| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: force would imply risk, both for the foraging party and for those who
have to do the fighting;[62] whilst, if they are driven to do so in
force each time, they may call themselves besiegers, but they will be
practically in a state of siege themselves.
[53] Or, "the proposed organisation."
[54] See ch. ii. above.
[55] Or, reading {en te pros mesembrian thalatte}, "on the southern
Sea." For Anaphlystus see "Hell." I. ii. 1; "Mem." III. v. 25. It
was Eubulus's deme, the leading statesman at this date.
[56] Lit. "60 stades."
[57] The passage {sunekoi t an erga}, etc., is probably corrupt. {Ta
|
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: Unkulunkulu, who made the world. But in the stratum of savage
thought in which barbaric or Aryan folk-lore is for the most
part based, we find no such exalted speculation. The ancestors
of the rude Veddas and of the Guinea negroes, the Hindu pitris
(patres, "fathers"), and the Roman manes have become elemental
deities which send rain or sunshine, health or sickness,
plenty or famine, arid to which their living offspring appeal
for guidance amid the vicissitudes of life.[179] The theory of
embodiment, already alluded to, shows how thoroughly the
demons which cause disease are identified with human and
object souls. In Australasia it is a dead man's ghost which
Myths and Myth-Makers |
