Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

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MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
BOOK beings of the same kind, he is sprung from the earth or
._ IL
, the waters, as a son whether of Poseidon and Euryale, or
of Oinopion. He grows np a mighty hunter, the cloud
ranging in wild freedom over hills and valleys. At Chios he
sees the beautiful Aero, but when he seeks to make her his
bride, he is blinded by her father, who, on the advice of
Dionysos, comes upon him in his sleep. Orion is now told
that he may yet recover his sight if he would go to the east
and look toward the rising sun. Thither he is led by the
help of Hephaistos, who sends Kedalion as his guide.
On his return he vainly tries to seize and punish the man
who had blinded him, and then wandering onwards meets
and is loved by Artemis. It is but the story of the beautiful
cloud left in darkness when the sun goes down, but recovering
its brilliance when he rises again in the east. Of
his death many stories were told. In the Odyssey he is
slain in Ortygia, the dawn land, by Artemis, who is jealous
of her rival Eos. In another version Artemis slays him
unwittingly, having aimed at a mark on the sea which
Phoibos had declared that she could not hit. This mark
was the head of Orion, who had been swimming in the
waters ; in other words, of the vapour as it begins to rise
from the surface of the sea. But so nearly is he akin to the
powers of light, that Asklepios seeks to raise him from the
dead, and thus brings on his own doom from the thunderbolts
of Zeus— a myth which points to the blotting out of the sun
from the sky by the thundercloud, just as he was rekindling
the faded vapours which lie motionless on the horizon.
Seirios. Like Andromeda, Ariadne, and other mythical beings,
Orion was after his death placed among the constellations,
and his hound became the dog- star Seirios, who marks the
time of yearly drought. He is thus the deadly star l who
burns up the fields of Aristaios and destroys his bees, and is
stayed from his ravages only by the moistening heaven. 2
This, however, is but one of the countless myths springing
from old phrases which spoke of the madness of the sun,
who destroys his own children, the fruits of his bride the
earth. The word Seirios itself springs from the same root
1 qvMos dcr'fjp. ' Id's Ikp-cuos. Preller, Gr, MijtJi„ i. 35S.