MYTHICAL WEAPONS. myth of the fifty daughters of Thestios or Thespios, which in some versions is connected with his first great exploit, is akin to that of the fifty daughters of Danaos and the fifty children whom Asterodia bare to Endymiôn.' It is but one instance out of many in which we have the sun under an aspect altogether inconsistent with the ideal of Prodikos. Heraklês is no longer the hero who imposes on himself a hard discipline, but the voluptuous wanderer who has many loves in many lands. In his attack on the envoys of Ergînos he is armed with a coat of mail brought to him by the dawn-goddess Athênê, as Achilleus and Sigurd wear the armour brought to them by Thetis and Hjordis. The same thought suggested the gift of the bow and arrows from Phoibos, the lord of the spear-like sunbeams, of the sword from Hermes, whose stroke can split the forest trees, of the peplos from Athênê, the clear-faced morning. The arrows bestowed on him by Apollôn it must specially be noted are poisoned; and these poisoned barbs are used by Philoktêtês, who receives them from Neoptolemos, the child of Achilleus, the brilliant but short-lived sun, and by Odysseus, whom Athênê restores to youthful beauty as his life's labour draws towards its end. But we have no historical evidence that poisoned arrows were used by any Hellenic tribes, or that they would not have regarded the employment of such weapons with the utmost horror. How then comes it to pass that the poets of the Iliad and Odyssey can attribute to the Achaian heroes practices from which their kinsmen would have shrunk with disgust? The mystery is easily solved. The equivocation which turned the violet-tinted rays of morning into spears. was inevitable; the change of the spears or arrows into poisoned barbs was, at the least, as natural and necessary.3 291 CHAP. II. Heraklês As the conquest of the lion of Kithairon is the first great exploit, and Kerso according to the systematising mythographers the bringing up of beros. the dog Kerberos from Hades is the last. This story is mentioned the Nemean lion is the den or cave with Erginos is the father of Trophônios and Agamêdês, the builders of the Delphian shrine- the myth of the children of darkness raising the sanctuary of the lord of light answering to the legend which makes Apollon him- 3 The word iós, tov, which furnished The name Kerberos is the Sanskrit Sarvara, or Sambara, one of the enemies slain by Indra.-Max Müller, Chips, ii. 182, 188. II. BOOK by the poet of the Odyssey, who makes Heraklês tell Odysseus that his sufferings are but a reflexion of the toils which he had himself undergone by the tyranny of the mean Eurystheus, and that this task of bringing up the hound had been achieved by the aid of Athênê and Hermes, the dawn and the breeze of morning.1 On this framework was built an elaborate superstructure, which we need not examine closely, but of which some at least of the details are significant. The slaughter of the Kentaurs by Heraklês, for which he needed purification before descending to Hades, is the conquest and dispersion of the vapours by the sun as he rises in the heaven; and the crime of Heraklês is only another form of that of Ixiôn. As he returns to the upper world he rescues Theseus, himself one of the great solar heroes, and the child of Aithra, the pure air; but Peirithoös must remain behind, as Patroklos must die even though he be the friend of Achilleus. The dog of Yama thus brought back is, of course, carried down again by Heraklês to the nether world. The madness of Herakles. But the sun as he rises in the heaven acquires a fiercer power; and thus Apollôn becomes Chrysâôr, and Heraklês becomes mad. It is the raging of the heat which burns up the fruits of the earth which it has fostered, and so Heraklês slays his own children by Megara, and two also of the sons of Iphiklês. At this point he is represented by some as asking the Pythian priestess where he should make his abode, and as receiving from her, instead of his former title, Alkaios or Alkides, the sturdy, the name of Heraklês, the heavenly. As such, he is the avenger of the fraud of Laomedon, who had refused to pay the promised recompense to Poseidon and Phoibos for building his walls and tending his flocks. As in the case of Kepheus or of Oineus, the offended deities send a monster to ravage the fields of Ilion, and Laomedôn promises to bestow his immortal horses on any one who will slay it. But again he breaks his oath, by giving mortal steeds to Heraklês when the beast has been killed. The