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THANATOS. MOKS. DATJDUS. 841
setting his foot on the psyche (soul) as if taking possession of her ;
often his hands are crossed over the extinguished torch. At
times he appears black (like Hel, p. 313) or black-winged (atris
alis) : rbv Be ireaovra etXe //,eXa? Odvaros, tyv%r)
etc
cra>/-iaTO<?
eTTT?; (Batrach. 207) 1
, and d\evaro Krjpa ^k\aivav (ibid. 85).
But usually the departing dead is represented riding a horse,
which a genius leads : an open door betokens the departure, as we
still throw open a door or window when any one dies (Superst. I,
664). As a symbol, the door alone, the horse s head alone, may
express the removal of the soul. 2 The Roman genius of death
seems to announce his approach or the hour of parting by knock
ing at the door 3
; a knocking and poking at night is ghostly and
ominous of death (see Suppl.).
Roman works of art never give Death the shape of a female
like Halja, though we should have expected it from the gender
of mors, and originally the people can scarcely have conceived it
otherwise ; the Slavic smrt, smert (the same word) is invariably
fern., the Lith. smertis is of either gender, the Lett, nahwe fern,
alone. And the Slav. Morena, Marana (Morena, Marzana), de
scribed p. 771, seems to border closely on smrt and mors.
These words find an echo in Teutonic ones. Sclimerz, smart, we
now have only in the sense of pain, originally it must have been
the pains of death, as our qual (torment) has to do with quellan,
AS. cwellan, Eng. kill: 4 the OHG. MHG. and AS. have alone
retained the strong verb smerzan, smerzen, smeortan (dolere).
OHG. smerza is fern., MHG. smerze niasc., but never personified.
Nahwe answers to the Goth. masc. ndus, pi. naveis, funus (conf.
ON. ndr, ndinn p. 453), as Odvaros too can mean a corpse. 5 Bat
this Grk. word has the same root as the Goth, ddufius, OHG. tod
1 One would suppose from this passage, that Death took only the corpse of the
fallen to himself, that the soul flew away to Hades, for it is said of her in v. 235
2 0. Miiller s Archaol., ed. 2, pp. 604. 696. For the horse s head, conf.
Boeckh s Corp. inscr. no. 800. Harm. Oxon. p. 2, no. 63-7. E. Kochette s
Monum. ined. 1, 126. Pausan. vii. 25, 7. Gerhard s Antike bildw. p. 407.
3 Hor. Od. i.
4, 13 : pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas regumque
turres.
4 Constant use will soften down the meaning of the harshest terms we ; had
an instance in the Fr. gene, p. 800n. A
5 Goth, leik (corpus, caro), our leiche, leichnam,~&ng. lich (cadaver) ; the OHG.
hreo, AS. hraw, MHG. re (cadaver, funus), and Goth, hrdiv (whence hraiva-dubo,
mourner-dove) are the Lat. corpus.