#isis and osiris

[shisasan]

Why is it always "I love you," and never "I want to sink my teeth into your soul, crawl inside your skin, and bury myself in your dark warmth with insatiable hunger, binding our blood in a rhythm so deep with such ferocity that the earth sighs, and not even the cold grasp of death could pull us apart?"

[aboutanancientenquiry]

"Poetics of Fragmentation in the Athyr Poem of C. P. Cavafy

Gregory Nagy

[Originally published in Imagination and Logos: Essays on C. P. Cavafy (ed. Panagiotis Roilos) 265-272. Cambridge, MA 2010. The original pagination of the article will be indicated in this electronic version by way of curly brackets (“{“ and “}”). For example, “{265|266}” indicates where p. 265 of the printed article ends and p. 266 begins.]

Ἐν τῷ μη[νὶ] Ἀθύρ

[[1]] Μὲ δυσκολία διαβάζω    στὴν πέτρα τὴν ἀρχαία. [[2]] <<Κύ[ρι]ε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ>>.    Ἕνα <<Ψυ[χ]ὴν>> διακρίνω. [[3]] <<Ἐν τῷ μη[νὶ] Ἀθὺρ>>    <<ὁ Λεύκιο[ς] ἐ[κοιμ]ήθη>>. [[4]] Στὴ μνεία τῆς ἡλικίας    <<Ἐβί[ωσ]εν ἐτῶν>>, [[5]] τὸ Κάππα Ζῆτα δείχνει    ποὺ νέος ἐκοιμήθη. [[6]] Μὲς στὰ φθαρμένα βλέπω    <<Αὐτὸ[ν] … Ἀλεξανδρέα>>. [[7]] Μετὰ ἔχει τρεῖς γραμμὲς    πολὺ ἀκρωτηριασμένες· [[8]] μὰ κάτι λέξεις βγάζω –    σὰν <<δ[ά]κρυα ἡμῶν>>, <<ὀδύνην>>, [[9]] κατόπιν πάλι <<δάκρυα>>,     καὶ <<[ἡμ]ῖν τοῖς [φ]ίλοις πένθος>>. [[10]] Μὲ φαίνεται ποὺ ὁ Λεύκιος    μεγάλως θ’ ἀγαπήθη. [[11]] Ἐν τῷ μηνὶ Ἀθὺρ    ὁ Λεύκιος ἐκοιμήθη.

It is hard to read . . . . on the ancient stone. “Lord Jesus Christ” . . . . I make out the word “Soul”. “In the month of Athyr . . . . Lucius fell asleep.” His age is mentioned . . . . “He lived years . . . .”? The letters KZ show . . . . that he fell asleep young. In the damaged part I see the words . . . . “Him . . Alexandrian.” Then come three lines . . . . much mutilated. But I can read a few words  . . . . perhaps “our tears” and “sorrows.” And again: “Tears” . . . . and: “for us his friend mourning.” I think Lucius . . . . was much beloved. In the month of Athyr . . . . Lucius fell asleep . . . .

Translated by George Valassopoulo in E.M. Forster, Pharos and Pharillon, Hogarth Press, 1923 from C. P. Cavafy, Poems 1916-18 as published on the Official Website of the Cavafy Archive, http://www.cavafy.com/

My contribution, however slight, to an understanding of this difficult poem starts with an alternative translation of my own, followed by an exegesis. My translation has no literary merit: it is simply a working translation, keyed to the exegesis that follows it. In order to facilitate the reading of the exegesis, I have numbered, within double-square brackets ([[ ]]), the lines of the translation to match the verses of Cavafy as printed in their original format. As we will see, even the formatting of this poem is part of its meaning. Here, then, is my translation of the poem—and of its formatting:

[[1]] “With difficulty, I am reading … what is on the ancient stone. [[2]] It starts <<Lord Jesus Christ …>> Then there is another word, <<psyche>>, I can make out that much. [[3]] <<In the month Athyr …>> <<… Lucius went to sleep>>. [[4]] In remembrance of his age … <<He lived for such-and-such number of years>> [[5]] —the letters <<Kappa>> and <<Zeta>>, for twenty and seven, show … that he was a youth when he went to sleep. {265|266} [[6]] Right in the middle of the damaged parts, I see <<… himself … the Alexandrian>>. [[7]] Then there are three lines that are … very much dismembered, [[8]] but I can somehow make out some words … like, <<our tears>>, <<pain>>, [[9]] then once again <<tears>>, … and, <<for us his friends, sorrow>>. [[10]] It seems to me that Lucius … would have been very much loved. [[11]] In the month Athyr … Lucius went to sleep.”

What follows is my exegesis, pursued line by line. In this exegesis, double quotation marks enclose wording xxx spoken by the poet who is reading an inscription in his poem: so, “xxx”. Double angular brackets enclose wording pictured as seen by the poet in the act of reading the inscription: so, <<xxx>>. And single quotation marks enclose wording that I use to translate Greek wording that falls outside the poem: so, ‘xxx’.

I start with the first comma, “,” at line [[1]] of my translation of the poem. With the placement of this comma “,” I mean to convey a double meaning inherent in the poem. That is, there are two levels of difficulty in this poem. One, it is difficult to read the fragmentary inscription engraved into stone. And two, it is difficult to read the poem. Not only is the fragmentary inscription difficult to read; even the act of reading the poem is difficult in the first place. For us as readers, it is as difficult to read the fragmentary poem as it is difficult for the poet to read the fragmentary inscription. That is because the reader of the fragmentary inscription, who is the poet of the poem that pictures the inscription, is implying that all poems are fragmentary inscriptions. Even more, the poet is implying that any act of reading anything is difficult: “With difficulty, I am reading.”

At line [[2]], the first three words of the fragmentary inscription seem at first to be easy enough to read. <<Κύ[ρι]ε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ>> or <<Lord Jesus Christ>>… So far, so good. Maybe the reading will not be so difficult after all. Some letters have broken off, yes, but they can be restored without too much difficulty by the reader poet, who is following here the convention of experts in the heuristic science of epigraphy, making restorations of missing letters xxx by enclosing the letters of their restoration within square brackets: so, [xxx].

But now the real difficulties begin. Now the reader poet is starting to have a difficult time reading the next word at line [[2]], as the inscription becomes more and more fragmented. The reader thinks he can still make out the word <<Ψυ[χ]ήν>>, which translators tend to render as <<Soul>>, but the letter <<χ>>, which is also the first letter of <<Χ>>ριστός or <<Ch>>rist, has broken off, and it can only be restored within square brackets, just as experts in epigraphy restore missing letters within square brackets. Now, on second thought, the {266|267} reader is made more aware that the <<Lord>> of <<Lord Jesus Christ>> as read earlier at line [[2]] is also fragmented. There the missing letters are <<ρι>> in <<Κύ[ρι]ε>>, but those missing letters had been easily restored, also within square brackets, by the reader poet reading as an expert in epigraphy.

There is more to be said about the word <<Ψυ[χ]ήν>> as read by the reader poet at line [[2]]. This word, which is conventionally rendered as <<Soul>>, has been left untranslated in my working translation, where I give simply <<psyche>>. I do so because the translation ‘soul’ for ψυχή works only if the Christian sense of ψυχή is meant. But what if a pre-Christian sense is also meant here? In the Greek of Homeric diction, for example, ψυχή can refer either to the breath of life, when someone is alive, or to a disembodied simulacrum of identity after death, when someone is dead. And, by contrast with ψυχή, the word αὐτός in Homeric diction means not only ‘self’ when someone is alive but also ‘body’ when someone is dead. We see such a contrast between the words ψυχή and αὐτός at the very beginning of the Iliad:

Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή

Anger, sing it, goddess! The anger of the son of Peleus, Achilles, the baneful anger that caused countless pains for the Achaeans and hurled to Hades many powerful psychai of heroes, but they themselves [autoi, = their bodies] were made prizes for dogs and for all kinds of birds. And the will of Zeus was being accomplished.

Iliad I 1-5

The Homeric body, as expressed by αὐτός or ‘self’, is still the self even after death, while the Homeric ψυχή after death is no longer the self but merely a disembodied simulacrum of the self. It is the ψυχαί or disembodied simulacra of the self who are being hurled down to Hades, not their bodies, who are the ‘selves’ themselves, the αὐτοί.

So then the question is, does the <<Αὐτόν>> or <<himself>> in the accusative case, as we read this word later on at line [[6]] in the poem of Cavafy, refer to the <<Alexandrian>> at the same line [[6]] in the Christian sense of the ‘self’ as a ψυχή that transcends death—or to the ‘self’ in the Homeric sense of a body left {267|268} behind by the ψυχή after death? At line [[2]] of the poem by Cavafy, the word <<Ψυχήν>> is also in the accusative case, just as the <<Αὐτόν>> or <<himself>> is in the accusative case at line [[6]]. Something is happening to the psyche, is being done to the psyche—whether this psyche is a Christian or a pre-Christian ψυχή.

At line [[3]], the reading continues, but we do not find out what happened to the psyche. All we can find out so far is that whatever did happen happened <<in the month of Athyr>>. That is what the inscription says in the first part of the line. In the second part, which is separated from the first part by a break in the line, the inscription goes on to say that a young man <<went to sleep>>, and we learn that his name was <<Lucius>>>. I translate the break between the first part and the second part of the line not with three dots marking ellipsis but with two sets of three dots marking two separate ellipses. That is because the break comes in the middle of a quotation, and there is no way of knowing whether the missing words are part of one syntactical sequence or of two.

The fragmentary inscription, as imagined at line [[3]], does not say outright that the young man <<went to sleep>>, since the root of the verb that I translate as <<went to sleep>>, <<κοιμ->>, is imagined as a learned epigraphical restoration. In the inscription, the root <<κοιμ->> has broken away and has to be restored within square brackets: <<ὁ Λεύκιο[ς] ἐ[κοιμ]ήθη>>, which can be approximated as <<Lucius [went to sleep]>>. The experience of going to sleep is epigraphically conjectured, without being poetically realized. At line [[5]] and then again at line [[11]], by contrast, the epigraphical conjecture will become a poetic reality. In those two lines, [[5]] and [[11]], the experience of going to sleep is a reality created by the poetry, no longer a conjecture derived from the heuristic science of epigraphy.

