former bravery gives place to sullen or effeminate inaction, the same change is seen in Meleagros and Achilleus. If he is capricious, so are they; and each sits burnishing his golden armour in his tent or his secret chamber, making ready for the fight, yet doing nothing. If, again, it is by the weapon of Paris that Achilleus is to fall in the western gates, the arrow which slays Paris is drawn from the quiver of Heraklês. But with the fatal wound comes back the love of Paris for the lost Oinônê; and not less forgiving than Prokris to the faithless Kephalos, Oinônê stands before him. With a soft and tender grief she gazes on the face which had once filled the whole earth for her with beauty. She sees his life-blood flowing away; but though she has the power of the soft evening time to soothe the woes of mortal men, she cannot heal the poisoned wound which is slaying Paris. But with the death of him who once was called Alexandros, the light of her life is gone. Paris rests in the sleep of death, and Oinônê lies down to die by his side. The Iliad is, in short, the Volsung tale, as wrought out by the poets of a bright and fertile land.1 Yet, if the harsh climate of the north modified the Norse mythology, it also moulded indefinitely the national character, and the two acted and reacted on each other. Bred up to fight with nature in a constant battle for existence, the 1 The Hellenic myths can no longer be regarded as exponents of abstract physical truths or theories. There can be no doubt that (whatever appearance of such a system may have been imparted to it by the priests), the supposition does not apply with more force even to Egyptian mythology. In Egypt, as well as in Greece and Northern Europe, we have again the solar legend. The spring was the time of festival, the autumn of fast and mourning. It would almost seem as though the Egyptian myths were in this respect more closely akin to those of Northern than of Southern Europe.-See Milman, History of Christianity, vol. i. p. 13. Compare also the Surtr of the Icelandic mythology, Dasent's "Norsemen in Iceland," Oxford Essays for 1858, p. 198. The groundwork of the Volsunga Saga, of the tales of Helen, Alkestis, Sarpedon, and Memnon, reappears in the legends and the worship of Adonis. The origin of the myth is in this case self-evident, while the grossness of the forms which it has assumed shows the degree to which such legends may either influence or be modified by national characteristics or the physical conditions of a country. Even in their worst aspects, Zeus and Odin retain some majesty and manly power; but in the legend of Adonis, the idea of the sun as calling the earth back to life has been sensualised to a degree far beyond the sensuousness of Greek or Teutonic mythology. In fact, the image of Dêmêtêr has passed by a very easy transmutation into that of Aphroditê: but there not only remains the early death of Adonis, but it is assigned to the very cause which cuts short the life of Achilleus, Sigurd, Baldur, and Meleagros. The boar's tusk, which reappears in the myth of Odysseus, is but the thorn of winter and the poisoned robe of Heraklês; and accordingly there were versions which affirmed that it was Apollon who, in the form of a boar, killed the darling of Aphrodite. The division of time also varies. In some legends the covenant is the same as that which is made with Dêmêter for Persephone. In others, he remains four months with Hades, four with Aphrodite, while the remaining four, being at his own disposal, he chooses to spend with the latter. TRADITIONS OF NORTHERN EUROPE. 41 IV. Northman became fearless, honest, and truthful, ready to smite and CHAP. ready to forgive, shrinking not from pain himself and careless of inflicting it on others. Witnessing everywhere the struggle of conflicting forces, he was tempted to look on life as a field for warfare, and to own no law for those who were not bound with him in ties of blood and friendship. Hence there was impressed on him a stern and fierce character, exaggerated not unfrequently into a gross and brutal cruelty; and his national songs reflected the repulsive not less than the fairer aspect of his disposition. In the Volsung tale, as in the later epics, there is much of feud, jealousy, and bloodshed, much which to the mind of a less tumultuous age must be simply distasteful or even horrible. To what extent this may be owing to their own character it may perhaps be difficult to determine with precision; yet it would seem rash to lay to their charge the special kinds of evil dealing of which we read in their great national legends. It is not easy to believe that the relations between Sigurd and Gunnar were (even rarely) realised in the actual life of the Norwegian or the Icelander. But whether with the Greek or the Northman, all judgment is premature until we have decided whether we are or are not dealing with legends which, whether in whole or