Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/315

Rh CHAP. Either Zeus feared that men, once possessed of the secret of Asklepios, might conquer death altogether, or Plouton complained that his kingdom would be left desolate ; and the thunderbolt which crushed Phaethon smote down the benignant son of Phoibos, and the sun-god in his vengeance slew the Kyklopes, the fashioners of the fiery lightnings for the lord of heaven.^ But throughout Hellas Asklepios remamed the healer and the restorer of life, and accord- ingly the serpent is everywhere his special emblem, as the mythology of the Linga would lead us to expect.'^

The myth of Ixion exhibits the sun as bound to the four-spoked The stories wheel which is whirled round everlastingly in the sky.^ In that of^ndAUas. Sisyphos we see the same being condemned to the daily toil of heaving a stone to the summit of a hill from which it immediately rolls down. This idea of tasks unwillingly done, or of natural operations as accomplished by means of punishment, is found also in the myth of Atlas, a name which like that of Tantalos denotes endurance and suffering, and so passes' into the notion of arrogance or presumption. But the idea of a being who supported the heaven above the earth, as of a being who guides the horses of the sun, was awakened in the human mind long before the task was regarded as a penalty. Indeed, it can scarcely be said that this idea is clearly expressed in the Odyssey, which says of Atlas that he knows all the depths of the sea and that he holds or guards the lofty pillars which keep the heaven from falling to crush the earth.* It is scarcely prominent even when the Hesiodic poet speaks of him as doing his work under a strong necessity, for this is no more than the force which compels Phoibos to leave Delos for Pytho, and carries

' Apollod, Hi. 10, 4 ; Diod. iv. 71. sequel of the Gaelic tale already men- In the Iliad, Asklepios is simply the tioned represents Grimm's legend of blameless healer, who is the father of the Feather Bud. Machaon and Podaleirios, the wise * It can scarcely be doubted that the physicians, who accompany the Achaians words d/i^!s exoixrii', Od. i. 54, do not to Ilion These are descendants of mean that these columns surround the Paieon. earth, for in this case they must be not

- See section xii. of this chapter. only many in number, but it would be ' TiT p6.Kvaij.ov deaixiiv. Pind. Fyth. obvious to the men of a myth-making ii. 80. Tiiis wheel reappears in the and myth-speaking age, that a being Gaelic story of the Widow and her stationed in one spot could not keep up, Daughters (Campbell, ii. 265), and m or hold, or guard, a number of pillars Grimm's German tale of the Iron Stove. surrounding either a square or a circular The treasure-house df Ixion, which earth. It is at the least certain that none may enter without being either this is not the meaning of the Hesiodic destroyed like Hesioneusor betrayed by poet, who gives to Atlas a local habita- marks of gold or blood, reappears in a tion at the utmost bounds of the earth vast number of popular stories, and is near the abode of the Hesperides, and the foundation of the story of Blue- makes him bear the heavens on his beard. Compare the Woodcutter's head and hands. The Hellenic Atlas Child in Grimm's collection. The is simply the Vedic Skambha, p. 204.