Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/295

Rh nently brought out in her worship throughout Hellas. She is the wife chap. of Zeus in a sense which could not be applied to any other of the Olympian deities ; and, apart from the offspring which she produces by her own unaided powers, she has no children of which Zeus is not the father. Hence she was regarded both as instituting marriage, and punishing those who violate its duties. It is she who sends the Eileithyiai to aid women, when their hour is come; and thus she has that power of hastening or retarding a birth which is used to give Eurystheus priority over Herakles.

In these functions she is practically identical with the Latin Juno The Latin (a name closely akin to that of Zeus).^ But Juno not only presides ^^^°' over marriage. She is the special protectress of women from the cradle to the grave, and as such, is Matrona and Virginalis. As Moneta, the guardian of the mint, she bears a name which connects her functions with those of Minerva.

In the whole cycle of Greek mythology no idea perhaps is more Doctrine prominent than that of the inevitable doom of toil, sorrow, and suffering which is laid without exception on every one of the heroes, and on all the gods, unless it be Zeus himself For none is there any permanent rest or repose. Phoibos may not tarry in his brilliant birthplace, and his glance must be fatal to the maiden whom he loves. Nay, more, he must fight with, and destroy the Kyklopes, the loathsome giants or storm-clouds ; but these are the children of Zeus, and Phoibos must therefore atone for his deed by a long servitude in the house of Admetos. But on this house there rests the same awful fate. In the midst of all her happiness and wealth Alkestis must die if her husband is to live, and the poet who tells the tale declares in the anguish of his heart that he has searched the heaven above and the earth beneath, and found nothing so miglUy, so invincible, as this iron force, which makes gods and men bow beneath her sway. The history of Phoibos is the history of all who are of kin to him. Herakles, with all his strength and spirit, must still be a slave, and the slave of one infinitely weaker and meaner than himself. Perseus must be torn away from his mother Danae, to go and face strange perils and fight with fearful monsters. Yet more, Herakles must even unwittingly do harm to others, and his mischief must end in the dis- order of his own mind, and the loss of power over his own will. He must show certain dispositions, and do certain acts. The sun must

' P. 174.