At line [[4]], the remembrance of the age of the young man Lucius anticipates a certainty—that the number of years he lived is known to the reader poet—who anticipates what is already known by the writer of the inscription. But the number is missing in this line, where the reader would expect to read it. That is why I translate here at line [[4]] the missing number by using the words <<such-and-such>>. What line [[4]] says is that <<He lived for such-and-such number of years>>. Line [[5]], which comes next, will fill in, adding the numbers that are expected but not yet found at line [[4]]. The <<such-and-such>> number of years at line [[4] can finally be filled in with real numbers at line [[5]], but only because the reader can now make out the <<Kappa>> and the <<Zeta>>, Greek letters reused for the Attic numerals <<20>> and <<7>>, in this case showing <<27>> as the age of the young man Lucius when <<he went to sleep>>.

At line [[5]], my working translation starts with a dash, and the first letter of the line is not capitalized. These details in formatting are meant to show that the previous line [[4]] did not end in a full sentence. The present line [[5]] {268|269}continues where the previous line [[4]] had left off. Meanwhile, the reading in the inscription that had to be restored as <<went to sleep>> at line [[3]] is now the reading in the poem as written by the poet and as read by the reader of the poem at line [[5]].

In the lines that follow, both in the lines of the inscription and in the lines of the poem, the fragmentation is so severe that the reader of the inscription and the reader of the poem can barely make out any readable words. All there is to read in the inscription is what the speaking reader actually sees, as signaled by “βλέπω” or “I see” at line [[6]]. If we take this word “βλέπω” in a sublime Platonic sense, not in the everyday sense of ‘βλέπω’ as ‘I see’ in everyday modern Greek, then what the “I” actually “sees” is an absolute Form, in that Plato’s use of βλέπω focuses on the seeing of Forms in Plato’s Theory of Forms. But the question is, what Form does the reader poet see “in the middle of the damaged parts”? And the answer is, he sees what he reads, which is <<… himself … the one from Alexandria>>. That <<himself>>, conveyed by <<Αὐτό[ν]>> in the accusative case at line [[6]], could be not only Lucius, the young man from Alexandria. It could be Cavafy himself from Alexandria. Or, as I noted some moments ago, the <<himself>> could be the Homeric body, which is temporarily the ‘self’ as distinct from the ψυχή after death. Or again, in a Christian sense, it could be the ‘self’ as permanently reunited with the ψυχή after death.

Or, yet again, in an ancient Egyptian sense that is most appropriate to Alexandria in Egypt, the <<self>> conveyed by the <<Αὐτό[ν]>> in the accusative case at line [[6]] could be the body of Osiris. In Egyptian myth, the god Osiris was the first person to die and then be resurrected after death. He had gone to sleep while sealed within a larnax or ��chest’—and his body was then dismembered and scattered by Seth, lord of chaos, only to be reassembled and restored to life by the goddess Isis, loving consort of Osiris, in the month of Athyr. The ancient Egyptian myth about the fragmentation of Osiris and about his subsequent restoration by his consort Isis in the month of Athyr has been retold in the learned essay of Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris. The form of the myth as known to Plutarch was doubtless well known to Cavafy. Here is my paraphrase of the Egyptian myth as retold in the Isis and Osiris of Plutarch:

356B. It all happened on the 17th day of the month Athyr. The occasion for the death of Osiris is a sumposion ‘symposium’ attended by the god and 72 symposiasts who conspire to trick Osiris into lying down into a larnax ‘chest’ that fits him perfectly—and him only. Once Osiris takes his place inside the perfect fit of the larnax, the conspirators seal it and cast it into the Nile. With reference to the sacred number 72, we may compare the number of assembled men in the narrative about the genesis of the Septuagint. {269|270}

357A. The larnax containing Osiris floats down the Nile and into the sea, floating onward all the way to the Phoenician seacoast city of Byblos, a place that becomes the namesake for ‘papyrus’ and ‘book’ and, ultimately, ‘bible’ as represented by the Septuagint. Isis ultimately brings back the body from Phoenicia to Egypt.

357D. In Egyptian ritual, Plutarch says, the eidōlon ‘image’ of any dead person, when it is ritually carried around in a kibōtion ‘box’, is not just some ‘reminiscence’ [hupomnēma] of the ‘sacred experience’ (pathos) concerning Osiris. The ritual act of carrying around such an eidōlon is in the specific context of a sumposion ‘symposium’.

357E. The mythical honorand of the ritual symposium, Maneros, is envisioned as the inventor of ‘the craft of the Muses’ [mousikē].

357F-358A. Seth finds the sōma ‘body’ of Osiris in the moonlight and ‘dismembers’ (dieleîn) it.

358A. Then Isis looks for the parts of the sōma in a papyrus boat. The narrative adds an aetiology: how papyrus boats are immune from attacks by crocodiles. It is implied that Isis is reassembling the parts of the body of Osiris in order to reintegrate it for his eschatological resurrection.

358A. There is a different taphos ‘tomb’ of Osiris for each different ‘part’ [meros] of Osiris in different places throughout Egypt because Isis performed a separate taphē ‘entombment’ for each. Another version has it that she made eidōla ‘images’ for each polis in which Osiris is entombed.

The dismemberment of the body of Osiris is matched by the dismemberment of the poem of Cavafy, which is pictured as the reading of a dismembered inscription. The fragmented members of the poem need to be reassembled by the reader poet just as the fragmented members of the body of Osiris need to be reassembled by Isis. Just as the task of reassembling the fragmented body of Osiris is the key to the eschatological restoration and resurrection of Osiris, so also the task of reassembling the fragmented body of the poem is the key to restoring this poem and bringing it back to life.

But the task is difficult for the reader, perhaps so difficult as to be impossible. That is because the missing parts of the body of the poem, which match the missing parts of the inscription that is read by the reader poet, may perhaps never be found, may perhaps never be reunited with the parts that remain. And so the remains of the body of the poem may perhaps never be brought back to life. Unlike the goddess Isis, whose quest is to reassemble and restore all the missing parts of the body of Osiris, the reader of the poem may have to give up any hope, settling for something that falls far short of restoring the whole poem. The reader may have to settle for the fragmentation that remains. {270|271}

But the reader poet persists. He continues to read the inscription, as if to sustain a hope of restoring it and bringing it back to life simply by continuing to read. The reader continues to restore missing fragments within the square brackets that mark what is missing. The remains of the body of the poem call for the restoration of the fragments that are missing.

But now the reading becomes even more fragmentary, even more difficult. In the three lines that follow line [[6]], the fragments that remain are too disjointed to be read in continuity. Here the dismemberment of the body of the poem becomes decisive. It happens immediately after the <<self>> is signaled at line [[6]]. The next line [[7] signals that the reader of the fragmentary inscription is about to read “three lines that are … very much dismembered.” These “three lines” in the inscription will now be reenacted in the fragmentary wording and syntax of the next three lines in the poem, [[8]] and [[9]] and [[10]].

At lines [[8]] and [[9]], the reader reads words that break apart from each other, such as <<our tears>> and <<pain>> at line [[8]] and <<tears>> and <<for us his friends, sorrow>> at line [[9]]. The words at lines [[8]] and [[9]] are separated from each other by the breaks in the inscription. They are no longer connected to each other organically. And the two lines [[8]] and [[9]] are disjointed even as lines, since line [[8]] does not close in a full sentence but is picked up by the disjointed additions that follow. That is why the tears cannot end at [[8]] but need to start all over again at [[9]].

Then, at line [[10]], even the poem breaks apart, breaks up, disintegrates. This time, it is not the wording of the inscription that disintegrates. Rather, the disintegration happens in the wording of the poem itself. The wording at line [[10]] has taken over from the wording of the fragmented inscription. The wording of the poem here at line [[10]] is meant to tell what the fragments cannot tell fully, but now even the wording of the poem becomes fragmented. It is not that the fragmentation is caused at line [[10]] by breaks in the inscription. It is caused by breaks in the structure of the poem, in the body of the poem. The syntax of “It seems to me that Lucius … would have been very much loved” shows that the poetry is becoming fragmented, just as the inscription is already fragmented. The line is not a complete sentence, since something is syntactically missing in the ellipsis (…) that separates the two parts of the line.

Then, at the end, at line [[11]], the fragmented words of the poem as expressed in the previous line [[10]] are replaced by the restored words of the inscription. There are no more square brackets to indicate the missing letters of the inscription. Now “Lucius went to sleep” for sure, “ὁ Λεύκιος ἐκοιμήθη,” and these words are no longer quotations from the inscription, enclosed in double angular brackets and showing the epigraphical restorations, as they had been before at line [[3]], <<ὁ Λεύκιο[ς] ἐ[κοιμ]ήθη>>, which I had translated {271|272} as <<… Lucius went to sleep>>. This time, at line [[11]], the words “ὁ Λεύκιος ἐκοιμήθη” or “Lucius went to sleep” are not the words spoken by the inscription but the words spoken by the reader poet. But these words too, like the words of the inscription, are fragmentary, as we see from the spacing between the first and the second part of the line.

What ultimately reintegrates the disintegrating poem as it draws to a close is the love expressed for Lucius at line [[10]]: “μεγάλως θ’ ἀγαπήθη” – “[he] would have been very much loved.” In the logic of the inscription, this love was experienced by the original readers of the inscription—and by its original composer. But now we see it experienced all over again by the composer of the poem that frames the inscription. This composer becomes the first reader of this poem by virtue of being the last reader of the fragmentary inscription that he sees being framed within his poem. And just as the ultimate reintegration of Osiris after his disintegration is driven by the love of Isis in the ancient Egyptian myth, now the ultimate reintegration of the poem after its own disintegration is being driven by love—a love restored in the act of reading a fragmented inscription. Such is the integrating power, paradoxically, of Cavafy’s poetics of fragmentation."

[taratarotgreene]

8:8 Lion's Gate Stargate-Don't buy into all the hype

THE LION’S GATE STARGATE 8/8 Lion’s Gate Detail of the goddess. Mighty mistress of animals and nature. Pithos with relief, from the years 625-600 BCLi Mycenea The Lion’s Gate, the Stargate, on August 8th is the annual rise and reborth of the star Sirius between July 26-August 12th with August 8th being most potent as its The Heliacal rising of Sirius, the brightest star in the Skies -20 times…

[shisasan]

What happened to writing that stirs the soul like this? Absolute love. 🖤🔥

We, the Fugitives

I drown without seeing the stars, the sunless days suffocate me. I long to breathe the sky, to dream before I die.

How far can you run? How close to the edge can you kiss the abyss? Can you fly without wings? Can you fall without fear?

