changed by the prevalence of theological ideas into an artfully systematised cosmogony. But originally nothing else can have been understood by the Opener than the firstborn brother of the pair, Sun and Night. Another mythic trait which we know of this Opener testifies to his solar signification in the myths on which the Phenician cosmogony was based. Philo Herennius’ authority, who calls the opener _Chrysôr_, says of him: ‘He was the first man who fared in ships.’ This trait, which is far from fitting into the frame of the portrait of Hephaestus presents a very attractive and simple conception held by the men of the myth-forming age. We generally find in myths of the rising and setting of the sun, that the view which lives longest and conforms most naturally to the nature of the phenomenon is that the rising sun ascends out of the river or the sea, and that the setting sun sinks into the water. The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day _Is crept into the bosom of the sea_, as Shakespeare says,[269] or as a German poet, feeling an echo of the meaning of the old myth, speaks still more expressively: ‘—that the sun was only A lovely woman, who the old sea-god Out of convenience married; All the day long she joyously wander’d In the high heavens, deck’d out with purple And glitt’ring diamonds, And all-beloved and all-admired By every mortal creature, And every mortal creature rejoicing With her sweet glance’s light and warmth; But in the evening, impell’d, all-disconsolate, Once more returneth she home To the moist house and desert arms Of her grey-headed spouse.’[270] In a Swedish popular song, a King of England has two daughters, the elder _black as night_ (Night itself); the other, younger, _beautiful and brilliant like the day_ (Day itself). The latter goes forward followed by the other, who comes and throws her into the sea.[271] In this popular story, also, the sunset is viewed as a fall into the sea; but one new feature is here added, viz., that the two sisters fight, and the black one, the dark Night, throws the brilliant Sun into the sea. In the morning the Sun that had fallen into the sea rises up again out of her night’s quarters. The Roman poet expresses the idea ‘Never did a fairer lady see _the sun arise_,’ by the words: Ne qua femina pulchrior Clarum _ab Oceano diem_ Viderit _venientem_;[272]