Origin of Mythology. 201 



bath in the sense of a part of a circle, and in that of cim^ 

 ning^ subtle^ sly. This root is retained in the German, 

 Dutch and Swedish arg^ signifying- cunning, arch, craf- 

 ty, wicked, mischievous. It is a curious fact, that many 

 words in Our modern languages conveying the idea of 

 crafty had their origin in the radical sense of bending^ 

 curving, winding — a sense well expressed by insinuation* 

 Of this I shall give ample proofs in my Dictionary, 

 should I live to execute the work. From arg, by trans- 

 position of letters, v>^e have the English word rogue ; and 

 on this root the Celtic nations formed the Welch drug, 

 the Irish droch, evil. The ancients, whose fancy embel- 

 lished every object, gave to Argus a hundred eyes- — a 

 happy emblem of cunning. Hence we see that yirgus is 

 a mere personification of craft, or vigihince. — Cicero in-^ 

 forms us that Argus was slain by Thoth ; that is, craft 

 was overcome by intelligence, or learning.* 



Prometheus, a son of Japetus by Clymene, surpassed 

 all men in fraud and canning, and deceived Jupiter him- 

 self. According to Apoilodarus, he made the first man 

 and -woman on earth, with clay, wliich he animated by 

 means of fire, which he stole from heaven ; and he erect- 

 ed the first altar to the gods. Bryant thinks him the same 

 as Osiris or Dionusus, Noah, the great husbandman, the 

 planter of the vine and inventor of the plow. Faber al- 

 ledges Prometheus to be Atlas, or the helio-arkite No- 

 ah, from Fh?'a-ma-theus, the great solar deity ! ! 



But Prometheus is a compound of two primitive words, 

 brum, or brown, who was. fabled to be one of the Cen- 

 taurs, and aith, ait, Chaldaic ni<. Hebrew »'«, fire, whence 

 the Greek a*'^'*'. and the English ashes and heat. Brum, 

 is the root of the Latin primus, and the Gothic frum, 

 fruma, Saxon frum, first, beginning, origin ; the Indian 

 Brumma, and Bramin. The literal sense of the v/ord is 

 the first fi^re. Hence Juvenal uses the word Titan, the 

 sun, as synonymous with Prometheus. Hence he is said 

 to have animated the first man and woman, as heat is the 

 principle of life ; and hence, with great propriety, he 



*■ Cicero. De Nat. Deor. Jib. iii. 22. ...Ovid's Met. lib. i v. 720. 



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