ORACLES

“The brutish gods of Nile as fast,Isis and Horus and the dog Anubis haste.Nor is Osiris seenIn Memphian grove or greenTrampling the unshowered[35]grass with lowings loud;Nor can he be at restWithin his sacred chest;Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud.In vain with timbrel’d anthems darkThe sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark.”

“The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

Isis and Horus and the dog Anubis haste.

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian grove or green

Trampling the unshowered[35]grass with lowings loud;

Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest;

Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud.

In vain with timbrel’d anthems dark

The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark.”

Isis was represented in statuary with the head veiled, a symbol of mystery. It is this which Tennyson alludes to in “Maud,” IV., 8:

“For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by the veil,” etc.

Oracle was the name used to denote the place where answers were supposed to be given by any of the divinities to those who consulted them respecting the future. The word was also used to signify the response which was given.

The most ancient Grecian oracle was that of Jupiter at Dodona. According to one account, it was established in the following manner: Two black doves took their flight from Thebes in Egypt. One flew to Dodona in Epirus, and alighting in a grove of oaks, it proclaimed in human language to the inhabitants of the district that they must establish there an oracle of Jupiter. The other dove flew to the temple of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan Oasis, and delivered a similar command there. Another account is, that they were not doves, but priestesses, who were carried off from Thebes in Egypt by the Phœnicians, and set up oracles at the Oasis and Dodona. The responses of the oraclewere given from the trees, by the branches rustling in the wind, the sounds being interpreted by the priests.

But the most celebrated of the Grecian oracles was that of Apollo at Delphi, a city built on the slopes of Parnassus in Phocis.

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 one of the goatherds was induced to try 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 circulated widely, 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 who 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.

Besides the oracles of Jupiter and Apollo, at Dodona and Delphi, that of Trophonius in Bœotia was held in high estimation. Trophonius and Agamedes were brothers. They were distinguished architects, and built the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and a treasury for King Hyrieus. In the wall of the treasury they placed a stone, in such a manner that it could be taken out; and by this means, from time to time, purloined the treasure. This amazed Hyrieus, for his locks and seals were untouched,and yet his wealth continually diminished. At length he set a trap for the thief and Agamedes was caught. Trophonius, unable to extricate him, and fearing that when found he would be compelled by torture to discover his accomplice, cut off his head. Trophonius himself is said to have been shortly afterwards swallowed up by the earth.

The oracle of Trophonius was at Lebadea in Bœotia. During a great drought the Bœotians, it is said, were directed by the god at Delphi to seek aid of Trophonius at Lebadea. They came thither, but could find no oracle. One of them, however, happening to see a swarm of bees, followed them to a chasm in the earth, which proved to be the place sought.

Peculiar ceremonies were to be performed by the person who came to consult the oracle. After these preliminaries, he descended into the cave by a narrow passage. This place could be entered only in the night. The person returned from the cave by the same narrow passage, but walking backwards. He appeared melancholy and dejected; and hence the proverb which was applied to a person low-spirited and gloomy, “He has been consulting the oracle of Trophonius.”

There were numerous oracles of Æsculapius, but the most celebrated one was at Epidaurus. Here the sick sought responses and the recovery of their health by sleeping in the temple. It has been inferred from the accounts that have come down to us that the treatment of the sick resembled what is now called Animal Magnetism or Mesmerism.

Serpents were sacred to Æsculapius, probably because of a superstition that those animals have a faculty of renewing their youth by a change of skin. The worship of Æsculapius was introduced into Rome in a time of great sickness, and an embassy sent to the temple of Epidaurus to entreat the aid of the god. Æsculapius was propitious, and on the return of the ship accompanied it in the form of a serpent. Arriving in theriver Tiber, the serpent glided from the vessel and took possession of an island in the river, and a temple was there erected to his honor.

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 has been a question whether oracular responses ought to be ascribed to mere human contrivance or to the agency of evil spirits. The latter opinion has been most general in past ages. 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 really called into action.

Another question is as to the time 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:

“The oracles are dumb;No voice or hideous humRings through the arched roof in words deceiving.Apollo from his shrineCan no more divine,With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.No nightly trance or breathed spellInspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.”

“The oracles are dumb;

No voice or hideous hum

Rings through the arched roof in words deceiving.

Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.

No nightly trance or breathed spell

Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.”

