§ 14. But before we continue the chapter on love and sexual union, the

materials of which are mainly drawn from the history of Jacob’s family,

it is desirable to insert some remarks on the mythological significance

of that family. Our mythological observation leads to the following

result. From its first commencement the myth speaks of _twelve children_

of Jacob, i.e. of the dark night-sky. These children, on whose names the

myth lays no stress, can hardly be anything else than the shining troop

which has its home in the night-sky—the Moon and the Eleven Stars (comp.

Gen. XXXVII. 9, achad ʿâsâr kôkhâbhîm). These are Jacob’s children,

though in a different sense from that in which Isaac is the son of

Abraham, or Joseph the son of Rachel. In these latter instances the

conception of a parental and filial relation was the result of the

impression produced upon the creators of myths by constant succession;

in the case of Jacob’s sons it is only meant that the eleven stars and

the moon together form the Family of the Night-sky. This conception

having once been grasped, there was nothing to hinder creators of myths

from speaking of a son of Jacob who did not belong to that Family. And

if there were a myth which said that Jacob fought with his son, as is

said of Abraham, then we could not seek such a son in the family of

stars which fills Jacob’s house. It is a general rule which must never

be lost out of sight in the investigation of myths, that mythology does

not present a _system_, whose separate elements are comprehensive

results, or abstractions from _continuous_ observation of nature. What

is told in the myth expresses how each _single_ observation affects the

mind of man. Hence the various modes in which the myth speaks of a

phenomenon; viewing it from various positions, it constantly changes the

names, and recognises different relations. Whoever finds contradictions

in all this must not turn against the interpreter and reconstructor of

the myth, but against the mind of man itself which created myths: his

dispute lies with the latter, not with the method of mythological

science.

Jacob’s twelve sons, who are mentioned by name in the document in

Genesis, can hardly have had their separate existence acknowledged at so

early an age as that of the myth which comprised them under the general

name of the twelve sons of the starry sky. Fathers of tribes with twelve

or thirteen children (even in the numeration of Jacob’s children this

uncertainty of number occurs) are frequently met with in Biblical

genealogies, e.g. Joktan, Nahor, and Ishmael. The same tendency towards

the number twelve is encountered in genealogies in other parts of the

world. In the Ojibwa legend Getube has twelve children, of whom the

eldest is called Mujekewis, and the youngest, who obtains great power

and successfully repels the evil spirits, Wa-jeeg-e-wa-kon-ay.[494] At a

later time, when a harmonising of the legendary matter, not from a set

purpose, but from the acknowledged tendency of the human mind to bridge

over contradictions, was going on, then a desire was felt to know the

names of the twelve sons. When mythic consciousness and the stage when

the mind was self-impelled to mythic conception were long passed, and

the real meaning of names connected by mythology with certain deeds was

no longer known, twelve such names, most of which had no longer any

meaning, were taken at random and called Jacob’s twelve sons. Thus were

obtained twelve names to answer the general proposition, ‘The Twelve

form the Family of Jacob.’ Among these names there are true sons of

Jacob, i.e. some who are declared by the myth itself to be so: here the

genealogical narrator employed data derived from the myth. Next, there

are some among them whom the myth treats not as sons of Jacob but as

sons of his wives. For we must not forget that when Joseph is said to be

son of Rachel, the myth does not trouble itself to ask who the father

was. The conception that ‘the Rain is the son of the Cloud,’ which is

expounded in the mythic description of Joseph’s birth, is not the result

of any consideration of the names of the two parents who gave life to

him; but the myth-former, seeing the cloud heavy with rain and observing

the rain dripping from its lap, combined these two impressions and said,

‘The Cloud has borne the Rain.’ The later genealogical story could then

easily find a father for the children of Zilpah, Rachel and others, in

him whom the myth introduces as husband of those female figures.

Other Hebrew tribes have names totally free from any mythical character,

and ethnographical (Judah) or geographical in nature. The last

especially must of course have originated after the conquest of Canaan,

since they are connected with geographical peculiarities of that land.

One of these is Ephraim, whose name we shall see in the Fourth Section

of the Eighth Chapter to be derived from the name of the town Ephrathah;

another is Benjamin. The name Bin-yâmîn is associated with the division

of the land, and signifies _Son of the right side_. The tribe was

probably so called by the leading tribe of Judah, on whose right side

Benjamin was his next neighbour.[495] Yet myths have attached themselves

even to these geographical and ethnographical names, as they have to

many historical ones. Concerning some no mythical features have been

preserved, which is most to be regretted in the case of Gad. This name

occurs in a later age with a religious signification (Is. LXV. 11), and

would doubtless yield much instruction if a fuller myth gave us insight

into its original meaning and connexion. Gad is commonly held to be the

so-called Star of Fortune (Jupiter); but it is difficult to determine

whether Gad’s sons, when they were called his sons, were put into

connexion with the Star. If they were, we should have a case analogous

to the Arabic appellation ‘Daughters of the star al-Ṭâriḳ’ (see above,

p. 57). As some Arabian tribes call themselves ‘Sons of the Rain’ (benû

mâ al-samâ), &c. so the Hebrew tribes, at the time when the myth still

lived in the understanding of all, took names from the mythical figures,

one calling itself ‘Sons of the Longhaired,’ another ‘Sons of the

Multiplier’ &c. I think I cannot be wrong in assuming this nomenclature

of the tribes to be older than the assignation of names to each of

Jacob’s twelve sons. When the names of tribes had long been in

existence, they were brought forward to serve as names for Jacob’s sons;

and thus they laid the foundation of the genealogical tradition which

traces the people of Israel to its first father Jacob, and thence goes

back to his father and to Abraham.[496] But the mythical matter

transmitted to us concerning the twelve who are introduced as the sons

of Jacob, independently of what we have already discussed, is very

little. Some names resist any reasonable etymology, or at least any

etymology consonant with the character of mythical appellations. Still,

even from these scanty materials we can pick out some single points that

seem worthy of preservation as relics of the old Hebrew mythology. If

the investigation of this subject is to be successfully pushed further

than I can pretend to do in this treatise, the accurate enquirer will

have especially to adduce the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis, known as

‘Jacob’s Blessing,’ from which I have already borrowed materials. In

this ancient piece I am convinced that many fragments of _hymns_ are

contained which originally had for their subject those mythical figures

to which in their present form as _blessings_ they refer. We have in

this fragment a sort of Hebrew Veda before our eyes.

Those figures among Jacob’s sons, of whom I venture to treat,[497] so

far as there are means available have a solar character, with the

exception of those which we have already recognised to be figures of the

sky of night and clouds, and of one other figure (Levi) in which we

shall discover something antagonistic to solarism. Zebhûlûn was seen

even by Gesenius to mean the _Round_, _Globular_. Though we cannot find

any analogous expression as a name for the sun, it must be acknowledged

to be a very natural one. I believe that Zebhûlûn designates the sun at

the end of its course when its red ball appears on the horizon of the

sea. Anyone who has had the opportunity of admiring a sunset at the

sea-side, will understand why people living there should call the

setting sun _globular_; for its true globular form is especially

perceptible and striking in such localities. That the name Zebhûlûn owes

its origin to such considerations is evident from the language of the

Hymn to Zebulun: ‘he rests at the edge of the sea’ (lechôph yammîm

yishkôn, Gen. XLIX. 13); and this verse (especially in yishkôn) further

confirms what was said on p. 116. Naphtâlî (from the root _ptl_, ‘to

twine, twist,’ whence pâthîl ‘thread’), is ‘he of the plaited locks of

hair.’ The Hymn calls him ‘a hind let loose’ (ayyâlâ shelûchâ, ver. 21),

which is decisive for the solar meaning of Naphtâlî with the locks of

hair. For the Semites call the Dawn a _hind_—the Hebrews ayyeleth

hash-shachar ‘the Hind of the Dawn’ (Ps. XXII. 1), the Arabs

al-ġazâlâ.[498] Even the Talmûd seeks and finds the reason for the

identification of the Dawn with a Hind;[499] and another ancient

Jewish-Arabic philologist, Moses ben Ezra, in his book on Poetry, also

recognised the connexion of this appellation in Hebrew and in

Arabic.[500] Accordingly, we must think of a solar interpretation when

we read that among the furniture of the ancient Kaʿbâ at Mekka, besides

various idols, there were _golden Gazelles_, which were carried off and

buried by the Jurhumites, but found again by ʿAbd-al-Muṭṭalib in the

well Zemzem.[501] The mythical description of the rising sun as a hind

or gazelle is explained by the animal’s horns; for the myth which

regards the Sun’s rays sometimes as arrows, sometimes as locks of hair,

also treats them sometimes as horns. For this reason the Hebrew language

has only one word to denote ‘horn’ and ‘ray of light,’ viz., ḳeren; and

for the same reason Moses, who received many features of the solar myth,

as Steinthal has pertinently proved in his treatise on the Story of

Prometheus,[502] was imagined provided with horns, i.e., with beaming

countenance (Ex. XXXIV. 29, 30, 35), a symbol which sacred art has

preserved only too faithfully. In the Edda the point of the horn of

Heimdall (the sun) is fixed in Niflheim (abode of cloud), i.e. the rays

of the sun come forth out of darkness. The glyptic representation of the

Assyrian god Bêl in the Louvre is adorned with a tiara surrounded by a

row of ox-horns. In the Accadian mythology the name of the goddess

Ninka-si, ‘the Lady of the horned face,’ as Lenormant translates it, has

undoubtedly a solar character.[503] The same is the case with the

Egyptian Isis: Τὸ γὰρ τῆς Ἴσιος ἄγαλμα ἐὸν γυναικήϊον βούκερων ἐστι

κατάπερ Ἕλληνες τὴν Ἰοῦν γράφουσι, says Herodotus (II. 41). Lucian, the

frivolous scoffer at everything religious, expresses his surprise to

Zeus why he is represented with ram’s horns;[504] to which he makes Zeus

reply by referring to a mystery into which the uninitiated cannot

penetrate.[505] In a word, Naphtali of the long locks, Naphtali the

swift hind, is certainly identical with the ‘Hind of the Dawn.’

Whether the name Yehûdâ (Judah) belongs to mythology, or was an early

ethnical name before tradition introduced it as that of a Patriarch, is

difficult to determine. If the name Yehûdâ could be referred to an

etymon which exhibited a solar signification, we should decide for the

former alternative, on account of the solar characteristics which are

attached to the name. The most plausible etymological explanation would

be ‘the Splendid,’ or (on account of the feminine termination â, added

to the passive participle with an abstract force) ‘Splendour.’ But if

the second alternative be correct, and the name Yehûdâ had from the

first only an ethnographical force, then, as in the case of other names

not belonging to primeval myths, we must suppose that the solar myths,

in company with which we find these historical names, were attached to

them in later times.

It is a true solar legend[506] that Judah forms a sexual connexion with

Tamar. The latter name denotes ‘Fruit;’ and the myth of her union with

Judah expresses the fact that the autumn-sun pours its rays over the

fruits of the trees and fields. Thus the Hebrew agriculturist may have

said at harvest-time, when the hot rays of the sun rapidly ripened the

fruits: and he may at such a time, especially with reference to the

vintage, have addressed to the autumn sun ‘Yehûdâ’ the hymn which is

contained in the so-called _Jacob’s Blessing_ for Judah (Gen. XLIX.

11–13):

He binds to the vine his foal,

To the wine-tree his ass’s young one.

He washes in wine his clothes,

And in blood of the vine his covering.

