In the same way as the ancients used to make quails fight against each other, so they made c.o.c.ks; hence the c.o.c.k was called son of Mars (Areos neottos). We already know that the c.o.c.k"s crest terrifies the maned lion; the crest and the mane are equivalent; and we have also seen what heroic virtue was attributed to the _lapillus alectorius_.
Plutarch writes that the Lacedaemonians sacrificed the c.o.c.k to Mars to obtain victory in the battles which they fought in the open air.
Pallas wore the c.o.c.k upon her helmet, Idomeneus upon his shield.
Plutarch says, moreover, that the inhabitants of Caria used to carry a c.o.c.k on the end of their lances, and refers the origin of this custom to Artaxerxes; but it appears to be much more ancient, for the Carians wore crested helmets as far back as the time of Herodotus, for which reason the Persians gave the Carians the name of c.o.c.ks. c.o.c.kfights, which became so popular in England, are also common in India. Philon, the Hebrew, relates of Miltiades, that before the battle of Marathon he inflamed the ardour of his soldiers by exhibiting c.o.c.kfights; the same, according to aelianos, was done by Themistocles. John Goropius (who gives the extravagant etymologies of _danen_ and _alanen_ from _de hahnen_ and _all hahnen_) relates that the Danes were accustomed to carry two c.o.c.ks to war, one to tell the hours and the other to excite the soldiers to battle. Du Cange informs us that duels between c.o.c.ks were also the custom in France in the seventeenth century, and gives some fragments of mediaeval writings in which these are prohibited as a superst.i.tious custom and one which was objectionable.
It is well known that the ancient Romans, before engaging in battle, took auguries from c.o.c.ks and fowls, although this custom sometimes gave occasion to derision. Of Publius Claudius, for instance, it is said that, being about to engage in a naval battle in the first Punic war, he consulted the auguries in order not to offend against the customs of his country; but that when the augurs announced that the fowls would not eat, he ordered them to be taken and thrown into the sea, saying, "If they will not eat, then let them drink."
Part of the worship which was offered to the c.o.c.k and to the hen was also rendered to the egg: the Latin proverb, "Gallus in sterquilinio suo plurimum potest," shows the great value of the egg. The pearl which the fowl searches for in the dunghill is nought else but its own egg; and the egg of the hen in the sky is the sun itself. During the night the celestial hen is black, but it becomes white in the morning; and being white, on account of the snow, it is the hen of winter. The white hen is propitious on account of the golden chickens hatched by it. In the Monferrato it is believed that the eggs of a white hen laid on Ascension Day, in a new nest, are a good remedy for pains in the stomach, head, and ears, and that, when taken into a cornfield, they prevent the blight, or black evil, from entering amongst the crops, or when taken into a vineyard, they save it from hail. The eggs which are eaten at Easter and concerning which, accompanied sometimes by songs and proverbs, so many popular customs, mythologically in accordance, are current in the various countries of Europe, celebrate the resurrection of the celestial egg, a symbol of abundance,[432] the sun of spring. The hen of the fable and the fairy tales, which lays golden eggs, is the mythical hen (the earth or the sky) which gives birth every day to the sun. The golden egg is the beginning of life in Orphic and Hindoo cosmogony; by the golden egg the world begins to move, and movement is the principle of good. The golden egg brings forth the luminous, laborious, and beneficent day. Hence it is an excellent augury to begin with the egg, which represents the principle of good, whence the equivocal Latin proverb, "Ab ovo ad malum," which signified "from good to evil," but which properly meant, "from the egg to the apple," the Latins being accustomed to begin their dinners with hard-boiled eggs and to end them with apples (a custom which is still preserved among numerous Italian families).[433]
But to begin _ab ovo_ also means to begin at the beginning. Horace says that he does not begin from the twin eggs the description of the Trojan war--
"Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur _ab ovo_,"
alluding to the egg of Leda, to which the Greek proverb, "Come out of the egg" (ex oou exelthen), also alludes, said of a very handsome man, and referring to fair Helen and her two luminous brothers the Dioskuroi. But here the white c.o.c.k has became a white swan, of which we shall speak in the following chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[421] i. 49.
