Part 2 — COMMENTARY[422]

COMMENTARY[422]

[It is hoped that this Commentary may be useful to general readers, to students of art, and to teachers in the secondary schools, as well as to pupils. The cross references are always to sections; and the section numbers correspond with those of the text in the body of the book. The letter C. prefixed to a number indicates Commentary.]

3. Chaos: a gap. Compare the "Beginning Gap" of Norse mythology. Eros: a yearning. Erebus: black, from root meaning to cover.

4. Uranus (Greek Ouranos) corresponds with the name of the Indian divinity Varunas, root var, 'to cover.' Uranus is the starry vault that covers the earth; Varunas became the rain-giving sky. Titan: the honorable, powerful; the king; later, the signification was limited to the sun. Oceanus probably means flood. Tethys: the nourisher, nurse. Hyperion: the wanderer on high;[423] the sun. Thea: the beautiful, shining; the moon. She is called by Homer Euryphaëssa, the far-shining. Iapetus: the sender, hurler, wounder. Themis: that which is established, law. Mnemosyne: memory. Other Titans were Cœus and Phœbe, figurative of the radiant lights of heaven; Creüs and Eurybië, mighty powers, probably of the sea; Ophion, the great serpent, and Eurynome, the far-ruling, who, according to Apollonius of Rhodes, held sway over the Titans until Cronus cast them into the Ocean, or into Tartarus.

Cronus (Greek Kronos) is, as his name shows, the god of ripening, harvest, maturity. Rhea comes from Asia Minor, and was there worshiped as the Mother Earth, dwelling creative among the mountains. Cronus (Kronos) has been naturally, but wrongly, identified with Chronos, the personification of Time, which, as it brings all things to an end, devours its own offspring; and also with the Latin Saturn, who, as a god of agriculture and harvest, was represented with pruning-knife in hand, and regarded as the lord of an ancient golden age.

The three Cyclopes were Brontes, Steropes, and Arges. Cyclops means the round-eyed. The Hecatonchires were Briareus, the strong, called also Ægæon; Cottus, the striker; Gyes, or Gyges, the vaulter, or crippler. Gyges is called by Horace (Carm. 2, 17, 14) Centimanus,—the hundred-handed.

Illustrative. Milton, in Paradise Lost, 10, 581, refers to the tradition of Ophion and Eurynome, who "had first the rule of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven." Hyperion: see Shakespeare's Hamlet, "Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself." Also Henry V, IV, i; Troilus and Cressida, II, iii; Titus Andronicus, V, iii; Gray, Progress of Poesy, "Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war"; Spenser, Prothalamion, "Hot Titans beames." On Oceanus, Ben Jonson, Neptune's Triumph. On Saturn, see Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, I, iii; 2 Henry IV, II, iv; Cymbeline, II, v; Titus Andronicus, II, iii; IV, iii; Milton, Paradise Lost, 1. 512, 519, 583, and Il Penseroso, 24. See Robert Buchanan, Cloudland, "One like a Titan cold," etc.; Keats, Hyperion; B. W. Procter, The Fall of Saturn.

In Art. Helios (Hyperion) rising from the sea: sculpture of eastern pediment of the frieze of the Parthenon (British Museum). Mnemosyne: D. G. Rossetti (crayons and oil).

5. Homer makes Zeus (Jupiter) the oldest of the sons of Cronus; Hesiod makes him the youngest, in accordance with a widespread savage custom which makes the youngest child heir in chief.—Lang, Myth, Ritual, etc., 1, 297. According to other legends Zeus was born in Arcadia, or even in Epirus at Dodona, where was his sacred grove. He was in either case reared by the nymphs of the locality. According to Hesiod, Theog. 730, he was born in a cave of Mount Dicte, in Crete.

6. Atlas, according to other accounts, was not doomed to support the heavens until after his encounter with Perseus.

8. See Milton's Hymn on the Nativity, "Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine." The monster is also called Typhoeus (Hesiod, Theog. 1137). The name means to smoke, to burn. The monster personifies fiery vapors proceeding from subterranean places. Other famous Giants were Mimas, Polybotes, Ephialtes, Rhœtus, Clytius. See Preller, 1, 60. Briareus (really a Centimanus) is frequently ranked among the giants.

Illustrative. Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, I, ii; Milton, Paradise Lost, 1, 199, and Hymn on the Nativity, 226; M. Arnold, Empedocles, Act 2; Pope, Dunciad, 4, 66. For giants, in general, see Milton, Paradise Lost, 3, 464; 11. 642, 688; Samson Agonistes, 148.

10-15. Prometheus: forethought.[424] Epimetheus: afterthought. According to Æschylus (Prometheus Bound) the doom of Zeus (Jupiter) was only contingent. If he should refuse to set Prometheus free and should, therefore, ignorant of the secret, wed Thetis, of whom it was known to Prometheus that her son should be greater than his father, then Zeus would be dethroned. If, however, Zeus himself delivered Prometheus, that Titan would reveal his secret and Zeus would escape both the marriage and its fateful result. The Prometheus Unbound of Æschylus is lost; but its name indicates that in the sequel the Titan is freed from his chains. And from hints in the Prometheus Bound we gather that this liberation was to come about in the way mentioned above, Prometheus warning Zeus to marry Thetis to Peleus (whose son, Achilles, proved greater than his father,—see 191); or by the intervention of Hercules who was to be descended in the thirteenth generation from Zeus and Io (see 161 and C. 149); or by the voluntary sacrifice of the Centaur Chiron, who, when Zeus should hurl Prometheus and his rock into Hades, was destined to substitute himself for the Titan, and so by vicarious atonement to restore him to the life of the upper world. In Shelley's great drama of Prometheus Unbound, the Zeus of tyranny and ignorance and superstition is overthrown by Reason, the gift of Prometheus to mankind. Sicyon (or Mecone): a city of the Peloponnesus, near Corinth.

Illustrative. Milton, Paradise Lost, "More lovely than Pandora whom the gods endowed with all their gifts." Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, II, i, 16.

Poems. D. G. Rossetti, Pandora; Longfellow, Masque of Pandora, Prometheus, and Epimetheus; Thos. Parnell, Hesiod, or the Rise of Woman. Prometheus, by Byron, Lowell, H. Coleridge, Robert Bridges; Prometheus Bound, by Mrs. Browning; translations of Æschylus, Prometheus Bound, Augusta Webster, E. H. Plumptre; Shelley, Prometheus Unbound; R. H. Horne, Prometheus, the Fire-bringer; E. Myers, The Judgment of Prometheus; George Cabot Lodge, Herakles, a drama. See Byron's Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte. The Golden Age: Chaucer, The Former Age (Ætas Prima); Milton, Hymn on the Nativity.

In Art. Ancient: Prometheus Unbound, vase picture (Monuments Inédits, Rome and Paris). Modern: Thorwaldsen's sculpture, Minerva and Prometheus. Pandora: Sichel (oil), Rossetti (crayons and oil), F. S. Church (water colors).

16. Dante (Durante) degli Alighieri was born in Florence, 1265. Banished by his political opponents, 1302, he remained in exile until his death, which took place in Ravenna, 1321. His Vita Nuova (New Life), recounting his ideal love for Beatrice Portinari, was written between 1290 and 1300; his great poem, the Divina Commedia (the Divine Comedy) consisting of three parts,—Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso,—during the years of his exile. Of the Divine Comedy, says Lowell, "It is the real history of a brother man, of a tempted, purified, and at last triumphant human soul." John Milton (b. 1608) was carried by the stress of the civil war, 1641-1649, away from poetry, music, and the art which he had sedulously cultivated, into the stormy sea of politics and war. Perhaps the severity of his later sonnets and the sublimity of his Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes are the fruit of the stern years of controversy through which he lived, not as a poet, but as a statesman and a pamphleteer. Cervantes (1547-1616), the author of the greatest of Spanish romances, Don Quixote. His life was full of adventure, privation, suffering, with but brief seasons of happiness and renown. He distinguished himself at the battle of Lepanto, 1571; but in 1575, being captured by Algerine cruisers, he remained five years in harsh captivity. After his return to Spain he was neglected by those in power. For full twenty years he struggled for his daily bread. Don Quixote was published in and after 1605. Corybantes: the priests of Cybele, whose festivals were violent, and whose worship consisted of dances and noise suggestive of battle.

18. Astræa was placed among the stars as the constellation Virgo, the virgin. Her mother was Themis (Justice). Astræa holds aloft a pair of scales, in which she weighs the conflicting claims of parties. The old poets prophesied a return of these goddesses and of the Golden Age. See also Pope's Messiah,—

and Milton's Hymn on the Nativity, 14, 15. In Paradise Lost, 4, 998 et seq., is a different conception of the golden scales, "betwixt Astræa and the Scorpion sign." Emerson moralizes the myth in his Astræa.

19-20. Illustrative. B. W. Procter, The Flood of Thessaly. See Ovid's famous narrative of the Four Ages and the Flood, Metamorphoses, 1, 89-415. Deucalion: Bayard Taylor, Prince Deukalion; Milton, Paradise Lost, 11, 12.

Interpretative. This myth combines two stories of the origin of the Hellenes, or indigenous Greeks,—one, in accordance with which the Hellenes, as earthborn, claimed descent from Pyrrha (the red earth); the other and older, by which Deucalion was represented as the only survivor of the flood, but still the founder of the race (Greek laós), which he created by casting stones (Greek lâes) behind him. The myth, therefore, proceeds from an unintended pun. Although, finally, Pyrrha was by myth-makers made the wife of Deucalion, the older myth of the origin of the race from stones was preserved. See Max Müller, Sci. Relig., London, 1873, p. 64.

21. For genealogy of the race of Inachus, Phoroneus, Pelasgus, and Io, see Table D. Pelasgus is frequently regarded as the grandson, not the son, of Phoroneus. For the descendants of Deucalion and Hellen, see Table I of this commentary.

22. In the following genealogical table (A), the names of the great gods of Olympus are printed in heavy-face type. Latin forms of names or Latin substitutes are used.

Illustrative. On the Gods of Greece, see E. A. Bowring's translation of Schiller's Die Götter Griechenlands, and Bayard Taylor's Masque of the Gods. On Olympus, see Lewis Morris, The Epic of Hades. Allusions abound; e.g. Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, III, iii; Julius Cæsar, III, i; IV, iii; Hamlet, V, i; Milton, Paradise Lost, 1, 516; 7, 7; 10, 583; Pope, Rape of the Lock, 5, 48, and Windsor Forest, 33, 234; E. C. Stedman, News from Olympia. See also E. W. Gosse, Greece and England (On Viol and Flute).

