Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/537

Rh moves him, unhappily, only in the direction of evil. It is better to praise Ushas, or Eos, or the daTi, whatever name we may give it, for the light, the food, and all the other blessings which it brings to us, than to lose ourselves in the labyrinth of cosmical movements and in the idea of mystic revolutions which may be typified by the frenzied dances of the worshippers. We may therefore say proudly that the Semitic deities are cosmical, while those of the Aryan nations are phenomenal; but the Semitic and Aryan tribes acted and reacted on each other, and, as we might suppose, the more violent influence was exercised by the former. Under such circumstances there must be a struggle, more or less fierce ; and the fact and the issue of this struggle come before us especially in the myth of Dionyos and Poseidon.

The stories of his birth differed widely. Some said that his The trans- mother was burnt up at his birth by the lightnings of Zeus, others said that she died in the chest in which she was placed with her child. Some nysos. said that he was born in Naxos, others on mount Nysa : but few perhaps cared to distinguish between the many mountains which bore this name. The Homeric hymn, passing by the earlier incidents of his life, tells the simple tale how Dionysos in the first bloom of youth was sitting on a jutting rock by the sea-shore, a purple robe thrown over his shoulders and his golden locks streaming from his head, when he was seized by some T}Trhenian mariners who had seen him as they were sailing by. These men placed him on board their vessel and strongly bound him ; but the chains sriapped like twigs and fell from his hands and feet, while he sat smiling on them with his deep- blue eyes. The helmsman at once saw the folly of his comrades, and bade them let him go lest the god, for such he must be, should do them some harm. His words fell on unheeding ears, and they declared that they would bear him away to Kypros, Egypt, or the Hyperborean land. But no sooner had they taken to their oars than a purple stream flowed along the decks, and the air was filled with its fragrance. Then the vine-plant shot up the masts, and its branches laden with rosy fruit hung from the yardarms, mingled with clustering ivy, while the oar-pegs were all wreathed in glistening garlands. The sailors now beseech Medeides, the steersman, to bring the ship to shore ; but it is too late. For Dionysos now took the forms of a lion and a bear, and thus rushing upon them drove the cruel mariners into the sea, where they became dolphins, while the good steersman was crowned with honour and glory.

In this story we have clearly the manifestation of that power which Dionysos ripens the fruits of the earth, and more especially the vine, in the greos. several stages from its germ to its maturity. The fearful power dis-