BOOK The Fatal From this point the mythology, which has grown up, such as it is, round the fatal sisters, may be regarded as thoroughly artificial. The division of time into the past, the present, and the future once made, it only remained to assign these divisions severally to one personal being, and to invest this being with attributes suited to the office which it has to perform. It may be instructive to trace the process by which the single Moira of the Iliad and Odyssey suggests the notion of many Moirai, and is represented by the Hesiodic sisters, Klôthô, Lachesis, and Atropos; but the process is altogether different from that which, starting with phrases denoting simply the action of wind or air in motion, gives us first the myths of Hermes, Orpheus, Pan, and Amphion, and ends with the folk-lore of the Master Thief and the Shifty Lad. In the latter case, the myth-maker knew little, probably nothing, of the source and the meaning of the story, and worked in unconscious fidelity to traditions which had taken too strong a root to be lightly dislodged or materially changed. In the former we have the work rather of the moralist or the theologian. The course of human existence and of all earthly things is regarded as a long coil of thread, and the gods are the spinners of it. this work is specially set apart to Aisa, the spoken word of Zeus, the Fatum of the Latins, or to Moira, the apportioner; for to both alike is this task of weaving or spinning assigned,1 and Aisa and Moira are alike the ministers of Zeus to do his will, not the despotic and irresponsible powers before whom, as before the Anankê of Euripides, Zeus himself must bow. Nay, even a mortal may have a certain power over them, and Achilleus may choose either a brief career and a brilliant one, or a time of repose after his return home which shall stand him in the stead of glory. The dualism of the ideas of birth and death would lead us to look for two Moirai in some traditions, and accordingly we find the two at Delphoi, of whom Zeus and Apollon are the leaders and guides." The three Hesiodic Moirai, who are sisters of the Erinyes, are also called the Kêres, or masters of the destinies of men. Of these three one alone is, by her name Klôthô, charged with the task of spinning; but in some later versions this task is performed by all three; nor is the same account always Thus the grinding, crushing power, the μoîpa Kратain of the Iliad. Yet the etymology was not wholly without reason, which connected the word with μépos, a share or portion, the idea of pieces or fragments being naturally expressed by the root used to denote the working of the hammer or the millstone. THE WEIRD SISTERS. 267 II. given of their functions with regard to the past, the present, and the CHAP. future. Commonly Klôthô spins the threads, while Lachesis deals them out, and Atropos severs them at the moment of death; but sometimes Klôthô rules over the present, Atropos over the past, and Lachesis over the future.1 If, again, they are sometimes represented in comparative youth, they sometimes appear with all the marks of old age; and thus we come to the Teutonic Norns. The Hellenic Moirai, as knowing what was to befall each man, had necessarily the power of prediction, a characteristic which is the most prominent attribute of the fatal sisters of the North. These in the German myths are Vurdh, Verdhandi, and Skuld, names purely arbitrary and artificial, denoting simply that which has been, that which is in process of becoming or is in being, and that which shall be hereafter. Of these names the two last have dropped out of English usage, while Vurdh has supplied the name by which the sisters were known to Shakespeare; and thus we have the weird sisters whom Macbeth encounters on the desolate heath, the weird elves of Warner's Albion, the Weird Lady of the Woods of the Percy Ballads,3 the Fatal Sustrin of Chaucer. Norns. These Norns, gifted with the wisdom of the Thriai, lead us The Teuthrough all the bounds of space. They are the guardians of the tonic great ash-tree Yggdrasil, whose branches embrace the whole world. Under each of its three roots is a marvellous fountain, the one in heaven, the abode of the Æsir, being the fountain of Vurdh, that of Jötunheim being called by the name of the wise Mimir, while the 1 Clotho præsentis temporis habet curam, quia quod torquetur in digitis, momenti præsentis indicat spatia; Atropos præteriti fatum est, quia quod in fuso perfectum est, præteriti temporis habet speciem; Lachesis futuri, quòd etiam illis, quæ futura sunt, finem suum Deus dederit.