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the vaulted sky at its zenith and seemed to come to earth 

 at its nadir, so Iris, the peacock goddess of the rainbow- 

 seemed celestially equipped to carry messages from the gods 

 of heaven to the men of earth, and we constantly find her 

 engaged on these junketing expeditions from Hera and 

 Zeus to subjects of their mimdane realm. So much so indeed 

 that the ancients symbolised her by the use of the talaria or ^( / 1 

 winged sandals and the caduceus or serpent-twined herald's 

 rod of olive-wood, which were the recognised indices of 

 Merciiry in his capacity of trusted messenger. j 



It is thus, with talaria and caduceus that we find her j ■ 

 invoked by Homer any number of times, as when, in the 

 Iliad, the trial by single combat had been arranged between ^ , 

 Menelaus, king of Sparta and Pans, as a substitute for the 

 battles between the Greeks and Trojans to decide the fate 

 of Helen. Here fair Helen's presence is commanded thus: 



"Meantime to beauteous Helen, from the skies 



The various goddess of the rainbow flies, ... 

 To whom the goddess of the painted bow (says) 

 Approach and view the wondrous scene below." ^ 



That the divine Shakespeare was not above conveying the 

 same idea in other form we have but to look a few pages 

 through the historical plays to find Queen Margaret parting 

 from Suffolk with the words, "Let me hear from thee, for 

 wheresoe'er thou art in this world's globe I'll have an Iris 

 that shall find thee out. "i_ .1.^ -\ v 



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