Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/143

Rh esting and ingenious, that without presuming here to discuss its truth, it claims a brief mention. It may be fairest to put it in the words of one of its most enthusiastic advocates. So far as it applies to the Odyssey, it stands thus:—

"The Sun [Ulysses] leaves his bride the Twilight [Penelope] in the sky, where he sinks beneath the sea, to journey in silence and darkness to the scene of the great fight with the powers of Darkness [the Siege of Troy]. The ten weary years of the war are the weary hours of the night The victory is won: but the Sun still longs to see again the beautiful bride from whom he parted yester-eve. Dangers may await him, but they cannot arrest his steps: things lovely may lavish their beauty upon him, but they cannot make him forget her But he cannot reach his home until another series of ten long years have come to an end—the Sun cannot see the Twilight until another day is done."

So, in the Iliad, as has been already noticed, Paris and the Trojans represent the powers of Darkness, "who steal away the beautiful Twilight [Helen] from the western sky;" while Achilles is the Sun, who puts to rout these forces of the Night.

In contrast, though not necessarily in contradiction, to this physical allegory, stands the moral interpretation, a favourite one with some of the mediæval stu-