BOOK The Trojan step three paces, we see the germ of that short-sightedness to their own interests which has imparted a burlesque character to the trolls and fairies of Northern Europe.' No sooner is the prayer granted than the dwarf, who is none other than the sun, measures the whole heaven with his three strides, and sends Bali to his fit abode in the dark Patala. But Bali himself is closely akin, or rather identical, with the giant Ravana, who steals away Sita, the bride of Rama, by whom he is himself slain, as Paris falls by the arrows of Philoktêtês. This story is modified in the Vishnu Purana to suit the idea of the transmigration of souls, and Ravana we are here told had been in a former birth Sisupala, the great enemy of Vishnu, whom he daily curses with all the force of relentless hatred. But these maledictions had, nevertheless, the effect of keeping the name of the god constantly before his mind; and thus, when he was slain by Vishnu, he beheld the deity in his true character, and became united with his divine adversary. But Vishnu, the discus-bearing god, has another enemy in Graha, in whom we see again only a new form of Ravana and Bali. Against this wise and powerful being, for the Panis are possessed of a hidden treasure which passes for the possession of knowledge, not even the discus of Vishnu nor a thousand thunderbolts have the least effect. The darkness is at the least as difficult to subdue as is the dawn or the day. 2 3 The three names, Paņi, Vritra, and Ahi, which are specially used to denote the antagonist of Indra, reappear in the mythology of other tribes, sometimes under a strange disguise, which has invested a being originally dark and sombre, with not a little of the beauty and glory of his conqueror. With these modified names appear others which The Pani appears in the German story of the Feather Bird as a sorcerer, who went begging from house to house that he might steal little girls. He is, in short, Paris Gynaimanês, the Bluebeard of modern stories, who gives each successive wife the keys of his house, charging her not to look into a certain chamber. At last he is cheated by the Helen whom he carries to his dwelling, and who dresses up a turnip to deceive him. The brothers and kinsfolk of the bride now come to rescue her; they immediately closed up all the doors of the house, and then set fire to it; and the sorcerer and all his accomplices were burnt to ashes;' a burning which is manifestly the destruction of Ilion. 2 Muir, Sanskrit Texts, 180, note. • Ib. 159. THE TROJAN PARIS. virtually translate the Vedic epithets. But in no case are the common and essential features of the myth so much lost sight of, or rather overlaid with colours borrowed from other mythical conceptions, as in the case of Paris. That the Helen of the Iliad is etymologically the Saramâ of the Vedic hymns, there is no question; that the Pani who tempts, or who prevails over Saramâ is the Trojan Paris, is not less clear. Both alike are deceivers and seducers, and both bring down their own doom by their offence. But when we have said that Paris, like the Panis and Vritra, steals away the fairest of women and her treasures (in which we see again the cows of Saramâ) from the western land, that he hides her away for ten long years in Ilion,' as the clouds are shut up in the prison-house of the Panis, and that the fight between Paris and Menelaos with his Achaian hosts ends in a discomfiture precisely corresponding to the defeat and death of Pani by the spear of Indra, we have in fact noted every feature in the western legend which identifies Paris with the dark powers.2 'This Ilion Dr. O. Meyer, in his Quæstiones Homerice, has sought to identify with the Sanskrit word vîlú, which he translates by stronghold. On this Professor Max Müller (Rig Veda Sanhita, i. 31) remarks that vilu in the Veda has not dwindled down as yet to a mere name, and that therefore it may have originally retained its purely appellative power in Greek as well as in Sanskrit, and from meaning a stronghold in general, have come to mean the stronghold of Troy' 2 Professor Müller, having identified the name Paris with that of the Panis, although he adds that the etymology of Pani is as doubtful as that of Paris, thinks that I am mistaken in my 'endeavours to show that Paris belongs to the class of bright solar heroes,' and says that if the germ of the Iliad is the battle between the solar and nocturnal powers, Paris surely belongs to the fatter, and he whose destiny it is to kill Achilleus in the Western Gates ἤματι τῷ ὅτε κέν σε Πάρις καὶ Φοῖβος Απόλλων ἐσθλὸν ἐόντ ̓ ὀλέσωσιν ἐνὶ Σκαιῇσι πύλησιν could hardly have been himself of solar or vernal lineage.'-Lectures on Lan guage, second series, 472. Doubtless clearly conveyed the idea of motion to the 331 CHAP. X. BOOK In the Odyssey, Saramâ reappears as in the older Vedic portraits, pure and unswerving in her fidelity to her absent Helen and lord. The dark powers or Panis are here the suitors who Penelopê. crowd around the beautiful Penelopê, while Odysseus is journeying homewards from the plains of Ilion. But the myth has here reached a later stage, and the treasures of Indra are no longer the refreshing rain-clouds, but the wealth which Odysseus has left stored up in his home, and which the suitors waste at their will. The temptation of Penelopê assumes the very form of the ordeal which Saramâ is obliged to go through. She, too, shall have her share of the treasures, if she will but submit to become the wife of any one of the chiefs who are striving for her hand. The wheedling and bullying of the Panis in the Vedic hymns is reproduced in the alternate coaxing and blustering of the western suitors; but as Saramâ rejects their offers, strong through the might of the absent Indra, so Penelopê has her scheme for frustrating the suitors' plans, trusting in the midst of all her grief and agony that Odysseus will assuredly one day come back. This device adheres with singular fidelity to the phenomena which mark the last moments of a summer day. Far above, in the upper regions of Hypereia, where the beautiful Phaiakians dwelt before the uncouth Kyklôpes sought to do them mischief, the fairy network of cirri clouds is seen at sundown flushing with deeper tints as the chariot of the lord of day sinks lower in the sky. This is the network of the weaver Penelopê, who like Iolê spreads her veil of violet clouds over the heaven in the morning and in the evening. Below it, stealing up from the dark waters, Hermes differ from those of the Vedic went to seek and if need be to fight for the golden fleece the Trojans represent the Panis, it can as little be questioned that some of those who fight on the side of Hektor belong as clearly as Phoibos or Herakles himself to the ranks of solar heroes. It is enough to mention the instances of Sarpêdôn and Memnon, even if no stress be laid on the fact that Paris himself is the darling of Aphrodite, which he could scarcely be if regarded simply as an embodiment of the dark and treacherous night. Such modifications are obviously inevitable. PENELOPE AND THE SUITORS. 333 are seen the sombre clouds which blot the light from the СНАР. X. horizon, and rise from right and left as with outstretched arms, to clasp the fairy forms which still shed their beauty over the upper heavens. At first their efforts are vain; twice it may be, or thrice, the exquisite network fades from sight, and then appears again with its lustre dimmed, as if through grief for the lover of Eôs or of Daphnê, 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 Penelopê 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 Penelopê, 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 Saramâ, for it is he himself that subdues; you Panis will lie prostrate, killed by Indra.' So too Penelopê 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 Saramâ 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 Saramâ for her faithlessness. Finally, by his victory, Odysseus rescues Penelopê and his wealth from the hands of his enemies, who are smitten down by his unerring arrows, as Vritra is slain by the irresistible spear of Indra. and The wealth of the Ithakan chieftain has assumed a dif- Herakles ferent form from that of the cows of Saramâ: but there are Echidna. other myths in which the cattle of Indra reappear as in the Vedic hymns. Herakles has more than once to search, like As in the case of Saramâ, so in that of Penelope, there are two versions of the myth, one representing her as incorruptible, the other as faithless. According to the latter, she became the mother of Pan either by Hermes or by BOOK II. Phoibos, for stolen cows, or sometimes horses, and each time |