Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

lynx

253

(e) lynx.

When the Argonauts first came to Kolchis, Aphrodite helped
Iason to win Medeia by means of an iynx or 'wry-neck' fastened
to a magic wheel. Pindar describes the incident in a noteworthy
passage:

Kyprogeneia, queen of the quick shaft,

Down from Olympos brought

The wriggling wry-neck bound beyond escape—
The mad bird—to a wheel of four-spoked shape,

And then first gave it unto men and taught
The proper craft

To the son of Aison, that he might be wise

With all the wisdom of her sorceries
And thereby steal Medeia's shame
Of her own parents,—yea, the very name

Of Hellas her desire

With Peitho's whip should spin her heart on fire1.

We are nowhere told that this lynx-wheel stood for the sun. But
that it did, is—I think—a possible, even a probable, inference from
the following facts. To begin with, the heroes had after a long
series-of adventures reached their goal—Aia, the land of the sun-
rise2, ruled by Aietes the offspring of Helios,—and more than one
event that befell them in this locality is susceptible of a solar
interpretation. Again, Aphrodite is stated to have brought the
lynx-wheel 'from Olympos,' an obvious source for celestial magic3.
In his description of the bird on the wheel Pindar uses a peculiar,
indeed barely logical, phrase, to which only one precise parallel

1 Pind. Pyth. 4. 213 ff. It should be noticed that there is a certain parallelism
between the beginning and the end of this extract. As Iason spins the magic iynx-wheel,
so Peitho with her whip spins the heart of Medeia (irodeiva <5"EA\as avrav | ii> cppaal
Ka.Lop.epav \ doveoi pidcrTLyc TLeidovs). One form of magic wheel is said to have resembled
a whip-top (schol. Ap. Rhod. 1. 1139 p6p,(3os de ean rpox^CKos Sv arpecpovcri ifxacri Tvirrovres,
/cat ovtlo kttuttov airoreXovaiv, id. id. 4. 144 citing Eupolis Baptae frag. 15 Meineke
w pvp.j3oi.cri fxaaTL^as e^e", Eustath. in Od. p. 1387, 42 ff. rpoyiaKov drjXoi tov /cat p6p./3ou
Ktx\ovpL€vov, 8p tvtttovt€S t/xacrt /cat arpecpovres eirolovv dLveLadai /cat \pb<pov airorekelv, et.
mag. p. 706, 29 ff. eVrt 8e rpox^xos, 6v TvirrovTes IfxcLcrt. /cat crrpecpovTes ttolovctl irepLdoveiadac
/cat \pb(pov diroreXelp): see P. C. Levesque in Histoire et memoires de Vinstitut royal de
France, classe d'hist. et de litt. anc. Paris 1818 iii. 5 ff., who argues that the po^os ' avoit
le plus souvent la forme du jouet nomme parmi nous sabot ou toupie? and O. Jahn in the
Berichte sacks. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. Phil.-hist. Classe 1854 p. 257. A vase representing
such a top is figured by G. Fougeres in Daremberg—Saglio Diet. Ant. ii. 1154 fig. 3087.

2 See J. Escher-Biirkli in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. i. 919 f., 942 f.

3 Prof. J. B. Bury in the /onrn. Hell. Stud. 1886 vii. 157 ff. argues that the tiry£ was
originally a moon-charm or invocation of the moon-goddess 'It6. But it is very doubtful
whether Io was ab initio a moon-goddess {infra ch. i § 6 (g) viii), and quite impossible to
connect her name with tVy£ (t'yfw). See also the criticisms of D'Arcy W. Thompson
A Glossary of Greek Birds Oxford 1895 p. 73.