23. The Olympian Gods. There were, according to Mr. Gladstone (No. Am. Rev. April, 1892), about twenty Olympian deities:[425] (1) The five really great gods, Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Apollo, and Athene; (2) Hephæstus, Ares, Hermes, Iris, Leto, Artemis, Themis, Aphrodite, Dione, Pæëon (or Pæon), and Hebe,—also usually present among the assembled immortals; (3) Demeter, Persephone, Dionysus, and Thetis, whose claims are more or less obscured. According to the same authority, the Distinctive Qualities of the Homeric Gods were as follows: (1) they were immortal; (2) they were incorporated in human form; (3) they enjoyed power far exceeding that possessed by mortals; (4) they were, however (with the possible exception of Athene, who is never ignorant, never deceived, never baffled), all liable to certain limitations of energy and knowledge; (5) they were subject also to corporeal wants and to human affections. The Olympian Religion, as a whole, was more careful of nations, states, public affairs, than of individuals and individual character; and in this respect, according to Mr. Gladstone. it differs from Christianity. He holds, however, that despite the occasional immoralities of the gods, their general government not only "makes for righteousness," but is addressed to the end of rendering it triumphant. Says Zeus, for instance, in the Olympian assembly, "Men complain of us the gods, and say that we are the source from whence ills proceed; but they likewise themselves suffer woes outside the course of destiny, through their own perverse offending." But, beside this general effort for the triumph of right, there is little to be said in abatement of the general proposition that, whatever be their collective conduct, the common speech of the gods is below the human level in point of morality.[426]

24-25. Zeus. In Sanskrit Dyaus, in Latin Jovis, in German Tiu. The same name for the Almighty (the Light or Sky) used probably thousands of years before Homer, or the Sanskrit Bible (the Vedas). It is not merely the blue sky, nor the sky personified,—not merely worship of a natural phenomenon, but of the Father who is in Heaven. So in the Vedas we find Dyaus pitar, in the Greek Zeu pater, in Latin Jupiter all meaning father of light.—Max Müller, Sci. Relig. 171, 172. Oracle: the word signifies also the answers given at the shrine.

Illustrative. Allusions to Jove on every other page of Milton, Dryden, Pope, Prior, Gray, and any poet of the Elizabethan and Augustan periods. On the Love Affairs of Jupiter and the other gods, see Milton, Paradise Regained, 2, 182. Dodona: Tennyson's Talking Oak:

Poem: Lewis Morris, Zeus, in The Epic of Hades.

In Art. Beside the representations of Jupiter noted in the text may be mentioned that on the eastern frieze of the Parthenon; the Jupiter Otricoli in the Vatican; also the Jupiter and Juno (painting) by Annibale Carracci; the Jupiter (sculpture) by Benvenuto Cellini.

Table A. The Great Gods of Olympus

Uranus =Gæa +— Cronus | =Rhea | +— Vesta | +— Ceres | +— Juno | | +Jupiter | | +— Hebe | | +— Mars | | +— Vulcan | +— Pluto | +— Neptune | +— Jupiter | +— Minerva | =Juno | +— Hebe (see above) | +— Mars (see above) | +— Vulcan (see above) | =Latona | +— Apollo | +— Diana | =Dione | +— Venus | =Maia | +— Mercury | =Ceres | +— Proserpina | =Semele | +— Bacchus | =Alcmene | +— Hercules +— Rhea | =Cronus | +— Vesta (see above) | +— Ceres (see above) | +— Juno (see above) | +— Pluto (see above) | +— Neptune (see above) | +— Jupiter (see above) +— Cœus | =Phœbe | +— Latona | =Jupiter | +— Apollo (see above) | +— Diana (see above) +— Phœbe | =Cœus | +— Latona (see above) +— Iapetus +— Epimethius | +— Dione | =Jupiter | +— Venus (see above) +— Prometheus +— Atlas +— Maia =Jupiter +— Mercury (see above)

26. Juno was called by the Romans Juno Lucina, the special goddess of childbirth. In her honor wives held the festival of the Matronalia on the first of March of each year. The Latin Juno is for Diou-n-on, from the stem Diove, and is the feminine parallel of Jovis, just as the Greek Dione (one of the loves of Zeus) is the feminine of Zeus. These names (and Diana, too) come from the root div, 'to shine,' 'to illumine.' There are many points of resemblance between the Italian Juno and the Greek Dione (identified with Hera, as Hera-Dione). Both are goddesses of the moon (?), of women, of marriage; to both the cow (with moon-crescent horns) is sacred. See Roscher, 21, 576-579. But Overbeck insists that the loves of Zeus are deities of the earth: "The rains of heaven (Zeus) do not fall upon the moon."

Illustrative. W. S. Landor, Hymn of Terpander to Juno; Lewis Morris, Heré, in The Epic of Hades.

In Art. Of the statues of Juno the most celebrated was that made by Polyclitus for her temple between Argos and Mycenæ. It was of gold and ivory. See Paus. 2, 17, 4. The goddess was seated on a throne of magnificent proportions; she wore a crown upon which were figured the Graces and the Hours; in one hand she held a pomegranate, in the other a scepter surmounted by a cuckoo. Of the extant representations of Juno the most famous are the Argive Hera (Fig. 9 in the text), the torso in Vienna from Ephesus, the Hera of the Vatican at Rome, the bronze statuette in the Cabinet of Coins and Antiquities in Vienna, the Farnese bust in the National Museum in Naples, the Ludovisi bust in the villa of that name in Rome, the Pompeian wall painting of the marriage of Zeus and Hera (given by Baumeister, Denkmäler 1, 649; see also Roscher, 13, 2127), and the Juno of Lanuvium.

27. Athenë (Athena) has some characteristics of the warlike kind in common with the Norse Valkyries, but she is altogether a more ideal conception. The best description of the goddess will be found in Homer's Iliad, 5, 730 et seq.

The derivation of Athene is uncertain (Preller). Related, say some, to æthēr, αἰθήρ, the clear upper air; say others, to the word anthos, ἄνθος, 'a flower'—virgin bloom; or (see Roscher, p. 684) to athēr, ἀθήρ, 'spear point.' Max Müller derives Athene from the root ah, which yields the Sanskrit Ahanâ and the Greek Daphne, the Dawn (?). Hence Athene is the Dawn-goddess; but she is also the goddess of wisdom, because "the goddess who caused people to wake was involuntarily conceived as the goddess who caused people to know" (Science of Language, 1, 548-551). This is poor philology.

Epithets applied to Athene are the bright-eyed, the gray-eyed, the ægis-bearing, the unwearied daughter of Zeus.

The festival of the Panathenæa was celebrated at Athens yearly in commemoration of the union of the Attic tribes. See C. 176-181.

The name Pallas characterizes the goddess as the brandisher of lightnings. Her Palladium—or sacred image—holds always high in air the brandished lance.

Minerva, or Menerva, is connected with Latin mens, Greek ménos, Sanskrit manas, 'mind'; not with the Latin mane, 'morning.' The relation is not very plausible between the awakening of the day and the awakening of thought (Max Müller, Sci. Lang, 1, 552).

For the meaning of the Gorgon, see Commentary on the myth of Perseus.

Illustrative. Byron, Childe Harold, 4, 96, the eloquent passage beginning,

Shakespeare, Tempest, IV, i; As You Like It, I, iii; Winter's Tale, IV, iii; Pericles, II, iii; Milton, Paradise Lost, 4, 500; Comus, 701; Arcades, 23; Lewis Morris' Athene, in The Epic of Hades; Byron, Childe Harold, 2. 1-15, 87, 91; Ruskin's Lectures entitled "The Queen of the Air" (Athene); Thomas Woolner's Pallas Athene, in Tiresias.

In Art. The finest of the statues of this goddess was by Phidias, in the Parthenon, or temple of Athena, at Athens. The Athena of the Parthenon has disappeared; but there is good ground to believe that we have, in several extant statues and busts, the artist's conception. (See Frontispiece, the Lemnian Athena, and Fig. 53, the Hope Athena, ancient marble at Deepdene, Surrey.) The figure is characterized by grave and dignified beauty, and freedom from any transient expression; in other words, by repose. The most important copy extant is of the Roman period. The goddess was represented standing; in one hand a spear, in the other a statue of Victory. Her helmet, highly decorated, was surmounted by a Sphinx. The statue was forty feet in height, and, like the Jupiter, covered with ivory and gold. The eyes were of marble, and probably painted to represent the iris and pupil. The Parthenon, in which this statue stood, was also constructed under the direction and superintendence of Phidias. Its exterior was enriched with sculptures, many of them from the hand of the same artist. The Elgin Marbles now in the British Museum are a part of them. Also remarkable are the Minerva Bellica (Capitol, Rome); the Athena of the Acropolis Museum; the Athena of the Ægina Marbles (Glyptothek, Munich); the Minerva Medica (Vatican); the Athena of Velletri in the Louvre. (See Fig. 10.) In modern sculpture, especially excellent are Thorwaldsen's Minerva and Prometheus, and Cellini's Minerva (on the base of his Perseus). In modern painting, Tintoretto's Minerva defeating Mars.

28. While the Latin god Mars corresponds with Ares, he has also not a few points of similarity with the Greek Phœbus; for both names, Mars and Phœbus, indicate the quality shining. In Rome, the Campus Martius (field of Mars) was sacred to this deity. Here military maneuvers and athletic contests took place; here Mars was adored by sacrifice, and here stood his temple, where his priests, the Salii, watched over the sacred spear and the shield, Ancile, that fell from heaven in the reign of Numa Pompilius. Generals supplicated Mars for victory, and dedicated to him the spoils of war. See Roscher, pp. 478, 486, on the fundamental significance, philosophical and physical, of Ares. On the derivation of the Latin name Mars, see Roscher (end of article on Apollo).

Illustrative in Art. Of archaic figures, that upon the so-called François Vase in Florence represents Ares bearded and with the armor of a Homeric warrior. In the art of the second half of the fifth century B.C., he is represented as beardless, standing with spear and helmet and, generally, chlamys (short warrior's cloak); so the marble Ares statue (called the Borghese Achilles) in the Louvre. There is a later type (preferred in Rome) of the god in Corinthian helmet pushed back from the forehead, the right hand leaning on a spear, in the left a sword with point upturned, over the left arm a chlamys. The finest representation of the deity extant is the Ares Ludovisi in Rome, probably of the second half of the fourth century B.C.,—a sitting figure, beautiful in form and feature, with an Eros playing at his feet. (See Fig. 11.) Modern sculpture: Thorwaldsen's relief, Mars and Cupid. Modern painting, Raphael's Mars (text, Fig. 12).

29. On the derivation of Hephæstus, see Roscher, p. 2037. From Greek aphē, 'to kindle,' or pha, 'to shine,' or spha, 'to burn.' The Latin Vulcan, while a god of fire, is not represented by the Romans as possessed of technical skill. It is said that Romulus built him a temple in Rome and instituted the Vulcanalia,—a festival in honor of the god. The name Vulcanus, or Volcanus, is popularly connected with the Latin fulgere, 'to flash' or 'lighten,' fulgur a 'flash of lightning,' etc. It is quite natural that, in many legends, fire should play an active part in the creation of man. The primitive belief of the Indo-Germanic race was that the fire-god, descending to earth, became the first man; and that, therefore, the spirit of man was composed of fire. Vulcan is also called by the Romans Mulciber, from mulceo, 'to soften.'

Illustrative. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, V, i; Much Ado About Nothing, I, i; Troilus and Cressida, I, iii; Hamlet, III, ii; Milton, Paradise Lost, 1, 740:

In Art. Various antique illustrations are extant of the god as a smith with hammer, or at the forge (text, Fig. 13); one of him working with the Cyclopes; a vase painting of him adorning Pandora; one of him assisting at the birth of Minerva; and one of his return to Olympus led by Bacchus and Comus. Of modern paintings the following are noteworthy: J. A. Wiertz, Forge of Vulcan; Velasquez, Forge of Vulcan (Museum, Madrid) (text, Fig. 56); the Forge of Vulcan by Tintoretto. Thorwaldsen's piece of statuary, Vulcan forging Arrows for Cupid, is justly famous.

30. Castalia: on the slopes of Parnassus, sacred to Apollo and the Muses. Cephissus: in Phocis and Bœotia. (Another Cephissus flows near Athens.)

