the flowings of Ocean and the Leukadian, or White Rock,1 which may have some connection with Leukotheë, the White-goddess. The sacred fount still connects Ino, who as the moon rules the sea, with water and she takes refuge with her horrid child in the deep, in the same way as Dionysos when flying from the wrath of Lykourgos; for all these Semitic divinities, Dionysos, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Hephaistos, and the rest, are connected with water, as having come across it to Hellas from the East. So, similarly, Europe, the broad-faced moon,' 2 and sister of Kadmos, and who is another phase of Ino, is borne over the sea on the back of the mystic bull. Again, Ino, as the moon and moon influence, is naturally hostile to Helle the bright nymph whose life is only sustained by the light of Helios. Thus the Natural Phenomena Theory, though to a far less extent, enters into and illustrates Semitic Mythology as well as Aryan; but here it is generally mixed with a subtle and delicate underlying Euemerism, which speaks of the clash of creeds and the contests of the human race, as well as of the movements and characteristics of the ever-varying phenomena of nature. Again, Ino with the infant Melikertes is a representative of the Mother and Child; but this is too wide a field of mythology to enter on here, suffice it to remark, that the Moonqueen of night is the mother of the young sun of the coming day, and was represented in this character as a crescent forming part of a circle. Creuzer, who has noticed the phase of Ino as a fostering mother, for in illustration of this and of the identity of Melikertes and Dionysos, it was Ino who in the mythic legend nurtured the latter when an infant after his mother's death," compares her with Juno, Juno Matuta, the matronly dawngoddess, and remarks that she is the mother of the 1 Od. xxiv. 11. 2 Theatre of the Greeks, 16. Apollod. iii. 4; sup. III. i. 1. morning light. In this case the name Ino will be Aryan, as Juno undoubtedly is, and appears to be connected with Zeus and many other familiar appellations.2 Ino has been hastily identified with Io, but this, though tempting, as their lunar characters are so harmonious, is doubtless incorrect. Creuzer well observes that most of the ideas connected with these lunar divinities spring from the Phoenician colony in Boiotia.' 4 One last glimpse of Ino shall pourtray her in her most favourable phase.5 We have seen how she becomes Leukothee the White-goddess, as the Semitic moon is Lebanah the Pale-shiner, as distinguished from the burning golden Tammuz. Whilst the tempest-tossed, muchenduring, Odysseus is driven wearily on his raft through the raging seas, the gentle Ino, once mortal but now a partaker of the honour of the gods, beholds and pities him. He had recently seen in the far distance the shadowy mountains of the happy Phaiakian land, rising like a shield from the dark sea. But Poseidon, on his return from Aithiopia, spies the injurer of his savage son the Kyklops, and with his trident stirs up the latent fury of the waves, covers earth and heaven with gloomy clouds, and lets loose the winds. Then, as the Poet particularly notices, Night started from heaven,' i.e. she sprang from the vast black mass of clouds above, that rained down darkness on the deep. The distant mountains disappear in the vortex of gloom, the raft is carried hither and thither, and Odysseus is hurled from it into the sea painfully he rises and clings to it again, but, as in the storm in Adria, hope has fled; all the bright lights of heaven are darkened over him, no star is visible; when 1 Symbolik und Mythologie, x. 586; cf. ibid. iv. 259; vii. 494; Gen. xxxiii. 14, 'The precious things put forth by the moon.' 2 Cf. Mythol. of the Aryan Na tions, i. 354. 3 Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 21, and many moderns. 4 Symb. iv. 236. 3 suddenly the silver arrow of Artemis pierces the gloom, 'from one lonely cloud the Moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.'.' The White-goddess, daughter of Kadmos, Ino, with-beautiful-ankle,1 saw him.' As the rising moon she came up from the deep,' according to mythic tradition near the coast of Messenia, and sat on the raft,' i.e. illumined it with her rays. Her appearing and disappearing above the sea and through the darkness is compared to the flight of a gannet or some other kind of sea-bird, and the simile shows that the goddess was imagined by the poet as a being generally above water, although closely connected with the sea. The friendly Ino foretells the escape of Odysseus, for, as we have seen, she is possessed of prophetic power, urges him to leave the raft and escape by swimming; and, lastly, makes him a present of her immortal kredemnon' to spread under his breast, wearing which he cannot perish. • Thus having