The Notion of a Systematic Pantheon.--Homer and Hesiod.--Mythology before Homer.--Supposed Conditions of the Mythopoeic Age.--Vico.--The Childhood of the World.--Goethe's Boyhood.--Mythology is a Body of Rudimentary Thought, Penetrated with the Spirit of the Nation.--Different Views of the Greek Myths.--Grote.--Relics of a Primitive Revelation.--The Symbolic Hypothesis.--Rationalism and Euhemerus.--Fetichism.--Poetic Theory.--The Linguistic Theory.--Comparative Philology.--Solar Theory.--The Myth of Herakles: its Solar Interpretation--its Ethical Significance.--Summary of the Points Suggested with Regard to Mythology.--Mediæval Myths.--The Action of the Greek Intelligence upon Mythology: in Art--in Philosophy.--Persistence of the National Polytheism.--Homer Allegorized at Alexandria.--Triumph of Christianity.--The Greek Pantheon in the Middle Ages.--Greek Mythology Recovers Poetic and Artistic Value in the Renaissance Page 51 CHAPTER III. _ACHILLES._ Unity of _Iliad_.--Character of Achilles.--Structure of the whole Poem.--Comparison with other Epics.--Energy Dividing into Anger and Love.--Personality of Achilles.--The Quarrel with Agamemnon.--Pallas Athene.--The Embassy.--Achilles' Foreknowledge of his Death.--The Message of Antilochus.--Interview with Thetis.--The Shouting in the Trench.--The Speech of Xanthus.--The Pæan over Hector's Corpse.--The Ghost of Patroclus.--The Funeral Obsequies of Patroclus.--Achilles and Priam.--Achilles in Hades.--Achilles Considered as a Greek Ideal.--Friendship among the Greeks.--Heroism and Knighthood: Ancient and Modern Chivalry.--The _Myrmidones_ of Æschylus.--Achilles and Hector.--Alexander the Great.--The Dæmonic Nature of Achilles Page 91 CHAPTER IV. _THE WOMEN OF HOMER._ Helen of Troy--Her Eternal Youth--Variety of Legends connected with her.--Stesichorus.--Helen in the _Iliad_.--Helen in the _Odyssey_.--The Treatment of Helen by Æschylus.--Euripidean Handling of her Romance.--Helen in Greek Art.--Quintus Smyrnæus.--Apollonius of Tyana and the Ghost of Achilles.--Helen in the Faust Legend.--Marlowe and Goethe.--Penelope--Her Home-love.--Calypso and the Isle Ogygia.--Circe.--The Homeric and the Modern Circe.--Nausicaa--Her Perfect Girlishness.--Briseis and Andromache.--The Sense of Proportion and of Relative Distance in Homer's Pictures.--Andromache and Astyanax.--The Cult of Heroes and Heroines in Greece.--Artistic Presentation of Homeric Persons.--Philostratus Page 124 CHAPTER V. _HESIOD._