ts the
female principle" (Mariette, _Denderah_, Texte, pp. 80, 81).

[Illustration: 145.jpg HORUS]

2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a statuette in the Gizeh
Museum (Mariette, _Album du Musee de Boulaq_, pl. 4).

The son in a divine triad had of himself but limited authority. When
Isis and Osiris were his parents, he was generally an infant Horus,
naked, or simply adorned with necklaces and bracelets; a thick lock of
hair depended from his temple, and his mother squatting on her heels,
or else sitting, nursed him upon her knees, offering him her breast.[*]
Even in triads where the son was supposed to have attained to man's
estate, he held the lowest place, and there was enjoined upon him the
same respectful attitude towards his parents as is observed by children
of human race in the presence of theirs. He took the lowest place at all
solemn receptions, spoke only with his parents' permission, acted only
by their command and as the agent of their will. Occasionally he was
vouchsafed a character of his own, and filled a definite position, as at
Memphis, where Imhotpu was the patron of science.[**]

* For representations of Harpocrates, the child Horus, see
Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_, pis. ccxxvii.,
ccxxviii., and particularly pl. cccx. 2, where there is a
scene in which the young god, represented as a sparrow-hawk,
is nevertheless sucking the breast of his mother Isis with
his beak.

** Hence he is generally represented as seated, or
squatting, and attentively reading a papyrus roll, which
lies open upon his knees; cf. the illustration on p. 142.

But, generally, he was not considered as having either office or marked
individuality; his being was but a feeble reflection of his father's,
and possessed neither life nor power except as derived from him. Two
such contiguous personalities must needs have been confused, and, as
a matter of fact, were so confused as to become at length nothing more
than two aspects of the same god, who united in his own person degrees
of relationship mutually exclusive of each other in a human family.
Father, inasmuch as he was the first member of the triad; son, by virtue
of being its third member; identical with himself in both capacities, he
was at once his own father, his own son, and the husband of his mother.

Gods, like men, might be resolved into at least two elements, soul and
body;[*] but in Egypt, the c