134 . COSMOS. 



Besides Sirius, Vega, Deneb, Regulus, and Spica are at the 

 present time decidedly white ; and among the small double 



the members of which, although they apparently differ very widely from 

 each other, admit of being arranged somewhat in the following order. 

 By the three-fold transference of the verbal signification, we obtain from 

 the original meaning, to throw out -projicere (sagittam, telurn) first, 

 seminare, to sow; next, eztendere, to extend or spread (as spun threads); 

 and, lastly, what is hero most important, to radiate light and to shine 

 (as stars and fire). From this series of ideas we may deduce the names 

 of the divinities, Satis (the female archer); Sothis, the radiating, and 

 Seth, the fiery. We may also hieroglyphically explain sit or seti, the 

 arrows as well as the ray ; seta, to spin ; setu, scattered seeds. Sothit 

 is especially the brightly radiating, the star regulating the seasons of 

 the year and periods of time. The small triangle, always represented 

 yellow, which is a symbolical sign for Sothis, is used to designate the 

 radiating sun when arranged in numerous triple rows issuing in a down- 

 ward direction from the sun's disk. Seth is the fiery scorching god, ia 

 contradistinction to the warming, fructifying water of the Nile, the god- 

 dess Satis who inundates the soil. She is also the goddess of the cat- 

 aracts, because the overflowing of the Nile began with the appearance 

 of Sothis in the heavens at the summer solstice. In Vettius Valens the 

 star itself is called 2i?0 instead of Sothis ; but neither the name nor the 

 subject admits of our identifying Thoth with Seth or Sothis, as Ideler 

 has done. (Handbuch der Chronologic, bd. i., 8. 126.)" (Lepsius, bd. 

 i., s. 136.) 



I will close these observations taken from the early Egyptian periods 

 with some Hellenic, Zend, and Sanscrit etymologies : " Se/p, the sun," 

 says Professor Franz, " is an old root, differing only in pronunciation 

 from tfep, &pog, heat, summer, in which we meet with the same change 

 in the vowel sound as in relpof and repof or repaf. The correctness of 

 these assigned relations of the radicals aelp and &ep, depof, is proved 

 not only by the employment of tfepetTarof in Aratus, v. 149 (Ideler, 

 Sternnamen, s. 241), but also by the later use of the forms aeipof, aei- 

 piof, and asipivof, hot, burning, derived from oeip. It is worthy of no- 

 tice that oeipd or deipiva Ifiana is used the same as tiepiva iftdria, light 

 summer clothing. The form oelpiof seems*, however, to have had a wider 

 application, for it constitutes the ordinary term appended to all stars in- 

 fluencing the summer heat: hence, according to the version of the poet 

 Archilochus, the sun was aeipioc aarrip, while Ibycus calls the stars gen- 

 erally adpia, luminous. It can not be doubted that it is the sun to which 

 Archilochus refers in the words iroJUoiif /*v avrov aeipioe Karavavel 6i>f 

 kXXufiTruv. According to Hesychius and Suidas, Set'ptof does indeed 

 signify both the sun and the Dog-star; but I fully coincide with M. Mar- 

 tin, the new editor of Theon of Smyrna, in believing that the passage 

 of Hesiod (Opera et Dies, v. 417) refers to the sun, as maintained by 

 Tzetzes and Proclus, and not to the Dog-star. From the adjective oei- 

 piof, which has established itself as the ' epilheton perpetuum' of the 

 Dog-star, we derive the verb aeipidv, which may be translated ' to 

 sparkle.' Aratus, v. 331, says of Sirius, bt-a aeipiuei, ' it sparkles strong- 

 ly.' When standing alone, the word Setpjyv, the Siren, has a totally dif- 

 ferent etymology ; and your conjecture, that it has merely an accidental 

 similarity of sound with the brightly shining star Sirius, is perfectly well 

 founded. The opinion of those who, according to Theon Smyrna^us 

 (Liber de Astronomia, 1850, p. 202), derive 'Zeipfjv from oeipid&iv (a 