_Reddish is his eye from wine,_

_And white his teeth from milk._

This is a truly mythic picture of the Sun, pairing at vintage-time with

the Vine. The red eyes and white teeth need no further discussion after

what has been said in § 11 of this chapter. But a few words are needed

in explanation of what is said of the ass and foal. It is sufficient to

point to the fact that the reddish-brown ass is one of the animals used

in the old mythology to designate the sun.[507] The point of resemblance

must be sought in the _reddish_ colour; and hence in the Semitic

languages the ass is called the _Red_ (Hebrew chamôr, ‘ass’; Arabic

aḥmar, ‘red’).[508] It is probably in consequence of the solar

significance of the ass, that Shechem’s father is named ‘the Ass’

(Hamor; and in Arabic ‘Ass’ is a very frequent personal name),[509] and

Issachar is described as a bony ass. Therefore to say, as is said in our

hymn, that the foal and the colt are bound to the vine is equivalent to

saying that ‘the Sun forms a connexion with the Vine;’ it is only a

different view of the myth of the connexion of Judah with Tamar. This

connexion of the Sun and the Fruit, which is the fundamental thought of

the myth of Judah and Tamar, was developed with the aid of other

elements into the later form found in the story in Gen. XXXVIII. The

same myth was also attached to figures of the historical age in the

legend of Amnon and Tamar (2 Sam. XIII. 1–20). David’s son Amnon loves

his sister Tamar; and keeping her near him to wait upon him under the

pretence of being ill, takes the opportunity to ravish her. Here the

myth of the love of the Sun for the Fruit has been transferred to Amnon,

a perfect unmythical personage. But Tamar is here quite the same as the

personage whose connexion with Judah is described in Genesis; although

in the legend of Amnon and Tamar it is Amnon who pursues Tamar, whereas

in that of Judah and Tamar the intriguer and seducer is Tamar. When

people in ancient times perceived the fruit of the tree gradually change

its colour till the autumn-sun shone on it, after which it fell down

ripe, they saw in this a love-affair between the Sun and Fruit, which

ended with their union. We have here, therefore, to do with that phrase

of mythology in which men, as agriculturists, but still standing on the

myth-creating stage of intellectual life, speak of vegetation and its

causes in terms which later, at the religious stage, will give rise to

dualistic religious ideas. Different from the Iranian religious dualism,

which sets up two mutually hostile powers, this dualism will put side by

side two factors of the course of vegetation (see above, p. 15). This

kind of dualism is met with very frequently in the Semitic—especially

North and Middle Semitic—religions. Indeed, were we to investigate

closely the legends and love-stories which fill the history of the

Arabic nation and tribes before Islâm, we should probably discover

mythological matter turned into history, which would possess great

similarity with the legend of Judah and Tamar. We will select here one

only of these stories, which has preserved transparently enough its

mythical character. On the mountains Ṣafâ and Marwâ, which still play a

part in the pilgrimage to Mekka, there formerly stood two idols named

Isâf and Nâʾilâ, who were said to have been two persons of Jurhum who

having committed improprieties in the Kaʿbâ were turned into stone in

punishment for desecration of the holy place[510]—which, be it

incidentally observed, is no rare offence in modern times. It need

scarcely be observed that this conformation of the story is due to a

distinct Mohammedan tendency imparted to it, and that the interpreter of

the myth has to regard only the germ of the story—the sexual union of

Nâʾilâ with Isâf. Now the mere translation of these words give us to

understand the meaning of the myth. Isâf means _solum sterile,

unfruitful ground_, and Nâʾilâ, _she who presents_ (a _nomen agentis_

from nâla ‘to present’). No deep acquaintance with Arabic literature is

necessary to convince one that the latter name may be simply an epithet

of the Rain, which the Arabs can as readily call the Giver as they

compare a liberal giver with the rain (compare geshem nedâbhôth, Ps.

LXVIII. 10 [9]). Thus the liberal Rain unites with the unfruitful Ground

and encourages vegetation. Out of this, as out of most unions of this

sort, sexual licence was evolved at a later time.

The names of Judah’s sons, Perez and Zerah,[511] are solar: the latter

denoting ‘the Shining one,’ who comes into the world with a red thread

on his hand, and the former ‘he who breaks forth.’ This name is founded

on the same idea as is present in the German _Tagesanbruch_,[512] the

Hungarian _Hajnalhasadás_, i.e. ‘the breaking through of the dawn’[513]

(exactly the same as Perez), the Arabic, fajar (especially infajar

al-ṣubḥ or infajar al-fataḳ ‘erupit aurora’).[514] The dawn breaks

through, or rather tears asunder, the veil of darkness and breaks forth

out of it.

After this survey of the solar figures found among Jacob’s sons, we will

conclude this section with the consideration of another mythical name

belonging to the class of designations of Jacob’s sons which is

connected with the dark sky of clouds and night. This is _Levi_. If we

contemplate this name unbiassed by the etymological explanation of it

given in the Bible (from lâvâ ‘to cleave to’), I think we shall not be

inclined to doubt that Lêvî bears the same relation to the serpent’s

name livyâthân, as another serpent’s name nâchâsh bears to the enlarged

form nechushtân, which is given as the name of the brazen serpent broken

in pieces by King Hezekiah (2 Kings XVIII. 4). The name certainly does

not denote ‘brazen;’ for an image is more naturally named from the

object it represents than from the matter of which it is made. And the

form livyâthân necessarily presupposes a simpler form, from which it

could be derived by the addition of the termination âthân (or only ân,

if we suppose the original word to have passed through the feminine form

livyat), as nechushtân necessitates the preexistence of the simpler

nâchâsh. If we have in English a word _earthly_, then, even if no word

_earth_ actually existed at the time in the language, we could with

perfect justice assert _a priori_ that the word _earth_ must have once

existed, in order to make the formation of _earthly_ possible. Similarly

the existence of the form livyâthân justifies the assumption of a simple

noun-form, as the basis of that derivative enlarged by suffixes.

Now fortunately this simple form is preserved to us in the name Lêvî,

and we may therefore unhesitatingly affirm that Levi means ‘Serpent.’

Mythology speaks of a serpent that devours the sun, of a Storm-Serpent,

which the Sun assails with his rays; they are the serpents, dragons and

monsters with whom the Solar heroes of the Aryan mythology wage their

contests, which Herakles even in his cradle crushes and afterwards

overpowers at Lerna and Nemea; the same, which sometimes, on the other

hand, keep their ground and come forth victorious from the battle with

the Sun, when the Sun, repulsed by a boisterous Storm, is forced to

abandon the celestial battle-field.

A serpent on the way,

An adder on the path,

That bites the horse’s heels,

So that the rider falls backwards,

(Gen. XLIX. 17), they are called in the Hebrew hymn of the battle of the

Rain-serpent with the Sun-horse.[515] It is this same serpent that bears

a ‘fiery flying serpent’ (sârâph meʿôphêph, Is. XIV. 29), i.e. the

Lightning; that in common with the lightning is called the ‘Flying

Serpent’ (nâchâsh bârîach, Is. XXVII. 1), for whose conqueror the Sun,

the monotheistic ideas of later times substituted Jahveh ‘who with his

might lashes the sea, and who with his intelligence pierces the monster

(Rahab); by whose breath the heaven becomes bright, whose hand has

stabbed the _flying serpent_’ (Job XXVI. 12, 13). The hissing of this

flying Serpent is said in an American myth to be the Thunder; and the

Lightning is called by the Algonquins an immense serpent, which God spat

out.[516] The Rain itself is regarded in mythology as a serpent; the

columns of water which fall in a serpentine course to the earth are

called the ‘Crooked Serpent’ (nâchâsh ʿaḳallâthôn). The flying

Lightning, the crooked Serpent (both livyâthân), and the great Monster

in the sea, which tries to devour the Sun when he sinks into the sea in

the evening, are assailed by the Sun, and the monotheistic prophet

transfers the attack upon them to Jahveh (Is. XXVII. 1; compare Ps.

LXXVI. 4 [3]). It is to be noted that, in speaking of night and storms,

even the later poetry uses the expression that they ‘bite, wound,’

because the Serpent of darkness and tempest bites and hurts the Sun. ‘I

said, Surely the darkness will bite me (yeshûphênî), and the night [will

bite] the light near me’ (Ps. CXXXIX. 11); and so of the storm (Job IX.

17). Everywhere here the verb is used which is employed in Gen. III. 15

to denote that the serpent wounds the heel of the man. In these passages

of poetry, therefore, we find an echo of the myth which declares that

the Serpent of the storm, when victorious, bites, wounds, or even

swallows down the hero of the Sun. We encounter the Rain described still

more clearly as a serpent in the sacred literature of the Parsees, in

the first chapter of the Vendidâd, verse 2, where it is said that

Ahuramazdao created Airyana-vaêjô to be the best of all lands, whilst in

opposition to his act the Deadly Aegrô mainyus created the ‘flowing

serpent’ (azhim raoidhitem) and the snow. Professor Haug was the

discoverer of this explanation of the _azhim raoidhitem_;[517]

nevertheless he translates it ‘a powerful serpent,’ as he thinks that

the word ‘flowing’ can be only understood of the ejection of the venom,

or of the writer’s remembrance of a warm spring which may have existed

in the land Airyana-vaêjô. It is a very obvious conjecture that the

_flowing_ serpent means the Rain; the more so because it is mentioned in

conjunction with Snow.[518] The last shoots of this mythological

conception are discovered in the system of the Ophites, in which the

serpent represents a _moist substance_.[519]

Levi (with Simeon, whose etymological value is no longer determinable),

is introduced in the Hebrew myth (Gen. XXXIV.) as the slayer of Chamôr

‘the Ass’ and Shekem (see above, p. 125). Of the same two brothers it is

said in the fragments of hymns already quoted, sometimes that ‘for their

amusement they destroyed the bull’ (XLIX. 6)—the horned solar animal

whose horns (rays) the storm-serpents eradicate (ʿiḳḳerû). It is at the

same time perfectly clear in this interpretation that no difficulty at

all resides in what is always troubling the expounders of these

passages—in the fact, namely, that these brothers are said in the hymn

(or Blessing) to have killed a bull (shôr), whilst no mention is made in

the narrative of any such act.

§ 15. In the Biblical story of the family of Jacob we have met with a

few of those myths of Love which the Aryan mythology developed in such

variety and richness. One of the best known myths of this kind is the

story of Oedipus and Jokaste. The king of Thebes received a sad oracle,

declaring that he would be exposed to serious danger from a son who

would be born to him by his wife Jokaste. He therefore exposed Oedipus,

his new-born son; and the latter, having been marvellously saved from

death and educated at Corinth, travelled to Thebes when grown to

manhood, but killed his father on the way. Arrived at Thebes, he

delivered the city from the terror of the Sphinx, and was proclaimed

king, after which he married his mother Jokaste. When he received

information of the two horrible crimes that he had unconsciously

committed, the murder of his father and the incest with his mother, in

despair he put out his own eyes and came to a tragic end. Everyone knows

this celebrated Hellenic story, which in the Oedipus-Tragedy was worked

out powerfully in its ethical bearings so as to excite the emotions and

touch the heart.

