487. Sonne, Mond und Sterne, pp. 1. et seq.
488. Weil, Biblische Legenden der Muselmänner, p. 39. Zeitschrift d. D. M. G., 1861, XV. 86.
489. Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, Leipzig 1871, I. 36.
490. Chips, &c. vol. II., the latter part of ‘Comparative Mythology,’ and Lectures on the Science of Language, Second Series, Lecture IX. ‘The Mythology of the Greeks.’—Tr.
491. Plutarchi Fragmenta et Spuria, ed. Fr. Dübner, in F. Didot’s Collection, Paris 1855, p. 83.
492. Lettres assyriologiques et épigraphiques, Paris 1872, II. fifth letter.
493. Müller, History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 530; Chips, &c., II. 163 et seq.; Fiske, Myths, p. 113.
494. Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes, 1851, II. 136.
495. See Geiger, Jüd. Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Leben, vol. VIII. p. 285. Breslau 1869.
496. Kuenen (in his Religion of Israel, I. 111 in the translation) expresses the opinion that only the degree of mutual relationship between the fathers of tribes was a later idea: that, e.g. the less noble tribes were called sons of Jacob’s slave-girls, and those that were bound together by closer fraternal feelings were regarded as sons of the same mother. Compare now also Zunz, Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin 1875, I. 268.
497. There still remain some names whose etymological explanation is difficult, as Reʾûbhên and Shimʿôn. Yissâsekhâr (Issachar) translated literally might be ‘the Day-labourer,’ certainly a fitting designation for the Sun, expressing how he does his day’s work, like a day-labourer. Yet I cannot look upon that as a mythical description, because it would be an unpardonable anachronism to suppose that that primeval age when myths were created would speak of day-labourers, especially after the fashion in which the idea is expressed by the word Yissâ-sekhâr, ‘he takes up his wages.’
498. Which according to al-Damîrî, Ḥayât al-ḥaywân, Bûlâḳ 1274, II. 219, is used only of the rising sun; we can say ṭalaʿat al-ġazâlâ ‘the gazelle rises,’ but not ġarabat ‘he sets.’ Abû Saʿîd al-Rustamî the poet (in Behâ al-Dîn al-ʿÂmilî, Keshkûl, p. 164. 13) carries out the mythological figure still further, using the verb naṭaḥa ‘to butt,’ said of horned beasts. Describing a fine building, he says tanâṭaḥa ḳarna-sh-shamsi min sharafâtihi, that ‘as to splendour it butts in rivalry with the sun’—as if the palace and the sun were knocking their horns together.
499. Babyl. Tract. Yômâ, fol. 29. a: ‘As the hind’s horns branch out to every side, so also the light of dawn spreads out to all sides.’
500. Journal asiatique, 1861, II. 437.
501. Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur l’histoire des Arabes avant l’Islamisme, I. 260.
502. Given in the Appendix to this work.
503. Lenormant, La Magie chez les Chaldéens, Paris 1874, p. 140. In the decadence of magic, however, the horns, which are connected with magic, are used even outside the cycle of solar gods; e.g. ‘On voit Bin la tête surmontée de la tiare royale armée de cornes de taureau, les épaules munies de quatre grandes ailes, etc.,’ ibid. p. 50. Here the horns are for butting, not to symbolise rays. However, in this particular case of Bin the mythical meaning is not very clear. As he is sometimes called ‘the southern sun over ʿElâm,’ ibid. p. 121, the horns in the passage quoted may have something to do with his solar character.
504. Deorum Concilium, 10.
505. See Herodotus, II. 42, IV. 181.
506. We will not claim any importance for the fact that in Sanchuniathon’s account of the sacrifice of Isaac the name Jeûd is given instead of Isaac; consequently if Jeûd be identical with the Hebrew Jehûdâ, the fact that Jeûd is here equivalent to Isaac would prove the solar character of Jehûdâ.
507. Angelo de Gubernatis, in his Zoological Mythology, is peculiarly indefinite on the mythological significance of this animal; compare Pleyte, La Religion des Pré-Israelites, Leyden 1865, p. 151, where much useful information will be found on the worship of the Ass.
508. See Gesenius, Thesaurus, pp. 494 and 1163.
509. On the Arabic proper name Ḥimâr, Yâḳût, II. 362, may be consulted; cf. Ibn Dureyd, Kitâb al-ishtiḳâḳ, p. 4. The Arabic proper name Misḥal is also connected with the Ass; it alludes to the screeching of the wild-ass; see Tebrîzî’s Scholia to the Ḥamâsâ, p. 200 penult. Compare al-Meydânî, II. 98: akfar min Ḥimâr.
