a treadmill, along the same course. The
American Indians explained this circumstance by myths which told how the
Sun was once caught and tied with a chain which would only let him swing
a little way to one side or the other. The ancient Aryan developed the
nobler myth of the labours of Herakles, performed in obedience to the
bidding of Eurystheus. Again, the Sun must needs destroy its parents,
the Night and the Dawn; and accordingly his parents, forewarned by
prophecy, expose him in infancy, or order him to be put to death; but
his tragic destiny never fails to be accomplished to the letter.
And again the Sun, who engages in quarrels not his own, is sometimes
represented as retiring moodily from the sight of men, like Achilleus
and Meleagros: he is short-lived and ill-fated, born to do much good
and to be repaid with ingratitude; his life depends on the duration of a
burning brand, and when that is extinguished he must die.

The myth of the great Theban hero, Oidipous, well illustrates the
multiplicity of conceptions which clustered about the daily career of
the solar orb. His father, Laios, had been warned by the Delphic oracle
that he was in danger of death from his own son. The newly born Oidipous
was therefore exposed on the hillside, but, like Romulus and Remus, and
all infants similarly situated in legend, was duly rescued. He was taken
to Corinth, where he grew up to manhood. Journeying once to Thebes, he
got into a quarrel with an old man whom he met on the road, and slew
him, who was none other than his father, Laios. Reaching Thebes, he
found the city harassed by the Sphinx, who afflicted the land with
drought until she should receive an answer to her riddles. Oidipous
destroyed the monster by solving her dark sayings, and as a reward
received the kingdom, with his own mother, Iokaste, as his bride. Then
the Erinyes hastened the discovery of these dark deeds; Iokaste died in
her bridal chamber; and Oidipous, having blinded himself, fled to the
grove of the Eumenides, near Athens, where, amid flashing lightning and
peals of thunder, he died.

Oidipous is the Sun. Like all the solar heroes, from Herakles and
Perseus to Sigurd and William Tell, he performs his marvellous deeds at
the behest of others. His father, Laios, is none other than the
Vedic Dasyu, the night-demon who is sure to be destroyed by his solar
offspring In the evening, Oidipous is united to the Dawn, the mother who
had borne him at daybreak; an