Chapter III: Introduction (2)

"The countenance expresses a stern unquestioned severity of {29}
dominion, with a certain sadness. The lips are beautiful, susceptible
of expressing scorn, but not without sweetness. With fine lips a person
is never wholly bad, and they never belong to the expression of
emotions purely selfish, lips being the seat of imagination. The
drapery is finely conceived; and the manner in which the act of
throwing back one leg is expressed in the diverging folds of the
drapery of the left breast, fading in bold, yet graduated lines, into a
skirt, as it descends from the left shoulder, is admirably imagined."

SHELLEY.

* * * * *

CERES.

------

Ceres, daughter of Saturn and Cybele, was goddess of the productions of the earth. She taught man the art of agriculture, and is represented crowned with wheat, holding a torch in one hand, and in the other an ear of corn; sometimes she carries a sceptre, and sometimes a sickle, and her chariot is drawn by lions or by serpents.

------------"As tempered suns arise
Sweet beamed, and shedding through the lucid clouds
A pleasing calm: while broad and brown, below
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep, they stand: for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:
A calm of plenty; till the ruffled air
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
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Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky,
And back by fits the shadows sweep along.
A gaily chequered, heart-expanding view,
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded, tossing in a flood of corn."

THOMSON.

Loved by Jupiter, she had by the God a daughter called Proserpine, whom Pluto, God of Hell, seized near the beautiful vale of Enna, in Sicily, and carried with him to his dismal kingdom. Ceres, whose love for her child, almost surpassed even the usual love of mothers, placed on Mount Etna two torches, and sought her "from morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve," throughout the world. At last, when she deemed her search well nigh hopeless, she was informed by the nymph Arethusa of the dwelling place of her child, and of the name of him who had torn her beloved one from her paternal care.

Ceres implored Jupiter to interfere, and withdraw her from the infernal regions, which he agreed to do, but found it would be beyond his power, as, by a decree of Destiny, she would not be able to quit her place of concealment, should she have partaken of any nourishment while there; and it was discovered that though she had refused all ordinary food, she had been tempted while in the gardens of Pluto, to pluck a pomegranate, and to eat a few of its seeds. This was sufficient; and the utmost Ceres could obtain, was that she should pass six months of the year with her mother and six months with Pluto, when she became his wife.

"Near Enna's walls a spacious lake is spread,
Famed for the sweetly singing swans it bred;
Pergusa is its name: and never more
Were heard, or sweeter sounds than on Cayster's shore.
Woods crown the lake, and Phoebus ne'er invades
The tufted fences or offends the shades:
Fresh fragrant breezes fan the verdant bowers,
And the moist ground smiles with enamelled flowers,
The cheerful birds their airy carols sing,
And the whole year is one eternal spring.
Here while young Proserpine, among the maids,
Diverts herself in these delicious shades;
While like a child with busy speed and care,
She gathers lilies here, and violets there;
While first to fill her little lap she strives,
Hell's grizzly monarch at the shades arrives;
Sees her thus sporting on the flowery green,
And loves the blooming maid as soon as seen.
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The frighted Goddess to her mother cries:
But all in vain, for now far off she flies;
His urgent flame impatient of delay,
Swift as his thought he seized the beauteous prey,
And bore her in his sooty car away.
Far she behind her leaves her virgin train;
To them too cries, and cries to them in vain.
And while with passion she repeats her call,
The violets from her lap and lilies fall:
She misses them, poor heart! and makes new moan:
Her lilies, oh! are lost, her violets gone.
O'er hills the ravisher, and valleys speeds,
By name encouraging his foamy steeds;
He rattles o'er their necks the rusty reins,
And ruffles with the stroke their shaggy manes
Throws to his dreadful steeds the slackened rein,
And strikes his iron sceptre through the main;
The depths profound thro' yielding waves he cleaves,
And to hell's centre a free passage leaves;
Down sinks his chariot, and his realms of night
The God soon reaches with a rapid flight."

OVID.

The attempts of Ceres to encourage the art of agriculture were not always favourably received: the King of the Scythians, who loved the sword more than the ploughshare, and the spear more than the reaping hook, having attempted to smother the art taught by Ceres in its infancy, was metamorphosed into a lynx. Nor was this the only instance of the vengeance of the Goddess, who was irritable, and prompt to punish. A young child, whose chief crime was having laughed to see her eat with avidity, was changed into a lizard: while a Thessalian, who had desecrated and attempted to destroy a sacred forest, was doomed to an hunger so cruel, that he devoured his own limbs, and died in the midst of fearful torments.

* * * * *

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DESTINY.

------

We have already seen that the decrees of Destiny, or Fate, were superior even to the will of Jupiter, as the King of the Gods could not restore Proserpine to her mother, Destiny having decreed otherwise. But of this being, as possessing a place among the heroes of mythology, we are left in considerable ignorance. Scarcely knowing even if he were a God, or only the name or symbol whereby to represent an immutable and unchangeable law. In the antique bas-reliefs he is often to be seen, with a bandage over his eyes, and near him an open book which the gods alone might consult: and in which are written those events which must inevitably come to pass, and which all are so anxious to discover.

"Thou power which all men strive to look into!
Thou power which dost elude all human search!
To thee alone is given the right to gaze
Into the fate prepared for all who live.
Oh! wilt thou ne'er unlock thine iron bars,
Oh! wilt thou ne'er enable us to look
Into the volume clasped at thy right hand?
The past is known to us, and doth contain
So much of evil and so little good,
So much of wrong, and oh! so little right,
So much of suffering, and so little peace,
That we would fain turn o'er the leaves which speak
Of future things to our sore troubled souls.
Yet no! perchance the burden is too much,
And is in mercy hidden from our eyes.
Earth is made up of so much care and woe,
The past, the present, and the future known,
Would sink us into deep and desperate sorrow."

