βῆ δὲ κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων ἀΐξασα·στῆ δ’ Ἰθάκης ἐνὶ δήμῳ, ἐπὶ προθύροις Ὀδυσῆος[141].Only within the last few years have the triumphs of natural philosophy supplied us with an approximative illustration of these movements over space, in the more than lightning speed of the electric telegraph.So Apollo, too, has by personal dignity what the messenger gods have by office. It is said of him and Iris, when in company, that their journey began; and that it ended:τὼ δ’ ἀΐξαντε πετέσθην·Ἴδην δ’ ἵκανον πολυπίδακα[142].On one occasion, however, Minerva is represented, even when unattended by any other deity, as employing the foot-wings which Mercury commonly used, and they are said to carry her[143]:τά μιν φέρον, ἠμὲν ἐφ’ ὑγρὴνἠδ’ ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν, ἅμα πνοίῃς ἀνέμοιο.But there are no stages or intermediate points either here or elsewhere in her journey.With the movements of Apollo and Minerva, thus conceived by the Poet, we may do well to compare those of Mercury (Od. v. 50–8), Neptune (Il. xiii. 17–31), and Juno (Il. xiv. 225–30).Their independent power of punishment.6. Again, an important difference prevails between the different divinities, in regard to the conduct they pursue when offended by mortals. In general, this is one of the points that prominently exhibits the sovereignty of Jupiter; for the common course is to appeal to him, and to obtain retribution either with his permission or by his agency. Not from greater self-will or a spirit of rebellion, but from higher dignity and a certain substantiveness of character and position, Apollo and Minerva always appear as acting for and from themselves, in vindication of their offended prerogatives.Even Neptune, when he is incensed at the erection of the unconsecrated rampart of the Greek camp, and fearful that it will eclipse the renown of his own handiwork, the wall of Troy, appeals to Jupiter on the subject, and receives from him the permissive suggestion, that he should himself destroy it so soon as the war is over[144]. He pursues a similar course, when he is anxious to chastise the over-boldness and maritime success of the Phæacians[145]. Venus, wounded by Diomed, does noteven by appeal attempt to obtain redress[146]. Mars, in the same condition, makes his complaint, both of Diomed and of Minerva, to Jupiter. It is true that afterwards, on the death of his son, he proposes to appear on the field of battle: but then he is in a state of fury[147], and is aware that the act would be one of rebellion against Jupiter: accordingly, it is rudely stopped by Minerva. Again, when Dionysus and his nurses are attacked by Lycoorgus, it is Jupiter that strikes the offender blind, and his life is short because he was become hateful to the gods[148]. Dionysus had made no appeal; but Jupiter avenged the insult to his order. The Sun, after his oxen have been eaten by the companions of Ulysses, lodges his appeal with Jupiter and the Olympian Council: and in this case Jupiter himself undertakes to give effect to the wishes of the offended luminary for vengeance[149]. When Aides, or Pluto, repaired to Olympus after the wound he had received from Hercules, the presumption perhaps arises, that it may have been not simply to obtain the healing hand of Paieon, but also to move Jupiter for redress.There are indeed a certain set of cases in which the rule is probably different, that is to say, when a deity is thwarted or offended in the exercise of his or her own special function. Thus Neptune, though he would not touch the rampart without leave, yet of his own mere motion destroys Ajax when he is at sea. Venus threatens Helen with her summary vengeance, in case of prolonged resistance to the expressed command that she should repair to the chamber of Paris. The Muses, offended by Thamyris[150], proceed to maim him, probably in voiceor hand, the organs connected with his profession. This power to punish within each particular province appears to form an exception to the general rule. It is probably under this exceptional arrangement, that Diana proceeds towards the Curetes, in the Legend of the Ninth Iliad: but some doubt may hang over her case on account of the fact, that she partakes radically of the traditional, as well as of the mythological character.Offended by the omission to include her in the hecatombs offered to the Immortals, she sends a wild boar to desolate the country. She puts Ariadne to death on the application of Dionysus, without any notice of an appeal to Jupiter. In both these cases she may be acting in virtue of her particular powers. But when she is matched with Juno in the Theomachy, she appears as utterly unequal to her great antagonist.When Apollo comes into view, the mode of proceeding is very different from that of the deities of invention. Apollo and Diana at once destroy the children of Niobe, to avenge the insult she had offered to their mother: and this case is the more worthy of note, because Jupiter, at a later stage, participates in and extends the vengeance[151]. But the most conspicuous instance of the independent retributive action of Apollo is in the Plague of the First Book; since here he wastes the army of the Greeks, to the great peril of the enterprise promoted by so many powerful divinities, onaccount of what he esteemed a moral offence, and an outrage to his priest Chryses. Now it is to be remembered that the damsel had suffered no peculiar wrongs: the whole offence consisted in this, that, being the daughter of a priest of Apollo, at a place apparently insignificant, she had not been on that account exempted from the common lot of women, but had been treated just as she would have been treated had she been a king’s daughter. Nor must we forget, in appreciating this act, that the families of priests had no priestly privilege: and that Maron paid to Ulysses (Od. ix. 201–5) a very handsome price for his own life, together with that of his wife and child.It is less easy to bring out the application of the rule now before us in the case of Minerva, from the paucity of clear instances in the poems where she personally has received offence.There is one important case, where her wrath appears; and it is there described asμῆνις ὀλοὴ, and asδεινὸς χόλος[152]. Her name, and her interest in this affair, are to some extent mixed with those of Jupiter. The Poet tells us, that Jupiter designed for the Greeks a calamitous Return, ‘since they were not all upright, whereupon many of them miserably perished through the inexorable wrath of Minerva.’ And then the order is inverted: Agamemnon, we are told, projected the offerings, that he might appease the anger of Minerva, and thereupon dissension arose, for Jupiter suspended calamity over the host. It is clear that, so far as Minerva is to be regarded as having received separate and personal offence in this proceeding, there is no sign of her referring to Jupiter for aid, or for permission to punish the offenders. But the case rather appears to be one in which the Poet is describing the Providential Government of the world, and in which the intermixture of the names of Jupiter and of his daughter belongs to their system of concurrent action, under which she shares with Apollo the office of acting as his habitual organ in administering retributive justice to mankind. In one clear instance, however, we find it stated, that when the Greeks offended Minerva, she punished them by a storm (Od. v. 108).They use special attributes of Jupiter.7. Apollo and Minerva carry this among other notes, that we find them administering mythological or natural powers, which are otherwise the special property of Jupiter.No other Olympian deity, but Juno, stands invested with a similar honour. We sometimes find the aerial powers of Jupiter wielded by her hand. But, with the exception of the sort of precedence accorded to her on Olympus, in virtue of which the gods rise from their seats when she enters their company, there is no one of the gifts that she exercises, which would not appear to lie within the range of the offices of Minerva, if not also of Apollo. In the remarkable case where she thunders in honour of Agamemnon just after he has armed, it is recorded that this was the joint act of the two divinities, of whom, on this occasion, Minerva takes precedence[153]:ἐπὶ δ’ ἐγδούπησαν Ἀθηναίη τε καὶ Ἥρη,τιμῶσαι βασιλῆα πολυχρύσοιο Μυκήνης.This association is to be observed in another passage, where these goddesses jointly communicate courage to a warrior. But when we find them associated in administering the powers of atmospheric phenomena, it is obvious that we must resort to different sources for the means of explaining the respective agencies. Juno, mythologically related to Jupiter as a wife, inthat capacity may, without exciting surprise, take in hand what belongs, so to speak, to theménage. Minerva, as a daughter, has no such claim; and her possession of a standing ground which enables her to use these powers can only be explained by a prior and more profound affinity of traditional character, which makes her the organ of the supreme deity.But while, in the highest marks of power adhering to Juno, Minerva seems everywhere to vie with her, there are others, and those among the most strictly characteristic of the head of Olympus, in which both Minerva and Apollo share, but which are not in any manner imparted to Juno.One of the high characteristic epithets of Jupiter isαἰγίοχος. And we never hear of the Ægis out of the hands of Jupiter, except it be in those of Minerva, or of Apollo. The Ægis is the peculiar arm of Minerva; apparently, itbelongsto her; and from the description of it in the Fifth Iliad, it appears to be the counterpart, on her side, of the chariot on the side of Juno[154]. The tunic she puts on, however, is the tunic of Jupiter, and the Gorgon head upon it is his sign: while the shield she carries is not to be assailed even by his thunderbolt[155]:ἣν οὐδὲ Διὸς δάμνησι κεραυνός.Again, the Fifteenth Book of the Iliad, Jupiter intrusts Apollo with his own Ægis, that he may wave it on the field of battle to intimidate the Greeks[156].Partly in the relation of Minerva to Mars, whom she punishes or controls, but more peculiarly in the use of the magnificent symbol of the Ægis by Minerva and Apollo, we appear to find that development of the martial character which has been mentioned above as included among the Jewish ascriptions to the Messiah.Proximate to, but extending beyond, the last named distinction, there is a function mythologically confined to Jupiter throughout the poems, with two exceptions only. The function is that of giving indications, palpable to men, of coming events, by the flight of birds in many instances, but likewise by atmospheric signs. This power is distinguished, by its connection with the future, from a mere power over nature.The exceptions are Apollo and Minerva. The former deity is in general more largely endowed than Minerva in regard to the future, though a less conspicuous figure in the direction of the present. Still she partakes, with him and with Jupiter, of this peculiar honour.On the return of Telemachus to Ithaca there appears to him the bird called the wheeling falcon[157],κίρκος, Ἀπόλλωνος ταχὺς ἄγγελος,sent by Apollo as an omen of success to himself, and of confusion to the Suitors.In the final crisis of the Odyssey, which is doubtless meant to exhibit a normal example of Providential retribution, it seems to have been the object of the Poet to divide the theurgic action between Minerva and Apollo, as joint administrators of the general government of the world. To Minerva, as the goddess of wisdom, falls what may be called the intellectual share[158], the actual instruction and guidance of Ulysses, Penelope, and Telemachus, as well as the bewildering and hardening operations on the minds of the Suitors. Special arrangements appear, however, to have been introduced, so as to make a corresponding place forApollo. Hence it is that Theoclymenus, as the representative of a great prophetic family, is brought into the company of Telemachus, that he may become the organ of Apollo in the remaining part of the drama. This is the more remarkable, because Theoclymenus does not repay the friendly aid he had received by taking