THE WRITTEN SOURCES OF MYTH
Among the most important sources of our knowledge of myth are ancient
books, which, purporting only to set down the annals of a people,
contain numerous important passages concerning the mythology of
the race whose deeds they celebrate, the adventures of divine or
semi-divine beings, whose godhead we can discern shining beneath the
armour of the mortal hero. Such books are the _Iliad_ of Homer, the
Japanese _Nihongi_, the _Popol Vuh_ of the Kiches of Central America,
the _Ramayana_ of the Hindus, and the _Wallum-Olum_ of the Lenapé
Indians. Among the pages of these and of similar works where myth
shades into history, we will now search for the pure mythic gold,
refining it from the dross which surrounds it, and making an attempt
to restore it to its pristine condition. In perusing these ancient
writings we shall find that although many of the myths which they
conserve have undoubtedly changed their original shape, others have as
certainly retained it, as well as their ancient simplicity of matter
and spirit.
THE SOURCES OF EGYPTIAN MYTH
The more we learn of Egyptian myth the more we realize how little we
knew concerning it until recently, and how very much more remains to
be discovered. We now know a good deal about the various Egyptian
deities and their attributes, from the careful study of Greek and Latin
writers, by induction, and from the Pyramid and other hieroglyphic
texts; but it is strange how comparatively few Egyptian myths have
come down to us. Of the many papyri taken from temple and sarcophagus
only a small proportion deals with what may be called literature,
and of this only a small part treats of myth. Perhaps the most
outstanding contribution to Egyptian myth is that of Plutarch, who
in his _Osiride et Iside_ tells us practically all we know of Osiris
and Isis. Plutarch's information was second-hand at the best, and
his version of the myth contains many grievous errors; but it is our
one and only guide for the main body of the story, and we must be
thankful for it. One of the great repositories of Egyptian ritual,
the _Book of the Dead_[1] is of great indirect value to mythology.
It treats of the manner in which the soul of the deceased Egyptian
should comport itself in the Otherworld, and also relates the voyage
of Ra-Osiris through the realms of night, mentioning numerous deities
and spirits who accompany him in his progress. Of this book there were
three recensions or versions, the Heliopolitan, the Theban, and the
Saïte. The first-mentioned was edited by the priests of the college of
On, or Heliopolis, and was based on manuscripts which were probably
ancient even in that far-away time. The pyramids of Unas, Teta, and
Pepi contain the original texts of this recension. Chapters were added
from time to time between the VIth and XIth Dynasties. The favourite
version of the _Book of the Dead_ from the XVIIIth to the XXIInd
Dynasty was the Theban recension, and the Saïte must be still later, by
its arrangement. As has been said, the _Book of the Deadhas_ greatly
assisted students of Egyptian myth. Not only does it describe many of
the gods and supernatural beings who inhabit the Underworld, but it
paints vivid pictures of the scenery of that gloomy region. It was
necessary that the dead Egyptian should know the name of every door,
door-keeper, watcher, and questioner in the abode of the dead, and
those names greatly assist in discovering the exact character of the
multitude of beings who inhabited the regions ruled over by Osiris.
Several papyri provide us with mythological items, notably the
Westcar Papyrus, written about 1800 B.C., now in the Berlin Museum.
The beginning and the end are wanting, yet sufficient remains to
show the trend of the whole. Among the several tales it contains is
the "Prophecy of Dedi," which recounts the birth of the sons of Ra.
In the history of Setne and his son Se-Osiris, too, we get several
mythological glimpses, especially valuable being the vision of Amenti,
the abode of the dead, vouchsafed to the child Se-Osiris. From a secret
place in the mountains of Memphis he led his father to seven great
halls (filled with people of all conditions), symbolic of Amenti.
These various halls or circles remind us of the abode of the damned in
Dante's 'Malebolge.' In the sixth hall the gods of Amenti held council,
and in the seventh sat the god Osiris, with Thoth and Anubis. A
judgment scene is described, corresponding to that in the _Book of the
Dead_; and parallels such as these provide that 'test of recurrence'
insisted upon by Tylor, and the first tenet in the creed of all good
mythologists--not, of course, that this recurrence suitably illustrates
Tylor's law--_i.e._, that if mythological phenomena on which a certain
theory is based 'recur' in a far distant place the correctness of that
theory is proved. Here similar facts only 'recur' concerning the same
subject in the accounts of different contemporary writers; but these
accounts are therefore almost certain to mirror the current belief on
that subject, unless, of course, internal evidence reveals that one
writer has slavishly copied from the other.
THE TWO BROTHERS
The "Story of the Two Brothers" contained in the D'Orbiney Papyrus,
bought in Italy and acquired by the British Museum in 1857, provides
us with a story of great significance to the students of myth and
comparative religion. It will be found in the volume of this series
which deals with Egyptian mythology, and it is only necessary to state
in this place that there were two brothers, Anapou and Bitou, that
Anapou's wife sought Bitou's life, and that Bitou had to flee. After
meeting the nine gods and receiving the 'Daughter of the gods' for his
wife, it was intimated to him by the Seven Hathors that he should die
by the sword. He confided to his wife that he had placed his heart, or
life,[2] on the summit of an acacia-tree, and that whoever discovered
it there would have to meet him in combat. It came to the ears of
Pharaoh that Bitou had a beautiful wife, and he sent armed men to kill
him, but Bitou slew them all. Pharaoh then enticed the girl away.
She told him her husband's secret, and he cut down the acacia-tree,
whereupon Bitou expired. His brother, opening the tree, discovered
therein a berry, which he placed in cold water, and Bitou was restored
to life. He then took the shape of a sacred Apis bull, which was
led before Pharaoh. The animal entered the harem and addressed his
former wife, telling her who he was. She put pressure upon the King to
slaughter it, and when this was done, two big drops of blood fell from
the animal's neck and became two great trees, one at either side of
Pharaoh's portal. Sacrifices were offered to these, and Pharaoh with
his wife, or rather Bitou's wife, was carried in his chair of state to
sit under the wonderful trees. But the tree under which Bitou's wife
was seated whispered its secret to her, and at her desire the trees
were cut down. As this was being done a chip flew into her mouth. In
due time she had a son, who was none other than Bitou himself; he
succeeded the Pharaoh and put his faithless wife to death.
This tale is a blend of several well-known mythologic and folklore
elements, the chief of which it may be observed are the slaughter of
the bull and the felling of the trees. These incidents show that part
of the story at least was originally made to explain the origin of tree
and animal worship. At the time it was reduced to writing this tale was
probably about four thousand years old, so that it had had every chance
to attract to itself other floating incidents, such as the way in which
the wickedness of the faithless wife was brought to naught.
THE GILGAMESH EPIC
An important place in the mythic lore of the Orient falls to the great
Chaldean poem known as the Gilgamesh epic, a copy of which, inscribed
on fragmentary clay tablets, is still extant in the British Museum.
This copy was made at the instance of Assurbanipal (Sardanapalus), King
of Assyria, in the seventh century before our era, and was housed in
that monarch's famous library at Nineveh. Ere the century in which
they were deposited there closed the tablets were buried beneath the
ruins of the city, to be recovered only in modern times through the
researches of Sir A. H. Layard and others. The epic, written by the
Ninevite scribes on twelve tablets, tells the adventures of a mythical
or semi-mythical hero called Gilgamesh, and is of the nature of a solar
cycle, comprising a number of more or less distinct and complete myths
woven into a connected narrative. Some of its episodes are known to be
of high antiquity, dating at the latest from some two thousand years
before the time of Assurbanipal.
It is possible that there is an historical basis for the character of
Gilgamesh, whose name is thought to be of Elamite or Kassite origin.
It happens by no means infrequently that a real national hero becomes
the nucleus of various legends of gods and supernatural beings, and it
is therefore not improbable that Gilgamesh was at one time that prince
of Erech which the epic represents him to be. Mythologically, he is
the type of the sun-god (as a brief scrutiny of the poem will show),
his adventures typifying the course of the solar luminary through the
heavens and into the Underworld. Eabani, the mythical type of primitive
man, with whom Gilgamesh is associated as friend and fellow-adventurer,
also presents solar characteristics. It is not, however, sun legends
alone which have found their way into the epic. The myth of Eabani and
Ukhut in the Ist tablet approximates to the story of Adam and Eve;
there is mention of the seasonal myth of Tammuz and Ishtar in the VIth
tablet; most important of all, in the XIth tablet appears the famous
Babylonian story of the deluge, forming in itself a complete and
separate narrative, connected with the rest of the epic only by the
most mechanical of literary devices.
