* Translated by Max Mueller in the opening of his essay on "Comparative
Mythology."--Chips from a German Workshop, vol. ii.
This is always connected with that of Boreas or the north wind, because
the two sons of Boreas are enemies of the Harpies, and drive them away
into frantic flight. The myth in its first literal form means only the
battle between the fair north wind and the foul south one: the two
Harpies, "Stormswift" and "Swiftfoot," are the sisters of the rainbow;
that is to say, they are the broken drifts of the showery south wind, and
the clear north wind drives them back; but they quickly take a deeper and
more malignant significance. You know the short, violent, spiral gusts
that lift the dust before coming rain: the Harpies get identified first
with these, and then with more violent whirlwinds, and so they are called
"Harpies," "the Snatchers," and are thought of as entirely destructive;
their manner of destroying being twofold,--by snatching away, and by
defiling and polluting. This is a month in which you may really see a
small Harpy at her work almost whenever you choose.
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