Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/289

Rh CHAP, There might be a hundred myths inwoven into the history of either side, so long as this was done without violating the laws of mythical credibility. Glaukos must not himself take part in the theft of Helen : but if local tradition made him a Lykian chief not only in a mythical but also in a geographical sense, there was no reason why he should not leave his home to repei the enemies of Priam. Phoibos must not so far turn the course of events as to secure the triumph of Paris : but he might fairly be regarded as the supporter and guide of the generous and self-sacrificing Hektor. Hence when the death day of Hektor has come, Apollon leaves him, reluctantly it may be, but still he abandons him while Athene draws near to Achilleus to nerve him for the final conflict.^ So again. Aphrodite may wrap Aineias in mist and thus withdraw him from the fight which was going against him ; but she must not herself smite his enemy Diomedes, and the Achaian must be victor even at the cost of the blood which flows within her own veins. But when the vengeance of Achilleus is accomplished, she may again perform her own special work for the fallen Hektor. The dawn is the great preserver, purifier, and restorer ; and hence though the body of Hektor had been tied by the feet to Achilleus' chariot wheels and trailed in the defiling dust,^ still all that is unseemly is cleansed away and the beauty of death brought back by Aphrodite, who keeps off all dogs and anoints him with the ambrosial oil which makes all decay impossible, while Phoibos shrouds the body in a purple mist, to temper the fierce heat of the midday sun.' It is true that this kindly office, by which the bodies of Chundun Raja and Sodewa Bai are preserved in the Hindu fairy tales, is performed for the body of Patroklos by Thetis: but Thetis, like Athene and Aphrodite, is herself the child of the waters, and the mother of a child whose bright career and early doom is,

' The importance of the subject war- left for any comparison which may turn rants my repeating that too great a the balance in favour of either warrior. stress cannot be laid on this passage of In neither case are the conditions with the Iliad {xxii. 213). With an unfairness which we are dealing the conditions of which would be astounding if we failed human life, nor can the heroes be to remember that Colonel Mure had an judged by the scales in which mankind hypothesis to maintain which must be must be weighed. Nay, not only does maintained at all costs, the author of Phoibos leave Hektor to his own de- the Critical History of Greek Literature vices, but Athene cheats him into re- thought fit to glorify Achilleus and sisting Achilleus, when perhaps his own vilify Hektor, on the ground that the sober sense would have led him to latter overcame Patroklos only because retreat within the walls. //. xxii. 231. he was aided by Phoibos, while the ^ //. xxii. 396. Yet it has been former smote down Hektor only in fair gravely asserted that "Homer knows combat and by his own unaided force. nothing of any deliberate insults to the But in point of fact Achilleus cannot body of Hektor, or of any barbarous in slay his antagonist until Phoibos has dignities practised upon it." deserted him, and no room whatever is ' //. xxiii. 185-191.