TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

322 CONDITION OF GODS.
on a few heroes and animals, as some of the Greek giants are
Kar6y^eipe<;. Such forms are quite common in the Hindu and
Slav systems :
Vishnu is represented with four arms, Brahma with
four heads, Svantovit the same, while Porevit has five heads and
Kugevit seven faces. Yet Hecate too is said to have been threeheaded,
as the Eoman Janus was two-faced, and a Lacedaemonian
Apollo four-armed.1 Khuvera, the Indian god of wealth,
hideous figure with three legs and eight teeth. Some of the Norse
is a
gods, on the contrary, have not a superfluity, but a deficiency of
members : OSinn is one-eyed, Tr one-handed, HoSr blind, and
Logi or Loki was perhaps portrayed as lame or limping, like
Hephasstus and the devil. Hel alone has a dreadful shape, black
and white ; the rest of the gods and goddesses, not excepting Loki,
are to be imagined as of beautiful and noble figure (see Suppl.).
In the Homeric epos this ideally perfect human shape, to which
Greek art also keeps true, is described in standing epithets for gods
and especially goddesses, with which our ruder poetry has only a
few to set in comparison, and yet the similarity of these is signi
ficant. Some epithets have to serve two or three divinities by
turns, but most are confined to individuals, as characteristic
them. Thus Here is Xeu/ewXei/o? or /^OWTT/,? (the former used als
of Helen, II. 3, 121, 2 the latter of a Nereid 18, 40), Athene ry\av/cc*
Trt? or rivKojjbos (which again does for Here), Thetis apyvpojr
Iris aeXXoTro?, 7roS??Ve//,o?, xpva-oTrrepos, Eos poSoSa/criAo?, Demete
(Ceres) gavOtf 5, 500, and /caXXtTrXo/ca^o? 14, 326, just as Sif i
harfogr (p. 309), in allusion to the yellow colour of the waving
corn. As the sea rolls its dark waves, Poseidon bears the nam
Kvavoxafrv:, II. 14, 390. 15, 174. 20, 144. Zeus could either be
called the same, or icvavofypvs (a contrast to Baldr brahvitr, brow
white p. 222), because to him belong apfipocricu yai-Tai II. 1, 528, th(
hair and locks of Wish (p. 142), and because with his dark brow
he makes signs. This confirmatory lowering of the brows 01
nodding with the head (vevew, Karave^eiv fcvaverjaiv eV 6(f>puo-t I]
1, 527. 17, 209) is the regular expression of Zeus s will : Ke$
KaTavevcrofJiat,, a0avdroi(7L ^ejiarov re/cjjLwp, II. 1, 524. In refusing
he draws the head back (avavevef). Thor s indignant rage is shown
by sinking the eyebrows over the eyes (siga brynuar ofan fyrir
1 0. Muller s archaeol. p. 515.
2 And Aphrodite throws her Tr^ee XeuKo> round ^Eneas. TRANS.