BOOK I. The missing link is supplied in the older Vedic poems. The key to all Aryan mythology. allows that what he terms allegory is one of the constituent elements of Greek mythology. But even if we admit the objection in its full force, we lack but a single link to complete the chain of evidence and turn an overwhelming probability into fact. Have we any records of that old time in which men spoke as Greek and Norse myths seem to tell us that they spoke? Have we any actual relics of that speech in which men talked of Daphnê as chased by Phoibos, even while Daphne was still a common name of the dawn, and Phoibos meant simply the sun? 2 The Vedic hymns of the Mantra period stand forth to give us the answer; but they do so only to exhibit a fresh marvel. While they show to us the speech which was afterwards petrified into the forms of Greek and Norse mythology, they point to a still earlier time, of which no record has come down, and of which we can have no further evidence than that which is furnished by the laws which determine the growth of language. Even in the Mantra period, the earliest in all Sanskrit, and therefore (as exhibiting the earliest form of thought) the oldest in all human literature," the whole grammar is definitely fixed, and religious belief has assumed the character of a creed. And if in this period man has not lived long enough to trace analogies and arrive at some idea of an order of nature, he has grown into the strongest conviction that behind all the forms which come before his eyes there is a Being, unseen and all-powerful, whose bidding is done throughout the wide creation, and to whom men may draw nigh as children to a father. When, therefore, in these hymns, Kephalos, Prokris, Hermes, Daphnê, Zeus, Ouranos, stand forth as simple names for the sun, the dew, the wind, the dawn, the heaven and the sky, each recognised as such, yet each endowed with the most perfect consciousness, we feel that the great riddle of mythology is solved, and that we no longer lack the key which shall disclose its most hidden treasures. When History of Greece, vol. i. p. 2. 2 It is scarcely necessary to say that on this evidence of language Grimm lays the greatest possible stress. The affinity of the dialects spoken by all Teutonic and Scandinavian tribes being admitted, we have to consider the fact of their joint possession of terms relating to religious worship. "If," he says, "we are able to produce a word used by the Goths in the fourth century, by the Alemanni in the eighth, in exactly the same form and sense as it continues to bear in the Norse authorities of the twelfth or thirteenth century, the affinity HYMNS OF THE DAWN. we hear the people saying, "Our friend the sun is dead. Will he rise? Will the dawn come back again?" we see the death of Heraklês, and the weary waiting while Lêtô struggles with the birth of Phoibos. When on the return of day we hear the cry "Rise! our life, our spirit is come back, the darkness is gone, the light draws near!" 2 -we are carried at once to the Homeric hymn, and we hear the joyous shout of all the gods when Phoibos springs to life and light in Delos. The tale of Urvasî and Purûravas (these are still the morning and the sun) is the tale of Orpheus and Eurydikê. Purûravas, in his dreary search, hears the voice of Urvasi saying, "I am gone like the first of the dawns; I am hard to be caught, like the wind." Yet she will come back to him at the close of the night, and a son, bright and beaming, shall be born to them. Varuna is still the wide heaven, the god "who can be seen by all," the lord of the whole earth: but in him we recognise at once the Greek Ouranos, who looks lovingly on Gaia from his throne in the sky. Yet more, we read the praises of Indra, and his great exploit is that "He has struck the daughter of Dyaus (Zeus), a woman difficult to vanquish "Yes, even the daughter of Dyaus, the magnified, the Dawn, thou, O Indra, a great hero hast ground to pieces. 