Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/301

 The European Sky -god. 277

We have seen that Zeus the sky-god was also a water- god and an earth-god ; that, in fact, the Orphic theologians were not far wrong, when they addressed the Sun as —

dyXae Zeu Aidi^Dire, irciTep ttovtov, Trarsp a'lrjc. " Shmi7ig Zetis-Dionystis, Father of the Sea, Father of the EarthP ^'

This differentiation and development of the attributes of Zeus explains, if I am not mistaken, the Homeric myth of the Cronidas. According to the Iliad,^^^ Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, the three sons of Cronus and Rhea, divided the world between them. When they cast lots, " Zeus received as his portion the broad sky in the upper air and in the clouds," Poseidon got " the hoary sea as a perpetual habitation," and Hades had " the thick darkness of the west." That it is really Zeus who in three aspects of his own being thus rules the three main divisions of the world, appears in the first place from various passages of ancient literature in which Poseidon is definitely identified with Zeus as a water-god and Hades with Zeus as an earth-god. Proclus^*^^ says of the three sons of Cronus : " The first ... is called by one name, Zeus ; the second, by two names, Zeus of the Sea and Poseidon ; the third, by three names, Zeus of the under-world and Pluto and Hades." The Etyniologicum Magmini'^^" similarly extends the meaning of the word Zeus : " It denotes four things : {a) ' God' or 'the sky,' as in //. 13. i 'When Zeus had brought the Trojans,' &c. {b) ' Poseidon,' as in Od. 5. 304(?) ' Zeus stirred up the sea/ &c. (c) ' The under-

^ Orph. hyvm.frag. 235 Abel.

"^ //. 15. 187 £f.

'"' Procl. in Plat. Crat., p. 88 Boiss., o \it.v -Trpairog .... KuXtirca fiovaSiKwg Zevq ' 6 Si StvrepoQ SvadiKwg /cuXeirai Ztvg ivaXiog cat UoffeiSuiv, 6 Si rpiToe TpiaSiKuiQ 7,evg KaTuxOoviog Kai UXovtojv kuI Aicijg.

'"^ Etym. Magn., 409, 4 ff., (rrjixaivei Si ricrtrapa ' tuv Oeov ») rbv oi'pavov, ojg TO "Zeiif S' iirei ovv Tpwag " — rbv UoaeiSiova, wg to " Zevg Si Kara TTOVTOV erapa^ev" — tov Karaxdoviov Oeov, wg to '•'■Zevg Si KaTaxGoviog", 6 UXovTwv, 'iXidSog i, — Kal tov i'jXiov, " iKer' alOipuKal Aiog avydg."