, 372A, wherePlutarchays hat'justridiculeattachesto those whoassign he ballof the sunto Typhon,whohasnothingradiant rprotec-tive abouthim,nor hashe orderor creationor the movementwhichhasmeasureand
reason,but rather he opposite'.In the meantimePlutarch s deciding n favourofa moralallegoryas the correctexplanation.Osiris s the goodandrestrained,Typhonis the evil and intemperaten everything; his is declaredafteran expositionof thebelief that there aregood and evil powersbehind the workingsof the universe(49,37I A-B; cf. 64, 366 F-377 A). The dualism which is at the root of this explanation is
undoubtedly due in part to the influence of Plato. Hopfner indeed gives the heading'Die akademische [Platonische] Deutung' to chapters 49-64 in his commentary.Daemonologys involvedtoo. Like allegoristic,daemonology rovideda way out of
ascribingevil to the gods. It was not the gods, but daemons, that is, inferior beings,
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J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
that were responsible. Plutarch's combination of daemonology and allegoristictakes
him far enough from Plato.
Did allegoristic mply rejectionof the myths?We have noted one instance where this
appears to be so. TateI suggests that it was usually so: 'But neither Plato nor the
allegorical interpreters believed that the myths were true. In order to accept therationalization t was necessaryto disbelievethe myth.' The implicationis particularlyclear in the approachmade to Homer and Hesiod, for a major aim of the allegoristswas to remove the necessity of believing in immoral and unworthy stories. Tate
shows that Plato's view of myths distinguishedthree elements: (i) the Ao'yosor nar-
rative in its literal sense; (2) the vo6os, TvrTOS, or d0aa, i.e. the principle implied, the
'moral' of the tale; and (3) the vrrovotaor allegoricalmeaning. Plato is preparedto
approveof stories whose narrativesare falsebut whose 'moral' s sound; but he believes
that the young are incapableof apprehendingthe third element.
Plutarch'sattitude seems to have varied. In DIO 58, 374 F he says: 'We must not
treat the myths as entirely factual statements (ovixus Ao'yoLsrac4rrav iactv), but take whatis fittingin each episode accordingto the principleof likeness (to truth).' This difficult
sentence seems to mean that incredible and fantastic incidents may be rejected, the
emphasis being on 7racTrav,'entirely'. Allegoristicthen providesa deepermeaning,but
does not invalidate the simple truth of the greaterpart of the stories themselves. One
crucial passage may be adduced to establish Plutarch's disbelief in certainpartsof the
myth. After finishinghis main narrationof the myth he refers to episodes which he has
omitted:
The foregoingareprettywell the mainpointsof the myth with the exceptionof the most out-
rageous episodes, such as those concerning the dismemberment of Horus and the decapitation of
Isis. For if they believe and say these things about the blessed and incorruptible nature throughwhich we mainly form our idea of the divine, as though they were really enacted or actually
happened, here is no need to tell you that
Oneneedsmustspitandpurifythe mouth
as Aeschylushas it. (20, 358E)
He has saidin I2, 355 D thatthese episodesare'utterlyuseless andsuperfluous eatures'.
Yet one of the cases he mentions in 20, 358 E is the decapitationof Isis; and he has
just included this in a softened form in 19, 358 D, where he describes the removalof
Isis' head-dress by Horus. What is implied, it seems, is a right to modify the formandmeaningof some of these
episodes.Reference s madein I
I, 355Bto the samematter:
Thus wheneveryou hear the myths told by the Egyptiansaboutthe gods, those, for instance,which tell of theirwanderings,mutilations,andmanyother suchtales,you shouldrememberwhatwassaidabove andnot thinkthatanyof thesethingsis saidto haveactuallyhappened o orto havebeen enactedso.
Here the emphasison oV'Ttoso' seems to restrictthe denialto the detailed form of the
mythical episode. The instancesthat followshow that the secondandsymbolicmeaningis regarded as the importantone. In the case of Hermes he is not literally 'the Dog',
I Class. Quart. 23 (1929), I44-5.
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ALLEGORY IN GREECE AND EGYPT
and in the case of the Sun-god, his arising from a lotus-flower represents sunrise;Ochus was not actuallya sword, but his brutality ustified the name. These three casesare obviously not parallel, and none of them deals strictly with a myth, but ratherwith a symbol. Atarchhe same time Plutarch inends the principleto apply to myths.
In his attitude to the myth of Osiris, or at least to most of it, Plutarch does notsuggest, however, a rejectionof the initial story. If certain episodes are thrown asideor modified, the others are accepted as factual even if a deeper meaning is attached.For instance, Plutarch has no suggestion that he does not believe that Osiris wasa king who actually lived. In I3, 3560 he discusses two ideas about the length of his
reign and in chapter I3 talks of his contributions to civilization. In the same chapterhe describes how Typhon inveigled him into the chest. Later, in 39, 366D, he saysthat this incident symbolizes the concealment and disappearanceof water. DoesPlutarchtherefore disbelieve in the incident? This is clearlynot so.
His allegoristic,on this showing, leaves room for some variety of treatment. Some
myths, such as that of Osiris, are mostly factual but also symbolic. Certainepisodes inthem must be rejectedor revised.theorther myths do not have a literalor factualmeaningat all; they are entirely symbolical. There is no clear instance of a myth thus treated,but in chapter 11 the principle is certainlystated.
III. Anterior developments in Egypt
In its originalGreeksense allegory implies that an authorproclaimsa meaningotherthan the one which is instantly apparent(aAAa yopvELt). The Greeks who explainedHomer from this point of view were superimposingthe second meaning upon a nar-rative which usually does not, in our opinion, bearany tracesof such a meaningbeingdeliberate. Some of Plato'smyths, on the otherhand,wereclearlywrittenwith a second
meaningin mind; those which conclude the Gorgiasand the Republicpresent eschato-
logical beliefs in narrativeform,' and in the Republic he descriptionof the cave con-stitutes a short allegory.2Two kinds of allegory therefore occur in Greek literature,the one superimposed by critics and the other consciously intended by the author;for the formertype the term 'allegoristic'is generallyused today.3
Egyptian literature has not usually been credited with a tradition of allegoricalwriting or interpretation.The only exception seems to be The Blinding of Truth, a
Late-Egyptian story which Gardiner4edited. It is preserved only in a fragmentaryform, and the three main charactersare Truth, his
youngerbrother
Falsehood,and
his son, who is not named. The story began, it appears,with an accountof how Truthborrowed a wonderful knife from Falsehood and then lost or damaged it. For this
I Cf. H. Leisegang in PW s.v. Platon (1950), 2416 f. and 2471 ff., though he does not use the term allegory.2 Cf. J. Tate, Oxford Class. Dict. s.v. Allegory, where he also cites The Choice of Heracles by Prodicus
(apud Xenophon, Mem. 2, 21) as an example.3 Cf. M. von Albrecht in Lexikon deralten Welt (Artemis, Zirich, I965), I2I ff. where the words 'Allegorie'
and 'Allegorese' are distinguished; thus too J. C. Joosen and J. H. Waszink in Reallexikonfur Antike undChristentum, I (Stuttgart, 1950), 283-93.
