m^^A 
 
 .*, 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^,i^;e_4~; j 
 
 :3*?f 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 
 M 
 
 T^?. 
 
 i=#-5"f.^> 
 
 ¥ 
 
 fj%:': 
 
 M 
 
 l?if 
 
 Iti-^' 
 
 -mtm^ 
 
 if J 
 
 
 ■m^'M 
 
rA 
 
 ■+037 
 
 P?7 
 
 V 
 
 ',':'« ■ 
 
 aiomell Intucrsitg Cihratg 
 
 JItljata, WeiB ^ark 
 
OL!N Li^feARV - Circulation 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 DEC Aim. 
 
 ■JW 
 
 r^ lgff^ 
 
 AMKC^0g,1lim»HK9l»» 
 
 -^ 
 
 XiU. 
 
 T^mr 
 
 « 
 
 W ^'^AML 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ ^ g«ffw-'g'?»** 
 
 r 
 
 "DAisr 
 
 PRINT COtNU'S.A. 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 PA 4037.B87 
 
 Myth of Kirke.: . 
 
 3 1924 026 670 830 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026670830 
 
THE 
 
 MYTH OF KIEK:E. 
 
LOHDOS ! PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISTVOODB AND CO., NEW-STREET SQITAHE 
 AND PARLIAIIEN'T STREET 
 
THE 
 
 MYTH OF KIEKE 
 
 INCLUniNG 
 
 THE VISIT OF ODYSSEUS TO THE SHADES. 
 
 AN HOMEBIK STUDY. 
 
 EOBEET BEOWN, Jun., F.S.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' THE GREAT DIOKYSIAK MYTH,' ' LAKGPAGE, AND THEORIES 
 
 OP ITS ORIGIN,' 'THE UNICORN,' 'THE LAW OF KOSMIC ORDER,* 
 
 'ERIDANUS, RIVER AND CONSTELLATION,' ETC. 
 
 ' Who knows not Circe 
 The daughter of the Sun ? ' 
 
 Milton. 
 
 LONDON : 
 LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 
 
 1883. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
,1,1 -H'liiun 
 
 
 ^CORNF-LL 
 NiVERSITY^ 
 JBRARV 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER. 
 
 ' I mused in my heart and would fain have embraced 
 the spirit of my Mother dead And sharper ever 
 
 waxed the grief within me.' 
 
 Od. xi. 204-5, 208, 
 
FOBEWOED. 
 
 In the present monograph I continue the illustration 
 of the influence of the Non-Aryan East upon Hellas, 
 a subject which I have discussed in The Great 
 Dionysiak Myth, by the investigation of a particular 
 Homerik personage and episode. I trust that this 
 study will bring into still clearer prominence the 
 fact that the Homerik Poems constitute one of the 
 earhest, and at the same time most important, links 
 between the East and the West. The subject is also 
 in strict continuation of my prior mythological re- 
 searches ; and as I have already treated separately 
 of the Sun (Dionysos), the Moon (in The Unicorn : a 
 Mythological Investigation), and the Stars (in The Law 
 of Kosmic Order, and Eridanus : River and Constella- 
 tion) ; so in the myth of Kirk§ the two heavenly 
 protagonists will appear in close connexion, alike with 
 each other and with the stellar host. As previously 
 stated, such investigations are intended to be contri- 
 
viii Foreword. 
 
 butions to the new and highly important study of 
 archaic psychology. 
 
 The mighty harp of Homer is heptachord ; the 
 Poems resolve themselves into a sevenfold aspect, 
 which may be denoted by the terms Religion, Mytho- 
 logy, Folklore, Archaeology, History, Humanity, 
 and Linguistic ; and we are very far from the last 
 word upon any of these divisions. Investigators 
 chose this or that branch of Homerik study in accord- 
 ance with their tastes and opportunities ; one works 
 with the spade, another historically at decipherment, 
 a third on the lines of linguistic science, a fourth 
 upon those of comparative mythology. All these 
 labours are truly valuable ; the various subjects 
 intertwine and interpenetrate. The goal will be 
 reached, but the end is not yet ; and meanwhile we 
 shall do well to recognize the importance of careful 
 and scientific effort in every portion of the field. 
 
 Much, not of a strictly hnguistic character, still 
 remains to be done in the study of the text of the 
 Ilias and Odysseia. Especially should all recurring 
 formulas, and epithets either obscure or apparently 
 not particularly appropriate, receive careful attention 
 in a comparative point of view. The unintelligible 
 and the seemingly-unsuitable are constantly survivals 
 from a prior stage, and generally become luminous 
 by the aid of comparison. 
 
Foreword. ix 
 
 The Poems are of course Aryan in character ; the 
 Non- Aryan element, however important, is exceptional 
 and subordinate. 
 
 While we reject any imaginary moral grafted on 
 a myth in a comparatively late age, we shall do well 
 at the same time to think of Nature as ' the earliest 
 Gospel of the wise ; ' and of the noblest myths as 
 adumbrating and setting forth, in a certain manner, 
 infinite realities. When Sokrates, in the Gorgias, 
 has quoted the Homerik legend of Odysseus in the 
 Shades, and told how the hero saw Minos, ' holding a 
 sceptre of gold and giving laws to the dead,' he 
 adds these noble and memorable words ; — ' Now I am 
 persuaded of the truth of these things, and I consider 
 how I shall present my soul whole and undefiled 
 before the Judge in that day. Renouncing the 
 honours at which the world aims, I desire only to 
 know the Truth, and to live as well as I can, and, 
 when the time comes, to die. And, to the utmost of 
 my power, I exhort all other men to do the same.' 
 
 Baeton-upon-Httmbee ; 
 October 1883. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 foeeword . . .... 
 
 Abbbetiaiions . ... 
 
 ST<:CTION 
 
 I. The Homdkik Legend of Kieke 
 
 II. KirkI: and Kaltpbo 
 
 III. The iMAeiNAEY Moral-lesson oi? the Myth 
 
 IV. Nbo-Platonism on the Myth . 
 V. The Name 'Kieke' . 
 
 VI. AiA, THE Island of Kieke 
 
 VII. Some Non-Homerik Notices of Kieke . 
 
 VIII. The Mythic Eelaiives of Kieke . 
 
 IX. The Teansfoemation 
 
 X. Some Special Points in the Stoey 
 
 XI. Kieke and the Nekyia . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 16 
 
 20 
 26 
 .36 
 45 
 5.3 
 68 
 96 
 
ABBREVIATIONS. 
 
 Brown, R. Jr., 0. B. M. — The Great Dionysiak Myth. (London : 
 Longmans, 1877-8). 
 
 R. M. A. — The Religion and Mythology of the Aryans of 
 
 Northern Europe. (London : E. Stanford, 1880). 
 
 L. — Language, and Theories of its Origin. (London : 
 
 E. Stanford, 1881). 
 V. — The Unicorn : a Mythological Investigation, (London : 
 
 Longmans, 1881). 
 
 L. K. 0. — The Lav) of Kosniic Order. (London : Longmans, 
 
 1882). 
 
 E. — Eridanus, River and Constellation. (London : Long- 
 mans, 1883). 
 
 Smith, Geo., C. A. G. — Chaldean Account of Genesis, 2nd edit. By 
 Prof. Sayce. 
 
 T. — Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeologj'. 
 
THE MYTH OF KIEKE : 
 
 AN HOMERIK STUDY. 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE HOMEEIK LEGEND OF KIRKfi. 
 
 Odysseus with his ship's crew having escaped from 
 the Laistrygones, who are described as being giant- 
 cannibals, comes to the Aiaian Isle, where dwelt 
 Kirk^, own-sister of Aietes and daughter of Helios 
 and Perse daughter of Okeanos. On the third day 
 after their arrival the hero reconnoitres, and having 
 noticed smoke and flame afar off in the woodland, re- 
 turns to the ship with a stag upon which the company 
 feast. Next morning he divides his band, and sends 
 Eurylochos with 22 men to explore the country. 
 They find the palace of Kirk^ in the forest, sur- 
 rounded by tame and bewitched wolves and lions. 
 They hear the goddess singing as she works at a 
 mighty web ; and hail her, and she bids them enter 
 her gates. Eurylochos alone remains without, and 
 after long watching returns to Odysseus with the 
 news that his fellows had disappeared in the palace. 
 
 B 
 
 -7.? 
 
2 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 Meanwhile, KirM having seated her guests, makes 
 them a mess mixed with harmful drugs which cause 
 them to forget their home. When they have drunk 
 the potion she smites them with her magic wand, 
 whereupon they become swine, and are shut up in 
 sties but still retain their human mind. Odysseus 
 now arms himself and sets out to the rescue of his 
 men, and on his way meets with Hermes who in- 
 structs him how to behave, and gives him the magic 
 herb moly, by means of which he will be enabled 
 to successfully defy the enchantments of Kirkd. 
 Having entered the palace the hero is seated by the 
 goddess on a goodly chair, and given the drugged 
 potion in a golden cup. She smites him with the 
 wand and bids him join his company in the sty, but 
 he is not bewitched and drawing his sword springs 
 upon her. "With a great cry she clasps his knees, 
 and surmising that he must be Odysseus, seeks his 
 love. He makes her swear that she will not hurt him 
 when naked, and meanwhile her four handmaids, 
 daughters of the wells, woods and rivers, busy them- 
 selves in the halls, and prepare a meal and a bath ; 
 one of them washes, anoints with oil and dresses the 
 hero, who, however, refuses to taste the banquet 
 until his comrades are restored to man's estate, which 
 is done accordingly. Odysseus then returns to the 
 the ship and conducts Eurylochos and his fellows to 
 the halls of Kirke, where they remain in peace and 
 plenty for a year, when the hero's companions sug- 
 gest to him that it is time to depart ; Kirke consents 
 
The Homerik Legend of KirM. 3 
 
 and informs him that he must seek the Underworld 
 in order to consult the soothsayer Teir^sias, gives 
 him full directions for the perilous journey, and at 
 dawn clothes him, veils her head and passes hghtly 
 away, having sent a breeze to fill the vessel's sails. 
 The hero then voyages to the Land of the Dead, and 
 afterwards returns to the abode of Kirk6, who again 
 kindly entertains him and his men and hears his 
 story. Having instructed him respecting several 
 dangers which yet await him, she dismisses him at 
 dawn with a favourable wind. 
 
 This brief outhne of the To. nepl KipKrj<; will serve 
 to refresh the reader's memory respecting the famous 
 story ; and I would also refer him to the excellent 
 presentation of the tale by Miss J. E. Harrison,^ who 
 has very ably illustrated its aspect in poetry and art. 
 She has not, however, thought fit to pass on to the 
 explication of the myth, a task which I shall now 
 attempt.^ 
 
 ' MytJis of the Odyssey, 63 et seq. 
 
 ° Where I do not give an original translation of a passage or phrase 
 of the poem, 1 quote from Butcher and Lang^ The Odyssey of Homer, 
 1879. 
 
 B 2 
 
The Myth of KirkL 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 KIRKE AND KALYPS6, 
 
 It will facilitate the investigation to compare in the 
 first place the two mysterious goddesses Kirke and 
 Kalyps6, a process which shows that though the one 
 is not actually a reduphcation of the other, yet that 
 they are merely variant phases of the same great 
 power. The principal points of resemblance between 
 them are as follows : — 
 
 I. Each is a fair and lovely goddess in a remote 
 island, attended by handmaidens.^ 
 
 II. Each is connected with gold and silver, and 
 weaves a mighty web as she sings. ^ 
 
 m. Each is specially described as ' fair-haired.' ^ 
 
 IV. Each is specially styled ' an awful goddess of 
 mortal speech.' * 
 
 V. Each has a beautiful dwelling surrounded by 
 woods.^ 
 
 VI. Each loves the hero who unwillingly returns 
 her passion, and whom she is not permitted to retain.*' 
 
 VII. Each swears solemnly not to injure the hero.'' 
 Vm. Each sees that he is bathed and dressed.® 
 
 1 Of. Od. V. 199 ; x. 849. ^ jjj-^_ ^ 62 ; x. 222. 
 
 » lUd. V. 80 ; xi. 8. * lUd. x. 186 ; xii. 449. 
 
 * Ibid. V. X. « Cf. lUd. V. 155 ; ix. 29-33. 
 
 ' lUd. V. 182-7 ; x. 845. » lUd. v. 264 : x. 364. 
 
Kirki and Kalypso. 5 
 
 IX. Each at dawn ' clad herself in a great 
 shining robe, hght of woof and gracious, and about 
 her waist cast a fair golden girdle, and put a veil 
 upon her head.' ^ 
 
 X. Each when the hero departed sent a ' welcome 
 breeze ' to speed him on his way.^ 
 
 Kalypso dwells in the isle Ogygia,^ ' the navel of 
 the sea ; ' * but this circumstance implies no necessary 
 difference between the two goddesses, since the name 
 merely means ' ocean,' and so in reahty equally apphes 
 to any sea-girt island. The names Ogenos and 
 Ogen = Okeanos,^ and Ogenidai = Okeanidai.^ The 
 Norse Oegir (' the Dread '), god of the stormy sea, who 
 reappears in modern times as the well-known eygre 
 or tidal river-wave, and the Ogre, are variant phases, 
 originally expressive of the terror excited by the 
 
 A 
 
 vast and tempestuous sea. So Ogyges, who appears 
 in Attike and Boidtia as an archaic King,^ is always 
 connected with a flood ; and his name is equivalent 
 to ' primeval,' in reference to the supposed pristine 
 watery chaos. M. Lenormant, following Windisch- 
 mann and Pictet, observes, ' Son nom m^me parait 
 derive de celui qui designait primitivement le deluge 
 dans les idiomes aryens, en Sanscrit dugha.'^ Pau- 
 sanias, amongst his almost innumerable valuable 
 
 » Od. V. 230-2 ; x. 545-7. " Ibid. v. 268 ; xi. 7 ; xii. 149. 
 
 » Ibid. i. 84. ^ Ibid. 50. ' Vide Lykophron, 231. 
 
 * Hesychios, in voc. 
 
 ' Vide Pausanias, I. xxxriii. 7 ; IX. 7. 1 ; Apollonios Rhod. Aryo- 
 nautika, iii. 1178. 
 
 ^ Les Origines, i. 432. 
 
6 The Myth of KirkL 
 
 little scraps of obscure mytliic pedigree, has pre- 
 served the fact that ' the hero Eleusis ' (=' the 
 Coming ' Sun-god) was, according to some, the son of 
 Daeira ('the Knowing') daughter of Okeanos, but 
 according to others the son of Ogyges, thus illus- 
 trating the identity of the two latter. The Sun-god 
 constantly springs in mythic pedigree from Ocean 
 and some ' knowing,' i.e., light-bringing, nymph ; for, 
 primarily, to see = to know, and darkness in ignorance 
 (of the unseen). 
 
 The first point of real difierence between the two 
 goddesses is in parentage. Kalypso is the daughter 
 of Atlas (' the Enduring '), who ' himself upholds the 
 tall pillars which keep earth and sky asunder.' ^ 
 Atlas is a personification of that power which sustains 
 heaven above earth in kosmic order. The solar 
 Herakles essayed the task, but after a time, i.e.., at 
 night, was feign to retire in favour of the more 
 enduring Atlas, who thus and also because at night the 
 (lunar and stellar) heaven, which he upbears, comes 
 into fullest prominence, is more a nocturnal than a 
 diurnal personage ; and hence the poet apphes to 
 him the pecuhar epithet oloophron, a title which he 
 shares with Aietes and Minos, and which, as Mr. 
 Gladstone notes, ' seems to imply in some form a 
 formidable if not injurious craft. '^ Messrs. Butcher and 
 Lang render the expression ' wise and terrible,' but I 
 prefer to translate it by the term ' baleful ; ' the ' for- 
 
 ' Od.i, 52-4 ; cf. Ibid. vii. 245. * Juventus Mundi, 120. 
 
Kirki and KalypsS. 7 
 
 midable craft ' of Atlas and Aietes being that of the 
 nocturnal powers, which finds its expression, amongst 
 other ways, in the, devices of Kirke and ' crafty 
 Kalypso.' ^ 
 
 Kalyps6 (' the Coverer '),^ as the daughter of 
 Atlas, is a more extended personage than Kirke ; that 
 is to say, she=th~^lunar-and-stellar nocturnal sky. 
 This light makes cheerful and beautiful the otherwise 
 ' bhnd cave of night,' in the unseen depth of which 
 is concealed the melancholy and vanquished Sun, who 
 mourns for his Dawn-bride. The ' hollow caves ' ^ 
 of Kalyps6 are a prominent feature in her story, 
 and somewhat strongly contrast with the ' halls ' 
 and ' palace ' of Kirke ; Kalypso, too, in another 
 phase, is more a representative of nature, as Kirke 
 is of art. There were caves on the island of Kirke,* 
 but she did not dwell in them ; Odysseus stored 
 his goods there. ' The Cave-sun appears again in 
 the person of Mithra-Mithras ; Porphyry states that, 
 according to Euboulos, " Zoroaster [Zarathustra] 
 was the first who consecrated in the mountains of 
 Persia a cave in honour of Mithra;"^' and, again, 
 " Wherever Mithra was known they propitiated the 
 god in a cavern."^ The Mithraik Cave = " The 
 
 ' 0^.7^.245. 
 
 ^ ' Calypso was so called because she hid — ixoKv^e — Ulysses on his 
 return from Troy ' (Liddell and Scott, in voc). 
 
 ' Od. i. 16 ; V, 57, 165 ; ix. 80. In the latter passage the ' hollow 
 caves ' of the one goddess are distinctly contrasted with the ' halls ' of 
 the other. 
 
 * Ibid. X. 424. * Peri tou en Od. ton Nymph. Ant. 2. ' Ibid. 0. 
 
8 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 highly mysterious Cavern"^ .of Kemic [Egyptian] 
 solar mythology.' ^ 
 
 The dwelhng of Zalypso is remote in that 
 mysterious sea which towards the West is formed 
 by the undefined blending of the Oversea — the ' mare 
 magnum sine fine,' in which the solar and lunar 
 barques sail ; the Ocean-proper, which of unknown 
 and awful vastness enrings the world, the Midgard ; 
 and the Undersea, invisible and fathomless to man 
 and in which the golden solar boat-cup disappears.- 
 Yet she, hke Kirk§, although thus dwelling afar, is 
 peculiarly Uable to the sway of Hermes, i.e., the 
 "Wind-power upon the clouds, who is able to blot her 
 from heaven and so to destroy in a moment the 
 beauty of her cave. And thus when Hermes is sent 
 to her with a command, it is in his character of 
 Argeiphont^s,' i.e., he who can put out the thousand 
 starry eyes of Argos (' the Bright '), which orbs Her^ 
 (the ' Gleaming ' heaven) puts in her peacock's tail.* 
 Hermes, as the Zeus-messenger, well knows his power ; 
 and although the interview between him and Kalyps6 
 is marked by a charming courtesy on both sides, yet 
 when ' the great slayer of Argos ' departs, his final 
 word to the goddess is, ' Speed him [Odysseus] now 
 upon his path and have regard unto the wrath of 
 Zeus, lest haply he be angered and bear hard on thee 
 hereafter.' ^ 
 
 ' Litany of Ra, ap. Naville, Records of the Past, viii. 103, 
 
 » Vide K. B. Jr., L. K. O. 64. 
 
 = Od. V. 49. ■> Vide R. B. Jr., R. M. A. sec. iii. ; U. 76 et seq. 
 
 5 Od. V. 145-7. 
 
KirM and Kalypso. 9 
 
 Both Kirke and Kalypso are well acquainted with 
 the awful river Styx ^ (' the Hateful ') which was con- 
 nected with the Undersea,^ and, being a protagonistic 
 feature in the realm of death and darkness, became 
 the very type of the dread Unseen and thus supplied 
 a concept for the most solemn oaths. 
 
 Kalyps6, although upon the whole a more ex- 
 tended ideal than Kirke, is yet necessarily to a great 
 extent distinctly lunar, inasmuch as the moon always 
 is and must be the head of night-light. She is also, as 
 will further appear, considerably more Aryan in cha- 
 racter than her sister goddess. The basis of the 
 myth is too wide to be monopolised by any special 
 race of mankind, and therefore some of the stories 
 connected with it are Aryan in origin whilst others are 
 not. The former class has been sufficiently referred 
 to by Aryan mythologists, and Sir G. W. Cox well 
 says of the dwelling of Kalyps6, that it ' is the home 
 of Tara Bai, the Star-maiden, of Hindu folklore, the 
 being who can neither grow old nor die, and the 
 witchery of whose lulUng songs no mortal may with- 
 stand. It is the Horselberg to which the Venus of 
 mediaeval tradition entices the ill-fated Tanhauser, 
 the Ercildoune [the abode of Ursula (' Little-bright- 
 one,' as opposed to Sol) and her myriad star-maidens] 
 where the fairy queen keeps Thomas the Eimer a not 
 
 1 Off. V. 185; X. 614. 
 
 ' Of. Od. X. 509-15 with xi. 21-2. So the Hesiodik Styx is ' the 
 eldest daughter of Okeanos/ and the poet vaguely describes how ' a 
 branch of ocean flows through black night' (vide TJieogonia, 775- 
 806). 
 
lo The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 unwilling prisoner.' ^ The majesty, beauty, degrada- 
 tion and horror of the Night-queen are combined in 
 the varying phases of a single concept — Hekate, in 
 her long career from Hesiod to Shakspere.^ 
 
 ' Introduction to Mythology and Folklore, 160. 
 
 ' Vide R. B. Jr., U. sec. vi. A baseless attempt has been made of 
 late to identify the Aryan Hekate with the Kemic frog-headed goddess 
 Heka, a type of water. Such errors will always arise from hasty con- 
 clusions based upon similarity of sound, and arrived at without due 
 philological enquiry, or careful analysis of the concepts proposed to be 
 allied. 
 
II 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 THE IMAGINARY MORAL-LESSON OF THE MYTH. 
 
 It will be desirable in the next place to disentangle 
 from the story a parasitic overgrowth of imaginary 
 morahty. This web, which is very different from that 
 of Kirke, has been chiefly woven around the luckless 
 comrades of Odysseus; and presents a notable instance 
 of the heedlessness with which men form a judg- 
 ment, and of the facility with which an ancient error 
 is handed down from age to age. Thus we learn that 
 ' Sokrates sees in the beast-form only a symbol of 
 greediness. The Stoics find a sermon ready made to 
 hand : Circe is for them the incarnation of beast-hke 
 irrationality. Eustathius discovers in the dread 
 daughter of Helios an impersonation of animal ap- 
 petite.'^ Horace becomes quite severely virtuous 
 when he calls his friend's attention to what he sup- 
 poses were the admirable objects of the 'Trojani belli 
 scriptorem.' Horner,^ it seems, wrote his poems 
 much for the same moral reasons which induced 
 Johnson to compose Rasselas. Intemperance, deve- 
 loped in various ways, produces dismal results at 
 
 ' J. E. Harrison, Myths of the Odyssey, 89. 
 ^ I use the name in a covering sense. 
 
1 2 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 Troy ; and the bard next proceeds to show ' quid 
 virtus et quid sapientia possit.' He exhibits before 
 us a pattern character — Odysseus, ' proposuit nobis 
 exemplar Ulyssem.' This view is delightfully absurd, 
 and all the more so because it is so gravely and 
 honestly advanced by a wit and worldhng Uke Horace. 
 Odysseus, having very judiciously avoided getting 
 himself killed at Troy, most properly wishes to com- 
 plete his education by travel ; he will make ' the grand 
 tour,' and return to Ithake vastly improved. ' Mul- 
 torum providus urbes Et mores hominum inspexit.' 
 After paying a round of visits amongst the Kikones, 
 Lotophagoi, Kyklopes, Kirke, Kimmerioi, Shades of 
 the Dead, Seirenes, Skylla, Charybdis, and Kalypsd, 
 he would naturally return home as replete with virtue 
 as Harry Sandford himself. But, alas, even this grand 
 ' exemplar ' had no effect upon his infatuated com- 
 rades. ' You,' continues Horace to his friend, ' are 
 acquainted with the voices of Sirens and the cups of 
 Circe ' — this was no doubt strictly true — ' of which if 
 he [Ulysses] had foohshly and greedily drunk with 
 his companions,' — 
 
 ' Sub domina meretrice fuisset turpis et excors, 
 Yixisset canis immundus, vel arnica luto SUS.' ' 
 
 But suppose some Euemeristic Father of the 
 Church, Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Tertullian 
 or Augustine, had said to him. How dare you hold up 
 as an exemplar of virtue a wandering vagabond who 
 
 ' Epkt. I. ii. 1-26. 
 
The Imaginary Moral-lesson of the Myth. 13 
 
 lived in adultery first with one female and then with 
 another, pretending all the while that he desired no- 
 thing so much as to return to his wife ? And this 
 story of Circe and Ulysses is most profoundly im- 
 moral, not merely in its incidents, but especially in 
 this — that the only sinner of the party was Ulysses 
 himself, who escaped scot-free with many advantages 
 whilst aU his unoffending friends were severely 
 punished. To avoid the telling force of arguments 
 such as these when apphed to the gods generally, the 
 later Pagan philosophers were feign to take refuge, 
 we may hope in some cases unwillingly, in the tangled 
 jungles of Neo-Platonism where they one and all 
 perished miserably ; but had they been Comparative 
 Mythologists, they would have had an easy reply to 
 this objection of their Christian opponents. So from 
 age to age the luckless comrades of the hero have 
 had to bear many a taunt and ' point the moral,' 
 until we reach the Comus of Milton and the ' swinish 
 multitude ' of Burke. 
 
 But when we turn to the story itself we find no 
 fault stated or implied against the party led by 
 Eurylochos, unless indeed it is a fault to be deceived 
 by superhuman power. There is no suggestion that 
 they drank of the cup ' greedily ; ' in the sty they did 
 not enjoy the ' acorns and mast and fruit of the cornel 
 tree, whereon wallowing swine do always batten.' 
 The hero mourns their hapless case ; and a passage, 
 perhaps unexcelled in beauty by any in the whole 
 poem, describes how they were more than restored to 
 
1 4 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 their former estate, not pardoned — for they had done 
 no wrong. ^ 
 
 It is true that ' the hog, as one of the most libidi- 
 nous of animals, is sacred to Venus ;' and that ' ac- 
 cording to the Pythagorean doctrines [based upon a 
 misconception of this story] lustful men are trans- 
 formed into hogs.' ^ But there is no suggestion in the 
 tale that the band of Eurylochos were swinish in any 
 such sense ; nor, again, is any special stress laid upon 
 their being turned into swine, for around the palace 
 of the goddess were ' bewitched wolves and lions,' and 
 the fear of Eurylochos was that Kirk§ would ' surely 
 change us aU to swine, or wolves, or lions, to guard 
 her great house.' ^ 
 
 I need not, however, enlarge further upon this 
 point ; for indeed the moment we remember that the 
 story, whatever its subsequent elements may be, is 
 based upon the observation of natural phenomena, 
 which it frequently relates with a truly curious ac- 
 curacy, we see at once that to seriously predicate 
 morahty or immorality of the personified Sun or his 
 attendants, of the Moon or of Night, is absurd. From 
 their long and melancholy degradation in this con- 
 nexion the gods have been at length set free, and it is 
 no longer necessary to regard Jupiter, the broad bright 
 heaven who loves countless nymphs, as the Solomon 
 of a harem. I am very far from either saying or im- 
 
 ' For some good remarks on this subject, vide Rev. W. Lucas Collins, 
 Homer — the Odyssey, 75 et seq. 
 
 * Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, ii. 6. ' Od. x. 432-4. 
 
The Imaginary Moral-lesson of the Myth. 15 
 
 plying that no profound and moral lessons can be 
 drawn either from the Odyssey or from the pheno- 
 mena of nature; that is altogether another matter. 
 The fact that the Sun is faithless to his bride the 
 Dawn, does not in any way prevent us from drawing 
 from the glorious star the brightest and most en- 
 nobling hopes. 
 
1 6 The Myth of Kirkc 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 NEO-PLATONISM ON THE MYTH. 
 
 If at tlie present day there exists any ancient 
 Euemerist who takes the story of Kirke and Odysseus 
 to a great extent au pied de la lettre, merely stripping 
 off the supernatural element after the fashion in 
 which some sages now treat the Four Gospels, I will 
 not attempt to disturb his repose or 
 
 ' Witti shadowed hint confuse 
 A life that leads melodious days.' 
 
 Let him trace in peace the voyage of the hero up the 
 Mediterranean, and in due time bring him back again 
 to Ithake. But having got rid of the crude morahst, 
 it is perhaps desirable to notice how his brother in 
 error the Neo-Platonist has dealt with the Kirk^-story. 
 I have noticed ^ that Neo-Platonism was extended and 
 intensified — not of course created — by Christian 
 Euemerism. Like every other phase of the mind it 
 arises very simply and naturally. An ancient story, 
 venerable and hallowed, descends to a comparatively 
 late age. We have long ceased to beUeve it hterally, 
 and yet regard it with affectionate reverence. It is 
 not truth, but it contains truth. How? Marry, 
 
 ' Sup. Sec. m. 
 
Neo-Platonism on the Myth. 17 
 
 occultly. Are not our apparently simple ancient 
 stories, says Philon the Jew, in reality as full of pro- 
 found significance as any of your boasted Hellenik 
 myths treated of by Homer or Hesiod, Sokrates or 
 Platon ? Ay, that they are, as I will show ; nay, 
 more so. New teachings and interpretations were 
 connected with the lives of Abraham and Joseph and 
 others, but the Hellenik world not to be outdone, 
 treated their entire mythology in a similar fashion. 
 The system has but one fault, i.e.., it is 'founded on 
 unsupported fancy and arbitrary assertion.' ^ That 
 which with equal facility apparently explains any- 
 thing and everything, really explains nothing ; just 
 as he who loves every nymph, loves no nymph. 
 
 Thus premising, let us hear the Neo-Platonist on 
 the myth. ' In the beautiful allegory of Circe,' says 
 the famous Thomas Taylor, who was every whit as 
 good a Neo Platonist as Olympiodoros the Elder 
 himself, 'we shall find some deep arcana of philosophy . 
 By the Aeean isle the region of sorrow and lamenta- 
 tion is signified, as is evident from the name of the 
 island itself,' which he thus connects with aiat. The 
 reader, who remembers how very comfortably 
 Odysseus and his friends lived there for a j^ear, will 
 naturally pause ere he accepts this etymology. ' By 
 Ou-ce we must understand the goddess of sense.' 
 Fortunately there is no necessity to do so, nor indeed 
 do I know exactly what he means. Peeling that a 
 further explanation was requisite he calls in the aid 
 
 1 R. B. .Jr., O. D. M. i. 67. 
 
 c 
 
1 8 The Myth of Kir ke. 
 
 of Porphyry, who informs us that ' Homer calls the 
 period and revolution of regeneration in a circle, 
 Circe. [1 accept this derivation], the daughter of the 
 Sun, who perpetually connects and combines all 
 corruption with generation, and generation again 
 with corruption ; ' or, as Miss Harrison puts it more 
 plainly, ' Porphyry says that Homer has expounded 
 in the fable of Circe the mystic cycle of metempsy- 
 chosis — life, death, and resurrection ; man lives in 
 human form ; he dies and takes the shape of a beast, 
 whereby he is purified and rises to a higher human 
 life.' ^ The idea of an archaic sage — Homer, occultly 
 setting forth these mysterious truths in a highly 
 roundabout and involved manner, as a species of 
 conundrum to exercise the wits of an acute posterity, 
 is one which need not now be seriously treated. 
 Moreover both Porphyry and Taylor are far too 
 enamoured of the phantasy to notice that the poem 
 itself distinctly negatives any such doctrine. In the 
 very next episode of the story — the Nekyia, we have 
 any amount of evidence of belief that man after death 
 does not ' take the shape of a beast.' Proklos next 
 takes up the parable, and announces that ' Circe is 
 that divine power which moves all the life contained 
 in the four elements.' ' Her song harmonises the 
 whole sublunary world.' Her shuttle is golden, 
 ' because her essence is intellectual, pure, immaterial, 
 and unmingled with generation.' Taylor, who is as 
 good as any of them, continues ; — ' The companions of 
 
 ' Myths of the Odyssey, 89. 
 
Neo-Platonism on the Myth. 19 
 
 Ulysses, in consequence of being very imperfect 
 characters [Poor fellows], are changed into brutes, 
 i.e., into unworthy and irrational habits and manners.' 
 Hermes (' Reason ') preserves Ulysses ' who is return- 
 ing, though slowly ' — very slowly, I should say — ' to 
 the proper perfection of his nature.' ' The plant 
 moly, or temperance, is able to repel the allurements 
 of pleasure.' ^ This is exactly what in his case it did 
 not do. He had pleasure ; his luckless companions 
 pain. Explanations of this character are the ' acorns 
 and mast ' whereon pseudo-philosophical ' swine do 
 batten,' but they will not suffice for us and must 
 stand aside. ' When it comes to sober investigation 
 of the processes of mythology, the attempt to 
 penetrate to the foundation of an old fancy will 
 scarcely be helped by burying it yet deeper under- 
 neath a new one.' ^ 
 
 ' On the Wanderings of Ulysses, 247-8. 
 ^ Tylor, Priimtive Culture, i. 251. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 The Myth or Kirke. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 THE NAME ' KIEKEl.' 
 
 In the analysis of a mythic concept no point is more 
 important than the meaning of the name of the 
 personage or thing. It is desirable therefore in the 
 next place to determine the signification of the title 
 KirM. 
 
 Souidas explains it thus : — KipK-r]. y\ Kipvcocra to. 
 (f)dpfiaKa. ' Sic dicta a miscendis venenis.' This 
 view we may pass by without comment.-^ rj irapa ttjv 
 KepKiBa. ' Vel ab radio textorio.' This view is far 
 more plausible ; kerkis is (1) ' the rod or comb by 
 which the threads of the woof were driven home, so 
 as to make the web even and close.' ^ It is also (2) 
 any taper rod, and (3) 'the prickle of the electric 
 ray,' besides having other meanings ; and it is further 
 to be noted that kerkos = (1) the tail of a beast, and 
 (2) the phallus. An archaic title is often replete 
 with meaning and a single explanation frequently by 
 no means exhausts its force. Souidas adds ; — rds 
 8e TTanraKbxra'S ywai/cas Kip/cas (jyajxdv.^ ' Feminas 
 autem malarum artium peritas KCpKa<s appellamus.' 
 
 1 Dr. Hayman, however, adopts it {The Odyssey of Homei; ii. 143). 
 = Liddell and Scott, in voc. * In voc. K/pnij. 
 
The Name ' Kirkil 2 1 
 
 Prof. Lauth ' connects the name of Kirhe with 
 Colchoi.' ^ This view I reject. 
 
 Mr. C. F. Keary, in his interesting Outlines of 
 Primitive Belief, has an odd fancy about Kirke and 
 her sister goddess. He says ; — ' Circe and Calypso, 
 I suppose, are the same.' This supposition, as will 
 appear throughout the enquiry, is incorrect. ' Each is 
 very Death herself.' ^ So far as Kalypso is concerned, 
 let any one read the description of her delightful 
 abode with its charming cheerfulness as related in 
 Od. V. and judge for himself. The sweet-voiced 
 beauteous nymph with her golden shuttle, blossoming 
 wood, happy birds, fragrant odours, rich vine- 
 clusters, soft meadows of violets — all formed such a 
 lovely whole, that ' even a deathless god who came 
 there might wonder at the sight and be glad at 
 heart.' ' If Circe's name,' says Mr. Keary, ' do not 
 reveal her nature so nakedly as Calypso's name shows 
 hers, yet we easily recognise by it death in one of its 
 many guises — a ravenous animal or bird, a hawk or 
 a wolf. . . KipKos (whence KLpKTJ) is given as both 
 hawk and wolf ; ' ^ and he connects it with a r'oot krik, 
 ' to make a grating sound.' 
 
 I will not occupy space in showing that almost 
 every line of the story gives a flat contradiction to 
 this fantastic notion, and that Kirke and Kalypso 
 killed nobody but were goddesses of life, light and 
 love. But with respect to the meaning of the name 
 
 ' Gladstone, Homei-ic Synchronism, 268. 
 
 « Outlines of rrimitwe Belief , an. ' Ibid. 302. 
 
2 2 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 Kirke, Oppian cir. a.d. 180 calls a kind of wolf kirkos, 
 and this is the first time the wolf appears in the con- 
 nexion, a circumstance which disposes of the notion ; 
 which again is equally disposed of by the fact that 
 the Wolf is not a type of Death but of Darkness,^ or, 
 by paronom asia (Xv/cos — XevKos) , of light. Kirk^ is not 
 a wolf; she bewitches the wolves,^ i.e., rules over 
 the subdued dark night. Equally unfortunate is the 
 suggestion about the hawk. Kirkos is a hawk as the 
 bird that flies in circles, not a word primarily mean- 
 ing ' hawk ; ' and thus the hawk neatly illustrates the 
 real meaning of Kirke, ' the Circle,' or ' the Circular.' 
 Again, the Hawk is a bird specially sacred to the 
 diurnal ApoUon^ ; and is quite unconnected with 
 either Night or Death. The bird had the same solar 
 character in Kem. There ' the hawk was sacred to 
 Apollo, whom they call Horus.' * 
 
 We may therefore agree with Porphyry as to the 
 connexion between Kirke and kuklos, whilst dismissing 
 his idea that in Kirke the poet refers to any cycle-of-the- 
 soul. Kirkos, a variant form of which is krikos, is the 
 Lat. circus, circulus, Ang.-Sax, circul, from the Aryan 
 root kar, to move circularly. The line of thought 
 connected with the rod (kerkis) is so supremely ap- 
 propriate to the concept that it probably suppUed a 
 
 ' Vide R. B. Jr., H. M. A. sec. xii. ; E. sec. ix. 
 
 ' Od. X. 212. = Ibid. XV. 526. 
 
 '' Aelian, x. 24. Mr. Keary, when replying to Prof. Sayce's criticisms 
 oa his work (vide Academy, June 6, 1882), says that he 'should never 
 dream' of setting up -for heing a philologist.' Under these circum- 
 stances it is rather a pity that he should have ventured on so many novel 
 (and highly questionable) explanations of familiar names. 
 
The Name ' Kirke.' 23 
 
 second meaning to the name which thus = rod + circle ; 
 but the root-idea of the Kirke-concept being lunar, 
 and also for other reasons, the meaning the ' Eound ' or 
 ' Circular ' is undoubtedly the primary signification.^ 
 
 Kerhis, as noticed, means moreover ' the prickle 
 of the electric ray ; ' and this reminds us of a very 
 singular and interesting myth of the death of our 
 hero. Sextus Empiricus, the skeptic sage, who lived 
 in the third century of our era, ' says, in his grumbling 
 way, how can he attach importance to historical 
 tradition when " one man says, for example, that 
 Odysseus died by the hand of his son Telegonos, 
 another that he breathed his last owing to a sea-gull 
 which let fall on his head the sting of a ray-fish.'"^ 
 Miss Harrison gives from a Vase an engraving which 
 probably represents ' Bird letting fall the Trygon [' a 
 kind of roach with a prickle in the tail '] on the Head 
 of Odysseus,' or at all events on the head of somebody 
 who, of rather youthful appearance for the hero, is 
 rowing in a boat. The circular fish with long pend- 
 ant tail is borne in aii" by a heron. As Miss Harrison 
 notes, the Schohast on Od. xi. 134 has preserved four 
 lines from the Psychagogoi of Aischylos which de- 
 scribe the hero's fate ; and Sophokles wrote a Play 
 entitled Odysseus Ahanthoplex (' the Sting-pierced '), 
 of which some half dozen small fragments are 
 extant. 
 