Let’s play in the house of mirrors, where reflections neither lie nor hide. Find me among the masks, but hold me on the bridge, kiss me at the door to your world.

Call me when the clock forgets time, I’ll follow you into the dark. Find me in the corner of secrets, love me there, again, as if now were eternal.

I can be your whisper in the night, your madness wrapped in laughter, your lover with no promises, your friend without an end.

The fools cling to power, the mad exhaust themselves in fury, the strong survive without knowing, and the wise fall asleep in their boredom.

But you and I, we are the echo of what life desires: we know why the moment beats, and we want to live it as they never will. We live in the flame that consumes their shadows.

[bruhhxiao]

Rebirth

(sfw/nsfw)

Seth x fem!Reader

!Warnings: there might me some sexual scenes but not to much, death and rebirth of reader, (Y/N) rarely used !

Requested by: @lillycore

☥•☥•☥•☥•☥•☥•☥•☥•☥•☥•☥•☥•☥•☥•☥•☥

You and Seth were one thing, always thinking about each others but unfortunately your relationship was secret since you were just a mortal.

He would have left his throne exposed or his temple in silence just to spend a few hours with you. He was the god of violence and desert tempests, but your eyes met for the first time and there was only one tempest and it was in his chest, so he got curious.. visiting you at night watching your body wrapped around the linen sheets, or he would dissolve into sand and follow you around while you were busy with duties, or maybe worry Horus for his less anger towards anything. Because he was in love.

He would burst out of the temple after Nephthys begged him to end this story, she knew he started to get affectionate with you. Until a day he couldn’t take it anymore and shows himself to you. His body building little by little with sand while you holed the heavy container of water, his hand caressing your cheek as he leaned closer. You were completely froze, did you do something wrong to make the god Seth get to you?

When he has gotten closer to you doesn’t take time for you to reply, his lips sweetly touching yours making you drop the container and he realized. But from them moment and after he fully fell in love with you.

Your relationship started to grow time to time, he would visit you at night or take you in his chamber, and he would make it embarrassing because he doesn’t lay a hand on you, he just sits on the bed listening to your journey thinking how boring is to be a god.

But he noticed something, he would have thought that it was just a habit or that your lungs were just weak because you were a mortal, he didn’t mind it, he thought it was normal till your coughing got worse. To the point you had to hold your chest for the pain and find small drops of blood in your hand. You hide it from Seth but he notice your body getting weaker as days pass. And after a few days of absence the day came.

He could find you or even his servants couldn’t find you in the village and he finally decided to go to your house. He came at night when everyone where asleep a part of him regretted to see you but the other made him realize that maybe that was the last time he could hug you.

He knelt next to your shaking figure. Your body was boiling and sweating, your lung taking just the half of air. His arms sliding behind your shoulders and pulling you closer to his. He never felt this way: scared, strengthless, sad.

He kissed your temple and picked you up running to Anubis temple, of cousin the other gods were aware of the situation. There he goes begging on his knees with your body cooling in his arms, so pitiful, begging Anubis to talk to Osiris and make him spare your life.

The god ignored his request but Anubis done something that would have changed Seth life without his knowledge. He kept you as wandering soul till the day he betrayed Osiris and made you reborn.

There were you finally visiting Egypt for the first time in your life. All the studies and stories they told you about ancient Egypt made you more curious day by day. Your mother told you that your first word was a god name. And as you grew up you choose to believe in Egypt gods going against your own religion, but why.

There was something that no one couldn’t explain, how you got so affectionate to them from a very young age.

After a long period of stress you went to a trip with your friends to visit Cairo. You were excited. The next day you went visiting all the places and talked with some people and shared differences of culture and religion.

You packed your bag full of cameras and polaroids since you’re going for a tour of the Nile. It was dark and the only option was to find a place to eat and go to an Hotel around the area.

There you were enjoining the view on the restaurant balcony, the air was hot but the soft wind made it fell better. You were walking down the stairs for the silent garden downstairs, you laid on a bench as the smell of nature relaxed your tense muscles as your heart was beating in peace, you closed your eyes smiling like a dork remembering all the funny things that happened during these days and how this beautiful places made you feel like home.

You opened your eyes as you felt a drop falling down your cheek, you were expecting to find the stars covered by clouds and the moon losing her brightness. But you found two shining eyes hiding under a mask. You jolted by the surprise and sat yourself holding your chest meanwhile the figure also stepped back while the fountain limits the escape distance behind him.

You stood up you had plenty space to run away but you didn’t, you weren’t scared.

“Y/N it’s time to go back to the hotel!! Y/N!” you heard your friend scream from the balcony.

“Y/N…” Seth repeated your name under his breath, your eyes glued on the jackal-shaped mask until your friend called for you once again, Seth noticed and he dissolved himself into send disappearing.

He left you speechless, left you like a sculpted statue. You snapped out of your thought and rushed to the others.

Once you arrived at the hotel you locked yourself in, those eyes, just thinking about them made your heart race.

That mask was familiar, you searched on internet and bingo, that mask was related to a god very dear to you, Seth.

“The doctor warned me, there are too many flus and viruses going around here. I am hallucinating.” You said checking your temperature and turning on the Air Conditioning.

“But weren’t they half animals?..” you kept wondering till the day you had to go back home.

You searched on the internet but there were so many theories that the one you knew from childhood sounded crazy to you in that moment. You kept reading, working day after days neglecting your sleep and hunger. It was around midnight when your headache was getting worse and sometimes you would feel dizzy as well, you lay on the bed. “Just five minutes” sounded like a loop in your head till you fall asleep.

You felt a warm sensation o your left cheek but you thought it was from the sickness, but then you hear pressure one you chest, you heard a mumbling voice and it sounded relieved.

Your head moves to your chest and meets a very familiar but strange texture, you slowly open your eyes and by the soft light from the light stand you see a few red strings of red hair falling out the clothing that was attached to his mask.

You kind felt better but your muscles were too weak push him away. Seth raised his head turning towards your face, you couldn’t see much because of the jackal mask but you saw his trembling lips. It felt like Deja vu…

His hand reached the mask taking it off slowly and when your eyes met you saw a very similar expression but this time he wasn’t crying. You smelled sand, you smelled wheat and some hints of flax for a were short second. His name, hi face, his touch and his voice sounded clearer in your head.

“I thought he was going to take you away from me again…” he said before you could even clear your throat.

As you pronounce his name he holds you hand to his chest while his left hand holds your cheek, he sat closer next to you leaning down slightly. You couldn’t tell if it was a dream or not because you started to remember how the warm sand felt under your feet while you walked next to him talking about the mortals life.

Suddenly you got flashbacks of your last hour of life, he was sitting just like in the past and you felt pain on your chest, you were living a nightmare but the difference was that you’re staying alive. He noticed something was wrong, how your breathing got heavier and how your eye contact was so intense.

Who would have thought that the god of violence, destruction and desert tempest had stopped everything with a simple gesture, a simple kiss, a sweet stamp pressed against your lips. You felt something, you felt free, you felt hundreds chains letting you go and run towards freedom like a curse was broken.

You finally spoke, calling his name. Your hand reached his back pulling him in a hug, he leaned closer and both of his arms hugged you. Kiss sweet as figs while he laid on top of you making everything more passionate. Only he knows how much he wanted to do that before, holding you while making love and not seeing you suffering till your last breath.

His hands traveling under your T-shirt and take it off eventually, his right hand didn’t hesitate and he moved to your shorts. His hand slips inside the clothing serving you of some preparation before taking both shorts and panties off. He breaks the kiss for a few seconds waiting for a reaction from you, but you didn’t, you felt like him.

He toke off the cloth around his waist and position himself against your intimacy, he holds you as he slides into you. He was gentle, how his hands caressed your body made you feel like you were made of thin glass. His hips attached to yours, your back arches making you wrap your arm around his neck. The room was death silent, just your heavy breaths. Your reflection reflected back to you by the mirror next to your closet showing you how his buttocks contracted how he thrusted faster.

Somehow he noticed, his shoulders moved back a little as his hand turned your chin to him and he kissed you as you both reached pleasure. His hip’s grinding against yours and his arms held you tight against him, his lips travelled to your next leaving sweet pecks.

“My sweet baby.. I won’t let anyone anything happen to you again” he said kissing your cheek.

“But you’re a god, I’m a mortal” you said caressing his face.

“I can make you a demigod, but it won’t be easy for Ra” he says.

“but you might lose your memory…” he continued showing a bit of concern and worries in his eyes.

“I won’t never let anyone take you away from my memory.” You said cupping both of his checks kissing him.

Sure the Demi god might have suffered for thousand years and he never expected to hold you again in a healthy body like she always been with him.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Helooo, again sorry for taking so long, I apologize to the one who requested :’)

Hope y’all enjoy<3 btw I have more requests of ennead coming up soon, very soon :p see yaa!!!

[apiswitchcraft]

altars for kemetic/egyptian gods

hi yall, another purely based in UPG, new agey post! historically, deity offerings for the ancient egyptians often took the form of art/sculpture/hymns, incense (like frankincense or myrrh), or offerings of food (especially meat and bread) and drink (wine/ale, mostly). dialogue with the gods was often facilitated through the pharaohs or funerary rites, but your average person had access to daily magic and regular temples as well.

RA

Colors: yellow, orange, red for the sun

Offerings: eye of ra, dates, figs, grapes, apricots, sunflowers, morning glories, chocolate, pastries, orange juice, honey

Crystals: sunstone, yellow/red jasper, citrine, carnelian, honey calcite, angelite, kyanite

Animals: falcon

SHU

Colors: white, blue for the air/sky

Offerings: feathers (especially ostrich), sandalwood, gardenia, anise, paper fans, cornflower

Crystals: white/clear quartz, angelite, selenite, blue calcite, fluorite, blue lace agate

Animals: lion, ostrich

TEFNUT

Colors: white, blue for water

Offerings: sea salt, reeds, shells, water, coral, water (especially dew), lotus root/flower

Crystals: blue calcite, sodalite, lapis lazuli, amethyst, larimar, ocean/blue lace agate, aquamarine

Animals: lioness

NUT

Colors: blue, black for night. white for stars

Offerings: amber, sandalwood, sycamore, moonflowers, morning glories, milk

Crystals: lapis lazuli, star jasper, azurite, obsidian, smokey quartz, black tourmaline, labradorite, sodalite, moonstone (especially black)

Animals: boar, cow, sow

GEB

Colors: green, brown for earth. black for the underworld

Offerings: grain, beans, yarrow, cinnamon, coffee, egg shells, foliage, dirt, rocks, snake shed, milk

Crystals: jasper (various types), aventurine, moss/tree agate, unakite, obsidian, jade, malachite

Animals: snake, goose, rabbit, bull

OSIRIS

Colors: green for renewal, black for death, white for rebirth

Offerings: bandages, dark chocolate, dried fruit (especially oranges or dates), dark chocolate, coffee, cedar, vetiver, bones

Crystals: lapis lazuli, moss agate, jasper (various types), malachite, obsidian, smokey quartz, pyrite, jade, howlite, star jasper (for his astral form)

Animals: heron, ram, cow

ISIS

Colors: white, grey for the moon. blue, black for the night. green for life and resurrection.