[422] Ma no vadhir indra ma para da ma na? priya bho?anani pra moshi?
a??a ma no maghavan chakra nir bhen ma na? patra bhet saha?a.n.u.sha?i; _?igv._ i. 104, 8.
[423] Der Vogel der den Namen Parodars fuhrt, o heiliger Zarathustra, den die ubelredenden Menschen mit den Namen Kahrkatac belegen, dieser Vogel erhebt seine Stimme bei jeder gottlichen Morgenrothe: Stehet auf, ihr Menschen, preiset die beste Reinheit, vertreibet die Daeva; _Vendidad_, xviii. 34-38, Spiegel"s version.--The c.o.c.k Parodars chases away with his cry especially the demon Bushya?cta, who oppresses men with sleep, and he returns again in a fragment of the _Khorda-Avesta_ (x.x.xix.): ""Da, vor dem Kommen der Morgenrothe, spricht dieser Vogel Parodars, der Vogel der mit Messern verwundet, Worte gegen das Feuers aus. Bei seinem Sprechen lauft Bushya?cta mit langen Handen herzu von der nordlichen Gegend, von den nordlichen Gegenden, also sprechen, also sagend: "Schlafet o Menschen, schlafet, sundlich Lebende, schlafet, die ihr ein sundiges Leben fuhrt." As in the song of Prudentius, the idea of sleep and that of sin are a.s.sociated together; the song of Prudentius suggests the idea that it was written by some one who was initiated in the solar mysteries of the worship of Mithras.
[424] Cfr. Du Cange, _s. v._--And the same Du Cange, in the article _gallina_, quotes an old mediaeval glossary in which _gallina_ is said to mean Christ, wisdom, and soul.--The c.o.c.k of the Gospel announces, reveals, betrays Christ three times, in the three watches of the night, to which sometimes correspond the three sons of the legends.
[425] According to a legend of St James, an old father and mother go with their young son on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. On the way, in an inn at San Domingo de la Calzada, the innkeeper"s daughter offers her favours to the young man, who rejects them; the girl avenges herself upon him by putting a silver plate in his sack, for which he is arrested and impaled as a thief. The old parents continue their journey to Santiago; St James has pity upon them, and works a miracle which is only known to be his afterwards.
The old couple return to their country, pa.s.sing by San Domingo; here they find their son alive, whom they had seen impaled, for which they there and then offer solemn thanks to St James. All are astonished.
The prefect of the place is at dinner when the news is brought to him; he refuses to believe it, and says that the young man is no more alive than the roasted fowl which is being set upon the table; no sooner has he uttered the words, than the c.o.c.k begins to crow, resumes its feathers, jumps out of the plate and flies away. The innkeeper"s daughter is condemned; and in honour of the miracle, the c.o.c.k is revered as a sacred animal, and at San Domingo the houses are ornamented with c.o.c.k"s feathers. A similar wonder is said, by Sigonio, to have taken place in the eleventh century in the Bolognese; but instead of St James, Christ and St Peter appear to perform miracles.--Cfr. also the relationship of St Elias (and of the Russian hero Ilya) feasted on the 21st of July, when the sun enters the sign of the lion, with Helios, the h.e.l.lenic sun.
[426]
La gallina cantatura Nun si vinni, ne si duna, Si la mancia la patruna.
[427] Cfr. _Afana.s.sieff_, i. 3, ii. 30; sometimes, instead of the hen"s feet we have the dog"s paws; cfr. v. 28.
[428] Concerning this subject I can add an unpublished story which Signor S. M. Greco sends me from Cosenza in Calabria:--A poor girl is alone in the fields; she plucks a rampion, sees a stair, goes down, and comes to the palace of the fairies, who at sight of her are smitten with love. She asks to be allowed to go back to her mother, and obtains permission; she tells her mother that she hears a noise every night, without seeing anything, and is advised to light a candle and she will see. Next evening the girl does so, and sees a youth of great beauty with a looking-gla.s.s on his breast. The third evening she does the same, but a drop of wax falls upon the looking-gla.s.s and wakens the youth, who cries out lamentably, "Thou shalt go hence." The girl wishes to go away; the fairies give her a full clew of thread, with the advice that she must go to the top of the highest mountain and leave the clew to itself; where it goes, thither must she follow.
