« revenir au centre, par la restauration de l’« état primordial », et atteindre l’« Arbre de Vie », c’est recouvrer ce « sens de l’éternité ». ...»"to come again to the centre, through a restoration of the 'Primordial State', and to attain to 'the Tree of Life', is to recover the " sense of eternity " .”
- René Guénon Le Symbolisme de la Croix (1931) lf.42.
The Twins and the Tree
Now we've gone a long way about to see that we should hope to find something in the lore of Castor and Polydeucesthat links them to the axis mundi. And
indeed we meet them at least twice sitting in trees. In the aftermath
of the fight at the “Boar’s Grave” as Aristomenes was following the
fleeing Spartans we read in Pausanias' Guide ... 4.16.5
ἔνθα δὴ καὶ παρ᾽ ἀχράδα πεφυκυῖάν που τοῦ πεδίου, παρὰ ταύτην Ἀριστομένην οὐκ εἴα παραθεῖν ὁ μάντις Θέοκλος: καθέζεσθαι γὰρ τοὺς Διοσκούρους ἔφασκεν ἐπὶ τῇ ἀχράδι. Ἀριστομένης δὲ εἴκων τῷ θυμῷ καὶ οὐκ ἀκροώμενος τὰ πάντα τοῦ μάντεως ὡς κατὰ τὴν ἀχράδα ἐγίνετο, ἀπόλλυσι τὴν ἀσπίδα, Λακεδαιμονίοις τε τὸ ἁμάρτημα τοῦ Ἀριστομένους παρέσχεν αὐτῶν ἀποσωθῆναί τινας ἐκ τῆς φυγῆς: διέτριψε γὰρ τὴν ἀσπίδα ἀνευρεῖν πειρώμενος.
There was a wild pear-tree growing in the plain, beyond which Theoclus the seer forbade him to pass, for he said that the Dioscuri were seated on the tree. Aristomenes, in the heat of passion, did not hear all that the seer said, and when he reached the tree, lost his shield, and his disobedience gave to the Lacedaemonians an opportunity for some to escape from the rout. For he lost time trying to recover his shield.
This was long after Castor and Polydeuces were meant to be dead.
And in Pindar's Tenth Nemean Ode (awend. Diane Arnson Svarlien):
And
then there is the whisper of a tradition it seems that Helen and her
brothers and their mother all hung themselves. Thus Euripides in his
play Helen writes that they killed themselves:This oak is a token the axis mundi, and the two lads in the tree are the same as the two snakes that go about the caduceus, or the two dragons that Lludd found at Oxford.μεταμειβόμενοι δ᾽ ἐναλλὰξ ἁμέραν τὰν μὲν παρὰ πατρὶ φίλῳ
Δὶ νέμονται, τὰν δ᾽ ὑπὸ κεύθεσι γαίας ἐν γυάλοις Θεράπνας,
πότμον ἀμπιπλάντες ὁμοῖον: ἐπεὶ
τοῦτον, ἢ πάμπαν θεὸς ἔμμεναι οἰκεῖν τ᾽ οὐρανῷ,
[110] εἵλετ᾽ αἰῶνα φθιμένου Πολυδεύκης Κάστορος ἐν πολέμῳ.
τὸν γὰρ Ἴδας ἀμφὶ βουσίν πως χολωθεὶς ἔτρωσεν χαλκέας λόγχας ἀκμᾷ.
ἀπὸ Ταϋγέτου πεδαυγάζων ἴδεν Λυγκεὺς δρυὸς ἐν στελέχει
ἡμένους. κείνου γὰρ ἐπιχθονίων πάντων γένετ᾽ ὀξύτατον
ὄμμα.
Changing places in alternation, the Dioscuri spend
one day beside their dear father Zeus,
and the other beneath the depths of the earth in the hollows of Therapne,
each fulfilling an equal destiny,
since Polydeuces preferred this life
to being wholly a god and living in heaven, when Castor was killed in battle.
For Idas, angered for some reason about his cattle, stabbed him with the point of his bronze spear. Looking out from Taÿgetus, Lynceus saw them seated in the hollow of an oak (δρυὸς );
for that man had the sharpest eye of all who live on earth.
ΕΛΕΝΗ
οἱ Τυνδάρειοι δ᾿ εἰσὶν ἢ οὐκ εἰσὶν κόροι;
ΤΕΥΚΡΟΣ
τεθνᾶσι κοὐ τεθνᾶσι· δύο δ᾿ ἐστὸν λόγω.
ΕΛΕΝΗ
πότερος ὁ κρείσσων; ὦ τάλαιν᾿ ἐγὼ κακῶν.
ΤΕΥΚΡΟΣ
ἄστροις σφ᾿ ὁμοιωθέντε φάσ᾿ εἶναι θεώ.140
ΕΛΕΝΗ
καλῶς ἔλεξας τοῦτο· θάτερον δὲ τί;
ΤΕΥΚΡΟΣ
σφαγαῖς ἀδελφῆς οὕνεκ᾿ ἐκπνεῦσαι βίον.
