Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/289

 The European Sky -god. 265

The Greeks.

The supreme deity of the Greeks was essentially a sky- god.^ As such he was called the " Bright" One, his name Zeu? being referable to a root that means " to shine " and implies the "daylight."^ Thus — to give but one example — the Iliad links together " the clear air and the rays of Zeus," where, as the scholiast ad loc. observes, by " the rays of Zeus" the poet means the sky.^ Empedocles^ speaks of elemental fire as Zei"? apjr]<^, i.e., "Zeus the brilliant"; and it is probable that Argus, a hero who figures largely in Greek mythology,^ was at bottom none other than the "Brilliant" sky-god.^

This primary conception of Zeus as a sky-god developed in two secondary directions. On the one hand, the sky is

' See e.g. Preller- Robert, Griechische Mythologie, p. 115 ff., Gruppe, Grie- chische Mythologie u. Religionsgeschichie, p. 1 100 ff.

- O. Schrader, Reallexikon der Indogermanischen Alterttimsknnde, p. 670, K. Brugmann, Kurze vergleichende Grainmatik der Indogerinanischen Sprachen, p. 312, alib. Two misleading explanations may here be noted, (i) E. H. Meyer, Germaitiscke Mythologie, pp. 182, 220, holds that Ziv; denotes properly the "hurler" or "discharger" of rays (r/. H. Grassmann, Wdrtcrbtuh ztim Rig- veda, p. 600, s.v. div) and infers that he must have been the lightning-god, not as is commonly supposed the god of bright daylight. But the frequent use of the word dyaus in the Rig-veda for " sky" or " day " (A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, p. 21) and the existence of the Latin dies beside Diespiter are conclusive in favour of the common view. (2) Against Dr. Frazer's sugges- tion {The Golden Bough, ^ iii. 456 f.) that Zeus was named " Bright" as being the oak-god, i.e. god of the tree whose wood was used in fire-making, I have elsewhere protested QClass. Rev., xvi. 372), as has Gruppe {pp. cit. p. 1 100, n. 2).

3 //., 13. 837 with schol. B.


 * Emped.y^a^. 6 Diels.

eponym of Argos, by Jessen (Roscher, Lexikonder Griechischeti ti. R'omischen Mythologie, iii. 1549) and Wernicke (Pauly-Wissowa, Real-encyclopddie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ii. 797 f.).
 * Argus the builder of the ship Argo is identified with Argus Havo^Tw, the

^ Class Rev., xviii. 75, 82. The adjective apyo? denotes " brilliant."