In
the Vedic hymns we find Indra, the Sun, born of Dahana
(Daphne), the Dawn, whom he afterwards, in the evening
twilight, marries. To the Indian mind the story was here
complete; but the Greeks had forgotten and outgrown the
primitive signification of the myth. To them Oidipous and
Iokaste were human, or at least anthropomorphic beings; and a
marriage between them was a fearful crime which called for
bitter expiation. Thus the latter part of the story arose in
the effort to satisfy a moral feeling As the name of Laios
denotes the dark night, so, like Iole, Oinone, and Iamos, the
word Iokaste signifies the delicate violet tints of the
morning and evening clouds. Oidipous was exposed, like Paris
upon Ida (a Vedic word meaning "the earth"), because the
sunlight in the morning lies upon the hillside.[106] He is
borne on to the destruction of his father and the incestuous
marriage with his mother by an irresistible Moira, or Fate;
the sun cannot but slay the darkness and hasten to the couch
of the violet twilight.[107] The Sphinx is the storm-demon who
sits on the cloud-rock and imprisons the rain; she is the same
as Medusa, Ahi, or Echidna, and Chimaira, and is akin to the
throttling snakes of darkness which the jealous Here sent to
destroy Herakles in his cradle.
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