legend of the swan knight who as a child is borne away by birds of the same species to some distant land, some earthly paradise, and returns at last in the like fashion. In the case of Lohengrin the knight comes in a barge which a swan is dragging along as he swims; and so, in this example, Apollo's dolphin voyage and his swan flight through the air are, in a manner, combined into one picture. The wandering Apollo led the Dorians to Crissa. But I do not think this was the only occasion on which he became their guide. The sun, in all migrations and in all wanderings, is ever the leader; and I have no doubt that Apollo had been at the head of all the adventures of the Doric race. But when these last had adopted Heraclês from the men of the land to which they came, they transferred this character of leader from the god to the demigod. As K. O. Müller says, 'everything which is related of the exploits of Heracles in the north of Greece refers exclusively to the history of the Dorians, and conversely all the actions of the Doric race in their earliest settlements are fabulously represented in the person of Heraclês.'' To account for the migrations of the Dorians, a so-called 'return of the Heraclida' was invented and placed under the special guidance of Heracles. The transfer to this last god or demi-god of some of the deeds of Apollo had two causes, and has two aspects. In one aspect it was a reassertion of the importance of the older demi-god, of him, that is to say, whom the Pelasgic Greeks had worshipped before they knew Apollo. But it has another significance beside this. Heraclês remained essentially the lower divinity, the peasants' god; Apollo was the god of the higher race. Wherefore it was natural to ascribe to the former those deeds which were most essentially human in character. Apollo was raised to a loftier and remoter sphere so soon as he had been Dorians, Eng. translation, p. 56. DEATHS OF APOLLO AND HERACLES. 189 purged of the more human parts of his nature, and these had been passed over to Heraclês. We note the effects of this change in one matter of supreme importance belonging to the mythic history of the sun. We have already seen how necessarily it belongs to the sun's nature that he should be born weak, and suffer hardships in his childhood; how it belongs to him that he should be a wanderer and a fighter. But not less than all this it appertains to his character that he should die. It is this last act which makes the nature of the sun god approach the nearest to human nature. Wherefore it is an action sure to be brought into prominence in the case of a sun god who has sunk some way toward the human level, and is sure to be as much as possible suppressed in the case of a god who has come to be raised very high above the level of mankind. This truth is illustrated in the persons of Heraclês and Apollo. The death of Heraclês is the most impressive incident in all his varied history. No one who reads the account of it can, I think, fail to be struck by the likeness of the picture to an image of the setting sun. The hero returning home, has reached the shore of the Ægæan, when Lichas comes to meet him, bearing the fatal shirt poisoned with the blood of Nessus. At starting upon his voyage Heracles puts it on, and straightway the burning folds cling to his body, just as the sunset clouds cling round the setting sun. Feeling that his end is near, Heraclês orders Lichas to make him a mound upon Mount Etaon the western shore of the Ægæan, as we note—and there is he burned. The flame of his pyre shines out far over All this has been better said in Sir G. Cox's Mythology of the Aryan Nations, and in the same writer's Tales of Ancient Greece. I am, I confess, among those who think that the learned writer has used too much ingenuity in hunting out possible 'sun myths.' But that this story and many others are sun myths I feel no manner of doubt. The universality of folk tales argues nothing against the existence of nature myths of this kind. Even if many of the tales had been invented before nature worship began, they would inevitably get transferred to those gods whose characters they fitted. the sea as the sun's last rays shine out in the light of the fiery sky. So, too, in a Northern myth, Hringhorni, the funeral ship of Balder-that is to say, the barque of the sun-is described as drifting out burning into the west. The Northmen never upheld the idea that their gods were immortal, and therefore it was no difficulty to them to tell of the death of the sun. Neither was it difficult for the Greeks to tell of the death of Heraclês, because Heraclês was not one of the true Olympian gods. He had only by sufferance his place on Olympus, and had left behind him in Hades (as a sort of pledge) his shade, which still stalked about those darksome fields. It was far harder to realise that Apollo could ever have suffered death, and accordingly we find that the memory of that