Offerings: the tyet symbol, cow horn, milk, sycamore, feathers, dried fruit (such as raisins or dates), pomegranates, nuts, pastries

Crystals: star jasper, moonstone, rose quartz, amethyst, fluorite, bloodstone, red jasper, carnelian, labradorite, aventurine

Animals: birds (especially a kite hawk or vulture), cow, cat, scorpion, sow

HORUS

Colors: blue, purple for insight and intuition. white and red for pharoahship.

Offerings: eye of horus, weaponry/iron, lotus flower/root, feathers (especially hawk or falcon), yarrow, chocolate

Crystals: malachite, aventurine, pyrite, amethyst, lapis lazuli, jasper (various), howlite, sunstone, aquamarine, labradorite, hematite

Animals: falcon

NEPHTHYS

Colors: black for darkness and funerary rites

Offerings: beer, linen, feathers (especially of a crow or vulture), bones, coffee, nuts, milk

Crystals: obsidian, smokey quartz, black moonstone (because of association with Isis), black tourmaline, red jasper, bloodstone

Animals: vulture, crow

SET

Colors: red, black for chaos and storms

Offerings: lettuce, sand, alcohol, dragon's blood, patchouli, yarrow, vetiver, charcoal, dark chocolate, black pepper

Crystals: red jasper, black tourmaline, howlite, obsidian, labradorite, sodalite, bloodstone, malachite, pyrite

Animals: the set animal (which resembles a canine, giraffe, and aardvark), donkey

THOTH

Colors: grey, blue for intuition/intelligence. white for the moon

Offerings: quill, ink, pieces of writing/books, feathers, rosemary, citrus, sage, moon water, lavender, nuts

Crystals: amethyst, lapis lazuli, malachite, moonstone, selenite, howlite, angelite, sodalite, fluorite

Animals: ibis, baboon

ANUBIS

Colors: black, grey for funerary rites/death

Offerings: bones, ash, charcoal, red/black peppercorns, marigold (associated with the dead), linen, yarrow

Crystals: hematite, obsidian, black tourmaline, howlite, jasper (various, but especially red), smokey/rutilated quartz, bloodstone

Animals: canines, especially a jackal

BASTET

Colors: white, red for pharaohship

Offerings: ointments/perfumes of most types, cedar, anything cat related, rosemary, black salt

Crystals: tiger's eye, cat's eye quartz, bloodstone, red jasper, black tourmaline, howlite, milky/smokey quartz, pyrite, carnelian

Animals: lioness, cat

SEKHMET

Colors: red for war. grey for justice

Offerings: sand (especially red), scales of justice, iron, cypress, red pepper, black salt

Crystals: bloodstone, red jasper, carnelian, garnet, ruby kyanite, jade, smokey/clear, hematite

Animals: lioness

HATHOR

Colors: pink, red for love/sexuality

Offerings: dancing, dried fruits (especially figs/dates), pomegranates, sycamore, milk, honey, pastries

Crystals: rose quartz, amethyst, citrine, carnelian, fluorite, jade, aquamarine, garnet/ruby

Animals: cow, lioness, cobra

KHONSU

Colors: white, grey for the moon. blue, black for the night.

Offerings: lavender, sage, mugwort, dried fruit, moon shaped items, moon flower, ash

Crystals: moonstone, selenite, sodalite, obsidian, black tourmaline, smokey/milky quartz, jasper (various), blue lace agate, lapis lazuli

Animals: falcon

[egypt-ancient-and-modern]

 Relief of Winged Goddess Isis standing behind her husband the god Osiris, from the Philae Temple. 

[fallloverfic]

Mojito made art of Isis, Osiris, Nephthys, and Seth as the Teletubbies, with Ra as the sun. The cookie seems to be Mojito's icon/her dog.

[shisasan]

From February 16 to 17, 1913 Letters to Felice by Franz Kafka First published : 1973

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

Guide to Literary, Historical, Folklore and Alchemist Themes in "Nosferatu" (2024)

After my post about how the film itself debunks every "popular" view on “Nosferatu” (2024); and the ending explained through cast and crew interviews, (I did full breakdowns on here and on my personal blog), here’s a list of references in “Nosferatu” (2024):

Literary themes: "Dracula" by Bram Stoker (1897); and "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë (1847);

Historical themes: early 19th century (1838), Victorian era. Strict gender roles; views on female sexuality (sickness; contagious; sin) as a marital duty, owned and controlled by their husbands; sexual repression/liberation; Ellen’s mediumship medicalized as “hysteria” and “melancholia”; “love” and “passion” as opposite concepts;

Folklore themes: Changeling (European); Strigoi myth (Balkans); Șolomonari (Romanian); Nachzehrer (Germanic);

Occult themes: Agrippa; Angels and daemons; Enchantress; Babalon and the Beast (New Age of Aquarius);

Alchemist themes:"Sylph" and Paracelsus; Humorism (Humoral theory); Alchemical Gold (Chrysopoeia; Gold-making); Myth of Isis and Osiris.

Literary themes

"Dracula" by Bram Stoker

"The Threat of Female Sexual Expression": Based on 1980's Feminist Literary Criticism (Second Wave of Feminism). the physical figure of the "sick woman" as one of the principal ways in which female sexuality manifests as a contagious disease (Lucy Westenra and her degeneration into vampirism) - Ellen's character as seen by the Victorian characters (especially Friedrich Harding)

19th century "Contagionism" theory: Victorian medicine on disease origin. Disease spread from individual to individual (neglecting environmental issues like polluted water or unhygienic spaces)

"I thought it was agreed you were to keep the girls from her. You mustn’t be swept up in her fairy ways."

Subverted Themes:

Robert Eggers subverted every literary theme in “Dracula”, like he said in one interview: “My influences are all very clear, and Nosferatu is a remake, after all,” Eggers says, yet he plays with the canon, with expectations and clichés – “hopefully subverting them to do something unexpected.”

The Promise of Christian Salvation: This is a Anti-Christian story, at its core. Religious items have no power against Orlok; the fact he can’t enter the Orthodox convent has nothing to do with God (but with him not being given entrance); the God-fearing and religious character (Anna) is the first to die; and the female heroine Ellen not only rejects God (calls it “destiny) but also says she needs no salvation (rejecting Christian salvation, completely);

Madness: Neither Ellen, Professor Von Franz nor Herr Knock are “lunatics”, but the Victorian characters think they are. Knock is in full control of his mental capacities, he’s just a religious fanatic obsessed in discovering Orlok’s secret to immortality and he’s behaving the way he does because he wants to become a strigoi, too, and will stop at nothing to achieve it (even seeking a “violent death” to seal the deal);

The Consequences of Modernity: Ellen’s character and the medicalization of her supernatural gifts and mediumship by Victorian society;

Money: in the novel it’s associated with Count Dracula evilness; here with the Victorian characters. Friedrich Harding (the Victorian patriarch) is wealthy and loans money to Thomas, who drowns himself in debt, in his ambition to climb the social ladder and being “no longer a pauper”. Ellen, the female heroine, rejects money. Orlok gives Thomas a sack of gold in exchange for his signature in the “covenant papers” (the divorce papers) as he’s paying for Ellen’s dowery;

The Threat of Female Sexual Expression: Ellen breaks Nosferatu curse and “saves the day” by embracing her sexuality.

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë

“I think that what ultimately rose to the top, as the theme or trope that was most compelling to me, was that of the demon-lover. In “Dracula,” the book by Bram Stoker, the vampire is coming to England, seemingly, for world domination. Lucy and Mina are just convenient throats that happen to be around. But in this “Nosferatu,” he’s coming for Ellen. This love triangle that is similar to “Wuthering Heights,” the novel, was more compelling to me than any political themes.”

Dream of Death: Robert Eggers on “Nosferatu” Interview

Love triangle between a free-spirited and medicalized woman (Catherine/Ellen) with a beastly men (Heathcliff/Orlok) and a gentleman (Edgar/Thomas);

Themes of the all-consuming, obsessive and self-destructive passion, wrecking the lives of everyone around them and only stops when they are both dead;

The Destructive Power of Love;

Blend of Hatred and Love;

Separated by death/United by death; couldn’t be together in life, united in death and reunited in the spiritual world.

Historical Themes

Historical context: early 19th century (1838), Victorian era

Strict gender roles: marriage and motherhood as a woman’s destiny; social reputation and provider as a men’s destiny; domestic (women) vs. public (men) spheres;

Infantilization of women: the ideal Victorian woman was a model of virtue, purity and modesty who obeyed their husbands; women were seen as innocent, ignorant and naïve about the world, and were thought to have no minds of their own; the average Victorian woman wasn't allowed to be educated nor possess knowledge outside of domestic life. A woman’s entire life revolved around men: obeying their fathers, preparing for marriage, seeking an husband and as a wife, living for her husband;

Women as their husbands' property; marriage was the institution where Victorian men fully accomplished their male responsibility and privilege: to form a household, provide safety and comfort, and exercise authority over dependents (wife and children) where the trademark of a successful man. This was also connected to their social and professional success, making them respectful in the eyes of other men. A man who couldn’t govern his wife was also seen as unfit, socially, professionally and morally; and the wife’s behavior would reflect on the husband (which is why Friedrich Harding accuses Ellen of being a social embarrassment to Thomas);

"I envy you. You’ve truly taken your father’s place now… it’s incredible."