8 "The Dawn rushed off from her crushed car, fearing that Indra, the bull, might strike her. "This her car lay there, well ground to pieces: she went far away." The treatment is rude, but we have here not merely the whole story of Daphnê, but the germ of that of Eurôpê borne by the same bull across the sea. More commonly, however, the dawn is spoken of as bright, fair, and loving, the joy of all who behold her. "She shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living being to go to his work. "She rose up, spreading far and wide (Euryganeia, Eurydikê), and moving towards every one. She grew in brightness, wearing her brilliant garment. The mother of the cows (the morning clouds, the 1 ἐκ δ ̓ ἔθαμε πρὸ φόωσδε· θεαὶ δ ̓ ὀλόλυξαν ἅπασαι. Hymn to Apollo, 119. In the essay on Comparative Mythology, Professor Max Müller has given not only the older forms of this myth, but a minute analysis of the play of Kalidasa on this subject. This poem is very instructive, as showing that the character of the Homeric Achilleus ad- i. 13. Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, CHAP. V. 51 BOOK I. Germs of mythical tales. Homeric herds of the sun), the leader of the days, she shone goldcoloured, lovely to behold. "She, the fortunate, who brings the eye of the god (Kephalos, or the one-eyed Odin), who leads the white and lovely steed (of the sun), the Dawn was seen revealed by her rays; with brilliant treasures she follows every one. "Shine for us with thy best rays, thou bright Dawn, thou who lengthenest our life, thou the love of all, who givest us food, who givest us wealth in cows, horses, and chariots. 66 'Thou, daughter of the sky (Dyaus, Zeus), thou high-born Dawn give us riches high and wide." Still more remarkable, as exhibiting the germs of the ideas which find their embodiment in the Hellenic Athênê and the Latin Minerva, is the following hymn. "The wise priests celebrate with hymns the divine, bright-charioted expanded Dawn; worshipped with holy worship, purple-tinted, radiant, leading on the sun. "The lovely Dawn, arousing man, goes before the Sun, preparing practicable paths, riding in a spacious chariot; expanding everywhere she diffuses light at the commencement of the days. "Harnessing the purple oxen to her car, unwearied she renders riches perpetual; a goddess praised of many, and cherished by all, she shines manifesting the paths that lead to good. "Lucidly white is she, occupying the two (regions, the upper and middle firmament), and manifesting her person from the East: she traverses the path of the sun, as if knowing (his course), and harms not the quarters of the horizon. "Exhibiting her person like a well-attired female, she stands before our eyes (gracefully) inclining like (a woman who has been) bathing (Aphroditê Anadyomenê). Dispersing the hostile glooms, Ushas, the daughter of heaven, comes with radiance. "Ushas, the daughter of heaven, tending to the West, puts forth her beauty like a (well-dressed) woman; bestowing precious treasures on the offerer of adoration, she, ever youthful, brings back the light as of old." 2 We can but wonder at the marvellous exuberance of language, almost every expression of which may manifestly serve as the germ of a mythical tale. We say, "The fire burns, the wood crackles and smokes." They said, "Neighing like a horse that is greedy for food, it steps out from Max Müller, History of Sanskrit 2 H. H. Wilson, Rig Veda Sanhita, Literature, p. 551. vol. iii. p. 369. EARLY MYTHS OF FIRE AND LIGHT. 53 the strong prison: then the wind blows after his blast: thy path, O CHAP. Agni (Ignis), is dark at once." V. ness of my The Latin carried with him the name of the Hindu Fire-god to Truthfullittle purpose. In the hands of the Greek similar phrases on the thical desearching breath of the wind grew up into the legend of Hermes. scription. Nor can it be said that the instinct of the Greek was less true than that of the old Vedic poet to the sights of the natural world. If we recur with feelings of undiminished pleasure to the touching truthfulness of the language which tells of the Dawn as the bright being whom age cannot touch, although she makes men old, who thinks on the dwellings of men and shines on the small and great, we feel also that the "Homeric" poet, even while he spoke of a god in human form born in Delos, was not less true to the original character of the being of whom he sang. He thought of the sun rising in a cloudless heaven, and he told how the nymphs bathed the lord of the golden sword in pure water, and wrapped him in a spotless robe. Still, although the stress of the hymn lies