The Mandrake.

Fig. 8. (a) "Ceremonial forked object," or "magic wand," used in the ceremony of "opening the mouth," possibly connected with (b) (a bicornuate uterus), according to Griffith ("Hieroglyphics," p. 60). (c) The Egyptian sign for a key. (d) The double axe of Crete and Egypt.Fig. 8.(a) "Ceremonial forked object," or "magic wand," used in the ceremony of "opening the mouth," possibly connected with (b) (a bicornuate uterus), according to Griffith ("Hieroglyphics," p. 60).(c) The Egyptian sign for a key.(d) The double axe of Crete and Egypt.

Fig. 8.

(a) "Ceremonial forked object," or "magic wand," used in the ceremony of "opening the mouth," possibly connected with (b) (a bicornuate uterus), according to Griffith ("Hieroglyphics," p. 60).

(d) The double axe of Crete and Egypt.

In his chapter on "the Origin of the Cult of Artemis," Dr. Rendel Harris refers to the reputation of Artemis as the patron of travellers, and to Parkinson's statement: "It is said of Pliny that if a traveller binde some of the hearbe [Artemisia] with him, he shall feele no weariness at all in his journey" (p. 72). Hence the high Dutch nameBeifussis applied to it.

The left foot of the dead was called "the staff of Hathor" by the Egyptians; and the goddess was said "to make the deceased's legs to walk".[363]

It was a common practice to tie flowers to a mummy's feet, as I discovered in unwrapping the royal mummies. According to Moret (op. cit.) the flowers of Upper and Lower Egypt were tied under the king's feet at the celebration of the Sed festival.

Mr. Battiscombe Gunn (quoted by Dr. Alan Gardiner) states that the familiar symbol of life known as theankhrepresents the string of a sandal.[364]

It seems to be worth considering whether the symbolism of the sandal-string may not have been derived from the life-girdle, which inancient Indian medical treatises was linked in name with the female organs of reproduction and the pubic bones. According to Moret (op. cit., p. 91) a girdle furnished with a tail was used as a sign of consecration or attainment of the divine life after death. Jung (op. cit., p. 270), who, however, tries to find a phallic meaning in all symbolism, claims that reference to the foot has such a significance.

[339]Evans,op. cit., p. 50.[340]Her Latin representative, Diana, had a male counterpart and conjugate, Dianus,i.e.Janus, of whom it was said: "Ipse primum Janus cum puerperium concipitur ... aditum aperit recipiendo semini". For other quotations see Rendel Harris,op. cit., p. 88 and the article "Janus" in Roscher's "Lexikon".[341]Rendel Harris, p. 73.[342]No doubt the two uræi of the Saga of the Winged Disk.[343]A. B. Cook, "Zeus," Vol. I, p. 244.[344]Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society, 1916.[345]"The Influence of Egyptian Civilization in the East and in America,"Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 1916.[346]Evans's, Fig. 41, p. 63.[347]"The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," 1910.[348]Paribeni, "Monumenti antichi dell'accademia dei Lincei," XIX, punt. 1, pll. 1-3; and V. Duhn, "Arch. f. Religionswissensch.," XII, p. 161, pll. 2-4; quoted by Blinkenberg, "The Thunder Weapon," pp. 20 and 21, Fig. 9.[349]Without just reason, many writers have assumed that the pestle, which was identified with the handle used in the churning of the ocean (see de Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," Vol II, p. 361), was a phallic emblem. This meaning may have been given to the handle of the churn at a later period, when the churn itself was regarded as the Mother Pot or uterus; but we are not justified in assuming that this was its primary significance.[350]Gladys M. N. Davis, "The Asiatic Dionysos," p. 172.[351]The tortoise was the vehicle of Aphrodite also and her representatives in Central America.[352]Jackson, "Shells, etc.," pp. 57et seq.[353]Vide supra, p. 158.[354]Rendel Harris, "The Ascent of Olympus," p. 80. In the building up of the idea of rebirth the ancients kept constantly before their minds a very concrete picture of the actual process of parturition and of the anatomy of the organs concerned in this physiological process. This is not the place to enter into a discussion of the anatomical facts represented in the symbolism of the "giver of life" presiding over the portal and the "two hills" which are divided at the birth of the deity: but the real significance of the primitive imagery cannot be wholly ignored if we want to understand the meaning of the phraseology used by the ancient writers.[355]Blinkenberg, "The Thunder-weapon," p. 72.[356]Aylward M. Blackman, "Sacramental Ideas and Usages in Ancient Egypt,"Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, March, 1918, p. 64.[357]Op. cit., p. 60.[358]"Archæol. Survey of Egypt," 5th Memoir, 1896, p. 31.[359]See especiallyop. cit., p. 35, the goddess of streams and marshes, who was also herself "the mother plant," like the mother of Horus.[360]Whose cultural associations with the Great Mother in the Eastern Mediterranean littoral has been discussed by Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," pp. 49et seq.Compare alsoApollo hyakinthosas further evidence of the link with Artemis.[361]P. J. Veth, "Internat. Arch. f. Ethnol.," Bd. 7, pp. 203 and 204.[362]"Hieroglyphics," p. 60.[363]Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," Vol. I, pp. 436 and 437.[364]Alan Gardiner, "Life and Death (Egyptian)," Hastings'Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics.

[339]Evans,op. cit., p. 50.

[340]Her Latin representative, Diana, had a male counterpart and conjugate, Dianus,i.e.Janus, of whom it was said: "Ipse primum Janus cum puerperium concipitur ... aditum aperit recipiendo semini". For other quotations see Rendel Harris,op. cit., p. 88 and the article "Janus" in Roscher's "Lexikon".

[341]Rendel Harris, p. 73.

[342]No doubt the two uræi of the Saga of the Winged Disk.

[343]A. B. Cook, "Zeus," Vol. I, p. 244.

[344]Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society, 1916.

[345]"The Influence of Egyptian Civilization in the East and in America,"Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 1916.

[346]Evans's, Fig. 41, p. 63.

[347]"The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," 1910.

[348]Paribeni, "Monumenti antichi dell'accademia dei Lincei," XIX, punt. 1, pll. 1-3; and V. Duhn, "Arch. f. Religionswissensch.," XII, p. 161, pll. 2-4; quoted by Blinkenberg, "The Thunder Weapon," pp. 20 and 21, Fig. 9.

[349]Without just reason, many writers have assumed that the pestle, which was identified with the handle used in the churning of the ocean (see de Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," Vol II, p. 361), was a phallic emblem. This meaning may have been given to the handle of the churn at a later period, when the churn itself was regarded as the Mother Pot or uterus; but we are not justified in assuming that this was its primary significance.

[350]Gladys M. N. Davis, "The Asiatic Dionysos," p. 172.

[351]The tortoise was the vehicle of Aphrodite also and her representatives in Central America.

[352]Jackson, "Shells, etc.," pp. 57et seq.

[353]Vide supra, p. 158.

[354]Rendel Harris, "The Ascent of Olympus," p. 80. In the building up of the idea of rebirth the ancients kept constantly before their minds a very concrete picture of the actual process of parturition and of the anatomy of the organs concerned in this physiological process. This is not the place to enter into a discussion of the anatomical facts represented in the symbolism of the "giver of life" presiding over the portal and the "two hills" which are divided at the birth of the deity: but the real significance of the primitive imagery cannot be wholly ignored if we want to understand the meaning of the phraseology used by the ancient writers.

[355]Blinkenberg, "The Thunder-weapon," p. 72.

