THE BEE, THE WASP, THE FLY, THE GNAT, THE MOSQUITO, THE HORSEFLY, AND
THE CICADA.
SUMMARY.
The bees and the Açvinâu.--Madhumakshas.--Indras, Krishnas, and
Vishnus as Mâdhavas.--The bees and Madhuhan.--Beowulf.--The god of
thunder and the bees.--Vishnus as a bee.--The _ocymum nigrum_.--The
bees as nurses.--Melissai.--Selênê as Melissa.--Souls as bees.--The
bees born in the bull's dead body.--The bee according to Finnish
mythology.--The bees descended from paradise as part of the mind of
God.--Bee's-wax causes light.--The Bienenstock.--The madhumati
kaçâ.--The bees as winds.--Apis and avis.--The mother of the
bees.--The young hero as a bee.--The fairy moon as a gnat.--The
fly's palace.--The flies bartered for good cattle.--Intelligence of
the bee.--The wasp as a judge.--The fly, the gnat, and the
mosquito.--The louse and the flea.--The ant and the fly.--The ant
and the cicada.--The cicadæ and the muses.--Tithon as a cicada.--The
sparrow and the cicada.--The cicada and the cuckoo.
I find the bee in the Vedic mythology, where the Açvinâu "carry to the
bees the sweet honey,"[345] where the horses of the Açvinâu, compared to
"ambrosial swans, innocent, with golden wings, which waken with the
dawn, swim in the water, and enjoy themselves, cheerful," are invoked to
come, "like the fly of honey," _i.e._, the bee, "to the juices."[346]
The gods Indras, Krishnas, and Vishnus, on account of their name
Mâdhavas (that is, born of madhus, belonging to or in connection with
it), were also compared in India to bees; the bee, as making and
carrying honey (madhukaras), is especially the moon; as sucking it, it
is especially the sun. The name of bhramaras or wanderer given in India
to the bee, is as applicable to the sun as to the moon. In the
_Mahâbhâratam_[347] it is said that the bees kill the destroyer of honey
(madhuhan). In the chapter on the bear, we saw how the bear was killed
by the bees (cfr. the name Beowulf, explained as the wolf of bees), and
how in India it personified Vishnus. Now it is not uninteresting to
learn how Madhuhan, originally the destroyer of the madhu, became a name
of Krishnas or Vishnus in the _Mahâbhâratam_ and in the _Bhâgavata P._;
of madhu (honey) was made a demon, killed by the god (sun and moon, sun
and cloud, are rivals; the solar bear destroys the beehive of the moon
and the clouds).[348] Vishnus (as Haris, the sun and the moon) is
sometimes represented as a bee upon a lotus-leaf, and Krishnas with an
azure bee on his forehead. When the Hindoos take honey out of a hive
with a rod, they always hold in one hand the plant toolsy (ocymum
nigrum), sacred to Krishnas (properly the black one), because one of the
girls beloved of Krishnas was transformed into it.[349]
In the legend of Ibrâhîm Ibn Edhem, in the _Tuti-Name_[350] we read of
a bee that carries crumbs of bread away from the king's table to take
them to a blind sparrow. Melíai and Mélissai, or bees, were the names
of the nymphs who nursed Zeus; the priestesses of the nurse-goddess
Dêmêtêr were also called Mélissai.
According to Porphyrios[351] the moon (Selênê) was also called a bee
(Melissa). Selênê was represented drawn by two white horses or two
cows; the horn of these cows seems to correspond to the sting of the
bee. The souls of the dead were supposed to come down from the moon
upon the earth in the forms of bees. Porphyrios adds that, as the moon
is the culminating point of the constellation of the bull (as a bull
herself), it is believed that bees are born in the bull's carcase.
Hence the name of _bougeneis_ given by the ancients to bees. Dionysos
(the moon), after having been torn to pieces in the form of a bull,
was born again, according to those who were initiated in the Dionysian
mysteries, in the form of a bee; hence the name of Bougenês also given
to Dionysos, according to Plutarch. Three hundred golden bees were
represented, in conjunction with a bull's head, in the tomb of
Childeric, the king of the Franks. Sometimes, instead of the lunar
bull we find the solar lion; and the lion in connection with bees
occurred in the mysteries of Mithras (and in the legend of Samson).
