lement was personified in as many
different ways as the unrestrained fancy of the ancient worshipper saw
fit to devise. [104]

Thus we begin to see why a few simple objects, like the sun, the sky,
the dawn, and the night, should be represented in mythology by such
a host of gods, goddesses, and heroes. For at one time the Sun is
represented as the conqueror of hydras and dragons who hide away from
men the golden treasures of light and warmth, and at another time he is
represented as a weary voyager traversing the sky-sea amid many perils,
with the steadfast purpose of returning to his western home and
his twilight bride; hence the different conceptions of Herakles,
Bellerophon, and Odysseus. Now he is represented as the son of the Dawn,
and again, with equal propriety, as the son of the Night, and the fickle
lover of the Dawn; hence we have, on the one hand, stories of a virgin
mother who dies in giving birth to a hero, and, on the other hand,
stories of a beautiful maiden who is forsaken and perhaps cruelly slain
by her treacherous lover. Indeed, the Sun's adventures with so many
dawn-maidens have given him quite a bad character, and the legends are
numerous in which he appears as the prototype of Don Juan. Yet again his
separation from the bride of his youth is described as due to no fault
of his own, but to a resistless decree of fate, which hurries him away
as Aineias was compelled to abandon Dido. Or, according to a third
and equally plausible notion, he is a hero of ascetic virtues, and the
dawn-maiden is a wicked enchantress, daughter of the sensual Aphrodite,
who vainly endeavours to seduce him. In the story of Odysseus these
various conceptions are blended together. When enticed by artful women,
[105] he yields for a while to the temptation; but by and by his longing
to see Penelope takes him homeward, albeit with a record which Penelope
might not altogether have liked. Again, though the Sun, "always roaming
with a hungry heart," has seen many cities and customs of strange men,
he is nevertheless confined to a single path,--a circumstance which
seems to have occasioned much speculation in the primeval mind.
Garcilaso de la Vega relates of a certain Peruvian Inca, who seems to
have been an "infidel" with reference to the orthodox mythology of his
day, that he thought the Sun was not such a mighty god after all; for
if he were, he would wander about the heavens at random instead of
going forever, like a horse in