[356]Aylward M. Blackman, "Sacramental Ideas and Usages in Ancient Egypt,"Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, March, 1918, p. 64.

[357]Op. cit., p. 60.

[358]"Archæol. Survey of Egypt," 5th Memoir, 1896, p. 31.

[359]See especiallyop. cit., p. 35, the goddess of streams and marshes, who was also herself "the mother plant," like the mother of Horus.

[360]Whose cultural associations with the Great Mother in the Eastern Mediterranean littoral has been discussed by Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," pp. 49et seq.Compare alsoApollo hyakinthosas further evidence of the link with Artemis.

[361]P. J. Veth, "Internat. Arch. f. Ethnol.," Bd. 7, pp. 203 and 204.

[362]"Hieroglyphics," p. 60.

[363]Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," Vol. I, pp. 436 and 437.

[364]Alan Gardiner, "Life and Death (Egyptian)," Hastings'Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics.

We have now given reasons for believing that the personification of the mandrake was in some way brought about by the transference to the plant of the magical virtues that originally belonged to the cowry shell.

The problem that still awaits solution is the nature of the process by which the transference was effected.

When I began this investigation the story of the Destruction of Mankind (see Chapter II) seemed to offer an explanation of the confusion. Brugsch, Naville, Maspero, Erman, and in fact most Egyptologists, seemed to be agreed that the magical substance from which the Egyptian elixir of life was made was the mandrake. As there was no hint[365]in the Egyptian story of the derivation of its reputation from the fancied likeness to the human form, its identification with Hathor seemed to be merely another instance of those confusions with which the pathway of mythology is so thickly strewn. In other words, the plant seemed to have been used merely to soothe the excited goddess: then the other properties of "the food of the gods," of which it was an ingredient, became transferred to the mandrake, so that it acquired the reputation of being a "giver of life" as well as a sedative. If this had been true it would have been a simple process to identify this "giver of life" with the goddess herself in her rôle as the "giver of life," and her cowry-ancestor which was credited with the same reputation.

But this hypothesis is no longer tenable, because the wordd'd'(variously transliterateddoudouordidi), which Brugsch[366]and his followers interpreted as "mandragora," is now believed to have another meaning.

In a closely reasoned memoir, Henri Gauthier[367]has completely demolished Brugsch's interpretation of this word. He says there are numerous instances of the use ofd'd'(which he transliteratesdoudouiou) in the medical papyri. In the Ebers papyrus "doudoud'Eléphantine broyé" is prescribed as a remedy for external application in diseases of the heart, and as an astringent and emollient dressing for ulcers. He says the substance was brought to Elephantine from the interior of Africa and the coasts of Arabia.

Mr. F. Ll. Griffith informs me that Gauthier's criticism of the translation "mandrakes" is undoubtedly just: but that the substance referred to was most probably "red ochre" or "hæmatite".[368]

The relevant passage in the Story of the Destruction of Mankind (in Seti I's tomb) will then read as follows: "When they had brought the red ochre, the Sekti of Heliopolis pounded it, and the priestesses mixed the pulverized substance with the beer, so that the mixture resembled human blood".

I would call special attention to Gauthier's comment that the blood-coloured beer "hadsome magical and marvellous property which is unknown to us".[369]

In his dictionary Brugsch considered the determinativeCircle with three vertical lines underneathto refer to the fruits of a tree which he called "apple tree," on the supposed analogy with the Coptic ϫιϫι,fructus autumnalis,pomus, the Greek ὀπώρα; and he proposed to identify the supposed fruit, then transliterateddoudou, with the Hebrewdoudaïm, and translate itpoma amatoria, mandragora, or in German,Alraune. This interpretation was adopted by most scholars until Gauthier raised objections to it.

As Loret and Schweinfurth have pointed out, the mandrake is not found in Egypt, nor in fact in any part of the Nile Valley.[370]

But what is more significant, the Greeks translated the Hebrewdūdā'imby μανδράγορας and the Copts did not use the word ϫιϫι in their translations, but either the Greek word or a term referring to its sedative and soporific properties. Steindorff has shown (Zeitsch. f. Ægypt. Sprache, Bd. XXVII, 1890, p. 60) that the word in dispute would be more correctly transliterated "didi" instead of "doudou".

Finally, in a letter Mr. Griffith tells me the identification ofdidiwith the Coptic ϫιϫι, "apple (?)" is philologically impossible.

Although this red colouring matter is thus definitely proved not to be the fruit of a plant, there are reasons to suggest that when the story of the Destruction of Mankind spread abroad—and the whole argument of this book establishes the fact that it did spread abroad—the substancedidiwas actually confused in the Levant with the mandrake. We have already seen that in the Delta a prototype of Artemis was already identified with certain plants.

In all probabilitydidiwas originally brought into the Egyptian legend merely as a surrogate of the life-blood, and the mixture of which it was an ingredient was simply a restorer of youth to the king. But the determinative (in the tomb of Seti I)—a little yellow disc with a red border, which misled Naville into believing the substance to be yellow berries—may also have created confusion in the minds of ancient Levantine visitors to Egypt, and led them to believe that reference was being made to their own yellow-berried drug, the mandrake. Such an incident might have had a two-fold effect. It would explain the introduction into the Egyptian story of the sedative effects ofdidi, which would easily be rationalized as a means of soothing the maniacal goddess; and in the Levant it would have added to the real properties of mandrake[371]the magical virtues which originally belonged todidi(and blood, the cowry, and water).

In my lecture on "Dragons and Rain Gods" (Chapter II) I explained that the Egyptian story of the Destruction of Mankind is merely one version of a saga of almost world-wide currency. In many of the non-Egyptian versions[372]the rôle ofdidiin the Egyptian story is takenby somevegetableproduct of aredcolour; and many of these versions reveal a definite confusion between the red fruit and the red clay, thus proving that the confusion ofdidiwith the mandrake is no mere hypothetical device to evade a difficulty on my part, but did actually occur.

In the course of the development of the Egyptian story the red clay from Elephantine became the colouring matter of the Nile flood, and this in turn was rationalized as the blood or red clay into which the bodies of the slaughtered enemies of Re were transformed,[373]and the material out of which the new race of mankind was created.[374]In other words, the new race was formed ofdidi. There is a widespread legend that the mandrake also is formed from the substance of dead bodies[375]often represented as innocent or chaste men wrongly killed, just as the red clay was the substance of mankind killed to appease Re's wrath, "the blood of the slaughtered saints".[376]

But the original belief is found in a more definite form in the ancient story that "the mandrake was fashioned out of the same earth whereof God formed Adam".[377]In other words the mandrake was part of the same substance as the earthdidi.[378]

Further corroboration of this confusion is afforded by a story from Little Russia, quoted by de Gubernatis.[379]If bryony (a widely recognized surrogate of mandrake) be suspended from the girdle all the dead Cossacks (who, like the enemies of Re in the Egyptian story, had been killed and broken to pieces in the earth) will come to life again.Thus we have positive evidence of the homology of the mandrake with red clay or hæmatite.

The transference to the mandrake of the properties of the cowry (and the goddesses who were personifications of the shell) and blood (and its surrogates) was facilitated by the manifold homologies of the Great Mother with plants. We have already seen that the goddess was identified with: (a) incense-trees and other trees, such as the sycamore, which played some definite part in the burial ceremonies, either by providing the divine incense, the materials for preserving the body, or for making coffins to ensure the protection of the dead, and so make it possible for them to continue their existence; and (b) thelotus, the lily, the iris, and other marsh plants,[380]for reasons that I have already mentioned (p. 184).