Victorian views on female sexuality: female sexuality seen as a plague and a monstrosity in need of containment (sickness, contagious, wicked, sin); women should have no sexual desire whatsoever (Ellen's shame; "I'm unclean"); married heterosexual sex was the only socially acceptable sexual expression in the Victorian era, and everything else (masturbation, homosexuality, prostitution, etc.) was considered deviant, “sinful” and “evil”; sex was a marital duty women had to go through to have children and serve their husbands (women’s sexuality owned and controlled by their husbands);

Sexual repression/liberation, represented by her corset, as Linda Muir, the costume designer, reveals in her interview "The Costumes of ‘Nosferatu’ Are Gorgeous - They Also Tell a Story About Female Repression and Liberation": “Her [Ellen] true nature [takes over] in the end. She liberates herself by ripping herself open, ripping her striped dress open. She liberates herself by wearing the same garment over and over and over again when she’s staying at Harding’s home. So she’s liberated herself in that she doesn’t feel the need to dress up completely each and every day. And then she liberates herself completely in the end.”

“Love” and “Passion” as opposite concepts: Victorian love (Thomas) was meant to be chaste, modest and restrained, tempered devotion confined to the household; and the sacrament of marriage ("sacred") was meant to repress and contain "passion". Passion (Orlok), on the other hands, was erotism, sexuality and sexual desire, considered "animalistic" and corruptive.

"Find the dignity to display the respect to your caretaker. And for your husband’s sake, I pray you might learn to conduct yourself with more deference."

Ellen’s mediumship medicalized as “hysteria” and “melancholia”: Robert Eggers tells us: “[Ellen is a] victim to 19th-century society […] she can see into another realm, and has a certain kind of understanding that she doesn’t have the language for,” Eggers said. “But people are calling her melancholic and hysteric and all of these things.” and in another interview: “she [Ellen] has this understanding of this other world, and this other way of thinking that she doesn’t have language for, so she’s isolated. But the pull to it is very strong, and so people consider her melancholic and hysterical, and we can see her fighting within herself. I think having it stem from the realities of a woman who’s a victim of 19th-century society is something that makes it hopefully work."

And in another: “she’s [Ellen] as much a victim of 19th-century society as she is a victim of the vampire. People talk a lot about Lily-Rose Depp’s character’s sexual desire, which is a massive part of the character, of what she experiences — being shut down, and corseted up, and tied to the bed, and quieted with ether. Misunderstood, misdiagnosed. But it’s more than that. She has an innate understanding about the shadow side of the world that we live in that she doesn’t have language for. This gift and power that she has isn’t in an environment where it’s being cultivated, to put it mildly. It’s pretty tragic. Then she makes the ultimate sacrifice, and she’s able to reclaim this power through death.”

“She’s [Ellen] an outsider. She has this understanding about the shadow side of life that is very deep, but she doesn’t have language for that. She’s totally misunderstood and no one can see her […] this demon lover, this vampire, who is the one being who can connect with that side of her." (x)

 “Ellen’s husband loves her, but he can’t understand these ‘hysteric’ and ‘melancholic’ feelings she’s experiencing, and he’s dismissive of her. The only person she really finds a connection with is this monster, and that love triangle is so compelling to me, partially because of how tragic it is.” (x)

The Victorian characters and Victorian society are the actual villains of the story; which subverts, another theme of the "Dracula" novel (where the titular vampire is the villain).

Folklore Themes

Changeling (European folklore)

"Father… he would find me in our fields… within the forest… as if – I was his little changeling girl." 

“Changelings” are human-like creatures from European folklore. They are children kidnapped by fairies, elves or demons and a substitute child being left in their place. Ellen's father called her this because she she enjoyed playing and being in nature, when she was supposed to be indoors (domestic sphere).

Strigoi (Balkan Folklore)

Count Orlok: quintessential strigoi morti, a undead creature from Dacian mythology and, consequently, from Romanian folklore, who raises from its grave to feed on the living and must return to it before dawn:

Appearance: walking corpse; bald and leathery; skin infested with maggots, cracked and oozing with putrescence and decay; long, spidery fingers; fangs cannot be retracted (sores on his lips and chin); dressed in moldy, torn out clothing (the one he was buried in);

Cause of curse: Ellen resurrected Orlok and cursed him at the prologue (confirmed four times in the film). Connected with his tragic backstory Robert Eggers won't share with the public (but influenced Bill Skarsgård entire performance and gives meaning to the ending of the film); late 16th century voivoide (count) from Transylvania, was married (couple bedroom where he attacks Thomas) and had a family (multiple sarcophaguses on his castle cript);

Characteristics: "psychic vampire"; it's not blood he feeds on specifically, but souls (soul trapped in the blood), and that's what sustains him (and that's why Thomas had to be exorcised). Plague-carrier ("blood plague"); controls animals (rats and wolves); astral projection powers (shadow); and manipulation of dreams (nightmares to create fear).

Haunting: strigoi haunt the person they loved the most when they were alive, and drag them to their grave. Reincarnation theme.

Strigoi "repelling" blessings and tokens:

“Dau cu ustoroi de strigoi”

Ritual to locate a strigoi grave:

"The means of repelling and destroying vary greatly from region to region [...] Their efficacy is plainly unknown. Boiling wine, a spike of cold iron transpiercing the navel, decapitation, incineration…" Professor Von Franz to Dr. Sievers

A virgin girl on horseback will be attracted to the strigoi grave and locate it. Then the strigoi can be killed. Here with a spike of cold iron. This ritual is all wrong on purpose, because it’s usually a black stallion and done during the day (when strigoi are resting on their graves). No strigoi was killed in this scene because the Roma people work for Orlok (as in the "Dracula" novel) and he wanted Thomas to see this ritual.

Șolomonari (Romanian Folklore)

"A black enchanter he [Orlok] was in life. Solomonari. The Devil preserved his soul that his corpse may walk again in blaspheme."

Șolomonari are dark wizards from Romanian folklore, who were believed to ride a dragon (“balaur”) and control the weather (rain, thunder, storms), and usually lived as beggars. The were frequently recruited among the common people and taught black magic at the Solomonărie (or “Scholomance”, in the Germanic version); some call it “Devil’s school”, others “School of the Dragon”. They are said to be taught by the Devil himself, and their school was located underground, in the Carpathian Mountains, in Transylvania. The name Șolomonari is often associated with King Solomon and alchemy.

According to folklore, there were seven, ten or thirteen students, who didn’t saw the sunlight during the seven or nine years duration of their studies. Some accounts describe them as “strigoi vii” (living strigoi; wizards and witches); but this isn’t Orlok’s case otherwise Robert Eggers wouldn’t be so secretive about his backstory (the reason for his curse is something else). At the Solomonărie, they learned magic (spells), the secrets of nature and the language of all living things; as well as ride flying dragons and control the rain.

As their final assignment to become a Șolomonar, they had to copy their entire knowledge of humanity into a “Șolomonar’s book”, a book of wisdom, which would become the source of their power. Which is what we see in “Nosferatu” with the Șolomonar codex of secrets Professor Von Franz finds in Herr Knock’s office; it was written by Orlok himself.

At the end, it’s said one of the students was chosen by the Devil to be the “Weathermaker” and tasked with riding a dragon to control the weather. This dragon was said to be kept submerged in a mountaintop lake, south of Sibiu. While the other was selected to be servant to the Devil himself; which is what the Orthodox Nuns believe Orlok to be, as does Professor Von Franz.

“Our Nosferatu is of an especial malignancy. He is an arch-enchanter, Solomonari, Satan's own learned disciple.”

However, Orlok is no “devil worshipper”, because like his iconography tells us, he’s a Pagan enchanter, follower of the Dacian god Zalmoxis, owner of the secrets of life and death.

The "demonized Pagan": the connection between Zalmoxis worship and the folkloric Șolomonari began in the early 20th century by Romanian social scientist Traian Herseni, who proposed the “Dacian cloud travelers” and “Șolomonari weathermakers” are connected, and this myth has its roots in Dacian religion. Nowadays, this theory is openly embraced by xenoarchaeologist Jason Colavito. No matter the historic validity, this is the interpretation Robert Eggers is using in “Nosferatu” (2024).

Orlok sigil: an heptagram (seven-pointed star) surrounded by a Dacian Draco ouroboros (rebirth; reincarnation; immortality); the letters are cyrillic for “Zalmoxis”; the center is the alchemist symbol for blood; the symbols appear to be Vinča; archeological findings in Romania with these symbols being over 8,000 and 6,500 years old, and consider by many as the oldest form of human writing, but their meaning is still unknown (they are here either to show Orlok comes from an ancient bloodline; or he has known reincarnations throughout the ages)

Heptagrams are connected to the seven elements of Alchemy but aren’t represented like this. Heptagrams are also connected to divine feminine goddesses, like Babalon and Isis.

Nachzehrer (Germanic Folklore)

When Professor Von Franz discovers the Șolomonari book in Herr Knock's office, he also finds a cryptic writting: "His thunder roars from clouds of carcasses, I feedeth on my shroud, and death avails me not. For I am his.” 

This is based on Germanic folklore, where the "nachzehrer", also known as "shroud eater", is a sort of vampire who needs to devour both its burial shroud and body in order to survive. It's immortal, and lives off humans even after death. In folklore, it's believed the most common way for a person to become a nachzehrer is to commit suicide or die accidentally (which is what happens to Herr Knock and what he was seeking). It's also associated with disease, for in Germanic folklore, when a large number of people die because of a plague, the first people to have succumbed to it would be transformed into a nachzehrer.

Occult Themes

Agrippa

"He [Professor Von Franz] became obsessed with the work of Paracelsus, Agrippa, and the like [...] Alchemy, mystic philosophy… the occult."

Henry Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was one of the most famous occultists in Europe in the 16th century. He was a versatile scholar, and knowledgeable in the fields of science, medicine, magic, philosophy and theology. However, he was dismissed as a charlatan and self-promoter by many, while others praised him for his pioneer role in the scientific revolution, especially due to his intellectual curiosity (in opposition to the church authority).  

His works incorporated elements of the cabala, numerology, mathematics and theology; a mix of Christianity, Neo-Platonism and occult science. His most notorious treaty is called “The Nobility of the Feminine Sex” (1532) where he asserts the natural superiority of women, and counterarguments Greek and Roman philosophers and even the Christian Bible, advocating for social gender equality.  

Professor Von Franz is probably based on Agrippa, mostly his “reputation” as a charlatan and self-promoter (he’s an outcast in Victorian society and considered a “lunatic”), and he's the only human character who recognizes and respects Ellen’s supernatural gifts, as well as her agency.

