and it may have been either a case of translation, or one in which the maid was conceived to have been taken for the service of the deity, perhaps at the neighbouring shrine of Delphi.
After the part which the lay of Demodocus assigns to him, the most, perhaps the only, discreditable transaction assigned to Apollo in the poems is the manner in which he disarms and partially disables Patroclus. Nothing can be more wretched than his operations on this occasion. The god comes up to the hero enveloped in cloud; strikes him from behind on the back; and knocks off his armour. I can conceive but one explanation for this singular passage, which appears alike unsatisfactory from a poetical and from a mythological point of view. That explanation I think is to be sought in intense nationality. The main purpose of the poem required the sacrifice of a principal Greek hero: but no genuine Greek hero could be killed by fair means, therefore it was necessary to dispose of him by such as were foul. It is perhaps also worth remark that the audacity of Patroclus in pushing on to the city may perhaps have rendered him punishable (Il. xvi. 698–711).
It is remarkable, however, that the character of each of the two great traditive deities had begun to give way to corruption, and each in the point at which, according to the respective sex, its yielding might have been anticipated. As unchastity is more readily pardoned, according to social usage, in the man, so is deceit in the woman. And in this point the standard had already fallen for Minerva.
Of this we have one most clear indication, in her being commissioned to undertake the charge of inciting Pandarus to a very black act of treachery, the breach of the Pact. So far from being unwilling in this matter, she was even eager[201];
ὣς εἰπὼν ὤτρυνε πάρος μεμαυῖαν Ἀθήνην.
Besides judgment and industrial skill, she gave κέρδεα to Penelope[202]: and she describes herself[203] as excelling among the gods in craft as well as counsel;
μήτι τε κλέομαι καὶ κέρδεσιν.
With the exception of this initial tendency to degenerate on the side of craft, we may say with truth that the highest moral tone, both of speech and action, is reserved for Minerva in particular throughout the poems, whether in the Olympian Court, or in her intercourse with men. Alike in the Iliad and the Odyssey, her counsel, which prevails, undoubtedly also deserves to prevail. She is in both the champion of the righteous cause. And when she states for the second time the case of Ulysses before the assembled gods, it is not now as before his liberality in sacrifice that she pleads, but, as a last resort, she makes bold to urge the bad moral effect which will result, if they discourage virtue by permitting the ruin of this excellent man[204].
Their place in Providential Government.
2. It is in conformity with the expectations, which the superior morality of Apollo and Minerva tends to raise, that we find them occupying a position such as is accorded to no other deity in the Providential government both of the human mind and will, and likewise of the course of events external to it.