But Apollo performs no such outward act when he infuses courage into Hector, or into Glaucus; or when he heals the wounds of the latter chieftain[187].
So likewise, when Minerva alters the personal appearance of Telemachus, Ulysses, Laertes, or Penelope, by improving it, she uses no sign or ministrative act. Only when she effects an organic though partial transformation in the case of Ulysses[188] does she strike him with her wand: but then this total transformation is an exercise of power, of which we have no other example among the Olympian deities. Again, when Minerva finally endows the hero with heightened beauty of figure and countenance, it is done without the use of any visible sign whatever[189].
This employment of instruments is, in fact, susceptible of two significations. They may be, like the tokens of Jupiter, intended to act upon the senses of men. But where they have not this meaning, there is a decided tendency to convey the conception of the instrument as being itself the power which the deity merely directs and applies. Thus it is in the cestus of Venus and the wand of Mercury that the divine energy resides[190], not less than it is in the herbs of Paieon and in the fire of Vulcan. So that any exemption from the use of these symbols is a sign of belonging to a high order of deity.
Superiority of their moral standard.
We now approach the third and last division of this subject; namely, those points of distinction which most essentially belong to the moral tone and personal character of these two great divinities.
Their moral standard is conspicuously raised above that of the Olympian family in general.
It partakes indeed, as we might expect, of taint. Each has begun to give way; and each in the way adapted to their several relations with man and woman’s nature respectively. Apollo’s character has just begun to be touched by licentiousness: and the character of Minerva is not above condescension to deceit.
She is nowhere, however, associated either directly or indirectly, in word or act, with anything impure. The contest of beauty, in which Paris was the judge, is mentioned by Homer[191]: but the notice, a very succinct one, though not quite in keeping with her highest dignity, does not imply any deviation from her elevated chastity. Neither of Juno, nor of Thetis, can the same virtue be fully predicated: both of them, though in different modes, are brought into immediate contact with the subject of sensual passion.
Pallas is, in truth, no less chaste than Diana: but her purity is absorbed in the dazzling splendour of her august prerogatives, while it is more observed in the Huntress-maid, because it is the most salient and distinguished point in her character.