BOOK II. SwanMaidens and Apsaras. friend Patroklos. For the most part, indeed, they remain mere names; but their radiant forms are needed to fill up the background of those magnificent scenes in which the career of the short-lived and suffering sun is brought to a close. And beyond this, they answered a good purpose by filling the whole earth with a joyous and unfailing life. If it be said that to the Greek this earth was his mother, and that he cared not to rise above it, yet it was better that his thoughts should be where they were, than that he should make vain profession of a higher faith at the cost of peopling whole worlds with beings malignant as they were powerful. The effect of Christian teaching would necessarily invest the Hellenic nymphs with some portion of this malignity, and as they would still be objects of worship to the unconverted, that worship would become constantly more and more superstitious; and superstition, although its nature remains unchanged, is stripped of half its horrors when its objects are beings whose nature is wholly genial. This comparatively wholesome influence the idea of nymphs inhabiting every portion of the world exercised on the Hellenic mind. Each fountain and lake, each river and marsh, each well, tree, hill, and vale had its guardian, whose presence was a blessing, not a curse. As dwelling in the deep running waters, the nymphs who in name answer precisely to the Vedic Apsaras, or movers in the waters, have in some measure the wisdom of Nereus, Glaukos, and of Proteus; hence the soothsayer, as he uttered the oracles of the god, was sometimes said to be filled with their spirit. They guarded the flocks and fostered the sacredness of home, while on the sick they exercised the beneficent art and skill of Asklepios. These kindly beings must, however, be distinguished from the Swan-maidens and other creatures of Aryan mythology, whose nature is more akin to the clouds and vapours. The lakes on which these maidens are seen to swim are the blue seas of heaven, in which may be seen beautiful or repulsive forms, the daughters of Phorkys, Gorgons, Harpies, Kentaurs, Titans, Graiai, Phaiakians. Nor can it be said that Thetis, though called a Nereid, is in all points like the companions THETIS. among whom she dwells. She lives, indeed, in the sea; but she has been brought up by Hêrê the queen of the high heaven, and like the Telchînes and Kourêtes, like Proteus and Glaukos, she can change her form at will, and Peleus obtains her as his bride only when he has treated her as Aristaios treats the guardian of the ocean herds. She belongs thus partly to the sea, and in part to the upper air, and thus the story of her life runs through not a little of the mythical history of the Greeks. When Dionysos flies from Lykourgos, and Hephaistos is hurled down from Olympos, it is Thetis who gives them a refuge; and if she is married to a mortal man, it is only because at the suggestion, it is said, of Hêrê, she refuses to become the bride of Zeus, or as others would have it, because it was fated that her child should be mightier than his father-a myth which can be only solar in its character. In yet another version she plays the part of Aphroditê to Anchises in the Homeric Hymn, and wins Peleus as her husband by promising that his son shall be the most renowned of all the heroes. The story of her wedding carries us far away from her native element, and when, as in the Iliad, she preserves the body of Patroklos from decay, she appears rather in the character of the dawngoddess who keeps off all unseemly things from the slain Hektor. Nor is she seen in her true character as a Nereid, before the last sad scene, when, rising from the sea with her attendant nymphs, she bathes the body of her dead son, and wraps it in that robe of spotless white, in which the same nymphs folded the infant Chrysâôr. 259 CHAP. VI. and Am But as the sea-goddess thus puts on some of the qualities Tritons and is invested with some of the functions which might seem phitritê. to belong exclusively to the powers of the heavens and the light, so the latter are all connected more or less closely with the waters, and the nymphs might not unnaturally see their kinsfolk in Athênê Tritogeneia; in Daphnê, the child of the Peneian stream; in Phoibos Apollôn her lover, and in Aphroditê Anadyomenê herself. All these, indeed, whatever may be their destiny, are at their rising the offspring of Tritos (Triton), the lord of the waters. The Triton of Hellenic mythology, who dwells in his golden palace in the lowest depths BOOK The Seirens. Skylla and of the sea, rides on the billows which are his snow-crested horses. This god of the waters is reflected in Amphitrite, the wife of Poseidon in some versions, who is present at the birth of Phoibos in Delos. In the Odyssey she is simply the sea, purple-faced and loud-sounding. Another aspect of the great deep is presented in the Seirens, who by their beautiful singing lure mariners to their ruin. As basking among the rocks in the sunlit waters, they may represent, as some have supposed, the belts (Seirai) of deceitful calms against which the sailor must be ever on his guard, lest he suffer them to draw his ship to sandbanks or quicksands. But apart from the beautiful passage in the Odyssey, which tells us how their song rose with a strange power through the still air when the god had lulled the waves to sleep, the mythology of these beings is almost wholly artificial. They are children of Acheron and Steropê, of Phorkos, Melpomenê, and others, and names were devised for them in accordance with their parentage. In form they were half women, half