APPExnix A. I'Airr ii. 685 



fonnor has been grounded on tliose expressions wliith describe the recurrence of day 

 and iiii^bt, the hitter on the great tragedy of alternation of summer and winter. 



" Of this vast mass of sohir myths, som(; have emerged into iude])endent k'gends, 

 others have furnished the groundwork of whole epics, others have remained simply 

 as floating tales whoso intrinsic beauty the poet has wedded to his verse. Whether 

 the whole may bo classified in order of priority may be doubtful ; but the strong 

 presumption would be, that those which have not been systematized into coherent 

 narratives are the oldest, as not having sufficiently lost their original meaning. At 

 the least, they exhibit to us the substance of Jfythology in its earliest form. Thus 

 the legends of Kephalos and Prokris, of Daphne, Xarkissos and Endymion, Lave come 

 down to us in a less artificial form than that of Herakles, while the myth of Heraklcs 

 has been arrested at a less advanced stage than that of Zeus and Apollon. But all 

 alike can be translated back into nnihical expressions, and most of these expressions 

 are found in the Yedas with their .strict mythical meaning. The man-ellous ex- 

 uberance of this early language, and the wealth of its synonyms, may well excite 

 astonishnu'nt as we watch its divergence into such myths as tho.se of Kephalos 

 and Endymion, Herakles, Daphne, the Pythian and Delian Apollon, Phaethon 

 and llfcleagros, Memnon and Bellero])h6n. 



"That the form of thought which found utterance in mythical language would 

 lead to the accumulation of a va.st number of names for the same object, we have 

 already seen ; and so clearly does the mythology of the Aryan nations exhibit the 

 working of this process, that the task of tracing it through the .several legends 

 of which it is composed becomes almost a supeiiluous work. It seems impossible 

 not to see that when the language of Mythology was the ordinaiy speech of daily 

 life, the night laboured and heaved with the birth of the coming day, and that his 

 toil and labour is reproduced in the Homeric hymn, in which Leto, the power of 

 forgetfulness and sleep, gives birth to the lord of light in Delos. His coming was 

 preceded by the pale twilight, who, in mythical times, drove his cows to their 

 pasture, but in the < 'dyssey his herds feed at Tainaron or in Thriuakia far away, 

 where Phaethousa and Lampetie, the bright and gleaming daughters of ICeaira, the 



early morning, tend them at the rising and the setting of the sun But the 



sun loves not only the clouds, but the dawn who is their leader ; and so the dawn 

 comes before us as followed by him, and flying from his love, or else returning to it. 

 The former phrase ('the dawn flies from the sun') is embodied in the legend of 

 Daphne, who flies from her lover and vanishes away as he seeks to embrace her. 

 In the talc of Orpheus she appears under the name of Euiydike, as the bride of 

 the sun, loved by him and returning his love, yet falling a victim to it, for whether 

 to Daphne or Euiydike, the brightness of his glance is fatal as he rises higher in the 



heaven So again the legend of iMeleagros exhibits only the capricious action 



of the sun, and the alternations of light and shade are expressed in the sudden 

 exploits and mood}- sullenness of the hero : but this life is bound up with the torch 

 of day, the burniug brand, and when its last .spark flickers out, the life of the hero is 

 ended, ilore commonly, however, he is the mighty one labouiing on, and finally 

 worn out by an unselfish toil, struggling in his hard task for a being who is not 

 •worthy of the great and costly sacrifice. So Phoibos Apollon, with his kinsman 

 Herakles, serves the Trojan Laomedon; and so he dwells as a bondsman in the house of 

 Admetos. So likewise, as Bellerophontes, be encounters fearful peril at the bidding 

 of a treacherous host, and dies, like Sarpedon and Jlemnon, in a (juarrel which is 

 not his own. But nowhere is his unutterable toil and scanty reward brought out 

 so prominently as in the whole legend, or rather the mass of unconnected legend, 

 which is gathered round the person of Herakles. Doomed before his birth to be the 

 slave of a weak and cruel nuister, he strangles while jet in his cradle tlie serj)ents 

 of the night, which stung to death the fair Eurydike. His toils begin. His limbs 

 are endued with an irresistible power, and he has a soul which knows no fear. He 

 may use this ])ower for good or for evil, and his choice for good furnishes the ground- 

 work for the apologue of Prodikos. Other legends there were, which perverted this 

 idea ; and in these ho is exhibited under gross, uncouth or repulsive forms. But he 

 goes upon his way, and is hurried on through many lands. In all he has mighty 



