HI. THE LEAF. 57 



and Daphne, too implicitly, when he supposes this idea 

 to be retained in central Greek theology. 'Athena 3 orig- 

 inally meant only the dawn, among nations who knew 

 nothing of a Sacred Spirit. But the Athena who catches 

 Achilles by the hair, and urges the spear of Diomed, has 

 not, in the mind of Homer, the slightest remaining con- 

 nection with the mere beauty of daybreak. Daphne 

 chased by Apollo, may perhaps though I doubt even this 

 much of consistence in the earlier myth have meant the 

 Dawn pursued by the Sun. But there is no trace what- 

 ever of this first idea left in the fable of Arcadia and 

 Thessaly. 



27. The central Greek Daphne is the daughter of one 

 of the great river gods of Arcadia ; her mother is the Earth. 

 Now Arcadia is the Oberland of Greece ; and the crests 

 of Cyllene, Erymantlms, and JVtsenalus * surround it, like 

 the Swiss forest cantons, with walls of rock, and shadows 

 of pine. And it divides itself, like the Oberland, into 

 three regions : first, the region of rock and snow, sacred 

 to Mercury and Apollo, in which Mercury's birth on Cyl- 

 lene, his construction of the lyre, and his stealing the oxen 

 of Apollo, are all. expressions of the enchantments of 

 cloud and sound, mingling with the sunshine, on the cliffs 

 of Cyllene. 



" While the mists 

 Flying, and rainy vapours, call out shapes 



* Roughly, Cyllene 7,700 feet high ; Erymanthus 7,000 ; Maenalua 



6,000. 



3* 



