Myths of Greece and Rome - H. A. Guerber (classic literature list TXT) 📗
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As the names of the Greek gods and heroes have in a great measure been found to correspond with the Sanskrit names of physical things, we have been able to read some of the first thoughts of primitive man; and “the obvious meaning” of many words “did much to preserve vestiges of plain sense in classic legend, in spite of all the efforts of the commentators.”
According to the philologists, therefore, these thoughts had already assumed a definite form in the remote epoch when many nations, now scattered over the face of the earth, occupied the same country, spoke the same language, and formed but one people. Of course, “as long as such beings as Heaven or Sun are consciously talked of in mythic language, the meaning of their legends is open to no question, and the action ascribed to them will as a rule be natural and appropriate;” but with the gradual diffusion of this one people to various parts of the earth, the original meaning of these words was entirely lost, and they came to be looked upon eventually simply as the names of deities or heroes—very much in the way that the word “good-by” has long survived its original form as a conscious prayer, “God be with you!” and the word “ostracism” has lost all connection with an oyster shell.
The primitive meaning of a myth died away with the original meaning of a word; and it is because “the Greek had forgotten that Zeus (Jupiter) meant ‘the bright sky,’ that he could make him king” over a company of manlike deities on Olympus.
We can best explain how the many anomalies occur, and how the myths got so tangled up together that now it is almost impossible to disentangle them and trace them back to their original meanings, by comparing their descent through the ages to the course of a snowball, which, rolling down a mountain side, gathers to itself snow, earth, rocks, etc., until, in the vast agglomeration of kindred and foreign substances, the original nucleus is entirely lost to sight.
The fact that there are many different myths to explain the same phenomenon can readily be accounted for by the old saying, “circumstances alter cases.” Thus the heat of the sun, for example, so beneficial at certain times, may prove baleful and injurious at others.
The philologists, who believe that all myths (except the imitative myths, of which the tale of Berenice is a fair example) were originally nature myths, have divided them into a few large classes, which include the myths of the sky, the sun, dawn, daylight, night, moon, earth, sea, clouds, fire, wind, and finally those of the underworld and of the demons of drought and darkness.
SKY MYTHS.Taking them in the order in which they are presented in this work, we find among the myths of the sky, Uranus, whose name, like that of the old Hindoo god Varuna, is derived from the Sanskrit root var (“to veil, conceal, or cover”). This god was therefore a personification of the heavens, which are spread out like a veil, and cover all the earth; and we are further told that he hurled the thunder and lightning, his Cyclop children, down from his abode into the abyss called Tartarus.
Zeus (or Jupiter), whose name is the same as the Hindoo Dyaus Pitar, the god and personification of the bright sky or the heavens, has likewise been traced to the Sanskrit root div or dyu, meaning “to shine;” and there is also a noun dyu in that language which means either “sky” or “day.” In early times the name was applied to the one God, and was therefore “retained by the Greeks and all other kindred people to express all they felt toward God;” but as the word also meant the visible sky, with its ever-changing aspect, some of the phrases used to describe it came, in the course of time, to denote vile and fickle actions, and apparently inconsistent behavior.
The name of Hera (or Juno), the heavenly light, and therefore the complement and consort of the sky, is supposed to be derived from the Sanskrit soar (“the bright sky”) and surya (“the sun”); and all the manifold changes which at first merely denoted the varying atmosphere, by being personified, gradually gave the impression of the jealous, capricious, vengeful person whom poets and writers have taken pleasure in depicting ever since.
Another personification of the sky, this time under the nocturnal and starry aspect, is Argus, whose many bright eyes never closed all at once, but kept constant watch over the moon (Io)—confided to his care by the heavenly light (Juno)—until at last their beams were quenched by the wind and rain (Mercury).
SUN AND DAWN MYTHS.The myths of the sun, from which it is almost impossible to separate those of the dawn, are probably more numerous than any others, and have some main features of resemblance in all cases. The first sun myth mentioned in the course of this work is the story of Europa, in which Europa is “the broad spreading light,” born in Phœnicia (the “purple land of morn”), the child of Telephassa (“she who shines from afar”), carried away from her eastern birthplace by the sky (Jupiter), closely pursued by the sun (her brother Cadmus), who, after passing through many lands, slays a dragon (the usual demon of drought or darkness), and sets (dies) at last without having ever overtaken the light of dawn (Europa).
Apollo, whose name of Helios is pure Greek for “the sun,” had therefore not lost all physical significance for the Hellenic race, who worshiped in him the radiant personification of the orb of day. Another of his appellations, Phœbus (“the lord of life and light”), still further emphasizes his character; and we are informed that he was born of the sky (Jupiter) and of the dark night (Leto), in the “bright land” (Delos), whence he daily starts on his westward journey.