In Cowper’s poem of “Yardley Oak” there are some beautiful mythological allusions. The former of the two following is to the fable of Castor and Pollux; the latter is more appropriate to our present subject. Addressing the acorn he says:

“Thou fell’st mature; and in the loamy clod,Swelling with vegetative force instinct,Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled TwinsNow stars; two lobes protruding, paired exact;A leaf succeeded and another leaf,And, all the elements thy puny growthFostering propitious, thou becam’st a twig.Who lived when thou wast such? O, couldst thou speak,As in Dodona once thy kindred treesOracular, I would not curious askThe future, best unknown, but at thy mouthInquisitive, the less ambiguous past.”

“Thou fell’st mature; and in the loamy clod,

Swelling with vegetative force instinct,

Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins

Now stars; two lobes protruding, paired exact;

A leaf succeeded and another leaf,

And, all the elements thy puny growth

Fostering propitious, thou becam’st a twig.

Who lived when thou wast such? O, couldst thou speak,

As in Dodona once thy kindred trees

Oracular, I would not curious ask

The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth

Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past.”

Tennyson, in his “Talking Oak,” alludes to the oaks of Dodona in these lines:

“And I will work in prose and rhyme,And praise thee more in bothThan bard has honored beech or lime,Or that Thessalian growthIn which the swarthy ring-dove satAnd mystic sentence spoke;” etc.

“And I will work in prose and rhyme,

And praise thee more in both

Than bard has honored beech or lime,

Or that Thessalian growth

In which the swarthy ring-dove sat

And mystic sentence spoke;” etc.

Byron alludes to the oracle of Delphi where, speaking of Rousseau, whose writings he conceives did much to bring on the French revolution, he says:

“For then he was inspired, and from him came,As from the Pythian’s mystic cave of yore,Those oracles which set the world in flame,Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more.”

“For then he was inspired, and from him came,

As from the Pythian’s mystic cave of yore,

Those oracles which set the world in flame,

Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more.”

ÆNEAS AT THE COURT OF QUEEN DIDO.From painting by P. Guerin. Salon of 1817.

A VALKYR.From painting by P. N. Arbo.

Havingreached the close of our series of stories of Pagan mythology, an inquiry suggests itself. “Whence came these stories? Have they a foundation in truth, or are they simply dreams of the imagination?” Philosophers have suggested various theories on the subject;and 1. The Scriptural theory; according to which all mythological legends are derived from the narratives of Scripture, though the real facts have been disguised and altered. Thus Deucalion is only another name for Noah, Hercules for Samson, Arion for Jonah, etc. Sir Walter Raleigh, in his “History of the World,” says, “Jubal, Tubal, and Tubal-Cain were Mercury, Vulcan, and Apollo, inventors of Pasturage, Smithing, and Music. The Dragon which kept the golden apples was the serpent that beguiled Eve. Nimrod’s tower was the attempt of the Giants against Heaven.” There are doubtless many curious coincidences like these, but the theory cannot without extravagance be pushed so far as to account for any great proportion of the stories.

2. The Historical theory; according to which all the persons mentioned in mythology were once real human beings, and the legends and fabulous traditions relating to them are merely the additions and embellishments of later times. Thus the story of Æolus, the king and god of the winds, is supposed to have risen from the fact that Æolus was the ruler of some islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, where he reigned as a just and pious king, and taught the natives the use of sails for ships, and how to tell from the signs of the atmosphere the changes of the weather and the winds. Cadmus, who, the legend says, sowed the earth with dragon’s teeth, from which sprang a crop of armed men, was in fact an emigrant from Phœnicia, and brought with him into Greece the knowledge of the letters of the alphabet, which he taught to the natives. From these rudiments of learning sprung civilization, which the poets have always been prone to describe as a deterioration of man’s first estate, the Golden Age of innocence and simplicity.

3. The Allegorical theory supposes that all the myths of the ancients were allegorical and symbolical, and contained some moral, religious, or philosophical truth or historical fact, under the form of an allegory, but came in process of time to be understood literally. Thus Saturn, who devours his own children, is the same power whom the Greeks called Cronos (Time), which may truly be said to destroy whatever it has brought intoexistence. The story of Io is interpreted in a similar manner. Io is the moon, and Argus the starry sky, which, as it were, keeps sleepless watch over her. The fabulous wanderings of Io represent the continual revolutions of the moon, which also suggested to Milton the same idea.