Helen
Are the sons of Tyndareus alive or not?
Teucer
Dead, not dead: there are two accounts.
Helen
Which is the better one? Oh how miserable these woes make me!
Teucer
That they have been made like stars and are gods.
Helen
That at least is good news. But what is the other story?
Teucer
That they killed themselves because of their sister.
[Euripides. Helen. Phoenician Women. Orestes. ouset and awent by David Kovacs. Loeb Classical Library 11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.]
And
although we don't hear of their
hanging as such, it is a likelihood as we have already marked this as
being said to have happwned to Helen on Rhodes and Euripides has Leda
their mother
hang herself - (βρόχος is a noose):
ΕΛΕΝΗ
ἀπωλόμεσθα· Θεστιὰς δ᾿ ἔστιν κόρη;
ΤΕΥΚΡΟΣ
Λήδαν ἔλεξας; οἴχεται θανοῦσα δή.
ΕΛΕΝΗ
οὔ πού νιν Ἑλένης αἰσχρὸν ὤλεσεν κλέος;
ΤΕΥΚΡΟΣ
φασίν, βρόχῳ γ᾿ ἅψασαν εὐγενῆ δέρην.
Helen
I am undone! Is Thestias’ daughter alive?
Teucer
Do you mean Leda? She is dead and gone.
Helen
What? Killed by Helen’s shame?
Teucer
So they say: she put a noose about her fair neck.
ΕΛΕΝΗ
ἀπωλόμεσθα· Θεστιὰς δ᾿ ἔστιν κόρη;
ΤΕΥΚΡΟΣ
Λήδαν ἔλεξας; οἴχεται θανοῦσα δή.
ΕΛΕΝΗ
οὔ πού νιν Ἑλένης αἰσχρὸν ὤλεσεν κλέος;
ΤΕΥΚΡΟΣ
φασίν, βρόχῳ γ᾿ ἅψασαν εὐγενῆ δέρην.
Helen
I am undone! Is Thestias’ daughter alive?
Teucer
Do you mean Leda? She is dead and gone.
Helen
What? Killed by Helen’s shame?
Teucer
So they say: she put a noose about her fair neck.
And also when we consider that both Jesus and saint Peter are only later mythic reflexes...
Above: From Marija Gimbutas' Ancient Symbolism in Lithuanian Folk Art (1958) lf.69.
We have already spoken of the tradition of Gemini being two upside down twins [here], and two upside down twins hanging in a tree might be thought of here.
The upside down Gemini also give us the (hopefully) well-known token of Hercules and the Cercopes (Κέρκωπες). Hercules here could be for the sun in Gemini or for the neighbouring star-sign of Orion, but Heracles swapped places with Atlas for a time and could therefore betoken the axis-mundi himself.
 |
| By Velvet - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16176213 |
We thus come to the well known Tarot trump of "The Hanged Man". He is thus to be understood as an half of Gemini. The picture below is from the so-called "Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards" as they have the badges of those kindreds upon them. It is thought to be the work of Bonifacio Bembo and his family, and were made for Bianca Maria Visconti (1425–1468), and her husband, the condottiero Francesco Sforza (1401–1466). In Italy this card was called Il Traditore, The Bewrayer or Traitor, but the Latin that this is from, namely Traditor, can mean "teacher" as well as "traitor", as it is from the verb tradere which means literally "to hand over". The word tradition comes from the same roots.
Those that say this is Saint Peter "hung" or crucified upside down outside Rome on the Janiculum Hill (hallowed to twofold Janus) are not saying anything that goes against this as Peter is himself in the stead of one of the old Heavenly Twins which lives on in all those pairings of Peter and Paul. And we should call to mind here that it was to Peter that Jesus gave "the keys to the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 16:19) as a heavenly door-ward. And does not the gallows in the above Tarot trump look the same as a door-frame?
And this brings us to the sign for Gemini which from the time of Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia has been understood as showing the Twins standing side by side, one arm resting on the other's shoulders. It thus matches the layout of the stars of the sign called Gemini in the sky if you link up the dots. But what if what it actually shows is a door frame? And it became a sign of the Heavenly Twins only from them being the wards of this seeming doorway in heaven?
Now
the twin-stars of the star-sign of Gemini (α and β Geminorum) are
linked to Castor (α) and Polydeuces (β). But this is only from the
Spartan twins being evened with the twin gods of Babylonia, namely Lugalgirra and Meslamtaea/Maslamtaea with whom these stars were linked (see the so-called "Astrolabe B" tablet). Lugalgirra and Meslamtaea/Maslamtaea were however first and foremostly "guard-gods" (W. G. Lambert "Lugalirra and Meslamtaea" in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 7, (1987-1990) lf.145) and whose likenesses were put either side of earthly door-ways to ward them (see F. A. M. Wiggerman Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts
(1992) lf. 59). They would seem to be shown as fighting men and
holding axes. And it would seem that Castor and Polydeuces were at
times thought of in the same way. At least in Sparta the Dioscuri are linked to the so-called dokana (δόκανα) which is a kind of doorway of some kind and whereon they are shown as two snakes (see below from the 5th.
