Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/574

542 BOOK II. Herakles and Echidaa.

and then appears again with its lustre dimmed, as if through grief for the lover of Eos or of Daphne, who has gone away. But the shades of night grow deeper, and with it deepens the tumult and rage of the black vapours which hurry to seize their prey ; and the ending of the web which the suitors compel Penelope to finish is the closing in of the night when the beautiful cirri clouds are shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Then follows the weary strife in which the suitors seek to overcome the obstinacy of Penelope, and which corresponds to the terrible struggle which precedes the recovery of Helen from the thief who has stolen her away. But like the Panis, and Paris, and Vritra, the suitors bring about their own destruction. *' I do not know that Indra is to be subdued," says Sarama, "for it is he himself that subdues; you Panis will lie prostrate, killed by Indra." So too Penelope can point to a weapon which none of the suitors can wield, and which shall bring them to death if ever the chief returns to his home. In the house of Odysseus there may be servants and handmaids who cast in their lot with the suitors, as Sarama proved faithless when she accepted the milk offered to her by the Panis ; and for these there is a penalty in store, like the blow of Indra which punished Sarama for her faithlessness.^ Finally, by his victory, Odysseus rescues Penelope and his wealth from the hands of his enemies, who are smitten do-n by his unerring arrows, as Vritra is slain by the irresistible spear of Indra.

The wealth of the Ithakan chieftain has assumed a different form from that of the cows of Sarama : but there are other myths in which the cattle of Indra reappear as in the Vedic hymns. Herakles has more than once to search, like Phoibos, for stolen cows, or sometimes horses, and each time they are found hidden away in the secret dwelling of the robber. In the storj^ of Echidna we have not only the cattle and the cave, but the very name of the throttling snake Ahi, the epithet by which the Hindu specially sought to express his hatred for the serpent Vritra. Accordingly in the Hesiodic Theogony Echidna is the parent of all the monsters who represent the cloud- enemy of Indra. Night and day follow or produce each other, and as Phoibos is the child of Leto, so is he in his turn the father of the night which is his deadliest enemy. The black darkness follows the beautiful twilight, and thus in the Hesiodic version Echidna is the daughter of Chrysaor, the lord of the golden sword and of the beautiful Kallirhoe. But although her offspring may cause disgust

' As in the case of Sarama, so in that of Penelope, there are two versions of the myth, one representing her as in- corruptible, the other as faithless. Ac- cording to the latter, she became the mother of Pan either by Hermes or by all the suitors.