part in the final struggle on the side of Telemachus; so that his share in the proceeding stands out the more conspicuously as one altogether theurgic. In cooperation with this arrangement, it is provided that the crisis shall come to pass on the festival of the god, and that the manner of trial, by the Bow, shall place it especially under his auspices.In the magnificent passage of the Twentieth Book[159], which describes the phantasmagoria in the palace of Ulysses, immediately before the trial of the Bow, there are two parts. First, the minds of the Suitors are befooled (παρέπλαγξεν δὲ νόημα). Secondly, the hall is filled with sensible portents: preternatural night envelopes the company, the walls and beams are blood-bespattered, phantoms glide along with downward movement, as on their way to Erebus, the very meat they eat is gory, their eyes are charged with involuntary tears, their lips with unnatural smiles. Of all this the announcement is made by Theoclymenus, a trait which I interpret as referring the array of the phenomena to his master Apollo. To him is thus given that part of the operation which lies within the domain of sense: while the purely intellectual one, that of stupefying the Suitors, is expressly assigned to Minerva.But Minerva has likewise the power over signs, which is enjoyed by Jupiter and Apollo. As Diomed and Ulysses are setting out on their nocturnal expedition in the Tenth Iliad, Minerva sends the apparition of a heron to cheer them[160]: they do not see it, on account of the darkness; but they hear the flapping of its wings.It has accordingly attracted the attention of Nägelsbach[161], that the power of exhibiting signs is confined to Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, and Minerva: though he has not proceeded to combine this with other distinctions, at least equally remarkable, enjoyed by the two latter divinities.I have not, it will be observed, reckoned as aτέρας, or sign of the future, the case in which Juno endows the horses of Achilles with the gift of speech: because it appears that the prediction of their master’s death is their own; and that she only removes the barrier to its expression[162]. She stands, therefore, in a different position to that of Apollo and Minerva.Their dominion over Nature.9. This command, however, over natural portents may be viewed as part of a general dominion over nature, of which the most varied manifestation is in Minerva.It is true that, in common with most of the Olympian deities, she does not extend her action from the inner, or Greek, into the general range of the outer, or Phœnician world. Nor does Apollo. But we have clear proof that this was by a poetical arrangement, and not from a lack of divine power: since (1) she does act in Scheria, and assists in bringing Ulysses to the shore of that island: (2) the class ofμάντειςare found among the Cyclops: (3) Calypso is amenable tothe command of the Olympian court, and speaks of herself as belonging to the same wide class of deities with Aurora and Ceres. (4) Minerva assigns a special reason, namely, regard towards her uncle Neptune, for not having accompanied Ulysses all along his voyage (Od. xiii. 341).The power of Minerva over nature seems to be universal in kind as well as in place.1. She and Apollo assume the human form in common with other deities: but I do not find that the gods in general become visible to one person without being visible to all. Minerva in the First Iliad (198) reveals herself only to Achilles. It seems as if, in Il. xvii. 321–34, Homer meant that Apollo did the same to Æneas. The recognition of Venus by Helen, I take as most probably a sign of nothing more than that the case was one of disguise, rather than of transformation[163].2. Apollo frames anεἴδωλον, or image of a man, which moves and fights[164], representing Æneas on the battle field: and Minerva frames anεἴδωλονof Iphthime, to appear in a dream to her sister Penelope, and to convey to her a revelation of Minerva’s will[165]. This power is exercised by the two divinities exclusively.3. Minerva on many occasions assumes the shape of a bird[166]: sometimes in common with Apollo[167]. Ino Leucothee, the marine goddess, becomes a water-bird, andὝπνοςtakes the form of the bird Chalcis, when he has to act upon Jupiter. Both these operations may probably be considered as belonging to the special functions of these agents: with Apollo and Minerva, thepower appears to belong to a general supremacy over nature, which the other Olympian deities do not share.4. The transformations and retransformations of Ulysses in Ithaca by Minerva, appear to indicate some organic power over matter and life. It is not the appearance but the reality of his person that is stated to be changed. Not only is the skin wrinkled and the eye darkened, but the hairs are destroyed. They are afterwards restored, and his stature is increased. In like manner she gives increased height to Penelope, and again to Laertes[168].As respects power over inanimate nature, we have seen Minerva joined with Juno in the act of thundering. She can order out a rattling zephyr (κελάδοντα), or simply a toward breeze, or again a stiff Boreas (κραιπνὸν), to speed her friend across the main[169]: and, as Juno accelerated the setting of the sun before Troy, so Minerva forbids the dawn to appear in Ithaca, until, when she thinks the proper time has come, she withdraws the prohibition[170].Nor is the power of Minerva over nature for purposes of wrath less clear than for purposes of favour: since Mercury tells Calypso that, inasmuch as the Greeks had offended her, she sent a storm upon them[171],Ἀθηναίην ἀλίτοντο,ἥ σφιν ἐπῶρσ’ ἄνεμόν τε κακὸν καὶ κύματα μακρά.On the other hand, when Ulysses and his companions have propitiated Apollo on behalf of the Greek army, then he sends them a toward breeze for their return to the camp[172]. But we have a still more notable instance of miraculous power over nature ascribed to Apollo, over and above the sublime portents of the Twentieth Odyssey, in the conversion of the mouths of the eight Idæan rivers for nine whole days to efface the Greek rampart[173]. To Neptune