Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

482
Apollon and Artemis
originally a terrestrial river forming the circumference of a discoidal
earth, but, as E. H. Berger^ has maintained, a celestial stream of
stars. I should indeed venture to suppose that in pre-Greek times,
before the rise of geographical speculation, the river Okeanos simply
meant the Galaxyl F. VV. H. Myers^ with fine imagination pictures
the forefather of the human race as he wakes at night and sees
Stars in the firmament above him beaming,
Stars in the firmament, ahve and free.
Stars, and of stars the innumerable streaming,
Deep in the deeps, a river in the sea.
Thirdly, the Milky Way is on occasion compared with a tree,
whose vast trunk can be dimly descried towering through the gloom
and branching across the midnight sky. Thus at Niixei in the Harz
district it is called the Wctterbaiim^, weather-forecasts being drawn
from its appearance^ It has been maintained that a similar belief
once prevailed in southern Babylonia. A bilingual tablet, consisting
of a Sumerian text with an interlinear Semitic translation, brought
from the library of Ashurbanipal (668—626 B.C.) at Kouyunjik,
contains an incantation" rendered by R. Campbell Thompson' as
follows:
In Eridu groweth the dark kiskanu^
That springeth forth in a place undefiled,
185 Whereof the brilliance is shining lapis
Which reacheth unto Ocean ;
From Ea its way in Eridu
Is bountiful in luxuriance,
Where earth is, there is its place,
Osiris and Isis respectively (Plout. de Is. ct Os. 34). The Egyptians believed the Nile,
and indeed all moisture, to be 'OcriptSos airoppoi)v {id. ih. 36), and held that Jiving creatures
arose from the river-slime {frag. lyr. adesp. (Pind. ?) 84. 14 f. Bergk^ ap. Hippol. i-ef.
haeres. 5. 7 p. 136 Duncker—Schneidewin, Hippys/r^f. i {Frag. hist. Gr. ii. 13 Miiller)
ap. schol. Ap. Rhod. 4. 262, Diod. i. 10, Horapoll. hierogl. i. 25, Ov. 7net. i. 422 ff.).
' E. H. Berger Mythische Kosviographie der Griechen Leipzig 1904 p. i f.
^ By a curious coincidence the Macusis of British Guiana speak of the Milky Way as
Parana, 'the Sea' (R. Schomburgk Reisen in Britisch-Gitiana Leipzig 1848 ii. 328 cited
by R. Andree Ethnographische Parallelen tind Vergleiche Stuttgart 1878 p. no).
3 Y. W. H. Myers Saint Paul London 1887 p. 47.
* A. Kuhn Sagen, Gebriittche und Mdrchen aus Westfalen Leipzig 1859 ii. 86.
^ J. W. Wolf Beitrdge zur deutschcn Mythologie Gottingen 1852 i. 37.
® Sir H. C. Rawlinson Cuneiforvi Inscriptions of IVeslern Asia London 1891 iv". 15*
rev. col. I, 53 ff.
'' R. Campbell Thompson The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia London 1903
i pp. liii—Ixiii, 200 ff., id. Semitic Magic London 1908 p. lii. See also O. Weber Die
Literatur der Babylonier tmd Assyrcr {Der Alte Orient 2. Erganzungsband) Leipzig
1907 p. i73f.
" Mr H. H. W. Pearson of the Royal Gardens at Kew suggests one of the tragacanth-
bearing varieties of astragalus.