The Evolution of the Dragon Part 30

[380: In an interesting article on "The Water Lilies of Ancient Egypt"

(_Ancient Egypt_, 1917, Part I, p. 1) Mr. W. D. Spanton has collected a series of ill.u.s.trations of the symbolic use of these plants. In view of the fact that the papyrus- and lotus-sceptres and the lotus-designs played so prominent a part in the evolution of the Greek thunder-weapon, it is peculiarly interesting to find (in the remote times of the Pyramid Age) lotus designs built up into the form of the double-axe (Spanton's Figs. 28 and 29) and the cla.s.sical _keraunos_ (his Fig. 19).]

[381: The Babylonian magic plant to prolong life and renew youth, like the red mineral _didi_ of the Egyptian story. It was also "the plant of birth" and "the plant of life".]

[382: Muller, Quibell, Maspero, and Sethe regard the "round cartouche,"

which the divine falcon often carries in place of the _ankh_-symbol of life, as a representation of the royal name (R. Weill, "Les Origines de l'Egypte pharaonique," _Annales du Musee Guimet_, 1908, p. 111). The a.n.a.logous Babylonian sign known as "the rod and ring" is described by Ward (_op. cit._, p. 413) as "the emblem of the sun-G.o.d's supremacy," a "symbol of majesty and power, like the tablets of destiny".

As it was believed in Egypt and Babylonia that the possession of a name "was equivalent to being in existence," we can regard the object carried by the hawk or vulture as a token of the giving of life and the controlling of destiny. It can probably be equated with the "tablets of destiny" so often mentioned in the Babylonian stories, which the bird G.o.d _Zu_ stole from Bel and was compelled by the sun-G.o.d to restore again. Marduk was given the power to destroy or to create, _to speak the word of command_ and to control fate, to wield the invincible weapon and to be able to render objects invisible. This form of the weapon, "the word" or _logos_, like all the other varieties of the thunder-weapon, could "become flesh," in other words, be an animate form of the G.o.d.

In Egyptian art it is usually the hawk of Horus (the h.o.m.ologue of Marduk) which carries the "round cartouche," which is the _logos_, the tablets of destiny.]

[383: I quote Professor Canney's notes on the word _duda'im_ (Genesis x.x.x. 14) verbatim: "The _Encyclopaedia Biblica_ says (s.v.

'Mandrakes'): 'The Hebrew name, _duda'im_, was no doubt popularly a.s.sociated with _dodim_, [Hebrew: dodim], "love"; but its real etymology (like that of [Greek: mandragoras]) is obscure".

"The same word is translated 'mandrakes' in Song of Songs vii. 13.

"_Duda'im_ occurs also in Jeremiah xxiv, 1, where it is usually translated 'baskets' ('baskets of figs'). Here it is the plural of a word _dud_, which means sometimes a 'pot' or 'kettle,' sometimes a 'basket'. The etymology is again doubtful.

"I should imagine that the words in Jeremiah and Genesis have somehow or other the same etymology, and that _duda-im_ in Genesis has no real connexion with _dodim_ 'love'.

"The meaning 'pot' (_dud_, plur. _duda-im_) is probably more original than 'basket'. Does _duda-im_ in Genesis and Song of Songs denote some kind of pot or caldron-shaped flower or fruit?"]

[384: The Mother Pot is really a fundamental conception of all religious beliefs and is almost world-wide in its distribution.]

[385: The fruit of the lotus (which is a form of Hathor) a.s.sumes a form (Spanton, _op. cit._, Fig. 51) that is identical with a common Mediterranean symbol of the Great Mother, called "pomegranate" by Sir Arthur Evans (see my text-fig. 6, p. 179, _m_), which is a surrogate of the apple and mandrake. The likeness to the Egyptian hieroglyph for a jar of water (text-fig. 6, _l_) and the G.o.ddess _Nu_ of the fruit of the poppy (which was closely a.s.sociated with the mandrake by reason of its soporific properties) may have a.s.sisted in the transference of their attributes. The design of the water-plant (text-fig. 7, _d_) a.s.sociated with the Nile G.o.d may have helped such a confusion and exchange.]

[386: "A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians," revised and abridged, 1890, Vol. I, p. 323.]

