A Guide to Mythology

by Helen A. Clarke

THE MAKING OF THE MIRROR

(Japanese)

Now, when Amaterasu, the Sun-Goddess, ascended into her kingdom, she reigned there peacefully in great glory; and the fair light of her beauty flooded the earth and the heavens.

Her brother Susa-wo, at the time of his banishment to the under-world, beheld her shining and said:

“I will go and bid farewell to my sister the Sun-Goddess, ere I depart!”

So he mounted to heaven with such sudden violence that the rivers and mountains shook and groaned aloud, and every land and country quaked.

Amaterasu was greatly alarmed and said: “I know my brother desires to take my kingdom from me!” So she girt on her ten-span sword and her nine-span sword, and her necklace of five hundred jewels which she twisted round her hair and arms, and she slung on her thousand-arrow quiver, and great high-sounding elbow-shield. Then she brandished her bow and stamped her feet into the hard ground till it fell away from her like rotten snow, and she stood valiantly, uttering a mighty cry of defiance.

Then Susa-wo stood on the farther side of the Tranquil River of Heaven, which is the Milky Way, and answered her softly with fair words:

“O my sister! I am come hither with a pure heart to bid thee farewell. Why dost thou put on a stern countenance? Let me but see thee once and speak with thee, face to face, ere I depart.” Then the heart of the Sun-Goddess was softened, and she let him enter and cross the River of Heaven. But even here Susa-wo could not rest from his turbulent ways.

Now, in her wisdom, Amaterasu would wonder how best to help and comfort mankind, and on a certain day she sent Susa-wo on a journey to find her sister, the Food-Goddess, as she had many things to inquire of her. When the Food-Goddess looked and saw Susa-wo descending toward her, she quickly prepared a great banquet in his honor, and by her miraculous power she produced from her mouth boiled rice and every kind of fish and game. But Susa-wo, watching her, flew into a rage and cried out: “Thou art unclean! Dost thou offer me what comes from thy mouth?” And he took out his sword and slew her.

When Amaterasu heard this, she was very wroth with her brother, and sent a second messenger to see if the Food-Goddess were really dead. And when he found her, behold, a miracle! All things good for man were growing from her head and body. Millet and grass, mulberry trees with silkworms on them, rice and wheat and large and small beans. The messenger took them all and presented them to the Sun-Goddess, who rejoiced greatly and gave them to mankind, rice for the wet fields and other grains for the dry.

And she planted the mulberry trees on the fragrant hills of heaven, and chewed the cocoons of the silkworms, and spun thread to weave silk garments for the gods.

Now, one day, while she was weaving with her maidens in the sacred hall, word was brought to her that her brother had trampled the rice fields and polluted her storehouses. And when she sought to excuse him he angered her yet more by his folly and violence. So Amaterasu covered her face, and in her grief and anger she hid herself from the sight of all men in a rocky cave, and closed the door.

When her radiance was hidden, all the world was left in deep darkness and confusion, the whole plain of heaven was obscured, and the Land of the Reed-Plains darkened. Night and day were unknown, and neither in heaven nor earth was there any light at all. The sound of many voices rose and fell, like the swarming of bees, and everywhere was trouble and dismay.

In the midst of the gloom the eighty myriads of gods met together in council, and their meeting-place was on the banks of the Milky Way of Heaven. And the Great Wise God, wiser than his fellows, who held in his mind the thoughts and imaginings of all men, said softly: “She is a woman, and surely will be curious. Let us show her something more beautiful than herself!” But as in all High Heaven nothing fairer could be found, they made a mighty mirror, forged by the Blacksmith God from the metals of heaven. Yet the gods were not satisfied, and commanded him to make another. So with his anvil from the Milky Way, and bellows, fashioned from a single deer-skin, he forged a second and yet a third, and this last was perfect and flawless, in shape like the Sun.

And they lit great fires outside the cave and hung the mirror there on the branches of the sacred Sakaki tree, above it a necklace of ever-bright and glittering jewels, and below it some strips of fine-woven cloth. Then the Wise God took from his fellows six long bows and bound them together, and placed them upright in the ground and gently brushed the strings.

And the fair Goddess Amé-no-Uzumé was led forth to dance, her flowing sleeves bound up with the creeping plant Masaki, and her head-dress of trailing Kadsura vine, gathered from the mountains of Heavenly Fragrance, and in her hands the branches of young bamboos hung with tiny bells. These she waved rhythmically to and fro to the sound of her stepping, and as the humming of the bow-strings rose and fell, the eighty Myriad Gods sat around her and joyfully beat the measure.

