reasons of it have already been referred to; and as the Vedic Hymns show us in a state of plastic and crystalline clearness the elements which subsequently hardened into the familiar forms of the later Hellenik Mythology, so the Homerik Hymn to Demeter shows us with equal clearness the root of the matter; while the solar, chthonian, kosmogonic, and altogether occult and mysterious character of the introduced divinity Iakchos, illustrates how, when the worships were brought into local proximity, 'like two meteors of expanding flame,' they touched, mingled, and were united. Dionysos assists Demeter with his torch, and this symbolical incident aptly illustrates the whole scope and phase of the earlier connection. But in later times, and especially when the intercourse with Kam, transmuted into Aigyptos, was permanently established on a broad basis, a change came o'er the spirit of the Eleusinian dream, which manifested itself chiefly in three particulars: (1), The simple, earlier idea of a settled, orderly, god-fearing life, with good hope for the future, fades away; while (2) there is a repetition of the old legends in forms coarser and more phallic, combined with less of reverence and more of superstition, the whole producing moral corruption and decay; and (3) new and elaborate psychical ideas relating to the soul, its destiny and pantheistic union with the divine nature, and theories of pseudo-purity are introduced. As a matter of course the actual machinery of the Mysteries became more perfect and extensive, as in the modern theatre, where scenery, dresses, and decorations frequently serve to sustain a piece otherwise intrinsically worthless. Looking at the simple legend of the lost Persephone, the reader will doubtless wonder how the idea of monstrous and fiendish beings could have first entered into the Mysteries. The singular history of the Furies is an answer and explanation. Comparative Mythologists have traced

back the idea of the dread Erinys to its simple and innocent starting-point in the Vedic Saranyu, the RunningLight of morning. The Night,' says Professor Max Müller, 'was conceived by Hesiod as the mother of War, Strife, and Fraud, but she is likewise called the mother of Nemesis or Vengeance.' In a passage from the Veda the mischievous powers of Night are said to follow the sins of man. "The Dawn will find you out," was a saying but slightly tainted by mythology. "The Erinyes will haunt you," was a saying which not even Homer would have understood in its etymological sense.' 1 Professor Kuhn also, the advocate of the meteorological theory' of mythology, 'has identified Saranyu with the Greek Erinys.' Hence, in spite of all the failure of memory, and of the fearful character which Erinys had assumed, the poet who tells the terrible tale of Oidipous could not but make him die in the sacred grove of beings who, however awful to others, were always benignant to him; '3 i.e., the Sun sinks to his rest surrounded with a pale light which corresponds with the dawn. Pausanias derives the name from an old Arkadian word erinnuein. signifying to be angry, a derivation acquiesced in by Professor Blackie, who appears to be anything but partial to the comparative theory, at all events in its extension. Replying to his strictures, Professor Max Müller remarks: 'If, like other scholars, Professor Blackie had pointed out to me any cases where I might seem to him to have offended against Grimm's law, or other phonetic rules, I should have felt most grateful; but if he tells me that the Greek Erinys should not be derived from the Sanskrit Saranyu, but from the Greek verb épiýew, to be angry, he might as well derive critic from to criticise.' 5 We may

unhesitatingly agree with the great philologist. The Furies are Aryan personages, daughters of Night, inasmuch as the Dawn springs from the Night; then by easy transition daughters of Night as dwelling in gloom; next, terrible in character; and lastly, symbolically awful in form. Thus, man's coward, fear-haunted, guilt-conscious heart pollutes, but in idea only, God's most beautiful works, and turns the lovely Dawn, Daphne-Athene, with her rosy fingers and saffron mantle, into the vile, black, blood-dripping monsters that, like unclean and hateful birds, swarmed around the Delphik tripod of Apollon in pursuit of the wretched Orestes. If our thoughts and ideas are, like our sensations, founded upon realities, then there exists somewhere and somehow a vast and awful background of something terrible. It is vain to reply, that Aurora is a fact and the Furies are a fiction. Whence came the fiction? We can trace the process by which the Dawn-queen becomes a Fury, but what gives rise to such a mental concept, and renders it possible? Why are not the darkness and the light both alike to us? In a word, whence came horror? Has it no real foundation? I would as soon believe that thirst had none. There are two further points connected with the origin of the Furies which are of interest to the Comparative Mythologist. I noticed the remark of Pausanias that Aischylos first represented them with dragons in their hair. Now the dragon is primarily the keen-eyed creature.1 'The name dragon denotes simply any keen-sighted thing, and in its other form, Dorcas, is applied to a gazelle ; '2 and hence the head of Saranyu, the Running-light, is dragon-crowned, as her piercing eyes, like the great solar eyes, discover all things. Again, in Arkadia, a district peculiarly con