The opening of the poem is rather obscure. A fragment exists which
seems to be its earliest lines, a sort of prologue indicating the
benefits accruing to those who read the epic. Another fragment thought
to belong to this work is about a grievous siege of the city of Erech;
but as no mention of Gilgamesh appears, it is doubtful whether the
fragment really forms a part of the poem. When Gilgamesh is first
introduced in the mutilated text it is as the semi-divine king of
Erech, a tyrannous monarch whose people groan beneath the weight
of his oppression. There is nothing to indicate how he reached the
throne, whether he was a native prince or a conqueror. Like the sun he
typifies, his birth is shrouded in mystery. His mother, Rimat-belit,
is a priestess of the cult of Shamash; it is not from her that he has
received his strain of divinity. His father, strangely enough, is not
once mentioned, and we are left to conjecture that he was the offspring
of a god, probably of the sun-god himself, whose worshipper and
_protégé_ he is.
The people of Erech at length rebel against his cruel treatment,
calling on the gods to create a hero to subdue him. The divine beings
hearkened, and the goddess Aruru made Eabani, the wild man, from
a piece of clay. Eabani haunts the mountains and desolate places,
herding with the gazelles as one of them, and it is in this condition
that Tsaidu, the hunter, finds him, whether by accident or design
is not clear. Tsaidu, after trying in vain to capture him, returns
with news of him to Gilgamesh, who, evidently guessing that the wild
man was intended by the gods for his downfall, dispatches Tsaidu
once more in search of him. This time the huntsman is accompanied by
the temple-woman Ukhut, whose snares Gilgamesh trusts will be more
effective than those of Tsaidu. Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, the
wild man falls before the wiles of a woman, and is led in triumph to
Erech, with whose monarch he establishes a close friendship, thus in a
measure thwarting the designs of the gods.
In the IInd tablet we find Eabani somewhat dissatisfied with his
position at Erech, and lamenting his lost freedom; but the god Shamash
appears to him in a dream and induces him to remain. The two heroes,
Gilgamesh and Eabani, project an expedition against Khumbaba, the
monster who guards the forest of cedars, and in the IIIrd tablet they
obtain the patronage of Shamash for their undertaking, through the good
offices of Rimat-belit.
The fearsome aspect of Khumbaba (identified by some writers with an
Elamite dynasty which flourished more than two thousand years before
our era) is portrayed in the IVth tablet, while the Vth relates the
episode of the heroes' approach to the forest of cedars. The portion
of the text dealing with the combat is no longer extant, but we gather
that the monster is overcome and slain. The encounter with Khumbaba
appears to be symbolical of the conflict between light and darkness.
The VIth tablet embodies a myth of different character, representing,
perhaps, the wooing of the sun-god, the god of the spring-time, by
Ishtar, the patron deity of fertility and of the renewal of vegetation
on the earth. Returning from his expedition to the forest of cedars,
Gilgamesh lays aside his armour and stained garments and robes himself
with becoming state. The goddess Ishtar, beholding him, loves him,
and desires him for her bridegroom. "Come, Gilgamesh," she says, "and
be thou my bridegroom! I am thy vine, thou art its bond; be thou my
husband, and I will be thy wife," and so on, with many fair promises
and inducements. But Gilgamesh will have none of her proffered favours.
In a speech replete with mythic allusions he taunts her with her
treatment of former lovers--of Tammuz the bridegroom of her youth, of
Alala the eagle, of a "lion perfect in might" and a "horse glorious in
battle," of the shepherd Tabulu and the gardener Isullanu. To all these
has she meted out cruel tortures; "and yet," says Gilgamesh, "thou
lovest me that thou mayest make me as they are." Ishtar in mingled
rage and shame appeals to her father Anu to send a great bull against
the hero, and Anu at length consents to do so. However, Gilgamesh and
Eabani succeed in slaying the divine animal, while Eabani still further
incenses the goddess by his contemptuous treatment of her. After the
overthrow of the celestial bull the heroes return to Erech. Up to this
point their victorious career has not received a single check; but just
as the sun when he reaches the zenith begins to decline in strength, so
the might of the two heroes begins to wane after the middle of the epic.
In the VIIth tablet the death of Eabani is foretold to him in a vision.
The temple maiden Ukhut (cursed by him in his first bitterness at
the loss of freedom, and now dead) appears to him, and in a passage
beginning, "Come, descend with me to the house of darkness, the
abode of Irkalla," describes the gloomy and wretched aspect of the
Netherworld. Soon afterward Eabani becomes ill, no doubt through the
malignance of the goddess Ishtar. This tablet and the following, which
recounts the death of Eabani, are in a very mutilated condition.
The IXth tablet opens with the lament of Gilgamesh for his deceased
friend. "Must I die like Eabani?" asks the hero, and a great dread
comes upon him, so that he resolves to go to the abode of his
ancestor, Ut-Napishtim, the Babylonian Noah, who has been admitted
into the pantheon, and, he trusts, will unveil for him the secret of
immortality. It must be remembered that on this journey thitherward
Gilgamesh, in his mythical character of sun-god, is travelling downward
from the zenith. In due course he reaches the Mountain of the Sunset,
lying on the western horizon, and when he has passed its portals,
guarded by scorpion-men, he passes through a region of darkness which
takes him twenty-four hours to traverse.
The Xth tablet brings him to the seashore, and here he meets with
Sabitu, goddess of the sea, who directs him to Ut-Napishtim's ferryman,
Arad-Ea. After some persuasion the ferryman consents to row him across
the waters of death to the abode of his ancestor. Arrived at the
farther shore, the hero (who has meanwhile contracted a sore disease)
remains sitting in the boat till Ut-Napishtim comes down to the strand.
The survivor of the flood is greatly surprised to see that a mortal man
has crossed the dark sea in safety, and he demands to know his errand.
Gilgamesh makes known the object of his quest (to learn the secret of
perpetual life), whereupon the listener on the shore looks grave, and
points out to him that death is the common lot of all men.
To explain how he himself obtained immortality and deification,
Ut-Napishtim relates the Babylonian version of the ubiquitous
flood-story, which occupies the first portion of the XIth tablet. The
flood was decreed, according to this version, by the gods who dwelt in
the ancient city of Shurip-pak. "Their hearts prompted the great gods
to send a deluge," says Ut-Napishtim naively, and no other cause is
assigned for the disaster. Ut-Napishtim was evidently a favourite with
Ea, lord of the deep; he instructed him in a vision how to build a ship
in which he and his household might escape. To allay the suspicions of
the populace he had to give as the reason for his preparations that
he was hated by Bel and was therefore disposed to quit the realms of
that deity and repair to the domains of Ea. The building, launching,
and loading of the ship occupied seven days, and at eventide on the
seventh Ut-Napishtim with his family and household entered the ship,
and the torrential rains then commenced. For a season all was storm
and chaos, so that even the gods were afraid. On the seventh day the
tempest ceased, and finally the ship came to rest on Mount Nitsir. To
discover whether the waters were abating this Babylonian Noah sent out
a dove, then a swallow, but both returned to the ship; after a space
he sent out a raven, and the raven drew near, "wading and croaking,"
but did not come back. Then Ut-Napishtim and all his household came
out and offered a libation and burnt incense on the mountain-peak. The
gods descended and hovered round him, and the lady of the gods swore by
her necklace of lapis lazuli (an amulet) that she would not forget the
days of the deluge. Bel, who seems to have been the prime mover in the
destruction of mankind, was wroth when he discovered the survivors, but
at length, on the intervention of the other gods, he decided to raise
Ut-Napishtim and his wife to the status of divinities and admit them to
the council of the gods. After this, the pair were taken away and made
to dwell at 'the mouth of the rivers.'
His recital ended, Ut-Napishtim undertook to cure Gilgamesh of his
disease, and for that purpose directed him to a magic spring of
healing virtue. The hero, once more strong and healthy, returned
to his ancestor's dwelling and again demanded the secret of life.
