Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

178 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
BOOK Antiphates himself they are necessarily treated like their
II.
comrades in the Kyklops' island, and Odysseus escapes after
losing many of his men only by cutting the mooring-ropes
of his ship and hastening out to sea.
The Lotos- In the land of the Lotos-eaters Odysseus encounters dan-
Kirk^! gers °f another kind. The myth carries us to the many
emblems of the reproductive powers of nature, of which the
Lotos is ore of the most prominent. It here becomes the
forbidden fruit, and the eating of it so poisons the blood as
to take away all memory and care for home and kinsfolk, for
law, right, and duty. The sensual inducements held out by
the Lotophagoi are, in short, those by which Venus tempts
Tanhauser into her home in the Horselberg ; and the de-
gradation of the bard answers to the dreamy indolence of
the groups who make life one long holiday in the Lotos
land. The Venus of the medieval story is but another form
of Kirke, the queen of Aiaia ;
but the sloth and sensuality of
the Lotos-eaters here turns its victims into actual swine,
while the spell is a tangible poison poured by Kirke into
their cups. The rod which she uses as the instrument of
transformation gives a further significance to the story.
From these swinish pleasures they are awakened only through
the interference of Odysseus, who has received from Hermes
an antidote which deprives the charms of Kirke of all power
to hurt him. The Herakles of Prodikos is after all the
Herakles whom, we see in the myths of Echidna or of the
daughters of Thestios, and thus Odysseus dallies with Kirke
as he listens also to the song of the Seirens. True, he has
not forgotten his home or his wife, but he is ready to avail
himself of all enjoyments which will not hinder him from
reaching home at last. So he tarries with Kirke and with
the fairer Kalypso, whose beautiful abode is the palace of
Tara Bai in the Hindu legend, while she herself is Ursula,
the moon, wandering, like Asterodia, among the myriad
stars,—the lovety being who throws a veil over the Sun
while he sojourns in her peaceful home.
Kirke and From the abode of Kirke Odysseus betakes himself to the
aypso ' regions
of Hades, where from Teiresias he learns that he
may yet escape from the anger of Poseidon, if he and his