1 THE FATAL CHILDREN. II. 281 is transparent throughout. The mother of Asklepios is a daughter CHAP. of Phlegyas (the flaming), and Apollôn woos her on shores of the lake Boibêis; or, if we take another version given by Apollodoros, she is Arsinoê, a daughter of Leukippos (a name in which we see the flashing steeds which draw the car of Indra or Achilleus), and a sister of Hilaeira and Phoibê, the radiant maidens whom the Dioskouroi bore away." When the myth goes on to say that when Apollon had left her Korônis yielded herself to the Arkadian Ischys, we have a story which simply repeats that of Prokris, for as Kephalos returns disguised and wins the love of the child of Hersê (the dew), so is Ischys simply the strength or power of the lord of light (Arkas). In each case, the penalty of faithlessness is death; and the mode in which it is exacted in the myth of Korônis precisely corresponds with the legend of Semelê. Like Dionysos, Asklêpios is born amidst and rescued from the flames; in other words, the light and heat of the sun which ripen the fruits of the earth, scorch and consume the clouds and the dew, or banish away the lovely tints of early morning. Throughout the myth we have to deal with different versions which, however they may differ from each other, still point to the same fountain-head of mythical speech. In one form the story ran that Koronis herself exposed her child on the slopes of mount Myrtion, as Oidipous was left to die on Kithairon. There he is nourished by a goat and a dog, incidents which are reproduced in the myths of Cyrus and Romulus. When at length the shepherd Aristhanas traced the dog and goat to the spot where the infant lay, he was terrified by the splendour which surrounded the child, like the flame round the head of the infant Servius in the Roman tale, and that of Havelok in the English legend. The wonder, Pausanias adds, was soon noised abroad, and throughout land and sea the tidings were carried that Asklepios healed the sick and raised the dead. The wisdom by which he obtained this power he received from the teach ing of the wise centaur Cheiron; but we have to mark that Cheiron is the teacher not only of Asklepios but of Iasôn and Achilleus, who 1 Pind. Pyth. iii. 14. Apollod. iii. 10, 3. The Dawn cannot long survive the birth of the sun. Hence the mother of Volsung dies as soon as her child has kissed her. So in Grimm's story of the Almond Tree, the mother of the sunchild, who is as white as snow and as red as blood, is so delighted at seeing her babe that she dies. The same lot is the portion of the mother in the story of Little Snow-white, the Dawn-maiden -a story which suggests a comparison with the myths of the glass of Agrippa 4 ii. 26, 4. BOOK II. 2 also represent the wisdom and brightness or power of Phoibos, and Pind. Pyth. ii. 8o. 2 M. Bréal, in his masterly analysis of the myth of Oidipous, has no doubt of their identity. "M. Adalbert Kuhn," he says, "dans un de ses plus ingénieux travaux, a montrè l'identité des Centaures et des Gandharvas, ces êtres fantastiques, qui jouent dans la mythologie indienne le même rôle que les Centaures chez les Grecs. Ils portent le méme nom: c'est ce que prouve l'analyse grammaticale des deux mots. Comme les Centaures, les Gandharvas ne forment qu'une seule famille. Ils sont le fruit de l'union du Gandharva avec les Nuées. En examinant les passages védiques où il est question de ces divinités, M. Kuhn a démontré que Gandharva est le nom du soleil, considéré au moment où il repose parmi les nuées et semble célébrer son union avec elles, et que les Gandharvas sont les nuages qui paraissent chevaucher dans le ciel. Ixion chez les Grecs est le Centaure par excellence, puisqui'l est le père de cette famille de monstres: il correspond au Gandharva védique." * Professor Max Müller cites the explanation of Yaska: "Saranyû, the daughter of Tvashtar, had twins from Vivasvat, the sun. She placed another like her in her place, changed her form into that of a horse, and ran off. Vivasvat the sun likewise assumed the form of a horse, followed her, and embraced her. Hence the two Asvins were born, and the substitute (Savarna) bore Manu."-Lectures on Language, second series, 482. These Asvins are the Dioskouroi. 4 Max Müller, Lectures, second series, 515. Apollod. iii. 10, 3, and iii. 3, 1. This story, as we have already seen, is that of the Snake Leaves, and reappears in Hindu as well as in Teutonic fairy tales. See p. 94. THE WISDOM OF ATLAS. 283 II. Either Zeus feared that men, once possessed of the secret of CHAP. Asklepios, might conquer death altogether, or Plouton complained that his kingdom would be left desolate; and the thunderbolt which crushed Phaëthôn smote down the benignant son of Phoibos, and the sun-god in his vengeance slew the Kyklôpes, the fashioners of the fiery lightnings for the lord of heaven.' But throughout Hellas Asklepios remained the healer and the restorer of life, and accordingly the serpent is everywhere his special emblem, as the mythology of the Linga would lead us to expect. of Ixion and Atlas. The myth of Ixîôn exhibits the sun as bound to the four-spoked The stories wheel which is whirled round everlastingly in the sky. In that of Sisyphos we see the same being condemned to the daily toil of heaving a stone to the summit of a hill from which it immediately rolls down. This idea of tasks unwillingly done, or of natural operations as accomplished by means of punishment, is found also in the myth of Atlas, a name which like that of Tantalos denotes endurance and suffering, and so passes into the notion of arrogance or presumption. But the idea of a being who supported the heaven above the earth, as of a being who guides the horses of the sun, was awakened in the human mind long before the task was regarded as a penalty. Indeed, it can scarcely be said that this idea is clearly expressed in the Odyssey, which says of Atlas that he knows all the depths of the sea and that he holds or guards the lofty pillars which keep the heaven from falling to crush the earth.* It is scarcely prominent even when the Hesiodic poet speaks of him as doing his work under a strong necessity, for this is no more than the force which compels Phoibos to leave Delos for Pythô, and carries 1 Apollod. iii. 10, 4; Diod. iv. 71. In the Iliad, Asklepios is simply the blameless healer, who is the father of Machâôn and Podaleirios, the wise physicians, who accompany the Achaians to Ilion. These are descendants of Paiêôn. 