Note below — Chapter XIV · PART II POPULAR BELIEF

151 —τὸν ἀθάνατοι φιλέεσκον· τοὔνεκα καὶ πηγαῖς λοῦσαν ἐν ἀθανάτοις (we are reminded of the ἀθάνατος πηγή out of which Glaukos drew ἀθανασία: Sch. Pl., Rp. 611 C), καὶ μακάρων νήσους βάλλον ἐς ἀθανάτων, Ep. 366, 4 ff. There are two fountains in Hades, that (to the left) of Lethe, and (to the right) of Mnemosyne, from which cold water flows (l. 5): from the latter the guardians will give the suppliant soul water to drink καὶ τότ’ ἔπειτ’ ἄλλοισι μεθ’ ἡρώεσσιν ἀνάξει: sepulchral tablet from Petelia (about third century B.C.), IG. Sic. et It. 638 (Ep. 1037; Harrison, Proleg. 661 ff.). Mutilated copies of the same original have been found at Eleuthernai in Crete, BCH. 1893–4, p. 126, 629; cf. above, chap. xii, n. 62.—This, in fact, is the “water of life” so often mentioned in the folk-lore of many countries; cf. Grimm, D. Märchen, n. 97, with Notes iii, p. 178, 328; Dieterich, Abraxas, 97 f.; Nekyia, 94, 99. This is the fountain from which Psyche also has to bring water to Venus (Apul., M. vi, 13–14); and it is certain that in the original Psyche-story it was not the water of the Styx that was intended (as Apul. supposes, but of what use would that be?), but the water of the fountain of life in Hades. It is a speaking fountain, vocales aquae (Apul. vi, 14), and, in fact, precisely the same as that mentioned in a unique legend of Herakles given in [Justin.] πρὸς Ἕλληνας 3 (p. 636, 7, ed. Harnack, Ber. Berl. Ak. 1896); Herakles is called ὁ ὄρη πηδήσας (? πιδύσας, “making it gush forth,” would be more acceptable) ἵνα λάβῃ ὕδωρ ἔναρθρον φωνὴν ἀποδιδόν. Herakles makes the mountain gush forth by striking the speaking water out of the rock. This is exactly paralleled in the modern Greek stories given by Hahn, Gr. u. alb. Märchen, ii, p. 234; the Lamia who guards the water of life (τὸ ἀθάνατο νερό, the phrase often appears in these stories; cf. also Schmidt, Griech. Märchen, p. 233) “strikes with a hammer on the rock till it opens and she can draw the water of life”. This is the same ancient fairy tale motif. The proper home of this water of life is probably the lower world, the world of either death or immortality, though this is not expressly stated in the Herakles legend nor in the fairy tale of Glaukos who discovered the ἀθάνατος πηγή (but probably also in the magic country of the West. Thus Alexander the Great finds the ἀθάνατος πηγή at the entrance to the μακάρων χώρα acc. to Ps.-Callisth. ii, 39 ff.; his story shows clear reminiscences of the Glaukos tale, its prototype, in c. 39 fin., 41, 2).—The Orphic (and Pythagorean) mythology of Hades (see above: chap. xi, n. 96; chap. xii, nn. 37–8; chap. vii, n. 21) then proceeded to make use of the folk-tale for their own purposes. In Ep. 658 the prayer also refers to the Orphic fable (CIG. 5772) ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ δοίη σοι ἄναξ ἐνέρων Ἀϊδωνεύς, and 719, 11, ψυχῇ διψώσῃ ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ μεταδός. They mean: may you live on in complete consciousness. (The same thing in the negative: the dead man dwells ἅμα παισὶ θεῶν καὶ λήθης οὐκ ἔπιεν λιβάδα, 414, 10: οὐκ ἔπιον Λήθης Ἀϊδωνίδος ἔσχατον ὕδωρ, so that I can perceive the mourning of the living for my loss, 204, 11. καὶ θνήσκων γὰρ ἔχω νόον οὔτινα βαιόν, 334, 5.—Poetical allusion in AP. vii, 346: σὺ δ’ εἰ θέμις, ἐν φθιμένοισι τοῦ Λήθης ἐπ’ ἐμοὶ μή τι πίῃς ὕδατος.—Perhaps something of the sort already occurs in Pindar; see above, chap. xii, n. 37.)