IV

The Moon and the Sun from the Homeric Hymns to Keats

TH

THE TITAN SUN OF KEATS

HE Titan Sun is a godlike being about whom there is little information in Greek mythology. Like Selene, he is the earlier conception of the Sun god, belonging to that phase of thought when the Sun itself was regarded as a personal being. An enormous mass of Sun myths exists to be found in every corner of the earth, either depicting the adventures of a primitive Sun-being or singing his praises in hymns. This Sun-god frequently showed a weakness far from omnipotence, for the primitive mind observed that the Sun really lived a very treadmill sort of existence, being confined to a regular path through the skies, which though not always exactly the same varies with monotonous regularity. The story is told of

an Inca prince, who, speculating upon the subject, was sore puzzled at the Sun worship of his ancestors. If the Sun is all-powerful, the Inca inquired, why is he plainly subject to laws? Why does he go his daily rounds instead of wandering at large up and down the fields of heaven? This prince of savages came to the conclusion that there must be a will superior to that of the Sun, so he raised a temple to the unknown God. Thus, this man wise above others made a step in the direction of religious development. Lower types of savage minds did not arrive at such brilliant philosophical conclusions; instead, they invented myths to account for the prescribed course of the Sun in the heavens, so there came to be tales to the effect that the Sun had once been an obstreporous being, and it became necessary to snare him and beat him, or conquer him by magic. American Indians and Polynesians both have stories of this description.

One of the most remarkable of the Sun stories is a primitive American legend in which a big old man, of a bloodthirsty disposition, is finally conquered by his son-in-law, Tulchuherris, who splits