is left the task of restoring them to their channels: perhaps on the same principle as the treatment of Juno, relatively to Minerva, in the preparation and use of the chariot[174].We have not yet, however, done with the subject of powers exercised over nature.Relation of Apollo together with Diana to Death.The most prominent and pointed characteristic of Apollo is one shared with his sister Diana. It is the mysterious relation which these two deities hold in common to death.The Messianic tradition, first divided between Apollo and the great Minerva, is now subdivided between him and his sister Diana, who forms a kind of supplement to his divinity. The bow and arrows, the symbol which they bear in common, marks the original union in character, out of which their twin peculiarities had grown.Apollo, indeed, as we see in the first Book of the Iliad, could himself become, like his sister, the immediate agent in the destruction of animals: but his principal function is with men. Hence the terrible slaughter of the Plague: hence his extraordinary and otherwise unsatisfactory participation in the death of Patroclus: hence, above all, though he is not the patron of Ulysses, and has no special connection with him, yet the slaughter of the Suitors in the Odyssey is appointed to take place on his festival, and therefore, as well as because it is effected by the Bow, under his auspices. But again; his office is not of a single aspect: he is a saviour from death, as well as a destroyer. Hence it is he, and not Venus, who savesÆneas[175]: it is he who carries Hector out of danger[176]. Yet a third, and very peculiar form of his office do we discover, common to him and to his sister. She is upon occasion strong enough to exercise the office of destruction properly so called[177], for sometimes she slays in wrath. But more usually, as he does for men, so she more especially exercises for women the mysterious function of administering painless and gentle death.This singular and solemn relation of Apollo and Diana to death appears to have an entirely exclusive character attaching to it. There is a clear distinction between death inflicted by the symbolical arrows of these twin deities, which are the symbols of an invisible Power, and death resulting from physical or any other palpable causes, whether it be violent, or what we term natural. I do not now speak of the agency of Apollo the destroyer in (what we call) the Plague, nor of his slaying Eurytus on account of a personal insult (Od. viii. 227), but of the much more distinctive and prominent office assigned to him and to Diana, that of (so to speak) taking the sting from Death. Death by disease, Death by a broken heart[178], Death by shipwreck, or by the lightning of heaven[179], or by the fury of Scamander, whirling warriors to the sea, and burying them in the sand and shingle[180], are matters altogether distinct from this. Death through second causes, even man can bring about: Death without second causes is palpably Divine; and this it is that is assigned to Apollo and Diana only among the Homeric gods. There is no instance, if I remember rightly, in which any other among them brings about the death of a mortal, otherwise than by means of second causes. And there is one curious passage, from which itwould appear that some other deities had to apply to them in order to set in motion this Divine prerogative. For when Theseus was carrying Ariadne to Athens, she did not reach her journey’s end:πάρος δέ μιν Ἄρτεμις ἔκταΔίῃ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, Διονύσου μαρτυρίῃσιν[181].A period was put to her life in the island of Dia, by the goddess Artemis, at the instance of Dionysus. As if the tradition bore, that Dionysus or Bacchus, desiring her death, and having at his command no natural agency of mortal effect, was obliged to apply to Artemis or Diana to bring about this purpose.The great enemy and scourge of mankind, under the treatment of the twin deities, is stripped of his terrors; and the very verse of Homer, ever responsive to his thought, changes to an easy and flowing movement as he describes this mode of passage from the world[182]:τὴν δ’ Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιραοἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχομένη κατέπεφνεν.Nor is the expression casual; it is one of the regular Homericformulæ. Sometimes she discharges this office in actual concurrence with Apollo. The happy island, where Eumæus passed his childhood, knew neither famine nor disease: but when its people reached the term of their old age, then[183]ἐλθὼν ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων Ἀρτέμιδι ξὺνοἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχόμενος κατέπεφνεν.Again, when the corpse of Hector is by preternatural agency restored, after the lacerations it had undergone, to integrity and freshness, it is said to have become like to the body of him upon whom Apollo has come, and put him to death with his tender darts[184].The god has a sword, indeed, which must appertain to his destroying office. But his sword, and his only, among all we hear of, is formed of gold,χρυσάορος. The epithet has probably been chosen from its affinity to Light.Among the instances in which Diana ministers to death, there are many where she clearly exercises a mitigating and favouring agency; and this may probably be signified in nearly all. Even of the children of Niobe[185]it may be meant, that they were thus gently removed, the innocent causes of their mother’s pride; while she was reserved for heavier punishment, and doomed to weep eternally in stone.In considering what may have been the early traditional source of these remarkable attributes of the children of Latona, we should tread softly and carefully, for we are on very sacred ground. But we seem to see in them the traces of the form of One, who, as an all-conquering King, was to be terrible and destructive to His enemies, but who was also, on behalf of mankind, to take away the sting from Death, and to change its iron band for a thread of silken slumber.The share of Messianic tradition accorded in this particular province