"Shine for us with thy best rays, thou bright Dawn, thou who lengthenest our life, thou the love of all, who givest us wealth in cows, horses, and chariots."
Max Müller thus further illustrates the process of the transition referred to:—
"To us it is clear that the story of Zeus descending as a golden rain into the prison of Danaê was meant for the bright sky delivering the earth from the bonds of winter, and awaking in her a new life by the golden showers of spring. Many of the stories that are told about the love of Zeus for human and half human heroines have a similar origin.[42] The idea which we express by the phrase, 'King by the grace of God,' was expressed in ancient language by calling Kings the descendants of Zeus. This simple and natural conception gave rise to innumerable local legends. Great families and whole tribes claimed Zeus for their ancestor; and as it was necessary in each case to supply him with a wife, the name of the country was naturally chosen to supply the wanting link in these sacred genealogies. Thus Æacus the famous king of Ægina, was fabled to be the offspring of Zeus. This need not have meant more than that he was a powerful, wise, and just king. But it soon came to mean more. Æacus was fabled to have been really the son of Zeus, and Zeus is represented as carrying off Ægina and making her the mother of Æacus.... It is said that Zeus in the form of a bull carried off Europâ. This means no more if we translate it back into Sanscrit, than that the strong rising sun (Vrishan) carries off the wide-shining dawn. This story is alluded to again and again in the Veda. Now Minos, the ancient King of Crete, required parents; so Zeus and Europâ were assigned to him."
The fabled ravishment of Leda by Jupiter in the form of a swan is capable of a like interpretation. Light clouds were called swans, and Mr. Cox regards a white mist, in this instance, to form an equivalent to the golden shower of the Danaê legend.
In like manner the myth which fabled that Œdipus married his mother after murdering his father, is divested of its revolting features. It is held to imply no more than that the sun destroys the darkness and sinks at evening into the twilight from whence he sprung.
Max Müller, in his "History of Sanscrit Literature," points out that similar meanings clearly underlie the Vedic myths. He says:
"It is fabled that Prajâpati, the Lord of Creation, did violence to his daughter. But what does it mean? Prajâpati, the Lord of Creation, is the name of the sun; and he is called so because he protects all creatures. His daughter Ushas is the dawn. And when it is said that he was in love with her, this only means that, at sunrise, the sun runs after the dawn, the dawn being at the same time called the daughter of the sun, because she rises when he approaches. In the same manner it was said that Indra was the seducer of Ahalyâ, this does not imply that the god Indra committed such a crime; but Indra means the sun, and Ahalyâ the night; and as the night is seduced and ruined by the sun of the morning, therefore is Indra called the paramour of Ahalyâ."
This throws a new and satisfactory light upon what has long been regarded as a serious blot upon the morals of the ancient Greeks, as exhibited by the conduct of the most exalted of the deities which figure in their picturesque and poetic, but certainly not very decorous, mythological theogony.
Mr. Ruskin, in his lecture on "Light," delivered at Oxford recently, gives several excellent examples of Greek personifications of this class. He concludes as follows:—
"Then join with these the Northern legends connected with the air. It does not matter whether you take Dorus as the son of Apollo or the son of Helen; he equally symbolises the power of light; while his brother Æolus, through all his descendants, chiefly in Sisyphus, is confused or associated with the real god of the winds, and represents to you the power of the air. And then, as this conception enters into art, you have the myths of Dædalus, the flight of Icarus, and the story of Phrixus and Helle, giving you continual associations of the physical air and light, ending with the power of Athena over Corinth as well as over Athens. Now, once having the clue, you can work out the sequels for yourselves better than I can for you; and you will soon find even the earliest or slightest grotesques of Greek art become full of interest to you. For nothing is more wonderful than the depth of meaning which nations in their first days of thought, like children, can attach to the rudest symbols; and what to us is grotesque or ugly, like a little child's doll, can speak to them the loveliest things."