Page:Mythology Among the Hebrews.djvu/143

Rh when he sets he is swallowed by a mighty fish, waiting for him at the bottom of the sea. Then when he appears again on the horizon, he is spit out on the shore by the sea-monster.

Accordingly, when Chrysôr is said to have been the first navigator, this must have the same meaning that it has when applied to Apollo, viz. that the Sun, sinking and going down into the ocean, is taking a journey by sea; or when applied to the Tyrian Herakles, the builder of the city (building of cities we shall see to be a specially solar characteristic), called the inventor of navigation; or when used of Prometheus, recounting before the descendants of Okeanos his benefits conferred on mankind, and saying:—

Learn, in a word, the sense of all I mean: Prometheus gave all arts to mortal men;

without forgetting to allude to the ships:—

The seaman's chariot roaming o'er the sea With flaxen wings none other found—'twas I.

Now if this trait raises the solar character of Chrysôr to a certainty, then it cannot be doubted that his epithet the 'Opener,' which is identical with the Hebrew name