Angels and daemons

When Professor Von Franz tries to determine with whom Ellen is communicating with, he uses his Abraxas stone ring to compel her to speak, and he conjures both angels and demons during this scene:

"Who, damn you!? Speak!! I command you, hearken to my voice. By the protection of Chamuel, Haniel, and Zadkiel, impart your speech unto me. In the name of Eligos, Orabas, and Asmoday, impart your speech unto me."

Chamuel: Also known as Kamael, "One who seeks God", is the angel of peaceful relationships, and considered one of the seven Archangels (who have the honor of living in God's direct presence in Heaven) by Jewish Kabbalah and some Christians;

Haniel: "Joy of God", is the Archangel of joy who's known for taking Enoch to Heaven;

Zadkiel: "righteousness of God", is the angel of God's mercy;

Eligos: is a "Great Duke of Hell", ruling 60 legions of demons. He reveals hidden things and knows the future of wars;

Orabas: is a "Great Prince of Hell", with 20 legions of demons under his control. He answers questions and gives one power and control over others;

Asmoday: is the "King of Demons", in the legends of Solomon and the constructing of Solomon's Temple.

Abraxas stone rings were considered magical talismans or charms since the Middle-ages, connected to the Seven Olympic Spirits (Aratron (Saturn); Bethor (Jupiter); Phaleg (Mars); Och (Sun); Hagith (Venus); Ophiel (Mercury) and Phul (Moon)); and to Gnosticism (personal spiritual knowledge above organized religion), who considered Abraxas as “the God above all Gods”.

This is also connected to Agrippa, “Occult Philosophy”, book three, which covers the intellectual world of Pagan gods and spirits (including angels and demons), and gives magical procedures for invocation and communication with them, as well as with God (sigils, amulets, magical alphabets, sound, perfumes, etc.); and the kabbalistic tree of life (hierarchies of angels and Demons associated with each sephirot). The idea behind this conjuring is to infuse the lower angelic orders with the light they receive from God, as they instruct the orders.

Enchantress

Ellen has been a somnambulist since infancy, and she always had supernatural abilities; premonitions (“I know things”), as she would know what her Christmas presents were before opening them, and when her mother would die, which indicates she always had a connection to the spiritual world.

Professor Von Franz recognizes Ellen's spiritual power and ability to communicate with the spiritual world (“I believe she has always been highly conductive to these cosmic forces, uniquely so”). She's a medium (or a psychic); someone with the ability to connect with the spirits of deceased loved ones, spirit guides, and other non-physical entities.

What the Victorian doctors call “hysterical fits” and “epilepsies”, are, in fact, trance-like states of spiritual communication (trance mediumship), similar to Pagan priestesses. Like Von Franz tells the audience, Ellen inhabits the “borderland”, a peripheral area, a portal between the two worlds: the physical (matter) and the spiritual. And this is what Victorian society medicalizes in Ellen, and tries to restrain with drugs and corsets, not only her sexual nature, but her spiritual power, her own nature.

Orlok calls Ellen "enchantress". Historically, enchantresses were practitioners of feminine magic: oracles, healers, herbalists, midwives and shamanic shapeshifters. They were what’s commonly known as “witches”. These female magicians studied and practiced their art in goddess temples, mystery schools, alchemy schools and hedge schools. The alchemists of the Middle-ages studied these dynastic lineages of “wise women”, and they had several names: "enchantresses", "chantresses", "encantrices", or "incantrix". 

Ellen is, then, a "incantrix": uses words, incantations, songs, spells and prayers to shape reality. They were, also, the priestess of an old religion (as Professor Von Franz also calls her "great priestess of Isis"), gifted with magic power and authority to command the elements or the body by the power of their word.

Babalon and the Beast (New Age of Aquarius)

The birth of the New Aquarius was already the occult meaning of the original 1922 “Nosferatu”, because Albin Grau was a student of the occult and a member of the Fraternitas Saturni (German magical order devoted to Saturnian doctrines) under the magical name Master Pacitius. Within the occult leaders there was tension due to their beliefs, and Grau eventually sided with Aleister Crowley Thelema (which views we see in Eggers “Nosferatu”).

While Stoker saw Count Dracula as pure evil, Grau reinterpreted the vampire as a symbol of transformation through confrontation with darkness. Saturn, in esoteric tradition, represents restriction, death, and rebirth (the forces that initiate profound spiritual change). Grau viewed the vampire as a reflection of these principles, a shadowy force that compels the aspirant to face mortality, fear, and their own inner darkness. And his death symbolized the birth of the New Age of Aquarius (Saturn as ruler of Aquarius), a new era of collective awakening and innovation.

Robert Eggers included the divine feminine (Babalon), his heroine is already a dark character, as he describes his Ellen as “dark chthonic female heroine”, who makes the ultimate sacrifice to "reclaim this power through death". Chthonic = gods or spirits who inhabit the Underworld; and, in his version, Orlok gifts Ellen with immortality and rebirth (not death like in the original "Nosferatu").

When Ellen and Thomas are returning home, there’s a man in the streets rambling bits from the “Book of Revelations” (Apocalipse) from the Bible: “And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, owith ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.” (Revelations, 13:1).

This passage is about Orlok arrival and his "blood plague", but there's a character (also from the "Book of Revelations") connected to this beast: the Whore of Babylon, the “Mother of Prostitutes and All Abominations of the Earth”, and she rides this Beast, which is the same as Crowley’s Babalon. What Crowley did was a positive reinterpretation of this biblical figure, symbolizing liberated female sexuality by embracing the powers of the Divine Harlot.

Initiatrix, Creator and Destroyer, Babalon is the “Great Mother” because she represents Mother Earth. Like Isis, she’s the Archetypical Mother, the Womb, the Great Sea and the Divine Blood itself. According to Crowley, the “whore/harlot” facet is about enjoying sex without the burden of reproduction; and the “mother of abominations” connects with destruction like natural catastrophes, plagues, etc. She’s the ruler of the cosmological sphere and both good and evil (as evil as elemental forces can be or are considered as). Babalon is the guardian of the Seven Principles of the Underworld, a place of darkness and transformation. Babalon is also the goddess of the liminal point, who can access other realms. As Goddess of vengeance, Babalon punishes when life is out of balance, and exerts violence and corruption upon those who are in the wrong. Ellen ("mother of abominations") unleashes Orlok onto the world, and we can interpret him bringing plague into Wisburg as Ellen’s reckoning against Victorian society, which ostracizes her and will never accept her.

According to the Thelema, Babalon is the “Sacred Whore”, and her primary symbol is the Chalice or Graal (symbolic womb). She’s a consort to the Beast, who has seven heads, which is symbolically represented in her heptagram sigil (parallelling Orlok's heptagram). To Crowley these are archetypes in his Sex Magick beliefs: the “Scarlet Woman” is the High Priestess, and the “Beast” is the Hierophant: Ellen (the priestess, enchantress) and Orlok (priest-shamam; enchanter). Orlok is described as a “beast” several times in the film, and he says Ellen’s passion is bound to him, like Babalon’s passion is united with the Beast.

All rites and initiations of the Underworld Goddesses include rites of sex and death. Which is what we see with Ellen at the end of “Nosferatu” (2024). By Thelemic occult tradition, she, the manifestation of Babalon, has sex with the Beast (Orlok), “representing the passion which unites them” and her womb (Holy Grail; cup) is “aflame with love and death” (sexual climax, orgasm, with an un-dead vampire), to give birth to the New Age of Aquarius.

Crowley described Babalon:

“She rides astride the Beast; in her left hand she holds the reins, representing the passion which unites them. In her right she holds aloft the cup, the Holy Grail aflame with love and death. In this cup are mingled the elements of the sacrament of the Aeon”.

"the cup, the Holy Grail" = womb

"Aflame" = orgasm

"with love and death" = sex with undead Orlok

"sacrament of the Aeon" = the "aeon" in Thelema is a spiritual age, in this case it's Ellen's womb who gives birth to the New Age of Aquarius

Alchemy Themes

"Sylph" and Paracelsus

"Do extend my tardy congratulations to your wife. She is truly a… A nonpareil of beauty. Almost a sylph." Herr Knock to Thomas Hutter

A “sylph” is air spirit (or nymph) from the 16th century works of Swiss physician, alchemist and theologist Paracelsus, with roots in folklore. Sylphs are invisible beings of air (or air elementals), connected to fairies and pixies. On his “A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies and Salamanders, and Other Spirits”, Paracelsus described the four elemental beings, each corresponding to one: Salamanders (fire), Gnomes (Earth), Undines (water) and sylphs (air).

Sylphs are formed and live in air, and they have power over the air element, particularly the wind and the clouds, where they move freely. They do not fare well outside of their element; they burn in fire, drown in water and get stuck in earth. They are portrayed as the guardians of secret knowledge, and protectors of nature.

During the 19th century, there was a renewed interest in sylphs in European society, especially in theatre, where they appeared in several plays and operas as ethereal, graceful, charming and ultimately unattainable.  

Ellen is compared to a fairy three times in the narrative: by Herr Knock ("sylph"), by her father ("his little changeling girl") and Friedrich Harding ("her fairy ways"). We also see her floating at the prologue when she meets Orlok.

Humorism (Humoral theory)

“You [Dr. Sievers] have bled her to decrease the congestion? […] And her menstruations are also? [Liberal]. Too much blood. Too much.”

Professor Von Franz physically examines Ellen, as her trance is beginning, and determines she has “too much blood”: in connection to “Humorism” (or “humoral theory”) with possible origins in Ancient Egyptian medicine, and then used by Ancient Greeks and Romans. Hippocrates suggested that humors are the vital bodily fluids, and they are four: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. This belief was common during Middle-ages in Europe.

Ellen having “too much blood” means she has a sanguine temperament (not a melancholic temperament); it was believed that, when in good health, “sanguines” are cheerful and loving; but when there’s an imbalance, they are “hysterical”, which is what Victorian doctors also diagnose Ellen as (“hysteria”).

The treatment is bloodletting (bleed the patient, drain their blood; a practice still used in the early 19th century), to remove the excessive blood; which is what Von Franz also advices in Ellen’s case. “Congestion”, in the medical sense of this time period, means “containing an unnatural accumulation of fluid”, in Ellen’s case it’s blood. This diagnose will come full circle when Thomas and Dr. Sievers discover that Orlok is with Ellen when they go to Grünewald Manor. Von Franz tells them “She wills it! Your wife wills it!” and Orlok himself “can’t resist her blood", which means Orlok cannot resist Ellen, herself.

