SECTION V.-THE PEOPLE OF THE WOODS AND WATERS. VIII. The woods and hills form the special domain of the Satyrs, CHAP. a worthless and idle race with pointed ears, small horns, and the tail of a goat or a horse. Their life is spent in wild The Satyrs. hunts through the forest, in tending their flocks, or in idle dalliance and dancing with the nymphs. Their music may constantly be heard as they play on the flute, bagpipe, or cymbals, or on the syrinx of Pan. Their capricious and cunning nature makes them no safe companions for man. Nay, if the sheepfold were entered and the cattle hurt or stolen, if women were scared by goblin shapes as they passed through the woods, this was the doing of the Satyrs. We can scarcely be at a loss in our search for the origin of these mythical beings and their characteristics. When we find them represented as sprung, like the nymphs and the mystic dancers, the Kouretes, from the daughters of Hekataios or Phoroneus, or as the offspring of Hermes and Iphthîmê; when also we find that Pan, whom they resemble in outward form and powers of music, is also a son of Hermes and the nymph Dryops or Kallisto, or of Penelopê who weaves the morning clouds, we can scarcely fail to see in these Satyrs the phenomena of the life which seems to animate the woods as the branches of the trees move in wild dances with the clouds which course through the air above, or assume forms strange or grotesque or fearful, in the deep nooks and glens or in the dim and dusky tints of the gloaming. At such hours, or in such places, the wayfarer may be frightened with strange sounds like the pattering of feet behind him, or ugly shapes which seem to bar the path before him, or entangle his feet and limbs as he forces his way through the brushwood. If we translate all this into the language of mythology, we have more than the germ of all that is told us about the Satyrs. But the source thus opened was found to be a fruitful one, and the Satyrs became the companions of Dionysos, the lord of the wine-cup and the revel, or of Herakles, the burly and heedless being who goes through life toiling for a mean and worthless master, yet taking BOOK II. The Seilênoi. such enjoyment as the passing hours may chance to bring him.' The burlesque form in which they exhibited Herakles as robbed of his weapons, or teased and angered by their banter until they take to their heels, suggested a method which might be applied to other gods or heroes, and called into existence the Greek satyric drama. Nor could a limit be placed to their strange vagaries, or the shapes which they might assume. The wild revel of the woods might be followed by a profound stillness, of which men would speak as the sleep of Satyrs wearied out with dancing and drinking. The white clouds, which may be seen like ships anchored in a blue sea, hanging motionless over the thicket, would be nymphs listening to their music or charmed by their wooing. Of these Satyrs the oldest are named the Seilênoi, or children of Seilênos. But although there are between these beings many points of likeness, both in form and character, there is this marked distinction, that while the Satyrs dwell among woods and hills, the Seilênoi haunt streams, fountains, or marshy grounds. They are thus, like the Naiads, spirits of the waters, with attributes borrowed from, or shared with, the clouds that float above them. The grotesque form which Seilênos is made to assume may be an exaggeration of the western Greeks, who saw in the ass which bore him a mere sign of his folly and absurdity, while it points rather to the high value set on the ass by Eastern nations. It was, in fact, the symbol of his wisdom and his prophetical powers, and not the mere beast of burden which, in western myths, staggered along under the weight of an unwieldy drunkard. The same 1 With these creatures we are brought almost into the domain of modern fairy mythology, of which it is enough here to say that there is scarcely an important feature in it which has not its parallel in the so-called classical mythology of Greece and Rome. The Latin Lares are the Brownies; the Venus who takes away the lover of Psychê, the Kalypso who seeks to lay the spell of her beauty on Odysseus, is the Fairy Queen of Tanhauser and of True Thomas; the Kyklops is the misshapen Urisk: the limping Hephaistos is Wayland the Smith: and thus the whole fabric of modern superstition is but a travesty of myths with which in other forms we are already familiar. Thus in these myths dwarfed or maimed beings abound; among these being the Kabeiroi, the Idaian Daktyls, the Athenian Anakes, the Etruscan Tages, and the Lakedaimonian Dioskouroi. So too the Latin Lemures and Larvæ are the ghosts of modern days, and the Manes are literally the Goodies of popular Teutonic superstition. MIDAS AND MARSYAS. idea doubtless lay at the root of the story of Midas, to whom the ass's ears were at first not his shame but his glory. This Phrygian king is, in short, only Tantalos under another name, and with Tantalos, as with Sisyphos, the idea of wealth is inseparable from that of wisdom or craft. If, again, Tantalos and Sisyphos have palaces rich in all conceivable treasures, Midas has his beautiful