fishes, and thus are akin to Echidna and Melusina; and their doom was that they should live only until some one should escape their toils. Hence by some mythographers they are said to have flung themselves into the sea and to have been changed into rocks, when Odysseus had effected his escape, while others ascribe their defeat to Orpheus. Other versions gave them wings, and again deprived them of them, for aiding or refusing to aid Dêmêtêr in her search for Persephonê. Nor are there wanting mythical beings who work their will among storm-beaten rocks and awful whirlpools. Among the former dwells Skylla, and in the latter the more. terrible Charybdis. These creatures the Odyssey places on two rocks, distant about an arrow's flight from each other, and between these the ship of Odysseus must pass. If he goes near the one whose smooth scarped sides run up into a covering of everlasting cloud, he will lose six of his men as a prey to the six mouths which Skylla will open to engulf them. But better thus to sacrifice a few to this monster with six outstretching necks and twelve shapeless feet, as she 1 See page 242. CHAP. VI. shoots out her hungry hands from her dismal dens, than to have the ships knocked to pieces in the whirlpool where Charybdis thrice in the day drinks in the waters of the sea, and thrice spouts them forth again. The peril may seem to be less. The sides of the rock beneath which she dwells are not so rugged, and on it blooms a large wild fig-tree,' with dense foliage; but no ship that ever came within reach of the whirling eddies ever saw the light again. In other words, Skylla is the one who tears her prey, while Charybdis swallows them; the one is the boiling surf beating against a precipitous and iron-bound coast, the other the treacherous back-currents of a gulf full of hidden rocks. The name Krataiis also given to her in the Odyssey denotes simply her irresistible power. This horrid being is put to death in many ways. In one version she is slain by Herakles, and brought to life again by her father Phorkys as he burns her body. In another she is a beautiful princess, who is loved by Zeus, and who, being robbed of her children by the jealous Hêrê, hides herself in a dismal cavern, and is there changed into a terrific goblin which preys upon little children. This Skylla, who is called a daughter of Lamia the devourer, is in fact the hobgoblin of modern tales, and was manifestly used by nurses in the days of Euripides much as nurses may use such names now to quiet or frighten their charges. In another version she refuses her love to the sea-god Glaukos, who betakes himself to Kirkê; but Kirkê instead of aiding him to win her, threw some herbs into the well where Skylla bathed and changed her into the form of Echidna. It is needless to cite other legends which are much to the same effect. The Megarian tradition brings before us another Skylla, The Megarian who is probably only another form of the being beloved by Skylla. Glaukos or Triton. Here the beautiful maiden gives her love to the Cretan Minos, who is besieging Megara to revenge the death of Androgeôs, and in order to become his wife she steals the purple lock on the head of her father Nisos, on which depended her own life and the safety of the 1 Preller here suspects a play between the words έρινεός and ἐρινύς. 2 τίς τ ̓ οὔνομα τὸ ἐπονείδιστον βροτοῖς 2 οὐκ οἶδε Λαμίας τῆς Λιβυστικῆς γένος; II. BOOK city. But she reaps no good from her treachery. In one story she is tied to the stern of the ship of Minos and drowned in the Saronic gulf; in another she throws herself into the water, as Minos sails away, and is turned into a bird, while her father, who has been changed into an eagle, swoops down after her into the sea. Zeus Poseidon. SECTION II.-THE LORD OF THE WATERS. Over all these beings of the world of waters Poseidon is in the later mythology exalted as the supreme king. His name, like that of Indra, exhibits him apparently as the god of moisture, the rain-bringer, who makes the thirsty earth drink and yield her fruits.' Hence in some myths he is the friend and guardian of Dionysos, and the lover of Dêmêtêr, who becomes the mother of Despoina and the horse Orion; and although he can descend to the depths of the sea and there dwell, yet he can appear at will on Olympos, and his power is exercised scarcely less in the heavens than in the depths beneath. Like Zeus, he is the gatherer of the clouds, and he can let loose the winds from their prison-house. But his empire was not well defined, and thus the myths relating to him turn chiefly on his contests with other deities, even with some towards whom he is generally friendly. It was not unnatural that the god of the waters which come from the heaven as well as of those which feed and form the sea, should wish to give his name to the lands and cities which are refreshed by his showers or washed by his waves. It was as natural that the dawn-goddess should wish the rocky heights on which her first beams rest to bear her name; and thus a contest between the two became inevitable. In the dispute with Zeus for Aigina, the water-god had been successful, and the island retained one of the many names denoting spots where break the waves of Poseidon. His power and his dwelling were in like manner seen at Aigai 1 Sein Name drückt die fussige Natur im weitesten Umfange aus. Die älteren Formen sind das dorische Ποσίδης und Ποσείδης (daher das Fest Пoσeideia und Пoσidov), woraus weiter hin Ποσειδάων, Ποσειδῶν, dor. Ποτιδάν, Ποτειδάν, 01. Ποτίδαν, Ποτείδαν, gewor den ist. Die Wurzel ist dieselbe wie in den Wörtern πότος, ποτίζω, ποταμός. Preller, Gr. Myth. i. 443. |