wholly on the promise of Leto that her child shall have his chief home in Delos, the poet feels that Delos alone can never be his home, and so he sang how Apollôn went from island to island, watching the ways and works of men; how he loved the tall sea-cliffs, and every jutting headland, and the rivers which hasten to the broad sea, even though he came back with ever fresh delight to his native Delos.2 work of Thus the great mystery of Greek as of other mythology is dispelled Groundlike mist from the mountain-side at the rising of the sun. All that Aryan Myis beautiful in it is invested with a purer radiance, while much, if not thology. all, that is gross and coarse in it is refined, or else its grossness is traced to an origin which reflects no disgrace on those who framed or handed down the tale. Thus, with the keynote ringing in our ears, we can catch at once every strain that belongs to the ancient harmony, although it may be heard amid the din of many discordant voices. The groundwork of Greek mythology was the ordinary · ἔνθα σε, ήτε Φοῖβε, θεαὶ λούον ὕδατι ἁγνῶς καὶ καθαρῶς· σπάρξαν δ ̓ ἐν Hymn to Apollo, 120. This is the white and glistening robe in which Cyrus and Arthur are wrapped, when they are carried away from the house in which they were born. 3 Αὐτὸς δ', ἀργυρότοξε, ἄναξ, ἑκατηβόλε Απολλον, ἄλλοτε μέν τ' ἐπὶ Κύνθου ἐβήσαο ἄλλοτε δ ̓ αὖ νήσους τε καὶ ἀνέρας πᾶσαι δὲ σκοπιαί τε φίλαι καὶ ὑψηλῶν ὀρέων, ποταμοί θ' άλαδε ἀλλὰ σύ Δήλῳ, Φοίβε, μάλιστ ̓ ἐπι Hymn to Apollo, 140. BOOK speech which told of the interchange of day and night, of summer I. Greek dynastic legends. and winter; but into the superstructure there may have been introduced any amount of local or personal detail, any number of ideas and notions imported from foreign philosophical or religious systems. The extent of such importations is probably far less than is generally imagined; but however this may be, the original matter may still be traced, even where it exists only in isolated fragments. The robe with which Medeia poisons the daughter of Kreôn was a gift from Helios, the burning sun, and is seen again as the poisoned robe which Deianeira sends to the absent Heraklês; as the deadly arrow by which Philoktetes mortally wounds the Trojan Paris; as the golden fleece taken from the ram which bears away the children of (Nephelê) the mist; as the sword which Aigeus leaves under the stone for Theseus, the son of Aithra, the pure air; as the spear of Artemis which never misses its mark; as the sword of Perseus which slays all on whom it may fall; as the unerring weapons of Meleagros; as the fatal lance which Achilleus alone can wield. The serpents of night or of winter occur in almost every tale, under aspects friendly or unkind. The dragon sleeps coiled round Brynhild or Aslauga, as the snakes seek to strangle the infant Heraklês or sting the beautiful Eurydikê. If the power of the sun's rays is set forth under such different forms, their beauty is signified by the golden locks of Phoibos, over which no razor has ever passed;1 by the flowing hair which streams from the head of Kephalos, and falls over the shoulders of Perseus and Bellerophôn. They serve also sometimes as a sort of Palladion, and the shearing of the single golden lock which grew on the top of his head leaves Nisos, the Megarian king, powerless as the shorn Samson in the arms of the Philistines. In many of the legends these images are mingled together, or recur under modified forms. In the tale of Althaia there is not only the torch of day which measures the life of Meleagros, but the weapons of the chieftain which no enemy may withstand. In that of Bellerophôn there are the same invincible weapons, while the horrible Chimaira answers to the boar of Kalydon, or to that of Erymanthos which fell by the arm of Heraklês. If the greater number of Greek legends have thus been reduced to their primitive elements, the touch of the same wand will lay open others which may seem to have been fashioned on quite another model. Even the dynastic legends of Thebes will not resist the 1 Φοῖβος ἀκερσεκόμης (Iliad, xx. 39), a significant epithet, which of itself would suffice to give birth to such a legend as that of Nisos and Skylla. The shearing of the locks of the sun must be followed by darkness and ruin. |