DELOS AND ORTYGIA. II. 23 bright land (Delos) of the Dawn. A toilsome journey lies CHAP. before her; and the meaning of the old myth is singularly seen in the unconscious impulse which led the hymn-writer to speak of her as going only to lofty crags and high mountain summits.' Plains and valleys it would obviously be useless to seek; the light of the sun must rest on the hill tops long before it reaches the dells beneath. In another version, she is said to have been brought in twelve days from the land of the Hyperboreans to Delos in the form of a shewolf, Lukos, a phrase which carries us to the story of Lykâôn, and to the interpretation given to the name of the Lykeian Apollôn. So again in the Phoinix or palm, round which Letô casts her arms, we have that purple hue of dawn which marks the early home of the children of Agênôr and Têlephassa. But there were other traditions about his birth. Any word expressing the ideas of light and splendour might be the name of his birthplace; and so the tale ran that Apollôn and Artemis were both born in Ortygia, the land of the quail, the earliest bird of spring, and thus of the early morning. No mythical incidents were attached to his epithet Lykêgenês; but this name speaks of him simply as born in that land of light, through which flows the Xanthian or golden stream, and where dwell Sarpêdôn, the creeping flush of morning, and Glaukos the brilliant, his friend. He is the Phanaian1 or glistening king, who gave his name to the Chian promontory on which his worshippers assembled to greet him. 3 Phoibos. In the Delian hymns Apollôn soon attains his full might The infant and majesty. Still for a time he lies still and helpless, with a golden band around his body which is clad in white swaddling clothes. These white mists which seem to cling to the rising sun are wrapped more tightly round the Theban Oidipous, and the golden band gives place to the nails which pierce his feet when he is exposed on the heights of Kithairôn. 1 Hymn. Apoll. 30-45. 2 The myth was regarded as accounting for a supposed fact connected with the breeding of wolves.-Grote, History of Greece, i. 62. * Europe, the broad spreading dawn, is necessarily the child of the being who sends her light from afar; and the con- BOOK II. 2 But in both alike the time of weakness is short. Oidipous returns to Thebes, mighty in strength of arm and irresistible in wisdom, to slay the terrible Sphinx. In one version Phoibos is only four days old when, hurrying to Parnassos, he slays the dragon which had chased his mother Lêtô in her wanderings to Delos. The more elaborate legend of the Hymn places the slaying of the Python later in his career; but like the Sphinx, Python' is not only the darkness of night, but the black storm-cloud which shuts up the waters, and thus it guards or blockades the fountain which is to yield water for the Delphian temple. In other respects the later of the two poems woven together in the Homeric hymn is as transparent in meaning as the earlier. In both Phoibos journeys gradually westward; in both riches and glory are promised to those who will receive him. But the bribe is held out in vain to the beautiful fountain Telphoussa, near whose waters Phoibos had begun to lay the foundations of a shrine. By warnings of the din of horses and of cattle brought thither to watering she drove him away, and Phoibos following her counsel betook himself to Parnassos, where Trophonios and Agamêdês raised his world-renowned home. It is at this point that the author of the hymn introduces the slaughter of the worm or dragon to account for the name Pytho, as given to the sanctuary from the rotting of its carcase in the sun; 3 and thence he takes Apollôn back 1 Pythôn is here called the nurse of Typhâôn, the dragon-child or monster, to which Hêrê gives birth by her own unaided power, as Athênê is the daughter of Zeus alone. Typhâôn, one of the many forms of Vritra, Ahi, and Cacus, stands to Hêrê, the bright goddess of the upper air, in the relation of the Minotauros to the brilliant Pasiphaê, wife of Minos. 2 In a Slovakian legend the dragon sleeps in a mountain cave through the winter months, but at the equinox bursts forth. "In a moment the heaven was darkened, and became black as pitch, only illumined by the fire which flashed from the dragon's jaws and eyes. The earth shuddered, the stones rattled down the mountain sides into the glens; right and left, left and right, did the dragon lash his tail, overthrowing pines and bushes, and snapping them as reeds. He evacuated such floods of water that the mountain torrents were full. But, after a while, his power was exhausted; he lashed no more with his tail, ejected no more water, and spat no more fire." I think it impossible not to see in this description a spring-tide thunderstorm.' -Gould, Werewolf, p. 172. The word is connected by Sophokles not with the rotting of the snake but with the questions put to the oracle. The latter is the more plausible conjecture; but the origin of the word is uncertain, as is also that of Apollon, of which Welcker (Griechische Götterlehre, i. 460) regards Apellon as the genuine form, connecting it in meaning with the epithets ἀλεξίκακος, ἀποτρόπαιος, ἀκέσιος, and others. This, however, is probably as doubtful as the derivation which con THE FISH SUN. to Telphoussa, to wreak his vengeance on the beautiful fountain which had cheated him of a bright home beside her glancing waters. The stream was choked by a large crag, the crag beetling over Tantalos, which he toppled down upon it, and the glory departed from Telphoussa for ever. 25 СНАР. nios. II. It now remained to find a body of priests and servants for Phoibos his Delphian sanctuary, and these were furnished by the Delphicrew of a Cretan ship sailing with merchandise to Pylos. In the guise of a dolphin Phoibos urged the vessel through the waters, while the mariners sat still on the deck in terror as the ship moved on without either sail or oar along the whole coast of the island of Pelops. As they entered the Krisaian gulf a strong zephyr carried them eastward, till the ship was lifted on the sands of Krisa. Then Apollon leaped from the vessel like a star, while from him flew