19

Chapter XIX

  1. 1.730-49. Anonymous translation (T.C.) London, 1697; reprinted 1953 by National Astrological Library, Washington, D.C., p, 44 .

  2. Met. 2.194-97: circumspice utrumque:/ fumat uterque polus quos si vitiaverit ignis/atria vestra ruent Atlas en ipse laborat/ vixque suis umeris candentem sustinet axem.

  3. Astrologie und Universalgeschichte (1930).

  4. Meteorologica 1.8.345A: “The so-called Pythagoreans give two explanations. Some say that the Milky Way is the path taken by one of the stars at the time of the legendary fall of Phaethon; others say that it is the circle in which the sun once moved. And the region is supposed to have been scorched or affected in some other such way as a result of the passage of these bodies.” See also H. Diels, Doxographi, pp. 364f. = Aetius III.1. (In former times when classical authors were not yet eagerly prefixed with as many “pseudos” as possible, this was Plutarch, De placitis 3.1.)

  5. Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem/ occuluitque caput, quod adhuc latet.

  6. E. Pechuel-Loesche, Volksunde von Loango (1907), p. 135.

  7. See H. S. Gladwin, Men out of Asia (1947), pp. 356-59, for this “feature.”

  8. W. Krickeberg, Indianermärchen aus Nordamerika (1924), pp. 224f., 396. cf. E. Seier, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, vol. 5, p. 19. A mere mink might appear to us, today, as insignificant, like the tapir, or as the “Mouse-Apollo” — we fall for mere “words” and “names” only too easily. This particular Mink introduces the tides, steals the fire, fights with the “winds,” playing Adapa, Prometheus, Phaethon all at the same time.

  9. See also F. X. Kugler, Sibyllinischer Sternkampf und Phaethon (1927), PP. 44, 49.

  10. Star Names (1963), p. 474

  11. For Po and Rhône and the joining of their waters, see A. Dieterich, Nekyia (1893), p. 271 quoting Pliny and Pausanias.

  12. (1927 repr.), p. 357: Ganges qui et Padus dicitur. As concerns the general idea of Eridanus being in India, see O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie (1906), p. 394, referring to Ktesias.

  13. F. Kampers, Mittelalterliche Sagen vom Paradiese (1897), pp. 72f.

  14. No. 37 (Robert ed. [1878], pp. 176f.).

  15. F. Boll, Sphaera (1903), pp. 135-38.

  16. See L. Ideler, Sternnamen (1809), p. 231; see also E. Maass, Commentariorum in Aratum Reliquiae (1898), p. 259.

  17. B. L. van der Waerden, JNES 8 (1949), p. 13; see also P. F. Gössmann, Planetarium Babylonicum (1950), 306; J. Schaumberger, 3. Erg. (1935), pp. 334f.

  18. Fabula namque haec est: Eridanus Solis filius fuit. hic a patre inpetrato curru agitare non potuit, et cum eius errore mundus arderet, fulminatus in Italiae fluvium cecidit: et tunc a luce ardoris sui Phaethon appellatus est, et pristinum nomen fluvio dedit: unde mixta haec duo nomina inter Solis filium et fluvium invenimus.

  19. cf. appendix #10, Vainamoinen’s Kantele.

  20. See Boll, pp. 273-75, 540-42: Alii dicunt quodcum impediret opis solis sono canoni, quia equi attendebant dulcedini sonorum, iratus Jupiter eum percussit fulmine.

  21. See Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai 643a; also 783C, 542a.

  22. Orphicorum Fragmenta, ed. O. Kern (1963), frg. 189, p. 116 (Proclus in Cratylus 404b, p. 92, 14 Pasqu.); cf. G. Dumézil, Le Festin d’Immortalité (1924), p. 104. See also Roscher, in Roscher s.v. Ambrosia: sitos kai methy, sithos kai oinos, etc.

  23. Orphicorum Fragmenta, frg. 145, p. 188.

  24. The same goes for the Jaxartes and Ardvī Surā Anāhitā of Iranian tradition; see H. S. Nyberg, Die Religionen des Alten Iran (1966), pp. 260f.

  25. 2.8 (Wilson trans., p. 188)

  26. The Chinese report as given by Gustave Schlegel (L’Uranographie Chinoise [1875; repr. 1967], p. 20) is shorter but it points to the same fanciful conception. “La fleuve céleste se divise en deux bras près du pôle Nord et va de là jusqu’au pôle Sud. Un de ses bras passe par l’astérisme Nan-teou (lambda Sagittarii), et l’autre par l’astérisme Toung-tsing (Gemeaux). Le fleuve est l’eau céleste, coulant á travers les cieux et se précipitant sous la terre.”

Nan-teou is the “Southern Bushel”: mu lambda phi sigma tau zeta Sagittarii; the Northern Bushel = the Big Dipper.

Although we agree with Phyllis Ackerman’s view (in Forgotten Religions [1950], p. 6): “The Nile, however, (like many, if not all sacred rivers Originally — compare the Ganges) is. the earthly continuation of the Milky Way,” we maintain that the mere recognition does not help to restore sense and meaning to the myth.

  1. Gössmann, 145; van der Waerden, JNES 8, p. 20.

  2. The Arabian name of the Galaxy is sufficiently tale-telling: Mother of the Sky" (um as-sama), and in northern Ethiopia it is called “Em-hola,” i.e., “Mother of the Bend (Mutter der Kruemmung).” See E. Littmann, “Sternenagen und Astrologisches aus Nordabessinien,” ARW 11 (1908), p.307; Ideler, p.78.