The Babylonian poem of Gilgamesh represents one of the innumerable versions of the great theme which has engaged the attention of writers in every age and country attempting to express the deepest longings of the human spirit. It is the search for the elixir of life. The object of Gilgamesh's search is a magicplantto prolong life and restore youth. The hero of the story went on a voyage by water in order to obtain what appears to have been a marsh plant calleddittu.[381]The question naturally arises whether this Babylonian story and the name of the plant played any part in Palestine in blending the Egyptian and Babylonian stories and confusing the Egyptian elixir of life, the red earthdidi, with the Babylonian elixir, the plantdittu?

In the Babylonian story a serpent-demon steals the magic plant, just as in Indiasoma, the food of immortality, is stolen. In Egypt Isis steals Re's name,[382]and in Babylonia the Zu bird steals the tablets ofdestiny, thelogos. In Greek legend apples are stolen from the garden of Hesperides. Apples are surrogates of the mandrake anddidi.

We have now seen that the mandrake is definitely a surrogate (a) of the cowry and a series of its shell-homologues, and (b) of the red substance in the Story of the Destruction of Mankind.

There still remain to be determined (i) the means by which the mandrake became identified with the goddess, (ii) the significance of the Hebrew worddūdā-īm, and (iii) the origin of the Greek wordmandragora.

The answer to the first of these three queries should now be obvious enough. As the result of the confusion of the life-giving magical substancedidiwith the sedative drug, mandrake, the latter acquired the reputation of being a "giver of life" and became identified withthe"giver of life," the Great Mother, the story of whose exploits was responsible for the confusion.

The erroneous identification ofdidiwith the mandrake was originally suggested by Brugsch from the likeness of the word (then transliterateddoudou) with the Hebrew worddūdā-īmin Genesis, usually translated "mandrakes". I have already quoted the opinion of Gauthier and Griffith as to the error of such identification. But the evidence now at our disposal seems to me to leave no doubt as to the reality of the confusion of the Egyptian red substance with the mandrake. This naturally suggests the possibility that the similarity of the sounds of the wordsmayhave played some part in creating the confusion: but it is impossible to admit this as a factor in the development of the story, because the Hebrew word probably arose out of the identification of the mandrake with the Great Mother and not by any confusion of names. In other words the similarity of the names of these homologous substances is a mere coincidence.

Dr. Rendel Harris claims (and Sir James Frazer seems to approve of the suggestion) that the Hebrew worddūdā-īmwas derived fromdōdīm, "love"; and, on the strength of this derivation, he soars into a lofty flight of philological conjecture to transmutedōdīm, intoAphrodite, "love" into the "goddess of love". It would be an impertinence on my part to attempt to follow these excursions into unknown heights of cloudland.

But my colleagues Professor Canney and Principal Bennett tell me that the derivation ofdūdā-īmfromdōdīmis improbable; and the former authority suggests thatdūdā-īmmay be merely the plural ofdūd, a "pot".[383]Now I have already explained how a pot came to symbolize a woman or a goddess, not merely in Egypt, but also in Southern India, and in Mycenæan Greece, and, in fact, the Mediterranean generally.[384]Hence the use of the termdūdfor the mandrake implies either (a) an identification of the plant with the goddess who is the giver of life, or (b) an analogy between the form of the mandrake-fruit and a pot, which in turn led to it being called a pot, and from that being identified with the goddess.[385]

I should explain that when Professor Canney gave me this statement he was not aware of the fact that I had already arrived at the conclusion that the Great Mother was identified with a pot and also with the mandrake; but in ignorance of the meaning of the Hebrew words I had hesitated to equate the pot with the mandrake. As soon as I received his note, and especially when I read his reference to the second meaning, "basket of figs," in Jeremiah, I recalled Mr. Griffith's discussion of the Egyptian hieroglyphic ("a pot of water") for woman, wife, or goddess, and the claim made by Sir Gardner Wilkinson that this manner of representing the word for "wife" was apparently taken from a conventionalized picture of "a basket of sycamore figs".[386]The interpretation has now clearly emerged that the mandrake was calleddūdā'īmby the Hebrews because it was identified with the Mother Pot. The symbolism involved in the use of the Hebrew word also suggests that the inspiration may have come from Egypt, where a woman was called "a pot of water" or "a basket of figs".

When the mandrake acquired the definite significance as a symbol of the Great Mother and the power of life-giving, its fruit, "the love apple," became the quintessence of vitality and fertility. The apple and the pomegranate became surrogates of the "love apple," and were graphically represented in forms hardly distinguishable from pots, occupying places which mark them out clearly as homologues of the Great Mother herself.[387]

But once the mandrake was identified with the Great Mother in the Levant the attributes of the plant were naturally acquired from her local reputation there. This explains the pre-eminently conchological aspect of the magical properties of the mandrake and the bryony.

I shall not attempt to refer in detail to the innumerable stories of red and brown apples, of rowan berries, and a variety of other red fruits that play a part in the folk-lore of so many peoples, such asdidiplayed in the Egyptian myth. These fruits can be either elixirs of life and food of the gods, or weapons for overcoming the dragon as Hathor (Sekhet) was conquered by her sedative draught.[388]

In his account of the peony, Pliny ("Nat. Hist.," Book XXVIII, Chap. LX) says it has "a stem two cubits in length, accompanied by two or three others, and of a reddish colour, with a bark like that of the laurel ... the seed is enclosed in capsules,some being redand some black ... it has anastringent taste. The leaves of the female plantsmell like myrrh". Bostock and Riley, from whose translation I have made this quotation, add that in reality the plant is destitute of smell. In the Ebers papyrusdidiwas mixed with incense in one of the prescriptions;[389]and in the Berlin medical papyrus it was one of the ingredients of a fumigation used for treating heart disease. If my contention is justified, it may provide the explanation of how the confusion arose by which the peony came to have attributed to it a "smell like myrrh".

Pliny proceeds: "Both plants [i.e.male and female] grow in the woods, and they should always be taken up at night, it is said; as it would be dangerous to do so in the day-time, the woodpecker of Mars being sure to attack the person so engaged.[390]It is stated also that the person, while taking up the root, runs great risk of being attacked with [prolapsus ani].... Both plants are used[391]for various purposes: the red seed, taken in red wine, about fifteen in number, arrest menstruation; while the black seed, taken in the same proportion, in either raisin or other wine, are curative of diseases of the uterus." I refer to these red-coloured beverages and their therapeutic use in women's complaints to suggest the analogy with that other red drink administered to the Great Mother, Hathor.

In his essay, "Jacob and the Mandrakes,"[392]Sir James Frazer has called attention to the homologies between the attributes of the peony and the mandrake and to the reasons for regarding the former as Aelian'saglaophotis.

