Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/327

Rh Hippolyte we have one of those mysterious emblems which are associated with the Linga in the worship of^ In the girdle of Hippolyte we have one of those mysterious CHAP. Vishnu. It is the magic kestos of Aphrodite and the wTeath of the of H^po- Kadmeian Harmonia. Into the myth which related how Herakles ^^'^ became its possessor, the mythographers have introduced a series of incidents, some of which do not belong to it, while others merely repeat each other. Thus, before he reaches the land of the Amazons, Herakles aids Lykos against the Bebrykes, in other words, fights the battle of the bright being against the roaring monsters who are his enemies ; and thus, after he has slain Hippolyte and seized the girdle, he visits Echidna, a being akin to the beautiful but mysterious Melusina, who throws her spell over Raymond of Toulouse, and then takes vengeance on the Trojan Laomedon, slaying the bright Sarpedon, who in the Iliad falls by the spear of his descendant Tlepolemos.

The narratives of these great exploits, which are commonly known ^^yt^s m- as the twelve labours of Herakles, are interspersed with numberless among the incidents of greater or less significance, some of them plainly in- th| twelve terpreting themselves. Thus, in his journey to the land of the Hes- H^°"ufA°*^ perides he is tormented by the heat of the sun, and shoots his arrows at Helios, who, admiring his bravery, gives him his golden cup in which to cross the sea.^ In Kyknos, the son of Ares the grinder or crusher, he encounters an antagonist akin to Cacus, or even more formidable. With his father Kyknos invades the sacred precincts of Apollon, where he sits on his fiery chariot while the earth trembles beneath the hoofs of his horses, and the altar and grove of Phoibos are filled with the horrid glare. But the son of Alkmene is journeying to Trachis, and Kyknos, whose chariot blocks up the road, must yield up the path or die. On the challenge of Herakles a furious conflict ensues, in which we see the spears of Indra hurled against his hateful enemy. The crash of the thunder rolls through the heaven, and the big thunderdrops fall from the sky.^ At last Kyknos is slain, but Herakles is now confronted by Ares himself, whom he

' In reference to such incidents as the theory, goes far to confirm it. It is these, Mr. Paley says, " A curious but the unconscious blending of two modes well-known characteristic of solar myths of representation— the sun as a person, is the identification of the sun both with and the sun as a thing. To construct the agent or patient, and with the thing a story, there must be both agents and or object by which the act is exercised. subject-matter for action ; and both, Ixion is the sun, and so is Ixion's from different points of view, may be wheel. . . .Hercules is the sun, who the same."— O/z (he Origiti of Solar expires in flame on the summit of Mount Myths, Dublin Review, July, 1879, fEta ; but the fiery robe which scorches p. 109. him to death is the sun-cloud. Now * .Asp. Ilcrakl. 3S4. this, so far from being an ol)jection to