4 He gave the editioprincepsin Late-Egyptian Stories (Brussels, 1932), 30-36 and edited it again in HieraticPapyri in the British Museum. Third Series (London, I935). Textual details are fuller in the former, but thestory's significance is elaborated in the latter work.
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J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
misdeed Falsehood proposes to the Ennead that Truth should be blinded and made
his door-keeper,a proposal which the Ennead accepts and implements. An account
follows of the procreation,birth, and education of Truth's son, who is nonetheless
ridiculed by his schoolmatesas having no father. Intent on avengingthe wrong done
by Falsehood, Truth's son eventuallyaccuses his uncle before the Ennead of stealinghis wonderful ox. He apparentlysecuresa favourableverdict,as the story'stattered end
seems to refer to the blinding of Falsehood. The strikingfeatureis that the two chief
charactersare treated, in respect of their names, as personifiedabstractions;and thus
Gardiner' was impelled to remark that 'surely this must be the earliest example of
allegory n the mannerof JohnBunyan'.It hasnot been noted thatthe Egyptianwritings
very neatly combine the abstractand personalelements of the names by using and
) as determinativesof both Truth and Falsehood.2Gardinerproceeds to designatethe theme as 'a but thinly disguisedversion of the legend of Osiris'; he equatesTruth
with Osiris, Falsehood with Seth, and Truth's son with Horus, and he observes the
parallelrole of the Ennead in the stories. He admitsthatTruth's consortis not muchlike Isis, since she is not very helpful to eitherspouse or son. The slanderingof Truth's
son on the scoreof doubtfulparentagecertainlyrecalls the treatmentof Horus,althoughit is not here laid as a chargebefore the Ennead. In 6, 6 ff. and 10, 5 wsb,'avenge', is
used of the son's intention concerninghis father; this verb is not apparentlyused of
Horus, but the general sense correspondsto Horus's actions. It is the Horus-Seth
legend, however, that provides the basic parallel:Truth is the elder brotherof False-
hood (2, 5) as Horus is of Seth;3 the Ennead is the arbiterof their rival claims and
charges;and in particular he initial and final allusionsto blinding recall the seizureof
the eye of Horus by Seth, althoughthe infliction of the same fate on Seth has no part
in the legend. Dr. Emma Brunner-Traut4sees a further parallelbetween Falsehoodand Seth in the wonderful knife or sword which Falsehood lost: Seth in Re's bark
has a spearwith which he attacksApopis. Her attemptto see a connexionwith Osiris
in the wonderfulox of Truth is a little more circuitous.5Yet she is doubtless right in
refusingto regardthe story as a full-blown allegory,6while recognizingin it a didactic
trait. In essence we have here a folk-tale which is partly allegoricaland which also
shows the influenceof two outstanding myths. Gardiner'sreferenceto allegoryseems to
concern only the names of the main characters,and this type of nomenclature,while
Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum. Third Series, i, 6.
2 A third personified abstraction may have been present in the story if a conjecture by Dr. Emma Brunner-
Traut is regarded as probable. In her AltdgyptischeMarchen (Dusseldorf, 1963), 41 she refers (in her transla-
tion) to Truth's consort as 'Begierde'. Unhappily the name is missing in the papyrus every time this person
is referred to.3 Cf. The Memphite Tlzeology,12 c and Junker, Die politischeLehre von Memphis, 32 f. In P.Chester Beatty
I, 4, 8 and 8, 7 Seth is referred to as the elder brother, but the form of Horus is here influenced by the Osirian
concept of Horus the Child: see J. Gwyn Griffiths, The Conflict of Horus and Seth (Liverpool, I960), 67 f.4 Op. cit. 262. Cf. Lanzone, Diz. Alit. Pl. 378, i; Rundle Clark, MIythand Symbolin Ancient Egypt (London,
I959), 208 ff. Daumas, Les Dieux de l',gypte (Paris, I965), 95 describes Seth as 'dieu de la guerre et du desert
st6rile', but the former designation may be questioned.5 Ibid: one of the insignia of Osiris is the shepherd's crook, and so the ox recas his cattle; also the word
iVwt s used punningly to refer to 'office' and 'cattle'. The second point is true of P.Chester Beatty I, 5, io ff.
(as Dr. Brunner-Traut indeed remarks), but not of the present text. 6 Op. cit. 261.
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ALLEGORY IN GREECE AND EGYPT
clearly allegorical,is not here pursued actively enough to involve a sustainedallegory;in Bunyan'sworkit is more constantlya facet of the method.' If Truth and Falsehood,on the other hand, hide the names of Osiris (or Horus) and Seth, a third meaningemerges,and a highly sophisticatedintention would be revealed;but it is preferable o
regardthis as the unconscious imprint of the myth and to find in the story only thebroad frameworkof moral allegory which is expressed in the names,2the intention
being to suggest that this is how truth must eventuallybe vindicatedagainstthe wilesof falsehood.
The Tale of the TwoBrothershas been shown by Jacobsohn3 o contain a wealth of
mythological and theological allusion or reminiscence,but again it is a matter of un-conscious reflectionratherthan of presenting consciouslyasecond meaning. Accordingto Spiegel4TheContendings f Horus and Seth in P.Chester Beatty I provides a fusionof contemporaryhistory and ancient myth, the former element being concernedwiththe tension between the kingship and the nome-governors at the beginning of the
Middle Kingdom.5We are told that 'Osiris embodies the kingdom of Heracleopolis'.6Such a proceduremight seem to be allegorical,though Spiegel does not use the term.7A contemporarycolouringof the terminologyis the limit of what is probablyinvolved.8
It is possible, however, to cite stories whose allegoricalintention is beyond doubt.One of the best-known allegories in classical literature is the story of the dialoguebetween the belly and the other members of the body. It appears in the speech ofMenenius Agrippa as recorded by Livy, 2, 32 and Plutarch, Vita Coriolani 6: the
belly is accused of havingan easytime, but repliesby sayingthat it nourishesthe whole
body, the moralbeingthat all the body's membersneed one anotherandthat the senate,IThus when Bunyan refers to Giant Despair he is personifying an
experience.Abstractions are often
per-sonified in the medieval morality plays, as they are in the Welsh 'interludes' of Twm o'r Nant. The oppositeprocess usually occurs in Greek allegoristic, as when Plut. DIO 33, 364 A favours the interpretation of Osirisas the principle of moisture. The allegorical personifications of Aristophanes, on the contrary, such as Penia,Ploutos, the Logoi, and Techne, are probably comic creations deriving from a projection of poetic metaphors:see H.-J. Newiger, Metapher und Allegorie (Zetemata, I6, Minchen, 1957).
