BOOK II when the Achaians come to Ilion to avenge the wrongs of Helen, and he resists them with all his power. In the ensuing strife he is smitten by Achilleus, and all efforts to heal the wound are vain. In his misery he betakes himself again to the oracle, and learns that only the man who has inflicted the wound can heal it. In the end, Agamemnon prevails on Achilleus to undo his own work, and to falsify in the case of Teleplios the proverb which made use of his name to describe an incurable wound. The means employed is the rust of the spear which had pierced him, — an explanation which turns on the equivocal meaning of the words ios, ion, as denoting rust, poison, an arrow, and the violet colour.
Twofold the Trojan As we read the story of Telephos we can scarcely fail to think of the story of Trojan Paris, for like Telephos Paris is exposed as a Paris. babe on the mountain side, and like him he receives at the hands of Achilleus a wound which is either incurable or which Oinone either will not or cannot heal. Paris is the great malefactor who by taking Helen from Sparta brings the Achaian chiefs to the assault of Troy; and as Helen is manifestly the Vedic Sarama, the beautiful light of the morning or the evening, Paris as conveying her to his stronghold is the robber who drives off the shining cattle of Indra to his dungeon The fight at Troy is thus the struggle of the children of the Sun to recover from the dreary caves of night the treasure of which the darkness deprived them in the evening ; in other words, Ilion is the fortress of Vritra or Ahi, and Paris the successful seducer of Helen represents the unsuccessful seducer of Sarama. But even in the eyes of Sarama the Pani is not altogether repulsive ; and the Gorgon Medousa shares the beauty of Asterodia and Selene, of Ursula and the Fairy Queen. Hence to a large extent a parallel may be drawn between the career of the bright heroes and that of the dark beings who oppose them. In his capriciousness, his moody sullenness, his self-imposed inaction, Paris resembles Meleagros and Achilleus. The cause also is the same. Achilleus is angry because Briseis is taken away : Paris is indignant because he is desired to give up Helen. But if the Trojans as a whole represent the enemies of Indra, many of those chiefs who take his part are heroes whose solar origin is beyond all question. On his side may be seen the Ethiopian Memnon, over whose body the morning weeps tears of dew, and who, rising from the dead, is exalted forever to the bright halls of Olympos. With them are ranged the chieftains of the bright Lykian land ; and assuredly in Glaukos and Sarpedon we discern not a single point of likeness with the dark troops of the Panis. There is nothing in the history of mythology which should make this result a matter of
