Boston University - HUB Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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KEY T0 ANCIENT COSMOLOGY. 25 the matter, but suggests that the mysterious Titan was in all probability ff originally a gigantic miuntain-god of some sort.1 Bryant at first makes Atlas a mountain supporting a temple or temple-cave, called Co-el, house of God, whence the Coelus of the Romans, vol. i., p. 274. In the next volume, however, he says that ff under the name of Atlas is meant the Atlantians. And quoting ff The Odyssey, he translates thus: ft They fthe Atlantiansj had also long pillars, or obelishs, which referred Z0 the sea, and upon which was delineated the whole system both of heaven and earthg viyfpis, all around, both on the front of the obelislc and on the other sides. 2 If our investigator asks, as did an ancient gramma- rian, how Atlas could stand on the earth and support heaven on his head, if heaven was so far removed that an anvil would require nine days and nights in which to fall through the distance, Paley kindly explains that the poet's notion doubtless was, that Atlas held up the sky near its junction with earth in the far west. 3 In this case, of course, a reasonably short giant would answer the purpose. If, after all his consultations of authorities, our youth is still unsatisfied, and to make a last effort for light turns to the illustrious Welker, he. learns as an important final lesson, that when an ancient author says 'fheaven and earth, it is not for a moment to be supposed that he literally means ff heaven and earth, and that, if they had remembered this, writers on mythology would have spared themselves a Vast amount of brain-racking and ineffectual pro-and-contra pleading. 4' With this as 1 G. F. Schoemanu. Die heslodische Theogonie ausgelegt. Berlin, 1868, p. 207. 2 Analysis of Ancient Mythology, London, 1807, vol. ii., 91. The Italics are the author's. U The Epics of Hesiod, p. 229. On the other hand, another English inter- preter would give us a giant with shoulders as broad as the whole heaven, and translate ami: ixovmv which support at either sldeg i.e., at the East and West. Merry and Riddell, Odyssey, I., 53. 4 Vial Kopfbrechens und vergeblichen Hin-und Herredens hat der

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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.

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26 BOSTON UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. the sole outcome of all his researches, may not a begin- ner well despair of ever getting any knowledge of the meaning of the myth, if, indeed, he can still imagine it to have had a meaning? Here, as everywhere, the truth at once explains and removes all the difficulties which a false and groundless presupposition has created. Once conceive of the llomeric world as we have recon- structed it, and how clear and beautiful the conception of the pillars of Atlas becomes! They are simply the upright axes of earth and heaven. Viewed in their rela- tion to earth and heaven respectively, they are twog but viewed in reference to the universe as an undivided whole, they are one and the same. Being coincident, they are truly one, and yet they are ideally separable. Hence singular or plural designations are equally correct and equally fitting. Transpiercing the globe at the very ft navel or centre of the sea, Atlas's pillar penetrates far deeper than any recess of the waters' bed, and he may well be said to know the depths of the whole sea. Or this statement may have reference to that primordial sea in which his pillar was standing when the geogonic and cos- mogonic process began. In this sense how appropriate and significant would it have been if applied to Izanagi I 1 Again, the association of Atlas with the Gardens of the Hesperidcs, so far from disproving our interpretation, Ausdruck des Pausanias gemacht in -raw anew Kava -ra .xeydn-va onlpavdv TG avaxu ml -fir, der auch bei dem Gemiilde von Puniinos 15, 11, 21 wiederkelirtf: ouipavbv xai. 'yiv dvixwv vrapirr-rrpce, lllll0lIl lllhll olipmviw Kai. -yiv llllCllSlll.lJllCll Ver- stchen zu mtissen glanbtef' Gr. Gdtlcrlehre, vol. i., pp. 746, 747. 1 Compare the Vedic statement: He who knows 1.he golden reed standing in the waters is the mysterious Prajupatif' Muir, Sanskrit Texts, vol. ir., p. 21. Garrett, Classical Dictionary ofIm1ia, art. Skambha. Still another explanation is suggested by the ltig-Veda, X., 149: Savitri has established the earth by supports: Suvitri has tlxed the sky in unsup- ported spaccg Savitri, the son of the waters, knows the place where the ocean supported issued forth. Muir, Sanskrit Y21xls,vol. iv., p. 110 tcomp. Ludwig's German versionj. According to this, he would bo conceived of as knowing the depths of the whole ocean, because its celestial springs are about his head, and its lowest depths at his feet.