-Apuleius, de Mundo, p. 280; Grimm, Deutsche Myth. 386. The Hesiodic poet, in his usual didactic vein, makes the Moirai strictly moral beings who punish the wrong-doing, or transgressions, whether of gods or men. -7 heog, 220. 2 Vurdh represents the past tense of the word werden. Verdhandi is the present participle, werdend, while Skuld is the older form of Schuld, the obligation to atone for the shedding of blood. Skuld thus represents really the past tense skal, which means "I have killed, and therefore am bound to make compensation for it." The difference, between our "shall" and "will" is thus at once explained.-Max Müller, Chips, 3 Grimm, D. M. 378; Max Müller, Their wisdom is inherited by the bards whose name, Skalds, has been traced by Professor Kuhn to the same root with the Sanskrit Khandas, metre ; and Khandas Professor Max Müller regards as identical with the term Zend. For the evidence of this see Chips, &c., i. 84, note. BOOK Nemesis teia. third in Niflheim, or Hades, is the Hvergelmir, or boiling cauldron. At the first the Æsir and Norns hold their court; at the second Mimir keeps his ceaseless watch, a being whose name has apparently a meaning closely akin to that of the Latin Minerva,1 and who leaves to Wuotan (Odin) only one eye, having demanded the other as a pledge before he will grant to him a draught from the water which imparts wisdom. Such is the sanctity of this water, which the Norns every morning pour over the branches of the ash-tree, that everything touched by it becomes snow-white, and the dew which falls from the tree is always sweet as honey. On the crown of the tree sits an eagle; under its roots lurks the serpent or dragon Nidhögr; and between these the squirrel, ever running up and down, seeks to sow dissension. This mighty ash-tree in Grimm's belief is only another form of the colossal Irminsul, the pillar which sustains the whole Kosmos, as Atlas bears up the heaven, the three roads which branch from the one representing the three roots of the other. The tree and the pillar are thus alike seen in the columns, whether of Heraklês or of Roland; while the cosmogonic character of the myth is manifest in the legend of the primeval man Askr, the offspring of the ash-tree, of which Virgil, from the characteristic which probably led to its selection, speaks as stretching its roots as far down into earth as its branches. soar towards heaven.3 The process which multiplied the Norns and defined their funcand Adras- tions exalted also the character of Atê, who, as we have seen, appears in the Iliad simply as the spirit of mischievous folly, hurled out of Olympos for bringing about the birth of Eurystheus before that of Heraklês, but who in the hands of Eschylos becomes the righteous but unrelenting avenger of blood. The statement that the Litai are beings who follow closely when a crime is done, and seek to make amends for it, is a mere allegory on the office of prayer; and what is Grimm, who traces the word through its many changes, notes also the relation of the Latin memor with the Greek μιμέομαι—the mimic being the man who remembers what is done by another; and thus "mummery" is but another form of "memory."-D. Myth. 353. Mimir is thus the Kentaur Mimas; and the wisdom of the Kentaur, it may be noted, became a proverb. In one story Mimir is sent by the Æsir to the Vanir, who cut off his head and send it back to them. Wuotan utters a charm over it, and the head, which never wastes away, becomes his counsellor-a legend which reminds us of NEMESIS AND TYCHÊ. II. 269 told us of Nemesis, if less allegorical, is still merely the result of CHAP. moral reflexion. In the world good and evil seem to be capriciously distributed, so that on the one side we have the squalid beggar, on the other the man whose prosperity is so unvarying that his friend, foreseeing the issue, sends to renounce all further alliance with him. This inequality it is the business of Nemesis to remedy; and thus she becomes practically an embodiment of righteous indignation at successful wrong, although she is also regarded as the minister of the gods who are jealous when the well-being of man passes beyond a certain limit. In either aspect she is Adrasteia, the being from whom there is no escape. In the meaning commonly attached to the word, Tychê denoted Tyche the idea of mere blind chance, scattering her gifts without any regard Akraia. to the deserts of those on whom they might fall. But this was not the conception which led