 ' The mythologist will observe that I pass over phallic considerations 
 as lightly as possible. 
 
 ^ Ap. J. E. Harrison, Myths of the Odyssey, 11-'. 
 
24 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 Now Telegonos ' the parricide,' ^ son of 0d3sseiis 
 and Kirke,^ whose name describes him as ' the One- 
 born-afar,' i.e., the youthful Sun who makes his 
 appearance in the east^ from his mysterious birth- 
 place in the Underworld, and who like his sire may 
 not remain with Kirke, to whose island nevertheless 
 he again returns bringing his father's body,* i.e., him- 
 self, ^ slays Odysseus with a spear which he had 
 received from Kirke, i.e., the Old-sun perishes by the 
 combined power of the Moon and the Young-sun. 
 Teiresias had prophesied concerning Odysseus ; — 
 ' Thine own death shall come upon thee from the sea, 
 a gentle death, which shall end thee foredone with 
 smooth old age.' ^ And this youthful Sun from the 
 sea, a Fish-sun,'' lets fall his fatal ray upon the bald ^ 
 head of the aged and dying Sun in the western 
 Underworld, who is thus poisoned Hke Herakles and 
 Cheiron.^ Therefore when some said that Odysseus 
 died by the hand of Telegonos, whilst others at- 
 
 ' Horace, Carmina, III. xxix. 8. ^ Hesiod, Thengonia, 1014. 
 
 ^ The realm of Kirke as the Nigbt-queen is connected with the West 
 as the side of Darkness (Vide R. B. Jr., E. sec. xvi.), but for reasons 
 which will subsequently appear, Homerik tradition places the Aiaian 
 island in the East (Od. xii. 3, 4; of. Gladstone, Homeric Synchronism, 
 226 et seq.). 
 
 * Vide Hj'ginus, Fubvlae, cxxvii. 
 
 ^ As to the ' unconscious blending ' of two representations in myths, 
 ride R. B. Jr., U. 52. 
 
 " Odxi. 134-6; xxiii. 281-3. 
 
 ' Vide R. B. Jr., L, K. O. sees. xxi. xxiii. 
 
 ^ YlaKawv hepfxa ku\ rpixoppvis (Aischylos, Vsijchagwjoi, Fragment, 
 
 " Vide R. B. Jr., E. sec. ix. The considerations in the text do not 
 decide the question whether iu addition to a solar hern Odvsseus, there 
 was also anj* historical Odysseus. 
 
The Name ' KirkS.' 25 
 
 tributed his death to the sting of a fish, in truth the 
 same incident was being represented in two variant 
 phases ; and thus the historical contradiction which 
 perplexed Sextus Empiricus is really imaginary, 
 Telegonos subsequently, naturally enough, married 
 Penelope, the Dawn-and- eve-light. 
 
26 The Myth of Ktrke. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 In the Homerik account this mysterious locahty ' is 
 always called ' the Aiaian isle,' ^ or the name appears 
 in the epithet ' Aiaian Kirke ; ' ^ the name Aia is never 
 used. Now there is a very subtle and curious reason 
 for this, since, if Kirke be, as we have seen reason 
 
 ' It is generally supposed that Aia = Gaia (vide Mayor, The Narra- 
 tive of Odysseus, 139), a short and simple explanation which explains 
 nothing. For how should any place he called ' Land-island,' and especi- 
 ally when it was out at sea ? As Mr. Mayor himself notes, following 
 Buttmann, such names as Aietes and Medeia ' point to an eastern source 
 of these legends ; ' and if for Aia we should read Gaia, similarly, I pre- 
 sume, for Aietes we should read Gaietes. Of course every one is aware 
 that Homer often iises aia for gaia ; thus in the account of Kirke herself 
 we find the expressions narpibos a'lrjs (Od. x. 472) and narpiha yalav 
 {Ibid. 474). But there is no authority for reading gaia for aia ia 
 Herodotos where aia is connected with Aietes ; and in the Odyssey itself 
 such passages as Od, i. 32 and a. 135 show that such readings as Alair) 
 and AlaiTjv are not occasioned by any metrical necessity or convenience, 
 as in the ahove-quoted instances of a.ij]s and yalav. Dr. Paley in an 
 article (Pre-Homeric Legends of the Voyage of the Argonauts) in the 
 Dublin Meview, explains Aia in the usual way as ' mainland ; ' and says, 
 ' It is to be distinguished from Aeaea.' I think that Kirke's island also 
 is called Aia, but of course the island is not the place in Kolchis. Dr. 
 ITayman judiciously steers clear of gaia, and observes, ' The etymol. of 
 Ami'j) [The word is an adjective, not a substantive ; so Mess. Butcher 
 and Lang ; — ' Circe of Aia '] and Aiiji-?)? [ = , according to Dr. Paley, 
 ' King-of-the-mainland '] is doubtful : I incline to connect it with r)a>-i 
 the dawn, as if a changed form of ^witj ' (?%e Odyssey of Homer, ii. 143). 
 This suggestion is merely the child of despair. 
 
 * Od. X. 135; xii. 8. » Ibid. ix. 31-2 ; xii. 268, 273. 
 
Aia, the Island of Kirke. 27 
 
 to conclude, the ' Bound '-moon, Pandia, ' the full orb 
 which gleams in the nightly sky,' ^ then the island of 
 Aia in which she dwells, must be merely the Moon- 
 island itself, a reduplication of the Moon-goddess, and 
 hence Aiaian=Kirkaian. This then, is the reason of no 
 sharp distinction being drawn between Kirkd and 
 Aia, the place of her abode. The Aiaian isle is there- 
 fore, hke Delos, a floating one, now in the east, now 
 in the west ; but, as noticed, the Homerik account 
 specially connects it with the former quarter and for 
 this reason : — iCirk^ is an eastern personage not 
 merely in general character, a circumstance further 
 illustrated by various special features, but also as the 
 sister of Aietes,'-^ ' the Baleful ' {'OXo6(]ipa)v).^ Now 
 Aietes, as all antiquity agrees, was king of Kolchis ; 
 and it was from him that the Argonauts stole the 
 Golden-fleece, a story well known to Homer, and it is 
 Kirke who tells Odysseus when speaking of Skylla and 
 Charybdis, ' One ship only of all that fare by sea hath 
 passed that way, even Argo,* that is in all men's 
 minds, on her voyage from Aietes.' ^ We have then 
 an ancient name, used in a lunar connexion, and im- 
 pervious to any Aryan etymological explanation ; we 
 must needs therefore, hke lason, sail to Kolchis on its 
 quest. Herodotos in his very funny account of the 
 ancient quarrel between the East and the West,® thus 
 
 ^ Sir Q. W. Oox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, 2nd edit. p. 372. 
 2 Od. X. 137. = Vide mp. Sec. II. 
 
 •' For a fuU account of the constellation Argo and her voyage, vide 
 R. B. Jr., E. sec. v. = Od. xii. 70. 
 
 ^ The Easterns stole 16 ; then the Westerns stole Europe, and not 
 
28 The Myth of Kir M. 
 
 prosaically refers to the Argonauts and their famous 
 vessel ; — ' They manned a ship of war, and sailed to 
 Aia, a city of Kolchis, on the river Phasis ; from 
 whence they carried off M^deia, the daughter of the 
 king of the land.' ^ Now Medeia, the niece of Kirke, 
 and the Aryan signification of whose name is ' the 
 Wise,' the beautiful and dangerous sorceress and 
 poisoner, who at length became immortal and was 
 married to Achilleus in Elysion, is merely a reduplica- 
 tion of her aunt Erke ; but, as Sir H. C. Eawhnson 
 long since noted,^ she, hke Andromec?^,^ is connected 
 with Media. Aia in the poem of Valerius Flaccus 
 appears as a huntress, like Artemis-Selene, who was 
 changed into the island of that name in order to pro- 
 tect her from the river Phasis,* who followed her as 
 Alpheios pursued Arethousa. This phase of the myth 
 preserves the moving character of the island ; — 
 
 ' Meek Dian's crest 
 Floats through the azure skies, an island of the blest.' 
 
 Having found the name Aia in Kolchis, Ave must 
 next explain it. The nationality of the Kolchians is 
 an obscure question ; Herodotos believed them to be 
 an Egyptian colony,^ but his theory, despite several 
 
 satisfied yet, Medeia ; in revenge the Easterns stole Helene ; then the 
 Westerns recovered her and burnt Troy ; then the Easterns under 
 Xfirxes burnt Athens. Had Herodotos lived until the time of Alexander 
 he would have been able to have added another link to the chain which 
 indeed has been lengthening ever since his time, 
 
 ' Herod, i. 2 ; cf. Euripides, MSdeia, 2. 
 
 ^ Vide Prof Rawlinson, Herodotus, i. 12.3, note 7. 
 
 ' As to Andvomede, vide R. B. Jr., U. 55. 
 
 ■• Ari/onmdicn, i. 742 ; v, 426. ' Herod, ii. 104. 
 
Aia, the Island of Kirke. 29 
 
 interesting resemblances which he traces between the 
 two nations, must certainly be rejected. Sir H. C. 
 Eawlinson, having noticed ' the modern theory that 
 the Colchians were immigrants from India,' a view 
 which he says is ' not quite satisfactory,' and which 
 appears to me to be highly dubious, observes ; — 'The 
 Colchians may have been transported from the Persian 
 Gulf to the mountains of Armenia by some of the 
 Assyrian monarchs, who certainly transported Chal- 
 daeans to this locality.^ A people called Gilkhi appear 
 in the extreme north of Armenia, in the inscriptions 
 of Assyria.' ^ The Kolchians were much darker in 
 complexion than their neighbours, a circumstance 
 which Pindar knew prior to Herodotos, as he tells 
 how the Argonauts fought KtKaLvd)Trecr<Ti KoX-^olctlv 
 . . . AlyJTa vap' avToi.^ Prof. Sayce translates a 
 passage from an Inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I. cir. 
 B.C. 1150, which speaks of ' 4000 Kaskayans or 
 Kolkhians, as soldiers of the Hittites ; '* and we see 
 at once that the Kolchians, whoever they may have 
 been, were connected in various ways with the 
 Turanian inhabitants of Western Asia and brought 
 within the wide sphere of Euphratean and Akkadian 
 influence. 
 
 This view may be further supported by the testi- 
 mony of Stephanos of Byzantium who, in his Ethnika, 
 
 • In proof of which he cites Moses of Chorene, ii. 4, 'and the 
 Armenian Geography, p. 356, where Chaldaeans are mentioned among 
 the Colchians.' 
 
 ' Eawlinson, Herodotus, iv. 185. ^ Pytk, iv. 376-80. 
 
 * T. vii. 208. 
 
30 The Myth of KirkL 
 
 under the heading XaXSatoi, says, Eicrt Se XaXSa^ot 
 e^i'os ttXtjo-lov KoXxl'Bos- In support of this he quotes 
 a hne from the Tympanistai of Sophokles : — 
 
 Sir H. C. Eawlinson, when noticing the myth of 
 16, remarks that ' as the wanderings of lo have been 
 often compared with the erratic course of the moon 
 in the heavens, passing in succession through all the 
 signs of the zodiac, so do we find . . . the primitive 
 Chaldaean title [of the moon] represented by a Cunei- 
 form sign, which is phonetically AI, as in modern 
 Turkish.' ^ So Strahlenberg in his ' Polyglot-Table of 
 the Dialects of 32 Tartarian Nations,' gives as moon- 
 names : — Siberian-Mahometan-Tartars, AY ; Jakuti on 
 the river Lena, UICH ; Ostiaks, IRE ; Ostiaks near 
 Tomskoi, lEEAED ; Samojedi-Tawgi, lEI.^ M. Lenor- 
 mant, when noticing Akkadian and Altaic affinities, 
 gives ; — ' Moon. Accad., As. Turk., and Osmanli, AI.'^ 
 Mr. Gerald Massey, in his ' Comparative Vocabulary 
 of Akkado-Assyrian and Egyptian Words,' which he 
 states has been ' severely taxed, queried and ab- 
 breviated by Mr. Theo. G. Pinches,' the well-known 
 Assyriologist, compares Ak. aa, ' moon,' ' father,' with 
 the Kemic aah, ' moon.' * M. Lenormant gives ' a, 
 subst. " pere." Abrege du plus habituel et plus com- 
 plet AI.' ^ Now we had arrived from totally different 
 
 ' Rawlinson, Herodotus, i. 12;-!. 
 
 ^ Description of Siberia, 1738. ' Chaldean Magic, 304. 
 
 * A Book of the Beginnings, ii. 443. 
 
 ■' Etude sur qitelques parties des Syllabaires Cuntiformes, 277. 
 
Aia, the Island of Kirke. 31 
 
 considerations at the conclusion that AIA must be 
 simply the Moon. Ethnology and philology here step 
 in and certify the fact, and I think that this result, 
 arrived at by two independent hues of research, must 
 be regarded as a demonstration. 
 
 But further : the remarkable Homerik descrip- 
 tion of Kirke states that she is 
 
 AvTOKacnyvT^Trj 6Xo6(j>povo'; Ati^Tao.' 
 
 Who, then, is AietSs the Kolchian, son of the Sun, 
 and from whom the heroes in their solar barque 
 steal and bring westward the golden solar fleece, 
 Aries P'-^ The Night-king, the Male-moon, Lunus, 
 whose ' own-sister ' and other self is Luna. He is 
 the great Akkadian Zu-en (the ' Wise-lord,' Oloo- 
 phr6n in the good sense in non-Hellenik regions), the 
 Assyrian Sin ; and en also signifies 'hp,' i.e., incanta- 
 tion,^ which exactly suits his character and the 
 natures of Kirk^ and Medeia. We can therefore 
 well understand the statement that he was driven 
 from his kingdom by his brother Perses * (the Sun- 
 god), but restored to it again by his daughter Medeia^ 
 (the lunar power), a reduplication of himself. For 
 
 ' Od. X. 137. " Vide R. B. Jr., L. K. O. see. x. Aries, the Ram. 
 ' Sayce, Assyrian Orammar, Syl. No. 614. Of. e (No. 2.39), 'to 
 speak,' all speech having been at first regarded as semi-magical. 
 
 * ' Perse is the wife of Helios ; the Titan Perses is hushand of Asteria 
 (" the Starry-heaven ") ; Perseus is the solar hero, son of Zeus in the 
 form of a gleaming golden shower, and his son Perses is the mythic sire 
 of the Persians. . . The name is connected with heavenly and solar 
 brightness and splendour ' (R. B. Jr., G. D. M. i. 279. For further 
 consideration of Perseus, vide B. B. Jr., U. 51 et seg. ; 91). 
 
 * ApoUodoros, I. ix. 28. 
 
32 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 this contest of the hostile brethren is the ancient 
 battle between the Twins (Gemini),' Sun and Moon, 
 who, in the curious version of the story preserved 
 by Nicolas of Daraaskos,^ are called Parsondas and 
 Nannaros. This latter name is the AssjTian JSTannaru 
 (' the Brilliant'), a name of the Moon-god.^ In Sondas 
 M. Lenormant finds a variant of Sandan, a sun-god 
 whose cult was widely spread in Asia Minor. ' The 
 Ak. sam. As. samsu, is "the sun," and the Ak. dan. As. 
 dannu, " strong." Sandan is the equivalent of Eaman, 
 the Aquarius-sun and Meridian-sun.'* Par is an 
 Akkadian name of the sun.^ Parsondas therefore 
 probably = Sun -t- Strong-sun (intensive). As Parsa 
 (Persia, from pars, ' a horseman,' the modern Persian 
 and Arabic Pars) in Greek becomes Persis, and Perses 
 son of Perseus and Andromede was, according to the 
 Hellenes, the eponymous sire of the Persians, we see 
 at once how close is the connexion between Perses 
 and Pars-ondas. Not that I would in any way confuse 
 the Ak. par with the Old Pers. pars, but that the 
 instance shows that the form para would probably re- 
 appear in Gk. as Perses. Parthenios (tem. Augustus) 
 in his Pei'i Erotikon Pathematbn, says that Assaon was 
 the father of Niobe, and Prof. Sayce observes, ' It is 
 possible that Sandan or Sandon may lie concealed in 
 Assaon.' ^ 
 
 ' Vide E. B. Jr., L. K. 0. sec. xii. 
 
 - Fragmemt, x. ' Vide Lenormant, Les Origines, i, 161, note 7. 
 
 * R. B. Jr., E. 80. 
 
 ^ Vide Sayce, Assyrian Gi'ammdr, Syl. No. 402. 
 
 ^ Academy, 3a\^ 28, 1883. 
 
Ata, the Island of Kirke. 33 
 
 Amongst other Akkadian moon-names is Idu 
 (' the Measuring-lord ' ^), and the word is the equiva- 
 lent of the As. arkhu, Heb. yerahh, ' month,' the 
 moon being as of course the month-measurer.^ This 
 name has been fortunately preserved in a Greek 
 form by Hesychios, who gives 'A'iho), '^i'Si^s' 17 a-eXijvri 
 vapa XaXSatots. A variant of Idu is ITU.^ Now as 
 Idu = (Gk.) Aid^s, so Itu = Aites. But as Ai is the 
 Moon, and Aia the Moon-island, we obtain the form 
 Aiaites = Aiites = Aietes = AIITU (' the Moon-the- 
 measuring-lord '). Truly is Ai ' own-sister ' to Aii'tu. 
 
 Prof. Sayce, after recently observing that ' in 
 early Accadian mythology the mouth of the Eu- 
 phrates was identified with the river of death,' adds, 
 ' The Okeanos of Homer had, I believe, its origin in 
 this Accadian river, which coiled itself round the 
 world.'* The Homerik Kimmerioi, again, whose 
 • land and city ' was at ' the hmits of the world . . . 
 shrouded in mist and cloud,' ^ hard by Okeanos, re- 
 appear in the cuneiform Inscriptions as the Gimirraai, 
 ' with whom Esarhaddon fought in the north-east of 
 Assyria ; ' ® and of whom Assurbanipal speaks as the 
 ' wasters of the people of the country ' of ' Guggu 
 (Gyges) King of Luddi ' '' (Lydia). Prof. Sayce also 
 
 ' From id, a measure, + U, lord. ^ Vide E. B. Jr., U. 33. 
 
 ^ Sayce, Assyrian Grammar, Syl. No. 110. 
 
 * Vide R. B. Jr., K, Introduction, x. ^ Od. xi, 14-15. 
 
 « T. iv. 292. 
 
 ^ Vide Geo. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, 331-2. So Aischylos 
 ' places Oimmeria {Prometheus Desmotes, 748-50) in close proximity to 
 the Paliis Maeotis and the Bosphorus ' (Rawlinson, Herodotus, iii. 151 ; 
 cf. Herod, iv. 12). 
 
 D 
 
34 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 seems to agree that Mr. Gladstone ^ is ' right in seeing 
 in the Ktjtcioi of Homer '-^ the Hittites of Carchemish.'^ 
 I mention these circumstances as a few instances of 
 traces left in the Homerik Poems of knowledge of 
 the remoter localities of Western Asia, so that it may 
 at once appear that there is nothing primd facie 
 surprising in the fact that Homer should have pre- 
 served an archaic Euphratean sacred name. Indeed 
 I doubt not but that it will ultimately be proved that 
 Euphratean influence was a very distinct, although 
 of course a subordinate, factor in the component 
 elements of 'the Poems. 
 
 The foregoing considerations suggest tlie question, 
 Have we here any fresh data to apply to the enquiry 
 respecting the time when such a Une as that above 
 quoted, and which describes the relationship between 
 Kirke and Aietes and his character, was composed? 
 Every one knows that the Homerik Poems, whatever 
 may be the date of their reduction into a form prac- 
 tically the same as that in which Ave have them, are 
 replete with ideas highly archaic ; and if we detect 
 in them an Akkadian substratum in parts, this fact 
 is thereby intensified. But what could the poet 
 have known of the obscure and pecuhar points of 
 which he treats with such clearness, precision and 
 consistency, except by traditions which even then 
 must have been very ancient? No one, I presume, 
 would assert that his employment of the special term 
 
 ' Homeric Synchronism, 170 et seq. ^ Od. xi. 621. 
 
 ' T. vii. 254. 
 
Aia, the Island of KirkL 35 
 
 olobphron (which in the Hias is only used of a 
 serpent,^ a lion,^ and a boar ^) as the characteristic 
 epithet of the three mysterious personages Atlas, 
 Aietes and Minos,* is either arbitrary or accidental. 
 It is an epithet of double aspect, denoting at once 
 superiority of some kind, and that superiority exer- 
 cised to the hurt of others ; the name is good or 
 bad according to the standpoint of the individual, 
 whether e.g. he reveres or simply dreads Aietes. 
 The view that Kirke was ' own-sister ' of the latter 
 must have been equally archaic, for the poet cer- 
 tainly had not Lunus and Luna in his mind. For 
 centuries, then, ere his day men had spoken of 
 ' Kirk^ own-sister of baleful Aietes ; ' and as it is 
 clear that he did not invent these statements, so it is 
 very doubtful whether he gave them their present 
 form ; that is to say, such a verse (it consists of but 
 three words) containing two then purely traditional 
 and uninteUigible statements, was probably a quota- 
 tion from the earlier time, and merely repeated by 
 the poet whoever he was and whenever he may have 
 lived. 
 
 ' 11. ii. 723. 2 Ibid. xv. 630. ' Ibid. xvii. 21. * Od. xi. 322. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 SOME NON-HOMERIK NOTICES OF KIRKll. 
 
 Eke further considering the Homerik story let us 
 notice a few non-Homerik references to the ' fair 
 goddess ; ' for these also may be of great antiquity 
 and importance, and we shall be able to contrast 
 them with Homerik detail and to see how far the 
 whole agrees. Hesiod (as we have him) says ; — 
 ' Kirk6, daughter of Helios son-of-Hyperi6n, by the 
 love of Odysseus of-enduring-heart bare Agrios and 
 Latinos blameless and strong. Telegonos too she bare 
 through golden Aphrodite.' ^ Of Agrios, otherwise 
 Argios, nothing is known ' and in all probability the 
 name is corrupt.' '^ Latinos, so markedly praised, we 
 may dismiss ; as Prof. MahaSy observes, ' Some parts 
 of the conclusion [of the Theogony] have been 
 tampered with, especially where Latinus and the 
 Tyrrhenians are mentioned, for though Strabo holds 
 that Hesiod knew Sicily, ... it is absurd to foist 
 upon him any statement about the descent of Latinus 
 from Ithacan parentage.' ^ The line respecting Tele- 
 gonos is almost certainly spurious. The residuum is 
 
 1 Tlieogonia, 1011-14. "^ Paley, Hesiod, 251. 
 
 ^ History of Classical Greek Literature, i, 111-12. 
 
Some Non-Homerik Notices of Kirki. 37 
 
 that Kirke, as in the Homerik account, is 'HeXt'ou 
 dvyaTrjp, and that she became by Odysseus the 
 mother of somebody. Hehos is the son of Hyperion, 
 as in Homer ; ^ that is to say, the Meridian-sun is 
 son of the ' Climbing '-sun of early morning. 
 
 ' Apollonius Ehodius, when he revived the epic 
 form, recreated Circe with something of her old god- 
 head, as mistress, however, of the rights of purifica- 
 tion, as the stern rebuker of sin.' ^ This is altogether 
 removed from the Homerik presentation. ' Circe 
 voulant purifier Medee et Jason du meurtre d'Ab- 
 syrthe, etendit d'abord sur I'autel un jeune porceau, 
 et I'ayant ^gorge, elle teignit de son sang les mains 
 des deux coupables.' ^ 
 
 On the chest of Kypselos, KirkS and Odysseus 
 were represented asleep, whilst the four Homerik 
 attendants of the goddess were depicted fulfilling the 
 offices assigned to them in the poem.* 
 
 Nonnos makes Kirke the mother of Phaunos 
 (Faunus) by Zeus ; ^ and calls her ' rock-loving ' ((^iXo- 
 o-KOTreXos),^ possibly in allusion to the o-KOTnT]!/ 
 Tranrakoecrcrav'' on her island. He also refers to the 
 <f)dp[j.aKa TTOiKiXa KCpKyj<s,^ the Homerik ^ap/iaKa 
 Xvypa.^ 
 
 Strabo mentions that the tomb of Kirke was 
 
 1 Od. xii. 176. 
 
 ^ J. E. Harrison, Myths of the Odyssey, 89 ; vide Argonautika, iv. 
 666-715. 
 
 ' Rolle, Culte de Bacchus, i. 42 ; vide Apollodoros, I. ix. 24. 
 ^ Pausanias, V. xix. 7. ^ Dionysiaka, xiii. 330. 
 
 " Ibid, xxxvii. 66. ' Od. x. 194. ^ Dionysiaka, xxxvii. 418. 
 ^ Od. iv. 230 ; x. 236. 
 
38 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 shown on the larger of the two small islands called 
 Pharmakoussai (' fit name for the last abode of a 
 " Pharmakeutria " ' ^ — Sorceress) in the bay of 
 Eleusis.'-^ The island is now named Megali Kyra. 
 Strabo has also a good deal to say about the goddess 
 in his introductory remarks on Homer, but his ob- 
 servations are of no special value. Thus he shows 
 by Homerik quotations that Kirke somewhat ex- 
 aggerated the future perils of Odysseus ; ^ and notes 
 that Aithalia (Elba) had a harbour named after the 
 Argo, ' lason having sailed hither, seeking the abode 
 of Kirke, as Medeia wished to see that goddess.'* 
 He says, ' They say ' that Mount Circaeum, off the 
 coast of Latium, ' contains numerous roots, but this 
 perhaps is only to harmonize with the myth of 
 Kirke.' ' A temple of KirkS stood there,' and ' a 
 cup is shown which belonged to Odysseus,' ^ a truly 
 interesting rehc. The Latin poets, who carefully 
 apphed the voyage of Odysseus as far as possible 
 to the actual geography of the Western Mediter- 
 ranean, have also deposited the goddess on this spot. 
 Thus Vergil sings of Aeneas and his comrades : — ■ 
 
 ' Proxima Oircaeae raduntur litora terrae, 
 Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos 
 Assiduo resonat cantu, tectisque superbis 
 Urit odoratam nocturna in lumina cedrum, 
 Arguto tenues percurrens pectine telas. 
 Hinc exaudiri gemitus, iraeque leonum 
 Vincla recusantum et sera sub nocte rudentum : 
 
 ' Mayor, The Narrative of Odysseus, 139. 
 ^ Strabo, IX. i. 13. = Ibid. I. ii. 36. 
 
 * Ibid. V. ii. 6. ^ ii,;^ y j^ g 
 
Some Non-Homerik Notices of Kirki. 39 
 
 Setigerique sues, atque in praesepibus ursi 
 Saevire, ac formae magnorum tilulare luporum : 
 Quos hominum ex facie Dea saeva potentibus herbis 
 Induerat Circe in vultus ac terga ferarum.' ^ 
 
 The Circaean promontory (Monte Circello) — ' once 
 an island ' ^ — was famous also for a kind of marble 
 much used by the Etruscans.^ Strabo further says ; — 
 ' The city of Aia, close by the Phasis, is still pointed 
 out. Ai^tSs is generally believed to have reigned in 
 Colchis ; the name is still common throughout the 
 country, and tales of the sorceress Medeia are yet 
 abroad.'* We should of course naturally expect that 
 the name of the lunar divinity would impress itself 
 upon local nomenclature, just as in the Euphrates 
 Valley we find Ur (' Light,' i.e.. Moon) ' the capital 
 of the earliest Accadian dynasty with which we are 
 acquainted. It was specially devoted to the worship 
 of the moon-god, the ruins of whose temple have 
 been discovered there.' ^ The Moon-god as the 
 ' Lord of Ur ' is thiis addressed in an Akkadian 
 Hymn : — 
 
 ' Lord ! prince of gods of heaven and earth, whose mandate is 
 
 exalted ! 
 Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord ! good god, of gods the 
 
 prince ! 
 Timely crescent, mightily horned, doom-dealer splendid with orb 
 
 fulfilled ! 
 Self-produced, from his home forth issuing, pouring evermore 
 
 plenteous streams ! 
 
 ^ Aendd, vii. 10-20. 
 
 ' Mayor, The Narrative of Odysseus, 138. Vide authorities cited. 
 ' Vide Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, edit. 1878, i. 246 etc. 
 * Strabo, I. ii. 39. " C. A. G. 318. 
 
40 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 High-exalted, all-producing, life unfolding from above ! 
 
 Primeval seer, rewarder sole, fixing the doom of days remote ! 
 
 Unshaken chief, whose hand benign is never mindful of thy 
 wrongs. 
 
 Whose blessings cease not, ever flowing ; leading on his fellow- 
 gods. 
 
 Who from depth to height bright-piercing openeth the gate of 
 heaven. 
 
 Lord whose power benign extendeth over all the heaven and 
 earth ! 
 
 Who in heaven is high-exalted ? Then ! Sublime is thy behest ! 
 
 Thou thy will in heaven revealest. Thee celestial spirits praise ! 
 
 Thou ! Thy will in heaven as the luminous ether shines ! 
 
 Lord ! in heaven and earth none equals thee.' ' 
 
 Such, then, is Ai^t^s Oloophroii in his home. 
 The name Sennacherib (Sin-akhi-irib) supphes a fami- 
 har instance of the introduction of the title of the 
 Moon-god (Sin) into the designation of an historical 
 Euphratean personage.^ 
 
 In two other passages ^ Strabo introduces Kirke, 
 and professes to be able to discriminate between 
 actual facts recorded by ' Homer ' and the poet's 
 plausible inventions. But when we find that he 
 places amongst the former the voyage of the Argo 
 and amongst the latter the relationship of Ai^tes, 
 Kirke and Mfedeia, even quoting the famous Hne 
 Od. X. 137,* we see at once that his remarks merit 
 no special attention. 
 
 The notices of the goddess in Hyginus,^ Souidas,® 
 and Porphyry ^ have been already cited. 
 
 1 Ap. Lenormant (Vide Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria 
 Institute, xii. 115). 
 
 " Of. the Kemic Aahmes (Amasis), ' Moon-bom.' 
 
 ' Strabo, I. ii. 10, 40. * Su^]. Sec. VI. = ^j,^_ ggg_ y_ 
 
 SuiJ. Ibid. ' Sup. Sees. IV., V. 
 
Some Non-Homerik Notices of KirkL 41 
 
 Ovid relates how Circe through love of Glaucus 
 transforms the nymph Scylla into a hideous monster.^ 
 The poet informs us that ; — 
 
 ' Scylla loco mansit, quumque est data copia primum, 
 In Circes odium sociis spoUavit XJlixen.' 
 
 Vergil says ; — 
 
 ' Carmina vel caelo possunt deducere Lunam : 
 Carminibus Circe socios mutavit Ulyssei ; ' ^ 
 
 thus coupHng Luna and Circe. Elsewhere he alludes 
 to the fate of Picus^ whom Circe was said to have 
 changed into a woodpecker. He also charges ' Dae- 
 dala Circe ' with having stolen horses from her sire.* 
 This epithet connects the goddess with oriental regions. 
 ' It is Daidalos (" the Cunning-worker "), the personi- 
 fication of the statuary's craft, who in Phoenicia, 
 Kr^t^, and then subsequently westward, introduces a 
 development of art hitherto unknown. He, accord- 
 ing to tradition, first wrought his figures with sepa- 
 rate feet, and so was credited with having, Hdphaistos- 
 hke, made hving statues.' ^ 
 
 Horace thinks that a song ' on the Teian lyre ' 
 about 'Laborantes in uno Penelopen vitreamque 
 Circen,' " is pleasant in the shade on a hot day. He 
 also alludes to ' Tusculi Circaea moenia,' ^ the city 
 
 ' Metam. xiv. 1 et seq. " Ecloga, yiii. 69-70. 
 
 ' Aendd, vii. 189-91. * Ibid. 282-3. 
 
 = E. B. Jr., G. D. M. i. 355 ; cf. Pausanias, IX. iii. 2, 3 ; Themistios, 
 Orat. XT. ; Palaiphatos, Peri Apistdn. According to Homer (II. xviii. 
 592) Daidalos made a choros or circular dancing-place for Ariadne. 
 
 « Carmina, I. xvii. 19-20. ' Epodon, I. 29-30. 
 
42 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 being reputed to have been founded by T^legonos.^ 
 A further reference of his to the goddess I have 
 already noticed.^ 
 
 The Homerik Hymn Kaminos (' The Furnace ') 
 contains the invocation : — 
 
 AcBpo KoX 'HeXtou Ovyanp, TroXv^dp/jiaKe JLipKYj, 
 "Aypux KJidpfjiaKa jSaXAe, ko.kov 8' avrovi re KoX ipya? 
 
 The word agria, Lat. dira, perhaps explains the mys- 
 terious Agrios whom, as above noticed, Hesiod gives 
 to the goddess as a son. 
 
 ' In the Orlando Innamorato, when the Count 
 views the story of " Ulysses and Circella " depicted 
 on a " fair arcade," judgment has fallen upon the 
 enchantress ' who is herself ' turned to a milk-white 
 hart.' * 
 
 The Author or Authors of 1 Henry VI. allude to 
 our goddess. York says of La Pucelle ; — 
 
 ' See, how the ugly witch doth bend her brows, 
 As if, with Circe, she would change my shape.' ^ 
 
 In Milton's dehcious poem, Comus is the son of 
 Bacchus and Circe. Mr. E. C. Browne observes, 
 ' Warton quotes [apropos of Comm'] Plutarch's dia- 
 logue of Gryllus, wherein some of the victims of Circe, 
 disgusted with the vices and vanities of human life, 
 refused to be re-transformed.' ^ 
 
 Noel says of Kirke, ' Magicienne habile, au point 
 
 > Vide Carmina, III. xxix. 8. ^ Sup. Sec. Ill, ' Vs. 15-16. 
 
 * J. E. Harrison, Myths of the Odyssey, 87. 
 
 ' A.ct V. Scene iii. ° Comm (Clarendon Press Series), 38. 
 
Some Non-Homerik Notices of Kirki. 43 
 
 de faire descendre les etoiles du del, elle ne I'^tait pas 
 moins dans I'art des empoisonnements. Le premier 
 essai qu'elle fit de ses talents en ce genre, fut sur le roi 
 des Sarmates, son mari ; crime qui la rendit si odieuse 
 k ses sujets, qu'ils la forcerent k prendre la fuite. Le 
 Soleil la transporta dans son char,^ sur la cote de 
 I'Etrurie, nommee depuis le Cap de Circ^, et File 
 d'Ea devint le lieu de sa residence.' ^ This is mainly 
 based on the account in Diodoros who says, as quaintly 
 ' made English by G. Booth,' 1718, that Hekat^ ' was 
 the first that found out Aconitum? . . She Marry'd 
 jiEetes, and had by him Two Daughters Circes [Kirk6] 
 and Medea. Circes likewise being much addicted to 
 the Compounding of all sorts of Medicines, found out 
 the wonderful Natures and efficacy of divers sorts of 
 Eoots and Herbs, many she learnt of her mother 
 Hecate, but many more she discovered by her own 
 industry. . . This Circes was Marry'd to the King 
 of the Sarmatians (^apfxarcov), whom some call 
 Scythians ; but she likewise poyson'd her Husband, 
 and so usurping the Kingdom, executed many 
 Butcheries and Cruelties upon the Subjects ; for 
 which (as some Writers relate) she was driven out of 
 her Kingdom, and fled to the Ocean {(jtvyeiv iirl tov 
 o)K€av6v), and possessing herself of a certain Desert 
 Island, settl'd there, together with the Women her 
 Companions. But as other Historians say, leaving 
 
 ^ Apollonios Rhod. iii. 310. 
 
 ' Dietionnaire de la Fable, 1810, in voc. Circe, This work is a valu- 
 able compilation. 
 
 ' She would seem to have heen an archaic homoeopathist. 
 
44 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 Pontus {iKXiTTova-av tov Uovtov), she settl'd in the 
 Promontory of Italy, now called from her Circelim.' ^ 
 Diodoros, notwithstanding the intense crassness of his 
 Euemerism/ is often very valuable ; inasmuch as 
 having before him many important works now lost, 
 he has preserved numerous highly interesting and 
 significant facts, of the meaning of which he was 
 wholly ignorant. Here we notice several very im- 
 portant points respecting the goddess. (1) She is 
 connected with Kolchis, and Sarmatia Asiatica north 
 of Kolchis ; (2) is at once, as this account in full 
 shows, highly amorous and cruel ; (3) proves fatal 
 to her eastern husband ; and (4) flies westward to the 
 ocean.^ 
 
 In Art — vases, gems, mirrors, lamps, wall-paint- 
 ings, sarcophagoi, etc., we find numerous representa- 
 tions of the Kirk§-myth ; e.g., Kirk^ mixing the 
 magic cup, enchanting a Comrade of Odysseus, with 
 Odysseus, feeding a Hog, imploring mercy of Odysseus, 
 with Odysseus and Mentdr, giving her commands to 
 Telegonos, and at the burial of Odysseus by Telegonos. 
 
 ' Diodoros, iv. 45. 
 
 ' E.g. he is content to dispose of Helle in the myth thus : — ' Helles 
 by leaning too much forward over the sides of the Ship to vomit, fell over- 
 board into the Sea ' (Booth's Translation). 
 
 ' Of. a charming modern poet : — 
 
 ' Cry to the moon to sink her lingering horn 
 In the dim seas, and let the day be born.' 
 
45 
 
 SECTION vin. 
 
 THE MYTHIC RELATIVES OF KIEKEI. 
 
 The Homerik pedigree of the goddess and her 
 brother Aiet^s is as follows ; — ' Both were begotten 
 by Eelios, who gives hght to all men, and their mother 
 was Pers^, daughter of Okeanos.'^ According to the 
 formal, parish-register-like account of ApoUoddros, 
 Aietes, Kirk^, and Pasiphae the wife of Min6s, were 
 the children of Helios and Perseis^ (= Perse). He 
 adds that the four sons of Phrixos by Chalkiop^ 
 daughter of Ai^tSs were Argos (' White '), Melas 
 ('Black'), Phrontis ('Thought'), and Kytis6ros, a 
 name not admitting of any Aryan explanation, and 
 recalling the Akkadian Kisar (Lower- expanse) and 
 Sar (Upper-expanse), which reappear as the Kissar^ 
 and Assoros of Damaskios.^ By Chalkiopd, wife of 
 ' the frigid Phrixos,' * I understand the Copper-moon, 
 a variant phase of her sire. As to Pasiphae (' the 
 All-gleaming ') the starlit-heavens, ' when H61ios sinks 
 to the Underworld, then his daughter Pasipha^ 
 becomes apparent in the silvery skies of night illu- 
 
 ' Od. X. 138-9. ^ BibliotheM, I. ix. 1. ' Pm Archon, cxxv. 
 
