the God of Vegetation and Corn, was brother and lover to the great Nature goddess Isis. He is killed by Seth, who came from the desert and thus representing, like the Canaanite Mot, dry and barren weather; Seth was also supposed to want Isis for himself. But the situation here is more complicated. Having been killed, Osiris becomes God of the Underworld, which Baal never did; but his son Horus replaces him as the protagonist, being a Sun god who kills Seth in revenge for his father. A relatively late interpretation of the myth ascribes to Seth an evil nature, which he did not initially have. The connection between Osiris and his son Horus was expressed by the Egyptians’ custom of identifying the living king, Pharaoh, with Horus, while after his death he would become “Osiris”. It is interesting to note that Osiris, though a god of the Underworld and thus in charge of Death, was never considered evil.
This classical situation is found in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where the evil brother has murdered the rightful king and married his traitorous wife. Parallel to the Egyptian myth, Hamlet is required to avenge his father’s betrayal and death on the evildoers. Unlike Osiris’s son Horus, Hamlet is unable to do that, preferring to kill himself instead.
II
The idea of the goddess’ being free to give her love to whomever she thinks deserves it – even if it really depends on the change of seasons – gave her in time a bad name as a treacherous person. This idea is well presented in the Mesopotamian myth of Gilgamesh: In a culture where a king attains his rule through a ritualistic marriage to the Goddess, Gimgamesh King of Erekh refuses this marriage to the Great Goddess Ishtar on the ground