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

The Dioskouroi as Stars 763

ii. The Dioskouroi as Stars in Hellenic Literature.

Literary allusions fully bear out this conception of the Dio-
skouroi as helpful deities, whose signs bring relief to the storm-
tossed mariner1. The Homeric Hymn to the Dioskouroi, which
Mr E. E. Sikes dates ' at least as early as the fourth or third
century B.C.,' gives a fine description of a storm at sea2—

when the winds of winter
Hurry across the rough deep, and on ship-board
Men cry aloud to the sons of mighty Zeus
With white lambs, climbing up the after-deck,
Which the great wind and wave of the sea plunge deep
Into the brine, till on a sudden they come,
Darting on brown wings through the upper air,
And straightway stay the blasts of labouring winds
And lay the white surf smooth upon the main—
Fair signs of trouble over3 : those that see them
Rejoice at heart and cease from sorry toil.

The Dioskouroi here, quite exceptionally, appear as birds4, or at

least as brown-winged forms. On Etruscan mirrors also they are

occasionally winged5. To Euripides they were star-like deities,

dwelling among the stars, and hastening thence to the rescue of

the voyager. In the Helene (412 B.C.) Teukros says of them :

In fashion made as stars men name them Gods6.

And a chorus of Greek maidens in the same play invokes their

blessing upon Helene's home-coming:

And ye, in your chariot o'er highways of sky

O haste from the far land
Where, Tyndareus' scions, your homes are on high

Mid the flashings of starland :

three stars, nor yet for their erection on a mast. But the third star may have been Apollon
{supra p. 760) or, more probably, Helene (infra pp. 764, 769); and the mast is obviously
appropriate to a memorial of a sea-fight, especially if the Dioskouroi and Helene were
believed to appear as stars on the mast of the ship (infra p. 771 ff.).

1 For a full collection of passages see K. Jaisle Die Dioskuren als Retter zur See
bei Griechen itnd Romern und ihr Fortleben in christlichen Legenden Tubingen 1907
pp. 1—73, reviewed by R. Wunsch in the Archiv f Rel. 1911 xiv. 554.

2 H. Diosk. 7 ff. The passage is imitated by Theokr. 22. 8 ff.

3 I follow the emendation of Prof. J. B. Bury, who corrects vatiraLs ari^ara koKcl
wbvov <t(pi(ni>f' oi Se Idovres into arjfxara /caXa ttovwv aTrovoacpicnv oi 5e Idovres (Class.
Rev. 1899 xiii. 183).

4 On the contention of S. Reinach in the Rev. Arch. 1901 ii. 35—$o = id. Cultes,
Mythes et Religions Paris 1906 ii. 42—57 that 'les Dioscures, comme Apollon et Kyknos,
sont des hommes-cygnes' (sons of Zeus transformed into a swan and Leda, i.e. the
Phrygian Lada, 'a woman'; born from an egg; later conceived as XevKoiribXoj with
egg-shell pilot; etc.) see Gruppe Myth. Lit. 1908 p. 480. J. Rendel Harris Boanerges
Cambridge 1913 p. 17 ff. would connect the Twins with a variety of 'thunder-birds.'

5 E. Bethe in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. v. 1109.

6 Eur. Hel. 140 aarpois crcp' 6/uLoiwdtvTe <pda' di>ai dew, trans. A. S. Way.