Chapter Isis to Italic School of Philosophy of I by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Isis to Italic School of Philosophy

I'sis Sister-wife of Osiris. The cow was sacred to her; and she is represented with two long horns from one stem at the top of her head. She is said to have invented spinning and weaving. (Egyptian mythology.)

"Inventress of the woof, fair Lina [flax] flings
The flying shuttle thro' the dancing strings...
Taught by her labours, from the fertile soil
Immortal Isis clothed the banks of Nile."
Darwin: Loves of the Plants, c. ii.

   Milton, in Paradise Lost, names Osiris, Isis, and Orus amongst the fallen angels (book i. 478).
   Isis, Herodotos thinks, is Demeter (Ceres).
   Diodoros confounds her with the Moon, Demeter, and Juno.
   Plutarch confounds her with Athena (Minerva), Persephone (Proserpine), the Moon, and Tethys.
   Apuleius calls her the mother of the gods Minerva, Venus, Diana, Proserpine, Ceres, Juno, Bellona, Hecate, and Rhamnusia [Nemesis].
   Lockyer says, "Isis represents the idea of rising or becoming visible, Osiris of disappearing." Thus the rising moon, a rising planet, the coming dawn, etc., is Isis; but the setting sun, the waning moon, a setting planet, evening, etc., is Osiris.

"Now the bright moonbeams kissed the water, ... and now the mountain and valley, river and plain, were flooded with white light, for mother Isis was arisen." - Rider Haggard: Cleopatra, chap. iii.

    Isis was the mother of Horus (the rising sun), and is represented as nursing him.
   Isis. Some maintain that Isis was at one time the protectress of Paris, and that the word Paris is a contraction of the Greek Para Isidos (near the temple of Isis), the temple referred to being the Panthéon or church of St. Geneviève. We are told, moreover, that a statue of Isis was for a long time preserved in the church of St. Germain des Prés, but was broken to pieces by Cardinal Briconnet because he saw certain women offering candles to it as to the Virgin.
   The Young Isis. Cleopatra (69-30 B.C.).

Islam or Islamism. The true faith, according to the Mahometan notion. The Moslems say every child is born in Islam, and would continue in the true faith if not led astray into Magism, Judaism, or Christianity. The word means resignation or submission to the will of God.
   Islam consists of five duties: -
   (1) Bearing witness that there is but one God.
   (2) Reciting daily prayers.
   (3) Giving the appointed and legal alms.
   (4) Observing the Ramazan (a month's fast).
   (5) Making a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime.
    Moslem and Musulman are from the same root.

Islamite (3 syl.). A follower of Mahomet or believer in Islam.

Island of Saints So Ireland was called in the Middle Ages.

Island of St. Brandan The flying island, the supposed retreat of King Rodrigo. So called from St. Brandan, who went in search of the Islands of Paradise in the sixth century.

Island of the Seven Cities A kind of Dixie land, where seven bishops, who quitted Spain during the dominion of the Moors, founded seven cities. The legend says that many have visited the island, but no one has ever quitted it.

Islands of the Blessed called by the Greeks "Happy Islands," and by the Romans "Fortunate Islands." Imaginary islands somewhere in the west, where the favourites of the gods are conveyed at death, and dwell in everlasting joy.

"Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds that echo farther west
Than your sire's Islands of the Blest."
Byron.

Isle of Dogs So called from being the receptacle of the greyhounds of Edward III. Some say it is a corruption of the Isle of Ducks, and that it is so called in ancient records from the number of wild fowl inhabiting the marshes.

Isle of Lanterns (The), or Lantern-land. An imaginary country inhabited by pretenders to knowledge. In French, Lanternois. (Rabelais: Pantagruel, v. 32, 33.)
    Lucian has a similar conceit, called the City of Lanterns; and Dean Swift, in his Gulliver's Travels, makes his hero visit Laputa, the empire of quacks, false projectors, and pretenders to science.