CHAP. V western poets did not receive their Helen from Vedic bards: the Hellenic Hermes did not owe his parentage to Sarameya. Carrying with them an earlier form of those names from the common home of the race, the Greek developed his own myths as the Vedic rishis developed theirs. The common element insured resemblance, while it rendered absolute agreement impossible, and an indefinite divergence in detail inevitable. If the myth so developed is found to contradict the essential idea of a less developed Sanskrit phrase, there would be good cause for perplexity; but here there is no such contrariety. The idea of the dawn is associated with that of the breeze almost as much as with that of light; and although the idea of Sarama excludes the bare notion of storm, it does not exclude the thought of the whispering airs of morning tide. The action of Hermes in the Homeric hymn cannot be consistently explained by a mere reference to storms; and the Sarama, whose child he is, is unmistakeably the Dawn who peers about after the bright cows which have been stolen by the night and hidden in its secret caves. With this being the Hellenic Hermes retains all the affinity which from the general results of Comparative Mythology we should expect him to exhibit. We may with Professor Max Müller lay stress on the facts that "he loves Herse, the dew, and Aglauros, her sister; among his sons is Kephalos, the head of the day. He is the herald of gods; so is the twilight: so was Sarama the messenger of Indra. He is the spy of the night, ὀνυκτὸς ὀπωπητγἠρ; he sends sleep and dreams the bird of the morning, the cock, stands by his side. Lastly, he is the guide of travellers, and particularly of the souls who travel on their last journey: he is the Psychopompos."[1] And yet the single idea of light fails utterly to explain or to account for the origin of the series of incidents narrated in the Homeric hymn. Throughout this singularly beautiful poem the leading idea is that of air in motion, or wind, varying in degree from the soft breath of a summer breeze to the rage of the groaning hurricane. His silence in the morning, his soft harping at midday, the huge strides with which in the evening he hurries after the cattle of Phoibos, the crashing of the forest branches until they burst into flame, the sacrifice which Hermes prepares, but of which he cannot taste though grievously pressed by hunger, the wearied steps with which he returns to sleep in his cradle, the long low whistle with which he slily closes his reply to the charge of theft, the loud blast which makes Apollon let go his hold, the soft music by which the babe assuages his wrath, the longing of Hermes to learn the secret wisdom of the sun-god, are all traits exquisitely
- ↑ Led. on Lang, second series, 476.
