Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

DANAE AND DIKTYS.
wrath decrees that his daughter and her babe shall share CHAP,
the doom of Oidipous and Dionysos. Like Semele, she is re-
placed with the infant in a chest or ark, which is thrust out
into the sea, and carried by the waves and tide to the island
of Seriphos, where the vessel is seen by Diktys, who of
course is fishing, and by him Danae and her child are taken
to the house of his brother Polydektes, the chief of the
island, a myth which we have to compare with those of
Artemis Diktynna and Persephone. Throughout the story,
Diktys is the kindly being whose heart is filled with pity for
the sorrowing mother, while Polydektes, a name identical
with that of Hades Polydegmon, is her unrelenting perse-
cutor. He is thus a champion of the lord of light, which is
reflected in his name as in that of Diktynna and the Diktaian
cave in Crete ; and the equivocation in the one case is pre-
cisely the same as in the other. Polydektes now tries all his
arts to win Danae, and his efforts at once recall the temptation
of Sarama by Pani ; but Danae is true to her child and
to his father, and Polydektes resolves to be rid of the youth
who stands thus in his way. So, like Eurystheus, he sends
him away with a strict charge that he is not to return unless
he brings with him the Gorgon's head, the sight of which
can freeze every living being into stone. Thus the dawn
is parted from her son, for Phoibos himself must leave his
mother Leto and begin his westward journey. 1 He starts
alone, and as he thinks unbefriended, but with the high and
generous spirit which marks the youthful Herakles in the
apologue of Prodikos, and heavenly beings come to his aid
as Arete promises to strengthen the son of Alkmene. From
the dawn-goddess, Athene, he receives the mirror into which
he is to gaze when he draws his sword to smite the mortal
Gorgon, the fiend of darkness ; from Hermes he obtains the
sword which never falls in vain ; and the Nymphs bring him
the bag in which he is to carry away the head of Medousa,
the tarn-kappe or invisible helmet of Hades, and the golden
sandals which will bear him along as swiftly as a dream,— in
other words, the golden chariot of Helios, or the armour of
1 If Niebuhr is right in connecting name Danae is only another form of
together the names Daunos, Danaos, Ahana and Athene, of Dahana and
Lavinus, Lakinus, Latinus, &c, the Daphne See vol. i. p. 242.
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