Pliny states ("Nat. Hist.," Book XXIV, Chap. CII) that theaglaophotis"is found growing among the marble quarries of Arabia, on the side of Persia," just as the Egyptiandidiwas obtained near the granite quarries at Aswan. "By means of this plant [aglaophotis], according to Democritus, the Magi can summon the deities into their presence when they please, "just as the users of the conch-shell trumpet believed they could do with this instrument. I have already (p. 196) emphasized the fact that all of these plants, mandrake, bryony, peony, and the rest, were really surrogates of the cowry, the pearl, and the conch-shell. The first is the ultimate source of their influence on womankind, the second the origin of their attribute ofaglaophotis, and the third of their supposed power of summoning the deity. The attributes of some of the plants which Pliny discusses along with the peony are suggestive. Pieces of the root of theachaemenis(? perhapsEuphorbia antiquorumor else a night-shade) taken in wine, torment the guilty to such an extent in their dreams as to extort from them a confession of their crimes. He gives it the name also of "hippophobas," it being an especial object of terror to mares. The complementary story is told of the mandrake in mediæval Europe. The decomposing tissues of the body of an innocent victim on the gallows when they fall upon the earth can become reincarnated in a mandrake—themain de gloireof old French writers.

Then there is the plantadamantis, grown in Armenia and Cappadocia, which whenpresented to a lion makes the beast fall upon its back, and drop its jaws. Is this a distorted reminiscence of the lion-manifestation of Hathor who was calmed by the substancedidi? A more direct link with the story of the destruction of mankind is suggested by the account of theophiusa, "which is found in Elephantine, an island of Ethiopia". This plant is of a livid colour, and hideous to the sight. Taken by a person in drink, it inspires such a horror of serpents, which his imagination continually represents as menacing him that he commits suicide at last: hence it is that persons guilty of sacrilege are compelled to drink an infusion of it (Pliny, "Nat. Hist.," XXIV, 102). I am inclined to regard this as a variant of the myth of the Destruction of Mankind in which the "snake-plant" from Elephantine takes the place of the uræi of the Winged Disk Saga, and punishes the act of sacrilege by driving the delinquent into a state of delirium tremens.

The next problem to be considered is the derivation of the wordmandragora. Dr. Mingana tells me it is a great puzzle to discover any adequate meaning. The attempt to explain it through the Sanskritmand, "joy," "intoxication," ormantasana, "sleep," "life," ormandra, "pleasure," ormantara, "paradise tree," andagru, "unmarried, violently passionate," is hazardous and possibly far-fetched.

The Persian ismardumgiah, "man-like plant".

The Syro-Arabic word for it isYabrouh, AramaicYahb-kouh, "giver of life". This is possibly the source of the ChineseYah-puh-lu(Syriacya-bru-ha) andYah-puh-lu-Yak. The terminationYakis merely the Turanian termination meaning "diminutive".

The interest of the Levantine terms for the mandrake lies in the fact that they have the same significance as the word for pearl,i.e."giver of life". This adds another argument (to those which I have already given) for regarding the mandrake as a surrogate of the pearl. But they also reveal the essential fact that led to the identification of the plant with the Mother-Goddess, which I have already discussed.

In Arabic the mandrake is calledabou ruhr, "father of life,"i.e."giver of life".[393]

In Arabicmarganmeans "coral" as well as "pearl". In the Mediterranean area coral is explained as a new and marvellous plant sprung from the petrified blood-stained branches on which Perseus hung the bleeding head of Medusa. Eustathius ("Comment. ad Dionys. Perieget." 1097) derives κοράλιον from κόρη, personifying the monstrous virgin: but Chæroboscos claims that it comes from κόρη and ἄλιον, because it is a maritime product used to make ornaments for maidens. In any case coral is a "giver of life" and as such identified with a maiden,[394]as the most potential embodiment of life-giving force. But this specific application of the word for "giver of life" was due to the fact that in all the Semitic languages, as well as in literary references in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts, this phrase was understood as a reference to the female organs of reproduction. Thesamedouble entendreis implied in the use of the Greek word for "pig" and "cowry," these two surrogates of the Great Mother, each of which can be taken to mean the "giver of life" or the "pudendum muliebre".

Perhaps the most plausible suggestion that has been made as to the derivation of the word "mandragora" is Delâtre's claim[395]that it is compounded of the wordsmandros, "sleep," andagora, "object or substance," and that mandragora means "the sleep-producing substance".

This derivation is in harmony with my suggestion as to the means by which the plant acquired its magical properties. The sedative substance that, in the Egyptian hieroglyphs (of the Story of the Destruction of Mankind), was represented by yellow spheres with a red covering was confused in Western Asia with the yellow-berried plant which was known to have sedative properties. Hence the plant was confused with the mineral and so acquired all the magical properties of the Great Mother's elixir. But the Indian name is descriptive of the actual properties of the plant and is possibly the origin of the Greek word.

Another suggestion that has been made deserves some notice. It has been claimed that the first syllable of the name is derived from the Sanskritmandara, one of the trees in the Indian paradise, and the instrument with which the churning of the ocean was accomplished.[396]The mandrake has been claimed to be the tree of the Hebrew paradise; and a connexion has thus been instituted between it and themandara. This hypothesis, however, does not offer any explanation of how either the mandrake or themandaraacquired its magical attributes. The Indian tree of life was supposed to "sweat"amritajust as the incense trees of Arabia produce the divine life-giving incense.

But there are reasons[397]for the belief that the Indian story of the churning of the sea of milk is a much modified version of the old Egyptian story of the pounding of the materials for the elixir of life. Themandarachurn-stick, which is often supposed to represent thephallus,[398]was originally the tree of life, the tree or pillar which was animated by the Great Mother herself.[399]So that themandarais homologous with themandragora. But so far as I am aware, there is no adequate reason for deriving the latter word from the former.

The derivation from the Sanskrit wordsmandrosandagoraseems to fit naturally into the scheme of explanation which I have been formulating.

In the Egyptian story the Sekti of Heliopolis pounded thedidiin a mortar to make "the giver of life," which by a simple confusion might be identified with the goddess herself in her capacity as "the giver of life". This seems to have occurred in the Indian legend. Lakshmi, or Sri, was born at the churning of the ocean. Like Aphrodite, who was born from the sea-foam churned from the ocean, Lakshmi was the goddess of beauty, love, and prosperity.

Before leaving the problems of mandrake and the homologous plants and substances, it is important that I should emphasize the rôle of blood and blood-substitutes, red-stained beer, red wine, red earth, and red berries in the various legends. These life-giving and death-dealing substances were all associated with the colour red, and the destructive demons Sekhet and Set were given red forms, which in turn were transmitted to the dragon, and to that specialized form of the dragon which has become the conventional way of representing Satan.

[The whole of the mandrake legend spread to China and became attached to the plantsginsengandshang-luh—see de Groot, Vol. II, p. 316et seq.; also Kumagusu Minakata,Nature, Vol. LI, April 25, 1895, p. 608, and Vol. LIV, Aug. 13, 1896, p. 343. Thefact that the Chinese make use of the Syriac wordyabruha(vide supra) suggests the source of these Chinese legends.]