 * Sir G. W. Oox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, 448. Phrixos is 
 the cold, unsunlit air ; ' the name is connected with our freeze ' {Ibid. 
 384, note). 
 
46 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 mined by the countless Argos-eyes.' ^ Pasiphae is of 
 course the sister of the Moon, and Kirk^+Pasipha^ 
 — Kalypso. 
 
 Ootta, in Cicero's famous dialogue, asks, ' Shall 
 Ino, whom the Greeks call Leucothea, and we Matuta, 
 be reputed a goddess, because she was the daughter 
 of Cadmus, and shall that title be refused to Circe 
 and Pasiphae, who had the Sun for their father, and 
 Perseis, daughter of the Ocean, for their mother ? 
 It is true Circe has divine honours paid her by our 
 colony of Circaeum ; therefore you call her a goddess ; 
 but what will you say of Medea, the granddaughter 
 of the Sun and the Ocean, and daughter of Aetes and 
 Idyia?'2 
 
 Hesiod says, ' To Helios the unwearied the re- 
 nowned daughter-of-Okeanos, Perseis bare both KirkS 
 and Aietes the king. And Ai^tes son of mortal- 
 lighting Helios by the wiU of the gods wedded a 
 daughter of Okeanos, final (TeXrfei/Tos) stream \i.e., 
 since all others flow into it], fair-cheeked Idyia.'^ 
 Like Homer he does not mention Pasipha^, but the 
 view which made her one of the family is both ancient 
 and wide-spread, as well as being correct in itself. 
 Thus Pausanias, too, not to mention others, calls 
 Hehos ' the father of Pasiphae.' ^ 
 
 Arnobius, enumerating Euemeristically the va- 
 rious Suns in heathen mythology, says ; — ' The fifth 
 is regarded as the son of a Scythian king and subtle 
 
 1 R. B. Jr., G. n. M. ii. 142. » De Natiird Beorum, iii. 19. 
 ■* Theogonia, 956-60. ' Periegeds, V. xxv. 5. 
 
The Mythic Relatives of Kirki. 47 
 
 Circe,' ^ a brief but valuable reference to the god- 
 dess. In the late poem the Argonautika, which has 
 been included amongst the Orphika, Kirk^ is called 
 a daughter of Hyperi6n^ (= Hehos). 
 
 As noticed,^ she is the mother of Telegonos. 
 
 The above account is both perfectly simple and 
 harmonious. Perse-Perseis is the female phase of 
 Perses the Sun-god ; * and I may observe that double 
 sex is frequently attributed by the Akkadians to the 
 heavenly bodies. Thus on a famous uranographic 
 Babylonian Stone which I have elsewhere carefully 
 examined, the Sun is shown ' in variant duphcate as 
 male and female.' * And thus we read of the planet 
 Venus : — 
 
 ' Venus is a female at sunset. 
 Venus is a male ^ at sunrise. 
 Venus at sunrise (is) the Sun-god ; thus a male. 
 Venus at sunset (is) the god Adar ; thus an androgyne. 
 Venus at sunrise (is) Istar [and thus a female] by name.' ^ 
 
 Pers^ is the daughter of Okeanos * because Helios 
 springs 
 
 ' Adversus Gentes, iv. 14. = v_ i221. = Sup. Sec. VI. 
 
 * Vide Sup. Sec. VI. ^ vide R. B. Jr., K 58. 
 
 ' ' The Assyrian word here is very remarkahle, zi-ca-rat, as if we 
 could coin a term hke male-ess. It translates the Aocadian "male- 
 female " ' (Prof. Sayce). 
 
 ' Prof. Sayce, in T. iii. 197. 
 
 ^ Dr. Hayman, whose learning and lahours in the Homerik question 
 merit deep respect, entertains some singular opinions on various mytho- 
 logical points. Thus, apropos of Perse, he observes, ' To be daughter of 
 Oceanus stands for remoteness from all known connexions, and seems to 
 show that the Greeks had forgotten the ancient cradle of their race in 
 the Aryan highlands' {The Odyssey of Homer, ii. 143). As in II. xiv. 
 201, Ckeanos is styled 'father of the gods' (A.Lang), or 'source of 
 
48 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 'Ef aKaXappiCrao j3a6vpp6ov 'QKeavolo.^ 
 
 As in Kemic (Egyptian) mythology the Scorpion of 
 Darkness is ' the Daughter [i.e. Successor] of the 
 Sun,^ so is the lunar Kirke the daughter of Helios ; 
 of whom again she is equally the mother, as shown 
 by the interesting mythic legend preserved by Arno- 
 bius. The daughter of H^Uos easily becomes the 
 mother of T^legonos ; and her husband, ' the Scythian 
 king,' is ' the King of the Sarmatians, whom some 
 caU Scythians,' who, as noticed,^ is mentioned by 
 Diodoros. The associations of Sun and Moon are 
 alike eastern and western, but those of H^hos, Kirke 
 and AiStes have a strong additional eastern character 
 arising from an actual historical cult.* In the poems, 
 
 as Mr. Gladstone observes, ' Helios is marked as an 
 
 / 
 
 deities ' (Gladstone), it would seem tliat the wjiole heavenly hierarchy- 
 were as ' remote ' as the lovely goddess of any ocean-huried isle. How 
 such a simile shows that ' the Greeks had forgotten the cradle of their 
 race,' I know not. The real explanation, as given in the text, is sim- 
 plicity itself. But in truth Dr. Hayman's standpoint on such matters is 
 essentially insufficient, inasmuch as it does not recognize the just claims 
 of the Natural Phenomena Theory. Thus, to take another instance, he 
 has a long note ahout Atlas and his ' pillars ' (vide sup. Sec. II.) and says 
 in conclusion, ' I believe, with Hermann, that he personifies the spirit of 
 adventurous exploration and the experience which it confers. He " knows 
 the depths of all the sea," and at the same time consistently " holds the 
 pillars" which mark the limits of that knowledge' (7%e Odyssey of 
 Homer, ii. cxi.). The adventm-ous explorer of Homerik times certainly 
 did not know ' the depth of all the sea,' nor could he possibly ' hold ' 
 ' the tall pillars which keep earth and sky asunder.' Such explanations 
 irresistibly remind us of Lord Bacon and the Sphinx. 
 
 1 II. vii. 422 ; Od. xix. 434. The couplet of which the above forms 
 the second line appears in both poems and was evidently an ancient and 
 ' well-accustomed ' expression. 
 
 2 Funereal Ritual, Ixxxvi. ; vide R. B. Jr., L. K, 0. sec. xvii. 
 
 3 Sup. Sec. VII. * Of. Sup. Sec. VI. 
 
The Mythic Relatives of KirkL 49 
 
 Eastern god ; ' ^ and the poet naturally connects his 
 children with the same bright quarter. All the his- 
 torical traditions, too, respecting Aietes would place 
 him somewhere in the far East ; thus Mimnermos 
 cir. B.C. 630 sings of 
 
 AiijTao iroXiv, ToOi. t' (Jkeos 'HcXtoio 
 aKTtves ^vcreia Keiarai iv 6aXa.[uo, 
 
 Therefore the poet who certainly did not regard 
 Kirk^ as being simply Luna, had every reason to 
 speak of Aia as ' the dwelling place of early Dawn 
 and her dancing grounds,^ and the land of sun- 
 rising.' * 
 
 As the combined Aietes-Kirk^ represents an an- 
 drogynous moon, i.e., the ascription of both male and 
 female potentialities to the lunar power ; so we find 
 that the Egyptians fjLrjTepa rrjv ^eKiqvT^v tov Kocrfjiov 
 KokovcTL, Koi (^vcriv €)(eLv apcrevoOrjkvv otovrat ; ^ a fact 
 confirmed by the late writer called Spartianus who 
 says in his Life of Caracalla, cap. vii., that ' although 
 the Egyptians call the moon a goddess, they really 
 consider it in a mystical sense a god, both male and 
 female.'^ In the archaic Kemic behef as in the 
 Euphratean, the Moon, Aah,^ called Khons (' the 
 
 ' Juvenilis Mundi, 323. ^ Fragment xi. 
 
 ' Of. JRig- Veda, I. xcii. 4 : ' Ushas [fios], like a dancer, puts on her 
 gay attire ' (ap. Muir, Sanskrit Texts, v. 185). 
 
 * Od. xii. 3, 4. ^ Plutarch, Peri Isidos, xliii. 
 
 ^ Ap. Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, iii. 166. 
 ' Of. Ai (sup. Sec, VI.). Aah = Copt. Ooh or loh. 
 
 E 
 
50 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 Chaser '^) and Tehuti ^ (' the Measurer '), was pre-emi- 
 nently male. 
 
 As noticed, Aietes, according to general tradi- 
 tion, wedded Idyia ('the Knowing'), a daughter of 
 Okeanos. So Hyginus calls M^deia ' Aetae et Idyae 
 filia.'^ This wise Idyia is the same personage as 
 Daeira (' the Knowing '), daughter of Okeanos and 
 mother of Eleusis* ('the Coming' Sun-god).^ The 
 wisdom from Ocean is primarily the light of the 
 heavenly bodies who issue thence by day or night, as 
 the case may be. This light is the earliest revelation. 
 As regards the Moon generally, we may quote what 
 M. Pierret says of the Kemic Lunus-Luna ; — ' Cham- 
 pollion signale dans son Pantheon un Lunus bifrons. 
 " La lune, instrument de la naissance, dit Hermes 
 Trism^giste, transforme la matiere inferieure." ' This 
 point is to be remembered in connexion with the 
 Kirke-myth. ' Get astre, en raison de ses phases, est 
 en perpetuelle relation avec les idees de naissance et 
 de renouvellement. C'est ainsi que Lucine se confon- 
 dait souvent avec Diane. Aah preside au renouvelle- 
 ment, au rajeunissement, k la renaissance.'® 
 
 The Moon as the Night-hght, linked with Idyia- 
 Daeira, is itself knowing and so appears as Medeia 
 (' the Wise y 
 
 The children of the dark cold Air (Phrixos) and 
 
 ' On this incident, vide R. B. Jr., U. sees. iv. xii. ; and of. the angry 
 and unsuccessful chase of the Argonautai by Aietes. 
 
 " Thoth, ' Fabukie, xxv. 
 
 * Pausanias, I. ixxviii. 7 . ' Vide sup. Sec. II. 
 
 ^ Le Pantheon Egyptien, 15, ' Vide sup. Sec. VI. 
 
The Mythic Relatives of Kirki. 5 1 
 
 the Copper-moon (Chalkiope) are White (Argos) and 
 Black (Melas), inasmuch as ' rebus nox abstulit atra 
 colorem;' Thought (Phrontis=Idyia developed), and 
 some personage (Kytisoros) who seems to be of 
 Akkadian origin. 
 
 Cicero happens to name Ino ^ (' the Bright '), 
 otherwise called Leukothe§ (' the White-goddess '), 
 in connexion with Kirke ; and Ino is the third Moon- 
 queen of the Odyssey who assists the hero. Daughter 
 of the solar Kadmos (' the Easterner ') she is the 
 mother of Mehkertes (' the City-king '), Melqarth, 
 the Tyrian H^rakles. As the White-goddess she is 
 Lebhana (' the Pale-shiner ') to distinguish her from 
 the burning golden Athamas-Tammuz-Dumuzi. As 
 the Eising-moon ' she came up from the deep, with- 
 beautiful-ankle,' '"^ foretells the escape of Odysseus, 
 and gives him — Milton says she has ' lovely hands ' — 
 her ' immortal Tcredemnon,' the flowing scarf-veil, ' the 
 line of waving light across the waters coming from 
 around her face, and by means of which he may find 
 his way to land.' ^ 
 
 The mythic pedigree of Kirke, then, stands 
 thus : — 
 
 ^ In6 = luno, Juno, a name akin to Zeus (vide M. Miiller, Lectures 
 cm the Science of Language, ii. 496). Thus Janus was called Junonius. 
 ' Of. Job, xxxi. 26 : ' The Moon walking in brightness.' 
 ' R. B. Jr., G. B. M. i. 258 : vide Od. v. 333-53. The child of In6 
 the ' Bright '-moon, is also called Palaimon, i.e., Baal-hamon (' the 
 Burning-lord '), the fierce diurnal Sun-god. 
 
52 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 Okeanos (' Source of divinities,' 
 I 11. liv. 201) 
 
 Helios (the Male-sun) = Perse (the Female-sun) 
 
 Aietes = Idyia ('the Kirke ('the = Odysseus Pasiphae (the 
 
 (Lunus) 
 
 Knowing ') Round '-moon) I Starlit-sky) 
 
 Telegonos 
 (the Young-sun) 
 
 Medeia (1. ' the Wise ; ' Ohalkiope (the = Phrixos (the 
 
 2. ' the Mede ') Copper-moon) I Unsunlit-air) 
 
 Argos Melas Phrontis Kytisoros 
 
 (White-light) (Darkness) (' Thought ') (the Expanse ?) 
 
SECTION IX. 
 
 THE TRANSFORMATION. 
 
 The party led by Eurylochos having drunk of the cup 
 of Kirk§, are changed by her into swine ; and subse- 
 quently, pursuant to the prayer of Odysseus, ' became 
 men again, younger than before and goodher far.'^ The 
 idea is entirely unconnected with the theory of trans- 
 migration of souls, or with any idea of divine punish- 
 ment inflicted on man for sin. The story of Queen 
 Labe in the Arabian Nights, ' who, sensual like Kirkd, 
 boasted an enchanted menagery of "horses, camels, 
 mules, oxen," all retaining their human sympathies in 
 their degradation,'^ merits no special attention inas- 
 much as it is probably derived from the Homerik 
 tale. The present story is also distinct from those 
 which relate how the gods and other personages 
 assumed animal forms in order to escape from their 
 enemies,^ or for purposes of deception. Thus a 
 curious passage in one of the Izdubar series of 
 legends, which records an archaic conquest of the 
 city of Erech,* states : — 
 
 ' The gods of Erech the Blessed 
 Turned to flies and concealed themselves.' ^ 
 
 ' Vide Slip. Sec. I. * Mayor, The Narrative of Odysseus, 138. 
 
 * Vide Ovid, Metam. v. * Vide Genesis, x. 10. 
 
 * Ap. Geo. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, 169. 
 
54 The Myth of KirkL 
 
 Kirke acts in this particular manner simply because 
 it is her nature so to do ; and the basis of the myth 
 is merely the effect of night upon the diurnal powers. 
 Thus Prof. De Gubernatis well says, ' The hog is an- 
 other disguise of the solar hero in the night — another 
 of the forms very often assumed by the sun, as a 
 mythical hero, in the darkness or clouds. . . . When 
 the solar hero enters the domain of evening, the 
 form he had disappears. He passes into another, an 
 uglier, and a monstrous form. . . . The hero lamed, 
 blinded, bound, drowned, or buried in a wood, can 
 be understood when referred respectively to the sun 
 which is thrown down the mountain-side, which is 
 lost in the darkness, which is held fast by the fetters 
 of the darkness, which plunges into the ocean of 
 night, or which hides itself in the nocturnal forest.' ^ 
 Such is the fate of the solar comrades of Odysseus. 
 The sharp-tusked boar is, hke the Sun, called Vishnu 
 (' the Penetrator ') ; and the boar-shape is often taken 
 by the Vedic Sun-god.^ So the Norse Freyr (' the 
 Lord '), the beneficent Sun-god, has his sacred boar 
 Gulhnburste (' Golden-bristle '). But ' this form is 
 sometimes a dark and demoniacal guise assumed by 
 the hero ' ; ^ and so the boar becomes a monster of 
 the night with lunar tusk and thus is hunted by 
 Herakles and other heroes, or slays the solar Adonis. 
 ' In Germany it is the custom, as it formerly was 
 in England, to serve up at dinner on Christmas Day 
 an ornamented boar's head, as a symbol of the 
 
 ' Zoological Mylliology, ii, 2. ^ Ihid. 7 et seq. ^ Ibid. 2. 
 
The Transformation. 55 
 
 gloomy monster of lunar winter killed at the winter 
 solstice, after which the days grow longer and 
 brighter. . . . The new sun is born in the sty of the 
 winter hog. ... In the ancient popular behef of 
 Sweden, the wild boar kills the sun whilst he is 
 asleep in the cavern,' ^ the cave of Kalypso. So the 
 subdued solar beings, the boars of day become the 
 hogs of night, are ' penned in the guise of swine, in 
 strong lairs.' But their intrinsic nature cannot be 
 destroyed and the return of day will restore them to 
 their former shape and beauty ; and Kirkd herself 
 does this, for, as Arnobius has told us, she is the 
 mother of Helios-Sol. 
 
 ' All around the palace wolves of the hills and 
 lions were roaring . . . bewitched with evil drugs.' 
 These creatures did not attack the comrades of Odys- 
 seus ; ' they ramped about them and fawned on them, 
 wagging their long tails.' The Wolf is especially the 
 creature of Night and Darkness ; ^ the Lion of Day 
 and the Sun.^ But both darkness and sun were 
 equally subdued by the bright lunar queen ; and 
 moreover, as noticed, it was just as hkely that Kirke 
 might have changed the explorers into wolves or 
 hons as into swine.* 
 
 The mythological connexion between Darkness 
 and monsters or monstrous animals is too familiar to 
 require any formal proof. The nocturnal dragons,' 
 serpents, hydras, sea-monsters, demon-wolves like 
 
 ^ Zoological Mythology, ii. 13, 16. " Vide E. B. Jr., B. 26. 
 
 3 Vide R. B. Jr., V. Sec. xii. " Swp. Sec. III. 
 
56 The My Ik of Kirke. 
 
 Fenrir, or lions like that of Nemea/ form a long 
 and formidable array ; and in the Chaldaean account 
 of the creation it is significantly stated that the 
 primeval monster- animals were unable to endure the 
 light and so perished. To. 8e tfjio. ovk iveyKovTo. t^v 
 Tov (fxoTo^ Sway-iv (jidapyjvaL.^ In the werewolf-myth, 
 too, it is at nightfall that the possessed persons 
 change to wolves, or that the wolfish instincts be- 
 come overpowering ; and the werewolf transforma- 
 tion approaches the Kirke-legend, inasmuch as it ' is 
 substantially that of a temporary metempsychosis or 
 metamorphosis.'^ But an Akkadian myth which is 
 contained in the Vlth Tablet of the Izdubar Cycle, if 
 not exactly ' on all fours,' as the lawyers say, in its 
 circumstances with the Kirke-legend, yet is so tho- 
 roughly analogous to it and so perfectly explains it, 
 that we see at once, especially when the Euphratean 
 character of Kirke is remembered, the basis and 
 rationale of the Homerik tale. The solar hero Iz- 
 dubar, an analogue of Odysseus, having come to 
 great honour and renown, more especially by the 
 slaughter of Khumbaba * (' the Maker-of-darkness ') 
 the Storm-cloud, the lunar and planetary goddess 
 Tiskhu-Istar fell in love with him : — 
 
 ' For the favour of Izdubar the Princess Istar lifted the eyes : 
 I will make thee Izdubar my lover, 
 Thou shalt be husband and I will be thy wife. 
 Into our house enter, mid the scent of the pines.' 
 
 ' For an analysis of this myth, vide R. B. Jr., 1^. Appendix III. 
 " Berosos, Chaldaiha, i. 6. ' Tyler, Primitive Culture, i. 279. 
 •* The Ko/i^u^or of the tractate Pen tes Syries Theou, which was 
 usually ascribed to Lucian. 
 
The Transformation. 57 
 
 Similarly ' the palace of Khumbaba is surrounded 
 by a forest of pine and cedar,' ^ and the dwelUng of 
 Kalypso is 'a woodland isle,'^ where, when Hermes 
 arrives, — 
 
 ' There came on him, as he stood, 
 A smell of cedar and of citron wood, 
 That threw a perfume all about the isle ; 
 A sylvan nook it was, grown round with trees, 
 Poplars, and elms,^ and odorous cypresses.' * 
 
 And the palace of Eirk^ is bowered in ' the thick 
 coppice and the woodland,' and built amid ' the forest 
 glades.'^ 
 
 Izdubar makes a long reply to Istar and rejects 
 her offer ; the first part of his speech is much muti- 
 lated, but something is said about a ' grand . . . tower 
 of stone,' which agrees very well with ' the haUs of 
 Circe build ed of polished stone.' He then proceeds 
 to reproach the goddess with the illtreatment and 
 evil fate which she had meted out to her previous 
 lovers, who correspond with the metamorphosed 
 companions of Odysseus : — 
 
 ' As for Dumuzi the lover of (thy) youth. 
 Year after year thou hast wearied him with thy love.' 
 
 The first lover of the frail Mght-queen is the ardent 
 
 ' Sayce, C. A. G. 221. ^ q^ ^ ^i_ 3 < Alder ' in original. 
 
 ^ Ap. Leigh Hunt. 
 
 ^ Mr. Keary, in support of Ms theory that Kirke is a personification 
 of Death (vide sup. Sec. V.), and having well noted that the name of her 
 island (which like Taylor he connects with aial — ' a land of such 
 wailing as men utter hy a grave ') ' is also another name for Circe 
 herself/ ohserves ; — ' Circe's palace is buried deep in forest gloom ' 
 {Outlines of Primitive Belief, 312). There is not a trace of ' gloom ' in 
 the original; the palace, though surrounded (not 'buried') with wood- 
 land, stood ' in a place with a clear prospect ' (Od. x. 211). 
 
58 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 Sun, Dumuzi (' the Only-son '-of heaven), Tammuz- 
 Athamas, who is wearied and wounded and dies. 
 
 ' Alala, the Eagle, also thou lovest, and 
 Thou didst strike him, and his wings thou didst break ; 
 He stood in the forest, he begged for wings.' 
 
 ' The eagle we are told was the symbol of " the 
 southern " or " meridian sun ; " ' ^ the Moon-goddess 
 however, Kirke-hke, strikes^ him,' and the brave 
 wings with which he flew so gallantly aloft are 
 broken. He stands in the ' forest,' now famihar to 
 us, and begs for wings that he might once more fly 
 away on his solar path, = Odysseus intreating the 
 moon-goddesses to let him go. 
 
 ' Thou lovest also a Lion lusty in might, 
 Thou didst tear out by sevens his claws.' 
 
 This ' bewitched ' and subdued solar lion actually 
 appears with his fellows around the palace of KirkS. 
 The Nocturnal-sun is sometimes represented as 
 impotent or unmanned ; thus the Yedic Indra ' dis- 
 guises himself as a eunuch.' ' ' To represent the 
 evening sun asleep, a curious particular is ofiered us 
 in the myth of Adonis. It is well known that doctors 
 attribute to the lettuce a soporific virtue not dis- 
 similar to that of the poppy. Now, it is interesting 
 to read in Nikandros Kolophonios, quoted by Aldro- 
 vandi, that Adonis was struck by the wild boar after 
 having eaten a lettuce. Ibykos, a Pythagorean poet, 
 
 ' C. A. O. 246, note. ^ 'Pd(3So) ■K€TT\r)yvXa. 
 
 ' Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, ii. 2. 
 
The Transformation. 59 
 
 calls the lettuce by the name of eunuch, as it is that 
 which puts to sleep, which renders stupid and im- 
 potent ; Adonis who has eaten the lettuce is therefore 
 taken from Venus by the lunar wild boar, being 
 eunuch and incapable. The solar hero falls asleep in 
 the night, and becomes a eunuch, like the ffindoo 
 Ar^unas, when he is hidden ; and otherwise, the sun 
 becomes the moon.'^ The heraldic Lion when in 
 this plight is termed sans villenie, and the hne of idea 
 supplies a perfect explanation of the singular caveat 
 of Hermes to Odysseus respecting Kirke, that she 
 must be sworn ' that she will plan nought else of 
 mischief to thine own hurt, lest she rob thee of thy 
 spirit and thy manhood, when she hath thee naked.' ^ 
 The hero subsequently reproaches the goddess with 
 entertaining this design ; she makes no attempt to 
 deny the charge and takes the oath as required. 
 
 ' Thou lovest also a Horse glorious in war, 
 He yielded himself and thou didst weary his love overmuch. 
 For fourteen hours thou didst weary his love without ceasing. 
 To his mother thou didst send him wearied.' 
 
 In Aryan mythology the Horse frequently appears as 
 a solar animal, and again in Palestine we read of 
 ' the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the 
 sun ' and of ' the chariots of the sun.' ' The Horse 
 called in Assyrian sum, the Heb. sils, is styled in 
 Akkadian Imiru hurra (' the Animal from the east ') ; 
 and this circumstance alone is calculated, to. give it 
 a solar connexion. Asva (' the Kacer '), the Gk. 
 
 ' Zoological Mythology, ii. 15-lG. ^ Od. x. 800-1. ^ 2 Kings, xxiii. 11. 
 
6o The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 ihkos { = hippos), the Lat. ekvus {=equus), has ever 
 been naturally connected with the swiftly-moving 
 Sun, the strong and jubilant race-runner. This 
 further appears in the continuation of the legend : — 
 
 ' Thou lovest also the shepherd Tabulu, 
 Of whom continually thou didst ask for thy stibium.' 
 
 The Ak. tab means ' swift,' and ul, As. kakkabu is 
 ' star ; ' it is a variant of the Ak. mul, ' star, bright- 
 ness.'^ Uis the ordinary termination of the nomina- 
 tive in Assyrian ; hence ulu or mulu — /awXu,^ the 
 mysterious Horaerik countercharm to the charms of 
 Kirk^,' and Tabul is ' the Swift-star,' the Eacer-sun, 
 original king and shepherd of the starry flock.* Istar 
 thus next loves the Sun in his phase as the solar 
 shepherd. 
 
 ' Every day he propitiated thee with offerings.' 
 
 That is to say, just as an Oriental beauty heightens 
 her charms with stimmi or stibium, a dark pigment 
 with which the eyehds were stained and the eyes 
 made to look more lustrous, so at the end of each 
 day the sinking Sun brought with him that darkness 
 necessary to set off in full splendour the. beauty of 
 the lunar eye, the brightness of the Moon. 
 
 ' Thou didst strike him and to a hyena ^ thou didst change him.' 
 Here, again, the luckless lover is ' struck,' and this 
 
 ' Vide Sayce, Assyrian Grammar , Syl. No. 169. 
 
 » Od. X. 305. ' Vide inf. Sec. X. 
 
 * As to the Ram-sun, the original Aries, and the starry flock, vide 
 R. B. Jr., L. K, 0. sec. x. So Arcturus is called in Euphratean regions 
 ' the Shepherd of the heavenly flock.' ^ Or ' leopard.' 
 
The Transformation. 6i 
 
 time metamorphosed, exactly after the manner of 
 KirM, into a hyena or leopard ; that is to say, into 
 some animal whose spotted skin symbohzed the starry 
 vault of night. The Sun thus transformed becomes 
 Herakles Astrochiton (' Starry-tunic '), Dionysos Ne- 
 bridopeplos (' Clad-in-a-fawn-skin-robe '), but I have 
 elsewhere so fully illustrated the nocturnal character 
 of the spotted-animal that I will not now further 
 dwell upon this aspect of the myth.^ 
 
 ' His own village drove him away ; 
 His dogs tore his wounds.' 
 
 Fox Talbot, commenting on this passage, observes ; — 
 ' We see here beyond a doubt the ancient original of 
 the Greek fable of Actaeon and his dogs. That hero 
 had offended Diana [—Artemis-Selene], who revenged 
 herself by changing him into a stag [=the spotted 
 leopard or hyena ^], when his dogs, no longer know- 
 ing their master, fell upon him and tore him to pieces. 
 The great celebrity of this fable may be judged of 
 from the circumstance that Ovid has preserved the 
 names of all the dogs, though there were no fewer 
 than thirty-five of them.' ' It cannot truly be said 
 that this view is ' beyond a doubt,' inasmuch as an 
 independent Aryan myth to the same effect might 
 
 1 Vide K. B. Jr., G. D. M. ii. 19 at seq. ; U. sec. xi. 
 
 * Vide Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, ii. 83 et seq. 
 
 ' Records of the Past, ix. 120 ; cf. Ovid. Metam. iii. 206 et seq. ; 
 Hyginus, Fabulae, clxxxi. ; Statius, Thebaid. ii. 203. Talbot's mytho- 
 logical speculations must be received with caution, just as in many cases 
 his translations of the Inscriptions are not up to the present standard of 
 Assyriology, but nevertheless he has done excellent service. 
 
62 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 easily have arisen ; but it is probably correct, more 
 especially since Aktai6n ('the Eayed'^), the son of 
 the solar Aristaios ^ and of Autonoe (' the Instinct- 
 ■with-sense'=Daeira and Idyia^), is the grandson of 
 Kadmos ('the Easterner ' = the Sun) and dwells in 
 Boi6tia, so famous for its Semitic associations.* His 
 paternal grandsire is Apoll6n, and Prof. De Gubernatis 
 thus comments upon the stag-myth ; — ' The evening 
 sun reflects its rays in the ocean of night, the sun- 
 stag sees its horns reflected in the fountain or lake of 
 night, and admires them. At this fountain sits a 
 beautiful and bewitching siren, the moon ; this fountain 
 is the dwelling of the moon ; she allures the hero- 
 stag that admires itself in the fountain, and ruins it. 
 . . The stag is torn to pieces by the dogs who over- 
 take it in the forest because its horns become en- 
 tangled in the branches ; the solar rays are enveloped 
 in the branches of the nocturnal forest. In Stesichoros, 
 quoted by Pausanias, Artemis puts a stag's skin round 
 Aktaion and incites the dogs to devour him ; ' ^ that 
 is to say, the spotted robe of night is thrown over the 
 Sun and he is torn into small pieces (stars). This is 
 one of the many aspects of solar sufiering ; ' being 
 torn or cut to pieces is a fate commonly ascribed to 
 
 1 Similarly the hero Aktis (' Sun-beam '), son of Helios, was said by 
 the inhabitants of Ehodos (' the Rosy ') to have been the fii-st astronomer 
 (Diodoros, v. 57). 
 
 •>■ Vide E. B. Jr., G. B. M. i. 402. 
 
 " Vide mp. Sec. VIII. According to the Neo-Platonists Autonoe 
 represents the Air. 
 
 <> Vide R. B. Jr., Q. D. M. cap. x. sec. ii. Kadmos and Thebai. 
 
 '' Zoological Mythology, ii. 86. 
 
The Transformation. 63 
 
 Dionysos aind the personages connected with him, such 
 as Zagreus, Pentheus, Orpheus, Uasar [Asar, Osiris], 
 and others. Demosthenes is quoted as saying that 
 the " spotted fawns were torn in pieces for a certain 
 mystic reason," which, we are informed, " was in 
 imitation of the sufferings of Dionysos." ' ^ Polygnotos 
 painted in the Lesche at Delphoi ' Aktaion, the son of 
 Aristaios, and the mother of Aktaion, ve^pov ev rai? 
 X^pcrlv €)(ovTe<s iX<i(f)ov, koI kirl oepjuaTi eXoi<jiov Kade- 
 tpfievoi' Kvoiv re drjpevTLKrj TrapaKeiTai a-^icri.'^ The 
 solar dogs of hght turn at nightfall into dogs of 
 darkness, werewolves, and devour their luckless lord. 
 The mythological Stag is on the whole a distinctly 
 nocturnal creature, representing ' the luminous forms 
 that appear in the cloudy or nocturnal forest,' which 
 latter appears alike in Aryan and Euphratean myth. 
 ' The mythic stag is nearly always either entirely 
 luminous or else spotted ; when it is black it is of a 
 diabolical nature, and represents the whole sky of 
 night.' ^ Thus it is when he is in the domain of the 
 lunar queen that Odysseus slays that ' huge beast ' 
 ' the taU antlered stag,' * upon whom ' the might of 
 the sun was sore ; ' ® and in the incident obtains, as 
 
 1 E. B. Jr., O. D. M. i. 152-3. ^ Pausanias, X. xxx. 2. 
 
 3 Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, ii. 83. 
 
 * This Stag was a very special and extraordinary one. Thus Odysseus 
 fastens together the feet Stii/oio ■KeKapov {Od. x. 168). This phrase is 
 applied to the ' awful-looking Gorgo ' {II. xi. 36 ; vide Ihid. v. 741 ; Od. 
 xi. 634). As I have elsewhere observed, ' It is not necessary to render 
 TreXmp "monster." The essential meaning of the word is " portent ; " cf. 
 II. ii. 321 : jrikapa 6ea>v, " portents sent from the gods "' {U. 47, note 1). 
 
 <> Od. X. 157 et seq. 
 
64 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 it were, a pledge that he should ultimately triumph 
 over the nocturnal powers.^ This view of the 
 nocturnal nature of the stag is also in exact accord 
 with the curious and repeated simile of Menelaos ; — 
 ' Even as when a hind hath couched her newborn 
 fawns unweaned in a strong lion's lair, and searcheth 
 out the knolls and grassy glades, seeking pasture, and 
 afterward the lion cometh back to his bed, and 
 sendeth forth unsightly death upon that pair, even so 
 shall Odysseus send forth unsightly death upon the 
 wooers.' ^ The incident here referred to is not, so 
 far as I am aware, in any way founded on any actual 
 fact in natural history, and has every aspect of a 
 proverbial saying. Like the heraldic beast-myths, 
 such as the contest between Lion and Unicorn and 
 between Lion and Leopard,^ it is a phase of ' Zoological 
 Mythology.' The nocturnal Deer couches her httle 
 spotted fawns in the lair occupied by day by the 
 solar Lion, who returns in due course and slays them ; 
 then, according to a Vedic poet, the abashed stars 
 ' slink away, hke thieves ' * from the presence of 
 Surya-H61ios-Sol. 
 
 Another famous personage who was metamor- 
 phosed, and one, moreover, brought into relation 
 with Kirk^ who sends Odysseus to consult him, is 
 the blind seer Teiresias of the ancient faraily of 
 
 ' The incident may of course he a mere arbitrary invention of tlie 
 poet (It is servilely reproduced by VergU, Aeneid, i. 180 et seq.) ; but I 
 think that the more narrowly the poems are examined, the smaller wDI 
 be the residuum attributed to this som-ce. 
 
 ■' Od. iv. 335-40 ; xvii. 126-81. » Vide E. B. Jr., U. 
 
 Mig- Veda, I. 1. 2. 
 
The Transformation. 65 
 
 Oudaios (' the Clithonian '), son of Chariklo (= Charis) 
 the daughter of ApoUon, Perses or Okeanos, a 
 pedigree which has been already sufficiently illus- 
 trated. Teiresias, who had been both male and 
 female, who was blind and yet by the aid of his staff 
 could practically see, and who has great place and 
 power in the dark Underworld, appears to me to 
 have been originally the Constellation-sky (retpea), 
 blinded by Athene the Dawn, but supplied with that 
 golden staff, wand or sceptre so often found in the 
 hands of nocturnal personages and which compensates 
 for the eye of day. He is a Theban, for the know- 
 ledge of most of the constellations came to Hellas 
 from Semitic sources ; and Boiotia was a principal 
 point of intercommunication on the western main- 
 land. And he is of a specially chthonian race, since 
 the star-groups are closely connected with the 
 Underworld. 
 
 The Istar-legend continues : — 
 
 ' Thou lovest also Isullanu the husbandman of thy father.' 
 
 The father of the goddess is Ana (' the High '), As. 
 Anu, ' the ruler and god of heaven,' ^ the analogue of 
 the Aryan Varuna-Ouranos, and whose consort Anatu 
 is the mother of Istar. I do not venture at present 
 to attempt an explanation of the name Isullanu, but 
 that hke the other lovers of the goddess he was a 
 solar personage is evident from the account. As to 
 his being a ' husbandman,' Goldziher, who has traced 
 
 ' C. A. G. 48. 
 
66 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 with much learning and abihty the intensely solar 
 connexion of the myth of the origin of civilization, 
 observes ; — ' The founder of all the order and morality 
 which result from the more civilized agricultural life 
 is, in the language of the old stories, the Sun.' ^ 
 
 ' Each, day had he made bright thy dish.' 
 
 The sun by his daily retirement made bright the 
 lunar disk, Istar being particularly, like Kirke, ' the 
 full moon.' 
 
 ' The eyes thou didst take from him and didst put him iu chains.' 
 
 The bhnded Orion + the captive Odysseus. IsuUanu 
 complains, with the result that 
 
 ' Thou didst strike him ; to a thing-hung-up ^ thou didst change 
 him.' 
 
 Here is the usual blow from the goddess which in this 
 instance, as in the last, at once produces a trans- 
 formation. 
 
 ' Thou didst place him also in the midst of the land . . . 
 That he rise not up, that he go not ' [lines mutilated]. 
 
 We are reminded of Odysseus fixed for long years in 
 the island of Kalypsd, but it is needless to discuss the 
 doubtful part of this remarkable account ; its general 
 purport is indisputable and its connexion with the 
 KirkS-story very striking. 
 
 ' Mythology Among the Hebrews, 201. The whole passage ia well 
 worthy of the most careful attention, and contrasts very favourably with 
 the numerous crudities of the work. 
 
 » A 'pillar' (Sayce). 
 
The Transformation. 67 
 
 The bewitched animals were used by Kirke as 
 house-guardians,^ a circumstance which at once 
 reminds us of the human-headed bulls placed at the 
 gates of Assyrian palaces, and which as ' hving genii ' 
 were supposed to guard the gates of the Underworld 
 in like manner.^ So, on either side the door in the 
 palace of Alkinoos, ' stood golden hounds and silver, 
 which Hephaestus wrought by his cunning, to guard 
 the palace of great-hearted Alcinous, being free from 
 death and age all their days.' ^ 
 
 > Of. Od. X. 434. 
 
 ^ Vide Lenormant, Chaldean, Magic, 170. ' Od. vii. 91-4. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 SECTION X. 
 
 SOME SPECIAL POINTS IN THE STORY. 
 
 Having considered the name, abode, mythic pedigree, 
 and special characteristic of the goddess, I will pass 
 on to notice certain minor yet highly interesting and 
 important details of the story, which, if the general 
 explanation previously given be correct, will all fall 
 harmoniously into subordinate relative positions. 
 
 I. The habitual occupation of Kirke. ' They heard 
 Circe (1) singing in a sweet voice, as she (2) fared to 
 and fro before the great web imperishable, . . . fine 
 of woof and full of grace and splendour.'^ Schohasts, 
 both ancient and modern, who are prone to enter on 
 laborious investigations respecting the exact number 
 of the crew of Odysseus and a thousand other equally 
 weighty enquiries, are wont to pass such a statement 
 as this either without remark or with a feeble para- 
 phrase which repeats the original under pretence of 
 explaining it, reminding us of Young's complaint : — 
 
 ' How commentators each dark passage shun, 
 And hold their farthing rushlights to the sun.' 
 
