Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 2,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (thunder and lightning): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1925)

The effeminate Twin

before he passes into a milder mood1! But, such vagaries notwith-

conflict, blasts Typhoeus with his lightnings. To Kadmos he speaks words of comfort,
and so retires to Olympos, taking the gods with him.

M. Mayer Die Giganten unci Titaneu Berlin 1887 p. 228 says truly that the barocco
trait of Typhon excising the sinews of Zeus is unparalleled in Greek mythology (Sir
J. Rhys Hibbert Lectures i886z London 1898 pp. 119—122 cp. the Old Norse myth of
Tyr v. the wolf Fenrir [who is bound with the fetter Gleipnir, made in part of the sinews
of bears : see P. D. Chantepie de la Saussaye The Religion of the Teutons Boston and
London 1902 p. 246] and the Old Irish myth of Nuada Argat-ldm v. the Fir Bolg
champion Sreng [which I have discussed in Folk-Lore 1906 xvii. 28 f., supra p. 224 n. 1])
and must be due to a learned importation of Egyptian elements. The Count de Marcellus
(ed. Paris 1856 p. 8 of 'Notes et commentaires') aptly quotes Plout. de Ls. et Os. 55 bdev
ev Ko7tt<5 to dya\/J,a rod "Qpov \eyovaiv ev rrj erepa XtlPl Twp&vos aibdla /care^a^' Kal rbv
'Epfirjv fxvdoXoyovaiv, e^eXbvra rod Tvfiuvos ra vevpa, xopoat? xPV<raa^alt bibdaKovres dis to
irav 6 \byos biappi.oadp.evos crvfxtpojvov e£ do~vp,(pibvuiv [lepGiv eiroirjcre, Kal r^v tfidapriKrjv oi/k
dirdikeffev, dXX' dveirripwae, biivap.Lv. k.t.X. (in the sequel Typhon takes out the eye of
Horos, swallows it, and then restores it—the Egyptian explanation of a solar eclipse).
Mayer loc. til. farther points out that Typhon hides the sinews of Zeus in a bear's skin
because the constellation of the Bear was in Egypt regarded as the soul of Typhon (Plout.
de Ls. et Os. 21 rds de \pvxds ev ov/iavui Xd/uLweiv aarpa, Kal KaKeiadai Kvva p.ev rr\v "IcrtSos
vcp' 'j&Wrjvuv, vtt' Aiyvwriwv be "Zwdiv, 'Upiuva be ri]v"{}pov, tt\v be Tvcpuvos, dpKTov). He
adds id. p. 229 n. 177 that the derivation of At/xos from Typhon's al/xa recurs in connexion
with Egypt (Steph. Byz. s.v. 'Hpw).

One obvious difficulty remains. If the Greek stories were merely AiyvirrioL \6yoi,
Hermes ought to have docked the sinews of Typhon, not Typhon the sinews of Zeus.
Probably the sense of justice, which led the Orphists to declare that Kronos the castrator
of his father must himself be castrated by his son [supra p. 448 n. 1), prompted a later
generation to demand the like penalty of Zeus. It may be that the vevpa Alos were
originally a euphemism for the aiboca A(6s, cp. Plout. de Is. et Os. 55 Tv<pQvos aibo7a and
the use of vevpa in Athen. 64 B (with J. E. B. Mayor's note on Iuv. 10. 205).

1 Another explanation, advanced by A. Lang Custom and Myth London 1884 p. 45 ff.,
id. Myth, Ritual, and Religion London 1887 i. 299 ff., and treated as plausible by Farnell
Cults of Gk. States i. 27 and Frazer Golden Bough9: Adonis Attis Osiris3 i. 283, sees in
these stories ' a myth of the violent separation of the earth and sky, which some races,
for example the Polynesians, suppose to have originally clasped each other in a close
embrace.' Frazer loc. cit. i. 283 n. 3 quotes a doubtful Egyptian parallel, in which Osiris
perhaps mutilates his father Set at the separation of earth and heaven.

More probably we have here to do with mythical echoes of a primitive custom. When
Kronos succeeds to Ouranos, he must possess himself of his predecessor's fertilising powers.
Since these reside in the genitals, the new god must castrate the old. It may be suspected
that originally he kept the relics as jealously as Typhon keeps the vevpa Ai6s. The muti-
lations of Kronos by Zeus and of Zeus by Typhon will be later repetitions of the same
early myth, which long after its meaning had been forgotten came ricochetting down the
ages. The most instructive parallel, as Miss Harrison points out to me (Sept. 23, 1918),
is that of the early kings of Uganda first published by my friend the Rev. J. Roscoe
' Kibuka, the War God of the Baganda' in Man 1907 vii. 161 —166 with pi. L, 1—3 and
4 figs, in text (Kibuka and his brother Mukasa, who lived on one of the islands of Lake
Victoria, have become the two principal gods of the Baganda. Kibuka's relics include a
stool with a hollowed seat containing his lower jawbone, his testicles, and his phallos, in
three leathern cases decorated with shells and beads), cp. W. Ridgeway The Dramas and
Dramatic Dances of Non-European Races Cambridge 1915 p. 379 ff. figs. 85—87.

Miss Harrison has further brought to my notice the latest attempt to solve the
problem, that of the psychoanalyst. It is implied, if not expressed, in S. Freud Totem
und Tabu Leipzig—Wien 1913 (extr. from Imago 1912 i and 1913 ii) p. 120 f. ' Wer aber