Oedipus kills his father, marries his mother, and dies, a blind and

worn-out old man. The hero of the Sun murders the father who begot

him—the Darkness; he shares his bed with his mother—the Evening-glow,

from whose womb (in the character of the Morning-glow) he had been born;

he dies _blind_—the Sun sets. We have seen above that the setting sun

loses the bright light of its eyes.[520]

What a universal act of the human mind, and how little affected by

ethnological distinctions, the production of myths is, and what

agreement is consequently discovered in the direction taken by this

myth-formation among the most dissimilar peoples and races of the earth,

will be most strikingly brought home to us by the discovery that this

very myth of marriage with a mother occurs among the Hebrews just as

much as among the Aryans. We have already seen that Reuben marries his

father’s wife Bilhah. We observe that in the Hebrew myth the hero of

Darkness occupies the central position, whereas in the Hellenic it is

the Solar hero who shares his mother’s bed. But while the myth of Reuben

and Bilhah is only mentioned quite shortly in the Old Testament, there

is another myth which has grown into a long story in the Biblical

narrative—that of Lot’s daughters. But before we pass to this, I wish to

call attention to a concurrence which I believe has never yet been

noticed, but which may excite to further meditations. The whole story of

Oedipus, quite in the form in which we find it among the Hellenes,

occurs also as an _Arabic tradition_, without change except in the

persons. One of the many Nimrods which the Arabic legend seized upon

(six Namâridâ ‘Nimrods’ are commonly reckoned),[521] son of Kenaʿan and

Salchâ, is the Oedipus of the Arabic story. In consequence of an

intimidating prophecy, he is exposed by his parents, that he may die and

not be a source of danger to his father. But he is miraculously suckled

by a tigress (whence his name Nimrûd is said to be derived, for nimr is

‘tiger’ in Arabic), and subsequently brought up by the inhabitants of a

neighbouring village. When grown to manhood he contrives to bring

together a great army, and becomes involved in a war against his father

Kenaʿan, whom he slays in the decisive battle. He marches in triumph

into his capital, and marries his mother Salchâ. Thus the outlines of

the Oedipus-story have been attached to the solar hero of the Semites,

Nimrod the hunter. The story is told at full length in the long

introduction to the Romance of ʿAntar (I. 13 _seq._), and I leave it to

readers competent to judge, to decide between two possibilities. Either

the Arabs borrowed from the Greeks and simply took to themselves this

version of the Oedipus-story; in this case the remarkable fact of such a

transference would provoke a searching enquiry into the middle points

between Greece and Arabia, which made it possible to borrow mythology,

and also into the extent and nature of such borrowings. Or we may assume

that the story was independently and gradually formed by the Arabs

without external influence, so that the elements of the Arabian as of

the Greek story reach back to the primeval age of the creation of myths,

and that with the Arabs also it was originally a myth of the war of the

Sun with the Night, and his union with the Evening-glow. The latter view

is favoured by the circumstance that in the Arabian version the story of

Oedipus putting out his eyes is wanting—a feature which would certainly

have been taken if the Arabian story were only a borrowed one. But the

above-mentioned questions ought to be investigated before any decision

in favour of one of these possibilities can be arrived at, however

inclined I may be from personal feeling towards the assumption of

borrowing.[522]

The story of Lot and his daughters as told in Genesis in one of the

Biblical passages most notorious for its obscenity; let us see, however,

what appears to have been its original meaning. When the aged Lôṭ and

his family were saved from the Divine judgment on Sodom and Gomorrha,

which converted those cities into a sea of bitumen, he left his wife

behind him, converted into a pillar of salt, at a point of the coast of

the Dead Sea, which is still shown to credulous travellers, and lived in

a cave with his two unmarried daughters. These made their old father

drunk in two successive nights, and perpetrated with him an act of

unchastity which is to us almost unmentionable (Gen. XIX. 30–38). But

the science of Mythology has often saved the honour and moral worth of

primitive humanity by restoring the original mythological meaning of

many a story; and so here we shall be able to prove that the Lôṭ-story,

in the form in which we have received it, is only the tradition of the

myth of the Sun and the Night, the understanding of which was lost in a

later unmythological generation. Through the clever succession of ideas

suggested by the solar theory, the science of Mythology on Aryan ground

at one blow caused the ideal heights of Olympus to tower in their

original purity above the endless chain of scandalous acts which

mythology misunderstood attributed to the immoral inhabitants of the

mountain of the Gods; and the method which guides us in these studies

will aim at the same result on the domain of Hebrew mythology.

We return to Lôṭ. This name (formed from the root lûṭ ‘to cover’)

denotes ‘he who covers.’ ‘Darkness _covers_ the earth, and clouds the

nations’ (Is. LX. 2). ‘For I did not shrink before the Darkness, when

thick darkness _covered_ (everything) before my face’ (Job XXIII. 17).

‘Thou hast pressed us down to the dwelling-place of the sea-monsters,

and _covered_ us _over_ with deep shadow’ (Ps. XLIV. 20 [19]). The

Semitic designations of darkness are mostly formed from roots denoting

‘to cover’: so e.g. ʿalâṭâ in Hebrew, ʿishâ in Arabic;[523] and the most

prominent Semitic word for Night, layil, laylâ, etymologically means

only something that _covers_.[524] In Aryan languages also, the Sanskrit

Varuṇa and the Greek οὔρανος, which denote the overclouded sky, are

formed from the root _var_ ‘to cover,’ in opposition to the bright

day-sky, Mitra.[525] Keeping on Semitic ground, we find in Arabic

copious illustrations of this conception. The words ġashiya, damasa,

ġatha, saja, etc. (compare ġardaḳat al-leyl, taʾaṭṭam al-leyl), combine

the notions of Darkness and Covering-up. Accordingly the coming on of

night is expressed by janna al-ẓalâm, literally ‘the darkness has

covered up’ (e.g. Romance of ʿAntar, V. 80. 3); and for the simple words

‘of an evening,’ or ‘at night,’ the Arabic expression is taḥt al-leyl

‘under the night,’[526] or fuller taḥt astâr al-ẓalâm ‘under the veils

of the night’ (ʿAntar, X. 70, 1); and the Night is above the day,

‘aleyhâ.’[527] The Night is a garment or carpet spread out over the Day.

‘It is he,’ it is said in the Ḳorân (Sûr. XXV. v. 49), ‘who made the

Night as a garment or veil for you.’ ‘We have made the Night as a

clothing’ (Sûr. LXXVIII. v. 10).[528] The Arabic poet Abû-l-ʿAlâ

al-Maʿarrî uses the most palpable expression for this conception of the

darkness of night. Describing his swift camels, on which he traversed

great distances at Night, he says (I. 131. v. 4) ‘in their swift course

they tore the mantle of night,’ i.e. they ran so quickly that they

unrolled the garment which covers the surface of the earth at night. On

this conception of the nature of Night I believe a peculiar expression

in the Arabic language to be based. In the old classical Arabic, nights

which either have no moonshine at all, or have none at the beginning and

only a little quite at the end, are called layâlin durʿun; and when a

verb is required, adraʿa al-shahr is said. This adraʿa is unquestionably

a denominative verb from dirʿ, which signifies a ‘breast-plate,’ or a

breast-covering of any sort. The Arabic expressions just quoted are

founded on the idea that the breast (al-ṣadr), i.e. the upper side, the

first part, of such nights is dark, covered by a garment, so that only

the uncovered lower side or end is visible. In the cosmogony of

Mohammedan legends, Night is represented as a _curtain_, ḥijâb.[529]

The clothing of the Night is of black colour, leylâ ḥâlikat al-jilbâb,

as is said in Arabic,[530] (compare μελάμπεπλος νύξ[531]), a ‘pitchy

mantle,’ as Shakespeare says,

The day begins to break, and night is fled

Whose pitchy mantle overveil’d the earth.

_King Henry VI._ First Part, II. 2.[532]

And in Arabic poetry also we meet with night described as a ‘pitchy

mantle.’ For the poet Abû-l-Shibl says in a remarkable elegy[533]:

Shamsun kaʾanna-ẓ-ẓalâma albasahâ * thauban min-az-zifti au min-al-ḳîrî

A sun, as if darkness had clothed him

With a garment of resin or pitch.

The darker the Night, the thicker is the black cloak with which it is

provided. Even modern languages have expressions like _thick_ darkness

(Hungarian _vastag setétség_); in Arabic a very dark night is called a

night with a heavy covering, leyl murjahinn.[534]

The name Lôṭ, accordingly, signifies, like the Hellenic female forms

Kalyke, Kalypso (from καλύπτω), the _Covering Night_. It is very

significant of the Night that the Greek figures are represented as

weaving clothes for the Thunderer:[535] they weave the cloak with which

they cover over the world when they spread darkness over it. Surely no

one will after all this doubt that the name Lot is a designation of the

Covering Night. Should this be still doubtful, perhaps the following

fact from the domain of the Arabic language may bring conviction.

Everyone knows the Arabic word kâfir, at least in its usual meaning of

Infidel. Even the earlier Arabian philologians, who, notwithstanding

frequent amusing whims and hobbies, often exhibit a fine feeling and

very sober judgment as to etymology, said that this word received the

meaning Infidel only through the dogmatism of Islâm, that it originally

denoted the _Coverer_, and that the transition of meaning was founded on

the idea that the Infidel covers up God’s omnipotence. Similarly in

Hebrew the verb kâphar is said of God when he _forgives_ (i.e. covers)

the sins of men; in Arabic ġafar.[536] In Arabic the Unthankful is also

a kâfir, a ‘Coverer,’ since he _covers_ the blessings he has received:

and in late Hebrew he is similarly termed kephûy ṭôbhâ ‘one who covers

up the good.’[537] In short, the kâfir is properly the Coverer. Now the

darkness of night is called kâfir by old Arabian poets. We have already

(in the Tenth Section of this chapter, p. 134), quoted for another

purpose the verse of the poet of the tribe Mâzin: ‘The Shining one

stretches his right hand towards him who _covers up_,’ where the latter

is kâfir, the Night. The celebrated poet Lebîd, too, says in his

prize-poem (Muʿallaḳâ, v. 65): ‘Until the stars stretch out their hands

towards the kâfir, and the weaknesses of the boundaries are covered over

by their darkness,’

Ḥatta iḏâ alḳat yadan fî kâfirin * waʾajanna ʿaurâti-th-thuġûri

ẓalâmuhâ.

And the poet al-Ḥumeyd says, ‘They (the camels) go to water before the

breaking of the morning, whilst the son of splendour (the dawn) is still

_hiding in the cloak_,’ i.e. before it is yet day,

Fawaradat ḳabla-nbilâji-l-fajri * wabnu ḏukâʾa _kâminun fî kafri_.[538]

A very witty use of the application of the epithet _kâfir_ to the Night

is make by the poet Behâ al-Dîn Zuheyr. He would fain prolong the

duration of the night, which passes away far too soon for all the

pleasures that it brings him in the midst of a merry circle, and so he

says: ‘To me is due from thee the reward of a Champion of the Faith [in

battle against the infidels], if it is true that Night is a _kâfir_ (an

infidel, properly a ‘coverer’),

Lî fîka ajru mujâhidin * in ṣaḥḥa anna-l-leyla kâfir.[539]

As the Darkness of night is what covers over and hides, so on the other

hand the Dawn, or the Sun in general, is that which uncovers and

discloses. We have met with this conception before in the case of Noah

(p. 131). In Arabic safara or asfara is said of the _uncovering_ of any

concealed object, and the same words are used of the breaking-forth of

the morning sun. There is no doubt that this latter usage is deduced

from the signification ‘to reveal, uncover;’ the instance quoted in the

lexicons, ‘The night which removes the cover from the morning of the

Friday’ (yusfir ʿan), i.e. which precedes Friday, shews by the

preposition ʿ_an_ that ‘to uncover’ is the fundamental signification.

Thus the Arabic etymologists whom I mentioned in a former work[540] may

be right in a certain sense in tracing back most of the derivations of

the root safar to this sense. But in Egyptian and in the Arabic of the

desert the word al-sufrâ denotes the Sunset, the reason of which is by

no means clear.[541] No doubt can now be entertained that our Lot is

identical with his namesake the Arabic Kâfir the Concealer, the Covering

Night. Now we can consider the myth. ‘The daughters of Night form a

sexual connexion with their father.’ When the evening glow, which is a

daughter of the Night (for, as we have seen, the myth identifies the

morning and the evening glow), unites with the shades of night and

becomes darker and dimmer, so as at length to lose itself in the night,

the myth-creators said, ‘The daughters of Lot, the Coverer, are going to

bed with their father.’ From the bright, lively character, which the

myth must have attributed to the Glow in comparison with the dark, heavy

Night, they would naturally regard the aged Lot as the victim of an

intrigue of his lustful daughters; whereas in the Aryan myth it is

Prajâpati who uses force against his daughter Ushas. The names of Lot’s

daughters are not given in the Old Testament; but we know them from

another source. The Arabic legend in which the story of Lot,

communicated by Jews, likewise finds a place, tells us their names. It

is scarcely credible that these are pure inventions of the Arabs; it is

much more probable that they received them, as they did much else, from

the traditions of the Jews. But the Jewish tradition itself has lost the

names, as it has lost much else that was not written down. In the Arabic

statements, however, there occur such various versions of the names as

to show clearly that they are instances of the corruption by which

foreign names are constantly ruined beyond recognition in Arabic

manuscripts. One version gives Rayya as the name of the elder, Zoġar as

that of the younger (see Yâḳût, II. 933. 22, 934. 16); and from the

latter a town is said to be named, which is mentioned in some ancient

Arabic poems. Ibn Badrûn (ed. Dozy, p. 8) calls them something like

Rasha and Raʿûsha (or Raʿvasha?); Masʿûdî (_Prairies d’or_, II. 193)

Zaha and Raʿva. Among these differing forms, every one of which is

probably based on a corrupt text, Zaha is the only one that may confirm

the solar character of Lot’s daughters in the myth. But I think the myth

of Lot is clear enough in itself to dispense with any such problematic

confirmation.