“To behold the wandering moonRiding near her highest noon,Like one that had been led astrayIn the heaven’s wide, pathless way.”—Il Penseroso.

“To behold the wandering moon

Riding near her highest noon,

Like one that had been led astray

In the heaven’s wide, pathless way.”

—Il Penseroso.

4. The Physical theory; according to which the elements of air, fire, and water were originally the objects of religious adoration, and the principal deities were personifications of the powers of nature. The transition was easy from a personification of the elements to the notion of supernatural beings presiding over and governing the different objects of nature. The Greeks, whose imagination was lively, peopled all nature with invisible beings, and supposed that every object, from the sun and sea to the smallest fountain and rivulet, was under the care of some particular divinity. Wordsworth, in his “Excursion,” has beautifully developed this view of Grecian mythology:

“In that fair clime the lonely herdsman, stretchedOn the soft grass through half a summer’s day,With music lulled his indolent repose;And, in some fit of weariness, if he,When his own breath was silent, chanced to hearA distant strain far sweeter than the soundsWhich his poor skill could make, his fancy fetchedEven from the blazing chariot of the SunA beardless youth who touched a golden lute,And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.The mighty hunter, lifting up his eyesToward the crescent Moon, with grateful heartCalled on the lovely Wanderer who bestowedThat timely light to share his joyous sport;And hence a beaming goddess with her nymphsAcross the lawn and through the darksome grove(Not unaccompanied with tuneful notesBy echo multiplied from rock or cave)Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and starsGlance rapidly along the clouded heavenWhen winds are blowing strong. The Traveller slakedHis thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thankedThe Naiad. Sunbeams upon distant hillsGliding apace with shadows in their train,Might with small help from fancy, be transformedInto fleet Oreads sporting visibly.The Zephyrs, fanning, as they passed, their wings,Lacked not for love fair objects whom they wooedWith gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque,Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,From depth of shaggy covert peeping forthIn the low vale, or on steep mountain side;And sometimes intermixed with stirring hornsOf the live deer, or goat’s depending beard;These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild broodOf gamesome deities; or Pan himself,That simple shepherd’s awe-inspiring god.”

“In that fair clime the lonely herdsman, stretched

On the soft grass through half a summer’s day,

With music lulled his indolent repose;

And, in some fit of weariness, if he,

When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear

A distant strain far sweeter than the sounds

Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched

Even from the blazing chariot of the Sun

A beardless youth who touched a golden lute,

And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.

The mighty hunter, lifting up his eyes

Toward the crescent Moon, with grateful heart

Called on the lovely Wanderer who bestowed

That timely light to share his joyous sport;

And hence a beaming goddess with her nymphs

Across the lawn and through the darksome grove

(Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes

By echo multiplied from rock or cave)

Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and stars

Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven

When winds are blowing strong. The Traveller slaked

His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked

The Naiad. Sunbeams upon distant hills

Gliding apace with shadows in their train,

Might with small help from fancy, be transformed

Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly.

The Zephyrs, fanning, as they passed, their wings,

Lacked not for love fair objects whom they wooed

With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque,

Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,

From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth

In the low vale, or on steep mountain side;

And sometimes intermixed with stirring horns

Of the live deer, or goat’s depending beard;

These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood

Of gamesome deities; or Pan himself,

That simple shepherd’s awe-inspiring god.”

All the theories which have been mentioned are true to a certain extent. It would therefore be more correct to say that the mythology of a nation has sprung from all these sources combined than from any one in particular. We may add also that there are many myths which have arisen from the desire of man to account for those natural phenomena which he cannot understand; and not a few have had their rise from a similar desire of giving a reason for the names of places and persons.

To adequately represent to the eye the ideas intended to be conveyed to the mind under the several names of deities was a task which called into exercise the highest powers of genius and art. Of the many attemptsfourhave been most celebrated, the first two known to us only by the descriptions of the ancients, the others still extant and the acknowledged masterpieces of the sculptor’s art.

The statue of the Olympian Jupiter by Phidias was considered the highest achievement of this department of Grecian art. It was of colossal dimensions, and waswhat the ancients called “chryselephantine;” that is, composed of ivory and gold; the parts representing flesh being of ivory laid on a core of wood or stone, while the drapery and other ornaments were of gold. The height of the figure was forty feet, on a pedestal twelve feet high. The god was represented seated on his throne. His brows were crowned with a wreath of olive, and he held in his right hand a sceptre, and in his left a statue of Victory. The throne was of cedar, adorned with gold and precious stones.

