Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/505



CHAP. Between Proteus, the child of Poseidon, and Nereus, the son of Pontos, there is little distinction beyond that of name. Both dwell in the waters, and although the name of the latter points more and especially to the sea as his abode, yet the power which, according to ApoUodoros, he possesses of changing his form at will indicates his affinity to the cloud deities, unless it be taken as referring to the changing face of the ocean with its tossed and twisting waves. It must, however, be noted that, far from giving him this power, the Hesiodic Theogony seems to exclude it by denying to him the capricious fickle- ness of Proteus. He is called the old man, we are here told, be- cause he is truthful and cannot lie, because he is trustworthy and kindly, because he forgets not law but knows all good counsels and just words — a singular contrast to the being who will yield only to the argument of force. Like Proteus, he is gifted with mysterious wisdom, and his advice guides Herakles in the search for the apples (or flocks) of the Hesperides. His wife Doris is naturally the mother of a goodly offspring, fifty in number, like the children of Danaos, Aigyptos, Thestios, and Asterodia ; but the ingenuity of later mytho- graphers was scarcely equal to the task of inventing for all of them names of decent mythical semblance. Some few, as Amphitrite and Galateia, are genuine names for dwellers in the waters ; but most of them, as Dynamene, Pherousa, Pro to, Kymodoke, Nesaia, Aktaia, are mere epithets denoting their power and strength, their office or their abode. Of Pontos himself, the father of Nereus, there is even less to be said. In the Hesiodic Theogony he is a son of Gaia alone, as Typhoeus springs only from Here and Athene has no mother. In the Iliad and Odyssey, Pontos is a mere name for the sea ; and the phrases Tr6vTo<s dXos ttoXii;? and OdXacrcra ttoi/tov show that the poets were not altogether unconscious of its meaning and of its affinity with their word zraros, a path. It is therefore a name