[365]As Maspero has specifically mentioned ("Dawn of Civilization," p. 166).[366]"Die Alraune als altägyptische Zauberpflanze,"Zeitsch. f. Ægypt. Sprache, Bd. XXIX, 1891, pp. 31-3.[367]"Le nom hiéroglyphique de l'argile rouge d'Eléphantine,"Revue Égyptologique, XIeVol., Nos. i.-ii., 1904, p. 1.[368]It is quite possible that the use of the name "hæmatite" for this ancient substitute for blood may itself be the result of the survival of the old tradition.[369]It is very important to keep in mind the two distinct properties ofdidi: (a) its magical life-giving powers, and (b) its sedative influence.[370]In Chapter II, p. 118, I have given other reasons of a psychological nature for minimizing the significance of the geographical question.[371]For the therapeutic effects of mandrake see theBritish Medical Journal, 15 March, 1890, p. 620.[372]Even in Egypt itselfdidimay be replaced by fruit in the more specialized variants of the Destruction of Mankind. Thus, in the Saga of the Winged Disk, Re is reported to have said to Horus: "Thou didst put grapes in the water which cometh forth from Edfu". Wiedemann ("Religion of the Ancient Egyptians," p. 70) interprets this as meaning: "thou didst cause the red blood of the enemy to flow into it". But by analogy with the original version, as modified by Gauthier's translation ofdidi, it should read: "thou didst make the water blood-red with grape-juice"; or perhaps be merely a confused jumble of the two meanings.[373]In the Babylonian story of the Deluge "Ishtar cried aloud like a woman in travail, the Lady of the gods lamented with a loud voice (saying): The old race of man hath been turned back into clay, because I assented to an evil thing in the council of the gods, and agreed to a storm which hath destroyed my people that which I brought forth" (King, "Babylonian Religion," p. 134).The Nile god, Knum, Lord of Elephantine, was reputed to have formed the world of alluvial soil. The coming of the waters from Elephantine brought life to the earth.[374]In the Babylonian story, Bēl "bade one of the gods cut off his head and mix the earth with the blood that flowed from him, and from the mixture he directed him to fashion men and animals" (King, "Babylonian Religion," p. 56). Bēl (Marduk) represents the Egyptian Horus who assumes his mother's rôle as the Creator. The red earth as a surrogate of blood in the Egyptian story is here replaced by earthandblood.But Marduk created not only men and animals but heaven and earth also. To do this he split asunder the carcase of the dragon which he had slain, the Great Mother Tiamat, the evilavatarof the Mother-Goddess whose mantle had fallen upon his own shoulders. In other words, he created the world out of the substance of the "giver of life" who was identified with the red earth, which was the elixir of life in the Egyptian story. This is only one more instance of the way in which the same fundamental idea was twisted and distorted in every conceivable manner in the process of rationalization. In one version of the Osirian myth Horus cut off the head of his mother Isis and the moon-god Thoth replaced it with a cow's head, just as in the Indian myth Ganesa's head was replaced by an elephant's.[375]See Frazer,op. cit., p. 9.[376]Compare with this the story of Picus the giant who fled to Kirke's isle and there was slain by Helios, the plant μῶλυ springing from his blood (A. B. Cook, "Zeus," p. 241, footnote 15). For a discussion ofmolysee Andrew Lang's "Custom and Myth".[377]Frazer, p. 6.[378]In Socotra a tree (dracæna) has been identified with the dragon, and its exudation, "dragon's blood," was called cinnabar, and confused with the mineral (red sulphide of mercury), or simply with red ochre. In the Socotran dragon-myth the elephant takes the hero's rôle, as in the American stories of Chac and Tlaloc (see Chapter II). The wordkinnabariwas applied to the thick matter that issues from the dragon when crushed beneath the weight of the dying elephant during these combats (Pliny, XXXIII, 28 and VIII, 12). The dragon had a passion for elephant's blood. Any thick red earth attributed to such combats was calledkinnabari(Schoff,op. cit., p. 137). This is another illustration of the ancient belief in the identification of blood and red ochre.[379]"Mythologie des Plantes," Vol. II, p. 101.[380]In an interesting article on "The Water Lilies of Ancient Egypt" (Ancient Egypt, 1917, Part I, p. 1) Mr. W. D. Spanton has collected a series of illustrations of the symbolic use of these plants. In view of the fact that the papyrus- and lotus-sceptres and the lotus-designs played so prominent a part in the evolution of the Greek thunder-weapon, it is peculiarly interesting to find (in the remote times of the Pyramid Age) lotus designs built up into the form of the double-axe (Spanton's Figs. 28 and 29) and the classicalkeraunos(his Fig. 19).[381]The Babylonian magic plant to prolong life and renew youth, like the red mineraldidiof the Egyptian story. It was also "the plant of birth" and "the plant of life".[382]Müller, Quibell, Maspero, and Sethe regard the "round cartouche," which the divine falcon often carries in place of theankh-symbol of life, as a representation of the royal name (R. Weill, "Les Origines de l'Egypte pharaonique,"Annales du Musée Guimet, 1908, p. 111). The analogous Babylonian sign known as "the rod and ring" is described by Ward (op. cit., p. 413) as "the emblem of the sun-god's supremacy," a "symbol of majesty and power, like the tablets of destiny".As it was believed in Egypt and Babylonia that the possession of a name "was equivalent to being in existence," we can regard the object carried by the hawk or vulture as a token of the giving of life and the controlling of destiny. It can probably be equated with the "tablets of destiny" so often mentioned in the Babylonian stories, which the bird godZustole from Bēl and was compelled by the sun-god to restore again. Marduk was given the power to destroy or to create,to speak the word of commandand to control fate, to wield the invincible weapon and to be able to render objects invisible. This form of the weapon, "the word" orlogos, like all the other varieties of the thunder-weapon, could "become flesh," in other words, be an animate form of the god.In Egyptian art it is usually the hawk of Horus (the homologue of Marduk) which carries the "round cartouche," which is thelogos, the tablets of destiny.[383]I quote Professor Canney's notes on the worddūdā'im(Genesis xxx. 14) verbatim: "TheEncyclopædia Biblicasays (s.v. 'Mandrakes'): 'The Hebrew name,dūdā'im, was no doubt popularly associated withdōdīm, דוֹדִים , "love"; but its real etymology (like that of μανδράγορας) is obscure"."The same word is translated 'mandrakes' in Song of Songs vii. 13."Dūdā'īmoccurs also in Jeremiah xxiv, 1, where it is usually translated 'baskets' ('baskets of figs'). Here it is the plural of a worddūd, which means sometimes a 'pot' or 'kettle,' sometimes a 'basket'. The etymology is again doubtful."I should imagine that the words in Jeremiah and Genesis have somehow or other the same etymology, and thatdūdā-īmin Genesis has no real connexion withdōdīm'love'."The meaning 'pot' (dūd, plur.dūdā-īm) is probably more original than 'basket'. Doesdūdā-īmin Genesis and Song of Songs denote some kind of pot or caldron-shaped flower or fruit?"[384]The Mother Pot is really a fundamental conception of all religious beliefs and is almost world-wide in its distribution.[385]The fruit of the lotus (which is a form of Hathor) assumes a form (Spanton,op. cit., Fig. 51) that is identical with a common Mediterranean symbol of the Great Mother, called "pomegranate" by Sir Arthur Evans (see my text-fig. 6, p. 179,m), which is a surrogate of the apple and mandrake. The likeness to the Egyptian hieroglyph for a jar of water (text-fig. 6,l) and the goddessNuof the fruit of the poppy (which was closely associated with the mandrake by reason of its soporific properties) may have assisted in the transference of their attributes. The design of the water-plant (text-fig. 7,d) associated with the Nile god may have helped such a confusion and exchange.[386]"A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians," revised and abridged, 1890, Vol. I, p. 323.[387]See, for example, Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Worship," Fig. 27, p. 46.[388]In a Japanese dragon-story the dragon drinks "sake" from pots set out on the shore (as Hathor drank thedidimixture from pots associated with the river); and the intoxicated monster was then slain. From its tail the hero extracted a sword (as in the case of the Western dragons), which is now said to be the Mikado's state sword.[389]See Gauthier,op. cit., pp. 2 and 3.[390]Compare the dog-incident in the mandrake story.[391]Bostock and Riley add the comment that "the peony has no medicinal virtues whatever".[392]Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. VIII, 1917, p. 16 (in the reprint).[393]I am indebted to Dr. Alphonse Mingana for this information. But the philological question is discussed in a learned memoir by the late Professor P. J. Veth, "De Leer der Signatuur,"Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, Leiden, Bd. VII, 1894, pp. 75 and 105, and especially the appendix, p. 199et seq., "De Mandragora, Naschrift op het tweede Hoofdstuk der Verhandeling over de Leer der Signatur".[394]Like thePurpuraand thePterocera, the bryony and other shells and plants.[395]Larousse, Article "Mandragore".[396]I have already referred to another version of the churning of the ocean in which Mount Meru was used as a churn-stick and identified with the Great Mother, of whom themandarawas also an avatar.[397]Which I shall discuss in my forthcoming book on "The Story of the Flood".[398]The phallic interpretation is certainly a secondary rationalization of an incident which had no such implication originally.[399]The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis ii. 17) produced fruit the eating of which opened the eyes of Adam and Eve, so that they realized their nakedness: they became conscious of sex and made girdles of fig-leaves (vide supra, p. 155). In other words, the tree of life had the power of love-provoking like the mandrake. In Henderson's "Celtic Dragon Myth" (p. xl) we read: "The berries for which she [Medb] craved were from the Tree of Life, the food of the gods, the eating of which by mortals brings death," and further: "The berries of the rowan tree are the berries of the gods" (p. xliii). I have already suggested the homology between these red berries, the mandrake, and the red ochre of Hathor's elixir. Thus we have another suggestion of the identity of the tree of paradise and the mandrake.