sparks of light till their radiance reached the heaven, and hastening to his sanctuary he showed forth his weapons in the flames which he kindled. This done, he hastened with the swiftness of thought back to the ship, now in the form of a beautiful youth, with his golden locks flowing over his shoulders, and asked the seamen who they were and whence they came. In their answer, which says that they had been brought to Krisa against their will, they address him at once as a god, and Phoibos tells them that they can hope to see their home, their wives, and their children again no more. But a higher lot awaits them. Their name shall be known throughout the earth as the guardians of Apollôn's shrine, and the interpreters of his will. So they follow him to Pytho, while the god leads the way filling the air with heavenly melodies. But once more they are dismayed as they look on the naked crags and sterile rocks around them, and ask how they are to live in a land thus dry and barren. The answer is that they should have all their hearts' desire, if only they would avoid falsehood in words and violence in deed. Such was the legend devised to account for the name and The Fishthe founding of the Delphian temple. It is obviously a myth nects Phoibos with pws, light. By Professor Max Müller the latter name is identified with the Sanskrit Bhava, a word belonging to the same family with the sun. BOOK II. Phoibos and Hermes. which cannot be taken by itself. Phoibos here traverses the sea in the form of a fish, and imparts lessons of wisdom and goodness when he has come forth from the green depths. He can assume many forms, and appear or vanish as he pleases. All these powers or qualities are shared by Proteus in Hellenic story, as well as by the fish-god, Dagon or Onnes, of Syria; and the wisdom which these beings possess is that hidden wisdom of Zeus which, in the Homeric hymn, Phoibos cannot impart even to Hermes. So in the Vishnu Purana the demon Sambara casts Pradyumna, the son of Vishņu, into the sea, where he is swallowed by a fish, but he dies not and is born anew from its belly.' The story must be taken along with those of the Frog prince, of Bhekî, and of the Fish-rajah in Hindu fairy tales. Doubtless it is the same dolphin which appears in the story of Arion, but the fish not less than the harp has lost something of its ancient power.3 In this myth Phoibos acts from his own proper force. Here, as in the hymn to Hermes, he is emphatically the wise and the deep or far-seeing god. The lowest abyss of the sea is not hidden from his eye, but the wind can never stir their stormless depths. His gift of music was not, however, his own from the first. His weapons are irresistible, and nothing can withstand the splendour of his unveiled form; but he must live in a world of absolute stillness, without mist and without clouds, until the breath of the wind stirs the stagnant air. Hermes then is the maker of the harp and the true lord of song; and the object of the hymn is to account for the harmony existing between himself and Phoibos, from whom he receives charge over the bright and radiant clouds which float across the blue seas of heaven. It is impossible to lay too much stress on this difference of 2 See vol. i. pp. 165, 400. The story of the Frog-prince agrees closely with the Gaelic tale of the Sick Queen (Campbell, ii. 131), for whom none but the Frog can supply the water of life. 1 Translation of H. H. Wilson, herself into a duck; or who becomes a p. 575. lily in a hedge, while Roland plays on his flute a tune which makes the witch, like the Jew on the thorns, dance till she drops down dead. The same transformations occur in the stories of FirApple and the Two Kings' Children, in Grimm's collection, and in the Norse tales of Dapplegrim and Farmer Weathersky. The power of Phoibos and Proteus is shared by Thetis, and again in Grimm's story of Roland, by the maiden, who changes her lover into a lake, and SISYPHOS AND IXÎÔN. inherent attributes. Hermes may yield up his harp to Phoibos, as the soft breezes of summer may murmur and whisper while leaves and waters tremble in the dazzling sunlight; but willing though Phoibos may be to grant the prayer of Hermes to the utmost of his power, it is impossible for him to give to the god of the moving air a share in the secret counsels of Zeus.1 27 CHAP. and Essentially, then, there is no distinction between Phoibos Phoibos and Helios. Both are beings of unimaginable brightness; Helios. both have invulnerable weapons and the power of wakening and destroying life; both can delight and torment, bring happiness or send scorching plagues and sicknesses; both have wealth and treasures which can never be exhausted; both can mar the work which they have made. That each of these qualities might and would furnish groundwork for separate fables, the whole course of Aryan mythology fully shows. Their wisdom would be shown by such words as Sisyphos, Metis, Medeia; their healing powers by the names Akesios, Sôtêr, Akestôr; and both these faculties might be conceived as exercised in opposition to the will of Zeus. The alternations of beneficence and malignity would mark them as capricious beings, whose wisdom might degenerate into cunning, and whose riches might make them arrogant and overbearing. But for these things there must be punishments; and thus are furnished the materials for a host of myths, every one of which will be found in strict accordance with the physical phenomena denoted by the phrases of the old mythical or myth-generating speech. The words which spoke of the sun as scorching up the fruits and waters which he loves would give rise to the stories of Tantalos and Lykâôn; the pride of the sun which soars into the highest heaven would be set forth in the legend of Ixîôn; the wisdom which is mere wisdom would be seen in the myths of Sisyphos or Medeia. The phrases which described the sun as revolving daily on his four-spoked cross, or as doomed to sink in the sky when his orb had reached the zenith, There is nothing surprising in the fact, that later versions, as those of Kallimachos and Ovid, describe Apollon as himself inventing the lyre and build ing the walls of Troy, as Amphiôn |