Myths of Greece and Rome / Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art

by H. A. Guerber

In the story of Ulysses we find a reproduction of the story of Hercules and Perseus: for Ulysses, early in life, after wedding Penelope, is forced to leave her to fight for another; and on his return, although longing to rejoin his morning bride, he cannot turn aside from the course marked out for him. He is detained by Circe (the moon), who weaves airy tissues, and by Calypso (the nymph of darkness); but neither can keep him forever, and he returns home enveloped in an impenetrable disguise, after having visited the Phæacian land (the land of clouds or mists). It is only after he has slain the suitors of Penelope (the weaver of bright evening clouds) that he casts aside his beggar’s garb to linger for a short time beside her ere he vanishes in the west.

Minerva.

The greater part of the dawn myths have been explained simultaneously with the sun myths, with which they are inextricably interwoven. One personification of the dawn, however, stands apart. It is Minerva, whose Greek name, Athene, is derived, like Daphne, from the Sanskrit Dahana, or ahana (meaning “the light of daybreak”), and we are thus enabled to understand why the Greeks described her as sprung from the forehead of Zeus (the heavens). She gradually became the impersonation of the illuminating and knowledge-giving light of the sky; for in Sanskrit the same word also means “to wake” and “to know,” while the Latins connected her name of Minerva with mens, the same as the Greek ménos and the English mind.

MOON MYTHS.

Diana, Io, and Circe.

In the moon myths the most important personification is first Diana, the horned huntress, “for to the ancients the moon was not a lifeless ball of stones and clods.” Diana, like Apollo, her twin brother, was also a child of the sky (Jupiter) and of night (Latona), and, like him, was born in the “bright land” (Delos). She also possessed bright and unerring arrows, and in the course of her nightly journey she looked lovingly down upon the sleeping face of the setting sun (Endymion).

Io and Circe, already mentioned, are also personifications of the moon, and Io’s wanderings represent its journeys across the sky.

EARTH MYTHS.

Gæa and Rhea.

In the earth myths, beside those already mentioned in connection with the sun myths, we have Gæa and Rhea, the mothers and consorts of the Sky and of Time, who swallows his own children, “the Days, as they come each in order.”