Viderit venientem;[[272]]
and because the sun rises out of the water, a Persian poet[[273]] calls water in general ‘the Source of Light (tsheshmei nûr).’ Connected with these ideas is that of the so-called Pools of the Sun,[[274]] which are assigned to the rising and setting sun alike.[[275]] But the morning sun is also made to come forth out of mud and morass (as in Homer from the λίμνη), as is described amongst others in the Arabic tradition.[[276]] It is obvious that this conception must have first arisen in countries whose horizon was not bounded by the sea. The same assumption must be made with regard to another conception also, found in the African nation of the Yorubas. These regard the town Ife as a sort of abode of gods, where the Sun and Moon always issue forth again from the earth in which they were buried.[[277]] No doubt this notion was formed among the portion of the nation that lived at a distance from the sea. A considerable part of the elements of the animal-worship which refers to water animals may be traced back to mythological conceptions which we have exhibited above.[[278]]
When in ancient times men dwelling by the sea-shore saw the heavenly fire-ball in the evening dip into the sea, and the next morning issue shining at the opposite point of the sea-line, what other idea could he conceive of this but that down in the sea the sun was swallowed by a monster which spat out its prey again on the shore (see p. 28)?—or else that the sun undertook a voyage, starting over night?—or, as is so beautifully expressed in the Hellenic myth, that he took a bath, so as to shine on the sea-shore in the morning with new brightness and purified from all dinginess?
Navigation is the explanation of this daily phenomenon which prevails in the myth. It became so general that later among the Egyptians it was divested of its original associations and brought into connexion with the sun of day. In the Egyptian view the Sun’s bark sails over the ocean of heaven:[[279]] Ἥλιον δὲ καὶ σελήνεν οὐχ ἅρμασιν ἁλλὰ πλοίοις ὀχήμασι χρωμένους περιπλεῖν ἀεί, says Plutarch of the Egyptian view,[[280]] and adduces Homeric parallels.[[281]] The Jewish Midrâsh compares the course of the sun to that of a ship—and curiously enough to a ship coming from Britain,[[282]] which has 365 ropes (the number of the days of the solar year), and to a ship coming from Alexandria, which has 354 ropes (the number of the days of the lunar year).[[283]] The solar figures, then, are everywhere brought into connexion with the invention and employment of navigation. The sinking Apollo is with the Greeks the founder of navigation. Herakles receives from Helios the present of a golden bowl, which he used to employ as a bark when he sailed across the Okeanos. The voyage of the shining (φαί-νω) Phaeacians and Argonauts originally signified only the same sea-passage, which the sun makes every evening. Of Charon himself, the subterranean ferryman (whose name, Schwartz thinks, indicates his solar significance, χαραπός) it has also been proved that his subterranean navigation is only an eschatological development of the solar myth.[[284]] Indeed, eschatology and conceptions of the things after death and resurrection have their essential origin in the Sun’s voyage under the sea and reappearance on the other side.[[285]] The Roman Sun-god Janus is also brought into connexion with navigation; this idea is unmistakably expressed on coins which bear the image of the two-headed god,[[286]] and is especially important here because Janus himself, as the etymology of his name declares, likewise belongs to the series of ‘Openers.’ ‘This name was given him,’ says Hartung, ‘because the door represents in space exactly what formed the basis of his essence with regard to the relations of time and force. For every beginning resembles an entrance.’[[287]] The most prominent figure of the lately discovered Babylonian epos, Izdubar, and Ûr-Bêl (the Light of Bêl, i.e. the Sun), both of them purely solar figures, are provided with ships.[[288]] We cannot justly doubt, it is true, the historical character of the Biblical prophet Jonah. But, from what was discussed in the Second Chapter, this does not exclude the possibility that various mythical features may have been fastened on this undoubtedly historical personage, as is the case with many other persons of Hebrew history, for example, most strikingly with David. The most prominent mythical characteristic of the story of Jonah is his celebrated abode in the sea in the belly of the whale. This trait is eminently solar and belongs to the group on which we are now engaged. As on occasion of the storm the storm-dragon or the storm-serpent swallows the sun, so when he sets he is swallowed by a mighty fish, waiting for him at the bottom of the sea. Then when he appears again on the horizon, he is spit out on the shore by the sea-monster.[[289]]
Accordingly, when Chrysôr is said to have been the first navigator, this must have the same meaning that it has when applied to Apollo, viz. that the Sun, sinking and going down into the ocean, is taking a journey by sea; or when applied to the Tyrian Herakles, the builder of the city (building of cities we shall see to be a specially solar characteristic), called the inventor of navigation;[[290]] or when used of Prometheus, recounting before the descendants of Okeanos his benefits conferred on mankind, and saying:—
βραχεῖ δὲ μύθω πάντα συλλήβδην μάθε,
πᾶσαι τέχναι βροτοῖσιν ἐκ Προμηθέως.
Learn, in a word, the sense of all I mean:
Prometheus gave all arts to mortal men;—
without forgetting to allude to the ships:—