[365]As Maspero has specifically mentioned ("Dawn of Civilization," p. 166).

[366]"Die Alraune als altägyptische Zauberpflanze,"Zeitsch. f. Ægypt. Sprache, Bd. XXIX, 1891, pp. 31-3.

[367]"Le nom hiéroglyphique de l'argile rouge d'Eléphantine,"Revue Égyptologique, XIeVol., Nos. i.-ii., 1904, p. 1.

[368]It is quite possible that the use of the name "hæmatite" for this ancient substitute for blood may itself be the result of the survival of the old tradition.

[369]It is very important to keep in mind the two distinct properties ofdidi: (a) its magical life-giving powers, and (b) its sedative influence.

[370]In Chapter II, p. 118, I have given other reasons of a psychological nature for minimizing the significance of the geographical question.

[371]For the therapeutic effects of mandrake see theBritish Medical Journal, 15 March, 1890, p. 620.

[372]Even in Egypt itselfdidimay be replaced by fruit in the more specialized variants of the Destruction of Mankind. Thus, in the Saga of the Winged Disk, Re is reported to have said to Horus: "Thou didst put grapes in the water which cometh forth from Edfu". Wiedemann ("Religion of the Ancient Egyptians," p. 70) interprets this as meaning: "thou didst cause the red blood of the enemy to flow into it". But by analogy with the original version, as modified by Gauthier's translation ofdidi, it should read: "thou didst make the water blood-red with grape-juice"; or perhaps be merely a confused jumble of the two meanings.

[373]In the Babylonian story of the Deluge "Ishtar cried aloud like a woman in travail, the Lady of the gods lamented with a loud voice (saying): The old race of man hath been turned back into clay, because I assented to an evil thing in the council of the gods, and agreed to a storm which hath destroyed my people that which I brought forth" (King, "Babylonian Religion," p. 134).The Nile god, Knum, Lord of Elephantine, was reputed to have formed the world of alluvial soil. The coming of the waters from Elephantine brought life to the earth.

The Nile god, Knum, Lord of Elephantine, was reputed to have formed the world of alluvial soil. The coming of the waters from Elephantine brought life to the earth.

[374]In the Babylonian story, Bēl "bade one of the gods cut off his head and mix the earth with the blood that flowed from him, and from the mixture he directed him to fashion men and animals" (King, "Babylonian Religion," p. 56). Bēl (Marduk) represents the Egyptian Horus who assumes his mother's rôle as the Creator. The red earth as a surrogate of blood in the Egyptian story is here replaced by earthandblood.But Marduk created not only men and animals but heaven and earth also. To do this he split asunder the carcase of the dragon which he had slain, the Great Mother Tiamat, the evilavatarof the Mother-Goddess whose mantle had fallen upon his own shoulders. In other words, he created the world out of the substance of the "giver of life" who was identified with the red earth, which was the elixir of life in the Egyptian story. This is only one more instance of the way in which the same fundamental idea was twisted and distorted in every conceivable manner in the process of rationalization. In one version of the Osirian myth Horus cut off the head of his mother Isis and the moon-god Thoth replaced it with a cow's head, just as in the Indian myth Ganesa's head was replaced by an elephant's.

But Marduk created not only men and animals but heaven and earth also. To do this he split asunder the carcase of the dragon which he had slain, the Great Mother Tiamat, the evilavatarof the Mother-Goddess whose mantle had fallen upon his own shoulders. In other words, he created the world out of the substance of the "giver of life" who was identified with the red earth, which was the elixir of life in the Egyptian story. This is only one more instance of the way in which the same fundamental idea was twisted and distorted in every conceivable manner in the process of rationalization. In one version of the Osirian myth Horus cut off the head of his mother Isis and the moon-god Thoth replaced it with a cow's head, just as in the Indian myth Ganesa's head was replaced by an elephant's.

[375]See Frazer,op. cit., p. 9.

[376]Compare with this the story of Picus the giant who fled to Kirke's isle and there was slain by Helios, the plant μῶλυ springing from his blood (A. B. Cook, "Zeus," p. 241, footnote 15). For a discussion ofmolysee Andrew Lang's "Custom and Myth".

[377]Frazer, p. 6.

[378]In Socotra a tree (dracæna) has been identified with the dragon, and its exudation, "dragon's blood," was called cinnabar, and confused with the mineral (red sulphide of mercury), or simply with red ochre. In the Socotran dragon-myth the elephant takes the hero's rôle, as in the American stories of Chac and Tlaloc (see Chapter II). The wordkinnabariwas applied to the thick matter that issues from the dragon when crushed beneath the weight of the dying elephant during these combats (Pliny, XXXIII, 28 and VIII, 12). The dragon had a passion for elephant's blood. Any thick red earth attributed to such combats was calledkinnabari(Schoff,op. cit., p. 137). This is another illustration of the ancient belief in the identification of blood and red ochre.

[379]"Mythologie des Plantes," Vol. II, p. 101.

[380]In an interesting article on "The Water Lilies of Ancient Egypt" (Ancient Egypt, 1917, Part I, p. 1) Mr. W. D. Spanton has collected a series of illustrations of the symbolic use of these plants. In view of the fact that the papyrus- and lotus-sceptres and the lotus-designs played so prominent a part in the evolution of the Greek thunder-weapon, it is peculiarly interesting to find (in the remote times of the Pyramid Age) lotus designs built up into the form of the double-axe (Spanton's Figs. 28 and 29) and the classicalkeraunos(his Fig. 19).

[381]The Babylonian magic plant to prolong life and renew youth, like the red mineraldidiof the Egyptian story. It was also "the plant of birth" and "the plant of life".

