Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

140
BOOK
II.
16 and
Prometheus.
MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
porary disappearance of the moon, during her wanderings in
unknown regions until she appears as Pandia, the full moon,
in the eastern heaven. 1 This time was naturally conceived
as one of trouble and toil, and so the myth went that 16 was
driven from one place to another by a gadfly sent by Here,
who suffers her neither to rest by day nor to sleep by night.
These wanderings have been related by iEschylos in his
immortal drama of the bound Prometheus. They carry her
over regions, some of whose names belong to our earthly
geography ; but any attempts to fix her course in accordance
with the actual position of these regions is mere labour lost.
That for such accuracy iEschylos cared nothing is plain from
the fact that the course which 16 takes in his play of the
Suppliants cannot be reconciled with the account given in
the Prometheus. It is enough to note that the poet takes
his moon from the West towards the North, gradually
approaching the East and the South, until in the beau-
tiful Aigyptos she is suffered to resume her proper form,
or in other words, appear as the full moon, the shape
in which she was seen before Here changed her into the
horned heifer or new moon. This mention of Egypt, or the
land of the Nile, as the cradle of her child Epaphos, naturally
led the Greeks to identify 16 with the Egyptian Isis, and
her son with the bull Apis—an identification to which no
objection can be raised, so long as it is not maintained that
the Hellenic names and conceptions of the gods were bor-
rowed from those of Egypt. The great Athenian poet would
naturally introduce among the places visited by 16 places
and peoples which excited his curiosity, his wonder, or his
veneration. She from whom was to spring the deliverer
of Prometheus must herself learn from the tortured Titan
what must be the course of her own sufferings and their
issue. She must cross the heifer's passage, or Bosporos,
which bears her name : she must journey through the country
makes Hermes the father of Autolykos,
who in the Odi/sscy is the grandfather
of Odysseus and the craftiest of men—a
character which, as Preller remarks, is
simply reflected from Hermes. Gr.
Myth. i. 305. The name Autolykos is
as transparent as that of Argos Panopt&s.
The eyes of the dead Argos are
placed by Here in the peacock's tail;
but this was only another symbol for
the starry heavens. Preller, ib. ii. 41.
J
Gr. Myth. ii. 39.