Interpretative. The birth, wanderings, return of Apollo, and his struggle with the Python, etc., are explained by many scholars as symbolic of the annual course of the sun. Apollo is born of Leto, who is, according to hypothesis, the Night from which the morning sun issues. His conflict with the dragon reminds one of Siegfried's combat and that of St. George, The dragon is variously interpreted as symbolical of darkness, mephitic vapors, or the forces of winter, which are overcome by the rays of the springtide sun. The dragon is called Delphyne, or Python. The latter name may be derived simply from that part of Phocis (Pytho) where the town of Delphi was situate, or that again from the Greek root pūth, 'to rot,' because there the serpent was left by Apollo to decay; or from the Greek pŭth, 'to inquire,' with reference to the consultation of the Delphian or Pythian oracle. "It is open to students to regard the dolphin as only one of the many animals whose earlier worship is concentrated in Apollo, or to take the creature for the symbol of spring when seafaring becomes easier to mortals, or to interpret the dolphin as the result of a volks-etymologie (popular derivation), in which the name Delphi (meaning originally a hollow in the hills) was connected with delphis, the dolphin."—Lang, Myth, Ritual, etc., 2, 197. Apollo is also called Lycius, which means, not the wolf-slayer, as is sometimes stated, for the wolf is sacred to Apollo, but either the wolf-god (as inheriting an earlier wolf-cult) or the golden god of Light. See Preller and Roscher. This derivation is more probable than that from Lycia in Asia Minor, where the god was said originally to have been worshiped. To explain certain rational myths of Apollo as referring to the annual and diurnal journeys of the sun is justifiable. To explain the savage and senseless survivals of the Apollo-myth in that way is impossible.

Festivals. The most important were as follows: (1) The Delphinia, in May, to celebrate the genial influence of the young sun upon the waters, in opening navigation, in restoring warmth and life to the creatures of the wave, especially to the dolphins, which were highly esteemed by the superstitious seafarers, fishermen, merchants, etc. (2) The Thargelia, in the Greek month of that name, our May, which heralded the approach of the hot season. The purpose of this festival was twofold: to propitiate the deity of the sun and forfend the sickness of summer; to celebrate the ripening of vegetation and return thanks for first-fruits. These festivals were held in Athens, Delos, and elsewhere. (3) The Hyacinthian fast and feast of Sparta, corresponding in both features to the Thargelian. It was held in July, in the oppressive days of the Dog Star, Sirius. (4) The Carnean of Sparta, celebrated in August. It added to the propitiatory features of the Hyacinthian, a thanksgiving for the vintage. (5) Another vintage-festival was the Pyanepsian, in Athens. (6) The Daphnephoria: "Familiar to many English people from Sir Frederick Leighton's picture. This feast is believed to have symbolized the year.... An olive branch supported a central ball of brass, beneath which was a smaller ball, and thence little globes were hung." "The greater ball means the sun, the smaller the moon, the tiny globes the stars, and the three hundred and sixty-five laurel garlands used in the feast are understood to symbolize the days." (Proclus and Pausanias.)—Lang, Myth, Ritual, etc., 2. 194, 195. Apollo is also called the Sminthian, or Mouse-god, because he was regarded either as the protector or as the destroyer of mice. In the Troad mice were fed in his temple; elsewhere he was honored as freeing the country from them. As Mr. Lang says (Myth, Ritual, etc., 2, 201), this is intelligible "if the vermin which had once been sacred became a pest in the eyes of later generations."

Oracle of Delphi. It had been observed at a very early period that the goats feeding on Parnassus were thrown into convulsions when they approached a certain long deep cleft in the side of the mountain. This was owing to a peculiar vapor arising out of the cavern, and a certain goatherd is said to have tried its effects upon himself. Inhaling the intoxicating air, he was affected in the same manner as the cattle had been; and the inhabitants of the surrounding country, unable to explain the circumstance, imputed the convulsive ravings to which he gave utterance while under the power of the exhalations to a divine inspiration. The fact was speedily spread abroad, and a temple was erected on the spot. The prophetic influence was at first variously attributed to the goddess Earth, to Neptune, Themis, and others, but it was at length assigned to Apollo, and to him alone. A priestess was appointed whose office it was to inhale the hallowed air, and she was named the Pythia. She was prepared for this duty by previous ablution at the fountain of Castalia, and being crowned with laurel was seated upon a tripod similarly adorned, which was placed over the chasm whence the divine afflatus proceeded. Her inspired words while thus situated were interpreted by the priests.

Other famous oracles were that of Trophonius in Bœotia and that of the Egyptian Apis. Since those who descended into the cave at Lebadea to consult the oracle of Trophonius were noticed to return dejected and melancholy, the proverb arose which was applied to a low-spirited person, "He has been consulting the oracle of Trophonius."

At Memphis the sacred bull Apis gave answer to those who consulted him, by the manner in which he received or rejected what was presented to him. If the bull refused food from the hand of the inquirer, it was considered an unfavorable sign, and the contrary when he received it.

It used to be questioned whether oracular responses ought to be ascribed to mere human contrivance or to the agency of evil spirits. The latter opinion would of course obtain during ages of superstition, when evil spirits were credited with an influence over human affairs. A third theory has been advanced since the phenomena of mesmerism have attracted attention: that something like the mesmeric trance was induced in the Pythoness, and the faculty of clairvoyance called into action.

Scholars have also sought to determine when the pagan oracles ceased to give responses. Ancient Christian writers assert that they became silent at the birth of Christ, and were heard no more after that date; Milton adopts this view in his Hymn on the Nativity, and in lines of solemn and elevated beauty pictures the consternation of the heathen idols at the advent of the Saviour:

Illustrative. Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 2, 2; 1, 2, 29; 1, 11, 31; 1, 12, 2. Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella; as, for instance, the pretty conceit beginning

Dekker, The Sun's Darling; Burns (as in the Winter Night) and other Scotch song-writers find it hard to keep Phœbus out of their verses; Spenser, Epithalamion; Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, II, i (Apollo and Daphne); Cymbeline (Cloten's Serenade); Love's Labour's Lost, IV, iii; Taming of the Shrew, Induction ii; Winter's Tale, II, i; III, i; III, ii; Titus Andronicus, IV, i; Drayton, Song 8; Tickell, To Apollo making Love; Swift, Apollo Outwitted; Pope, Essay on Criticism, 34; Dunciad, 4, 116; Prologue to Satires, 231; Miscellaneous, 7, 16; Armstrong, The Art of Preserving Health.

Poems. Drummond of Hawthornden, Song to Phœbus; Keats, Hymn to Apollo; A. Mary F. Robinson, A Search for Apollo, and In Apollo's Garden; Shelley, Homer's Hymn to Apollo; Aubrey De Vere, Lines under Delphi; Lewis Morris, Apollo, in The Epic of Hades; R. W. Dixon, Apollo Pythius.

The Python. Milton, Paradise Lost, 10, 531; Shelley, Adonais. Oracles. Milton, Paradise Lost, 1. 12, 515; 5, 382; 10, 182; Paradise Regained, 1. 395, 430, 456, 463; 3, 13; 4, 275; Hymn on the Nativity, 173. In Cowper's poem of Yardley Oak there are mythological allusions appropriate to this subject. On Dodona, Byron, Childe Harold, 2, 53; Tennyson, The Talking Oak. Byron alludes to the oracle of Delphi when speaking of Rousseau, whose writings he conceives did much to bring on the French Revolution: Childe Harold, 3, 81,—

In Art. One of the most esteemed of all the remains of ancient sculpture is the statue of Apollo, called the Belvedere from the name of the apartment of the Pope's palace at Rome in which it is placed (see Fig. 15). The artist is unknown. It is conceded to be a work of Roman art, of about the first century of our era (and follows a type fashioned by a Greek sculptor of the Hellenistic period, probably in bronze). A variation of the type has been discovered in a bronze statuette which represents Apollo holding in the left hand an ægis. Some scholars have therefore surmised that the Apollo of the original was similarly equipped. The Belvedere Apollo, however, is a standing figure, in marble, more than seven feet high, naked except for the cloak which is fastened around the neck and hangs over the extended left arm. It is restored to represent the god in the moment when he has shot the arrow to destroy the monster Python. The victorious divinity is in the act of stepping forward. The left arm which seems to have held the bow is outstretched, and the head is turned in the same direction. In attitude and proportion the graceful majesty of the figure is unsurpassed. The effect is completed by the countenance, where, on the perfection of youthful godlike beauty, there dwells the consciousness of triumphant power. To this statue Byron alludes in Childe Harold, 4, 161:

The standing figure in our text reproduces this conception.[427] Also famous in sculpture are the "Adonis" Apollo of the Vatican (Fig. 14, text); the Greek bronze from Thessaly (Fig. 16, text); the Palatine Apollo in the Vatican (Fig. 66, text); the Apollo Citharœdus of the National Museum, Naples, and the Glyptothek, Munich; the Lycian Apollo; the Apollo Nomios; Apollo of Thera; the Apollo of Michelangelo (National Museum, Florence). A painting of romantic interest is Paolo Veronese's St. Christina refusing to adore Apollo. Of symbolic import is the Apollo (Sunday) by Raphael in the Vatican. Phœbus and Boreas by J. F. Millet.

32. Latona. A theory of the numerous love-affairs of Jupiter is given in 24 of the text. Delos is the central island of the Cyclades group in the Ægean. With its temple of Apollo it was exceedingly prosperous.

Interpretative. Latona (Leto), according to ancient interpreters, was night,—the shadow, therefore, of Juno (Hera), if Hera be the splendor of heaven. But the early myth-makers would hardly have reasoned so abstrusely. It is not at all certain that the name Leto means darkness (Preller 1, 190, note 4); and even if light is born of or after darkness, the sun (Apollo) and the moon (Artemis, or Diana) can hardly be considered to be twins of Darkness (Leto), for they do not illuminate the heavens at the same time.—Lang, Myth, Ritual, etc., 2, 199.

Illustrative. Byron's allusion to Delos in Don Juan, 3, 86:

See Milton's Sonnet, "I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs," for allusion to Latona.

In Art. In the shrine of Latona in Delos there was, in the days of Athenæus, a shapeless wooden idol.

Diana. The Latin Diana means either "goddess of the bright heaven," or "goddess of the bright day." She is frequently identified with Artemis, Hecate, Luna, and Selene. According to one tradition, Apollo and Diana were born at Ortygia, near Ephesus. Diana of the Ephesians, referred to (Acts xix, 28), was a goddess of not at all the maidenly characteristics that belonged to the Greek Artemis (Roscher, p. 591; A. Lang, 2, 217). Other titles of Artemis are Munychia, the moon-goddess; Calliste, the fair, or the she-bear; Orthia, the severe, worshiped among the Taurians with human sacrifices; Agrotera, the huntress; Pythia; Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth; Cynthia, born on Mount Cynthus.

Illustrative. Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 7, 5; 1, 12, 7; Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, V, i, "Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn," etc.; Twelfth Night, I, iv; Midsummer Night's Dream, I, iv; All's Well that Ends Well, I, iii; IV, ii; IV, iv; Butler, Hudibras, 3, 2, 1448. Poems: B. W. Procter, The Worship of Dian; W. W. Story, Artemis; E. W. Gosse, The Praise of Artemis; E. Arnold, Hymn of the Priestess of Diana; Wordsworth, To Lycoris; Lewis Morris, Artemis, in The Epic of Hades; A. Lang, To Artemis. Phœbe (Diana): Spenser, Epithalamion; Keats, To Psyche. Cynthia (Diana): Spenser, Prothalamion, Epithalamion; Milton, Hymn on the Nativity; H. K. White, Ode to Contemplation.

