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النشر الإلكتروني

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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.

2 Apollod. iii. 4.

3 At Athens was '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).

4 Ibid. III. xxvi. 1.

Rolle,1 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 Apollôn Delphinios, the Fish-sun, to Korinth, where he had a curious labyrinthine shrine.1

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,3 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 ;

'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.).

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Kosmogony.'

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O et A, 148 et seq. ↑ Bundahis, cap. xix. sec. 1. Apud E. W. West, Pahlavi Texts.

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.'

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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 Gibbousmoon. 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.

in the hump, and three in the inner part of the flanks.'1 The mouths are distributed amongst the phases in the same manner as the eyes. The hump, so far as any actual animal supplies the imagery, will be that of the Indian ox. The increased number may express intensity, and the mouths be more or less Gorgonian.

'The one horn is as it were of gold and hollow. With that horn it will vanquish and dissipate all the vile corruption due to the efforts of noxious creatures.'2 This is the pure bright unicorn's horn that drives away darkness and evil, cleanses streams and pools, and by which 'venym is defended.' 3

"When it stales in the ocean all the sea-water will

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become purified. . . If, O three-legged ass! you were not created for the water, all the water in the sea would have perished.'4 The sea-and-water-ruling

moon.

'Tîstar seizes the water more completely from the ocean with the assistance of the three-legged ass.' 5 In Bundahis, vii. 2, we read ;

'Every single month is the owner of one constellation; the month Tîr is the fourth month of the year, Cancer the fourth constellation from Aries, so it is the owner of Cancer, into which Tîstar sprang, and displayed the characteristics of a producer of

1 Bundahis, sec. 3.

2 Ibid. secs. 6, 7.

4 Bundahis, xix. 10.

6 Kalakang-Karkinos. In another Monograph

3 Vide sec. I.
5 Ibid. sec. 11.

(to appear in the

Archaeologia) I have considered the origin of the Signs of the Zodiac, and their antezodiacal character.

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