Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

MELIKERTES AND KADMOS. 26
than that which Eurystheus accords to Herakles ; and CHAP,
hence the wrath of Poseidon against Ilion and its people \ L
burns as fiercely as that of Here. The monster which he
brings up from the sea to punish Laomedon' is the huge
storm-cloud, which appears in the Cretan legend as the bull
sent by Poseidon to be sacrificed by Minos, who instead of
so dealing with it hides it among his own cattle, the fitting
punishment for thus allowing the dark vapours to mingle
with the bright clouds being that the love of Pasiphae is
given to the monster, and thus is born the dreadful Mino-
tauros. Lastly, when by Amphitrite he becomes the father
of Triton, the myth goes back to the early significance of the
name Poseidon.
Among other mythical inhabitants of the sea are Ino, the Melidaughter
of Kaclmos and Harmonia, and her child Meli-
kertes. Their earthly history belongs to the myth of the
Golden Fleece; but when on failing to bring about the
death of Phrixos she plunges, like Endymion, into the sea,
she is the antithesis of Aphrodite Anadyomene. With her
change of abode her nature seemingly becomes more genial.
She is the pitying nymph who hastens to the help of
Odysseus as he is tossed on the stormy waters after the
breaking up of his raft ; and thus she is especially the
white goddess whose light tints the sky or crests the waves.
In his new borne her son Melikertes, we are told, becomes
Palaimon, the wrestler, or, as some would have it, Glaukos.
The few stories related of him have no importance ; but his
name is more significant. It is clearly that of the Semitic
Melkarth, and thus the sacrifices of children in his honour,
and the horrid nature of his cultus generally, are at once
explained. It becomes, therefore, the more probable that
Kadmos is but a Greek form of the Semitic Kedem, the
east ; and thus the Boiotian mythology presents us with at
least two undoubted Phenician or Semitic names, whatever
be the conclusion to which they point.
kertes -
In his later and more definite functions as the god of the The ocean
waters, Poseidon is still the lord only of the troubled sea :
and there remains a being far more ancient and more ma-
jestic, the tranquil Okeanos, whose slow and deep-rolling
stream -