spoken, the goddess gave him [Milton says she has "lovely hands,"] the kredemnon, and she back again into the billowing sea sank,' the term employed is used of the setting sun or stars, like a gannet; and the black wave concealed her.' It is to be remembered that to Odysseus on the raft the Moon would appear to sink in the sea when the waves dashing up high around and joining the dark above concealed her from him. Fearing treachery on the part of the goddess, he clings to the raft, which is at length broken in pieces by the waves, and Odysseus, after having been two nights and two days in the deep, at length, by the assistance of Athene and the kredemnon, gains the friendly shore. What, then, was the S lay listening on the mountains.' 4 As the moon is connected with the changes of many natural phenomena which her phases foretell. Vide Babylonian lunar portents, Trans. Soc. Bib. Archaeol. iii. 210 et seq. gift of Leukothee? The Kredemnon, or Headband, was a kind of scarf or flowing veil which was fastened to any covering for the head and descended over the shoulders. It would naturally be unsuitable for violent exercise, and so Nausicaa and her maidens lay aside their kredemna when about to play at ball.1 Several distinct ideas appear to unite in this incident of the story. Thus, the moon-scarf which Ino throws to Odysseus is the line of waving light across the waters coming from around her face, and by means of which he may find his way to land. But her crescent horns of light are the peculiar ornament of the Moon as a female goddess, and this emblem of IoIno is connected with the mystic boat or ship of the horned Uasi, which brings us round again to the coffin of Uasar, and the chests of the Mysteries.2 It would be too far a departure from the immediate subject to analyse these various ideas as connected with the lunar goddess, suffice it to say, that as a fostering mother, Juno-Matuta, her mystic life-boat preserves all, as somewhat similarly the Kamic divinities sail over the mysterious ocean in the boat of the Sun, which the struggles of the wicked serpent Apap threaten to overturn. Euripides wrote a tragedy entitled Ino, of which Stobaios, who seems to have been particularly partial to his writings, has preserved some fragments. Nonnos also, that diligent student of Dionysiak legends, has treated of her and Athamas at length.1 The Omophagia was celebrated in honour of Dionysos as Omophagos, Omadios, or Omestes, the Raw-flesh-eater, Zeus the Glutton, and possibly was rather an important part of the Agrionia and similar celebrations than a distinct. festival. In earlier times men were torn in pieces at it; in later ages, goats, whose entrails were devoured by the 1 Od. vi. 100. 2 Cf. sup. V. v. 4. 3 Cooper, Serpent Myths of Ancient Egypt, 40. 4 Nonnos, v. 198, ix. x. xxxix. 104, etc. 3 phrensied worshippers. When speaking of the myth of Zagreus,1 I shall have occasion to refer to this discerption and its mystic significance. In the Mysteries,' says Clemens Alexandrinus, the Bakchik votaries perform orgies in honour of the phrensied Dionysos, exciting their sacred madness with the eating of raw flesh.' 2 Euripides, as noticed, describes Dionysos as hunting for the blood of goat-slaughter, a raw-eaten delight,' and in another place, speaks of the mystics as fulfilling the life of the night-wandering Zagreus and the raw-flesh-eating feasts.'4 The Trieterika was a Triennial Festival in honour of the god and one legend stated that he instituted it on his return from India, his expedition thither having occupied three years." A similar festival was held in honour of his fellow Semitic divinity, Poseidon, who was also almost equally conspicuous for his raw-flesh-eating propensities.7 Euripides speaks of the raving Satyrs' as having added the dances of the Triennial Festivals in which Dionysos rejoices; '8 and Virgilius says of the deceived Dido, she rages with reason overthrown, and inflamed wanders wildly (bacchatur) through the whole city as a Thyiad aroused by the celebration of the sacred rites, when the Triennial Orgies spur her on as she hears the cry of Bacchus and Cithaeron at night calls her with uproar.' 10 This Festival appears to have obtained widely through Hellas, and was even carried into Skythia by Hellenik colonists. 11 It took place in winter, when Dionysos Antheus, the Blooming, is dead and the earth is stripped of its luxuriant vegetation.12 As the fierce wind tears off the withering leaves, the frantic votaries can wildly 1 Inf. IX. vi. 2 Protrept. ii. 12. 3 Bak. 139. 4 Sup. IV. iii. 5. 5 Vide inf. IX. vii. Indoletes. • Pind. Nem. vi. 69. 7 Cf. Diod. xi. 21; xiii. 86. 8 Sup. IV. iii. 2. 6 9 Cf. Ais. Hept. epi The. 493; Hippomedon 'raves for fight like a Thyiad.' 10 Aen. iv. 300-3. 11 Herod. iv. 108. 12 Cf. Creuzer, Symbolik, iv. 187. |