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APOLLO.

------

This Deity, whose name still lives with us, as the presiding divinity of the art of song, was the son of Jupiter, by the beautiful Latona, daughter of the Titan, Coeus. Asteria, her sister, disdaining the embraces of the God, threw herself into the sea, and was changed into the isle which bears the name of Delos; where Latona afterwards sought refuge from the fury of Juno, when about to overwhelm her, for her frailty with her husband. The irritated Goddess, to punish Latona for her crime, excited against her the serpent Python, who pursued her wheresoever she went; until at last, in the Isle of Delos, alone and unfriended, bearing in her bosom the fruit of her weakness, she gave birth to Apollo and Diana. Weary of her confinement, and wishing to return to her father Coeus, she arrived near his dominions, where, fatigued with her journey, she begged a drop of water from the peasants, whose cruel refusal to aid her she punished by changing them into frogs.

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"The Goddess came, and kneeling on the brink,
Stooped at the fresh repast, prepared to drink:
Then thus, being hindered by the rabble race,
In accents mild expostulates the case:
'Water I only ask, and sure 'tis hard
From Nature's common rights to be debarred.
This, as the genial sun, and vital air,
Should flow alike to every creature's share;
One draught, as dear as life I should esteem,
And water, now I thirst, would nectar seem:
Oh! let my little babes your pity move,
And melt your hearts to charitable love:
They (as by chance they did) extend to you
Their little hands, and my request pursue!'
Yet they the goddess's request refuse,
And, with rude words, reproachfully abuse.
Her thirst by indignation was suppressed;
Bent on revenge, the Goddess stood confessed!
'And may you live,' she passionately cried,
'Doomed in that pool for ever to abide!'
The Goddess has her wish----"

OVID.

During her residence at her father's court, Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, had the insolence to prefer herself to Latona, who had but two children, while Niobe possessed seven sons and seven daughters. She even ridiculed the worship which was paid to Latona, observing, that she had a better claim to altars and sacrifices than the mother of Apollo. This insolence provoked Latona, and she entreated her children to punish the arrogant Niobe. Her prayers were granted, and immediately all the sons of Niobe expired by the {35} darts of Apollo, and all the daughters, except one, who was married, were equally destroyed by Diana; while Niobe, stricken by the greatness of the misfortune which had overwhelmed her, was changed into stone.

The bodies of Niobe's children were left unburied in the plains for nine successive days, because Jupiter changed into stones all such as attempted to inter them. On the tenth, they were honoured with a funeral by the Gods.

While Apollo resided at the court of Jupiter, he retained the title of the God of Light; and though many writers consider Phoebus and Apollo to be different deities, there can be no doubt that the worship which is offered to Phoebus, as the sun, is due also to Apollo; and indeed, under both titles is he addressed by ancients, as well as moderns.

"Giver of glowing light!
Though but a God of other days,
The kings and sages,
Of wiser ages,
Still live and gladden in thy genial rays!

"King of the tuneful lyre!
Still poets hymns to thee belong,
Though lips are cold,
Whereon of old,
Thy beams all turned to worshipping and song!

"Lord of the dreadful bow!
None triumph now for Python's death
But thou dost save
From hungry grave,
The life that hangs upon a summer's breath!

"Father of rosy day!
No more thy clouds of incense rise;
But waking flowers,
At morning hours,
Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies!

"God of the Delphic fane!
No more thou listenest to hymns sublime;
But they will leave,
On winds at eve,
A solemn echo to the end of time!"

HOOD.

By the invention of Phoebus, medicine became known to the world, as he granted to Aesculapius the secrets of this miraculous art, who afterwards sought to raise the dead, and while in the act of bringing {36} to life Hippolitus, son of Theseus, Jupiter enraged with his impiety, smote him with a thunderbolt. Indignant at the punishment which had been awarded Aesculapius, Apollo sought the isle of Lemnos, to immolate the Cyclops to his indignation, who had forged the thunderbolt.

But so insolent an act could not remain unpunished, and Jupiter exiled him from Heaven. While on earth, he loved the nymph Daphne, and Mercury who had invented the lyre, gave it to him that he might the more effectually give vent to his passion. This lyre, was formed of the shell of a tortoise, and composed of seven cords, while to its harmonious tones were raised the walls of Troy. In vain, however, were the sweet sounds of the lyre tuned, to soften Daphne whose affection rested with another, and was insensible to that of Apollo, though he pursued her with fervour for a year. Daphne, still inexorable, was compelled to yield to the fatigue which oppressed her, when the Gods, at her entreaty, changed her into a laurel. Apollo took a branch and formed it into a crown, and to this day the laurel remains one of the attributes of the God. The leaves of this tree are believed to possess the property of preserving from thunder, and of making dreams an image of reality to those who place it beneath their pillow.

--------------------"Her feet she found
Benumbed with cold, and fastened to the ground,
A filmy rind about her body grows,
Her hair to leaves, her arms extend to boughs,
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The nymph is all into a laurel gone,
The smoothness of her skin remains alone;
To whom the God: "Because thou canst not be
My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree;
Be thou the prize of honour and renown,
The deathless poet and the poem crown!
Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn,
And after poets, be by victors worn!
Thou shalt returning Caesar's triumph grace,
When pomp shall in a long procession pass;
Wreathed on the posts before his palace wait,
And be the sacred guardian of the gate;
Secure from thunder and unharmed by Jove,
Unfading as the immortal powers above;
And as the locks of Phoebus are unshorn
So shall perpetual green thy boughs adorn."