If the conception of Kerûbhîm (Cherubim) is native to the Hebrews, and

not borrowed at a later period from foreign parts—a question which must

be regarded as still an open one—then we may find here also the

_Coverer_ (compare kerûbh has-sôkhêkh ‘the cherub that covereth,’ Ezek.

XXVIII. 14), the covering cloud; and hence may be derived the function

of concealing and covering which was given to the cherubim in the later

ceremonial, as also their connexion with the curtains.[542] ‘Jahveh

rides on the Cherub,’ says one of the later religious poets (2 Sam.

XXII. 11), ‘and appears on the wings of the wind; he makes darkness

round about him, tents, collections of water, gloomy clouds.’ Here the

dark overclouded rainy sky is described; and when Jahveh sends rain over

the earth, he rides on the Cherub, and ‘mists are beneath his feet,’ and

the dust which he turns up while riding, forms the shechâḳîm (properly

the dust), the overcast sky. Jahveh is described in other passages also

as riding on clouds (Is. XIX. 1). Accordingly kerûbh would originally

denote the covering cloud, and whatever is connected with the Cherubim

in later theological conceptions would be a transformation of ancient

mythological ideas.[543] Now the root _krb_ is used in Himyarite

inscriptions in titles of kings, as Mukrib Saba, or Tobbaʿ kerîb, i.e.

as Von Kremer explains them,[544] ‘_Protector_ of Saba,’ ‘_Protecting_

Tobbaʿ.’ This is easily explained by the fact that in the Semitic

languages words signifying ‘to protect’ are often derived from the

fundamental idea of ‘covering.’ ‘The Cherubim spread forth their wings’

(1 Kings VIII. 7), i.e. they cover. To spread out the wings (kenâphayîm)

over some one is in Biblical language the usual expression for the

protection which is allotted to him. In Arabic the same word (kanaf)

signifies not only a bird’s wing, but also concealment, shade (compare

Ps. XCI. 1–4), and protection.[545]

The opinion that the Cherubim were borrowed from foreign parts is

accordingly much less probable than that which maintains that they

originated with the Hebrews;[546] and the latter view receives further

support from the fact that the Cherubim can be easily fitted without any

violence into the system of Hebrew mythology. It is again supported by

the connexion between Cherubim and Seraphim, the latter of which are

originally Hebrew. This connexion agrees moreover with the results of

our mythological researches. As Kerûbh as ‘Coverer’ belongs to the dark

cloudy sky, so the Serâphîm must be a mythological conception pertaining

to the same series, if we adopt the correct interpretation of them as

_Dragons_,[547] and remember the mythological meaning of serpents and

dragons (_supra_, p. 27, 184, _sq._). It then becomes probable that the

theological significance of Cherubim and Seraphim belongs to the remains

of the very earliest form of Hebrew religion, and approximates to the

facts of which I shall speak at Chapter VI. § 5, pp. 224, 5.

-----

Footnote 244:

Osiander (_Zeitschrift der D. M. G._, 1853, VII. 437) is inclined to

combine with this the old Arabic _Rayâm_ or _Riyâm_.

Footnote 245:

The added Abh in Abhrâm, compared with the other expressions in which

the quality of _father_ is not emphasized, finds an exact parallel in

Δη ( = Γη)-μητήρ and Γαῖα.

Footnote 246:

_Opuscula Arabica_ (ed. W. Wright, Leyden 1859), p. 30. 2; 34. 5. This

usage is made possible by the signification _Cloud_, which is peculiar

to the word samâ in Arabic (Sprenger, _Das Leben und die Lehre des

Mohammed_, I. 544).

Footnote 247:

Schweinfurth, _The Heart of Africa_, I. 311.

Footnote 248:

See the Count von Baudissin, _Studien zur semitischen

Religionsgeschichte_, Leipzig 1876, I. p. 306 _et seqq._

Footnote 249:

Or Future, or Imperfect, as it is more generally termed.—TR.

Footnote 250:

It is worthy of note that in Arabic _pluralia fracta_ can be formed

from this class of proper names. An interesting example of this is

Tanʿum^u b. Ḳamiʾata, the name of the ancestor of the tribe Tanâʿum.

See Ibn Dureyd, _Kitâb al-ishtiḳâḳ_, p. 85 and gloss _h_.

Footnote 251:

Strictly the Dawn.—TR.

Footnote 252:

This theory explains the connexion of ṣârach with zârach ‘to be

bright.’ Accordingly, I should like to place the Hebrew ṣâraʿath

_lepra_ in this same etymological group, as the relationship between ע

and ה does not require demonstration; the signification would then be

that of ‘whiteness’ (see Lev. XIII. 3, 4).

Footnote 253:

Hermann Vámbéry, _Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudatku Bilik_,

Innsbruck 1870, p. 238 _a_.

Footnote 254:

E.g. vol. IV. 26 ult.; XVIII. 3, 11. 19, 93. 11; XXV. 5. 12, 6. 6 &c.

I always quote the octavo edition of the _Romance of ʿAntar_, printed

by Sheikh Shâhîn in thirty-two small vols., Cairo 1286.

Footnote 255:

In De Sacy, _Chrestomathie Arabe_, II. 151. 13.

Footnote 256:

It is entitled _Nuzhat al-asrâr fî muḥâwarat al-leyl w-al-nahâr_, and

is in MS. in the University Library at Leipzig: cod. Ref. no. 357,

fol. 11–18.

Footnote 257:

Of this literature I will now draw attention only to a Ḳasîdâ of the

old Persian poet Asadî, which is now made accessible in the edition of

Rückert’s _Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik der Perser_, published by

the care of W. Pertsch, Gotha 1874, pp. 59–63. But it contains little

that harmonises with the argumentation of the above-employed Arabic

tract.

Footnote 258:

_Nuzhat al-asrâr_ &c., fol. 14 _verso_, 17 _verso_.

Footnote 259:

E.g. Abû-l-ʿAlâ’s Poems in the edition with commentary, Bûlâḳ 1286,

II. 107, line 1: wa-tabtasimu-l-ashrâṭu fajran.

Footnote 260:

See Abû-l-ʿAlâ, _ibid_., p. 211, line 5: fî maḍḥaki-l-barḳi.

Footnote 261:

Vol. I. 193. Compare a beautiful passage in a poem of Ibn Muṭeyr,

given by Nöldeke, _Beiträge zur Poesie der alten Araber_, p. 34, to

which we shall recur farther on.

Footnote 262:

_Ursprung der Mythologie_, p. 109 _et seq_.

Footnote 263:

Most persons know this tense as Future, or as Imperfect.—TR.

Footnote 264:

Similar correlative names in Hellenic mythology are Pro-metheus and

Epi-metheus.

Footnote 265:

Muslim’s _Collection of Traditions_, edition with Commentary, Cairo

1284, V. 118. The commentator, Al-Nawawî, puts the name al-ʿÂḳib in

combination with another name of the Prophet of identical meaning,

viz. al-Muḳfî. The name al-ʿÂḳib occurs elsewhere also as a proper

name, e.g. as the name of a friend of the poet al-Aʿsha (_Kitâb

al-aġânî_, VI. 73).

Footnote 266:

_Shâhnâmeh_, ed. Mohl, VII. v. 633, according to Rückert’s ingenious

interpretation in the _Zeitschrift der D. M. G._, 1856, X. 145.

Footnote 267:

_De Principiis_, ed. Kopp, p. 385.

Footnote 268:

The sun itself is called a golden egg (Ad. Kuhn, _Zeitschr. für vergl.

Sprachforschung_, I. 456).

Footnote 269:

_King Henry VI._, Part II. Act IV. beginning.

Footnote 270:

Heinrich Heine, _The Baltic_ [_sic!_ i.e. ‘die Nordsee’ = the German

Ocean], Part 2, No. 4 in E.A. Bowring’s translation.

Footnote 271:

In Henne-am-Rhyn, _Die deutsche Volkssage_, Leipzig 1874, p. 292, No.

544.

Footnote 272:

Catullus, LIX. [LXI.] vv. 84–86.

Footnote 273:

Emîr Chosrev of Delhi, in Rückert, _Grammatik, Rhetorik und Poetik der

Perser_, p. 69. 6.

Footnote 274:

See Excursus C.

Footnote 275:

Pauly, _Realencyklopädie_, VII. 1277; Wilhelm Bacher, Niẓâmî’s _Leben

und Werke_, Leipzig 1871, p. 97, note 13.

Footnote 276:

Al-Beiḍâwî, _Commentarius in Coranum_, ed. Fleischer, I. 572. 17.

Bacher, _l.c._

Footnote 277:

Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, II. 170.

Footnote 278:

See Excursus D.

Footnote 279:

See e.g. Brugsch, _Histoire d’Égypte_, 1st ed., I. 37.

Footnote 280:

_De Osir. et Isid._, c. XXXIV.

Footnote 281:

_De Pythiae oraculis_, c. XII., and compare the pseudo-Plutarch, _De

vita et poësi Homeri_, c. CIV.

Footnote 282:

So says Yalḳûṭ. Shôchêr Ṭôbh has the reading Akramânia, which is

difficult of identification (Germania?).

Footnote 283:

Yalḳûṭ and Shôchêr Ṭôbh on Ps. XIX. 7.

Footnote 284:

_Ursprung der Mythologie_, p. 273.

Footnote 285:

See p. 15.

Footnote 286:

Compare Eckhel, _Doctrina Nummorum veterum_, V. 15.

Footnote 287:

_Die Religion der Römer_, Erlangen 1836, II. 218. Compare Mommsen,

_History of Rome_ (translation), I. 185, ed. of 1868.

Footnote 288:

Fr. Lenormant, _Les premières civilisations_, Paris 1874, II. 29–31.

Footnote 289:

It is well known that the story of Jonah was long ago connected with

the myth of Herakles and Hesione, or that of Perseus and Andromeda

(Bleek, _Einleitung ins A. T._, Berlin 1870, p. 577). Tylor,

_Primitive Culture_, I. 306, should also be consulted. What Emil

Burnouf says in his _La Science des Religions_, Paris 1872, p. 263, is

quite untenable; he finds in the myth ‘un image de la naissance du feu

divin et de la vie dont il est le principe.’

Footnote 290:

Nonnus, _Dionysiaca_ XL. 443; Movers, _Religion der Phönizier_, p.

394.

Footnote 291:

Aesch., _Prom._, vv. 505, 467, Dind. I must also refer to Tangaloa,

the chief figure in the Polynesian mythology, who is described as the

first navigator. This characteristic, and the fact that Tangaloa is

regarded as the originator of every handicraft (see the chapter on the

Myth of Civilisation), with other features on which Schirren lays

stress in determining his nature, seem to claim for him a solar

character. Gerland (_Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, VI. 242) disputes

this interpretation.

Footnote 292:

_Jahrbücher für die bibl._ Wissenschaft, X. 21; _History of Israel_,

I. 265 _et seq._

Footnote 293:

In his essay _Phönikische Analekten, in the Zeitschr. der D. M. G._,

1865, XIX. 536.

Footnote 294:

Sepp, _Jerusalem und das Heilige Land_, Schaffhausen 1863, II. 687.

Footnote 295:

_Vergelijkende geschiedenis van de egyptische en mesopotamische

Godsdiensten_, Amsterdam 1872, p. 434.

Footnote 296:

Julius Braun, _Naturgeschichte der Sage_, I. 41. See Tylor, _Primitive

Culture_, I. 316.