Century B.C.E. ).
 |
| Above: the Spartan "dokana" . A token of the Dioscuri with twin snakes from a 5th. Century B.C.E. frieze from Sparta. |
[If the dokana minneth some of the torii of Japan this is little wonder for the torii, as the Chinese paifang, stem from the तोरण toraṇa of India. The English evenling is indeed our old churchyard lychgates.]
It is worth minning here that Dante in the Divine Comedy ascends to the empyrean realms and God by way of Gemini. Paradiso 22:
tu non avresti in tanto tratto e messo
nel foco il dito, in quant’ io vidi ’l segno
che segue il Tauro e fui dentro da esso.
O glorïose stelle, o lume pregno
di gran virtù, dal quale io riconosco
tutto, qual che si sia, il mio ingegno,
Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire
And drawn it out again, before I saw
The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it.
O glorious stars, O light impregnated
With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge
All of my genius, whatsoe’er it be,
nel foco il dito, in quant’ io vidi ’l segno
che segue il Tauro e fui dentro da esso.
O glorïose stelle, o lume pregno
di gran virtù, dal quale io riconosco
tutto, qual che si sia, il mio ingegno,
Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire
And drawn it out again, before I saw
The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it.
O glorious stars, O light impregnated
With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge
All of my genius, whatsoe’er it be,
(Longfellow)
And passing then onwards and upwards Paradiso 23:
vid’ i’ sopra migliaia di lucerne
un sol che tutte quante l’accendea,
come fa ’l nostro le viste superne;
e per la viva luce trasparea
la lucente sustanza tanto chiara
33nel viso mio, che non la sostenea.
Oh Bëatrice, dolce guida e cara!
Ella mi disse: «Quel che ti sobranza
è virtù da cui nulla si ripara.
Quivi è la sapïenza e la possanza
ch’aprì le strade tra ’l cielo e la terra,
onde fu già sì lunga disïanza».
un sol che tutte quante l’accendea,
come fa ’l nostro le viste superne;
e per la viva luce trasparea
la lucente sustanza tanto chiara
33nel viso mio, che non la sostenea.
Oh Bëatrice, dolce guida e cara!
Ella mi disse: «Quel che ti sobranza
è virtù da cui nulla si ripara.
Quivi è la sapïenza e la possanza
ch’aprì le strade tra ’l cielo e la terra,
onde fu già sì lunga disïanza».
"I saw a sun above a thousand lamps;
it kindled all of them as does our sun
kindle the sights above us here on earth;
and through its living light the glowing Substance
appeared to me with such intensity—
my vision lacked the power to sustain it.
O Beatrice, sweet guide and dear! She said
to me: “What overwhelms you is a Power
against which nothing can defend itself.
This is the Wisdom and the Potency
that opened roads between the earth and Heaven,
the paths for which desire had long since waited.”
(Longfellow)
Varro, a "very learned heathen" (Augustine of Hippo), in hi De Langua Latina (On the Latin Language), book V, chapitle X, §58 marks that there were "Great gods" before the doors (ante portas) at Samothrace shown as two men:
[Varro. On the Latin Language, Volume I: Books 5-7. Awent by Roland G. Kent. Loeb Classical Library 333. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938.lvs.54 to 55]
X. 58. Terra enim et Caelum, ut <Sa>mothracum initia docent, sunt dei magni, et hi quos dixi multis nominibus, non quas <S>amo<th>racia ante portas statuit duas virilis species aeneas dei magni, neque ut volgus putat, hi Samothraces dii, qui Castor et Pollux, sed hi mas et femina et hi quos Augurum Libri scriptos habent sic " divi potes," pro illo quod Samothraces θεοὶ δυνατοί.
X. 58. For Earth and Sky, as the mysteries of the Samothracians teach, are Great Gods, and these whom I have mentioned under many names, are not those Great Gods whom Samothrace represents by two male statues of bronze which she has set up before the city-gates, nor are they, as the populace thinks, the Samothracian gods," who are really Castor and Pollux; but these are a male and a female, these are those whom the Books of the Augurs mention in writing as " potent deities," for what the Samothracians call " powerful gods."
[Varro. On the Latin Language, Volume I: Books 5-7. Awent by Roland G. Kent. Loeb Classical Library 333. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938.lvs.54 to 55]
Kent's awending of ante portas as "before the city gates" is better understood simply as "before the doors". Although Hippolytus (and maybe Herodotus also before him) has linked them to Hermes, they are meant to be the Dioscuri (=Castor et Pollux). And in a list of assertions of what the star-sign of Gemini betokens from a scholion on Germanicus' Aratea, beside Castor and Pollux and Zethus and Amphion we find:
Nigidius deos Samothracas dicit, quorum argumentum nefas sit enuntiare praeter eos qui mysteriis praesunt.
