Indo-European Poetry and Myth

Stesichorus and others called it a δπα, ‘goblet’. Vase painters from the late
sixth century onward show Helios in it with his horses, or Heracles using it to
cross the Ocean to Erythea; the part that shows above the water-line some-
times looks like the top of a large jar.^51
The integrated transport system, wheeled vehicle for the day connecting
with night ferry, recurs in the Latvian folk tradition.

Qui l’a dit, il en a menti,

que Saule court à pied:

par-dessus la forêt, dans une voiture,

par-dessus la mer, dans une barque. (LD 33811, trs. Jonval no. 167)

The word rendered ‘voiture’,rati, is from the previously mentioned root
that gives Vedic rátha- and Latin rota. In other songs we hear that Saule sleeps
through the night in the golden boat (laiva). She brings it to the shore in the
morning when she gets up, and it stays there rocking on the water.^52

The dark side of the sun

Several passages in the Rigveda and Atharvaveda hint more or less riddlingly
at a doctrine stated more explicitly in the Yajurveda and Bra ̄hman
̇

as, namely
that the sun has a bright and a dark side: he never sets, but on reaching the
western horizon turns his bright side away from us and returns invisibly
across the sky to the east in the course of the night.^53 In post-Vedic cosmology
this curious theory was replaced by the idea that the sun and stars disappear
behind the mythical Mt Meru when they set, and pass behind it to reach the
east again.
The Trundholm sun-disc too has a bright and a dark side. One side was
gold-plated, on the other the dull bronze was left uncovered. This might be
accounted for by saying that the group was intended to be displayed some-
where where it would be seen from only the one side, with the horse to the
right, as it were pulling the sun westwards. But the dark side of the disc is
covered with the same fine, elaborate pattern of ornamentation as the bright

(^51) Stes. PMGF S17 = 185; Aesch. fr. 69; Pherecydes fr. 18a Fowler; Antim. fr. 86 Matthews. Cf.
‘Eumelus’ fr. 10 West, Pisander fr. 5 W., Panyassis fr. 12 W. (φια ́ λη in Athenaeus’ paraphrase),
Theolytus FGrHist 471 F 1 (λβη); LIMC ii Astra 61, v Herakles 2546, v (add.) Helios 2. A late
fourth-century Apulian volute krater, LIMC iv (add.) Demeter 459, shows Helios with Demeter
in his quadriga, springing out of a ship.
(^52) LD 33860, 33910, 33908, 33878 = Jonval nos. 221–4. According to Biezais–Balys (1973),
450 f., its nocturnal voyage takes it by the land of the dead.
(^53) E. Sieg, NGG 1923, 1–23; cf. Gershevitch (1959), 38 f.

5. Sun and Daughter 209