OVID.

However earnest Apollo might have been in his pursuit of Daphne, he did not long remain inconsolable, but formed a tender attachment for Leucothoe, daughter of king Orchamus, and to introduce himself with greater facility, he assumed the shape and features of her mother. Their happiness was complete, when Clytie, her sister, who was enamoured of the God, and was jealous of his amours with Leucothoe, discovered the whole intrigue to her father, who ordered his daughter to be buried alive. Apollo passing by accident over the tomb which contained her, heard her last melancholy cries, but unable to save her from death, he sprinkled nectar and ambrosia over her tomb, which penetrating as far as the body, changed it into the beautiful tree that bears the frankincense; while the unhappy Clytie, tormented by remorse, and disdained by the God, was changed into a sunflower, the plant which turns itself without ceasing, towards its deity, the sun.

"On the bare earth she lies, her bosom bare,
Loose her attire, dishevelled is her hair;
Nine times the morn unbarred the gates of light,
As oft were spread the alternate shades of night,
So long no sustenance the mourner knew,
Unless she drank her tears, or sucked the dew,
She turned about, but rose not from the ground,
Turned to the sun still as he rolled his round;
On his bright face hung her desiring eyes,
Till fixed to earth, she strove in vain to rise,
Her looks their paleness in a flower retained,
But here and there, some purple streaks they gained.
Still the loved object the fond leaves pursue,
Still move their root, the moving sun to view
And in the Heliotrope the nymph is true."

OVID.

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These unhappy endeavours of Apollo, determined him to take refuge in friendship, and he attached himself to the young Hyacinth;

----"Hyacinth, long since a fair youth seen,
Whose tuneful voice turned fragrance in his breath,
Kissed by sad Zephyr, guilty of his death."

HOOD.

But misfortune appeared to cling to all who were favoured by Apollo, for as they played at quoits with Zephyr, the latter fired by jealousy, blew the quoit of Apollo on the forehead of the unhappy mortal, who fell dead upon the green turf on which they were playing; while his blood sinking into the ground, produced the flower which still bears his name.

"Flower! with a curious eye we scan
Thy leaf, and there discover
How passion triumphed--pain began--
Or in the immortal, or the man,
The hero, or the lover.

"The disk is hurled:--ah! fatal flight!
Low droops that beauteous brow:
But oh! the Delian's pang! his light
Of joy lies quenched in sorrow's night:
The deathless record _thou_.

"Or, do they tell, these mystic signs,
The self destroyer's madness?
Phrensy, ensanguined wreaths entwines:
The sun of chivalry declines;--
The wreck of glory's gladness!"

Apollo was so disconsolate at the death of Hyacinth, that, as we have seen, he changed his blood into a flower which bore his name, and placed his body among the constellations. {39}

The Spartans established yearly festivals in his honour, which continued for three days; they did not adorn their hair with garlands during their festivals, nor eat bread, but fed only upon sweetmeats. They did not even sing Paeans in honour of Apollo, or observe any of the solemnities usual at other sacrifices.

----"Pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him, Zephyr, penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain."

KEATS.

Saddened by his efforts to form an endearing friendship, Apollo once more sighed for the nymph Perses, daughter of Ocean, and had by her the celebrated Circe, remarkable for her knowledge of magic and venomous herbs.

Bolina, another nymph to whom he was attached, wishing to escape from his pursuit, threw herself into the waves, and was received by the nymphs of Amphitrion.

"I staid awhile to see her throw
Her tresses back, that all beset
The fair horizon of her brow,
With clouds of jet.

"I staid a little while to view
Her cheek, that wore in place of red,
The bloom of water, tender blue,
Daintily spread.

"I staid to watch a little space
Her parted lips, if she would sing;
The waters closed above her face,
With many a ring.

"And still I stayed a little more,--
Alas! she never comes again,
I throw my flowers from the shore
And watch in vain."

HOOD.

After this, Apollo lost the young Cyparissus, who had replaced Hyacinth in his favour, and guarded his flocks; this young shepherd having slain by accident a stag of which Apollo was fond, expired of grief, and was changed into the tree which bears his name.

Apollo now attached himself to the sybil of Cumes, and granted to her the boon of prolonging her life as many years as there were grains in a handful of sand which she held. But she lived to repent of this frightful gift.

Alone in the world, her friends departed, and none to remind {40} her of the days of the past, she implored the Gods to release her from the misery which overwhelmed her. Cassandra, daughter of Priam, consented to her prayer, if Apollo would grant to her the power of divination. Apollo agreed, and swore to the truth of his promise by the river Styx. Scarcely had he uttered the oath, than the gods, who could not absolve him from it, rallied him on his folly. Irritated at the ridicule they poured upon him, he added to this gift, the restriction, that she should never believe her own prophecies. After this he again yielded to the power of love, and sought to please Clymene, who was the mother of Phaeton. To this nymph succeeded the chaste Castalia, whom he pursued to the very foot of Parnassus, where the Gods metamorphosed her into a fountain. As Apollo was lamenting his loss on the bank of that river, he heard an exquisite melody escaping from the depth of the wood. He approached the place from whence the sound seemed to issue, and recognized the nine muses, children of Jupiter and Mnemosyne.

