Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

68 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AKYAN NATIONS.
BOOK but in whom we are now able to discern a being whose
>_ ^ .
features much resemble those of the gloomy Vritra. Like
Perseus, Theseus, Phoibos, he is a son of the heaven or the
l
sea ; and his career is throughout that of the sun journeying
through thunderstorms and clouds. In his youth he attracts
the love of Anteia, the wife of Proitos, who on his refusal
deals with him as Phaidra deals with Hippolytos ; and
Proitos, believing her lies, sends him as the bearer of woeful
signs which are to bid Iobates, the Lykian king, to put the
messenger to death. The fight with the monster Chimaira
which ensues must come before us among the many forms
assumed by the struggle between the darkness and the light
and in the winged steed Pegasos, on which Bellerophon is
mounted, we see the light-crowned cloud soaring with
or above the sun into the highest heavens. But although
he returns thus a conqueror, Iobates has other toils still in
store for him. He must fight with the Amazons and the
Solymoi, and last of all must be assailed by the bravest of
the Lykians, who, by the king's orders, lurk in ambush for
him. These are all slain by his unerring spear ; and Hipponoos
is welcomed once more to the house of Proitos. But
the doom is not yet accomplished. The hatred of the gods
lies heavy upon him. Although we are not told the reason,
we have not far to seek it. The slaughter of the Kyklopes
roused the anger of Zeus against Phoibos : the blinding of
Polyphemos excited the rage of Poseidon against Od} r sseus
and these victims of the sun-god are all murky vapours
which arise from the sea. The wrath of Athene and Poseidon
added sorely to the length and weariness of the wanderings
of Odysseus ; nor could it leave Bellerophon at rest. Like
Odysseus, he too must roam through many lands, and thus
we find him wandering sadly along the Aleian plain, avoiding
the paths of men, treading, in other words, that sea of pale
ljght in which, after a day of storms, the sun sometimes goes
down without a cloud to break its monotonous surface.
The birth When at the close of his disastrous life Oidipous draws
of Oidipous.
near to die in the sacred grove of the Erinyes, it is Theseus
1
' Als Sonnenheld gilt Bellerophon Poseidon, weil die Sonne aus dem Meere
fur einen Sohn des Gluukos, oder des uufsteigt.'—Preller, Gr. Myth, ii. 78.
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