Thesauros Literature biography Περὶ Ἴσιδος και Ὀσίριδος

Περὶ Ἴσιδος και Ὀσίριδος

Περὶ Ἴσιδος και Ὀσίριδος Plutarch
80 Cyphi Cf. Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. ii. p. 616 (Manetho, frag. 84). An interesting note in Parthey’s edition (pp. 277-280) describes the different kinds of cyphi mentioned in ancient writers, and gives in modern terms recipes for three. is a compound composed of sixteen ingredients: honey, wine, raisins, cyperus, resin, myrrh, aspalathus, seselis, mastich, bitumen, rush, sorrel, and in addition to these both the junipers, of which they call one the larger and one the smaller, cardamum, and calamus. These are compounded, not at random, but while the sacred writings are being read to the perfumers as they mix the ingredients. As for this number, even if it appears quite clear that it is the square of a square and is the only one of the numbers forming a square that has its perimeter equal to its area, Cf. 367 f, supra. and deserves to be admired for this reason, yet it must be said that its contribution to the topic under discussion is very slight. Most of the materials that are taken into this compound, inasmuch as they have aromatic properties, give forth a sweet emanation and a beneficent exhalation, by which the air is changed, and the body, being moved gently and softly Cf. Moralia, 1087 e. by the current, acquires a temperament conducive to sleep; and the distress and strain of our daily carking cares, as if they were knots, these exhalations relax and loosen without the aid of wine. The imaginative faculty that is susceptible to dreams it brightens like a mirror, and makes it clearer no less effectively than did the notes of the lyre which the Pythagoreans Cf. Plato, Timaeus, 45 d, and Quintilian, ix. 4. 12. used to employ before sleeping as a charm and a cure for the emotional and irrational in the soul. It is a fact that stimulating odours often recall the failing powers of sensation, and often again lull and quiet them when their emanations are diffused in the body by virtue of their ethereal qualities; even as some physicians state that sleep supervenes when the volatile portion of our food, gently permeating the digestive tract and coming into close contact with it, produces a species of titillation.

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