BOOK
these ships be but the Phaiakians themselves, as they sail at will
through the blue seas of heaven, not on the watery deep which
couches beneath ?^ Their very name points to the twilight land, and
when the ship brings Odysseus back to his own island, it comes like
the gleaming star ushering Eos, the early born.^
The Phai- As the Kyklopes are the natural enemies of the Phaiakians, so Odysseus, the latter have a natural friendship and love for the bright beings who gladden them with their light When the heavens are veiled with the murky storm-vapours, the lovely Phaiakians may still be thought of as comforting the bright hero m his sorrow : and hence the sympathy which by the agency of the dawn-goddess Athene is kindled in the heart of the pure Nausikaa for the stranger whom she finds on the sea-shore wearied almost unto death. This man of many griefs is not indeed what he seems ; and the real nature of the being whom they thus befriend breaks out from time to time beneath the poor disguise which for the present he is content to wear. No sooner has Odysseus cleansed his face, than the soft locks flow down over his shoulders with the hue of the hyacinth flower, and his form gleams like a golden statue ; ^ and the same air of regal majesty is thrown over him when he stands in the assembly of the Phaiakians, who must love him when they see his glory.*
Niobd and From the sorrows of the forsaken Nephele we passed to the happiness of the cloud-land itself From this peaceful region we must pass again to deeper griefs than those of the wife of Athamas. Of the many tales related of the luckless Niobe, there is perhaps not one of which the meaning is not easily seen. Her name itself shows her affinity to the mother of Phrixos and Helle; and if in one version she is called a daughter of Phoroneus, from whom, as a bride of Zeus, are bom Argos and Pelasgos, this only tells us that the mist is the child of fire or heat, and that from its union with the heaven springs
- The poet, as we might expect, the lay of Beowulf, when he feels him-
contradicts himself when he relates the self aSout to die, he bids his men lay voyage of the Phaiakians as they carry him armed in the boat and put him out Odysseus from Phaiakia to Ithaka. to sea. This is the bark Ellide of Ice- Here the ship has oarsmen and oars, landic legend, the wonderful ship of the and these imply the furniture of other Norse tale of Shortshanks, which be- ships, which he has expressly denied to comes bigger and bigger as soon as the them before. hero steps into it, which goes without
- Od. xiii. 93 ; Preller, Gr. Alyth, rudder or sail, and when he comes out
L 495. Not less mysterious than the becomes as small as it was before. Phaiakian ships is the vessel without This is, manifestly, nothing more than sail or rudder, which brings Scild, the the swelling and shrinking of vapour : son of Sceaf, the sheaf of corn, to the and so the ship which can carr)- all the coast of Scandia. — Grimm, Tcutouic ^sir may be folded up like a napkin. Mythology, Stallybrass, i. 369. Scild * Od. vi. 225. becomes the king of the land, and in * Od. viii. 21.
