BOOK The gar Hespe rides. mother of the Hyades and the Hesperides, are at once explained. He is thus naturally the father of Hesperos, the most beautiful star of the heavens, who appears as the herald of Eôs in the morning and is again seen by her side in the evening. The Hellenic Heôsphoros, the Latin Lucifer, the Lightbringer, who is Phosphoros, is also called a son of Astraios and Eôs, the starlit skies of dawn.1 Far away in the west by the stream of the placid Ocean is dens of the the dwelling of the Hesperides, the children or sisters of Hesperos, the evening star, or, as they might also be termed, of Atlas or of Phorkys. This beautiful island which no bark ever approaches, and where the ambrosial streams flow perpetually by the couch of Zeus, is nevertheless hard by the land of the Gorgons and near the bounds of that everlasting darkness which is the abode of Ahi and Pani, of Geryon, Cacus, and Echidna. Hence the dragon Ladon guards with them the golden apples which Gaia gave to Hêrê when she became the bride of Zeus, these apples being the golden tinted clouds or herds of Helios, the same word being used to denote both. It remained only to give them names easily supplied by the countless epithets of the morning or evening twilight, and to assign to them a local habitation, which was found close to the pillars or the mountain of Atlas which bears up the brazen heaven above the earth. Atlas and 2 Atlas is thus brought into close connection with Helios, Hyperion. the bright god, the Latin Sol and our sun. In the Iliad and Odyssey he is himself Hyperîôn, the climber: in the Hesiodic Theogony, Hyperîôn becomes his father by the same process which made Zeus the son of Kronos,-his mother being Theia, the brilliant, or Euryphaessa, the shedder of the broad light. In the former poems he rises every morning from a beautiful lake by the deep-flowing stream of Ocean, and having accomplished his journey across the heaven plunges again into the western waters. Elsewhere this lake becomes a magnificent palace, on which poets lavished all their wealth of fancy; but this splendid abode is none So transparent are all these names, and so many the combinations in which they are presented to us, that even the later mythographers can scarcely have been altogether unaware of the sources of the materials with which they had to deal. 2 See note 5, p. 10. HYPERION. other than the house of Tantalos, the treasury of Ixîôn, the palace of Allah-ud-deen in the Arabian tale. Through the heaven his chariot was borne by gleaming steeds, the Rohits and Harits of the Veda; but his nightly journey from the west to the east is accomplished in a golden cup wrought by Hephaistos, or, as others had it, on a golden bed. But greater than his wealth is his wisdom. He sees and knows all things; and thus when Hekatê cannot answer her question, Helios tells Dêmêtêr to what place Korê has been taken, and again informs Hephaistos of the faithlessness of Aphroditê. It is therefore an inconsistency when the poet of the Odyssey represents him as not aware of the slaughter of his oxen by Eurylochos, until the daughters of Neaira bring him the tidings; but the poet returns at once to the true myth, when he makes Helios utter the threat that unless he is avenged, he will straightway go and shine among the dead. These cattle, which in the Vedic hymns and in most other Greek myths are the beautiful clouds of the Phaiakian land, are here (like the gods of the Arabian Kaaba), the days of the lunar year, seven herds of fifty each, the number of which is never increased or lessened; and their death is the wasting of time or the killing of the days by the comrades of Odysseus. 39 CHAP. II. The same process which made Helios a son of Hyperîôn Helios aud made him also the father of Phaëthôn. In the Iliad he is Phaëthôn. Helios Phaëthôn not less than Helios Hyperîôn; but when the name had come to denote a distinct personality, it served a convenient purpose in accounting for some of the phenomena of the year. The hypothesis of madness was called in to explain the slaughter of the boy Eunomos by Herakles ; but it was at the least as reasonable to say that if the sun destroyed the fruits and flowers which his genial warmth had called into life, it must be because some one who had not the skill and the strength of Helios was holding the reins of his chariot.' Hence in times of excessive heat or drought the phrase ran that Phaëthôn, the mortal son of an undying father, was unable to guide the horses of Helios, This is the Irish story of Cuchullin and Ferdiah. Fergusson, Irish before the Conquest. BOOK Patroklos and Telemachos. while the thunderstorm, which ended the drought and discomfited Vritra and the Sphinx, dealt also the deathblow to Phaethon and plunged him into the sea. The tears of the Heliades, his sisters, like the drops which fell from the eyes of Zeus on the death of his son Sarpêdôn, answer to the down-pouring rain which follows the discharge of the lightning. Phaëthôn, then, is strictly a reflection of his father with all his beauty and all his splendour, but without his discretion or his strength; and the charge given to him that he is not to whip the fiery steeds is of the very essence of the story. If he would but abstain from this, they would bring him safely to his journey's end; but he fails to obey, and is smitten. The parallel between this legend and that of Patroklos is singularly exact. Mr. Grote has remarked the neutral characters and vaguely defined personality both of Patroklos and of Telemachos, and we are justified in laying special stress on the