She sang of the beauty of an unknown goddess, and as her body swayed in cadence, the great assembly of gods laughed aloud till the vault of heaven shook.

The Sun-Goddess wondered greatly at all this mirth and music, and said: “How is it that while the whole Plain of Heaven and the Land of the Reed-Plains is darkened, Uzumé sings and frolics, and the eighty Myriad Gods do laugh?” She peeped inquisitive out of the cave.

Uzumé still sang of the beauty of the Unknown Goddess, and the words of the first song were these:

Gods! from the cavern’s gloom

Comes she majestical.

Shall not our hearts rejoice?

Mine is the victory!

Who can resist my charms?

Hail, Ever-Shining One!

And wondering—longing—yet unwilling to venture forth, Amaterasu looked from the depths of the cave and listened to the strains, and heard the gods make merry; till, opening wider the door, she stood upon the threshold.

Two gods hastily held forward the mirror, and she saw, amazed, the vision of her own exceeding loveliness. Then the first flush of dawn appeared suddenly in the east, there was a stir as of awakening birds, the mountain-tops blushed pink, and all the gods held their breath.

She stepped forward softly, still gazing entranced, while broad shafts of light shot upward in the sky, and her glory filled the air with rosy radiance. As she looked on her ineffable beauty, the Wise God, twisting a rice-straw rope, stretched it across the mouth of the cave—for never more could she desire to hide her face from a sorrowing world.

And thus with the sunshine came music and dancing, for the delight of men.

In Norse mythology, the story is told that the heavenly bodies were formed of the sparks from Muspelheim. The gods did not create them, but they placed them in the heavens to give light to the world, and assigned them a prescribed locality and motion. Mundilfare was the father of the sun and moon. He had two children, a son and a daughter, so lovely and graceful that he called the boy Maane (Moon), and the girl Sol (Sun), and Sol he gave in marriage to Glener (the Shining One).

The gods, however, were much incensed at the presumption of Mundilfare, so they took his two children and placed them in the heavens, where they let Sol drive the horses of the Sun, while Maane guides the Moon and regulates its increasing and waning aspect.

Very closely akin to a god of the Sun in Norse mythology is Balder the Good. He is the favorite of all the gods and of all men and nature. So fair and dazzling is he in form and features that rays of light seem to issue from him. Some idea of the beauty of his hair may be formed from the fact that the whitest of all plants is called Balder’s brow. Balder is described as the mildest, the wisest and the most eloquent of all the gods, yet such is his nature that the judgment he has pronounced can never be altered. He dwells in the heavenly mansion called Breidablik, meaning the broad-shining splendor, into which nothing unclean can enter. He is, in fact, the God of Light. Some one says of him,[5] “Light is the best thing we have in the world; it is white and pure; it cannot be wounded; no shock can disturb it; nothing in the world can kill it excepting its own negative, darkness (Höder). Loke (Fire) is jealous of it; the pure light of heaven and the blaze of fire are each other’s enemies. Balder does not fight, the mythology gives no exploits by him; he only shines and dazzles, conferring blessings upon all, and this he continues to do steadfast and unchangeable, until darkness steals upon him—darkness that does not itself know what harm it is doing; and when Balder is dead, cries of lamentation are heard throughout all nature.” How his death occurred will be related in the story of him in this chapter.

The God of the Sun in Egypt was Ra, though Osiris is often called the God of the Sun; and probably was identified with the sun in some stage of the long development of this myth, as already mentioned.

Like Balder and other sun gods, Ra has his fight with the demon of darkness in the under world, as described in an ancient Egyptian papyrus, a translation of which is given in this chapter.

In Greek mythology there are two gods of the sun and two goddesses of the moon.[6] The older ones were Helios and Selene, but they became identified with the later celebrated pair, Phœbus Apollo and Artemis or Diana, as the Romans called her, the children of Zeus, the God of the Sky, and Latona. Apollo was not only a god of the sun, who brought the warm sun and the spring, but he was the healer, who warded off the dangers and diseases of summer and autumn. He had a temple at Delphi, where a priestess was wont to give forth oracles in regard to the future, supposed to be revealed by Apollo. He was a founder of cities, a promoter of colonization, a giver of good laws, and, finally, he was the patron of music and poetry. To him were sacred the wolf, the roe, the mouse, the he-goat, the ram, the dolphin, and the swan.

