C. (Page 100.) Pools and Whips of the Sun.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Goldziher, Ignác and Martineau, R. (Russell)
There is no doubt that the ancient idea which associates Pools with the rising and the setting sun was based on the conception that the rising sun emerged from water and the setting sun sank into water. In later times, when the original mythical circumstances had lost their clearness, the conception of the Sun’s Pools underwent a considerable modification. On this subject we must notice two different conceptions, both of which sound quite mythical, which are preserved in the Jewish and Arabic tradition. One of these supposed that the Sun exhibited such an eagerness for the performance of his work, that the whole world would be set on fire if its consequences were not moderated by various means for cooling down the heat; and these means are the Pools of the Sun. In the Midrâsh on Ecclesiastes, I. 6, it is said: ‘It is reported in the name of Rabbi Nâthân that the ball of the Sun is fixed in a reservoir with a pool of water before him; when he is about to go forth he is full of fire, and God weakens his force by that water, that he may not burn up the whole world.’ A similar account is found in the Shôchêr ṭôbh on Ps. XIX. 8, and in the same Midrâsh on v. 8 the Talmudic theory of the upper waters (mayîm hâ-ʿelyônîm, which are said to be above the heaven) is brought into connexion with this idea. Another conception is diametrically opposite to this. According to this view, the Sun at first resists the performance of his business, and is only moved to do it by force and violent measures.
In the Midrâsh Êkhâ rabbâ, Introduction, § 25, the Sun himself complains that he will not go out till he has been struck with sixty whips, and received the command ‘Go out, and let thy light shine.’ Among the Arabs the poet Umayyâ b. Abî-ṣ-Ṣalt discourses at length on the compulsion which must be exerted on the Sun before he is willing to bestow the benefit of his light and warmth on mortals:
W-ash-shamsu taṭlaʿu kulla âchiri leylatin * ḥamrâʾa maṭlaʿu launihâ mutawarridu.
Taʾba falâ tabdû lanâ fî raslihâ * illâ muʿaḏḏabatan wa-illâ tujladu.
‘The Sun rises at the close of every night * commencing red in colour, slowly advancing.
He refuses, and appears not to us during his delay * until he is chastised, until he is whipped.’[746]
According to the tradition of ʿIkrimâ seven thousand angels are daily occupied with keeping the Sun in order.[747] The first conception also is represented in Mohammedan tradition. A sentence of tradition quoted by al-Suyûṭî (Tashnîf al-samʿ bi-taʿdîd al-sabʿ)[748] says that the Sun is pelted every day with snow and ice by seven angels, that his heat may not destroy the earth. This mode of cooling is the Mohammedan equivalent for the Pool of the Sun. Mohammedan tradition speaks, moreover, also of a Pool of the Moon.[749]