She obeys, and arrives at a town which is in mourning on account of the absence of the prince; the queen sees the girl from the window and makes her come in. After some time she gives birth to a handsome son, and a shoemaker, who works by night, begins to sing--
"Sleep, sleep, my son; If your mother knew some day That you are my son, In a golden cradle she would put you to sleep, And in golden swaddling-clothes.
Sleep, sleep, my son."
The queen then learns from the girl, that he who sings thus is the prince, who is destined to stay far from the palace until the sun rises without him perceiving it. Orders are then given to kill all the fowls in the town, and to cover all the windows with a black veil scattered over with diamonds, in order that the prince may believe it is still night and may not perceive the rising of the sun. The prince is deceived, and marries the maiden who is the fairies" favourite, and they lived happy and contented,
Whilst I, if you will believe me, Found myself with a thorn in my foot.
[429] Die schlaue Alte brachte bald heraus, was der Dorfhahn hinter ihrem Rucken der jungsten Tochter ins Ohr gekraht hatte; Kreutzwald u.
Lowe, _Ehstnische Marchen_.
[430] In the annals of the city of Debreczen, in the year 1564, we read as follows: "aeterna et exitialis memoria de incendio trium ordinum in anno praesenti: feria secunda proxima ante fest. nat. Mariae gloriosae exorta est flamma et incendium periculosum in platea Burgondia; eadem similiter ebdomade exortum est incendium altera vice, de platea Csapo de domo inquilinari Stephani literati, multas domos ... in cinerem redegit, et quod majus inter caetera est, n.o.bilissimi quoque templi divi Andreae et turris tecturae combustae sunt, ex qua turri et ejus pinnaculo, gallus etiam aereus, a multis annis insomniter dies ac noctes jejuno stomacho stans et in omnes partes advigilans, flammam ignis sufferre non valens, invitus devolare, descendere et illam suam solitam stationem deserere coactus est, qui gallus tantae cladis commiserescens ac nimio dolore obmutescens de pinnaculo desiliendio, collo confracto in terram coincidens et suae vitae propriae quoque non parcens, fidele suum servitium invitus derelinquendo, misere expiravit et vitam suam finivit sic."
[431] Reinsberg von Duringsfeld observes (_Das festliche Jahr_), that sometimes, for jest, in North Walsham, instead of the c.o.c.k an owl is put,--another funereal symbol with which we are already acquainted.
[432] Not only the egg of the hen is a symbol of abundance, but even the bones of fowls served in popular tradition to represent matrimonial faith and coition. In Russia, when two (probably husband and wife) eat a fowl together, they divide the bone of the neck, the English merrythought, between them; then each of them takes and keeps a part, promising to remember this rupture. When either of the two subsequently presents something to the other, the one who receives must immediately say, "I remember;" if not, the giver says to him, "Take and remember." The forgetful one loses the game. A similar game, called the verde or green, is played in Tuscany during Lent between lovers with a little twig of the box-tree.
[433] The sun is an egg at the beginning of day; he becomes, or finds, an apple-tree in the evening, in the western garden of the Hesperides.
CHAPTER X.
THE DOVE, THE DUCK, THE GOOSE, AND THE SWAN.
SUMMARY.
