CHAPTER IV.

THE BEE, THE WASP, THE FLY, THE GNAT, THE MOSQUITO, THE HORSEFLY, AND THE CICADA.

SUMMARY.

The bees and the Açvinâu.--Madhumakshas.--Indras, Krishnas, and Vishnus as Mâdhavas.--The bees and Madhuhan.--Beowulf.--The god of thunder and the bees.--Vishnus as a bee.--The _ocymum nigrum_.--The bees as nurses.--Melissai.--Selênê as Melissa.--Souls as bees.--The bees born in the bull's dead body.--The bee according to Finnish mythology.--The bees descended from paradise as part of the mind of God.--Bee's-wax causes light.--The Bienenstock.--The madhumati kaçâ.--The bees as winds.--Apis and avis.--The mother of the bees.--The young hero as a bee.--The fairy moon as a gnat.--The fly's palace.--The flies bartered for good cattle.--Intelligence of the bee.--The wasp as a judge.--The fly, the gnat, and the mosquito.--The louse and the flea.--The ant and the fly.--The ant and the cicada.--The cicadæ and the muses.--Tithon as a cicada.--The sparrow and the cicada.--The cicada and the cuckoo.

I find the bee in the Vedic mythology, where the Açvinâu "carry to the bees the sweet honey,"[345] where the horses of the Açvinâu, compared to "ambrosial swans, innocent, with golden wings, which waken with the dawn, swim in the water, and enjoy themselves, cheerful," are invoked to come, "like the fly of honey," _i.e._, the bee, "to the juices."[346] The gods Indras, Krishnas, and Vishnus, on account of their name Mâdhavas (that is, born of madhus, belonging to or in connection with it), were also compared in India to bees; the bee, as making and carrying honey (madhukaras), is especially the moon; as sucking it, it is especially the sun. The name of bhramaras or wanderer given in India to the bee, is as applicable to the sun as to the moon. In the _Mahâbhâratam_[347] it is said that the bees kill the destroyer of honey (madhuhan). In the chapter on the bear, we saw how the bear was killed by the bees (cfr. the name Beowulf, explained as the wolf of bees), and how in India it personified Vishnus. Now it is not uninteresting to learn how Madhuhan, originally the destroyer of the madhu, became a name of Krishnas or Vishnus in the _Mahâbhâratam_ and in the _Bhâgavata P._; of madhu (honey) was made a demon, killed by the god (sun and moon, sun and cloud, are rivals; the solar bear destroys the beehive of the moon and the clouds).[348] Vishnus (as Haris, the sun and the moon) is sometimes represented as a bee upon a lotus-leaf, and Krishnas with an azure bee on his forehead. When the Hindoos take honey out of a hive with a rod, they always hold in one hand the plant toolsy (ocymum nigrum), sacred to Krishnas (properly the black one), because one of the girls beloved of Krishnas was transformed into it.[349]

In the legend of Ibrâhîm Ibn Edhem, in the _Tuti-Name_[350] we read of a bee that carries crumbs of bread away from the king's table to take them to a blind sparrow. Melíai and Mélissai, or bees, were the names of the nymphs who nursed Zeus; the priestesses of the nurse-goddess Dêmêtêr were also called Mélissai.

According to Porphyrios[351] the moon (Selênê) was also called a bee (Melissa). Selênê was represented drawn by two white horses or two cows; the horn of these cows seems to correspond to the sting of the bee. The souls of the dead were supposed to come down from the moon upon the earth in the forms of bees. Porphyrios adds that, as the moon is the culminating point of the constellation of the bull (as a bull herself), it is believed that bees are born in the bull's carcase. Hence the name of _bougeneis_ given by the ancients to bees. Dionysos (the moon), after having been torn to pieces in the form of a bull, was born again, according to those who were initiated in the Dionysian mysteries, in the form of a bee; hence the name of Bougenês also given to Dionysos, according to Plutarch. Three hundred golden bees were represented, in conjunction with a bull's head, in the tomb of Childeric, the king of the Franks. Sometimes, instead of the lunar bull we find the solar lion; and the lion in connection with bees occurred in the mysteries of Mithras (and in the legend of Samson).