According to the Finnish mythology of Tomasson, quoted by Menzel,[352]
the bee is implored to fly far away over the moon, over the sun, near
to the axis of the constellation of the waggon, into the dwelling of
the Creator god, and carry upon its wings and in its mouth health and
honey to the good, and wounds of fire and iron to the wicked.
According to a popular belief (which is in accordance with the legend
of the Cerkessians), the bees alone of all animals descended from
paradise.[353] Virgil, too, in the fourth book of the _Georgics_,
celebrates the divine nature of the bee, which is a part of the mind
of God, never dies, and alone among animals ascends alive into heaven
(in popular Hellenic, Latin, and German tradition, the bee personifies
the soul, and this being considered immortal, the bee, too, is
supposed to escape death):--
"Esse apibus partem divinæ mentis et haustus
Æthereos dixere: Deumque namque ire per omnes
Terrasque, tractusque maris coelumque profundum.
Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum,
Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas;
Scilicet huc reddi deinde ac resoluta referri
Omnia; nec morti esse locum; sed viva volare
Sideris in numerum atque alto succedere coelo."
The wax of bees, because it produces light, and is, moreover, used in
churches,[354] must also have had its part in increasing the divine
prestige of bees, and the belief in their immortality, as being those
that feed the fire. According to a writing of 1482, cited by Du Cange,
the sacred disease or _ignis sacer_ (pestilential erysipelas) was
cured by wax dissolved in water.
In Germany the death of their master is announced to the bees in the
little stick round which the honey is made in the hive. The hive or the
Bienenstock, participates in the divine nature of the bees, and calls my
attention to the madhumatî kaçâ or madhoh kaçâ of the _Rigvedas_, and of
the _Atharvavedas_, attributed to the Açvinâu, and destined to soften
the sacrificial butter, which is of a nature similar to the _caduceus_
of Mercury, and to the magical rod, born of all the various elements and
of none in particular, daughter of the wind, and sometimes perhaps
itself the wind; the _anima_, the soul (the bee), is a breath, a breeze,
a wind (anemos, anilas), which changes its place, but never dies; it
collects and scatters honey and perfumes, and passes away, changeful as
the American flybird that sucks honey, the continual beating of whose
wings resembles the buzzing of a bee; the _apis_ and _avis_ are
assimilated. In Du Cange,[355] I find an oration to the mother of the
bees, to call back the dispersed ones of her family, conceived
thus:--"Adjuro te, Mater aviorum per Deum regem coelorum et per ilium
Redemptorem Filium Dei te adjuro, ut non te altum levare, nec longe
volare, sed quam plus cito potest ad arborem venire; ibi te allocas cum
omni tua genera, vel cum socia tua, ibi habeo bono vaso parato, ut vos
ibi, in Dei nomine, laboretis," &c.
In the twenty-second story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, a bee
transforms itself into a young hero, in order to prove to the old man
that he is able to fetch back his son, who has remained three years
under the instruction of the devil (the moon enables the old sun to find
the young one; it helps the sun to cheat the devil of night). In the
same story it is in the form of a gnat that the guardian-fairy perches
herself upon the young hero, whom his father has to recognise amongst
twelve heroes that bear the greatest resemblance to one another. In the
forty-eighth story of the fifth book, the gnat distinguishes, among the
twelve maidens that resemble each other extremely, the one whom the
young hero loves, that is, the daughter of the priest, whom the devil
had taken possession of, because her father had once said to her, "The
devil take you." This indicatory gnat occurs in numerous fairy tales,
and discharges the office of the fairy moon; this is the guide and
messenger of the hero. We have already seen the moon as a hostess. In
the thirty-first story of the fourth book of _Afanassieff_, we have the
fly that entertains in its palace (according to the sixteenth story of
the third book, a horse's head) the louse, the flea, the mosquito, the
little mouse, the lizard, the fox, the hare, and the wolf, until the
bear comes up and crushes with one paw the whole palace of the fly, and
all the mythical nocturnal animals that it contains. We have also seen
the hero who barters his bull for a vegetable which brings him fortune,
and we have seen above the bee that is born of the dead bull. In the
seventh story of the third book of _Afanassieff_, the third brother,
supposed to be foolish, collects, on the contrary, flies and mosquitoes
in two sacks, which he suspends upon a lofty oak-tree, where he barters
them for good cattle (the moon is the pea of good fortune, the giver of
abundance). We know that the moon was represented as the judge of the
departed in the kingdom of the dead, and as an omniscient fairy. The
industrious bees have a singular reputation for superior
intelligence.[356] In the thirteenth fable of the third book of
_Phædrus_, proof of the same wisdom is given by the wasp, who sits in
the tribunal as a conscientious judge between the drones and the working
bees in regard to the honey which the bees had collected and stored up
on a lofty oak-tree, and to which the drones had pretensions.
