James Joyce's "The Sisters": chalices and umbrellas, ptolemaic Memphis and Victorian Dublin

Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1995 by Susan Swartzlander

(4) The Osiris myth is a tale of death and resurrection. Osiris died, entrapped in an ornate chest and drowned by his jealous brother Seth. Isis retrieved her "brother-husband's" body from the Nile. When Seth discovered this, he confiscated the body and cut it into 14 parts, which he scattered throughout Egypt. Isis and her sister Nephthys collected all of the parts (except the penis, which was eaten by fish). The sisters' lamentations were so sorrowful that the sun-god Ra sent the jackal-headed Anubis to help the women put Osiris back together. The dead god revived to reign as king over the dead in the underworld. Thereafter, this "Lord of Eternity" presided as judge at the "trial of the souls of the departed," apportioning eternal life for those who lived in virtue and punishment for sinners. At every Egyptian burial, the deceased became Osiris --, with the community reenacting the drama of the god's death and resurrection, complete with professional mourners playing the roles of Isis and Nephthys (Frazer 388-89).

(5) The Osiris myth and other Egyptian motifs appear in Joyce's other works. For more information, see Henke, Troy, and Bishop.

WORKS CITED

Bailey, Harold. The Lost Language of Symbolism. London: Ernest Benn, n.d.

Bell, H. Idris. Cults and Creeds in Graeco-Roman Egypt. New York: Philosophical Library, 1953.

Benstock, Bernard. "`The Sisters' and the Critics." James Joyce Quarterly 4 (1966): 32-35.

Bishop, John. Joyce's Book of the Dark: Finnegans Wake. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1986.

Budge, E. A. Wallis. Egypt. London: Williams and Norgate, n.d.

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Ebers, Georg. Egypt, Descriptive, Historical, and Picturesque. Trans. Clara Bell. 2 vols. London: Cassell, 1879.

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Frazer, James. The New Golden Bough. Ed. Theodor H. Gaster. New York: New American Library, 1959.

Gifford, Don. Joyce Annotated: Notes for Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. 2nd ed. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.

Henke, Suzette. "James Joyce East and Middle East: Literary Resonances of Judaism, Egyptology, and Indian Myth." Journal of Modern Literature 13 (1986): 307-19.

Herodotus. The Histories. Trans. Aubrey de Selincourt. New York: Penguin, 1954.

Joyce, James. Dubliners. New York: Penguin, 1967.

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--. Letters. Vol. 2. Ed. Richard Ellmann. New York: Viking, 1966.

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Lecky, Hartpole Edward William. History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Magalaner, Marvin. "`The Sisters' of James Joyce." University of Kansas City Review 18 (1952): 252-61.

Massey, Gerald. Ancient Egypt, the Light of the World. [1907 ed.] Mokelumne Hill, Calif.: Health Research, 1988.