Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

72 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
BOOK
II.
Oidipous
and
Antigone.
filled him with delight. In other words, the sun has blinded
himself. Clouds and darkness have closed in about him,
and the clear light is blotted out of the heaven. 1 Nor is
this blinding of the sun recorded only in this Theban story.
Bellerophon, when thrown from his winged steed Pegasos.
is said to have been both .lamed and blinded, and the story
may be compared with the blinding of Samson before he
bends the pillars of the temple and brings death and dark-
ness on all who are around him. 2 The feuds and crimes
which disgrace his family when he has yielded up his sceptre
to his sons are the results of a moral process, and not of the
strictly mythical developement which makes him the slayer
of Laios, a name which, denoting simply the enmity of the
darkness to the light, is found again in Leophontes as an
epithet of Hipponoos, who is also called Bellerophon. 3
But if Iokaste, the tender mother who had watched over
him at his birth, is gone, the evening of his life is not with-
out its consolation. His sons may fill the city with strife
and bloodshed ; his daughter Ismene may waver in her filial
allegiance ; but there yet remains one who will never for-
sake him, and whose voice shall cheer him in his last hour.
1 So in the German story of Rapunzel,
the prince, when his bride is torn
from him, loses his senses with grief,
and springing from the tower (like
Kephalos from the Leukadian cliff) falls
into thorns which put out his eyes.
Thus he wanders blind in the forest (of
winter), but the tears of Rapunzel (the
tears which Eos sheds on the death of
Memn6n) fall on the sightless eyeballs,
and his sight is given to him again. In
the story of the Two Wanderers (the
Dioskouroi or Asvins, the Babes in the
Wood) one of the brothers, who is a
tailor, and who is thrust out to starve,
falls into the hands of a shoemaker who
gives him some bread only on condition
that ho will consent to lose his eyes
his sight is, of course, restored as in the
other story. In the story of the ' Prince
who was afraid of Nothing' (the Sigurd
of Brynhild), the hero is blinded by a
giant, but the lion sprinkling some
water on his eyes restores the sight in
part, and bathing himself in the stream
which he finds near him, the prince necessarily
comes out of the water able to
see as well as ever. In the Nurse Talcs
;
(Dasent) Oidipous appears as the blinded
brother in the story of True and Untrue,
and as the blinded prince in that of the
Blue Belt.
2 In the code of the Lokrian (Epizephyrian)
law-giver Zaleukos, the punishment
of adulterers is said to have been
loss of the eyes. It is unnecessary to
say that the evidence for the historical
existence of Zaleukos is worth as much
and as little as that which is adduced
for the historical character of Minos,
Manu, Lykourgos and Numa. The
story told of Zaleukos himself that he
agreed to have one of his own eyes put
out rather than allow his son, who had
been convicted of adultery, to lose both
his eyes, is a mingling of the myths of
the blinded Oidipous and the one-eyed
Kyklops or Wuotan. The law by
which the punishment is inflicted simply
reflects the story of Oidipous, who is
strictly punished for incest by the loss
of his eyes ; and the name Zaleukos,
the glistening or gleaming, carries us to
Apollon Lykios, the Latin Lucius,
Lucna, Luna, &c.
3 See Appendix A.