ANTAEUS AND ATLAS 141

courted and dreaded ? It was the nemesis to which every necromancer
exposes himself whenever he scores a success in playing his dangerous
professional game. Thanks to his successful interrogation of Teiresias*
obliging shade, Odysseus secured invaluable information in advance1
about his own stormy future; it was invaluable because this uncanny
foreknowledge just enabled the hero to master his fate by winning his
way home to Ithaca and there recovering possession of his lost wife,
property, house, and kingdom. Odysseus thus 'got away with' what he
wanted in playing his game with the Infernal Powers; but other players,
of hardly less note, have proved either less adroit or else perhaps merely
more unfortunate.

Jacob, for example, in his nocturnal encounter at Peniel,3 where he
'was left alone and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of
the day', won a blessing from this formidable jinn that was no less pre-
cious than a gracious Teiresias' oracle; but a legendary Canaanite Jacob
brought tribulation on himself for lack of a legendary Hellenic Odysseus'
saving sense of measure. Jacob did not know when he had had enough;
and his insufferably obstinate terms to his foiled supernatural adversary—
'I will not let thee go except thou bless me*—cost him the dislocation of
a major joint which left him lame for life. Jacob's retrospective boast—
'I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved'—though it may
perhaps have been no exaggeration of the truth, was at the same time
admittedly no cure for the boaster's permanent disablement. His fateful
adversary had left an abiding mark on Jacob for evil as well as for good.

A legendary Canaanite Pygmalion, who fell in love with a statue that
was the work of his own art, was extricated by the gods from the predica-
ment into which this princely artificer had brought himself through an
idolization of his own technique3 by their gracious act of breathing the
breath of life into the nostrils of an ivory ik6n which, thanks to this
auspicious supernatural intervention, miraculously became a living soul.4
As for a legendary post-Christian Western Frankenstein, who had no
claim upon God's grace, this eponymous hero of a latter-day society
came to an awful end which both a Pygmalion and a Jacob had escaped.
Frankenstein's monster, like Jacob's jinn, did eventually take his de-
parture ; but in this Modern Western version of a Syriac myth the roles
were reversed; for in this latter-day encounter it was the necromancer,
and not the ghost, that took the initiative in breaking off the engagement,
and the inhuman creature of a human creator's science made off with a
curse instead of a blessing on his lips. 'I go, but remember: I shall be
with you on your wedding night.'5 While Jacob got off from his wrestling
match with the Powers of Darkness none the worse for it beyond being
lamed for life, Frankenstein's penalty was the loss of his birthright of
creativity.

Is it possible to define more closely this terrifying challenge from the
revenant which is the price of invoking the revenant's aid in seeking a
response to some pressing challenge in the realm of current life ? Such

* Detailed in Od. XI, 11. 92-137- 2 Gen. xxxii. 54-32.

a See IV. iv. 4*3-65. 4 Gen, ii. 7.

s Shelley, Mary; Frankenstein, or the Modem Prometheus, chap. ao.