Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/469

Rh CHAP. IV we have simply the assertions that the clear purple tints usher in the early dawn, the mother of the strugglmg sun, from whose union with ■ ^ — - the earth springs the wearied sun of evening, who, plunging into the western waters, is wedded to the tranquil night moving among the stars who are her childien.

With the gift of fire Prometheus imparted to man the power of The interpreting the fiery lightnings which flash across the sky and seem to pierce the very bowels of the earth. These lightnings are the mighty fires in which the invincible weapons and arms are welded for beings like Phoibos, Herakles, or Achilleus ; or they are them- selves the awful thunderbolts forged by Hephaistos, the fire-god, and his ministers for Zeus himself These ministers are the gigantic Titans, some of whom are thus compelled to do service to the god against whom they had rebelled ; while others, like Typhoeus and Enkelados, are bound on fiery couches beneath huge mountains, through which they vomit forth streams of molten fire. Thus, among the myths related of these beings, we find some which refer to the manifestations of fire in the heaven, while others exhibit the working of the same forces upon the earth or under it. When Ave reach the Hesiodic or Orphic theogonies, these myths have been modified and woven together in a highly elaborate system. It is true that even here we find the poets, or mythographers, working more or less in unconscious fidelity to the old mythical phrases, which had mainly furnished them with their materials. Thus when the Orphic poet desired to go further back than the point to which the Hesiodic theogony traces the generation of the Kosmos, he traced the universe to the great mundane egg produced by Chronos, time, out of Chaos and Aither, — a symbol answering to the mighty mi.xing-bowl of the Platonic demiourgos, and akin to all the circular, oval, or boat-shaped emblems of fertility which have been associated with the signs of the male-powers in nature. But the artificial character of these theogonies can neither be ignored nor explained away ; nor can it be denied, that the deliberate process of manufacture which they have under- gone deprives them in great part of any mythological value, while it frees us from the necessity of going through their tedious details, or of adhering invariably to their order. Thus, if we take the story whether of the gigantic Polyphemos or of the Kyklopes among whom he is reckoned, we are not bound to go through the cumbrous gene-