to Minerva appears, as has already been observed, to consist in her peculiar power within the realm of Aidoneus himself.Independence of second causes.10. Lastly, we appear to find, that in the conduct of those operations in which their power over Nature is exhibited, Minerva and Apollo are not tied down, or at least are not tied down in the same degree with the other deities generally, to the use of instruments or symbols.We find that Neptune, when he has to inspire courage into the two Ajaxes, strikes them, (Il. xiii. 59.) Asan accompanying significant act, of a nature tending by itself to produce the result, this greatly weakens the force of the passage in proof of divine or extraordinary power. In like manner, when the same divinity converts the ship of the Phæacians into a rock, he drives it downward with his hand[186].But Apollo performs no such outward act when he infuses courage into Hector, or into Glaucus; or when he heals the wounds of the latter chieftain[187].So likewise, when Minerva alters the personal appearance of Telemachus, Ulysses, Laertes, or Penelope, by improving it, she uses no sign or ministrative act. Only when she effects an organic though partial transformation in the case of Ulysses[188]does she strike him with her wand: but then this total transformation is an exercise of power, of which we have no other example among the Olympian deities. Again, when Minerva finally endows the hero with heightened beauty of figure and countenance, it is done without the use of any visible sign whatever[189].This employment of instruments is, in fact, susceptible of two significations. They may be, like the tokens of Jupiter, intended to act upon the senses of men. But where they have not this meaning, there is a decided tendency to convey the conception of the instrument as being itself the power which the deity merely directs and applies. Thus it is in the cestus of Venus and the wand of Mercury that the divine energy resides[190], not less than it is in the herbs of Paieon and in the fire of Vulcan. So that any exemption from the use of these symbols is a sign of belonging to a high order of deity.Superiority of their moral standard.We now approach the third and last division of this subject; namely, those points of distinction which most essentially belong to the moral tone and personal character of these two great divinities.Their moral standard is conspicuously raised above that of the Olympian family in general.It partakes indeed, as we might expect, of taint. Each has begun to give way; and each in the way adapted to their several relations with man and woman’s nature respectively. Apollo’s character has just begun to be touched by licentiousness: and the character of Minerva is not above condescension to deceit.She is nowhere, however, associated either directly or indirectly, in word or act, with anything impure. The contest of beauty, in which Paris was the judge, is mentioned by Homer[191]: but the notice, a very succinct one, though not quite in keeping with her highest dignity, does not imply any deviation from her elevated chastity. Neither of Juno, nor of Thetis, can the same virtue be fully predicated: both of them, though in different modes, are brought into immediate contact with the subject of sensual passion.Pallas is, in truth, no less chaste than Diana: but her purity is absorbed in the dazzling splendour of her august prerogatives, while it is more observed in the Huntress-maid, because it is the most salient and distinguished point in her character.In the post-Homeric, but yet early, hymn to Venus, three beings alone in the wide universe are declared to be exempt from her sway. One of them is Hestie, who represents the impersonation of the marriage bond and the family life, and whose exemption thereforetestifies directly to the nature of the dominion from which it frees her. The other two privileged beings are Pallas and Diana[192].The character of Apollo in this respect is by some degrees less elevated: for he is an enjoying spectator of the scene described by the certainly licentious lay of Demodocus in the Eighth Odyssey, from which the goddesses in a body absent themselves. In the legend, too, of the Ninth Iliad we find that Apollo carried off the daughter of Marpessa, afterwards named by her parents Alcyone: but this passage, we shall see, is susceptible of an interpretation, which gives it another construction, and one certainly far more agreeable to the general character of this divinity. The epithet enjoyed by the Homeric Diana, expressive of purity, is accorded by Æschylus[193](whose accuracy and truthfulness often recall those of Homer) to Apollo;ἁγνόν τ’ Ἀπόλλω φυγάδ’ ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ θεόν.And here the question arises, how did it happen that, while the element of purity was strictly preserved in the tradition of the Wisdom, it was lost in the twin tradition of the Seed of the woman?The Wisdom naturally, when impersonated, assumed the feminine form. Now the character of woman seems to be in itself better fenced against impurity than that of man. Her comparatively dependent condition, and the more direct operation of her failure in this respect on the marriage tie through the disorganization of the family, have had a further influence in giving an additional stringency to the ideas of mankind with respect to her observance of this virtue; a stringency not the less real, because it exemplifies the partial administration of a law essentially just, nor because ithas become rather less conspicuous since the Gospel laid down with rigour, upon higher grounds, one law for all. Thus it remained possible to conceive a woman chaste, after the conditions of that idea had been almost lost in connection with the standard of excellence in the other sex: and this virtue, banished from the earth in general, still found here and there, even down to the fœtid corruption of the time of Martial[194], a last refuge in individual cases of untainted womanhood. This course of thought and feeling is exemplified in the Minerva of the Olympian Court.Yet the idea was not simply extinguished in the twin