Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

278 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
BOOK on the watery deep which couches beneath ? l Their very
>_ ,' _, name points to the twilight land, and when the ship brings
Odysseus back to his own island, it comes like the gleaming
staivushering Eos, the early born. 2
The Phai- As the Kyklopes are the natural enemies of the Phaiakians,
Odysseus,
so the latter have a natural friendship and love for the bright
beings who gladden them with their light. When the hea-
vens are veiled with the murky storm vapours, the lovely
Phaiakians may still be thought of as comforting the bright
hero in his sorrow : and hence the sympathy which by the
agency of the dawn-goddess Athene is kindled in the heart
of the pure Nausikaa for the stranger whom she finds on the
sea-shore wearied almost unto death. This man of many
and the real nature of
griefs is not indeed what he seems ;
the being whom they thus befriend b/eaks out from time to
time beneath the poor disguise which for the present he is
content to wear. No sooner has Odysseus cleansed his face,
than the soft locks flow down over his shoulders with
the hue of the hyacinth flower, and his form gleams like a
golden statue 3 and the same air of regal majesty is thrown
over him when he stands in the assembly of the Phaiakians,
who must love him when they see his glory. 4
Niobe ar.d Prom the sorrows of the forsaken Nephele we passed to
the happiness of the cloudland itself. Prom this peaceful
region we must pass again to deeper griefs than those of the
wife of Athamas. Of the many tales related of the luckless
Niobe, there is perhaps not one of which the meaning is not
easily seen. Her name itself shows her affinity to the mother
of Phrixos and Helle ; and if in one version she is called a
1 The. poet, as we might expect, con- about to die, he bids his men lay him
tradicts himself when he relates the armed in the boat and put him out to
voyage of the Phaiakians as they carry sea. This is the bark Ellide of Ice-
Odysseus from Phaiakia to Ithaka. landic legend, the wonderful ship of the
Hero the ship has oarsmen and oars, Norso tale of Shortshanks, which beand
these imply the furniture of other comes bigger and bigger as soon as the
ships, which he has expressly denied to hero steps into it, which goes without
them before. rudder or sail, and when he comes out
2 Od. xiii. 93 ; Preller, Or. Myth. i. becomes as small as it was before.
495. Not less mysterious than the Phai- This is, manifestly, nothing more than
akian ships is the vessel without sail or the swelling and shrinking of vapour:
rudder, which brings Scild, the son of and so the ship which can carry all the
Sceaf, the skiff, to the coast of Scandia. Asas may be folded up like a napkin.
Srildbccomcsthekingof the land, and in
3 Od. vi. 225.
the lay of Beowulf, when ho feels himself * Od, viii. 21.