"Mnemosyne, in the Pierian grove,
The scene of her intrigue with mighty Jove,
The empress of Eleuther, fertile earth,
Brought to Olympian Jove the Muses forth;
Blessed offsprings, happy maids, whose powerful art
Can banish cares, and ease the painful heart.
* * * * * *
Clio begins the lovely tuneful race,
Which Melpomene and Euterpe grace;
Terpischore, all joyful in the choir,
And Erato, to love whose lays inspire;
To these Thalia and Polymnia join,
Urania and Calliope divine."

HESIOD.

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The taste and feelings of Apollo responded to those of these noble sisters: they received him in their palace, and assembled together with him to converse on the arts and sciences.

Among their possessions, the Muses and Apollo had a winged horse, named Pegasus. This courser, born of the blood of Medusa, fixed his residence on Mount Helicon, and, by striking the earth with his foot, caused the spring of Hippocrene to gush from the ground. While the courser was thus occupied, Apollo mounted his back, placed the Muses with him, and Pegasus, lifting his wings, carried them to the court of Bacchus.

Envious of the fame of Apollo at this court, Marsyas, the Phrygian, declared that, with his flute, he could surpass the melody of the God's divine lyre, and challenged Apollo to a trial of his skill as a musician; the God accepted the challenge, and it was mutually agreed, that he who was defeated should be flayed alive. The Muses were appointed umpires. Each exerted his utmost skill, and the victory was adjudged to Apollo. The God, upon this, tied his opponent to a tree, and punished him as had been agreed. The {42} death of Marsyas was universally lamented; the fauns, satyrs and dryads, wept at his fate, and from their abundant tears flowed a river of Phrygia, well known by the name of Marsyas.

Undeterred by this example, Pan, favourite of Midas, King of Lydia, wished also to compete with Apollo in the art of which the latter was master. Pan began the struggle, and Midas repeated his songs with enthusiasm, without paying the least attention to his celestial rival. Pan again sang, and Midas repeated; when, to his surprise, the latter felt, pressing through his hair, a pair of ears, long and shaggy. Alarmed at this phenomenon, Pan took to flight, and the prince, desolate at the loss of his favourite, made one of his attendants, some say his wife, the confidant of his misfortune, begging her not to betray his trust. The secret was too great for the bosom of its holder; she longed to tell it, but dared not, for fear of punishment; and as the only way of consoling herself, sought a retired and lonely spot, where she threw herself on the earth, whispering "King Midas has the ears of an ass, King Midas has the ears of an ass." Not long after her visit, some reeds arose in this place; and as the wind passed through them, they repeated, "King Midas has the ears of an ass." Enraged, no less than terrified, at this extraordinary occurrence, Midas sacrificed to Bacchus, who, to console, granted him the special favour of turning all that he touched into fine gold.

"Midas the king, as in the book appears,
By Phoebus was endowed with ass's ears,
Which under his long locks he well concealed;
As monarch's vices must not be revealed:
For fear the people have them in the wind.
Who long ago were neither dumb nor blind:
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Nor apt to think from heaven their title springs,
Since Jove and Mars left off begetting kings.
This Midas knew, and durst communicate,
To none but to his wife his ears of state:
One must be trusted, and he thought her fit,
As passing prudent, and a parlous wit.
To this sagacious confessor he went,
And told her what a gift the Gods had sent:
But told it under matrimonial seal,
With strict injunction never to reveal.
The secret heard, she plighted him her troth,
(And secret sure is every woman's oath,)
The royal malady should rest unknown,
Both for her husband's honour and her own.
But ne'ertheless she pined with discontent,
The counsel rumbled till it found a vent.
The thing she knew she was obliged to hide:
By interest and by oath the wife was tied:
But if she told it not the woman died.
Loth to betray her husband and a prince,
But she must burst or blab, and no pretence
Of honour tied her tongue in self defence.
The marshy ground commodiously was near,
Thither she ran, and held her breath for fear
Lest, if a word she spoke of any thing,
That word might be the secret of the king.
Thus full of council to the fen she went,
Full all the way, and longing for a vent.
Arrived, by pure necessity compelled,
On her majestic marrow-bones she kneeled,
Then to the water's brink she laid her head,
And, as a bittern sounds within a reed,
'To thee alone, oh! lake,' she said, 'I tell,
And as thy queen, command thee to conceal,
Beneath his locks, the king my husband wears
A goodly, royal pair of ass's ears.
Now I have eased my bosom of the pain,
Till the next longing fit returns again!'"

OVID.

The story of Phaeton, (son of Apollo under the name of Phoebus) is as follows: Venus becoming enamoured of Phaeton, entrusted him with the care of one of her temples. This distinguished favour of the Goddess rendered him vain and aspiring; and when told, to check his pride, that he was not the son of Phoebus, Phaeton resolved to know his true origin; and at the instigation of his mother, he visited the palace of the sun, to beg that Phoebus, if he really were his father, would give him proofs of his paternal tenderness, and convince the world of his legitimacy. Phoebus swore by the Styx that he would grant him whatever he required; and Phaeton demanded of him to drive his chariot (that of the sun) for one day. In vain Phoebus represented the impropriety of his request, and {44} the dangers to which it would expose him; the oath must be complied with. When Phaeton received the reins from his father, he immediately betrayed his ignorance and incapacity. The flying horses took advantage of his confusion, and departed from their accustomed track. Phaeton repented too late of his rashness, for heaven and earth seemed threatened with an universal conflagration, when Jupiter struck the rider with a thunderbolt, and hurled him headlong into the river Po. His body, consumed by fire, was found by the nymphs of the place, and honoured with a decent burial.

