Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/324

292 BOOK II. The mad- ness of Herakles.

by the poet of the Odyssey, who makes Herakles tell Odysseus that his sufferings are but a reflexion of the toils which he had himself undergone by the tyranny of the mean Eurystheus, and that this task of bringing up the hound had been achieved by the aid of Athene and Hermes, the dawn and the breeze of morning.^ On this framework was built an elaborate superstructure, which we need not examine closely, but of which some at least of the details are, significant. The slaught-r of the Kentaurs by Herakles, for which he needed purification before descending to Hades, is the conquest and dispersion of the vapours by the sun as he rises in the heaven ; and the crime of Herakles is only another form of that of Ixion. As he returns to the upper world he rescues Theseus, himself one of the great solar heroes, and the child of Aithra, the pure air ; but Peiri- thoos must remain behind, as Patroklos must die even though he be the friend of Achilleus. The dog of Yama thus brought back is, of course, carried down again by Herakles to the nether world.

But the sun as he rises in the heaven acquires a fiercer power ; and thus ApoUon becomes Chrysaor, and Herakles becomes mad. It is the raging of the heat which burns up the fruits of the earth which it has fostered, and so Herakles slays his own children by Megara, and two also of the sons of Iphikles. At this point he is represented by some as asking the Pythian priestess where he should make his abode, and as receiving from her, instead of his former title, Alkaios or Alkides, the sturdy, the name of Herakles, the heavenly.^ As such, he is the avenger of the fraud of Laomedon, who had refused to pay the promised recompense to Poseidon and Phoibos for building his walls and tending his flocks. As in the case of Kepheus or of Oineus, the offended deities send a monster to ravage the fields of llion, and Laomedon promises to bestow his immortal horses on any one who will slay it. But again he breaks his oath, by giving mortal steeds to Herakles when the beast has been killed. The result is the first Trojan war mentioned in the Iliad, which relates how Herakles, coming with six ships and few men, shattered its towers and left its streets desolate." In other

• Od. xi. 626 ; //. viii. 369. The latter passage is especially noteworthy as indicating that clashing of wills between Athene and Zeus which Mr. Gladstone is anxious to keep as much as possible in the background. Athene here speaks of Zeus as mad, hard of heart, a blunderer, and an obstacle in her path. Here, with the termination ilenoting glory or renown. ' //. V. 640. This story is put into the mouth of the Ilerakleid Tlepolemos when he is about to slay Sarpedon. — Grote, Hist. Gr. i. 388. The other incidents simply repeat the story of Kejiheus. The oracle says that a maiden must be given up to the sea- monster, and the lot falls on Hesione, the daughter of Laomedon, as in the Libyan tale it falls on Andromeda, the
 * The name Herakles is the same as