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)

480

Apollon and Artemis

Japan1, Siberia'2, Mesopotamia3, and Arabia4, but in Greece itself5.
Greek peasants in Kypros speak of it as ' the River Jordan ' or ' the
Shade of the Jordan".' Indeed, the southern Greeks in general call
it the ' River Jordan7.' And this name can be traced back for hun-
dreds of years, being found already in the Apokopos of Bergades8, a
sixteenth-century poem of lasting popularity9. In face of these facts

Damsel (a Lyrae); further declaring that on the day and at the hour when Chang received
the shuttle, he had noticed the intrusion of a wandering star between a Lyrae and
j3y Aquilae. Thus Chang was actually believed to have sailed upon the bosom of the
Milky Way.

' The following names have been given to the Milky Way by the Chinese : The Celestial
River. The Silver River. The Celestial Ford. The Bright River. The Red River ! The
last is an amnis ruber a non rubendo ; the explanation being that the Milky Way lies to
the south of the north pole, and that fire and red are the element and colour, respectively,
which have been assigned to the south quarter of the heavens.'

1 B. H. Chamberlain Things Japanese London—Tokyo 1890 p. 327 f. (a reference
given me by my friend Mr H. G. Brand of Tokyo): ' The only fable worth mentioning
here in connection with the stars is that which inspires the festival named Tanabata. This
fable, which is of Chinese origin, relates the loves of a Herdsman and a Weaving-Girl.
The Herdsman is a star in Aquila. The Weaver is the star Vega. They dwell on opposite
sides of the "Celestial River," or Milky Way, and may never meet but on the seventh
night of the seventh moon, a night held sacred to them, strips of paper with poetic
effusions in their honour being stuck on stems of bamboo grass and set up in various
places. According to one version of the legend, the Weaving-Girl was so constantly kept
employed in making garments for the offspring of the Emperor of Heaven—in other
words, God—that she had no leisure to attend to the adornment of her person. At last
however, Cod, taking compassion on her loneliness, gave her in marriage to the Herds-
man who dwelt on the opposite bank of the river. Hereupon the woman began to grow
remiss in her work. God, in his anger, then made her recross the river, at the same time
forbidding her husband to visit her oftener than once a year. Another version represents
the pair as mortals, who were wedded at the early ages of fifteen and twelve, and who
died at the ages of a hundred and three and ninety-nine respectively. After death, their
spirits ilew up to the sky, where the Supreme Deity bathed daily in the Celestial River.
No mortals might pollute it by their touch, except on the seventh day of the seventh
moon, when the Deity, instead of bathing, went to listen to the chanting of the Buddhist
scriptures.'

2 R. Andree op. cit. p. 110 (the Koryaks of North-East Siberia).

3 H. Fox Talbot in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archceology 1873 ii. 53,
A. Jeremias Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskul/ur Leipzig 1913 p. 189, id. in
Roscher Lex. Myth. iv. 1493. 4 H. Gaidoz and E. Rolland loc. cit. ii. 156.

5 Not in Italy. H. Gaidoz and E. Rolland loc. cit. ii. 151 give Fluvius lacteus as a
Latin name of the Milky Way. But this rests on a misunderstanding of Mart. Cap. 15
and 207, where the milky stream is the track of the planet Iupiter: see U. F. Kopp's
note on Mart. Cap. 14.

6 G. Loukas <S?l\o\oyiKal k-wioKe\\tu<i Athens 1874 p. 135, quoted by H. Gaidoz and
E. Rolland loc. cit. ii. 156.

7 G. F. Abbott Macedonian Folklore Cambridge 1903 p. 69. Cp. N. G. Polites MeXer??
errl rod /3Lov t£)v 'Hewrepwv 'Ettyui1 Athens 1871 i. 15.

8 E. Legrand Bibliothique grecqne vulgaire Paris 1881 ii. 98 'A7r6/co7ros rod Mirepyadi}
87 f. 'Aarp&Trrei, 'iri /xcts, rj j3povrq., k' av (rvvvecpiq. Kai (3p£xy> | Ka' ° 'lop5&vt]s vora/xbs ai>
Kvp-arfi /ecu rp^xV-

9 E. Legrand ap. H. Gaidoz and E. Rolland loc. cit. ii. 156 f.