Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

300 MYTHOLOGY OP THE! ARYAtf NATIONS.
1
BOOK or the dawn-mother mourning
II .
.
r—* earth which she loves. 1
for the desolation of the
Th loep
f w- ^is stoiT
is naturally found in all lands where the difference
between summer and winter is sufficiently marked
to leave on the mind the impression of death and resur-
rection. Its forms of course vary indefinitely, but it is in
fact repeated virtually in every solar legend. The beautiful
earth laughing amidst the summer flowers is as truly the
bride of the sun as is the blushing dawn with its violet tints.
The grief of Demeter for Kore is the sorrow of Apollon when
bereft of Daphne, as its converse is the mourning of Psyche
for Eros or Selene for Endymion. But there is hope for all.
Sarpedon, Adonis, Memnon, Arethousa shall all rise again,
but only when the time is come to join the being who has
loved them, or who has the power to rouse them from their
sleep. The utter barrenness of the earth, so long as the wrath
of Demeter lasts, answers to the locking up of the treasures in
Teutonic folk-lore ; but the awakening of spring may be said
to be the result of the return, not only of the maiden from
the underworld, but of the sun from the far-off regions to
which he had departed. In the former case the divine
messenger comes to summon the daughter from the unseen
land; in the other the sleeper rests unawakened until she
feels the magic touch of the only being who can rouse her.
With either of these ideas it was possible and easy to work
out the myth into an infinite variety of detail ; and thus in
the northern story Persephone becomes the maiden Bryn-
hild who sleeps within the flaming walls, as the heroine of
the Hindu tales lies in a palace of glass surrounded by seven
hedges of spears. But she must sleep until the knight
arrives who is to slay the dragon, and the successful exploit
of Sigurd would suggest the failure of weaker men who had
made the same attempt before him. Thus we have the germ
of those countless tales in which the father promises to be-
1 Professor Max Muller prefers the Poseidon or Holios to Apollon. Gaia
latter explanation and refers the name is thus the actual soil from which the
to the Sanskrit dyavamatar. Lectures, deadly narcissus springs, and therefore
second series, 517. If Demeter, or Deo, the accomplice of Polydegmon, -while
as she also styles herself, be only a Demeter is the mysterious power which
name for the earth, then Gaia stands to causes all living things to grow and
Demeter, in the relation of Nereus to ripen.