Importance shall point out the causes of this strange variation. This myth is of considerable importance, as opening the path to a fictitious history; a history accepted implicitly as fact by the Greeks, and very often as such by modern writers. Deucalion is the favoured individual saved by the gods at the time of Deucalion. of the general deluge; and his importance is great, inasmuch as he is the father of Hellen, the celebrated eponym, or name-giver, of the Hellenic race. Zeus, indignant at the awful wickedness of the existing Brazen Age, was provoked to send an universal deluge.' The destruction attendant upon this general calamity, Deucalion escaped, by constructing an ark according to the warnings of Prometheus his father. After floating for nine days upon the water, he landed upon the summit of Mount Parnassus; other legends say on Mount Othrys. Deucalion now prayed that Zeus would restore mankind. Accordingly himself and his wife were directed to cast stones over their heads; those thrown by Deucalion became men, those thrown by Pyrrha, women. Hence from these stones sprang a stony race, as say the etymologizing Greeks, Hesiod and Pindar leading the way." Mankind restored by Deucalion and Pyrrha. Commemora tion of the deluge at Athens. Sons of How firmly the reality of this deluge was impressed upon the general belief of the Greeks of the historical age, may be seen by the calculations of their chronologers, who pretended to settle the exact date of the deluge by reckoning up to that period by genealogies. Still farther to fix the reality of the tale, it was commemorated by sacred ceremonies, especially in Athens, where the priests poured into a cavity in the temple of Olympian Zeus, holy offerings, because they believed this the very passage by which the waters of the deluge had retired.* Hellen and Amphictyon were the sons of Deucalion. From Hellen sprang Dorus, Xuthus, and Æolus, among whom he divided his territory, and the people of Greece were now called Hellenes. Xūthus, who had received the Peloponnesus as his portion, married Crëusa, Ion, Dorus, by whom he had Ion and Achæus. Æolus assumed the sovereignty Achæus, and of Thessaly, and the country on the northern side of the Corinthian Eponyms, or Gulf was held by Dorus. Hence their people were respectively named name-givers. Achæans, Ionians, Æolians, and Dorians." Æolus, We would here repeat an observation we have elsewhere made," that names so nicely quadrated to nations, carry an appearance too precise and artificial for early society, and partake more of poetic creation than of historical fact. Accordingly, the Greek genealogical tree, bears more or less the impress of artificial pruning. The same 1 Dion. Hal. i. 17. 2 The play is upon the words λads (laos), people, and λñas (laas), a stone. 4 Paus. xl. 1. Ionic Logographers, p. 211 of Hist. of Greek Literature, in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana: Καὶ Ξοῦθος μὲν λαβὼν τὴν Πελοπόνησον, ἐκ Κρεούσης τῆς Ερεχθέως, ̓Αχαιὸν ἐγγέννησι καὶ Ἴωνα, ἀφ ̓ ὧν ̓Αχαιοὶ καὶ Ἴωνες καλοῦνται, κ. τ. λ. Apoll. i. 7, 3. Ed. Firm. Didot, Paris, 1846. tendencies eponymizing tendencies have been at work among the poets as well of Eponymizing Then next to Tur, Turania's soil he gave, And again For Iraj next, whose claim alternate rose, His sire's behest, Irania's cities chose. As Apollodorus, the author of the genealogy of Hellen, has drawn his Causes of records from poetic sources, we see the cause of this uniformity of nomen- similarity. clature in the east and west. On the same principle, as a convenient resting-point for the political institutions of Greece, the Amphictyonic assembly is referred for its name to Amphictyon, the son of Deucalion. LEGEND OF THE ÆOLIDS, OR SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF ÆOLUS. 