2 There was, of course, a precedent for the procedure in the name of the goddess Ma'at; but although theword is feminine, both as the name of the goddess and as an abstract noun, it is used here as the name ofa man. G. Lefebvre, Romans et contes egyptiens(Paris, I949), I60, points out that Falsehood (grg) is brieflypersonified in Peasant B 2, 98-99. The particular antithesis of our story persists in numerous parallels in laterliteratures: see M. Pieper, ZAS 70 (1934), 92-97 and idem, Das dgyptische Mdrchen (Leipzig, 1935), 31 ff.;Lefebvre, loc. cit.; Brunner-Traut, op. cit. 262 points to analogies relating to other features.
3 Die dogmatischeStellung des K6nigs in der Theologieder alten Agypter (Gliickstadt, 1939), 13 ff. Earlierappraisals tended to view the story as a simple folk-tale: see A. C. Mace, Egyptian Literature (New York,1928), 29 and T. E. Peet, A ComparativeStudy of theLiteratureof Egypt, Palestineand Mesopotamia(London,193 ), i 3. Max Pieper, Die dgyptische Literatur (Wildpark-Potsdam, 1927), 78 ff. recognized its complexityand artistic skill, though he thought that its dominant idea was the wickedness of woman ('Das Ganze istbeherrscht von einer einzigen Idee: der Schlechtigkeit des Weibes ...'); in Das dgyptischeMdrchen (Leipzig,1935), 33 ff. he emphasized rather the mingling of varied motifs. That the story reflects ancient ideas aboutnature and its fertility is well shown by Spiegel in HandbuchderOrientalistik(ed. Spuler), I, ii (Leiden, 1952),I35. 4 Die Erzahlung vom Streite des Horus und Seth (Gluckstadt, 1937), 25 ff.
5 Op. cit. 71. 6 Op. cit. 77.7 Cf. however, p. 79: 'Mythologische Verhaltnisse werden dabei zum Ausdrucksmittel fur geschichtliche
Beziehungen und Spannungen.'8 Cf. J. Gwyn Griffiths, The Co-nflict of Horus and Seth (Liverpool, 1960), 78 and JEA 24 (1938), 255 f.;
also Siegfried Schott, OLZ 4I (1938), 528 f.
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J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
equatedwith the belly, is really helpful to the plebs. That a form of this short allegoryfirst appearsin Egyptian literature,though in a severely fragmentarystate,' is a fact
of some significance.It is the head and the body that are arguingin the Egyptiantale,which begins Wptht hnrtp,2 'the body3was disputingwith the head'. The disputation
characteristicallyoccurs before a tribunal, in this case the mrbiyt,the 'Court of theThirty'.4 In spite of the difficultiesof a partiallypreservedtext-the case againstthe
head is missing-the generaltheme is clear. Nor is the purpose of the story in doubt.
Such a tale can hardly have been composed for mere amusement; neither does it
reflect a myth. Its purpose must have been moralin the sense of a plea for unity, and
the allegorywas probablypolitical. Although the date suggested for the compositionis the Twentieth Dynasty (Maspero)or the Twenty-second (Erman),Spiegelscogently
suggests an ultimate origin in the era before the Middle Kingdom when the need for
political unity in the 'body of the State' was sorely felt. Certainlya period of unrest
and threatened disintegration,even if somewhat later than this, would provide an in-
telligible background. The influence of this allegory, despite the differing details,extends not only to the storytold by MeneniusAgrippabut also,as Dr. Brunner-Traut6
points out, to the Aesopic fable about the quarrelof the belly and the feet. It may be
added that the Paulinedoctrineof the Churchas a communityof membersof one bodyowes somethingto the Egyptiantradition,especiallywhen it is appliedto the quarrel-some Corinthians 7 he conceptof the actLaXptarov, however,adds adeeperdimension.8
It is when we turn to the animalfables of Egypt that we find a rich allegorical radi-
tion firmlyentrenched.A good exampleis TheLion and the Mouse,a story embedded
in the myth of the returnof the sun-god from Nubia, a demoticwork(Leiden Demotic
P. I, 384) which Spiegelberg9edited. It relates how a lion, having spared the life of
a mouse, was helped by it to escape from a hunter's net; the story is, of course, well
knownfromthe Aesopiccorpusalso.'?The Egyptiannarrative ncludesaremark,before
this, made by the ape to the cat, to the effect that every mighty one meets his master;
I Maspero, 1tudes dgyptiennes Paris, 1879), 260-4 gives the only publication available. He also suggested
the connexion with the later fable. Cf. Erman, Literatur, 224 f. and eundem, tr. Blackman, 173 f.; E. Brunner-
Traut, AltdgyptischeMarchen, 126 and 278.2 Perhaps to be read d_d;,though the form is in each case ideographic only: see Wb. v, 530 s.v.3 Perhaps 'belly'; ht can have either meaning. Maspero has 'ventre' throughout, but other translators, while
following him in their versions, inconsistently refer to 'body' in their titles (e.g. Erman tr. Blackman, 'The
Quarrel of the Body and the Head'). The German 'Leib', it is true, is itself ambiguous. As the ht's argument
is missing, the matter is not easy to decide; but in favour of 'body' is 7-8 (Maspero, p. 263): 'I am their mistress,
I am the head, whom her brothers accuse', the suggestion clearly being that all the other members of the bodyare here accusing the head.
4 Probably with the sense of the divine court; cf. Wb. II, 46, 17 and P.Chester Beatty I, 3, 9, on which see
Spiegel, Erzdhlung, 74.5 In Handbuch der Orientalistik, I, ii, 136. Since the text is on a writing-board in the form of a school-
exercise, an earlier origin is at once indicated; cf. E. Brunner-Traut, op. cit. 278.6 Op. cit. 279.7 i Cor. xii. 12; cf. Col. i. i8 and Eph. i. 22, where Christ is described as the head of the body.8 The debt to ancient tradition and the quality of the new elaboration are admirably discussed by Rudolf
Bultmann, Glaubenund Verstehen,I (Tibingen, 1954), I66 (from an essay first published in I929).9 Der Mythus vom Sonnenauge (StraBburg, 1917), 43 ff.
10 See no. I55 in Hausrath's edition (Teubner, I956-7); Perry, Aesopica, I, 379, no. 150.
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ALLEGORYIN GREECE AND EGYPT
further,the lion has askeda number of questions,particularlyabouttheonaspo ner of man.When the mouse has freed the lion from the net, they go off nto the desert together,and the hearer is urged to learn therefromthat even the weakest can help the strongestwhen fate so wills.' Here is an exquisite example of moral allegory,and Dr. Brunner-
Traut,2 after a detailed analysis of the demotic and Greek forms, has little difficultyin showing that the Egyptian form must be the earlier.In this connexion it has beendiscovered that P.British Museum 274 (second or third century B.C.) contains a frag-
mentary Greek renderingof the demotic tale.3In its general context the latter standsout from materialwhich is not predominantlyallegorical.Many animal stories derivefrom Egypt which are mythological in origin,4and in her illuminating study of the
sources Dr. Brunner-Traut5distinguishes between this type and the more elaborateanimalfable, althoughshe shows that the religioustraditionwas the matrixof the fablealso. It is the latter,of course,that revealsallegorical ntent, and the constantpointertothis purpose is that the world of animals is seen to portraythe world of men. The aim
is therefore didactic and occasionallysatiric as well. Many instances of this approachcan be seen in the pictureson ostracaand papyri,and although an accompanyingtextis usually missing, it can be assumed that such texts existed, and that the pictures areillustrationsof themes which were well known in literatureas well as in oral tradition.
