needed something. The Iron's tongue lacked hardness, his mouth lacked the due sharpness. The Iron could not be forged hard, unless Water wetted it. "The renowned Smith bethought him what he should do; and then he sprinkled a little ash upon Water, and dissolved it therein, and made a pungent bath, for to give hardness to the Iron and strength to the Steel. "Carefully did he prove the Water with his tongue, and then said: 'The Water is not yet made fit to harden the rusty metal and the blue glancing Steel.' "Behold a Bee came flying over the grass, sporting high and low on bright wings, flitting and humming round him. "Then spake the renowned Smith: 'Here! Busy Bee! Bring me honey on thy wing, bring hither the noble juice, suck it from the cups of the flowers, to give the right hardness to the Iron, to give strength to the Steel.' "Hiisi's evil bird, the Wasp, overheard the talk, as she peeped down from the roof. She gave heed secretly to all, she saw the rusty metal prepared, she saw the glancing Steel brought forth. "In haste away flew the Wasp from thence, and gathered together Hiisi's horrors; she brought the black venom of the serpent, and the deadly poison of the adder, and the bitter froth of worms, and the corroding liquor of the toad, to give hardness to the Iron and strength to the Steel. 'Ilmarinen, the cunning workman, the renowned Smith, thought that the Busy Bee had brought him honey, had given him the noble juice; and he said: 'Now is the bath right to harden the rusty metal, to give strength to the blue Steel.' 'In the bath he dipped the Iron, without heed he cast the metal therein, when he had drawn it out of the Fire, out of the glowing forge. "Then came it to pass that Iron was made hurtful, and did rend Honour even as a dog rendeth flesh, and broke the sacred oath which he sware, and murdered his own brother, and bit wounds into him with sharp mouth, and opened paths for the blood, and poured it out in foaming stream." The little old man at the fireside cried aloud, and rocked his head to and fro, and sang: "Oh, now I know the Beginning of Iron, now I know who drave it to evil. Woe unto thee, thou luckless Iron ! woe unto thee, thou deceitful Steel! Poor metal, taken captive by witchcraft! Is it thence that thou art sprung? Is it for this reason that thou art become a terror and hast too great mastery? "Who moved thee to wickedness, who drave thee to treason? Was it thy Father or thy Mother? Was thy eldest Brother guilty of this? Was it thy youngest Sister, or some Friend, who coun selled thee and turned thee to the evil deed? "Neither Father nor Mother nor eldest Brother nor youngest Sister nor any Friend gave thee this counsel. Thyself hast thou done this wickedness, thyself hast thou accomplished the bloody deed. "Iron! Look at this wound! Heal the evil thou hast done ere I go in anger with complaint against thee to thy Mother. The sorrow of the old woman thy Mother is increased if her child turneth himself to evil and doeth wickedness. "Leave off, and run no more, thou foaming blood! hold in thy course, spout forth no more in long-curved bow, bespattering my head and breast! Stand like a wall immovable, like a fence, like the sedge by the water's side, like the grass in the slimy fen! Stand like the rocks upon the firm earth, like the cliff in the raging storm! "If thou heedest not these words, I will devise other means: hither do I call Hiisi's Kettle to seethe the foaming blood therein, to make hot the red juice, so that not a drop shall flow away, so that the purple gore shall run down thereinto, and wet not the earth nor stream foaming over the ground. "And if power be withheld from me myself to stay the endless flood, to become master of the wild stream, know that in Heaven there liveth a Father, a God dwelling above the clouds, who is the mightiest leech for the closing-up of bleeding wounds. "Ukko, High Creator, Everlasting God of Heaven, hear me when I call unto thee in time of need! Lay thy soothing hand, thy finger which bringeth healing, on the wound, and be as a sure lock to close it. "Take, O Lord, a healing leaf, spread a water-lily leaf to cover the opening, stay the strong current of the blood, so that it stain not my cheeks nor stream over my garments." Therewith the old man shut the mouth of the wound, stayed the swift course of the blood; then sent he his son into the smithy to prepare a salve of the finest threads of the grass, of a thousand herbs of the field, of the flowers whence honey, healing balm, droppeth. The boy brought the salve to his Father, saying: "Here is strong healing salve, able to cement stones together into one rock." The Father proved it with his tongue, and found it good; and therewith he anointed the wounded man, saying: "Not by my own power do I this, but only through the power of the Highest." Then he bound up the wound with silken bands, saying: "May the silk of the Eternal Father, the bands of the