Ut-Napishtim, though he had previously pointed out the hopelessness of
the quest, now told Gilgamesh how he might obtain the plant of life,
and with Arad-Ea for his pilot the hero set out. He was successful
in finding the magic plant, but ere he could make use of it a
serpent-monster stole it from him, and with his quest still unfulfilled
he was obliged to return to Erech.
The mythological significance of this tablet is, of course, that the
sun-god can never attain immortality, he must 'die' inevitably at
eventide, cross the waters of death, and sojourn until morning in the
Underworld. Just as Gilgamesh is healed and restored to Erech, so is
the sun restored to the world at dawn, his quest still unsatisfied, for
he must 'perish' again when night comes round.
The XIIth and last tablet concerns the return of Eabani's ghost
(_utukka_) from the Underworld. Gilgamesh still mourns for his friend,
and begs the gods to restore him to life. At length Ea hearkens and
intercedes with Nergal, god of the Netherworld, who consents to release
the spirit for a little while. The passage containing Gilgamesh's
interview with the ghost is of interest as setting forth the Babylonian
doctrine of care for the dead. Eabani describes the conditions of life
in the Underworld, showing that the dead who are properly buried and
receive offerings are comparatively comfortable, while those who are
uncared for dwell in squalor and wretchedness.
We must not overlook the important astrological aspect of the Gilgamesh
epic. It is generally thought that the division of the epic into
twelve tablets implies a connexion with the zodiac, though it is
also suggested that the association is an artificial one conceived
by the Ninevite scribes who copied the poem. However this may be,
it is obvious that the epic abounds in astrological allusions. Thus
the sign Virgo would be represented by the wooing of Ishtar in the
VIth tablet; Taurus by the combat with the celestial bull; Scorpio by
the meeting with the scorpion-men at the Mountain of the Sunset, and
also by the traversing of the region of darkness, since the scorpion
typified darkness, and the sign Scorpio was frequently used both as
the seventh and eighth signs of the zodiac. Capricornus, represented
as a fish-tailed goat, may be depicted by the encounter with Sabitu,
goddess of the sea. The deluge story inserted in the XIth tablet comes
under the sign of Aquarius, the water-bearer; while Pisces, the twelfth
sign, typical of the after-life, corresponds with the ghost-scene in
the XIIth tablet. As has been said, Gilgamesh and Eabani were both
of them forms of the sun-god; it is therefore not impossible that
they were the mythological equivalents of the sign Gemini, the twins,
itself connected with two types of the solar deity. The astrological
or zodiacal element in the epic grew in importance with the advance of
astrology in Babylonia.
HINDU MYTHICAL LITERATURE: THE VEDAS
The generic term _Veda_ ('knowledge') is applied to a collection
of ancient Hindu writings forming the Brahmanical scriptures. The
_Veda_ comprised a group of four distinct collections of sacred
literature--namely, the _Rig-veda_, or book of hymns, the _Sama-veda_,
or book of chants, the _Yajur-veda_, or book of prayers, and the
_Atharva-veda_, or book of the Atharvans--each of these composed
of a _Samhita_ (a collection of sacred sayings forming the veda
proper), to which are appended three other classes of writings,
somewhat less authoritative and divine--the _Brahmanas_ (prose
writings), the _Aranyakas_, dealing with the more esoteric rites,
and the _Upanishads_, of a rationalistic and speculative nature.
The _Rig-veda_, the work of early Aryan settlers in India, is the
oldest and most important of the four, and is believed to be of high
antiquity. It is written in a dialect older than classical Sanskrit.
The _Sama-veda_ and _Yajur-veda_ are largely composed of borrowings
from the _Rig-veda,_ resemblances to which are also apparent in the
_Atharva-veda,_ though the significance of the latter is less religious
and more magical.
With the religious and moral teachings of the Vedas we have here no
concern; but the lore of the ancient gods which still lingers in
them is of great mythological interest, and reveals to some extent
the workings of Indian religious thought in the early Aryan period.
The foundation of the early Hindu religion as it is set forth in the
Vedic literature was, apparently, a simple animistic cult, wherefrom
was gradually evolved a pantheon of deities for the most part
anthropomorphic. The natural world was divided, conveniently enough,
into three spheres, the earth, the air, and the sky, each of which had
its presiding deity with his divine court. Thus arose a constantly
changing triad of supreme deities--changing, at all events, in
name--and in time the partly monotheistic idea of a spiritual essence
or universal soul pervading and animating all things, even the gods
themselves.
Despite the lofty moral sentiments of the Vedas, and their spiritual
character, we may discern in them traces of barbarism. This is less
evident in the Vedic hymns, or Samhitas, than in the prose Brahmanas:
many of the myths, complete and fragmentary, in which these latter
abound, present a distinctly savage element of irrationality and
stupidity.
THE "RAMAYANA" AND "MAHABHARATA"
The _Ramayana_ treats of the traditions of two great races, the Kosalas
and the Videhas, who dwelt in Northern India between the twelfth and
tenth centuries B.C. It is not in these families that our interest
centres, but in the numerous mythological allusions which enrich
the work. It is, of course, chiefly a hero-tale, but, unlike the
_Nibelungenlied_, for example, it abounds in direct allusions to the
gods and their various attributes; and this it is that makes it so
interesting to the mythologist. Here is a short catalogue of gods from
the fifth book of the _Ramayana_ to illustrate its usefulness as a
mythological guide. The principal attributes of the various deities are
described in a phrase:
_Brahma_ and the flaming _Agni, Vishnu_ lord of heavenly light,
_Indra_ and benign _Vivasvat_ ruler of the azure height,
_Soma_ and the radiant _Bhaga_, and _Kuvera_ lord of gold,
And _Vidhatri_ great Creator worshipped by the saints of old,
_Vayu_ breath of living creature, _Yama_ monarch of the dead,
And _Varuna_ with his fetters which the trembling sinners dread,
Holy spirit of _Gayatri_, goddess of the morning prayer,
_Vasus_ and the hooded _Nagas_, golden-winged _Garuda_ fair,
_Kartikeya_ heavenly leader strong to conquer and to bless,
_Dharma_ god of human duty and of human righteousness.
The adventures of the hero Rama in search of his wife Sita and her
eventual discovery, form the principal incidents; and although the
work rings with the clash of battle, it yet possesses infinite wisdom,
related in the words of holy hermits and sage priests.
The _Mahabharata_, or 'great poem of the Bharatas,' most wonderful
of all Eastern epics, tells of a great war fought some thirteen or
fourteen centuries before our era; but the main historical theme
has been largely obscured by the medley of mythical, legendary, and
religious lore which with the passing of centuries has gradually
swelled the epic to more than a hundred thousand couplets. Originating,
possibly, some centuries before the Christian era, the poem is believed
to have been cast in its present form as early as A.D. 200.
Like the _Ramayana_, the _Mahabharata_ is rich in mythic matter--in
myths, legends, and hero-tales more or less completely fused with
the central narrative. Thus it contains one version of the Indian
deluge story, and the Greeks are known to have identified certain
of its characters with the beings of their own mythology. The chief
religious tendency of the poem in its existing shape is toward the
cult of Krishna, who plays a leading part in its development. It has
been suggested that the Krishna stratum was superimposed on an earlier
Buddhist groundwork at a time when the worship of Vishnu (regarded as
being incarnate in Krishna) was in ascendancy.
THE "ILIAD" AND "ODYSSEY"
Much obscurity enfolds the origin of those famous Greek epics, the
_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, whereof the authorship is traditionally assigned
to Homer. Beyond the fact of their undoubted antiquity nothing is
known of their early history save what may be gleaned from internal
evidence; it is not even certain that they are both from the same pen.
Much of the matter they contain is extremely ancient, and authorities
are generally agreed that they must have been cast in epic form at
latest before the ninth century B.C. The literary beauty and power of
these noble works need not be dwelt upon here, but both the _Iliad_ and
_Odyssey_ are rich in mythological matter, and it is this which calls
for our attention. Gods and men mingle freely in both narratives.
Thus we learn that in Homeric times the gods were definitely
personalized and anthropomorphic; yet not to such an extent as to lose
theriomorphic traits which indicate their origin. They could, for
instance, assume animal shape at will, even Athene herself, who has
but few savage elements in her nature, becoming a bird on occasion.
Apollo, too, and Dionysus, and other deities possess this faculty of
metamorphosis as an inheritance from a more barbarous age.
