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.
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