Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

12 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
BOOK
II.
Here and
Ixion.
Here
Akraia.
Here the
Matron.
Here in the heaven with golden handcuffs on her wrists and
two heavy anvils suspended from her feet. In the same way
she is at enmity with Herakles, and is wounded by his
barbed arrows. But where the will of Zeus is not directly
thwarted, Here is endowed with the attributes even of
Phoibos himself. Thus she imparts to the horse Xanthos the
gifts at once of human speech and of prophecy, and sends
the unwilling Helios to his ocean bed when Patroklos falls
beneath the spear of Hektor.
But while Zeus asserts and enforces his own power over
her, none other may venture to treat her with insult ; and
the proud Ixion himself is fastened to the four- spoked wheel
of noon-day, for his presumption in seeking the love of the
wife of Zeus. The sun as climbing the heights of heaven,
and wooing the bright ether, is an arrogant being who must
be bound to the fiery cross, or whose flaming orb must be
made to descend to the west, like the stone of Sisyphos, just
when it has reached the zenith, or summit of the hill.
Among the many names under which she was known
appears the epithet Akraia, which was supposed to describe
her as the protectress of cities, but which was applied also
to Athene as denoting the bright sky of morning. 1 Tims
viewed she is the mother of Hebe, the embodiment of everlasting
youth, the cupbearer of Zeus himself. Here, however,
like Athene, has her dark and terrible aspects. From
Ouranos, the heaven, spring the gigantic monsters, Thunder
and Lightning ; and as the source of like convulsions, Here
is the mother of Ares (Mars), the crusher, and Hephaistos,
the forger of the thunderbolts.
But her relations to marriage are those which were most
prominently brought out in her worship throughout Hellas.
She is the wife of Zeus in a sense which could not be applied
to any other of the Olympian deities ; and, apart from the
offspring which she produces by her own unaided powers,
she has no children of which Zeus is not the father. Hence
she was regarded both as* instituting marriage, and punish-
ing those who violate its duties. It is she who sends the
Eileithyiai to aid women, when their hour is come; and
1 See Pruller, Gr. Myth. i. 125.