510. Ḳazwînî, ed. Wüstenfeld, I. 77, II. 166. I must also just refer to the story of Muṭʿim, as told in Yâḳût, IV. 565, and mention that Muṭʿim ‘he who gives food’ is likewise the name of an ancient Arabian idol. Even Krehl, in his work on the Preislamite Religion of the Arabs, p. 61, attempted to explain mythologically the story of Isâf and Nâʾilâ, interpreting the latter name as ‘she who kisses.’
511. Pharez and Zarah in the English Bible, derived through the LXX. from the pausal forms Pâreṣ and Zârach.—Tr.
512. And English Daybreak.—Tr.
513. From Hajnal ‘dawn,’ and hasadás, abstract substantive from root hasad ‘to split, tear open.’—Tr.
514. Abû Nuwâs says of the dawn, maftûḳ-ul-adîmi, Yâḳut, III. 697. 22.
515. This hymn is applied to Dan, to whom it is quite unsuitable, as Dan has a solar character. We are tempted to conjecture that it originally referred to a non-solar figure, perhaps actually to Levi, whose name is synonymous with nâchâsh ‘serpent.’ This is the more probable, because no separate section of Jacob’s Blessing is devoted to this son, and in the only words relating to him he is coupled with Simeon.
516. See Zeitsch. für Völkerpsychologie &c., 1871, VII. 307.
517. The first chapter of the Vendidâd translated and explained, in Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place &c. III. 494 et seq.
518. As raoidhitem may also signify ‘running’ (root rudh = to flow and to run), a ‘running snake,’ literally the same as nâchâsh bârîach, might be meant.
519. Möller, Kosmogonie, p. 193.
520. Max Müller, Chips &c., II. 164; Fiske, Myths &c., p. 113. On the blinding, see p. 109 et seq.
521. See al-Damîrî, Ḥayât al-heyvân, I. 70.
522. See Excursus L.
523. Connected with ġashiya ‘to veil.’
524. See Gesenius, Thesaurus, p. 749.
525. Max Müller, Chips &c., II. 68.
526. Arsala achâhu Sheybûb taḥt al-leyl, ʿAntar, VI. 102. 9.
527. Ḥamâsâ, p. 566. v. 2.
528. Libâsan, compare Sûr. VII. v. 52; XIII. v. 3; yuġshî-l-leyla-n-nahâra.
529. In Yâḳût, I. 24. 2.
530. Ḥarîrî, p. 162, 2nd ed.; compare the Commentary, in which particular stress is laid on the act of covering up: liʾannahu yuġaṭṭî mâ fîhî. Compare al-Meydânî, II. 112. 23: al-leyl yuwârî ḥaḍanan.
531. Eur. Ion, v. 1150; it is also called ποικίλον ἔνδυμα ἔχουσα, and in Aeschylus, Prom. v. 24 ποικίλειμων νύξ, from the gay robe of stars.
532. Compare King Richard II., III. 2. ‘The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs.’
533. Kitâb al-aġânî, III. 28. 24.
534. I quote also a passage from the Uigur language: ‘The creation tore its black shirt,’ i.e. the day has dawned: Vámbéry, Kudatku Bilik, p. 218; compare p. 70, ‘I have put off the cloak of darkness;’ p. 219, ‘The daughter of the west spreads out her carpet.’
535. Max Müller, Chips, &c., II. 83. Schwartz, Ursprung d. Mythologie, p. 245.
536. al-Beyḍâwî’s Commentary on the Ḳorân, I. 19. 21 et seq. Abû-l-Baḳâ, Kulliât, p. 305.
537. See Excursus G.
538. Ibn al-Sikkît, p. 322.
539. The Poetical Works of Behâ-ed-Dîn Zoheir of Egypt. By E.H. Palmer, Cambridge 1876, I. 108. 7. It is impossible to quote this edition without an expression of admiration for the perfection to which Arabic typography has been brought in England in this magnificent Oriental work, the production of which redounds to the imperishable credit of the University of Cambridge. It may be pronounced one of the most beautiful Oriental books that have ever been printed in Europe; and the learning of the editor worthily rivals the technical get-up of the creations of the soul of one of the most tasteful poets of Islâm, the study of which will contribute not a little to save the honour of the poetry of the Arabs. Here first we make the acquaintance of a poet who gives us something better than monotonous descriptions of camels and deserts, and may even be regarded as superior in charm to al-Mutanabbî.
540. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprachgelehrsamkeit bei den Arabern, no. 1, in the Sitzungsberichte der kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1871, Jan. p. 222 et seq.; or in the reprint p. 18 et seq.
542. See Vatke, Biblische Theologie, p. 327, and Gesenius, Thesaurus, p. 711, where importance is attached to this.
543. The conception of Cherubim penetrated even into Mohammedan regions, e.g. Ḥâfiẓ, ed. Rosenzweig, III. 526 penult., chalweti kerrûbiân ʿâlem-i-ḳuds.
