Note 80 — Chapter II · THE MAGIC OF WORDS
Reading edition
The “celebrated but infamous” Petronius, surnamed Arbiter, philosophised in the first century to the following up-to-date effect:—
Fear made the first divinities on earth The sweeping flames of heaven; the ruined tower, Scathed by its stroke. The softly setting sun, The slow declining of the silver moon, And its recovered beauty. Hence the signs Known through the world, and the swift changing year, Circling divided in its varied months. Hence rose the error. Empty folly bade The wearied husbandman to Ceres bring The first fair honours of his harvest fields To gird the brow of Bacchus with the palm, And taught how Pales, ’mid the shepherd bands, Stood and rejoiced, how Neptune in the flood Plunged deep, and ruled the ever-roaring tide; How Vallas reigned o’er earth’s stupendous caves Mightily. He who vowed and he who reaped With eager contest, made their gods themselves.