the composite monster formed of a fish and an antelope,
could represent the destructive forces of wind and water. Thus even the
malignant dragon can be the homologue of the usually beneficent gods
Osiris and Ea, and their Aryan surrogates Mazdah and Varuna.

By a somewhat analogous process of archaic rationalization the sons
respectively of Osiris and Ea, the sun-gods Horus and Marduk, acquired a
similarly confused reputation. Although their outstanding achievements
were the overcoming of the powers of evil, and, as the givers of light,
conquering darkness, their character as warriors made them also powers
of destruction. The falcon of Horus thus became also a symbol of chaos,
and as the thunder-bird became the most obtrusive feature in the weird
anatomy of the composite Mesopotamian dragon and his more modern
bird-footed brood, which ranges from Western Europe to the Far East of
Asia and America.

That the sun-god derived his functions directly or indirectly from
Osiris and Hathor is shown by his most primitive attributes, for in "the
earliest sun-temples at Abusir, he appears as the source of life and
increase". "Men said of him: 'Thou hast driven away the storm, and hast
expelled the rain, and hast broken up the clouds'." Horus was in fact
the son of Osiris and Hathor, from whom he derived his attributes. The
invention of the sun-god was not, as most scholars pretend, an attempt
to give direct expression to the fact that the sun is the source of
fertility. That is a discovery of modern science. The sun-god acquired
his attributes secondarily (and for definite historical reasons) from
his parents, who were responsible for his birth.

The quotation from the Pyramid Texts is of special interest as an
illustration of one of the results of the assimilation of the idea of
Osiris as the controller of water with that of a sky-heaven and a
sun-god. The sun-god's powers are rationalized so as to bring them
into conformity with the earliest conception of a god as a power
controlling water.

Breasted attempts to interpret the statements concerning the storm and
rain-clouds as references to the enemies of the sun, who steal the
sky-god's eye, i.e., obscure the sun or moon.[175] The incident of
Horus's loss of an eye, which looms so large in Egyptian legends, is
possibly more closely related to the earliest attempts at explaining
eclipses of the sun and moon, the "eyes" of the sky. The obscuring of
the sun and moon by clouds i