Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

ALKESTIS.
in isolated patches on the sea seems to set bounds to the CHAP,
encroaching darkness which gives way before the conqueror _—,J—
of the clouds.
The slaughter of the Kyklopes brought on Phoibos the The bondsentence
of a year's servitude ; and thus we have in the myth phoibos
of Apollon himself the germs of the hard bondage which
j^s
weighs down Herakles through his whole career, and is only
less prominent in the mythical histories of Perseus, Theseus,
and other heroes, who, like Achilleus, tight in a quarrel which
is not of their own choosing or making. 1 The master whom
Phoibos serves is one between whom and himself there is
no such contrariety of will as marks the relations of Herakles
with Eurystheus. He is no hard exacter of tasks set in mere
caprice to tax his servant's strength to the utmost ;
but he is
well content to have under his roof one who, like the Brownie
of modern superstition, has brought with him health and
wealth and all good things. One thing alone is wanting,
and this even Phoibos cannot grant him. It is the life of
Alkestis, the pure, the devoted, the self-sacrificing, for it had
been told to Admetos that he might escape death, if only his
parents or his wife would die in his stead, and Alkestis has
taken the doom upon herself. 2 Thus in the very prime of her
beauty she is summoned by Thanatos, death, to leave her
home and children, and to cross with him the gloomy stream
which separates the land of the living from the regions of the
dead; and although Phoibos intercedes for a short respite,
the gloomy being whose debtor she is lays his icy hands
upon her and will not let her go until the mighty Herakles
grapples with him, and having by main force rescued her
from his grasp, brings her back to Admetos. Such is the
story told by Euripides, a story in which the character of
Herakles is exhibited in a light of broad burlesque alto-
gether beyond that of the Hymn to Hermes. We see in it
at once the main features of the cognate legends. It is
thought of the sun as a bond- Inea, like a tied beast who goes ever
1 ' The
man led the Peruvian Inca to deny his round and round in the same track.'
pretension to be the doer of all things; Max Midler, Chips, $c. ii. 113.
s
for, if he were free, he would go and Hence the connection of the name
visit other parts of the heavens where with that of Alkmene or of (Athene)
he had never been, He is, said the Alalkomene.
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Hera "