tradition, of which Apollo is the chief representative. Submerged in him, a home is found for it in the appropriate form of Diana as his sister. The power and majesty of this form of the Messianic tradition fall chiefly to his share: she retains what was then, to the shame of our race, thought its less precious ingredient, freedom from sensual taint. Apollo would have been its natural vehicle: but in him, for the reason that he was a man, it was perhaps to the Greek mind inconceivable: a new vehicle was either framed, or adapted, in order to carry it: the idea of the great Deliverer that should be born was thus disintegrated, like other traditions, and like other historical characters, which men could not so readily embrace in their integrity.As this is the first point in the discussion at which we have encountered an actual instance of this disintegration, it may be well to explain the meaning I attach to the term.Disintegration of traditions.It seems indubitable, that moral combinations, which are intelligible as well as credible to one age, may become incredible to another. Just as there are individual men at every epoch, who cannot believe in generosity and elevation of character, because they have in themselves no mirror which can reflect such qualities; so a generation ruled by more debased ideas cannot comprehend what another, influenced by less impure tendencies, could readily embrace. On the same principle, the Gospel gives not to the sagacious, but to the ‘pure in heart,’ the greatest triumph of mental vision, namely, that ‘they shall see God[195].’Accordingly, when it happens that a tradition becomes unintelligible to the mind of a given people, it is lost. It may be lost by the disappearance even of its outward form and shell. Or it may be lost by the alteration of its meaning while its words are retained. Or the work of destruction may take another turn: it may be lost by being torn into pieces; the effect being that one old tradition disappears, and more than one partial substitute for it is created.The highest fraud and the highest force appear to have been, according to original tradition, joined in the Evil One: they were separated in the Grecian forms of[196]that tradition. The Apollo of Homer was still one, with a great diversity of gifts; but mythological solecisms were already apparent in his character, like cracks in a stately building. This, too, was settled by disintegration; and in the later mythology there were many Apollos: other causes probably concurring to extend the multiplying process.The same operation took effect upon the traditions of human character. Homer, with the finest powers of light and shade, has represented Helen as erring,and as penitent. The moral sense of later, less simple, and more deeply corrupted, times became impervious to a balanced conception of this kind. Accordingly, the one Helen was torn into two, and supplied material both for the guilty Helen, orεἴδωλονof Helen, at Troy, and for the innocent Helen detained in Egypt. In like manner, it became a question, probably first when Athens had grown great, how Minos could on the one hand be great and wise, and could on the other have made war and imposed tribute upon Attica. Hence the fable of two Minoses[197]: so that those who venerated the ancient traditions of Crete might still be allowed to cherish their pious sentiment, while, upon the other hand, the Athenian dramatists might exercise a fertile imagination in inventing circumstances of horror for the biography of the piratical enemy of their country.It was, I conceive, an early example of this disintegration, which divided between Apollo and Diana different members of a primitive Messianic tradition. And, when we again combine the two personalities of the brother and the sister in one, the tradition resumes its completeness and roundness.It is likely that the same mental process, which thus deposited the element of chastity in the person of the comparatively feeble Diana, also conferred on her the figure of the Huntress-Queen. For thus she lived in seclusion from the ways and haunts of man: and it was only by seclusion that she could be kept in maiden innocence.But although the logical turn of the Greek mind soon came to place Apollo in morally disadvantageous contrast, under this particular head, both with his sister and with Pallas, he may be favourably compared with theother Homeric gods. There is something in the tradition that he was unshorn (ἀκερσεκόμης), which is evidently intended to connect him with the innocence of youth. And in Homer, unless it be by the legend of the Ninth Iliad, he is unharmed by connection with any of those relations which assign to Jupiter, Neptune, Mars, and Mercury, human children as the fruit of their indulgence.
βῆ δὲ κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων ἀΐξασα·στῆ δ’ Ἰθάκης ἐνὶ δήμῳ, ἐπὶ προθύροις Ὀδυσῆος[141].
βῆ δὲ κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων ἀΐξασα·στῆ δ’ Ἰθάκης ἐνὶ δήμῳ, ἐπὶ προθύροις Ὀδυσῆος[141].
βῆ δὲ κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων ἀΐξασα·στῆ δ’ Ἰθάκης ἐνὶ δήμῳ, ἐπὶ προθύροις Ὀδυσῆος[141].
βῆ δὲ κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων ἀΐξασα·
στῆ δ’ Ἰθάκης ἐνὶ δήμῳ, ἐπὶ προθύροις Ὀδυσῆος[141].
Only within the last few years have the triumphs of natural philosophy supplied us with an approximative illustration of these movements over space, in the more than lightning speed of the electric telegraph.
So Apollo, too, has by personal dignity what the messenger gods have by office. It is said of him and Iris, when in company, that their journey began; and that it ended:
τὼ δ’ ἀΐξαντε πετέσθην·Ἴδην δ’ ἵκανον πολυπίδακα[142].
τὼ δ’ ἀΐξαντε πετέσθην·Ἴδην δ’ ἵκανον πολυπίδακα[142].
τὼ δ’ ἀΐξαντε πετέσθην·Ἴδην δ’ ἵκανον πολυπίδακα[142].
τὼ δ’ ἀΐξαντε πετέσθην·
Ἴδην δ’ ἵκανον πολυπίδακα[142].
On one occasion, however, Minerva is represented, even when unattended by any other deity, as employing the foot-wings which Mercury commonly used, and they are said to carry her[143]:
τά μιν φέρον, ἠμὲν ἐφ’ ὑγρὴνἠδ’ ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν, ἅμα πνοίῃς ἀνέμοιο.