The Homeric myths, in whatever form they reached the Greek poet (or
poets) known to us as Homer, are singularly free from the grosser
elements which appear in the Hesiodic tales of the gods. Zeus and
Hera, Apollo and Artemis, all the gods whose classic lineaments were
fixed for all time by the pen of Homer, are portrayed by him in noble
and beautiful aspect, with only here and there a reminiscence of some
primitive _chronique scandaleuse_, or a trace of that barbaric element
of irrationality characteristic of myth in its primitive stages.
Zeus was, of course, the supreme deity of the Homeric pantheon, and is
represented as a just and pitiful god, a father to his people and an
avenger of the wrongs of the weak. To him is paid genuine religious
veneration, and submission to his supreme and righteous will is
obviously one of the first duties of man. Round him are grouped the
other gods and goddesses, likewise anthropomorphic and rational beings.
The divine government consists of a simple monarchic state, probably
drawn up on the model of the Greek government of the period. Between
gods and mortals a general spirit of friendliness and confidence
exists, giving to the religion of the Homeric period a pleasant and
spontaneous character not always evident in later times.
It is notable that both the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ were unhesitatingly
ascribed to Homer until the eve of the Christian era, when certain
Greek writers advanced the thesis that the epics were the work of
different authors. Thus was commenced a controversy which has never
been entirely settled. It was urged, again, that the _Iliad_ was
composed of numerous short folk-poems taken from oral tradition and
woven by the poet into a connected narrative; but this theory in
turn has been examined and found lacking, for the literary unity and
coherence of the poem, failing only in a few minor instances, stamps
it as an original work. This, of course, does not imply that myth has
been excluded from the main structure of the poem, for, as has been
shown, it has not. It has likewise been brought forward, as proof of
the separate authorship of the epics, that various deities appear in
a different aspect in the _Odyssey_ from that which they wear in the
_Iliad_, but this in all probability is due rather to the exigencies of
composition than to a different author.
These great epics are of the widest mythological importance,
determining, as they do, as much as the Hesiodic poems, the character
and status of the Greek divinities. And still more surely than Hesiod
does Homer mark the transition from the barbarous or semi-barbarous
mythical period to the full splendour of the classic age. For many
centuries the works of the ancient poet formed the scriptures of the
Greek religion, the very foundation-stone of the mythological "glory
that was Greece."
JAPANESE MYTHIC LITERATURE
Japan is rich in mythic literature, perhaps the most valuable of its
mythic books being the _Kojiki_, or "Record of Ancient Matters."
The traditions embraced in it are said to have been recited by a
court lady, Hiyeda No Ra Rae, endowed with an extraordinary memory,
and commanded by the Emperor Temmu, who flourished at the end of
the seventh century A.D., to absorb all the mythical and historical
materials she could and then to dictate them to a scribe. But the
emperor died before he could give final instructions concerning the
scheme, and for twenty-five years Hiyeda carried these mythic annals
in her brain, patiently awaiting the day when Temmu's successor could
furnish her with a scribe. At length the Empress Gemmyo took the
matter up in A.D. 712, and gave her as helper the scribe Yesumaro.
The _Kojiki_ is written in archaic Japanese, and describes the
divine origin of the Japanese race and the story of creation given
elsewhere in this book, before it goes on to treat of the annals
of early sovereigns. The _Nihongi_, or "Chronicles of Japan," is
written in the classical or Chinese style, and goes over much the same
ground as the _Kojiki_, the songs of which it occasionally alters
slightly, supplementing here and omitting there, but it is by no means
so Japanese in character. It is, however, much more valuable as a
repository of myth and history. The mythology of these books is, of
course, Shintoism. The principal gods and heroes and their adventures,
divine and terrestrial, are described, and one of the chief tales
recounts the quarrel of the sun-goddess with her brother Susa-no-o. The
sun-goddess, Ama-terasu, is, of course, an important figure in these
mythic annals, as from her sprang the line of the mikados. The great
cycle of myths collected in these annals is known as the "Period of the
Gods," and may be compared with the divine cycles of the Celts, or the
_Popol Vuh_.
THE EDDAS
The Teutons of the North do not appear to have possessed any very
ancient written records of their mythology. The Prose, or Younger, Edda
is a miscellaneous group of writings collected by Snorri Sturlason
(1178-1241), who completed the work about 1222. The name 'Edda' does
not appear to have been originally bestowed upon it by its author,
and Scandinavian scholars find some difficulty in explaining it. It
was, it is thought, composed by different hands between the years
1140 and 1160. It is divided into four parts, with a preface, which,
after the fashion of that period, purports to furnish the reader
with a history of human affairs from the beginning. The second part,
"Gylfaginning," or "The Delusion of Gylfi," is a valuable compendium
of early Scandinavian myth. It deals, in the first place, with the
adventures of the mythical king Gylfi and the giantess Gelfion, the
manner of creation of the island of Zealand, and the invasion of
Sweden by the Æsir or divine beings, captained by Odin. The third
part, the "Bragaræthur," or "Sayings of Bragi," contains mythical
poems attributed to Bragi, the god of poetry. The remainder of the
Younger Edda deals with the poetic art, and therefore does not fall to
be described here. Sturlason's collection is fortified by another work
called the _Ynglinga Saga_, which describes how the hero-gods of the
Scandinavian race advanced from the Black Sea northward through Russia
and westward through Esthonia, overrunning the south of Scandinavia
and founding kingdoms there. Of this work three important manuscripts
are still extant, the Wurm Manuscript, the Codex Regius, and, most
important of all, the Upsala Codex, probably written about the year
1300.
The Elder Edda, or the Poetic Edda, discovered by Bishop Sveinsson in
1643, was attributed by him to Sæmund Sigfusson, a royal Norwegian who
flourished in Iceland from about 1055 to 1132. He was mistaken, for the
fragmentary poems it contains are probably rather earlier. They deal
with the myths of early Scandinavian civilization, and are composed in
a simple and archaic form of Icelandic. Who composed them we do not
know, but they were almost certainly collected from oral tradition. The
most important and interesting of these ancient poems is the "Völuspá"
or prophecy of the Völva, or Sybil, who from her lofty seat addresses
Odin, singing of the primeval times before even the gods were created,
of the origin of the Jötunn of men and dwarfs, and of the last dreadful
doom in the 'twilight of the gods' at Ragnorök. The whole composition
is intensely mystical in both atmosphere and wording, shows knowledge
of a cosmology different from that of later Scandinavian times, and is
on the whole extremely difficult to understand. Next we have "Hávamál"
("Lesson of the High One"), a collection of saws and proverbs,
containing a series of stories told by Odin to his own discomfiture.
This is true matter of mythology, and is the sort of material which
strengthens the theory of Lang and others that myth possesses no
religious significance, that it is exoteric to religion, the truth,
of course, being that the above is only one type of myth--the
secular as opposed to the sacred. The cosmogony and chronology of
the Scandinavian religion are set forth in the "Vafprúthnismál," or
"Lesson of Vafprúthnir," a giant who is visited by Odin in disguise
and catechized by him. Many burlesque stories of the gods are also
told in "The Journey of Skirnir," "The Lay of Hoarbeard," and "The
Brewing of Ægir." In the "Song of Thrym" we are told how a giant of
that name stole the hammer of Thor, refusing to restore it unless the
goddess Freya was given him to wife, and how Thor, dressed in female
garments, took her place, slew the giant, and recovered his hammer. A
myth which recounts how the caste system arose in Scandinavia is met
with in "Rígsmál," which tells how the god Hemisdal, taking the human
name of Rig, bestowed the power of procreation on the two dwarfs Ai and
Edda, who became the parents of the race of thralls or bondsmen. A like
gift he bestowed on Afi and Ama, who became the parents of the caste
of churls. He himself brought up Jarl, the first freeman, instructing
him in the arts of war and wisdom. The rest of the Poetic Edda is
concerned with pseudo-history, and, among other things, with the long
and important series of lays relating to the two heroic families of the
Volsungs and the Nibelungs. These, however, are not so much myth as
hero-story. The principal manuscript of the Poetic Edda is the Codex
Regius in the royal library at Copenhagen, written on forty-five leaves
of vellum, probably between 1260 and 1280.