result is the first Trojan war mentioned in the Iliad, which relates how Heraklês, coming with six ships and few men, shattered its towers and left its streets desolate. In other 1 Od. xi. 626; II. viii. 369. The latter passage is especially noteworthy as indicating that clashing of wills between Athênê and Zeus which Mr. Gladstone is anxious to keep as much as possible in the background. Athênê here speaks of Zeus as mad, hard of heart, a blunderer, and an obstacle in her path. 2 The name Heraklês is the same as Hêrê, with the termination denoting glory or renown. Il. v. 640. This story is put into the mouth of the Herakleid Tlépolemos when he is about to slay Sarpèdón.Grote, Hist. Gr. i. 388. The other incidents simply repeat the story of Kepheus. The oracle says that a maiden must be given up to the seamonster, and the lot falls on Hesionê, the daughter of Laomedon, as in the Libyan tale it falls on Andromeda, the DEMONS OF DROUGHT. 293 II. words, Heraklês is mightier than Agamemnon. He is the sun-god CHAP. demanding his own recompense: and the Achaians among whom Achilleus fights are the sun-children seeking to recover the beautiful light of evening and the treasures which have been stolen with her from the west. and Of the other exploits of Heraklês, the greater number explain Orthros themselves. The Nemean lion is the offspring of Typhon, Orthros, Hydra. or Echidna; in other words, it is sprung from Vritra, the dark thief, and Ahi, the throttling snake of darkness, and it is as surely slain by Heraklês as the snakes which had assaulted him in the cradle. Another child of the same horrid parents is the Lernaian Hydra, its very name denoting a monster who, like the Sphinx or the Paņis, shuts up the waters and causes drought. It has many heads, one being immortal, as the storm must constantly supply new clouds while the vapours are driven off by the sun into space. Hence the story went that although Heraklês could burn away its mortal heads, as the sun burns up the clouds, still he can but hide away the mist or vapour itself, which at its appointed time must again darken the sky. In this fight he is aided by Iolaos, the son of Iphikles, a name recalling, like that of Iolê, the violet-tinted clouds which can be seen only when the face of the heaven is clear of the murky vapours. Hence it is that Eurystheus is slain when Iolaos rises from the under world to punish him for demanding from the children of the dawngoddess Athênê the surrender of the Herakleids, who had found among them a congenial home. The stag of Keryneia is, according to some versions, slain, in others only seized by Heraklês, who bears it with its golden antlers and brazen feet to Artemis and Phoibos. The story of the Erymanthian boar is in some accounts transferred from Argos to Thessaly or Phrygia, the monster itself, which Heraklês chases through deep snow, being closely akin to the Chimaira slain by Bellerophôn. In the myth of the Augeian stables Heraklês plays the part of Indra, when he lets loose the waters imprisoned by the Pani. In this case the plague of drought is regarded not so much in its effects on the health of man as in its influence on nature daughter of Kepheus. Heraklês, of course, plays the part of Perseus, and is aided by Athênê and the Trojans, who build him a tower to help him in the fight. This exploit, in the Norse story of the Mastermaid, is performed by the prince, who finds that, unless he guides the pitchfork aright, ten pitchforks full of filth come in for every one that he tosses out, an incident which recalls the growth of the heads of the Lernaian II. BOOK generally, in the disorder, decay, unseemliness, and filth which must follow from it. The clouds, here the cattle of Augeias, may move across the sky, but they drop down no water on the earth, and do nothing towards lessening the evil. Of these clouds Augeias promises that Heraklês shall become in part the lord, if he can but cleanse their stables. The task is done; but Augeias, like Laomedôn, refuses to abide by his bargain, and even defeats Heraklês and his companions in a narrow Eleian gorge. But the victory of Augeias is fatal to him The Mara thonian bull. self, and with Kteatos and Eurytos he is slain by Heraklês. The myth of the Cretan bull seems to involve a confusion similar to that which has led some to identify the serpent who is regarded as an object of love and affection in the Phallic worship, with the serpent who is always an object of mere aversion and disgust.1 The bull which bears Eurôpê from the