 It is one of the chief difiiculties of a modern investi- 
 gator of the archaic to realize that there was a time 
 
 > Od.x. 221-3. 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 69 
 
 when many of the most ordinary incidents of our 
 human hfe, e.^., speech, were regarded as wondrous 
 and semi-supernatural. The queen of witchcraft must 
 bealso^a queen of speech ; her weapons are ' herbse 
 etnoninnoxia verba/ ; and this speech, hke all ar- 
 chaic formal utterance connected with divinity, is 
 _songjj.e. is distinguished by rhythm and assonance. 
 As the goddess is beautiful, so must her song ber^ 
 ' sweet ' ; there is no thought in the story of ' the 
 music of the spheres,' ' for ever singing as they shine.' 
 Speech, then, is wonderful, and is most closely asso- 
 ciated with Eeligion,^ and hence again with divinities. 
 We have only to recall such terms as logos (= Lat. 
 ratio -F oratio) and fatuvi (' the spoken-word ') to 
 realize its awe-inspiring dignity. So in the Rig-Veda 
 ' Yfi,c [= Vox, Voice], the sacred speech, is repre- 
 sented as an infinite power, as superior to the gods 
 and as generative of all that exists.' ^ I will further 
 illustrate the point by a highly suggestive quotation 
 from an able work by Signor Tito Vignoh : — 
 
 ' Beginning with the traditions of our race, even 
 prior to its dispersion, there are plain proofs that 
 words and songs were originally employed for exor- 
 cisms and magic in various diseases, and for incanta- 
 tions directed against men or things. Kar means to 
 bewitch, as in German we have einem etwas anthun, 
 in low Latin facturare, in Italian fattucchiere, and 
 
 ' Vide R. B. Jr., L. sec. i. 
 
 " Barth, The Religions of India ; of. Rig- Veda, x. 125. On this sub- 
 ject, Tide R. B. Jr., O. D. M. ii. 325 et seq. 
 
70 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 from Kar we have carmen, a song or magic formula. 
 The goddess Carmenta, who was supposed to watch 
 over childbirth, derived her name from carmen, the 
 magic formula which was used to aid the deUvery. 
 The name was also used for a prophetess, as Car- 
 menta, the mother of Evander. Servio tells us that 
 the augurs were termed carmentes. The Sanscrit 
 maya, meaning magic or illusion and, in the Veda, 
 wisdom, is derived from man, to think or know ; 
 from man we have mantra, magic formula or incan- 
 tation ; in Zend, mantJira is an incantation against 
 disease, and hence we have the Erse manadh, incan- 
 tation or jugghng, and moniti in Lithuanian. The 
 linguistic researches of Pictet, Pott, Benfey, Kuhn, 
 and others show that in primitive times singing, 
 poetry, hymns, the celebration of rites, and the rela- 
 tion of tales, were identical ideas, expressed in iden- 
 tical forms, and even the name for a nightingale had 
 the same derivation. So also the names of a singer, 
 poet, a wise man, and a magician, came from the 
 same root.' ^ The great enchantress is thus, hke the 
 ,..^ great enchanter Homer, a mighty singer.^ 
 1 Next, as to the great and ' imperishable web.' 
 This, too, is a feature in the representation of Kalypso. 
 ' The nymph within was singing in a sweet voice as 
 she fared to and from before the loom and wove with 
 a shuttle of gold.' ^ Pherekydes of Syros, a writer 
 
 ' Myth and Science, 306-7. 
 
 '^ As noticed {sup. Sec. II.), this is also a feature in the portraiture 
 of Kalypsd. s Od. v. 61-2. 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 71 
 
 of reputed Phoenician descent and whose works show 
 the strongest Oriental influence, supphes an excellent 
 commentary on the passage. He tells us ; — ' Zas 
 [Zeus] makes a veil large and beautiful, and works 
 on it Earth and Ogenos, and the abodes of Og§nos.' ^ 
 Now Ogen, as we have seen, ^ = Okeanos, and this 
 brings the veil in very close connexion with Kalypso 
 who dwelt in Ogygia. The kosmic veil therefore re- 
 presented Earth and Ocean, and the ra ^fLyrfvov Sw- 
 ju-ara = the Sw/iara KipKiqi;, the dwellings of Kirk^, 
 Kalypso, and similar personages ; for, as noticed, the 
 Ocean includes the Oversea. The web of Kirk^ and 
 Kalypso = the veil of Zeus, and is further repre- 
 sented in mythic legend by the starry peplos and 
 necklet of Harmonia, at whose marriage with the 
 solar Kadmos all the gods were present ; ^ because 
 the harmonious union of Day and Night completes 
 kosmic order of which all divinities are the universal 
 champions and supporters. The veil, says Phere- 
 kydes, Zas hangs on a winged oak, even as Sir Tris- 
 tram teUs Isolt that the 'carcanet' which he had won 
 at ' the last tournament ' was 
 
 ' Grown on a magic oak-tree in mid-heaven.' 
 
 And Maury well observes on the myth, ' O'est Ik evi- 
 demment une image de la voute du firmament, souvent 
 figuree par un voile, et auquel un arbre est donne 
 pour support. II y a Ik une conception toute sem- 
 
 ' Ap. Clemens Alex. Stromata, vi. 2. ^ Sup. Sec. II. 
 
 ' Apollodoros, III. iv. 2. 
 
72 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 blable k celle de I'arbre Yggdrasil de la mythologie 
 scandinave.' -^ So, at Gabala in Syria was a shrine of 
 the goddess D6t6 (Aramean Dotho, ' Law,' i.e. Kosmic 
 Order) who is also called Thuro {i.e. thorah, ' the 
 law '), and in the Phoenician Pantheon Khusarti, wife 
 of the solar Khusor ('Huschor) ; and, says Pausanias, 
 ^vOa TTCTrXo'; ert e\ei7reTo.^ This goddess Doto-Ehusar- 
 this is identical with Harmonia,^ ' the peplos-clad 
 goddess of orderly arrangement.'* 
 
 Before the vast imperishable web of ' the eternal 
 heavens,' the star-hghted splendour of space, ' fares 
 to and fro ' the Moon-goddess ; and with this idea is 
 necessarily connected the spinning of destiny, for 
 Time in itself is but the transit of light in space,^ and 
 this Hght-transit brings on the fate of each. So that 
 when the Theban seer announces the hero's destiny 
 Odysseus replies ; — ■ 
 
 ' Teiresias, all these threads, methinks, the gods themselves have 
 spun.' ^ 
 
 n. The Palace of Kirke. As the abode of Ka- 
 lypso shows nature in her most charming aspect, so 
 that of Kirke shows the beauty and glory of art, and 
 
 ' Hiatoire des Religions de la Orice Antique, iii. 253. 
 
 * Pausanias, II. i. 7. 
 
 ' On this suhject ^ide Bunsen, Egypt's Place, vol. iv. ; Lenormant, 
 Les Origities, i. 619 et spq. 
 
 * E. B. Jr., G. D. M. ii. 238. ^ yide R. B. Jr., L. K. O. sec. ii. 
 
 * Od. xi. 139. Of. in this connexion the robes of Ilelene, ' which 
 she herself had wrought.' ' Helen stood bj' the coffers, wherein were her 
 robes (n-eVXoi) of cui-ious needlework. . . . Then the fair lady lifted one 
 and brought it out, the widest and most beautifully embroidered of all, 
 and it shone like a star ' (Ibid. xv. 104^8). 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 73 
 
 is an artistic gem set in delightful natural surround- 
 ings. 'The fair halls' are ' builded of pohshed stone,' 
 the palace has ' shining doors,' and we read of silver 
 tables, bowls and basins, cups of gold and goodly 
 golden ewers, as characterizing the style of the equip- 
 ments of the ' great house.' Of course there is no- 
 thing unique in all this ; the palaces of Alkinoos and 
 Menelaos display the like, and the description is given 
 in stereotyped and conventional language. Thus in 
 all three palaces, as well as in that of Odysseus, 
 appears the ' grave dame,' who ' bare wheaten bread 
 and set it by them, and laid on the board dainties, 
 giving freely of such things as she had by her,' al- 
 though certainly this good old lady, who ' found no 
 favour ' in the hero's sight, was rather out of place in 
 the house of Kirke, being very different from ' her 
 handmaids, four maidens ' whom I shall notice sub- 
 sequently, and being only referred to once and in 
 the above customary formula. Such descriptions of 
 dwellings and furniture are based, not upon the 
 imaginary foundation of poetic fancy, but upon two 
 utterly distinct sets of actual facts, each group of 
 which has been elaborately illustrated by a class of 
 writers ; and each of these two classes of investi- 
 gators has been naturally prone either to ignore or 
 else to actually deny each other's standpoints and 
 discoveries. The terrestrial and historical basis of 
 the story is supplied by actual earthly wealth and 
 Oriental art in its westward progress ; whilst the 
 mythological basis is supplied by the splendour and 
 
74 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 treasures of gold and silver and bronze possessed by 
 dawn, sun, moon, and the light-powers generally. I 
 do not think it needful to add a single word to the 
 works of those writers who have so ably illustrated 
 these two so widely different sources of Homerik de- 
 scription ; but what I do venture to strongly insist 
 upon is, that either source alone is quite inadequate 
 to explain the fascinating mystery, utterly insufficient 
 to support the wondrous superstructure. 
 
 The ' high seats ' in Kirke's hall, particularly the 
 ' goodly carven chair ' on which the hero sat, and 
 which reappears on the Vases, perhaps demand a spe- 
 cial word of notice in connexion with the lunar and 
 Euphratean character of the goddess. The Akkadian 
 Moon-god is styled Aku ('the Seated-father'), who, 
 enthroned on high, is the special and chief supporter 
 of nocturnal kosmic order. ^ The Moon-goddess ' fares 
 to and fro,' ' walking in brightness ; ' ^ the Moon-god is 
 seated in majesty. 
 
 Another noticeable feature in connexion with the 
 abode of Kirk^, is that it lies in a marked manner be- 
 yond the sway of Aryan divinities. The only one of 
 these who appears on the scene is Hermes, and his 
 action here is in marked contrast with his proceed- 
 ings in the case of the Aryan Kalypso.^ He is in 
 direct antagonism with Kirke and aids the Aryan 
 hero against her, but secretly and as if half afraid to 
 
 ' Kuu is the name of the Finnic moon-god, and Kua is a moon-name 
 in Central Africa (vide E. B. Jr. TJ. 35). 
 ^ Job, x.vxi. 26. ^ Vide mp. Sec. II. 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 75 
 
 encounter her on her own ground. Still less has he 
 any commands for her, and she sends away Odysseus 
 and his comrades of her own free will. Kirke is well 
 acquainted with the Olympian divinities, but her 
 position with respect to them is entirely different 
 from that of their vassal Kalypso ; or, again, from 
 that of Aiolos, who is ' dear to the deathless gods.'^ 
 
 The palace of Kirke, in accordance with Oriental 
 fashion, had a ilat roof, whence the young Elpenor, 
 whom Pope calls ' a vulgar soul,' fell and broke his 
 neck. 
 
 The party remained enjoying the hospitality of the 
 goddess ' for the full circle of a year,' ^ the grand 
 lunar cycle. 
 
 The cup of KirkS and its evil effects combined with 
 her Euphratean character remind us of the striking 
 words of the Hebrew prophet ; — ' Babylon hath been 
 a golden cup that made all the earth drunken : the 
 nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the 
 nations are mad.'^ 
 
 m. Kirke s four handmaids. As the Euphratean 
 Sun-god has attending on him ' four divine dogs,' who 
 represent the flow of solar radiance to the four quar- 
 ters; so, similarly, the Moon-goddess is waited on by 
 ' four maidens that are her serving women in the 
 house.'* And as the Moon is the water-queen,^ and 
 mistress of the dark nocturnal forest in which she 
 
 ^ Od. X. 2. So Aiolos exclaims, •' Far be it from me to help or to 
 further that man whom the Messed gods abhor ' {Ibid. 73-4). 
 "^ Ibid. 467. = Jeremiah, li. 7. * Od. x. 349. 
 
 ^ Vide my analysis of the myth of Ino ((?. D. M. i. 253 et seq.). 
 
76 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 mostly dwells, so are these her handmaids ' born of 
 the wells and of the woods and of the holy rivers.'^ 
 
 IV. The Mess or Potion. This consisted of cheese, 
 barley-meal, honey and Pramnian wine, + the un- 
 named ' harmful drugs,' the whole forming the 
 KlpKri<i KVKeZva.'^ The compound, minus the drugs, 
 was a well-known receipt, and so the 'fair-tressed 
 Hekamed^' prepared a like mess for old Nestor and 
 the wounded Mach&6n;^ she 'grated cheese of goats' 
 milk, with a grater of bronze' into the famous four- 
 handled cup of ' Nestor the Old,' in which the wine* 
 had previously been poured. 'White barley' was then 
 ' scattered' over this mixture, and apparently honey 
 added according to taste. The mess constituted the 
 Kykeon (' That-which-is-stirred-up ') or famous potion 
 which Metaneira or Baubo gave to Demeter when 
 wearied and exhausted with searching for Persephone.* 
 These potent drugs are more especially connected 
 with non- Aryan regions. Thus Helene obtains a store 
 of ' medicines ' from ' Polydamna, a woman of Egypt, 
 where Earth the grain-giver yields herbs in greatest 
 plenty, many that are healing in the cup, and many 
 baneful.'^ 
 
 V. '■An awful goddess of mortal speech.' This state- 
 ment is a special item in the descriptions of Kalypsd 
 
 1 Od. X. 350-1. ^ Nonnos, xxii. 77. » II. xi. 624 et seq. 
 
 * According to Pliny (Hist. Nat. xiv. 54) the famous Pramnian wine 
 was still made in his time near Smyrna. 
 
 ' Vide the Hymn His Deiiwtran, 210 ; Clemens Alex. Protrept. ii. 20 ; 
 R. B. Jr., G. D. M. cap. vi. sec. ii. Dionysos at Eleusis. 
 
 " Od. iv. 228-30. 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 77 
 
 and Kirke, and one which sorely exercised Aristotle, 
 as it has done numerous Homerik students since his 
 time. I do not think with the great philosopher that 
 the text requires any emendation; nor is it necessary 
 to repeat the various attempts at explanation which 
 the question of the speech of men and of gods has 
 provoked. An instance shall suffice; — 'These inferior 
 goddesses,' says Mr. Mayor, ' living alone [?] in distant 
 isles, speak to men not by signs and omens, nor in the 
 language of the gods, but with common human 
 speech.'^ This is merely a restatement of the case, 
 not an explanation; but, again, it is not an accurate 
 restatement, for (1) neither Kalypsd nor Kirke lived 
 alone; (2) the inferiority of KirkS (to what or to 
 whom?) is much more easily asserted than demon- 
 strated ; and (3) there is no Homerik ' language of 
 the gods ' as opposed to that of men. This last fact 
 supphes the clew to the present difficulty. Because 
 the poet, in a few well-known passages, gives instances 
 in which some personage or thing (Briareus-Aigaion,^ 
 Myrine-Batieia,^ Chalkis-Kymindis,* Xanthos-Skaman- 
 dros,^ and the plant Moly) is known to the gods by 
 one name and to men by another, or is known to the 
 gods by a special name, it has been assumed that 
 the gods are supposed to have a special language, 
 whereas throughout the poems they invariably con- 
 verse vdth and are understood by mortals without any 
 
 1 The Narrative of Odysseus, 139. ' B. i. 40.''1. « Ihid. ii. 814-5. 
 * Ihid. xiT. 291. 'A kind of swift ' (R. W. Raper). 
 5 Ibid. XX. 74, 
 
78 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 difficulty, nor does the poet ever speak of any ' lan- 
 guage ' of the gods.' The gods might well be supposed 
 to have special names (sometimes representing archaic, 
 sometimes foreign forms) for this or that, without 
 habitually employing a tongue ' not understanded of 
 the people;' even if the action of the story did not 
 show irresistibly that such was the case. To revert 
 again to Mr. Mayor's remark above quoted. It fur- 
 ther errs in that it assumes that the gods only ' speak 
 to men by signs and omens,' or in some ' unknown 
 tongue.' When TMemachos whispered to Athene who 
 was ' in the semblance of Mentes,' and ' the goddess 
 answered him : I will plainly tell thee all,' did she 
 speak in some strange and sacred dialect? Yes, it 
 may be replied, and he was by a miracle enabled to 
 comprehend it. But we must not add miracles to the 
 text ; economy, not to say the law of parsimony, in 
 such matters must be studied. But it may be rejoined, 
 — This was a case of intercourse between a goddess 
 and a mortal ; the gods amongst themselves speak in 
 their own dialect. Proof .^ Mr. Mayor further implies 
 that those divinities who hved ' alone ' had most occa- 
 sion to use human speech, which seems very strange ; 
 and also that the possession of the faculty of human 
 speech was a mark of inferiority. This last inference 
 the poet himself carefully guards against, for at the 
 very moment when Kalypso and Kirk6 are stated to 
 possess ' mortal speech,' they are styled ' awful ' as 
 if to negative Mr. Mayor's idea. What I understand 
 the poet to imply is simply this, — that even these 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 79 
 
 remote goddesses, far in the Outerworld, were an 
 integral part of the general system of things, and 
 had their special parts to play in connexion with 
 mortals, and even with Hellenik and Achaian mortals ; 
 that they, hke their own Home-gods, could under- 
 stand and be understood of men. 
 
 VI. The plant Mdly, The previous topic natu- 
 rally leads to the more special consideration of the 
 ' herb of virtue ' 
 
 ' That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave.' 
 
 ' It was black at the, root, but the flower was like to 
 milk. The gods call it moly {jjl&Xv), but it is hard 
 for mortal men to dig; howbeit with the gods all 
 things are possible.'^ This mysterious moly has been 
 identified with the mandrake, chiefly, I presume, be- 
 cause ' it is hard for mortal men to dig ; ' and the 
 mandrake's shriek ' when torn at night ' was said to 
 be fatal to the ears that heard it. Thus Southey 
 makes the witch close her ears with wax, hke the 
 comrades of Odysseus when near the Seirens, and 
 fasten a cord round the mandrake and round the 
 neck of an ounce. The luckless animal 
 
 ' Springs forceful from the scourge ; 
 With that the dying plant all agony, 
 
 Feeling its life-strings crack, 
 Utter'd the unimaginable groan 
 That none can hear and live.' ^ 
 
 But the mandrake, on account of its shape, has always 
 
 • Od. X. 304-6, ndvTa Sward ia-ri napa ra 0em (S. Mark, X. 27). 
 » Thdaba, ix, 22. 
 
8o The Myth of Kirke, 
 
 been regarded as a very special aphrodisiac/ a line of 
 idea entirely unsuitable to the case. We then turn to 
 Aryan philology ; ' Curtius gives mollis = molvis = 
 Gr. juolXu-s, akin to /AaXa/cos. It would thus be re- 
 lated to the iJia\d)(7], malva, mallow, of Hes. 0pp. 41.' ^ 
 But this explanation labours under the difficulty of 
 being inappropriate when the circumstances of the 
 case are considered ; for the root-idea of malakos, 
 molos, molus etc. is softness, weakness, weariness and 
 the like, whereas the moly was a most potent talis- 
 man. Yet might not the ' soft ' plant have been such 
 a talisman ? Certainly it might, and the above view 
 may be perfectly correct ; but if so, it is still unsatis- 
 factory since nothing is explained. Hermes gives 
 Odysseus the ' soft '-plant, by means of which he 
 baffles the enchantress. What is meant ? It may be 
 suggested that the incident is merely a poetic fiction, 
 but he who would avoid the difficulty thus, reads his 
 Homer with but dim eyes. Again, the moly was a 
 rare and wondrous plant ; the mallow is very common, 
 so much so that it was a usual article of food with 
 the poor. On this last point the mallow seems insuf- 
 ficient, for though it was constantly eaten, singularly 
 '^enough there is not the shghtest suggestion that 
 ^Odysseus ate the moly, and this is the more re- 
 markable since the baneful drugs were swallowed. 
 Now of course there are no baneful drugs at the basis 
 of the myth, since this is simply the effect of night 
 
 ' Cf. Geiiexis, XXX. 14 ei seq. 
 
 '^ Hayman, Tlie Odyssey of Homer, \\. 158. 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 8i 
 
 iipon the world of day ; but the moly or preservative of 
 the solar hero is a point in the basis of the myth, and 
 hence we see at once that what the moly represents 
 is not a plant but is merely symbolized by a plant. 
 
 I am well aware that my view of this incident 
 may be quite incorrect, and if Kirke were an Aryan 
 goddess or even within the Aryan sphere, I should 
 not venture to propound it ; but if there be any truth 
 in my standpoint, Kirke is not only a non-Aryan but 
 actually a Euphratean divinity (and on this question 
 I must ask the reader to carefully judge the evidence 
 as a whole and not piecemeal), and therefore conjec- 
 tures are allowable and even probable which other- 
 wise would be out of the question. Sokrates, in the 
 Kratylos, when noticing Homer's remark ' about the 
 bird which 
 
 " The Gods call Chalcis, and men Cymindis." ' 
 
 is made to say : ' There are many other observations 
 of the same kind in Homer and other poets. Now, I 
 think that this is beyond the understanding of you 
 and me.' ^ Yet the problem must be attempted, as 
 indeed it often has been ; and it may well be agreed 
 that these double names show instances of archaic, or, 
 at all events, of old-fashioned, forms. But in the par- 
 ticular case before us there is no double name ; 
 fLoikv Se fjiiv KokiovcTL OeoL We may therefore fairly 
 examine the hypothesis of a foreign origin of the term. 
 And here be it remembered that, owing to contact 
 
 ' Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, ii. 213. 
 G 
 
82 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 and importation, in all Indo-European languages there 
 is necessarily a residuum of foreign words and names. 
 Some of these are obviously foreign, e.g. ^aKcrafiov 
 {besem), eySefos (habni), KiwaiJLov (qinnamon), a-dir- 
 ^eipos (sapir), KdfirjXos (gamal), fiva (maneh), Kivvpa, 
 (kinndr) ; just as, conversely, we have e.g. Heb. hoph 
 (Sk.^api,ape), habbim {Sk.ibha, elephant). But others, 
 though by no means obviously foreign, are yet really 
 so. The following instances of the latter class occur, 
 amongst others, in the Homerik poems : — 
 
 Aia (vide sup. Sec. VI.). 
 
 Aietes. (Ibid.) 
 
 Aigyptos. Ha-Ka-Ptah (' House-of-the-worship-of- 
 Ptah ,' — Brugsch ) . 
 
 Aphrodite. Aphrotet = Aphtoret = Ashtoret = Ishtar 
 or Istar, the Akkadian Tiskhu (Fritz Hommel). 
 
 Assarakos. (II. xx. 232 ; Vide E. B. Jr., Eridanus, 
 47). 
 
 Chalkos. Sem. chdldk, ' smooth.' ' De la racine 
 hhalaq, " hsser, polir " ' (Lenormant). 
 
 Chitdn. Sem. chthdneth. 
 
 Chrusos. Sem. kharouts, Assyrian khuratsu. 
 
 Dardanos. The Ak. dar. As. gisru='' strong ' ; and 
 the Ak. dan, As. dannu, also = ' strong.' The Dardan 
 (the Assyrian Tartan, Isaiah, xx. 1) is ' the Strong- 
 one-of-the-strong.' ^ 
 
 Dionysos. The Assyrian Dian-nisi ('Judge-of- 
 men ').^ 
 
 ' Vide further, R. B. Jr., E. 47. 
 
 ' Vide R. B, Jr., Q. D. M. ii. 209. I am of course aware that differ- 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 8 
 
 J 
 
 Erebos. A very interesting word and one familiar 
 to Kirke/ and as is now generally admitted,^ derived 
 from the Assyrian eribu, ' to descend ' (as the sun). 
 Its primary signification is the western gloom after 
 sunset. Europe is Ereb the ' Western ' side of the 
 world, as the Arab is the dweller west of the Eu- 
 phrates Valley. Thus the Cave of Skylle is said to 
 front ' towards the west, to Erebos ; ' ' Odysseus turns 
 towards Erebos to sacrifice, and thence the ghosts 
 assemble.'* Heb. erebh, ' evening.' 
 
 Has. 'Son of Dardanos ' ® (vide E. B. Jr., Eri- 
 danus, 47). 
 
 Kadmos {Od. v. 333). Sire of the Kadmeioi and 
 Kadmeiones of the Ilias. The hero from Kedem 
 ('the East'). ^ 
 
 Keteioi {Od. xi. 521). Tlie Hittites,^ called by 
 the Assyrians Khatti and by the Kemites Kheta. 
 
 ence of opinion obtains respecting many of these names, but must refer 
 the reader to my previous writings on the subject (virle Keply to Prof. 
 Max Miiller on ' the Etymology of Dionysos,' Academy, Aug. 19, 1882). 
 
 1 Od. X. 528. 
 
 ^ Of. Sir G. W. Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, 2nd edit. 151, 
 note 2. 
 
 3 Od. xii. 81. 
 
 * Ibid. xi. 37. The cuneiform ideograph for eribu is ^tt, which the 
 Rev. Wm. Houghton {Picture Origin of the Character of the Assyrian 
 SyUahary, 22) understands as ' a picture of the vault of heaven darkly 
 shaded.' As the character ^ = (inter, al.) ' below,' and also for other 
 reasons, I am of opinion that the ideograph is intended to show rays of 
 light being swallowed up in the west (vide R. B. Jr., An E.vaminafion 
 of the Ideograph ^tt, in Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archae- 
 ology, May 4, 1880). 
 
 5 II. xi. 166. « Vide sup. Sec. VIII. 
 
 ' Vide Gladstone, Homeric Synchronism, 166 et seq. ; Sayce in T. 
 yii. 254. 
 
84 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 Kimmerioi. The Gimirraai.^ 
 
 Kidn} The name of the Semitic Pillar-god, Dio- 
 nysos-Stylos, Zeus Meilichios (=Melqarth, Melekh), 
 Kronos-Kon, Heb. Kiyyiin (Chiun, Amos, v. 26), 
 Arabic Keyv&n, Assyrian Kaivanu, Hittite. Ken. 
 
 Krokos. Sem. karhom. 
 
 Kronos ^ (= Karnos,* Karneios, Karnaim, ' the 
 Horned '). As. KaRNu, Heb. KeEeN. So ApoUon 
 weds the Libyan nymph KuEeNe (' Horn '). 
 
 Kyparissos. Sem. kopher. So kypros. 
 
 Leon. Sem. layish. 
 
 Orion. Otherwise Oarion and Urion. From Ak. 
 iir (' light ' and ' heat '), As. uru (' light ' and ' day '), 
 Heb. aor. Aorion-Oarion-Urion-Orion ; also known 
 in Boiotia as Kandaon ( = Kohen-dian, ' the Prince-the- 
 judge.' Of. Dionysos).^ 
 
 Perse {sup. Sec. VHI.). 
 
 Phykos. Sem. pouk^ ' Tangle ' {II. ix. 7). 
 
 Poseidon, Poseidaon. According to Prof. Lauth 
 Poseidon is a Libyan god Badide. Certainly the name 
 is not Aryan, but I think Phoenician, Tzur-dayan 
 (' Judge-of-Tyre '), Lord-of-Syria. 
 
 Rhadamanthos ( = Ehotamenti, ' King-of-the-hid- 
 
 > Vide sup. Sec. VI. ^ Vide R. B. Jr., E. 78. 
 
 ^ As to Kronos, yide R. B. Jr., G. D. M. ii. 125 et seq. ' There is no 
 such being as KpoKo? in Sanskrit ' (Miiller, Selected Essays, i. 460). 
 
 * Of. Pausaniaa, I. xiii. 3 : 'AwoXXwi/a ovofia^ova-i Kdpvciov, inep tSw 
 Koaveiwv fieraOevTfs to pa> Kara Brj ri ap)^aiov. 
 
 ^ For full treatment of the Orion-myth, vide R. B. Jr., G. D. M. ii. 
 270 et seq. ; vide also Sir G. "W. Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, 
 380. 
 
 " Lenormant, Les r?-e>m^res Civilisntions, ii. 429, 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 85 
 
 den-world'). One of the few undoubted instances of 
 borrowing from Kemic sources. 
 
 Sarpeddn. Darius I. in the Median Text of the 
 Behistun Inscription enumerates among ' the countries 
 which called themselves mine,' ' the Sapardes and the 
 lonians.'^ The former are the Lykians, and Sarpe- 
 don is ' the Sapardian.' 
 
 Thebe, Thebai. As to the Kemic city, the Ma of 
 Assurbanipal and the No of the prophet Nahum, ' the 
 Egyptian name of Thebes was Ap or Ape, the " head " 
 or " capital." This, with the feminine article, became 
 Tape, and in the Memphitic dialect Thape.'^ The 
 names of the cities called Thebe in Boiotia and the 
 Troad are also non- Aryan in origin.^ The same re- 
 mark applies as of course to numerous Asiatic place- 
 names found in the poems. 
 
 Mr. E. E. Wharton in his excellent Etyma Graeca, 
 1882, computes the words used by Hellenik authors 
 down to B.C. 300 at 41,000, some 36,000 of which 
 are compounds or derivatives. Of the remaining 
 5,000 no less than 641 are ' loan-words,' and 520 
 more ' are of doubtful or unknown origin, many of 
 them indeed possibly foreign.' In his list of loan- 
 words Mr. Wharton gives 36 ' root- words ' from 
 Asia Minor, 92 Semitic, 46 ' Hamitic ' (Egyptian, 
 Cyrenaic and Libyan), and 185 ' of unknown nation- 
 ality.' The result, stated broadly, is that some 
 
 ' Ap. Oppert, in Records of the Fast, vii. 88. 
 * Wilkinson, The Ancient Egyptians, 1878, i. 61, 
 ' Vide R. B. Jr., G. D. M. ii. 238 et seg. 
 
86 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 500 out of the 5,000 words above mentioned are non- 
 Aryan. Thus, setting aside the compounds and deri- 
 vatives, T^th of the Hellenik dictionary B.C. 300 (and 
 I think that this estimate is rather under than over 
 the mark) proves on examination to be Semitic, 
 Hamitic or Turanian. 
 
 To return to the particular word in question. 
 Prof. Sayce has noted that Apuleius Barbarus, ' a 
 botanical writer of whose life no particulars are 
 known, and whose date is rather uncertain,' but cir. 
 the fourth century after Christ, states in his treatise 
 De Medicaminibus Herharum, cap. Ixxxix., that 'wild 
 rue was called moly by the Kappadokians ' ; ' and Mr. 
 Wharton who, like so many others, ' owes many in- 
 valuable suggestions to Prof. Sayce,' has included it 
 amongst his Semitic (?) loan-words. But to what 
 family did tlie language of Kappadokia belong, or 
 were more languages than one spoken there ? ' It is 
 unfortunate,' says Prof. Sayce, ' that we know next to 
 nothing of the language of the Kappadokians or of 
 the Moschi, wlio lived in the same locahty, and seem 
 to have spoken a language allied to that of the Kap- 
 padokians and the Hittites ; ' and, again, he speaks of 
 ' the Hittites of Kappadokia.' ^ But the language of 
 the Hittites was probably alhed ' to proto-Armenian 
 and perhaps Lykian, and above all it was not Semitic.'^ 
 The cuneiform mode of writing was used in Kappa- 
 
 > T. vii. 284. ^ Ibid. 285. 
 
 ' Ibid. 287. Amongst otber Hittite kings the king of ' the Arimai ' 
 is mentioned in the Assyrian Inscriptions (vide Ibid. 202) ; cf. II. ii. 
 783 : dv ^Api/xois, Sdi 0a(ri Tvcjxoios 'dfifxivai ivvds. 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 87 
 
 dokia at an early period, and Mr. T. G. Pinclies has 
 given a transcription of a Tablet from that country, 
 now in the British Museum, and which he says, 'is 
 written in a rather rough and peculiar style, approach- 
 ing very nearly to archaic Babylonian. . . . The 
 writing [of a similar Tablet at Paris] was extremely dif- 
 ficult to read, and the language seemed to be neither 
 Assyrian nor Akkadian.' Both Tablets ' are written 
 in a character distinctly Babylonian.' Mr. Pinches, 
 in a further communication on the Paris Tablet, ob- 
 serves ; — ' The question of the original home of the 
 Akkadians is also affected thereby. ... As it seems 
 that the country north of Assyria was also called 
 Akkad [' Highland '], as well as the northern part of 
 Babylonia, the neighbourhood of Cappadocia as the 
 home of the Akkadian race may be regarded as a very 
 possible explanation, and the fact of the cuneiform 
 characters being in use there would therefore be no 
 mystery.' Mr. G. Bertin, having examined ' copies of 
 both the Cappadocian tablets,' is ' satisfied that the 
 writing is a dialect alhed to the Aryan tongues, and 
 especially to Armenian ; ' and Prof Sayce, when 
 giving a ' tentative rendering ' of one of the Tablets, 
 declines to express any view ' pending the publication 
 of more Kappadokian texts.' ^ I have not the slightest 
 intention to rush in where these eminent authorities 
 fear to tread, and t iis quite sufiicient for my purpose 
 to notice (1) that the Kappadokian language is not 
 Semitic ; (2) that it is highly dubious whether even 
 
 ^ Vido Proceedings of theSoo. Bib. Archseol. Nov.-Dec. 1881. 
 
88 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 by the aid of a liberal construction it can fairly be 
 called Aryan ; (3) that it is written in the Akkadian 
 character, but differs from the Akkadian language ; 
 and (4) that it is very Ukely a variant Turanian 
 dialect. The Paris Tablet contains the Akkadian 
 words for sun-god, maneh, shekel, god, man and 
 woman. On the whole, therefore, it is fair to assume 
 a close connexion between (some) Akkad and Kap- 
 padokia ; and this connection may be linguistic, as 
 well as poUtical and commercial. 
 
 Having thus, I trust, shown the hnk between 
 moly and Kappadokia, and between the latter and 
 Akkad, the reader will perceive the historical and 
 linguistic justification of the view already expressed,^ 
 i.e., that in moly {mul, ul) we have an Akkadian word 
 for which no equivalent was known to the poet. 
 It remains to view the incident in its mythological 
 aspect. We have already noticed that the moly in 
 the story symbolizes something which, according to 
 the etymology, must be a ' star.' Now it is un- 
 necessary to search ' the mythology of plants ' for 
 numerous instances in which the heavenly bodies are 
 connected in idea with various plants and flowers ; it 
 may sufiice to mention the most common of simple 
 flowers, the daisy (= day's eye = sun). The moly 
 preserves and guides Odysseus, and whatz^ateAes over 
 the solar hero at night when exposed to the hostile 
 lunar power but the stars ? and especially their 
 
 ' Sup. Sec. IX. 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 89 
 
 leader and protagonist ^ — the Set-Sothis of Kem, 
 Seirios (' the Scorching '), Sirius, 6 tov kvvos daTi]p,^ 
 
 OV TE KVv' 'flpiWoS iTTlKXlJCnV KClXtOV(TlV.^ 
 
 As I have elsewhere * treated at length of the Orion- 
 myth and of the star-guide of the nocturnal sun, I 
 will here merely briefly recapitulate the instances : — 
 
 The Euphratean Izdubar, weary and leprous, is 
 guided over the water by Lig-Hea (' the Dog- 
 of-Hea '). 
 
 The blinded Orion is guided by the dwarf* 
 Kedalion. 
 
 In The Great Dionysiah Myth, vol. ii. pi. iv., I 
 have given from a scarce and interesting work by 
 Canon Spano,® a Phoenician representation of this 
 latter incident. A blinded male figure of com- 
 paratively gigantic stature, with large wings out- 
 spread from the shoulders and holding a serpent in 
 both hands, in manner very similar to the customary 
 
 ^ Eva S' a(TT€pa npo TravTcov oiov (j}v\aKa koi TrpoOTrrrjv eyKaTeaTrjae — 
 TOV Sclpiov (Peri Isidos, xlvii.). 
 
 * Hesychios, in voc. Seirios. ^ II. xxii. 29. 
 
 * G. D. M. ii. 277 et seq. ; E. sees, iv., v. 
 
 ' The protection of a house, the door, has preserved its primitive 
 name in moat of the Aryan dialects, Sk. dvar, Gk. thur-a, Lat. fores, 
 Old Germ, tor, Slav, dver-i, and hence Sk. dvarika (' door-keeper '), 
 Ang.-Sax. dwerg, Eng. dwarf, a word which acquired its present sense 
 ' when that office was assigned to those whose bodily defects disqualified 
 them from hunting or war ' (Rev. D. H. Haigh, Yorkshire Dials in The 
 Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal, v. 166). The stars 
 are closely connected with the doors of the Underworld which they pass 
 and guard (cf. the Kemic seb, ' star,' ' gateway,' vide R. B. Jr., L. K. O. 
 sec. v.). 
 
 ^ Mnemosine Sarda, ossia Ricordi e Memorie di varii Monumenti 
 Antichi con altre raritd. delV isola di Sardegna (Cagliari, 1864j. 
 
90 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 representations of Ophiouchos-Serpentarius which are 
 of course based upon the description of the constella- 
 tion in the Phainomena of Aratos, bears upon his 
 head a dwarf or child-figure who, with keen eyes and 
 outstretched hands, is guiding his mighty friend. 
 Such is Sirius to Sol, whom he conducts through the 
 gloom of night, and Lig-Hea and Izdubar, Kedahon 
 and Ori6n, and the Moly and Odysseus are variant 
 phases of the myth. In this last instance the name 
 (' star ') is, as usual, the key to the position. Hermes, 
 pre-eminently the wind-power upon the clouds, 
 disperses the gloom and displays the Molu-star, a 
 friend of light, and, as a time-marker, a pledge of the 
 returning day, and hence of ultimate safety and 
 present preservation. With Sirius as with Teiresias,^ 
 the night-power who conversely has been blinded by 
 the day, but who at night and in the Underworld 
 recovers his potency, and who represents the awful 
 wisdom and might of the starry Signs, called in Kem 
 ' the indestructible constellations,' the Sun can take 
 friendly counsel and be safely guided ; the distant suns 
 protecttheir mighty brother in his hours of weakness. 
 The remarkable vitality of certain archaic names 
 and words is doubtless owing in part to a regard for 
 the principle laid down in a quotation preserved 
 by Psellos : — 
 
 'OvofiaTO. P6.pj3apa (jlt^ttot oAAa^?, 
 Et(ri yap ovo/uara Trap' EKacTTOis O^oaSora 
 AvvafJ.iv iv reXcTois apprjTOV e)(^ovTa. 
 
