Note 352 — Chapter IX

358 F. This is a difficult passage. It seems necessary to read ἀνακλάσει for ἀναχωρήσει (cf. ἀνάκλασις δή που περὶ τὴν ἶριν, 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 Samuel Squire, 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 G. Parthey, Berlin, 1850).—Legendum ἀναχρώσει vel ἀνακλάσει, ut Reisk. “Et quemadmodum mathematici arcum cælestem Solis tradunt esse imaginem variatam visus ad nubem reflexu: Sic fabula hoc loco indicium est orationis alio reflectentis intellectum.”—Wyttenbach.