BOOK Aktaiôn. Mcdousa and Chry sâôr. and men. In the Theban myth of Aktaiôn, the son of the Kadmeian Autonoê, the cloud appears as a huntsman who has been taught by the Kentaur Cheiron, but who is torn to pieces by his own dogs, just as the large masses of vapour are rent and scattered by the wind, which bear them across the sky. As this rending is most easily seen in a heaven tolerably free from clouds, so the story ran that Aktaión was thus punished because he had rashly looked on Artemis while she was bathing in the fountain of Gargaphia. Not less significant is the myth of Pegasos, the offspring of Medousa with Chrysâôr, the magnificent piles of sunlit cloud, which seem to rise as if on eagle's wings to the highest heaven, and in whose bosom may lurk the lightnings and thunders of Zeus. Like Athênê and Aphrodite, like Daphnê and Arethousa, this horse of the morning. (Eôs) must be born from the waters; hence he is Pegasos, sprung from the fountains of Poseidon, the sea.1 On this horse Bellerophon is mounted in his contest with the Chimaira: but he becomes 1 With Pegasos we may compare the horse in Grimm's story of the Two Wanderers (Dioskouroi), which courses thrice round the castle yard as swiftly as lightning, and then falls. This is the moment of the lightning flash, and the story of course goes on to say that "at the same moment a fearful noise was heard, and a piece out of the ground of the court rose up into the air like a ball," and a stream of water leaps forth, as on the discomfiture of the Sphinx. ATHENE CHALINITIS. VII. 503 possessed of this steed only by the aid of Athênê Chalinitis, who, CHAP giving him a bridle, enables him to catch the horse as he drinks from the well Peirênê, or, as others said, brings him Pegasos already tamed and bridled. When the Chimaira was slain, Bellerophôn, the story ran, sought to rise to heaven on the back of his steed, but was either thrown off or fell off from giddiness, while the horse continued to soar upwards, like the cumuli clouds which far outstrip the sun as they rise with him into the sky. 1 Pegasos, however, is not only the thundering horse of Zeus; he is also connected with the Muses, who in their swan forms are the Pegasos. beautiful clouds sailing along the sky to the soft music of the morning breezes. The same blending of the myths of vapour and wind is seen in the rivalry between the Pierides and the Helikonian Muses. When the former sang, everything, it is said, became dark and gloomy, as when the wind sighs through the pinewoods at night, while with the song of the Muses the light of gladness returned, and Helikon itself leaped up in its joy and rose heavenwards, until a blow from the hoof of Pegasos smote it down, as a sudden thunderstorm may check the soaring cirri in their heavenward way. But Pegasos is still in this myth the moisture-laden cloud. From the spot dinted by his hoof sprang the fountain Hippokrênê, whether in Boiotia or in Argos. Kallim. Hymn to Delos, 255. These footprints are not peculiar to European mythology. Two accounts are given of the supposed footmark on BOOK The nativity of CHAPTER VIII. THE EARTH. SECTION I.-DIONYSOS. In all mythology the earth is treated as the mother of all living things. It may seem almost a paradox to say that the idea of the earth as a producer or restorer would be more likely to lead men on to the Dionysos. notion of a power transcending nature than the impressions made on the human mind by the phenomena of the daily or nightly heavens; but on further thought we can scarcely fail to see that the continuance of life on the earth, the unceasing restlessness, the perpetual change which is going on upon its surface, the sensitiveness of all vegetable and animal substances to the influences which act upon them from without, must inevitably lead men on to something more like a scheme of philosophy than any which could be furnished by mere phrases describing the phenomena of the day or the year. It does not follow that the condition of those who were thus led on should be happier than that of those who, from whatever cause, remained content with recording the impressions made upon them daily by the sights and sounds of the outward world. The history of the Semitic nations seems to lend no countenance to any such notion. The Aryan was satisfied with noting the birth of the sun from the darkness, his long toil, his battle with countless enemies, his sleep in the land of forgetfulness, and his rising again to life and strength in the joyous regions of the dawn. The Phenician and the Canaanite could not rest here. They were themselves part of a mysterious system which whirled them through the realms of infinite space, a system characterised by an exuberance of power, by a majestic and rhythmical movement, by a force consciously exulting in the joyousness of its strength. In such notions as these we have the surest foundations of an orgiastic worship; and the worship of all the Semitic tribes was orgiastic to the core. The spirit of such a worship or ritual is beyond doubt aggressive and contagious. The enthusiasm with which it fills the worshippers will never allow him to rest in patient inactivity; and it SEMITIC AND ARYAN DEITIES. moves him, unhappily, only in the direction of evil. It is better to praise Ushas, or Eôs, or the dawn, whatever name we may give it, for the light, the food, and all the other blessings which it brings to us, than to lose ourselves in the labyrinth of cosmical movements and in the idea of mystic revolutions which may be typified by the frenzied dances of the worshippers. We may therefore say proudly that the Semitic deities are cosmical, while those of the Aryan nations are phenomenal; but the Semitic and Aryan tribes acted and reacted on each other, and, as we might suppose, the more violent influence was exercised by the former. Under such circumstances there must be a struggle, more or less fierce; and the fact and the issue of this struggle come before us especially in the myth of Dionyos and Poseidôn. 