Chapter X: The Written Sources of Myth (2)

From this point the _Popol Vuh_ begins to shade into history. The sons of the first men, desirous of wielding the power possessed by their fathers, set out on a pilgrimage to the east, to obtain the insignia of royalty. The Kiches became more civilized, stone-built cities were raised, and a definite political existence arose. A policy of conquest was embarked upon, and many of the neighbouring tribes were conquered and subjected to Kiche rule. What follows probably contains but little of the matter of myth, and we may conclude that for the most part it is traditional history.

As has been said, it would be difficult to over-estimate the importance to mythology in general, and to American myth in particular, of such a document as the _Popol Vuh_. When we can be sure of its aboriginal character, and that is not seldom, American myth has the greatest importance because of its isolated nature. When we first encounter it, it is untouched by European or Asiatic myth, and this makes it of the greatest value for comparison. If we can parallel an old-world myth with a well-authenticated American example, then we have proved the universal nature of the principles of mythic evolution. Everything relating to the _Popol Vuh_ proves to the hilt its genuine aboriginal character; and this being so, it is of the greatest assistance to mythologists. Unfortunately, no adequate translation exists. The Kiche language in which it was written is most difficult, and for the present we have to rely on the Spanish version of Ximenez and the French translation of the original by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg. However, more than one translation is either meditated or in course of completion; and there is an abridgement in English by the present writer. An English translation of the whole appeared in an American magazine entitled _The Word_ during 1906 and 1907, from the pen of Dr Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, but whether from the Spanish or original Kiche, I do not know. It is, moreover, couched in Scriptural language, and such a treatment assists the vulgar error that the _Popol Vuh_ is merely a native travesty of portions of the Old Testament.

AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHIC WRITINGS

The red man of North America also has his epics. Charles Godfrey Leland, in the introduction to his book _Kuloskap_ [or Glooscap] _the Master_, says: "Very few persons are aware that there has perished or is rapidly perishing among the Red Indians of North America far more poetry than was ever written by all the white inhabitants, and that this native verse is often of a very high order, for the Indian sagas, or legends, or traditions, were in fact all songs.... After I had published my legends, however, I was made aware by Louis Mitchell, a Passamaquoddy Indian, who had been in the Legislature of Maine, and had collected and written out for me, with strictest literalness, a great number of manuscripts, that there were in existence certain narratives and poems quite different in kind from anything which I possessed. Among the former was a history of the Passamaquoddy tribe, illustrated with numerous designs of the Birch-bark school of art, which I transferred to my friend the late Dr D. G. Brinton as its most appropriate possessor. Three of the poems Mitchell wrote out for me in exact, though often quite ungrammatical language, which was so close to the original that the metres betrayed themselves throughout. I regret that, though I had certainly acquired some knowledge of 'Indian,' it was, as a Passamaquoddy friend one day amiably observed, 'only baby Injun now, grow bigger some day like Mikumwess s'posin' you want to,' in reference to a small goblin who is believed to have the power of increasing his stature at will. However, I with great care put the Mitchell Anglo-Algonkin into English metre, having been impressed, while at the work, with the exquisitely naive and fresh character of the original, which, while it often reminded me of Norse poetry, in many passages had strictly a life and beauty of its own." Leland tells how he began to correspond on the subject with Professor J. Dyneley Prince of Columbia University, translator of the celebrated Algonquin _Wampum Record_, recited annually in bygone days at the council of the tribes. He continues: "Few indeed and far between are those who ever suspected till of late years that every hill and dale in New England had its romantic legend, its beautiful poem, or its marvellous myth--the latter equal in conception and form to those of the Edda--or that a vast collection of these traditions still survives in perfect preservation among the few remaining Indians of New England and the North-east Coast, or the _Wabano_. This assertion is, I trust, verified by what is given in the Micmac tales by the late Rev. S. Rand, the collection made by Miss Abbey Alger, of Boston, and my own _Algonquin Legends of New England_, which I, _sit venia_, may mention was the first to appear of the series. And I venture to say from the deepest conviction that it will be no small occasion of astonishment and chagrin, a hundred years hence, when the last Algonkin Indian of the _Wabano_ shall have passed away, that so few among our literary or cultured folk cared enough to collect this connected aboriginal literature."

