Volume II Part 20 (1/2)

Orec., p. 100. It is also conjectured that the snake is only the sacred serpent of the older oracle of the earth on the same site. aeschylus, _Eumenides_, 2.

The monster is the fosterling of Hera in the Homeric hymn, and the bane of flocks and herds. She is somehow connected with the fable of the birth of the monster Typhoeus, son of Hera without a father. The Homeric hymn derives _Pythius_, the name of the G.o.d, from (------), ”rot,” the disdainful speech of Apollo to the dead monster, ”for there the pest rotted away beneath the beams of the sun”. The derivation is a _volks-etymologie_. It is not clear whether the poet connected in his mind the sun and the G.o.d. The local legend of the dragon-slaying was kept alive in men's minds at Delphi by a mystery-play, in which the encounter was represented in action. In one version of the myth the slavery of Apollo in the house of Admetus was an expiation of the dragon's death.* Through many of the versions runs the idea that the slaying of the serpent was a deed which required purification and almost apology. If the serpent was really the deity of an elder faith, this would be intelligible, or, if he had kinsfolk, a serpent-tribe in the district, we could understand it. Apollo's next act was to open a new spring of water, as the local nymph was hostile and grudged him her own.

This was an inexplicable deed in a sun G.o.d, whose business it is to dry up rather than to open water-springs. He gave oracles out of the laurel of Delphi, as Zeus out of the oaks of Dodona.** Presently Apollo changed himself into a huge dolphin, and in this guise approached a s.h.i.+p of the Cretan mariners.*** He guided, in his dolphin shape, the vessel to Crisa, the port of Delphi, and then emerged splendid from the waters, and filled his fane with light, a sun-G.o.d indeed Next, a.s.suming the shape of a man, he revealed himself to the Cretans, and bade them wors.h.i.+p him in his _Delphic_ seat as Apollo Delphinios, the Dolphin-Apollo.

* Eurip., Alcestis, Schol., line 1.

** Hymn, 215.

*** Op. cit., 220-225.

Such is the ancient tale of the founding of the Delphic oracle, in which G.o.ds, and beasts, and men are mixed in archaic fas.h.i.+on. It is open to students to regard the dolphin as only one of the many animals whose earlier wors.h.i.+p is concentrated in Apollo, or to take the creature for the symbol of spring, when seafaring becomes easier to mortals, or to interpret the dolphin as the result of a _volks-etymologie_, in which the name Delphi (meaning originally a hollow in the hills) was connected with _delphis_, the dolphin.*

On the whole, it seems impossible to get a clear view of Apollo as a sun-G.o.d from a legend built out of so many varied materials of different dates as the myth of the slaying of the Python and the founding of the Delphic oracle. Nor does the tale of the birth of the G.o.d--_les enfances Apollon_--yield much more certain information. The most accessible and the oldest form of the birth-myth is preserved in the Homeric hymn to the Delian Apollo, a hymn intended for recital at the Delian festival of the Ionian people.

The hymn begins without any account of the amours of Zeus and Leto; it is merely said that many lands refused to allow Leto a place wherein to bring forth her offspring. But barren Delos listened to her prayer, and for nine days Leto was in labour, surrounded by all the G.o.ddesses, save jealous Hera and Eilithyia, who presides over child-birth. To her Iris went with the promise of a golden necklet set with amber studs, and Eilithyia came down to the isle, and Leto, grasping the trunk of a palm tree, brought forth Apollo and Artemis.**

Such is the narrative of the hymn, in which some interpreters, such as M. Decharme, find a rich allegory of the birth of Light. Leto is regarded as Night or Darkness, though it is now admitted that this meaning cannot be found in the etymology of her name.***

* Roscher, Lexikon; Preller, i. 208; Schol. ad Lycophr., v.

208.

** Compare Theognis, 5-10.

*** Preller, i. 190, note 4; Curtius, Gr. ae, 120.

M. Decharme presumes that the palm tree (------) originally meant the morning red, by aid of which night gives birth to the sun, and if the poet says the young G.o.d loves the mountain tops, why, so does the star of day. The moon, however, does not usually arise simultaneously with the dawn, as Artemis was born with Apollo. It is vain, in fact, to look for minute touches of solar myth in the tale, which rests on the womanly jealousy of Hera, and explains the existence of a great fane and feast of Apollo, not in one of the rich countries that refused his mother sanctuary, but in a small barren and remote island.*

Among the wilder myths which grouped themselves round the figure of Apollo was the fable that his mother Leto was changed into a wolf. The fable ran that Leto, in the shape of a wolf, came in twelve days from the Hyperboreans to Delos.** This may be explained as a _volks-etymologie_ from the G.o.d's name, ”Lycegenes,” which is generally held to mean ”born of light”. But the presence of very many animals in the Apollo legend and in his temples, corresponding as it does to similar facts already observed in the religion of the lower races, can scarcely be due to popular etymologies alone. The Dolphin-Apollo has already been remarked.

* The French excavators in Delos found the original unhewn stone on which, in later days, the statue of the anthropomorphic G.o.d was based.

** Aristotle, Hist. An., vi 86; Elian., N. A., iv. 4; Schol. on Apol. Rhod., ii. 12

There are many traces of connection between Apollo and the wolf.

In Athens there was the Lyceum of Apollo Lukios, Wolf-Apollo, which tradition connected with the primeval strife wherein aegeus (goat-man) defeated Lukios (wolfman). The Lukian Apollo was the deity of the defeated side, as Athene of the aegis (goat-skin) was the deity of the victors.* The Argives had an Apollo of the same kind, and the wolf was stamped on their coins.** According to Pausanias, when Danaus came seeking the kings.h.i.+p of Argos, the people hesitated between him and Gelanor. While they were in doubt, a wolf attacked a bull, and the Argives determined that the bull should stand for Gelanor, the wolf for Danaus. The wolf won; Danaus was made king, and in grat.i.tude raised an altar to _Apollo Lukios_, Wolf-Apollo. That is (as friends of the totemic system would argue), a man of the wolf-stock dedicated a shrine to the wolf-G.o.d.*** In Delphi the presence of a bronze image of a wolf was explained by the story that a wolf once revealed the place where stolen temple treasures were concealed. The G.o.d's beast looked after the G.o.d's interest.**** In many myths the children of Apollo by mortal girls were exposed, but fostered by wolves.***** In direct contradiction with Pausanias, but in accordance with a common rule of mythical interpretation, Sophocles****** calls Apollo ”the wolf-slayer”.

* Paus., i. 19, 4.

** Preller, i. 202, note 3; Paus., ii. 19, 3.

*** Encyc. Brit., s. v. ”Sacrifice”.

**** Paus., x. 14, 4.

***** Ant. Lib., 30.

****** _Electra_, 6., 222