Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/246

214 BOOK is the germ of the Odyssey. In the very spring-time of their joy the : chieftain of Ithaka is parted from his bride. While he is away, she has to undergo hard trial at the hands of men who seek rather her riches than herself; and even when the twenty years are over, and Odysseus sees Penelopd once more, the poet still speaks of a time soon coming when they must again be parted. Here also the myth of Pururavas is in close agreement with that of Odysseus, for he too must be again parted from his love. She who, ever young, yet making men old, knows neither age nor change, cannot avert the doom which falls alike on Phaethon, Memnon, and Sarpedon, on Achilleus, Baldur, and Sigurd. But all have the same work to do ; and if the dawn cannot save them from death, she can restore them to life, and thus through her they become immortal Thus Puru- ravas, who was created especially to do battle with and to conquer the powers of darkness, addresses Ur-asi as the immortal among the mortals ; and says of himself that he, as the brightest sun, holds her who spreads the sky and fills the air with light. The very rite for the sake of which the Brahmans converted the simple myth into an institutional legend points to the true nature of Pururavas. He can become immortal only by devising the mode of kindling fire by friction ; and thus like Bhuranyu and Phoroneus, Hermes and Prometheus, he falls into the ranks of those who are the first to bestow the boon of fire on man. Nor is it without significance that in the play of Kalidasa Pururavas, when first he rescues Urvasi from the beings who have carried her away, has already a wife, who, seeing her husband wasting away with love for another, makes a vow to treat with kindness the object of his love, whoever she may be. Pururavas has not indeed for his first wife the love which Kephalos is said to bear to Prokris ; but here Urvasi, who hesitates not to take her rival's place, is so far the exact counterpart of Eos, while in the first wife we have all the self-devotion which marks the beautiful daughter of Herse.

The Dawn In most of these legends the meeting and the severance of these Waters. lovers take place by the side of the stream or the water from which Aphrodite rises, and in which the nymphs bathe the newly-born Apollon. It is on the river's bank that Eurydike is bitten by the fatal snake, and Orpheus is doomed to the same weary search as Purfiravas, for the love which has been lost On the heights which overhang Peneios, Phoibos sees and chases the beautiful Daphne, and into the blue stream the maiden plunges when she almost feels the breath of her pursuer. So again Arethousa commits herself to the waters as she flies from the huntsman Alpheios, who wins her