Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/501

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PROKN^ AND PHILOMELA.
469


his children, so here the dew is represented as offering the limbs of CHAP her murdered child to her husband, the sun, as he dries up the dew- • -^ ' drops. The myth is thus only another version of the tale of Kephalos or Prokris. The name Philomela, again, may denote one who loves the flocks, or one who loves apples ; but we have already seen how the sheep or flocks of Helios become the apples of the Hesperides, and thus Philomela is really the lover of the golden-tinted clouds, which greet the rising sun, and the name might well be given to either the dawn or the dew.

The mournful or dirge-like sound of the wind is signified by Linos and another Boiotian tradition, which related how the matrons and maidens mourned for Linos at the feast which was called Amis because Linos had grown up among the lambs, — in other words, the dirge-like breeze had sprung up while the heaven was flecked with the fleecy clouds which, in the German popular stories, lured the rivals of Dummling to their destruction in the waters. The myth that Linos was torn to pieces by dogs points to the raging storm which may follow the morning breeze. Between these two in force would come Zephyros, the strong wind from the evening-land, the son of Astraios the starry heaven, and of Eos who closes, as she had begun, the day. The wife of Zephyros is the Harpyia Podarge, the white-footed wind, Notos Argestes, who drives before her the snowy vapours, and who is the mother of Xanthos and Balios, the immortal horses of Achilleus. But as the clouds seem to fly before Podarge or ZephjTOs, so the phenomenon of clouds coming up seemingly against the wind is indicated in the myth of the wind Kaikias, a name which seems to throw light on the story of Hercules and Cacus.

Section VL— AIOLOS AND ARES.

In the Odyssey all the winds are placed by Zeus under the The charge of Aiolos, who has the power of rousing or stilling them at his of the will. But beyond this fact the poem has nothing more to say of him Winds, than that he was the father of six sons and six daughters, and that he dwelt in an island which bore his name. With the mythology which grew up around the persons of his supposed descendants we are not here concerned. As a local or a tribal name, it has as much and as little value as that of Hellen, Ion, or Achaios. In itself the word is connected apparently with the names Aia and Aietes, and may denote the changeful and restless sky from which the winds are bom. But the ingenuity of later mythographers was exercised in arranging