Note 181 — THE THEOGONY.
George Chapman translation
Depopulating Sphinx.] The Nile begins to rise during the fall of the Abyssinian rains; when the sun is vertical over Æthiopia: and its waters are at their height of inundation when the sun is in the signs Leo and Virgo. The Ægyptians seem to have invented a colossal representation of the two zodiacal signs, which served as a water-mark to point out the risings of the Nile: and this biform emblem of a virgin and lion constituted the famous ænigma.