Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/534

 442 NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. VL DKC. s, 1900. that her body gradually changed its form, and after some months she found herself about to become a mother, the child when born exactly resembling its parents. Psyche, being desirous of beholding her beloved, lighted a lamp, from which a drop of the burning oil fell on his shoulder, whereupon he took flight and she saw him no more. The meaning of the myth is obvious. Psyche is the slender crescent moon, the strange beasts depicted on the walls of her celestial palace are the constellations, and the shining jewels which strewed the floor are the stars. The unknown bride- groom who at night reposes in her arms, but departs at dawn, repeating his visits on suc- cessive nights, is the dark moon. Then the moon loses her earlier slender form and assumes a gibbous aspect, and prepares to give birth to a new moon, the image of its parents. The scars produced by the burning oil are the spots on the moon. When the bridegroom has once been seen he takes flight and disappears. This explanation of the story of Psyche as a lunar myth seems to me so obvious that I am surprised to find I am the first to recognize it. Others have explained it as the history of the human soul, or have illustrated it from the bridal customs of barbarous tribes, which ordain that a wedded pair should not at first behold each other. Other myths are readily interpreted when once we have found the clue. Thus it was said that Athene, full grown, leapt shouting, armed with her sharp and brilliant spear, from the forehead of Zeus, who is the sky. Plainly this is the lightning flash born in an instant, mature in strength as it leaps from the domed forehead of the sky, while Medusa's head with its black and jagged locks, which forms her shield, is the ragged thunder-cloud which shields the flash. Athene, unlike the other deities, is an unloved and un- wedded maid, as no deity can espouse the flash. Surely this explanation is better than to suppose with Max Miiller that Athene is the dawn. Niobe is the snow-cloud whose children are the snow-wreaths lying in the gorges of Mount Sipylus. They were slain by the arrows shot by the sun (Apollo). The tears then shed by Niobe are the rills which, as the snow melts, trickle down the mountain. Hera, the sky of night, is the spouse of Zeus, the sky of day, and the tail of her pea- cock may represent the Milky Way. Zeus pouring a golden shower into the lap of Danae may represent one of the streams of meteors. Several myths interpret themselves. Such are those which relate to Hephaestus, the fire; Prometheus, the firestick, who bestows fire; Hermes, the wind ; or Iris, the rainbow. Some myths seem to have reached Hellas from Africa. Thus Antaeus, son of the sea and the earth, was a mighty giant dwelling in Libya, whose strength was invincible so long as lie remained in contact with his mother earth, but who when lifted up from her bosom ana held in the air was easily crushed. This myth is explained by the simoon, a gigantic column of sand which stalks througn the desert, and can only last so long as by contact with the earth it can obtain fresh supplies of sand. That Antaeus is called the son of the sea and the earth shows that the affinity of the simoon with the waterspout was recognized. Not far off is located the myth of Atlas, the great giant who bore up the heavens on his shoulders. Its meaning is plain to any one who on a cloudy day sails westward through the Straits of Gibraltar, and sees the canopy of cloud resting on the two opposite Pillars of Hercules, one of which is a spur of the range still bearing the name of Atlas. I shall look eagerly for the exposition by this method of other myths, such as those which relate to Apollo, Artemis, or Aphrodite. I do not suppose that the method will prove of universal application, but the instances I have collected may suffice to show that it may be very fruitful in results. ISAAC TAYLOR. CHARLES LAMB AND 'THE CHAMPION.' RATHER more than twenty-seven years ago an interesting article appeared in ' N. <fe O.' (4th S. xi. 269) from the pen of MR. D. P. MACCARTHY, the accomplished translator of Calderon and author of 'Shelley's Early Life.' This article, which was headed 'John ThelwalL Charles Lamb, and Benjamin Robert Haydon.' contained a description of a volume in MR. MACCARTHY'S possession, called 'The Poetical Recreations of the Champion,' which was of triple interest, a* it was the author's own copy, it contained five or six pages of MS. in his clear and beautiful autograph, and not only the Latin verses addressed by Charles Lamb to the celebrated but unfortunate painter B. R. Haydon, over the fantastic Latin signature of Carlagnulus, but also an English trans- lation of the verses by Lamb himself. MB. MACCARTHY gave in his article the full title of this little volume, and also copies of the Latin and English versions of the poem in