Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

PHILOMELA AXD PEOKXE. 251
legend the living Prokne wept herself to death, like Niobe CHAP,
mourning for her sons and daughters. The story is easily / _ .
taken to pieces. The transformation is the result of the
same process which turned Lykadn into a wolf, and Kallisto
into a bear ; and as Philomela was a name for the nightin-
gale, so the daughter of Pandion is said to have been
changed into that bird. With the nightingale as a bird
of spring the swallow is closely associated, and this fitting
transformation was at once suggested for Prokne. But it
becomes at the least possible that in its earlier shape the
myth may have known only one wife of Tereus, who might
be called either Prokne or Philomela. Of these two names
Prokne is apparently only another form of Prokris, who is
also the daughter of an Athenian king ; and thus the legend
seems to explain itself, for as in Tantalos and Lykaon we
have the sun scorching up and destroying his children, so
here the dew is represented as offering the limbs of her
murdered child to her husband, the sun, as he dries up the
dewdrops. The myth is thus only another version of the
tale of Kephalos or Prokris. The name Philomela, again,
may denote one who loves the flocks, or one who loves
apples ;
but we have already seen how the sheep or flocks
of Helios becomes the apples of the Hesperides, and thus
Philomela is really the lover of the golden-tinted clouds,
which greet the rising sun, and the name might well be
given to either the dawn or the dew.
The mournful or dirge-like sound of the wind is signi- Linos and
fled by another Boiotian tradition, which related how the Ze )h >'ros '
i
matrons and maidens mourned for Linos at the feast which
was called Amis because Linos had grown up among the
lambs,— in other words, the dirge-like breeze had sprung up
while the heaven was flecked with the fleecy clouds which,
in the German popular stories, lured the rivals of Dummling
to their destruction in the waters. The myth that Linos
was torn to pieces by dogs points to the raging storm which
may follow the morning breeze. Between these two in force
would come Zephyros, the strong wind from the eveningland,
the son of Astraios the starry heaven, and of Eos who
closes, as she had begun, the day. The wife of Zephyros is