BOOK II. dreary hours which pass between the setting of the sun and its rising? What must be the history of the silent time ending in the battle which precedes the defeat of the powers of darkness? That mighty conflict they might see every morning in the eastern heavens, as the first light flickers faintly across the sky, only to be driven back, as it would seem, until it returns with fresh strength and aided by new friends but the incidents which went before this strife they could not see. All that was before their eyes reminded them of the hosts of vapours, some bright, some murky, which had been marshalled round the dying sun; and the same forms are now seen, the dark clouds being gradually driven away or being even changed from foes into friends as the sunlight turns their blackness into gold. But the bright clouds, sailing along in unsullied purity are especially the children of Helios, the offspring of the union of Ixîôn and the lovely Nephelê. These then have sought him through the long hours of the night, and at length have rescued him from the gloomy prison house. There is thus the daily taking away in the West of all that gives life its value, of all on which life itself depends; and it must be taken away by robbers utterly malignant and hateful. Thus there is also the nightly search for these thieves,-a search which must be carried on in darkness amidst many dangers and against almost insurmountable obstacles; and this search must end in a terrible battle, for how should the demons yield up their prey until their strength is utterly broken? But even when the victory is won, the task is but half achieved. The beautiful light must be brought back to the Western home from which the plunderers had stolen it; and there will be new foes to be encountered on the way, storm clouds and tempests, black vapours glaring down with their single eye. fierce winds, savage whirlpools. But at length all is done. and the radiant maiden, freed from all real or fancied stains of guilt, gladdens her husband's house once more, before the magic drama of plunder, rescue, and return is acted over again; and it is precisely this magic round which furnishes all the materials for what may be called the mythical history not only of Greece but of all the Aryan nations. If the RECURRING CYCLES. 149 III. features are the same in all, if there is absolutely no political CHAP. motive or interest in any one which may not be found more or less prominent in all the rest, if it is every where the same tale of treasure stolen, treasure searched for and fought for, treasure recovered and brought back, why are we to suppose that we are dealing in each case with a different story? Why are we to conjure up a hundred local conflicts each from precisely the same causes, each with precisely the same incidents and the same results? Why are we to think that the treasures of Eôs are not the treasures of Helen, that Helen's wealth is not the wealth of Brynhild, and that Brynhild's riches are not the dower of the wife of Walthar of Aquitaine? Why, when myth after myth of the Hellenic tribes exhibits the one ceaseless series. of precious things taken away and after fearful toils recovered, and after not less terrible labours brought back, are we to believe that the errand on which the Achaian chieftains depart from Hellas is in every case different? If it be urged that such movements are those of a squirrel in its cage, and that such movements, though they may be graceful, yet must be monotonous, the answer is that not only is the daily alternation of light and darkness proved to be monotonous, but all the incidents and the whole course of human life may be invested with the same dull colouring. Men are married, love and hate, get wealth or struggle in poverty, and die; and the monotony is broken only when we have distinguished the toils and acts of one man from those of another and learnt to see the points of interest which meet us every where on the boundless field of human life, as they meet us also in all the countless aspects of the changing heavens. There is in short no dulness except in those who bring the charge; and the story of Daphne and Echo does not lose its charm because it is all told over again in the legends of Arethousa and Selênê. of this myth The taking away of precious things, and the united search Repetition of armed hosts for their recovery come before us first in the great myth of the Argonautic Voyage. The tale is repeated under difin the stealing of Helen and her treasures, and is once more forms. told in the banishment of the Herakleidai and their efforts, at last successful, to recover their lost inheritance. These ferent myths fall into a regular series, and are repeated until we find ourselves on the confines of genuine history, which cuts the threads of the mythical drama just where it happens to meet them; and we leave the subject in the full confidence that the radiant maiden would have been stolen and the children of the sun banished from the west yet many times more under different names and circumstances sufficiently varied, had not men been awakened to the need of providing in contemporary writing a sure means for the preservation of historical facts. Into the Argonautic story, as into the mythical histories or sagas which follow it, a number of subordinate legends have been interwoven, many of which have been already noticed as belonging to the myths of the heavens and the light, clouds, waters, winds, and darkness; and we have now only to follow the main thread of the narrative from the moment when Phrixos,' the child of the mist, has reached the Kolchian land and the home of king Aiêtês, a name in which we recognise one of the many words denoting the breath or motion of the air. Hellê, the warm and brillianttinted maiden, has died by the way, and the cold light only remains when the golden-fleeced ram, the offspring of Poseidôn and Theophanê, the lord of the air and the waters, and the bright gleaming sky, reaches