The theme of a War ofCats and ice is charminglydepicted, andngthe representa-tions are numerous enough to allow one to make the assumptionof a literaryversionwith some confidence. Once again there is a parallelin Greece, for the Batrachomyo-machia, the War of Frogs and Mice, which parodiesthe Iliad, owes something to the
Egyptian prototype;7 and the subject remained popular also in the Near East.8 The
allegoricalelement is still clear, since human affairs are burlesqued,as for instance in
the titillating depiction (from a Ramessidepapyrus in Turin) of a mouse-Pharaohinhis chariot attackinga formidable cat-fortress; but the vein is humorous and satiricratherthan didactic. In the case of TheSwallowandtheSea9the source is literaryonly,and the story of how the swallow succeeded in drinking up and removing the sea
i For a translation with brief commentary see E. Brunner-Traut, AltdgyptischeMdrchen, 133 ff. and 282.2 Saeculum 10 (1959), I72.
3 See Reitzenstein, Cronert, and Spiegelberg, 'Die griechische Tefnutlegende' (Sitzb. Heidelberg, 1923);cf. F. L. Griffith, JEA 9 (I923), 220 and F. W. F. von Bissing, Forschungenund Fortschritte25 (I949), 227 ff.The discovery does not in itself decide the question of precedence with respect to the Aesopic and demoticversions; in fact Reitzenstein leaves that open.
4 For the possibility that one such legend, deriving from Cynopolis and contained in the Papyrus Jumilhac
which Vandier has edited, was translated into Greek by Eudoxus, see J. Gwyn Griffiths, 'A Translation fromthe Egyptian by Eudoxus', Class. Quart. I5 (1965), 75-78.
5 See especially her article 'Altigyptische Tiergeschichte und Fabel: Gestalt und Strahlkraft' in Saeculum10 (1959), 124-85; also Die altdgyptischenScherbenbilder Wiesbaden, 1956) by the same author.
6 See E. Brunner-Traut, Saeculum I0 (1959), I47-5I and Agyptische Mdrchen, 59 ff.7 Cf. Morenz, in Neue Beitrdgezur klassischenAltertumswissenschaft.FestschriftBernhardSchweitzer (Stutt-
gart, I954), 87-94.8 Cf. the translation from the epic of Obeid Zakani, a fourteenth-century Persian poet, reproduced in
Brunner-Traut, Agyptische Mdrchen, 60-62.9 Spiegelberg, DemotischeTexte auf Kriigen (Leipzig, 1912), i6 ff.; on p. 7 he suggests a date in the first or
second century A.D.; cf. Roeder, Altdgyptische Erzdhlungenund Marchen (Jena, 1927, Die Mairchender Welt-literatur), 312 f. and Brunner-Traut, Ag. Mdrchen, I26 f.
G
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J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
because it had not protected the bird's young, is intendedallegoricallyas a hint to the
Pharaoh that the Arabianprince Uski, in spite of his apparentweakness,is capableof
unexpectedlypowerfulactions.'Other literaryexamplesare providedagain by the Leiden Demotic PapyrusI, 384:
in the Dialogueof the Vultureand the Cat (2, 7 ff.)2 the ethical problem of retaliationis presented, and it is given a religious solution (revenge belongs to Rec); a similar
theme appearsin the Dialogueof the Two Vultures(I3, 22 ff.),3 nor is the conclusion
verydifferent:he who kills will himself be killed,and Re(dispensesjustice. Thoth, who
tells the story, applies it openly to the life of man:for thegoodand evil whichmandoes
on earth arerecompensedy Rer (i5, I I-i2). Talking animalsare matchedin Egyptianliterature by talking trees;4 their interpolations in the love lyrics are full of poetic
feeling, so that they might almost be regardedas earlyinstancesof the 'patheticfallacy'were not their origin apparentratherin religiousideas, such as the belief that Hathor,
a goddess of love, resided in the sycamore-tree.5But unlike the animal fables these
episodes are not allegorical.The terms'Gleichnis'6and'parable'7havebeen used of two stories n the Lebensmiide,
and Gertrud Thausing8has treated them as allegories.From our point of view, that
is from the standpointof GreekaAA-ryopla, they are certainlymoral allegories9 n that
they adumbratea second meaning which is intended to apply to the main theme of
the work.The firststorytells of a peasantwho was engagedin transportinghis harvest;
his watchfulness enabled him to avoid the dangers of a night storm, but afterwards
he lost his wife and childrenin a lake which was infested with crocodiles. In this crisis
the peasantdeclares:
I do not
weep
for the mother'0 yonder who cannot come forth from the West more than any other
woman on earth."II grieve for her children, who have been crushed in their infancy,12 who have seen
the faceof thecrocodile-godeforeheyhave fully) ived.
(Lebensmiide,6-80)
Cf. E. Brunner-Traut, op. cit. 279 f. Previous commentators explained the piece as a letter. A similar
tale is said to occur in the Indian Pantshatantra, which derives from the third century A.D.
2 Spiegelberg, Mythus vom Sonnenauge, 3 ff.3 One recalls he storyof the nightingaleandthe hawk n Hesiod,Op.et Dies.A dialogueof birdsoccurs n
each case and the violenceinflictedby the strongon the weakis discussed n each.The Egyptian ale has a
highermoral evel, but Hesiodis earlierby nearlya millennium.4 E. Brunner-Traut, Saeculum 10 (1959), 159-61; Erman tr. Blackman, Lit. 249-51; S. Schott, Altdgyp-
tische Liebeslieder (Zurich, 1950), 58 ff.; A. Hermann, Altdgyptische LiebesdichtmngWiesbaden, I959), I21
and 146 f.s Cf. Ramses Moftah, ZAS 92 (1965), 40-47, esp. 42 and 44.6 A. Scharff, Der Bericht iiber das Streitgesprach eines Lebensmudenmit seiner Seele (Sitzungsb. Miinchen,
1937), 34 and 39.
7 R. J. Williams, 'Reflections on the Lebensmiide', JEA 48 (I962), 55.8 'Betrachtungen zum "Lebensmiiden"', MDAIK 15 (I957), 262-7.
9 From the point of view of distinctions developed in later times R. J. WVilliams,oc. cit., has every right to
call them 'parables'. It is not necessary to seek a second meaning in all the details after the manner of G.
