chapter 10 the monism of darkness and the dualism of limit and ...

86 CHAPTER 10
of the two poles of existence. The pressure of Dualism, however, is
such that the bipolarity of the offspring is projected back onto the
monistic conception of the first principles. Thus we have Apsu and
Tiamat of the Babylonian Theogony, or Nun and Naunet of the
Hermopolitan Egyptian Cosmogony, which are polarities of the
primordial abyss of Water. So too in Homer and in early Orphism the
Ocean is married to his sister Tethys even though he stands on a
higher ontological level than that of the truly first marriage between
Heaven and Earth 43 . To this effect an additional role was also played
by the idea that the Ocean is the primordial creative river that can still
be understood surviving in the present Order of things, namely in the
created World; hence the Ocean is, from this viewpoint, a product of
World-Creation(more specifically, the product of the first phase when
Sky and Earth were crystallized as two opposing cosmic poles); at one
and the same time he is the Father and the Son of Heaven and Earth,
according to the mythical mode of saying things.
The primal position of Ocean and Tethys in the Homeric worldvision
can be deduced also from the exact phrasing of their
relationship in the distich quoted above. The incestuous relationship
constituting the first marriage 44 is between a brother and a sister from
the same mother (ïÌÔÌ‹ÙÔÚ˜). The word ïÌÔÌ‹ÙˆÚ in the second
verse refers to ηÛÈÁÓ‹ÙË which in itself basically indicates coming
from the same mother. Coon and Iphidamas are ηۛÁÓËÙÔÈ (Ilias Λ
250), but their kinship is specifically and exactly defined as ηۛÁÓË-
ÙÔÈ Î·d ùapple·ÙÚÔÈ (ïÌfiapple·ÙÚÔÈ Λ 257), i.e. brothers having the same
father. What is meant thereby is that they are brothers not only from
the same mother but from the same father as well. In the Orphic verse
the fact that Ocean and Tethys are siblings from the same mother is
stressed because they have no father, their common mother
presumably being none other than the Night (whose status is highest
in Homer too).
The early Orphic cosmogonic succession is therefore as follows:
Night - Ocean - Phanes - Heaven - Cronos - Zeus - Zagreus, 45
whereas the corresponding Homeric succession is:
Night - Ocean - Heaven - Cronos - Zeus.