in part, have sprung from the mythical expressions of which the meaning has been more or less forgotten. We can draw no inference from the actions of Zeus or Heraklês as to the character of the Greeks; we cannot take the fatal quarrels of Brynhild, Gunnar, and Sigurd as any evidence of the character of the Northman. character istics of Living in a land of icebound fjords and desolate fells, hearing the Special mournful wail of the waving pine-branches, looking on the stern strife of frost and fire, witnessing year by year the death of the short-lived Greek mythology. summer, the Northman was inured to sombre if not gloomy thought, to the rugged independence of the country as opposed to the artificial society of a town. His own sternness was but the reflexion of the land in which he lived; and it was reflected, in its turn, in the tales which he told, whether of the heroes or the gods. The Greek, dwelling in sunnier regions, where the interchange of summer and winter brought with it no feelings of overpowering gloom, exhibited 1 It was reflected most of all in the terrific pictures drawn of Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods, in which Odin and the sir will be overthrown, and the fall of the world tree Yggdrasil will complete the destruction of the earth, and end the long Aion of the gods of Asgard. For an excellent description of this great catastrophe see Brown, Religion and Mythology of the Aryans BOOK Full develope ment of Greek mythology. in his words and songs the happiness which he experienced in himself. Caring less, perhaps, to hold communion with the silent mountains and the heaving sea, he was drawn to the life of cities, where he could share his joys and sorrows with his kinsmen. The earth was his mother: the gods who dwelt on Olympos had the likeness of men without their pains or their doom of death. There Zeus sat on his golden throne, and beside him was the glorious Apollôn, not the deified man,' but the sun-god invested with a human personality. But (with whatever modifications caused by climate and circumstances) both were inheritors of a common mythology, which with much that was beautiful and good united also much that was repulsive and immoral. Both, from the ordinary speech of their common forefathers, had framed a number of legends which had their gross and impure aspects, but for the grossness of which they were not (as we have seen), and they could not be, responsible. But if the mythology of the Greeks is in substance and in developement the same as that of the North, they differed widely in their later history. That of the Greeks passed through the stages of growth, maturity, and decay, without any violent external repression. The mythical language of the earliest age had supplied them with an inexhaustible fountain of legendary narrative; and the tales so framed had received an implicit belief, which, though intense and unquestioning, could scarcely be called religious, and in no sense could be regarded as moral. And just because the belief accorded to it was not moral, the time came gradually when thoughtful men rose through earnest effort (rather, we would say, through Divine guidance) to the conviction of higher and clearer truth. If even the Greek of the Heroic age found in his mythology neither a rule of life nor the ideal of that Deity whom in his heart he really worshipped, still less would this be the case with the poets and philosophers of later times. For Æschylos Zeus was the mere name of a god whose actions were not those of the son of Kronos; to Sophokles it made no difference whether he were called Zeus or by any other name, as long as he might retain the conviction of His eternity and His righteousness. If from his own moral perception 8 1 The common mythology of the whole Aryan race goes against the supposition that Apollon and Athênê owe their existence to man-worship and woman-worship respectively. Athênê was to the Greek an embodiment of moral and intellectual greatness. The absence or deterioration of the former converts Athênê into the Kolchian Medeia. The latter type, when still further degraded, becomes the Latin Canidia, a close approximation to the ordinary witch of modern superstition. 2 Agamemnon, 100. Oid. Tyr., 903. INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. IV. Pindar refused to credit charges of gluttony or unnatural crime CHAP. against the gods, no violent shock was given to the popular belief; and even Sokrates might teach the strictest responsibility of man to a perfectly impartial judge, even while he spoke of the mythical tribunal of Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Aiakos.' He was accused indeed of introducing new gods. This charge he denied, and with truth but in no sense whatever was he a worshipper of the Olympian Zeus, or of the Phoibos who smote the Pythian dragon. 