544. Ueber die südarabische Sage, Leipzig 1866 p. 27.
545. See Gesenius, Thesaurus, p. 697.
546. See Dillmann, in Schenkel’s Bibellexikon, I. 511.
547. Ibid., V. 284.
548. An interesting Arabic parallel to this occurs in Yâḳût, III. 496. Thaḳîf and al-Nachaʿ, who with their herds were migrating together, determine to separate: ‘So one said to the other: Assuredly this land can never support both me and thee. If thou goest to the west, then I will go to the east; and if I go to the west, then do thou go to the east. Then said Thaḳîf, Well, I will choose the west. Then said al-Nachaʿ, Then I go to the east.’ Ibid., p. 498, occurs an equally curious arrangement between two nomad tribes.
549. De vita solit. I. 10. Inventores artium quarundam post mortem divinitatis honore cultos audivimus, grate quidem potius quam pie. Nulla enim est pietas hominis qua Deus offenditur, sed erga memoriam de humano genere bene meritorum inconsulta gratitudo mortalium, humanis honoribus non contenta, usque ad sacrilegas processit ineptias. Hinc Apollinem cithara, hinc eundem ipsum atque Aesculapium medicina, Saturnum, Liberumque et Cererem agricultura, Vulcanum fabrica deos fecit.
550. Ausland, 1875, p. 219 et seq.
551. Sir G. Wilkinson on Herodotus, II. 79, note 5.
552. Even Herder compared together these two sources of information on the story of Jemshîd, in the Appendix to vol. I. of his writings on Philosophy and History.
553. Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, Basle 1867, p. 423. This myth of civilisation is given also by Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. 318 et seq.
554. See Dr. Robert Hartmann, Die Nigritier: eine anthropologisch-ethnologische Monographie, Berlin 1876, Thl. I. p. 176.
555. Brinton, Myths of the New World, New York 1868, p. 130.
556. Otto Henne-Am-Rhyn, Die deutsche Volkssage, etc., p. 281 et seq.
557. Ibid., p. 285, the author says on the other hand: ‘The blind sister is of course always the invisible new moon, the half-black and half-white the half moon, the quite white the full moon.’
558. See Hellwald, Ueber Gynäkokratie im alten Amerika, third art. in Ausland for 1871, no. 44, p. 1158. In the language of the Algonkins the ideas Night, Death, Cold, Sleep, Water, and Moon are expressed by one and the same word.
559. A vogul föld és nép, Reguly Antal hagyományaiból, Pest 1864, p. 139.
560. In the Hottentot story it is the Hare (on his solar significance see supra p. 118) that is represented as the origin of death, in opposition to the Moon (Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, II. 342).
561. See the article ‘Une genèse vogule,’ in Ujfalvy’s Revue de Philologie, Paris 1874, livr. 1. The original text and a Hungarian translation are given by P. Hunfalvy in his lately quoted work, p. 119–134.
562. Ausland, 1875, p. 951 et seqq.
563. Whitney, Language and the Study of Language, London 1867, p. 346.
564. Amerikanische Urreligionen, p. 305.
565. Waitz, l.c. I. 464 note. Among other examples Waitz quotes this: ‘In Mexico Huitzlipochtli, was born of a woman who took to her bosom a feather-ball is a solar designation, is not easily determined.’ In connexion with it I will only mention that Shakspeare in one passage calls the sun a ‘burning crest.’
566. Manṭiḳ al-ṭeyr, ed. Garcin de Tassy, p. 58 (from a communication of my friend Dr. W. Bacher).
567. By the Red the Sun is surely unquestionably to be understood, and not, as Max Müller says (Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 64), the Earth.
568. It should at the same time be noticed that in Arabic, in which, as in Hebrew, men are usually called banû Adam, the expression banû Ḥawwâʾa (sons of Eve) also occurs; e.g. in a verse of the Kumeyt (Aġânî, XV. 124; wa-cheynu banî Ḥawwâʾa), in a poem of Abû-l-ʿAlâ al-Maʿarrî, I. 96. 1, of al-Murtaḍî in the Keshkùl of al-ʿÂmilî, p. 169.
569. Ursprung der menschlichen Sprache und Vernunft, II. 42.
570. See Excursus M.
571. Die Kitâb al awâʾil der Araber, Halle 1867; congratulatory article on occasion of the meeting of the German Oriental Society at Halle.
572. I know this work (entitled Muḥâḍarat al-awâʾil wa-musâmarat al-awâchir) from a manuscript of it in the public Viceregal Library at Cairo. In the catalogue of the year 1289, p. 92 antepenult, it is erroneously entered with the title Muchtaṣar al-awâʾil wal-awâchir.
