The Homeric Hymns | Page 8

the God of savage theology. He was not,
at first, a Nature God, solar or not. This opinion, if it seems valid, helps
to account, in part, for the animal metamorphoses of Apollo, a survival
from the mental confusion of savagery. Such a confusion, in Greece,
makes it necessary for the wise son of Zeus to seek information, as in
the Hymn to Hermes, from an old clown. This medley of ideas, in the
mind of a civilised poet, who believes that Apollo is all-knowing in the
counsels of eternity, is as truly mythological as Dunbar's God who
laughs his heart sore at an ale-house jest. Dunbar, and the author of the
Hymn, and the savage with his tale of Tundun or Daramulun, have all
quite contradictory sets of ideas alternately present to their minds; the
mediaeval poet, of course, being conscious of the contradiction, which
makes the essence of his humour, such as it is. To Greece, in its loftier
moods, Apollo was, despite his myth, a noble source of inspiration, of
art, and of conduct. But the contradiction in the low myth and high
doctrine of Apollo, could never be eradicated under any influence less
potent than that of Christianity. {34} If this theory of Apollo's origin be
correct, many pages of learned works on Mythology need to be
rewritten.

THE HYMN TO HERMES
[Hermes with the boy Dionysos. Statue by Praxiteles, found at Olympia:
lang35.jpg]
The Hymn to Hermes is remarkable for the corruption of the text,
which appears even to present lacunae. The English reader will
naturally prefer the lively and charming version of Shelley to any other.
The poet can tell and adorn the story without visibly floundering in the
pitfalls of a dislocated text. If we may judge by line 51, and if Greek
musical tradition be correct, the date of the Hymn cannot be earlier than

the fortieth Olympiad. About that period Terpander is said to have
given the lyre seven strings (as Mercury does in the poem), in place of
the previous four strings. The date of Terpander is dubious, but
probably the seven-stringed lyre had long been in common use before
the poet attributed the invention to Hermes. The same argument applies
to the antiquity of writing, assigned by poets as the invention of various
mythical and prehistoric heroes. But the poets were not careful
archaeologists, and regarded anachronisms as genially as did
Shakespeare or Scott. Moreover, the fact that Terpander did invent the
seven chords is not beyond dispute historically, while, mythically,
Apollo and Amphion are credited with the idea. That Hermes invented
fire-sticks seems a fable which robs Prometheus of the honour. We
must not look for any kind of consistency in myth.
The learned differ as to the precise purpose of the Hymn, and some
even exclude the invention of the cithara. To myself it seems that the
poet chiefly revels in a very familiar subject of savage humour (notably
among the Zulus), the extraordinary feats and tricks of a tiny and
apparently feeble and helpless person or animal, such as Brer Rabbit.
The triumph of astuteness over strength (a triumph here assigned to the
infancy of a God) is the theme. Hermes is here a rustic doublure of
Apollo, as he was, in fact, mainly a rural deity, though he became the
Messenger of the Gods, and the Guide of Souls outworn. In these
respects he answers to the Australian Grogoragally, in his double
relation to the Father, Boyma, and to men living and dead. {37a}
As a go-between of Gods and men, Hermes may be a doublure of
Apollo, but, as the Hymn shows, he aspired in vain to Apollo's oracular
function. In one respect his behaviour has a singular savage parallel.
His shoes woven of twigs, so as not to show the direction in which he is
proceeding, answer to the equally shapeless feather sandals of the
blacks who "go Kurdaitcha," that is, as avengers of blood. I have
nowhere else found this practice as to the shoes, which, after all, cannot
conceal the direction of the spoor from a native tracker. {37b} The
trick of driving the cattle backwards answers to the old legend that
Bruce reversed the shoes of his horse when he fled from the court of
Edward I.

The humour of the Hymn is rather rustic: cattle theft is the chief joke,
cattle theft by a baby. The God, divine as he is, feels his mouth water
for roast beef, a primitive conception. In fact, throughout this Hymn we
are far from the solemn regard paid to Apollo, from the wistful beauty
of the Hymn to Demeter, and from the gladness and melancholy of the
Hymn to Aphrodite. Sportive myths are treated sportively, as in the
story of Ares and Aphrodite in