Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/318

286 BOOK II. Patroklos and Tele- machos. The bond- age of

called into life, it must be because some one who had not the skill and the strength of Helios was holding the reins of his chariot.^ Hence in times of excessive heat or drought the phrase ran that Phaethon, the mortal son of an undying father, was unable to guide the horses of Helios, while the thunderstorm, which ended the drought and discomfited Vritra and the Sphinx, dealt also the death- blow to Phaethon and plunged him into the sea. The tears of the Hcliades, his sisters, like the drops which fell from the eyes of Zeus on the death of his son Sarpedon, answer to the down-pouring rain which follows the discharge of the lightning.

Phaethon, then, is strictly a reflexion of his father with all his beauty and all his splendour, but without his discretion or his strength ; and the charge given to him that he is not to whip the fiery steeds is of the very essence of the story. If he would but abstain from this, they would bring him safely to his journey's end; but he fails to obey, and is smitten. The parallel between this legend and that of Patroklos is singularly exact As Phaethon is allowed to drive the horses of Helios under a strict charge that he shall not touch them with his whip, so Achilleus suffers Patroklos to put on his armour and ascend his chariot under the injunction that so soon as he has driven the Trojans from the ships he is not to attempt to pursue them to the city. Patroklos disobeys the command and is slain by Hektor; but the sorrow of the Heliades is altogether sur- passed by the fiery agony of Achilleus. It is in truth impossible not to see the same weakened reflexion of a stronger personality in the Latin Remus the brother of Romulus, in Arjuna the companion of Krishna, in Peirithoos the associate of Theseus, and in all the other mythical instances cited by Cicero as examples of genuine friendship. In the folk-lore of the East these secondaries, represented by Faithful John in the Teutonic story, reappear as Luxman in the legend of Ramah, and as Butti in the talc of Vicram Maharajah. Nor can we fail to discern the same idea in the strange story of Absyrtos, the younger and weaker brother of the wise and unscrupulous Medeia, who scatters his limbs in the sea to stay the pursuit of Aietes, — a vivid image of the young sun as torn into pieces among the vapours that surround him, while the light falling in isolated patches on the sea seems to set bounds to the encroaching darkness which gives way before the conqueror of the clouds.

The slaughter of the Kyklopes brought on Phoibos the sentence of a year's servitude ; and thus we have in the myth of Apollon him-

' This is the Irish story of Cuchullin and Ferdiah. — Fergusson, Irish llcJor^ the Conquest.