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But othere men , trowen that Semiramys of Babyloyne, of the which sothely ben manye werkes in Asye, sche made this foundacioun, and not for Iuno but for hir owne Moder, that hadde to name Derketoun.A legend of Ascalon made Semiramis the daughter of Derceto by a Syrian youth with whom Aphrodite (i.¢. Astarte) made Derceto fall in love. In her grief and shame, Derceto destroyed the youth, exposed the daughter, and herself leaped into a pool and was turned into a fish. Semiramis was miraculously attended by doves until she was discovered and handed over to Simmas, a royal overseer; eventually she married Ninus (Ctesias, quoted by Diodorus Siculus 2, 4). She was intimately connected with temple traditions at Hieropolis: two statues of her stood near the temple, with one of which the story was connected that she had once tried to usurp the place of the goddess (cc. 39, 40), and some thought that the “token” of c. 33 represented her. . And I beheld the schap of Derketoun in Phenicye, a straunge merveylle, halfundel womman, but the tothere half, wel fro thighes to feet, streccheth out in a fissches tayl.Cook, p. 30 sg. speaks of “various rude and almost shapeless objects of bronze which have been interpreted, thanks to a more realistic specimen from the Judaean Tell Zakariya, as models of an amphibious creature with human head and the tail of a fish;”’ and he adds: “a splendid Carthaginian sarcophagus of a priestess (M. Moore, Carthage of the Phoenicians, frontispiece) represents a woman of strange beauty with the lower part of the body so draped as to give it a close resemblance to a fish’s tail.” But in Hellenistic times the goddess was almost always represented in human form. For other stories of her transformation, see W. Robertson Smith, Eng. Hist. Rev., ii (1887), 303 sg.; Gruppe, Gr. Mythol. p. 1345; for the survival of the belief into modern times, Niéldeke, Zeitschr. der Deutsch. Morgenlind. Gesellsch. 35, 220. . But the ymage in the Holy Cytee is hoolyche woman, and the tokenes of here seyinge ben not right certeyn. Thei leven fissches holy thynge, and thei ne touchen fissche never; and though of othere foules thei eten alle, the dowve thei ne eten not, but sche is holy, as thei wenen.See cc. 45, 54, with the notes thereon. And thise thinges ben don, thei trowen, be cause of Derketoun and Semiramys, the oon for that Derketoun hath schap of a fissche, and the tother because that atte laste Semiramys tornede to a dowve.On the transformation of Semiramis into a dove, see Athenagoras, Legat. pro Christ. 76 (Ctesiae Fragmenta ed. Miiller, p. 17); Diodorus 2, 20, 2. Diodorus (2, 4, 6; cf. Hesychius) says that the name Semiramis is derived from the word for dove in the Syrian dialect. At all events the similarity of the Assyrian word summatu (dove) helps to account for her introduction into these stories (Lehmann- Haupt, Roscher’s Lexikon, s.v. Semiramis, p. 694). But to me, that the temple was bylded of Semiramys peraventure may I graunte; but that it longeth to Derketoun I ne leve not in no kynde.Lucian’s scepticism is unjustified. Pliny (5, 81) and Strabo (16, p. 785) were better informed. Atargatis is the Greek version of ‘Atar-‘ata; Derceto is the Greek version of the abbreviated form Tar-‘ata. See Cumont in Pauly- Wissowa, Realencycl., under Atargatis and Dea Syria. For amonges somme peples of Egypte thei ne eten not fissche, and that is not-don for no favour to Derketoun.In Astrology, c. 7, Lucian tells why these Egyptians do it; it is because they were especially devoted to the sign Pisces. This may be more than a mere jest; Cumont says: “Old totems of Semitic tribes or of Egyptian nomes survived in the form of constellations” (Astrology and Religion, p. 116; cf. p. 81). But for the abstaining in Egypt other reasons were given, from Herodotus on (2, 37; cf. Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, cc. 7, 32, 72, and for other references, Frazer, Pausanias iv, p. 154). See also page 398, note 1.
