nce of the Danish prince. Nevertheless, the story
of Hamlet, when traced back to its Norse original, is unmistakably the
story of the quarrel between summer and winter; and the moody prince
is as much a solar hero as Odin himself. See Simrock, Die Quellen des
Shakespeare, I. 127-133. Of course Shakespeare knew nothing of this,
as Homer knew nothing of the origin of his Achilleus. The two stories,
therefore, are not to be taken as sun-myths in their present form.
They are the offspring of other stories which were sun-myths; they
are stories which conform to the sun-myth type after the manner above
illustrated in the paper on Light and Darkness. [Hence there is nothing
unintelligible in the inconsistency--which seems to puzzle Max Muller
(Science of Language, 6th ed. Vol. II. p. 516, note 20)--of investing
Paris with many of the characteristics of the children of light.
Supposing, as we must, that the primitive sense of the Iliad-myth had as
entirely disappeared in the Homeric age, as the primitive sense of the
Hamlet-myth had disappeared in the times of Elizabeth, the fit ground
for wonder is that such inconsistencies are not more numerous.] The
physical theory of myths will be properly presented and comprehended,
only when it is understood that we accept the physical derivation of
such stories as the Iliad-myth in much the same way that we are bound to
accept the physical etymologies of such words as soul, consider, truth,
convince, deliberate, and the like. The late Dr. Gibbs of Yale College,
in his "Philological Studies,"--a little book which I used to read with
delight when a boy,--describes such etymologies as "faded metaphors."
In similar wise, while refraining from characterizing the Iliad or the
tragedy of Hamlet--any more than I would characterize Le Juif Errant by
Sue, or La Maison Forestiere by Erckmann-Chatrian--as nature-myths, I
would at the same time consider these poems well described as embodying
"faded nature-myths."]

[Footnote 154: I have no opinion as to the nationality of the
Earth-shaker, and, regarding the etymology of his name, I believe we can
hardly do better than acknowledge, with Mr. Cox, that it is unknown.
It may well be doubted, however, whether much good is likely to come
of comparisons between Poseidon, Dagon, Oannes, and Noah, or of
distinctions between the children of Shem and the children of Ham. See
Brown's Poseidon; a Link between Semite, Hamite, and Aryan, London,
1872,--a book whi