Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

370 From Daimon to Olympian, [ch.
In much of his mythology that cannot be examined here,
Herakles is but the humanized double of Helios 1 . It is from the
sun he borrows his tireless energy. As the young sun he fights
with Hades the setting sun at Pylos. As again the rising sun he
rescues Alcestis from the shades. If such cases seem to any to be
dubious, there is one adventure that admits of no alternative
interpretation. Helios, Apollodorus tells us, so admired the cour-
age of Herakles in shooting at him, that he gave to the hero a
golden cup in which he might cross the ocean. Helios had but
one cup to give, the golden cup in which he himself sailed and
slept at sunset.
Surely the Sun has labour all his days,
And never any respite, steeds nor god,
Since Eos first, whose hands are rosy rays,
Ocean forsook, and Heaven's high pathway trod ;
All night across the sea that wondrous bed
Shell-hollow, beaten by Hephaistos' hand,
Of winged gold and gorgeous, bears his head
Half-waking on the wave from eve's red strand
To the Ethiop shore, where steeds and chariot are,
Keen hearted, waiting for the morning star 2 .
After the magical words the vase-painting in Fig. 100 is more
like a blasphemy than an illustration. Yet it is instructive. The
human Herakles was never meant to sail in the sun's boat, but
orthodox anthropomorphism demands it ; room or no room, in he
must go, to sail but not to sleep.
Herakles as Idaean Daktyl.
The Herakles of the Trachiniae as fertility and Year-daimon
helps us to understand another aspect of the hero that much
embarrassed the piety of Pausanias 3 . At Thespiae he visited the
1
I would guard against misunderstanding. Herakles takes on the form of an
Eniautos-dainion, and therefore has solar elements, but these do not exhaust his
content. The same is true of Apollo, Odysseus, Orpheus and Dionysos, and indeed
of almost all gods and daimones. The reaction against certain erroneous developments
of solar mythology has led, as I have long pointed out, to the neglect of
these elements.
- Mimnermos, frg. of Nanno. I borrow this translation from Prof. Murray's
History of Greek Literature, p. 81.
3
ix. 27. 6. The nature of the Thespian cult of Herakles and his character as an
Idaean Daktyl have been convincingly demonstrated by Dr Kaibel in his brilliant
monograph, Daktyloi Idaioi in Nachrichten d. k. Ges. d. Wiss. zu Gottingen,
phil.-hist. Kl. 1901, p. 506 if. For Herakles as Eniautos-daimon the responsibility
is mine. The phallic daimon is long-lived. Dr Usener has convincingly shown in
his Der heilige Tijchon, 1907, that Priapos may survive in the hagiology of a
Christian Saint.