The Heliades, his sisters wept for four months, without ceasing, until the Gods changed them into poplars, and their tears into grains of amber; while the young king of the Ligurians, a chosen friend of Phaeton, was turned into a swan at the very moment he was yielding to his deep regrets. Aurora is also the daughter of Apollo. She granted the gift of immortality to Tithonus, her husband, son of the king of Troy; but soon perceiving that the gift was valueless, unless the power of remaining ever young was joined with it, she changed him into a grasshopper. From their union sprang Memnon, who was killed by Achilles at the siege of Troy. The tears of his mother were the origin of the early dew, and the Egyptians formed, in honour of him, the celebrated statue which possessed the wonderful property of uttering a melodious sound every morning at sunrise, as if in welcome of the divine luminary, like that which is heard at the breaking of the string of a harp when it is wound up. This was effected by the rays of the sun when they fell on it. At its setting, the form appeared to mourn the departure of the God, and uttered sounds most musical and melancholy; this celebrated statue was dismantled by the order of Cambyses, when he conquered Egypt, and its ruins still astonish modern travellers by their grandeur and beauty.

"Unto the sacred sun in Memnon's fane,
Spontaneous concords quired the matin strain;
Touched by his orient beam, responsive rings
The living lyre, and vibrates all its strings;
Accordant aisles the tender tones prolong,
And holy echoes swell the adoring song."

DARWIN.

Apollo having slain with his arrows, Python, a monstrous serpent which desolated the beautiful country around Parnassus, his victory was celebrated in all Greece by the young Pythians; where crowns, {45} formed at first of the branches of oak, but afterwards of laurel, were distributed to the conquerors, and where they contended for the prize of dancing, music and poetry.

It is from his encounter with this serpent, that in the statues which remain of him, our eyes are familiar with the bow placed in his grasp.

----------------"The lord of the unerring bow,
The god of life, and poesy, and light,
The sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow,
All radiant from his triumph in the fight;
The shaft hath just been shot--the arrow, bright
With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye
And nostril, beautiful disdain, and might,
And majesty, flash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that one glance the Deity.

"But in his delicate form, a dream of love,
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast
Longed for a deathless lover from above,
And maddened in that vision, are exprest
All that ideal beauty ever blest
The mind with, in its most unearthly mood,
When each conception was a heavenly guest,
A ray of immortality, and stood
Star like, around, until they gathered to a God!

"And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven
The fire which we endure, it was repaid
By him to whom the energy was given,
Which this poetic marble hath arrayed
With an eternal glory, which if made
By human hands, is not of human thought,
And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laid
One ringlet in the dust, nor hath it caught
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought."

BYRON.

But the gods grew jealous of the homage shewn to Apollo, and recalling him from earth, replaced him in his seat at Olympus.

The fable of Apollo is, perhaps, that which is most spread over the faith of antiquity. Paeans were the hymns chanted in his honour, and this was the war cry he shouted in his onset against the serpent Python. On his altars are immolated a bull or a white lamb--to him is offered the crow, supposed to read the future, the eagle who can gaze on the sun, the cock whose cry welcomes his return, and the grasshopper, who sings during his empire.

This God is represented in the figure of a young man without beard, with curling locks of hair, his brow wreathed with laurels, and his head surrounded with beams of light. In his right hand {46} he holds a bow and arrows; in the left, a lyre with seven chords, emblem of the seven planets to which he grants his celestial harmony. Sometimes he carries a buckler, and is accompanied by the three Graces, who are the animating deities of genius and the fine arts, and at his feet is placed a swan.

He had temples and statues in every country, particularly in Egypt, Greece, and Italy; the most famous was that of Delos, where they celebrated the Pythian games, that of Soractes, where the priests worshipped by treading with their naked feet on burning coals, though without feeling pain, and that of Delphi, in which the youth of the place offered to the gods their locks of hair, possibly because this offering was most difficult to the vanity of youth. Apollo made known his oracles through the medium of a sibyl. This was a female, named also a Pythoness, on account of her seat being formed of massive gold resembling the skin of the serpent Python. The history of the tripod will be found to afford much interest. The fishermen who had found it in their nets, sought the oracle to consult its responses. This was to offer it to the wisest man in Greece. They presented it to Thales, who had told them that the most difficult of all human knowledge was the art of knowing ourselves. Thales offered the tripod to Bias. When the enemy was reducing his native city to ashes, he withdrew, leaving behind him his wealth, saying, "I carry all that is worthy within myself." After frequent adventures, and passing into the possession of many, the tripod finally returned to Thales, and was deposited in the temple; where, as we have seen, it served the sibyl for a seat. {47} This story shows us at a glance, the principles and the conduct of the greatest philosophers of Greece. These sages who considered philosophy to consist in the science of practising virtue, and living happily, endeavoured to show by the adventures of the tripod that, though the way was sometimes different, the end was the same.

The sibyl delivered the answer of the god to such as came to consult the oracle, and while the divine inspiration was on her, her eyes sparkled, her hair stood on end, and a shivering ran through her body. In this convulsive state, she spoke the oracles of the deity, often with loud howlings and cries, and her articulations were taken down by the priest, and set in order. Sometimes the spirit of inspiration was more gentle, and not always violent, yet Plutarch mentions one of the priestesses who was thrown into such excessive fury, that not only those who consulted the oracle, but also the priests who conducted her to the sacred tripod, and attended her during her inspiration, were terrified and forsook the temple; and so violent was the fit, that she continued for some days in the most agonizing situation, and at last died.

