Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/216

184 BOOK at all of his labour ; but Zeus can only look down on his brave son until the flames ascend to heaven from his funeral pile on Oita. There is, in short, no one phrase which might be said to describe the varying aspects of the sky, which is not petrified into some myth characteristic of the Kronid Zeus ; and the smile of the blue heaven, when all the brightness of day bursts upon it, becomes the rapture of Zeus when Here comes to him armed with the kestos (cestus) of Aphrodite, and the lulling spells of Hypnos.^ Thus also the serene height in which Zeus dwells, and from which he cannot descend, ex- plains his indifference and seeming immorality in the great conflict at Ilion. At the prayer of Thetis he may be induced to help the Trojans until Agamemnon has repaired the wTong done to Achilleus, or his inaction may be secured by the devices of Here ; but with Here herself there can be no such uncertainty or vacillation. Her name is but one of many names appUed to the sun, and she must take part steadily with the Argives and Danaans, the children of the Dawn. To her Paris, the seducer of the fair Helen, is strictly the evil Pani who tempts Sarama to betray the trust reposed in her by Indra ; and hence she may employ without scruple the power of her beauty, aided by the magic girdle of Aphrodite, to turn the scale in favour of Agamemnon and his Achaian warriors.

The mes- ^ut if Zeus cannot himself descend to the regions of the murky sengers of j^j^^ j-^g }^^g messengers who do his bidding. Foremost among these is Hermes, the god who flies on the breezes and the storm ; but Iris of the flashing feet is more truly the minister who joins the ether to the lower atmosphere of the earth. Whatever be the origin of the name Iris, the word was used by the poets of the Iliad to denote not only the divine messenger, but the rainbow itself Thus the dragons on the breastplate of Agamemnon are likened to the Irises which Zeus has set in the heavens as a marvel to mortal men • " and more plainly Iris is the purple arch or bow which Zeus stretches from one end of heaven to the other, to give warning of war or deadly drought.* She is a daughter of Thaumas and Elektra, the wonderful amber tints, and a sister of the Harpyiai, the rent and ragged clouds against which those tints are seen ; and she would be the golden-winged messenger, not only because the rainbow can come and vanish with the speed

been fully p.aid is in the Iliad only the spirit of mischievous folly. So loo, the Moirai, who, like Ate, had been only his ministers, become possessed, like the Norns, of an irresponsible authority, while finally the force of destiny attains its most overpowering proportions in the Ananke whom, according to the theo- gony of Euripides, not even the father of gods and men is able to withstand or control.

' //. xiv. 2IO, &c. « Ih. xi. 27. ' lb. xviii. 549.