BOOK II.
Artemis,
Kerberos and the awful hounds of Yama. Only one step more
was needed to reach that ideal of witchcraft which is exhibited in its
most exalted form in the wise woman Medcia, It is from a cave, like
that in which Kirke and Kalypso dwell, that she marks the stealing
away of Persephone, and her form is but dimly seen as she moves
among murky mists. She thus becomes the spectral queen who
sends from her gloomy realm vain dreams and visions, horrible demons
and phantoms, and who imparts to others the evil knowledge of which
she has become possessed herself. Her own form becomes more and
more fearful. Like Kerberos, she assumes three heads or faces,
which denote the monthly phases of the moon — the horse with its
streaming mane being the crescent moon, the snake denoting the rays
of light from the circular or full moon, and the dog, wlio is only
partially visible, representing the half-moon.^
In some traditions Artemis is the twin-sister of Phoibos, with whom she takes her place in the ranks of correlative deities. In others she is born so long before him that she can aid Leto her mother at the birth of Phoibos — a myth which speaks of the dawn and the sun as alike sprung from the night. Thus her birthplace is either Delos or Ortygia, in either case the bright morning land, and her purity is that of Athene and Hestia. Over these three deities alone Aphrodite has no power. Love cannot touch the maiden whose delight is in the violet tints of dawn or in the arrows which she sends forth with never failing precision,^ and which seal the doom, while they are given to avenge the wrongs, of Prokris. Like Phoibos, she has the power of life and death ; she can lessen or take away the miseries and plagues which she brings upon men, and those who honour her are rich in flocks and herds and reach a happy old age. From those who neglect her she exacts a fearful penalty ; and the Kalydonian boar ravages the fields of Oineus only because he had for- gotten to include her among the deities to whom he offered sacrifice.' In a word, the colours may be paler, but her features and form generally are those of her glorious brother. With him she takes delight in song,*
' Brown, The Unlcorji, 44-46. ' Trapdfvos lox^o-ipa. ' Grote remarks that in the hunt which follows for the destruction of the boar, Artemis, who is sometimes con- founded even with her attendant nymi")hs, reappears in the form of Ata- lante. — //is/. Gr. i. 76. The name of Camilla, the counterpart of Atalante in the Aincitl, is, according to M. Maury, that of a Gallic divinity, beincj the feminine form of Camulus (Camillus). — Croyaiucs et Lc'^ciuics dc CAvliqttilc, 229, et seq.
- //ymn to Aphrodite, 19. Prellor
[Crr. Myth. i. 22S) adopts the explana- tion which connects her name with the word d/jT€/UT)s, and regards the epithet as denotiiic; her unsullied purity as well as her physical vigour. I K^r kindly and indignant aspects are with him the varying, yet constantly recurring, efTccts produced by the moon on the pheno- mena of the seasons, and, as was su]-)- posed, of human life. For the Ephesian Artemis, see note', p. 309.
