IDENTIFIED IN THE MYTH OF ADONIS. 53 



at Alexandria, and floated to Byblus, and, by its arrival there, informed 

 the women of Byblus that Adonis was found. Now, the mourning for 

 Adonis is evidently the same as the mourning for Thammuz, spoken of 

 by Bzekiel, and therefore the Egyptian mourning was probably an 

 ancient custom, not one introduced by the Greeks at Alexandria. Since 

 the papyrus grew in Phoenicia as well as in Egypt, it would be easy to 

 keep up this ceremony of the annual exhibition of the head or the 

 vessel of papyrus at Byblus." ^^^ This connection of water is an 

 element well worthy of consideration in identifying Adonis with 

 Pharaoh. 



An Egyptian dirge, which Herodotus links with Phoenicia and 

 Cyprus, and which might easily be the later form of the great cry that 

 rose throughout Egypt when the first-born were slain by the angel of 

 death, next engages our attention. " The Egyptians adhere to their 

 own national customs, and adopt no foreign usages. Many of these 

 customs are worthy of note; among others, their song, which is sung 

 under various names, not only in Egypt, but in Phoenicia, in Cyprus, 

 and in other places; and which seems to be exactly the same as that in 

 use among the Grreeks, and by them called Linus. There were very 

 many things in Egypt which filled me with astonishment, and this was 

 one of them. Whence could the Egyptians have got the Linus? It 

 appears to have been sung by them from the very earliest times ; for 

 the Linus, in Egyptian, is called Maneros, and they told me that Maneros 

 was the only son of their first king,^^^ and that, on his untimely death, 

 he was honoured by the Egyptians with these dirge-like strains; and 

 in this way they got their first and only melody.^' ^'* From the notes 

 of Prof. Rawlinson, the translator of .the above extract, we learn that 

 Maneros was supposed to connect with Horus, son of Osiris; that 

 Pausanias states that " Linus and Adonis were sung together by 

 Sappho;" and that Athenaeus tells of Nymphis speaking of a youth 

 having gone to fetch water for the reapers, who never returned, and 

 was lamented by difl"erent people, in Egypt being called Maneros. ^^^ I 

 think that Maneros and Mencheres are the same word, the breathing in 



132 Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, i, 34S. 



133 xiais would be quite true in regard to the later Egyptians, for the father of the Pharaoh 

 of the Exodus was their first king, and his successor was his ouly remaining son, all the others 

 having died before him. Mencheres the older did not die an untimely death, and was not the 

 son of the first king of any line. 



13* Herodotus, L. ii, c. 79. 



135 Rawlinson's Herodotus, notes to book ii, c. 79. 