573. al-Maḳḳarî, Analectes de l’historie et de la littérature des Arabes d’Espagne, II. 69. The awâʾil are there called uṣûl al-ashyâ.
574. A general view of this literature can now be obtained from Ibn al-Nedîm’s Fihrist.
575. The name Yissâ-sekhâr (Issachar) must also fall under our consideration here, if we treat it as a Solar name (Day-labourer). See supra, p. 177.
576. See Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums, 1874, I. 206, 266.
577. Can the Semitic ôhel ‘Tent of the Nomads’ be concealed in the word Αλήτης?
578. Egypt’s Place in Universal History, IV. 223.
579. Besides German scholars, Dutch orientalists and historians of religion especially have written very ably on the passage in Amos; the latest of whom, Tiele, in his Vergelijkende Geschiedenis, pp. 539 et seq., mentions in a note the most prominent Dutch labours on the subject.
580. No weight must be attached to the word malkekhem ‘your king,’ in which many have tried to find a datum for the high antiquity of the worship of Moloch by the Hebrews; for the suffix shows that the word cannot be taken as Môlekh, the name of a god. And the worship of that God appears everywhere as one borrowed from the Canaanites.
581. E.g. in the following fragment of a poem: ‘We lived in Chaffân in company with a people, may God give them rain by the constellation of the Fishes (saḳâhum Allâh min al-nauʾ nauʾ al-simâkeyn), then may a constellation give them abundant water (farawwâhum nauʾ), [a constellation] whose shining spreads light abroad’ (in Freytag, Darstellung der arabischen Verskunst, p. 253).
582. See Lane in the Zeitschr. d. D. M. G., 1849, III. 97. Krehl, Vorislamische Religion der Araber, p. 9.
583. Yâḳût, IV. 85. 19. Tâj al-ʿârûs, II. 209.
584. Saʿadia, who translates Job XXXVIII. 28, eglê ṭâl ‘store-houses of dew,’ by the Arabic anwâʾ ‘stars,’ Gesenius, Thesaurus, p. 21.
585. See Num. XIV. 14, where before the two pillars are mentioned it is only said that the cloud stood over them.
586. For Hebraists I note that I take the בְּ be in beʿammûd ʿânân as Beth essentiae.
587. Ḥayât al-ḥaywân, II. 52.
588. Bastian, Geographische und ethnographische Bilder, p. 169, and some passages in books of African travel quoted by Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, II. 169.
589. Ricerche per lo studio dell’ antichità assira, Turin 1872, p. 467.
590. Tiele, Vergelijkende Geschiedenis, p. 301, however, calls this last epithet ‘much too general to draw any conclusion from.’
591. Lazarus Geiger, Ursprung und Entwickelung der menschlichen Sprach und Vernunft, I. 346.
592. In Petermann’s Geogr. Mittheilungen, 1874, XX. 330, pt. 9.
593. K. Andree, Forschungsreisen etc., II. 362.
594. The Academy, 1874, p. 548, col. 2.
595. See Excursus D.
596. Accordingly this appellation belongs to the same category as those which are noticed above, p. 175. In genealogical notes elsewhere also the Serpent occurs as ancestor; I need only mention the case which stands nearest to our subject in prehistoric Arabia—that of al-Afʿa b. al-Afʿa, ‘the Viper,’ head of a branch of the people of Jurhum, Ibn ʿAbdûn, p. 71 et seq.
597. On the solar significance of the Bull-worship see Kuenen, Religion of Israel, I. 236 et seq.
598. I believe the historical narrative in Ex. XXXII. 26–29 is to be taken in this sense. It is solar worship that is forcing its way into the strictly nomadic religion of the Hebrews, and the Levites are guardians of the nomadic religion.
599. See Bastian in the Zeitschr. für Völkerpsychologie, 1868, V. 153.
600. Ebers, Aegypten und die Bücher Moses, I. 245 et seq.
601. On the adoration of the night-sky a passage of the Midrâsh should be consulted (Mechiltâ, ed. Friedmann, fol. 68 a), in which the possibility of a demûth chôshekh ‘an idol of Darkness,’ is assumed.
602. Most recently by Ewald, Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, I. 234 et seq. On the purpose and importance of the interpretation of winds and clouds among the Babylonians, see Lenormant, La divination et la science des présages chez les Chaldéens, Paris 1875, pp. 64–68.
603. De Izraelieten te Mekka, Haarlem 1864, p. 29.
604. See my remark in the Zeitschr. d. D. M. G., 1874, XXVIII. 309.
605. Palgrave gives an excellent picture of this state, in his Central and Eastern Arabia, I. 34: ‘The Bedouin does not fight for his home, he has none; nor for his country, that is anywhere; nor for his honour, he never heard of it; nor for his religion, he owns and cares for none. His only object in war is ... the desire to get such a one’s horse or camel into his own possession, etc.’