Mutual healing theme: At the end, Orlok drains Ellen of her excessive blood, balancing her “sanguine temperament” and ending her “hysteria” and “melancholy” (he also gives her an orgasm, a nod to hysteria as repressed and frustrated female sexuality); and Ellen’s love and willing sacrifice sets their spirits free from the rotten vessel they were trapped in ("and freed them from the plague of Nosferatu"); as they are reunited in the spiritual realm, now fully healed.

Alchemical Gold (Chrysopoeia; Gold-making)

"I had nearly unlocked the final key of the Mysteriorum Libri Quinque. No… No matter. I miscalculated the stars. Hermes will not render my black sulfur gold this evening." Professor Von Franz to Dr. Sievers and Friedrich Harding

“Mysteriorum Libri Quinque” is part of a collection of mystic writings by mathematician, hermetic philosopher and astronomer Dr. John Dee (16th century). An avid learner of the secrets of nature, he made no distinctions between mathematical research and the supernatural (which he considered mere tools to achieve a transcendent understanding of divine forms underlying the visible world, called “pure verities”). In 1580, he began experimenting with evocations to contact and communicate with angels, and Edward Kelly joined him in this project in 1582. They both documented every interaction they had with angels and wrote about their language, which they called “Enochian”. This collection of esoteric writings was only found, by accident, after John Dee’s death.  

Alchemy, at its core, is the transmutation of base materials (lead, etc.) into noble materials (gold), and the pursuit of immortality (“philosopher’s stone”). Occultists reinterpreted this as a spiritual quest of self-transformation, purification and regeneration of the human soul. Hence physical death being seen as a gateway to another life (rebirth, reincarnation).

Both Ellen and Orlok evolve from a diseased and corruptive state (physical world; black sulfur) into regenerative and perfect state (spiritual world; gold), after being purified by fire (Sun). Their old selves are empty shells, as their spirits ascend. This also finds parallel in the myth of Isis and Osiris, as they both went from “daemons” to Gods in the Plutarch essay.

"I believe only you have the faculty to redeem us [...] You are our salvation."

At the end, Von Franz succeeds in transform black sulfur into gold, as he, too, emerges redeemed and avenged by Ellen’s fulfilling her covenant with Orlok.

In modern occult beliefs, alchemy is considered as a mystical system designed to transmute the soul from a “base” or “leaden” state of spiritual impurity to a “gold” or purified state of divinity, with the chemical procedures of alchemy being an elaborate metaphor for psycho-spiritual development. This idea was popularized by Carl Jung, among others.

In alchemy, this “gold” wasn’t like common gold, it was a miraculous, incorruptible substance, “the true and indubitable treasure”, which could only be perceived by those who can see with their mind’s eye: “Nolite dare sanctum canibus” (“Do not reveal what is sacred to dogs”) and “Neque mittatis margaritas vestra ante porcos” (“Nor cast your pearls before swine”).

Myth of Isis and Osiris

"In heathen times you might have been a great priestess of Isis."

The “Osiris Myth” is one of the major surviving pieces of Egyptian mythology. It’s a ancient tale, with its early versions dating back to the 5th Dynasty (c. 24th century B.C.). It has known several adaptations throughout Egyptian history. The most complete version is in “The Moralia” by the 1st-century scholar Plutarch of Chaeronea, a collection of essays about Greco-Roman culture; that became very popular during the Renaissance era (14-16th centuries) and the Enlightenment period (18th century) in Europe. 

Isis and Osiris were brothers, and according to Ancient Egyptian religion, they were in love with one another before they were born, and enjoyed each other in the dark before they came into the world. They eventually married. They had a brother, Seth (or Typhon in Plutarch essays), the God of deserts, storms, disorder and violence, who murdered Osiris to take his throne. He tricked Osiris into climbing into a wooden chest/coffin, shut the lid, sealed it shut, and threw it down the Nile River, knowing Osiris would never be able to survive. In some versions, it’s said Seth cut Osiris body into pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt.

Osiris had two facets as a God: in life, he was the God of fertility, agriculture, and vegetation, being considered a “Shepherd God”; in death, he was the God of the Underworld, the judge and Lord of Dead, the afterlife and resurrection. The pharaohs of Ancient Egypt were associated with Osiris in death, because as he rose from the dead, so would they unite with him and gain eternal life through imitative magic. Which is also the whole deal between Orlok and Herr Knock in “Nosferatu” (2024), as Knock seeks to gain immortality like Orlok, by serving him.

Isis is the epitome of the mourning widow in this myth, as she mourns Osiris’ death deeply. Here enters the symbolism of the lilacs in "Nosferatu", the symbolic flowers of Ellen and Orlok: in the Victorian era, they were associated with widows because they represented a memento of a deceased lover. Isis sought for Osiris’ mangled body and with help of tree other Gods (Nepthys, Thoth and Anubis), they sew Osiris’ body back together, and then wrapped it head to toe in strips of linen, creating a mummy. Orlok’s corpse appears almost mummified at the end of the story.

In the Osiris myth, Isis uses powerful magic (incantations and magic spells) to bring her dead lover back to life; similar to Ellen who resurrects Orlok with her summoning prayer. In one version, this happened on a night of the full moon; in “Nosferatu” (2024) we also have a full moon connected to Ellen and Orlok, in the prologue, when he reveals himself to her:

According to Ancient Egyptian funerary texts, it’s Isis sorrow, sexual desire and anger that empower her magic to be able to bring Osiris back to life. When Ellen prays for a companion of “any celestial sphere” in the prologue, she’s crying (sorrow), she’s upset because her father recoils from her now that she’s no longer a child (anger) and she’s in her teenage years/puberty (sexual desire). Like Isis with Osiris, it’s the combination of these emotions that power her magic to unconsciously resurrect Orlok. 

However, Osiris can’t remain among the living, because he has to return to the Underworld and become King of the Afterlife. But before he goes, Osiris and Isis conceive Horus, the God of the sun and the sky, who will restore peace and order to the universe.  In “Nosferatu” (2024), Professor Von Franz says that “with Jove’s holy light” before dawn, the plague will be lifted. “Jove” is Jupiter, the “King of the skies”, who’s connected with the Egyptian Horus. Horus and Ra are often merged together in Ancient Egyptian religion, making Isis and Osiris the metaphorical parents of the Sun.

In “Nosferatu” (2024), as Orlok and Ellen complete their covenant, consummate their wedding, the sun is also the metaphorical result of their union. As dawn breaks, the sunlight vanquishes them both from the physical world, as they both die in the material realm. After being buried by Isis, Osiris goes into the Underworld to rule over it. And from then on, Isis herself is also associated with funeral rites, as she would guide the souls of the dead, helping them entering the afterlife. Through her magic, Isis helped resurrecting the souls of the dead, as she did with Osiris, acting as a mother to the deceased, providing protection and nourishment. At the end of "Nosferatu" (2024) we see Ellen fulfilling her role as “priestess of Isis” (or as Isis herself?), as the Goddess of healing, who ends the Nosferatu curse, the blood plague in Wisburg, and also guides her dead lover Orlok with her to the Underworld.

[dysany]

headcanons from The Kane Chronicles because I miss them Rick please I need a new book

• Carter is definitely Horus' favorite of all time. Not only is he his host, but Carter is also extremely intelligent and capable in his role as pharaoh, as well as a person with a good heart, and Horus is so proud of him (he will never admite it tho)

• Bast always brings small meals to the Kanes during missions. Different from other heroes who go through various basic difficulties saving the world, Sadie and Carter always have a goddess who loves them very much, bringing them food or finding a nearby hotel to rest.

• Bes will definitely randomly show up at Nomo and make dinner. Nobody questions. He's good at that

• Sadie creates a lot of playlists, she has at least one for everyone she loves. Carter has two, but she keeps one private. Anubis and Walt's keeps changing because she can't decide on their vibe, and Bastet's is updated every day. She used to have a romantic playlist about Anubis, now they listen it like a old joke

• Isis is attached to her children, so whenever possible she is checking on Anubis and Horus as if they were still little children. Without realizing it, she started checking up on Carter and Sadie frequently as well.

• Felix likes to do Jaz's hair. He's terrible at it but she lets him anyway and always shows off his hairstyles

• Cleo is a source of pride for Thoth. He talks about her at pantheon meetings and always expresses excitement over the little discoveries she makes. (Thoth is considered a very attentive god to mortals, I can't imagine him ignoring a follower)

• Anubis and Walt have a very strong bond, and even if the curse didn't link them they would hardly be separated. Walt showed him a lot of the mortal world, Anubis gave him entire lessons on the historical periods that Walt likes. They play videogames e go to dinner out casually. Anubis met Walt's mother once, she's scary.

• Bastet and Anubis are the type of duo that fight over everything non-stop, but they will be together through anything. She is the only one who speaks ill of him, he is the only one who push out all her bottons. It's not romantic or anything, it's just their dynamic at that point. She will totally lay on top of him in their animal forms out of pure disrespect. And yet, they are each other's emergency contact and are always there for each other.

• Osiris is the type of father who sends strange good morning messages with videos of flowers, always has a joke on the tip of his tongue and wears themed coats at family parties. Sadie adores him

• Seth affectionately called Anubis his son ONCE and the entire pantheon was in shock for years. Anubis was not there and he still don't believe it happened. Nephthys cried

• Alyssa adores Sadie, and began to view her with great admiration. She once tried to dye her hair the shade of pink she always wanted, but it didn't turn out very well.. Sadie helped her with that and they have had matching highlights in their hair ever since.

• Julian can AND WILL turn the mansion inside out. He's forbidden from being in charge but somehow always ends up taking charge of things when Carter and Sadie go out. Apparently things are even worse if he's not in charge.

• Anubis is like a gothic older brother and guide for the younger ones. They go to him for advice on everything from the simplest to the most personal. As a guiding and protective god, as well as a comforter of mourners, he always listens and does the impossible to help but then act like it's no big deal and disappear for a week

• keeping in this point, he has a habit of disappearing during conversations. If Anubis gets tired of the conversation, or the person, he simply turns his back and leaves. He has done this many times with Sadie and sometimes she almost hits him with a hairbrush. He has been irritating Shu with this habit for millennia.

They're the only ones I can think of right now. The Kane Chronicles Community, if you're out there, please send me a message let's talk!! I need friends who love this series as much as I do

[shisasan]

I need him to love me with that fierce and primal urgency, as ancient and powerful as if it were drawn from the deepest well of human history and emotion, in his raw, deep, and potent ways ever known to mankind.