The idea which the artist essayed to embody was that of the supreme deity of the Hellenic (Grecian) nation, enthroned as a conqueror, in perfect majesty and repose, and ruling with a nod the subject world. Phidias avowed that he took his idea from the representation which Homer gives in the first book of the “Iliad,” in the passage thus translated by Pope:

“He spoke and awful bends his sable brows,Shakes his ambrosial curls and gives the nod,The stamp of fate and sanction of the god.High heaven with reverence the dread signal took,And all Olympus to the centre shook.”[36]

“He spoke and awful bends his sable brows,

Shakes his ambrosial curls and gives the nod,

The stamp of fate and sanction of the god.

High heaven with reverence the dread signal took,

And all Olympus to the centre shook.”[36]

This was also the work of Phidias. It stood in the Parthenon, or temple of Minerva at Athens. The goddess was represented standing. In one hand she held 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, composed of 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 Phidias. The Elgin marbles, now in the British Museum, are a part of them.

Both the Jupiter and Minerva of Phidias are lost, but there is good ground to believe that we have, in several extant statues and busts, the artist’s conceptions of the countenances of both. They are characterized by grave and dignified beauty, and freedom from any transient expression, which in the language of art is calledrepose.

The Venus of the Medici is so called from its having been in the possession of the princes of that name in Rome when it first attracted attention, about two hundred years ago. An inscription on the base records it to be the work of 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 to aid him in his task the most perfect forms the city could supply were furnished him for models. It is this which Thomson alludes to in his “Summer”:

“So stands the statue that enchants the world;So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.”

“So stands the statue that enchants the world;

So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,

The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.”

Byron also alludes to this statue. Speaking of the Florence Museum, he says:

“There, too, the goddess loves in stone, and fillsThe air around with beauty;” etc.

“There, too, the goddess loves in stone, and fills

The air around with beauty;” etc.

And in the next stanza,

“Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan shepherd’s prize.”

See this last allusion explained inChapter XXVII.

The most highly 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 was placed. The artist is unknown. It is supposed to be a work of Roman art, of about the first century of our era. It 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 supposed to represent the god in the moment when he has shot the arrow to destroy the monster Python. (SeeChapter III.) 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.

The Diana of the Hind, in the palace of the Louvre, may be considered the counterpart to the Apollo Belvedere. The attitude much resembles that of the Apollo, the sizes correspond and also the style of execution. It is a work of the highest 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 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.

Homer, from whose poems of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” we have taken the chief part of our chapters of the Trojan war and the return of the Grecians, isalmost as mythical a personage as the heroes he celebrates. The traditionary story is that he was a wandering minstrel, blind and old, who travelled from place to place singing his lays to the music of his harp, in the courts of princes or the cottages of peasants, and dependent upon the voluntary offerings of his hearers for support. Byron calls him “The blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle,” and a well-known epigram, alluding to the uncertainty of the fact of his birthplace, says:

“Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,Through which the living Homer begged his bread.”

“Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,

Through which the living Homer begged his bread.”

These seven were Smyrna, Scio, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis, Argos, and Athens.

Modern scholars have doubted whether the Homeric poems are the work of any single mind. This arises from the difficulty of believing that poems of such length could have been committed to writing at so early an age as that usually assigned to these, an age earlier than the date of any remaining inscriptions or coins, and when no materials capable of containing such long productions were yet introduced into use. On the other hand it is asked how poems of such length could have been handed down from age to age by means of the memory alone. This is answered by the statement that there was a professional body of men, called Rhapsodists, who recited the poems of others, and whose business it was to commit to memory and rehearse for pay the national and patriotic legends.

The prevailing opinion of the learned, at this time, seems to be that the framework and much of the structure of the poems belong to Homer, but that there are numerous interpolations and additions by other hands.

The date assigned to Homer, on the authority of Herodotus, is 850 B.C.

Virgil, called also by his surname, Maro, from whose poem of the “Æneid” we have taken the story of Æneas, was one of the great poets who made the reign of theRoman emperor Augustus so celebrated, under the name of the Augustan age. Virgil was born in Mantua in the year 70 B.C. His great poem is ranked next to those of Homer, in the highest class of poetical composition, the Epic. Virgil is far inferior to Homer in originality and invention, but superior to him in correctness and elegance. To critics of English lineage Milton alone of modern poets seems worthy to be classed with these illustrious ancients. His poem of “Paradise Lost,” from which we have borrowed so many illustrations, is in many respects equal, in some superior, to either of the great works of antiquity. The following epigram of Dryden characterizes the three poets with as much truth as it is usual to find in such pointed criticism:

“On Milton“Three poets in three different ages born,Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.The first in loftiness of soul surpassed,The next in majesty, in both the last.The force of nature could no further go;To make a third she joined the other two.”