[382]Müller, Quibell, Maspero, and Sethe regard the "round cartouche," which the divine falcon often carries in place of theankh-symbol of life, as a representation of the royal name (R. Weill, "Les Origines de l'Egypte pharaonique,"Annales du Musée Guimet, 1908, p. 111). The analogous Babylonian sign known as "the rod and ring" is described by Ward (op. cit., p. 413) as "the emblem of the sun-god's supremacy," a "symbol of majesty and power, like the tablets of destiny".As it was believed in Egypt and Babylonia that the possession of a name "was equivalent to being in existence," we can regard the object carried by the hawk or vulture as a token of the giving of life and the controlling of destiny. It can probably be equated with the "tablets of destiny" so often mentioned in the Babylonian stories, which the bird godZustole from Bēl and was compelled by the sun-god to restore again. Marduk was given the power to destroy or to create,to speak the word of commandand to control fate, to wield the invincible weapon and to be able to render objects invisible. This form of the weapon, "the word" orlogos, like all the other varieties of the thunder-weapon, could "become flesh," in other words, be an animate form of the god.In Egyptian art it is usually the hawk of Horus (the homologue of Marduk) which carries the "round cartouche," which is thelogos, the tablets of destiny.

As it was believed in Egypt and Babylonia that the possession of a name "was equivalent to being in existence," we can regard the object carried by the hawk or vulture as a token of the giving of life and the controlling of destiny. It can probably be equated with the "tablets of destiny" so often mentioned in the Babylonian stories, which the bird godZustole from Bēl and was compelled by the sun-god to restore again. Marduk was given the power to destroy or to create,to speak the word of commandand to control fate, to wield the invincible weapon and to be able to render objects invisible. This form of the weapon, "the word" orlogos, like all the other varieties of the thunder-weapon, could "become flesh," in other words, be an animate form of the god.

In Egyptian art it is usually the hawk of Horus (the homologue of Marduk) which carries the "round cartouche," which is thelogos, the tablets of destiny.

[383]I quote Professor Canney's notes on the worddūdā'im(Genesis xxx. 14) verbatim: "TheEncyclopædia Biblicasays (s.v. 'Mandrakes'): 'The Hebrew name,dūdā'im, was no doubt popularly associated withdōdīm, דוֹדִים , "love"; but its real etymology (like that of μανδράγορας) is obscure"."The same word is translated 'mandrakes' in Song of Songs vii. 13."Dūdā'īmoccurs also in Jeremiah xxiv, 1, where it is usually translated 'baskets' ('baskets of figs'). Here it is the plural of a worddūd, which means sometimes a 'pot' or 'kettle,' sometimes a 'basket'. The etymology is again doubtful."I should imagine that the words in Jeremiah and Genesis have somehow or other the same etymology, and thatdūdā-īmin Genesis has no real connexion withdōdīm'love'."The meaning 'pot' (dūd, plur.dūdā-īm) is probably more original than 'basket'. Doesdūdā-īmin Genesis and Song of Songs denote some kind of pot or caldron-shaped flower or fruit?"

"The same word is translated 'mandrakes' in Song of Songs vii. 13.

"Dūdā'īmoccurs also in Jeremiah xxiv, 1, where it is usually translated 'baskets' ('baskets of figs'). Here it is the plural of a worddūd, which means sometimes a 'pot' or 'kettle,' sometimes a 'basket'. The etymology is again doubtful.

"I should imagine that the words in Jeremiah and Genesis have somehow or other the same etymology, and thatdūdā-īmin Genesis has no real connexion withdōdīm'love'.

"The meaning 'pot' (dūd, plur.dūdā-īm) is probably more original than 'basket'. Doesdūdā-īmin Genesis and Song of Songs denote some kind of pot or caldron-shaped flower or fruit?"

[384]The Mother Pot is really a fundamental conception of all religious beliefs and is almost world-wide in its distribution.

[385]The fruit of the lotus (which is a form of Hathor) assumes a form (Spanton,op. cit., Fig. 51) that is identical with a common Mediterranean symbol of the Great Mother, called "pomegranate" by Sir Arthur Evans (see my text-fig. 6, p. 179,m), which is a surrogate of the apple and mandrake. The likeness to the Egyptian hieroglyph for a jar of water (text-fig. 6,l) and the goddessNuof the fruit of the poppy (which was closely associated with the mandrake by reason of its soporific properties) may have assisted in the transference of their attributes. The design of the water-plant (text-fig. 7,d) associated with the Nile god may have helped such a confusion and exchange.

[386]"A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians," revised and abridged, 1890, Vol. I, p. 323.

[387]See, for example, Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Worship," Fig. 27, p. 46.

[388]In a Japanese dragon-story the dragon drinks "sake" from pots set out on the shore (as Hathor drank thedidimixture from pots associated with the river); and the intoxicated monster was then slain. From its tail the hero extracted a sword (as in the case of the Western dragons), which is now said to be the Mikado's state sword.

[389]See Gauthier,op. cit., pp. 2 and 3.

[390]Compare the dog-incident in the mandrake story.

[391]Bostock and Riley add the comment that "the peony has no medicinal virtues whatever".

[392]Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. VIII, 1917, p. 16 (in the reprint).

[393]I am indebted to Dr. Alphonse Mingana for this information. But the philological question is discussed in a learned memoir by the late Professor P. J. Veth, "De Leer der Signatuur,"Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, Leiden, Bd. VII, 1894, pp. 75 and 105, and especially the appendix, p. 199et seq., "De Mandragora, Naschrift op het tweede Hoofdstuk der Verhandeling over de Leer der Signatur".

[394]Like thePurpuraand thePterocera, the bryony and other shells and plants.

[395]Larousse, Article "Mandragore".

[396]I have already referred to another version of the churning of the ocean in which Mount Meru was used as a churn-stick and identified with the Great Mother, of whom themandarawas also an avatar.

[397]Which I shall discuss in my forthcoming book on "The Story of the Flood".

[398]The phallic interpretation is certainly a secondary rationalization of an incident which had no such implication originally.

[399]The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis ii. 17) produced fruit the eating of which opened the eyes of Adam and Eve, so that they realized their nakedness: they became conscious of sex and made girdles of fig-leaves (vide supra, p. 155). In other words, the tree of life had the power of love-provoking like the mandrake. In Henderson's "Celtic Dragon Myth" (p. xl) we read: "The berries for which she [Medb] craved were from the Tree of Life, the food of the gods, the eating of which by mortals brings death," and further: "The berries of the rowan tree are the berries of the gods" (p. xliii). I have already suggested the homology between these red berries, the mandrake, and the red ochre of Hathor's elixir. Thus we have another suggestion of the identity of the tree of paradise and the mandrake.

It was the similarity of the periodic phases of the moon and of womankind that originally suggested the identification of the Great Mother with the moon, and originated the belief that the moon was the regulator of human beings.[400]This was the starting-point of the system of astrology and the belief in Fates. The goddess of birth and death controlled and measured the lives of mankind.

But incidentally the moon determined the earliest subdivision of time into months; and the moon-goddess lent the sanctity of her divine attributes to the number twenty-eight.

