Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

HEEAKLES AND BELLER0PH6N. 55
and rack every limb with agony unspeakable, as the garment CHAP,
given by Helios to Medeia consumed the flash of Glauke -
and of Kreon. Once more the suffering hero is lashed into
madness, and seizing the luckless Lichas he hurls him into
the sea. Thus, borne at last to the heights of Oita, he gathers
wood, and charges those who are around him to set the
pile on fire, when he shall have laid himself down upon it.
Only the shepherd Poias ventures to do the hero's will : but
when the flame is kindled, the thunder crashes through the
heaven, and a cloud comes down which bears him away to
Olympos, there to dwell in everlasting youth with the radiant
Hebe as his bride. 1
It is a myth in which ' looms a mag-
nificent sunset,' 2 the forked flames as they leap from the
smoke of the kindled wood being the blood-red vapours which
stream from the body of the dying sun. It is the reverse of
the picture which leaves Odysseus with Penelope in all the
brightness of early youth, knowing indeed that the night
must come, yet blessed in the profound calm which has fol-
lowed the storms and troubles of the past. It is the picture
of a sunset in wild confusion, the multitude of clouds hurrying
hither and thither, now hiding, now revealing the mangled
body of the sun,—of a sunset more awful yet not more
sad than that which is seen in the last hours of Bellerophon,
as he wanders through the Aleian plain in utter solitude,
the loneliness of the sun who has scattered the hostile va-
pours and then sinks slowly down the vast expanse of pale
light with the ghastly hues of death upon his face, while
none is nigh to cheer him, like Iole by the funeral pile of
Herakles. 3
1 There was no reason why the myth never wearied and never dying, but as
should stop short here; and the cycle journeying by the Ocean stream after
already so many times repeated is sun-down to the spot whence he comes
carried on by making Herakles and again into sight in the morning. Hence
Hebe the parents of Alexiares and in the Orphic hymns he is self-born,
Aniketos, names which again denote the the wanderer along the path of light
irresistible strength and the benignant (Lykabas) in which he performs his
nature of the parent whose blood flows mighty exploits between the rising and
in their veins. The name Alexiares the setting of the sun. He is of many
belongs to the same class with Alexi- shapes, he devours all things and prokakos,
an epithet which Herakles shares duces all things, he slays and he heals,
with Zeus and Apollon, along with Eound his head he bears the Morning
Daphnephoros, Olympios, Pangenetor, and the Night (xii.), and as living
and others.—Max Miiller, Chips, ii. 89. through the hours of darkness he wears
2 Max Miiller, ib. ii. 88. a robe of stars {a,