Footnote 297:

E. Jacques, _Vocabulaire Arabe-malacassa_, in _Journ. Asiat._, 1833,

XI. 129, 130.

Footnote 298:

Gerland, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, VI. 242.

Footnote 299:

‘Wimpern der Morgenröthe,’ and so Ewald translates aphʿappayim in Job,

i.e. eyelashes, _eyelids_ being ‘Augenlieder.’ Yet Gesenius

understands the word as _palpebrae_, i.e. eyelids (though both this

word and _cilium_ are occasionally used indiscriminately in either

sense). Βλέφαρον is only ‘eyelid;’ the Arabic ḥawâjib is only

‘eyelash.’—TR.

Footnote 300:

Gesenius, _Thesaurus_, p. 1003. _a_; compare Orph. VIII. I. 13. In the

_Thesmophoriazusae_ v. 17, Aristophanes makes Euripides call the eye

‘the imitation of the disc of the sun;’ compare _Acharn_. v. 1184: ὦ

κλεινὸν ὄμμα, ‘O glorious eye!’ as an address to the Sun.

Footnote 301:

Al Buchârî, IX. 30, 35.

Footnote 302:

_Yaçna_, I. 35, III. 49.

Footnote 303:

Eberh. Schrader, _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_, p. 165.

Footnote 304:

Haneberg, _Religiöse Alterthümer der Bibel_, Münich 1869, p. 49;

Movers, _Die Phönizier_, I. 411, where other combinations are given.

Footnote 305:

The seven days of the week are imagined to have a connexion with the

sun. According to Diodorus, I. 272, the inhabitants of Rhodes at the

time of Cadmus worshipped the Sun-god, who had begotten seven sons on

that island.

Footnote 306:

Muir, _Sanskrit Texts_, V. 64.

Footnote 307:

Yâḳûṭ, _Geogr. Wörterb._, III. 762.

Footnote 308:

See Excursus E.

Footnote 309:

Hartung, _Religion und Mythologie der Griechen_, Leipzig 1865, II.

87–94.

Footnote 310:

_al-Meydânî Majmaʾ al-amthâl_, II. 111. 21.

Footnote 311:

Wa-kân auwal mâ asbal al-leyl riwâḳah wa-ḳad iswadd al-ẓalâm

biaġ-sâḳah, _Romance of ʿAntar_, V. 170. 17. Accordingly, insadal is

said of night as well as of a tent, e.g. _ʿAntar_, VI. 60. 14, 95. 5.

Footnote 312:

I wish to mention here a suggestion received in a letter from Prof. de

Goeje of Leyden, to take the name Hebhel in the appellative sense

‘herdsman,’ and compare it with the Arabic abil, the initial breathing

being aspirated. The Hebrew âbhêl, ‘pasture,’ would then belong to the

same group. But see also on the latter word an ingenious conjecture of

Derenbourg in the _Journal Asiatique_, 1867, vol. I. p. 93.

Footnote 313:

Wa-leylatun ṭachyâʾu yarmaʿillu * fîhâ ʿala-l-shârî nadan muchḍallu,

_MS. of Univ. Leyden, Cod. Warner_, No. 597, p. 345.

Footnote 314:

See above, pp. 42, 43.

Footnote 315:

_Die Genesis_, Leipzig 1860, p. 64.

Footnote 316:

Levy, in the _Zeitschr. der D. M. G._, 1860, XIV. 404.

Footnote 317:

Compare Gelpke’s article _Neutestamentliche Studien_, in the _Theo.

Studien u. Kritiken_, 1849, pp. 639 _et seq._

Footnote 318:

See Excursus F.

Footnote 319:

_Premières Civilisations_, II. 81.

Footnote 320:

We do not wish to overlook the fact that the word Ḳayn in Himyaritic

is a name of dignity, like Prince, Ruler, Lord, and may therefore, if

this signification is adopted, be a synonym for Baʿal. See Prætorius

in the _Zeitschr. der D. M. G._, 1872, XXVI. 432.

Footnote 321:

See Fleischer’s _Nachträgliches_ to Levy’s _Chald. Wörterb. über d.

Targ._, II. 577. _b_.

Footnote 322:

_Yaçna_, I. 35, XVII. 22; _Khordavesta_, III. 49, VII. 4; Spiegel,

_Die heiligen Schriften der Parsen_, III. 27: ‘The beautiful Dawn we

praise; the brilliant, endowed with brilliant horses, who remembers

men, remembers heroes, and is provided with splendour, with dwellings.

The morning Dawn we praise; the cheering, endowed with fast horses.’

_Vendidad_, XXI. 20: ‘Rise up, O splendid Sun! with thy fast horses,

and shine on the creatures.’ In the Sun’s Yast (it is the sixth), in

almost every verse from the invocation to the end of the prayer, this

epithet is applied to the Sun; and in the tenth Yast chariots and

flaming horses are assigned to Mithra (see the references in Spiegel,

_l. c._ III. xxv.).

Footnote 323:

A rough imitation of:

Phöbus in der Sonnendroschke

Peitschte seine Flammenrosse.

_Atta Troll_, XXII. 1.

Footnote 324:

Schwartz, _Sonne, Mond und Sterne_, pp. 106–109.

Footnote 325:

According to Rawlinson this conception came from the Assyrians to the

Persians. Put the learned explorer of Assyrian antiquity seems to

ignore the solar significance of the winged disc when he says: ‘The

conjecture is probable that ... the wings signify Omnipresence and the

circle Eternity’ (_History of Herodotus_, note to I. c. 135, I. 215 of

the edition of 1862).

Footnote 326:

Hebrew scholars will observe that I here abandon the usual

interpretation, and understand eshkenâ in the second member of the

setting of the sun. In this way the first member speaks of the rising,

the second of the setting of the sun (= bâ hash-shemesh), which dips

into the water at the further edge (horizon) of the sea (acharîth

yâm).

Footnote 327:

See Excursus G.

Footnote 328:

_Iliad_, VIII. 485. See Plutarch, _De vita et poes. Hom._, c. CIII.

Footnote 329:

E.g. al-Suytûṭi in the _Ḥusn al-muḥâḍarâ_, &c: ‘fa iḏâ achaḏat

fî-l-hubût’ (ap. Weyer’s _Diss. de loco Ibn Khacanis de Ibn Zeidun_,

p. 87, n. 82).

Footnote 330:

The Sun is in all the Semitic as well as in many Aryan languages

grammatically feminine, and the myths frequently assign to the Sun a

female form. It is therefore necessary sometimes to use the feminine

pronoun.—TR.

Footnote 331:

In Ahlwardt, _Chalaf al-aḥmar_, p. 49. I. See _Vita Timuri_, II. 48:

‘ḳad janaḥat al shams lil-ġurûb.’

Footnote 332:

Compare Ps. XVII. 8, LXI. 5 [4]; and accordingly in tastîrêm besêther

pânekhâ, Ps. XXXI. 21 [20], ‘thou hidest them in the hiding-place of

thy _face_,’ we must emend pânekhâ ‘face,’ into kenâphekhâ ‘wings.’

Footnote 333:

_Romance of ʿAntar_, V. 136 ult., 236 penult. In the Babylonian epos

of _Istar’s Descent to Hell_, v. 10 (Lenormant, _Premières

Civilisations_, II. 85), Night is compared to a bird.

Footnote 334:

This interpretation, here erroneously employed, is occasioned by the

fact that in the Semitic languages the notion of ‘part’ is conveyed by

words which properly denote ‘side:’ the two sides of a thing are two

parts of it. Thus, even in literary Arabic the word ṭaraf, and in

vulgar Arabic the word jânib (which is etymologically connected with

the Hebrew kânâph ‘wing’) are used quite in the sense of baʿḍ ‘a

part.’ An interesting modern example of this lies before me in the

Arabic text of the terms of the latest 5,000,000_l._ loan by the

Egyptian Minister of Finance, in which the third article says: 'The

shares fall under the ordinary laws regulating buying and selling and

bequest—sawâʾan kâna fî jânib minhu au fîhi bil-kâmil—equally whether

it concerns a portion of them or the whole' (_al-Jawâʾïb_, a weekly

paper, XIV. No. 695, p. 2, c. 2, of the year 1291).

Footnote 335:

E.g. _Romance of ʿAntar_, V. 80 ult., 168 v. 6: Saarḥalu ʿankum lâ

urîdu sawâʾakum * waʾaḳṣidukum fî junḥi kulli ẓalâmin ‘I go away from

you, I want not the like of you; but I shall seek you under the wings

of all darkness.’

Footnote 336:

_al-Aġânî_, II. 12. 3, is also noticeable: ‘ḳamrun tawassaṭu junḥa

leylin mubridi.’

Footnote 337:

_Deutsche Mythologie_, p. 141.

Footnote 338:

Ebers, _Aegypten und die Bücher Mosis_, p. 70.

Footnote 339:

Fiske, _Myths and Myth-Makers_, pp. 71, 154.

Footnote 340:

The sun is called _celer deus_ by Ovid, _Fasti_, I. 386; and

Herodotus, I. 215, says: τῶν θεῶν ὁ τάχιστος. See Hehn,

_Culturpflanzen_, etc., p. 38.

Footnote 341:

_Berêshîth rabbâ_, sect. 22.

Footnote 342:

Even Philo lays the chief momentum of the story of Hagar on her

flight: μέμνηται γὰρ (sc. ὁ ἱερὸς λόγος) πολλαχοῦ τῶν ἀποδιδρασκόντων,

καθάπερ καὶ νῦν φάσκων ἐπὶ τῆς Ἄγαρ ὅτι κακωθεῖσα ἀπέδρα ἀπὸ προσώπου

τῆς κυρίας (_De profugis_, p. 546, ed. Mangey).

Footnote 343:

I leave it for the present undecided whether the name Terach, given to

Abraham’s father, belongs to this class. Ewald (_History of Israel_,

I. 274) puts it in connexion with ârach ‘to wander,’ though in an

ethnological sense.

Footnote 344:

See above, p. 41.

Footnote 345:

The first to discover this origin of the relative asher was the

Hungarian Csepregi, pupil of the great Schultens, _Dissert._, Lugd.,

p. 171 (quoted by Gesenius, _Thesaurus_, p. 165): he did not, however,

follow out the idea very clearly. Compare also Stade’s view,

essentially the same, in the _Morgenländische Forschungen_, Leipzig

1875, p. 188; I could not get a sight of this till after the above was

ready for the press. On the other side Schrader, _Jen. Literaturzeit_

1875, p. 299.

Footnote 346:

In Assyrian the Moon is called arḥu, with a mere hamzâ (Schrader,

_Assyr.-babyl. Keilinschr._, p. 282). In Arabic the reverse has

happened; from warch (yârêach) has been formed the verb arracha ‘to

fix the time (by the lunar calendar), to date,’ the _w_ (Heb. _y_)

being weakened into hamzâ (aleph). Whether the Coptic Ioh and Arabic

yûḥ are connected with yârêach (the abrasion of _r_ is not uncommon),

is another question.

Footnote 347:

So Böttcher, _Ausführl. Lehrbuch der hebr. Sprache_, I. 516–17.

Footnote 348:

The poet Dîk al-Jinn had a mistress named Dînâ (Ibn Challiḳân. ed.

Wüstenfeld, IV. 96. 7). See also Abû ʿUyeynâ al-Muhallabî (_Agânî_,

III. 128. 2, 6).

Footnote 349:

Edwin Norris, _Assyrian Dictionary_, I. 248.

Footnote 350:

We find also al-ʿulya opposed to al-dunya in Ibn Châḳân ḳalâʾïd

al-ʿiḳyân, ed. Bûlâḳ 1284, p. 60 ult.: ‘wa-dâmat laka-d-dunya *

wa-dâmat laka-l-ʿulya.’

Footnote 351:

Cod. Leyden, Warner’s Fund, No. 597, p. 325.

Footnote 352:

It also deserves consideration whether Dînâ as the feminine of Dân

denotes the Moon: compare Lâbhân, Lebhânâ; Âshêr, Ashêrâ. In that case

the above myth would speak of the abduction of the Moon by the

Morning-dawn, i.e. the disappearance of the moon at sunrise. It would

then be the same myth as the Hellenic one of the abduction of Helenê

(Selênê) by Paris.

