Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

;20 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAX NATIONS.
BOOK Poseidon as the god of the sea, and of the sea alone. So
_^J long as the word Kronides remained a mere epithet, the
Zeus of Oljmpos was also Zenoposeidon, and as Zeus
Katachthonios he would be also Hades, Ais, or Aidoneus,
the king of the lower world ; and the identity of the two is
proved not only by these titles, but also by the power which,
after the triple partition, Hades, like Poseidon, retains of
appearing at will in Olympos. Zeus then, as Hades, is
simply the unseen, or the being who can make himself as
well as others invisible. As such, he wears the invisible
cap or helmet, which appears as the tarn-kappe or nebel-
kappe of Teutonic legends. This cap he bestows on Hermes,
who is thus enabled to enter unseen the Gorgons' dwelling,
and escape the pursuit of the angry sisters. But his home
is also the bourne to which all the children of men must
come, and from which no traveller returns; and thus he
becomes the host who must receive all under his roof, and
whom it is best therefore to invoke as one who will give
them a kindly welcome,—in other words, as Polydektes,
Polydegmon, or Pankoites, the hospitable one who will
assign to every man his place of repose. Still, none may
ever forget the awful character of the gate-keeper (ttv-
\apTT]$) of the lower world. He must be addressed, not as
Hades the unseen, but as Plouton the wealthy, the Kuvera
of the Ramayana ; and the averted face of the man who
offered sacrifice to him may recall to our minds the horrid
rites of the devil-worshippers of the Lebanon. 1
Hades, then, in the definite authority assigned to him
after the war with the Titans, is the only being who is
regarded as the lord who remains always in his dismal
kingdom, for Persephone, who shares his throne, returns for
half the year as Kore to gladden the hearts of men, and
Zagreos, Adonis, and Dionysos are also beings over whom
the prince of darkness has no permanent dominion. Of the
1 Like Hermes, and Herakles, Hades and refuses to let it free until he gives
has also assumed a burlesque form, as her the ladder by which he climbs out
in the German story of Old Rinkrank, of the mountain-depths into the open
who dwells in a great cave into which air. Thus escaping, she returns with
the King's daughter falls in the moun- her heavenly lover, and despoils Rinktain
of glass (ice). The unwilling wife rank (Plouton) of all his treasures,
contrives to catch his beard in a door,