Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/281

Rh CHAP. II. god, whose name differs so slightly from that of the water-god Triton, should have so far disappeared from the memory of the Greeks as to leave them at a loss to account for the epithet except by connecting it with places bearing a similar name, as among others the Libyan lake Tritonis, and the Boiotian stream Triton, on whose banks, as on those of the Attic stream, towns sprung up called Athenai and Eleusis.^ In short, every stream so named became a birthplace for Athene, although the meaning of the old phrase was not lost, until an attempt was made, by referring the myth to the alleged Eolic word for a head, to resolve it into the story of her springing from the head of Zeus. But the fact that in the Veda Trita rules over the water and the air, establishes the identity of Trito or Tritos, the father of Athene, not only with that deity, but with Triton, Amphitrite, and the Tritopatores or lords of the winds. '^ The theory which, from the supposed Libyan birthplace of Athene, infers a relation between Egyptian and Hellenic mythology need not be considered here.

' This connexion of the dawn with water runs through ahnost every legend which turns on the phenomena of morn- ing. Thus in the Norse tale of Katie Wooden-cloak, the dawn-maiden, while working humbly like Cinderella in the kitchen, asks permission to take up water for the prince, who will receive no service from one so mean-looking. Next day she appears at the palace on a splendid steed, and to his question whence she comes, her reply is, " I'm from Bath ; " the next day she is from Towel-land, the third day from Comb- land, the comb being that with which the dawn-maidens always comb their golden locks by the water-side.

^ .M. Breal, who traces this identity, Hercule et Cacics, 17, cites the words of Suidas, " TpiTOTrdropes' Ai'j/xcoi' 4v TJj 'AT6i5t(t>r)fflv aj'^ixovs ilvai tovs Tpnmrd- Topos." It is said of Indra that, " ani- mated by the sacrificial food, he broke through the defences of Vala, as did Trita through the coverings of the well. "' — H. H. Wilson, A'. V. S ,-o. i. p. 141- Professor Wilson here remarks that "Ekata, Dwita, and Trita [the first, second, and third] were three men pro- duced in water, by Agni, for the purpose of removing or rubbing off the reliques of an oblation of clarified butter. The Scholiast . . . says that Agni threw the cinders of the burn.-olTering into the water, whence successively arose Ekata, Dwita, and Trita, who, as elsewhere appears, were therefore called Aptyasor sons of water." Noticing Dr. Roth's opinion that Trita is the same name as Thraetana (Feridun), he says that the identity of Trita and Traitana remains to be established. It is, at the least, not disproved by the story which he cites as setting it aside. This story is that " the slaves of Dirghotamas, when he was old and blind, became insub- ordinate, and attempted to destroy him, first by throwing him into the fire, whence he was saved by the Asvins, then into water, whence he was extri- cated by the same divinities ; upon which Traitana, one of the slaves, wounded him on the head, breast, and arms, and then inflicted like injuries on himself, of which he perished. " This story becomes clear throughout when compared with the myth of Eos, who, like the slaves of Dirgholama, shut up the decrepit Tithonos. In the story of Dirghotamas and Yayatis, Count de Gubernatis dis- cerns King Lear in embryo. Cordelia is here the third son who consents to become old in his father's stead, when his two elder brothers refuse ; or in another version the youngest child, who remains with his jiarents when these have been driven from their home by the elder children. In Thraetana Alhwyiina, the son of Thrita Athwya, Professor Th. Benfey recognises the Tritonis Athana of the Greeks. See also Gubernatis, Zoological JMytIiolog) i. 24.