Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/85

Rh the strong prison: then the wind blows after his blast, thy path, O Agni (Ignis), is dark at once."

The Latin carried with him the name of the Hindu Fire-god to little purpose. In the hands of the Greek similar phrases on the searching breath of the wind grew up into the legend of Hermes, Nor can it be said that the instinct of the Greek was less true than that of the old Vedic poet to the sights of the natural world. If we recur with feelings of undiminished pleasure to the touching truthfulness of the language which tells of the Dawn as the bright being whom age cannot touch, although she makes men old, who thinks on the dwellings of men and shines on the small and great, we feel also that the "Homeric" poet, even while he spoke of a god in human form born in Delos, was not less true to the original character of the being of whom he sang. He thought of the sun rising in a cloudless heaven, and he told how the nymphs bathed the lord of the golden sword in pure water, and wrapped him in a spotless robe. Still, although the stress of the hymn lies wholly on the promise of Leto that her child shall have his chief home in Delos, the poet feels that Delos alone can never be his home, and so he sang how Apollôn went from island to island, watching the ways and works of men; how he loved the tall sea-cliffs, and every jutting headland, and the rivers which hasten to the broad sea, even though he came back with ever fresh delight to his native Delos.

Thus the great mystery of Greek as of other mythology is dispelled like mist from the mountain-side at the rising of the sun. All that is beautiful in it is invested with a purer radiance, while much, if not all, that is gross and coarse in it is refined, or else its grossness is traced to an origin which reflects no disgrace on those who framed or handed down the tale. Thus, with the keynote ringing in our ears, we can catch at once every strain that belongs to the ancient harmony, although it may be heard amid the din of many discordant voices. The groundwork of Greek mythology was the ordinary