The lore of the New England Indians centres chiefly round the figure of Kuloskap, or Glooscap, as good an example of Matthew Arnold's 'magnified non-natural man,' so beloved of Lang, as can well be imagined. A detailed account of this being and his adventures will be found in the volume of this series which deals with the North American Indians. His brother Malsum the Wolf probably typifies the power of evil. In the myths collected by Messrs Leland and Prince we first read of the birth of Glooscap and the death of Malsum the Wolf, his twin brother. Malsum, having slain his mother, desired also to slay Glooscap, but a supernatural power guarded him, and Malsum's attempts were frustrated. He asked Glooscap several times what would slay him, but Glooscap invariably told him a falsehood, until at length, sitting by a stream, Glooscap muttered that a rush would cause his death. The beaver, hearing this, acquainted Malsum of the fact and asked as a reward to be provided with wings; but the Evil One, amused at his request, insulted him so outrageously that at last he betook himself to Glooscap, who, plucking a fern, sought Malsum, and having found him smote him with it so that he fell dead.

The creation of man and the animals is then sung of. First were born the fairies of the forest, the elves, the little men who dwelt in rocks (the red man's equivalent for elves and gnomes), the small animistic spirits which swarm through nature, lending her life and animation and filling up her crevices. Then Glooscap took his bow and arrows and shot at an ash-tree. From the hole made by the arrow men came forth, the first of the human kind. Then Glooscap created animals. At first he made them of colossal size, but seeing that they were too strong he made them smaller and weaker in order that man might be able to hunt them. In the beginning the beaver was the enemy of Glooscap, having on one occasion disobeyed the Master by drinking from a stream which was taboo. The god tore up a rock and hurled it at him from a distance of many leagues, but the beaver dodged it and ran into a mountain, where he has remained unto this day.

The third part of the epic of Glooscap tells how at one time the rattlesnakes were Indians. When the great flood was coming Glooscap gave them fair warning of it, but they answered that they did not care, and mocked him, shaking their rattles, which were made of turtle-shell containing small pebbles. The rain began to fall, the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, but still the rattlesnakes jeered. Glooscap had not the heart to drown them, but he changed them all to serpent form. Glooscap then named the animals and found that man was the lord of all. He was extremely kind to the creatures he had made. To begin with all was in darkness, so that men could not even see to slay their enemies. But Glooscap brought light into the world, and taught mankind the arts of life, the noble art of hunting, how to build huts and canoes, how to net the salmon and to make weapons. He showed to men the hidden virtues of plants and roots and blossoms, taught them the names of the stars, and acted throughout as a beneficent father to them.

By and by Glooscap withdrew himself from the haunts of men, yet he did not quit the earth for many years, but dwelt in a remote and almost inaccessible place. And he made it known to men that whoever should find him might have one wish granted, whatever that wish might be. For this reason many Indians sought his abode, though the way was long and arduous, and not all who set out reached their destination. Some of the wishers were wise and some foolish. The foolish wishers, or those who disobeyed the Master, found that the fulfilment of their wishes brought them no good, but the gifts which the wise ones received were generous in the extreme. This befell three Indians who visited the abode of Glooscap. One was a simple, honest Indian, who desired to excel in the chase. Another was a vain youth who wished to win the hearts of many maidens. The third was a buffoon whose only care was to create laughter; he therefore desired the power to utter an unusual cry, known to sorcerers in old time, which gladdened the hearts of all who heard it. The first received a magic pipe which would attract all animals to his nets, and the fulfilment of his wish brought him wealth and content. The second received a bag, tightly tied, which he was warned not to open till he reached home. Curiosity overcame him, however, and on the homeward journey he opened the bag, wherefrom issued a host of witches in the form of beautiful women, who strangled him with their embraces. The third received a magic root, and Glooscap warned him not to eat it till he reached his dwelling. He likewise disobeyed the command, and found himself gifted with the power to utter the magic cry; but, to his discomfiture, he could not always restrain it. The people of the town, at first delighted with the sound, soon tired of it, and avoided him who uttered it. This so preyed upon his mind that he betook himself to the woods and committed suicide.