τά μιν φέρον, ἠμὲν ἐφ’ ὑγρὴνἠδ’ ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν, ἅμα πνοίῃς ἀνέμοιο.
τά μιν φέρον, ἠμὲν ἐφ’ ὑγρὴνἠδ’ ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν, ἅμα πνοίῃς ἀνέμοιο.
τά μιν φέρον, ἠμὲν ἐφ’ ὑγρὴν
ἠδ’ ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν, ἅμα πνοίῃς ἀνέμοιο.
But there are no stages or intermediate points either here or elsewhere in her journey.
With the movements of Apollo and Minerva, thus conceived by the Poet, we may do well to compare those of Mercury (Od. v. 50–8), Neptune (Il. xiii. 17–31), and Juno (Il. xiv. 225–30).
Their independent power of punishment.
6. Again, an important difference prevails between the different divinities, in regard to the conduct they pursue when offended by mortals. In general, this is one of the points that prominently exhibits the sovereignty of Jupiter; for the common course is to appeal to him, and to obtain retribution either with his permission or by his agency. Not from greater self-will or a spirit of rebellion, but from higher dignity and a certain substantiveness of character and position, Apollo and Minerva always appear as acting for and from themselves, in vindication of their offended prerogatives.
Even Neptune, when he is incensed at the erection of the unconsecrated rampart of the Greek camp, and fearful that it will eclipse the renown of his own handiwork, the wall of Troy, appeals to Jupiter on the subject, and receives from him the permissive suggestion, that he should himself destroy it so soon as the war is over[144]. He pursues a similar course, when he is anxious to chastise the over-boldness and maritime success of the Phæacians[145]. Venus, wounded by Diomed, does noteven by appeal attempt to obtain redress[146]. Mars, in the same condition, makes his complaint, both of Diomed and of Minerva, to Jupiter. It is true that afterwards, on the death of his son, he proposes to appear on the field of battle: but then he is in a state of fury[147], and is aware that the act would be one of rebellion against Jupiter: accordingly, it is rudely stopped by Minerva. Again, when Dionysus and his nurses are attacked by Lycoorgus, it is Jupiter that strikes the offender blind, and his life is short because he was become hateful to the gods[148]. Dionysus had made no appeal; but Jupiter avenged the insult to his order. The Sun, after his oxen have been eaten by the companions of Ulysses, lodges his appeal with Jupiter and the Olympian Council: and in this case Jupiter himself undertakes to give effect to the wishes of the offended luminary for vengeance[149]. When Aides, or Pluto, repaired to Olympus after the wound he had received from Hercules, the presumption perhaps arises, that it may have been not simply to obtain the healing hand of Paieon, but also to move Jupiter for redress.
There are indeed a certain set of cases in which the rule is probably different, that is to say, when a deity is thwarted or offended in the exercise of his or her own special function. Thus Neptune, though he would not touch the rampart without leave, yet of his own mere motion destroys Ajax when he is at sea. Venus threatens Helen with her summary vengeance, in case of prolonged resistance to the expressed command that she should repair to the chamber of Paris. The Muses, offended by Thamyris[150], proceed to maim him, probably in voiceor hand, the organs connected with his profession. This power to punish within each particular province appears to form an exception to the general rule. It is probably under this exceptional arrangement, that Diana proceeds towards the Curetes, in the Legend of the Ninth Iliad: but some doubt may hang over her case on account of the fact, that she partakes radically of the traditional, as well as of the mythological character.
Offended by the omission to include her in the hecatombs offered to the Immortals, she sends a wild boar to desolate the country. She puts Ariadne to death on the application of Dionysus, without any notice of an appeal to Jupiter. In both these cases she may be acting in virtue of her particular powers. But when she is matched with Juno in the Theomachy, she appears as utterly unequal to her great antagonist.
When Apollo comes into view, the mode of proceeding is very different from that of the deities of invention. Apollo and Diana at once destroy the children of Niobe, to avenge the insult she had offered to their mother: and this case is the more worthy of note, because Jupiter, at a later stage, participates in and extends the vengeance[151]. But the most conspicuous instance of the independent retributive action of Apollo is in the Plague of the First Book; since here he wastes the army of the Greeks, to the great peril of the enterprise promoted by so many powerful divinities, onaccount of what he esteemed a moral offence, and an outrage to his priest Chryses. Now it is to be remembered that the damsel had suffered no peculiar wrongs: the whole offence consisted in this, that, being the daughter of a priest of Apollo, at a place apparently insignificant, she had not been on that account exempted from the common lot of women, but had been treated just as she would have been treated had she been a king’s daughter. Nor must we forget, in appreciating this act, that the families of priests had no priestly privilege: and that Maron paid to Ulysses (Od. ix. 201–5) a very handsome price for his own life, together with that of his wife and child.
It is less easy to bring out the application of the rule now before us in the case of Minerva, from the paucity of clear instances in the poems where she personally has received offence.