White, red, and dark-coloured doves, ducks, geese, and swans.--The funereal dove; it is united with the owl; kapotas.--The doves flee from unhappy persons.--The dove and the hawk.--Two doves sacrifice themselves, one for the other; a form of the Acvi?au.--The dove and the ant.--Transformation of the hero and heroine into doves.--The two prophetic doves upon the cross-trees of the mast.--Among funereal games, that of shooting arrows at a dove which hangs from the mast of a ship.--The doves of Dodona.--The dove and the water.--St Radegonda as a dove preserves sailors from shipwreck.--A dove guides the Argonauts.--The soul of Semiramis becomes a dove.--It is sacrilege to eat a dove.--Hero and heroine become doves, in order to escape.--The dove as the bringer of joy, of light, of good; it is a symbol of the winter that ends, and of the spring which is beginning.--The daughters of Anius become white doves.--Two doves separate the barley for the girl.--The fireworks, the stove, and the car of Indras, perform the same miracles, _i.e._, they make beautiful the girl with the ugly skin.--Zezolla benefited by the dove of the fairies.--The doves on the rosebush.--The nymph Peristera helps Aphrodite to pluck flowers.--The phallical dove.--The word _ha?sas_; the guc-lebedi of Russian tales.--Agnis as a ha?sas.--The Marutas as ha?sas.--The horses of the two Acvinau as ha?sas.--The duck makes its nest upon the thief"s head.--B?ibus on the thieves" head; B?ibus as Indras, and as a bird.--Brahman upon the ha?sas.--The sun as a golden duck.--The betrothed wife as a duck.--The arrows of Ramas as ha?sas.--Kabandhas drawn by ha?sas.--The ha?sas as love messengers.--The geese-swans and the young hero in Russian tales.--The serpent-witch and the princess as a white duck.--The golden and silver eggs of the duck.--The golden egg of the duck causes the death of the horse.--The geese of the Capitol.--The goose which, after having been cooked, rises again alive.--Geese as discoverers of deceits.--The Valkiries as swans.--Berta the Reine pedauque.--The wild goose on the bush.--The goose eaten on St Michael"s Day.--The hero and the swan.--The kingdom of the San Graal.--The legend of Lohengrin; a variety of the myth of the Acvinau; Lohengrin and Elsa"s brother, the sun and the moon.--The legend of the Dioskuroi; Zeus as a swan; the Dioskuroi deliver Helen, as Lohengrin delivers Elsa.
Inasmuch as there is the white dove and the dove-coloured one,[434]
the white duck and goose, the duck and the dark-coloured or fire-coloured goose, the white swan and the flamingo, the red swan and the black, these birds, dove, goose, duck, and swan, from the diversity of colour which they a.s.sume upon the earth, also a.s.sumed mythical aspects which are sometimes contradictory when translated to the sky to represent celestial phenomena. While the white ones served for the more poetical images of mythology, the red and the dark ones offered aspects now benignant, now malignant, alluring the hero now to his ruin, and now, instead, to good fortune. The red hues, for example, of the western sky appear as flames into which the witch wishes to precipitate the young hero; the roseate tints of the eastern heavens, on the contrary, are generally the pyre or furnace in which the hero burns the ill-favoured witch who endeavours to ruin him; from the dawn of morning, from the white sky, from the snow of winter, from the white earth or white swan, the golden egg (the sun) comes forth; now the beautiful maiden, now the young hero emerges from it--the aurora and the sun, or else the spring and the sun. The evening sun and aurora in the night, the sun and the verdant earth, which divests itself of its varicoloured attire in autumn, veil, cover, and lose themselves; their most vivid hues become obscure in the gloom of night, or are covered by the snow of winter; the hero becomes a dark-coloured dove, or a gloomy swan which crosses the waters. I have noted more than once how the night of the year corresponds to those of the day; the sun which hides itself in the night of evening, and the sun which veils itself in the night of winter, are often represented by the same mythical images.
Let us now see under what mythical aspects the dove, the duck, and the swan appear in the East, in order to compare them with Western traditions.
The _?igvedas_ presents us with the funereal dove, the grey or dark-coloured dove, the messenger of the nocturnal or wintry darkness.