8 of Æolus. EOLUS, who reigned in Thessaly, had seven sons and five Sons and daughters. In the first Æolid line may be reckoned Salmõneus, Tyrō daughters his daughter, Pelias, and Nēleus; Bias, Pērō, daughter of Nēleus, and Melampus Peryclymenus, son of Neleus; Nestor, and the race of Nēleus, ending in Codrus. The most celebrated in the second Æolid line are Peleus and Jason. In the third olid line occurs the celebrated Sysiphus, remarkable for his craft. The grandson of Sysiphus, Myth of BELLEROPHON, is the hero of a romantic train of adventures, first Bellerophon. noticed in the Iliad of Homer. Anteia, the wife of Protus, king of Argos, had conceived a strong passion for the noble Bellerophon, but her offers being repelled by the 1 Vish. Puran. iv. 19. 2 دگر تور را داد توران زمین : و را کرد سللار تورکان و چین وز آن پس چو نوبت با درج رسید مر او را پدر شهر ایران گرید Shah. Nam. Caleut. 1829, vol. i. p. DA Mr. Grote (Hist. Gr. vol. i. p. 138, note) has some most pertinent remarks on this point. He observes, "How literally and implicitly even the ablest Greeks believed in eponymous persons, such as Hellen or Ion, as the real progenitors of the races called after him, may be seen by this, that Aristotle gives this common descent as the definition of yivos (Metaphysic, iv. p. 118, Brandis). гivos λsystai τὸ μὲν . . . . . τὸ δὲ, ἀφ ̓ ὅν ἀν ὦσι πρώτου κινήσαντος εις τὸ ἶιναι. Οὕτω γὰρ λέγονται οι μὲν, Ἕλληνες τὸ γένος, ὅι δὲ Ἰωνες· τῷ ὅι μὲν ἀπὸ Ἕλληνος, ὅι δὲ ἀπὸ Ἴωνος, είναι πρώτου γεννήσαντος.” ..... His sons were Sysiphus, Cretheus, Deion, Salmoneus, Athamas, Magnes, Perieres. His five daughters were Canace, Peisidicē, Perimēdē, Alcyone, and Calyce. Anteia accuses Bellerophon. young hero, her love was turned into the deadliest hatred. She now accused Bellerophon to her husband of having made improper proposals to her, and insisted on his being put to death. Protus, however indignant, refused to commit a deed of bloodshed in his own palace; he, however, despatched him to his father-in-law Iobatēs, king of Lycia, at the same time giving into his charge a folded tablet full of symbols portending his destruction. In order to carry out these murenterprises of derous instructions, the most hazardous enterprises were allotted to Bellerophon. Bellerophon. He was to attack the monstrous Chimæra, whose form Perilous Slays the was a horrible compound of a lion, goat, and dragon. Bellerophon now mounted the winged horse, Pegasus, and thus soaring aloft in the and Solymi. air, slew the Chimæra from on high with his arrows; the warlike Solymi also, as well as the Amazons, were added to his dangers and his conquests. In the song of the Theban bard, Bellerophon Springs joyous on his winged steed, in brazen armour dight, And dire Chimæra, from whose gorge the blasts of glowing light The welkin fill, And Solymi he slew.' On his return to Lycia, a band of the bravest Lycians who had been placed in ambuscade, rushed out upon him; he slew them all. Iobatēs, now convinced that it was hopeless to attempt his life any farther, showed him the tablet he had received from Protus, and gave him his daughter in marriage, together with half his kingdom. Such Marries the are the outlines of the myth of Bellerophon, whose grandchildren, fobates. daughter of Sarpēdōn and Glaucus, fought at the siege of Troy. Eustathius remarks that Homer knows nothing of Pegasus in this miraculous enterprise. It is, however, in strict keeping with the oriental epic. In India each god has his particular vahan or vehicle. Thus Vishnu The valan rides upon the Garūda, a being with the head and wings of a bird, of the gods, and the body, legs, and arms of a man. In the Kali Yug (Iron Age) an Indian he is to appear as an armed warrior mounted on a winged horse. In the Persian epic, Hoshang, like Bellerophon, subdues and tames Raksh, a Vishnu, winged monster, whom he mounts and uses in all his wars against and the Diws, or giants. The fourth Eolid line consists of Athamas and his successors, of whom our limits will not permit us to treat. We therefore pass on to the myth of the Pelopids. THE LEGEND OF THE PELOPIDS. or vehicle doctrine. Hoshang, Bellerophon. PELOPS, the Eponym or name-giver