The fly, the gnat, and the mosquito, though small, annoy, and
sometimes cause the death of, the most terrible animals; the beetle
gets upon the eagle to escape the hare; the hare allures the elephant
and the lion into the water;[357] the moon allures the sun into the
night and the winter; the moon overcomes the sun, devoid of rays; the
sun is deprived of its rays, the hero loses his strength with his
hair; the fly alights upon the bald head of the old man, and annoys
him in every way; the old man, wishing to strike the fly, only slaps
himself. In _Phædrus_, again, we find the fly quarrelling with the
rustic ant; the fly boasts of partaking of the offerings given to the
gods, of dwelling amidst the altars, of flying through every temple,
of sitting upon the heads of kings, of the kisses of beautiful women,
and that without the necessity of submitting to any labour. The ant
answers the fly by referring to the certain approach of winter, during
which the ant, who had worked hard, has abundant provisions, and
lives, whilst the fly dies of cold and starvation. Moreover, the ant
says to it in one expressive verse--
"Æstate me lacessis; cum bruma est, siles."
This same discussion is reported, with more semblance of truth, by
other fabulists, as having happened between the shrill and inert
cicada and the silent and laborious ant.
In the preceding chapter we saw the musical beetle. We are tempted to
figure the bee as a musician, from the form of the bee being sometimes
attributed to the Hellenic Muses and Apollo, and the name "bee of
Delphi" being given to the Pythoness (as a cloud). But according to
Plato, the Muses transformed into cicadæ the men who amused themselves
by singing, and were so absorbed in that occupation they forgot to eat
and to drink. If this myth be not a satirical invention of Plato's
against poets, the bees as Muses, and those who became cicadæ on
account of the Muses, should enter into the same mythical family.
According to Isidorus, the cicadæ are born of the saliva of the
cuckoo; this belief figuratively expresses the passage from spring to
the summer season, to the season of the harvest, to the season of
abundance, in which, according to a Tuscan proverb among thieves, he
is a fool who cannot make his own fortune.[358] According to
Hesüchios, the ass was called at Cyprus by the name of a mature cicada
(tettix prôinos); the cicada (as the sun) dies, and the ass (as the
night or winter) appears. According to Philê,[359] the cicadæ feed
upon the eastern dew, perhaps in reminiscence of the Hellenic myth
which makes the sun Tithon the lover of the aurora. The sun feeds upon
the ambrosia, and is therefore immortal; but he has not the gift of
eternal youth; his members dry up; after having sung all through the
laborious noisy day, through the laborious noisy summer, he expires;
for this reason the Hellenic myth represented the aged Tithon as
transformed into a cicada.[360] The cicada is born again in spring of
the cuckoo's saliva, and in the morning of the dew of the aurora; the
two accounts correspond with one another. The cicada of summer
appears, and the cuckoo of spring disappears; hence the popular belief
that the cicadæ wage war to the death with the cuckoo, attacking it
under its wings; hence it is supposed that the cuckoo devours its own
nurse; the aurora devours the night, the spring devours the winter.
FOOTNOTES:
[345] Madhu priyam bharatho yat saradbhyah; _Rigv._ i. 112, 21.
[346] Hansâso ye vâm madhumanto asridho hiranyaparnâ uhuva
ushar-budhah udapruto mandino mandinispriço madhvo na makshah savanâni
gachathah; _Rigv._ iv. 45, 4. Here _makshas_, in conjunction with
_madhvas_, gives us the sense of _madhumakshas_ and _madhumakshika_,
which means bee, and not fly, as it was interpreted by other
translators, and by the Petropolitan Dictionary, whose learned editors
will be all the more induced to make this slight correction in the new
_Verbesserungen_, as in this hymn, as well as in the hymn i. 112, the
bees are considered in connection with the Açvinâu.
