Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/318

 294 '^^^ European Sky-god.

used in his own theology." Clement and Isidorus are alike intent upon showing that the Greeks borrowed all their wisdom from the Hebrews, so that we may probably discount " the prophecy of Cham." It is at least as likely that Pherecydes of Syros, who was a prominent Orphic teacher at Athens about the middle of the sixth century B.C., worked into his philosophic speculations a bit of genuine Greek folk-lore. In another passage"*^^ Clement quotes a sentence from Pherecydes himself : ^^ Zas made a great and beautiful mantle and embroidered tJiereon the earth and Ogetios and the abode of Ogenos." Ogenos was Oceanus,-^" so that the embroidered mantle represented both land and sea. Further light on the matter could hardly have been looked for. But, by a singular stroke of good fortune, a papyrus- scrap of the third century A.D., acquired by Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt"^^ for the Bodleian Library, was found to contain a couple of columns from the IlevreiJLV)(o<i, the lost work of Pherecydes ; which columns give us the context of the very sentence quoted by Clement. It now becomes clear that Pherecydes was describing the marriage of Zeus and Hera.-^" Zas or Zeus, among other preparations for the ceremony, made a richly-dight mantle representing land and sea, and apparently spread the same (by way of bridal couch ?) on the summit of a winged oak. In view of the

-"^ lb., 6. 2, p. 741, 16 ff. Potter, ^epeKvCT]^ 6 ^vpioc Xiyei ' ZctQ Troiel (papog fikya re Koi kclKov kol Iv avTi^ ttoikIWu yijv /cat ^Qyijvov Ka\ ra 'Qyi'/j'ou Sdifiara.

QKeavoQ.
 * '" Tzetz. in Lye. A/ex., 231, tov 'Qysvov koi 'i2K(m'ov, Ilesych., 'Qyi)v *

-" B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, Greek Papyri.. Second Series, No. Ii, p. 21 ff., pi. 4.

-'- Cp. Eratosth. cataster., 3, ^epsKvSrjQ yap (prjaiv, ore tyafiuro 1) "Hpa virb Aiog, (pepoirwi' avrfj rSiv OeCJv Sijjpa ttjv rijv tXOtXv ^kpovaav ra xpvcrsa fifjXa ' idovaav oe ri^v "U.pav 6avnd(raL koi ilirelv KaTa(l>vTivffai cIq tov twv 9(wv KfJTrov, OQ yv Trapd Tt^ "ArXavri ' i'lrb Se twv tKeirov TrapQkvuv ail vfatpovfievwv TiZv fitjXwv KaTtcTTi](Te tpvXaKa rbi' 6<piv inrepfityi-Qi] bvTa. Here too we have a snake-guarded tree brought into connexion with the supporter of the sky.