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SECTION VIII.

INO AND MELIKERTES.

IN the myth of Inô and Melikertes we see no longer opposition between Day and Night, Sun and Moon, but kosmic harmony, the crescent-moon-goddess with the young sun in her arms. Inô, the daughter of Kadmos the Easterner,'1 is married to Athamas, ‘in Ionic Tammas,' 2 the Phoenician Tammuz, the Akkadian Dumuzi, ‘the Only-son,' i.e., the solitary Sun-god, Melqarth, who goes forth to hunt alone. By him she becomes the mother of Melikertes, the Phoenician Melqarth, or City-king;' his reduplication-the sun of the next day; and when the raging Athamas -Herakles Mainomenos-in madness slays his eldest child by Inô, the latter with the infant Melikertes, leaps into the sea, and is subsequently known as Leukotheê, the White-goddess.' The obscure name Inô is probably a variant of Iuno, Juno, and from being a phase of Hêrê, 'the Gleaming-heaven,' she becomes the Queen-of-heaven, Lebhânâ, the Pale

1 Semitic Kedem, 'the East.'

2 K. O. Müller, Orchomenos und dier Minyer, 156.

3 Athamas is the god Tammuz.' (Sir G. W. Cox, Introd. 67, Note 2.) 4 Vide G. D. M. ii. 293. M. Lenormant and Prof. Sayce have pointed out the correct reading of Jeremiah, xxii.•18: 'Ah me, my brother, and ah me, my sister! Ah me, Adonis, and ah me, his lady!'

shiner,' the White-moon-goddess, the horned Astartê, and as such she assists the storm-tossed Odysseus with her headband (Kredemnon), a moon-scarf of the lunar rays. Such is Inô with-beautiful-ankle,'' the moon walking in brightness,' whose kindly unicorn-horn drives away noxious things; the fostering mother who, like a Juno Matuta, nurtures the young Sungod Dionysos, who is identical with Melqarth (Melek, Molekh), after the death of his own mother Semelê,2 he being the chief of the precious things put forth by the moon.' Not far from the Phoenician settlement in Kythera was a temple and oracle of Inô. They prophesy when asleep, since the goddess answers those who consult her by dreams. Water, pleasant to drink, flows from a sacred fount, and they call it the Fount of the Moon.'4 According to an MS. Neo-Platonik Commentary of Olympiodoros on the Phaidon, Inô is water, being marine.' Here is a preservation of a faint shadow of the truth, for the connexion between the moon and water is obvious; but the theory of Olympiodoros that the four daughters of Kadmos represent the four (so-called) elements, may be paralleled with the modern view of

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1 Od. v. 333–56. I have fully treated of these various personages in the G. D. M. i. 246 et seq.; ii. 286 et seq., and shall therefore only notice them briefly here.

Apollod. iii. 4.

3 At Athens was 6 a shrine of Aphroditê Ouraniê. Ouraniê was revered first amongst the Assyrians; and after the Assyrians by the Kyprian Paphians, and by those of the Phoenicians who dwell at Askalôn in Palestinê; and the Kythereans learnt from the Phoenicians to revere her' (Paus. I. xiv. 6).

Ibid. III. xxvi. 1.

Rolle,' that they represent the four stages of intoxication.2 The leap of Inô with the child into the sea was localised at the rock Molyris near Megara, whence Melikertes was said to have been carried on a dolphin, like Apollon Delphinios, the Fish-sun, to Korinth, where he had a curious labyrinthine shrine.*

1 Culte de Bacchus, iii. 318.

2 Sir G. W. Cox strangely remarks of Leukotheê that her name proclaims her as the open and glaring day' (Introd. 217). But the Glaring-day does not fly from the Raging-sun, or hold the Infant-sun in her arms; and is no more a nursing, nurturing mother than Athamas is such a sire.

3 Paus. I. xliv. 11.

4 Ibid. II. ii. 1.

SECTION IX.

THE THREE-LEGGED ASS OF THE BUNDAHIS.

THE next phase of the Unicorn is, I think, a novel one, and will solve a previously-felt difficulty. In the Pahlavi1 work, the Bundahish or Bundahis,2 is a circumstantial account of a wonderful animal called 'the Three-legged Ass,' which, according to M. Darmesteter, is a personification of cloud, storm, etc.; but whilst this hypothesis can never be demonstrated, I think on a review of the evidence the contrary will clearly appear. The writer states ;

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Regarding the three-legged ass they say, that it stands amid the wide-formed ocean, and its feet are three, eyes six, mouths nine, ears two and HORN ONE, body white, food spiritual, and it is righteous.' 4

This puzzle to commentators now at once becomes luminous. The triform, triquetric Moon stands amid the wide Oversea of heaven, the mare magnum sine fine,' and its feet are three.' To what other personage or phenomenon would this apply? To attempt to explain every detail in the late and elabo

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1 Using that term to denote the language of Persia during the Sassanian dynasty, A.D. 226-641' (R. B. Jr., R. Z., sec. v.).

2

'Kosmogony.'

3 O et A, 148 et seq.

↑ Bundahis, cap. xix. sec. 1. Apud E. W. West, Pahlavi Terts.

rated, and possibly in part purely arbitrary, account would be very unsafe. Suffice it if the main outline comes out quite clearly. The Ass, a wise and sagacious animal, especially in Eastern idea,1 has six eyes or two for each of the three phases; the Horse-SerpentDog-Moon has six eyes. There is some doubt about the word translated mouths;' it may mean 'testes,' and, if so, would connect the moon as usual with fertility and increase. The two ears may be the two ends of the horn, which is that of the lunar Unicorn.) Its body is of course white-Leukotheê. From the archaic time of the Babylonian Moon-god Sin‘it is righteous,' nay, the leader of righteousness and of kosmic order; and as a righteous and heavenly being its food, if it have any, must be 'spiritual.'

The description continues ;

moon.

And two of its six eyes are in the position of eyes,' i.e., in the full face or Serpent-moon; two on the top of the head' on the Dog-moon, the Half- or New-moon; and two in the position of the hump,' i.e., in the Unicorn-horse, the Crescent or Gibbous"With the sharpness of these six eyes it overcomes and destroys; '2 i.e., the dread lunar face and lunar eye which, as we have seen, drives away evil and scares wicked souls. The eye is the chief power of the Ass, as it is of the Gorgô. The whole extraordinary description is, on analysis, most palpably lunar.

'Of the nine mouths three are in the head, three 1 Vide G. D. M. i. 65. 2 Bundahis, xix. 2.

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