“On Milton

“Three poets in three different ages born,

Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.

The first in loftiness of soul surpassed,

The next in majesty, in both the last.

The force of nature could no further go;

To make a third she joined the other two.”

From Cowper’s “Table Talk”:

“Ages elapsed ere Homer’s lamp appeared,And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard.To carry nature lengths unknown before,To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.Thus genius rose and set at ordered times,And shot a dayspring into distant climes,Ennobling every region that he chose;He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose,And, tedious years of Gothic darkness past,Emerged all splendor in our isle at last.Thus lovely Halcyons dive into the main,Then show far off their shining plumes again.”

“Ages elapsed ere Homer’s lamp appeared,

And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard.

To carry nature lengths unknown before,

To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.

Thus genius rose and set at ordered times,

And shot a dayspring into distant climes,

Ennobling every region that he chose;

He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose,

And, tedious years of Gothic darkness past,

Emerged all splendor in our isle at last.

Thus lovely Halcyons dive into the main,

Then show far off their shining plumes again.”

Ovid,

often alluded to in poetry by his other name of Naso, was born in the year 43 B.C. He was educated for public life and held some offices of considerable dignity, but poetry was his delight, and he early resolved to devote himself to it. He accordingly sought the societyof the contemporary poets, and was acquainted with Horace and saw Virgil, though the latter died when Ovid was yet too young and undistinguished to have formed his acquaintance. Ovid spent an easy life at Rome in the enjoyment of a competent income. He was intimate with the family of Augustus, the emperor, and it is supposed that some serious offence given to some member of that family was the cause of an event which reversed the poet’s happy circumstances and clouded all the latter portion of his life. At the age of fifty he was banished from Rome, and ordered to betake himself to Tomi, on the borders of the Black Sea. Here, among the barbarous people and in a severe climate, the poet, who had been accustomed to all the pleasures of a luxurious capital and the society of his most distinguished contemporaries, spent the last ten years of his life, worn out with grief and anxiety. His only consolation in exile was to address his wife and absent friends, and his letters were all poetical. Though these poems (the “Trista” and “Letters from Pontus”) have no other topic than the poet’s sorrows, his exquisite taste and fruitful invention have redeemed them from the charge of being tedious, and they are read with pleasure and even with sympathy.

The two great works of Ovid are his “Metamorphoses” and his “Fasti.” They are both mythological poems, and from the former we have taken most of our stories of Grecian and Roman mythology. A late writer thus characterizes these poems:

“The rich mythology of Greece furnished Ovid, as it may still furnish the poet, the painter, and the sculptor, with materials for his art. With exquisite taste, simplicity, and pathos he has narrated the fabulous traditions of early ages, and given to them that appearance of reality which only a master hand could impart. His pictures of nature are striking and true; he selects with care that which is appropriate; he rejects the superfluous; and when he has completed his work, it is neither defective nor redundant. The ‘Metamorphoses’ are read with pleasure by youth, and are re-read in more advanced age with still greater delight. The poet venturedto predict that his poem would survive him, and be read wherever the Roman name was known.”

The prediction above alluded to is contained in the closing lines of the “Metamorphoses,” of which we give a literal translation below:

“And now I close my work, which not the ireOf Jove, nor tooth of time, nor sword, nor fireShall bring to nought. Come when it will that dayWhich o’er the body, not the mind, has sway,And snatch the remnant of my life away,My better part above the stars shall soar,And my renown endure forevermore.Where’er the Roman arms and arts shall spread,There by the people shall my book be read;And, if aught true in poet’s visions be,My name and fame have immortality.”

“And now I close my work, which not the ire

Of Jove, nor tooth of time, nor sword, nor fire

Shall bring to nought. Come when it will that day

Which o’er the body, not the mind, has sway,

And snatch the remnant of my life away,

My better part above the stars shall soar,

And my renown endure forevermore.

Where’er the Roman arms and arts shall spread,

There by the people shall my book be read;

And, if aught true in poet’s visions be,

My name and fame have immortality.”