In Art. In art the goddess is represented high-girt for the chase, either in the act of drawing an arrow from her quiver or watching her missile in its flight. She is often attended by the hind. Sometimes, as moon-goddess, she bears a torch. Occasionally she is clad in a chiton, or robe of many folds, flowing to her feet. The Diana of the Hind (à la Biche), in the Palace of the Louvre (see Fig. 18), may be considered the counterpart of the Apollo Belvedere. The attitude much resembles that of Apollo, the sizes correspond and also the styles of execution. The Diana of the Hind is a work of a high order, though by no means equal to the Apollo. The attitude is that of hurried and eager motion, the face that of a huntress in the excitement of the chase. The left hand of the goddess is extended over the forehead of the hind which runs by her side, the right arm reaches backward over the shoulder to draw an arrow from the quiver. Fig. 19 in the text is the Artemis Knagia (Diana Cnagia), named after Cnageus, a servant of Diana who assisted in transferring the statue from Crete to Sparta. In Dresden there is a statue of Artemis in the style of Praxiteles (Fig. 68, text); and in the Louvre an ancient marble called the Artemis of Gabii (Fig. 77, text).

In modern painting, noteworthy are the Diana and her Nymphs of Rubens; Correggio's Diana (Fig. 17); Jules Lefebvre's Diana and her Nymphs; Domenichino's Diana's Chase. Note also the allegorical Luna (Monday) of Raphael in the Vatican; and D. G. Rossetti's Diana, in crayons.

34. Interpretative. The worship of Aphrodite was probably of Semitic origin, but was early introduced into Greece. The Aphrodite of Hesiod and Homer displays both Oriental and Grecian characteristics. All Semitic nations, except the Hebrews, worshiped a supreme goddess who presided over the moon (or the Star of Love), and over all animal and vegetable life and growth. She was the Istar of the Assyrians, the Astarte of the Phœnicians, and is the analogue of the Greek Aphrodite and the Latin Venus. See Roscher, p. 390, etc. The native Greek deity of love would appear to have been, however, Dione, goddess of the moist and productive soil (C. 26), who passes in the Iliad (5. 370, 428) as the mother of Aphrodite, is worshiped at Dodona by the side of Zeus, and is regarded by Euripides as Thyone, mother of Dionysus (Preller I, 259).

The epithets and names most frequently applied to Aphrodite are the Paphian, Cypris (the Cyprus-born), Cytherea, Erycina (from Mount Eryx), Pandemos (goddess of vulgar love), Pelagia (Aphrodite of the sea), Urania (Aphrodite of ideal love), Anadyomene (rising from the water); she is, also, the sweetly smiling, laughter-loving, bright, golden, fruitful, winsome, flower-faced, blushing, swift-eyed, golden-crowned.

She had temples and groves in Paphos, Abydos, Samos, Ephesus, Cyprus, Cythera, in some of which—for instance, Paphos—gorgeous annual festivals were held. See Childe Harold, I, 66.

Venus was a deity of extreme antiquity among the Romans, but not of great importance until she had acquired certain attributes of the Eastern Aphrodite. She was worshiped as goddess of love, as presiding over marriage, as the goddess who turns the hearts of men, and, later, even as a goddess of victory. A festival in her honor, called the Veneralia, was held in Rome in April.

Illustrative. See Chaucer's Knight's Tale for frequent references to the goddess of love; also the Court of Love; Spenser's Prothalamion, and Epithalamion, "Handmaids of the Cyprian queen"; Shakespeare, Tempest, IV, i; Merchant of Venice, II, vi; Troilus and Cressida, IV, v; Cymbeline, V, v; Romeo and Juliet, II, i; Milton, L'Allegro; Paradise Regained, 2, 214; Comus, 124; Pope, Rape of the Lock 4, 135; Spring, 65; Summer, 61; Thomas Woolner, Pygmalion (Cytherea).

Poems. Certain parts of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and occasional stanzas in Swinburne's volume, Laus Veneris, may be adapted to illustrative purposes. Chaucer, The Complaint of Mars and Venus; Thomas Wyatt, The Lover prayeth Venus to conduct him to the Desired Haven. See the melodious chorus to Aphrodite in Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon; Lewis Morris, Aphrodite, in The Epic of Hades; Thomas Gordon Hake, The Birth of Venus, in New Symbols; D. G. Rossetti, Sonnets; Venus Verticordia, Venus Victrix.

35. In Art. One of the most famous of ancient paintings was the Venus rising from the foam, of Apelles. The Venus found (1820) in the island of Melos, or of Milo (see text, opp. p. 32), now to be seen in the Louvre in Paris, is the work of some sculptor of about the fourth century B.C. Some say that the left hand uplifted held a mirrorlike shield; others, an apple; still others, a trident; and that the goddess was Amphitrite. A masterpiece of Praxiteles was the Venus of Cnidos, based upon which are the Venus of the Capitoline in Rome and the Venus de' Medici in Florence. Also the Venus of the Vatican, which is, in my opinion, superior to both. The Venus of the Medici was in the possession of the princes of that name in Rome when, about two hundred years ago, it first attracted attention. An inscription on the base assigns it to Cleomenes, an Athenian sculptor of 200 B.C., but the authenticity of the inscription is doubtful. There is a story that the artist was employed by public authority to make a statue exhibiting the perfection of female beauty, and that to aid him in his task the most perfect forms the city could supply were furnished him for models. Note Thomson's allusion in the Summer:

And Byron's

One of the most beautiful of the Greek Aphrodites is the Petworth (opp. p. 126, text).

Of modern paintings the most famous are: the Sleeping Venus and other representations of Venus by Titian; the Birth of Venus by Bouguereau; Tintoretto's Cupid, Venus, and Vulcan; Veronese's Venus with Satyr and Cupid. Modern sculpture: Thorwaldsen's Venus with the Apple; Venus and Cupid; Cellini's Venus; Canova's Venus Victrix, and the Venus in the Pitti Gallery; Rossetti's Venus Verticordia (crayons, water colors, oil).

36. Interpretative. Max Müller traces Hermes, child of the Dawn with its fresh breezes, herald of the gods, spy of the night, to the Vedic Saramâ, goddess of the Dawn. Others translate Saramâ, storm. Roscher derives from the same root as Sarameyas (son of Saramâ), with the meaning Hastener, the swift wind. The invention of the syrinx is attributed also to Pan.

Illustrative. To Mercury's construction of the lyre out of a tortoise shell, Gray refers (Progress of Poesy), "Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, Enchanting shell!" etc. See Shakespeare, King John, IV, ii; Henry IV, IV, i; Richard III, II, i; IV, iii; Hamlet, III, iv; Milton, Paradise Lost, 3, "Though by their powerful art they bind Volatile Hermes"; 4, 717; 11, 133; Il Penseroso, 88; Comus, 637, 962. Poems: Sir T. Martin, Goethe's Phœbus and Hermes; Shelley's translation of Homer's Hymn to Mercury.

In Art. The Mercury in the Central Museum, Athens; Mercury Belvedere (Vatican); Mercury in Repose (National Museum, Naples). The Hermes by Praxiteles, in Olympia (text, opp. p. 150), and the Hermes Psychopompos leading to the underworld the spirit of a woman who has just died (text, Fig. 20; from a relief sculptured on the tomb of Myrrhina), are especially fine specimens of ancient sculpture.

In modern sculpture: Cellini's Mercury (base of Perseus, Loggia del Lanzi, Florence); Giov. di Bologna's Flying Mercury (bronze, Bargello, Florence: text, opp. p. 330); Thorwaldsen's Mercury. In modern painting: Tintoretto's Mercury and the Graces; Francesco Albani's Mercury and Apollo; Claude Lorrain's Mercury and Battus; Turner's Mercury and Argus; Raphael's allegorical Mercury (Wednesday), Vatican, Rome; and his Mercury with Psyche (Farnese Frescoes).

37. Interpretative. The name Hestia (Latin Vesta) has been variously derived from roots meaning to sit, to stand, to burn. The two former are consistent with the domestic nature of the goddess; the latter with her relation to the hearth-fire. She is "first of the goddesses," the holy, the chaste, the sacred.

Illustrative. Milton, Il Penseroso (Melancholy), "Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore To solitary Saturn bore," etc.

38. (1) Cupid (Eros). References and allusions to Cupid throng our poetry. Only a few are here given. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, I, iv; Merchant of Venice, II, vi; Merry Wives, II, ii; Much Ado About Nothing, I, i; II, i; III, ii; Midsummer Night's Dream, I, i; II, ii; IV, i; Cymbeline, II, iv; Milton, Comus, 445, 1004; Herrick, The Cheat of Cupid; Pope, Rape of the Lock, 5, 102; Dunciad, 4, 308; Moral Essays, 4, 111; Windsor Forest,—on Lord Surrey, "In the same shades the Cupids tuned his lyre To the same notes of love and soft desire."

Poems. Chaucer, The Cuckow and Nightingale, or Boke of Cupid (?); Occleve, The Letter of Cupid; Beaumont and Fletcher, Cupid's Revenge, and the Masque, A Wife for a Month; J.G. Saxe, Death and Cupid, on their exchange of arrows, "And that explains the reason why Despite the gods above, The young are often doomed to die, The old to fall in love"; Thomas Ashe, The Lost Eros; Coventry Patmore, The Unknown Eros. Also John Lyly's Campaspe:

See also Lang's translation of Moschus, Idyl I, and O. Wilde, The Garden of Eros.

In Art. Antique sculpture: the Eros in Naples, ancient marble from an original perhaps by Praxiteles (text, Fig. 21); Eros bending the Bow, in the Museum at Berlin; Cupid bending his Bow (Vatican); Eros with his Bow, in the Capitoline (text, opp. p. 136).

Modern sculpture: Thorwaldsen's Mars and Cupid. Modern paintings: Bouguereau's Cupid and a Butterfly; Raphael's Cupids (among drawings in the Museum at Venice); Burne-Jones' Cupid (in series with Pyramus and Thisbe); Raphael Mengs' Cupid sharpening his Arrow; Guido Reni's Cupid; Van Dyck's Sleeping Cupid. See also under Psyche, C. 101.

Hymen. See Sir Theodore Martin's translations of the Collis O Heliconii, and the Vesper adest, juvenes, of Catullus (LXI and LXII); Milton, Paradise Lost, 11, 591; L'Allegro, 125; Pope, Chorus of Youths and Virgins.

(2) Hebe. Thomas Lodge's Sonnet to Phyllis, "Fair art thou, Phyllis, ay, so fair, sweet maid"; Milton, Vacation Exercise, 38; Comus, 290; L'Allegro, 29; Spenser, Epithalamion. Poems: T. Moore, The Fall of Hebe; J. R. Lowell, Hebe. In Art: Ary Scheffer's painting of Hebe; N. Schiavoni's painting.

Ganymede. Chaucer, Hous of Fame, 81; Tennyson, in the Palace of Art, "Or else flushed Ganymede, his rosy thigh Half-buried in the Eagle's down," etc.; Shelley in the Prometheus (Jove's order to Ganymede); Milton, Paradise Regained, 2,353; Drayton, Song 4, "The birds of Ganymed." Poems: Lord Lytton, Ganymede; Bowring, Goethe's Ganymede; Roden Noël, Ganymede; Edith M. Thomas, Homesickness of Ganymede; S. Margaret Fuller, Ganymede to his Eagle; Drummond on Ganymede's lament, "When eagle's talons bare him through the air." In Art: The Rape of Ganymede, marble in the Vatican, probably from the original in bronze by Leochares (text, Fig. 22). Græco-Roman sculpture: Ganymede and the Eagle (National Museum, Naples). Modern sculpture: Thorwaldsen's Ganymede.

(3) The Graces. Rogers, Inscription for a Temple; Matthew Arnold, Euphrosyne. These goddesses are continually referred to in poetry. Note the painting by J. B. Regnault (Louvre), also the sculpture by Canova.

