LATER ATTRIBUTES OF HERMES. him unconsciously to V. 457 handle all his materials in strict accordance CHAP. with the leading idea. That the meaning of the myth of Hermes had not been so far forgotten, will perhaps be generally conceded. the mes The idea of sound, which underlies all the incidents of the Hermes, Homeric hymn, explains most of the attributes and inventions ascribed senger and to Hermes. The soft music of the breeze would at once make him the thief. the author of the harp or lyre. As driving the clouds across the blue fields of heaven, he would be the messenger of Apollôn, and this office would soon be merged in that of the herald of Zeus and all the gods. As such again, he would be skilled in the use of words, and he would be employed in tasks where eloquence was needed. Thus he appears before Priam in the time of his anguish, not in his divine character, but as one of the servants of Achilleus, and, by the force of his words alone, persuades the old man to go and beg the body of Hektor. So too he wins the assent of Hades to the return of Persephonê from the under world. Hermes thus became associated with all that calls for wisdom, tact, and skill in the intercourse between man and man, and thus he is exhibited at once as a cunning thief, and as the presiding god of wealth. It is possible, however, or likely, that in later times, the functions of Hermes were largely multiplied by a confusion between words, the fruitful source of secondary myths. If such words as épμŋveía and épμnvevew, to interpret, are to be traced to the name Hermes, there are others, as eppa, a prop, epμakes, heaps of stones, puarie, to ballast a ship, which clearly can have nothing. to do with it. Yet on the strength of these words Hermes becomes a god of boundaries, the guardian of gymnasia, and lastly the patron of gymnastic games; and his statues were thus placed at the entrance of the Agora. The cause of this confusion M. Bréal finds in the importance for all who wish to determine With Hermes Agoraios we might be BOOK II. Hermes and the Charites. Hermes the herald. word ἑρμίδιον οἱ ἑρμάδιον, commonly taken to signify a small statue of Hermes, but which might also mean a small prop or stay. This word έρμα M. Bréal connects with the Greek είργω or ἕρκος; and the Latin arcere, erctum, may in the same way have led to the identification of the Latin Ercules or Herculus, the god of boundaries, with the Greek Heraklês. The word epparov, as denoting a god-send or treasure-trove, may belong to either the one root or the other.1 The office of Hermes connects him necessarily with many legends, and especially with those of Prometheus, Iô, Paris, and Deukalion; but it is more noteworthy that "as the Dawn in the Veda is brought by the bright Harits, so Hermes is called the leader of the Charites." * His worship, we are told, was instituted first in Arkadia, and thence transferred to Athens. That it may have been so is possible; but in the absence of all historical evidence we cannot affirm it as fact: and no argument can be based on traditions concerned with such names as Athens, Arkadia, Ortygia, or Eleusis. If Hermes be the son of the twilight, or the first breeze of the morning, his worship would as certainly begin in Arkadia (the glistening land), or at Athens (the home of the Dawn), and his first temple be built by Lykâôn (the gleaming), as the worship of Phoibos would spring up in the brilliant Dêlos, or by the banks of the golden Xanthos in the far-off Lykia or land of light, whence Sarpêdôn came to the help of Hektor. The reasons have been already given, which seem to warrant the conclusion that historical inferences based on names which, although applied afterwards to real cities or countries, come from the mythical cloudland, can be likened only to castles built in the air, 4 The staff or rod which Hermes received from Phoibos, and which connects this myth with the special emblem of Vishnu, was regarded as denoting his heraldic office. It was, however, always endowed with magic properties, and had the power even of raising the dead." The fillets of this staff sometimes gave place to serpents; and the golden sandals, which in the Iliad and Odyssey bear him through the air more swiftly than the wind, were at length, probably from the needs of the sculptor and the painter, fitted with wings, and the Orphic THE FATAL PARTING. V. 459 hymn-writer salutes him accordingly as the god of the winged sandals.1 CHAP. In the legend of Medousa these sandals bear Perseus away from the pursuit of the angry Gorgons into the Hyperborean gardens and thence to the shores of Libya. SECTION III.-ORPHEUS. difference and Of the myth of Orpheus it may also be said that it brings before Points of us a being, in whom some attributes which belong to the light or the between sun are blended with others which point as clearly to the wind. The Orpheus charm of the harping of Hermes is fully admitted in the Homeric Hermes. hymn, but its effect is simply the effect of exquisite music on those who have ears to hear and hearts to feel it. In the story of Orpheus the action becomes almost wholly mechanical. If his lyre has power over living beings, it has power also over stones, rocks, and trees. What then is Orpheus? Is he, like Hermes, the child of the dawn, or is he the sun-god himself joined for a little while with a beautiful bride whom he is to recover only to lose her again? There can be no doubt that this solar myth has been bodily imported into the legend of Orpheus, even if it does not constitute its essence. The name of his wife, Eurydikê, is one of the many names which denote the wide-spreading flush of the dawn; and this fair being is bitten by the serpent of night as she wanders close by the water which is fatal alike to Melusina and Undine, to the Lady of Geierstein and to the more ancient Bhekî or frog-sun. But if his Helen is thus stolen away by the dark power, Orpheus must seek her as pertinaciously as the Achaians strive for the recovery of Helen or the Argonauts for that of the Golden Fleece. All night long he will wander through the regions of night, fearing no danger and daunted by no obstacles, if only his eyes may rest once more on her who was the delight of his life. At