Boston University - HUB Yearbook (Boston, MA)

Page 25 text:

KEY T0 ANCIENT COSJIIOLOGY. 23 In approaching the study of this subject several ques- tions occur to every thoughtful beginner, the answers to which he eau nowhere find. For instance: How can Homer speak of the pillars of Atlas, using the plural, when elsewhere in the early Greek mythology the representa- tions always point to only one? Again, if there is but one, and that in the west, near the Gardens of the Hesperides,1 what corresponding supports sustain the sky in tl1e east, the north, and the south? Or, if Atlas's pillar is only one of many similar ones supporting heaven around its whole periphery, how came it to be so much more famous than the rest? Or, if Homer's plural indicates that all of them belonged to Atlas, how came the idea of one pillar to be so universally prevalent? lf the support of heaven was at many points, and at its outermost rim, how could Hesiod venture to represent the whole vault as poised on Atlas's head and hands?2 Again, if it is the special function of Atlas, or of his pillar, to stand on the solid earth and hold up the sky, he would seem to have no special connection with the sea: why, then, should Homer introduce the strange statement that Atlas knows all the depths of the sea ? This certainly seems very mysterious. Again, if the office of the pillar or pillars is to prop up the sky, they of course sustain different relations to earth and heaven. They bear up the one, and are themselves borne up by the other. Yet, singularly enough, Homer's locus classicus places them in exactly the same relation to the two.3 1 Hesiod, Tliaoyony, 517. Atlas pfiegt inimer unit den Hesperlden geuannt zu werden. Preller, Griccldsclw Zllytholoyie, vol. i., p. 3-18. 2 Theoyony, 747. Moreover, how could one limited being have charge of so many and so widely separated pillars? It can scarcely bo doubted that the words dual: ixoumv, Odyssey I., 54,110 not mean that these columns surround the earth, forin this case they must be not only many in num- ber, but it would be ohvlous to the men of a myth-making and myth- spealcing age, that a being stationed in one spot could not keep up, or hold. or guard, a number-of pillars surrounding either a square or a cireularearthl' Cox, lllylholoyy ofthe Aryan, Nations. London, 1870: vol. l., p. 37, n. 3 For that both heaven and earth are meant, not heaven alone, is proved by various poetic passages, and by other testimonies. Preller, Griechische Mytholoyie, vol. i., p 318.

Page 24 text:

22 BOSTON ,UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. polar projections of the earth are clearly traceable. To Haro berezaiti QAlborzD corresponds Mount Sar of ancient Egyptian mythology, the Kharsalc Kurra of the Alcka- clians, the I-lar Mocd ot' liabylonia Clsa. xiv.13, 1-lj, the Sumeru of the Hindus and Buddhists, thc Asgard of thc Northmen, the Pearl Mountain of the Chinese. The comparative study of those mythic mounts can leave no one in doubt as to the location of that heavenly height, where , i e H the ever firm Seat ofthe gods is, by the winds unshaken, Nor ever wet with rain, nor ever showered With snow, but clondless :ether o'er it spreads, And glittering light encircles it around, On which the happy gods aye dwell in bliss. . In like manner, the comparative study of the myths of the ocean and of the under-worlds of ancient peoples leaves no room for doubt that these, too,'were originally adjusted to a geocentrie conception of the universe, and ,to an earth which was figured as a globe. With such a key the most perplexing cosmological problems, such as the origin of the strange concentric dwipas of the Pura- nas, the origin and significance of the Sabean myth of Ur, the son of Rouhaia, and many others, receive at once a plain and satisfactory solution. Even the Kojiki, the most ancient of the sacred books of Japan, should have taught us to credit the early na- tions of' the world with better knowledge of the earth than we have doneg for in its beautiful eosmogony the earth revolves, and lzanagi's spear is only its upright axis. As one out of a multitude of possible tests of the fore- going key, let us apply it to the interpretation of the tall pillars of Atlas, which yaidv re :cal abpavbv dptlg Exovazvl '10dysaeu.I.,52-54. '

Page 26 text:

24 BOSTON UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. Worse than this, Pausanias unqualifiedly and repeatedly asserts that, according to the myth, Atlas supports upon his shoulders 'fboth earth and heaven. 1 And with this corresponds the language of ZEschylus.2 But what sort of a poetic imagination is this which represents a mighty column as upholding not only a vast superincumbent weight, but also, and at the same time, its own pedestal? Is this a specimen creation of that immortal Hellenic genius, which the whole modern world is taught almost to adore? Turning to the authorities in textual and mythological interpretation, our beginner finds no help. On the con- trary, their wild guesses and mutual contradictions only confuse him more and more. Viilcker tells him, with all the assuring emphasis of leaded type, that 'fin Atlas is given a personiiication ofthe art of navigation, the conquest of the sea by means of human skill, by commerce, and the gains of commerce. 3 Preller instructs him to reject this view, and to think of this mysterious son of lapetos as a sea-giant representing the upbearing and supporting almightiness of the ocean in contrast with the earth-shat- tering might of Poseidon. 4 The classical dictionaries only perplex him with multitudinous puerilities invented by ignorant Euhemeristic scholiasts, -stories to the effect that the original Atlas was merely the astronomer who first constructed an artificial globe to represent the skyg or that he was a North-west African, who, having as- cended a lofty promontory the better to observe the heav- enly bodies, fell off into the sea, and so gave name both to the mountain and to the Atlantic Ocean. Schoemann does not profess a positive and certain understanding of 1 Book V., 11, 25 18, 1. One interpreter makes the profound suggestion that in this passage the yfyv is added by a zeugma. I Merry and Riddell, Odyssey, I., 53. 2 Prometheils Bound, 349, 425 ji 3 Mythologie des Jupetisuhen Geschlechts, p. 49,52 Followed by K. O. Miil- ler, Keightley, Anthon, and many others. 4 Griechiache Mythologie, vol. i., 32, 348. Followed by Faesi and others.