(4) The Muses. Spenser, The Tears of the Muses; Milton, Il Penseroso; Byron, Childe Harold, 1, 1, 62, 88; Thomson, Castle of Indolence, 2, 2; 2, 8; Akenside, Pleasures of Imagination, 3. 280, 327; Ode on Lyric Poetry; Crabbe, The Village, Bk. 1; Introductions to the Parish Register, Newspaper, Birth of Flattery; M. Arnold, Urania. Delphi, Parnassus, etc.: Gray, Progress of Poesy, 2, 3. Vale of Tempe: Keats, On a Grecian Urn; Young, Ocean, an ode. In Art. Sculpture: Polyhymnia, ancient marble in Berlin (text, Fig. 23); Clio and Calliope, in the Vatican in Rome; Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, and Urania, in the Louvre, Paris; Terpsichore by Thorwaldsen. Painting: Apollo and the Muses, by Raphael Mengs and by Giulio Romano; Terpsichore (picture), by Schützenberger.

(5) The Hours, in art: Raphael's Six Hours of the Day and Night.

(6) The Fates. Refrain stanzas in Lowell's Villa Franca, "Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever!" In Art: The Fates, painting attributed to Michelangelo, but now by some to Rosso Fiorentino from Michelangelo's design (text, Fig. 24, Pitti Gallery, Florence); painting by Paul Thumann.

(7) Nemesis. For genealogy see Table B, C. 49.

(8) Æsculapius. Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 5, 36-43; Milton, Paradise Lost, 9, 507.

(9) (10) The Winds, Helios, Aurora, Hesper, etc. Æolus: Chaucer, Hous of Fame, 480. See C. 125 and genealogical tables H and I. Hippotades is Æolus (son of Hippotes). In Lycidas, 96, Milton calls the king of the winds Hippotades, because, following Homer (Odyssey, 10, 2) and Ovid (Metam. 14, 224), he identifies Æolus II with Æolus III. Boreas and Orithyia: Akenside, Pleasures of Imagination, 1, 722.

In Art. The fragment, Helios rising from the Sea, by Phidias, south end, east pediment of the Parthenon. Boreas and Zetos, Greek reliefs (text, Figs. 25 and 26); Boreas and Orithyia (text, Fig. 27), on a vase in Munich.

(11) Hesperus. Milton, Paradise Lost, 4, 605; 9, 49; Comus, 982; Akenside, Ode to Hesper; Campbell, Two Songs to the Evening Star, Tennyson, The Hesperides.

(12) "Iris there with humid bow waters the odorous banks," etc., Comus, 992. See also Milton's Paradise Lost, 4, 698; 11, 244. In Art: Fig. 28, text; and painting by Guy Head (Gallery, St. Luke's, Rome). She is the swift-footed, wind-footed, fleet, the Iris of the golden wings, etc.

39. Hyperborean. Beyond the North. Concerning the Elysian Plain, see 46. Illustrative: Milton, Comus, "Now the gilded car of day," etc.

40. Ceres. Illustrative. Pope, Moral Essays, 4, 176, "Another age shall see the golden ear Imbrown the slope ... And laughing Ceres reassume the land"; Spring, 66; Summer, 66; Windsor Forest, 39; Gray, Progress of Poesy; Warton, First of April, "Fancy ... Sees Ceres grasp her crown of corn, And Plenty load her ample horn"; Spenser, Faerie Queene, 3, 1, 51; Milton, Paradise Lost, 4, 268; 9, 395.

Poems. Tennyson, Demeter and Persephone; Mrs. H. H. Jackson, Demeter. Prose: W. H. Pater, The Myth of Demeter (Fortn. Rev. Vol. 25, 1876); S. Colvin, A Greek Hymn (Cornh. Mag. Vol. 33, 1876); Swinburne, At Eleusis.

The name Ceres is from the stem cer, Sanskrit kri, 'to make.' By metonomy the word comes to signify corn in the Latin. Demeter (Γῆ μήτηρ, δᾶ μάτηρ) means Mother Earth. The goddess is represented in art crowned with a wheat-measure (or modius), and bearing a horn of plenty filled with ears of corn. Demeter (?) appears in the group of deities on the eastern frieze of the Parthenon. Also noteworthy are the Demeter from Knidos (text, Fig. 29, from the marble in the British Museum); two statues of Ceres in the Vatican at Rome, and one in the Glyptothek at Munich; and the Roman wall painting (text, Fig. 30).

41. Rhea was worshiped as Cybele, the Great Mother, in Phrygia and at Pessinus in Galatia. During the Second Punic War, 203 B.C., her image was brought from the latter place to Rome. In 191 B.C. the Megalesian Games were first celebrated in her honor, occupying six days, from the fourth of April on. Plays were acted during this festival. The Great Mother was also called Cybebe, Berecyntia, and Dindymene.

The Cybele of Art. In works of art, Cybele exhibits the matronly air which distinguishes Juno and Ceres. Sometimes she is veiled, and seated on a throne with lions at her side; at other times she rides in a chariot drawn by lions. She wears a mural crown, that is, a crown whose rim is carved in the form of towers and battlements. Rhea is mentioned by Homer (Iliad, 15, 187) as the consort of Cronus.

Illustrative. Byron's figure likening Venice to Cybele, Childe Harold, 4, 2, "She looks a sea-Cybele, fresh from ocean," etc. Also Milton's Arcades, 21.

42. Interpretative. It is interesting to note that Homer (Iliad and Odyssey) recognizes Dionysus neither as inventor, nor as exclusive god of wine. In Iliad, 6, 130 he refers, however, to the Dionysus cult in Thrace. Hesiod is the first to call wine the gift of Dionysus. Dionysus means the Zeus or god of Nysa, an imaginary vale of Thrace, Bœotia, or elsewhere, in which the deity spent his youth. The name Bacchus owes its origin to the enthusiasm with which the followers of the god lifted up their voices in his praise. Similar names are Iacchus, Bromius, Evius (from the cry evoe). The god was also called Lyæus, the loosener of care, Liber, the liberator. His followers are also known as Edonides (from Mount Edon, in Thrace, where he was worshiped), Thyiades, the sacrificers, Lenæa and Bassarides. His festivals were the Lesser and Greater Dionysia (at Athens), the Lenæa, and the Anthesteria, in December, March, January, and February, respectively. At the first, three dramatic performances were presented.

Illustrative. A few references and allusions worth consulting: Spenser, Epithalamion; Fletcher, Valentinian, "God Lyæus, ever young"; Randolph, To Master Anthony Stafford (1632); Milton, L'Allegro, 16; Paradise Lost, 4, 279; 7, 33; Comus, 46, 522; Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i; Love's Labour's Lost, IV, iii; Antony and Cleopatra, II, vii, song; Shelley, Ode to Liberty, 7, Rome—"like a Cadmæan Mænad"; Keats, To a Nightingale, "Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards." On Semele, Milton, Paradise Regained, 2, 187; Spenser, Faerie Queene, 3, 11, 33.

Poems. Ben Jonson, Dedication of the King's New Cellar; Thomas Parnell, Bacchus, or the Drunken Metamorphosis; Landor, Sophron's Hymn to Bacchus; Swinburne, Prelude to Songs before Sunrise; Roden Noël, The Triumph of Bacchus; Robert Bridges, The Feast of Bacchus; others given in text. See Index.

In Art. Of ancient representations of the Bacchus, the best examples are the marble in the British Museum (text, Fig. 31); the Silenus holding the child Bacchus (in the Louvre); the head of Dionysus found in Smyrna (now in Leyden—see text, Fig. 143), from an original of the school of Scopas; the head (now in London) from the Baths of Caracalla, of the later Attic school; the Faun and Bacchus (Museum, Naples); a standing bronze figure in Vienna, and the statue of the Villa Tiburtina (Rome). The bearded or Indian Bacchus is represented as advanced in years, grave, dignified, crowned with a diadem and robed to the feet. See also Figs. 82-87, in text.

In modern sculpture note especially the Drunken Bacchus of Michelangelo. Among modern paintings worthy of notice are Bouguereau's Youth of Bacchus, and C. Gleyre's Dance of the Bacchantes. See also under Ariadne.

43. The invention of the syrinx is attributed also to Mercury. For poetical illustrations of Pan see C. 129-138. So also for Nymphs and Satyrs.

In Art. Pan the Hunter (text, Fig. 32); the antique, Pan and Daphnis (with the syrinx) in the Museum at Naples. See references above.

44-46. It was only in rare instances that mortals returned from Hades. See the stories of Hercules, Orpheus, Ulysses, Æneas. On the tortures of the condemned and the happiness of the blessed, see 254-257 in The Adventures of Æneas.

Illustrative. Lowell, addressing the Past, says:

Milton, Paradise Lost, 3, 568, "Like those Hesperian gardens," etc. See also the same, 2, 577 ff.,—"Abhorrèd Styx, the flood of deadly hate,"—where the rivers of Erebus are characterized according to the meaning of their Greek names; and L'Allegro, 3. Charon: Pope, Dunciad, 3, 19; R. C. Rogers, Charon. Elysium: Cowper, Progress of Error, Night, "The balm of care, Elysium of the mind"; Milton, Paradise Lost, 3, 472; Comus, 257; L'Allegro; Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI, I, ii; Cymbeline, V, iv; Twelfth Night, I, ii; Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, vii; Shelley, To Naples. Lethe: Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, IV, i; Julius Cæsar, III, i; Hamlet, I, v; 2 Henry IV, V, ii; Milton, Paradise Lost, 2, 583. Tartarus: Milton, Paradise Lost, 2, 858; 6, 54.

47. Interpretative. The name Hades means "the invisible," or "he who makes invisible." The meaning of Pluto (Plouton), according to Plato (Cratylus), is wealth,—the giver of treasure which lies underground. Pluto carries the cornucopia, symbol of inexhaustible riches; but careful discrimination must be observed between him and Plutus (Ploutos), who is merely an allegorical figure,—a personification of wealth and nothing more. Hades is called also the Illustrious, the Many-named, the Benignant, Polydectes or the Hospitable.

Illustrative. Milton, L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso; Paradise Lost, 4, 270; Thomas Kyd, Spanish Tragedy (Andrea's descent to Hades;—this poem deals extensively with the Infernal Regions); Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV, II, iv; Troilus and Cressida, IV, iv; V, ii; Coriolanus, I, iv; Titus Andronicus, IV, iii.

Poems. Buchanan, Ades, King of Hell; Lewis Morris, Epic of Hades.

48. Proserpina. Not from the Latin pro-serpo, 'to creep forth' (used of herbs in spring), but from the Greek form Persephone, bringer of death. The later name Pherephatta refers to the doves (phatta), which were sacred to her as well as to Aphrodite. She carries ears of corn as symbol of vegetation, poppies as symbol of the sleep of death, the pomegranate as the fruit of the underworld of which none might partake and return to the light of heaven. Among the Romans her worship was overshadowed by that of Libitina, a native deity of the underworld.

Illustrative. Keats, Melancholy, 1; Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 2, 2; Milton, Paradise Lost, 4, 269; 9, 396.

Poems. Aubrey De Vere, The Search after Proserpine; Jean Ingelow, Persephone; Swinburne, Hymns to Proserpine; L. Morris, Persephone (Epic of Hades); D. G. Rossetti, Proserpina. (Also in crayons, in water colors, and in oil.)

In Art. Sculpture: Eastern pediment of Parthenon frieze. Painting: Lorenzo Bernini's Pluto and Proserpine; P. Schobelt's Abduction of Proserpine.