The fourth portion of the epic contains Glooscap's adventures with the beasts--the loons, beaver, serpent, turtle, frog, and eagle. Very curious are the tales which describe the origin of the turtle, Glooscap's uncle, or relate how that crafty being endeavoured to overthrow the Master and make himself lord over beasts and men; and those that paint in picturesque language the binding of the Great Eagle, the Bird-who-blows-the-winds. Many of these stories are legendary, and purport to explain the existence of certain islands, streams, and other geographical features, as well as the physical structure and peculiarities of various animals. Thus the blowing of a whale is ingeniously explained by the fact that Glooscap at one time gave the animal a pipe and tobacco; it is smoking!

The fifth part of the epic treats mainly of the god's encounter with witches and sorcerers, and of his final departure from the earth. Toward the close of the poem a beautiful nature myth recounts how Glooscap found the Summer. Long years ago the deity travelled northward till he came to the lodge of the giant Winter. He entered and sat down, and his host told him tales of enchantment which cast him into a death-like sleep. Six months elapsed ere he awoke and proceeded homeward. With every step the air grew warmer, the earth greener and more beautiful. At length he came to a shady dell, where fairies were dancing joyfully, and, seizing their queen, whose name was Summer, he hid her in his bosom. Then he retraced his steps northward. The giant Winter still sat in his lodge, and at the coming of Glooscap he determined to throw the deity into a sleep that would last for ever; but this time the hidden presence of Summer spoiled the enchantments; tears of melting ice ran down the cheeks of the giant, and soon both he and his dwelling were changed to water, while signs of returning life and vegetation were everywhere apparent. Once more Glooscap turned his face southward, but the summer-elf he left behind him in the northern country.

Finally Glooscap abandoned the world, because of the evil that was in it. For long years he bore with the sinful ways of man, for whom he had cleared the land of evil demons and monsters, but at length his patience was exhausted. He made a great farewell feast, and afterward sailed away in his great canoe. And now he dwells in a splendid wigwam, continually making arrows. When the lodge is full of them he will make war on all mankind, and the world will pass away.

MYTH IN ENGLISH POETRY

How have the written myths we have just reviewed reflected upon the literature of our own race? Poetry and mythology are connected by an indissoluble bond. By mythology phenomena are endowed by the barbarian mind with all the attributes of life and reason. The process is clearly a poetical one, and by it the savage intelligence is brought very near to nature. Poetry, in some of its earliest and perhaps purest forms, is the direct outcome of a series of natural impressions on the mind; and both poetry and mythology are thus emanations from nature. In a barbarian state of society the one great theme of poetry is the story of the divine beings who sway the destinies of humankind. Thus the odes of Pindar, the epics of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ of Homer, the sagas of the early Norsemen, the _Nihongi_ of Japan, the tribal lays of the American Indians, all celebrate the triumphs, loves, wars, and destinies of the gods of these several peoples.

It has often been thought peculiar that mythology should have continued to be the theme of poetry many centuries after the faiths of Greece and Rome had become extinct. This was because at the period of the Renaissance, or rebirth of learning and art, in the later Middle Ages, it became the fashion for literary men to model their writings upon the classical authors of antiquity. This custom was nowhere more powerful than in France, whence it was borrowed by English authors, who began to make large use of classical and mythological allusions in the wondrous era of letters known as the Elizabethan. Thus we find the works of Marlowe, Fletcher, Shakespeare, Massinger, Ford, full of allusions to the principal figures of Latin and Greek mythology. From that period, indeed, down to our own day the beautiful and heroic myths of Greece have been the subject upon which many English poets have exercised their art; and those of them who have not woven tales around these exquisite fables have made plenteous use of them in the illustration and ornamentation of more homely themes. The works of all our great poets abound in allusions co the central figures of Greek mythology. Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Shelley, Byron, Keats have all embodied in their verse, or frequently allude to, the immortal tales of Hellas; and, advancing more nearly to our own time, Tennyson, Morris, and Swinburne, as well as many minor singers, have written of the deeds and loves and deaths of the mighty heroes around whom the ancient epics ebb and flow.

