Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

BOOK
II.
MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
In the Odyssey, Sarama reappears as in the older Yedic
portraits, pnre and unswerving in her fidelity to her absent
lord. The dark powers or Panis are here the suitors who
crowd around the beautiful Penelope, while Odysseus is
journeying homewards from the plains of Hion. But the
myth has here reached a later stage, and the treasures of
Indra are no longer the refreshing rain-clouds, but the
wealth which Odysseus has left stored up in his home, and
which the suitors waste at their will. The temptation of
Penelope assumes the very form of the ordeal which
Sarama is obliged to go through. She, too, shall have her
share of the treasures, if she will but submit to become the
wife of any one of the chiefs who are striving for her hand.
The wheedling and bullying of the Panis in the Yedic hymns
is reproduced in the alternate coaxing and blustering of the
western suitors ; but as Sarama rejects their offers, strong
through the might of the absent Indra, so Penelope has her
scheme for frustrating the suitors' plans, trusting in the
midst of all her grief and agony that Odysseus will assuredly
one day come back. This device adheres with singular
fidelity to the phenomena which mark the last moments of a
summer day. Far above, in the upper regions of Hypereia,
where the beautiful Phaiakians dwelt before the uncouth
Kyklopes sought to do them mischief, the fairy network of
cirri clouds is seen at sundown flushing with deeper tints as
the chariot of the lord of day sinks lower in the sky. This
is the network of the weaver Penelope, who like Iole spreads
her veil of violet clouds over the heaven in the morning and
in the evening. Below it, stealing up from the dark waters,
Hermes differ from those of the Vedic
Sarameya, and how completely in this
case the idea of the morning has given
way before that of air in motion. There
can be no doubt that the Greek Orthros
is in name identical with the Vedic
Vritra; and yet the former, as taken to
denote the first wakening of the dawn,
assumes a shape far less fearful than
that of the hated snake who chokes the
rain-clouds. And again, although as
fighting against the children of the sun
(book i. cli. x.) who come to recover
Helen and her treasures as the Argonauts
went to seek and if need be to fight for
the golden fleece the Trojans represent
the Panis, it can as little be questioned
that some of those who fight on the side
of Hektor belong as clearly as Phoibos
or Herakles himself to the ranks of
solar heroes. It is enough to mention
the instances of Sarpedon and Menmon,
even if no stress be laid on the fact that
Paris himself is the darling of Aphrodite,
which he could scarcely be if regarded
simply as an embodiment of the dark
and treacherous night. Such modifi-
cations are obviously inevitable.