Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

180
BOOK
II.
The cxpulsion
of
the Hera-
kleids.
MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
he alone can bend, the gleaming slipper which Cinderella
alone can pnt on. The whole picture is wonderfully true to
the phenomena of the earth and the heavens, but as a
portrait of human character, it is not more happy than that
of Achilleus. There is the same complete disproportion
between the offence committed and the vengeance taken, the
same frightful delight in blood and torture—the mutilation
of Melanthios and the deliberate slaughter of the hand-
maidens answering to the insults offered by Achilleus to the
body of Hektor, and the cold-blooded murder of the twelve
Trojan youths on the funeral pyre of Patroklos. How com-
pletely the incidents of the decisive conflict answer to those
of the battle of Achilleus, we have seen already. All that we
need now say is that Odysseus is united with his wife, to
whom Athene imparts all the radiant beauty of youth in
which she shone when Odysseus had left her twenty years
ago. The splendid scene with which the narrative ends
answers to the benignant aspect in which Achilleus appears
when Hektor is dead and his great toil against Ilion is over.
Section III.—THE CHILDREN OF THE SUN.
We have thus far traced the second return of the treasureseekers.
In each case the work to which they had devoted
themselves is accomplished. The golden fleece and Helen
are each brought back to the land from which they had been
taken ; and though Odysseus may have suffered many and
grievous disasters on the way, still even with him the de-
struction of the suitors is followed by a season of serene
repose. But the poet who here leaves him with the bride of
his youth restored to all her ancient beauty, tells us never-
theless that the chieftain and his wife must again be parted
and myths might be framed from this point of view as readily
as from the other. It was as natural to speak of the sun as
conquered in the evening by the powers of darkness as it
was to speak of him as victorious over these same foes in the
mornino-— as natural to describe the approach of night under
the guise of an expulsion of the children of Helios or Hera-
kles, as to represent the reappearance of the sunset hues in