ll events, yield to the softest etymological
pressure. But now if we hear the story of Phoibos Apollon falling in love
with Daphne, and Daphne praying to her mother, the Earth, to save her from
Phoibos; and if we read how either the earth received her in her lap, and
then a laurel tree sprang up where she had disappeared, or how she herself
was changed into a laurel tree, what shall we think of this? It is a mere
story, it might be said, and why should there be any meaning in it? My
answer is, because people do not tell such stories of their gods and
heroes, unless there is some sense in them. Besides, if Phoibos means the
sun, why should not Daphne have a meaning too? Before, therefore, we can
decide whether the story of Phoibos and Daphne is a mere invention, we
must try to find out what can have been the meaning of the word Daphne.

In Greek it means a laurel,(38) and this would explain the purely Greek
legend that Daphne was changed into a laurel tree. But who was Daphne? In
order to answer this question, we must have recourse to etymology, or, in
other words, we must examine the history of the word. Etymology, as you
know, is no longer what it used to be; and though there may still be a
classical scholar here and there who crosses himself at the idea of a
Greek word being explained by a reference to Sanskrit, we naturally look
to Sanskrit as the master-key to many a lock which no Greek key will open.
Now Daphne, as I have shown, can be traced back to Sanskrit Ahana, and
Ahana in Sanskrit means the dawn. As soon as we know this, everything
becomes clear. The story of Phoibos and Daphne is no more than a
description of what every one may see every day; first, the appearance of
the Dawn in the eastern sky, then the rising of the Sun as if hurrying
after his bride, then the gradual fading away of the bright Dawn at the
touch of the fiery rays of the sun, and at last her death or disappearance
in the lap of her mother, the Earth. All this seems to me as clear as
daylight, and the only objection that could be raised against this reading
of the ancient myth would be, if it could be proved, that Ahana does not
mean Dawn, and that Daphne cannot be traced back to Ahana, or that
_Helios_ does not mean the Sun.

I know there is another objection, but it seems to me so groundless as
hardly to deserve an answer. Why, it is asked, should the ancient nations
have told these endless stories about the Sun and the Dawn, and why should