————

Thereis a set of imaginary beings which seem to have been the successors of the “Gorgons, Hydras, and Chimeras dire” of the old superstitions, and, having no connection with the false gods of Paganism, to have continued to enjoy an existence in the popular belief after Paganism was superseded by Christianity. They are mentioned perhaps by the classical writers, but their chief popularity and currency seem to have been in more modern times. We seek our accounts of them not so much in the poetry of the ancients as in the old natural history books and narrations of travellers. The accounts which we are about to give are taken chiefly from the Penny Cyclopedia.

Ovid tells the story of the Phœnix as follows: “Most beings spring from other individuals; but there is a certain kind which reproduces itself. The Assyrianscall it the Phœnix. It does not live on fruit or flowers, but on frankincense and odoriferous gums. When it has lived five hundred years, it builds itself a nest in the branches of an oak, or on the top of a palm tree. In this it collects cinnamon, and spikenard, and myrrh, and of these materials builds a pile on which it deposits itself, and dying, breathes out its last breath amidst odors. From the body of the parent bird, a young Phœnix issues forth, destined to live as long a life as its predecessor. When this has grown up and gained sufficient strength, it lifts its nest from the tree (its own cradle and its parent’s sepulchre), and carries it to the city of Heliopolis in Egypt, and deposits it in the temple of the Sun.”

Such is the account given by a poet. Now let us see that of a philosophic historian. Tacitus says, “In the consulship of Paulus Fabius (A.D. 34) the miraculous bird known to the world by the name of the Phœnix, after disappearing for a series of ages, revisited Egypt. It was attended in its flight by a group of various birds, all attracted by the novelty, and gazing with wonder at so beautiful an appearance.” He then gives an account of the bird, not varying materially from the preceding, but adding some details. “The first care of the young bird as soon as fledged, and able to trust to his wings, is to perform the obsequies of his father. But this duty is not undertaken rashly. He collects a quantity of myrrh, and to try his strength makes frequent excursions with a load on his back. When he has gained sufficient confidence in his own vigor, he takes up the body of his father and flies with it to the altar of the Sun, where he leaves it to be consumed in flames of fragrance.” Other writers add a few particulars. The myrrh is compacted in the form of an egg, in which the dead Phœnix is enclosed. From the mouldering flesh of the dead bird a worm springs, and this worm, when grown large, is transformed into a bird. Herodotusdescribesthe bird, though he says, “I have not seen it myself, except in a picture. Part of his plumage is gold-colored, and part crimson; and he is for the most part very much like an eagle in outline and bulk.”

The first writer who disclaimed a belief in the existence of the Phœnix was Sir Thomas Browne, in his “Vulgar Errors,” published in 1646. He was replied to a few years later by Alexander Ross, who says, in answer to the objection of the Phœnix so seldom making his appearance, “His instinct teaches him to keep out of the way of the tyrant of the creation,man, for if he were to be got at, some wealthy glutton would surely devour him, though there were no more in the world.”

Dryden in one of his early poems has this allusion to the Phœnix:

“So when the new-born Phœnix first is seen,Her feathered subjects all adore their queen,And while she makes her progress through the East,From every grove her numerous train’s increased;Each poet of the air her glory sings,And round him the pleased audience clap their wings.”

“So when the new-born Phœnix first is seen,

Her feathered subjects all adore their queen,

And while she makes her progress through the East,

From every grove her numerous train’s increased;

Each poet of the air her glory sings,

And round him the pleased audience clap their wings.”

Milton, in “Paradise Lost,” Book V., compares the angel Raphael descending to earth to a Phœnix:

“. . . Down thither, prone in flightHe speeds, and through the vast ethereal skySails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing,Now on the polar winds, then with quick fanWinnows the buxom air; till within soarOf towering eagles, to all the fowls he seemsA Phœnix, gazed by all; as that sole birdWhen, to enshrine his relics in the sun’sBright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies.”

“. . . Down thither, prone in flight

He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky

Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing,

Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan

Winnows the buxom air; till within soar

Of towering eagles, to all the fowls he seems

A Phœnix, gazed by all; as that sole bird

When, to enshrine his relics in the sun’s

Bright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies.”

