the embodiment of all that the Greeks had learnt to call lovely and graceful, so that in the end it is sometimes difficult to say whether cháris is meant as an appellative or as a mythological proper name. Yet though thus converging in the later Greek, the starting-points of the two words were clearly distinct — as distinct at least as those of arka, sun, and arka, hymn of praise, which we examined before, or as Dyaus, Zeus, a masculine, and dyaus, a feminine, meaning heaven and day. Which of the two is older, the appellative or the proper name, Charis, the bright dawn, or cháris, loveliness, is a question which it is impossible to answer, though Curtius declares in favor of the priority of the appellative. This is by no means so certain as he imagines. I fully agree with him when he says that no etymology of any proper name can be satisfactory which fails to explain the appellative nouns with which it is connected; but the etymology of Charis does not fail here. On the contrary, it lays bare the deepest roots from which all its cognate offshoots can be fully traced both in form and meaning, and it can defy the closest criticism, both of the student of comparative philology and of the lover of ancient mythology.1 In the cases which we have hitherto examined, a mythological misunderstanding arose from the fact that one and the same root was made to yield the names of different conceptions; that after a time the two names were supposed to be one and the same, which led to the transference of the meaning of one to the other. There was one point of similarity between the bright bear and the bright stars to justify 1 See Appendix at the end of this Lecture. the ancient framers of language in deriving from the same root the names of both. But when the similarity in quality was mistaken for identity in substance, mythology became inevitable. The fact of the seven bright stars being called Arktos, and being supposed to mean the bear, I call mythology; and it is important to observe that this myth has no connection whatever with religious ideas or with the so-called gods of antiquity. The legend of Kallisto, the beloved of Zeus, and the mother of Arkas, has nothing to do with the original naming of the stars. On the contrary, Kallisto was supposed to have been changed into the Arktos, or the Great Bear, because she was the mother of Arkas, that is to say, of the Arcadian or bear race, and her name, or that of her son, reminded the Greeks of their long-established name of the Northern constellation. Here, then, we have mythology apart from religion, we have a mythological misunderstanding very like in character to those which we alluded to in "Palestine soup" and La Tour sans venin. Let us now consider another class of metaphorical expressions. The first class comprehended those cases which owed their origin to the fact that two substantially distinct conceptions received their name from the same root, differently applied. The metaphor had taken place simultaneously with the formation of the words; the root itself and its meaning had been modified in being adapted to the different conceptions that waited to be named. This is radical metaphor. If, on the contrary, we take such a word as star and apply it to a floner; if we take the word ship and apply it to a cloud, or wing and apply it to a sail; if we call the sun horse, or the moon cow; or with verbs, if we take such a verb as to die and apply it to the setting sun, or if we read "The moonlight clasps the earth, And the sunbeams kiss the sea"; 1 we have throughout poetical metaphors. These, too, are of very frequent occurrence in the history of early language and early thought. It was, for instance, a very natural idea for people who watched the golden beams of the sun playing as it were with the foliage of the trees, to speak of these outstretched rays as hands or arms. Thus we see that in the Veda,2 Savitar, one of the names of the sun, is called golden-handed. Who would have thought that such a simple metaphor could ever have caused any mythological misunderstanding? Nevertheless, we find that the commentators of the Veda see in the name goldenhanded, as applied to the sun, not the golden splendor of his rays, but the gold which he carries in bis hands, and which he is ready to shower on his pious worshippers. A kind of moral is drawn from the old natural epithet, and people are encouraged to worship the sun because he has gold in his hands to bestow on his priests. We have a proverb in German, "Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde," " Morning-hour has gold in her mouth," which is intended to inculcate the same lesson as, 66 Early to bed, and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, and wealthy, and wise." 1 Cox, Tales of the Gods and Heroes, p. 55. 2 i. 22, 5, hiranyapâṇim ûtaye Savitâram upa hvaye. i. 35, 9, hiranyapâniḥ Savitâ vicharshaniḥ ubhe dyâvâprithivi antar Iyate. i. 35, 10, hiranyahasta. But the origin of the German proverb is mythological. It was the conception of the dawn as the golden light, some similarity like that between aurum and aurora, which suggested the proverbial or mythological expression of the "golden-mouthed Dawn" - for many proverbs are chips of mythology. But to return to the golden-handed Sun. He was not only turned into a lesson, but he also grew into a respectable myth. Whether people failed to see the natural meaning of the golden-handed Sun, or whether they would not see it, certain it is that the early theological treatises of the Brahmans 1 tell of the Sun as having cut his hand at a sacrifice, and the priests having replaced it by an artificial hand made of gold. Nay, in later times the Sun, under the name of Savitar, becomes himself a priest, and a legend is told how at a sacrifice he cut off his hand, and how the other priests made a golden hand for him. All these myths and legends which we have hitherto examined are clear enough; they are like fossils of the most recent period, and their similarity with living species is not to be mistaken. But if we dig somewhat deeper, the similarity is less palpable, though it may be traced by careful research. If the German god Tyr, whom Grimm identifies with the Sanskrit sun-god,2 is spoken of as one-handed, it is because the name of the golden-handed Sun had led to the conception of the sun with one artificial hand, and afterwards, by a strict logical conclusion, to a sun with but one hand. Each nation invented its 1 Kaushitaki-brâhmaṇa, l. c. and Sâyaṇa. own story how Savitar or Tyr came to lose thei hands; and while the priests of India imagined that Savitar hurt his hand at a sacrifice, the sportsmen of the North told how Tyr placed his hand, as a pledge, into the mouth of the wolf, and how the wolf bit it off. Grimm compares the legend of Tyr placing his hand, as a pledge, into the mouth of the wolf, and thus losing it, with an Indian legend of Sûrya or Savitar, the sun, laying hold of a sacrificial animal and losing his hand by its bite. This explanation is possible, but it wants confirmation, particularly as the one-handed German god Tyr has been accounted for in some other way. Tyr is the god of victory, as Wackernagel points out, and as victory can only be on one side, the god of victory might well have been thought of and spoken of as himself one-handed.1 It was a simple case of poetical metaphor if the Greeks spoke of the stars as the eyes of the night. But when they speak of Argos the all-seeing (Panóptes), and tell of his body being covered with eyes, we have a clear case of mythology. It is likewise perfectly intelligible when the poets of the Veda speak of the Maruts or storms as singers. This is no more than when poets speak of the music of the winds; and in German such an expression as "The wind sings " (der Wind singt) means no more than the wind blows. But when the Maruts are called not only singers, but musicians, nay, wise poets in the Veda,2- then again language has exceeded its proper limits, and has landed us in the realm of fables. 1 Schweitzer Museum, i. 107. 2 Rc. i. 19, 4; 39, 15; 52, 15. Kuhn, Zeitschrift, i. 521. |