Footnote 353:

Angelo de Gubernatis, _ibid._ p. 278 _et seq._

Footnote 354:

See _Zeitschr. d. D. M. G._, 1855, IX. 758.

Footnote 355:

Edwin Norris, _Assyrian Dictionary_, I. 347. The signification ‘having

locks’ might also be mentioned as a possibility for zalîchâ. In that

case we should have to notice the Syrian zelîchê of the Peshiṭtô in

_Song of Songs_, I. 11, where the parallelism to gedûlê demands

something like ‘locks of hair;’ and this meaning agrees with that of

zelach in Syriac: _fudit._

Footnote 356:

It is well-known that the gutturals ح ḥ and خ ch often change into ف

f. The Arabic ḳadaḥ ‘cup’ becomes in Turkish ḳadef; the name Yehûd is

pronounced in jest _Jufut_. Compare the Arabic naḳacha with naḳafa,

and the Mehri ehû, denoting ‘mouth,’ with Arabic fû, Hebrew peh, etc.

Footnote 357:

See _Zeitschr. d. D. M. G._, 1855, IX. 758.

Footnote 358:

See Pfleiderer, _Religion und ihre Geschichte_, II. 271.

Footnote 359:

Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, pp. 159 _et seq._

Footnote 360:

2 Kings, I. 8, II. 11. Compare the fiery, flame-red chariot of Ushas

(_Rigveda_, VI. 64. 7).

Footnote 361:

_Das alte Griechenland im neuen_, p. 23.

Footnote 362:

Supplement to the Augsburg _Allgem. Zeitung_, 1874, No. 344. p. 5377.

Footnote 363:

Compare Renan, _Hist. génér. des Langues sémitiques_, p. 28.

Footnote 364:

Called in the English Bible Lamech, which is derived from the pausal

form Lâmĕkh through the LXX. Λάμεχ, as is the case with many names,

e.g. Abel, Japheth, Jared, though not all; cf. on the other side

Jether, Zerah, Peleg. The ordinary form, such as Lĕmĕch, ought to be

preferred.—TR.

Footnote 365:

Schwartz, _Ursprung der Mythologie_, pp. 138–150.

Footnote 366:

See the whole of Chapter VI.

Footnote 367:

See note 364, p. 129:.

Footnote 368:

Ps. XIX. 5 [4]. We have already remarked (p. 111) that the tents which

originally belonged to the sky at night are frequently transferred to

the sky of daytime; see also Is. XL. 22. And Noah uncovers himself,

bethôkh oholô ‘in the middle of his tent’ (Gen. IX. 21).

Footnote 369:

In al-Jauharî, s.r. _kfr_.

Footnote 370:

In Ibn al-Sikkît, p. 193; ḥatta ara aʿnâḳa ṣubḥin ablajâ * tasûru fî

aʿjâzi leylin adʿajâ. The expression aʿjâz al-leyl also occurs in a

verse of Farazdaḳ, _Kitâb al-Aġânî_, XIV. 173. 19, and of Ashgaʿ,

_ibid._ XVII. 35. 13.

Footnote 371:

See also _Shâhnâmêh_, VII. 395, with Rückert’s conjecture suggested in

_Zeitsch. der D. M. G.,_ 1856, X. 136.

Footnote 372:

Lazarus Geiger, _Ursprung und Entwickelung der menschl_. _Sprache und

Vernunft_, I. 447.

Footnote 373:

Schwartz, _Sonne, Mond und Sterne_, p. 228.

Footnote 374:

In G. Rawlinson’s _History of Herodotus_, I. 490 _et seq._ One might

also think of the Arabic nafara ‘to fly.’ The Sun is a _fugitive_, as

has been already shown.

Footnote 375:

Lenormant, _Premières Civilisations_, II. 21.

Footnote 376:

On the primary signification of the root _mrd_ in Semitic, see Fried.

Delitzsch, _Studien über indogerm.-semit_. _Wurzelverwandtschaft_,

Leipzig 1873, p. 74.

Footnote 377:

_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_, p. 17, and _Die

assyr.-babyl_. _Keilinschriften_, p. 212. Compare Merx, _Grammatica

Syriaca_, p. 201.

Footnote 378:

Levy, _Phönizische Studien_, pt. II. p. 24.

Footnote 379:

Adolf Jellinek, _Bêth ham-midrâsh_, V. 40; see supra, p. 32.

Footnote 380:

I am fully aware that in Hebrew poetry arrows are frequently, indeed

most frequently, to be understood of lightning. ‘He sends out his

arrows and scatters them; lightnings in great number and discomfits

them’ (Ps. XVIII. 15 [14]). But the arrows of Joseph’s adversaries

must from the very nature of the myth be rays of the sun. If the

hunter is the Sun, then the rays can only be something which the

hunter in that ancient time used for shooting. Mythology is not the

product of a well-thought-out consistent system, and so nothing is

more likely than that two different things should be treated in the

same way by virtue of some feature common to both. Thus the solar ray

and the lightning are the same in mythology—an Arrow.

Footnote 381:

See a fuller description in Schwartz, _Sonne, Mond und Sterne_, pp.

218–220.

Footnote 382:

J.G. Müller, _Geschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen_, p. 429.

Footnote 383:

See this question treated and its literature cited in Creuzer,

_Symbolik und Mythologie_, 3rd ed., I. 57.

Footnote 384:

For the description of the Sun as an Opener, I am enabled to insert a

supplementary datum, borrowed from a book which was published when p.

97 of the present work (to which I refer back) was already printed. In

a cuneiform Hymn to Samas, the Sun-god, he is addressed thus:

O Samas! from the back of the heavens thou hast come forth:

_The barrier of the shining heavens thou hast opened;

Yea the gate of the heavens thou hast opened_.

(German translation of George Smith’s _Chaldean Account of Genesis_,

with additions by Dr. Fr. Delitzsch, Leipzig, 1876.) The passage

quoted is one of Delitzsch’s additions, p. 284. I think this Hymn is a

remarkable illustration of our hypothesis that Yiphtâch, ‘the Opener,’

is a linguistic description of the Sun.

Footnote 385:

I owe to the kindness of my honoured friend Dr. Hampel, Custos of the

archeological section of the Hungarian National Museum, the

verification of a reference in the _Bulletino dell’ Instituto di

Correspondenza Archeologica_, 1853, p. 150, to a stone which exhibits

the same representation of the head of Janus as the coin in question,

viz.: ‘una testa doppia, di cui una facie è barbata, l’altra

giovanile.’

Footnote 386:

See _Naphtali_, discussed in § 14 of this Chapter; p. 178.

Footnote 387:

Compare _Sol languidus_ (Lucretius, _De rerum nat._, V. 726).

Footnote 388:

The Arabian historians transfer the entire Biblical story of Samson

(Arabic Shamsûn), to the time of the Mulûk al-ṭawâʾif; and in their

narrative the hero fights against Rûm [i.e. the Greek Empire at

Constantinople]; for the jawbone of an ass is substituted that of a

camel. See Ibn al-Athîr al-Taʾrîch al-kâmil, Bûlâḳ edition, I. 146.

Footnote 389:

Schwartz, _Ursprung der Mythologie_, p. 144, where Sif and Loki of the

Scandinavian mythology are also mentioned. The hairiness of the solar

heroes has been translated into an ethnographical peculiarity in

modern Greek popular legends. Bernhard Schmidt (_Das Volksleben der

Neugriechen_, I. 206) says, ‘In Zante I encountered the idea that the

entire power of the ancient Greeks lay in three hairs on the breast,

and vanished if these were cut off, but returned when the hairs grew

again.’

Footnote 390:

See Ewald, _History of Israel_, I. 345, note 1.

Footnote 391:

In Gen. XXVII. 11, the received punctuation is îsh sâʿîr.—Tr.

Footnote 392:

Compare Tiele, _Vergel. Geschied._ p. 447.

Footnote 393:

Schwartz, _Ursprung der Mythologie_, p. 146; see above, p. 34.

Footnote 394:

_Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Menschheit_, pp. 45–60.—_Ursprung und

Entwickelung der menschlichen Sprache und Vernunft_, Bd. II. book

3.—Compare Lazarus, _Leben der Seele_, II. 80; _ibid._ p. 185 note.

Footnote 395:

For _Silver_ the three North-Semitic languages, Assyrian, Aramaic, and

Hebrew, have the same word, and in so far ‘form a strict union,’ as

Schrader says, in opposition to the South-Semitic languages, which

employ other words for the designation of this metal.'

_Keilinschriften und das A. T._, p. 46.

Footnote 396:

Chârûṣ = gold has in recent times been frequently met with on

Phenician territory, e.g. in the Inscription of Idalion published by

Euting, II. 1, in the Inscription of Gebal (De Vogüé in the _Journal

asiat._ 1875, I. 327), and in an unpublished Carthaginian Inscription

(Derenbourg in _Journal asiat._ 1875, I. 336).

Footnote 397:

The consideration of the Hebrew cheres ‘Sun’ might suggest that both

it and the old word for gold (chârûṣ), composed of possibly related

sounds, both originated in the notion of _shining_.

Footnote 398:

Al-Maḳḳarî, _Analectes_, etc., Leyden edition, I. 369. 3.

Footnote 399:

Al-Jauharî, s.r. _kbr._

Footnote 400:

Yâḳût, _Geogr. Dictionary_, II. 609. 8.

Footnote 401:

_Zur himjarischen Alterthumskunde_, in _Zeitsch. der D. M. G._, 1865,

XIX. 247. Compare Halévy, _Etudes sabéennes_, in _Journal asiat._,

1874, II. 523.

Footnote 402:

Pseudowâḳidî, ed. Nassau Lees, p. 181. 6.

Footnote 403:

_Hist. de l’économie politique en Turquie_, in _Journal asiat._, 1864,

I. 421. Compare also Sprenger, _Alte Geographie Arabiens_, p. 56.

Footnote 404:

The use of _black_ should also be noticed; dirhem saudâ and kara

ġurush.

Footnote 405:

In _al-Thaʿâlibî_ in the _Zeitsch. der D. M. G._, 1854, VII. 505.

Footnote 406:

_Culturgeschichtliche Streifzüge_, p. xi.

Footnote 407:

Compare _Aġânî_, III. 90. 10. Fadaʿa bichâzinihi wa-ḳâla kam fî beyt

mâlî faḳâla lahu min al-waraḳ w-al-ʿayn baḳîyyatun.

Footnote 408:

Thorbecke, _Antarah, ein vorislamischer Dichter_, Leipzig 1867, p. 41.

Footnote 409:

al-Ḥarîrî, Paris edition, 2nd ed., p. 467.

Footnote 410:

_Kitâb al-aġânî_, XVII. p. 11.

Footnote 411:

M.A. Levy in _Zeitschr. der D. M. G._, 1870, XXIV. p. 191.

Footnote 412:

Halévy, _ibid._ p. 539.

Footnote 413:

Freytag points this word urayḳ.—TR.

Footnote 414:

J. Levy, _Chaldäisches Wörterbuch_, I. 345.

Footnote 415:

‘The Sun had long since in the lap

Of Thetis taken out his nap;

And, like a lobster boil’d, the Morn

From black to red began to turn’—

—says _Hudibras_, canto II.

Footnote 416:

In the Babyl. Talmûd, Yômâ 28. b, the falling of the shades of night

is described as the time when meshacharê kôthâlê ‘the walls are

black.’

Footnote 417:

Called by Freytag an _eagle_.—TR.

Footnote 418:

In Harîrî (Paris edition, 2nd ed.), p. 644. 4, we read of the Dawn:

ḥîna naṣal chiḍâb al-ẓalâm ‘when the dye of darkness was washed off.’

The Arabic word here used for ‘dye’ is generally employed of gay

colours, e.g. al-ḥinnâ; but it is self-evident that here only al-kuḥl

can be meant.