The sun was obviously the determiner of day and night, and its rising and setting directed men's attention to the east and the west as cardinal points intimately associated with the daily birth and death of the sun. We have no certain clue as to the factors which first brought the north and the south into prominence. But it seems probable that the direction of the river Nile,[401]which was the guide to the orientation of the corpse in its grave, may have been responsible for giving special sanctity to these other cardinal points. The association of the direction of the deceased's head with the position of the original homeland and the eventual home of the dead would have made the south a "divine" region in Predynastic times. For similar reasons the north may have acquired special significance in the Early Dynastic period.[402]

When the north and the south were added to the other two cardinal points the intimate association of the east and the west with the measurement of time would be extended to include all the four cardinal points.[403]Four became a sacred number associated with time-measurement, and especially with the sun.[404]

Many other factors played a part in the establishment of thesanctity of the number four. Professor Lethaby has suggested[405]that the four-sided building was determined by certain practical factors, such as the desirability of fashioning a room to accommodate a woven mat, which was necessarily of a square or oblong form. But the study of the evolution of the early Egyptian grave and tomb-superstructures suggests that the early use of slabs of stone, wooden boards, and mud-bricks helped in the process of determining the four-sided form of house and room.

When, out of these rude beginnings, the vast four-sided pyramid was developed, the direction of its sides was brought into relationship with the four cardinal points; and there was a corresponding development and enrichment of the symbolism of the number four. The form of the divine house of the dead king, who was the god, was thus assimilated to the form of the universe, which was conceived as an oblong area at the four corners of which pillars supported the sky, as the four legs supported the Celestial Cow.

Having invested the numbers four and twenty-eight with special sanctity and brought them into association with the measurement of time, it was a not unnatural proceeding to subdivide the month into four parts and so bring the number seven into the sacred scheme. Once this was done the moon's phases were used to justify and rationalize this procedure, and the length of the week was incidentally brought into association with the moon-goddess, who had sevenavatars, perhaps originally one for each day of the week. At a later period the number seven was arbitrarily brought into relationship with the Pleiades.

The seven Hathors were not only mothers but fates also. Aphrodite was chief of the fates.

The number seven is associated with the pots used by Hathor's priestesses at the celebration inaugurating the new year; and it plays a prominent part in the Story of the Flood. In Babylonia the sanctity of the number received special recognition. When the goddess became the destroyer of mankind, the device seems to have been adopted of intensifying her powers of destruction by representing her at times as seven demons.[406]

But the Great Mother was associated not only with the week and month but also with the year. The evidence at our disposal seems to suggest that the earliest year-count was determined by the annual inundation of the river. The annual recurrence of the alternation of winter and summer would naturally suggest in a vague way such a subdivision of time as the year; but the exact measurement of that period and the fixing of an arbitrary commencement, a New Year's day, were due to other reasons. In the Story of the Destruction of Mankind it is recorded that the incident of the soothing of Hathor by means of the blood-coloured beer (which, as I have explained elsewhere,[407]is a reference to the annual Nile flood) was celebrated annually on New Year's day.

Hathor was regarded in tradition as the cause of the inundation. She slaughtered mankind and so caused the original "flood": in the next phase she was associated with the 7000 jars of red beer; and in the ultimate version with the red-coloured river flood, which in another story was reputed to be "the tears of Isis".

Hathor's day was in fact the date of the commencement of the inundation and of the year; and the former event marked the beginning of the year and enabled men for the first time to measure its duration. Thus Hathor[408]was the measurer of the year, the month, and the week; while her son Horus (Chronus) was the day-measurer.

In Tylor's "Early History of Mankind" (pp. 352et seq.) there is a concise summary of some of the widespread stories of the Fountain of Youth which restores youthfulness to the aged who drank of it or bathed in it. He cites instances from India, Ethiopia, Europe, Indonesia, Polynesia, and America. "The Moslem geographer, Ibn-el-Wardi, places the Fountain of Life in the dark south-western regions of the earth" (p. 353).

The star Sothis rose heliacally on the first day of the Egyptian New Year.[409]Hence it became "the second sun in heaven," and was identified with the goddess of the New Year's Day. The identification of Hathor with this "second sun"[410]may explain why the goddess is said to have entered Re's boat. She took her place as a crown upon his forehead, which afterwards was assumed by her surrogate, the fire-spitting uræus-serpent. When Horus took his mother's place in the myth, he also entered the sun-god's boat, and became the prototype of Noah seeking refuge from the Flood in the ship the Almighty instructed him to make.

In memory of the beer-drinking episode in the Destruction of Mankind, New Year's Day was celebrated by Hathor's priestesses in wild orgies of beer drinking.

This event was necessarily the earliest celebration of an anniversary, and the prototype of all the incidents associated with some special day in the year which have been so many milestones in the historical progress of civilization.

The first measurement of the year also naturally forms the starting-point in the framing of a calendar.

Similar celebrations took place to inaugurate the commencement of the year in all countries which came, either directly or indirectly, under Egyptian influence.

The month Ἀφροδίσια (so-called from the festival of the goddess) began the calendar of Bithynia, Cyprus, and Iasos, just as Hathor's feast was a New Year's celebration in Egypt.

In the celebration of these anniversaries the priestesses of Aphrodite worked themselves up in a wild state of frenzy; and the term ὑστήρια[411]became identified with the state of emotional derangement associated with such orgies. The common belief that the term "hysteria" is derived directly from the Greek word for uterus is certainly erroneous. The word ὑστήρια was used in the same sense as Ἀφροδίσια, that is as a synonym for the festivals of the goddess. The "hysteria" was the name for the orgy in celebration of the goddess on New Year's day: then it was applied to the condition produced by these excesses; and ultimately it was adopted in medicine to apply to similar emotional disturbances. Thus both the terms "hysteria" and "lunacy"[412]are intimately associated with the earliest phases in the moon-goddess's history; and their survival in modern medicine is a striking tribute to the strong hold of effete superstition in this branch of the diagnosis and treatment of disease.[413]

I have already referred to the association of Artemis with the portal of birth and rebirth. As the guardian of the door her Roman representative Diana and her masculineavatarDianus or Janus gave the name to the commencement of the year. The Great Mother not only initiated the measurement of the year, but she (or her representative) lent her name to the opening of the year in various countries.

But the story of the Destruction of Mankind has preserved the record not only of the circumstances which were responsible for originating the measurement of the year and the making of a calendar, but also of the materials out of which were formed the mythical epochs preserved in the legends of Greece and India and many other countries further removed from the original centre of civilization. When the elaboration of the early story involved the destruction of mankind, it became necessary to provide some explanation of the continued existence of man upon the earth. This difficulty was got rid of by creating a new race of men from the fragments of the old or from the clay into which they had been transformed (supra, p. 196). In course of time thissecondarycreation became the basis of the familiar story of theoriginalcreation of mankind. But the story also became transformed in other ways. Different versions of the process of destruction were blended into one narrative, and made into a series of catastrophes and a succession of acts of creation. I shall quote (from Mr. T. A. Joyce's "Mexican Archæology," p. 50) one example of these series of mythical epochs or world ages to illustrate the method of synthesis:—

When all was dark Tezcatlipoca transformed himself into the sun to give light to men.

1. This sun terminated in the destruction of mankind, including a race of giants, byjaguars.

2. The second sun was Quetzalcoatl, and his age terminated in a terriblehurricane, during which mankind was transformed into monkeys.

3. The third sun was Tlaloc, and the destruction came by arain of fire.

4. The fourth was Chalchintlicue, and mankind was finally destroyed by adeluge, during which they became fishes.

The first episode is clearly based upon the story of the lioness-form of Hathor destroying mankind: the second is the Babylonian story of Tiamat, modified by such Indian influences as are revealed in theRamayana: the third is inspired by the Saga of the Winged Disk; and the fourth by the story of the Deluge.

Similar stories of world ages have been preserved in the mythologies of Eastern Asia, India, Western Asia, and Greece, and no doubt were derived from the same original source.

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