THE BOOK OF THE SWORD. CHAPTER I. PREAMBLE: ON THE ORIGIN OF WEAPONS. MAN'S civilisation began with Fire-how to light it and how to keep it lit. Before he had taken this step, our primal ancestor (or ancestors) evidently led the life of the lower animals. The legend of 'Iapetus' bold son' Prometheus, like many others invented by the Greeks, or rather borrowed from Egypt, contained under the form of fable a deep Truth, a fact, a lesson valuable even in these days. Forethought,' the elder brother of 'Afterthought,' brought down the semina flammæ in a hollow tube from Heaven, or stole it from the chariot of the Sun. Here we have the personification of the Great Unknown, who, finding a cane-brake or a jungle tree fired by lightning or flamed by wind-friction, conceived the idea of feeding the σTépμa Tupòs with fuel. Thus Hermes or Mercury was Pteropédilos' or Alipes;' and his ankles were fitted with 'Pedila' or 'Talaria,' winged sandals, to show that the soldier fights with his legs as well as with his arms.' I will not enlarge upon the imperious interest of Hoplology: the history of arms and armour, their connection and their transitions, plays the most important part in the annals of the world. The first effort of human technology was probably weapon-making. History 1 Frederick the Great declared that an army moves like a serpent, upon its belly. According to Plutarch, the snake was held sacred because it glides without limbs, like the stars. Fire, says Pliny (Nat. Hist. vii. 57, and xiii. 42), was first struck out of the stone by Pyrodes, son of Cilix-silex, or flint, the match of antiquity; and hence it was called rûp; and Vincent de Beauvais explains: Silex est lapis durus, sic dictus eo quod ex eo ignis exiliat.' It is the Sanskrit (shila), a stone, both words evidently deriving from a common root, shi or si. The 'religiosa silex' of Claudian (Rapt. Proserp. i. 201) was probably a block of stone like those representing Zeus Kasios, the Paphian Venus, not to mention the host of stones worshipped in Egyptian and Arab litholatry, and the old Palladium of Troy transported to Rome. 'Prometheus,' who taught man to preserve fire in the ferule, or stalk, of the giant fennel, was borrowed by the Hindus and converted into Pramantha. 'Pramantha,' however, is the upright fire-stick, first made by Twastu, the Divine Carpenter, who seems to have been a brother of 'Eoría, the Hearth; and hence it has been held to be the male symbol. According to Plato, rûp (whence pyrites sulphuret of iron), dwp, and Kuwv are Phrygian words; and evidently they date from the remotest antiquity. Pir (sun-heat) is found even in the Quichua of Peru, and enters into the royal name 'Pirhua.' The French and Belgian caverns prove that striking fire by means of pyrites was known to primitive man. |