49. Textual. (1) For Æacus, son of Ægina, see 61 and C. 190, Table O; for Minos and Rhadamanthus, see 59. Eumenides: euphemistic term, meaning the well-intentioned. Hecate was descended through her father Perses from the Titans, Creüs and Eurybië; through her mother Asteria from the Titans, Cœus and Phœbe. She was therefore, on both sides, the granddaughter of Uranus and Gæa.

The following table is based upon Hesiod's account of The Family of Night. (Theogony.)

According to other theogonies, the Fates were daughters of Jove and Themis, and the Hesperides daughters of Atlas. The story of the true and false Dreams and the horn and ivory gates (Odyssey, 19, 560) rests on a double play upon words: (1) ἐλέφας (elephas), 'ivory,' and ἐλεφαίρομαι (elephairomai), 'to cheat with false hope'; (2) κέρας (keras), horn, and κραίνειν (krainein), 'to fulfill.' See Mortimer Collins, The Ivory Gate, a poem.

Illustrative. Hades: Milton, Paradise Lost, 2, 964; L. Morris, Epic of Hades. Styx: Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, V, iv; Titus Andronicus, I, ii; Milton, Paradise Lost, 2, 577; Pope, Dunciad, 2, 338. Erebus: Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, V, i; 2 Henry IV, II, iv; Julius Cæsar, II, i. Cerberus: Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 11, 41; Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, V, ii; 2 Henry IV, II, iv; Troilus and Cressida, II, i; Titus Andronicus, II, v; Maxwell, Tom May's Death; Milton, L'Allegro, 2. Furies: Milton, Lycidas; Paradise Lost, 2, 597, 671; 6, 859; 10, 620; Paradise Regained, 9, 422; Comus, 641; Dryden, Alexander's Feast, 6; Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i; Richard III, I, iv; 2 Henry IV, V, iii. Hecate: Shakespeare, Macbeth, IV, i. Sleep and Death: Shelley, To Night; H. K. White, Thanatos.

In Art. Vase-painting of Canusium of the Underworld (text, Fig. 34); painting of a Fury by Michelangelo (Uffizi, Florence); also Figs. 35-39 in text.

50-52. See next page for Genealogical Table, Divinities of the Sea.

For stories of the Grææ, Gorgons, Scylla, Sirens, Pleiades, etc., consult Index.

Illustrative. Oceanus: Milton, Comus, 868. Neptune: Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 11, 54; Shakespeare, Tempest, I, ii; Midsummer Night's Dream, II, ii; Macbeth, II, ii; Cymbeline, III, i; Hamlet, I, i; Milton, Lycidas; Paradise Regained, 1, 190; Paradise Lost, 9, 18; Comus, 869; Prior, Ode on Taking of Namur; Waller's Panegyric to the Lord Protector. Panope: Milton, Lycidas, 99.

Harpies. Milton, Paradise Lost, 3, 403. Sirens: Wm. Morris, Life and Death of Jason—Song of the Sirens. Scylla and Charybdis (see Index): Milton, Paradise Lost, 2, 660; Arcades, 63; Comus, 257; Pope, Rape of the Lock, 3, 122. Sirens: Rossetti, A Sea-Spell; A. Lang, "They hear the Sirens for the second time."

Table B. The Family of Night

Night +— Goddesses of Destiny and Fate (Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos) +— Death (Thanatos) +— Sleep | +— Morpheus | +— Icelus | +— Phantasus +— Dreams +— Momus (god of ridicule—adverse criticism) +— Care +— Hesperides +— Nemesis

Naiads. Landor, To Joseph Ablett; Shelley, To Liberty, 8; Spenser, Prothalamion, 19; Milton, Lycidas; Paradise Regained, 2, 355; Comus, 254; Buchanan, Naiad (see 134); Drummond of Hawthornden, "Nymphs, sister nymphs, which haunt this crystal brook, And happy in these floating bowers abide," etc.; Pope, Summer, 7; Armstrong, Art of Preserving Health, "Come, ye Naiads! to the fountains lead."

Table C. Divinities of the Sea

Gæa =Uranus +— Oceanus | =Tethys | +— Inachus and other river-gods | +— Oceanids | +— Doris (the Oceanid) | =Nereus | +— Amphitrite | | =Neptune | | +— Proteus (acc. to Apollodorus) | | +— Triton | +— Galatea | +— Thetis | =Peleus | +— Achilles +— Cronus | =Rhea | +— Neptune | =Amphitrite | +— Proteus (acc. to Apollodorus) (see above) | +— Triton (see above) +— Rhea =Cronus +— Neptune (see above) Gæa =Pontus +— Nereus | =Doris (the Oceanid) | +— Amphitrite (see above) | +— Galatea (see above) | +— Thetis (see above) +— Thaumas | +— Iris | +— Harpies +— Phorcys | =Ceto | +— Grææ | +— Gorgons | +— Sirens | +— Scylla +— Ceto =Phorcys +— Grææ (see above) +— Gorgons (see above) +— Sirens (see above) +— Scylla (see above)

Proteus. Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, I, i; II, ii; III, ii; IV, iv; Pope, Dunciad, 1, 37; 2, 109. The Water Deities are presented in a masque contained in Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy.

In Art. Poseidon: see text, Figs. 40 and 41 (originals in the British Museum and the Glyptothek, Munich); also the Isthmian Poseidon, Fig. 95. The Atlas (Græco-Roman sculpture) in National Museum, Naples; the Triton in Vatican (text, Fig. 42). Modern painting: J. Van Beers, The Siren; D. G. Rossetti, The Siren.

Textual. Consus, from condere, 'to stow away.' The sisters of Carmenta, the forward-looking Antevorta and the backward-looking Postvorta, were originally but different aspects of the function of the Muse.

54. Illustrative. Saturn: Milton, Il Penseroso; Keats, Hyperion; Peele, Arraignment of Paris. Janus, as god of civilization: Dryden, Epistle to Congreve, 7. Fauns: Milton, Lycidas; R. C. Rogers, The Dancing Faun. See Hawthorne's Marble Faun. Bellona: Shakespeare, Macbeth, "Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof"; Milton, Paradise Lost, 2, 922. Pomona: Randolph, To Master Anthony Stafford; Milton, Paradise Lost, 9, 393; 5, 378; Thomson, Seasons, Summer, 663. Flora: Milton, Paradise Lost, 5, 16; Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 4, 17; R. H. Stoddard, Arcadian Hymn to Flora; Pope, Windsor Forest, 38. Janus: Jonathan Swift, To Janus, on New Year's Day, 1726; Egeria, one of the Camenæ; Childe Harold, 4, 115-120; Tennyson, Palace of Art, "Holding one hand against his ear," etc. Pan, etc.: Milton, Paradise Lost, 4, 707; 4, 329.

In Sculpture. The Satyr, or so-called Faun, of Praxiteles in the Vatican (text, Fig. 106); Dancing Faun (Lateran, Rome); Dancing Faun, Drunken Faun, Sleeping Faun, and Faun and Bacchus (National Museum, Naples); The Barberini Faun, or Sleeping Satyr (Glyptothek, Munich).

Flora. Painting by Titian (Uffizi, Florence).

55. The first love of Zeus was Metis, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. She is Prudence or Foreknowledge. She warned Zeus that if she bore him a child, it would be greater than he. Whereupon Zeus swallowed her; and, in time, from his head sprang Athene, "the virgin of the azure eyes, Equal in strength, and as her father wise" (Hesiod, Theog.). On Latona, see 32, 73, and Commentary.

56. For Danaë see 151; for Alemene, 156; for Leda, 194.

57. In the following general table of the Race of Inachus (see p. 488), marriages are indicated in the usual manner (by the sign =, or by parentheses); the more important characters mentioned in this work are printed in heavy-faced type. While numerous less important branches, families, and mythical individuals have been intentionally omitted, it is hoped that this reduction of various relationships, elsewhere explained or tabulated, to a general scheme, may furnish the reader with a clearer conception of the family ties that motivate many of the incidents of mythical adventure, and that must have been commonplaces of information to those who invented and perpetuated these stories. It should be borne in mind that the traditions concerning relationships are by no means consistent, and that consequently the collation of mythical genealogies demands the continual exercise of discretion, and a balancing of probabilities. Notice that from the union of Jupiter and Io (Table D), Hercules is descended in the thirteenth generation.

Inachus is the principal river of Argolis in the Peloponnesus.

Interpretative. Io is explained as the horned moon, in its various changes and wanderings. Argus is the heaven with its myriad stars, some of them shut, some blinking, some always agleam. The wand of Hermes and his music may be the morning breeze, at the coming of which the eyes of heaven close (Cox, 2, 138; Preller 2, 40). The explanation would, however, be just as probable if Mercury (Hermes) were a cloud-driving wind. Pan and the Syrinx: naturally the wind playing through the reeds, if (with Müller and Cox) we take Pan to be the all-purifying, but yet gentle, wind. But see p. 181.

Illustrative. Shelley, To the Moon, "Art thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionless Among the stars that have a different birth?" Milton's "To behold the wandering moon, Riding near her highest noon, Like one that had been led astray, Through the heaven's wide pathless way" (Il Penseroso). See also for Io, Shelley's Prometheus Bound. Argus: Milton, Paradise Lost, 11, 131; Pope, Dunciad, 2, 374; 4, 637.

In Art. Fig. 47 in the text, from a wall-painting of Herculaneum (Museum, Naples). Correggio's painting, Jupiter and Io; not a pleasant conception.

58. Interpretative. The myth of Callisto and Arcas is of Arcadian origin. If the Arcadians, in very remote times, traced their descent from a she-bear, and if they also, like other races, recognized a bear in a certain constellation, they might naturally mix the fables and combine them later with the legend of the all-powerful Zeus (Lang, 2, 181). According to another account, Callisto was punished for her love of Jupiter by Diana (Artemis). Her name has been identified with the adjective Calliste, 'most fair,' which was certainly applied to Artemis herself. That Artemis was protectress of she-bears is known; also that, in Attica, she was served by girls who imitated, while dancing, the gait of bears. It is quite possible, therefore, that Artemis inherited a more ancient worship of the bear that may have been the totem, or sacred animal, from which the Arcadians traced a mythological descent. Others hold that the word arksha, 'a star,' became confused with the Greek arktos, 'a bear.' So the myth of the son Arcas (the star and the bear) may have arisen (Max Müller). The last star in the tail of the Little Bear is the Polestar, or Cynosure (dog's tail).

