Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

THE CHILDREN OF MEDEIA. 155
The robe of Helios, which, has been thus far only the golden
fleece nnder another name, now assumes the deadly powers
of the arrows of Herakles, Achilleus, or Philoktetes, and eats
into the flesh of Glauke and her father Kreon, as the robe
bathed in the blood of the Kentaur Nessos consumed the
body of Heraldes. In the murder of the children of Iason
by their mother Mecleia we have only another version of the
slaughter of Pelops by Tantalos, while the winged dragons
which bear away her chariot are not the dragons of the
night, like the snakes which seek to strangle the infant
Herakles, but the keener-eyed serpents of the morning, which
feed the babe Iamos with honey in the violet beds. But
this portion of the story may be told, and is told, in a
hundred different ways. In one version she goes to Thebes,
and there cures Herakles of his poisoned wound ; in another
she is reconciled to Iason ; in another she becomes the wife
of Aigeus, king of Athens, and the enemy of his son Theseus.
Others again carry Iason back with Medeia to Kolchis, or
make him die, crushed beneath the timber-head of the Argo.
Section II—HELEK
There was, however, no need to carry Iason and Medeia The
with her golden robe back again to the eastern land. The ^^ of
treasure brought back from that distant shore could not
remain long in the west ; and in the stealing away of Helen
and her wealth we have an incident which, from the magni-
ficent series of myths to which it has given birth or with
which it is interwoven, seems to dwarf almost every other
feature in the mythical history of the Aryan nations. The
story has been complicated with countless local traditions ;
it has received a plausible colouring from the introduction
of accurate geographical details, of portraits which may be
true to national character, of accounts of laws, customs, and
usages, which doubtless prevailed at the time when the poet
wrote. Yet in spite of epithets which may still be applied
to the ruins of Tiryns and Mykenai, in spite of the cairns which
still bear the names of Achilleus or of Aias on the shores of
the strong-flowing Hellespontos, Helen is simply the radiant