Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

BOOK
II.
MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
Chrysaor, the lord of the golden sword :
in other words, the
night in its benignant aspect as the parent of the sun, and
therefore as mortal, for must not the birth of the sun be
fatal to the darkness from which it springs ? Hence Perseus,
the child of the golden shower, must bring her weary woe to
an end. The remaining feature of the story is the early
loveliness of Medousa, which tempts her into rivalry with the
dawn goddess Athene herself, a rivalry which they who know
the moonlit nights of the Mediterranean can well understand.
But let the storm-clouds pass across the sky, and the maiden's
beauty is at once marred. She is no longer the darling of
Poseidon, sporting on the grassy shore. The unseemly
vapours stream like serpents across her once beautiful face,
hissing with the breath of the night-breeze, and a look of
agony unutterable comes over her countenance, chilling and
freezing the hearts' blood of those who gaze on the brow
of the storm-tormented night. This agony can pass away
only with her life; in other words, when the sword of
Phoibos smites and scatters the murky mists. But although
Medousa may die, the source from which the storm-clouds
come cannot be choked, and thus the Gorgons who seek
to avenge on Perseus their sister's death are themselves
immortal.
In the Theban myth of Aktaion, the son of the Kadmeian
Autonoe, the cloud appears as a huntsman who has been
taught by the Kentaur Cheiron, but who is torn to pieces by
his own dogs, just as the large masses of vapour are rent
and scattered by the wind, which bear them across the sky.
As this rending is most easily seen in a heaven tolerably free
from clouds, so the story ran that Aktaion was thus punished
because he had rashly looked on Artemis while she was
bathing in the fountain of Gargaphia.
Not less significant is the myth of Pegasos, the off-
spring of Medousa with Chrysaor, the magnificent piles of
sunlit cloud, which seem to rise as if on eagle's wings to
the highest heaven, and in whose bosom may lurk the light-
nings and thunders of Zeus. Like Athene and Aphrodite,
like Daphne and Arethousa, this horse of the morning (Eos)
must be born from the waters ; hence he is Pegasos, sprung