THE "MABINOGION"
The name _Mabinogion_ is given to a collection of Welsh tales of much
mythological interest.[3] The ancient Britons called a man qualified
for bardic honours a _mabinog_, or graduate, and the traditional
lore which he had to learn by rote was called _mabinogi_ (plural,
_mabinogion_). Only a few of these tales are _mabinogion_ in the
strict sense of the word, and these are the tales of Pwyll, Branwen,
Manawyddan, and Math. Certain Arthurian tales are also included in the
work, but with these we will not deal here. The veritable _Mabinogion_
undoubtedly contain Welsh-Celtic myth. We find in them that process
through which divine beings degenerate into demigods or hero-gods,
thereby bridging the gulf between mythology and romance. The manuscript
original dates from the fourteenth century, but the tales are of the
period between the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This is not to say,
however, that they originated then, as elements in many of them may
be traced back to dim primeval days. It is only possible to elucidate
these fragments of bardic literature by the help of the Welsh _Triads_
and the analogies of early Irish literature. Thus in the Irish Tuatha
de Danann we find the counterparts of the Children of Don, also divine.
So also with others of the characters in the _Mabinogion_; Manawyddan
mab Llyr is a variant of Manannan mac Lir, lord of the Irish Hades,
while Govannon may be equated with the Irish smith Goibniu. Several
theories have been advanced to account for the resemblance between
the Welsh and Irish tales. One asserts that the _mabinogi_ tales were
learned by the Welsh Celts from the earlier Gaelic population of Wales,
while another, equally well supported, suggests that the Irish were
the borrowers. This last theory is rendered untenable by the fact that
the _Mabinogion_ has no affinities with the predominant Ulster cycle
of the ninth century (in which the tales are alleged to have been
borrowed), but rather with the older cycle of the Tuatha de Danann,
regarded even in the tenth century as of old mythological origin. A
third and more probable explanation is that both Welsh and Irish tales
belong to a period when those branches of the Celtic family were as yet
unseparated. Similarities of detail may of course result from later
borrowings, but these belong to a different category.
As literature the tales of the _Mabinogion_ far surpass any
contemporary productions, whether English, French, or German. Their
imaginative glamour leaves them without a rival in the literary annals
of any period.
SOURCES OF MEXICAN MYTH
The principal sources of Mexican myth are the writings and observations
of the Spanish _Conquistadores_ in the train of the conquering Cortéz
and his immediate successors in the country. The most important
document for the study of Mexican mythology is the work of Father
Bernardino Sahagun, a monk who flourished in Mexico in the sixteenth
century.
His great work, the _History of the Affairs of New Spain_ (as Mexico
was then called), is the result of years of close study of the people
and their folklore. Not content to take at second-hand mythological or
other details reported to him, he submitted them to a committee of old
and experienced Mexicans, thoroughly acquainted with the antiquities
of their country. After this committee had approved of the inclusion
of the item in his manuscript, Sahagun consulted still other native
authorities, so that his book remains our chief and most reliable
source of information upon Mexican myth. Even so, the account he gives
us of the various deities, their characteristics and attributes, is
very brief and not a little disappointing in its lack of detail,
occupying as it does only about forty pages of print. The second book
deals with calendars and festivals, and in this he supplements in some
degree the information regarding the divine beings treated of in the
first book. The third book is the most valuable to us, for it provides
us with a number of myths relating to the Mexican gods. It acquaints us
with the circumstances of the birth of Uitzilopochtli, of the manner
in which Ouetzalcoatl, god of the Toltecs, was half lured, half driven
from the land by Tezcatlipoca, of how the inhabitants of Tollan, the
city of the Toltecs, were decimated by the malign necromancy of the
same deity working on behalf of less civilized tribes. The remaining
books are occupied with the astrology and customs of the Mexicans.
Torquemada, a later priest, wrote a similar work which, however,
was based upon the matter contained in Sahagun's treatise, still in
manuscript when the former wrote.
A magnificent example of an aboriginal work teeming with mythical
allusions is the _Popol Vuh_, or "Collection of Written Leaves," of
the Kiche Indians of Guatemala, already alluded to in the chapter on
cosmogony. The history of the discovery of the _Popol Vuh_ has already
been related, and it only remains to furnish some account of its
contents. It embraces the creation story of that people, the tale of
the downfall of the earth-giants, the wanderings of the Kiche race, the
adventures of certain hero-gods in the Underworld, and Kiche history
up to a fairly late date. It is divided into four books, the first of
which is the story of the creation and what occurred shortly after.
The universe was dark and in a chaotic condition when the god Hurakan,
the 'Heart of Heaven,' passed over the abyss, and called out "Earth!"
At the word the solid land appeared. Hurakan then summoned the other
gods to consultation regarding their future course of action, among
them Gucumatz and the mother- and father-gods, primeval deities who are
also called 'the Serpents covered with Green Feathers.' The council
of deities agreed that animals should be created, and this was done.
They next resolved to make man, and fashioned certain mannikins out of
wood; but these failed to pay them reverence, and in great wrath the
gods sent a mighty flood accompanied by a resinous rain upon them. The
wretched mannikins, taken unawares, were overwhelmed and nearly all
destroyed; only a few succeeded in getting away, and their descendants
to-day, we are told, are the little monkeys which infest the forests.
After this unlucky experiment the gods turned their attention to
another denizen of the earth, called Vukub-Cakix, a name to be
translated 'the great Macaw.' He seems to have been a primitive sun-
or moon-god, but he offended the pantheon of Heaven by his overweening
pride, which at last became so offensive to the gods that they resolved
to destroy him. He had indeed a person to be proud of, for his teeth
were of emerald and he shone resplendent with gold and silver. He had
two sons, Zipacna and Cabrakan, who were earth-giants like the Titans
of Greek myth. Like their father, they aroused the enmity of the gods,
who dispatched to earth the heavenly brothers Hun-Apu and Xbalanque to
bring about the downfall of these blasphemous boasters.
Vukub-Cakix noticed them alight in the tapal-tree, which he regarded as
his own especial property. They began to pluck its fruit, and this so
irritated him that he was about to attack them when Hun-Apu discharged
a dart from a blowpipe at him, striking him in the mouth and causing
him to topple to the earth from the tree into which he had climbed. He
succeeded, however, in tearing off Hun-Apu's arm, which he hung over
his fire at home. This use of 'sympathetic magic,' of course, caused
the hero-god great pain, so in order to recover the arm he begged the
assistance of two magicians, probably the father- and mother-gods.
These disguised themselves as physicians, and pretending that they
desired to cure Vukub-Cakix, extracted his teeth. With the teeth his
power departed from him and he died. The giant's wife had been basting
Hun-Apu's arm at the fire, but seizing it the hero-god gave it to the
magicians, who replaced it upon his shoulder. Zipacna and Cabrakan, who
personified the earthquake, were next reduced. Four hundred young men
(the stars) requested Zipacna to dig the foundations of a new house for
them, intending to bury him alive while occupied in the task; but when
they had erected their dwelling above him he reared his mighty bulk
beneath it and shot them into Heaven, where they have since remained.
Zipacna, however, tumbling down a ravine, was killed by Hun-Apu and
Xbalanque by having a mountain thrown upon him. Cabrakan was next
destroyed, partly by poison and partly by overstraining himself by
throwing mountains at the instigation of the heavenly brothers.
The father- and mother-gods had two sons, Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu,
who were much devoted to the game of ball, the national pastime of
the peoples of Mexico and Central America. The noise they made while
playing attracted the attention of the lords of the Underworld, who
sent them a challenge to a game. The challenge was accepted, and
Hunhun-Apu and his brother took their way to the grim territory
of Xibalba, where they were received by its rulers Hun-Came and
Vukub-Came. It would seem from what follows that the condition of
affairs in Xibalba closely resembled those of some of the secret
societies still in vogue among the Indians all over North America.
The brothers were subjected to numerous tests, at all of which they
failed, and they were then sacrificed by having their hearts torn out.
