Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/483

Rh that which may be said just as well of Apollon, or Dionysos, or Aphrodite. Hermes, it is true, is represented as a babe at his birth in the morning: but it is ludicrous to speak of natural human drawbacks for a child who can leave his cradle when a few hours old, and exert the strength of a giant at his will. If, again, Apollon at his birth was bathed by the nymphs in pure water and wrapped in a soft and spotless robe, he yet became very soon the Chrysaor whose invincible sword must win him the victory over all his enemies.

We are thus beating the air until we discover the groundwork or The source of the ideas which led to the notion of contrast and rivalry between between the two gods. Far from concerning ourselves in the first place with the mode devised for their reconciliation, it is this very Phoibos.

rivalry and antagonism for which we have to account. If the legend in its Greek form fails to carry us to the source of the idea, we must necessarily look elsewhere : and we shall not search the hymns of the Veda in vain. " The divine greyhound Sarama," says Dr. Mommsen,^ " who guards for the lord of heaven the golden herd of stars and sunbeams, and for him collects the nourishing rain-clouds of heaven for the milking, and who moreover faithfully conducts the pious dead into the world of the blessed, becomes in the hands of the Greeks the son of Sarama, Sarameyas, or Hermeias." In the Vedic Sarama Dr. Kuhn finds a name identical with the Teutonic storm and the Greek Horme. Although neither of these statements accords strictly with the Vedic passages which speak of Sarama and Sarameya, the controversy which has turned upon these names may perhaps be compared to the battle of the knights for the sides of the silvered and brazened shield in the old tale.

Confining our view strictly to the Veda, we find no divine grey- Hennes hound Sarama. The beautiful being known by this name is the |he moving Greek Helene, the words " being phonetically identical, not only in every consonant and vowel, but even in their accent ; " ^ and both are traced to the root Sar, to go or to creep. When the cows of Indra are stolen by the Panis, Sarama is the first to spy out the clift in which they were hidden, and the first to hear their lowings. The cows which she thus recovers Indra reconquers from the Panis, who have striven with all their powers to corrupt the fidelity of Sarama.

" What kind of man is Indra ? " they ask, " he as whose messenger thou comest from afar ? Let us make thee our sister, do not go away again : we will give thee part of the cows, O darling." Sarama, then, as going, like Ushas, before Indra, is the Dawn,

History of Rome, i. 18.

isz.yiViA&r, Lectures on Language, second series, 471.