' and 'Arethusan'; but their mythic importance is very
great, and your careful observance of it will help you completely to
understand the beautiful Greek fable of Apollo and Daphne. There are indeed
several Daphnes, and the first root of the name is far away in another
field of thought altogether, connected with the Gods of Light. But
etymology, the best of servants, is an unreasonable master; and Professor
Max Mueller trusts his deep-reaching knowledge of the first ideas connected
with the names of Athena {57} and Daphne, too implicitly, when he supposes
this idea to be retained in central Greek theology. 'Athena' originally
meant only the dawn, among nations who knew nothing of a Sacred Spirit. But
the Athena who catches Achilles by the hair, and urges the spear of Diomed,
has not, in the mind of Homer, the slightest remaining connection with the
mere beauty of daybreak. Daphne chased by Apollo, may perhaps--though I
doubt even this much of consistence in the earlier myth--have meant the
Dawn pursued by the Sun. But there is no trace whatever of this first idea
left in the fable of Arcadia and Thessaly.

27. The central Greek Daphne is the daughter of one of the great _river_
gods of Arcadia; her mother is the Earth. Now Arcadia is the Oberland of
Greece; and the crests of Cyllene, Erymanthus, and Maenalus[21] surround it,
like the Swiss forest cantons, with walls of rock, and shadows of pine. And
it divides itself, like the Oberland, into three regions: first, the region
of rock and snow, sacred to Mercury and Apollo, in which Mercury's birth on
Cyllene, his construction of the lyre, and his stealing the oxen of Apollo,
are all expressions of the enchantments of cloud and sound, mingling with
the sunshine, on the cliffs of Cyllene.

"While the mists
Flying, and rainy vapours, call out shapes
{58}
And phantoms from the crags and solid earth
As fast as a musician scatters sounds
Out of his instrument."

Then came the pine region, sacred especially to Pan and Maenalus, the son of
Lycaon and brother of Callisto; and you had better remember this
relationship carefully, for the sake of the meaning of the constellations
of Ursa Major and the Mons Maenalius, and of their wolf and bear traditions;
(compare also the strong impression on the Greek mind of the wild
leafiness, nourished by snow, of the Boeotian Cithaeron,--"Oh, thou
lake-hollow, full of divine leaves, and of wild creatures, nurse of