18.  The first of requirements, then, for the right reading of myths, is the understanding of the nature of all true vision by noble persons; namely, that it is founded on constant laws common to all human nature; that it perceives, however darkly, things which are for all ages true; that we can only understand it so far as we have some perception of the same truth; and that its fulness is developed and manifested more and more by the reverberation of it from minds of the same mirror-temper, in succeeding ages.  You will understand Homer better by seeing his reflection in Dante, as you may trace new forms and softer colors in a hillside, redoubled by a lake.

I shall be able partly to show you, even to-night, how much, in the Homeric vision of Athena, has been made clearer by the advance of time, being thus essentially and eternally true; but I must in the outset indicate the relation to that central thought of the imagery of the inferior deities of storm.

19.  And first I will take the myth of AEolus (the “sage Hippotades” of Milton), as it is delivered pure by Homer from the early times.

Why do you suppose Milton calls him “sage”?  One does not usually think of the winds as very thoughtful or deliberate powers.  But hear Homer:  “Then we came to the AEolian island, and there dwelt AEolus Hippotades, dear to the deathless gods; there he dwelt in a floating island, and round it was a wall of brass that could not be broken; and the smooth rock of it ran up sheer.  To whom twelve children were born in the sacred chambers,—­six daughters and six strong sons; and they dwell foreer with their beloved father and their mother, strict in duty; and with them are laid up a thousand benefits; and the misty house around them rings with fluting all the day long.”  Now, you are to note first, in this description, the wall of brass and the sheer rock.  You will find, throughout the fables of the tempest-group, that the brazen wall and the precipice (occurring in another myth as the brazen tower of Danae) are always connected with the idea of the towering cloud lighted by the sun, here truly described as a floating island.  Secondly, you hear that all treasures were laid up in them; therefore, you know this AEolus is lord of the beneficent winds ("he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries"); and presently afterwards Homer calls him the “steward” of the winds, the master of the store-house of them.  And this idea of gifts and preciousness in the winds of heaven is carried out in the well-known sequel of the fable:  AEolus gives them to Ulysses, all but one, bound in leathern bags, with a glittering cord of silver; and so like bags of treasure that the sailors think they are so, and open them to see.  And when Ulysses is thus driven back to AEolus, and prays him again to help him, note the deliberate words of the king’s refusal,—­“Did I not,” says he, “send thee on thy way heartily, that thou mightest reach thy country, thy home, and whatever