a goose and I whistle like a falcon." The mother is reproached with the incest prohibition as an act of wilful maliciousness by which she excludes the son from immortality. Therefore, a god must at least rebel, overpower and chastise the mother. (Compare Adam and Lilith, above.) The "overpowering" signifies incestuous rape.[103] Herodotus[104] has preserved for us a valuable fragment of this religious phantasy.
"And how they celebrate their feast to Isis in the city of
Busiris, I have already previously remarked. After the sacrifice,
all of them, men and women, full ten thousand people, begin to
beat each other. But it would be sin for me to mention for whom
they do beat each other.
"But in Papremis they celebrated the sacrifice with holy actions, as in the other places. About the time when the sun sets, some few priests are busy around the image; most of them stand at the entrance with wooden clubs, and others who would fulfil a vow, more than a thousand men, also stand in a group with wooden cudgels opposite them.
"Now on the eve of the festival, they take the image out in a small and gilded temple into another sacred edifice. Then the few who remain with the image draw a four-wheeled chariot upon which the temple stands with the image which it encloses. But the others who stand in the anterooms are not allowed to enter. Those under a vow, who stand by the god, beat them off. Now occurs a furious battle with clubs, in which they bruise each other's bodies and as I believe, many even die from their wounds: notwithstanding this, the Egyptians consider that none die.
"The natives claim that this festival gathering was introduced for the following reason: in this sanctuary lived the mother of Ares.[105] Now Ares was brought up abroad and when he became a man he came to have intercourse with his mother. The servants of his mother who had seen him did not allow him to enter peacefully, but prevented him; at which he fetched people from another city, who mistreated the servants and had entrance to his
