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connected with growth and the nurturing power of the peaceful night.

The Moon too, like the Sun, speaks of a future life, so that even the rude Congo Negro claps his hands and cries, ' So may I renew my life as thou art renewed;' and in the famous Namaqua-myth the Moon once sent the Hare to Men to give this message, "Like as I die and rise to life again, so you also shall die and rise to life again."

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According to the anthropomorphic principle the Moon appears in male or female form, and is symbolically connected with the Bull or Cow, Unicorn or Horse, Serpent, Dog and Cat, with the latter animal probably on account of phenomena of periodicity, cats' eyes shining in the dark, etc.3 It is also at times a pearl or a good fairy.

Regarded as a locality, it often appears as the abode of departed souls. So in the Kamic Book of the Respirations, which is probably of the epoch of the Ptolemies, the wish is expressed respecting the deceased,

'That his soul may rise to heaven in the disk of the Moon.' 5

Such are some of the principal mythological lunar aspects. If the savage at times regards her

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3 Vide Dr. Hyde Clarke, On the Relations between Pasht, the Moon, and the Cat, in Egypt, in T. S. B. A. vi. 316 et seq.

4 Vide Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, i. 54, 56.

5

Ap. M. de Horrack (R. P. iv. 121). On this subject vide Plutarch, De Facie in Orbe Lunae; Tylor, P. C. ii. 64; R. B. Jr., The Archaic Solar Cult. of Egypt, 37.

as cleft in sunder by the angry sun, the poet at times also has his mere fancies-fancies as distinguished from the ordinary growths of mythology-and compares her to a lunatic and dying lady, tottering forth 'Led by the insane

And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,'1

But in health we do not speak thus, and so to this same great singer in a nobler moment she is an 'orbed maiden with white fire [white gold] laden.'

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More grandly did Milton see her, in his stately vision, throwing her silver mantle o'er the dark,' even as Homer and Tennyson saw

'The stars about the moon

Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
And every height comes out, and jutting peak
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
Break open to their highest.'

Shelley, The Waning Moon.

I append two Figures illustrating the origin of the terms Caput and Cauda Draconis as applied to the moon's nodes (knots), or the two points in the heavens where the moon's orbit intersects the plane of the ecliptic.

The circling path of the sun becomes similarly the

FIG. 5.

Time-serpent, Kampê (Caterpillar'), a monster slain by the solar Dionysos.2 These two lunar serpents, twin crescents, the increasing and decreasing moon, and whose combination makes the full moon, are the two bulls which draw the moon-car on its path through space.3

* Vide Maurice, Indian Antiquities, ii. 201. 2 Apollod. I. ii. 2; Diod. iii. 72.

9 Vide P. 68, Note 1.

SECTION XI.

THE CONTEST BETWEEN THE LION AND THE LEOPARD.

ERE noticing the final defeat of the nocturnal Unicorn, let us examine a very remarkable and most interesting instance of the triumph of Night over Day. The solar Dionysos,1 Bakchos-Melqarth,2 as radiate is styled Kerasphoros, Taurokerôs, and the like; and in a solar aspect generally Antauges, Chrysokomes, Chrysopes, Pyropos, etc. But one of his more occult epithets is Dithyreites, He-of-the-two-entrances.'

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According to one legend the cave in which he was concealed by Zeus from his angry consort Hêrê,3 had two entrances; and this is perfectly correct, for the Cave is the Underworld. The Two Entrances are the eastern gate Where the great sun begins his state,' and that which in Kamic mythology is called 'the Gate of the West, the region of Bliss.' 6 These two most important Gates or Pylons are in the Kamic scheme

1 In Assyrian Dian-nisi, Judge-of-men,' the Sun-god, as in Kam, being the particular divinity appointed by divine selection to judge.

2 Vide the G. D. M. ii. 100, for an account of the changes in the phases of this name. My view is now accepted by Sir G. W. Cox (Introd. 229).

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5 L'Allegro, 59-60. Dr. Birch in Bunsen's Egypt's Place, v. 147.

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guarded by Seb, the time-marking earth-god who, lying on the surface of the earth and looking up into the vault of heaven, watches sun, moon and stars passing through his gateways, and in so doing marks solar, lunar and sidereal time. The Sun-god UasarOsiris, suffering, triumphant, and in this phase in immediate relation with the individual human soul which in some occult manner must follow in his steps, 'the Great Soul, has come along the noble road, making his path above,'1 i.e., the solar track which, according to the Vedic poet, has been prepared for the Sun by the highest gods, Mitra 2 and Varuna 3 (Ouranos), and is free from dust; '4 and at eventide he reaches and passes through the western gate, to reappear in due course through the eastern gate on the next morning. Such are the two Horizon-gates of Hades, the 'Unseen' Underworld.

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The influence of Mythology upon Heraldry is a subject of great interest and one which yet remains for scientific treatment, and the following myth, faithfully preserved in the latter science, presents an admirable instance of the ever-recurring contest between Astrochitôn (Starry-night) and Dionysos Dithyreites. The heraldic Leopard is a beast of ' unkindly procreation and double nature, being engendered between the Lionesse and the Pardus' or male panther, and is thus exorbitent of Nature's

1 F. R. lxxxv.

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2 As to Mitra, the Iranian Mithra and Roman Mithras, the 'Friend,' consubstantial with Ahuramazda-Ormazd, vide R. B. Jr., R. Z., secs. XV. xvi. 4 lbid. 1. xxxv. 11.

3

Rig-Veda, I. xxiv. 8.

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