Nigidius says [they are] the gods of Samothrace, the proof of which it is not lawful to say except by those who preside in the mysteries.
A doorway at Samothrace, seemingly to the Rotunda of Arsinoe there, with two torches on pillars either side, and about which wind snakes, was brooked as a token of the mysteries of the island. Cyriacus of Ancona recorded an inscription there in 1444 that shows it (manuscript copies of the original coming down to us) and later archaeological finds bear witness to the truth of it.
Above: The doorway to the Rotunda of Arsinoe at Samothrace from an archaeological find (left), and from a copy of Cyriacus of Ancona's drawing (right). These are from Sandra Blakely's Starry Twins and Mystery Rites : from Samothrace to Mithras (2018) where sources are given.
C. Suetonius Tranquillus, in his Life of Caligula, chapter 22, section 2 the mad emperor built himself a palace turning the temple of Castor and Pollux in the forum into a kind of gatehouse (vestibulum):
[2] uerum admonitus et principum et regum se excessisse fastigium, diuinam ex eo maiestatem asserere sibi coepit; datoque negotio, ut simulacra numinum religione et arte praeclara, inter quae Olympii Iouis, apportarentur e Graecia, quibus capite dempto suum imponeret, partem Palatii ad forum usque promouit, atque aede Castoris et Pollucis in uestibulum transfigurata, consistens saepe inter fratres deos, medium adorandum se adeuntibus exhibebat; et quidam eum Latiarem Iouem consalutarunt.
He was strongly inclined to assume the diadem, and change the form of government, from imperial to regal; but being told that he far exceeded the grandeur of kings and princes, he began to arrogate to himself a divine majesty. He ordered all the images of the gods, which were famous either for their beauty, or the veneration paid them, among which was that of Jupiter Olympius, to be brought from Greece, that he might take the heads off, and put on his own. Having continued part of the Palatium as far as the Forum, and the temple of Castor and Pollux being converted into a kind of vestibule to his house, he often stationed himself between the twin brothers, and so presented himself to be worshipped by all votaries; some of whom saluted him by the name of Jupiter Latialis.
And what Dio Cassis has to say about this is even molre interesting book 59, chapitle 28:
3 ἐτεκτήνατο μὲν γὰρ καὶ ἐν τῷ Καπιτωλίῳ κατάλυσίν τινα, ἵν᾿, ὡς ἔλεγε, τῷ Διὶ συνοικοίη· ἀπαξιώσας δὲ δὴ τὰ δευτερεῖα ἐν τῇ συνοικήσει αὐτοῦ φέρεσθαι, καὶ προσεγκαλέσας οἱ ὅτι τὸ Καπιτώλιον προκατέλαβεν, οὕτω δὴ ἕτερόν τε νεὼν ἐν τῷ Παλατίῳ σπουδῇ ᾠκοδομήσατο, καὶ ἄγαλμα ἐς αὐτὸν ἠθέλησε τὸ τοῦ Διὸς τοῦ Ὀλυμπίου ἐς τὸ ἑαυτοῦ εἶδος μεταρρυθμίσαι.
4 μὴ δυνηθεὶς δέ (τό τε γὰρ πλοῖον τὸ πρὸς τὴν κομιδὴν αὐτοῦ ναυπηγηθὲν ἐκεραυνώθη,8 καὶ γέλως, ὁσάκις τινὲς ὡς καὶ τοῦ ἕδους ἐφαψόμενοι προσῆλθον, πολὺς ἐξηκούετο) ἐκείνῳ μὲν ἐπηπείλει, αὐτὸς δὲ ἕτερον ἐνέστησε.
5 τό τε Διοσκόρειον τὸ ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ τῇ Ῥωμαίᾳ ὂν διατεμὼν διὰ μέσου τῶν ἀγαλμάτων ἔσοδον δι᾿ αὐτοῦ ἐς τὸ παλάτιον ἐποιήσατο, ὅπως καὶ πυλωροὺς τοὺς Διοσκόρους, ὥς γε καὶ ἔλεγεν,
It seems that he had constructed a sort of lodge on the Capitoline, in order, as he said, that he might dwell with Jupiter; but disdaining to take second place in this union of households, and blaming the god for occupying the Capitoline ahead of him, he hastened to erect another temple on the Palatine, and wished to transfer to it the statue of the Olympian Zeus after remodelling it to resemble himself. But he found this to be impossible, for the ship built to bring it was shattered by thunderbolts, and loud laughter was heard every time that anybody approached as if to take hold of the pedestal; accordingly, after uttering threats against the statue, he set up a new one of himself.1 He cut in two the temple of Castor and Pollux in the Roman Forum and made through it an approach to the palace running directly between the two statues, in order, as he was wont to say, that he might have the Dioscuri for gate-keepers.