 ' Vide sup. Sec. IX. 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 91 
 
 So we find lamblichos writing ; — ' You ask, " Why, 
 of significant names, we prefer such as are barbaric 
 to our own ? " Of this, also, there is a mystic reason. 
 Because the gods have shown that the whole dialect 
 of sacred nations, such as those of the Egyptians and 
 Assyrians, is adapted to sacred concerns ; on this 
 account we ought to think it necessary that our 
 conference with the gods should be in a language 
 allied to them. Because, likewise, such a mode of 
 speech is the first and most ancient. And especially 
 because those who first learned the names of the 
 gods, having mingled them with their own proper 
 tongue, dehvered them to us, that we might always 
 preserve immoveable the sacred law of tradition, in a 
 language peculiar and adapted to them ... If names 
 subsisted through compact, it would be of no con- 
 sequence whether some were used instead of others. 
 But if they are suspended from the nature of things,^ 
 those names which are more adapted to the thing, 
 will also be more dear to the gods. From this it is 
 evident that the language of sacred nations is very 
 reasonably preferred to that of other men . . . The 
 Hellenes are naturally studious of novelty, . . . 
 neither possessing any stability themselves, nor pre- 
 serving what they have received from others . . . 
 But the Barbarians are stable in their manners, and 
 firmly continue to employ the same words. Hence 
 they are dear to the gods, and profier words which 
 are grateful to them ; but which it is not lawful for 
 
 ' Vide R. B. Jr., L, sec. xvi. Occult Imitation. 
 
92 The Myth of KirkL 
 
 any man by any means to change.' ^ Eusebius quotes 
 an oracle of ApoUon which declared that ' Many 
 ways of the Blessed-ones the Phoinikians, Assyrians, 
 Lydians and Chaldaean race knew.' 
 
 VII. ' The curious knot! When the Phaiakian 
 queen AretS had presented the hero with goodly 
 gifts, she recommends him to ' quickly tie the knot ' 
 of the chest in which the presents were placed, ' lest 
 any man spoil thy goods by the way, when thou 
 faUest on sweet sleep . . . Odysseus forthwith fixed 
 on the lid, and quickly tied the curious knot, which 
 the lady Circe on a time had taught him.' ^ The 
 incident is altogether Semitic, and the fact that this 
 special knot was taught the hero by the goddess is 
 one of the many indications of her non-Aryan 
 character. The Phoinikians, as the ' common carriers 
 of antiquity,' were famous for the skilful manner in 
 which their packages were secured, a fact specially 
 noted by the Hebrew prophet when he speaks of 
 their ' chests of rich apparel [such as the ' robe and 
 goodly doublet ' given by Arete to Odysseus and 
 placed in the ' coffer'], bound with cords, and made 
 of cedar.' ^ Both Jewish and Babylonian exorcists 
 used ' magic knots.' * The famous knot of Gordios, 
 cut by Alexander, was preserved at Gordion on the 
 southern border of Bithynia, a region where Aryan 
 and non-Aryan influences intermingle. 
 
 VIII. The Passing of Kirke. When Odysseus is 
 
 ' Peri Mysterion, vii. 4, 5. ' Od. viii. 443-8. 
 
 » Ezskiel, xxvii, 24. * Vide Fox Talbot, in T. ii, 54. 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 93 
 
 with Kalypso we read : — ' So soon as early Dawn 
 shone forth, anon -Odysseus put on him a mantle and 
 doublet, and the nymph clad her in a great shining 
 robe, light of woof and gracious, and about her waist 
 she cast a fair golden girdle, and a veil withal upon 
 her head.' ^ This statement is repeated in the case 
 of Kirk^ ; — ' Anon came the golden throned Dawn. 
 Then she put on me a mantle and a doublet for 
 raiment, and the nymph clad herself,' etc.^ Having 
 so done, she disappeared ; — ' Circe meanwhile had 
 gone her ways . . . lightly passing us by : who may 
 behold a god against his will, whether going to or 
 fro ? ' ^ Now ' Homer, like the author of The Song of 
 Roland, like the singers of the Kalevala, uses con- 
 stantly recurring epithets, and repeats, word for 
 word, certain emphatic passages. That custom is 
 essential in the ballad, it is an accident not the essence 
 of the epic,' which ' still bears some birth-marks, 
 some signs of the early popular chant out of which it 
 sprung.' * Akkadian and Vedic Hymns enable us to 
 form an idea of ' the early popular chant ' of Hellas, 
 and to see that it must have treated chiefly of the 
 ordinary phenomena of nature. In the case before 
 us, as the Dawn appears, the Moon arrays the Sun in 
 garments suitable to meet his love, and covering her- 
 self with the shining robe of day and veiling her face 
 disappears. There is nothing fanciful in such an 
 explanation, simply because the whole circumstances 
 
 ' Od. V. 228-32. " Ibid. x. 541-5. ^ Ibid. 571, 673-4. 
 ' Butcher and Lang, The Odyssey of Homer, viii, 
 
94 The Myth of Kirk^. 
 
 of the case necessitate it. If we turn to a Vedic 
 singer who is hymning ' the golden throned Dawn,' 
 we find him using language which, after making due 
 allowance for race-difierence, is wonderfully similar : — 
 
 ' Ushas [fios, Aurora] puts on her gay attire ; 
 Directing her eyes towards all creatures, 
 The goddess shines before them far and wide. 
 She chases far away her Sister [i.e. Night, but in Homer Kirk^]. 
 The Lady shines with the light of her Lover [the Sun]. ' 
 The Sister [Night] has made way for her elder sister [Ushas] 
 And departs, after she has, as it were, looked upon her [as did 
 KirkS] ; 
 The bright goddess has chased away the dark veil of night.' ^ 
 
 If the poet had been hymning a beautiful Moon- 
 goddess instead of a beautiful Dawn-goddess, the 
 parallel would of course have been still closer. It is 
 the dawn-moment when 
 
 ' A silence fell with the waking bird, 
 And a hush with the setting moon.' ' 
 
 The kalyptre (' cover,' cf. Kalypso) or veil of the god- 
 dess is another phase of the kredemnon (' head-band ') 
 which the lunar Ino gives Odysseus to save him from 
 the deep, i.e., the line of hght thrown from the orb 
 across the water. Dawn clothes the Moon in a 
 shining robe and makes her invisible, and her bright 
 kredemnon folded over her fair face becomes a 
 kalyptre. 
 
 Miss Harrison remarks ; — ' We have seen how 
 strangely, in the Homeric conception of Circe, good 
 
 1 Rig-Veda, i. 92, ap. Muir. 2 Ibid. 113. 
 
 ^ Tennyson, Maud, xxii. 3. 
 
Some Special Points in the Story. 95 
 
 and evil are intermingled ; how at one time she seems 
 a power of the baser sort, a sinister demon ... at 
 another moment she is in very truth the daughter of 
 Helios, a goddess of light and strength, of comfort 
 and new Ufe.' ^ And the apparent inconsistency of 
 character in this, as in a hundred other instances, is 
 explained fully by the Natural Phenomena Theory, 
 and by that alone. 
 
 ' Myths of the Odyssey, 93. 
 
96 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 SECTION XI 
 
 KIEKE AND THE NEKYIA. 
 
 Subsection 1. The Voyage to Erebos. 
 
 Any account of Kirke which did not notice her con- 
 nexion with the Nekyia would be incomplete ; she 
 sends Odysseus there, gives him full directions, and 
 receives him on his return ; and although so much 
 has been said upon the subject, yet the Homerik 
 poems, like the plays of Shakspere, form an inex- 
 haustible quarry of material and invite the efforts of 
 every succeeding age. The standpoint already taken 
 will, I think, greatly clear up many of the very serious 
 difficulties of the story. Let us first view the matter 
 in the clear hght afforded by the Natural Phenomena 
 Theory. At the coming of Dawn (Eos) ^ the Moon 
 (Kirke) retires (Ke(j)aky 8' iireOrfKe KaXvTrrprjv), and 
 sends the Sun (Odysseus) in his (solar) barque with 
 his crew'-* for his day's journey {rrj<; 8e iravrjii.epiy)<i 
 reraO' loria irovTOTropovcryf^) to Night and Darkness 
 (Erebos). The ship arrives at ' the limits of deep- 
 flowing Okeanos,' ° which it crosses,* and disappears 
 
 ' Od. X. 541. 
 
 ' Oalled in Kem ' Ra's sailors ' {Hymn to Ra-Harmaehis in Records 
 of the Fast, viiu 183). 
 
 5 Od. xl 13. * Of. Ibid. x. 508. 
 
Kirki and the Nekyia. 97 
 
 in the gloom. This is the extremely simple basis of 
 the myth, and I will next notice several special points 
 in the narrative. 
 
 I. Tlie direction of the Voyage and the points of the 
 Compass. If we seek to wholly reconstruct upon the 
 terraqueous surface of the globe the wanderings of 
 Odysseus, we must be prepared to endure the gibe of 
 Eratosthenes that ' the scenes will be found, when 
 you find the tailor who sewed the bag of the winds, 
 and not before.' And yet I think that it is perfectly 
 possible to explain the Homerik idea of the wander- 
 ings, and to unravel certain difficulties well known to 
 every student of the text. Thus in the account the 
 Underworld-entrance appears to be in the East, a 
 day's sail south of Aia ; yet according to the theory 
 above mentioned it must be in the West ; and is not 
 Erebos, as the name itself imports, in the West ? ^ 
 Most certainly. So the Shades of the Suitors were 
 doomed to go "Epe/BoaSe vtto t,6j>ov^ and zophos is 
 the West, as the ' dark ' quarter ; they went accord- 
 ingly ' past the flowings of Okeanos and the rock 
 Leukas,' and past the Gates of the Sun.'* The 
 flowings of Ocean and the gates of the Sun are of 
 course both eastern and western ; but ' the rock 
 Leukas ' shows, I think, unmistakably that a western 
 direction is indicated. So, again, Odysseus says 
 (incorrectly) that Ithake Ketrai tt/sos tp^ov — at Se [i.e. 
 
 1 Vide mp. p. 83. ^ Od. xx. 856. ' ' The White Bock.' 
 
 ^ Od. xxiv. 11-12. The passage, whether genuine or not, is in perfect 
 harmony with the rest of the poem when rightly understood. 
 
 H 
 
98 The Myth of KirkS. 
 
 Doulichion, Same and Zakynthos] t avevOe tt^os ■^w 
 t' ^e'Xtoic Te} Ithake faces westwards, and the other 
 islands eastwards. Now I do not doubt that the 
 apparent confusion arose thus : — In reahty [i.e., in 
 mythological and natural belief) Erebos lies in the 
 West, as is clearly laid down in the poems ; but his- 
 torically a great part of the material of the poet's 
 story came from the (non- Aryan) East. Aia had a real 
 actual eastern connexion in legend — the far region of 
 Kolchis, although truly it was ' a floating island ' like 
 that of Aiolos.'"* In this point of view, therefore, it 
 becomes the place 
 
 o^t T 'Hovs fjpiyevevv]^ 
 oiKia Ktti xopoi tlcri kol avroXal 'HcXtoto.' ^ 
 
 Similarly, the KuixfiepicDV dvSpuv SrjfjLo? re TrdXts re * 
 is historically and actually connected with the same 
 north-eastern region. Kirke was well acquainted 
 with 
 
 Apyu) TrScrt fji,eXov(ra, Trap Ah^rao TrXiovcra,^ 
 
 and the voyage of Odysseus from Aia is merely a re- 
 duplication of the voyage of the Argo from Aietes ; 
 in another work I have shown the Euphratean con- 
 nexion of the Arg6,^ and also the connexion between 
 the famous river Eridanos (Ak. Aria-dan, ' Strong- 
 river ') and the Ocean-stream (Okeanos). Now in the 
 poet's mind there is a vague idea of a voyage from 
 the north-east — the region of Aia, Kolchis, and 
 
 1 Od. ix. 25-6. « Ibid. x. 3. s Ibid. xii. 3-4. 
 
 ■* I/>id. xi. 14; vide sup. p. 33. = Ibid. xii. 70. 
 
 « Vide H. Sec. \. Arg(>. 
 
Kirki and the Nekyia. 99 
 
 Kimmeria, down some great river-stream to the south 
 and south-west ; and the basis of this is the archaic 
 Akkadian notion of a voyage down the Euphrates to 
 the southern region of death. 
 
 Let us, in further exphcation of the matter, con- 
 sider next the Euphratean view of the four quarters. 
 Whilst Kemic pyramids except ' the step pyramid of 
 Sakhara' which is very Euphratean in character, 
 were correctly oriented, Euphratean pyramidal temples 
 were oriented thus : — 
 
 North 
 Ak. Mer-sidi (' tlie Propitious- /\ Ak. Mer-kiirra (' the Cardinal- 
 point ') / \y point-of-the-mountains ') 
 As. Iltana (' the Direction- /^ <^\ As. Sadu (' the Eising ') 
 
 of-winter ') 
 
 West < 7 East 
 
 Ak. Mer-martu ('the 
 
 Point-of-the-road-of- 
 
 sunset') \*' '^/ Ak. Mer-urulu ('the 
 
 As. Akharru (' the Point- \ / Funereal-point ') 
 
 placed-behind ') As. Sutu (' the South ') 
 
 South 
 
 Here the ' propitious ' North (N.W.) is opposite the 
 "•funereal' South (S.E.), i.e., the direction of the 
 Euphrates to the Persian Gulf ; hence a north wind 
 is the proper breeze for a voyage to the Underworld. 
 So says Kirk^ : — 
 
 T^v 8e KE Toi trvovi] Sopiao (fieprjaiv. ' 
 
 The South and "West are opposed to the North and 
 East, the two former being connected with Darkness 
 
 ' Od. X. .507. 
 H 2 
 
loo The Myth of KirkL 
 
 and all which that idea implies. So M. Lenormant 
 says, ' The mountain of the west where the sun set, 
 was a pre-eminently funereal place. A hymn ^ speaks 
 of it in these terms : " The great mountain of Mul- 
 gelal,''' the crest of which reaches unto the heavens, 
 the sublime reservoir of water [Okeanos] washes its 
 base." ' This is the mighty mountain Atlas in the 
 far west.^ ' The entrance to Hades was near this 
 mountain of the west, or rather of the south-west,' 
 and ' was also situated beyond the waters of the 
 great reservoir of the ocean. . . The porter of the 
 gloomy dwellings is spoken of as " porter of the 
 waters ; " and when he repeats to Allat * Istar's 
 request for admittance,^ he expresses himself thus : — 
 
 " These waters thy sister Istar has crossed them." ' ^ 
 
 This mountain ' is invoked as a personal and active 
 god (^ATKa.% 6\o6(j)p(ov),'' as the living mountain, in 
 fact, which commands the entrance [of the Under- 
 world] : — 
 
 " O thou who shadest the plain, lord who givest shade by spreading 
 thy shadow on the plain. 
 Great mountain, who rulest destinies, who shadest the plain." ' ^ 
 
 » W. A. I. IV. xxvii. 2. 
 
 ^ Mulge (' Lord-of-the-below,' i.e., of the Underworld) is the analogue 
 of the Semitic Bel and the Homerik Aides. Zal is merely a ' casual 
 suffix.' ^ Vide sup. Sec. II. 
 
 '' The Ak. Ninkig-'il (' Lady-of-the-great-regiou,' i.e., the Under- 
 world), called also Ningiszida (' Lady-of-the-magic-wand.' Cf. the 
 wand of Kirke), the wife of Mulge and analogue of Persephone. 
 
 ^ Vide inf. p. 112. « Chaldean Magic, 168-9. ' Cf. Od. i. 52. 
 
 8 Chaldean Magic, 171; cf. Macaulay: 'Where Atlas flings his 
 shadow Far o'er the western foam' (The Propheci/ of Capys, xxxi.). 
 
Kirki and the Nekyia. loi 
 
 Atlas rules destinies from his connexion both with 
 the Underworld and with the starry vault which he 
 upbears. Speaking of the Homerik Winds Mr. 
 Gladstone observes that Boreas ' may be defined as a 
 north-north-east wind,'^ which thus appropriately 
 blows the ship of Odysseus to the south-south-west 
 and Underworld-entrance. The Homerik sunset, says 
 Mr. Gladstone, verges ' though not perhaps with uni- 
 form precision, to the north of West.' To re- 
 capitulate, we have : — 
 
 1. The great solar voyage across heaven from 
 East to West, an idea equally common to Aryan, 
 Akkadian, Semite and Kemite, e.g. : — 
 
 (1.) Aryan examples: — 
 
 Hehos in his solar boat-cup. 
 
 Herakl^s in the same. 
 
 ApoUon Delphinios. 
 
 Arthur in the barge. 
 (2.) Akkadian example : — 
 
 The voyage of Izdubar.^ 
 (3.) Semitic exat I iple : — 
 
 The voyage of Melqarth in the West.^ 
 (4.) Kemitic example : — 
 
 The voyage of Ea and the crew of his 
 solar barque. 
 
 2. A confusion in the points of the compass, 
 arising from the blending of Aryan and Non-Aryan 
 
 ' Juvenilis Mundi, 477. 
 
 ' For a consideration of this famous myth, vide R. B. Jr., E. sec. v. 
 
 3 Vide R. B. Jr., G. B. M. ii. 286 et seq. 
 
I02 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 variant phases of the same great idea ; and from the 
 incorporation into the story of certain circumstances 
 more or less historical and actually derived from the 
 Non-Aryan East. 
 
 II. The Homerik Okeanos. The following are 
 the principal points in the Homerik presentation of 
 Okeanos : — 
 
 As a personage he is called, in a recurring formula, 
 B^Siv yevecTLV ^ (' source of deities ') ; ^ and Sleep teUs 
 Here ' another of the eternal gods might I hghtly lull 
 to slumber, yea, were it the streams of Okeanos him- 
 self, that is the father of them all.'^ He alone of 
 river-gods is absent from the great council called by 
 Zeus ; * his consort is Tethys ^ (' the JSTurturer '), an 
 abstract personification. From him flow all rivers, 
 ' every sea, and all springs and deep wells,' but he is 
 not a match for Zeus.^ The superiority of Zeus over 
 him is thus twice distinctly and indeed with much 
 emphasis asserted ; and the circumstance tends to 
 show that he is a personage who might have been 
 considered as a possible rival or in some way an op- 
 ponent, in fact it is to some extent an indication of 
 foreign connexion. Mr. Gladstone says that ' he alone 
 is not called to the Great Olympian Assembly, be- 
 cause he could not appear there in his proper place, 
 as head and Sire of all.' '' He had also quarrelled 
 with his Aryan spouse ; and Here says, ' Their end- 
 less strife will I loose, for already this long time they 
 
 ' II. xiv. 201, 302. ' Gladstone. ' II. xiv. 244^6. 
 
 ■> Ibid. XX. 7. ^ Ibid. xiv. 201. « Ibid. xxi. 195. 
 
 ' Juventus Mundi, 345. 
 
Kirki and the Nekyia. 103 
 
 hold apart from each other, since wrath hath settled 
 in their hearts.' ^ The connexion between Okeanos, 
 Eridanos and the Akkadian Ocean-stream I have 
 considered elsewhere ; "'' and I think that in Okeanos 
 we have reminiscences of various Akkadian divinities, 
 most of whom were doubtless originally identical, 
 such as Ungal-a-abba (' the King-of-the-sea ') and 
 Ungal-ariada (' the King-of-the-river '), but especially 
 of Hea, ' king of the ocean,' who arranges the re- 
 servoir ^ of waters around the earth, and who is ' god 
 of the house of water,' and ' lord of the deep.' 
 
 As the world-river, the rrorafjiolo jxeya crdevos 
 'SlKeavoto is set by Hephaistos ' around the uttermost 
 rim of the cunningly-fashioned shield ' * of Achilleus 
 which, I think, was round. The Dawn * and Sun,^ 
 therefore, come from Okeanos, and on a special occa- 
 sion the former is stayed in Okeanos,'' where also the Sun 
 sets.® The part of Okeanos whence he rose is called 
 the vepLKaXkea Xifjivrjv^ { = aestuarium). Sirius hathes 
 in Okeanos,'° but the Bear does not.^^ ' The Ethio- 
 pians that are sundered in twain, the uttermost of 
 men, abiding some where Hyperion sinks and some 
 where he rises,' ^^ dwell by it ; ^^ and its southern 
 course seems to be referred to in the passage which 
 
 > 11. xiv. 206-7. 2 Vide sup. p. 98. 
 
 ' Apsu, Ale. ziiab. Zuab-apsu = ^aijf (' the sea '), a term used by 
 several Hellenik poets quoted by Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, 
 V. 8). 
 
 * II. xviii. 608. ^ Ibid. xix. 1 ; Od. xxii. 179 ; xxiii. 347. 
 
 « n. vii. 422 ; Od. xix. 434. ' Od. xxiii. 244. 
 
 8 II. viii. 475 ; xviii. 240. ^ Od. iii. 1. '» //. v. 6. 
 
 1' Ibid, xviii. 489 ; Od. v. 275. »^ Ibid. i. 22-4. 
 
 " A i. 423; xxiii. 205, 
 
I04 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 declares that ' cranes flee from the coming of winter, 
 and fly with clamour towards the streams of ocean,^ 
 bearing slaughter and fate to the Pigmy men.' '^ The 
 ghosts of the Suitors go by the western portion of 
 the Ocean-stream to Erebos.^ The West being ne- 
 cessarily equally the home of hght and darkness, 
 there was a beautiful meadow by the western course 
 of Okeanos where the Sun-god reigned amid happi- 
 ness and splendour.* Okeanos ' floweth back ever 
 upon himself,'^ as the Jormungurdr and Weltum- 
 spannr ; and his daughter Eurynorae ^ ('the Broad- 
 spreading ' light, = Perse ^) receives and cherishes the 
 infant Hephaistos (= Yavishtha, Juvenis), the young 
 and weakly Fire-god, ' in the hollow cave ® while 
 around the stream of Ocean with murmuring foam 
 flowed infinite.' ^ Penelope in her deep sorrow prays, 
 
 ' ' Flowings of Ckeanos.' ' B. iii. 4-6. » Od. xxiv. 11. 
 
 " II. xvi. 151 ; Od. iv. 663-8. * II. xviii. 399. 
 
 * According to Hesiod, the mother of the Oharites (Graces, Theo- 
 gonia, 907-9) ; cf. Euryphassa, Eurydike, etc. 
 
 ' Vide mp. Sec. VIII. 
 
 * ' The misty eastern cave ' (Shelley, To Night, i.). 
 
 * 11. xviii. 402-3. The ' broad-spreading ' might in the abstract 
 refer equally well to the spread of darkness, and so we encounter in the 
 Leache at Delphoi a painting by Polygnotos of the chthonian fiend 
 Eurynomos ( = Tuchulcha, vide inf. p. 165) who was depicted dark blue 
 with grinning teeth and sitting on a vulture's skin (Pausanias, X. xxviii. 
 4). Eurynomos was stated by the interpreters of sacred things at 
 Delphoi to be a demon of Hades (locality), who was wont to eat the flesh 
 of dead bodies so as to leave the bones bare. He therefore also repre- 
 sents the consuming power of the grave, and reminds us of the threat of 
 Istar when about to descend to the Underworld, ' I will strike the 
 threshold and will pass through the doors ; I will raise up the dead to 
 devour the living' (C A. O. 239). Pausanias notes that Eurynomos is 
 unnamed in the Odysseia, the Minyas and the Nostoi, although livrjfirj Sij 
 tv ravTais Koi a^ov Kol t5>v iKel deifidrav irrrXv. 
 
KirM and the Nekyia. 105 
 
 ' "Would that the stormwind might snatch me up, 
 and bear me hence down the dusky ways,^ and cast 
 me forth where the back-flowing Okeanus mingles 
 with the sea.^ It should be even as when the storm- 
 winds bare away the daughters of Pandareus. . . 
 The spirits of the storm snatched away these maidens, 
 and gave them to be handmaids to the hateful 
 Erinyes.' The western course of Okeanos seems to 
 be here referred to, since, amongst other reasons, 
 ' Erinys that walketh in darkness ' dwelt habitually in 
 Erebos ; ^ and hence these maidens were snatched 
 away to the Underworld by way of the western gloom. 
 It is probably impossible to recover the exact 
 Homerik idea of the connexion between Okeanos and 
 the Sea, and most likely for the reason that the poet 
 had no exact idea on the subject. He is very precise 
 when guided either by actual knowledge or by settled 
 tradition and legend, but I apprehend that on this 
 particular point he could have no support from either ; 
 hence studied vagueness. He knew of a great western 
 sea ; he believed in a world-girding ocean-stream. 
 Hence if you sail far enough westwards on the sea, 
 you necessarily come to the Ocean-stream, but in what 
 particular manner is unknown ; we naturally think 
 of a connecting channel between the two, but none 
 such is mentioned. The ship sails all day on the sea 
 
 ' 'HfpdeiTO KiXevda, the evpaevra KeXfvda of Od. xxiv. 10. 
 
 ^ 'Ev irpoxoijs Se /3dXot a.\jropp6ov 'ilKeavoio. All that is said is 
 ' fluentis injiciat reflui Oceani ; ' and it may be doubted whether the 
 passage necessitates any reference to the sea (ddXacraa). 
 
 3 Vide II. ix. 571-2. 
 
io6 The Myth of 'Kirki. 
 
 and then simply came to the deep-flowing Ocean ; 
 again, it left the Ocean-stream and came to ' the wave 
 of the wide sea.' There seems nothing to add to 
 this. 
 
 III. The mouth of Erehos. Dismissed by the 
 friendly Moon-goddess with the morning breeze (Aura- 
 Aurora), the hero's vessel sails o'er the wide sea and 
 into the Ocean-stream which it crosses ; ^ and the 
 crew having beached it, proceed on their way with 
 the victims down the western or far side of Okeanos, 
 ' till we came to the place which Circe had declared to 
 us.' This place is thus described by the goddess ; — ' But 
 when thou hast now sailed in thy ship across Okeanos, 
 where is a waste shore of the groves of Persephone, 
 even tall poplar trees ^ and willows that shed their 
 fruit before the season, there beach thy ship by deep 
 eddying Okeanos but go thyself to the dark house of 
 Hades,^ (thereby Pyriphlegeth6n flows into Acheron, 
 and likewise Cocytus, a branch of the water of the 
 Styx), and thereby is a rock, and a meeting of the 
 two roaring streams.' The sacred groves of the queen 
 of the Underworld, who is herself both bright and 
 dark,* are composed of poplars and willows ; nor are 
 these trees chosen arbitrarily or accidentally. The 
 willow, from the Babylonish Captivity to the sad song 
 
 1 Od. X. 608 with xi. 20. 
 
 ' More correctly, ' tall black poplars ' (atyt ipot) ; cf. tlie ' black sheep ' 
 to be oflFered to Teiresias, and the ' black ewe ' presented by Kirke for 
 the sacrifice. ' Donabant nigro vellera nigra deo.' 
 
 ' Aides, a person. 
 
 '' For a consideration and analysis of the Persephone-myth, vide 
 E. B. Jr., G. D. M. i. 278 et seq. 
 
Kirki and the Nekyia. 107 
 
 of Desdemona, is connected with mourning, bjit this 
 is not the idea in the archaic myth. The poplar is 
 both black (as in this instance) and white, XevKrj, 
 populus alba, sacred to the solar Herakl^s ; and the 
 willow irea, salix Babylonica, is similarly both black 
 [fjieXaLva) and white (XevKij). Eor the mythic groves 
 of east and west ^ are both black and white (light, 
 bright) ; the eastern grove black ere dawn,^ the 
 western grove black after sunset. The willow, more- 
 over, is somewhat curiously linked with the direction 
 of Kimmeria ; for Herodotos says, ' The boats which 
 come down the river to Babylon are circular. The 
 frames, which are of willow, are cut in the country 
 of the Armenians above Assyria.' ^ The premature 
 shedding of fruit suggests the untimely descent of 
 man to the Underworld.* 
 
 The Homerik text, as we have it, contains a 
 curious specification of infernal rivers, jumbled up 
 together in a manner at once utterly vague and yet 
 unpoetical ; and after careful consideration I feel 
 bound to acquiesce in Dr. Hayman's conclusion, and 
 at all events to reject the couplet 
 
 ev6a fiXv ets A^cpovra llvpi(f>\eyi0o)v re piovcriv 
 KcoKUTos 6', OS Srj Sruyos iiSaros ccmv aTroppio^. 
 
 ' For a consideration of tlie archaic myth of the Grove of the Under- 
 world, vide K. B. Jr., U. 87 et seq. ; E. sec. xxii. 
 
 ' 'Kykaov aXcros 'AOrjvris [= Ahana, the Dawn] alyeipcou (Od. vi. 
 291-2). 
 
 ^ Herodotos, i. 194. ^ Of -irvxas" Kibi irpota^iv (II. i. 3). 
 
 ^ Od. X. 513-4. For full treatment of the question I must refer the 
 reader to Dr. Hayman's lahorious Appendix 'On the veKvid,' in his 
 Odyssey of Homer, Vol. ii. Dr. Hayman notes from ' the Scholl. on it. 
 
io8 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 By the dark groves there is a Eock {TreTpyj), which I 
 would connect with the AevKdha. neTprjv ^ passed by 
 the ghosts of the Suitors ; for, though I by no means 
 deny, but on the contrary assert, the connexion of the 
 latter with the actual island Leukas, yet there is quite 
 sufficient of the mythical in such a phrase as ' the 
 White Eock' to extend its apphcation beyond the 
 limits of actual geography. The third mark of ' the 
 place which Circe had declared,' is afforded by its 
 being ' a meeting of the two roaring streams.' Now 
 the well-known Homerik river of the Underworld is 
 Styx (' the Hateful '), the fitting stream for the realm 
 (TTvyepov 'AtSao,^ and, according to Hesiod,^ the 
 eldest daughter of Okeanos and Tethys ; he calls her 
 (TTvyepr) 6em aOavdroia-t, recounts the story of the oath 
 by the sacred water of the river,* and describes how 
 one-tenth of Okeanos forms the Styx, which is '/2/<:ea- 
 voto Kepas and piei 8ta vvKra p-iKaivav . . . e/c Trerprj's ^ 
 — the Eock abeady noticed ; and the whole descrip- 
 tion, with whatever actual geographical circumstances 
 it may have been partly connected, is in exact har- 
 
 A 
 
 mony with the Homerik account. Styx and Okeanos, 
 then, are the two streams in question ; and Kirke calls 
 them ' roaring streams,' a description for which I 
 cannot find a parallel in the poems, the general view 
 
 613-4 ' that the names K6kytos and Pyriphlegethon ' were taken from 
 the last offices performed upon the dead,' i.e., the ' lamentation ' and the 
 •cremation.' Neither of these names, nor Acheron (unless this be a 
 variant of Acheloos), appear elsewhere in the poems. 
 
 ' Od. xxiv. 11. ^11. -viii. 368. ' Theogonia, 361, 776-7. 
 
 ^ Of. Od. V. 185-6. 5 Theogonia, 788-9, 792. 
 
Kirki and the Nekyia. 109 
 
 A 
 
 of Okeanos being somewhat contrary to this idea. 
 But in the Euphratean account of The Descent of 
 Istar (Kirke) into Hades, we find this exact expression 
 apphed to a river of the Underworld ; — 
 
 ' To the roaring stream set thy ear ; 
 May the lady [Istar] overmaster the roaring stream, 
 The waters in the midst of it may she drink.' ' 
 
 Now it is evident that there was some special peril 
 connected with Styx, ' the dread river of the oath,' ^ 
 for Ath^n^ when angry with her sire exclaims ; — 
 ' Had I but known all this, what time Eurystheus 
 sent him [Herakles] forth to the house of Hades the 
 Warder of the Gate, to bring from Erebos the hound 
 of loathed Hades, then had he not escaped the sheer 
 stream of the water of Styx.' ^ The actual Arkadian 
 Styx is described by Tozer as ' a magnificent water- 
 fall, which descends 600 feet over a stupendous cliff ; ' 
 yet I do not think that the supposed downward course 
 of the Styx of the Underworld was derived from this 
 natural fact, but that the reverse process took place ; 
 for the course of any Underworld-river which joined 
 the Ocean-stream must of necessity be downwards 
 from that point. In exact accordance with this 
 obvious idea we read ' in the epic recital of the descent 
 of Istar, that at the bottom of the country whence 
 none return there was a spring of the waters of life, 
 guarded by the infernal powers with jealous care ; 
 which could only be reached by a special permission 
 
 > C. A. G. 244. ^ II. ii. 755. ^ m^^ ^iji. 366-9. 
 
no The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 from the celestial gods, and then he who has drunk 
 the water of the fountain returns alive to the hght.' ^ 
 Now amongst other Akkadian personages we meet 
 with Khitimkurku (' The-spring-which-surrounds-the- 
 subhme-mountain '), ' daughter of the ocean,' ^ like 
 Styx, and very like her. The subhme Atlas-mountain 
 which she surrounds has been already noticed,^ and 
 Hesiod says of the abode of the goddess ; — 
 
 Kiocnv dpyvpeouTi irpos ovpavov icrr-QpiKTai* 
 
 just as it is said of Atlas ; — 
 
 £T^£l Si T£ Kiova? aUTOS 
 MttKpas, al yoidv re /cat ovpavov d/;t^is €-xov<ti.v,^ 
 
 and as ' the Chaldaean Heaven rested upon columns,' ^ 
 which must have been based in the Underworld. 
 
 Here at the vvkto<; ipefjivr]<; oiKt'a Seiva,^ ' the dread 
 abodes of evening-night,' where iirl vv^ 6\or] Terarai 
 SeiXoicrt fipoTolcnv,^ we will pause a moment on the 
 shadowy confines, and refer to an earlier descent. 
 
 Subsection 2. The Descent of Istar to the Underworld. 
 She who sent Odysseus to Erebos had been there 
 herself; the Moon is famihar with the depths of the 
 Underworld. There are two Euphratean accounts of 
 the descent of Istar which have been translated by 
 Fox Talbot, George Smith, and M. Lenormant. I 
 quote from the revised translation by Geo. Smith : ^ — 
 
 ' Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 166. ^ Ibid. 184. 
 
 3 Sup. p. 100. * Theogonia, 779. ^ q^ j gg,^ 
 
 ^ Gladstone, Homeric Synchronism, 231. ' Theogonia 744. 
 
 « Od. xi. 19. " 'K 162' (C. A. O. 239 et seq.). 
 
Kirki and the Nekyia. 1 1 \ 
 
 ' To the House of Assemblage ' whence none return,^ the land (of 
 darkness), 
 Istar ^ daughter of Sin * her ear (inclined) ; 
 To the house of darkness the dwelling of the god Irkalla,'"" 
 To the house from whose entrance the light is taken, 
 The place where dust is their nourishment and their food mud." 
 Light is never seen, in darkness they dwell.' 
 
 Smith renders the next line : — 
 
 ' Its chiefs also are like birds covered with feathers ; ' 
 
 But I prefer to read with Talbot : — 
 
 ' Ghosts Uke birds flutter their wings.' 
 
 Talbot at first read ' bats ' instead of ' ghosts,' 
 and we are strikingly reminded of the account of the 
 ghosts of the Suitors ; — ' The souls followed gibber- 
 ing. And even as bats flit gibbering in the secret 
 place of a wondrous cave when one has fallen down 
 out of the rock from the cluster, and they cling each 
 
 ' Prof. Sayce reads ' Hades.' Talhot observes ' Hades is here called 
 Bit Edi, mi7 nu, " the House of Assembly." ' So Job, xxx. 23 : ' I 
 know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the House of Assemblage 
 for all living.' Talbot regards (and 1 think justly) the usual etymology 
 of Hades — ' quasi A-i8ris invisible ' — as an ' afterthought.' 
 
 " Inasmuch as Aides is dfieCKixos rj8' ddd/iao-Tos (II. ix. 158), and 
 therefore wiU not yield them up again. 
 
 ' ' Ishtar was the Full Moon [ = Kirke], for which reason she was 
 called the goddess Fifteen, because the month consisting of thirty days 
 the full moon was of course on the fifteenth day ' (Talbot, in T. v. 102). 
 
 ^ The Moon-god. Moon springs from moon as sun to sun succeeds. 
 
 ^ Ir is 'to spoil;' hal = dan. As. dannu, 'strong,' hence 'judge' 
 etc. The meaning of la (--£1) seems to be unknown. Irkalla would 
 appear to signify ' Strong-spoUer,' the god of the Underworld as the 
 universal conqueror of men. 
 
 ^ Or ' clay.' I.e. where there is nothing to eat. 
 
112 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 to each up aloft, even so the souls gibbered as they 
 fared together.' ^ 
 
 ' Over the door and bolts is scattered dust.' 
 
 The ' keeper of the gate ' to whom Istar applies for 
 admittance, is, as noticed,^ ' keeper of the waters ; ' 
 and there are ' seven gates of Hades,' a thoroughly 
 Homerik expression.^ There is also in the Euphratean 
 Underworld ' the palace of Hades ; ' and equally 
 ' within the dreary region [of the Homerik Nekyia] 
 seems to be a palace, which is in a more special sense 
 the residence of its rulers.' * Istar on passing through 
 each successive gateway is despoUed of some orna- 
 ment or part of her apparel, and regains them in a 
 corresponding manner on her departure ; for the 
 Queen of the Underworld must needs release the 
 Moon, who had gone below in quest of her husband- 
 lover Dumuzi-Tammuz (' the Only-son '), the wounded 
 and dying Sun, only son of the Sky. This whole 
 account of the waning and waxing moon is replete 
 with curious and interesting detail which will well 
 repay the most careful examination. 
 
 Istar-Kirke being the great love-power, her dis- 
 appearance paralysed the life-course of the world : — 
 
 ' With the cow the bull would not unite, and the ass the female 
 ass would not approach, etc' 
 
 ' Od. xxiv. 6-9. So iShakspere : ' The sheeted dead did squeak and 
 gibber.' So of the ghost of Patroklos : ' Like a vapour the spirit was 
 gone beneath the earth with a faint shriek' (II. xxiii. 100-1). The 
 phantom form must have a correspondingly feeble voice. 
 
 2 Sup. p. 100. » Of. II. ix. 312. 
 
 ■• Gladstone, Juvenilis Mundi, 373. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 113 
 
 In a very similar account of the Descent of Istar 
 which is contained in the Izdubar Cycle, the goddess 
 says : — 
 
 ' I spread like a bird ray hands. 
 I descend to the house of darkness.' 
 
 But there appear to have been in the Euphratean, 
 as in the Homerik, Underworld various regions of 
 widely-differing character,^ for Istar continues : — 
 
 ' In the house, O my friend, -which I will enter, 
 For me is treasured up a crown ; 
 With those wearing crowns who from days of old 
 
 ruled the earth, 
 To whom the gods have given names of rule. 
 They drink limpid waters. 
 In the house, my friend, which I will enter, 
 Dwell the lord and the unconquered one, 
 Dwell the priest and the great man, 
 There dwells Etana, there dwells the god Ner, 
 (There dwells) the queen of the lower regions.' 
 
