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Rh chap.

lay his hands. Of the incidents of this struggle it is unnecessary here to say more than that they exhibit the victory of the poor despised outcast, whether it be Boots, or Cinderella, or Jack the Giant Killer, or the Great Fool, over those who pride themselves on their grandeur and their strength. He stands a beggar in his own hall. Athene herself has taken all beauty from his face, all colour from his golden hair ; but there remains yet the bow which he alone can bend, the gleaming slipper which Cinderella alone can put on. The whole picture is wonderfully true to the phenomena of the earth and the heavens, but as a portrait of human character, it is not more happy than that of Achilleus. There is the same complete disproportion between the offence committed and the vengeance taken, the same frightful delight in blood and torture — the mutilation of Melanthios and the deliberate slaughter of the handmaidens answering to the insults offered by Achilleus to the body of Hektor, and the cold- blooded murder of the twelve Trojan youths on the funeral p^Te of Patroklos. The incidents of the decisive conflict answer com- pletely to those of the battle of Achilleus ; and all that we need say is that Odysseus is united with his wife, to whom Athene imparts all the radiant beauty of youth in which she shone when Odysseus had left her twenty years ago. The splendid scene with which the narrative ends answers to the benignant aspect in which Achilleus appears when Hektor is dead. We have thus far traced the second return of the treasure-seekers. The ex- In each case the work to which they had devoted themselves is fhe^Hera-^ accomplished. The golden fleece and Helen are each brought back kieids. to the land from which they had been taken ; and though Odysseus may have suffered many and grievous disasters on the way, still even with him the destruction of the suitors is followed by a season of serene repose. But the poet who here leaves him with the bride of his youth restored to all her ancient beauty, tells us nevertheless that the chieftain and his wife must again be parted ; and myths might be framed from this point of view as readily as from the other. It was as natural to speak of the sun as conquered in the evening by the powers of darkness as it was to speak of him as victorious over these same foes in the morning — as natural to describe the approach of night under the guise of an expulsion of the children of Helios or Herakles, as to represent the reappearance of the sunset hues in