The following paragraphs describe the manner in which the myths of ancient Greece and Rome have been made use of by English poets, so that the reader may be enabled to regard the myth in the light of poetry and the poem in the light of mythology. Thus a double and mutual light may be cast upon both myth and song. Let us take as an example Shelley's _Prometheus Unbound_. Whoso knows the poem but not the myth from which it took its origin is robbed of much pleasure in reading the sublime verse, the ecstatic measures and magical lyrics with their constant allusions to the greater mythological characters. Who, for example, are lone and Panthea? What is the nature of Demogorgon? For what crime against Jupiter is Prometheus, the Titan,

Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain,
Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured?

Unless these allusions are understood, much of the beauty of such a work is absolutely lost. Let us see, then, how some of our greatest singers have regarded the denizens of Olympus and the mortals whose destinies they swayed.

Ere yet Jupiter seized on the lordship of Heaven and earth, Ophion and Eurynome ruled in Olympus. They were dethroned by Saturn and Rhea, who in turn were hurled from power by Zeus, or Jupiter, and Juno. Keats draws a touching picture of the old, forsaken god Saturn, left to meditations of a lost empire:

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat grey-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung about his head,
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still deaden'd move
By reason of his fallen divinity,
Spreading a shade.

A marvellous picture of shattered power! The grey quiet of the soundless vale, the unnatural stillness of leaf, and the noiseless stream, symbolize the inertia of the divinity who was once creative.

In the catalogue of gods in the first book of _Paradise Lost,_ Milton summarizes the usurpation of the heavenly sceptre first by Saturn and then by Jupiter in four telling lines:

Titan, Heaven's first born,
With his enormous brood, and birthright seized
By younger Saturn, he from mightier Jove,
His own and Rhea's son like measure found;
So Jove usurping reigned.

An effective picture of the vanquished and fallen Titans is also drawn by Keats, who says of them:

Scarce images of life, one here, one there,
Lay vast and edgeways; like a dismal cirque
Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor.

The simile of the giant and fallen forms to the lightning-shattered monoliths of some deserted Druid circle is magnificent. Such passages show how great are the themes which bring forth those stupendous images, the mightiest offspring of imagination. A great poet might sing of the things of to-day throughout a lifetime, and yet never so thrill the imagination as with the dead things which have the glamour of ages upon them.

Jupiter, as we know, was in the habit of abducting mortals from the earth, and transferring those who were very beautiful to the bright clime of Olympus. For this reason he seized upon the shepherd lad Ganymede, whom he made cup-bearer to the gods, and Asteria, the mother of Hecate, one of the infernal deities. To effect these captures he usually took the shape of an eagle. Spenser in _The Faerie Queene_ says of him:

Twice was he seen in soaring Eagle's shape,
And with wide wings to beat the buxom air:
Once, when he with Asterie did scape;
Again, when as the Trojan boy so fair
He snatched from Ida bill, and with him bare:
Wondrous delight it was there to behold
How the rude Shepherds after him did stare.
Trembling through fear lest down he fallen should,
And often to him calling to take surer hold.[4]

Spenser has another beautiful passage upon one of the captures made by Jupiter:

Behold how goodly my fair love does lie,
In proud humility!
Like unto Maia, when as Jove her took
In Tempe, lying on the flowery grass,
'Twixt sleep and wake, after she weary was
With bathing in the Acidalian brook.