It was always required that those who consulted this oracle should make presents to Apollo, and from thence arose the opulence, splendour, and magnificence, of the temple of Delphi.

There were other temples of Apollo more celebrated, such as that at Palmyra, which was constructed of the most gigantic proportions; and for which nothing was spared to give it a magnificence hitherto unknown. Augustus, who pretended to be the son of Apollo, built a temple to him on Mount Palatine. Delian feasts were those which the Athenian, and the other Greek states celebrated every four years at Delos.

The history of the Muses is so closely allied to that of Apollo that we shall present some of their adventures in this part of our work.

The first is the struggle which the Muses maintained against the nine daughters of Pierus, King of Macedon, who dared to dispute with them the palm of singing; being overcome, they were turned into magpies, and since their transformation, they have preserved the talent so dear to beauty, of being able in many words to express very little.

One day when the Muses were distant from their place of abode, a storm surprised them, and they took shelter in the palace of Pyrenaeus: but scarcely had they entered, when the tyrant shut the {48} gates, and sought to offer them insult. They immediately spread their wings and flew away. The king wishing to fly after them, essayed the daring adventure, and throwing himself from the top of the tower as if he had wings, was killed in the attempt. Notwithstanding the high reputation of the Muses, it is pretended by some, that Rheseus was the son of Terpsichore, Linus of Clio, and Orpheus of Calliope. Arion and Pindar were also stated to be the children of the Muses, to whom the Romans built a temple and consecrated a fountain.

* * * * *

{49}

DIANA.

------

The goddess Diana was daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and twin sister to Apollo. In heaven she bore another name, and conducted the chariot of the Moon, while on earth she presided over the chase, was the peculiar deity of hunters, and called Diana. In Hell she is named Hecate and revered by magicians.

-----------"Hecate, loved by Jove,
And honour'd by the inhabitants above,
Profusely gifted from the almighty hand,
With power extensive o'er the sea and land;
And great the honour, she, by Jove's high leave,
Does from the starry vault of heaven receive.
When to the gods the sacred flames aspire,
Does from the starry vault of heaven receive.
From human offerings, as the laws require,
To Hecate the vows are first prefer'd;
Happy of men whose prayers are kindly heard,
Success attends his every act below,
Honour, wealth, power, to him abundant flow."

HESIOD.

She was also the Goddess of chastity, and it was in this character that her vengeance fell so heavily on Actaeon, who following the chase one day with all the ardour of his profession, unhappily came {50} suddenly on the retired spot, in which the pure Diana, with her nymphs, was enjoying, in the heat of the summer's day, the luxury of bathing. Horrified by this violation, though unintentional, of her privacy, she changed him into a stag, and inspiring with madness the dogs that accompanied him to the chase, they turned upon their metamorphosed master, who, in horrible dread of the fate he had himself so often inflicted, fled rapidly from them. True to their breed, however, the dogs succeeded in running him down and devouring him.

Calista, nymph of Diana was seduced by Jupiter, who taking one of the innumerable shapes, which he is described as assuming when his passions were inflamed towards any particular nymph, introduced himself to her in the form of her mistress, and in this shape, what wonder that the nymph lost her virtue, or that the God was successful! Diana herself, however, took a very different view, and though Calista concealed the effects of her divine intrigue from her mistress for a long time, the latter noticed the alteration in her person when bathing in

"Such streams as Dian loves,
And Naiads of old frequented; when she tripped
Amidst her frolic nymphs, laughing, or when
Just risen from the bath, she fled in sport,
Round oaks and sparkling fountains,
Chased by the wanton Orcades."

BARRY CORNWALL.

To evince her detestation of the crime, her divine mistress changed her into a bear. This however was before

"The veiled Dian lost her lonely sphere,
And her proud name of chaste, for him whose sleep
Drank in Elysium on the Latmos steep."

BULWER.

In great horror at this transformation, Calista fled to the forests and brought forth a son, with whom she dwelt, until one day she was induced to enter a temple at Lycaen (where, with her son Arcas, she had been brought), and which it was not lawful to enter. The dwellers in the city, among whom was Arcas, enraged at the desecration, attacked her, and in all probability, she would have perished by the hands of her son, had not Jupiter snatched both to the sky, and placed them among the constellations, Calista being called "the Great Bear," and Arcas, "the Little Bear." {51}

Aeneas, king of Calydon, neglecting the worship of Diana, the Goddess revenged it by sending into his kingdom a monstrous wild boar; and to rid their country of its ravages, he caused the Greek princes to assemble to the chase. Atalanta, daughter of the king of Arcadia, wounded him first, but she would have fallen beneath the fury of its revenge, had it not been for Meleager, son of Aeneas, who slew the boar. A quarrel having arisen for the possession of the head of this monster, Meleager killed his brothers. Indignant at this crime, the wife of Aeneas threw into the flames a brand which bore with it the life of Meleager; a fire immediately spread itself through the vitals of the prince, and he expired in the midst of torments, the most cruel and excruciating, and his mother, stricken with despair at the sight of them, destroyed herself, and the sisters of the unhappy victim were changed into fowls.

Diana is usually represented in the costume of a huntress, with a quiver on her shoulder, and a bow in her hand; her dress is lifted, and her dog is always by her side ready for his prey. Her hair is banded over her brow, while sometimes a crescent is painted on her head, of which the points are turned towards Heaven. Sometimes she is seen in a chariot trained by stags, and in her hand is a torch which serves to frighten away the wild beasts.