Table D. The Race of Inachus and its Branches

Oceanus +— Inachus +— Phoroneus | +— Apis | +— Niobe | =Jupiter | +— Argus | | +— (Tiryns, Epidaurus, and other founders of Peloponnesian cities) | +— Pelasgus | +— Lycaon | +— Sons destroyed for impiety | +— Callisto | =Jupiter | +— Arcas (ancestor of The Arcadians) | +— Elatus | +— Pereus | +— Neæra | +— Lycurgus | +— Ancæus (Calyd. Hunt) | +— Amphidamas (an Argonaut) | | +— Antimache | | =Eurystheus | +— Jasus | +— Atalanta of Arcadia (Calyd. Hunt) +— Argus Panoptes (slain by Mercury) +— Phegeus | +— Arsinoë | =Alcmæon +— Io =Jupiter +— Epaphus +— Libya =Neptune +— Agenor | +— Cadmus | | =Harmonia | | +— Semele | | | =Jupiter | | | +— Bacchus | | +— Ino | | | =Athamas | | | +— Melicertes | | +— Autonoë | | | =Aristæus | | | +— Actæon | | +— Agave | | | =Echion | | | +— Pentheus | | | +— Menœceus | | | +— Creon | | | | +— Menœceus II | | | | +— Hæmon | | | +— Jocasta | | | =Laïus | | | +— Œdipus | | | +— Eteocles | | | +— Polynices | | | | +— Thersander | | | +— Antigone | | | +— Ismene | | +— Polydorus | | +— Labdacus | | +— Laïus | | =Jocasta | | +— Œdipus (see above) | +— Phœnix | +— Cilix | +— Phineus (the Soothsayer) | +— Europa | =Jupiter | +— Minos I | | +— Lycastus | | +— Minos II | | =Pasiphaë | | +— Crateus | | | +— Aërope | | | =Atreus | | | +— Agamemnon | | | | =Clytemnestra | | | +— Menelaüs | | | =Helen | | +— Phædra | | | =Theseus | | +— Ariadne | | =Theseus | +— Rhadamanthus | +— Sarpedon +— Belus +— Ægyptus | +— 49 sons | +— Lynceus | =Hypermnestra | +— Abas | +— Acrisius | | +— Danaë | | =Jupiter | | +— Perseus | | =Andromeda | | +— Perses | | +— Electryon | | | +— Alcmene | | | =Jupiter | | | +— Hercules | | | =Amphitryon | | | +— Iphicles | | +— Alcæus | | | +— Amphitryon | | | =Alcmene | | | +— Iphicles (see above) | | +— Sthenelus | +— Prœtus | +— Megapenthes +— Danaüs | +— Hypermnestra | =Lynceus | +— Abas (see above) +— Cepheus =Cassiopea +— Andromeda =Perseus +— Perses (see above) +— Electryon (see above) +— Alcæus (see above) +— Sthenelus (see above)

Illustrative. Milton's "Let my lamp, at midnight hour, Be seen in some high lonely tower, Where I may oft outwatch the Bear" (Il Penseroso); and his "Where perhaps some beauty lies The cynosure of neighbouring eyes" (L'Allegro); also his "And thou shalt be our star of Arcady, Or Tyrian Cynosure" (Comus). Note Lowell's "The Bear, that prowled all night about the fold Of the North-star, hath shrunk into his den" (Prometheus). See also the song beginning, "Hear ye, ladies, that despise What the mighty Love had done," in Beaumont and Fletcher's drama, Valentinian,—for Callisto, Leda, and Danaë.

59. The Descendants of Agenor. For further details, see Table D.

Table E

Mars =Venus +— Harmonia =Cadmus +— Semele | =Jupiter | +— Bacchus +— Ino | =Athamas | +— Melicertes +— Autonoë | =Aristæus | +— Actæon +— Agave | +— Pentheus +— Polydorus +— Labdacus +— Laïus +— Œdipus (royal family of Thebes) Agenor +— Cadmus | =Harmonia | +— Semele (see above) | +— Ino (see above) | +— Autonoë (see above) | +— Agave (see above) | +— Polydorus (see above) +— Europa | =Jupiter | +— Minos | +— Rhadamanthus | +— Sarpedon +— Phœnix +— Cilix

Textual. Moschus lived about the close of the third century B.C. in Syracuse. He was a grammarian and an idyllic poet. He calls himself a pupil of Bion,—whose Lament for Adonis is given in 100. Both Bion and Moschus belong to the School of Theocritus—the Idyllic or Pastoral School of Poetry. Cypris: Venus, by whom the island of Cyprus was beloved. Mygdonian flutes: the ancients had three species or modes of music, depending, respectively, upon the succession of musical intervals which was adopted as the basis of the system. The Lydian measures were shrill and lively; the Dorian deep in tone, grave, and solemn; the Mygdonian, or Phrygian, were supposed by some to have been the same as the Lydian, but more probably they were a combination of Lydian and Dorian. Shaker of the World: Neptune. Crete: where Jupiter had been concealed from his father Cronus, and nourished by the goat Amalthea.

Interpretative. Herodotus says that Europa was a historical princess of Tyre, carried off by Hellenes to Crete. Taurus (the bull) was euhemeristically conceived to be a king of Crete who carried off the Tyrian princess as prize of war. Others said that probably the figurehead of the ship in which Europa was conveyed to Crete was a bull. It is not improbable that the story indicates a settlement of Phœnicians in Crete and the introduction by them of cattle. Modern critics, such as Preller and Welcker, make Europa a goddess of the moon = Diana or Astarte, and translate her name "the dark, or obscured one." But she has undoubtedly a connection with the earth, perhaps as wife of Jupiter (the Heaven). H. D. Müller connects both Io and Europa with the wandering Demeter (or Ceres), and considers Demeter to be a goddess both of the moon and of the earth (Helbig, in Roscher). Cox, after his usual method, finds here the Dawn borne across the heaven by the lord of the pure ether. Europa would then be the broad-spreading flush of dawn, seen first in the purple region of morning (Phœnicia). Her brother Cadmus, who pursues her, would be the sun searching for his lost sister or bride. Very fanciful, but inconclusive. The bull occurs not infrequently in myth as an incarnation of deity.

Illustrative. W. S. Landor, Europa and her Mother; Aubrey De Vere, The Rape of Europa; E. Dowden, Europa; W. W. Story, Europa (a sonnet). See also a graceful picture in Tennyson's Palace of Art.

In Art. Fig. 48, in text, from vase found at Cumæ; the marble group in the Vatican, Europa riding the Bull; painting by Paolo Veronese, The Rape of Europa; Europa, by Claude Lorrain.

60. See Tables D and E.

Interpretative. According to Preller, Semele is a personification of the fertile soil in spring, which brings forth the productive vine. In the irrational part of the myth, Jove takes the child Dionysus (Bacchus), after Semele's death, and sews him up in his thigh for safe-keeping. Preller finds here "the wedlock of heaven and earth, the first day that it thunders in March." Exactly why, might be easy to guess, but hard to demonstrate. The thigh of Jupiter would have to be the cool moist clouds brooding over the youthful vine. The whole explanation is altogether too conjectural. See A. Lang's Myth, Ritual, etc., 2, 221-225, for a more plausible but less poetic theory.

Illustrative. Milton, Paradise Regained, 2, 187; Bowring's translation of Schiller's Semele; E. R. Sill, Semele, of which a part is given in the text.

In Art. Fig. 50, in text.

61. Textual. The son of Ægina and Jove was Æacus (for genealogy, see Table O (1)). Ægina: an island in the Saronic Gulf, between Attica and Argolis. Asopus: the name of two rivers, one in Achaia, one in Bœotia, of which the latter is the more important. The Greek traveler, Pausanias, tells us that Asopus was the discoverer of the river which bears his name. Sisyphus, see 255. This description of the plague is copied by Ovid from the account which Thucydides gives of the plague of Athens. That account, much fuller than is here given, was drawn from life and has been the source from which many subsequent poets and novelists have drawn details of similar scenes. The Myrmidons were, during the Trojan War, the soldiers of Achilles, grandson of this king Æacus.

Interpretative. The name Ægina may imply either the shore on which the waves break (Preller), or the sacred goat (Ægeus) which was the totem of the Ægeus family of Attica. The worship of Athene was introduced into Athens by this family. In sacrifices the goddess was clad in the skin of the sacred goat, but no goat might be sacrificed to her. Probably another example of the survival of a savage ritual (Lang, Myth, Ritual, etc., 1, 280).

Illustrative. Myrmidons:

Kyd, Spanish Tragedy

On Sisyphus, read Lewis Morris' poem in The Epic of Hades.

62. Textual. Mænad: the Mænades, from μαίνομαι (mainomai), 'to rage,' were women who danced themselves into a frenzy in the orgies or festivals of Bacchus. Cithæron: a mountain range south of Thebes and between Bœotia and Attica.

Interpretative. Antiope, philologically interpreted, may indicate the moon with face turned full upon us. That Antiope is a personification of some such natural phenomena would also appear from the significance of the names associated with hers in the myth: Nycteus, the night-man; Lycus, the man of light. Amphion and Zethus are thought, in like fashion, to represent manifestations of light; see also Castor and Pollux. Perhaps the method employed by Zethus and Amphion in building Thebes may merely symbolize the advantage of combining mechanical force with well-ordered or harmonious thought.

In Art: The Farnese Bull group (text, opp. p. 74): marble, maybe by Tauriscus and Tralles, in Naples Museum. Fig. 51: a relief in the Palazzo Spada, Rome. Modern painting: Correggio's Antiope.

63. Textual. Phrygia: a province in Asia Minor. For Minerva's protection of the olive, see 65. Tyana is a town in Cappadocia, Asia Minor.

64. Textual. Argos: the capital of Argolis in the Peloponnesus. Of Cydippe, it is told, in Ovid's Heroides and elsewhere, that, when a girl sacrificing in the temple of Diana in Delos, she was seen and loved by a youth, Acontius. He threw before her an apple, on which these words were inscribed, "I swear by the sanctuary of Diana to marry Acontius." The maiden read aloud the words and threw the apple away. But the vow was registered by Diana, who, in spite of many delays, brought about the marriage of Cydippe and her unknown lover. Polyclitus the Elder, of Argos, lived about 431 B.C., and was a contemporary of two other great sculptors, Phidias and Myron. His greatest work was the chryselephantine statue of Hera for her temple between Argos and Mycenæ.

Illustrative. Beside Gosse's Sons of Cydippe, see verses by L. J. Richardson, in The Inlander, Ann Arbor, Vol. 2, p. 2. For the story of Acontius and Cydippe, see William Morris' Earthly Paradise; and Lytton's Cydippe, or The Apples, in The Lost Tales of Miletus.

In Art. The severe design in clay by Teignmouth, of which prints may be obtained, was made to illustrate Gosse's poem.

65-66. Textual. For Cecrops, see 174. He named the city that he founded Cecropia,—a name which afterwards clung to Athens. For an excellent description of ancient weaving, see Catullus, LXIV, 304-323 (The Peleus and Thetis). For translation, see 191. Leda, mother of Castor, Pollux, Helen, and Clytemnestra (see 194 and Commentary). Danaë, mother of Perseus (see 151).

Interpretative. The waves were the coursers of Neptune,—the horses with which he scours the strand. Arachne: a princess of Lydia. It is probable that the myth symbolizes the competition in products of the loom between Attica and Asia Minor and the superior handicraft of the Athenian weavers.

Illustrative. Arachne: Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, V, ii; Pope, Dunciad, 4, 590. Poem: Garrick, Upon a Lady's Embroidery.

In Art. Fig. 52, in text: from a vase in St. Petersburg.

68. Textual. Diomede: for his genealogy, see Table K. Taslets: armor worn about the thighs. Cyprian: Venus. Pæan (Pæon, or Paiëon), classed by Homer among the Olympian gods, of whom he is, as his name implies, the "healer." Later, the name was applied to Æsculapius, then to any god who might repair or avert evil of any kind, as, for instance, to Apollo and to Thanatos (Death). See Armstrong's Art of Health, "So Pæan, so the powers of Health command," etc., and "the wise of ancient days Adored one power of physic, melody, and song." Pæans were chants in honor of Apollo, sung to deprecate misfortune in battle or to avert disease. Lower than the sons of Heaven: lower than the Titans, sons of Uranus (Heaven), who were plunged into Tartarus.

69. Textual. Lessing points out in his Laocoön the skill with which Homer, stating the size of the stone hurled by Minerva and the measure of the space covered by Mars, suggests the gigantic proportions of the warring divinities.

