186 PROFESSOR D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON ON 



" I stand in the door- way dripping from my bath." That is what the Sun says 

 as he emerges from Oceanus. 



A consideration of the account given in Aristotle (H.A., bk. v. 8, 542 b) and 

 of the citations made there from Simonides, compel us to interpret the phenomenon as 

 astronomical : 



>'] cT dXicviov TiKTei irepl Tpo7ra$ toc? j(eifxeptvd<i, 8io kcu kuXovvtcu orav evSieivcu yevowTcu at 

 rpoirai, dXKVovlSes q/mepcu, kirTO. fxev irpo Tpoirwv, e7rra Se fxeTu. Tpoirds, KaOdirep kcu ^ifxcovlSiji; 

 eTTOirjcrev, '12? ottotolv ^ei/uepiov kcito. fiijva -iriv\)<JKr\ Zev$ %/u.a.Ta TecraapcucaloeKa, XaOavefAov tc 

 fj.iv wpav KaXiovcriv eTnj(dduioi, lepdv TrcuSoTpd(pov TroiKiXag uXkvovos. Tivovtcu <?' evSieival, otuv 

 av/u8>] votiov$ yiveaQai t«? Tpoirds, Ttjs TlXeidSo? fiopelov -yeyo/xeV^?. 



We may render the last lines of this passage as follows : — " And the fine weather is 

 to be met with when the sun turns in his southern tropic, and when at the same time 

 the Pleiades are found in their highest (northern) elevation." # 



The Pleiades had also an intimate relation with the season of spring. In the ancient 

 epoch of which we speak, when Taurus was the equinoctial sign, the sun rose associated 

 with the Pleiades at the Vernal Equinox, in what was the opening of the ancient year ; 

 for this reason the Pleiades were the stars of spring, the Vergilise of the Latins. And 

 the Halcyon is the same as the 



d\nrup(popos elapos opvis, 



a verse which admits, syllable for syllable, of literal translation, not merely " the sea- 

 blue bird of March," but " the bird of spring that brings up the sun from the sea." 



M. Svoronos has pointed out that the numismatic emblem of a bunch of grapes is to 

 be looked upon as another representation of the constellation of the Pleiad. An Homeric 

 Scholiastt tells us that BoVjou? was actually a name given to that constellation ; and 

 M. Svoronos figures a very remarkable coin of Mallos in Cilicia, where doves are 

 represented whose bodies are formed of bunches of grapes, the dove-emblem and the 

 grape-emblem of the Pleiad being here united or intermixed. The case is a very 

 interesting one, because it seems to give an example not only of the influence of foreign 

 symbolism, but of the direct influence of loan-words from foreign sources. I take the 

 grape-symbol to be due to a substitution of the notion of olvog for oiW?, a rare pigeon- 

 name ; and the latter to be nothing more than the Semitic njV, Ionah, a dove. 



Having started our discussion with the Lord of Beasts, let us glance at the symbolic 

 attributes of the King of Birds ; but of these symbolic attributes, which are innumer- 

 able, we may be content with a very brief discussion. The Eagle is depicted in Greek Art 

 and Literature as hostile to various creatures, of which the chief and the most frequently 

 mentioned are the Swan and the Hare. I find nothing of zoological significance in these 

 relations, The eagle does not prey upon swans ; and though it may catch here and there 

 a leveret, the hare is certainly not one of its main objects of attack. 



* For further remarks on this obscure and difficult myth, see my Glossary of Greek Birds, pp. 31, 32. 

 t Schol. II., xviii. 480 ; Ideler, Sternnamen, p. 317. 



