Sun (The)
,called in Celtic mythology Sunna (fem.), lives in constant dread of being devoured by the wolf Fenris. It is this contest with the wolf to which eclipses are due. According to this mythology, the sun has a beautiful daughter who will one day reign in place of her mother, and the world will be wholly renovated.
Horses of the Sun.
Brontē (thunder), Eoʹos (day-break), Ethiops (flashing), Ethon (fiery), Erythreʹos (red-producers), Philogeʹa (earth-loving), Pyrʹois (fiery). All of them “breathe fire from their nostrils.” (Greek and Latin mythology.)
¶ More worship the rising than the setting sun, said Pompey; meaning that more persons pay honour to ascendant than to fallen greatness. The allusion is, of course, to the Persian fire-worshippers.
Heaven cannot support two suns, nor earth two masters. So said Alexander the Great when Darius (before the battle of Arbeʹla) sent to offer terms of peace. Beautifully imitated by Shakespeare:—
“Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere;
Nor can one England brook a double reign,
Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.”
1 Henry IV., v. 4.
Here lies a she-sun, and a he-moon there (Donne). Epithalamium on the marriage of Lady Elizabeth, daughter of James I., with Frederick, elector palatine. It was through this unfortunate princess, called “Queen of Bohemia” and “Queen of Hearts,” that the family of Brunswick succeeded to the British throne. Some say that Lord Craven married (secretly) the “fair widow.”
