SKY MYTHS.
Uranus.
Taking them in the order in which they are presented in this work, we find among the myths of the sky, Uranus, whose name, like that of the old Hindoo god Varuna, is derived from the Sanskrit root var (“to veil, conceal, or cover”). This god was therefore a personification of the heavens, which are spread out like a veil, and cover all the earth; and we are further told that he hurled the thunder and lightning, his Cyclop children, down from his abode into the abyss called Tartarus.
Jupiter.
Zeus (or Jupiter), whose name is the same as the Hindoo Dyaus Pitar, the god and personification of the bright sky or the heavens, has likewise been traced to the Sanskrit root div or dyu, meaning “to shine;” and there is also a noun dyu in that language which means either “sky” or “day.” In early times the name was applied to the one God, and was therefore “retained by the Greeks and all other kindred people to express all they felt toward God;” but as the word also meant the visible sky, with its ever-changing aspect, some of the phrases used to describe it came, in the course of time, to denote vile and fickle actions, and apparently inconsistent behavior.
Juno.
The name of Hera (or Juno), the heavenly light, and therefore the complement and consort of the sky, is supposed to be derived from the Sanskrit soar (“the bright sky”) and surya (“the sun”); and all the manifold changes which at first merely denoted the varying atmosphere, by being personified, gradually gave the impression of the jealous, capricious, vengeful person whom poets and writers have taken pleasure in depicting ever since.
Argus.
Another personification of the sky, this time under the nocturnal and starry aspect, is Argus, whose many bright eyes never closed all at once, but kept constant watch over the moon (Io)—confided to his care by the heavenly light (Juno)—until at last their beams were quenched by the wind and rain (Mercury).