BOOK I.
speech which told of the interchange of day and night, of summer and winter; but into the superstructure there may have been introduced any amount of local or personal detail, any number of ideas and notions imported from foreign philosophical or religious systems. The extent of such importations is probably far less than is generally imagined; but however this may be, the original matter may still be traced, even where it exists only in isolated fragments. The robe with which Medeia poisons the daughter of Kreôn was a gift from Helios, the burning sun, and is seen again as the poisoned robe which Deianeira sends to the absent Heraklês; as the deadly arrow by which Philoktetes mortally wounds the Trojan Paris; as the golden fleece taken from the ram which bears away the children of (Nephelê) the mist; as the sword which Aigeus leaves under the stone for Theseus, the son of Aithra, the pure air; as the spear of Artemis which never misses its mark; as the sword of Perseus which slays all on whom it may fall; as the unerring weapons of Meleagros; as the fatal lance which Achilleus alone can wield. The serpents of night or of winter occur in almost every tale, under aspects friendly or unkind. The dragon sleeps coiled round Brynhild or Aslauga, as the snakes seek to strangle the infant Heraklês or sting the beautiful Eurydikê. If the power of the sun's rays is set forth under such different forms, their beauty is signified by the golden locks of Phoibos, over which no razor has ever passed;[1] by the flowing hair which streams from the head of Kephalos, and falls over the shoulders of Perseus and Bellerophôn. They serve also sometimes as a sort of Palladion, and the shearing of the single golden lock which grew on the top of his head leaves Nisos, the Megarian king, powerless as the shorn Samson in the arms of the Philistines. In many of the legends these images are mingled together, or recur under modified forms. In the tale of Althaia there is not only the torch of day which measures the life of Meleagros, but the weapons of the chieftain which no enemy may withstand. In that of Bellerophôn there are the same invincible weapons, while the horrible Chimaira answers to the boar of Kalydon, or to that of Erymanthos which fell by the arm of Heraklês.
Greek dynastic legends.If the greater number of Greek legends have thus been reduced to their primitive elements, the touch of the same wand will lay open others which may seem to have been fashioned on quite another model. Even the dynastic legends of Thebes will not resist the- ↑ Φοῖβος ἀκερσεκόμης (Iliad, xx. 39), a significant epithet, which itself would suffice to give birth to such a legend as that of Nisos and Skylla. The shearing of the locks of the sun must be followed by darkness and ruin.
