especially the color of heavy thunder-cloud, was described by the same
term. The physical power of this darkness of the ægis, fringed with
lightning, is given quite simply when Jupiter himself uses it to
overshadow Ida and the Plain of Troy, and withdraws it at the prayer of
Ajax for light; and again when he grants it to be worn for a time by
Apollo, who is hidden by its cloud when he strikes down Patroclus; but
its spiritual power is chiefly expressed by a word signifying deeper
shadow,--the gloom of Erebus, or of our evening, which, when spoken of
the ægis, signifies, not merely the indignation of Athena, but the entire
hiding or withdrawal of her help, and beyond even this, her deadliest of
all hostility,--the darkness by which she herself deceives and beguiles
to final ruin those to whom she is wholly adverse; this contradiction of
her own glory being the uttermost judgment upon human falsehood. Thus it
is she who provokes Pandarus to the treachery which purposed to fulfil
the rape of Helen by the murder of her husband in time of truce; and then
the Greek king, holding his wounded brother's hand, prophesies against
Troy the darkness of the ægis which shall be over all, and for ever.**


* In the breastplate and shield of Atrides the serpents and bosses are
all of this dark color, yet the serpents are said to be like rainbows;
but through all this splendor and opposition of hue, I feel distinctly
that the literal "splendor," with its relative shade, are prevalent in
the conception; and that there is always a tendency to look through the
hue to its cause. And in this feeling about color the Greeks are
separated from the eastern nations, and from the best designers of
Christian times. I cannot find that they take pleasure in color for its
own sake; it may be in something more than color, or better; but it is
not in the hue itself. When Homer describes cloud breaking from a
mountain summit, the crags become visible in light, not color; he feels