servative of the relics of antiquity, Pausanias observes that when the inhabitants of a certain locality sacrificed to the Maniai or Ragers, another name for the Furies, they sacrificed at the same time to the Charites or Graces.1 Now, who are the Charites? Again the Comparative Mythologist shall tell us: Though occasionally both the Sun and the Dawn are conceived by the Vedic poets as themselves horses, that is to say, as racers, it became a more familiar conception of theirs to speak of the Sun and the Dawn as drawn by horses. These horses are very naturally called hari, or harit, bright and brilliant. After a time the etymological meaning of these words was lost sight of, and hari and harit became traditional names for the horses which either represented the Dawn and the Sun, or were supposed to be yoked to their chariots. Even in the Veda, the Harits are not always represented as mere horses, but assume occasionally, like the Dawn, a more human aspect. Thus they are called the Seven Sisters, and in another passage they are represented with beautiful wings.'" He then shows how in Hellenik Mythology these beings became the Charites, the beautiful sister Graces, attendants of the bright gods,' and has successfully maintained the identity of the Harits and the Charites against severe criticism. But these bright beings, Sun and of the Dawn

personifications of the rays of the light, are absolutely identical with Saranyu, the Runninglight of Morning. Well, therefore, might the Arkadians, though they knew not why, sacrifice at the same time to the Furies and the Graces, for wonderful to say, both can be traced to a common origin, and are actually identical. They are all winged sisters, alike, but how different, and truly marvellous is the plasticity of idea. A figure of an

1 Paus. viii. 34.

2 Prof. Max Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language, ii. 408.

3 Ibid. 418; vide Mythol. of the Aryan Nations, i. 48.

archaic type given by Creuzer,1 and which he calls ‘Eris, or Adrastea-Nemesis,' appears aptly to illustrate the costume and general appearance of a stage Fury in the Mysteries. It is Gorgon-faced, and clad in a black mantle reaching to the ankles, which, like those of Hermes, are winged, and appears to be dancing or leaping uncouthly. It has four large wings, two on each side, the two upper extended as semi-volant, the two lower dependent as semi-close. Not very dissimilar figures occur in several Oriental Mythologies, but it would lead us from the subject in question to consider them, or Wingsymbolism in general; suffice it to quote an illustrative passage of Sanchouniathon, who says that the god Taautos2 contrived for Cronus, the ensign of his royal power,

upon the shoulders four wings, two in the act of flying, and two reposing as at rest. And the symbol was. with respect to the wings, that he was flying while he rested, yet rested while he flew,' i.e., was tireless, like the Fury-hounds. I have alluded to the colossal size and stature of the tragedian, which was attained by means of the mask, padding the figure, and the use of the thicksoled kothornos or tragic buskin, the learned sock' of Milton, which

Ennobled hath the buskined stage;

the performers being thus supposed to arrive at the measure of the stature of the great men of former ages; and it is observable in this connection that many of the Demetrian statues were of large proportions, especially in Arkadia, where the Eleusinian cult greatly prevailed. Thus, in one temple were statues of Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysos, each seven feet high; in another was the statue of Demeter as Erinys the Searcher, a torch in its

1 Symbolik, iii. pl. 5, fig. 16.

Thoth, Tet.

3 Cory, Ancient Fragments, 15.

4 An excellent illustration of the office of Saranyu. Vide supra.