[347] iii. 1333.
[348] The god of thunder (or Indras), in opposition to the bees, is
also found in a legend of the Cerkessians quoted by Menzel. The god
destroys them; but one of them hides under the shirt of the mother of
God, and of this one all the other bees are born.--According to the
popular superstition of Normandy, in _De Nore_, quoted by Menzel, the
bees (the same is said of the wasps and the horseflies) are revengeful
when maltreated, and carry happiness into a house when treated well.
In Russia it is considered sacrilege to kill a bee.
[349] Cfr. Addison, _Indian Reminiscences_.
[350] ii. 112.
[351] Perì ton en Odüsseia tôn Nümphôn antron.
[352] Die Bienen gebeten werden: "Biene, du Weltvöglein, flieg in die
Weite, über neun Seen, über den Mond, über die Sonne, hinter des
Himmelssterne, neben der Achse des Wagengestirns; flieg in den Keller
des Schöpfers, in des Allmächtigen Vorrathskammer, bring Arznei mit
deinen Flügeln, Honig in deinem Schnabel, für böse Eisenwunden und
Feuerwunden;" _Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre_. In this
work, to which I refer the reader, Menzel treats at length of the
worship of bees, and of honey.
[353] In the Engadine in Switzerland, too, it is believed that the
souls of men emigrate from the world and return into it in the forms
of bees. The bees are there considered messengers of death; cfr.
Rochholtz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_, i. 147, 148.--When some one
dies, the bee is invoked as follows, almost as if requesting the soul
of the departed to watch for ever over the living:--
"Bienchen, unser Herr ist todt,
Verlass mich nicht in meiner Noth."
In Germany, people are unwilling to buy the bees of a dead man, it
being believed that they will die or disappear immediately after
him:--"Stirbt der Hausherr, so muss sein Tod nicht bloss dem Vieh im
Stall und den Bienen im Stocke angesagt werden;" Simrock, the work
quoted before, p. 601.--In the East, as is well-known, it was the
custom to bury great men in a tomb sprinkled over with honey or
beeswax as a symbol of immortality.
[354] Der Adel der Bienen ist vom Paradies entsprossen und wegen der
Sünde des Menschen kamen sie von da heraus und Gott schenkte ihnen
seinen Segen, und deshalb ist die Messe nicht zu singen ohne Wachs;
Leo, _Malberg. Glossæ_, 1842.
[355] _Baluz. Capitulor._ tom. ii. p. 663, in oratione ad revocandum
examen apum dispersum ex Cod. MS. S. Gallï.
[356] In _Du Cange_: "Apis significat formam virginitatis, sive
sapientiam, in malo, invasorem."--_Papias M. S. Bitur_; ex illo
forsitan officii Ecclesiast. in festo S. Ceciliæ: "Cecilia famula tua,
Domine, quasi Apis tibi argumentosa deservit," &c.
[357] Cfr. the chapters on the Hare, the Lion, and the Elephant. The
louse and the flea have the same mythical nature as the mosquito and the
fly.--In the ninth Esthonian story, the son of the thunder, by means of
a louse, obliges the thunder-god to scratch his head for a moment, and
thus to let fall the weapon of thunder, which is instantly carried off
to hell. The lice that fall down from the head of the witch combed by
the good maiden, or from that of the Madonna combed by the wicked
maiden, have already been mentioned. The Madonna that combs the child
is, moreover, a subject of traditional Christian painting.--In the fifth
story of the first book of the _Pentamerone_, we read of a monstrous
louse. The king of Altamonte fattens a louse so much that it grows to
the size of a wether. He then has it flayed, orders the skin to be
dirtied, and promises to give his daughter to wife to whoever guesses
what skin this is. The ogre alone guesses, and carries the maiden off,
whom seven heroes afterwards go to deliver towards the aurora "subito
che l'Aucielle (the birds) gridaro: Viva lo Sole."
[358]
"Quando la cicala il c. batte
L'ha del m. chi non si fa la parte."
[359] _Peri Zôôn idiotêtos_, xxiv., with the additions of Joachim
Camerarius.
[360] Plutarch, in the _Life of Sylla_, cites among the prognostics of
the civil war between Marius and Sylla, the incident of a sparrow
lacerating a cicada, of which it left part in the temple of Bellona,
and carried part away.