[nero-the-dumbass]

my ass is not prepping my speech on Nubians,i am getting distracted

Imagine the vine boom sfx*

[holycosmolo9y]

The Ankh

often recognized as the Egyptian cross, in ancient Egypt it was a sysmbol of eternal life and represented the word "life" in the hieroglyphs

the shape represents the union of Isis and Osiris, bringing together male and female, sky and earth, the basis of all life.

other names it is known by: the Knot of Isis for its power to unite and bind the way Isis gathered Osiris's scattered remains to resurrect him; its significance to symbolizing eternal life also gives it the name the Key of Life; and it is also known as the Key of Nile since the annual flood in the Nile brings much fertility and life to Egypt

[xxbobbykennedyxx]

OMG MY UNCLE IS AN ARCHAEOLOGIST AND HE JUST UNEARTHED THIS TODAY!!!11!!!

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King of the Hill Egyptian Gods

[fallloverfic]

@tired-of-life-86 replied to your post "Thinking about how people assuming Seth isn’t into men is also a big reason why. . .":

I feel like Seth doesn't have too much interest in sexual relationships. He wants love more than anything and since lust is a form of love, he doesn't mind that too much either (if it's with the person he loves.) Seth has been hurt, betrayed, defiled, and tortured. He also has not been allowed to mourn. Since he hasn't mourned or focused on healing. His thought process and emotions are just messed up and jumbled. My poor baby, I just wanna see him happy! ❤

I've generally thought he doesn't have much active interest in sex, like I don't think he proactively seeks it out, but he doesn't mind it with partners he enjoys if they want it. He does very much want to just be loved, and he likes making his partners happy. The problem is that we don't have much of him being in a relationship he seeks out on his own. Just one panel of him kissing Nephthys in the past(?) in S1E18, and the time he spent with Horus in Abu Gorab in S2E70 onward. We don't know why or how he fell in love with Nephthys. We only know how he's fallen/falling in love with Horus, and that relationship hasn't been centered on sex, but involves physical intimacy (e.g., the kiss in S2E70). It involves sex, too, but Horus initiated it that time.

I also don't know that I'd agree that "lust is a form of love". Lust is a desire, and physicality can be a way to express love. But it doesn't have to be (e.g., Osiris, Kuentamen, Fenu). It's one reason people differentiate being "in love" and being "in lust" and a commonish-ish phrase is something like, "you're not in love, it's just lust". I again think Seth doesn't mind physicality with people he likes, particularly if it makes his partner happy.

CW: discussion of mental illness, mention of canon cannibalism

I'm not precisely sure what you mean by he's not allowed to mourn? What is he mourning? Do you mean losing Anubis (or at least the Anubis he knew)? Anubis isn't dead and he's working on getting Anubis back.

Or maybe mourning the brother/siblings he thought he knew, or losing his marriage? He hasn't been supported through the difficulties and trauma he's experienced. But I think he had plenty of time to mourn his siblings if he felt the need to during the hundreds of years of his being king (I think it's one major reason he treats Isis the way he does during the trial; her turning her back on him still hurts, but he's had years to deal with and accept it's just part of their relationship, even if he still hates it and feels hurt by it). He definitely still has issues processing his relationship with Nephthys, which he mostly handled through putting distance between them. His attempting to process/attempting to not process everything is likely part of why he was so focused on getting drunk and drugged out of his mind. I think he might have mourned the loss of who he was before he discovered what Osiris was, but what we've learned in recent episodes leads me to think he's used to giving up versions of himself (e.g., changing to a god of war) for what he believes is necessary (e.g., someone had to guard everyone and he wasn't good at anything else).

I also want to see him happy, which is why I'm glad we actually have in many recent episodes. In Abu Gorab when he and Horus were talking, with the kiss, and to a degree I think with Seth fighting the attacking men, and with Seth hanging out a bit with Anubis in Abu Gorab, and with the cat in Hermopolis. I think he's also been more comfortable with Horus in places. It's important to remember no one is happy all the time. It's just not how people work. We find what happiness we can in between the rougher parts of our lives. I don't think Seth will end up fully happy all the time, no matter how the story ends. I think he'll end up happy to a degree, at least, if not much happier than he's been for a lot of his life, particularly since he and Horus seem to be increasingly honest with each other in a way Seth seemingly wasn't with Nephthys, and it's something Seth values (he likes feeling seen).

I think this leads into an important point (that's not really what you're talking about, and apologies for the text spam, please ignore if you don't care, but I felt like going down the rabbit hole): the idea that Seth wasn't happy after the night of usurpation because that (and following events) messed him up, but that he potentially was happy before that, and that doesn't seem true, not just because of what I said about his being happy at points afterward, but also because of what we've seen of who he was and what he did before. We have a lot of evidence Seth wasn't happy even before the night of usurpation. Like yes, he was with Nephthys, they had a kid he loved, he was friends with Isis and got along with Osiris, and he was a very successful war god and had appreciation from the humans, as well as temples. But even when he was with his family, as Sekhmet notes in in S01E36, the four siblings acted "like they were the happiest family on the planet". How much of that was an act, at least on Seth's part, is up for debate. But even outside Sekhmet saying at least some of it was an act, Seth wasn't happy in his life.

The way Seth describes becoming a war god in S2E89, that it was his duty and there was no liking or disliking it, speaks to me of someone who doesn't have a particular interest in what he does for a living (outside being good at it). We're shown later on that he seems to take pride in his martial prowess and winning fights (e.g., in S1E56, in that panel of Seth catching Horus, I honestly think he's having fun), particularly during the trial, but part of that is his arrogance and bluster and trying to convince people he's an egomaniac who needs to be put down, along with his distaste in losing because Osiris told him that he's weak (e.g., how he reacts in S1E56 to Horus at the idea that it was due to Seth's weakness that Horus assaulted him). In S1E5, Seth tells Anubis that being the god of war is not respectable, and that war itself is awful, and he hopes Anubis doesn't become a god like him. This is reflected in how he talks about the horrors of war in S2E88-9 and how he mentions hearing the cries of humans who died in war calling to him in S1E48.

Seth looks so bitter, angry, and pained about this. Perhaps he was able to tolerate it because he had the love of Nephthys, Anubis, and his siblings to sustain him. Perhaps that's part of why he was so desperate they not forget him, because it's what got him through things. As he says in S1E5, "War is sometimes necessary when you need to protect your family, your land." He did all this out of necessity, not love or enjoyment. And he suffered through it. There's a manic gleam in his eye as he looks at Osiris while the dead are screaming for him in S1E48.

And we know at least part of the reason he doesn't like eating (particularly meat) is because his soldiers had to turn to cannibalism (S2E88). He saw a lot of horrible things in war long before Osiris assaulted him, and he just sort of lived with it, seemingly keeping it apart as much as possible from his life in Heliopolis and the people he cared about. Even Osiris seemingly doesn't know Seth can hear the dead calling to him, nor did potentially Isis.

He also doesn't seem to care about his followers at all (even before he starts slaughtering them en masse), and his awareness of them is quite distant, even before the night of usurpation (e.g., he had no idea who Kuentamen was, despite Kuentamen being the/one of Seth's high priests in Heliopolis, and gods having, allegedly, perfect memory/minds). They're convenient when he needs them, and an irritation when not. So while I imagine he appreciated being worshiped (and while he notably still expects humans to respect him), it wasn't that big a deal. As Seth says to FG in S2E85, "What do you mean, how will [humans] worship [gods]? Humans don't doubt us."

And of course we know that he was afraid of being forgotten, and that this is a fear he had that predated the night of usurpation.

As he explains to Osiris in S1E41, "I always just acted angry so that I wouldn't have to hear what [Nephthys] had to say. She was probably afraid of things ending up this way..." He had anxiety about his marriage - and his fatherhood - from numerous angles before he had confirmation that Anubis wasn't biologically his, and that Nephthys had sought out another man. It's not clear if he and Nephthys fought, or if he was verbally abusive, but he used anger to avoid talking to her directly. To avoid her admitting that she was moving past their relationship in some form. Their relationship was messy even before he knew why Nephthys had made it messy on her end.

So his marriage was a mess, he was at times distant from his son (their relationship is shown to be loving, but it had its complications), he didn't care much for his work, and he was distant if not uncaring to his followers, he had anxiety, he had some anger management issues, he had self-esteem issues, he wasn't communicating well with people, and he was prioritizing other folks in ways that were unhealthy for him all before the night of usurpation.

Isis describes the era before the four siblings ruled Egypt, before Seth became a god of war, as "a quiet, peaceful, beautiful era" in S2E80.

But we also know she was completely oblivious to Osiris' lust for Seth and his experiments and Nephthys seemingly being in love with Osiris at some point. Even in the peaceful era image, Osiris looks kind of upset/embarrassed. He might just be reacting to whatever Isis and Nephthys are laughing about, but I think it's notable he's behind her, where she can't see him. Perhaps for Isis it was beautiful. The question is if it was beautiful for Seth.

A lot of Seth's unhappiness seems to come from his being a god of war, and obviously things that came after that with Nephthys, Sekhmet, Osiris, Isis, Anubis, himself, etc. Perhaps he was happier in that time, before he became the god of war. We don't know. But what we do know is that Seth has been unhappy, in various ways, long before Osiris assaults him, and long before the events of the manhwa in present happen.

Why any of this matters: as someone who's dealt with depression and family members and friends with depression, it's very meaningful to me for various reasons that we have a character who might have some form of depression and/or other mental health problems and who also has happy moments, and I like to emphasize moments where he does find happiness. That not only is it possible for him but it also does happen. His being unhappy a lot does not negate the moments he is happy, or at least stable. A lot of folks in fandom look at Horuseth as it exists and are like, "well Seth's clearly not happy; he needs to not be around Horus to be happy." It's the main reason the Seth x Happiness "ship" exists. They expect him to always be happy, as if that's attainable and not kind of exhausting. As if no relationship ever has ups and downs (heck, even the purportedly "happy" relationship he had with Nephthys had downs from Seth's side due to his own insecurities and worries; love doesn't solve everything). But Horus has made him happy. Seth has reached out to him. Seth kissed him while being a bit overwhelmed by his own happiness at Horus seeing him. Seth finds joy in learning. He finds some joy in being good at fighting. He finds joy in protecting people and being useful.

He is happy in the manhwa, at least in moments. And I believe he'll be happier in future, too.