This animal was called the king of the serpents. In confirmation of his royalty, he was said to be endowed with a crest, or comb upon the head, constituting a crown. He was supposed to be produced from the egg of a cock hatched under toads or serpents. There were several species of this animal. One species burned up whatever they approached; a second were a kind of wandering Medusa’s heads, and their look caused an instant horror which was immediately followed by death. In Shakspeare’s play of “Richard the Third,” LadyAnne, in answer to Richard’s compliment on her eyes, says, “Would they were basilisk’s, to strike thee dead!”

The basilisks were called kings of serpents because all other serpents and snakes, behaving like good subjects, and wisely not wishing to be burned up or struck dead, fled the moment they heard the distant hiss of their king, although they might be in full feed upon the most delicious prey, leaving the sole enjoyment of the banquet to the royal monster.

The Roman naturalist Pliny thus describes him: “He does not impel his body, like other serpents, by a multiplied flexion, but advances lofty and upright. He kills the shrubs, not only by contact, but by breathing on them, and splits the rocks, such power of evil is there in him.” It was formerly believed that if killed by a spear from on horseback the power of the poison conducted through the weapon killed not only the rider, but the horse also. To this Lucan alludes in these lines:

“What though the Moor the basilisk hath slain,And pinned him lifeless to the sandy plain,Up through the spear the subtle venom flies,The hand imbibes it, and the victor dies.”

“What though the Moor the basilisk hath slain,

And pinned him lifeless to the sandy plain,

Up through the spear the subtle venom flies,

The hand imbibes it, and the victor dies.”

Such a prodigy was not likely to be passed over in the legends of the saints. Accordingly we find it recorded that a certain holy man, going to a fountain in the desert, suddenly beheld a basilisk. He immediately raised his eyes to heaven, and with a pious appeal to the Deity laid the monster dead at his feet.

These wonderful powers of the basilisk are attested by a host of learned persons, such as Galen, Avicenna, Scaliger, and others. Occasionally one would demur to some part of the tale while he admitted the rest. Jonston, a learned physician, sagely remarks, “I would scarcely believe that it kills with its look, for who could have seen it and lived to tell the story?” The worthy sage was not aware that those who went to hunt the basilisk of this sort took with them a mirror, which reflected back the deadly glare upon its author, and by akind of poetical justice slew the basilisk with his own weapon.

But what was to attack this terrible and unapproachable monster? There is an old saying that “everything has its enemy”—and the cockatrice quailed before the weasel. The basilisk might look daggers, the weasel cared not, but advanced boldly to the conflict. When bitten, the weasel retired for a moment to eat some rue, which was the only plant the basilisks could not wither, returned with renewed strength and soundness to the charge, and never left the enemy till he was stretched dead on the plain. The monster, too, as if conscious of the irregular way in which he came into the world, was supposed to have a great antipathy to a cock; and well he might, for as soon as he heard the cock crow he expired.

The basilisk was of some use after death. Thus we read that its carcass was suspended in the temple of Apollo, and in private houses, as a sovereign remedy against spiders, and that it was also hung up in the temple of Diana, for which reason no swallow ever dared enter the sacred place.

The reader will, we apprehend, by this time have had enough of absurdities, but still we can imagine his anxiety to know what a cockatrice was like. The following is from Aldrovandus, a celebrated naturalist of the sixteenth century, whose work on natural history, in thirteen folio volumes, contains with much that is valuable a large proportion of fables and inutilities. In particular he is so ample on the subject of the cock and the bull that from his practice, all rambling, gossiping tales of doubtful credibility are calledcock and bull stories. Aldrovandus, however, deserves our respect and esteem as the founder of a botanic garden, and as a pioneer in the now prevalent custom of making scientific collections for purposes of investigation and research.

Shelley, in his “Ode to Naples,” full of the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples, in 1820, thus uses an allusion to the basilisk:

“What though Cimmerian anarchs dare blasphemeFreedom and thee? a new Actæon’s errorShall theirs have been,—devoured by their own hounds!Be thou like the imperial basilisk,Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk,Aghast she pass from the earth’s disk.Fear not, but gaze,—for freemen mightier grow,And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe.”

“What though Cimmerian anarchs dare blaspheme

Freedom and thee? a new Actæon’s error

Shall theirs have been,—devoured by their own hounds!

Be thou like the imperial basilisk,

Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!

Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk,

Aghast she pass from the earth’s disk.

Fear not, but gaze,—for freemen mightier grow,

And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe.”