[Dio Cassius. Roman History, Volume VII: Books 56-60. Awent by Earnest Cary, Herbert B. Foster. Loeb Classical Library 175. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924. lvs. 352 to 353]
πυλωροί - gatekeepers!
Lions and doors?
Above:
The lions aand pillar above a gateway (the "Lion Gate") at Mycenae.
Picture by Orlovic - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3534971
Above: Lion Gate, Hattusa, Turkey by Bernard Gagnon - Own work, CC BY-SA
3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37792370
Above: A pair of Shishi (獅子, lion) or komainu(狛犬,
lion dogs), the "a" on the right, the "um" on the left by Reggaeman -
Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7012142. See also Chinese guardian lions.
Lycophron of Chalcis in his Alexandra (awending Simon Hornblower) calls Castor and Polydeuces the "two lions":
ἃ δὴ πρὸς ἄστρων κλίμακα στήσει δρόμον 510
τοῖς ἡμιθνήτοις διπιύχοις Λαπερσίοις·
οὓς μήποτ᾽, ὦ Ζεῦ σῶτερ, εἰς πάτραν ἐμὴν
στείλαις ἀρωγοὺς τῇ δισαρπάγῳ κρεκί,
μηδὲ πτερωτὰς ὁπλίσαντες ὁλκάδας
πρύμνης ἀπ᾽ ἄκρας γυμνὸν αἰψηρὸν πόδα 515
εἰς Βεβρύκων ῥίψειαν ἐκβατηρίαν,
μηδ᾽ οἱ λεόντων τῶνδε καρτερώτεροι,
ἀλκὴν ἄμικτοι, τοὺς Ἄρης ἐφίλατο,
καὶ δἶ Ἐνυώ, καὶ τριγέννητος θεὰ
Βοαρμία Λογγᾶτις Ὁμολωὶς Βία. 520
τοῖς ἡμιθνήτοις διπιύχοις Λαπερσίοις·
οὓς μήποτ᾽, ὦ Ζεῦ σῶτερ, εἰς πάτραν ἐμὴν
στείλαις ἀρωγοὺς τῇ δισαρπάγῳ κρεκί,
μηδὲ πτερωτὰς ὁπλίσαντες ὁλκάδας
πρύμνης ἀπ᾽ ἄκρας γυμνὸν αἰψηρὸν πόδα 515
εἰς Βεβρύκων ῥίψειαν ἐκβατηρίαν,
μηδ᾽ οἱ λεόντων τῶνδε καρτερώτεροι,
ἀλκὴν ἄμικτοι, τοὺς Ἄρης ἐφίλατο,
καὶ δἶ Ἐνυώ, καὶ τριγέννητος θεὰ
Βοαρμία Λογγᾶτις Ὁμολωὶς Βία. 520
“This will erect a ladder to the way of the stars
for the half divine Lapersian twins.
Zeus Saviour, may you never send them to my fatherland
as helpers of the twice-snatched corncrake,
nor let them arm their winged ships,
and, leaping from the topmost poop, set their swift naked feet on the Bebrykian landing-place;
nor may those others do so, who are even stronger than those two lions,
unmatched in might, beloved of Ares
and divine Enyo and the goddess who was born three times,
the Yoker, Longastis, Homolois, the Forceful.”
for the half divine Lapersian twins.
Zeus Saviour, may you never send them to my fatherland
as helpers of the twice-snatched corncrake,
nor let them arm their winged ships,
and, leaping from the topmost poop, set their swift naked feet on the Bebrykian landing-place;
nor may those others do so, who are even stronger than those two lions,
unmatched in might, beloved of Ares
and divine Enyo and the goddess who was born three times,
the Yoker, Longastis, Homolois, the Forceful.”
The
odd way the "Hanged Man" has his legs bent is not to be overlooked. In
the East Krishna is shown playing his pipe making almost the same shape
with his legs. And Vishnu sometimes borrows it. But Krishna is a twin
brother of Balarama.
Below we have Cautes (torch up) and Cautopates
(torch down) - the "torch-bearers" - who are hardly ever shown that far
away from Mithras and were blent with the Dioscuri as the "Mithraic
Cameos" shown beneath will outfold.
Above: 1. A cameo with the well-known tauroctony "bull-slaying" scene with Cautes (torch up) and Cautopates (torch down) either side of Mithras and the bull. 2. Part of a bas-relief found at Virunum in Noricum with the birth of Mithra from the "petra genetrix" with Cautes and Cautopates on either side of him. 3. A wonderful cameo with the same birth of Mithra scene, but this time Cautes and Cautopates have shifted into the Dioscuri on horseback with stars and snakes! Mark the eagle with a snake in his beak at the top. The back shows these snakes twined about staves and on bows. Between these snakes are the Dioscuri's two stars, a bowl (crater?) and a pitcher of wine with a square cover (the same that on the front has a round loaf on top). All from Franz Cumont's Classic study.