Hunhun-Apu's head was placed among the branches of a tree from which
calabashes sprouted in such a manner that the gory trophy could not
be distinguished from the fruit. Although the inhabitants of Xibalba
were forbidden to approach the tree, Xquiq, daughter of one of its
high officials, did so. By magical influence Hunhun-Apu became the
father of her children, and when her father discovered her disgrace she
was given up to the owls, the messengers of Xibalba, to be slain. She
bribed them, and succeeded in escaping to the earth, where she sought
out the dwelling of Xmucane, mother of Hunhun-Apu, and gave birth to
Hun-Apu and Xbalanque, who overthrew Vukub-Cakix. These children were
persecuted by two other sons of Hunhun-Apu, also living with their
grandmother, but by magic they turned their tormentors into monkeys,
and thus rid themselves of them. By the aid of a rat they discovered a
set of implements for the ball game which had belonged to their father
and uncle, and they engaged in the pastime. The lords of Xibalba,
hearing them at play, once more sent a challenge, which was again
accepted. But, more astute than their forbears, ere they reached the
confines of Xibalba, Hun-Apu created from a hair on his leg a small
insect called Xan. This, preceding the brothers, found the lords of
Xibalba sitting among a number of wooden figures. It bit them, and
when they spoke to one another concerning the insect's onslaught, the
brothers discovered their names. When Hun-Apu and Xbalanque arrived
they were thus enabled to salute each of the Xibalbans by his name, and
they passed all the other tests successfully. They were shut up for
the night in the House of Gloom with certain torches which they must
keep alight all night, but they affixed red feathers to the torches,
and thus cheated the Xibalbans. In the House of Bats, Camazotz, the
chief of the bats, cut off the head of Hun-Apu, but a friendly tortoise
passing by affixed itself to the body in place of the head. Xbalanque
then played ball with the Xibalbans, and hit the ball close to the
ring, whereupon a rabbit concealed near it leaped out and ran away. The
Xibalbans, taking it for the ball, pursued it, and Xbalanque, observing
Hun-Apu's head suspended in the ball court, hung up the tortoise in its
place, and affixed Hun-Apu's head to his body and resuscitated him.
The hero-gods then sacrificed themselves, but returned after a space
of five days. Disguised as magicians, they performed many miracles,
resurrecting people, burning houses and restoring them again, and so
forth. Hun-Came and Vukub-Came considered the resurrection trick so
clever that they desired to have it performed upon themselves. The
heroes sacrificed them, but did not revive them. This completed the
subjugation of Xibalba, the people being reduced to a subservient
condition. The aristocratic privilege of the ball game was withdrawn
from them, and they were doomed to keep bees and make pots and perform
suchlike ignoble work. _Post-mortem_ honours were paid to Hunhun-Apu
and Vukub-Hunapu, who became the sun and moon respectively, while the
four hundred youths slain by Zipacna remained in Heaven as the stars.
The _Popol Vuh_ further relates the mythical history of the Kiche
tribes. Four men, Balam-quitze, Balam-agab, Mahucutah, and Iqibalam,
were created by the gods, and the first three were the ancestors of
the three Kiche divisions, Cavek-, Nihaib-, and Ahau-Kiches, the
fourth being without descendants. These were not alone in the world,
as the Yaqui, or Mexicans, also existed, and other cognate tribes
dwelt to the east. The ancestors of the Kiches had been formed too
perfectly by the gods, who, alarmed at their omniscience, cast a veil
over their intellects. Wives were created for them, but they dwelt
in darkness, without sunlight or the comforts of religion. Setting
out on a wandering life, they came to Tulan-Zuiva, where each tribe
received a special god to itself. The want of fire was felt, and the
god Tohil, a thunder-deity, struck his flint-shod feet together and
produced it as required. The other tribes requested the Kiches to
give them fire, but a bat messenger from Xibalba advised them against
acquiescence unless the recipients should consent to be united with
their god "beneath their girdles and beneath their armpits." All agreed
except the Kakchiquel, whose bat-god purloined the seeds of fire. The
riddle-like condition portended that the tribes which consented should
give up their hearts for sacrifice. A general migration followed, the
Kiches as well as other tribes journeying to Guatemala, where on a
mountain-side they sat down to await the dawn. The morning star swam
into view, followed by the great luminary of day, and at sight of it
the tribal gods were turned into stone. The original Kiche ancestors
too withdrew in hermit-like seclusion from mankind, being seen only at
intervals in the wild places in converse with the gods. Human sacrifice
was instituted, and wars with neighbouring peoples began to be waged.
A great attack was made upon the Kiches, who dwelt in a settlement on
the mountains surrounded by a stockade, the object evidently being to
capture the Kiche gods; but the attack was repulsed with great loss to
the invaders. The death day of the first Kiche men was now at hand,
and calling the people together they sang the song with which they had
first greeted the rising of the new-found sun. They then vanished,
leaving behind them a bundle which was afterward known as the 'majesty
enveloped,' and was probably of the same type as the medicine bundles
of the North American Indians.
From this point the _Popol Vuh_ begins to shade into history. The sons
of the first men, desirous of wielding the power possessed by their
fathers, set out on a pilgrimage to the east, to obtain the insignia
of royalty. The Kiches became more civilized, stone-built cities were
raised, and a definite political existence arose. A policy of conquest
was embarked upon, and many of the neighbouring tribes were conquered
and subjected to Kiche rule. What follows probably contains but little
of the matter of myth, and we may conclude that for the most part it is
traditional history.
As has been said, it would be difficult to over-estimate the importance
to mythology in general, and to American myth in particular, of such
a document as the _Popol Vuh_. When we can be sure of its aboriginal
character, and that is not seldom, American myth has the greatest
importance because of its isolated nature. When we first encounter it,
it is untouched by European or Asiatic myth, and this makes it of the
greatest value for comparison. If we can parallel an old-world myth
with a well-authenticated American example, then we have proved the
universal nature of the principles of mythic evolution. Everything
relating to the _Popol Vuh_ proves to the hilt its genuine aboriginal
character; and this being so, it is of the greatest assistance to
mythologists. Unfortunately, no adequate translation exists. The Kiche
language in which it was written is most difficult, and for the
present we have to rely on the Spanish version of Ximenez and the
French translation of the original by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg.
However, more than one translation is either meditated or in course
of completion; and there is an abridgement in English by the present
writer. An English translation of the whole appeared in an American
magazine entitled _The Word_ during 1906 and 1907, from the pen of
Dr Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, but whether from the Spanish or original
Kiche, I do not know. It is, moreover, couched in Scriptural language,
and such a treatment assists the vulgar error that the _Popol Vuh_ is
merely a native travesty of portions of the Old Testament.
AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHIC WRITINGS
The red man of North America also has his epics. Charles Godfrey
Leland, in the introduction to his book _Kuloskap_ [or Glooscap] _the
Master_, says: "Very few persons are aware that there has perished
or is rapidly perishing among the Red Indians of North America far
more poetry than was ever written by all the white inhabitants, and
that this native verse is often of a very high order, for the Indian
sagas, or legends, or traditions, were in fact all songs.... After I
had published my legends, however, I was made aware by Louis Mitchell,
a Passamaquoddy Indian, who had been in the Legislature of Maine, and
had collected and written out for me, with strictest literalness, a
great number of manuscripts, that there were in existence certain
narratives and poems quite different in kind from anything which I
possessed. Among the former was a history of the Passamaquoddy tribe,
illustrated with numerous designs of the Birch-bark school of art,
which I transferred to my friend the late Dr D. G. Brinton as its
most appropriate possessor. Three of the poems Mitchell wrote out for
me in exact, though often quite ungrammatical language, which was so
close to the original that the metres betrayed themselves throughout.
I regret that, though I had certainly acquired some knowledge of
'Indian,' it was, as a Passamaquoddy friend one day amiably observed,
'only baby Injun now, grow bigger some day like Mikumwess s'posin'
you want to,' in reference to a small goblin who is believed to have
the power of increasing his stature at will. However, I with great
care put the Mitchell Anglo-Algonkin into English metre, having been
impressed, while at the work, with the exquisitely naive and fresh
character of the original, which, while it often reminded me of Norse
poetry, in many passages had strictly a life and beauty of its own."
Leland tells how he began to correspond on the subject with Professor
J. Dyneley Prince of Columbia University, translator of the celebrated
Algonquin _Wampum Record_, recited annually in bygone days at the
council of the tribes. He continues: "Few indeed and far between are
those who ever suspected till of late years that every hill and dale
in New England had its romantic legend, its beautiful poem, or its
marvellous myth--the latter equal in conception and form to those of
the Edda--or that a vast collection of these traditions still survives
in perfect preservation among the few remaining Indians of New England
and the North-east Coast, or the _Wabano_. This assertion is, I trust,
verified by what is given in the Micmac tales by the late Rev. S.