Seeing it is joined in the Vedic hymn with the owl, it was supposed that it represented some other bird than the dove, and interpreters were fain to recognise in the Vedic kapotas the _t.u.r.dus macrourus_ rather than the dove; but this interpretation seems to me inadmissible, since the Vedic kapotas appears as a domestic bird, and one which approaches the dwellings of men, habits which thrushes have not, and which doves have. In the 165th hymn of the tenth book of the _?igvedas_, the kapotas is exorcised as a messenger of the funereal Nir?itis, of death, and of Yamas the G.o.d of the dead, in order that it may do no evil: "Be propitious to us," cries the poet, "be propitious to us, rapid (or messenger) kapotas; inoffensive may the bird be unto us, O G.o.ds, in the houses. When the owl emits that painful cry, when the kapotas touches the fire, honour be to M?ityus, to Yamas, whose messenger it is."[435] As birds of evil omen also must the doves be recognised, which flee from the unhappy in the _Pancatantram_.[436] In the dove pursued by the hawk (the hawk has also in Sansk?it the name of kapotaris, or enemy of doves) of the Buddhist legend concerning the king who sacrifices himself to keep his word, which has been recorded in the chapter on the hawk, the hawk is the form taken by Indras, and the dove the form of Agnis, the fire. The same legend is found again in the _Tuti-Name_, with this variation that the vulture takes the place of the falcon, and Moses that of the Buddhist king. In order to fulfil the duties of hospitality, he cuts off as much of his own flesh as the dove weighs, to give it to the vulture, who takes in jest the same part of the hero which the hatred of races and religious fanaticism make the Jew of Venice, immortalised by the genius of Shakspeare, demand with seriousness. In other Hindoo varieties of the same legend of the hero who sacrifices himself, we find two doves (in the _Pancatantram_) which sacrifice themselves one for the other; two doves that love one another (in the _Tuti-Name_,[437] they are two turtle-doves). Here we have a form of the two Acvinau, of the two brothers of whom one sacrifices himself for the other; the well-known fable of La Fontaine, _Les Deux Pigeons_, is a reminiscence of this Eastern legend. In the same way, a variety of the legend of the two brothers is contained in the fable of aesop, and of La Fontaine, of the dove that throws a blade of gra.s.s into the water to the ant that is about to drown, and thus saves it, for which reason the grateful ant soon after bites the foot of the hunter who has caught the dove, so that he is compelled to let it go. In the chapter which treats of the swallow, we saw the beautiful maiden upon the tree at the fountain changed into a swallow by the witch"s enchantment; numerous other legends, instead of the transformation into a swallow, give us that into a dove.[438] The stories of the maiden Filadoro and of the Island of the Ogres, in the _Pentamerone_;[439] a Piedmontese story communicated by me in 1866 to my friend Professor Alexander Wesselofski, who published it in his essay upon the poet Pucci; the thirteenth Sicilian story of Signora Gonzenbach (of which the twelfth story is a variation); the forty-ninth story of the sixth book of _Afana.s.sieff_ (a variety of which occurs at the end of the fifth of the stories of Santo Stefano di Calcinaia), and a great number of a.n.a.logous European stories, reproduce this subject of the maiden transformed into a dove by the witch"s enchantment: as the swallow is white and black, so does the dove into which the beautiful maiden is transformed appear now white and now black. No less numerous are the stories in which, instead of the young princess, we read of young princes transformed into doves; I publish here two unpublished Tuscan stories which refer to this subject, and which (particularly the second) are of great interest.[440]
Hitherto the dove has appeared as a mournful and diabolical form a.s.sumed by the hero or heroine, on compulsion of external magic. Of funereal character, too, are the two doves which place themselves upon the cross-trees of the ship in which Gennariello is carrying a hawk, a horse, and a white and red bride with black hair to his brother Milluccio (a variation of the legend of the Acvinau, and of that of the youth who sacrifices himself for his brother). The two doves speak to each other; one says that Gennariello is taking to his brother Milluccio a hawk which immediately after its arrival will tear out his eyes, and that he who should warn Milluccio of it, or not take the hawk to him, would turn to marble; then that Gennariello is taking to his brother Milluccio a horse which, as soon as it is ridden, will break his neck, and that he who should warn Milluccio of this, or not take the horse to him, would turn, to marble; and finally, it says that Gennariello is taking to his brother a wife on whose account a dragon will devour the bride and bridegroom during the first night of their union, and that he who should warn Milluccio of this, or not take the bride to him, would turn to marble. The cunning Gennariello takes hawk, horse, and bride to Milluccio; but before he takes the hawk in his hand, Gennariello cuts off its head; before he rides the horse, Gennariello cuts its legs off; and before the dragon comes up to devour the bride and bridegroom, Gennariello shears off its head.
Milluccio, who has not seen the dragon, sees his brother with a knife in his hand, and thinks that he has come to kill him; he has him bound and condemned to death. In order not to escape this fate, Gennariello reveals everything and turns to marble. Milluccio learns that by anointing the marble with the blood of his two little sons, his brother can be recalled to life; he slaughters his children; the mother, in despair, goes to the window to kill herself by throwing herself down, but she sees her father coming towards her, and shouting, "Drinto na nugola." He resuscitates her children, saying that it was to avenge himself, he had caused such bitter pain to all; on Gennariello, because he had carried off his daughter; on Milluccio, who was the cause of her being carried off; on his daughter, because she had eloped from her home. The two doves that perched upon the crosstrees of the mast were therefore messengers of death to the hero and to the heroine, as sometimes, on the other hand, they are their own funereal form. The reader will doubtless remember how, in the funeral of Patroclus in the _Iliad_, amongst the funereal games, there is that of shooting arrows at a dove hung upon the mast of a ship.
