Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/435

Rh CHAP.

Sisyphos, whose story is that of the sun toiling to the uppermost heights of the heaven ^vith his huge orb, only to see it roll down again to the sea. From these springs Odysseus, whose name, in the belief of the poet,^ indicated the wrath or hatred of his grandsire Autolykos, but which through the form Olyseus, the Latin Ulyxes or Ulysses, may possibly represent the Sanskrit ulukshaya, the Eurykreion or widely ruling king of the Greeks. With the abode of Autolykos on Parnassos is connected the story of the boar's bite, by whose mark Eurykleia the old nurse recognises Odysseus on his return from Ilion ; nor can we doubt that this boar is the beast whose tusk wrought the death of Adonis. It is true indeed that in Autolykos the idea suggested by the penetrating powers of sunlight has produced a character far lower than that of Odysseus : but it must not be for- gotten that the latter can lie, or steal, or stab secretly when it suits his purpose to do so. If the splendour of the sun is in one sense an image of absolute openness and sincerity, the rays which peer into dark crannies or into the depths of the sea may as naturally indicate a craft or cunning which must suggest the forms assumed by the myth in the stories of Medeia, Autolykos, and Sisyphos. The process is the same as that which converted the flashing weapon of Chrysaor into the poisoned arrows of Herakles, Odysseus, and Philoktetes.

But Odysseus, the suitor of Helen, is known especially as the Odysseus husband of Penelope, who weaves by day the beautiful web of cirri fjl clouds which is undone again during the night; and it is as the weaver that she defeats the schemes of the suitors in that long contest which runs parallel to the great conflict at Ilion. For the departure of the Achaian chieftains at Troy is the departure of the light after sundown; and the powers of darkness as necessarily assail Penelope as they fight to retain Helen in the city of Priam and Paris. How then could she withstand their importunities except by devising some such condition as that of the finishing of a web which cannot be seen completed except by the light of the sun, — in other words, until Odysseus should have come back? Regarded thus, Penelope is the faithful bride of the sun, pure and unsullied in her truthfulness as Athene herself, and cherishing the memory of Odysseus through weary years of sorrow and suffering. As such, the poet of the Odyssey has chosen to exhibit her ; but there were legends which spoke of Pan as the offspring of Penelope and Hermes, or of PenelopS and all the suitors together. Of this myth, which simply exhibits the evening twilight and the darkness as the parents of the breeze which murmurs softly in the night, it is enough to say that we have no right

' Od. xix. 410.