505 CHAP. VIII. The stories of his birth differed widely. Some said that his The transformations mother was burnt up at his birth by the lightnings of Zeus, others said of Diothat she died in the chest in which she was placed with her child. Some nysos. said that he was born in Naxos, others on mount Nysa: but few perhaps cared to distinguish between the many mountains which bore this name. The Homeric hymn, passing by the earlier incidents of his life, tells the simple tale how Dionysos in the first bloom of youth was sitting on a jutting rock by the sea-shore, a purple robe thrown over his shoulders and his golden locks streaming from his head, when he was seized by some Tyrrhenian mariners who had seen him as they were sailing by. These men placed him on board their vessel and strongly bound him; but the chains snapped like twigs and fell from his hands and feet, while he sat smiling on them with his deepblue eyes. The helmsman at once saw the folly of his comrades, and bade them let him go lest the god, for such he must be, should do them some harm. His words fell on unheeding ears, and they declared that they would bear him away to Kypros, Egypt, or the Hyperborean land. But no sooner had they taken to their oars than a purple stream flowed along the decks, and the air was filled with its fragrance. Then the vine-plant shot up the masts, and its branches laden with rosy fruit hung from the yardarms, mingled with clustering ivy, while the oar-pegs were all wreathed in glistening garlands. The sailors now beseech Medeides, the steersman, to bring the ship to shore; but it is too late. For Dionysos now took the forms of a lion and a bear, and thus rushing upon them drove the cruel mariners into the sea, where they became dolphins, while the good steersman was crowned with honour and glory. and Za In this story we have clearly the manifestation of that power which Dionysos ripens the fruits of the earth, and more especially the vine, in the greos. several stages from its germ to its maturity. The fearful power dis II. BOOK played by the god is the influence which the grape exercises on man. Its juice may flow as a quiet stream, filling the air with sweet odours; but as men drink of it its aspect is changed, and it becomes like a wild beast urging them to their destruction. But the penalty thus. inflicted upon the Tyrrhenian mariners is strictly for their evil treatment of the god, whose character is merely jovial, and by no means designedly malignant. Nor is the god himself invested with the majesty of the supreme Zeus, or of Phoibos or Poseidôn, although the helmsman says that either of these gods may possibly have taken the form of the youthful Dionysos. But before we find ourselves in historical Hellas a complete change has taken place. Dionysos is now the horned Zagreos after his death and resurrection, and the myth of the son of Semelê is anticipated or repeated by the legend of this child of Persephonê, whom his father Zeus places beside him on his throne. In this, as in other cases, the jealousy of Hêrê is roused, and at her instigation the Titans slay Zagreos, and cutting up his limbs,' leave only his heart, which Athênê carries to Zeus. This heart is given to Semelê, who thus becomes the mother of Dionysos. This slaughter and cutting up of Zagreos is only another form of the rape of Persephonê herself. It is the stripping off of leaves and fruits in the gloomy autumn which leaves only the heart or trunk of the tree to give birth to the foliage of the coming year, and the resurrection of Zagreos is the return of Persephonê to her mother Dêmêtêr. Henceforth with Dêmêtêr, who really is his mother also, Dionysos becomes a deity of the first rank; and into his mythology are introduced a number of foreign elements, pointing to the comparatively recent influence exercised by Egypt and Syria on the popular Hellenic religion. The opposition of the Thrakian Lykourgos and the Theban Pentheus to the frenzied rites thus foisted on the cultus of Dionysos is among the few indications of historical facts exhibited in Hellenic mythology. Dionysos the Wanderer. 2 In the Homeric hymn the Tyrrhenian mariners avow their intention of taking Dionysos to Egypt, or Ethiopia, or the Hyperborean land; and this idea of change of abode becomes the prominent 1 The author of Mankind, their Origin and Destiny, notices the reproduction of the Dionysos myth in Christian hagiology. "Dionysos is cut to pieces by the Mænades on the top of mount Parnassus: Denis is put to death in the same manner on the summit of Montmartre. Dionysos is placed in a tomb, and his death is bewailed by women: the mangled limbs of Denis are collected by holy females, who weeping convey them to a tomb over which is built the abbey church which bears his name. Dionysos experiences a wonderful restoration to life, and quits the coffin within which he had been confined: Denis rises again from the dead, replaces his severed head, to the amazement of the spectators, and then deliberately walks away.' 2 Grote, Hist. Greece, i. 23. |