Above: 1. A cameo with the well-known tauroctony "bull-slaying" scene with Cautes (torch up) and Cautopates (torch down) either side of Mithras and the bull. 2. Part of a bas-relief found at Virunum in Noricum with the birth of Mithra from the "petra genetrix" with Cautes and Cautopates on either side of him. 3. A wonderful cameo with the same birth of Mithra scene, but this time Cautes and Cautopates have shifted into the Dioscuri on horseback with stars and snakes! Mark the eagle with a snake in his beak at the top. The back shows these snakes twined about staves and on bows. Between these snakes are the Dioscuri's two stars, a bowl (crater?) and a pitcher of wine with a square cover (the same that on the front has a round loaf on top). All from Franz Cumont's Classic study.
Mithras'
appearance with the Heavenly Twins is open to many interpretations.
But the most obvious, even if it is the lowest, is that he betokens the
sun. His slaying of the bull is a demiurgic act however, and the bull
is Dionysus, the third and unlucky brother of the Cabeiri (see [here]).
Originally however it seems Mithras, or what became Mithras, was
understood as a goddess. Here the great mother of the gods, a
sun-goddess, reclaims her sons(see [here] & [here] ) .
Above: the goddess Nike doing what will become Mithras' job for him!
Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys
Now although Nennius' Historia Bruttonum muddies the waters here, badly misunderstanding the tokening, the Welsh Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys
from the Red Book of Hergest (Jesus College MS111) 174 verso to 175
recto, reminds us that even in less far-flung places the belief was that
we should find two dragons at the “punctus permedius”. The same holy
spot in the
middle of things where other folk would also put a tree or something to
betoken the axis mundi which should also be there:
And "dinas ffaraon dande" "stronghold of the fiery pharoah" is widely understood as meaning King Vortigern who is said to have been burnt to death in his castle by "igne caelesti" (Nennius HB 47) and then everything was swallowed up by the earth (Nennius HB 48). But there was another tale that he died a broken hearted outcast (Nennius HB 48). Might not the name then rather hide that of some sun, fire or thunder god? Agni? "Vortigern" after all is also a title rather than a name and meaning "great (vor) tigern (king)".
Above left: the two dragons - one red, one white, from what we might call the follow-up tale to Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys. Egerton MS 3028 British Library.
Above right: the same two dragons are shown in the little bows or arches at the foot of a pillar (=axis mundi?). From Cotton Claudius b. vii. British Library.
And this brings me to the picture-stone found under the church floor at Sanda on Gotland. H. R. Ellis-Davidson in her Myths and Symbols (1988) lf. 168 says "dated to about A D 500", Do you see the tree, maybe a tokening of the axis mundi, carved into the stone at the bottom?
Where only one snake is marked it is Agni or his wife or daughter Āgneyī. Thus Richard Dybeck’s Runa (1845):
Karl Müllenhoff, Sagen, Märchen und Lieder der Herzogthümer Schleswig, Holstein und Lauenburg. (1845), 550. Die Schlange in der Duborg (awend. B. Thorpe):
Dinas Emreis is understood as the stronghold of an "Ambrosius", but if this name belongs to the “punctus permedius” might it not hide the meaning of "ambrosial stronghold" or " the stronghold of ambrosia"? "cauldron of mead" ... ? See Nikolai Tolstoy The Quest for Merlin (1985), ch.8 lvs. 102 to 120.“ ac ympenn yspeit gwedy hynny. ỻud a beris messuraw yr ynys ar y| hyt ac ar y| ỻet. ac yn ryt ychen y cauas y pwynt perued. Ac yn| y lle hwnnw y peris cladu y dayar. ac yn|y clad hwnnw gossot kerwyn yn|ỻawn o|r med goreu a|aỻwyt y wneuthur. a|llenn o pali ar y wyneb. Ac ef e hun y nos honno yn|gwylyat. ac ual yd oed ueỻy. ef a welas y dreigeu yn ymlad. A gwedy blinaw onadunt a diffygyaw. wynt a disgynnassant ar warthaf y ỻenn. a’e thynnu gant[h]unt hyt yg gwaelawt y|gerwyn. A| gwedy daruot uddunt yuet y med. kyscu a|orugant. ac yn eu kwsc ỻud a blygwys y ỻenn yn eu kylch. ac yn| y ỻe diogelaf a| gauas yn eryri y mywn kist vaen a’e kudywys. Sef ffuruf y| gelwit y ỻe hwnnw gwedy hynny. dinas emreis. A| chyn no hynny dinas ffaraon dande. ”
“And some time after this, Lludd caused the Island to be measured in its length and in its breadth. And in Oxford he found the central point, (y pwynt perued = Latin “punctus permedius”) and in that place he caused the earth to be dug, and in that pit a cauldron to be set, full of the best mead that could be made, and a covering of satin over the face of it. And he himself watched that night. And while he was there, he beheld the dragons fighting. And when they were weary they fell, and came down upon the top of the satin, and drew it with them to the bottom of the cauldron. And when they had drunk the mead they slept. And in their sleep, Lludd folded the covering around them, and in the securest place he had in Snowdon, he hid them in a kistvaen. Now after that this spot was called Dinas Emreis, but before that, Dinas Ffaraon. And thus the fierce outcry ceased in his dominions. ” (awending Lady Charlotte Guest).