 In this connexion we are at once reminded of tlie 
 magnificent dirges of the Hebrew prophets over 
 great monarchs and others on their descent to 
 Scheol. Thus Yesaya apostrophises the King of Babel 
 (Babylon = Bab-ih, Ak. Ka-dimirra, ' Gate-of-god ') : — 
 
 ' Hell [Scheol] beneath trembleth on account of thee — at meeting 
 
 thy coming, 
 Arouseth on account of thee the Shades — all the leaders of the 
 
 earth, 
 Stirreth up from their thrones— all kings of nations ; 
 Thy bed beneath is rottenness, and thy coverlet is worms.^ 
 
 ^ Thus 'the mead of asphodel' {Od. xi. 539; xxiv. 13), the special 
 haunt of the Achaian heroes, was apparently the choicest portion of the 
 shadowy domain. 
 
 ^ So in the legend of the descent of Istar we read : — ' (There) dwell 
 the worms of the deep of the great gods.' 
 
 I 
 
114 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 To She61 wilt thou be hiirled, into'the iiybtermost depth ! 
 All the kings of nations every one — rest in honour each in his 
 house.' ' 
 
 At the head of these throned phantom monarchs of 
 the dim archaic time sits ' the god Etana the king,' ^ 
 of whom Prof. Sayce observes ; — ' He seems to be 
 the Titan of the Greek writers, who hved after the 
 Deluge and made war against Kronos^ orHea shortly 
 after the confusion of tongues. . . Etana ruled at 
 Surippak, the home and kingdom of the Chaldean 
 Noah.' * If the name Titan means ' King,' ^ then ' those 
 below Tartaros that are called Titans,' ^ ' the gods of 
 the nether world that are with Kronos,' ^ who were 
 once in the upper regions,® but were imprisoned by 
 Zeus beneath the earth,^ and amongst whom lapetos 
 is specially named,^** are cast down ' kings ' (of some- 
 thing and somewhere) who reigned in upper realms 
 ere their fall. But the expression (k TLT^ve<s /caXeovrat 
 may not improbably indicate a non-Hellenik name, 
 and the various Aryan conjectures from that 
 of Hesiod downwards are not very satisfactory, 
 lapetos, again, is almost certainly connected with 
 
 '■ Ap. Ewald, Commentary on the Prophets of the Old Testament, iv, 
 241-2. 
 
 ^ Babylonian Fable of the Eagle, 
 
 ' Kai /3ao-iXfU(rf TUpovos, Kai Tirav, 'lairfTos re, 
 
 Kai iiaxia-avTO Yipavos Tvrav tc npbs airovs 
 
 (Silnjlline Oracles, ap. Oory, Fragments, 52-3). 
 ^ C. A. G. 147. 
 
 ' ' Prob. its root is the same as TiVa| = /SaonXevj, and TiTrjvrj = j3ao-iXts 
 in Hesych.' (Liddell and Scott, in voc). 
 
 « 11. xiv. 279. ' Ibid. xv. 225. " Ibid. v. 898. 
 
 9 Ibid, xiv. 204. '» Ibid. viii. 479. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 1 1 5 
 
 Yapheth (Japhet = As. Ippatu, ' the White-race ' ^), 
 a name which carries us at once far beyond the 
 Hellenik cycle.^ These beings were not seen by 
 Odysseus, for ' deep Tartaros is round about them ; ' ^ 
 and Tartaros is ' as far beneath Hades [where alone 
 he went] as heaven is high above the earth.' * Kronos 
 and his fellows are in ' the uttermost depth,' as 
 Yesaya calls it ; whilst elsewhere we read of sinning 
 angels that they were ' cast down to Tartaros, and 
 committed to pits of darkness.' ^ Ner (' Lord ' *) is 
 a second archaic and divinized king, and there is no 
 suggestion in the passage that their position was 
 penal, although it doubtless was sombre and solemn. 
 Euphratean Titans had been engaged in no contest 
 with an Aryan Zeus. It is a special assembly of 
 the great, and they ' drink limpid waters ' from the 
 nether fountain.'^ We are reminded of the wish of 
 Odysseus who, after H^raklSs had ' departed again 
 into the house of Hades,' and although his legitimate 
 business was finished, yet lingered in the gloomy 
 region because his heart was minded ' to see the 
 spirits of those others that were departed.' ^ ' Yea 
 and I should have seen the men of old whom I longed 
 to look on.' * Who were these unnamed heroes of 
 the archaic time ? But mere curiosity in such matters 
 
 ^ Vide Sayce, Assyrian Lectures, 145. 
 
 ^ Vide Lenormant, Les Origines, ii. pt. i, p. 173 et seq. 
 
 = II. Tiii. 481. , * Ibid. 16. 
 
 5 2 Peter, ii. 4. Revised Version. 
 
 ^ So Nergal = Nir, ' lord ' + gula, ' great.' ' Vide sup. p. 109. 
 
 8 Od. xi. 567. " Ibid. 628-30. 
 
 1 2 
 
ii6 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 is ever left ungratified by the gods, and surrounded 
 by myriads of the dead who kept surging up from 
 the depths with inarticulate, wind-moaning, gibber- 
 ing, bat-like clamour, the hero, no longer supported 
 by duty although he had dauntlessly braved actual 
 terrors, fled from a possible one. 
 
 As Yesaya has given us the grave-dirge of 
 Babylon, Hezekiel supphes that of Kem with a 
 corresponding gloom and sombreness which exactly 
 harmonize with the Homerik and Euphratean 
 JSTekyia : — 
 
 ' Strike up over the throng of Egypt the grave-dirge, 
 And let her go down, 
 Thou and the daughters of noble nations, 
 Into the Underworld, to those laid in the grave ! 
 Into the lowest Underworld come thou ! 
 Let the first tyrants speak of him out of the belly of hell.' 
 They went down, they lie slain of the sword. 
 There is Assar and all her host, surrounded by her graves. 
 All of them slain, who fell by the sword. 
 Whose graves are set in the uttermost Scheol, 
 And whose host came round about her tomb.' 
 
 And there too is ' Aelam and all her tlirong,' and 
 Meshek, Tubal, Edom, ' the crowned ones of the 
 north all of them, and every Sidonian,' in fact ' the 
 myriad tribes of the dead ; ' ^ and around each king- 
 dom, each leader, is his own special phantom host, 
 even as we read : — ' Thereafter came the soul of 
 Aganiemn6n, sorrowing ; and round him were ga- 
 thered other spirits, all the men who had died with 
 
 ' So Jonah praya ' out of the belly of Scheol,' i.e., ' the fish's belly.' 
 ^ Od. xi. 632. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 117 
 
 him and met their doom.' ^ ' I died,' he exclaims, 
 ' by a death most pitiful, and round me my company 
 likewise were slain without ceasing ; ' ^ in the words 
 of the prophet, ' They went down, they lie slain of 
 the sword.' 
 
 Subsection 3. Aides and Persephoneia. 
 
 The king and queen of the Underworld next 
 demand our notice. We may nearly always under- 
 stand the Homerik term ' Aides ' of a person rather 
 than of a place. A passage^ speaks of Tartaros being 
 as far ' beneath Aides ' as heaven is above earth. But 
 when we remember that ' the Lord of the Under- 
 world, Aid6neus,' was usually seated on his throne 
 there,* it is evident that the passage in question is 
 equally satisfied if referred to a person and that it 
 does not necessarily imply a place. The ' halls ' of 
 Aides are ' grim, and vast, and lothly to the gods ; ' ^ 
 and of the three Kronid brothers he ' is the third, 
 the ruler of the folk in the under-world.' He ' drew 
 the murky darkness ' by lot, when Zeus obtained ' the 
 wide heaven,' and Poseidon ' the hoary sea ; ' ^ and as 
 the majority of the Aryan divinities are the bright 
 beings who pre-eminently, and according to an oft- 
 repeated formula, ' possess the wide heaven,' '' they 
 naturally abhor his dark domain. As I have said 
 elsewhere,^ I regard him as being like Zeus, Here, 
 
 1 Od. xi. 387-9. ' Ibid. 412-3. ' II. viii. 16. 
 
 1 Ibid. XX. 63. = Ibid. 65. " Ibid. xv. 187-92. 
 
 ' Od. xi. 133, etc. ^ Vide G. D. M. ii. 251. 
 
ii8 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 Demet^r, Ath^nS, Apoll6n, Artemis, Ares, and 
 Hermes, an Aryan divinity. He is styled, in re- 
 curring formulas, ' mighty,' ^ ' having goodly steeds,' ^ 
 and 'warden of the gate.' ^ His 'immortal horses' 
 are mentioned in the Hymn Eis Demetran,^ in which 
 he is called Polydegmon (' the Much-receiving '), as 
 all men descend to his realm ; and Polyonymos, inas- 
 much as all nations revere a god of the Underworld, 
 who has many names amongst many men. ' The 
 Gates of Aides ' are originally the two entrances 
 (eastern and western) to the Underworld, and more 
 particularly the western entrance.^ The solar H^- 
 rakles, who triumphantly penetrated to and emerged 
 from the Underworld bringing up the dog ^ Kerberos 
 (= the Vedic Sarvari, ' Darkness- of-night '), smote 
 ' awful Aid^s ' with a ' swift (solar) arrow in Pylos 
 amid the dead ; ' '' or, as Aristarchos well notes, ' at 
 the gate of the Underworld ; ' that is to say, the 
 conquering Sun overcame the gloomy power who 
 guarded the portals of the Lower-region, and forced 
 his way in. It was natural enough that such a legend 
 should be localized at some place called Pylos, as 
 Pausanias relates. He says that Athene (the Dawn- 
 power) aided Herakles, and that ' Hades ' fought for 
 the Pylians, because he was honoured by them and 
 
 > Od. X. 534 ; xi. 47. ' II. v. 654, etc. 
 
 ' Ibid. viii. 367 ; Od. xi. 277. " V. 18. 
 
 '■ As I have elsewhere (vide V. sec. xi.) fully treated of the two 
 entrances of the cave of Dionysos Dithjreites (' lie-of-the-two-entrances/ 
 i.e., the Sun), I shall not further notice the matter here. 
 
 « II. viii. 368: Od. xi. 623. ' II. v. 395-7. 
 
Kirk^ and the Nekyia. 119 
 
 ' through his hatred of H^rakl^s,' i.e., the natural 
 antipathy between hght and darkness.^ He is ' not 
 to be softened neither overcome, and therefore is he 
 hatefullest of all gods to mortals, ' '-^ in fact he is ' the 
 Hateful-one,'^ so detestable to man is death and 
 darkness ; and his name seems akin to that of the 
 blind, sun-slaying Norse-god Hodr, Old High Germ. 
 Hadu, Old Frank Chado, with which may be com- 
 pared odi, odium, Sk. vadh, ' to strike,' from the root 
 wadh ' to strike.' Hence, as Grimm says, ' the pre- 
 vailing idea [in various forms of the name of Hodr] 
 is plainly that of battle and strife.'* He is the smiter 
 of life and light. 
 
 Mr. C. F. Keary remarks that the name Perse- 
 phone, ' which means hght-destroyer, is as little 
 appropriate to her whole character as Apollo, the 
 destroyer, is appropriate to the sun god.'^ Now 
 there is almost invariably a supreme appropriateness 
 in archaic names, and it is exceedingly unlikely that 
 two very important divinities should be most unsuit- 
 ably designated. I have elsewhere given reasons for 
 understanding the name Persephone as signifying 
 ' Apparent-brilliance,' ' that is, the visible beauty- 
 
 ' Pausanias, VI. xxv. 3. The fact that both divinities are Arj^s, 
 coupled with the exceedingly simple and appropriate explanation afforded 
 by the Natural Phenomena Theory, negatives the idea that in this case a 
 contest between the worshippers of rival cults lies at the basis of the 
 story. 
 
 2 II. ix. 158-9. » Ihid. viii. 368. 
 
 * Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, i. 223. Eng. Translation, by J. S. 
 Stallybrass. 
 
 ^ Outlines of Primitive Belief, 242. 
 
1 20 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 splendour of the material world ; ' ^ and as such, and 
 in her character of Kore (' the Damsel '), she is 
 snatched away by the dark king. In the same way 
 there is no need to understand Apollon as ' the De- 
 stroyer.' Welcker considers the Doric form Apelldn 
 as the most ancient with the meaning of ' Averter ; ' 
 whilst Prof. Sayce explains the name as signifying 
 ' Son-of-the-revolving-one.' If Persephone (as Hesiod 
 calls her) had always been the queen of the Under- 
 world, she might well have been named ' Light- 
 destroyer ; ' but under all the circumstances of her 
 myth this signification is absolutely inadmissible. 
 The only fact connected with her which here re- 
 quires notice is her remarkable prominence and 
 potency in the lower regions when compared with 
 the secondary part played by her great husband. 
 And the explanation of this is at once pei'fectly 
 simple, and also in absolute harmony with the 
 general treatment of the myth here pursued. Mr. 
 Gladstone, whose careful and searching study of the 
 incidents and text of the poems is of the most mate- 
 rial service to subsequent investigators, observes that 
 long ago he ' had been struck by the predominance 
 of a foreign character and associations in the Homeric 
 Underworld of the Eleventh Odyssey. It lies, not in 
 or near Greece, but in the region of the Outer Geo- 
 graphy. The foreign goddess Kirke, and the Kad- 
 meian Seer Teiresias, are the sources from which 
 Odysseus obtains his directions. The recent Hellenic 
 1 O. B.M.I 279. 
 
Kirki and the Nekyia. 121 
 
 Dead, furnished by the War, are wanderers in the 
 Shades, without fixed doom or occupation, scarcely, 
 as it were, naturalised in their new abode. None of 
 the more ancient Hellenic or Achaian monarch s or 
 warriors appear. And all, or nearly all, the charac- 
 ters, other than those from the Trojan Plain, are to 
 be referred, either by the indirect indications of the 
 Poems, or in consonance with general tradition, to a 
 foreign origin.' ^ In fact the general concept is in 
 the main borrowed, and Aid^s, who is known by 
 many titles, represents a non-Aryan analogue ; whilst 
 the name Persephoneia has been similarly ajDphed to 
 the Queen of the Underworld visited by Istar. This, 
 too, has not escaped Mr. Gladstone who, when noti- 
 cing the Istar-legend, says ; ' It is Ninkigal,^ a Queen, 
 who exercises the active functions of government in 
 the Under-world; just as in Homer it is Persephoneia 
 alone who acts, or is expected to act as sovereign 
 below, while Aidoneus is for the most part a mute 
 figure in the background.' ^ 
 
 Subsection 4. The Vision of Odysseus. 
 
 And now Odysseus and his companions* stand on 
 the perilous verge of the Underworld ; the trench is 
 
 ^ Homeric Synchronism, 213. 
 
 ' Ninkigal = ' Lady-of-the-gloomy-pit ' (Lenormant) ; or perhaps 
 rather ' Lady-of-the-great-region,' i.e. Scheol-Hades. She is also called 
 Ninge (' Queen-of-the-underworld '), and in Assyrian Allat. Her hus- 
 band is Mulge (' King-of-the-Underworld '). 
 
 ' Homeric Synchronism, 235. 
 
 * Dr. Hayman's elaborate Appendix ' On the venvia ' in the 2nd vol. 
 of his Odyssey of Homer, is incorrect on this point. Odysseus is not said 
 
122 The Myth of KirkL 
 
 duly dug, the drink-offering (mead, wine, water and 
 white meal) poured out, ' the strengthless heads of 
 the dead ' invoked, and the sheep sacrificed.^ When 
 cutting the throats of the ram and black ewe the 
 hero is to bend their heads ' towards Erebos,' and to 
 turn his face in the opposite direction towards 
 Okeanos,^ i.e., towards hght and the east. We must 
 next consider the questions (1) Did Odysseus descend, 
 or not ? and (2) Did he quit his station by the 
 trench ? ^ On the first point Mr. Gladstone remarks ; 
 — ' Travelling over this rim [of land beyond Okeanos] 
 we enter the world of Shades, set beneath the feet of 
 the living, but yet accessible from, and without quit- 
 ting, the same surface as that on which we dwell.' * 
 So Dr. Hayman says ; — ' The whole is conceived by 
 
 in X. 636 to ' rejoin ' his comrades at the ship. On the contrary he com- 
 mands his ' company ' — not merely Perimedes and Eurylochos (vide Od. 
 xi. 23) — ' to flay the sheep ' {Ihid. 44), and suhsequently Kirke addresses 
 the whole ship's company as ' Men who have gone alive into the house 
 of Aides, to know death twice' {Ihid. xii. 21-2). 
 
 ' With the interesting aspect of the story which is connected with 
 barbarous customs and archaic ritual, and associated ideas, e.g., the 
 blood-quaffing by the ghosts, I am not here concerned. 
 
 « Orf.x. 628-9. 
 
 ^ I assume, in order to avoid dwelling upon points and circumstances 
 often previously treated, that the reader is familiar to a considerable ex- 
 tent with Homerik literature on these questions, and on the Nekyia 
 generally. Mr. Gladstone's Homeric Synchronism should be carefoUy 
 studied with respect to the Outerworld ; and I would at the same time 
 add that I think nearly the whole of the explanations of Homerik names 
 in Prof Lauth's Homer und Aegypten may be safely rejected. 
 
 * Homeric Synchronism, 230. The reader will notice Mr. Gladstone's 
 remarks on the adoption by the poet of the Kaldean theory, that the 
 figure of the earth is 'boat-shaped' and hoUow, the boat alluded to 
 being the round boat with sides curving inwards stUl in use on the 
 Euphrates (vide Diodoros, ii. 31 ; Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 150). 
 
Kirki and the Nekyia. 123 
 
 the poet as enacted on a geographical extension of 
 the earth beyond the ocean stream. There is no 
 descent noticed, nor any passage of local description 
 denoting a subterranean position for the scene.' But, 
 he adds, ' Phrases are constantly in the mouth of the 
 poet which conflict with this his general conception.' 
 It would be strange if the poet constantly contra- 
 dicted himself as he went along, especially since the 
 general consistency of the poems is very remarkable, 
 and there are at least two passages which do notice a 
 certain ' descent ' by the hero ; thus he tells his 
 mother, ' Necessity was on me to come down ets 
 '^tSao,' ^ and Achilleus asks him, ' How durst thou 
 come down "^i'SdcrSe ; ' '^ but this ' coming down ' is 
 not a descent into the Underworld as through the 
 crust of the earth, but a travelling downwards over 
 the ■• rim ' until he reached the edge of the Aid^s- 
 realm where he dug the trench. Mr. Gladstone's 
 account seems to me to be absolutely correct, as is 
 Dr. Hayman's except as noticed ; and we may take 
 it, therefore, as agreed upon that when standing by 
 the trench the hero had not lost sight of the night- 
 sky above, and had obtained a vision of a portion of 
 the Underworld beneath. The evening had closed 
 with a dark cloudy, ' deadly Night,' ^ the exact oppo- 
 site of that starry and ' sign-potent Night ' of whose 
 kindness to mortals Aratos dilates in the Phainomena. 
 Now Odysseus, although he had come to the realm 
 of Aides, never entered Erebos which, in the concep- 
 
 1 Od. xj. 164. » Ibid. 475. ' Ibid. 16-19. 
 
124 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 tion of the poet (as distinguished from its etymo- 
 logical and archaic sense), is a deep and special part 
 of the Underworld up from out of which {vTre^ 
 Epdfievs) the ghosts ascended to the trench/ and into 
 which the Hellenik hero-shades passed after their 
 interview with Odysseus.^ Next, did Odysseus quit 
 his station by the trench? Dr. Hayman examines 
 this question with much minuteness, and finding no 
 sufficient cause for the final alarm of the hero except 
 on the supposition that he had deserted his post and 
 was a trespasser making a ' profane intrusion,' and 
 therefore liable to chastisement by Persephoneia, 
 suggests that Odysseus followed the shade of Aias in 
 a vain attempt to obtain his forgiveness ; ' but, he 
 [Odysseus] in effect continues, "my attention was dis- 
 tracted from him by my curiosity about others ; " ' in 
 fact he commenced to stare around hke a rustic at a 
 fair, the phantom hosts began to assume an ' altered 
 bearing ' towards him, and knowing he had no busi- 
 ness there he precipitately retired. Dr. Hayman 
 remarks that ' the whole account indeed somewhat 
 labours under the double disadvantage of being at 
 first somewhat diffusely spun out, and then some- 
 what abruptly cut short or " huddled up " at the 
 close.' I do not think that the wonderful account 
 labours under any such disadvantages, nor do I 
 believe that in the poet's view Odysseus quitted his 
 post by the trench, that his mind was easily dis- 
 tracted from one thing to another, that the ghosts 
 
 ' Od. xi. 37. 2 jii^_ 5(34_ 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 125 
 
 showed any ' altered bearing ' towards him, or, lastly, 
 that it is necessary to reject any part of the account as 
 we have it. The crude objections of ' ancient critics ' — 
 e.^., How could Minos in his chair of state come for- 
 ward and partake of the blood ? — which Dr. Hayman 
 refers to, and which he supposes would be satisfied 
 by his theory, may be amusing as curious specimens 
 of shortsightedness but are otherwise worthless. 
 Thus it is neither said nor suggested that Minos 
 partook of the blood, and there is every reason to 
 suppose that the poet would have stood aghast at 
 the idea. But it would seem that Dr. Hayman re- 
 gards Minos, Tityos and Sisyphos as being supphed 
 by the hero with the exhilarating beverage ; and if 
 we once begin to add to the account, it is easy to 
 suppose that Odysseus (who was generally well pro- 
 vided with liquor) had filled a goat-skin at the trench 
 and given them a drop all round, an attention which 
 doubtless would have been much appreciated, espe- 
 cially by poor Tityos who, by the time that Poly- 
 gnotos had got him as far as the Lesche at Delphoi, 
 appears, as Miss Harrison well remarks, to have been 
 quite ' worn out,' and no wonder. 
 
 Let us examine the account on this point, for I 
 lay much stress upon the position of Odysseus when 
 he beheld the panoramic vision. We find him by 
 the trench as ' the spirits of the dead ' gather around 
 ' with an ineffable cry ' {Oea-irecrCT] laxo\ not loud, 
 but strange, unearthly and savouring of the super- 
 
126 The Myth of KirkL 
 
 human. ^ Though they are known to be ' strength- 
 less,' yet warm flesh and blood naturally recoil ; nor 
 is the hero ashamed to confess ' pale fear gat hold on 
 me,' ^ a remark which he repeats ^ with reference to 
 the Gorgo-head, not to the supposed ' altered bearing ' 
 of the ' phantom hosts.' But he who never knew 
 fear is equally destitute of the highest phase of 
 courage, and this Odysseus had ; and through the 
 weird, gibbering clamour of ' these many ghosts,' 
 clear and steady rings his commanding voice bidding 
 his comrades ' flay the sheep.' Brisk occupation will 
 serve to aid their trembling wits, for if pale fear 
 touched that dauntless and daring heart, how felt 
 the prudent, not to say timid, Eurylochos, and the 
 common sailors ? In front of the party, his drawn 
 sword held steadily over the trench, 'sat' the hero, 
 keeping the motley crowd of ghosts at bay. Before 
 the grandeur of his presence his trembling followers, 
 themselves doomed to a man to speedy death and 
 darkness, are as nothing, and practically vanish from 
 the scene. The ghost of Elp^n6r approaches, and 
 the two hold ' sad discourse, I on the one side, 
 stretching forth my sword over the blood, while on 
 the other side the ghost of my friend told aU his 
 tale.' The soul of his mother rises ; Odysseus weeps, 
 but yet with supreme and matchless steadfastness 
 still guards the blood ; tried to the utmost the 
 
 ^ So of the g;host of Patroldos we read, ' The spirit was gone beneath, 
 the earth with a faint shriek ' {11. xxiii. 100-1) ; ' a tiny feeble sound,' 
 says Dr. Paley in loc, ' exilh vox, as of a half-animate being.' 
 
 2 Od. xi. 43. » Ibid. 633. 
 
KirM and the Nekyia. 127 
 
 refined gold bears the test, the sore moment passes, 
 and Teiresias appears, bearing, hke the Akkadian 
 Hades-queen Ningiszida (' Lady-of-the-magic-wand '), 
 ' a golden sceptre.' The conversation with Teiresias 
 ends, and the object of the dread journey is accom- 
 phshed, for Odysseus only came ' down eis '^'i'Sao to 
 seek to the spirit of Theban Teiresias ; ' ^ but, says 
 Odysseus, ' I abode there steadfastly,' and the con- 
 versation with Antikleia is then related. The hero 
 would probably rise to receive Teiresias, and thrice 
 he sprang forward in a vain attempt to embrace the 
 shade of his mother ; ' thrice she flitted from my 
 hands as a shadow or even as a dream,' ^ for, as the 
 Hebrew poet says, it is a rule ' since man was placed 
 upon earth ' that ' he shall fly away as a dream, and 
 shall not be found ; ' ^ and as Antikleia herself says, 
 ' The spirit Hke a dream flies forth.' * Next appear 
 the phantom train of ' the wives and daughters of 
 mighty men,' sent forth by their dread queen ; for, 
 in exact accordance with Akkadian feeling,^ great 
 prominence is given to females in the Underworld.^ 
 Steadfast at his post Odysseus redraws his ' long 
 sword,' which he had sheathed at the coming of 
 
 1 OA. xi. 165. 2 m^_ 206-7. ' Job, xx. 4, 8. * Od. xi. 222. 
 
 ^ Prof. Sayce, apropos of a Tablet of Ancient Accadian Laws, observes 
 tliat amongst other things ' will be noticed the superior importance pos- 
 sessed by the mother. . . This importance of the mother in family-life 
 is still a distinguishing feature of the Finnic-Tatar race ' (Records of the 
 Past, iii. 21). Of, the high position of woman in Etruria. 
 
 ^ Mr. Gladstone's ' minute review ' of this bevy of fair ghosts 
 (Homeric Synchronism, 216 et seq.) should be referred to. He remarks 
 that ' in almost every case we are able to detach them entirely from the 
 Hellenic stocks by Homeric or traditional evidence.' 
 
128 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 Teiresias ; and suffers ' them not all at one time to 
 drink of the blood. So they drew nigh one by- 
 one,'^ and each tells her story. Persephoneia scatters 
 them, and Agamemn6n and his company appear, 
 followed after a while by Achilleus, ' a great prince 
 among the dead,' and his three friends. Achilleus, 
 ' rejoicing of his son's renown,' passes ' with great 
 strides along the mead of asphodel.' ' The soul of 
 Aias alone stood apart being still angry for the 
 victory wherein I prevailed against him concerning 
 the arms of Achilleus. . . To him I spake softly ; ' 
 and, as Odysseus spoke, it would seem that Aga- 
 memn6n and the rest departed, but Aias ' answered 
 me not a word and passed to Erebos after the other 
 spirits of the dead. . . Even then, despite his 
 anger, would he have spoken to me or I to him ' yet 
 further, ' but my heart within me was minded to see 
 the spirits of those others that were departed,'^ i.e., 
 not the personages whom he next did see, but ' some 
 one of the hero folk who died in old time.' ^ With 
 eyes grown far more accustomed to the darkness 
 and fascinated with the wondrous revelations of the 
 abyss, he says, 'I abode there still,'* i.e.., by the 
 trench ; there is not the shghtest suggestion of any 
 change of place. He did not venture to follow Aias 
 to Erebos, b^t, as Miss Harrison well says, ' he seems 
 to have sight into the innermost depths of hell ; ' ® 
 
 • Od. xi. 232-3. ' Ibid. 566-7. ' Ibid. 629-30. * Ibid. 628. 
 
 ^ Myths of the Odyssey, 115. Hell (' from tlie Teutonic base hal, to 
 hide ' — Prof. Skeat) = A-ides, and is therefore ' the Unseen/ ' the 
 Hidden-place ; ' Aryan roots, kal, Mr, skar, ' to cover.' Personified in 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 129 
 
 ' the shades are there, guests in the depths of 
 Sche61.' ^ The ancient Hellenik heroes are unseen,^ 
 and, if v. 631 be spurious, are unnamed ; but he had 
 a vision grand and awful ; — ' I saw Minos ... I 
 marked Orion ... I saw Tityos ... I beheld Tan- 
 talos ... I beheld Sisyphos ... I descried Herakles.' 
 But what had he to do with these wondrous monu- 
 ments of grandeur or of woe ? Was not his purpose 
 accomplished, his mission fulfilled, and is it lawful 
 for mortal without divine authority to tread the 
 realm of Aidoneus ? ' Have the gates of death been 
 revealed unto thee ? or hast thou seen the doors of 
 the shadow of death,' ^ when thou earnest ' beneath 
 the darkness and the shadow,' * but that thou 
 mightest know the secrets of the ' prison house ' ? 
 Nay, but that thou mightest know thine own destiny 
 in the Upperworld ; linger not here through curiosity, 
 however wondrous may be the lore. It is unlawful, 
 dangerous so to do ; the awful queen of the shades 
 may resent and punish — ' straightway then I went to 
 the ship.'^ 
 
 The Book of Job, which has already been quoted 
 in this connexion, presents a remarkable agreement 
 with the Homerik theory and aspect of the Under- 
 world. There, too, we meet with ' the pillars of 
 heaven ; ' ^ with two divisions of the Underworld 
 
 the Norse goddess Ilel, who agaia became ' only the home of the dead ' 
 (Keary, Outlines of Primitive Belief, 270). 
 
 ' Pi-overbs, ix. 18. 
 
 ' On this point, vide Gladstone, Homeric Synchronism, 213, 220. 
 
 3 Job, xxxviii. 16, 17. * Od. xi. 155. = jn^i 636. 
 
 ° Job, xxvi. 11. Vide sit^j. p. 110. 
 
 \i 
 
I30 The Myth of Kir ke. 
 
 Scheol and Abaddon ^ (' the Place- of-destruction ') 
 which correspond with Hades-Erebos and Tartaros ; 
 with ' the bars of Scheol;'''* with the idea of being 
 ' hidden ' away in Scheol ; ' ^ with the discovery of 
 ' deep things out of darkness,' and the bringing ' out 
 to light the shadow of death ; ' * and with the dreary 
 region itself as ' a land of gloom, as obscurity itself, 
 of the shadow of death, and of disorder, and where 
 the light is as obscurity.' ^ Life is consumed as the 
 cloud," and as smoke, and vanishes like the shadow. 
 And in Job, too, we meet with the constellation- 
 band '' (Mazzaroth-Teiresias), by means of which the 
 Sun is enabled to know his future destiny. 
 
 Subsection 5. Some incidents in the Vision. 
 
 Let us now leave the human interest of the poem 
 with its splendid play of light and shade, and turn 
 again to the task of further exphcation of the ideas ; 
 forget Odysseus and remember the Sun, whom we 
 find on the margin of the dark world below, but not 
 wholly out of sight of the nocturnal sky. Now two 
 distinct, yet not inharmonious, elements enter into the 
 entire presentation, and point to its basis as rooted 
 
 ' ,Tuh, zxvi. 6. So we read elsewhere, ' Scheol and Abaddon are 
 never full ' {Proverbs, xxviii. 20). Mulge (vide sup. p. 100) is also styled 
 in an Akkadian Ilj'mn Anunna-ge (' the Archangel-of-the-ahyss,' vide 
 Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 104) ; and, similarly, we read of ' the 
 Angel of the abyss, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but 
 in the Greek tongue hath his name ApoUyon ' (' Destroyer,' Apoc. ix. 11). 
 Abaddon and Death have heard only a report of Wisdom {Job, xxviii. 
 22), for 'there is no wisdom in Scheol ' {Ecdesian/es, ix. 10). 
 
 * Job, xvii. IC. ^ Ibid, xiv. 13. ^ Ihid. xii. 22. 
 
 "• Ibid. X. 21-2. Ibid. vii. 9. ' Ibid, xxxviii. 32. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 131 
 
 in a remote antiquity ; we have before us the Under- 
 world and Night. The very word Erebos (evening- 
 gloom) stands between them as a connecting link. 
 Aryan and Akkadian had an equal, a remarkable 
 horror of darkness ; ^ and here, as in the Vedic and 
 Akkadian Hymns, we see glimpses of a period when 
 the primeval chaos, the recurring night, and the 
 gloom and confusion of the infernal abyss, were 
 closely linked together in idea. It is evening when 
 Odysseus reaches the confines of the Underworld ; 
 ' the sun sank and all the ways were darkened.'^ At 
 first ' deadly night is outspread ' above, but as the 
 night progresses it brightens ; the starry Signs 
 headed by Teir^sias pass before the extinguished 
 Sun in the vast nocturnal cave. He sees Orion and 
 Herakl^s, solar phases reduplicated in constellations,^ 
 and the latter appearing in a phase which reminds 
 us of Sagittarius ; he notices various aspects of him- 
 self — Minos, Tantalos, Sisyphos ; no offence is laid to 
 the charge of the two latter, for they had in truth 
 done no wrong, their sufferings being but an anthro- 
 pomorphic aspect of solar existence, and the moral, 
 now so hard to dissociate, being merely the after- 
 thought of devout reflexion and natural religion. 
 And this fact, so simple yet perhaps somewhat new, 
 is made still clearer by the case of their comrade in 
 woe Tityos (' the Extended '), whose crime is named ; 
 his offence was not moral or religious but mytho- 
 
 " Vide Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 178. ^ Od. xi. 12. 
 
 ^ Vide R. B. Jr., E. sec. x. Illustration of the Law of Reduplication. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 logical. The stellar giant had laid profane hands on 
 that holy and kosmic darkness (Letd), the spouse of 
 the heavenly Zeus, the mother of ApoUon and Ar- 
 temis, of Sun and Moon. The Twins, too, Kastor 
 and Polydeukes, whose mother Leda, a variant of 
 Let6, actually appears before Odysseus, though not 
 mentioned as being seen, are also referred to ; as is 
 likewise the Euphratean Sun-god Dionysos.^ 
 
 If in Tyro ^ ' we have the only indication, which 
 the Poems afford, of the afterwards famous historic 
 name of Tyre,' ^ we may well compare the name of 
 her sire Salmoneus with that of Zalmunna, a chief 
 of ' the hosts of the children of the east,' ^ a name 
 which perhaps reappears in Thelmanna the Kemic 
 form of a Hittite name. Nor is the connexion 
 weakened when we find that Salmoneus is the 
 brother of Athamas {i.e., Tammuz-Dumuzi),^ and the 
 husband of Sidero, ' step-mother of Tyro,' a per- 
 sonage who recalls Side, the wife of Orion, sent by 
 Here to the Underworld because she presumed to 
 rival her in beauty.® Surely we are here reminded 
 
 ^ Od. xi. 325. Dionysos, i.e., the Dian-nisi (' Judge-of-men '), like 
 Minos, is again named when a scene in the Underworld is represented 
 {Od. xxiv. 74). 
 
 ^ Od. xi. 235. ' Gladstone, Homeric Synchronism, 216. 
 
 * Judges, yiii. 10. 
 
 ^ This identification which I first proposed in the O. D. M. i. 249, 
 has been accepted both by Prof. Sayce and by Sir G. W. Cox (vide R. 
 B. Jr., U. 28), as respective guardians of Euphratean and Aryan 
 interests. 
 
 " The student must carefully distinguish between the mythological 
 contests and disputes of divinities, and the ethnic and historical contests 
 and disputes of nations and religions, which are very frequently draped 
 in a mythological form. The character and origin of the particular per- 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 133 
 
 of 'great Zidon,' ^ and of 'the strong city Tyre,'''^ 
 ' full of wisdom and perfect in beauty,' ^ yet brought 
 down, as in the visions of Odysseus and Hezekiel, 
 ' to Scheol, to the recesses of the pit.' * But referring 
 the reader to the careful pages of Mr. Gladstone's 
 Homeric Synchronism for constant and remarkable 
 illustration of the general foreign character of the 
 personages mentioned in the Eleventh Odyssey, I 
 pass on to notice more particularly several special 
 incidents in the narration. 
 
 I. The case of Elpenor. Patroklos the friend of 
 Achilleus and Elpenor the comrade of Odysseus both 
 perish by a violent death under luckless circumstances, 
 and their hapless ghosts are alike introduced as suffer- 
 ing some special discomfort in the Underworld. Says 
 the ghost of Patroklos ; — ' Bury me with all speed, that 
 I pass the gates of Aides. Far off the spirits banish 
 me, nor suffer me to mingle with them beyond the 
 Eiver, but vainly I wander along the wide-gated 
 dwelling of Aides.' ^ And, similarly, the ghost of 
 Elpenor, to whom the last rites had not yet been 
 paid, was wandering woefully on the confines of the 
 dark realm, and prays that his body may not be 
 abandoned ' unwept and unburied.' With the imita- 
 
 sonages, and the scene of the contest supply the chief clues to the nature 
 of the underlying fact. E.g.^ the non-Aryan Orion is opposed in various 
 ways by Aryan divinities, and slain by Artemis {Od. v. 123-4). In an 
 instance such as this both features are blended, but the attack upon Side 
 is purely a matter of race and cult. 
 
 ' Joshua, six. 28. The Assyrian Zidunnu-rabu. 
 
 ^ Joshua, xix. 29. As. Zurra. ' Ezekiel, xxviii. 12. 
 
 * Isaiah, xiv. 15. * II. xxiii. 71-4. 
 
134 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 tions and explanations of Vergil, and the folk-lore 
 aspect of the matter I am not here concerned ; but it 
 is very noticeable that Heabani the friend and com- 
 rade in adventure of Izdubar, also died by a violent 
 death under some almost unknown but very luckless 
 circumstances,^ which occasioned him special dis- 
 comfort in the Underworld. Speaking of The Twelfth 
 Izduhar Legend, Mr. Eoscawen observes that it 
 ' relates to the state of the soul of Heabani, which 
 had been shut out of heaven, owing to the strange 
 circumstances of his death.' ^ The poet says ; — 
 
 ' To happiness (thou art not admitted). 
 A pure dress (thou dost not wear). 
 An onset on earth thou dost not make. 
 The enfolding of the earth has taken thee. 
 O Darkness ! Darkness ! Mother Ninazu,* O Darkness ! 
 Her mighty power as a garment covers thee ; ' 
 
 just as Elpenor, ' fleeter on foot ' than Odysseus in liis 
 ship — for ' the dead ride fast ' — came ' beneath the 
 murky gloom.' * 
 
 ' The resting place of Nergal the unconquered, did not take him, 
 The earth took him. 
 Heabani to rest was not admitted.' 
 
 The Tablet is much broken, but it seems that the 
 
 ' ' After this happened the violent death of Heabaui, which added 
 to the misfortunes of Izdubar ; but no fragment of this part of the story 
 is preserved ' (C. A. O. 257). 
 
 ^ liecords of the Past, ix. 129. 
 
 ' I.e., ' Wise-lady-of-the-waters,' aname of Ninkigal (vide sup. p. V2} ). 
 Nin (of Nin-os) means ' lord ' or ' lady ' according to the context ; so 
 we find Ninazu as also a name of the god Hea. 
 
 ■' Od. xi. 57. It is to be noticed that zophos, like erebos, particttlarly 
 signifies the western gloom, and is sometimes simply used for the west as 
 the dark quarter, e.y. "Hhrj yap (pdoi o'ixcff ino fo(jboy {Ibid. iii. 3.'55). 
 
