As the goddess of the air, she physically represents both its
beneficent calm, and necessary tempest other storm deities (as
Chrysaor and Aeolus) being invested with a subordinate and more or
less malignant function, which is exclusively their own, and is
related to that of Athena as the power of Mars is related to hers
in war. So also Virgil makes her able to wield the lightning
herself, while Juno cannot, but must pray for the intervention of
Aeolus. She has precisely the correspondent moral authority over
calmness of mind, and just anger. She soothes Achilles, as she
incites Tydides; her physical power over the air being always
hinted correlatively. She grasps Achilles by his hair--as the wind
would lift it--softly,
"It fanned his cheek, it raised his hair,
Like a meadow gale in spring"
She does not merely turn the lance of Mars from Diomed; but seizes
it in both her hands, and casts it aside, with a sense of making
it vain, like chaff in the wind;--to the shout of Achilles, she
adds her own voice of storm in heaven--but in all cases the moral
power is still the principal one--most beautifully in that seizing
of Achilles by the hair, which was the talisman of his life
(because he had vowed it to the Sperchius if he returned in
safety), and which, in giving at Patroclus' tomb, he, knowingly,
yields up the hope of return to his country, and signifies that he
will die with his friend. Achilles and Tydides are, above all
other heroes, aided by her in war, because their prevailing
characters are the desire of justice, united in both, with deep
affections; and, in Achilles, with a passionate tenderness, which
is the real root of his passionate anger Ulysses is her favorite
chiefly in her office as the goddess of conduct and design.
NOTE IV.
Page 81.
"Geometrical limitations."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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