According to the Finnish mythology of Tomasson, quoted by Menzel,[352] the bee is implored to fly far away over the moon, over the sun, near to the axis of the constellation of the waggon, into the dwelling of the Creator god, and carry upon its wings and in its mouth health and honey to the good, and wounds of fire and iron to the wicked.

According to a popular belief (which is in accordance with the legend of the Cerkessians), the bees alone of all animals descended from paradise.[353] Virgil, too, in the fourth book of the _Georgics_, celebrates the divine nature of the bee, which is a part of the mind of God, never dies, and alone among animals ascends alive into heaven (in popular Hellenic, Latin, and German tradition, the bee personifies the soul, and this being considered immortal, the bee, too, is supposed to escape death):--

"Esse apibus partem divinæ mentis et haustus Æthereos dixere: Deumque namque ire per omnes Terrasque, tractusque maris coelumque profundum. Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum, Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas; Scilicet huc reddi deinde ac resoluta referri Omnia; nec morti esse locum; sed viva volare Sideris in numerum atque alto succedere coelo."

The wax of bees, because it produces light, and is, moreover, used in churches,[354] must also have had its part in increasing the divine prestige of bees, and the belief in their immortality, as being those that feed the fire. According to a writing of 1482, cited by Du Cange, the sacred disease or _ignis sacer_ (pestilential erysipelas) was cured by wax dissolved in water.

In Germany the death of their master is announced to the bees in the little stick round which the honey is made in the hive. The hive or the Bienenstock, participates in the divine nature of the bees, and calls my attention to the madhumatî kaçâ or madhoh kaçâ of the _Rigvedas_, and of the _Atharvavedas_, attributed to the Açvinâu, and destined to soften the sacrificial butter, which is of a nature similar to the _caduceus_ of Mercury, and to the magical rod, born of all the various elements and of none in particular, daughter of the wind, and sometimes perhaps itself the wind; the _anima_, the soul (the bee), is a breath, a breeze, a wind (anemos, anilas), which changes its place, but never dies; it collects and scatters honey and perfumes, and passes away, changeful as the American flybird that sucks honey, the continual beating of whose wings resembles the buzzing of a bee; the _apis_ and _avis_ are assimilated. In Du Cange,[355] I find an oration to the mother of the bees, to call back the dispersed ones of her family, conceived thus:--"Adjuro te, Mater aviorum per Deum regem coelorum et per ilium Redemptorem Filium Dei te adjuro, ut non te altum levare, nec longe volare, sed quam plus cito potest ad arborem venire; ibi te allocas cum omni tua genera, vel cum socia tua, ibi habeo bono vaso parato, ut vos ibi, in Dei nomine, laboretis," &c.

In the twenty-second story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, a bee transforms itself into a young hero, in order to prove to the old man that he is able to fetch back his son, who has remained three years under the instruction of the devil (the moon enables the old sun to find the young one; it helps the sun to cheat the devil of night). In the same story it is in the form of a gnat that the guardian-fairy perches herself upon the young hero, whom his father has to recognise amongst twelve heroes that bear the greatest resemblance to one another. In the forty-eighth story of the fifth book, the gnat distinguishes, among the twelve maidens that resemble each other extremely, the one whom the young hero loves, that is, the daughter of the priest, whom the devil had taken possession of, because her father had once said to her, "The devil take you." This indicatory gnat occurs in numerous fairy tales, and discharges the office of the fairy moon; this is the guide and messenger of the hero. We have already seen the moon as a hostess. In the thirty-first story of the fourth book of _Afanassieff_, we have the fly that entertains in its palace (according to the sixteenth story of the third book, a horse's head) the louse, the flea, the mosquito, the little mouse, the lizard, the fox, the hare, and the wolf, until the bear comes up and crushes with one paw the whole palace of the fly, and all the mythical nocturnal animals that it contains. We have also seen the hero who barters his bull for a vegetable which brings him fortune, and we have seen above the bee that is born of the dead bull. In the seventh story of the third book of _Afanassieff_, the third brother, supposed to be foolish, collects, on the contrary, flies and mosquitoes in two sacks, which he suspends upon a lofty oak-tree, where he barters them for good cattle (the moon is the pea of good fortune, the giver of abundance). We know that the moon was represented as the judge of the departed in the kingdom of the dead, and as an omniscient fairy. The industrious bees have a singular reputation for superior intelligence.[356] In the thirteenth fable of the third book of _Phædrus_, proof of the same wisdom is given by the wasp, who sits in the tribunal as a conscientious judge between the drones and the working bees in regard to the honey which the bees had collected and stored up on a lofty oak-tree, and to which the drones had pretensions.

