Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

578
CEEATION.
the approach of storm by her flying back, and of fair weather by
her keeping away. Lucian (De dea Syria, cap. 12. 13) calls him
out of
TOV ZtcvOea (the Scythian) ; if that sprang
1
it , may have long had this altered form in the legend
itself. Some branches of the Greek race had their own stories
of an ancient flood, of which they called the heroes Ogyges and
Ogygos ;
2 but all these accounts are wanting in epic details. 3
A rich store of these opens for us in the Indian Mahabharata. 4
when he
King Hanus stood on a river s bank, doing penance,
heard the voice of a little fish imploring him to save it. He
caught it in his hand and laid it in a vessel, but the fish began to
grow, and demanded wider quarters. Manus threw it into a large
lake, but the fish grew on, and wished to be taken to Ganga the
bride of the sea. Before long he had not room to stir even there,
and Manus was obliged to carry him to the sea ; but when
launched in the sea, he foretold the coming of a fearful flood,
Manus was to build a ship and go on board it with the seven
sages, and preserve the seeds of all things, then he would shew
himself to them horned. Manus did as he was commanded, and
sailed in the ship ; the monster fish appeared, had the ship
fastened to his horn by a rope, and towed it through the sea for
many years, till they reached the summit of the Himavdn, there
he bade them moor the ship, and the spot to which it was tied
still bears the name of Naubandhanam (ship-binding). Then
spake the fish : I am Brahma, lord of created things, a higher
than I there is not, in the shape of a fish have I delivered you ;
1 CKT9EA from CICT9EA is Buttmann s acute suggestion ; but he goes
farther, taking this Sisythes or Sisuthros to be Sesothris, Sothis, Seth ; and Noah
to be Dionysos, and a symbol of water.
2 Buttm. p. 45 seq., who connects it with Okeanos and Ogenos.
3
It is remarkable, that in a beautiful simile, therefore without names or places,
Homer depicts a kind of Deluge, II. 16, 384 :
cbs 5 vwb XcuXctTTi Tracra KeXaLvrj fiefipide "xQ&v
ij/j,ar oTrwpO y, ore Xa^porarov X^ i $8w/>
Zeus, ore 77 p dvdpecrcrt /career crd/u.ei os xaXeTTTji y,
o? f3iri elv dyopfj cr/coXtas Kpivucrt. $eytucrras,
K 5e 5uc?7i> eXao-wm, de&v 8iriv OVK
...... Se" fuvvdei re
py
Even as crouches the darkening land, overcrowed by the tempest, All on a summer s
day, when Jove doth the down-rushing water Suddenly pour, and wreak his wrath
on the proud men, Men of might, who sit dealing a crooked doom in the folkmote,
Forcing justice aside, unheeding of gods and their vengeance ; (rivers swell, etc.)
and the works of man are all wasted.
4 Bopp s Die siindflut, Berl. 1829.