Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/215

Rh tynna and Diktys of Seriphos, we have in it only a general designation which applies to each of the Daktyloi, Herakles, Paionios, lasios, and Idas, This Idas is but the counterpart of the nymph Ida, the companion of Adrasteia ; and Ida, as we have seen, is but the earth, which may be regarded as either the nurse; or, as in the Vedic hymns, the bride of Zeus. The name of Herakles, hke that of Here, indicates simply the splendour of the risen sun, and in lasios, as in lasion, lamos, lole and others, we have the violet tint with which the heaven is flushed in early morning. The olive branch, which Hera- kles made the prize of victory, itself came from the Hyperboreans, whence Achaia, the mother of the Zeus-born Achaians, journeyed to Delos.

That the relations of Zeus to other mythical beings were very Limits to variously described, a comparison of our Hesiodic and Homeric nar- of zqus. ratives has already shown us. In the latter, he is the father not only of Aphrodite, who in the former is his sister, but of Ares and He- phaistos, who, according to another legend, were Hke Typhoeus the children of Here only. In one story he is the father also of Phoibos, who in another is the son of Athene. The power with which he is invested varies in like manner according to the point of view from which he is regarded. The Zeus who is the father of all Hving things, knows neither weakness, change, nor passion ; the Zeus who is the growth of mythical phrases, is beneficent or treacherous, just or capri- cious, pure or lustful, according to the character of the phenomena to be described. By himself he is styled all-powerful : but Here too, as the sovereign queen of heaven, can know no higher authority, and thus they are represented as acting sometimes with and sometimes against each other. Nay, even Athene, the maiden who stands by his side to do his will, is sometimes an accomplice with Here and Poseidon in plots to circumscribe his power. But although he can do much, he cannot arrest the course of the sun, he cannot lighten his toils for beings meaner than himself, he cannot avert the early doom which awaits him when his short career across the heaven is ended. Hence he can but bring up to Olympos from the dead the beautiful Memnon for whom the tears of Eos fall in dewdrops from the sky ; he can but rescue the body of the brave Sarpedon, and give it to Phoibos to bathe in Simoeis, and to the powers of sleep and death to bear it to the glistening home which they cannot reach until the morning.^ Herakles may toil for Eurystheus and have no profit

' In some other respects the Homeric the latter cannot turn aside, and who Zeus is greater than the Zeus of his- broods over a house until the penalty torical Hellas. The awful Ate whom for the shedding of innocent blood has