Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/307

Rh irresistible, and nothing can withstand the splendour of his unveiled CHAP, form ; but he must live in a world of absolute stillness, without mist • — -^ — ' and without clouds, until the breath of the wind stirs the stagnant air. Hermes then is the maker of the harp and the true lord of song ; and the object of the hymn is to account for the harmony existing between himself and Phoibos, from whom he receives charge over the bright and radiant clouds which float across the blue seas of heaven. It is impossible to lay too much stress on this difference of inherent attributes. Hermes may yield up his harp to Phoibos, as the soft breezes of summer may murmur and whisper while leaves and waters tremble in the dazzling sunlight ; but willing though Phoibos may be to grant the prayer of Hermes to the utmost of his power, it is impossible for him to give to the god of the moving air a share in the secret counsels of Zeus.'

Essentially, then, there is no distinction betweeen Phoibos and Phoibos Helios. Both are beings of unimaginable brightness ; both have jjeiios. invulnerable weapons and the power of wakening and destroying life ; both can delight and torment, bring happiness or send scorching plagues and sicknesses ; both have wealth and treasures which can never be exhausted ; both can mar the work which they have made. That each of these qualities might and would furnish groundwork for separate fables, the whole course of Aryan mythology fully shows. Their wisdom would be shown by such words as Sisyphos, Metis, Medeia ; their healing powers by the names Akesios, Sdter, Akestor; and both these faculties might be conceived as exercised in oppo- sition to the will of Zeus. The alternations of beneficence and malignity would mark them as capricious beings, whose wisdom might degenerate into cunning, and whose riches might make them arrogant and overbearing. But for these things there must be punishments ; and thus are furnished the materials for a host of myths, every one of which will be found in strict accordance with the physical phenomena denoted by the phrases of the old mythical or myth-generating speech. The words which spoke of the sun as scorching up the fruits and waters which he loves would give rise to the stories of Tantalos and Lykaon ; the pride of the sun which soar? into the highest heaven would be set forth in the legend of Ixion ; the wisdom which is mere wisdom would be seen in the myths of Sisyphos or Medeia. The phrases which described the sun as revolving daily on his four-spoked cross, or as doomed to sink in the sky when his orb had reached the

^ There is nothing surprising in the building the walls of Troy, as Ampht6n fact, that later versions, as those of built those of Thebes, by playing on his Kallimachos and Ovid, describe Apol- harp. Ion as himself inventing the lyre and