who kills him, the autumn equinox ; Achilles sulking in
his tent is the mid-winter sun; Memnon and Achilles contending " may refer to the rival claims of the stars Sirius and Formalhaut to calendrical honour." In another aspect Achilles is a fish. What ! the fiery, impetuous Achilles a fish ! Yes ; was not one kind of gladiator called a Retiarius because he was armed with not and trident? Then, again, Achilles is the sun and Hector the moon, and Formalhaut reappears as Patroclus. Odysseus is not the moon, for the Greek moon was feminine, but a lunar month. So when Athena approvingly strokes him after he has told an ingenious story to account for his presence in Ithaca, we have to understand this : " the wisdom of Athena, praised in the Odyssey as ' crafty guile,' was especially shown in her power of measuring out calendrical years, and if Odysseus represented the first month of such years, it is not difficult to understand how he should have been thought of as partaking of the wisdom of his patron goddess." Quousgue tandent
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