part of his career was almost forgotten in the latter days. Yet there are relics of myths which were myths of Apollo's dying. One is this. When Apollo had slain the Python, he had, as we have seen, to purify himself; and part of his purification consisted in serving in the stables of Admetos, and in tending his horses on the sides of Pierus. Now Admetus, as Otfried Müller has shown, is really one of the by-names of Hades; so that Apollo's service in this case is a descent to the under world. No doubt but this is some relic of an earlier myth, which gave to the great battle between Apollo and the Serpent a different ending from that now known to us, making the god worsted and not victorious in his fight with the powers of darkness. Another indication of a descent to hell is found in the share which Apollo takes in the recall of Alcestis from the realm of Death and her restoration to her husband. It is here that the likeness between the Greek god and the Christian Saviour which has been insisted on by Od. xi. 601. Heracles also makes a temporary descent to Hades, and brings back Cerberus. This combat, and that of Heracles with Thanatos, in the story of Alcestis, are instances of victory over death on the part of the hero. 2 Il. ii. 766. ZEUS AND APOLLO IN THE ILIAD. 191 many writers reaches its culminating point. Of course every sun god must descend to the world of shades, but all do not rise again: none rise more victoriously than Apollo does, harrowing Hell, as it were, and bringing back the spoils in the person of Alcestis. Just so, according to Middle Age tradition, did Christ, after going down into Hell, spoil from its clutches the patriarchs of the Old Testament, Adam and Abel, Noah, Moses, Abraham, and the greatest among the seed of Abraham. Con segno Io era nuovo in questo loco, The history of the development of Apollo's character, then, is the gradual exaltation of his nature to suit the growing needs of men. All that was lowest in it, and all that seemed inconsistent with the highest degree of power, all that was fierce and rude, all that was too human in weakness, could be transferred to one of the older sun godsto Heraclês, say, or to Arês-until at last the god of Hellas became the prototype of the highest development of Greek culture. In Homer he is not only the greatest of all the sun gods; he is superior in character to almost every other deity. In the Iliad, though Zeus is the most mighty of the two, Apollo's is certainly the more majestic figure. There is something very suggestive in the remoteness of Apollo from the passion of partisanship which sways the other Olympians; first the terror of his coming to revenge a slight done to himself, and then his withdrawal for a long time from all part in the combat after that injury has been thoroughly atoned for. One cannot help seeing a certain analogy in the characters and positions of the chief actors in the drama of the Iliad, Agamemnon and Achilles, and those two heavenly spectators Zeus and Apollo.' Zeus is the king of gods, as Agamemnon of men, and, despite the fact that Zeus sides with the Trojans, there is a bond of union between the god and the mortal. Agamemnon always addresses himself first to Zeus, even to the Zeus who rules on Ida, and when the Achæans are sacrificing some to one god, some to another, his prayer is to the King of Heaven.2 The likeness between Apollo and Achilles scarcely needs to be pointed out. Achilles is a sun hero and Apollo is a sun god; that is really all the difference between them. Each is the ideal youth, the representative, one might fairly say, of young Greece,' that which was to become in after years Hellas. Achilles is from the very primal Hellas, whence the whole country eventually took its name. Apollo and Achilles have the same sense of strength in reserve and an abstinence from participation in the battle going on around each is provoked to do so only by some very near personal injury. M. Didron, in his interesting work on Christian iconography, gives us a sketch of the relative positions in art occupied during the Middle Ages by the two first persons of the Trinity, whence we can gather their positions in popular belief, of which art is the mouthpiece. We find that at first God the Father never appears; His presence is indicated by a hand or by some other symbol, He has no visible place in the picture; and when at last He takes a bodily shape, His form is borrowed from that of His Son. It is Christ who, in the monuments of the fourth to the tenth centuries, is generally portrayed performing On the whole it must be noticed that Zeus and Apollo, unlike Athênê and Hêra, do not engage personally in the fight-Apollo does so once or twice-but use their powers as nature gods. Zeus especially acts in this way: Apollo does so in the case of the demolition of the Achæans' wall (bk. xii.) See also the great fight of the gods in the xxth book. 2 Cf. I. ii. 403, 412; iii. 276. |