And "dinas ffaraon dande" "stronghold of the fiery pharoah" is widely understood as meaning King Vortigern who is said to have been burnt to death in his castle by "igne caelesti" (Nennius HB 47) and then everything was swallowed up by the earth (Nennius HB 48). But there was another tale that he died a broken hearted outcast (Nennius HB 48). Might not the name then rather hide that of some sun, fire or thunder god? Agni? "Vortigern" after all is also a title rather than a name and meaning "great (vor) tigern (king)".
Above right: the same two dragons are shown in the little bows or arches at the foot of a pillar (=axis mundi?). From Cotton Claudius b. vii. British Library.
And this brings me to the picture-stone found under the church floor at Sanda on Gotland. H. R. Ellis-Davidson in her Myths and Symbols (1988) lf. 168 says "dated to about A D 500", Do you see the tree, maybe a tokening of the axis mundi, carved into the stone at the bottom?
 |
| By Mollberg - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21135920 |
Where only one snake is marked it is Agni or his wife or daughter Āgneyī. Thus Richard Dybeck’s Runa (1845):
"Icke sällan får man se ekar, hvilka hela vintrarna bibehålla sina blad. Om dessa har allmogen många berättelser. Den vanligaste är, att den underbara Hvitormen uppehåller sig under en sådan eks rötter. Uppå en liten backe, vestan för byen Axeltorp (i Hjersås socken i Skåne), utij vången, har för några åhr stått en gammall stoor och tiock Eek, kallat Gröne-Eek, för dy hon alltjd med sin lööf fandz grön till Juhlafton var förgången; att ehure starck Vinter, köll, frost och sniö dehr kunde falla, och intet löf kunne finnas på något annat trää, stodh lichvähl samma Eck grön med sin lööf, till dess Juhlen var förgången; sedan föllo all löfven af; och dehr någon fördristade, att hugga eller skära den ringaste qvista af trädt, då öfvergick honom någon vanlycka; Efter gammalt taal sägs en drake haft sit bygge under Eeken i backen.” (1691.)"
"You can sometimes see oak trees, which keep their leaves all winter. About these are a lot of stories. The most common thing is that the wonderful White-snake is staying under such oaks’ roots. On a small hill, west of the town of Axeltorp (in Hjersås parish in Skåne), at the edge of the meadows, there has been for some time an old, great and thick oak, called the Green-Oak, for that it is always found with its leaves green till Yule-eve was gone by; in spite of the hardness of the winter, coldness, frost and snow that there might befall, and no leaves could be found on any other tree, it stood nevertheless the same oak green with its leaves until the Yule-eve was gone; then all the leaves fell off; but no one dared to hew or shear the least limb of the tree, that no unluckiness should overgo them; from an old tale, a dragon is said to have its dwelling under the oak in the hill."(1691.)"
Karl Müllenhoff, Sagen, Märchen und Lieder der Herzogthümer Schleswig, Holstein und Lauenburg. (1845), 550. Die Schlange in der Duborg (awend. B. Thorpe):
"In den Ruinen der alten Duborg bei Flensburg lebt eine bläuliche Schlange, die trägt eine kleine Krone von dem feinsten Golde auf ihrem Kopfe. Sie zeigt sich nur einmal am Tage in der Mittagsstunde, aber auch nur auf einen Augenblick. Wer sie aber fangen oder ihr die Krone rauben kann, der ist glücklich. Der König bezahlt ihm sogleich zwanzigtausend Taler Kurant dafür; denn wer sie trägt, der ist unsterblich. - Herr Fries."
"In the ruins of the old Duborg, near Flensborg, there lives a bluish snake that wears on its head a small crown of the finest gold. It appears but once a day, at the hour of noon, and then for a moment only. Whoever can catch it, or get its crown, is fortunate. The king would straightaway give twenty thousand dollars current for the crown; for whoever wears it is immortal."
Here Duborg is for the mountain at the axis mundi.
Tree of Life
So Thule=Hyperborea=Yima's var (where the life of men in the old airyanəm vaēǰō before the climatic shift lives on)=the forefather's chest/ark/ship=The Garden of Eden.
{3:22} And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: andnow, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree oflife, and eat, and live for ever: {3:23} Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. {3:24} So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, tokeep the way of the tree of life.