fact that just as Phaëthôn is allowed to drive the horses of Helios under a strict charge that he shall not touch them with his whip, so Achilleus suffers Patroklos to put on his armour and ascend his chariot under the injunction that so soon as he has driven the Trojans from the ships he is not to attempt to pursue them to the city. Patroklos disobeys the command and is slain by Hektor; but the sorrow of the Heliades is altogether surpassed by the fiery agony of Achilleus. It is in truth impossible not to see the same weakened reflection of a stronger personality in the Latin Remus the brother of Romulus, in Arjuna the companion of Krishna, in Peirithoös the associate of Theseus, and in all the other mythical instances cited by Cicero as examples of genuine friendship. In the folk-lore of the East these secondaries, represented by faithful John in the Teutonic story, reappear as Luxman in the legend of Ramah, and as Butti in the tale of Vicram Maharajah. Nor can we fail to discern the same idea in the strange story of Absyrtos, the younger and weaker brother of the wise and unscrupulous Medeia, who scatters his limbs in the sea to stay the pursuit of Aiêtês,—a vivid image of the young sun as torn into pieces among the vapours that surround him, while the light falling ALKESTIS. II. 41 in isolated patches on the sea seems to set bounds to the CHAP. encroaching darkness which gives way before the conqueror of the clouds. age of kles. The slaughter of the Kyklôpes brought on Phoibos the The bondsentence of a year's servitude; and thus we have in the myth Phoibos of Apollon himself the germs of the hard bondage which and Heraweighs down Herakles through his whole career, and is only less prominent in the mythical histories of Perseus, Theseus, and other heroes, who, like Achilleus, fight in a quarrel which is not of their own choosing or making. The master whom Phoibos serves is one between whom and himself there is no such contrariety of will as marks the relations of Herakles with Eurystheus. He is no hard exacter of tasks set in mere caprice to tax his servant's strength to the utmost; but he is well content to have under his roof one who, like the Brownie of modern superstition, has brought with him health and wealth and all good things. One thing alone is wanting, and this even Phoibos cannot grant him. It is the life of Alkêstis, the pure, the devoted, the self-sacrificing, for it had been told to Admêtos that he might escape death, if only his parents or his wife would die in his stead, and Alkêstis has taken the doom upon herself." Thus in the very prime of her beauty she is summoned by Thanatos, death, to leave her home and children, and to cross with him the gloomy stream which separates the land of the living from the regions of the dead; and although Phoibos intercedes for a short respite, the gloomy being whose debtor she is lays his icy hands upon her and will not let her go until the mighty Herakles grapples with him, and having by main force rescued her from his grasp, brings her back to Admêtos. Such is the story told by Euripides, a story in which the character of Herakles is exhibited in a light of broad burlesque altogether beyond that of the Hymn to Hermes. We see in it at once the main features of the cognate legends. It is II. BOOK essentially the myth of Orpheus who like Admêtos must be parted from his lovely bride, and who differs from Admêtos only in this, that he must go and seek for her himself. In the one story the serpent stings and causes the death of Eurydikê: in the other, when Admêtos enters his bridal chamber on the day of his marriage, he sees on the bed a knot of twisted snakes, the omen of the grief that is coming. But although Alkêstis may die, death cannot retain dominion over her; and thus we have again the story of the simple phrases that the beautiful dawn or twilight, who is the bride of the sun, must die after sunset, if the sun himself is to live on and gladden the world with his light,-must die, if she herself is to live again and stand before her husband in all her ancient beauty. At this point the myth of Admêtos stops short, just as the Odyssey leaves the chief, after his toil is ended, with the faithful Penelopê, although it hints at a coming separation which is to end in death. The legend of Admêtos carries on the tale a step further, and the vanishing of Eurydikê just as she reaches the earth is the vanishing of Daphnê from Apollôn, of Arethousa from Alpheios, or it is the death of Prokris slain by the unwitting Kephalos. Character of Herakles. But this idea of servitude which is thus kept in the background in the myths of Apollôn serves as the links which connect together all the phases and scenes of the life of Herakles. He is throughout the toiling, suffering hero, who is never to reap any fruit of his labour, and who can be cheered even by the presence and the love of Iolê, only when the fiery garment is eating deep into his flesh. When this idea once became prominent, a series of tasks and of successful achievements of these tasks was the inevitable sequel. What is there which the sun-god in his majesty and power cannot accomplish? What part of the wide universe is there which his light cannot penetrate ? It mattered not whither or against what foes Eurystheus might send him; he must assuredly return triumphant over every adversary. On this fruitful stem would grow up a wealth of stories which mythographers might arrange according to any system suggested by their fancy, or which might be modified to suit any passing whim or local tradition and association; and so |