In the second book of _Paradise Lost_ Milton makes Sin spring from the head of Satan, and it is reasonably conjectured that when he composed it he must have had in mind the myth of the marvellous birth of the goddess of wisdom, Pallas Athene. It is Sin who addresses the fallen archangel:

All on a sudden miserable pain
Surprised thee, dim thine eyes and dizzy swum
In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast
Threw forth, till on the left side opening wide,
Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright,
Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess armed
Out of thy head I sprung.

in times of peace Minerva assisted mankind in the manual crafts, and she also presided over the fortunes of war. She possessed a shield called the _ægis_, bearing the severed head of a monster named the Gorgon, which possessed the magical property of changing into stone anyone who beheld it. Milton renders her more spiritually formidable by conceiving that her purity and chastity, not the horrid head of the Gorgon, froze the hearts of evil-doers into terror:

What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield
That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin,
Wherewith she freez'd her foes to congeal'd stone,
But rigid looks of chaste austerity,
And noble grace that dash'd brute violence
With sudden adoration and blank awe?[5]

Shelley has a wonderful and not often quoted poem on this Gorgon head, torn from the body of the monster Medusa to front the _ægis_ of the goddess of divine wisdom:

It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,
Upon the cloudy mountain peak supine;
Below, far lands are seen tremblingly;
Its horror and its beauty are divine.
Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lit
Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine,
Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath,
The agonies of anguish and of death.

Yet it is less the horror than the grace
Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone,
Whereon the lineaments of that dead face
Are graven, till the characters be grown
Into itself, and thought no more can trace;
'Tis the melodious hues of beauty thrown
Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain,
Which humanise and harmonise the strain.

Vulcan, or Hephæstus, was the god of fire, both in its forms of lurid conflagration and the more kindly glow of the domestic hearth, and his story is occasionally sung by our British poets. He was a craftsman of marvellous excellence in all the arts, and made the thunderbolts wielded by Jupiter. He was also the husband of Venus. His mother Juno having quarrelled with the King of Heaven, Vulcan took her part and was cast from Olympus by his enraged sire. He took an entire day to fall to earth, and at last alighted in the island of Lemnos:

From morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day, and with the setting sun
Dropped from the zenith like a falling star
On Lemnos, th' Ægean isle.[6]

In his amusing "Execration upon Vulcan," which was occasioned by the fire which destroyed his library and manuscripts, Ben Jonson alludes to Vulcan as the "lame lord of fire," and continues:

'Twas Jupiter that hurled thee headlong down,
And Mars that gave thee a lanthorn for a crown.
Was it because thou wert of old denied,
By Jove, to have Minerva for thy bride;
That since, thou tak'st all envious care and pain
To ruin every issue of the brain?

Venus, goddess of love, has ever been a theme of delight to poets. She was the daughter of Jupiter, but is sometimes referred to as springing from the foam of the sea, as, for example, in the enchanting lines of Swinburne's "Hymn to Proserpine":

White rose of the rose-white water, a silver splendour, a flame.

Lord de Tabley also refers to the foam-birth of Venus in the following stanza:

Uranian Aphrodite, fair,
From ripples of the ocean spray;
Sweet as the sea-blooms in thy hair
Rosed with the blush of early day,
O hear us from thy temple steep
Where Eryx crowns the Dorian deep.

The attributes and symbols of Venus are neatly described by Ben Jonson in his masque of _Loves Triumph through Callipolis_. Venus is supposed to say:

Here, here I present am,
Both in my girdle and my flame;
Wherein are woven all the powers
The Graces gave me, or the Hours,
My nurses once, with all the arts
Of gaining and of holding hearts.

[1] The title of which has also been translated _The Book of the Coming Forth in Day._

[2] This movable 'life' or heart is known to students of tradition as the 'life-index.' This is a common incident in medieval romance.

[3] These were translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest, and published in 1849. Eleven of them are taken from the _Red Book of Hergest_, a fourteenth-century manuscript in the library of Jesus College, Oxford. The tale of Taliesin is included with these, but is taken from a much later manuscript.

[4] Book III, canto xi, 34.

[5] _Comus_.

[6] Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book I.