Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/290

 266 The European Sky -god.

not always bright and brilliant. As the rustic Corydon puts it in an idyll of Theocritus : ^

XM TitvQ aWoKa fiiv TrsXet aWpioQ, «/\\oKa d vEi. Ay, Zeus is sometimes fine and sometimes wet.

Hence the Greeks at a very early date extended the notion of Zeus as a bright sky-god to cover that of Zeus as a weather god.^ The man in the street said : " Zeus rains," " Zeus snows," " Zeus sends the hail." ^ The minstrel in the palace-hall was ready with high-sounding epithets : " He of the dark clouds " [Kekaive^rj^;), " He that rumbleth aloud" {ipLy8ov7ro<i), "He that hurleth the thunderbolt" (rep'irtKepavvo'i). In various localities Zeus was worshipped under special weather-titles, e.g. Zeus "the Thunderer" (BpovToJv), Zeus "of the Fair Wind" (EvdvefJbo<i), " Zeus of the Rain " ('Terio?).^'^ Marcus Aurelius ^^ has preserved the Athenian equivalent of our prayer " In the time of Dearth and Famine " : it runs as follows : —

vaov, iiaov, Hi (pi\e ZeD,

Kara rijg apovpUQ ri}c AOtjvaiiov icai tCov TnSioJV

Rain, 7-ain, dear Zeus,

On Athens' tilth and Athens' plains.

The same conception found an expression in art. On the Athenian acropolis Pausanias ^'^ saw " an image of Earth praying Zeus to rain upon her." And a bronze coin

^ Theocr., 4, 43.

« Preller-Robert, pp. 117 ff. ; Gruppe, pp. 1 1 10 ff. ; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, u, 44 ff.

^ E.g. II., 12. 25 f., lie 5' apa Zd'Q | avt'extc: ; Babr., 45. i, evi(pev 6 Zevg ; Eur., Tro., 78 f., Kal 7,tvc jiiv ofi[3pov icai xiiXa^av dffTrtTOv \ TTf/ivfet dpofuicii T alOepog (pvaijjiara.

'" On Zeus BpovTCjv of Phrygia, Galatia, &c., see Cumont in Pauly-Wissovva, iii. 891 f. On Zeus El/dvciios of Sparta, Preller-Rubert, p. 118. On Zeu 'Ytrioc of Lebadea, Argos, Cos, &c., Gruppe, p. mo, n. 2.

" Marc. Aur., 5. 7.

'- Paus., I. 24. 3, with PVazer's /i.