Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/72

40 former bravery gives place to sullen or effeminate inaction, the same change is seen in Meleagros and Achilleus. If he is capricious, so are they; and each sits burnishing his golden armour in his tent or his secret chamber, making ready for the fight, yet doing nothing. If, again, it is by the weapon of Paris that Achilleus is to fall in the western gates, the arrow which slays Paris is drawn from the quiver of Herakles. But with the fatal wound comes back the love of Paris for the lost Oinone; and not less forgiving than Prokris to the faithless Kephalos, Oinone stands before him. With a soft and tender grief she gazes on the face which had once filled the whole earth for her with beauty. She sees his life-blood flowing away; but though she has the power of the soft evening time to soothe the woes of mortal men, she cannot heal the poisoned wound which is slaying Paris. But with the death of him who once was called Alexandres, the light of her life is gone. Paris rests in the sleep of death, and Oin6ne lies down to die by his side.

The Iliad is, in short, the Volsung tale, as wrought out by the poets of a bright and fertile land. The Hellenic myths can no longer be regarded as exponents of abstract physical truths or theories. There can be no doubt that (whatever appearance of such a system may have been imparted to it by the priests), the supposition does not apply with more force even to Egyptian mythology. In Egypt, as well as in Greece and Northern Europe, we have again the solar legend. The spring was the time of festival, the autumn of fast and mourning. It would almost seem as though the Egyptian myths were in this respect more closely akin to those of Northern than of Southern Europe.—See Milman, History of Christianity, vol. i. p. 13. Compare also the Surtr of the Icelandic mythology, Dasent's "Norsemen in Iceland," Oxford Essays for 1858, p. 198.The groundwork of the Volsunga Saga, of the tales of Helen, Alkestis, Sarpedon, and Memnon, reappears in the legends and the worship of Adonis. The origin of the myth is in this case self-evident, while the grossness of the forms which it has assumed shows the degree to which such legends may either influence or be modified by national characteristics or the physical conditions of a country. Even in their worst aspects, Zeus and Odin retain some majesty and manly power; but in the legend of Adonis, the idea of the sun as calling the earth back to life has been sensualised to a degree far beyond the sensuousness of Greek or Teutonic mythology. In fact, the image of Demeter has passed by a very easy transmutation into that of Aphrodite: but there not only remains the early death of Adonis, but it is assigned to the very cause which cuts short the life of Achilleus, Sigurd, Baldur, and Meleagros. The boar's tusk, which reappears in the myth of Odysseus, is but the thorn of winter and the poisoned robe of Herakles; and accordingly there were versions which affirmed that it was Apollon who, in the form of a boar, killed the darling of Aphrodite. The division of time also varies. In some legends the covenant is the same as that which is made with Demeter for Persephone. In others, he remains four months with Hades, four with Aphrodite, while the remaining four, being at his own disposal, he chooses to spend with the latter. Yet, if the harsh climate of the north modified the Norse mythology, it also moulded indefinitely the national character, and the two acted and reacted on each other. Bred up to fight with nature in a constant battle for existence, the