Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

Zeus identified with rain 451

being actually used in a rain-charm within the confines of Europe.
■Perhaps the clearest case is one quoted by Sir James Frazer1:

'In 1868 the prospect of a bad harvest, caused by a prolonged drought,
mduced the inhabitants of a village in the Tarashchansk district to dig up the
body of a Raskolnik, or Dissenter, who had died in the preceding December.
Some of the party beat the corpse, or what was left of it, about the head,
exclaiming, "Give us rain!" while others poured water on it through a sieve.'

The last stage in the history of such a conception is reached,
when it ceases to be serious and becomes merely jocular. Verbally
^ere is not much to choose between the threat of the witch in
Shakespeare's Macbeth—

But in a sieve I'll thither sail2—
and the performance of Edward Lear's Jumblies—

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
Y In a Sieve they went to sea3.

the two are poles asunder. Three centuries have intervened

brought with them the momentous change from belief to
disbelief.

That

(e) Rain as the seed of Zeus,
i. Zeus identified with rain.

jjav dt rain was regarded by the Greeks as the water of Zeus, we
(.jjoe a'ready seen4. It may next be shown that Zeus himself was
Mofh t0 ^escend in the falling shower and thereby to fertilise
^ler Earth.

f> ^nP'des speaks of rain as 'Zeus-drops' in the opening lines of
c Selene:

See the fair virgin streams of Neilos, who—
Instead of Zeus-drops—waters all the plain
Sim jj ^ Of Egypt, fed by the white melting snow6.

tha.n ^ Greek magical papyri found in Egypt refer to rain more

th

once

as 'Zeus-water6.' These curious adjectival phrases are

2 Slut. Bough*i The Magic Art i. 284.

3E- uTTMM'-i- 9

4

"A

•>-a °"sense Songs and Stories7 London and New York 1889 p. 25.

1 nh Js'e 1 ff' 'CP- Aristoph. thesm. 855 ff. and Aristeid. or. 48. 334 (ii. 442 Dindorf))
„s hpa^ "^^"-PQcoi poal, \ 6s dcrl Aios if/aKaSos Myiirrov iriSov \ XevKijs Ta/feiff»)s
" St'pra p See further supra p. 348 f.

Ja/"eop-ra^2 °" The Paris papyrus appears to date from s. iv A.D. (F. G. Kenyon

Th ?upra D- ^-aS' See_further s"Pra P- 348 f-

f.

{r>,

n.

or*" ^onfn^ ' ^ ^^"J'er. 11. Hist.-f Uos. Klasse 1004

ag*ae Leip^J^ GJeek Papyri Oxford 1899 p. 115 f., K. Preisendanz Papyri Graecae

*id' l9l3 xvi Un 1928 6+'' 0n 7,'il'"-0V 0Swp consl,lt also R- Wtlnsch in the Archiv
n' enskapSSelsl' °34t S. Eitrem Opferrilus und Voropfer der Griechen und Romer
' ?' T- Honfn^0^. s,;r'f'cr. 11. Hist.-Filos. Klasse 1904 No. i) Kristiania 1915 p. 106

ll7 ft er Griechisch-agyptischcrOffenlmrungszauber. Seine Methoden Leipzig 1924