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The sistrum likewise (or rattle) doth intimate unto
us, that all things ought to be agitated and shook (σείεσθαι),
and not to be suffered to rest from their motion, but be as it
were roused up and awakened when they begin to grow
drowsy and to droop. For they tell us that the sistrum
averts and frights away Typhon, insinuating hereby that,
as corruption locks up and fixes Nature's course, so generation again resolves and excites it by means of motion.
Moreover, as the sistrum hath its upper part convex, so its
circumference contains the four things that are shaken;
for that part of the world also which is liable to generation and corruption is contained by the sphere of the moon,
but all things are moved and changed in it by means of
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the four elements, fire, earth, water, and air. And upon
the upper part of the circumference of the sistrum, on the
outside, they set the effigies of a cat carved with a human
face; and again, on the under part, below the four jingling
things, they set on one side the face of Isis, and on the
other the face of Nephthys; symbolically representing
by these two faces generation and death (for these are
changes and alterations of the elements), and by the cat
representing the moon, because of the different colors, the
night-motion and the great fecundity of this animal. For
they say that she brings forth first one, then two, and
three, and four, and five, and so adds one until she comes
to seven; so that she brings eight and twenty in all, which
are as many as there are days in each moon; but this
looks more like a romance. This is certain, that the pupils of her eyes are observed to fill up and grow large upon
the full of the moon, and again, to grow less upon its de
crease. And the human face of the cat shows how the
changes of the moon are governed by mind and reason.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 4.
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