The fly, the gnat, and the mosquito, though small, annoy, and sometimes cause the death of, the most terrible animals; the beetle gets upon the eagle to escape the hare; the hare allures the elephant and the lion into the water;[357] the moon allures the sun into the night and the winter; the moon overcomes the sun, devoid of rays; the sun is deprived of its rays, the hero loses his strength with his hair; the fly alights upon the bald head of the old man, and annoys him in every way; the old man, wishing to strike the fly, only slaps himself. In _Phædrus_, again, we find the fly quarrelling with the rustic ant; the fly boasts of partaking of the offerings given to the gods, of dwelling amidst the altars, of flying through every temple, of sitting upon the heads of kings, of the kisses of beautiful women, and that without the necessity of submitting to any labour. The ant answers the fly by referring to the certain approach of winter, during which the ant, who had worked hard, has abundant provisions, and lives, whilst the fly dies of cold and starvation. Moreover, the ant says to it in one expressive verse--

"Æstate me lacessis; cum bruma est, siles."

This same discussion is reported, with more semblance of truth, by other fabulists, as having happened between the shrill and inert cicada and the silent and laborious ant.

In the preceding chapter we saw the musical beetle. We are tempted to figure the bee as a musician, from the form of the bee being sometimes attributed to the Hellenic Muses and Apollo, and the name "bee of Delphi" being given to the Pythoness (as a cloud). But according to Plato, the Muses transformed into cicadæ the men who amused themselves by singing, and were so absorbed in that occupation they forgot to eat and to drink. If this myth be not a satirical invention of Plato's against poets, the bees as Muses, and those who became cicadæ on account of the Muses, should enter into the same mythical family. According to Isidorus, the cicadæ are born of the saliva of the cuckoo; this belief figuratively expresses the passage from spring to the summer season, to the season of the harvest, to the season of abundance, in which, according to a Tuscan proverb among thieves, he is a fool who cannot make his own fortune.[358] According to Hesüchios, the ass was called at Cyprus by the name of a mature cicada (tettix prôinos); the cicada (as the sun) dies, and the ass (as the night or winter) appears. According to Philê,[359] the cicadæ feed upon the eastern dew, perhaps in reminiscence of the Hellenic myth which makes the sun Tithon the lover of the aurora. The sun feeds upon the ambrosia, and is therefore immortal; but he has not the gift of eternal youth; his members dry up; after having sung all through the laborious noisy day, through the laborious noisy summer, he expires; for this reason the Hellenic myth represented the aged Tithon as transformed into a cicada.[360] The cicada is born again in spring of the cuckoo's saliva, and in the morning of the dew of the aurora; the two accounts correspond with one another. The cicada of summer appears, and the cuckoo of spring disappears; hence the popular belief that the cicadæ wage war to the death with the cuckoo, attacking it under its wings; hence it is supposed that the cuckoo devours its own nurse; the aurora devours the night, the spring devours the winter.

FOOTNOTES:

[345] Madhu priyam bharatho yat saradbhyah; _Rigv._ i. 112, 21.

[346] Hansâso ye vâm madhumanto asridho hiranyaparnâ uhuva ushar-budhah udapruto mandino mandinispriço madhvo na makshah savanâni gachathah; _Rigv._ iv. 45, 4. Here _makshas_, in conjunction with _madhvas_, gives us the sense of _madhumakshas_ and _madhumakshika_, which means bee, and not fly, as it was interpreted by other translators, and by the Petropolitan Dictionary, whose learned editors will be all the more induced to make this slight correction in the new _Verbesserungen_, as in this hymn, as well as in the hymn i. 112, the bees are considered in connection with the Açvinâu.