[387: See, for example, Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Wors.h.i.+p," Fig. 27, p. 46.]

[388: In a j.a.panese dragon-story the dragon drinks "sake" from pots set out on the sh.o.r.e (as Hathor drank the _didi_ mixture from pots a.s.sociated with the river); and the intoxicated monster was then slain.

From its tail the hero extracted a sword (as in the case of the Western dragons), which is now said to be the Mikado's state sword.]

[389: See Gauthier, _op. cit._, pp. 2 and 3.]

[390: Compare the dog-incident in the mandrake story.]

[391: Bostock and Riley add the comment that "the peony has no medicinal virtues whatever".]

[392: _Proceedings of the British Academy_, Vol. VIII, 1917, p. 16 (in the reprint).]

[393: I am indebted to Dr. Alphonse Mingana for this information. But the philological question is discussed in a learned memoir by the late Professor P. J. Veth, "De Leer der Signatuur," _Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographie_, Leiden, Bd. VII, 1894, pp. 75 and 105, and especially the appendix, p. 199 _et seq._, "De Mandragora, Naschrift op het tweede Hoofdstuk der Verhandeling over de Leer der Signatuur".]

[394: Like the _Purpura_ and the _Pterocera_, the bryony and other sh.e.l.ls and plants.]

[395: Larousse, Article "Mandragore".]

[396: I have already referred to another version of the churning of the ocean in which Mount Meru was used as a churn-stick and identified with the Great Mother, of whom the _mandara_ was also an avatar.]

[397: Which I shall discuss in my forthcoming book on "The Story of the Flood".]

[398: The phallic interpretation is certainly a secondary rationalization of an incident which had no such implication originally.]

[399: The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis ii. 17) produced fruit the eating of which opened the eyes of Adam and Eve, so that they realized their nakedness: they became conscious of s.e.x and made girdles of fig-leaves (_vide supra_, p. 155). In other words, the tree of life had the power of love-provoking like the mandrake. In Henderson's "Celtic Dragon Myth" (p. xl) we read: "The berries for which she [Medb] craved were from the Tree of Life, the food of the G.o.ds, the eating of which by mortals brings death," and further: "The berries of the rowan tree are the berries of the G.o.ds" (p. xliii). I have already suggested the h.o.m.ology between these red berries, the mandrake, and the red ochre of Hathor's elixir. Thus we have another suggestion of the ident.i.ty of the tree of paradise and the mandrake.]

The Measurement of Time.

It was the similarity of the periodic phases of the moon and of womankind that originally suggested the identification of the Great Mother with the moon, and originated the belief that the moon was the regulator of human beings.[400] This was the starting-point of the system of astrology and the belief in Fates. The G.o.ddess of birth and death controlled and measured the lives of mankind.

But incidentally the moon determined the earliest subdivision of time into months; and the moon-G.o.ddess lent the sanct.i.ty of her divine attributes to the number twenty-eight.

The sun was obviously the determiner of day and night, and its rising and setting directed men's attention to the east and the west as cardinal points intimately a.s.sociated with the daily birth and death of the sun. We have no certain clue as to the factors which first brought the north and the south into prominence. But it seems probable that the direction of the river Nile,[401] which was the guide to the orientation of the corpse in its grave, may have been responsible for giving special sanct.i.ty to these other cardinal points. The a.s.sociation of the direction of the deceased's head with the position of the original homeland and the eventual home of the dead would have made the south a "divine" region in Predynastic times. For similar reasons the north may have acquired special significance in the Early Dynastic period.[402]

When the north and the south were added to the other two cardinal points the intimate a.s.sociation of the east and the west with the measurement of time would be extended to include all the four cardinal points.[403]

Four became a sacred number a.s.sociated with time-measurement, and especially with the sun.[404]

Many other factors played a part in the establishment of the sanct.i.ty of the number four. Professor Lethaby has suggested[405] that the four-sided building was determined by certain practical factors, such as the desirability of fas.h.i.+oning a room to accommodate a woven mat, which was necessarily of a square or oblong form. But the study of the evolution of the early Egyptian grave and tomb-superstructures suggests that the early use of slabs of stone, wooden boards, and mud-bricks helped in the process of determining the four-sided form of house and room.