That
the Garden of Eden was called by a word borrowed from the Parsees'
speech Parasdisus/Pardes Proto-Iranian *paridayȷ́ah, from *pari-
(“around”) + *dáyjah (“wall”) not only shows us who was borrowing from
who here, but also that the Garden of Eden vould be understood as a
walled borough. And it is but a short step here to the New Jerusalem of
the Book of revelations, which has, as it were, been built upon the
Garden of Eden of Genesis for the tree of life is still there
22.1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
That
it bears "twelve manner of fruits, and yielde her fruit every month"
looks to a year of twelve months and to greater years dealt into twelve
parts. Now as Guénon
well marked this is the tree of the sun into which it goes at the end
of a great year to outlast the cataclysm, and from which it will be born
again from at the beginning of the next great year. This is the
phoenix's roost, and although linked to the East it truly belongs here
in Hyperborea.
The four rivers make a "polar cross". The
"Heavenly Twins" live there (see Elijah and Enoch). They might also live in the tree. In the tale of the Dioscuri this becomes reduced down to them hiding in an oak tree which is the axis mundi!
One with the "tree of life" in the midst of the garden. And their
sister Helen the daughter of the sun is the Shekinah that the Jews say
sits in the tree. Thus on Rhodes Helen is dendritis "of the tree".
René Guénon Le Symbolisme de la Croix (1931) lf.46:
D’ailleurs, dans diverses traditions, l’image du soleil est souvent liée à celle d’un arbre, comme si le soleil était le fruit de l’« Arbre du Monde » ; il quitte son arbre au début du cycle et vient s’y reposer à la fin. Dans les idéogrammes chinois, le caractère désignant le coucher du soleil le représente reposant sur son arbre à la fin du jour (qui est analogue à la fin du cycle) ; l’obscurité est représentée par un caractère qui figure le soleil tombé au pied de l’arbre.
Moreover, in various traditions, the image of the sun is often linked to that of a tree, as if the sun were the fruit of the "Tree of the World"; it leaves its tree at the start of the cycle and comes to rest there at the end. In Chinese ideograms, the character designating the sunset represents him resting on his tree at the end of the day (which is analogous to the end of the cycle); darkness is represented by a character that represents the sun falling at the foot of the tree.
Above: Moses and The Burning Bush by Nicholas Froment, 1476,
triptych at Aix-en-Provence, Avignon School in Flemish style, see [here].
René Guénon Formes traditionnelles et cycles cosmiques. (Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles) lf.98, from a review of La Kabbale juive, from Ignis, 1925, p. 116:
« si l’homme pèche et s’éloigne de la Shekinah, il tombe sous le pouvoir des
puissances (Sârim) ... Mais, au contraire, si l’homme se rapproche de la Shekinah, il se libère, ...»“if man sins and withdraws himself from the shekinah he falls under the influence of the powers… But if on the contrary man draws near to the Shekinah, he is freed...”.
But the shekinah also dwells between the two cherubim on the ark of the
covenant. Borrowing its meaning from the layout of the universe
Clement links these cherubim to the Bears about the Pole. The Shekinah
would be the Pole Star or the snake (Draco) between the Bears. The
Bears would then also be the Heavenly Twins.
But they are also the
cherubim as doorwards (like Janus and like Peter)-
Genesis 3.24:
"... and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life".
Beekes and Klein dismiss an Indo-European origin and instead suggest Pre-Greek; possibly borrowed via Hittite or some other Anatolian medium from a Semitic word related to Akkadian 𒅗𒆕𒁍 (karūbu) and Hebrew כרוב (kerúv)." (wiktionary) That is cherub.
Flavius Philostratus mentioned them in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana 3.48:"Ὃν δ᾿ ὀρύττουσι χρυσὸν οἱ γρῦπες, πέτραι εἰσὶν οἷον σπινθῆρσιν ἐστιγμέναι ταῖς τοῦ χρυσοῦ ῥανίσιν, ἃς λιθοτομεῖ τὸ θηρίον τοῦτο τῇ τοῦ ῥάμφους ἰσχύϊ. τὰ γὰρ θηρία ταῦτα εἶναί τε ἐν Ἰνδοῖς καὶ ἱεροὺς νομίζεσθαι τοῦ Ἡλίου, τέθριππά τε αὐτῶν ὑποζευγνύναι τοῖς ἀγάλμασι τοὺς τὸν Ἥλιον ἐν Ἰνδοῖς γράφοντας, ..."
"As to the gold which the griffins dig up, there are rocks which are spotted with drops of gold as with sparks, which this creature can quarry because of the strength of its beak. “For these animals do exist in India” he said, “and are held in veneration as being sacred to the Sun ; and the Indian artists, when they represent the Sun, yoke four of them abreast to draw the images ; ...". (awend. F. C. Conybeare vol. 1, lvs. 332 to 333)
Above from Mrs. J. H. Philpot's 'The Sacred Tree' (1897).
Above: the martyrdom of saints Crispin and Crispinian. A misunderstood symbol?
"ἱεροὺς ... τοῦ Ἡλίου"!
Farewell.