[347] iii. 1333.

[348] The god of thunder (or Indras), in opposition to the bees, is also found in a legend of the Cerkessians quoted by Menzel. The god destroys them; but one of them hides under the shirt of the mother of God, and of this one all the other bees are born.--According to the popular superstition of Normandy, in _De Nore_, quoted by Menzel, the bees (the same is said of the wasps and the horseflies) are revengeful when maltreated, and carry happiness into a house when treated well. In Russia it is considered sacrilege to kill a bee.

[349] Cfr. Addison, _Indian Reminiscences_.

[350] ii. 112.

[351] Perì ton en Odüsseia tôn Nümphôn antron.

[352] Die Bienen gebeten werden: "Biene, du Weltvöglein, flieg in die Weite, über neun Seen, über den Mond, über die Sonne, hinter des Himmelssterne, neben der Achse des Wagengestirns; flieg in den Keller des Schöpfers, in des Allmächtigen Vorrathskammer, bring Arznei mit deinen Flügeln, Honig in deinem Schnabel, für böse Eisenwunden und Feuerwunden;" _Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre_. In this work, to which I refer the reader, Menzel treats at length of the worship of bees, and of honey.

[353] In the Engadine in Switzerland, too, it is believed that the souls of men emigrate from the world and return into it in the forms of bees. The bees are there considered messengers of death; cfr. Rochholtz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_, i. 147, 148.--When some one dies, the bee is invoked as follows, almost as if requesting the soul of the departed to watch for ever over the living:--

"Bienchen, unser Herr ist todt, Verlass mich nicht in meiner Noth."

In Germany, people are unwilling to buy the bees of a dead man, it being believed that they will die or disappear immediately after him:--"Stirbt der Hausherr, so muss sein Tod nicht bloss dem Vieh im Stall und den Bienen im Stocke angesagt werden;" Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 601.--In the East, as is well-known, it was the custom to bury great men in a tomb sprinkled over with honey or beeswax as a symbol of immortality.

[354] Der Adel der Bienen ist vom Paradies entsprossen und wegen der Sünde des Menschen kamen sie von da heraus und Gott schenkte ihnen seinen Segen, und deshalb ist die Messe nicht zu singen ohne Wachs; Leo, _Malberg. Glossæ_, 1842.

[355] _Baluz. Capitulor._ tom. ii. p. 663, in oratione ad revocandum examen apum dispersum ex Cod. MS. S. Gallï.

[356] In _Du Cange_: "Apis significat formam virginitatis, sive sapientiam, in malo, invasorem."--_Papias M. S. Bitur_; ex illo forsitan officii Ecclesiast. in festo S. Ceciliæ: "Cecilia famula tua, Domine, quasi Apis tibi argumentosa deservit," &c.

[357] Cfr. the chapters on the Hare, the Lion, and the Elephant. The louse and the flea have the same mythical nature as the mosquito and the fly.--In the ninth Esthonian story, the son of the thunder, by means of a louse, obliges the thunder-god to scratch his head for a moment, and thus to let fall the weapon of thunder, which is instantly carried off to hell. The lice that fall down from the head of the witch combed by the good maiden, or from that of the Madonna combed by the wicked maiden, have already been mentioned. The Madonna that combs the child is, moreover, a subject of traditional Christian painting.--In the fifth story of the first book of the _Pentamerone_, we read of a monstrous louse. The king of Altamonte fattens a louse so much that it grows to the size of a wether. He then has it flayed, orders the skin to be dirtied, and promises to give his daughter to wife to whoever guesses what skin this is. The ogre alone guesses, and carries the maiden off, whom seven heroes afterwards go to deliver towards the aurora "subito che l'Aucielle (the birds) gridaro: Viva lo Sole."

[358]

"Quando la cicala il c. batte L'ha del m. chi non si fa la parte."

[359] _Peri Zôôn idiotêtos_, xxiv., with the additions of Joachim Camerarius.

[360] Plutarch, in the _Life of Sylla_, cites among the prognostics of the civil war between Marius and Sylla, the incident of a sparrow lacerating a cicada, of which it left part in the temple of Bellona, and carried part away.