2 See section xii. of this chapter. TEтρáкνаμоv deoμóv. Pind. Pyth. ii. 80. This wheel reappears in the Gaelic story of the Widow and her Daughters (Campbell, ii. 265), and in Grimm's German tale of the Iron Stove. The treasure-house of Ixîôn, which none may enter without being either destroyed like Hesioneus or betrayed by marks of gold or blood, reappears in a vast number of popular stories, and is the foundation of the story of Bluebeard. Compare the Woodcutter's Child in Grimm's collection. The sequel of the Gaelic tale already men- It can scarcely be doubted that the 7 II. BOOK Kephalos, Bellerophôn, and Odysseus to their doom in the far west. Nor in either of these poems is there anything to warrant the inference that the poet regarded Atlas as a mountain. This idea comes up in the myth of Perseus, who sees the old man bowing beneath his fearful load, and holding the Gorgon's face before his eyes, turns him into stone; and the stone which is to bear up the brazen heaven must needs be a great mountain, whether in Libya or in other regions, for the African Atlas was not the only mountain which bore the name. But the phrase in the Odyssey which speaks of him as knowing all the depths of the sea points to a still earlier stage of the myth, in which Atlas was possessed of the wisdom of Phoibos and was probably Phoibos himself. Regarded thus, the myths which make the Okeanid Plêionê his wife and the Pleiades his children, or which give him Aithra for his bride and make her the mother of the Hyades and the Hesperides, are at once explained. He is thus naturally the father of Hesperos, the most beautiful star of the heavens, who appears as the herald of Eôs in the morning and is again seen by her side in the evening. The Hellenic Heôsphoros, the Latin Lucifer, the Light-bringer, who is Phôsphoros, is also called a son of Astraios and Eôs, the starlit skies of dawn. The gardens of the Hesperides. Atlas and Far away in the west by the stream of the placid Ocean is the dwelling of the Hesperides, the children or sisters of Hesperos, the evening star, or, as they might also be termed, of Atlas or of Phorkys. This beautiful island which no bark ever approaches, and where the ambrosial streams flow perpetually by the couch of Zeus, is nevertheless hard by the land of the Gorgons and near the bounds of that everlasting darkness which is the abode of Ahi and Pani, of Geryon, Cacus, and Echidna. Hence the dragon Ladon guards with them the golden apples which Gaia gave to Hêrê when she became the bride of Zeus, these apples being the golden-tinted clouds or herds of Helios, the same word being used to denote both. It remained only to give them names easily supplied by the countless epithets of the morning or evening twilight, and to assign to them a local habitation, which was found close to the pillars or the mountain of Atlas which bears up the brazen heaven above the earth. Atlas is thus brought into close connexion with Helios, the bright god, the Latin Sol and our sun. In the Iliad and Odyssey he is himself Hyperîôn, the climber: in the Hesiodic Theogony, Hyperion becomes his father by the same process which made Zeus the son of Kronos, his mother being Theia, the brilliant, or Euryphaessa, the shedder of the broad light. In the former poems he rises every ? See note 3, Max Müller, Selected Essays, i. 603. p. 260. HYPERION. II. 285 morning from a beautiful lake by the deep-flowing stream of Ocean, CHAP. and having accomplished his journey across the heaven plunges again into the western waters. Elsewhere this lake becomes a magnificent palace, on which poets lavished all their wealth of fancy; but this splendid abode is none other than the house of Tantalos, the treasury of Ixîôn, the palace of Allah-ud-deen in the Arabian tale. Through the heaven his chariot was borne by gleaming steeds, the Rohits and Harits of the Veda; but his nightly journey from the west to the east is accomplished in a golden cup wrought by Hephaistos, or, as others had it, on a golden bed.1 But greater than his wealth is his wisdom. He sees and knows all things; and thus when Hekatê cannot answer her question, Helios tells Dêmêtêr to what place Korê has been taken, and again informs Hephaistos of the faithlessness of Aphroditê. It is therefore an inconsistency when the poet of the Odyssey represents him as not aware of the slaughter of his oxen by Eurylochos, until the daughters of Neaira bring him the tidings; but the poet returns at once to the true myth, when he makes Helios utter the threat that unless he is avenged, he will straightway go and shine among the dead. These cattle, which in the Vedic hymns and in most other Greek myths are the beautiful clouds of the Phaiakian land, are here (like the gods of the Arabian Kaaba), the days of the lunar year, seven herds of fifty each, the number of which is never increased or lessened; and their death is the wasting of time or the killing of the days by the comrades of Odysseus. The same process which made Helios a son of Hyperîôn made Helios and him also the father of Phaëthôn. In the Iliad he is Helios Phaethon Phaethon. not less than Helios Hyperîôn; but when the name had come to denote a distinct personality, it served a convenient purpose in accounting for some of the phenomena of the year. The hypothesis of madness was called in to explain the slaughter of the boy Eunomos by Heraklês; but it was at the least as reasonable to say that if the sun destroyed the fruits and flowers which his genial warmth had Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 303. The incident is the same as that which is signified by the myth of Dionysos Dithyreites, the two doors being those, necessarily, of the East and the West. It is also exhibited in the contest of the heraldic Lion and Leopard, the simple interpretation being that "the Lion, type of the hunting, radiate, diurnal Sun, speeds across heaven towards his fate and death in the Den of the Two Entrances, the nocturnal cave tenanted by the starry, spotted Leopard of the 2 Some have held that the name |