Kirke and tJie Nekyia. 135 
 
 ghost of Heabani is raised by means of an incantation ; 
 and as the story concludes witii an account of the 
 joyful state of the spirit of a warrior in the unseen 
 world, we may conclude that Heabani, like Patroklos 
 and Elpenor, was ultimately enabled to join his 
 fellow shades under satisfactory conditions. 
 
 II. The Sons of Leda. Teiresias, the head of the 
 starry Signs, comes and goes after reveahng to the 
 hero his destiny and guiding him by wise counsel ; 
 and as the shades of the bevy of fair women pass 
 before Odysseus, we have a very curious account of 
 the sons of Leda, ' Kastor tamer of steeds, and Poly- 
 deukes. These twain yet live but the quickening 
 earth is over them ; and even in the nether world 
 (vepOev yrj<s — ' beneath the earth ') they have honour 
 at the hand of Zeus. And they possess their life in 
 turn, living one day and dying the next, and they 
 have gotten worship even as the gods.' ^ The Aryan 
 origin of the Dioskouroi, whom Herodotos says came 
 to the Hellenes from the Pelasgoi,^ is clear ; ^ so when 
 Helene cannot find them amongst the Achaian host, 
 the poet says, 'Them the life-giving earth held fast in 
 Lakedaimon, in their dear native land.'* In one 
 point of view they are thus simply two Hellenik 
 heroes, but at an early period they became curiously 
 connected with the great non-Aryan and adopted 
 astronomical system. The third Euphratean zodiacal 
 
 1 Od. xi. 300-4, 2 Vide B. B. Jr., G. B. M. i. 176. 
 
 ' ' Tlie twin Asviiis or steeds, who represent the Dioskouroi ' (Sir 
 G. W. Cox, Mytholoyy of the Aryan Nations, 2.j4). 
 •' II. iii. 243-4. 
 
J 
 
 6 The Myth of Kirkt 
 
 Sign is Kas (' The Twins ' ^), and the archaic kosmo- 
 gonic myth or legend attached to the month is that 
 of the Two Hostile Brethren (Sun and Moon, Lion 
 and Unicorn,^ Nannaros ^-Sin * and Parsondas ^-Adar- 
 Sandan-Samas) and the Building of the First City, 
 z.e., the Universe built up out of chaos in kosmic 
 order by the Two Great Lights.^ These ' Great Twin 
 Brethren ' ^ are reduplicated in tlie two bright stars 
 of the constellation Didymoi, and the Dioskouroi are 
 their obvious Aryan analogues ; so that in the adjust- 
 ment of divinities to a foreign astrological system^ 
 these two became Gemini, ' fratres Helenae, lucida 
 sidera.' ^ So Hyginus says of Gemini, ' Hos complures 
 astrologi Castorem etPoUucem esse dixerunt.' '" The 
 rather obscure Homerik account thus at once becomes 
 most lucid ; we see how ' these twain ' (Sun and 
 
 ' Cf. Horace : ' geminus Pollux ' (Carmina, III. xxix. 64). 
 
 2 Vide B. B. Jr., U. 
 
 ^ As. Nannaru (' the Brilliant ') i.e., the Moon. 
 
 ^ The Moon-god, Ak. Zu-en (' Eye-lord ') ; cf. Mount Sinai. 
 
 * A variant form of an original which probably also supplied the 
 name Perseus (vide E. B. Jr., U. 54). 
 
 " Vide R. B. Jr., L. K. O. sec. xii. Qemini. 
 
 ' As to the Asvins, vide inter al. Bergaigne, La Religion Vedique, 
 1883, ii. 431 et seq. 
 
 ^ The corresponding process in Kem can be more clearly traced by 
 means of the late Zodiacs of Greek and Roman times. There the solar 
 god Shu ('Light'), the kosmogonic solar force (Pierret), kosmic heat 
 and light principle (Tiele), or air (smilit-air ?, Renouf), and the goddess 
 Tefnut ('Humidity'), the force of solar light (Pierret), heated kosmic 
 water (Tiele) or dew (Renouf), ' the two Liou-gods,' became the Gemini 
 of Roman times. 
 
 " Horace, Carmina, I. iii. 2. Ilelene is considered by many mytho- 
 logists to be a variant of the Vedic Sarama, a dawn-name. ' Le3 
 Afvins semblent etre avant tout des divinitfe matinales ' (Bergaigne). 
 
 '" Poeticon Astronomicon, ii. In voc. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 137 
 
 Moon) yet live although the earth is over them, and 
 the earth is ' quickening ' in the sense that it 
 constantly produces all the heavenly bodies, even as 
 the Kemic Upper-heaven (Nut) is female for the same 
 reason. That the twain ' have honour at the hand of 
 Zeus,' and ' have gotten worship even as the gods,' is 
 obvious ; and the remaining point is that they 
 ' possess their life in turn, living one day and dying 
 the next.' Now it is equally clear that they ' possess 
 their hfe in turn,' according to the relation of day 
 and night ; but the poet speaks of them as Hving 
 together and dying together which presents an 
 apparent difficulty. 
 
 The Signs of the Zodiac have been divided for 
 very many ages into diurnal and nocturnal constella- 
 tions ; the underlying reason for this arrangement 
 had utterly faded away perhaps 3,000 years ago, but 
 it is simply that six of the Signs were originally 
 reduplications of prior diurnal types, and the remain- 
 ing six of prior nocturnal types. Gemini is a diurnal 
 type ; the Sun and Moon are only seen together by 
 day, and in this aspect as the Twins they live and die 
 together ; for should one disappear and the other 
 remain, the latter ceases to be a twin brother and 
 passes into some other mythological phase. "When 
 the already familiar mythological aspects of the 
 simpler phenomena of heaven came to be applied to 
 the twelve natural divisions of the then newly- 
 discovered zodiacal cincture, the third division as 
 containing a special pair of bright stars would be a 
 
138 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 most suitable reduplication of the archaic Twins ; just 
 as in the adjoining constellation Cancer — the Crab 
 (or some such creature) being a type of Darkness — we 
 find no specially bright stars, so much so that this 
 Sign has been often called ' the Dark Constellation.' 
 Nor was a further and more purely astronomical 
 reason wanting to justify the choice, for, as Pliny 
 notes, ' Lunam bis coitum cum Sole et in nuUo alio 
 signo facere quam Geminis,' ^ an incident which doubt- 
 less did not escape the lynx-eye of archaic observa- 
 tion.^ And this diurnal character of Gemini seems 
 even to linger in the Homerik account, inasmuch as 
 it is not seen by Odysseus in the Scheol-night-world 
 but only referred to. 
 
 It is well to notice here a point in Homerik 
 criticism ; the whole of the Nekyia has been ' sus- 
 pected,' and various parts of it have been strongly 
 suspected and that from ancient times. As the early 
 critic was wholly ignorant of the archaic period, his 
 suspicions are not generally very noteworthy ; ^ but 
 the modern critic demands more serious attention,* 
 and may be fairly represented in the matter by Dr. 
 
 ' Hist. Nat. ii. 15. 
 
 ' For treatment of the Law of Reduplication in coDnexion with the 
 constellation-fiaures, vide B. B. Jr., L. K. O. and E. The Diurnal 
 Signs of the Zodiac are the Bam-sun (^ri'es), Sun and Moon (Gemini), 
 the Lion-sun (Leo), the Holy-sun (Ara, now the comparatively modern 
 Libra), the Archer-sun (Sayittai-ias, an excellent representation of whom 
 has heen very recently found at Sippara-Sepharvaim, ' the city of the 
 Sun'), and the Bain-giving-sun (Aquarius, = the Aryan Indra). 
 
 ' Vide sup. p. 125. 
 
 "* It will be remembered thit I am treating- of concept, not of 
 linguistic. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 139 
 
 Hayman, who thinks that, e.g., the account of Kastor 
 and Polydeukes has been tampered with, ' still, any 
 such tampering is probably older than Pindar. . . 
 Some nature-myth, of the alternation of the life and 
 death of the vegetable world, is probably at the root 
 of part of the legend.'^ Whether the root of the 
 legend is a vegetable one, the reader must judge. 
 Dr. Hayman does not assist the formation of a con- 
 clusion by any specific vegetable suggestions, but 
 recurs to the matter in an Appendix in which having 
 restated his ' suspicion ' of the passage, he observes ; — - 
 ' I can only give as the common ground for this 
 distrust the wide distance between such mythological 
 refinements and the simple forms of early legend 
 which are characteristically Homeric. It is impos- 
 sible, I should think, to read even the legends 
 contained in the veKvta only without feeling this.' 
 On such a text a long sermon might easily be 
 preached, sufiice it however to ask, — (1) Is a 'mytho- 
 logical refinement ' necessarily comparatively modern? 
 and (2) Is not the idea in the passage a very simple 
 and natural one ? I think so, and that taken alone it 
 might justly be regarded as being highly archaic. 
 Of course when we add the Euphratean connexion of 
 the whole episode this very reasonable possibility 
 develops into an almost absolute certainty. We 
 need not concern ourselves with difficult enquiries 
 into the exact period of the rise of the later Hellenik 
 developments of hero-worship, or of any local cult of 
 
 ' The Odyssey of Homer, ii. 211. 
 
I40 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 the Dioskouroi at Lakedaimon or elsewhere. The 
 Dioskouroi-Asvins on the one hand, and the Euphra- 
 tean Twins on the other, will reach back to a period 
 far more archaic than can be required by any theory 
 of the Homerik poems. 
 
 Next as to ' mythological refinements.' I venture 
 to affirm that archaic ideas in their second or perhaps 
 tliird stage, are often remarkably distinguished by 
 complexity and elaboration ; and am content to leave 
 the decision of this question to students of Yedic and 
 Kemic divinities. But let us turn for an example to 
 the distant field of Polynesian mythology, and notice 
 the kosmogonic scheme of the people of Mangaia, an 
 island in the Hervey Group. The Universe (Avaiki), 
 pictured as a cocoa-nut shell, rests on a stem which 
 tapers to a point ; and this point is personified as a 
 demon of unhuman form named Teakaiaro§ (' Koot- 
 of-all-existence '). At the bottom of the shell is an 
 old woman called Varimatetakave (' the Beginning- 
 and-the-bottom '), and her son Vatea (' Noon ') was the 
 first man. He ' had two magnificent eyes, rarely 
 visible at the same time ' — Gemini-Dioskouroi ; they 
 ' possess their life in turn,' and well may Prof. Max 
 Miiller say that here there is ' much that will startle 
 those who think that metaphysical conceptions are 
 incompatible with downright savagery.' ^ 
 
 III. The Sons of Iphimedeia. These famous pair 
 of twins Otos, the Vedic Vata (' the Wind '), and 
 
 ' Introduction to the Science of Relii/ion, 2nd edit. 1882, p. 259 ; vide 
 Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific. 
 
KirM and the Nekyia. 141 
 
 Ephialtes (' the On-leaper,' i.e. the hurricane), are 
 children of Poseidon ; whilst their mother's name is 
 merely a variant intensive of Medeia/ and she is a 
 personage ' entirely detached from Hellenic associa- 
 tions. ' ^ Thus she is represented as being a votary of 
 Dionysos.^ In this account, as in so many, we have 
 an intermixture of Aryan and non- Aryan myth and 
 legend ; thus the names of the gigantic brethren and 
 their singular triumph over Ares whom they bound 
 and imprisoned,* embody the Aryan portion of the 
 myth, being the contest of clouds, hurricane, wind 
 etc.^ Their gigantic size is equally Aryan and non- 
 Aryan ; but their connexion with Orion, to whom 
 alone of men they were inferior, their determination 
 to attack ' the immortals in Olympos,' their effort to 
 make ' a pathway to the sky,' and their consequent 
 destruction by the Aryan ApoUon,^ point to a non- 
 Aryan element in the story, for Wind and Hurricane 
 require no such pathway nor do they pile mountain 
 on mountain to make it. We cannot but remember 
 the Legend of the Tower of Babel^' in the building of 
 which the archaic king Etana ** seems to have been 
 concerned ; ^ how 
 
 ' Babylon, corruptly to sin went and 
 Small and great mingled on the mound ; ' 
 
 ^ Tide mp. p. 28 ; cf. Memii6n and Aga-memnon. Aa to Memnon, 
 Dr. Oppert observes, ' It is possible that JJmman Amman " house of the 
 god Amman," was corrupted by the Greeks to Memnonian, the great 
 edifice of Susa ' {Records of the Past, vii. 83). 
 
 ^ Gladstone, Homeric Synchrtmism, 218. ' Diodoros, v. 50. 
 
 * II. V, 385-91. " Vide R. B. Jr., E. 19. ^ Od. xi. 305-20. 
 
 ' Ap. W. St. Chad Bosoawen, in Records of the Past, vii. 129 et seq. 
 
 8 Vide mp. p. 114. » Vide C. A. G. 163. 
 
142 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 until the Divinity 
 
 ' Of their stronghold in the night 
 Entirely an end he made, 
 
 In his anger also the secret counsel he poured out ; 
 To scatter (ahroad) his face he set ; 
 He gave a command to make hostile their counsel ; ' 
 Their progress he impeded.' ^ 
 
 Much might be added on this subject, and much 
 more will yet be discovered ; suffice it now to indi- 
 cate an outline, and the presence of Euphratean 
 influence. 
 
 The number 9, so frequent in Homerik incident, 
 is prominently introduced in the legend of the sons of 
 Iphimedeia. ' At 9 seasons old they were of breadth 
 9 cubits, and 9 fathoms in height.' This connexion 
 is Aryan, and the number reappears similarly in 
 Hesiod, e.g., in the 9 years' banishment of the divinity 
 who broke an oath by the water of Styx, in the 9 
 days fall of the ahndn, and in tlie number of the 
 Muses. Again, to turn to Norse mythology, in the 
 Eagnarok-contest Thorr, suffocated by the floods of 
 venom from the Midhgardhsormr, staggers back 9 
 paces to show that he ceases to exist in any of the 9 
 worlds, whilst Heimdallr is styled son of 9 mothers, 
 to show that his influence extends throughout all the 
 worlds. We find these 9 worlds, a reduplication of a 
 prior theory of 3 worlds (heaven, earth and the 
 
 ' Or ' to make strange their speech.' 
 
 ^ The Tablet is sadly broken, but further and fuller accounts wiU 
 probably be recovered. The references to the legeud in Alexander Poly- 
 histor and Abydenos are familiar. 
 
KirM mid the Nckyia. 143 
 
 invisible world, or heaven, atmosphere and earth) 
 referred to in the Vedic Hymns. ^ 
 
 IV. Minos. From legend we pass on to sights 
 actually beheld by Odysseus, who on the edge of the 
 Two Worlds, might apply to himself the words of the 
 Kemic votarj^ of Asar (Osiris) : — 
 
 ' It is I who know the roads of Nu.^ 
 The g ites of heaven open. The gates of earth open to me. 
 Seb ^ has opened the bolts, he has opened the lower abode wide.'' 
 I am the Sun who proceeds from Nu. 
 I am the orb, what I hate is repose.^ 
 The great Soul '^ has come along the noble road. 
 I stand at the earth as Seb.' 
 
 The holder of the secrets of the Gate at the Balance of the Sun, 
 Who places the Feather in it daily.^ 
 
 The sceptre in the front of Seb in that Balance of the Sun. 
 He places Truth in it daily.^ 
 
 That is to say, the Sun has turned back to the earth 
 on his downward evening course, and has reached the 
 western horizon-gateway. Here at the abode of Seb, 
 
 ' ' II est maintenant ^tahli que I'univers a 6te divis^ par les Risliis en 
 six, sept, ««//, ouvingt etun' (Bergaigne, i« Heliyion Vcdique, ii. ]2!l). 
 Probably the prominence of the number 9 is also connected with the 
 Moons of gestation. 
 ^ The Firmament, 
 
 ^ The time-measuring Earth-god, Time being marked by the passage 
 of the heavenly bodies through the Gates of Hades, eastern and western. 
 * Funereal Ritual, Ixviii. 
 ^ ' It little profits that an idle king, 
 
 I mete and dole 
 
 Unequal laws unto a savage race. 
 I cannot rest from travel .... 
 1 am become a name ; 
 . . always roaming with a hungry heart ' 
 
 (Tennyson, Ulysses). 
 " The Sun. ' Funereal Ritual, Ixxxv. 
 
 s Ihicl xii. ' Ibid. cxx. 
 
144 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 lord of the horizon-gate, he holds the secrets of the 
 Underworld, into which he sees and is about to 
 descend. ' The Balance of the Sun ' ^ is the Sun him- 
 self, ' the Lord of the Two Worlds,' "^ poised at the 
 horizon between the Upper and thS Underworld. The 
 ' Feather ' which he places in it daily, and which is 
 also called ' Truth,' is his own revealing solar eye.^ 
 This is the position of Odysseus by the trench. 
 
 The shades of the Achaian heroes having de- 
 parted, Odysseus next ' saw Minos, glorious son of 
 Zeus, wielding a golden sceptre, giving sentence from 
 his throne to the dead, while they sat and stood 
 around the prince, asking his dooms through the wide- 
 gated house of Aides.' * Minos ' appears in Homer as 
 the greatest and most important of his archaic per- 
 sonages ; ' ^ and has a triple aspect, as connected alike 
 with Aryan and Semitic mythology, and also as re- 
 presenting to some extent a genuine historical tradi- 
 tion. His Phoenician coimexion has been fully illus- 
 trated ; " he is the son of Europe (Ereb, ' the West ') 
 
 ^ Achilleus Tatios says that ' the substitution of Libra for the Claw 
 of the Scorpion was imported from Kgypt ' (Prof. Sayce, in T. iii. 149) ; 
 and the zodiacal Balance, the only Sign of the Twelve which i.s not 
 Euphratean M origin, and which has been said to mark ' the equality of 
 the days and nights at the equinoxes,' appears to be a reduplication of 
 this balance of the horizon-sun. It is found, as of course, on the late 
 Kemic Zodiacs. * Funerenl Mitual, xcv. 
 
 ' So of the two Plumes of Har (Iloros), the youthful Sun-god, it is 
 said ; — ' His eyes are the plumes on his head ' (Ibid. cap. xvii.), the 
 god being provided with an eye for Northern and an eye for Southern 
 Kem. 
 
 * Od. xi. 568-71. ^ Gladstone, Juvmtus Mundi, 118. 
 
 « Ibid. 118-22 ; Homeric Synchronism, 213 ; R. B. Jr., G. D. M. i. 
 38; ii. 142. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. i^]5 
 
 daughter of Phoinix or of Agenor (' the Lordly '), 
 king of Phoinikia, whose name is merely a translation 
 of Baal, and who is styled a twin-brother of Belos ; 
 but his name is Aryan, the Indian Manu, Man as the 
 ' measurer ' and ' thinker.' Like Aietes and Atlas he 
 is ' baleful,' ^ for dread and terrible is his might, and 
 man must die ere he stand before the judgment-seat ; 
 he is also a sterner and darker reduplication of the 
 Sun-god in his character of the Dian-nisi (' Judge-of- 
 men'), his brother Ehadamanthos, the Kemic Ehota- 
 menti (' Judge-of-the-Hidden-world '), being a milder 
 and brighter reduplication of the same august per- 
 sonage. The Sun-god, alike in the theory of Nile 
 and Euphrates, has committed to him the great task 
 of judging mortals in the Unseen-world ; and the 
 name and alleged wisdom and law-giving character of 
 Minos are based upon this idea. So an Akkadian 
 Hymn invokes the 'Spirit of Udu, king of juslice,'^ 
 JJd, Ut, or Udu being a name of the Akkadian Sun- 
 god, and the Assyrian translation reading Samas.^ So 
 an Inscription of Nabukuduruzur the Great states : — 
 
 ' To the Sun, the Judge supreme, the temple of Dian-nisi, 
 His temple in Bab-ilu grandly I built.' ■* 
 
 ' Od. xi. 322 ; vide sup. p. 35. ^ Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 17. 
 
 ' Heb. Shemesli. The Ak. ud means ' sun, day, eye, dawn, light, 
 white,' and ' to rise,' and zal, As. samsu, is another name of the sun. 
 Ud-zal, (' Rising-sun ') recalls the Etruscan Usil, with respect to which 
 Dr. Is. Taylor ohserves ; — ' Hesychius says that among the Etruscans 
 ausel meant the " dawn." We may conclude, therefore, that the USIL 
 of the monuments personified the " rising sun " ' (Etruscan Researches, 
 143). The reverse of the templum of Piacenza (Vide Deecke, Etruskische 
 Forschungen, Das Templum von Piacenza, PL III.) shows two circular 
 divisions, one Usils — that of the Sun, and the other Tivs — that of the 
 Moon. ^ Vide T. ii. 32. 
 
 L 
 
146 The Myth of Kirki. 
 
 The ' golden sceptre ' or wand of light-gods marks a 
 reminiscence of actual radiation.^ 
 
 V. Orion. Next, says Odysseus, 'I marked the 
 great Orion driving tne wild beasts together over the 
 mead of asphodel, the very beasts which he himself 
 had slain on the lonely hills, with a strong mace all of 
 bronze in his hands, that is ever unbroken.' ^ That 
 very remarkable and thoroughly Euphratean person- 
 age Orion is most appropriately encountered in the 
 Eleventh Odyssey ; and, as I have elsewhere discussed 
 the Orion-myth, alike in its primary solar and in its 
 reduplicated constellational character, at some length, 
 I will only notice it briefly here and refer the reader 
 to my previous remarks.* Now, as Orion is also a con- 
 stellation, identical with the Euphratean constellation 
 Dumuzi (Tammuz), and as we have in this vision of 
 Odysseus a combination of Night and Death, let me 
 refer to a remarkable statement of Diodoros, in his 
 brief resume of the Chaldean astronomico-astrology 
 of his day.* Having stated the Chaldean scheme of 
 36 stars ox constellations, 12 northern, 12 zodiacal 
 and 12 southern, he says ; — ' And of these those 
 which are visible they reckon as belonging to the 
 living, Tous S' d(f)ave'L<;, tols TeTckevTTjKocTLV TrpocroipiaOaL 
 vojji.itflV(TLv} Here, then, is independent testimony 
 
 ' For Aryan illustration of the concept of Minos, and his being slain 
 in the West by Kokalos, the Night-gloom, vide Sir G. W. Cox, Mytho- 
 logy of the Aryan Nations, 328-9. 
 
 » Od. xi. 672-4. 
 
 ' Vide R. B. Jr., O. D. M. ii. 270 et seq. ; E. see. iv. 
 
 * For a general examination of the passage, -vide E. sec. xxvii. 
 
 ' JDiodoros, ii. 31. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 147 
 
 relative to the Eupliratean theory of constellations in 
 the world of the dead, a line of thought which cer- 
 tainly much assists in explaining the sights seen by 
 the hero, and confirms the view here put forth of the 
 connexion between Night and the Shade-world. But 
 Orion is also solar, and as such was beloved by Eos 
 and slain by the lunar Artemis ; ^ and that the Sun 
 should shine among the dead is an idea familiar to the 
 Homerik poet as to bards of Akkad and of Kem. So 
 Helios threatens; — 'If they pay me not full atone- 
 ment for the cattle, I will go down to Aides and shine 
 among the dead.' ^ The poet states that the Orion- 
 sun drives triumphantly through the Underworld the 
 beasts which he had slain ' on the lonely hills ' of 
 heaven in the Upperworld ; he still pursues the end- 
 less chase, and especially follows with his Dogs the 
 Hare-moon. The heavenly hills are lonely because 
 the solar hero is ever, or very frequently and natur- 
 ally, regarded as being alone. He has indeed sailors 
 with him in his solar barque, but generally, like 
 Dionysos, he ' wanders abroad through the boundless 
 Olympos,' the lonely Bellerophon, the unattended 
 Orion, Melqarth who hunts by himself, Dumuzi the 
 ' Only son ' of heaven. The poet styles Orion 
 nekcapLov, ' portentous ; ' and in his stellar aspect as 
 the head of the Southern Signs,^ he burns on high a 
 fate-revealer and a mighty Sign for evermore. In his 
 
 1 Od. V. 131-4. 
 
 ^ Ibid. xii. 382-3. For comment on this passage, vide R. B. Jr., O. 
 D. M. i. 392-3. 
 
 3 II. xviii. 486-8. 
 
 I 'J. 
 
148 The Myth of KirkL 
 
 solar aspect he is slain by the Scorpion of Darkness/ 
 which is reduplicated in the zodiacal Scorpio? The 
 Ak. ur, ' light,' As. uru, Heb. aor, reappears in the 
 Boiotik Urion,^ Aorion, Oarion.* 
 
 In the occult legend of the god Zu (' the Wise,' 
 ' the Giver '), we find that ' the tablets of destiny, 
 stolen by Zu, for the benefit, apparently, of mankind, 
 formed the vault of the palace of the under-world.' ^ 
 We read : — 
 
 ' The tablets of doom his hand took, 
 The attributes of Bel he seized, he laid hold of the oracles. 
 Zu fled away and a rugged mountain concealed (him). 
 He spread darkness.' 
 
 Now here we have another curious illustra^'.ion of the 
 
 ^ ApoUodoros, I. iv. 3 ; Serviua, Aeneid, i. 539 ; Ovid, Fasti, v. 
 541-3. 
 
 » Vide B. B. Jr., L. K. 0. sec. xvii. 
 
 ^ ' Hunc Hyrieus, quia sic genitus, vocat Uriona ' (Ovid, Fasti, v. 
 535) ; Hyginus, Poeticon Astronomicon, ii. 34 ; Schol. in Germanicus, 
 Latin version of the Phainomena of Aratos, in voc. 
 
 ^ Korinna, Fragment ii. ' She represented Orion as a noble and 
 pious man, a Civilizer of the barbarous country ' (K. O. Miiller, Introduc- 
 tion to a Scientific System of Mythology, 347), the usual role of the Sun- 
 god. So Pindar speaks of (^iViv ' Slapiavduv {Isth. iii. 67), and the idea 
 of gigantic stature, sun as against stars, is conspicuous throughoiit the 
 myth. Steinthal remarks that ' the formation of proper names of men 
 and places by the termination On is excessively common ' (In Goldziher, 
 Mythology among the Hebrews, 408, note), and instances Dag-6n and 
 Shimsh-6n. I think that this on probably often represents the Ak. an, 
 ana, anna, ' high, sky, god.' Thus Dagou, called by Berosos Odakon 
 I^Chaldaika, ii. Fragment 6), = the Ak. Udukana ('the Lord-who-rises- 
 high ') ; and being the Fish-sun {Piscis, afterwards Pisces) becomes 
 almost necessarily connected with the Semitic dag, '.Ifish.' Orion simi- 
 larly = Ur-ana ('the Light-of-heaven'j. So Orchamus, 'septimus a 
 priseo numeratur origine Belo ' (Ovid, Metam. iv. 212-3), = Ur-kamu 
 (' Burning-light.' Cf. Shakspere, ' You ever-burning lights above,' 
 Othello, iii. 3). 
 
 ' C. A. a. 116. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 149 
 
 intimate connexion between the Underworld and the 
 Night-sky. For, I think, it is the stellar ' tablets of 
 destiny,' which of course are the rightful property of 
 the Heaven-sire, that this Akkadian Prometheus and 
 darkness-spreader lays unholy hands upon ; and so 
 ' Nabu, the powerful,' who is primarily ' the meridian 
 sun,' is commanded to ' (slay) Zu with his weapon.' 
 Hence the very close link between ' the vault of the 
 palace of the under-world,' the cave of Kalypso, and 
 the palace of Kirke. 
 
 VI. Tityos. Next seen was ' Tityos, son of Earth, 
 lying on a levelled groimd, outstretched over 9 roods' 
 length, and vultures twain beset him one on either 
 side, and gnawed at his liver, piercing even to the 
 caul, but he drave them not away with his hands. 
 For he had dealt violently with Leto, the famous bed- 
 fellow of Zeus, as she went up to Pytho through the 
 fair lawns of Panopeus.' ■^ The other Homerik refer- 
 ence to the giant states how the Phaiakes ' carried 
 Ehadamanthos, of the fair hair, to visit Tityos, son of 
 Earth ' in Euboia. ' Even thither they went, and 
 accomphshed the journey on the self-same day.'^ The 
 acute student of archaic myths will, I think, unhesi- 
 tatingly conclude that we have here something 
 genuine and occult, something the meaning of which 
 had long been forgotten, whilst the form of its ex- 
 pression remained fossihzed. Ephoros, B.C. 340, in 
 his Historiai^ tells us Euemeristically that Tityos, 
 /Biaiov oivSpa koX irapavoiiov^ was slain by ApoUon 
 
 1 Od. xi. 676-81. ^ Ibid. vii. 323-6. ^ Frar/ment ]xk. 
 
I50 The Myth of KirM. 
 
 (=Ehadamantlios^) ; and we have seen ^ what was 
 the nature of his offence with respect to Leto. Now 
 this visitation of Tityos by Ehadamanthos was evi- 
 dently judicial ; ^ as Dionysos the solar judge, he is 
 carried in a day by the Phaiakian ship of cloud-land * 
 to Euboia, not the historical and geographical island, 
 but the country of the Good-ox. The special coin- 
 type of the island of Euboia is the head-of-an-ox, or 
 an ox statant ; ^ and on it was the cave called Boos 
 Aule where 16 was said to have brought forth 
 Epaphos.^ The ancients supposed that it had been 
 severed from Boiotia (' Ox -land ') by an earthquake, 
 and the name has reference to the wondrous ox or 
 cow of Kadmos ('the Easterner '= the Sun), marked 
 with the full moon,'^ and which led Kadmos through 
 Phokis, the coins of which bear the head of an ox and 
 also the heads of three oxen placed triangularly,^ and 
 
 ' Viie sup. p. 145. ^ Sup. p. 182. 
 
 ' ' The sense of i(f)opaa> in H. is to " visit or oversee for punish- 
 ment " ' (Hayman, The Odyssey of Homer, ii. 2h). 
 
 * Vide Sir G. W. Cox, Mytliology of the Aryan Nations, 487 et seg. 
 That actual non- Aryan and historical traits are fehown in the portraiture of 
 Alkinoos and his people is obvious, but the Natural Phenomena element 
 is there also. 
 
 ^ ' Qui typi ad nomen insulae adludunt ' (Eclihel, Doctrina Numwmn 
 Veterum, ii. 822). 
 
 « Strabo, X. i. 8. 
 
 ' ' It had on each of its sides a white mark, like the circle of the 
 moon when full ' (Pausanias, IX. xii. I). ' It had on each side a mark 
 like the moon ' (Schol. in Aristophanes, Batrachoi, 12at)). 
 
 * If the reader will refer to R. B. Jr., U. sec. L\., he will see the 
 lunar origin of the Triquetra, a name actually applied by the Roman 
 poets to Sicily, which as Triuacria was early identified with the Homerik 
 Thrinakie (^Od. xi. 107), 'the Three-pointed,' a name which does not 
 refer to the thrinax or trident of Poseidon, but to the points of the three 
 crescent-moons surrounding the full-moon. It is almost unnecessary to 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 151 
 
 at length lay down on the site of Thebai.^ This lunar 
 cow, ox, or bull, reduplicated in the constellation 
 Taurus, ' the exaltation of the Moon,' ^ leads on the 
 Sun into the moon-land (Euboia, Boiotia), ^ where he 
 judges and sentences the offending Tityos. It takes 
 but one day to reach the distant Euboia and to re- 
 turn. Ehadamanthos is, of course, a variant phase of 
 Minos. 
 
 The attack on Leto is said to have taken place 
 
 She was going to Pytho, a name for that part of 
 Phokis at the foot * of Parnassos ; and Pausanias 
 
 say that tlie Homerik poet knows nothing about Sicily and never refers 
 to it. Thus Mr. Gladstone, in his Homerik map, places the island of 
 Thrinakie in the north-east. 
 
 1 ' The Ox is called Theba among the Syrians ' {Etyinol. Magnum, in 
 voc. Theba ; cf. Schol. in Lykophron, 1206). 
 
 ^ Porphyry, Feri tou en Od. ton Nymph. Ant. viii. 
 
 ' Selene is styled Tauroker6s {Pseudo-Orphik Hymn, ix. 2), and 
 Pausanias describes her statue at Elis, ical rijs /iev Kcpara Ik ttji xe^aX^s 
 {Periiyeds, VI. xxiy. 6). According to Olympiodoros, ' the ancient 
 theologists ' said that ' the moon is drawn by two bulls ' (^MS. Comment. 
 on the Oorgias of Platon), and the moon-car, bearing a crescent and thus 
 drawn, is given by Lajard from an Asiatic original {Quite de Mithra, 
 PL Ixvii. Fig. 8). An ox-drawn moon-car is also depicted in the MS. of 
 Cicero's Translation of Aratos. Of the lunar Astarte (Istar, afterwards 
 planetary) we read, 17 Se 'Aa-TafiTt] inidrfKc rfi Ibia Ke(j>aKrj ^acriKeias 
 napaa-r)jxov Ki4>aKriv ravpov (Sanchouniathon, i. 7) ; and she appears on 
 coins cow-headed or bull-headed accordingly. Similarly, Istar sends 
 ' the Bull of heaven ' (' It was a constellation, perhaps Taurus,' Prof. 
 Sayce, C. A. G. 231) against the solar Izdubar. 
 
 * The name Pytho or Python probably = ' informateur ' (Lenormant, 
 La Divination, 161). ' Une troisieme opinion, assez en faveur, derive Uv6a> 
 de ^idos = gouffre (angl. bottom).' Or, again, ' Python n'est peut-etre 
 qu'un Typhon a peine dSflgurS ' (IJouche-Lecleroq, Histoire de la Divina- 
 tion, iii. 65, note). Plutarch says ;— ' It is far from quiet or orderly 
 work, when souls, separated from mind, get possession of a body subject 
 to passions. Of such sovds came perchance the Tityi and the Typhons, 
 
1 5 2 The Myth of KirkL 
 
 understood the latter half of the line differently from 
 Messrs. Butcher and Lang. He says ; — ' I was not 
 able to conjecture why Homer called Panopeus kalli- 
 choros, until I learnt the reason from the Athenians 
 who are called Thyades. The Thyades are Attik 
 women who come to Parnassos yearly, and they and 
 the Delphik women celebrate orgies to Dionysos. 
 The Thyades are wont to form dances (xopov?) on 
 the way from Athens, both elsewhere and amongst 
 the Panopeans. Therefore the epithet applied by 
 Homer to Panopeus seems to indicate the dance of 
 the Thyades.'-^ Now in the universal Dionysiak 
 nature-dance, of which I have treated elsewhere,^ the 
 stars bear an important part. Even the Moon and 
 the 50 daughters of Nereus who are in the sea, 
 celebrate in choric dance Demeter and Persephone, 
 which dance is led off by 'the starry-faced ether of 
 Zeus ; ' ^ the protagonists in ' the chorus of stars,' as 
 Maximus Tyrius * calls it, being the Pleiades.^ These 
 
 and that Typhon [Python ?] who used to hinder and trouble the oracular 
 power at Delphi ' (On the Face in the Moon's Orb, xxx., ap. 0. W. King). 
 For the connexion between the monster Typhaon and Pytho, vide 
 Homerik Hymn His Apollona, 349 et seq. Teb, the Kemic name of the 
 hippopotamus, supplies a town-name and also the name Tebhu, the g-od 
 of Teb, i.e., Set, whom the Hellenes called Typhon ; according to Tiele, 
 ' the Greeks must have got the name Typhon from the Phoenicians, who 
 identified Set tebhu with their god of storms, Ziphon' {Hist, of the 
 Egyptian Reliyion, 51, note 3). Pytho = ' the Oracle' (iSayce). 
 
 > Pausanias, X. iv. 1, 2; vide P. B. Jr., O. B. M. i. 271-2; cf. the 
 sacred spring of Demeter at Eleusis, called Kallichoros (' the Fount-of- 
 the-beauteous-dance '), Homerik Hymn Eis Demetran, 273 ; Pausanias, 
 I. xxxviii. 5. 
 
 » Vide G. D. M. i. 103 et seq. » Euripides, I&n, 1074 et seq. 
 
 * Diale.veis, xiv. ; cf. Manetho, v. 7. 
 
 ' Vide Hyginus, Poeticon Astronomicon, ii. 21. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 153 
 
 ' ethereal dances of the stars ' ^ are imitated by earthly- 
 votaries ; for a great part of archaic ritual originates 
 in an imitation more or less exact of natural phe- 
 nomena. Panopeus (' the All-seeing ') is a variant of 
 Argos Panoptes,^ and a son of Asteropeia ; even 
 whilst yet unborn he quarrelled with his brother 
 Krisos (the solar ' Judge '). As Let6 (the Holy- 
 darkness) was passing through the beautiful stellar 
 dancers, she was attacked by Tityos (' the Extended '), 
 the starry host regarded as a vast night-vanquishing 
 giant, stretched out 9 roods, i.e., over the whole 
 heaven-vault ; and this profanation was, as of course, 
 avenged by ApoUon or Ehadamanthos ; or, again, 
 by ' the swift-winged dart of Artemis,' ^ as the star- 
 quelling Moon. At Delphoi the mother and her two 
 glorious children, ApoUon and Artemis, were all 
 three represented piercing the vanquished Tityos 
 with their arrows.* 
 
 The remaining point in the myth is that (1) vultures 
 twain beset the giant, (2) one on either side, but (3) he 
 did not drive them away with his hands, although he 
 is not stated to have been bound. In mythological 
 artistic combinations when two personages, creatures, 
 or other objects, stand one on each side of a central 
 object or design, they very frequently re23resent the 
 powers of morning and evening, e.g., dawn and 
 twihght, the rising and setting sun, darkness eastern 
 
 ' Euripides, Elektra, 467. 
 
 ^ An individual Panopeus is named by Homer as the sire of Epeios, 
 the boxer (11. xxiii. 665) ; of. Pausanias, II. xxix. 4. 
 
 ^ Pindar, Pyth. iv. 90. ^ Pausanias, X. xi. 1. 
 
154 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 and western, etc. Thus in a Kemic design showing 
 the Soul rising heavenward from the dead body, it is 
 guarded and assisted by the Eam-headed-sun ^ eastern 
 and western. Thus, again, in Euphratean design 
 the heavenly altar with its solar flame is guarded 
 or assailed on either side by a Scorpion-darkness - 
 demon ; ^ or the Grove of the Underworld, eastern 
 and western, is shown by a palm-tree on either side 
 of a central scene.^ Now in Euphratean myth we 
 meet Avith ' the divine Storm-bird,' ' the divine Zu- 
 bird ' above noticed, who ' spreads darkness ; ' and 
 this creature is also known as ' the Giant-bird,' suit- 
 able to attack a giant, ' the Bird with the sharp beak,' 
 ' the flesh-eating Bird ; ' * like the Stymphalian birds, 
 ' eaters of human flesh,' warred on and vanquished 
 by the solar HeraklSs. This Bird of storm and dark- 
 ness, which has various Aryan analogues, is redupli- 
 cated in the Darkness eastern and western. These 
 flesh-eating Vultures^ of blackness prey upon the 
 stellar Tityos, as the Kemic ' Crocodile [Darkness] 
 of the West fed upon the Achmu Uretu (the setting 
 stars) ; ' and as the Vultures are two, so the one Croco- 
 dile is reduplicated in ' the Crocodiles of the East and 
 West.' ^ Hence, too, the Vultures beset Tityos ' one 
 on either side,' a delicate incident bearing convincing 
 
 ' Ba means Ijoth ' soul ' and ' ram ; ' the Sun as the Great-soul 
 therefore appears at times ram-headed. 
 
