Note 35 — Chapter VII · SIUT TO DENDERAH.

Hathor (or more correctly Hat-hor, i. e. the abode of Horus), is not merely the Aphrodite of ancient Egypt; she is the pupil of the eye of the sun; she is goddess of that beneficent planet whose rising heralds the waters of the inundation; she represents the eternal youth of nature, and is the direct personification of the beautiful. She is also goddess of truth. “I offer the truth to thee, O Goddess of Denderah!” says the king, in one of the inscriptions of the sanctuary of the sistrum; “for truth is thy work, and thou thyself art truth.” Lastly, her emblem is the sistrum, and the sound of the sistrum, according to Plutarch, was supposed to terrify and expel Typhon (the evil principle); just as in mediæval times the ringing of church-bells was supposed to scare Beelzebub and his crew. From this point of view, the sistrum becomes typical of the triumph of good over evil. Mariette, in his analysis of the decorations and inscriptions of this temple, points out how the builders were influenced by the prevailing philosophy of the age, and how they veiled the Platonism of Alexandria beneath the symbolism of the ancient religion. The Hat-hor of Denderah was in fact worshiped in a sense unknown to the Egyptians of pre-Ptolemaic times.