(He will also remember the two prophetic doves which gave responses upon two oak-trees or beeches at Dodona, and which cried, "Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus will be, O Zeus, the greatest of the G.o.ds!") The dove here appears in connection with funereal waters; the fable is well known of the dove that meets with its death by beating its head against a wall upon which water is painted.[441] In the legend of Queen Radegonda, the holy queen, in the form of a dove, delivers sailors from shipwreck. According to Apollonios, a dove was the guide of the Argonauts. It is said that Semiramis was transformed into one after her death. The dove also appears as a funereal symbol in Christian monuments; hence, and from its use as the symbol of the St Esprit, the superst.i.tion cherished by a great portion of the people in Italy, Germany, Holland, and Russia, to the effect that it is a sin to eat a dove. It is well-known what reverence was shown to it in antiquity, particularly in Syria and in Palestine.
Sometimes the form of a dove is voluntarily a.s.sumed by the two young lovers, to flee from the persecution of the monster; as, for instance, in the sixth of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano_. Sometimes the funereal dove (like the funereal crow) is the bringer of joy and good things to men and G.o.ds. The popular custom of the artificial dove, commonly called the dove of the Pazzi (from the name of the n.o.ble Florentine family which possessed the privilege), which, at Florence, on Holy Sat.u.r.day, that is to say, Easter Eve, starts from the altar of the Cathedral, and flies at midday to light the fireworks upon the little square between Santa Maria del Fiore and the Baptistery of St John, to announce that Christ has risen to a crowd of peasants, who have flocked in from the country to augur from the dove"s flight whether they will have a good harvest in the following year,--is a symbol of the end of winter, and of the commencement of spring. In the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, the daughters of Anius, by the grace of Bacchus, change into corn, wine, and oil, whatever they touch, according to the words of the same Anius--
"Tactu natarum cuncta mearum In segetem, laticemque meri, baccamque Minervae Transformabantur."
Agamemnon wishes to have them with him to provision the army; the daughters of Anius refuse; Agamemnon then purposes compelling them by main force; but Bacchus takes pity upon them, and transforms them into white doves. In the thirtieth story of the sixth book of _Afana.s.sieff_, two doves (a form of the Acvinau) come to separate the barley for Masha or Little Mary, the black (cornushka) or ugly or dirty little girl, the persecuted Cinderella, and then making her mount upon the stove, transform her into an exceedingly beautiful maiden, renewing thus the miracle of Indras (and of the Acvinau), who restores to beauty the maiden of the ugly skin. The fireworks of the popular Tuscan custom, the stove, and the car of Indras perform the same miracle. In the sixth story of the first book of the _Pentamerone_, the maiden Zezolla, called at home "a cat, a cinder-girl," because she was always watching the fire, ill-treated at home by her step-mother, is benefited by the dove of the fairies of the island of Sardinia, which sends her a plant that yields golden dates, a golden spade, a little golden bucket, and a silk tablecloth.
The girl must cultivate the plant, and simply remember, when she wishes for some favour, to say--
"Dattolo mio "naurato, Co la zappatella d"oro t"haggio zappato, Co lo secchietello d"oro t"haggio adacquato, Co la tovaglia de seta t"haggio asciuttato; Spoglia a te, e vieste a me."
