is
gold and silver. So one day when he was sitting on the bow of the ship,
and looking down on the dark blue sea, three or four of the sailors came
to him and said they were going to kill him. Now Arion knew they said
this because they wanted his money; so he promised to give them all he
had if they would spare his life. But they would not. Then he asked them
to let him jump into the sea. When they had given him leave to do this,
Arion took one last look at the bright and sunny sky, and then leaped
into the sea, and the sailors saw him no more. But Arion was not drowned
in the sea, for a great fish called a dolphin was swimming by the ship
when Arion leaped over; and it caught him on its back and swam away with
him towards Corinth. So presently the fish came close to the shore and
left Arion on the beach, and swam away again into the deep sea.[79:1]

There is also a Persian legend to the effect that Jemshid was devoured
by a great monster waiting for him at the bottom of the sea, but
afterwards rises again out of the sea, like Jonah in the Hebrew, and
Hercules in the Phenician myth.[79:2] This legend was also found in the
myths of the _New World_.[79:3]

It was urged, many years ago, by Rosenmueller--an eminent German divine
and professor of theology--and other critics, that the miracle recorded
in the book of Jonah is not to be regarded as an historical fact, "_but
only as an allegory, founded on the Phenician myth of Hercules rescuing
Hesione from the sea monster by leaping himself into its jaws, and for
three days and three nights continuing to tear its entrails_."[79:4]

That the story is an allegory, and that it, as well as that of
Saktideva, Hercules and the rest, are simply different versions of the
same myth, the significance of which is the alternate swallowing up and
casting forth of _Day_, or the _Sun_, by _Night_, is now all but
universally admitted by scholars. The _Day_, or the _Sun_, is swallowed
up by _Night_, to be set free again at dawn, and from time to time
suffers a like but shorter durance in the maw of the eclipse and the
storm-cloud.[79:5]

Professor Goldzhier says:

"The most prominent mythical characteristic of the story of
Jonah is his celebrated abode in the sea in the belly of a
whale. This trait is eminently _Solar_. . . . As on occasion
of the storm the storm-dragon or the storm-serpent _swallows
the Sun_, so when he sets, he (Jonah, as a personification of