Thausing's treatment.10 R. O. Faulkner, JEA 42 (I956), 35 f. manifestly improves the interpretation of this word and of the passage.
I Faulkner, op. cit. 27: 'for another (term) upon earth', but kt in such an ellipse seems unparalleled. See
[footnotes Ir and 12 continuedon p. 95]
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ALLEGORY IN GREECEAND EGYPT
The story is preceded by the soul's Carpedieminjunction(68) and the moral seems to
be linked with this: here was a man who by his vigilance avoided one peril only to be
overwhelmedby another thatwas totally unexpected.What is the use, then, of excessive
care?'
In the second story a peasant is apparentlydisappointedwhen he asks his wife fora meal; he goes out, and when he returns he will not listen to her remonstrances.
Perhaps the folly of blind impetuosity is the moral here, and its application to the
main theme will be in the nature of a general rebuke administeredby the soul.2The
first story is clearerin its relevance,but both are allegoricalanecdotes.
A much earlier work, the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus, is replete with allegory,but there is a basic difference in the treatmentwhen we comparethe approachof the
allegoricaltales hitherto discussed. Here Twe ave instructions for ritual proceedings,and the allegory is tersely embodied in a series of identificationsin which the ritual
objects and actions are constantly assigned second meanings. A brief example will
suffice:It happenedhatsrmt-beer asbroughtn. It is Horus hat s weeping ecause f hisfather nd
turningo Geb.Horus peakso Geb.Theyhaveplacedmyfatherunder heearth.Osiris.h-bread.
(11.104-5; Sethe, DramatischeTexte,213 f.)
Here the beer is interpreted as the eye of Horus. Probably it is poured out in the
ensuing rite to suggest the weeping of the eye, an action which is explained mytho-
logicallyas lamentationfor the deathof Osiris.This allusion is then embodiedin apieceof ritual recitation,which is followed in the instructionsby an apparentidentification
of abread-offering
with Osiris. The relevantrepresentation
22)3 addsnothing
to our
understandingof the procedure, but its allegorismis unquestioned. Helck4 has seen
two strata of interpretations,both later, in his view, than the original record of the
Scharff, op. cit. 37 for the above version of the phrase. One is tempted to take tP here as referring to the
necropolis, as it does in line 152 (also after a mention of 'the West'); cf. Wb. v, 213, 9-Io. The difficulty is that
hry t; usually denotes someone living on earth (Wb. v, 213, 7 and IIl, 136, I-2).12 R. J. Williams, JEA 48 (X962), 55 n. 2, aptly cites instances where the phrase m sw.at, in the egg', denotes
extreme youth. A meaning 'in the womb' (Scharff) might seem to be supported by the clause beforethey have
lived, but this may well imply life in the full sense.
I Scharff (op. cit. 38) has a slightly different emphasis: the peasant's lament shows that life itself is the
supreme end. Faulkner (op. cit. 35) thinks that both stories were perhaps 'intended to convey to the would-be
suicide that there were misfortunes worse than those of which he complains'. Williams (op. cit. 55) is closer toScharff: '. . . life, however short it may be, is better than none at all, and so the bai suggests that the manshould be thankful for the life which he has already enjoyed.'
2 Scharff (op. cit. 39 ff.) ingeniously differentiates the two words for a meal in the story: the peasant is
disappointed and rebuked because he wants a light meal at once, whereas his wife refers to a full supperwhich will be ready only later on. In the same way, argues Scharff, the soul is rebuking the man for demand-
ing death prematurely. Williams (op. cit. 55) finds the point in the idea 'that it is useless to demand what onecannot have'; 'the bai hints that the man should not insist on having the luxury of death and funerary prepara-
tions to boot'.3 See also Helck in Orientalia 23 (I954), 400, where the order of the scenes is reconstructed on the basis of
a posited relation to representations in the tomb of Kheruef, published by Fakhry in Ann. Serv. 42 (I943),
449-508. 4 Op. cit. 383 f.
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J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
ritual: the first is drawnfrom the Osiris-myth,and the second, which he calls a series
of 'third comments', is recognized by him either as being written in a 'modernized'
speech' or as being manifestly appended over some lines of the older text. Whether
Helck is right or not, the processof allegorismhas been palpablyembodiedin the text
as it stands. Our quotation exemplifies the two ways in which the symbolism is ex-pressed: either there is directjuxtapositionof objectand interpretationor a clause with
pw addsthe interpretation.The generalresult is of course not an isolatedphenomenonin the history of religion. There are celebrated instances in the Christiantradition
where the ritual object or the rite itself is interpreted allegorically. This is my bodyis a sentence referring o bread 2 and the believerwho rises from the waters of baptismis said by St. Paul (Rom. vi. 3-4) to pass from death to resurrection.
If the Ramesseum text exemplifies a combination of allegory and ritual, the storyof Apophis and Seqenenre' seems to combine allegoryand history. The story begins
historicallyand has all the appearanceof being an account of a quarrelbetween the
two kings.3But the main point of the letter said to be sent by Apophis cannot be taken
literally,since he complainsof the noise made by the hippopotamiin the canal in the
east of Thebes, saying that he cannot sleep because of it. Quite clearlyno noise made
in Thebes could be heard in Avaris.4Maspero5suggested that the far-fetchedelement
is an instance of the challenging riddles which oriental kings are sometimes said to
have addressedto one another,daringthe rival monarch to go one better. Such a tradi-
tion attachesto Hiram of Tyre and Solomon, as well as to Nectanebus and Lycerus of
Babylon; it is akin to the miraculous fantasies of folk-tale rather than to allegory.Erman6suggested that Apophis was merely asserting thus his right to the canal, in
that thehippopotami
were crying for their true lord. He does not elaboratethepoint;presumablyhe saw the animals as sacredto Seth, and the papyrushas earlierstressed
Apophis' exclusive devotion to Sutekh. The Sethian connexion is undoubtedly the
key to the true explanation.From early times the royal hunting of the hippopotamushad symbolically representedthe triumph of Horus over Seth, and the Hyksos kingwas offendedby the revival of this rite in Thebes, the hyperbolictouch in his complaint
being a markmerelyof his anguishat the thought of the sacredanimalsbeing hunted.7
The allegoricalelement is thereforereligious,involvingthe interpretationof a royalrite.
I Op. cit. 406. He refers to 105-6 thus: ' "Brot und Bier" als Erklarungzu den altertiimlichen Brptbezeich-
nungen rh t und srmt.' But no evidence emerges of srmt having been used for anything other than a liquid.2 A literal explanation in the sense of transubstantiation in the Eucharist does not preclude the allegorical
meaning of the saying in its first setting. Such a meaning is indeed compulsive, since the body had not yet been
broken when the words were uttered.