last he comes to the grim abode of the king of the dead, and at length obtains the boon that his wife may follow him to the land of the living, on the one condition that he is not to look back until she has fairly reached the earth. The promise is not kept; and when Orpheus, overcome by an irresistible yearning, turns round to gaze on the beautiful face of his bride, he sees her form vanish away like mist at the rising of the sun. This, it is obvious, is but another form of the myth which is seen in the stories of Phoibos and Daphnê, of Indra and Dahanâ, of Arethousa and Alpheios; and as such, it would be purely solar. But the legend as thus related is shorn of other features not less essential than these solar attributes. Orpheus Hymn XXVIII. BOOK is never without his harp. It is with this that he charms all things conscious or unconscious. With this he gathers together the bright herds of Helios and all the beasts of the field. As he draws forth its sweet sounds, the trees, the rocks, the streams, all hasten to hear him, or to follow him as he moves onwards on his journey. Only when Eurydikê is dead, are its delicious sounds silenced; but when at the gates of the palace of Hades the three-headed hound Kerberos growls savagely at him, its soft tones charm away his fury, and the same spell subdues the heart of the rugged king himself. It is thus only that he wins the desire of his heart; and when Eurydikê is torn from him the second time, the heavenly music is heard again no more. It is impossible to regard this part of the story as a solar myth, except on the supposition that Orpheus is but another form of Phoibos after he has become possessed of the lyre of Hermes. But the truth is that the myth of the Hellenic Hermes is not more essentially connected with the idea of sound than is that of Orpheus together with the long series of myths based on the same notion which are found scattered over almost all the world. In the opinion of Professor Max Müller "Orpheus is the same word as the Sanskrit Ribhu or Arbhu, which though it is best known as the name of the three Ribhus, was used in the Veda as an epithet of Indra, and a name for the Sun." Mr. Kelly, following Dr. Kuhn, sees in the Ribhus the storm-winds which sweep trees and rocks in wild dance before them by the force of their magic song." But even if the Sanskrit name can be applied only to the sun, this would only show that the name of Orpheus underwent in its journey to the west a modification similar to that of the name Hermes. It must, however, be noted that Orpheus acts only by means of his harp, which always rouses to motion. The action of Hermes is twofold, and when he is going forth on his plundering expedition he lays aside his lyre, which he resumes only when he comes back to lie down like a child in his cradle. Hence the lyre of Hermes only charms and soothes. Its sweet tones conquer the angry sun-god, and lull to sleep the all-seeing Argos of the hundred eyes, when Hermes seeks to deliver Iô from his ceaseless scrutiny. But among the Greek poets the idea which would connect Orpheus with the sun was wholly lost. In Pindar he is sent indeed by Apollon to the gathering of the Argonauts, but this would Chips, &c., ii. 127. The converse of the story of Orpheus is found in the legend of Savitri as recounted in the Mahabharata. Here Savitri marries Satyavan, knowing that he must die within the year. When Yama comes for Satyavan, she insists on following him, and at last succeeds in winning back the life of her husband, with whom she reaches her home at the break of day. Curiosities of Indo-European Folklore, 17. THE HARP OF ORPHEUS. V. 461 point simply to a phrase which spoke of the sun as sending or bringing CHAP. the morning breeze; and with the poet he is simply the harper and the father of songs. In Eschylos he leads everything after him by the gladness with which his strain inspires them. In Euripides he is the harper who compels the rocks to follow him,3 while in speaking of him as the originator of sacred mysteries the poet transfers to him the idea which represents Hermes as obtaining mysterious wisdom in the hidden caves of the Thriai. In the so-called Orphic Argonautika the harper is the son of Oiagros and Kalliopê, the latter name denoting simply the beauty of sound, even if the former be not a result of the onomatopoeia which has produced such Greek words as εὐχή, γόος, and οιμωγή. No sooner does he call on the divine ship which the heroes had vainly tried to move, than the Argo, charmed by the tones, glides gently into the sea. The same tones wake the voyagers in Lemnos from the sensuous spell which makes Odysseus dread the land of the Lotos-eaters." At the magic sound the Kyanean rocks parted asunder to make room for the speaking ship, and the Symplegades which had been dashed together in the fury of ages remained steadfast for evermore. But it is singular that when it becomes needful to stupify the dragon which guards the golden fleece, the work is done not by the harp of Orpheus, but by the sleepgod Hypnos himself, whom Orpheus summons to lull the Vritra to slumber. rens. The same irresistible spell belongs to the music of the Seirens, The Seiwho are represented as meeting their doom, in one legend, by means of Orpheus, in another, through Odysseus. Whether these beings represent the Seirai, or belts of calms, which are so treacherous and fatal to mariners, or whether the name itself is found again in the Syrinx or pipe of the god Pan, and in the Latin susurrus, the whisper of the breeze, is a point of no great importance, so long as we note the fact that none who listened to their song could be withheld from rushing under its influence to their own destruction. In the story of the Odyssey, Odysseus breaks the spell by filling his sailors' ears with wax, while he has himself stoutly tied to the mast of his ship. In the Orphic myth the divine harper counteracts their witchery by his own strain, and the Seirens throw themselves into the sea and are changed into rocks according to the doom which granted them life Pyth. iv. 315. 2 Agam. 1630. Rhes. 943; Hymn to Hermes, 552. • Ib. 480. 7 lb. 740. 8 lb. 1008. The name is more probably connected with the Latin Silanus. |