of the Fabulous History of Greece. 65 



If we examine a little also into the origin of the other fabulous 

 circumstances recorded as connected with this adventure, we 

 shall find them also tending still further to confirm the view I 

 have been endeavouring to establish. Thus the wings and 

 talaria with which the supposed Hermes or Mercury is said to 

 have furnished Perseus, clearly signified nothing else than an 

 oared ship or ships with which he had been furnished probably 

 by the Tyrians ; the wings evidently denoting the sails, and 

 the talaria the oars. Even in the etymology of the name 

 Hermes, E/jpcw, we may find, perhaps, a stronger support for 

 this conjecture than at first view might be imagined. The 

 verb Epzaffu signifies to row in particular, and to navigate in 

 general; but verbs in oau are generally derived from, or rather 

 are but other forms of verbs in u or so>. Hence we are led to 

 an obsolete radix, spsu, of the same signification, from which, 

 according to the general analogy of the language, comes E/>/x,-r,s-, 

 the rower, navigator, or, more properly, being originally E/>/>t-ees-, 

 of the plural form, the rowers, navigators. The Greeks, how- 

 ever, naturally enough considered this word to have been de- 

 rived from />&;, dico, or perhaps sipoa, necto ; and from this, 

 and the circumstance that the communication between the 

 different parts of Greece and the chief seat of government 

 (which, it would appear, was at that time in Crete or Asia) 

 was carried on by means of sailing vessels, arose many of the 

 fabulous stories related of their Hermes or Mercury. Another 

 etymology might, perhaps, be assigned for this name Hermes, 

 which would no less agree with the main facts of the fable. 

 The radical part of Eppt-m, when analysed, is evidently E/;/x. 

 Now this, written in Hebrew characters, is Din, which, both in 

 the form of the radical letters and the pronunciation, is not 

 very dissimilar to DTH or DTin, the name of the king of Tyre 

 contemporary with David and Solomon. Under this view, 

 then, Hermes, E^/oc-yjy, being of the plural form, would denote 

 the seamen of king Hiram, and so point to the Tyrians as the 

 people who, from their maritime situation and habits, furnished 

 Perseus in particular with the ships necessary for his voyage, 

 as they had all along been the medium of intercourse between 

 the chief seat of government and the provinces of Greece. The 

 chronology, I may also remark, would herein agree with that 



VOL. I. OCT. 1830. F 