The date-tree yields some of its riches to adorn the maiden. Thus, when the young king proclaims a festival, she goes disguised in regal attire, and dances with an effect that outdazzles like a sun. When she is followed by the prince the first time, she throws gold behind her; the second time, pearls; the third, her slipper; and by means of it she is recognised and espoused. In the twenty-second Esthonian story, when the young prince-lover arrives, two doves perch upon the rose-bush, in which the beautiful daughter of the gardener is enclosed by enchantment; the beautiful maiden comes out of the rose-bush, and, showing the half of her ring, weds the prince who has preserved the other half. In the h.e.l.lenic myth, Aphrodite and Love play at seeing who will pluck most flowers; winged Love is winning, but the nymph Peristera helps Aphrodite; Love indignant, changes her into the peristera or dove, which Aphrodite, to console her, takes under her protection. The doves now draw the chariot of Venus, and now (like the sparrows) accompany it. In the _Odyssey_ the doves bring the ambrosia to Zeus,[442] and it is in the form of a dove that Zeus (well known to be an _alter ego_ of Indras) visits the virgin Phthia. Catullus, speaking of Caesar"s _salacitas_, makes mention of the _columbulum albulum_, or little dove of Venus.[443] In this pa.s.sage the dove becomes a phallical symbol; and we are reminded of the well-known mythical episode of the animal, bird, or fish which laughs, by the equivocal Italian proverb, "The dove that laughs wants the bean" (said of a woman when she smiles upon her lover[444]). It is narrated of Aphrodite, that she cured Aspasia of a tumour by the help of a dove; here the dove does to Aspasia the same service as the rudder of Indras"s chariot to Apala in the Vedic legend.
But in mythical tradition the place of the doves is sometimes taken by ducks, which are exchanged for swans.
The Hindoo word _ha?sas_ means now swan, now duck (anas, anser), now goose, now phaenicopterus. No wonder then that the myths exchanged, one for another, animals which were confounded together under one and the same appellation. Russian stories call the birds goose-swans (guclebedi) which now carry off, and now save the young hero.
In the Vedic hymns, the ha?sas (duck-swan or goose-swan) is represented more than once. Agnis, the fire, when entreated to arouse himself in houses with the aurora, is compared to a swan in the waters (or to the light in the darkness, to white upon black, or the sun in the azure sky[445]). The G.o.d Agnis is himself called ha?sas, the companion (as a thunderbolt) of the movable (waves or clouds), going in company with the celestial waters.[446] The song of the companions of B?ihaspatis, singing hymns to the cows or aurorae of the morn, resembles the song of the ha?sas.[447] The Marutas, with the splendid bodies (the winds that lighten, howl, and thunder) are compared to ha?sas with black backs[448] (which reminds us of the swallows with black backs and with white ones, of black crows and white crows, black swans and white ones). The horses of the two Acvinau are compared to ha?sas, ambrosial, innocent, with golden wings, which waken with the aurora (being sunbeams), which swim in the waters, joyful and merry.[449] In the Russian stories of _Afana.s.sieff_,[450] a duck comes to make its nest upon the head of the thief who has fallen into the waters out of the sky. The duck lays a golden egg (the sun) in its nest at morn, and a silver egg (the moon) at even. In the _?igvedas_, I read that upon the head of the thieves (Pa?ayas), similar to the vast forest of the Ganges, at its higher part, B?ibu? went to place himself, scattering thousands of gifts.[451] I think I can recognise in B?ibus a bird and a personification of Indras. B?ibus is, in cankhayanas, represented as a takshan, which is explained as a constructor, an artificer, a carpenter; hence B?ibus is supposed to be the carpenter of the Pa?ayas. But this seems improbable, besides being in contradiction to the Vedic strophe. The proper primitive sense of the word _takshan_ is the cutter, he who breaks in pieces; in B?ibus, therefore, I recognise not the carpenter of the Pa?ayas, but their destroyer. As we also find, in another Vedic hymn,[452] B?ibus in connection with two other birds, viz., the bharadva?as (the lark) and the stokas (the cuckoo), I am induced to suppose that B?ibus too is a bird. Finally, as I find B?ibus in connection with Indras, I see in this bird that perches upon the head of the Pa?ayas, a form of the G.o.d Indras himself. The duck, in Russian stories, deposits its egg upon the robber"s head; thus Indras takes their treasures off the head of the Pa?ayas. We already know of the pearls which fall from the head of the good fairy, combed by the virtuous maiden; we also know that the mythical waters are in relation with the treasures. We must record here the legend of the _Ramaya?am_ concerning the origin of the Ganges, which, before pouring its waters upon the earth, let them wander for a long time upon the hairy head of the G.o.d civas, who is a more elevated form of Kuveras, the G.o.d of riches.[453] We know also that the pearl and the egg are the same in the myths.
The G.o.d Brahman is represented in Hindoo mythology riding upon a white ha?sas.