Almighty Creator, bind up this wound. Be gracious, O Heavenly Father, look down and help, put an end unto the bitter anguish, heal this wound without the sharpness of pain." Then did Wäinämöinen, on a sudden, feel that he was healed; and soon thereafter the wound grew together, and was closed.1 A Myth like this of the Birth of Iron, amplified, indeed, and embellished by poetical art, but originally inspired by the childish belief in the value of words which set forth the cause, helps us, I think, to understand Plato's employment of the Aetiological Myth. Confronted by some profound difficulty, he lays it, or puts it by," by means of a fanciful account of the origin of the state of things which presents the difficulty. He seems to feel that an Aetiological Myth is "a comfortable thing,"" and a charm to conjure with when one is hard pressed. The transition is easy from the point which we have now reached to Plato's Creation Myths-his Aetiological Myths par excellence. These are the Timaeus (which is one great Myth) and the Myth of Prometheus and Epimetheus in the Protagoras (320 c ff.). In distinguishing these Myths as Aetiological from the strictly Eschatological Myths of the Phaedo, Gorgias, and the Republic, I do not ignore the eschatological prospect which is presented in them, especially in the Timaeus; but aetiological retrospect is what is really characteristic of them. It is the origin of the Universe, and of Man, Soul and Body, not the future life of Man's Soul, that these Myths are properly concerned with. They set forth the Ideas of Reason, Soul, Cosmos, and God, aetiologically in a Vision of Creation; and supply, moreover, a mythological deduction of Categories of the Understanding and Moral Virtues, which lies outside the scope of the strictly Eschatological Myths; i.e. they deduce Categories and Virtues from their causes in the nature of God and the make of the Cosmos-they picture for the imagination the orderly constitution of nature as expressing the wisdom and goodness of God, and explain-always for the imaginationthe harmony subsisting between that constitution and the faculties of the Soul. Thus in Timaeus 40 E-42 E the a 1 Kalewala, Runes 8 and 9, vol. i. pp. 95-124, German version by Hermann Paul (Helsingfors, 1885). 2 "Prisms are also comfortable things" (Bacon, Nat. Hist. cent. x. 960). P priori conditions of thought, the modes in which the Understanding brings order into the manifold of sense-experience, are set forth as due to impressions received by the Soul in its speculative journey round the Heavens, when it rode on its star-chariot, and saw the eternal laws of the Universe, and learned to move in orbits of rational thought, similar to those which rule the stars. It will be convenient to begin our study of the Creation Myths with the Protagoras Myth. It is on a small scale, and by looking at it first the eye of imagination may perhaps be prepared for the contemplation of the vast Timaeus. Although it is only a small part of the Timaeus that the limits of this work allow me to translate and comment on, I would ask the reader to regard the whole book as one great Myth in which the Ideas of Soul, Cosmos, and God are set forth in great shapes for our wonder-in which the relation of the Created Soul-World Soul and Human Soul-to the Creator, the relation of the Human Soul to the Human Body, the Origin of Evil, the Hope of Salvation, and other things which concern our peace, are made visible. The Timaeus is a Myth, not a scientific treatise, although it was its fortune from the very first to be treated as if it were the latter. No other work of Plato's was so much read and commented on in antiquity, and throughout the Middle Age, as the Timaeus; and that chiefly because it was regarded as a compendium of natural science, all the more valuable because its "natural science" was not presented as something apart by itself, but "framed in a theological setting." Aristotle, of course, treats it au pied de la lettre.1 With the Christian Platonists it took rank as a scientific and theological authority along with the Book of Genesis.2 Dante's references to Plato's actual text are, I believe, all to passages contained in the Timaeus.3 1 The reader may test the justice of this statement by referring to the passages quoted in the Index Arist. s. v. "Tipatos Platonis dialogus"; and see Zeller, Plato, p. 344, Eng. Transl. 2 "Numenius the Platonist speaks out plainly concerning his master: What is Plato but Moses Atticus?" (Henry More's Conjectura Cabbalistica, Preface, p. 3; ed. 1662.) It was practically as author of the Timaeus that Plato was "Moses Atticus." Jowett (Dialogues of Plato, Introd. to Timaeus) has some interesting remarks on the text "The influence which the Timaeus has exercised upon posterity is partly due to a misunderstanding." 3 See Moore's Studies in Dante, first series, pp. 156 ff., and Toynbee's Dante Dictionary, arts. "Platone" and "Timeo"." |