Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/267

Rh CHAP. character which Erinys had assumed, the poet who tells the terrible tale of Oidipous could not but make him die m the sacred grove of beings who, however awful to others, were always benignant to him — in groves which to the storm-tossed wanderer were the Hyperborean gardens into which grief, and fear, and anguish could never enter. The change which converted the beautiful Saranyu into the avenging furies of ^schylos has excited the wonder of some who hesitate on this account to believe that Erinys and Saranyu can come to us from a common source. It is more than probable that their scepticism arises from the notion that comparative mythologists derive the Greek from the Sanskrit deity. It is enough to say that they do not.

The Harpies

The change itself is one which could scarcely fail to be brought about. The Harpies, who in our Homeric poems are the beautiful daughters of Thaumas and Elektra, appear in the yEneid of Virgil as foul monsters, who do the work of vultures. The Ara, or prayer of the longing heart,^ became more and more the curse which the weak uttered against their tyrants. Indra and Phoibos, who, as the sun- gods, see and hear all things, become almost more dreaded for their destructive power, than loved for their beneficence. As representing the day with its searching light, Varuna and Indra are the avengers of all iniquity; and in this sense it could not fail to be said of evil- doers that Saranyu would find them out. The old phrase survives with its clearness scarcely dimmed in the Hesiodic Theogony. Night there is the mother of Strife (Eris), and of all the evils that conic of Strife; ^ but she is also the mother of righteous recompense (Nemesis). In other words, the evil deeds done in the night will receive their reward when brought to light in the day; and thus, according to ^schylos, the Erinyes also are daughters of the Night, who, like the Drukhs, the Vedic Ate, track out the sins of men. It was in truth impossible that, the germ once given, its developements should fail to be modified by time and place, by power of imagination and failure of memory. The Ate of the Iliad is the spirit merely of mischievous folly, and as such, she is hurled by Zeus from Olympos, for postponing the birth of Herakles to that of Eurystheus; the Ate of -iEschylos is the sleepless doom which broods over a house until the vengeance for the shedding of innocent blood has been exacted to the uttermost farthing. There is nothing wonderful therefore in the process which changed the lovely Saranyu of the Veda into the awful goddesses * of Athens; and if the Erinys of the Iliad is called hateful,

' aprv e-TToirjffav rraTSa yevitidai. — " lies. Thcog. 226.

IleriKl. vi. 63. * af/j.yal dial.