Footnote 419:

In Persian black hair is called mû i-Zengî ‘Gipsies’ hair,’ and

zulf-i-Hindu, ‘Indian hair,’ i.e. black like an Indian’s (e.g.

Rückert, _Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik der Perser_, p. 287). So in

the well-known verse of Ḥafiẓ, in which the poet gives away all

Bochara and Samarkand for the black mole (bechâl-i-Hinduwesh, ‘Indian

mole’) of his Turkish boy (Dîwân Râ, no. 8. v. 1; ed. Rosenzweig, I.

24).

Footnote 420:

_Saḳt-al-zand_, I. 91. 7.

Footnote 421:

E.g. _Romance of ʿAntar_, VII. 115. line 4 from below: wa-kasa-l-leylu

ḥullat al-sawâd.

Footnote 422:

Varro treats it as self-evident that ‘black’ is the most suitable

epithet for Night, and is thereby tempted to a very curious etymology

in his work _De ratione vocabulorum_. He explains the word _fur_

‘thief’ by saying that in the old Latin _fur-vum_ was equivalent to

‘black,’ and thieves practise their dark deeds at night. ‘Sed in

posteriore ejusdem libri parte docuit (scil. Varro) furem ex eo dictum

quod veteres Romani furvum atrum appellaverint: at fures per noctem

quae atra sit facilius furentur’ (Aulus Gellius, _Noctes Atticae_, I.

18. 3–6).

Footnote 423:

Opuscula arabica, ed. W. Wright, Leyden 1859, p. 30. 11; compare p.

31. 12.

Footnote 424:

_Aġânî_, XI. 44.

Footnote 425:

_Ibid._, XVIII. 139.

Footnote 426:

Ibn al-Sikkît, p. 344.

Footnote 427:

Ibn al-Sikkît, p. 345.

Footnote 428:

_Iḥyâ ʿulûm al-dîn_, II. 148.

Footnote 429:

Gesenius, _Thesaurus_, p. 1183.

Footnote 430:

Chabas, _Etudes sur l’antiquité historique d’après les sources

égyptiennes_, etc. 2nd edition, Paris 1873, p. 34, where the article

by Le Page Renouf is referred to.

Footnote 431:

Ibn al-Sikkît, p. 193, whom I follow as a reliable ancient authority;

al-Jauharî and Freytag after him understand aṣbaḥ somewhat

differently.

Footnote 432:

Abû-l-ʿAlâ, II. 107. 3–4.

Footnote 433:

_Saḳt al-zand_, I. 93. 1. These ideas of the relations of colours are

found expressed with characteristic energy by the eccentric Persian

poet Abû Isḥâḳ Ḥallâjî; he says, ‘When the Sun in the blue vault turns

his cheek into yellow, it makes me think of saffron-coloured viands on

an azure dish’ (Rückert, _Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik der Perser_,

p. 126). The conception of turning grey combines that of both

colours—the white appearing beside the black. According to _Aġânî_,

II. 41. 7; those clouds which combine the two colours are called shîb

‘grey’ (al-saḥâʾib allatî fîhâ sawâd wa-bayâd).

Footnote 434:

I will mention here that according to al-Ġazâlî (_Iḥjâ_, IV. 433) the

stars have various colours, some tending towards red, others towards

white, others towards leaden: wa-tadabbar ʿadad kawâkibihâ, wachtilâf

alwânihâ fabaʿḍuhâ tamîl ila-l-ḥumrâ wa-baʿḍuhâ ila-l-bayâḍ wa-baʿḍuhâ

ila launi-r-ruṣâṣ.

Footnote 435:

Abû-l-ʿAlâ, I. 195. 1.

Footnote 436:

In Yâḳût, IV. 911. 7.

Footnote 437:

Ḥarîrî’s _Maḳâmâs_, p. 675. 7: Istanâra-l-leyl al-bahîm.

Footnote 438:

See Excursus H.

Footnote 439:

_Aġânî_, I. 158. 23.

Footnote 440:

al-Anṭâḳi, _Tazyîn al-aswâḳ_, etc., p. 405.

Footnote 441:

_Maḳâmâs_, p. 128; cf. Mehren, _Rhetorik der Araber_, p. 99.

Footnote 442:

al-Buchârî, IX. 35.

Footnote 443:

The notion of the white colour of the moon is also the foundation of

one of the Hebrew names of the moon. In the verse Ẓabyatun admâʾu

mithla-l-hilâlî ‘a gazelle red like the new moon’ (_Aġânî_, VI. 122.

21) the moon is treated as red. But in the appellation al-layâli

al-bîḍ ‘white nights,’ by which are meant nights illumined throughout

by the moon, the moonshine is associated with a white colour.

Footnote 444:

_Die Höllenfahrt der Istar_, p. 75.

Footnote 445:

Halévy, _ibid._, p. 556.

Footnote 446:

See Excursus I.

Footnote 447:

See Excursus K.

Footnote 448:

Among the Arabic names of the sun, we find the curious appellation

al-jaunâ (Ibn al-Sikkît, p. 324), a word of colour, which belongs to

the aḍdâd of the Arabic philologians, i.e. words with contradictory

signification, and may denote either white or black (see Redslob, _Die

arab_. _Wörter mit entgegengesetzter Bedeutung_, Göttingen 1873, p.

27). Al-jaunâ is especially the setting sun, e.g. lâ âtîhi ḥatta taġîb

al-jaunâ, ‘I cannot come to him till the jaunâ sets;’ and the setting

sun is well described by a colour-word which, by its faculty of

standing for either white or black, answers to the transition from

sunshine to darkness.

Footnote 449:

Communicated by Henne Am Rhyn, _Deutsche Volkssagen_ &c., p. 219. no.

427.

Footnote 450:

_Nagyidai Czigányok_. In the original Hungarian:

Most az Éj fölvette tolvajköpönyegét,

Eltakará azzal pitykés öltözetét.

Footnote 451:

On _Regina coeli_, see Jablonski, _Opuscula_, II. 54 _et seq_. (ed. Te

Water).

Footnote 452:

In Fox Talbot, quoted by Schrader, _Die Höllenfahrt der Istar_, p. 98.

Footnote 453:

_Zeitschr. d. D. M. G._, 1873, XXVII. p. 404.

Footnote 454:

G. Rawlinson, _History of Herodotus_, App. B. I., Essay X. (I. 484).

Footnote 455:

Schwartz, _Sonne, Mond und Sterne_, 269, 274.

Footnote 456:

See especially Osiander in the _Zeitsch, d. D. M. G._, 1865, XIX. 242

_et seq._

Footnote 457:

In Yâḳût, IV. 406.

Footnote 458:

The constant epithet ‘holding the seed of bulls’ brings to view the

idea that the influence of the moon produces fertility in cattle

(Spiegel, _Die heiligen Schriften der Parsen_ [in German], III. xxi.).

According to Yasht, VII. 5, it is the moon ‘that produces verdure,

that produces good things.’ Compare _Catullus_, XXXII (XXXIV) v.

17–20, where the poet apostrophises the Moon—

Tu cursu, Dea, menstruo

Metiens iter annuum,

Rustica agricolae bonis

Tecta frugibus exples.

Footnote 459:

This connexion is also clear in the Hottentot mythology. Heizi Eibib,

which means moon, is there the name of the man to whom grave-tumuli

are consecrated, and who is addressed in prayer for good sport and

numerous herds (Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, II. 324).

Footnote 460:

Max Müller’s view (_Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 184),

‘When Jeremiah speaks of the Queen of Heaven, this can only be meant

for Astarte or Baaltis,’ is correct only if Baaltis be identified with

the Moon. The correctness of this identification, which was first

asserted by Philo Byblius, and has been conceded by the older

interpreters Grotius and Lyra, and by many modern ones, is very

probable; for the name Baaltis stands in the same relation to Baʿal

(Sun) as Milkâ to Melekh, Lebhânâ to Lâbhân, and Ashêrâ to Âshêr.

Tiele also (_Vergelijkende Geschiedenis_, p. 512) says the same as

Müller.

Footnote 461:

Midrâsh Shôchêr Ṭôbh on Ps. XIX. 7.

Footnote 462:

The contrast of Leah’s weak eyes to Rachel’s beauty belongs not to the

mythic stage, but to the epic description.

Footnote 463:

There is no reason to separate the word shilhê from the Shaphʿêl

shalhî, as Levy does in his _Chald. Wôrterbuch_, II. 481; compare

Reggio in the Hebrew journal _Ozar Nechmad_, I. 122.

Footnote 464:

See _Zeitschr. für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_, 1869,

VI. 237, 252.

Footnote 465:

Rohlfs, _Quer durch Afrika_, I. 204.

Footnote 466:

_Opuscula Arabica_, pp. 16–39.

Footnote 467:

E.g. _Ḥamâsâ_, p. 609, v. 6: _Nâbiġâ_, VI. v. 9.

Footnote 468:

_Ḥamâsâ_, p. 391, v. 2.

Footnote 469:

Commentary on _Ḥamâsâ_, _ibid._

Footnote 470:

The Arabian poet Ibn Mayyâdâ, in a description of the lightning

(_Aġânî_, II. 120. 9), says 'it lights up the piled-up cloud, which is

like a herd of camels, at the head of which those that long for their

home cry out with pain: yuḍîʾu ṣabîran min saḥâbin kaʾannahu * hijânun

arannat lil-ḥanîni nawâziʿuh.

Footnote 471:

The ancient Arabs understood that the thunder and lightning were

caused by the clouds whence they issued. Many passages might be quoted

in support of this, but Lebîd Muʿallaḳâ v. 4, 5, is sufficient. Ḥanna

(to sigh, to groan with desire) is therefore equivalent to ‘to

thunder,’ e.g. _Aġânî_, XIII. 32. 8. ḳad raʿadat samâʾuhu wa-baraḳat

wa-ḥannat warjaḥannat.

Footnote 472:

See W. Wright, _Opuscula Arabica_, p. 20. 10; 21. 7.

Footnote 473:

_Ibid._, p. 29. 2.

Footnote 474:

_Kitâb al-Aġânî_, XIX. 157. 1.

Footnote 475:

Jeremiah XXXI. 15, Matth. II. 18.

Footnote 476:

Compare al-Sherbînî Hezz al-ḳuḥûf, etc., lithographed Alexandria, p.

253. The Arabs also said of the red evening-sky that ‘it wept bloody

tears’ (al-Maḳrîzî, _al-Chiṭaṭ_, Bûlâk edition, I. 430).

Footnote 477:

Clemens Alex. _Strom._ V. 571.

Footnote 478:

See Nöldeke’s _Beiträge zur altarab. Poesie_, p. 34.

Footnote 479:

In mythology the clouds are also called udders. See Mannhardt, _German

Mythenf._, pp. 176–188; so in Arabic, Ibn Muṭeyr apud Nöldeke l. c.

Footnote 480:

Ibn Dureyd, _Kitâb al-ishtiḳaḳ_, ed. Wüstenfeld, pp. 13, 14.

Footnote 481:

Ibnat al-ʿinab, in the celebrated wine-song of Wâlid b. Yazîd

(_Aġânî_, VI. 110. 5). Wine is well known to be called in Hebrew

‘Blood of the grape,’ dam ʿênâbh (_Deut._ XXXII. 14); compare the

Persian chôni rûz in Waṣṣâf ed. Hammer, p. 138. 6: shahzâdegân bâ

yekdiger chôni rûz chordend.

Footnote 482:

In Siamese luk mei is ‘son of the tree, fruit’ (Steinthal,

_Charakteristik_, p. 150); compare Midrâsh rabbâ Leviticus, sect 7,

where ‘children of the tree’ are spoken of, châlaḳtâ khâbhôd laʿêṣîm

bishebhîl benêhem. The pearl is called by Waṣṣâf, p. 180. 15, zâdei

yem ‘son of the sea.’ A curious mythological relationship is found in

the Polynesian system; the year, a daughter of the first pair,

combined with her own father to produce the months, and the children

of the latter are the days (Gerland, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_,

VI. 233).

Footnote 483:

Fleischer in the _Zeitschr. d. D. M. G._, 1853, VII. 502 note.

