Isis and the Seven Scorpions

Author: Traditional

Time Period: 5000 BCE–2500 BCE

Country or Culture: Egypt

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

Isis is a powerful goddess and magician, capable of bringing gods back to life from the dead. She has a formidable enemy in her brother Set, an evil god who murdered her husband and brother, Osiris. One day, Isis receives an omen from the god Thoth, who urges her to flee her home. The omen suggests that Set might attempt to harm her again.

Isis gathers seven fearsome scorpions to travel with her and offer protection. Before she leaves, she instructs the scorpions not to attack any person that they pass. With the creatures flanking her, she roams throughout Egypt, passing through cities where they worship different gods and goddesses. Finally, she reaches the northern lands of swamps and marshes, and she and her scorpions gaze upon the green waters and the fields of papyrus.

In this land, Isis comes to the house of a woman named Glory. Isis is exhausted and weary from travel, and when she sees Glory at the door of her gorgeous home, she hopes to sit down and rest. However, Glory sees the scorpions that accompany Isis and shuts the door before the goddess can approach. Slightly farther, a poor woman of the marsh likewise sees Isis approaching. Rather than shut her door, she welcomes Isis and the scorpions inside, where they can finally rest.

Once inside, all of the creatures gather around the scorpion Tefen and touch their stingers to his, depositing some of their poison there. Tefen then creeps to the home of Glory, crawling through a crack beneath the door, and finds Glory’s infant son. With the strength of all the scorpions’ poisons inside of him, he lashes out and stings the baby. The poison is so strong that it not only kills the baby but also causes a fire to erupt inside of the home. Glory cries out to heaven, asking for mercy, but instead a storm gathers and begins to batter her home. She sobs and sobs, wishing she had not shut the door in the face of Isis, and eventually her moaning is so loud that Isis hears it.

Isis then goes to where Glory cries over her dead baby and begins an incantation. She announces her own name and calls on the god Horus, listing the great deeds of which she is capable. Speaking the name of each scorpion, she draws their poison out of the baby. Eventually, her great words are so powerful that the child comes back to life, the fire relents, and the storm passes. Glory is so thankful that she gathers up all of her riches and brings them to the poor marsh woman, who had known to show Isis compassion. The words of Isis are so powerful that for years people recite them over scorpion wounds, drawing out the poison and healing the injured.

SIGNIFICANCE

The goddess Isis is one of the most prevalent deities in ancient Egyptian mythology, and her extended conflicts and romances with Osiris and Set provide the backdrop for many myths. While her antagonistic relationship with Set lingers in the background of this story, however, the main narrative departs into the territory of another god.

Although never named here, this manifestation of Isis and her scorpions relies heavily on the mythology of the goddess Serket. Serket is a goddess of the scorpion, believed to heal the poisons inflicted by the creatures. As the scorpions that heavily populate Egypt are among the most lethal in the world, the treatment of their wounds has played a prominent role in Egyptian culture. Serket was originally a unique goddess associated with her own rituals and cults. She was believed to protect the bodies of those who have died, guarding them in their transition to the underworld, and to have power over the breath of the living (scorpion stings cause the throat to constrict, suffocating the victim). As the healing goddess Isis gained prominence in the Egyptian pantheon, however, the two were slowly combined, until many Egyptian belief systems taught that Serket was no more than Isis in an additional form. This was a common occurrence in the formation of Egyptian mythology—gods were brought together as cities gained power and spread the influence of their cults over smaller, localized belief systems.

In this particular myth, Isis stands as a unique deity, grounded in her conflict with Set and evoking the name of Horus, with whom she would come to be strongly associated. Serket’s presence is brought about in the scorpions themselves, who can be understood as a manifestation of the goddess attending to and supporting Isis. The twofold nature of the goddesses provides an important duality: the invocation of the goddess Serket, who often appears either as a scorpion or with a scorpion upon her head, is meant to show respect and humility toward the deadly poison, while the invocation of Isis is a more direct call for healing and relief from the sting. For this reason, the narrative of Isis seeking shelter with her seven scorpions was often used in healing spells, spoken by countless people over the bodies of friends and relatives who had suffered the poison of a scorpion or a snake. As the myth of Isis spread in the Roman world, the narrative was sometimes acted out at festivals, with devotees of Isis handling live scorpions as a show of their devotion.

The myth of Isis and the scorpions highlights the importance of both the goddess’s cult and the appreciation of the natural world that comes alongside it. It is a story of the power of Isis and of the scorpion, the ladies of the marsh demonstrating fear and humility to both at once. Over time, this power intensified rather than fading, with statues of Isis sometimes even appropriating the ominous scorpion head of Serket, the goddesses of healing and of poison brought together in one resonant image.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Capel, Anne K., and Glenn Markoe, eds. Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt. New York: Hudson Hills, 1996. Print.

Murray, M. A. “The Scorpions of Isis.” Ancient Egyptian Legends. 1920. Sacred Texts. John Bruno Hare, 2009. Web. 4 June 2013.

Pinch, Geraldine. Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.

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Tyldesley, Joyce. “Isis: Great of Magic.” Ancient Egypt Magazine 13.1 (2012): 50–53. Print.