CHAP. VIII.
version Athênê becomes his mother when she goes to Hephaistos to chap. ask for a suit of armour, the fire-fashioned raiment of the morning. When the child is born she nourishes it, as Demeter nursed Demophoon, with the design of rendering it immortal; and, placing it in a chest, she gave the child to Pandrosos, Herse, and Agraulos, charging them not to raise the lid.[1] They disobey, and finding that the coils of a snake are folded round the body of the child, are either slain by Athênê or throw themselves down the precipice of the Akropolis. Henceforth the dragon-bodied or snake-bound Erichthonios dwells in the shrine of Athênê, and under her special protection.
Erechtheus There were other stories of Erichthonios or Erechtheus[2] which some mythographers assign to a grandson of the supposed child of Hephaistos and Athênê. Of this latter Erechtheus, the son of Pan- dion, it is said that he was killed by the thunderbolts of Zeus, after his daughters had been sacrificed to atone for the slaughter of Eumolpos by the Athenians—a tale manifestly akin to the punishment of Tantalos after the crime committed on his son Pelops.
Kekrops. But the legend of Erichthonios is merely a repetition of the myth of the dragon-bodied Kekrops, who gave his name to the land which had till then been called Aktê, and who became the father not only of Erysichthon but of the three sisters who proved faithless in the charge of Erichthonios. To the time of Kekrops is assigned one version of the story which relates the rivalry of Poseidôn and Athênê; but here Poseidon produces not a horse, but a well on the Akropolis, a work for which he is careless enough to produce no witness, while Athênê makes her olive tree grow up beneath the eye of Kekrops, who gives judgment that the city shall bear the name of the dawn- goddess.[3]
- ↑ The names Pandrosos and Hersê translate each other: the addition of Agraulos merely states that the dew covers the fields.
- ↑ Of the name Erichthonios, Preller (Gr. Myth. i. I59)says, "Der Name . . . recht eigentlich einen Genius der fruchtbaren Erdbodcns bedeutet, " and compares it with (
Greek characters), and other words. Benfey ((Greek characters). 25) traces it to a supposed form, (Greek characters) "von (Greek characters) = (Greek characters) in (Greek characters), und bedeutet die Erde ((Greek characters) ursprünglich (Greek characters) = Sanskr. ksham) bcackcrnd." (Greek characters), he adds, is a strong form of (Greek characters), and the theme (Greek characters) is in close analogy with Sanskr. gu from gam, -ko from kam. If Erechtheus and Erichthonios are names forone and the same person, the explanation which regards the name as a compound of (Greek characters), the earth, seems to become at least doubtful. There is, however, no ground for upholding a double personality. "The Homeric Scholiast treated Erechtheus and Erichthonios as the same person under two names; and since in regard to such mythical persons there exists no other test of identity of the subject except perfect similarity of attributes, this seems the reasonable conclusion."—Grote, History of Greece, i. 264. The case is, however, altered when we find the names in the mythology of other nations, in which the origin of the word no longer remains, open to doubt.—Preller, Gr. Myth. ii. 136.
- ↑ The meaning of the myth of Kekrops is sufficiently clear, whether