Like all other solar heroes, Apollo is beautiful and golden-haired, radiant and genial, armed with unerring weapons, which he wields for good or evil, as the mood sways him. He is forced to labor, against his will at times, for the benefit of man, as, for instance, when he serves Admetus and Laomedon; and the cattle, by which he evidently sets such store, are the fleecy clouds, pasturing “in the infinite meadows of heaven,” whose full udders drop down rain and fatness upon the land, which are stolen away either by the wind (Mercury), or the storm demon (Cacus), or the impious companions of Ulysses, who pay for their sacrilegious temerity with their lives.
The sun’s affinity for the dawn is depicted by his love for Coronis, who, however beloved, falls beneath his bright darts; and, as “the sun was regarded naturally as the restorer of life” after the blighting influence of winter and disease, so their offspring (Æsculapius) was naturally supposed to have been endowed with marvelous curative powers.
The sun, for the same reason, was supposed to wage continual warfare against cold, sickness, and disease, and to use his bright beams or arrows against the demon of drought, darkness, or illness (Python), which in some form or other inevitably appears in every solar myth.
In the story of Daphne, a name derived from Dahana, the Sanskrit dawn, we find another version of the same story, where the sun, although enamored with the dawn, causes her death. As some mythologists have interpreted it, Daphne is a personification of the morning dew, which vanishes beneath the sun’s hot breath, and leaves no trace of its passage except in the luxuriant verdure.
In Cephalus and Procris the sun again appears, and his unerring spear unwittingly causes the death of his beloved Procris “while she lingers in a thicket (a place where the dew lingers longest).” This interpretation has been further confirmed by philological researches, which prove that the name “Procris” originated from a Sanskrit word meaning “to sprinkle;” and the stories evidently arose from three simple phrases,—“‘the sun loves the dew,’ ‘the morning loves the sun,’ and ‘the sun kills the dew.’”
In the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, while some mythologists see in him a personification of the winds, which “tear up trees as they course along, chanting their wild music,” others see an emblem of “the morning, with its short-lived beauty.” Eurydice, whose name, like that of Europa, comes from a Sanskrit word denoting “the broad spreading flush of the dawn across the sky,” is, of course, a personification of that light, slain by “the serpent of darkness at twilight.”
Orpheus is also sometimes considered as the sun, plunging into an abyss of darkness, in hopes of overtaking the vanishing dawn, Eurydice; and as the light (Eurydice) reappears opposite the place where he disappeared, but is no more seen after the sun himself has fairly risen, “they say that Orpheus has turned around too soon to look at her, and so was parted from the wife he loved so dearly.”
His death in the forest, when his strength had all forsaken him, and his severed head floated down the stream murmuring “Eurydice,” may also, perchance, have been intended to represent either the last faint breath of the expiring wind, or the setting of the sun in blood-tinged clouds.
In the story of Phaeton, whose name means “the bright and shining one,” a description of the golden palace and car of the sun is given us. We are told that the venturesome young charioteer, by usurping his father’s place, causes incalculable mischief, and, in punishment for his mismanagement of the solar steeds (the fleecy white clouds), is hurled from his exalted seat by a thunderbolt launched by the hand of Jupiter.
“This story arose from phrases which spoke of drought as caused by the chariot of Helios, when driven by some one who knew not how to guide his horses; and the smiting of Phaeton by the bolt of Zeus is the ending of the time of drought by a sudden storm of thunder.”
The story of Diana and Endymion has also been interpreted as a sun myth, in which the name “Endymion” refers specially to the dying or setting sun, who sinks to rest on Mount Latmus (“the land of forgetfulness,” derived from the same root as “Leto”). Müller, the great authority in philology, tells us, that, in the ancient poetical and proverbial language of Elis, people said, “Selene loves and watches Endymion,” instead of saying, “It is getting late;” “Selene embraces Endymion,” instead of, “The sun is setting and the moon is rising;” “Selene kisses Endymion into sleep,” instead of, “It is night.”
These expressions remained long after their real meaning had ceased to be understood; and, as the human mind is generally as anxious for a reason as ready to invent one, a story arose without any conscious effort, that Endymion must have been a young lad loved by a young maiden, Selene.
In the story of Adonis some mythologists find another sun myth, in which Adonis, the short-lived sun, is slain by the boar, the demon of darkness, and passionately mourned by the dawn or twilight (Venus), who utterly refuses to exist without him.
In the story of Tantalus (the sun), who in time of drought offers to Jupiter the flesh of his own offspring, Pelops (the withered fruits), and in punishment for his impiety is doomed to hunger and torturing thirst, we have again merely a story founded upon an expression used in time of drought, when the sun’s heat, becoming too intense, burns up the fruit his fostering rays had produced, and men exclaimed, “Tantalus is slaying and roasting his own child!”
In the same way the stone which Sisyphus painfully forced up a steep ascent, only to see it go
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