43 growth of mytho As compared with the Greek, the mythology of Northern Europe Arrested was arrested almost in its middle growth. After a fierce struggle, Northern Christianity was forced upon the reluctant Northmen long before logy. poets could rise among them to whom the sensuality or ferocity of their mythology would be repulsive or revolting, long before philosophers could have evolved a body of moral belief, by the side of which the popular mythology might continue peacefully to exist. By a sudden revolution, Odin and the Æsir, the deities of the North, were hurled from their ancient thrones, before the dread Twilight of the Gods had come. Henceforth they could only be regarded either as men or as devils. The former alternative made Odin a descendant of Noah; by the latter, the celestial hierarchy became malignant spirits riding on the storm-cloud and the whirlwind. If these gods had sometimes been beneficent before, they were never beneficent now. All that was beautiful and good in the older belief had been transferred to the Christian ideas of chivalry and saintliness, which furnished a boundless field and inexhaustible nourishment for the most exuberant inventive faculty. The demons of Hesiod were the spirits of the good who had died the painless death of the Golden Age; but even in heathen times they were gradually invested with a malignant character. With Thor and Odin the transmutation was more rapid and complete; and Frigga and Freya became beings full of a wisdom and power which they used only for evil. The same character passed to those who were, or professed to be, their votaries; and the assumption of an unlawful knowledge paved the way for that persecution of a fictitious witchcraft which has stamped an indelible disgrace on mediæval Christendom." 1 Plato, Gorgias, lxxx. * Grote, History of Greece, vol. i. P. 264. 3 Grote, History of Greece, vol. i. p. 628. M. de Montalembert's History, Les Moines d'Occident, is a storehouse of legends belonging to the ideal of saintliness. 3 Grote, History of Greece, i. 96. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe, vol. i. ch. i. Some valuable remarks on this subject may be found in Mr. Price's preface to Warton's History of English Poetry. (P. 57.) It was this idea of a knowledge gained unlawfully from evil BOOK Light thrown on both by the Vedic hymns. Stages in of my thical systems. So marvellous is that chronicle of heathen mythology, as it lies spread out before us in the light of the ancient speech, marvellous not only as showing how nations, utterly severed from each other, preserved their common inheritance, but as laying bare that early condition of thought without which mythology could never have had a being. Yet, if it has much to astonish us, it has nothing to bewilder or even to perplex, for the simultaneous developement of the same myths by countless tribes unknown to each other would be a marvel too vast even for the greediest credulity to swallow— a standing miracle without purpose and without meaning. To the earliest records of Aryan literature is due the discovery that the vehement accusations of Christian controversialists and the timid explanations of heathen apologists were alike unfounded,1 that the impersonations of the old mythology had no substantial existence, and that the mythical narratives which grew up around them were not wrought out by a vile and corrupt imagination deliberately profaning the deposit of a revealed truth which it was hopeless that they should understand. To the language of the early Vedic hymns we owe our knowledge that the developement of such a mythology was inevitable, and that the phrases of that early speech, when their original meaning was once forgotten or misapprehended, would give rise to just those coarse, sensual, and immoral images, from which the purer feeling of later times would instinctively recoil. Step by step this analysis of mythology leads us back to what the growth would seem to be the earliest condition of the human mind, and from that onwards through the mythopoeic age to the philosophy of historical Greece. On the general character of its course there can be no doubt, nor is the question materially affected by the hypothesis that a period of pure monotheism intervened between the earliest time and that which multiplied the mythical inhabitants of Asgard or Olympos. In one sense the supposition may be true in another it might be truer to say that the monotheism so attained never died away. It was impossible that any real fetish worship could arise while man had not arranged his first conceptions with regard to the nature of all material things, or even to his own. If from the consciousness of his own existence he attributed the : 2 spirits which, far more perhaps than a simple charge of an unlawful use of human intellect. Grote, History of Greece, part i. ch. i. p. 15. 2 Dasent, Norse Tales, introduction, p. lxvii. Max Müller, "Semitic Monotheism;" Chips from a German Workshop, vol. i. |