FABLE AND FOLKLORE 145 



healing deity Kujako Myowo, the Japanese analogue of 

 the Hindoo deification of this fowl. 



Whether the peacock was brought to the Mediterranean 

 region from India or Persia or from Phoenicia is un- 

 known. It is commonly said that Alexander the Great 

 was its introducer ; but wherever it went its symbolic sig- 

 nificance accompanied it, otherwise the peoples of 

 Greece and Italy would hardly have given it the name of 

 their own goddess of light and day, or have held it to be 

 a visible sign of the rainbow itself. In combination with 

 the eagle it was originally an attribute of Pan, who later 

 was obliged to yield it to Juno, the goddess of Heaven, 

 thus making it the star-bird, the symbol of the starry 

 firmament, on account of the "eyes" in its tail-feathers, 

 which were regarded as the very stars themselves. Out 

 of this arose many myths, chief among which is that of 

 the hundred-eyed Argus — how Argus was set by Juno 

 to watch Io, of whom she had been jealous, but was killed 

 by Mercury in the interest of the queen's unrepentant 

 husband ; and how Juno makes the best of a bad situation : 



Thus Argus lies in pieces cold and pale; 

 And all his hundred eyes with all their light 

 Are closed at once in one perpetual night. 

 These Juno takes, that they no more shall fail, 

 And spreads them on her peacock's gaudy tail. 69 



But the Christians, in their revolt against everything 

 Pagan, regarded this bird, which like so many other facts 

 and fancies of the ancient regime they could not destroy, 

 from a new and different angle. They observed that al- 

 though it lost (by molting) its splendid raiment yet as 

 often it was re-acquired — manifestly a similitude of the 

 resurrection of the devoted soul into renewed glories 



