The Queen of the Air: Being a Study of the Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm. Ruskin John

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      Homer could not have known this; neither that the buzzing of the fly was produced, as in a wind instrument, by a constant current of air through the trachea. But he had seen, and, doubtless, meant us to remember, the marvellous strength and swiftness of the insect's flight (the glance of the swallow itself is clumsy and slow compared to the darting of common house-flies at play); he probably attributed its murmur to the wings, but in this also there was a type of what we shall presently find recognized in the name of Pallas,—the vibratory power of the air to convey sound, while, as a purifying creature, the fly holds its place beside the old symbol of Athena in Egypt, the vulture; and as a venomous and tormenting creature has more than the strength of the serpent in proportion to its size, being thus entirely representative of the influence of the air both in purification and pestilence; and its courage is so notable that, strangely enough, forgetting Homer's simile, I happened to take the fly for an expression of the audacity of freedom in speaking of quite another subject.14 Whether it should be called courage, or mere mechanical instinct, may be questioned, but assuredly no other animal, exposed to continual danger, is so absolutely without sign of fear.

      36. You will, perhaps, have still patience to hear two instances, not of the communication as strength, but of the personal agency of Athena as the air. When she comes down to help Diomed against Ares, she does not come to fight instead of him, but she takes his charioteer's place.

      "She snatched the reins, she lashed with all her force,

      And full on Mars impelled the foaming horse."

      Ares is the first to cast his spear; then—note this—Pope says:

           "Pallas opposed her hand, and caused to glance,

           Far from the car, the strong immortal lance."

      She does not oppose her hand in the Greek—the wind could not meet the lance straight—she catches it in her hand, and throws it off. There is no instance in which a lance is so parried by a mortal hand in all the Iliad, and it is exactly the way the wind would parry it, catching it, and turning it aside. If there are any good rifleshots here, they know something about Athena's parrying; and in old times the English masters of feathered artillery knew more yet. Compare also the turning of Hector's lance from Achilles: Iliad, xx. 439.

      37. The last instance I will give you is as lovely as it is subtile. Throughout the Iliad, Athena is herself the will or Menis of Achilles. If he is to be calmed, it is she who calms him; if angered, it is she who inflames him. In the first quarrel with Atreides, when he stands at pause, with the great sword half drawn, "Athena came from heaven, and stood behind him and caught him by the yellow hair." Another god would have stayed his hand upon the hilt, but Athena only lifts his hair. "And he turned and knew her, and her dreadful eyes shone upon him." There is an exquisite tenderness in this laying her hand upon his hair, for it is the talisman of his life, vowed to his own Thessalian river if he ever returned to its shore, and cast upon Patroclus' pile, so ordaining that there should be no return.

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      1

      "Athena the Restrainer." The name is given to her as having helped Bellerophon to bridle Pegasus, the flying cloud.

      2

      And by modern science now also asserted, and with probability argued, to exist.

      3

      There are many other meanings in the epithet; see farther on, §91, pp. 133, 134.

      4

      I am compelled, for clearness' sake, to mark only one meaning at a time. Athena's helmet is sometim

1

"Athena the Restrainer." The name is given to her as having helped Bellerophon to bridle Pegasus, the flying cloud.

2

And by modern science now also asserted, and with probability argued, to exist.

3

There are many other meanings in the epithet; see farther on, §91, pp. 133, 134.

4

I am compelled, for clearness' sake, to mark only one meaning at a time. Athena's helmet is sometimes a mask, sometimes a sign of anger, sometimes of the highest light of æther; but I cannot speak of all this at once.

5

This first word of the Iliad, Menis, afterwards passes into the Latin Mens; is the root of the Latin name for Athena, "Minerva," and so the root of the English "mind."

6

Note, once for all, that unless when there is question about some particular expression, I never translate literally, but give the real force of what is said, as I best can, freely.

7

Translated by Max Müller in the opening of his essay on "Comparative Mythology."—Chips from a German Workshop, vol. ii.

8

Printer's error: should be 23.

9

I believe that the conclusions of recent scholarship are generally opposed to the Herodotean ideas of any direct acceptance by the Greeks of Egyptian myths: and very certainly, Greek art is developed by giving the veracity and simplicity of real life to Eastern savage grotesque; and not by softening the severity of pure Egyptian design. But it is of no consequence whether one conception was, or was not, in this case, derived from the other; my object is only to mark the essential difference between them.

10

On the altar of Hermes on its summit, as on that of the Lacinian Hera, no wind ever stirred the ashes. By those altars, the Gods of Heaven were appeased, and all their storms at rest.

11

I am convinced that the 'eri' in 'eriounios' is not intensitive, but retained from 'erion'; but even if I am wrong in thinking this, the mistake is of no consequence with respect to the general force of the term as meaning the profitableness of Hermes. Athena's epithet of 'ageleia' has a parallel significance. [Transcriber's note: words inside single apostrophes are Greek, and use the Greek alphabet.]

12

Not a scientific, but a very practical and expressive distinction.

13

Ormerod: "Natural History of Wasps."

14

See farther on, §148, pp. 154-156.

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