3 Pahc Labib's characterization in Die Herrschaft der Hyksos in Agypten und ihr Sturz (Gluckstadt, 1936),
37 still seems valid: 'eine Geschichtserzihlung in der Sprache und im Stil der Volkserzihlung'.4 Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs (Oxford, 1961), 163 unduly magnifies the role of this reference when he
says that 'though the theme of the whole is fantastic, the setting may well give a truthful picture'.5 Les Contespopulaires de l'Pgypte ancienne (Ed. 5, Paris, 191 i), xxvi f.; cf. G. Lefebvre, Romans et contes
egyptiens (Paris, 1949), 132; Wilson in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton, 1950), 23I.6 Die Literatur der Agypter (Leipzig, 1923), zI6 n. i; tr. Blackman, i88 n. 5.7 See Save-S6derbergh, On Egyptian Representationsof HippopotamusHunting (Uppsala, 1953), 43 ff.; cf.
eundem, JEA 36 (1950), 67. The god opposed to Sutekh in the story is a form of Re': see J. Gwyn Griffiths,JEA 44 (I958), 8i.
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That allegoristic,as well as allegory, occurs in Egyptian literaturehas alreadybeennoted in connexion with the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus; it can be further exem-
plified by adducing some of the interpretationswhich follow certain phrases in theBook of the Dead. Ky dd is one of these. In many cases the phrase introducesanother
readingsimply;' and the alternativerecordedis sometimes very similar.2Comparableis the use in medical texts of kt phrt, 'another remedy', ky gsw, 'another ointment',and similar phrases;3whereas in Late Egyptian letters ky dd itself is used to mark atransition to a different theme or an item of news.4 But ky dd can introduce, in theBook of the Dead, an interpretationof a statement alreadymade, as in the case of awell-known locus in Spell I75where Atum or Recis speaking:
To mebelongs esterday; know omorrow. hisis Osiris.As foryesterday,his is Osiris.As fortomorrow,hisis Re.
Thus the Middle Kingdom texts. New Kingdom versions6are more expansivein their
explanation:
What, hen, s this?As foryesterday,his s Osiris.As for omorrow,his sRe<, nthatdaywhenthe enemies f the lordofall willbedestroyedndwhenhissonHoruswillbeestablisheds ruler.
Anotheraying.Thisis thedaywhenwe shallremainnfestival;his s thedisposal ftheburialof OsirisbyhisfatherRe.
Two lions back to backbelow the sign of the horizonareshownin the relevantvignette,and the symbolismwhich contrastsyesterdayand tomorrowas Osiris and Re extendsalso to them. The first explanationis in reply to the questionptr rf sw? The second isintroduced by ky dd. But both are allegorical and indicate a method of exegesis, asRundle Clark7has pointed out, which the Egyptian priests not infrequently pursued.
In connexion with the locus just quoted he aptly refers to a varianton a coffin fromBeni Hasan which is now at Brussels:What hen s thattime in whichwearenow?It is theburial f Osirisand heestablishmentf
theruleof his sonHorus.8
I Hence Wb.v, i x , i i and 12: ' "andere Lesart" (varia lectio)' referring to religious and medical texts. Cf.the phrases cited under 14-16 and p. I 2, I-4.
2 E.g. Sethe et al., Die Spriichefiir das Kennen der Seelen (Leipzig, 1925), II, i8a (=BD I 5) where that Imay inherit this city has the portion of N as an alternative. Cf. Sethe et al. p. 20 n.
3 Grapow, Von den medizinischenTexten (GrundrfiJder Medizin etc. II1 Berlin, 1955), 45 f. He shows thatkt sometimes occurs by itself. See also von Deines and Westendorf, Wb. der medizinischenTexte (GrundriJ3,vii, 196I), 284.
4 CernL, Late Ramesside Letters (Bibl. Aegypt. 9, Brussels, 1939), I5, I4; 2I, 15; 38, 8; cf. the variant kt
mdt in 36, I; see A. M. Bakir, Egyptian Epistolography(Oxford, unpubl. thesis), 46 and 52.5 Grapow, Rel. Urk. 1, Abschnitt 5. See also De Buck, CT iv, 192 a ff. In 193 c two versions have Atum
for Rtc. T. G. Allen, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: Documents n the Oriental Institute Museum at the Univer-sity of Chicago (Or. Inst. Publs. 83, Chicago, 1960), 97, note c would translate the early variant nnk as 'mineis' in contradistinction to the later ink, 'I am'. Both forms may indicate possession; see Erman, ZAS 34 (1896),50 and cf. Gardiner, ZAS 41 (1904), 135 f.; Heerma van Voss, De oudste Versie van Dodenboek I7a, I6 n. 2.
6 Grapow, op. cit. 12. Some minor variants have been ignored.7 Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt (London, 1939), 157: 'But the priests not only hid their god in awe and
mystery; they also taught that the legends and ritual were symbols for metaphysical ideas. Relics of theirexegesis exist in the glosses to Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead.'
8 Rundle Clark, loc. cit.: 'It is that Osiris has been buried while his son Horus is ruling.' The verbs arepresumably infinitives and I take the second one to be a causative; cf. Wb. Iv, 221, 4.
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J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
Now anotheraying: s foryesterday,his s Osiris; sfortomorrow,his s Re(.
(De Buck,CT iv, 193d-f, b-c)
Here indeed, as Rundle Clarkobserves, there is evidence of ('disagreementsn inter-
pretation and subtle theological distinctions'. They are all, however, instances of an
applied second meaning, that is, of allegoristic.Another clear instance from the same spell uses the same introductoryformulae:
I am heGreatGodwhooriginatedromhimself.What, hen,does hismean The GreatGodwho
originatedromhimself,he is water.He is Nun,the father f thegods.Anotheraying:he is Re.
(Grapow,Urk.v, 8, '3-17)
In this case, however,the explanation s not allegorical,but exegeticalin a literal sense.
This occurs elsewhere too in instances where the first saying is brief, vague, and
apparentlycryptic, so that a more detailed statement seems calledfor, as in the section
following the words 'I am one who is not repelled among the gods' (Grapow's Ab-
schnitt 4). On the other hand, in the section dealingwith the phoenix,ky ddintroducesa furthermeaningwhich is allegorical:
I amthis greatphoenixwho is in Heliopolis, he inspectorof what is and what was.What,then,does hismean Thisis Osiris.What s andwhatwas, his s hisefflux.
Anothersaying:this is his corpse.Anothersaying:this is infinity'and eternity.'As for infinity,thisis day;as foreternity,his is night.
(Grapow, Urk. v, x6, I7 ff.)
In BD 93, 3-4 (ed. Naville) a second version of a conditional clause is supplied: If I
am snatchedaway to the east with (or, on) the two horns; anothersaying: if anythingevil or wicked s doneagainstme at thefeast of the transgressors.T Save forthe final
phrase the intent of the explanation here seems to be the reduction of the concrete
image to abstract terms. In other cases, as in Spells 69 and 70, ky ddintroduceswhole
spells that are considered as alternativematerial,without any interpretativemotive
attaching to them; 70 in fact links itself to the end of 69 by supplying a variant of
a particularword, as Allen3 shows.
