Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

BOOK
II.
MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CLOUDS.
Section I.—THE CHILDREN OF THE MIST.
The name Nephele stands almost at the beginning of that
series of mythical narratives which stretch down to a time
even later than the alleged period of the return of the
Herakleids. She is the mother of the children whose dis-
appearance led to the long searching of the Argonautai for
the Golden Fleece, to be followed by the disappearance of
Helen and then of the children of Herakles ; each with its
astonishing train of marvellous incidents which, when closely
viewed, are found more or less to repeat each other under
a different colouring, and with names sometimes only slightly
disguised, sometimes even unchanged. But Nephele herself
is strictly the representative of the mist or the cloud, and as
such she becomes the wife of Athamas, a being on whose
nature some light is thrown by the fact that he is the brother
of Sisyphos, the sun condemned, like Ixion, to an endless and
a fruitless toil. In this aspect, the myth resolves itself into
a series of transparent phrases. The statement that Athamas
married Nephele at the bidding of Here is merely the as-
sertion that the wedding of the sun with the clouds, of
Herakles with Iole, is brought to pass in the sight of the
blue heaven. From this union spring two children, Phrixos
and Helle, whose names and attributes are purely atmo-
spheric. It is true that a mistaken etymology led some of
the old mythographers to connect the name of Phrixos with
the roasting of corn in order to kill the seed, as an explan-
ation of the anger of Athamas and his crime ; but we have
to mark the sequel of the tale, in which it is of the very