The affection of this Goddess for Endymion--

------------------"Whom she,
The moonlit Dian on the Latmian hill,
When all the woods, and all the winds were still,
Kissed with the kiss of immortality"

BARRY CORNWALL.

has been the cause of many an ode, and many a touching story, and is perhaps, one of the most chaste, or at least most chastely told in Mythology:

"He was a poet, sure a lover too
Who stood on Latmos top, what time there blew
Soft breezes from the Myrtle vale below
And brought in faintness, solemn, sweet, and slow
A hymn from Dian's Temple; while up-swelling
The incense went to her own starry dwelling.
But though her face was clear as infant's eyes,
Though she stood smiling o'er the sacrifice,
The poet wept at her so piteous fate,
Wept that such beauty should be desolate:
So in fine wrath some golden sounds he won,
And gave meek Cynthia her Endymion."

KEATS.

{52}

The beautiful Endymion, grandchild of Jupiter, having dared to offer his guilty love to Juno, he was condemned to live for ever in the infernal regions. However, smitten with his charms, as Diana saw him sleeping on the mountain of Latmos, she snatched him from the power of Pluto, and placed him in a grotto, where she came down from Heaven every night to enjoy his society.

----------"Crescented Dian, who
'Tis said once wandered from the wastes of blue,
And all for love; filling a shepherd's dreams
With beauty and delight. He slept, he slept,
And on his eyelids white, the huntress wept
Till morning, and looked thro', on nights like this
His lashes dark, and left her dewy kiss;
But never more upon the Latmos hill
May she descend to kiss that forest boy,
And give--receive, gentle and innocent joy
When clouds are distant far and winds are still:
Her bound is circumscribed, and curbed her will.
Those were immortal stories: are they gone?
The pale queen is dethroned--Endymion
Hath vanished--; and the worship of this earth
Is vowed to golden gods of vulgar birth!"

BARRY CORNWALL.

The fable of Endymion's amours with Diana, or the Moon, arises from his knowledge of astronomy: and as he passed the night {53} on some high mountain, to observe the heavenly bodies, it has been reported that he was courted by the Moon.

----------------"Oh! woodland Queen,
What smoothest air, thy smoother forehead woos?
Where dost thou listen to the wide halloos
Of thy departed nymphs? Through what dark tree
Glimmers thy crescent? Whatsoe'er it be
'Tis in the breath of Heaven: thou dost taste
Freedom, as none can taste it, nor dost waste
Thy loveliness in dismal elements.
But finding in our green earth sweet contents,
There livest blissfully."

KEATS.

The mode of worship to Diana, differs in different nations. The most celebrated of her temples was that at Ephesus, which from its grandeur and magnificence has been placed among the seven wonders of the world, but was burned by Erostratus, the same day that Alexander the Great was born. This madman had no other end, than to render his name for ever notorious, and he succeeded, notwithstanding the Ephesians having decreed that his name should never be mentioned.

In one of the temples where Diana was worshipped, the presiding priest was always a slave who had slain his predecessor in office, and warned by the fate he had inflicted on others, he never went without a dagger, to protect himself from those who might be ambitious of his office, and reckless of his crime. {54}

In another, she had an altar, whereon they immolated all those whom shipwreck had thrown on their inhospitable shores.

"Mother of light! how fairly dost thou go
Over those hoary crests, divinely led!
Art thou that huntress of the silver bow
Fabled of old?---- ---- ---- ----
* * * * * *
What art thou like? sometimes I see thee ride
A far bound galley on its perilous way,
Whilst breezy waves toss up their silvery spray--
Sometimes I watch thee on from steep to steep,
Timidly lighted by thy vestal torch,
Till in some Latmian cave I see thee creep
To catch the young Endymion asleep,
Leaving thy splendour at the jagged porch!

"Oh! thou art beautiful, however it be,
Huntress, or Dian, or whatever named,
And he the veriest Pagan, that first framed
A silver idol, and ne'er worshipped thee!
It is too late, or thou shouldst have my knee;
Too late now for the old Ephesian vows,
And not divine the crescent on thy brows:
Yet call thee nothing but the mere, mild moon,
Behind those chesnut boughs
Casting their dappled shadows at my feet;
I will be grateful for that simple boon
In many a thoughtful verse, and anthem sweet,
And bless thy dainty face whene'er we meet.

"So let it be: before I lived to sigh,
Thou wert in Avon, and a thousand rills,
Beautiful Dian! and so whene'er I lie
Trodden, thou wilt be gazing from thy hills.
Blest be thy loving light, where'er it spills,
And blessed thy fair face, O mother mild!
Still shine, the soul of rivers as they run,
Still lend thy lonely lamp, to lovers fond,
And blend their plighted shadows into one:
Still smile at even on the bedded child,
And close his eyelids with thy silver wand."

HOOD.

* * * * *

{55}

BACCHUS.

------

Semele, daughter of Cadmus, king of Thebes, had yielded to the licentious Jupiter, and felt within her the effect of her indiscretion. Jealous at the object who had again taken her lord's affections, Juno sought for some mode in which to punish her, and taking the form of a nurse, suggested the desire of beholding the king of the Gods, arrayed in all his celestial glory. In vain did Jupiter, when pressed by Semele, implore her not to ask him to assume that form, which was too much for mortal eye to bear. Woman's wit and woman's fondness prevailed, and, in a moment of weakness, the God swore by the Styx, he would perform her request, and by this oath he was forced to abide. Armed with thunder, as a proof of his divinity, and in all the glory and majesty of his godhead, he presented himself to the presumptuous mortal, who, unable to bear his presence, fell scorched by his thunderbolt.

