Part 29 (1/2)
Max Muller, in his ”History of Sanscrit Literature,” points out that similar meanings clearly underlie the Vedic myths. He says:
”It is fabled that Praj.a.pati, the Lord of Creation, did violence to his daughter. But what does it mean? Praj.a.pati, the Lord of Creation, is the name of the sun; and he is called so because he protects all creatures.
His daughter Ushas is the dawn. And when it is said that he was in love with her, this only means that, at sunrise, the sun runs after the dawn, the dawn being at the same time called the daughter of the sun, because she rises when he approaches. In the same manner it was said that Indra was the seducer of Ahalya, this does not imply that the G.o.d Indra committed such a crime; but Indra means the sun, and Ahalya the night; and as the night is seduced and ruined by the sun of the morning, therefore is Indra called the paramour of Ahalya.”
This throws a new and satisfactory light upon what has long been regarded as a serious blot upon the morals of the ancient Greeks, as exhibited by the conduct of the most exalted of the deities which figure in their picturesque and poetic, but certainly not very decorous, mythological theogony.
Mr. Ruskin, in his lecture on ”Light,” delivered at Oxford recently, gives several excellent examples of Greek personifications of this cla.s.s. He concludes as follows:--
”Then join with these the Northern legends connected with the air. It does not matter whether you take Dorus as the son of Apollo or the son of Helen; he equally symbolises the power of light; while his brother aeolus, through all his descendants, chiefly in Sisyphus, is confused or a.s.sociated with the real G.o.d of the winds, and represents to you the power of the air. And then, as this conception enters into art, you have the myths of Daedalus, the flight of Icarus, and the story of Phrixus and h.e.l.le, giving you continual a.s.sociations of the physical air and light, ending with the power of Athena over Corinth as well as over Athens.
Now, once having the clue, you can work out the sequels for yourselves better than I can for you; and you will soon find even the earliest or slightest grotesques of Greek art become full of interest to you. For nothing is more wonderful than the depth of meaning which nations in their first days of thought, like children, can attach to the rudest symbols; and what to us is grotesque or ugly, like a little child's doll, can speak to them the loveliest things.”
We have already seen, in Chapter X., that Lord Bacon regarded the great ma.s.s of the Greek myths as allegories. Another ingenious mode of interpreting the artistically beautiful mythology of the Greeks is eloquently expressed by Wordsworth, in his poem, ”The Excursion”:--
In that fair clime, the lonely Herdsman, stretched On the soft gra.s.s through half a summer day, With music lulled his indolent repose; And, in some fit of weariness, if he, When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched Even from the blazing chariot of the Sun A beardless youth who touched a golden lute, And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.
The mighty Hunter, lifting up his eyes Towards the crescent Moon, with grateful heart Called on the lovely Wanderer who bestowed That timely light to share his joyous sport, And hence a beaming G.o.ddess with her nymphs Across the lawn and through the darksome grove (Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes By echo multiplied from rock or cave) Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and stars Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slaked His thirst from rill or gus.h.i.+ng fount, and thanked The Naiad. Sunbeams upon distant hills Gliding apace, with shadows in their train, Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly.
The Zephyrs, fanning, as they pa.s.sed, their wings, Lacked not for love fair objects whom they wooed With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque, Stripped of their leaves and twigs by h.o.a.ry age, From depth of s.h.a.ggy covert peeping forth In the low vale, or on steep mountain side; And sometimes intermixed with stirring horns Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard; These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood Of gamesome deities; or Pan himself, The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring G.o.d.
This figurative or poetical element in the cla.s.sical mythology would, doubtless, be understood by the more cultured sections of the ancient populations of the later period, at least to a certain extent. For instance; Ovid distinctly states that under the name Vesta direct reference is made to fire. Socrates, too, understood nothing more than the north wind in the name Boreas. I have previously referred to the statement of Diodorus Siculus, that although the mythographers spoke of Prometheus stealing fire from heaven, they merely intended to imply that he was the inventor of the ”chark,” or fire-producing instrument. Some, if not all, of the earlier Greek writers, however, including Homer and Hesiod, appear, like the ma.s.s of the populace, to have treated their mythic personages as actual concrete beings.
Farrer, in his ”Origin of Language,” forcibly ill.u.s.trates the figurative character of much of our ordinary every-day speech. He says,--”The continual metaphors by which we compare our thoughts and emotions to the changes of the outer world--sadness to a cloudy sky, calm to the silvery rays of the moonlight, anger to waves agitated by the wind--are not, as Sch.e.l.ling observed, a mere play of the imagination, but are an expression, in two different languages, of the same thought of the Creator, and one serves to interpret the other. 'Nature is visible spirit, spirit invisible nature.'”
Shakspere is supposed to have founded some portions of his Tempest on a narrative of the s.h.i.+pwreck of Sir John Somers on one of the Bermuda islands. These islands were then uninhabited by man, and generally believed to be ”enchanted.” Old Stowe, in his ”Annals,” speaking of this s.h.i.+pwreck, among other things, says these islands ”were, of all nations, said and supposed to be enchanted and inhabited with witches and devills, which grow by reason of accustomed monstrous thunder, storms, and tempests.” One of Shakspere's commentators, referring to this pa.s.sage, says,--”This account by old Stowe of the elemental growth and generation of the hags and imps and devils and abortions of the island, is fearfully fine. Caliban and Sycorax and Setebos, might well be imagined to have first glared into life through the long fermenting incantation of 'accustomed monstrous thunder.'” Ruskin says ”the whole play of the Tempest is an allegorical representation of the powers of true, and, therefore, spiritual, liberty, as opposed to true, and, therefore, carnal and brutal, slavery. There is not a sentence nor a rhyme sung or uttered by Ariel or Caliban throughout the play which has not this under meaning.”