Apollo with the Lyre. Glyptothek, Munich.

An ancient hymn by Callimachus (240 B.C.) describes him as follows:

“How hath the laurel shoot of Apollo heaved! How the whole of the shrine! Afar, afar be ye, sinners. Now verily doth Phœbus knock at the doors with beauteous foot. See you not? The Delian palm has nodded in a pleasant fashion on a sudden, and the swan sings sweetly on the air. Now of your own accord fall back, ye bolts of the doors, and of yourselves, ye bars. For no longer is the god afar off. Make ready, ye young men, for the song and the choir. Not to every one doth Apollo manifest himself, but to only the good. Whoso shall have seen him, great is he; small that man who hath not seen him.

“We shall behold thee, O Fardarter! and shall be no more of small account. Nor silent lyre, nor noiseless tread should the servants of Phœbus have, when he sojourns among them. Listen and keep holy silence at the song in honor of Apollo.

...

“Golden are both the garment and the clasp of Apollo, his lyre, his Lyctian bow, and his quiver: golden, too, his sandals; for Apollo is rich in gold, and has also many possessions.

...

“And indeed he is ever beauteous, ever young.

...

“Great, too, in art is no one so much as Apollo.

“To Phœbus the care of the bow as well as of song is intrusted.

“To him, likewise, belong divinations and diviners: and from Phœbus physicians have learned the art of delaying death.

...

“And following Phœbus men are wont to measure out cities. For Phœbus ever delights in founding cities and Phœbus himself lays their foundations.”

The twin sister of Apollo, Artemis, is first of all the Goddess of the Moon. Its slender arc is her bow; its beams are her arrows, with which she sends upon womenkind a painless death. She determined herself never to fall in love or marry, and so she imposed upon the nymphs she gathered about her vows of perpetual maidenhood, and if any of them broke these vows she punished them severely and swiftly. Graceful in form and free of movement, equipped for the chase, and surrounded by a bevy of fair companions, the swift-rushing goddess was wont to scour hill, valley, forest, and plain. She was, however, not only huntress, but guardian of wild beasts, mistress of horses and kine and other domestic brutes. She ruled marsh and mountain; her gleaming arrows smote sea as well as land. Springs and woodland brooks she favored, for in them she and her attendants were accustomed to bathe. She blessed with verdure the meadows and arable lands, and from them obtained a meed of thanks. When weary of the chase, she turned to music and dancing, for the lyre and flute and song were dear to her. Muses, graces, nymphs, and the fair goddesses themselves thronged the rites of the chorus-leading queen. But ordinarily a woodland chapel or a rustic altar sufficed for her worship. There the hunter laid his offering—antlers, skin, or edible portions of the deer that Artemis of the golden arrows had herself vouchsafed him.

She was mistress of the brute creation, protectress of youth, patron of temperance in all things, guardian of civil right. The cypress tree was sacred to her; and her favorites were the bear, the boar, the dog, the goat, and especially the hind.

A pretty picture is given of Artemis in a hymn by Callimachus which describes how, when sitting yet a blooming child on the knees of her sire, she thus addressed him:

“‘Grant me, kind father, to preserve eternal maidenhood, and many names, that so Phœbus may not vie with me. And give me arrows and bow. Grant it, sire! I ask not a quiver of thee, nor a large bow: the cyclopes will forthwith forge me arrows, and fashion a flexible bow. And I ask to be girt as far as the knee with a tunic of colored border, that I may slay wild beasts. And give me sixty ocean nymphs to form my chorus, all young and of the same age. Give me likewise as attendants twenty Amnisian nymphs, who may duly take care of my buskins, and, when I no longer am shooting lynxes and stags, may tend my fleet dogs. Give me all mountains, and assign to me any city, whichsoever thou choosest. For ’twill be rare, when Artemis shall go down into a city. On mountains will I dwell.’

“Thus having spoken, the maiden wished to touch the beard of her sire, and oft outstretched her hands to no purpose, until at last she might touch it. Then her father assented with a smile, and said as he fondled her: ‘Have, child, whatever you ask of your own choice; but other yet greater gifts will your sire bestow. Thrice ten cities will I present to you, which shall not learn to honor any other god, but thee alone, and shall be called the cities of Artemis. And I will give thee many cities to measure out in common with other gods, on the continent and islands; in all shall be altars and sacred groves of Artemis, and thou shalt be guardian over ways and harbors.’”