Pliny, the Roman naturalist, out of whose account of the unicorn most of the modern unicorns have been described and figured, records it as “a very ferocious beast, similar in the rest of its body to a horse, with the head of a deer, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, a deep, bellowing voice, and a single black horn, two cubits in length, standing out in the middle of its forehead.” He adds that “it cannot be taken alive;” and some such excuse may have been necessary in those days for not producing the living animal upon the arena of the amphitheatre.

The unicorn seems to have been a sad puzzle to the hunters, who hardly knew how to come at so valuable a piece of game. Some described the horn as movable at the will of the animal, a kind of small sword, in short, with which no hunter who was not exceedingly cunning in fence could have a chance. Others maintained that all the animal’s strength lay in its horn, and that when hard pressed in pursuit, it would throw itself from the pinnacle of the highest rocks horn foremost, so as to pitch upon it, and then quietly march off not a whit the worse for its fall.

But it seems they found out how to circumvent the poor unicorn at last. They discovered that it was a great lover of purity and innocence, so they took the field with a youngvirgin, who was placed in the unsuspecting admirer’s way. When the unicorn spied her, he approached with all reverence, couched beside her, and laying his head in her lap, fell asleep. The treacherous virgin then gave a signal, and the hunters made in and captured the simple beast.

Modern zoölogists, disgusted as they well may be with such fables as these, disbelieve generally the existence of the unicorn. Yet there are animals bearing on their heads a bony protuberance more or less like a horn, which may have given rise to the story. The rhinoceros horn, as it is called, is such a protuberance, though it does not exceed a few inches in height, and is far from agreeing with the descriptions of the horn of the unicorn. The nearest approach to a horn in the middle of the forehead is exhibited in the bony protuberance on the forehead of the giraffe; but this also is short and blunt, and is not the only horn of the animal, but a third horn, standing in front of the two others. In fine, though it would be presumptuous to deny the existence of a one-horned quadruped other than the rhinoceros, it may be safely stated that the insertion of a long and solid horn in the living forehead of a horse-like or deer-like animal is as near an impossibility as anything can be.

The following is from the “Life of Benvenuto Cellini,” an Italian artist of the sixteenth century, written by himself: “When I was about five years of age, my father, happening to be in a little room in which they had been washing, and where there was a good fire of oak burning, looked into the flames and saw a little animal resembling a lizard, which could live in the hottest part of that element. Instantly perceiving what it was, he called for my sister and me, and after he had shown us the creature, he gave me a box on the ear. I fell a-crying, while he, soothing me with caresses, spoke these words: ‘My dear child, I do not give you that blow for any fault you have committed, but that you may recollect that the little creature you see in the fire is a salamander; such a one as never was beheld before to my knowledge.’ So saying he embraced me, and gave me some money.”

It seems unreasonable to doubt a story of which Signor Cellini was both an eye and ear witness. Addto which the authority of numerous sage philosophers, at the head of whom are Aristotle and Pliny, affirms this power of the salamander. According to them, the animal not only resists fire, but extinguishes it, and when he sees the flame charges it as an enemy which he well knows how to vanquish.

That the skin of an animal which could resist the action of fire should be considered proof against that element is not to be wondered at. We accordingly find that a cloth made of the skin of salamanders (for there really is such an animal, a kind of lizard) was incombustible, and very valuable for wrapping up such articles as were too precious to be intrusted to any other envelopes. These fire-proof cloths were actually produced, said to be made of salamander’s wool, though the knowing ones detected that the substance of which they were composed was asbestos, a mineral, which is in fine filaments capable of being woven into a flexible cloth.

The foundation of the above fables is supposed to be the fact that the salamander really does secrete from the pores of his body a milky juice, which when he is irritated is produced in considerable quantity, and would doubtless, for a few moments, defend the body from fire. Then it is a hibernating animal, and in winter retires to some hollow tree or other cavity, where it coils itself up and remains in a torpid state till the spring again calls it forth. It may therefore sometimes be carried with the fuel to the fire, and wake up only time enough to put forth all its faculties for its defence. Its viscous juice would do good service, and all who profess to have seen it, acknowledge that it got out of the fire as fast as its legs could carry it; indeed, too fast for them ever to make prize of one, except in one instance, and in that one the animal’s feet and some parts of its body were badly burned.

Dr. Young, in the “Night Thoughts,” with more quaintness than good taste, compares the sceptic who can remain unmoved in the contemplation of the starry heavens to a salamander unwarmed in the fire:

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