Jupiter, however, took the infant which Semele bore him, and confided it to the guardianship of the nymphs of the mountain of Nysa, who, for their care of the son of Jupiter, in process of time, were translated into heaven. When Bacchus, for thus was he {56} named, had grown out of their guidance, Silenus became his preceptor and foster-father. This god, who is generally represented as fat and jolly, riding on an ass, crowned with flowers, and always intoxicated, could scarcely be considered as a tutor from whom Bacchus was likely to derive much good. In spite of the education he received through the medium of this being, however, the love of glory shone forth conspicuously in Bacchus.

After having valiantly combatted for Jupiter against the Giants when they invaded Olympus, he undertook his celebrated expedition into the East, to which he marched at the head of an army, composed of men as well as of women, all inspired with divine fury, armed with thyrsuses, and bearing cymbals, and other musical instruments. The leader was drawn in a chariot by a lion and a tiger, and was accompanied by Pan, Silenus, and all the satyrs. His conquests were easy and without bloodshed; the people easily submitted, and gratefully elevated to the rank of a god, the hero who taught them the use of the Vine, the cultivation of the earth, and the manner of making honey; amidst his benevolence to mankind, he was relentless in punishing all want of respect to his divinity. The refusal of Pentheus to acknowledge the godhead of Bacchus was fatal. He forbad his subjects to pay adoration to this new God, and when the Theban women had gone out of the city to celebrate his orgies, he ordered the God himself who conducted the religious multitude, to be seized. His orders were obeyed, but the doors of the prison in which Bacchus was confined, opened of their own accord. Pentheus became more irritated, and commanded his soldiers to destroy the band of Bacchanals. Bacchus, however, inspired the monarch himself with an ardent desire of witnessing the orgies.

Accordingly he hid himself in a wood on Mount Cithoeron, from whence he hoped to view all the ceremonies unperceived. But his curiosity proved fatal; he was descried by the Bacchanals, who rushed upon him. His mother was the first to attack him, her example was instantly followed by his two sisters, and his body was torn to pieces.

As Bacchus was returning triumphantly in his ship, from the conquest we have recorded, crowned with vine leaves, and flushed with victory, in passing near a beautiful island, he heard a plaintive {57} voice and beheld a female, who implored him to yield her his support.

"Oh! think of Ariadne's utter trance,
Crazed by the flight of that disloyal traitor,
Who left her gazing on the green expanse,
That swallowed up his track; oh! what could mate her
Even in the cloudy summit of her woe,
When o'er the far sea-brine she saw him go!

"For even now she bows and bends her gaze,
O'er the eternal waste, as if to sum
Its waves by weary thousands; all her days,
Dismally doom'd! meanwhile the billows come,
And coldly dabble with her quiet feet,
Like any bleaching stones they wont to greet.

And thence into her lap have boldly sprung,
Washing her weedy tresses to and fro,
That round her crouching knees have darkly hung,
But she sits careless of waves' ebb and flow:
Like a lone beacon on a desert coast
Showing where all her hope was wrecked and lost."

HOOD.

It was Ariadne who addressed him, daughter of Memnos, whom Theseus, conqueror of the minotaur had abandoned after having seduced her. The God was so smitten with the candour and beauty of his youthful petitioner, that he married her, and offered to her acceptance a crown of seven stars, which after her death, was formed into a constellation. {58}

"Where the rude waves in Dian's harbour play
The fair forsaken Ariadne lay;
Here first the wretched maid was taught to prove,
The bitter pangs of ill-rewarded love,
Here saw just freed from a fallacious sleep,
Her Theseus flying o'er the distant deep;
Wistful she looked, nor what she saw, believed,
Hoped some mistake, and wished to be deceived:
While the false youth his way securely made,
His faith forgotten, and his vows unpaid;
Then sick with grief, and frantic with despair,
Her dress she rent, and tore her golden hair.
The gay tiara on her temples placed,
The fine wrought cincture that her bosom graced,
The fillets, which her heaving breasts confined,
Are rent, and scattered in the lawless wind.
Such trivial cares, alas! no room can find,
Her dear, deceitful Theseus fills her mind;
For him alone she grieves the live-long day,
Sickens in thought, and pines herself away.
* * * * * *
To her relief the blooming Bacchus ran,
And with him brought his ever jovial train:
Satyrs and Fauns, in wanton chaces strove,
While the God sought his Ariadne's love.
Around in wild distorted airs they fly,
And make the mountains echo to their cry:
Some brandish high an ivy woven spear,
The limbs, some scatter, of a victim steer:
Others in slippery folds of serpents shine,
Others apart, perform the rites divine.
To wicked men denied. These, tabors take,
These in their hands, the twinkling cymbals shake;
While many swell the horn in hoarser strain,
And make the shrill, discordant pipe complain,
While Bacchus, now enamoured of his prize,
Resolved to make her partner of the skies:
She, sweetly blushing, yielded to the God,
His car he mounted and sublimely rode:
And while with eager arms he grasped the fair,
Lashed his fleet tigers through the buxom air."

DRYDEN.

It was not long before Bacchus formed an attachment to Erigone, the daughter of Icarius, and to accomplish his purpose took the form of a bunch of grapes; scarcely was it pressed upon her lips, than she felt thrilling through her frame, the effects of the sweet intoxication.