rose-gardens, in which the country folk catch Seilenos, who is brought bound before the king. By him Midas is instructed in the knowledge of all events, whether past or future, as well as in the origin and nature of all things. In return for the kindness with which he is treated, Dionysos promises to grant to Midas any wish which he may express. Midas asks that everything which he touches may be turned into gold, and finds to his dismay that it is as impossible to swallow his food as the dishes on which it is laid. To his prayer for deliverance the answer is that he must go and wash in the stream of Paktolos, which has ever since retained a golden hue. This myth is nothing more than a story framed on a saying, like the German proverb, Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde,' 'Morninghour has gold in her mouth,'' and simply expressed the fact that the newly risen sun sheds a glory over all the earth, in other words, turns everything into gold. The sequel, which speaks of the misery of Midas, would be suggested by the literal interpretation of the words, while the command to bathe in the river finds a meaning in the fact that the flaming splendours of the sun are quenched when, like Endymiôn, he plunges beneath the waters. A faint reflection of similar ideas seems to mark the story which accounted for the ass's ears, as a punishment for adjudging the prize to Marsyas in his contest with Phoibos. It now becomes a mysterious secret; but his servant discovers it, and being unable to keep it to himself, digs a hole and whispers into it that Midas has ass's ears. A reed growing up on the spot repeats the words, and the rushes all round take up the strain, and publish the fact to all the world. Max Müller, Lectures, second series, 378. This proverb has acquired the didactic meaning of the English distich, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,' which keeps up the same connexion between wealth and wisdom, 317 CHAP. VIII. BOOK II. Silanus. The name of Seilênos as a water-sprite suggests to Preller its affinity with the Italian Silanus, a word for gushing or The Latin bubbling water; nor is it easy to avoid a comparison with the Seirenes, who, like Seilênos, haunt the waters. As the dweller in the fertilising streams, he can bestow draughts of wonderful sweetness; and the wine which his son Evanthes gives to Odysseus is pronounced by Polyphêmos to be more delicious than honey. As such also, he is the guardian and teacher of Dionysos, for from the life-giving streams alone can the grape acquire its sweetness and its power. Priapos. But this higher and more dignified aspect of Seilênos, which led Plato to speak of Sokrates as getting wisdom from him as well as from his scholar Marsyas, was obscured in the folk-lore of the western tribes by the characteristics of jollity and intemperance exhibited by the Satyrs and the Herakles whom they cheat and tease, while his office as the fertiliser of the vineyard brought him into close connexion with Priapos, who exhibits the merely sensuous idea of reproduction in its grossest form, and of whom we need only say here that he is a son of Dionysos, Adonis, Hermes, or Pan, while his mother is Aphroditê or the Naid Chionê, names denoting simply the relations of the waters with the winds or the sun.1 Priapos is, in short, only a coarser form of Vishnu, Proteus, Onnes and other like beings: and as such, he has like them the power of predicting things to come. The same idea was expressed by the Latin Mutinus, Mutunus, or Muttunus, who was represented by the same symbol. CHAPTER IX. THE UNDERWORLD. SECTION I.-HADES. CHAP. Treasure. THE myths of Dêmêtêr and Persephonê have already carried us to the hidden land beneath the earth's surface, in which the seeds of all life lie dormant, until Zeus sends Hermes to The buried fetch the maiden back to her mother, or in other words, until Sigurd comes to waken Brynhild out of her sleep. Hence, as containing the germs of all future harvests, this unseen region becomes at once a land of boundless wealth, even if we take no thought of the gold, silver, and other metals stored up in its secret places. This wealth may be of little use to its possessor, and poverty beneath the sunlit heaven may be happiness compared with the dismal pomp of the underworld; but its king is nevertheless the wealthiest of all monarchs, and thus the husband of Persephonê1 is known especially as Ploutôn, the king who never smiles in the midst of all his grandeur. On this slender framework was raised the mythology of Hades or Hades, a mythology which runs continually into the stories Aidôneus. related of the dark powers who fight with and are vanquished by the lord of light. The dog of the hateful king, the Kerberos of the Hesiodic Theogony, is but another form of Orthros, who is called his brother; and Orthros is only a reflection of the Vedic Vritra, the dark robber who hides away the cattle of Indra. But the conception of Hades as the ruler of this nether region is precisely parallel to that of A story was told that Hades was also a lover of the nymph Leukê, who on her death was changed into a white poplar and planted in Elysion. The transformation is, of course, a mere play |