of the Peloponnesus, was the Myth of the son of Tantalus, whose residence was near Mount Sipylus in Lydia; Pelopids. his sister's name was Niobē. Possessed of unbounded riches and the gods. happiness, he seemed placed above human wants. The gods even received him at their banquets, an honour which he hospitably acknowledged by inviting them to his own. But, unhappily, elated by Tantalus such unbounded privileges, Tantalus stole from the gods nectar and displeases ambrosia, and disclosed their secrets. To add still farther to the horrors of his domestic life, he slew his son Pelops, whom he served up to the gods at a banquet; they, however, knowing the horrid nature of the food set before them, would not touch it. Dēmēter, however, being absorbed by grief for her lost daughter, had eaten a part of the shoulder. The gods now commanded Hermes to place the limbs of Pelops Pelops in a cauldron, and thus to restore him to life again. As one life by magic shoulder, however, was wanting, Dēmēter supplied its loss with an process. 1 Ιππον πτερόεντ' ἀναβὰς δ' ἐυθὺς ἐνόπλια χαλχοθεὶς ἔπαιζεν. Σὺν δὲ κέινῳ καὶ ποτ' ̓Αμαζονίδων Αιθέρος ψυχρᾶς ἀπὸ κόλπων ἐρήμου Καὶ Χίμαιραν πῦρ πνέοισαν καὶ Σολύμους ἔπεφνεν. Pind. Olym, xiii. 86-90. Thetis is the name mentioned by some authors. Vide Schol, ad Pind. Ol. restored to of Tantalus. ivory one; whence his descendants, the Pelopida, were said to have Punishment one shoulder as white as ivory. The punishment of Tantalus was terrible consigned to the lower world, with fruit and water apparently within his reach, he was doomed for ever to grasp at them unavailingly, thus leaving hunger and thirst perpetually unappeased:* whilst over his head impended a huge rock, ever threatening to fall and crush him.3 Myth of THE LEGEND OF NIOBE. 4 NIOBE, the sister of Pelops, was equally the subject of tragical and romantic events. She had been married to Amphiōn, king of Thebes, by whom she became mother of six sons and six daughters. Though placed on an intimate footing with Lētō, the mother of Apollo and Artemis, her exulting pride broke forth in disdainful comparisons between the number of her own children and that of Lētō. Indignant at this presumption, Apollo and Artemis slew her entire offspring. Niobe herself, thus rendered disconsolate and childless, repaired to Apollo and Mount Sipylus, where she had the exquisite misery of suffering perpetual agony under the form of stone : Niobe's children slain by 'Artemis. Niobe and Daphne representatives of Indian doctrines. And, ever marble, ever suffering stands." Niobe changed to stone, and Daphne to laurel, are the representatives of religious doctrines known first in India and then in Greece, long previous to the times of Homer. They are doctrines again strongly revived in Greece B. C. 540-510, by Pythagoras, and by him ranging up, through Hesiod and Orpheus, to the great Indian school. The leading principles of these two metamorphoses are Principles plainly stated in the Maneveh Dherma Sastra: "For sins committed developed in in the body a man shall, after death, assume a vegetable or a mineral Dherma form." The fate of Niobe is found duly chronicled by Valmīki in the Maneveh Sastra. Rambha changed to stone. that of the nymph Rambha, long before the Homeric writings. Rambha was a beautiful nymph, who had attempted to captivate with her charms the affections of Vishwa Mitra, upon which daring attempt the great ascetic pronounced no very lenient sentence: The sage, indignant, thus the maiden hailed "Since thou wouldst lure me, Rambha, with thy charms Of beauty boundless, in this sacred grove, Cursed by my art, a myriad years remain In living stone."7 The Orphic and Pythagorean belief in vegetable metamorphosis is not less clear in the teaching of Empedocles. What implicit credence 1 Tzetzes ad Lycoph. 152; Pind. Ol. i. 37. 5 Hom. Il. xxiv. 617; Paus. i. 21, 5. Hom. Odyss. xi. 582. Sapph. Frag. 82, Schneid. 7 Rămbhan kopăsămāvishtă idăm văchănămăbrăvit Ramayuna, C. Slok. |