When, out of these rude beginnings, the vast four-sided pyramid was developed, the direction of its sides was brought into relations.h.i.+p with the four cardinal points; and there was a corresponding development and enrichment of the symbolism of the number four. The form of the divine house of the dead king, who was the G.o.d, was thus a.s.similated to the form of the universe, which was conceived as an oblong area at the four corners of which pillars supported the sky, as the four legs supported the Celestial Cow.

Having invested the numbers four and twenty-eight with special sanct.i.ty and brought them into a.s.sociation with the measurement of time, it was a not unnatural proceeding to subdivide the month into four parts and so bring the number seven into the sacred scheme. Once this was done the moon's phases were used to justify and rationalize this procedure, and the length of the week was incidentally brought into a.s.sociation with the moon-G.o.ddess, who had seven _avatars_, perhaps originally one for each day of the week. At a later period the number seven was arbitrarily brought into relations.h.i.+p with the Pleiades.

The seven Hathors were not only mothers but fates also. Aphrodite was chief of the fates.

The number seven is a.s.sociated with the pots used by Hathor's priestesses at the celebration inaugurating the new year; and it plays a prominent part in the Story of the Flood. In Babylonia the sanct.i.ty of the number received special recognition. When the G.o.ddess became the destroyer of mankind, the device seems to have been adopted of intensifying her powers of destruction by representing her at times as seven demons.[406]

But the Great Mother was a.s.sociated not only with the week and month but also with the year. The evidence at our disposal seems to suggest that the earliest year-count was determined by the annual inundation of the river. The annual recurrence of the alternation of winter and summer would naturally suggest in a vague way such a subdivision of time as the year; but the exact measurement of that period and the fixing of an arbitrary commencement, a New Year's day, were due to other reasons. In the Story of the Destruction of Mankind it is recorded that the incident of the soothing of Hathor by means of the blood-coloured beer (which, as I have explained elsewhere,[407] is a reference to the annual Nile flood) was celebrated annually on New Year's day.

Hathor was regarded in tradition as the cause of the inundation. She slaughtered mankind and so caused the original "flood": in the next phase she was a.s.sociated with the 7000 jars of red beer; and in the ultimate version with the red-coloured river flood, which in another story was reputed to be "the tears of Isis".

Hathor's day was in fact the date of the commencement of the inundation and of the year; and the former event marked the beginning of the year and enabled men for the first time to measure its duration. Thus Hathor[408] was the measurer of the year, the month, and the week; while her son Horus (Chronus) was the day-measurer.

In Tylor's "Early History of Mankind" (pp. 352 _et seq._) there is a concise summary of some of the widespread stories of the Fountain of Youth which restores youthfulness to the aged who drank of it or bathed in it. He cites instances from India, Ethiopia, Europe, Indonesia, Polynesia, and America. "The Moslem geographer, Ibn-el-Wardi, places the Fountain of Life in the dark south-western regions of the earth"

(p. 353).

The star Sothis rose heliacally on the first day of the Egyptian New Year.[409] Hence it became "the second sun in heaven," and was identified with the G.o.ddess of the New Year's Day. The identification of Hathor with this "second sun"[410] may explain why the G.o.ddess is said to have entered Re's boat. She took her place as a crown upon his forehead, which afterwards was a.s.sumed by her surrogate, the fire-spitting uraeus-serpent. When Horus took his mother's place in the myth, he also entered the sun-G.o.d's boat, and became the prototype of Noah seeking refuge from the Flood in the s.h.i.+p the Almighty instructed him to make.

In memory of the beer-drinking episode in the Destruction of Mankind, New Year's Day was celebrated by Hathor's priestesses in wild orgies of beer drinking.

This event was necessarily the earliest celebration of an anniversary, and the prototype of all the incidents a.s.sociated with some special day in the year which have been so many milestones in the historical progress of civilization.

The first measurement of the year also naturally forms the starting-point in the framing of a calendar.

Similar celebrations took place to inaugurate the commencement of the year in all countries which came, either directly or indirectly, under Egyptian influence.

The month [Greek: Aphrodisia] (so-called from the festival of the G.o.ddess) began the calendar of Bithynia, Cyprus, and Iasos, just as Hathor's feast was a New Year's celebration in Egypt.