its journey's end. The treasures of the day, brought to the east, are now in the words of Mimnermos represented by a large fleece in the town of Aiêtês, where the rays of Helios rest in a golden chamber.' These treasures must be sought out so soon as the man destined to achieve the task is forthcoming. He is found by the same tokens which foretold the future greatness of Oidipous, Perseus, Têlephos, Romulus, or Cyrus. Pelias, the chief of Iolkos, who had driven away his brother Neleus, had been told that one of the children of Aiolos would be his destroyer, and decreed therefore that all should be slain. Iason only (a name which must be classed with the many others, Iasion, Iamos, Iolaos, Iaso, belonging to the same The name belongs apparently to the same root with Prokris, vol. i., p. 430, and is thus connected with oploow, our freeze, the story of the spoiling of the corn being the result of a false etymology. ORPHEUS AND THE ARGONAUTAI. 151 III. root), is preserved, and brought up like Achilleus by the СНАР. wise Kentaur Cheiron, the son or descendant of Ixîôn and Nephelê, the sun and the cloud. The child grows up: Pelias receives another warning to be on his guard against the onesandalled man; and he discerns his enemy when Iasôn appears with one foot only shod, having dropped the other slipper into the stream Anauros. There is nothing, however, that he can do beyond putting him to the perfermance of impossible tasks; and thus as Eurystheus sent Herakles on hopeless errands, so Pelias thinks to be rid of Iasôn by bidding him bring the golden fleece back to Iolkos.' The journey is too long and across seas too stormy, and the toil is too great for any one man, be he ever so mighty; and as all the kinsfolk of Hellê are equally sufferers by the robbery, so all must unite to avenge her wrongs and regain her wealth. From all parts they come together, fifty in number, like the children of Danaos and Aigyptos, of Thestios and Asterodia, to the building of the great ship Argo, which Athênê endows with the gift of speech and the power, possessed also by the Phaiakian barks, of understanding the thoughts of men. But before they could leave their own land there was need of yet farther help to enable them to tame the fury of savage beasts, birds, and creeping things; and thus Iasôn betakes himself to the harper Orpheus, whose sweet tones no living thing can withstand. He alone can find his way to the utmost bounds of darkness and return in safety; and the tidings that Orpheus would accompany them scattered the gloom which was gathering thickly on the hearts of the Argonautai. His power is soon shown. In spite of all efforts to dislodge her, the Argo remains fast fixed to the spot on which she was built; but at the sound of the harp of Orpheus it went down quickly and smoothly into the sea. Before she sets out on her perilous voyage, Cheiron gives them a feast, and a contest in music follows between the Kentaur, who sings of the wars with the Lapithai, and It is scarcely necessary to notice the many versions of this myth. In some we have the Enîpeus or the Evênos instead of the Anauros; in others Iasôn loses his sandal while carrying across the stream Hêrê, who loves him and has assumed the form of an old woman, that BOOK II. The Argonautic Voyage. Orpheus, who, like Hermes, discourses of all things from Chaos downwards, of Eros and Kronos and the giants, like the song of the winds which seem to speak of things incomprehensible by man. Setting out from Iolkos, the confederate chiefs reach Lemnos, while the island is seemingly suffering from the plagues which produced the myths of the Danaides in Argos. Like them, the Lemnian women all kill their husbands, one only, Thoas, being saved, like Lynkeus, by his daughters and his wife Hypsipylê. These women yield themselves to the Argonautai, as the Danaides take other husbands when they have slain the sons of Aigyptos. In the country of the Doliones they are welcomed by the chief Kyzikos, who, however, is subsequently slain by them unwittingly and to their regret. In Amykos, the king of the Bebrykes, or roaring winds, they encounter Namuki, one of the Vedic adevas or enemies of the bright gods, who slays Polydeukes, the twin brother of Kastor. In the Thrakian Salmydessos they receive further counsel from Phineus the seer, who suffers from the attacks of the Harpyiai, a foe akin to the Bebrykes. In gratitude for his deliverance from these monsters, Phineus tells them that if they would avoid beirg crushed by the Symplêgades, or floating rocks, which part asunder and close with a crash like thunder, they must mark the flight of a dove, and shape their course accordingly. The dove loses only the feathers of its tail; and the Argo, urged on by the power of Hêrê, loses only some of its stern ornaments, and henceforth the rocks remain fixed for ever. The 1 That this incident is precisely the same as the story of the sojourn of Odysseus in the land of the Lotophagoi, is manifest from the phrase used in the Argonautics. They all, we are told, forgot the duty set before them, nor would they have left the island, but for the strains of Orpheus which recalled them to their sense of right and law, 490. Thus this incident throws light on the nature of the enjoyments signified by the eating of the lotos. See P. 120. 2 Max Müller, Chips, &c. ii. 188. It has been supposed that the 3 in the ages during which the myth was developed were seen in the Black Sea, and which melted away at the mouth of the Bosporos. In support of the position that the myth thus points to physical phenomena now no longer known in that sea, Mr. Paley remarks that their name Kyaneai is very significant. and that they are described as rolling and plunging precisely as icebergs are often seen to do.' When the Pontus was a closed lake, as even human tradition distinctly states that it once was (Diod. S. v. 47), it was very likely indeed, especially towards the close of a glacial period, that a great accumulation |