70. Textual. Family of Cadmus: see Tables D and E. Castalian Cave of Mount Parnassus, Phocis; here was the famous Delphic oracle of Apollo. Cephissus: a river running through Doris, Phocis, and Bœotia into the Eubœan Gulf; the valley of the Cephissus was noted for its fertility. Panope: a town on the Cephissus. Tyrians: Cadmus and his followers came from Tyre in Phœnicia. The Necklace of Harmonia was a fateful gift. It brought evil to whomsoever it belonged: to all the descendants of Cadmus; to Eriphyle, wife of Amphiaraüs of Argos, to whom Polynices gave it; and to the sons of Eriphyle. It was finally dedicated to Apollo in Delphi. Harmonia's robe possessed the same fatality, 187, 189. Enchelians: a people of Illyria. For the myths of Semele, see 60; of Ino, 144; of Autonoë and her son, Actæon, 95; of Agave and her son, Pentheus, 112; of Polydorus, the Labdacidæ, Œdipus, etc., 182. Eight years: the usual period of penance. Apollo, after slaying the Python, had to clear himself of defilement by a period of purification.

Interpretative. Cadmus and his Tyrians: according to the usual explanation, this myth is based upon an immigration of Phœnicians, who settled Bœotia and gave laws, the rudiments of culture (alphabet, etc.), and industrial arts to the older races of Greece. Many Theban names, such as Melicertes, Cadmus, point to a possible Phœnician origin; cf. Semitic Melkarth, and Kedem, the East. But Preller holds that two mythical personages, a Greek Cadmus and a Phœnician Cadmus, have been confounded; that the Theban Cadmus is merely the representative of the oldest Theban state; that the selection of the spot on which a heifer had lain down was a frequent practice among settlers, superstitious about the site of their new town; that the dragon typifies the cruel and forbidding nature of the uncultivated surroundings; and that the story of the dragon's teeth was manufactured to flatter the warlike spirit of the Thebans, the teeth themselves being spear points.

Harmonia, daughter of the patron deities of Thebes, is the symbol of the peace and domesticity that attend the final establishment of order in the State.

According to the Sun-and-Cloud theory of Cox, Cadmus, the Sun, pursues his sister, Europa, the broad-flushing light of Dawn, who has been carried off on a spotless cloud (the Bull). The Sun, of course, must journey farther west than Crete. The heifer that he is to follow is, therefore, still another cloud (like the cattle of the Sun,—clouds). The dragon of Mars is still a third cloud; and this the Sun dissipates. A storm follows, after which new conflicts arise between the clouds that have sprung up from the moistened earth (the harvest of armed men!). This kind of explanation, indiscriminately indulged, delights the fancy of the inventor and titillates the risibles of the reader.

Illustrative. Milton, Paradise Lost, 9, 506. The serpent that tempted Eve compared with the serpents Cadmus and "Hermione." See Byron, Don Juan, 3, 86, "You have the letters Cadmus gave—Think you he meant them for a slave?"

In Art. Fig. 54, in text: from a vase in the Naples Museum. Fig. 55 is of a vase-painting from Eretria.

71. Textual. Eurynome is represented by some as one of the Titans, the wife of Ophion. Ophion and Eurynome, according to one legend, ruled over heaven before the age of Saturn (Cronus). So Milton, Paradise Lost, 10, 580, "And fabled how the Serpent, whom they called Ophion, with Eurynome (the wide-Encroaching Eve perhaps), had first the rule Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven." According to Vulcan's statement (Iliad, 18), Eurynome was daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. She was mother, by Jupiter, of the Graces. Thetis: see 50. Xanthus: the principal river of Lycia in Asia Minor.

72-73. Interpretative. Latona (Leto): according to Homer, one of the deities of Olympus; a daughter of the Titans Cœus and Phœbe, whose names indicate phenomena of radiant light. She belonged, perhaps, to an ancient theogony of Asia Minor. At any rate she held at one time the rank of lawful wife to Zeus. Preller and, after him, Cox take Leto as the dusk or darkness. Cox traces the word to the root of Lethe (the forgetful), but Preller is doubtful. Possibly Leto and Leda, the mother of the bright Castor and Pollux, have something in common. The wanderings of Latona may be the weary journey of the night over the mountain tops, both before and after the Sun (Apollo) is born in Delos (the land of Dawn).

Illustrative. Milton, Arcades, 20, and Sonnet XII, "On the detraction which followed upon my writing certain treatises."

74. Textual. Hyperboreans: those who dwell in the land beyond the North. Pæan, see C. 68. Tityus: an earthborn giant; condemned to the underworld, he lay stretched over nine acres while two vultures devoured his liver.

Interpretative. Python: in many savage myths, a serpent, a frog, or a lizard that drinks up all the waters, and is destroyed by some national hero or god. As Mr. Lang says: "Whether the slaying of the Python was or was not originally an allegory of the defeat of winter by sunlight, it certainly, at a very early period, became mixed up with ancient legal ideas and local traditions. It is almost as necessary for a young god or hero to slay monsters as for a young lady to be presented at court; and we may hesitate to explain all these legends of a useful feat of courage as nature myths" (Myth, Ritual, etc., 2, 196). Compare the feats of Hercules, Jason, Bellerophon, Perseus, St. George and the Dragon, Sigurd, and Jack the Giant Killer. Commentators take Python to be the rigor of winter, or the darkness of night, or a "black storm-cloud which shuts up the waters" (Cox). It is not impossible that the Python was the sacred snake of an older animal worship superseded by that of Apollo. (See also C. 38.)

75. Textual. The Tyrian hue is purple, made from the juice of the murex, or purple shellfish. On the leaves of the hyacinth were inscribed characters like Ai, Ai, the Greek exclamation of woe. It is evidently not our modern hyacinth that is here described, but perhaps some species of iris, or of larkspur, or pansy. The meaning of the name is also uncertain, but the best authorities favor youthful. A festival called the Hyacinthia was celebrated, in commemoration of the myth, over a large part of the Peloponnesus. It lasted three days, probably in the first half of July. It consisted of chants of lamentation and fasting during the first and last days; during the second day, of processions, a horse race, joyous choral songs, dances, feasting, and sacrifice.

Interpretative. Most scholars consider Hyacinthus to be the personification of the blooming vegetation of spring, which withers under the heats of summer. The Hyacinthian festival seems to have celebrated—like the Linus festival and the Eleusinian—the transitory nature of life and the hope of immortality.

Illustrative. Keats, Endymion, "Pitying the sad death Of Hyacinthus, when the cool breath Of Zephyr slew him" (see context); Milton, Lycidas, "Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe"; On the Death of a Fair Infant, 4.

In Art. Fig. 58, in text, is of a marble group in the Hope Collection.

76. Textual. Clymene: a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. Chrysolite: or gold stone, our topaz. Daystar: Phosphor, see 38 (II). Ambrosia (ἀμβρόσιος, ἄμβροτος, ἀ-βροτός), immortal,—here, "food for the immortals." Turn off to the left: indicating the course of the sun, west by south. The Serpent, or Dragon: a constellation between the Great and Little Bears. Boötes: the constellation called the Wagoner. The limits of the Scorpion were restricted by the insertion of the sign of the Scales. Athos: a mountain forming the eastern of three peninsulas south of Macedonia. Mount Taurus: in Armenia. Mount Tmolus: in Lydia. Mount Œte: between Thessaly and Ætolia, where Hercules ascended his funeral pile. Ida: the name of two mountains,—one in Crete, where Jupiter was nurtured by Amalthea, the other in Phrygia, near Troy. Mount Helicon: in Bœotia, sacred also to Apollo. Mount Hæmus: in Thrace. Ætna: in Sicily. Parnassus: in Phocis; one peak was sacred to Apollo, the other to the Muses. The Castalian Spring, sacred to the Muses, is at the foot of the mountain; Delphi is near by. Rhodope: part of the Hæmus range of mountains. Scythia: a general designation of Europe and Asia north of the Black Sea. Caucasus: between the Black and Caspian seas. Mount Ossa: associated with Mount Pelion in the story of the giants, who piled one on top of the other in their attempt to scale Olympus. These mountains, with Pindus, are in Thessaly. Libyan desert: in Africa. Libya was fabled to have been the daughter of Epaphus, king of Egypt. Tanaïs: the Don, in Scythia. Caïcus: a river of Greater Mysia, flowing into the sea at Lesbos. Xanthus and Mæander: rivers of Phrygia, flowing near Troy. Caÿster: a river of Ionia, noted for its so-called "tuneful" swans. For Nereus, Doris, Nereïds, etc., see 50 and 52. Eridanus: the mythical name of the river Po in Italy (amber was found on its banks). Naiads, see 52 (6).

Interpretative. Apollo assumed many of the attributes of Helios, the older divinity of the sun, who is ordinarily reputed to be the father of Phaëthon (ordinarily anglicized Phaëton). The name Phaëthon, like the name Phœbus, means the radiant one. The sun is called both Helios Phaëthon and Helios Phœbus in Homer. It was an easy feat of the imagination to make Phaëthon the incautious son of Helios, or Apollo, and to suppose that extreme drought is caused by his careless driving of his father's chariot. The drought is succeeded by a thunderstorm; and the lightning puts an end to Phaëthon. The rain that succeeds the lightning is, according to Cox, the tears of the Heliades. It is hardly wise to press the analogy so far, unless one is prepared to explain the amber in the same way.

Illustrative. Milman in his Samor alludes to the story. See also Chaucer, Hous of Fame, 435; Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 4, 9; Shakespeare, Richard II, III, iii; Two Gentlemen of Verona, III, i; 3 Henry VI, I, iv; II, vi; Romeo and Juliet, III, ii. Poems: Prior, Female Phaëton; J. G. Saxe, Phaëton; and G. Meredith, Phaëton. For description of the palace and chariot of the Sun, see Landor, Gebir, Bk. I.

In Art: Fig. 59, in text: a relief on a Roman sarcophagus in the Louvre.

77. Textual. For the siege of Troy, see Chap. XXII. Atrides (Atreides): the son of Atreus, Agamemnon. The ending -ides means son of, and is used in patronymics; for instance, Pelides (Peleides), Achilles; Tydides, Diomede, son of Tydeus. The ending -is, in patronymics, means daughter of; as Tyndaris, daughter of Tyndarus (Tyndareus), Helen; Chryseïs, daughter of Chryses.

Interpretative. Of this incident Gladstone, in his primer on Homer, says: "One of the greatest branches and props of morality for the heroic age lay in the care of the stranger and the poor.... Sacrifice could not be substituted for duty, nor could prayer. Such, upon the abduction of Chryseïs, was the reply of Calchas the Seer: nothing would avail but restitution."

78. The Dynasty of Tantalus and its Connections. (See also Table I.)

Table F

Jupiter +— Tantalus (k. of Phrygia) =Dione +— Niobe | =Amphion | +— 7 sons and 7 daughters +— Pelops =Hippodamia +— Atreus | =Aërope | +— Agamemnon | +— Menelaüs +— Thyestes | +— Ægisthus +— Pittheus (k. of Trœzen) +— Æthra =Ægeus +— Theseus =Antiope +— Amphion =Niobe +— 7 sons and 7 daughters (see above) Atlas +— Dione | =Tantalus (k. of Phrygia) | +— Niobe (see above) | +— Pelops (see above) +— Sterope II =Mars +— Œnomaüs +— Hippodamia =Pelops +— Atreus (see above) +— Thyestes (see above) +— Pittheus (k. of Trœzen) (see above) Minos II +— Aërope =Atreus +— Agamemnon (see above) +— Menelaüs (see above)

Pelops. It is said that the goddess Demeter in a fit of absent-mindedness ate the shoulder of Pelops. The part was replaced in ivory when Pelops was restored to life. Mount Cynthus: in Delos, where Apollo and Diana were born.