Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 2).djvu/202

188 sets aside a seventh portion "for Hermes and the nymphs" who haunt the lonely uplands. Yet his offering has no magical intent of constraining the immortals. "One thing god will give, and another withhold, even as he will, for with him all things are possible."

Such is a Homeric ideal of piety, and it would only gain force from contrast with the blasphemy of Aias, "who said that in the god's despite he had escaped the great deep of the sea."

The epics sufficiently prove that a noble religion may coexist with a wild and lawless mythology. That ancient sentiment of the human heart which makes men listen to a human voice in the thunder and yearn for immortal friends and helpers, lives its life little disturbed by the other impulse which inspires men when they come to tell stories and romances about the same transcendent beings.

There are moments when, as we study the legend of Zeus, we could almost pity a god who is by no means so black as he was painted.

As to the actual original form of the faith in Zeus, we can only make guesses. To some it will appear that Zeus was originally the clear bright expanse which was taken for an image or symbol of the infinite. Others will regard Zeus as the bright sky, but the bright sky conceived of in savage fashion, as a being with human parts and passions, a being with all the magical accomplishments of metamorphosis, rain-making, and the rest, with which the medicine-man is credited.