There is also in the Book of the Dead much allegorizationof particularobjects. In
Spell 153as given in Allen's plate 48, lines 19-20 (see too his pp. 277 f.) we read: As
for thewoodwhich s thtere,t is the handof Isis. This is a Spellfor escapingrom the net
and it says that the cord is a sinew of Atum, that a blade is the knife of Osiris.A whole-
saleallegorization
inmythological
terms isapplied
to numerous nauticalobjects
in
Spell 99; it is said, for instance,of the vessel for balingout water,Thy name s thehand
of Isis, wipingout thebloodfrom heeye of Horus(ed. Naville, line 24). Knowing hesouls
in the spells which use this phraseincludes a knowledgeof many secret second mean-
ings.4Thus in Spell 113 knowing he soulsof Nekhenincludes an understandingof the
I Allen, op. cit. 88 translates 'endless recurrence' and 'changelessness' respectively. For a commentarysee Rundle Clark, Univ. Birm. Hist. J. z (1950), Iio ff. and Heerma van Voss, op. cit. 58ff.
2 In one of the later texts edited by Allen the alternatives are apparently merged: see his translation, p. i68.3 Op. cit. I45. An earlier version is sometimes indicated, see Heerma van Voss, op. cit. 9.4 Cf. Sethe et al., ZAS 57 (1922), II.
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ALLEGORY IN GREECE AND EGYPT
doctrine that the two strokes used in the writingof the appellationNekhen referto thehands of Horus which were fished from the water by Sebek.
IV. Affiliations
Lengthy as it is, our survey has certainly not exhausted the extent of allegory inEgyptian religion and literature. To the Greek mind JaAA-yoptand TOcvUpFOXAKo'Vere
closely bound up, as Plutarch makesclearin chapters9 and io of his De Isideet Osiride.A rich symbolism was manifestly attached by the Egyptians to such ritual objects asthe Eye of Horus, the royal diadem and its components, and the djed-pillar.In the
presentstudy, however,attention has been focused on literature and mythology partlybecausethis makes a comparisonwith the Greektraditioneasier.In most of the severalinstancesexpoundedabove the natureof the allegoryis reasonablyclear. An exceptionis the second story in the Lebensmiide. t must be admitted, though, that some writerson Egyptiansymbolismhaveproducedvery differentexplanations.Schwallerde Lubicz
rightly insists in his Templedans l'hommeI on the dangersof readingmodern or per-sonal interpretationsinto material which is inherently far removed from our way of
thinking. Yet he himself is not easy to followwhen he maintains2of the DoomedPrincethat 'le crocodilesymbolise le principecontractant';or when he says of the Ennead inThe Contendings f Horusand Seth:
L'Enneade symbolise effectivement l'aspect mile et l'aspect f6minin, c'est-a-dire les deux aspects,actif et passif, des quatre elements: Feu, Air, Eau et Terre, qui sont commandes par le Quint-
element, issu d'Atoum-Rd.
The four pairsin the Enneadconsist, of course,of male and female. Shu is airand Geb
is earth. But who representsfire and water?A cosmic harmonyis doubtless generallyadumbrated in the grouping. In this particularstory, however, the augustly symbolicside of the deities is hardly conspicuous.
It is worth stressing here that we have been concerned only with allegory as con-
sciously intended. There is a case for believing, as some psychologistsurge, that the
only importantsymbolism is that which is unconsciouslyproduced.3Helmuth Jacob-sohn4has attemptedan approachof this kind, as when he sees Horus as afilius macro-cosmiand salvatormundi n the Jungiansenses, or when he finds a divine archetypeofthe 'Dead Father' in the concept of Osiris-King.s Here, however, we are looking at
symbolism only in the context of allegory as defined by the Greeks. Least of all are
we concerned with the symbolistic procedures based on astrologicaland cabbalistictheories which Yoyotte6has deservedlylambasted.
Cairo, I949, p. i8.2 Le Roi de la Theocratiepharaonique(Paris, 1961), 173. On pp. 155ff. he is able to show that the representa-
tions and texts concerning the battle of Qadesh include a symbolical equation of Ramesses II with Re', im-
plying a comparison of the sun's conquest of darkness.3 Cf. C. H. S. Spaull, JEA 47 (196I), 157; A. Piankoff in Piankoff and Rambova, The Tombof RamessesVI
(New York, I954), 33.4 'Das Gegensatzproblem im altiigyptischen Mythos' in Studien zur analytischen Psychologie C. G. Jungs.
II. Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte (FS. C. G. Jung, Zirich, I953), 17I-98.S Op. cit. 175 f. 6 'Symbolism' in Posener, Dict. of Egyptian Civilization (London, 1962), 277.
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J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
It is curious how Anthes' has gone to the other extreme. He admits the endless
symbolism of Egyptian religion, which seems to him to suggest a conviction that the
greater the number of symbols, the nearer is human understandingto the truth.2
He is at the same time primarilyconcerned to show 'that logic worked in the tran-
scendental and speculative thought of the ancient Egyptians as fully as it did amongthe earlyGreeks'.3Laterhe discusses 'the increasinglymysticalcharacterof Hellenistic
philosophy'and attributes this to 'the immanentcharacterof Greekphilosophywhich
calledfor a synthesiswith religion',a processwhich was achieved,he thinks, 'by means
of allegorical interpretation, first, from about 550 B.c., of Greek, and later on, of
Egyptianand other orientalmythological topics'.4Since the present analysishas shown
that allegorical nterpretationswere common in Egypt long before this time, the ques-tion of Egyptian influence on the two forms of Greek allegoryimmediatelyarises.
It seemed clearto Plutarch5 hat therewas a figurativeor symbolic elementin hiero-
glyphic writing which was akin to Pythagoreansayings. As an example of the latter
he gives 'Do not sit on a bushel' which means 'Do not live slothfully'. The parallelin hieroglyphicwritingis, of course,the use of ideograms.WhereasPlutarch and other
classicalwritersdid not seem to realize that a phonetic element is mostly presentalso,
the symbolic approachin the system was naturallyalined by them with allegorism.Plutarch(IO, 354 E) states of the influence of Egyptian priests on Pythagorasthat he
'imitated their symbolism and mysterious manner, interspersing his teaching with
riddles'; here he is clearlyoverstatingthe Egyptianurge to be enigmatic,but when he
gives, as an example of allegory, the interpretationthat a child coming from the
lotus is a depictionof sunrise (11, 355 B) he is nearer the truth. The associationof the
young sun-god Nefertum6with the lotus is myth, it might be argued,and not allegory;
and so is the idea that sunrise is suggested by the image ;7 and yet the mode of expres-
sion is thoroughly allegorical to an outsider, for without the hidden meaning one sees
simply a child emerging from a flower.8 A further meaning, unnoticed by Plutarch,
was often added in Egyptian contexts, as in BD 174: the rise of Re from the under-
world at the moment of sunrise symbolizes the conquest of death for the deceased
who is in the company of Re(. This is allegory consciously applied, although its source
is living myth and not literary device.
