Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/455

Rh Telodike, a word which indicates the judicial powers of the Greek Hestia and the Latin Vestia. For the same reason, he is also " wedded to Peitho, persuasion. Among his children are Pelasgos, lasos, and Agenor, of whom a later tradition said that after their father's death they divided the kingdom of Argos among themselves. He is thus described as the father of the Pelasgic race, in contrast with Deukalion, who is the progenitor of the Hellenic tribes. But it is unnecessary to enter the ethnological labyrinth from which it seems as impossible to gather fruit as from the barren sea. It is enough to say that Agenor, in this Argive myth, is a brother of Europe, while in that of the Phoinikian land he is her father, and that Argos and Phoinikia are alike the glistening regions of the purple dawn. The phrase that Europe, the broad-spreading morning light, is the daughter of Phoroneus, corresponds precisely with the myth which makes Hephaistos cleave the head of Zeus to allow the dawn to leap forth in its full splendour. But from fire comes smoke and vapour, and Phoroneus is thus the father of Niobe, the rain-cloud, who weeps herself to death on Mount Sipylos.

As gathering to one centre the Argives, who had thus far dwelt Hestia. scattered without a notion of social order and law, Phoroneus discharges the functions of Hestia. Nay, his Astu is Hestia, the inviolable fire on the sacred hearth which may not be moved but stands fast for ever.^ But no great accretion of myths was possible in the case either of Phoroneus or of Hestia. The legend, such as it is, belongs to that class of transparent stories among which the myths of Endymion, Narkissos, Daphne, Sarpedon, and Memnon are among the most conspicuous ; and the beneficial influence of her cultus is perhaps most strongly marked by the almost complete absence of folk-lore in connexion with her name. She is so clearly the fire on the hearth, the symbol and the pledge of kindliness and good faith, of law and order, of wealth and fair dealing, that it was impossible to lose sight of her attributes or to forget their origin; and except under these conditions there can be no full developement of mythology. Of no other deity perhaps was the worship so nearly an unmixed blessing. Falsehood and treachery, fickleness and insin-

' The names Astu and Hestia are yielded Vasu as a name for Agni, as both referred by Preller to the Sanskrit well as many names for the year. (See vas, to dwell, the cognate Greek forms note °, p. 420). Hestia and Vesta would being f(ai and 'iCo, thus connecting to- thus denote the glistening flame, and gether the Latin Vesta and sedes, a would be akin to the names fur the hot permanent hal)itation. But on the wind, Euros and Au.stcr, ahar-qpos.-other hand it is urged that the name Peile, lulrodiiction to Cicck and Lalin Hestia may more reasonably be referred Etymology^ yj. to the rojt vas, to shine, which has