CHAP. II Minotauros. The period named is the nine years' cycle, while the tribute children may represent the months of the lunar year. Twice ' ' ' had the black-sailed ship departed from the haven with its doomed freight when Theseus offered himself as one of the tribute children, to do battle with the monster. In this task he succeeds only through the aid of Ariadne, as lason does the bidding of Aietes only because he has the help of Medeia. The thread which the maiden places in his hand leads him through all the mazes of the murky labyrinth/ and when the beast is slain, she leaves her home with the man to whom she has given her love. But she herself must share the woes of all who love the bright sun. Beautiful as she is, she must be abandoned in Xaxos, while Theseus, hke Sigurd, goes upon his way ; and in his place must come the vine-crowned Dionysos, who shall place on her head a glittering diadem to shine among the everlasting stars. Theseus himself fulfils the doom which places him among the fatal children. He forgets to hoist the white sails in token of victory, and Aigeus, seeing the black hue of the ship, throws himself into the sea Avhich bears his name.^
Theus and the Amazons In another adventure he is the enemy of the Amazons, mysterious Theseus beings of whom it is enough to say that they are opposed or AmaiTns. slaughtered not only by Theseus, but by Herakles, Achilleus, and Bellerophon, and that thus they must be classed with the other beings in whom are seen reflected the features of the cloud enemy of Indra. Their beauty, their ferocity, their seclusion, all harmonise with the phenomena of the clouds in their varj-ing aspects of storm and sun- shine ; ^ and thus their fight with Theseus in the streets of Athens would be the struggle of dark vapours to throw a veil over the city of the dawn, and their defeat the victor}- of the sun which drives away the clouds. They are thus at once the natural allies of the king of Ilion, the stronghold of the robber Paris, and the friends of his
- This is the work of Daidalos, the Ephesian Artemis whose images answer
cunning smith, for Pasiphae, to whom to this description, and who was corresponds Fair Rosamond for whom worshipped as Amazo. The Amazon Henry builds the labyrinth of Wood- would thus be further identified with stock. In Icelandic oIundurshus, the Isis, the homed moon ; and her wander- house of Wayland, means a labyrinth. ings would follow as a matter of course,
- This incident precedes the death as in the myth of 16. With this must of Tristram in the Arthur cycle. be compared the Fortuna Mammo.-a of
- If the name be Greek at all, it the Latins, and seemingly the Teutonic seems to suggest a comparison ^ith C'iza, Zizi, who was worshipped under &Se<pos ; and the story of the cutting the same form as the Ephesian Artemis, off the breasts would thus be the result Some have supposed that Tacitus meant of a mistaken etymology. It should be this deity, when he spoke of German added that some see in the name an tribes as wor>hi]">ping Isis : others iden-iniensive force which makes it the tify the name with the Greek ti'tCtj.
equivalent of the German " vielljebriis- !Nork. s.v. tete," and thus identify it with the
