Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

4G MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
BOOK
II.
Herakles
and Kerberos.
which we have the sun under an aspect altogether incon-
sistent with the ideal of Prodikos. Herakles is no longer
the hero who imposes on himself a hard discipline, but the
voluptuous wanderer who has many loves in many lands. In
his attack on the envoys of Erginos he is armed with a coat
of mail brought to him by the dawn-goddess Athene, as
Achilleus and Sigurd wear the armour brought to them by
Thetis and Hjordis. 1 The same thought suggested the gift
of the bow and arrows from Phoibos, the lord of the spear-
like sunbeams, of the sword from Hermes, whose stroke can
split the forest trees, of the peplos from Athene, the clear-
faced morning. The arrows bestowed on him by Apollon it
must specially be noted are poisoned ; and these poisoned
barbs are used by Philoktetes, who receives them from
Neoptolemos, the child of Achilleus, the brilliant but short-
lived sun, and by Odysseus, whom Athene restores to youthful
beauty as his life's labour draws towards its end. But we
have no historical evidence that poisoned arrows were used
by any Hellenic tribes, or that they would not have regarded
the employment of such weapons with the utmost horror.
How then comes it to pass that the poets of the Iliad and
Odyssey can attribute to the Achaian heroes practices from
which their kinsmen would have shrunk with disgust ? The
mystery is easily solved. The equivocation which turned
the violet-tinted rays of morning into spears was inevitable ;
the change of the spears or arrows into poisoned barbs was,
at the least, as natural and necessary. 2
As the conquest of the lion of Kithairon is the first great
exploit, so according to the systematising nrythographers
the bringing up of the dog Kerberos 3 from Hades is the
last. This story is mentioned by the poet of the Odyssey,
1 Erginos is the father of Trophonios
and Agamedes, the builders of the
I)elphian shrine — the myth of the
children of darkness raising the sanctuary
of the, lord of light answering to the
legend which makes Apollon himself
the child of (Leto) the sombre night.
2 The word 16s, iov, which furnished
a name for the violet hue, for a spear,
and for poison, is really a homonym
traceable to two or three roots ; and
thus far the equivocation differs from
that which turned Lykaon into a wolf,
and Arkas into a bear, these names
being in fact of the same signification,
although the men who uttered them had
ceased to be conscious of it.
3 The name, Kerberos is the Sanskrit
Sarvara, or Sambara, one of the enemies
slain by Indra.—Max Miiller, Chips, ii.
182, 188.