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In classical Greece, Lerna〔Corinthian Lerna was a summer resort near Corinth.〕 ((ギリシア語:Λέρνη)) was a region of springs and a former lake near the east coast of the Peloponnesus, south of Argos. Its site near the village Mili at the Argolic Gulf is most famous as the lair of the Lernaean Hydra, the chthonic many-headed water snake, a creature of great antiquity when Heracles killed it, as the second of his labors. The strong Karstic springs remained; the lake, diminished to a silt lagoon by the 19th century, has vanished. Lerna is notable for several archaeological sites, including an Early Bronze Age structure known as House of the Tiles, dating to the Early Helladic period II (2500–2300 BC). ==Mythos== The secret of the Lernaean spring was the gift of Poseidon when he lay with the "blameless" daughter〔Harrison, ''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion'', 3rd ed. 1922:334; Jane Ellen Harrison credited Gilbert Murray with the observation concerning that "blameless" (άμύμων) was an epithet of the heroized dead, who were venerated and appeased at shrines. Zeus even applies the epithet to Aegisthus, the usurper, Harrison observes. "The epithet άμύμων in Homer is applied to individual heroes, to a hero's tomb (xxiv.80 ), to magical, half-mythical peoples like the Phaeacians and Aethiopians (x.423 ) who to the popular imagination are half canonized, to the magic island (xii.261 ) of the god Helios, to the imaginary half-magical Good Old King (xix.109 ). It is used also of the 'convoy' (vi.171 ) sent by the gods, which of course is magical in character; it is never, I believe, an epithet of the Olympians themselves. There is about the word a touch of what is magical and demonic rather than actually divine."〕 of Danaus, Amymone. The geographer Strabo attests that the Lernaean waters were considered healing: Lake Lerna, the scene of the story of the Hydra, lies in Argeia and the Mycenaean territory; and on account of the cleansings that take place in it there arose a proverb, 'A Lerna of ills.' Now writers agree that the county has plenty of water, and that, although the city itself lies in a waterless district, it has an abundance of wells. These wells they ascribe to the daughters of Danaus, believing that they discovered them ... but they add that four of the wells not only were designated as sacred but are especially revered, thus introducing the false notion that there is a lack of water where there is an abundance of it.〔Strabo, ''Geography'' 8.6.8.〕 Lerna was one of the entrances to the Underworld, and the ancient Lernaean Mysteries, sacred to Demeter, were celebrated there. Pausanias (2.37.1) says that the mysteries were initiated by Philammon, the twin "other" of Autolycus. At the Alcyonian Lake, entry to the netherworld could be achieved by a hero who dared, such as Dionysus, who, guided by Prosymnus, went that way in search of his mother Semele. For mortals the lake was perilous; Pausanias writes: There is no limit to the depth of the Alcyonian Lake, and I know of nobody who by any contrivance has been able to reach the bottom of it since not even Nero, who had ropes made several stades long and fastened them together, tying lead to them, and omitting nothing that might help his experiment, was able to discover any limit to its depth. This, too, I heard. The water of the lake is, to all appearance, calm and quiet but, although it is such to look at, every swimmer who ventures to cross it is dragged down, sucked into the depths, and swept away.〔Pausanias, 2.37.4.〕 At Lerna, Plutarch knew (''Isis and Osiris''), Dionysus was summoned as "Bugenes", "son of the Bull" with a strange archaic trumpet called a ''salpinx,'' while a lamb was cast into the waters as an offering for the "Keeper of the Gate." The keeper of the gate to the Underworld that lay in the waters of Lerna was the Hydra. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lerna」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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