some to represent her with a rudder as guiding the affairs of the world, and not only to place her among the Moirai, but to endow her with a power beyond that of the others." In her more fickle aspect she carries the ball in her hand, while her wealth and the nature of her gifts are denoted by the horn of Amaltheia at her side, and the boy Erôs who accompanies her, or the Good Demons who sometimes surround her. As Akraia, Tychê becomes simply a name of Athênê, the wealth-bringer; with the epithet Agathê, good, she becomes practically identical with the Agathos Daimôn, the nameless benignant deity invoked by cities and individual men. The names Theos and Daimôn are often given to those unnamed forces in nature which are more felt in their general influences than in particular acts. Nor is the assertion without warrant that the genuine utterances of the heart were addressed to this incomprehensible power, of whose goodness generally they felt assured, and not to any mythical deities on whose capricious feelings no trust could be placed. When the swineherd Eumaios talks with Odysseus, we hear nothing of Zeus or Phoibos, but we are told simply that the unnamed God gives and takes away as may seem to him best. Nor can we doubt that even the mass of the people were impressed with the belief in a deity or power different in kind from the mythical deities brought before them by their epic or tragic poets. This deity was simply the good God, or the unknown Being, worshipped ignorantly, whom St. Paul said that he came only to declare to them. 1 φθονερὸν τὸ δαιμόνιον—the doctrine which lies at the root of the philosophy attributed by Herodotos to Solon, and of the policy of Amasis in his dealings with Polykrates. The myth of the Rhamnusian egg of Nemesis belongs to 2 Paus. vii. 26, 3. Preller, Gr. Myth. i. 421. BOOK II. Doubtless even this conception underwent many modifications; and in the end not only each state or city, but each man and woman, from the moment of birth, had a guardian demon or angel who sought to lead them always in the right way. This guardian was invoked on all occasions, in such forms as our "Luck be with you,” or the “Quod bonum, felix, faustumque sit" of the Latins." SECTION X.-HELLENIC SUN-GODS AND HEROES. The Ionian legend, embodied in the so-called Homeric Hymn, The Ionian tells the simple tale that Lêtô, the mother of the unborn Phoibos, could legend of the birth find no place to receive her in her hour of travail until she came to of Phoibos. Delos. To wealthier and more fertile lands she made her prayer in vain; and when she addressed herself to the little stony island with its rugged cliffs and hills, Delos trembled with joy not unmingled with fear. The unborn child, she knew, would be a being of mighty power, ruling among the undying gods and mortal men; and she dreaded lest he should despise his sterile birthplace and spurn it with his foot into the sea. It remained only for Lêtô to make a solemn covenant with Delos, that here should be the sanctuary of her child for ever, and that here his worshippers, coming from all lands to his high festival, should lavish on her inexhaustible wealth of gold and treasures. So. the troth was plighted; but although Diônê and Amphitritê with other goddesses were by her side, Hêrê remained far away in the palace of Zeus, and the child of Lêtô could not be born unless she should suffer Eileithyia to hasten to her relief. Then, as she drew near, Lêtô cast her arms around a tall palm-tree as she reclined on the bank of Kynthos, and the babe leaped to life and light as the earth smiled around her. The goddesses bathed him in pure water, and wrapping him in a glistening robe, fine and newly wrought, placed a golden band round the body of Chrysâôr, while Thetis touched his lips with the drink and food of the gods. But no sooner had the child received this nourishment, than he was endowed with an irresistible strength, and his swaddling bands fell off him like flax, as he declared his mission of teaching to men the counsels of Zeus. Then began the journey of the far-shooting god, whose golden hair no razor should ever touch. From land to land he went, delighting his eyes with the beautiful sights of grove-clad hills and waters running to the sea. The Delphian story. This hymn has, indeed, an historical interest, as being manifestly the work of a time when the great Ionian festival at Delos was 1 ἅπαντι δαίμων ἀνδρὶ συμπαρίσταται Menander, quoted by Clem. Al. Str. 5, p. 260. Preller, Gr. Myth. i. 422. Preller, ib. i. 423. |