Phoinikian land answers to the bull Indra, which traverses the heaven, bearing the dawn from the east to the west. The Cretan bull, like his fellow in the Gnossian labyrinth, who devours the tribute children from the city of the dawn-goddess, is a dark and malignant monster driven mad by Poseidon; but Crete lay within the circle of Phenician influence, and the bull may be the savage and devouring Moloch of the Semitic tribes. Although Heraklês carries this monster home on his back, he is compelled to let it go again, and it reappears as the bull who ravages the fields of Marathon, till it is slain by the hands of Theseus, who is the slayer also of the Minotauros. The clouds and vapours pursued and conquered by the hero are seen again in the mares of Diomêdês, which consume their master and are thus rendered tame, perhaps as the isolated clouds are unable to resist the sun when the moisture which has produced them has been subdued. They appear also as the Stymphalian birds, with claws, wings, and beaks resembling those of the Sphinx, and like her being eaters of human flesh or destroyers of men and beasts. These birds, it is said, had taken refuge in the Stymphalian lake, because they were afraid of the wolves-a phrase which exhibits the dark storm-clouds as dreading the rays (Lykoi) of the sun, which can only appear when themselves have been defeated. These clouds reappear yet again as the cattle stolen by Geryon, and recovered by Heraklês-a myth of which the legend of Cacus exhibits the most striking and probably the most genuine form. Nor is the legend of the golden apples guarded by the Hesperides anything more than a repetition of the same idea, being itself, as we have seen, a result of the same kind of equivocation which produced the myths of Lykâon, Arktouros, and Kallisto. 1 See section xii. of this chapter. ARES AND KYKNOS. In the girdle of Hippolytê we have one of those mysterious II. 295 emblems which are associated with the Linga in the worship of The girdle Vishnu. It is the magic kestos of Aphroditê and the wreath of the of HippoKadmeian Harmonia. Into the myth which related how Heraklês lyte. became its possessor, the mythographers have introduced a series of incidents, some of which do not belong to it, while others merely repeat each other. Thus, before he reaches the land of the Amazons, Heraklês aids Lykos against the Bebrykes, in other words, fights the battle of the bright being against the roaring monsters who are his enemies; and thus, after he has slain Hippolytê and seized the girdle, he visits Echidna, a being akin to the beautiful but mysterious Melusina, who throws her spell over Raymond of Toulouse, and then takes vengeance on the Trojan Laomedôn, slaying the bright Sarpêdôn, who in the Iliad falls by the spear of his descendant Tlepolemos. Herakles. The narratives of these great exploits, which are commonly known Myths interspersed as the twelve labours of Heraklês, are interspersed with numberless among the legends of incidents of greater or less significance, some of them plainly in- the twelve terpreting themselves. Thus, in his journey to the land of the Hes- labours of perides he is tormented by the heat of the sun, and shoots his arrows at Helios, who, admiring his bravery, gives him his golden cup in which to cross the sea.1 In Kyknos, the son of Arês the grinder or crusher, he encounters an antagonist akin to Cacus, or even more formidable. With his father Kyknos invades the sacred precincts of Apollon, where he sits on his fiery chariot while the earth trembles beneath the hoofs of his horses, and the altar and grove of Phoibos are filled with the horrid glare. But the son of Alkmênê is journeying to Trachis, and Kyknos, whose chariot blocks up the road, must yield up the path or die. On the challenge of Heraklês a furious conflict ensues, in which we see the spears of Indra hurled against his hateful enemy. The crash of the thunder rolls through the heaven, and the big thunderdrops fall from the sky. At last Kyknos is slain, but Heraklês is now confronted by Arês himself, whom he In reference to such incidents as these, Mr. Paley says, "A curious but well-known characteristic of solar myths is the identification of the sun both with the agent or patient, and with the thing or object by which the act is exercised. Ixion is the sun, and so is Ixion's wheel. . . . Hercules is the sun, who expires in flame on the summit of Mount Eta; but the fiery robe which scorches Now him to death is the sun-cloud. this, so far from being an objection to |