Footnote 484:

_Aġânî_, XX. 54. 16.

Footnote 485:

Arabic tradition knows another name besides Zalîchâ for this person.

In al-Ṭabarî her name is given as Râʿîl; see Ouseley, _Travels in

various Countries of the East_, London 1819, I. 74; also in

al-Beyḍâwî’s _Anwâr al-tanzîl_, ed. Fleischer, I. 456–8.

Footnote 486:

_Zeitschr. d. D. M. G._ 1849, III. 200. See above p. 73. _et seq._

Footnote 487:

_Sonne, Mond und Sterne_, pp. 1. _et seq._

Footnote 488:

Weil, _Biblische Legenden der Muselmänner_, p. 39. _Zeitschrift d. D.

M. G._, 1861, XV. 86.

Footnote 489:

_Das Volksleben der Neugriechen_, Leipzig 1871, I. 36.

Footnote 490:

_Chips_, &c. vol. II., the latter part of ‘Comparative Mythology,’ and

_Lectures on the Science of Language_, Second Series, Lecture IX. ‘The

Mythology of the Greeks.’—TR.

Footnote 491:

Plutarchi _Fragmenta et Spuria_, ed. Fr. Dübner, in F. Didot’s

Collection, Paris 1855, p. 83.

Footnote 492:

_Lettres assyriologiques et épigraphiques_, Paris 1872, II. fifth

letter.

Footnote 493:

Müller, _History of Sanskrit Literature_, p. 530; _Chips_, &c., II.

163 _et seq._; Fiske, _Myths_, p. 113.

Footnote 494:

Schoolcraft, _Historical and Statistical Information respecting the

History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes_, 1851, II. 136.

Footnote 495:

See Geiger, _Jüd. Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Leben_, vol. VIII.

p. 285. Breslau 1869.

Footnote 496:

Kuenen (in his _Religion of Israel_, I. 111 in the translation)

expresses the opinion that only the degree of mutual relationship

between the fathers of tribes was a later idea: that, e.g. the less

noble tribes were called sons of Jacob’s slave-girls, and those that

were bound together by closer fraternal feelings were regarded as sons

of the same mother. Compare now also Zunz, _Gesammelte Schriften_,

Berlin 1875, I. 268.

Footnote 497:

There still remain some names whose etymological explanation is

difficult, as Reʾûbhên and Shimʿôn. Yissâsekhâr (Issachar) translated

literally might be ‘the Day-labourer,’ certainly a fitting designation

for the Sun, expressing how he does his day’s work, like a

day-labourer. Yet I cannot look upon that as a mythical description,

because it would be an unpardonable anachronism to suppose that that

primeval age when myths were created would speak of day-labourers,

especially after the fashion in which the idea is expressed by the

word Yissâ-sekhâr, ‘he takes up his _wages_.’

Footnote 498:

Which according to al-Damîrî, _Ḥayât al-ḥaywân_, Bûlâḳ 1274, II. 219,

is used only of the rising sun; we can say ṭalaʿat al-ġazâlâ ‘the

gazelle rises,’ but not ġarabat ‘he sets.’ Abû Saʿîd al-Rustamî the

poet (in Behâ al-Dîn al-ʿÂmilî, _Keshkûl_, p. 164. 13) carries out the

mythological figure still further, using the verb naṭaḥa ‘to butt,’

said of horned beasts. Describing a fine building, he says tanâṭaḥa

ḳarna-sh-shamsi min sharafâtihi, that ‘as to splendour it butts in

rivalry with the sun’—as if the palace and the sun were knocking their

horns together.

Footnote 499:

_Babyl. Tract. Yômâ_, fol. 29. a: ‘As the hind’s horns branch out to

every side, so also the light of dawn spreads out to all sides.’

Footnote 500:

_Journal asiatique_, 1861, II. 437.

Footnote 501:

Caussin de Perceval, _Essai sur l’histoire des Arabes avant

l’Islamisme_, I. 260.

Footnote 502:

Given in the Appendix to this work.

Footnote 503:

Lenormant, _La Magie chez les Chaldéens_, Paris 1874, p. 140. In the

decadence of magic, however, the horns, which are connected with

magic, are used even outside the cycle of solar gods; e.g. ‘On voit

Bin la tête surmontée de la tiare royale armée de cornes de taureau,

les épaules munies de quatre grandes ailes, etc.,’ _ibid._ p. 50. Here

the horns are for butting, not to symbolise rays. However, in this

particular case of Bin the mythical meaning is not very clear. As he

is sometimes called ‘the southern sun over ʿElâm,’ _ibid._ p. 121, the

horns in the passage quoted may have something to do with his solar

character.

Footnote 504:

_Deorum Concilium_, 10.

Footnote 505:

See Herodotus, II. 42, IV. 181.

Footnote 506:

We will not claim any importance for the fact that in Sanchuniathon’s

account of the sacrifice of Isaac the name Jeûd is given instead of

Isaac; consequently if Jeûd be identical with the Hebrew Jehûdâ, the

fact that Jeûd is here equivalent to Isaac would prove the solar

character of Jehûdâ.

Footnote 507:

Angelo de Gubernatis, in his _Zoological Mythology_, is peculiarly

indefinite on the mythological significance of this animal; compare

Pleyte, _La Religion des Pré-Israelites_, Leyden 1865, p. 151, where

much useful information will be found on the worship of the Ass.

Footnote 508:

See Gesenius, _Thesaurus_, pp. 494 and 1163.

Footnote 509:

On the Arabic proper name _Ḥimâr_, Yâḳût, II. 362, may be consulted;

cf. Ibn Dureyd, _Kitâb al-ishtiḳâḳ_, p. 4. The Arabic proper name

Misḥal is also connected with the Ass; it alludes to the screeching of

the wild-ass; see _Tebrîzî’s Scholia to the Ḥamâsâ_, p. 200 penult.

Compare _al-Meydânî_, II. 98: akfar min Ḥimâr.

Footnote 510:

_Ḳazwînî_, ed. Wüstenfeld, I. 77, II. 166. I must also just refer to

the story of Muṭʿim, as told in Yâḳût, IV. 565, and mention that

Muṭʿim ‘he who gives food’ is likewise the name of an ancient Arabian

idol. Even Krehl, in his work on the _Preislamite Religion of the

Arabs_, p. 61, attempted to explain mythologically the story of Isâf

and Nâʾilâ, interpreting the latter name as ‘she who kisses.’

Footnote 511:

Pharez and Zarah in the English Bible, derived through the LXX. from

the pausal forms Pâreṣ and Zârach.—TR.

Footnote 512:

And English _Daybreak_.—TR.

Footnote 513:

From Hajnal ‘dawn,’ and hasadás, abstract substantive from root hasad

‘to split, tear open.’—TR.

Footnote 514:

Abû Nuwâs says of the dawn, maftûḳ-ul-adîmi, _Yâḳut_, III. 697. 22.

Footnote 515:

This hymn is applied to Dan, to whom it is quite unsuitable, as Dan

has a solar character. We are tempted to conjecture that it originally

referred to a non-solar figure, perhaps actually to Levi, whose name

is synonymous with nâchâsh ‘serpent.’ This is the more probable,

because no separate section of Jacob’s Blessing is devoted to this

son, and in the only words relating to him he is coupled with Simeon.

Footnote 516:

See _Zeitsch. für Völkerpsychologie &c._, 1871, VII. 307.

Footnote 517:

The first chapter of the _Vendidâd_ translated and explained, in

Bunsen’s _Egypt’s Place_ &c. III. 494 _et seq._

Footnote 518:

As raoidhitem may also signify ‘running’ (root rudh = to flow and to

run), a ‘running snake,’ literally the same as nâchâsh bârîach, might

be meant.

Footnote 519:

Möller, _Kosmogonie_, p. 193.

Footnote 520:

Max Müller, _Chips_ &c., II. 164; Fiske, _Myths_ &c., p. 113. On the

blinding, see p. 109 _et seq._

Footnote 521:

See al-Damîrî, _Ḥayât al-heyvân_, I. 70.

Footnote 522:

See Excursus L.

Footnote 523:

Connected with ġashiya ‘to veil.’

Footnote 524:

See Gesenius, _Thesaurus_, p. 749.

Footnote 525:

Max Müller, _Chips_ &c., II. 68.

Footnote 526:

Arsala achâhu Sheybûb taḥt al-leyl, _ʿAntar_, VI. 102. 9.

Footnote 527:

_Ḥamâsâ_, p. 566. v. 2.

Footnote 528:

Libâsan, compare Sûr. VII. v. 52; XIII. v. 3; yuġshî-l-leyla-n-nahâra.

Footnote 529:

In _Yâḳût_, I. 24. 2.

Footnote 530:

Ḥarîrî, p. 162, 2nd ed.; compare the Commentary, in which particular

stress is laid on the act of covering up: liʾannahu yuġaṭṭî mâ fîhî.

Compare al-Meydânî, II. 112. 23: al-leyl yuwârî ḥaḍanan.

Footnote 531:

Eur. _Ion_, v. 1150; it is also called ποικίλον ἔνδυμα ἔχουσα, and in

Aeschylus, _Prom._ v. 24 ποικίλειμων νύξ, from the gay robe of stars.

Footnote 532:

Compare _King Richard II._, III. 2. ‘The cloak of night being pluck'd

from off their backs.’

Footnote 533:

_Kitâb al-aġânî_, III. 28. 24.

Footnote 534:

I quote also a passage from the Uigur language: ‘The creation tore its

black shirt,’ _i.e._ the day has dawned: Vámbéry, _Kudatku Bilik_, p.

218; compare p. 70, ‘I have put off the cloak of darkness;’ p. 219,

‘The daughter of the west spreads out her carpet.’

Footnote 535:

Max Müller, _Chips_, &c., II. 83. Schwartz, _Ursprung d. Mythologie_,

p. 245.

Footnote 536:

al-Beyḍâwî’s Commentary on the _Ḳorân_, I. 19. 21 _et seq._

Abû-l-Baḳâ, _Kulliât_, p. 305.

Footnote 537:

See Excursus G.

Footnote 538:

Ibn al-Sikkît, p. 322.

Footnote 539:

_The Poetical Works_ of Behâ-ed-Dîn Zoheir of Egypt. By E.H. Palmer,

Cambridge 1876, I. 108. 7. It is impossible to quote this edition

without an expression of admiration for the perfection to which Arabic

typography has been brought in England in this magnificent Oriental

work, the production of which redounds to the imperishable credit of

the University of Cambridge. It may be pronounced one of the most

beautiful Oriental books that have ever been printed in Europe; and

the learning of the editor worthily rivals the technical get-up of the

creations of the soul of one of the most tasteful poets of Islâm, the

study of which will contribute not a little to save the honour of the

poetry of the Arabs. Here first we make the acquaintance of a poet who

gives us something better than monotonous descriptions of camels and

deserts, and may even be regarded as superior in charm to

al-Mutanabbî.

Footnote 540:

_Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprachgelehrsamkeit bei den Arabern_, no.

1, in the _Sitzungsberichte der kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften_,

Vienna 1871, Jan. p. 222 _et seq._; or in the reprint p. 18 _et seq._

Footnote 541:

Wallin’s articles in the _Zeitsch. d. D. M. G._, 1851, V. 17; but see

above p. 43.

Footnote 542:

See Vatke, _Biblische Theologie_, p. 327, and Gesenius, _Thesaurus_,

p. 711, where importance is attached to this.

Footnote 543:

The conception of Cherubim penetrated even into Mohammedan regions,

e.g. Ḥâfiẓ, ed. Rosenzweig, III. 526 _penult._, chalweti kerrûbiân

ʿâlem-i-ḳuds.

Footnote 544:

_Ueber die südarabische Sage_, Leipzig 1866 p. 27.

Footnote 545:

See Gesenius, _Thesaurus_, p. 697.

Footnote 546:

See Dillmann, in Schenkel’s _Bibellexikon_, I. 511.

Footnote 547:

_Ibid._, V. 284.

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