'Affinity and Difference between Egyptian and Greek Sculpture and Thought in the Seventh and Sixth
Centuries B.C.' in Proc. Am. Philos. Soc. 107 (1963), 6o-8i.2 Op. cit. 7I. 3 Op. cit. 68. 4 Op. cit. 80. 5 DIO io, 354 E.
6 Nefertum wasclosely
associated with the sun-god and is later equated with Horus, Harsomtus, Harpo-
crates, and Re' himself. Cf. Morenz in Morenz and Schubert, Der Gott auf der Blume (Ascona, 1954), 65 ff.
Nefertum is shown emerging from the lotus-flower in a well-known figurine of painted wood from the tomb
of Tutankhamun; cf. Desroches-Noblecourt, Tutankliamen(Harmondsworth,965), pl. i and Piankoff, The
Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon (New York, 1955, repr. 1962), pl.I3. The young god is doubtless identified here
with the young king.7 Cf. BD I74, 15 (Mut-hetep, ed. Budge): 'I have arisen as Nefertum, the lotus at the nose of Re, when
he emerges from the horizon every day.'8 The image is of course the product of myth, and is not merely metaphorical. On the role of metaphor in
myth see E. Cassirer, Language and Myth (tr. Langer, New York, 1946), 83 ff. Grapow, Die bildlichenAus-
driickedes Agyptischen (Leipzig, I924), 9 refers to the image of the heaven as a woman lying over the earth
as a well-known representation. It is an image, nonetheless, derived from myth. It can give rise, at the same
time, to various metaphors, such as the description of rain as weeping.
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ALLEGORY IN GREECE AND EGYPT
That Pythagoras and his followers were influenced by this aspect of religious
symbolism in Egypt does not seem very likely. At least no particular nstance of such
influence is apparent;and in these matters the only safe assessment is that based on
specific affiliations.Derchain's' approachto the Hermetic literatureis an admirable
index of the method that commends itself. If the inspirationand backgroundof thesewritings are thoroughly Greek, as Nock and Festugiere have maintained-and ex-
pounded in some detail-it is idle to propounda theory of Egyptian influencewithout
pointing to specific instances. Derchain has made a promising start in this task. Theinstances of Egyptian origin proposed by him (e.g. the concept of kingship and thedoctrine of the solar demiurge) are happily not complicated by questions of dating,since the Hermetic literaturefollows chronologicallyall the workscited from Egyptiansources. A striking series of resemblances,on the other hand, between the Instruction
of 'Onkhsheshonqy nd some of the Hesiodic sayings, to which Walcot2 has pointed,have led to the claim that Greece in this matter has influenced Egypt, since Hesiod
is manifestly earlier than the Demotic document in question. Some of the Demotic
sayings, however, go back to much earliersources in Egypt.3The rise of allegoristicin Greece shows every sign of being a native product in as
much as it is essentially an intellectual adjustmentto problems arising in Greek re-
ligion, in particularto the difficultyof readingHomer without moral embarrassment.It is true that one is confronted eventually by a striking philological equation when
Egyptian allegoristicis examined: ky dd and a'AArlyoptarecloselyparallelexpressions,althoughthe formerterm is by no means used exclusivelyof allegorical nterpretation.The word aAA-Xyoptatself is not earlier than Cicero, so probablywe need not attachtoo much significanceto what
may
be a sheer coincidence.A comparisonof allegoricalstories in the two traditionsreveals the Egyptian origin
of the animalfable. This was a genre that had an immenseinfluence on Aesop and his
successors, as Dr. Brunner-Traut has shown. It also appears in the Batrachomyo-machia.4The Demotic forms of some of these fables arelaterthan their Greekcounter-
parts, but the existence in Egypt of a rich pictorial corpus which is much earlier indate puts the question of origin beyond reasonabledoubt. Another particularallegoryfirst found in Egypt is the story of the dispute bet,ween he belly and other membersof the body. Since this appearsin one form in the New Testament, its diffusion hasbeen widespread.Again, there are traces in Egypt of a divine allegoryof metals: goldis associated with
Re(and
Hathor,and in an ancientrite
use was made of bi; (meteoriciron?) 'which came forth from Seth' (Pyr. 14 a). One may well recall the statement ofManetho(recordedby Plutarch,DIO 62, 376 B): 'They still callthe loadstone(magnetic
I 'L'authenticite de l'inspiration egyptienne dans le "Corpus Hermeticum" ', Rev. Hist. Rel. 161 (1962),175-98. 2 JNES 21 (i962), 215-19.
3 Walcot, Hesiod and the Near East (Cardiff, 1966), 86 ff. He admits affinities in the Instructionof Amen-em-
ope. The much earlier Wisdomof Ptah-hotep contains a number of comparable maxims, as indeed Walcot's
summary makes clear.
4 Cf. Morenz, 'Agyptische Tierkriege und die Batrachomyomachie' in Festschrift Bernhard Schweitzer(Stuttgart, I954), 87-94, where it is stressed that the sixth century B.C.,when the Greek mock epic was prob-ably written, was an era of close Graeco-Egyptian relations.
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J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
oxide of iron ) "the bone of Horus" and iron "the bone of Typhon".' Hesiod's metallic
races also come to mind, but there is a more detailed parallel in the literature of
Zoroastrianism.
Although Egyptian religion supplied the fundamental data by which Plutarchalle-
gorized the Osiris-myth, the ultimate process is here a Greek achievement. Yet thefact remains that the use of allegoryin both its forms originatedin Egypt.2
I Cf. J. Gwyn Griffiths, 'Archaeology and Hesiod's Five Ages', JHI 17 (1956), 109-19. Walcot, Hesiod and
the Near East, 86, believes that 'the Near East does not help us at the moment with the myth of the ages'.2 S. N. Kramer in History Beginsat Sumer(1956, repr. London, 1958) claims twenty-five 'firsts' for Sumeria,
but allegory does not seem to be included. An Akkadian allegorical fable (Dispute Between the Date Palm and
the Tamarisk)is translated by R. H. Pfeiffer in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Ed. 2, Princeton, 1955),
410 f. Two allegorical animal fables are found in the O.T. in Ezek. xvii and xix; cf. also the allegory of the
vine in Psalm lxxx. It was not until the second century B.C. that allegoristic was pursued by Jewish exegetes
at Alexandria. See J. Massie s.v. 'Allegory' in Hastings, Dict. Bible (1898, repr. I931), 64 ff.; cf. J. Geffcken
in Hastings, ERE I (1908), 327-31; B. J. Roberts, Patrymau Llenyddol y Beibl (Liverpool, 1950), 58 f.;
J. Hempel in H. W. Robinson (ed.), Recordand Revelation(Oxford, 1938), 36 f. For developments in the early
Christian era see Merkelbach, Roman und Mysterium in der Antike (Munich, 1962), 55 ff. and E. R. Dodds,Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge, 1965), I30 f.
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