Rand, the collection made by Miss Abbey Alger, of Boston, and my own
_Algonquin Legends of New England_, which I, _sit venia_, may mention
was the first to appear of the series. And I venture to say from the
deepest conviction that it will be no small occasion of astonishment
and chagrin, a hundred years hence, when the last Algonkin Indian of
the _Wabano_ shall have passed away, that so few among our literary
or cultured folk cared enough to collect this connected aboriginal
literature."
The lore of the New England Indians centres chiefly round the figure
of Kuloskap, or Glooscap, as good an example of Matthew Arnold's
'magnified non-natural man,' so beloved of Lang, as can well be
imagined. A detailed account of this being and his adventures will be
found in the volume of this series which deals with the North American
Indians. His brother Malsum the Wolf probably typifies the power of
evil. In the myths collected by Messrs Leland and Prince we first
read of the birth of Glooscap and the death of Malsum the Wolf, his
twin brother. Malsum, having slain his mother, desired also to slay
Glooscap, but a supernatural power guarded him, and Malsum's attempts
were frustrated. He asked Glooscap several times what would slay him,
but Glooscap invariably told him a falsehood, until at length, sitting
by a stream, Glooscap muttered that a rush would cause his death.
The beaver, hearing this, acquainted Malsum of the fact and asked as
a reward to be provided with wings; but the Evil One, amused at his
request, insulted him so outrageously that at last he betook himself
to Glooscap, who, plucking a fern, sought Malsum, and having found him
smote him with it so that he fell dead.
The creation of man and the animals is then sung of. First were born
the fairies of the forest, the elves, the little men who dwelt in rocks
(the red man's equivalent for elves and gnomes), the small animistic
spirits which swarm through nature, lending her life and animation and
filling up her crevices. Then Glooscap took his bow and arrows and
shot at an ash-tree. From the hole made by the arrow men came forth,
the first of the human kind. Then Glooscap created animals. At first
he made them of colossal size, but seeing that they were too strong he
made them smaller and weaker in order that man might be able to hunt
them. In the beginning the beaver was the enemy of Glooscap, having on
one occasion disobeyed the Master by drinking from a stream which was
taboo. The god tore up a rock and hurled it at him from a distance of
many leagues, but the beaver dodged it and ran into a mountain, where
he has remained unto this day.
The third part of the epic of Glooscap tells how at one time the
rattlesnakes were Indians. When the great flood was coming Glooscap
gave them fair warning of it, but they answered that they did not care,
and mocked him, shaking their rattles, which were made of turtle-shell
containing small pebbles. The rain began to fall, the thunder roared,
and the lightning flashed, but still the rattlesnakes jeered. Glooscap
had not the heart to drown them, but he changed them all to serpent
form. Glooscap then named the animals and found that man was the lord
of all. He was extremely kind to the creatures he had made. To begin
with all was in darkness, so that men could not even see to slay their
enemies. But Glooscap brought light into the world, and taught mankind
the arts of life, the noble art of hunting, how to build huts and
canoes, how to net the salmon and to make weapons. He showed to men the
hidden virtues of plants and roots and blossoms, taught them the names
of the stars, and acted throughout as a beneficent father to them.
By and by Glooscap withdrew himself from the haunts of men, yet he did
not quit the earth for many years, but dwelt in a remote and almost
inaccessible place. And he made it known to men that whoever should
find him might have one wish granted, whatever that wish might be. For
this reason many Indians sought his abode, though the way was long and
arduous, and not all who set out reached their destination. Some of the
wishers were wise and some foolish. The foolish wishers, or those who
disobeyed the Master, found that the fulfilment of their wishes brought
them no good, but the gifts which the wise ones received were generous
in the extreme. This befell three Indians who visited the abode of
Glooscap. One was a simple, honest Indian, who desired to excel in
the chase. Another was a vain youth who wished to win the hearts of
many maidens. The third was a buffoon whose only care was to create
laughter; he therefore desired the power to utter an unusual cry, known
to sorcerers in old time, which gladdened the hearts of all who heard
it. The first received a magic pipe which would attract all animals
to his nets, and the fulfilment of his wish brought him wealth and
content. The second received a bag, tightly tied, which he was warned
not to open till he reached home. Curiosity overcame him, however, and
on the homeward journey he opened the bag, wherefrom issued a host of
witches in the form of beautiful women, who strangled him with their
embraces. The third received a magic root, and Glooscap warned him
not to eat it till he reached his dwelling. He likewise disobeyed the
command, and found himself gifted with the power to utter the magic
cry; but, to his discomfiture, he could not always restrain it. The
people of the town, at first delighted with the sound, soon tired of
it, and avoided him who uttered it. This so preyed upon his mind that
he betook himself to the woods and committed suicide.
The fourth portion of the epic contains Glooscap's adventures with
the beasts--the loons, beaver, serpent, turtle, frog, and eagle.
Very curious are the tales which describe the origin of the turtle,
Glooscap's uncle, or relate how that crafty being endeavoured to
overthrow the Master and make himself lord over beasts and men; and
those that paint in picturesque language the binding of the Great
Eagle, the Bird-who-blows-the-winds. Many of these stories are
legendary, and purport to explain the existence of certain islands,
streams, and other geographical features, as well as the physical
structure and peculiarities of various animals. Thus the blowing of a
whale is ingeniously explained by the fact that Glooscap at one time
gave the animal a pipe and tobacco; it is smoking!
The fifth part of the epic treats mainly of the god's encounter with
witches and sorcerers, and of his final departure from the earth.
Toward the close of the poem a beautiful nature myth recounts how
Glooscap found the Summer. Long years ago the deity travelled northward
till he came to the lodge of the giant Winter. He entered and sat
down, and his host told him tales of enchantment which cast him into
a death-like sleep. Six months elapsed ere he awoke and proceeded
homeward. With every step the air grew warmer, the earth greener and
more beautiful. At length he came to a shady dell, where fairies were
dancing joyfully, and, seizing their queen, whose name was Summer,
he hid her in his bosom. Then he retraced his steps northward. The
giant Winter still sat in his lodge, and at the coming of Glooscap he
determined to throw the deity into a sleep that would last for ever;
but this time the hidden presence of Summer spoiled the enchantments;
tears of melting ice ran down the cheeks of the giant, and soon both he
and his dwelling were changed to water, while signs of returning life
and vegetation were everywhere apparent. Once more Glooscap turned his
face southward, but the summer-elf he left behind him in the northern
country.
Finally Glooscap abandoned the world, because of the evil that was in
it. For long years he bore with the sinful ways of man, for whom he
had cleared the land of evil demons and monsters, but at length his
patience was exhausted. He made a great farewell feast, and afterward
sailed away in his great canoe. And now he dwells in a splendid
wigwam, continually making arrows. When the lodge is full of them he
will make war on all mankind, and the world will pass away.
MYTH IN ENGLISH POETRY
How have the written myths we have just reviewed reflected upon the
literature of our own race? Poetry and mythology are connected by an
indissoluble bond. By mythology phenomena are endowed by the barbarian
mind with all the attributes of life and reason. The process is clearly
a poetical one, and by it the savage intelligence is brought very near
to nature. Poetry, in some of its earliest and perhaps purest forms,
is the direct outcome of a series of natural impressions on the mind;
and both poetry and mythology are thus emanations from nature. In a
barbarian state of society the one great theme of poetry is the story
of the divine beings who sway the destinies of humankind. Thus the
odes of Pindar, the epics of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ of Homer, the
sagas of the early Norsemen, the _Nihongi_ of Japan, the tribal lays
of the American Indians, all celebrate the triumphs, loves, wars, and
destinies of the gods of these several peoples.
It has often been thought peculiar that mythology should have continued
to be the theme of poetry many centuries after the faiths of Greece
and Rome had become extinct. This was because at the period of the
Renaissance, or rebirth of learning and art, in the later Middle Ages,
it became the fashion for literary men to model their writings upon the
classical authors of antiquity. This custom was nowhere more powerful
than in France, whence it was borrowed by English authors, who began to
make large use of classical and mythological allusions in the wondrous
era of letters known as the Elizabethan. Thus we find the works of
Marlowe, Fletcher, Shakespeare, Massinger, Ford, full of allusions to
the principal figures of Latin and Greek mythology. From that period,
indeed, down to our own day the beautiful and heroic myths of Greece
have been the subject upon which many English poets have exercised
their art; and those of them who have not woven tales around these
exquisite fables have made plenteous use of them in the illustration
and ornamentation of more homely themes. The works of all our great
poets abound in allusions co the central figures of Greek mythology.
Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Shelley, Byron, Keats have all embodied in
their verse, or frequently allude to, the immortal tales of Hellas;
and, advancing more nearly to our own time, Tennyson, Morris, and
Swinburne, as well as many minor singers, have written of the deeds and
loves and deaths of the mighty heroes around whom the ancient epics ebb
and flow.
The following paragraphs describe the manner in which the myths of
ancient Greece and Rome have been made use of by English poets, so that
the reader may be enabled to regard the myth in the light of poetry and
the poem in the light of mythology. Thus a double and mutual light may
be cast upon both myth and song. Let us take as an example Shelley's
_Prometheus Unbound_. Whoso knows the poem but not the myth from which
it took its origin is robbed of much pleasure in reading the sublime
verse, the ecstatic measures and magical lyrics with their constant
allusions to the greater mythological characters. Who, for example,
are lone and Panthea? What is the nature of Demogorgon? For what crime
against Jupiter is Prometheus, the Titan,
Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain,
Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured?
Unless these allusions are understood, much of the beauty of such a
work is absolutely lost. Let us see, then, how some of our greatest
singers have regarded the denizens of Olympus and the mortals whose
destinies they swayed.
Ere yet Jupiter seized on the lordship of Heaven and earth, Ophion and
Eurynome ruled in Olympus. They were dethroned by Saturn and Rhea, who
in turn were hurled from power by Zeus, or Jupiter, and Juno. Keats
draws a touching picture of the old, forsaken god Saturn, left to
meditations of a lost empire:
Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat grey-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung about his head,
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still deaden'd move
By reason of his fallen divinity,
Spreading a shade.
A marvellous picture of shattered power! The grey quiet of the
soundless vale, the unnatural stillness of leaf, and the noiseless
stream, symbolize the inertia of the divinity who was once creative.
In the catalogue of gods in the first book of _Paradise Lost,_ Milton
summarizes the usurpation of the heavenly sceptre first by Saturn and
then by Jupiter in four telling lines:
Titan, Heaven's first born,
With his enormous brood, and birthright seized
By younger Saturn, he from mightier Jove,
His own and Rhea's son like measure found;
So Jove usurping reigned.
An effective picture of the vanquished and fallen Titans is also drawn
by Keats, who says of them:
Scarce images of life, one here, one there,
Lay vast and edgeways; like a dismal cirque
Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor.
The simile of the giant and fallen forms to the lightning-shattered
monoliths of some deserted Druid circle is magnificent. Such passages
show how great are the themes which bring forth those stupendous
images, the mightiest offspring of imagination. A great poet might sing
of the things of to-day throughout a lifetime, and yet never so thrill
the imagination as with the dead things which have the glamour of ages
upon them.
Jupiter, as we know, was in the habit of abducting mortals from the
earth, and transferring those who were very beautiful to the bright
clime of Olympus. For this reason he seized upon the shepherd lad
Ganymede, whom he made cup-bearer to the gods, and Asteria, the mother
of Hecate, one of the infernal deities. To effect these captures he
usually took the shape of an eagle. Spenser in _The Faerie Queene_ says
of him:
Twice was he seen in soaring Eagle's shape,
And with wide wings to beat the buxom air:
Once, when he with Asterie did scape;
Again, when as the Trojan boy so fair
He snatched from Ida bill, and with him bare:
Wondrous delight it was there to behold
How the rude Shepherds after him did stare.
Trembling through fear lest down he fallen should,
And often to him calling to take surer hold.[4]
Spenser has another beautiful passage upon one of the captures made by
Jupiter:
Behold how goodly my fair love does lie,
In proud humility!
Like unto Maia, when as Jove her took
In Tempe, lying on the flowery grass,
'Twixt sleep and wake, after she weary was
With bathing in the Acidalian brook.
In the second book of _Paradise Lost_ Milton makes Sin spring from the
head of Satan, and it is reasonably conjectured that when he composed
it he must have had in mind the myth of the marvellous birth of the
goddess of wisdom, Pallas Athene. It is Sin who addresses the fallen
archangel:
All on a sudden miserable pain
Surprised thee, dim thine eyes and dizzy swum
In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast
Threw forth, till on the left side opening wide,
Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright,
Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess armed
Out of thy head I sprung.
in times of peace Minerva assisted mankind in the manual crafts, and
she also presided over the fortunes of war. She possessed a shield
called the _ægis_, bearing the severed head of a monster named the
Gorgon, which possessed the magical property of changing into stone
anyone who beheld it. Milton renders her more spiritually formidable
by conceiving that her purity and chastity, not the horrid head of the
Gorgon, froze the hearts of evil-doers into terror:
What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield
That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin,
Wherewith she freez'd her foes to congeal'd stone,
But rigid looks of chaste austerity,
And noble grace that dash'd brute violence
With sudden adoration and blank awe?[5]
Shelley has a wonderful and not often quoted poem on this Gorgon head,
torn from the body of the monster Medusa to front the _ægis_ of the
goddess of divine wisdom:
It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,
Upon the cloudy mountain peak supine;
Below, far lands are seen tremblingly;
Its horror and its beauty are divine.
Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lit
Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine,
Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath,
The agonies of anguish and of death.
Yet it is less the horror than the grace
Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone,
Whereon the lineaments of that dead face
Are graven, till the characters be grown
Into itself, and thought no more can trace;
'Tis the melodious hues of beauty thrown
Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain,
Which humanise and harmonise the strain.
Vulcan, or Hephæstus, was the god of fire, both in its forms of lurid
conflagration and the more kindly glow of the domestic hearth, and his
story is occasionally sung by our British poets. He was a craftsman
of marvellous excellence in all the arts, and made the thunderbolts
wielded by Jupiter. He was also the husband of Venus. His mother Juno
having quarrelled with the King of Heaven, Vulcan took her part and
was cast from Olympus by his enraged sire. He took an entire day to
fall to earth, and at last alighted in the island of Lemnos:
From morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day, and with the setting sun
Dropped from the zenith like a falling star
On Lemnos, th' Ægean isle.[6]
In his amusing "Execration upon Vulcan," which was occasioned by the
fire which destroyed his library and manuscripts, Ben Jonson alludes to
Vulcan as the "lame lord of fire," and continues:
'Twas Jupiter that hurled thee headlong down,
And Mars that gave thee a lanthorn for a crown.
Was it because thou wert of old denied,
By Jove, to have Minerva for thy bride;
That since, thou tak'st all envious care and pain
To ruin every issue of the brain?
Venus, goddess of love, has ever been a theme of delight to poets. She
was the daughter of Jupiter, but is sometimes referred to as springing
from the foam of the sea, as, for example, in the enchanting lines of
Swinburne's "Hymn to Proserpine":
White rose of the rose-white water, a silver splendour, a flame.
Lord de Tabley also refers to the foam-birth of Venus in the following
stanza:
Uranian Aphrodite, fair,
From ripples of the ocean spray;
Sweet as the sea-blooms in thy hair
Rosed with the blush of early day,
O hear us from thy temple steep
Where Eryx crowns the Dorian deep.
The attributes and symbols of Venus are neatly described by Ben Jonson
in his masque of _Loves Triumph through Callipolis_. Venus is supposed
to say:
Here, here I present am,
Both in my girdle and my flame;
Wherein are woven all the powers
The Graces gave me, or the Hours,
My nurses once, with all the arts
Of gaining and of holding hearts.
[1] The title of which has also been translated _The Book of the Coming
Forth in Day._
[2] This movable 'life' or heart is known to students of tradition as
the 'life-index.' This is a common incident in medieval romance.
[3] These were translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest, and
published in 1849. Eleven of them are taken from the _Red Book of
Hergest_, a fourteenth-century manuscript in the library of Jesus
College, Oxford. The tale of Taliesin is included with these, but is
taken from a much later manuscript.
[4] Book III, canto xi, 34.
[5] _Comus_.
[6] Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book I.