 2 Vide R. B. Jr., E. Fig. 3 ; C.A. Q. Fig. 27. 
 
 3 Ibid. Fig. 12. 1 Vide E. 69. 
 
 ^ There is no special point in the Birds being called ' vultures ; ' -yv-^ 
 perhaps represents a Kemic term (vide Wharton, Etyma Gi-aeca, 40). 
 « Vide E. B. Jr., E. Appendix I. 
 
KirM and the Nekyia. 155 
 
 testimony to the truly archaic character of the story. 
 Eepresentations of the human constellation-figures 
 often show them with extended arms ; so Aratos says 
 of Andromede, the Chained-lady ; — 
 
 ' And there, too, hath she both her arms outspread. 
 With chains upon them e'en in heaven ; aloft 
 And thus outstretched those hands are ever held.' ' 
 
 So we read ' Canst thou loose the bands of Orion ? ' ^ 
 These figures are, as it were, fastened to the sky with 
 golden nails, and so the bands of Tityos are not men- 
 tioned, for his fetters form a part of the Giant himself; 
 and he cannot free his hands to drive away the Birds, 
 whose beaks pierce ' even to the bowels ' {hiprpov 
 ecrco), i.e., to the very centre (of the sky). 
 
 Lastly, the stellar Giant is a reduplication of the 
 simpler solar Giant, Oridn the Sun and Orion the 
 Constellation. This is excellently shown in the in- 
 stance of the solar Herakles. ' He is of many shapes 
 [like the constellations], he devours all things and 
 produces all things, he slays and he heals. Eound 
 his head he bears the Morning and the Night, and as 
 living through the hours of darkness he wears a robe 
 of stars {acrTpo-)(_iT(av),'^ and thus becomes Dionysos^ 
 Nebridopeplos.* So arises naturally the idea of a 
 stellar giant, Asterios — whose body measured ten 
 cubits in length,^ or Asterion who married Europe 
 
 ' Phainomena, 202-4. 
 
 ^ Job, xxxviii. 31. Whether the constellation Oiion is referred to or 
 not in the original, is immaterial in this connexion. 
 
 ^ Sir G. W. Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, 229, note 4. 
 <■ Vide R. B. Jr., G. D. M. ii. 19 et seq. ; U. 76 et aeq. 
 * Pausanias, I. xxxv. 6. 
 
156 The Myth of KirkL 
 
 (the Darkness) and brought up Minos and ■ Ehada- 
 manthos.^ The stars may be at peace as well as at 
 war with Darkness. But Tityos has his triumph and 
 revenge ; Eos comes and frees him from his tormen- 
 tors, and his strong hands, bound no longer, grasp 
 and strangle the two Bkds,^ even as the infant 
 Her aides slays the two Snakes. 
 
 Vn. Tantalos. Odysseus next ' beheld Tantalos 
 in grievous torment, standing in a mere and the 
 water came nigh unto his chin.' In vain ' that old 
 man,' an expression repeated — he being the head of 
 the family of Pelops — stoops to drink, the water 
 
 ' Apollodoros, III. i. 2 ; Diodoros, iv. 60. 
 
 ^ A Euphratean cylinder, given by Creuzer and elsewhere, shows a 
 four-winged divine personage standing between two large Birds whose 
 necks he grasps whilst their mouths are open as if they were being 
 strangled, or at all events severely handled. Another design (Lajard, 
 Culte de Mithra, PL Ixi. Fig. 7) shows an attack by a divine personage 
 on three large birds, a scene repeated on Greek gems showing the contest 
 between Herakles and the Stymphalian Birds. The solar Prometheus 
 (Sk. Pramantha), is tormented in the same way as Tityos until rescued 
 by Herakles, and the connexion in idea between the Liver, Space, the 
 Points of the Compass, etc., has received fresh and very suggestive illus- 
 tration from the careful study made by Dr. Deecke of the Templum of 
 Piacenza (' Die Leber ein templmn,' Etiiiskische Forschungen und Siudien, 
 Zweites Heft, 1882). Hezekiel (xxi. 21) tells how the king of Babylon 
 when using divination, inspected the liver ; and Diodoros (ii. 29) bears 
 testimony to the Kaldean science of interpreting the future from the 
 appearance of the entrails of animals. M. Lenormant has edited a text 
 (Choix de Textes, No. 87) which treats of deductions to be drawn from 
 the appearance of the heart of a dog, fox, ram, horse, ox, lion, bear, fish, 
 serpent, and various other creatures (vide Lenormant, La Divination 
 chez les ChaldSens, 55) ; and if the texts treating of the art come fully to 
 light, it will dovibtless be possible to arrive at the rationale of the system 
 which, like aU such ideas, is mainly founded on actual natural incident, 
 anthropomorphic analogy, and synchronous occurrence. The Proto- 
 Aryan yahan, yakart, becomes the Sk. yahrit, Gk. hepar, Lat._/ecw, Lith. 
 jehna, Lett, ahnis, Bohem. jatra, Welsh iau. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 157 
 
 vanishes and black earth shows at his feet ; and 
 when he stretches out his hands in fruitless attempt 
 to clutch pears, apples, figs in the bright grove 
 ' overhead,' ' the wind would toss them to the 
 shadowy clouds.' ^ Archilochos,^ Alkaios, Alkman,^ 
 Pindar,* and Polygnotos ^ represent a stone as placed 
 over his head by Zeus and ever ready to crush him. 
 Polygnotos also portrayed his Homerik sufferings. 
 The solar stone which rolls down again on Sisyphos 
 is the stone which threatens to crush Tantalos ; and 
 in each case is a reduplication of the tormented 
 personage, a blending of ideas which in their totality 
 make up a singular anthropomorphic story. These 
 phases of the suffering Sun suitably appear to the 
 hero in the joyless realms of Aides. Moral in their 
 origin there is none ; the Tantalos-sun, Prometheus- 
 like, steals the blessings of heaven (food of the gods^), 
 or discovers its secrets '' to men, and must suffer for the 
 offence. As Sir G. W. Cox observes ; — ' The punish- 
 ments of Tantalos and Ixion [who is referred to by 
 Pindar as being a fourth sufferer with the Homerik 
 three], of Lykaon and Sisyphos, are involved in the 
 very idea of these beings. The sun, who woos the 
 dawn, yet drives her from him as he rises in the sky. 
 He loves the dew which his rays burn up ; and if he 
 shine on the earth too fiercely, its harvests must be 
 withered. If his face approaches the stream too 
 
 1 Od. xi. 582-92. * Fragment liii. 
 
 ' Schol. Pindar, Olymp. i. 97. * Olymp. i. 90 ; Isth. yii. 21. 
 
 ^ Pausanias, X. xxxi. 2. " Pindar, Olymp. i. 98. 
 ' Diodoros, iv. 74. 
 
158 The Myth of Kir ke. 
 
 closely, the watercourses will soon be beds of gaping 
 slime. The penalty paid by Tantalos is bound up with 
 the phrases which described the action of the sun.' ^ 
 As to the name Tantalos, we may safely agree with 
 Dr. Hayman that it ' is from an Asiatic source.' ^ 
 Tantalos, the Paphlagonian or Lydian king, whose 
 tomb was shown at Mount Sipylos,^ is a thoroughly 
 non-Aryan personage, however much Aryan mytho- 
 logical ideas may have twined round him. Diodoros 
 speaks of his being expelled from Paphlagonia by 
 Ilos ; * and as Taltal is an Akkadian name of the god 
 Hea, we may have here a tradition based upon an 
 early contest between the cults of rival divinities. If 
 to the Akkadian concept of Hea, an archaic Sun-god ^ 
 of the Underworld, we add the Aryan view of solar 
 sufferings, the product is a Tantalos or Taltalos in the 
 gloomy regions of the Shades. Lucretius, not un- 
 justly, ridicules those who credulously beheved in 
 the actual sufferings of Tantalos and his felloAvs, and 
 points out that the only known examples of parallel 
 woes occur on earth, not in an unseen world : — 
 
 ' Nee miser impendens magnum timet aere saxnm 
 Tantalus, ut fama est, cassa formidine terpens : 
 Sed magis in vita divum metus urget inanis 
 Mortaleis ; casumque timent, quemcunque ferat fors. 
 
 ' Mythology of the, Ai-yan Amotions, 185. 
 
 " The Odyssey of Homer, ii. 241. 'Benfey derivea the name from 
 Takaio by i-eduplication — toKtoKos, the much-enduring' (Gladstone, 
 Homeric Synchronism, 215). 
 
 " Pausanias, II. xxii. 4 ; V. xiii. 4. •• Diodoros, 'm. 74. 
 
 ^ Vide M. Lenormant ' on the relationship between Hea and Cannes ' 
 {Chnldenn Miiyic, 201 vt seq.). 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 159 
 
 Nee Tityon volucres ineunt Acherante iacentem ; 
 
 Sed Tityus nobis hie est, in am ore iacentem 
 Quem volucres lacerant. . . 
 Sisyphus invita quoque nobis ante oculos est, 
 Qui petere a populo fasceis saevasqne secureis 
 Imbibit, et semper victus tristisque recedit.' ' 
 
 Vni. Sisyphos. This personage, elsewhere de- 
 scribed as a ' son of Aiolos ' and the ' craftiest of men,' ^ 
 is then seen by the hero vainly trying to roll his 
 ' monstrous {TrekcipLov^) stone' over the hill top.* The 
 solar ' stone which Sisyphos has with huge toil rolled 
 to the mountain summit (the zenith) must slip from 
 his grasp and dash down again into the valley below.' ^ 
 He can never succeed in pushing it over the brow of 
 the hill, so that it may roll down the other or invisible 
 side of heaven. The complete presentation of a myth 
 such as that of Sisyphos, would require a separate 
 monograph, but the result of an analysis of its varied 
 details will merely confirm the view here main- 
 tained. Sisyphos, a king of non-Aryan and oriental 
 associations, brother of Athamas and Salmoneus," hus- 
 band of the stellar Merope and votary of the cult of 
 MelikertSs,'' is a gold-lover,® and a patron of naviga- 
 
 ' DeRerum Natura, iii. 093 et seq. ^ II. vi. 153-4. 
 
 ^ Vide sup. p. 63, note 4. 
 
 ■" Od. xi. 593-600. As to the non-Aryan associations of Sisyphos, 
 vide Gladstone, Homeric Synchronism, 215. 
 
 ^ Sir G. W. Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, 185. 
 
 * Vide sup. p. 132. ' Pausauias, II. i. 3 ; Apollodoros, III. iv. 3. 
 
 ^ No one would suppose that any personage was solar merely from 
 such a trait, hut it becomes very noticeable in the connexion when com- 
 bined with many other distinctly solar characteristics. The links be- 
 tween gold and solar divinities are endles.s, and the circumstance supplied 
 
i6o The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 tion.^ Like Tantalos he betrays the designs of the gods, 
 and reveals their counsels. Perhaps the most inter- 
 esting legend connected with him is that recorded by 
 Pherekyd^s^ the Athenian, which states that Sisyphos 
 bound Thanatos (' Death ') who had been sent to him 
 by Zeus, and who was at length freed by Ares. Sisyphos 
 was then taken to the Underworld, but having pre- 
 viously arranged with his wife Merop^ that no funeral 
 rites should be paid him, he obtained permission from 
 Aid^s to return to earth in order- to enforce them. 
 Once back again to the light he declined to re-enter 
 the shadowy realm, and having at length died in ex- 
 treme old age, was made to roll a stone to or 
 in the Underworld as a punishment. This triumph 
 of Sisyphos, whose name is generally and perhaps 
 correctly explained as meaning the 'Very-wise,' over 
 Death and the Underworld, reminds us of the famous 
 victory of Herakles over Thanatos, so finely reimmor- 
 talized by Browning. For as the Sun-god is the first 
 to die and find out the dread way to the Shades, so is 
 he the first to vanquish them unstained by corruption. 
 Merope, the dark Pleiad, daughter of Atlas the con- 
 stant pole, and connected with Merops the Aithiopian 
 
 a natural basis for the commercial value of the metal (vide E. B. Jr., E. 
 40, note 4). Dr. Paley has called my attention to the very interesting 
 passage in Pindar {IstJi. iv. 1-3), where the poet declares that it is 
 through Theia (' the Divine '), the source of light, daughter of Ouranos 
 and Ge (Hesiod, Theogonici, 135, 371) and the Marep 'AeXi'ou, that ' men 
 esteem gold beyond other things.' 
 
 • Like Plelios, ApoUon, Herakles, Ohrys6r, Melqarth, Odysseus, 
 Izdubar, Cannes, Odakdn, and other solar heroes (vide K, B. Jr., U. 19 ; 
 E, 12 et seq. 
 
 ' Fragment Ixxviii. ; vide Schol. in II. vi. 153. 
 
Kirki and the Nekyia. i6i 
 
 king who became the constellational Eagle, can kindle 
 no sufficient funeral pyre in honour of her husband 
 the departed Sun. Sisyphos (' the Very-wise ') may in 
 his oriental phase (i.e., as unconnected with Aryan 
 mythology) be, like Tantalos, a variant of Hea, ' god 
 of wisdom and knowledge,' and ' lord of the deep.' 
 But such questions as these can only be definitely 
 settled when far more particulars have been recovered 
 respecting the vast influence which was undoubtedly 
 exercised by Euphratean regions upon the whole of 
 Asia Minor. The burial-place of Sisyphos was secret 
 and mysterious,^ a circumstance often connected with 
 the demise of a solar hero.^ 
 
 IX. Hcrahles. The next apparition beheld by 
 the hero is the phantom of the mighty Herakles, 
 but Herakles himself it is expressly stated rejoices 
 amongst the deathless gods with Hebe (' Youth ') 
 as his bride. The genuineness of the passage has been 
 greatly questioned, and the standpoint of the doubters 
 has been expressed by Dr. Hayman, as already 
 noticed.^ It is obvious that we should require to 
 have a careful analysis of the so-called ' simple ' [that 
 is, 'simpler'] forms' of which Dr. Hayman speaks, in 
 order to enable us to make a proper comparison. 
 But, apart from this survey, is ' the dichotomy of 
 one into a phantom and a beatified hero ' an un- 
 archaic idea, either on general or special grounds? 
 The instances which I have quoted from the mytho- 
 
 1 Pausanias, II. ii. 2. ' Vide R. B. Jr., O. D. M. ii. 293. 
 
 3 Vide sup. p. 138. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 The Myth of Kir M. 
 
 logy of Mangaia, and many others that might be 
 cited, dispose of the objection so far as the general 
 question is concerned ; whilst the endless glorious 
 life and daily death of the Sun on his nightly visit to 
 the Underworld supply the strongest possible natural 
 basis for such a dichotomy in the case of a solar 
 hero. And as regards either gods or men, is it ne- 
 cessary to do more than to refer to the almost uni- 
 versal Doctrine of the Double, of which the Kemic 
 Ka,^ the Iranian Fravashi, and the Akkadian Utuk ^ 
 are special instances ? 
 
 Herakles appears ' with bow uncased, and shaft 
 upon the string, fiercely glancing around, like one in 
 the act to shoot ; ' in fact in the solar aspect of Sagit- 
 tarius, who is thus depicted on a Tablet brought from 
 Sippara, the solar city, and now in the British 
 Museum. The dead around him make a clamour, 
 and are compared to ' fowls flying every way in fear ; ' 
 and the whole description recalls the ultimate con- 
 stellational arrangement in which the arrow of 
 Herakles (Sagitta) appears in heaven as shot between 
 the Birds {Cygniis and Aquila).^ As noticed* the 
 
 ' Vide P. le Page Renouf, On the true sense of an impm-tnnt 
 Ejiyptian Word {T. vi. 494 et seq.). 
 
 " Vide Lenormant, La Divination, 153. 
 
 ^ Vide R. B. Jr., B. sec. xxix. Herakles is said to be epefivfj ['Epc/ivos 
 = 'EpejiEvvos, ' Of-the-nature-of-Erebos/ setting, chthonian, dark] vvkti 
 e'oiKMs {Od. xi. 606) ; the Sun is often styled dark, a black bull, etc. at 
 night. So Apollon, even by day, when angry is described as tokti 
 c'oiKwt (II. i. 47) ; and this simile is also appropriate to all divinities wlio 
 either bring or sud'er denth. Thus Assurbanipal describes the death of 
 an enemy by the fine expre.'^.sion, ' He went to his place of Night.' 
 
 •' A'ide sup. p. 111. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 163 
 
 souls of the dead in the Assyrian Hades are compared 
 to birds. 
 
 HerakMs wears ' about his breast an awful belt, a 
 baldric of gold, whereon wondrous things were 
 wrought, bears and wild boars and lions with flash- 
 ing eyes, and strife and battles and slaughters and 
 manslayings.' The poet gives vent to the curious 
 wish that he who made this belt may never make 
 another. As a mighty work of art we must connect 
 it with the non-Aryan East, and as a matter of fact 
 Euphratean belts and girdles were ' always patterned, 
 sometimes elaborately.' ^ The JSTocturnal-sun as 
 Dionysos Nebridopeplos and HSrakles Astrochiton 
 wears a stariy robe ; ^ and if he wears a belt or 
 baldric depending from the shoulder and slanting 
 downwards across the breast to the opposite side, this 
 corresponds in position with and should represent 7171/ 
 Tov {cuStafcoC hiaXjji(Tiv. But even if this were so, the 
 poet does not remember or know the fact ; and the 
 representations on the belt are not zodiacal. After 
 addressing the hero, Herakles retires So/aov 'i4t8os 
 ilcroi. 
 
 Subsection 6. The Flight of Odysseus. 
 
 And yet Odysseus lingers. Duty is done but 
 curiosity remains ; ' I abode there still, if perchance 
 some one of the hero folk besides might come, who 
 died in old time . . . the men of old whom I longed 
 
 ' Eawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, i. 569. 
 2 Vide K. B. Jr., V. 78 ; sup. p. 155. 
 m2 
 
1 64 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 to look on.' What ancient sires, Aryan or Eu- 
 phratean, wislied he to behold ? A line, the most sus- 
 pected in the whole Book, answers Qiqa-ia UeiptOoou 
 re. According to a tradition given by Plutarch ^ 
 this passage was inserted by Peisistratos to pleasure 
 the Athenians. Pausanias, on the other hand, quotes 
 it as genuine ; ^ and the two authorities may pair. 
 But at all events Homer well knew Peirithoos, ' the 
 peer of gods in council,' ^ son of Zeus and sire of 
 Polypoites,* and distinguished as being ' the high- 
 hearted ; ' ^ and who, according to old Nestor, with 
 Dryas, Kaineus, Exadios and Polyphemos, surpassed 
 the best warriors in the host of Agamemnon.^ 
 Panyasis, B.C. 470, who in a late age seems to have 
 preserved much of the Homerik spirit, related the 
 daring descent of Theseus and Peirithoos to the 
 Underworld ; and Polygnotos in his grand series of 
 paintings in the Lesche at Delphoi illustrative of the 
 Eleventh Odyssey, placed them together on a throne 
 not far from the figure of Odysseus.'' They had also 
 a joint shrine at Athens.* They visited the Shades 
 in order to carry off Persephone,^ and Avere found 
 there by Herakles in bonds ; the great dehverer 
 rescued Theseus, TleLpidow 8e, t-^s yijs Kivovixiu7)<i, 
 a(l)rjKev}'^ The imprisoned Sun (Theseus) is constantly 
 rescued from the clutches of Darkness ; but Peirithoos 
 
 ' Theseus, xx. ^ Pausanias, X. xxix. 2. ' II. xiv. 318. 
 
 ■^ Ibid. ii. 740-1. ^ Od. xxi. 206. « II. i. 262-4. 
 
 ' Pausanias, X. xxix. 2. ^ Ibid. I. xxx. 4. 
 
 " Cf. ^'el■gil, Acncid, vi. 393 ct scq. ; Horace, Carmina, III. iv. 80. 
 '" Apollodoros, II, v. 12. 
 
Kirki and the Nekyia. 165 
 
 (' Active-effort '), the force which urges it on, is 
 doomed to constantly inhabit and reinhabit the 
 shadowy abode. And Peirithoos is the son of the Ixion- 
 sun/ so that any apparent confusion or contradiction 
 of idea in the story arises from the separation of the 
 one orb into two distinct personages, one of whom 
 represents his brighter destiny as rising in triumph, 
 the other his darker as ever seeking or dwelling in 
 the gloomy realm, to which he has descended through 
 his love for Persephon^, the beauty-splendour of the 
 universe.^ According to another version of the story 
 -Peirithoos was devoured by the dog Kerberos, the 
 Vedic Sarvari (' Darkness-of-night '). 
 
 Mr. George Dennis ^ gives a unique representa- 
 tion from a tomb at Tarquinii of Theseus and Peiri- 
 thoos with the demon Tuchulcha in the Underworld. 
 ' The hideous and malignant demon, who bears the 
 novel name of Tuchulcha, has asses' ears, two hissing 
 snakes bound round his brows and mingling with his 
 shaggy locks,' and ' an enormous eagle's beak, which 
 serves at once for nose and mouth, wide ojDen. He 
 appears to be seizing Pirithous by the neck with one 
 hand, while with the other he brandishes a huge 
 black and blue serpent over the head of Theseus.' He 
 has also ' open wings.' Any explanation of the name 
 tuchulcha (= tu-kul-ka) will be sought for in vain 
 amongst Aryan dialects ; but if we turn to the lan- 
 guage of Akkad, the whole occult representation at 
 
 1 ApoUodoros, I. viU. 1. ' Vide R. B. Jr., G. D. M. i. 278 et seq. 
 ^ Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, edit. 1878, i. 355. 
 
1 66 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 once becomes luminous. Tu = (1) the Setting-sun, 
 and hence (2) Darkness (Erebos). Kul is ' to de- 
 stroy ;' ^ and ^a, 'the mouth.' Tuchulcha would 
 therefore signify in Akkadian ' the Destroying-mouth- 
 of-darkness.' Thus ' the Manducus, a symbolic eiEgy 
 with gaping jaws, was borne aloft in Eoman games 
 and processions to represent the under-world,' '"^ ' the 
 jaws of vacant darkness'^ into which the luckless 
 heroes have fallen, and is a variant phase of the 
 Norse wolf Fenrir and dog Garmr ; but the general 
 idea is naturally not confined to any particular family 
 of the human race. Tuchulcha, like Night, ' em- 
 braces with dusky wings.'* The question therefore 
 whether the passage Od. xi. 631 be spurious, is to 
 some extent doubtful ; and it is in harmony with 
 general mythic legend that Odysseus should desire, 
 and perhaps expect, to meet with Theseus and Peiri- 
 thoos in the Underworld. 
 
 But whilst Odysseus Ungers, Uke Lot in Sodom, 
 ' the myriad tribes of the dead ' throng round with 
 their weird, shrill cries ; and the hero fears, not the 
 ghosts, but ' lest the high goddess Persephon6 should 
 send me the head of the Gorgon, that dread monster, 
 from out of Hades.' The myth and history of the 
 terrible lunar Gorgo (' the Swallower '), the devour- 
 ing darkness which has a bright head — the Moon, I 
 
 ' Of. the Etruscan kulmu, the Turkish yhoul, etc. 
 ^ Bev. Is. Taylor, Etruscan Researches, 121. 
 ' Tennyson, In Memoriam, xxxiv. 
 ■• Vide R. 13, Jr., R. M. A. 53 et seq. 
 
Kirke and the Nekyia. 167 
 
 ha,ve elsewhere ^ fully related and will not repeat. 
 Its advent Odysseus, the sun now flying to the east, 
 dares not wait ; Luna is still Medousa (' the Euler ' — 
 of the night), aiid the solar barque speeds onwards 
 towards, and then down the stream of the eastern 
 Okeanos, at first labouring with the oar and after- 
 wards ' the fair wind [of morning, Aura-Aurora] was 
 our convoy,' ^ till they came to ' the dwelling place 
 of Dawn and her dancing grounds, and the land of 
 sunrising.' ^ And such is the Homerik history of a 
 day and a night as related in Od. xi. 
 
 M. GolenischefT has translated a Kemic Papyrus 
 of the Xllth Dynasty which relates the wondrous 
 voyage of an archaic sea-captain, whose travels on 
 sea and shore, according to Prof. Maspero, ' represent 
 the earliest extant specimen of those universally 
 popular tales which relate the adventures of a mortal 
 intruder into the Land of Shadows.'* The original 
 intruder, however, is no mortal but a god, the first 
 and greatest of the energizing and labouring heroes, 
 the Sun-god, Herakles, Theseus, Orion, Sisyphos, 
 Tantalos, Minos, Odysseus. 
 
 Lastly, we may well agree with Mr. H. F. Tozer 
 in his review of Mr. Bunbury's able History of An- 
 cient Geography, that ' the wanderings of Ulysses, 
 when reduced to a scheme, cannot be reconciled with 
 the positions of any actual countries or localities.' 
 
 ' Vide E. B. Jr., U. see. vii. Medousa the Gorgo. 
 
 s Od. xi. 636-40. ' Ibid. xii. 3-4. 
 
 * Vide Maspero, Les Contes jyopulnires de VEgypte miciemie. 
 
1 68 The Myth of Kirke. 
 
 But I equally maintain that these ' wanderings,' even 
 in their very inconsistencies and contradictions, are 
 capable of an absolute and satisfactory explanation 
 in every detail ; and that the reasons for the singular 
 statements, beliefs and ideas of the poet may be re- 
 vealed with crystalline clearness; whilst as regards 
 that portion of the story which is the subject of these 
 pages, I trust the reader will be of opinion that con- 
 siderable light has been thrown upon a somewhat 
 occult and difficult mythic history.^ 
 
 ^ The subsequent adventures of Odysseus in the Outerworld are not 
 within the scope of the present brochure. 
 
 LONDON: PniNTEU BY 
 
 aroTTlKwoODi': anij go., n1':u'-stiU':f,t square 
 
 AKU i'AULlAJIKNT blKKKT 
 •I 
 
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THE GREAT DIONYSIAK MYTH. 
 
 Vols. I. and II. 8vo. 12s. eaoJt. Might Illustrations. 
 
 ' A work of singular research and of bold and original thought.' — Standabd. 
 
 • A mine of careful thought and valuable instruction.' 
 The Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, M.A., Author of ' Mythology of the Aryan Nations.' 
 
 ' I hailed your title ■with delight, which was in no way diminished by my perusal 
 ©f the opening portions of the work.' — The Eight Ho-n. W. E. G-labstone, M.P. 
 
 ' Mr. Bhowk's first volume is an addition to religious mythology. The author 
 treats the question by a " scientific consideration of tho historic course of religious 
 thought." There is something fascinating in this first part, which leaves thinking 
 readers impatient to possess the sequel.' — Notes and Qubhies. 
 
 'This book is characterised by unsparing labour and research, the results of 
 ■which are stated very clearly, and ■with the sensiHeness that comes or taking a broad 
 vie^w of things. The quantity of material brought together to prove the main argu- 
 Blent, that Dionysos was not a deity of Aryan but of Semitic origin, is unparalleled.' 
 
 Academy. 
 
 ' To the task of exploring this field Mr. Bbo'WN has brought a steady resolution 
 and a judicial impartiality which deserve all praise. The admission that Semitic 
 thought and worship exercised some influence on those of the Greeks justifies the 
 attempt to determine, if we can, the character of this influence ; there Mr. Beown 
 has done excellent service. . . . We think that he has fairly proved his main points, 
 that the idea and worship of Dionysos are non-Hellenic and Semitic. In the working 
 out of this subject he has brought together a vast body of most interesting anJ 
 important matter, and handled it with great skill. Mr. Beo^wn has fully established 
 his title to our gratitude for a vast amount of solid work already done.' 
 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 ' Mr. Beown has, it must be conceded, fully established his main point. . . . We 
 admit gladly that he has done enough to win for himself a wide and permanent 
 reputation.' — Saturday Review (on Vol. II.). 
 
 'Le nom de M. Robert Brown, auteur du " Grand Mythe Dionysiaque,'' est bieu 
 connu des mythologues, qui n'ont point oublid ses travaux sur la dieu Poseidon. M. 
 Eobeet Bbown s'est doune pour t4che de determiner la part qui revient a I'influenee 
 semitique dans la mythologie grecque, et il a trouv^ que cette part 6tait considerable. 
 II surprend des traces d'un iliment oriental bien caractSrise dans les rites, dans les 
 id^es, et dans les mots. Son livre sur le dieu des mers avait pour but de demontrer 
 que ni le nom, ni la conception de Poseidon, n'avaient une origine helWnique. 
 L'ouvrage qu'il consaore a Dionysos est traits de meme dans un esprit d'opposition 
 aux mythologues qui rattachent itroitement le pantheon grec au pantheon vAdique, 
 . . . Le " Grand Mythe Dionysiaque " est un ouvrage solide autant qu'interessant.' 
 
 Bibliotheque Universelle et Revue Suisse. 
 
 ' The title hardly suggests to an ordinary person the vast amount of ground which 
 the author covers. The Dionysiak Myth, in his view, is nothing less than a picture 
 of all the most important aspects of human life ; and mankind, in composing it, may 
 be said, in his words, to have been " revealing their own nature and mental basis." 
 Mr. Brown has produced two learned volumes, in which the whole matter and many 
 collateral matters are elaborately discussed.' — Spectator. 
 
 London: LONaMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
 N 
 
Works hy the same Author. 
 
 ' Among the numerous works which the couBtantly-growing interest in archaeology 
 has called forth, Mr. Brown's treatise will be regarded as entitled to high favour. 
 His labours will enable us to read our Bibles and ancient classics more understand- 
 ingly. He has performed a prodigious deal of hard work, and done it admirably. . . . 
 Dionysos has been selected as the central figure, because his history covers the entire 
 field of research. . . . Mr. Bkown brings to his work the charm of novelty, and even 
 of romance. The thoroughness, fidelity, and conscientiousness which he displays are 
 most exceptional.' — The Library Table, New York. 
 
 ' The story is as interesting as a romance to the archseologieal inquirer. A pro- 
 fusion of authors are quoted to facilitate the investigation and to substantiate the 
 conclusions. It must be acknowledged that they altogether appear to constitute a 
 very satisfactory explanation.' — The Evolction, New York. 
 
 ' The Author of the " Great Dionysiak Myth " has given a fuller and more 
 interior view ol the fancied grape-god. We are conducted through a world of classical 
 and mythological research far outside of Olympus, and even of Greece, over Syria, 
 Egypt, Arabia, and the far Orient.'— The Medical Tribune, New York. 
 
 ' During the twelve years which have passed since the publication of the first 
 edition, a large amount of solid work has been done within the domain of comparative 
 mythology. Of the results so gained, probably the most important is the clearer 
 light thrown on the influence of Semitic theology on the theology and religion of the 
 Greeks. This momentous question I have striven to treat impartially ; and for my 
 treatment of it I have to acknowledge my obligations to Mr. Robert Brown's valu- 
 able researches in the field of the great Dionysiak Myth.' — Eev. Sir G. W. Cox, 
 Preface to the new edition of ' The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.' 
 
 London : LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER CONSIDERED IN 
 CONNEXION WITH ARCHAIC MONOTHEISM. 
 
 ' Mr. Brown is a zealous explorer of the archaic world, and many of his conclu- 
 sions are new to most classical and other scholars. His monograph on Poseidon 
 clearly shows the non-identity of that divinity with Neptune. The " Great Dionysiak 
 Myth," in like manner, has traced Bacchus from Greece and Egypt to his Assyrian 
 home. The present monograph is also a gem.' — The Medical Tribune, New York. 
 
 THE RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYANS 
 OF NORTHERN EUROPE. 
 
 ' ' As full of learning as of valuable suggestions.' — Rev. A. H. Satce, Deputy Pro- 
 fessor of Comparative Philology in the University of Oxford. 
 
 Loudon: E. STANFORD. 
 
Works hy the same Author. 
 
 LANGUAGE, AND THEORIES OF ITS ORIGIN. 
 
 ' I have been delighted with what you have written. I know of no other publica- 
 tion in which the present state of the question, in regard to the origin of speech, is 
 presented with so much learning, clearness, and compactness.' — Professor Sayce. 
 
 ' Your interesting brochure has given me great pleasure. Complete understand- 
 ing of the weightiness of the problem, and earnest endeavour after truth, is expressed 
 in it.' — Professor Ltidwig Noihe, Mainz. 
 
 ' I have read your valuable treatise on the Origin of Language with great interest 
 and advantage. It is a very clear and judiciously written chapter of the History of 
 Philology.' — Dr. Cakl Abel, Berlin, Author of ' Linguistic Essays.' 
 
 'Mr. Bkown has put together in a very clear and compact form the different 
 theories that have been set forth of late years as to the origin of language. He has 
 gone to the best authorities, and shows a wide extent of reading. At the same time 
 he exercises an independent judgment in regard to the theories he describes, freely 
 criticising those from which he differs. We can thoroughly recommend the pamphlet.' 
 
 Academy. 
 
 London: E. STANFORD. 
 
 THE UNICORN: 
 
 A MYTHOLO&ICAL investigation. With Frontispiece and 5 Illustrations. 
 
 8vo. 3s. 
 
 ' A charming little book, full of learning and instruction.' — Professor Saycb. 
 
 ' A delightful excursion into fairyland.' 
 
 J. E. Taylor, F.L.S., &c. &c., Editor of ' Science Gossip.' 
 
 ' Mr. Beown has given us a pleasant, instructive, and original little book. It 
 was a happy thought to impress heraldry into the service of mythology, and show 
 how the arms of England are the last embodiment of an old Aryan legend. Mr. 
 Bbown brings together a vast amount of apt illustration to prove his case. In 
 reading his book we cannot but be struck by the abundant stores of solid learning it 
 displays and the attempt of the Author always to refer to the latest and best authori- 
 ties. We are led easily and pleasantly on from one point to another, beginning with 
 the art of primaeval Babylonia, and ending with the Scottish unicorn, introduced by 
 James I., as the sinister supporter of the royal arms. We must not forget to notice 
 the Scandinavian unicorn, carved on the horn of Ulf, which appropriately forms the 
 frontispiece of the volume.' — Academy. 
 
 THE LAW OF KOSMIC ORDER: 
 
 AN INVESTIGATION OF THE PHYSICAL ASPECT OF TIME. 8vo. 3s. 
 
 ' Mr. Brown comes to the conclusion that the year was regarded by the Accadians 
 as an extended nycthemaron, half the signs being diurnal or relating to the deities of 
 day, and the other half being nocturnal, concerned with myths of the night. Early 
 man thus recognised that there was one and the same law of "Kosmie Order" per- 
 vading all conceptions of time. In the course of his investigation Mr. Beown draws 
 upon Egyptian and Iranian sources, but his cbief materials are necessarily derived 
 from the monuments of ancient Babylonia. . . . We can thoroughly recommend his 
 interesting book to those who care to study a curious chapter in primitive astronomy.' 
 
 Natuee. 
 
 Loudon: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
Works by the same Author. 
 
 ' The Author of " The Great Dionysiak Myth " ie a laborious student. It seems 
 but yesterday that we noticed his pamphlet on the unicorn, and now we have another 
 book which must have taken, one would suppose, years of study to bring it to its 
 present state of perfection. ... To us moderns, however ignorant we may be, the 
 idea of time is regulated by a multitude of events of daily and almost hourly occur- 
 rence, and but very few of us ever look back to a period when it had to be worked 
 out bit by bit. Mr. Bbown has done this thoroughly well in his own deeply-learned 
 fashion. . . . The book is an important contribution to science, which no future 
 investigator in the same field can afford to overlook.' — Notes and Quebibs. 
 
 ' By Kosmic Order Mr. Bbown means " the harmony of the world in its varied 
 round of day, night, week, month, season, and year." His present work is an attempt 
 to point out the way in which man attained to an idea of this order, so far as the 
 year and zodiacal signs are concerned. It is more especially with the zodiacal signs 
 as we have received them from the Greeks that he concerns himself. They were 
 ultimately derived from the Accadians, who first mapped out the sun's course through 
 the sky, and gave to each section of it the names by which the signs are still, for the 
 most part, known. Mr. Bkown claims to have shown that the signs, when the 
 mythological conceptions which lie at the bottom of them are examined, fall naturally 
 into two groups, six being diurnal and six nocturnal. In this way the year became 
 to early men the day of twenty-four (or rather twelve) hours on an enlarged scale. 
 We always find in Mr. Brown's writings proofs of wide reading and happy sugges- 
 tions. There are very few of his statements with which we should be disposed to 
 quarrel, and the general reader cannot fail to find his work both instructive and 
 interesting.' — Academy. 
 
 Recently pulUslied. 
 
 ERIDANUS, RIVER AND CONSTELLATION: 
 
 A STUDY OF THE AECHAIC SOUTHERN ASTERISMS. With 5 Illustrations 
 on Wood. 4to. price 5s. 
 
 Contents : — The Southern Classical Signs — Introduction of the Constellational 
 System from Western Asia — Origin of the Signs of the Zodiac — the Eridanus as 
 connected with the Padus, Nile, Euphrates, and Ocean-stream — the Garden of Eden, 
 Elysium, and Isles of the Blessed — Archaic Constellations of Egypt, China, Palestine, 
 and the Euphrates Valley — the Creation Tablet and Scheme of 36 original Constel- 
 lations, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 ' By far the best treatise we have on a most obscure subject.' 
 
 Notes and Queries. 
 
 ' In reading this hroohure, one almost stands aghast at the amount of erudition 
 and the extent of research that have been employed in its construction ; while the 
 marvellous ingenuity with which the Author has pieced together so many seemingly 
 unconnected facts, drawn from so many various sources, into a logical and convincing 
 series of arguments, all leading to the same conclusion, is not less striking.' 
 
 Scotsman. 
 
 In 2>'repa/ration. 
 
 THE PHAINOMENA, OR ' HEAVENLY DISPLAY ' 
 OF ARATOS, 
 
 DONE INTO ENGLISH VERSE. 
 With an Introduction, Notes, and Appendix, and numerous Illustrations from rare 
 Works, MSS., and other sources, of the Constellation-figures and Mythological 
 
 Personages mentioned in the Poem. 
 
 London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 

 m^' 
 
 ^i 
 
 v^^j^M^m^' 
 
 kT^ 
 
 i' 
 
 Ms^' 
 
 
 r^i-.*- 
 
 .=* .'V:-^.. 
 
 
 'i^^%M