Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/345

Rh Apart from his fear of the son of lokaste, his character is as neutral as that of the mother of Phoibos ; indeed, we can scarcely be said to know anything of him beyond the tale that he stole away the beautiful Chrj-sippos with his golden steeds, as the eagle of Zeus carried Ganymedes up to Olympos, the latter being an image of the rinted clouds of morning bearing the dawn to the high heaven, the former a picture of the night robbing the sky of its splendour. The story of his cruel treatment of his son was regarded as accounting for the name Oidipous, or Swellfoot, from the tight bandages which hurt his limbs as he lay exposed on Kithairon. The explanation has about the same value as that by which the nurse Eurykleia professed to account to Odysseus for the name which he bore.^ The sequel of the myth furnished another explanation, to which probably less exception may be taken. When Oidipous drew near to Thebes, he found the city full of misery and mourning. The Sphinx had taken up her abode on a rock which overhung the to^vn, and there sat watching the people as they died of famine and wasting sickness. Only when the man came who could expound her mysterious riddle would she free them of her hateful presence ; and so in their perplexity the chiefs of the city had decreed that he who discomfited the monster should be made king and have lokaste as his bride. Meanwhile the Sphinx sat motionless on the cliff, uttering from time to time the mysterious sounds which conveyed no sense to the ears of mortal men. This dreadful being who shut up the waters is, it may be enough to say here, only another Vritra, and her name has the exact meaning of Ahi, the choking or throttling snake; and the hero who answers her riddle may thus not unnaturally receive his name from his wisdom. Thus much is certain, that the son of Laios speaks of himself as knowing nothing when he first drew near to encounter the Sphinx, while afterwards he admits that his name is a familiar word in all mouths,^ and thus Oidipous becomes the counterpart of the wise Medeia. With the death of the Sphinx

' M. Breal thinks that if the name with not less truth that the swelling of really belongs to this root, it must be the sun has reference to his risinf^, and taken as denoting the sun when it to its apparent enlargement at the base touches the horizon, "lorsque, par I'cffct until half its disk becomes visible. Mr. de vapeurs qui flottent dans les couches Paley regards the name Odysseus as inferieures de I'atmosphere, il semble equivalent to 6 5va6/xfi>oi (usin<^ this de moment au moment augmenter le word not as the future but the eijic volume." He thinks also that the aorist participle), and to Endymion, wounds thus inflicted on Oidipous must the in the word being the prefix as in be compared with those of Achilleus in 6ix&piixos, o5ouy, &c. the Hellenic mythology, of Baldur and * ^/uTjSei/eiSwy Oi'SiVowj. — Soph. Old. Sigurd in the Teutonic legends, and of Tyr. 397.

Isfendiyar and Rustem in the Persian & irna-i kAhi'Is OlSiirovs Kaov/j.fvoi. story. It might, however, be said — {d. H.