There is one important case, where her wrath appears; and it is there described asμῆνις ὀλοὴ, and asδεινὸς χόλος[152]. Her name, and her interest in this affair, are to some extent mixed with those of Jupiter. The Poet tells us, that Jupiter designed for the Greeks a calamitous Return, ‘since they were not all upright, whereupon many of them miserably perished through the inexorable wrath of Minerva.’ And then the order is inverted: Agamemnon, we are told, projected the offerings, that he might appease the anger of Minerva, and thereupon dissension arose, for Jupiter suspended calamity over the host. It is clear that, so far as Minerva is to be regarded as having received separate and personal offence in this proceeding, there is no sign of her referring to Jupiter for aid, or for permission to punish the offenders. But the case rather appears to be one in which the Poet is describing the Providential Government of the world, and in which the intermixture of the names of Jupiter and of his daughter belongs to their system of concurrent action, under which she shares with Apollo the office of acting as his habitual organ in administering retributive justice to mankind. In one clear instance, however, we find it stated, that when the Greeks offended Minerva, she punished them by a storm (Od. v. 108).
They use special attributes of Jupiter.
7. Apollo and Minerva carry this among other notes, that we find them administering mythological or natural powers, which are otherwise the special property of Jupiter.
No other Olympian deity, but Juno, stands invested with a similar honour. We sometimes find the aerial powers of Jupiter wielded by her hand. But, with the exception of the sort of precedence accorded to her on Olympus, in virtue of which the gods rise from their seats when she enters their company, there is no one of the gifts that she exercises, which would not appear to lie within the range of the offices of Minerva, if not also of Apollo. In the remarkable case where she thunders in honour of Agamemnon just after he has armed, it is recorded that this was the joint act of the two divinities, of whom, on this occasion, Minerva takes precedence[153]:
ἐπὶ δ’ ἐγδούπησαν Ἀθηναίη τε καὶ Ἥρη,τιμῶσαι βασιλῆα πολυχρύσοιο Μυκήνης.
ἐπὶ δ’ ἐγδούπησαν Ἀθηναίη τε καὶ Ἥρη,τιμῶσαι βασιλῆα πολυχρύσοιο Μυκήνης.
ἐπὶ δ’ ἐγδούπησαν Ἀθηναίη τε καὶ Ἥρη,τιμῶσαι βασιλῆα πολυχρύσοιο Μυκήνης.
ἐπὶ δ’ ἐγδούπησαν Ἀθηναίη τε καὶ Ἥρη,
τιμῶσαι βασιλῆα πολυχρύσοιο Μυκήνης.
This association is to be observed in another passage, where these goddesses jointly communicate courage to a warrior. But when we find them associated in administering the powers of atmospheric phenomena, it is obvious that we must resort to different sources for the means of explaining the respective agencies. Juno, mythologically related to Jupiter as a wife, inthat capacity may, without exciting surprise, take in hand what belongs, so to speak, to theménage. Minerva, as a daughter, has no such claim; and her possession of a standing ground which enables her to use these powers can only be explained by a prior and more profound affinity of traditional character, which makes her the organ of the supreme deity.
But while, in the highest marks of power adhering to Juno, Minerva seems everywhere to vie with her, there are others, and those among the most strictly characteristic of the head of Olympus, in which both Minerva and Apollo share, but which are not in any manner imparted to Juno.
One of the high characteristic epithets of Jupiter isαἰγίοχος. And we never hear of the Ægis out of the hands of Jupiter, except it be in those of Minerva, or of Apollo. The Ægis is the peculiar arm of Minerva; apparently, itbelongsto her; and from the description of it in the Fifth Iliad, it appears to be the counterpart, on her side, of the chariot on the side of Juno[154]. The tunic she puts on, however, is the tunic of Jupiter, and the Gorgon head upon it is his sign: while the shield she carries is not to be assailed even by his thunderbolt[155]:
ἣν οὐδὲ Διὸς δάμνησι κεραυνός.
ἣν οὐδὲ Διὸς δάμνησι κεραυνός.
ἣν οὐδὲ Διὸς δάμνησι κεραυνός.
ἣν οὐδὲ Διὸς δάμνησι κεραυνός.
Again, the Fifteenth Book of the Iliad, Jupiter intrusts Apollo with his own Ægis, that he may wave it on the field of battle to intimidate the Greeks[156].
Partly in the relation of Minerva to Mars, whom she punishes or controls, but more peculiarly in the use of the magnificent symbol of the Ægis by Minerva and Apollo, we appear to find that development of the martial character which has been mentioned above as included among the Jewish ascriptions to the Messiah.
Proximate to, but extending beyond, the last named distinction, there is a function mythologically confined to Jupiter throughout the poems, with two exceptions only. The function is that of giving indications, palpable to men, of coming events, by the flight of birds in many instances, but likewise by atmospheric signs. This power is distinguished, by its connection with the future, from a mere power over nature.
The exceptions are Apollo and Minerva. The former deity is in general more largely endowed than Minerva in regard to the future, though a less conspicuous figure in the direction of the present. Still she partakes, with him and with Jupiter, of this peculiar honour.
On the return of Telemachus to Ithaca there appears to him the bird called the wheeling falcon[157],
κίρκος, Ἀπόλλωνος ταχὺς ἄγγελος,
κίρκος, Ἀπόλλωνος ταχὺς ἄγγελος,
κίρκος, Ἀπόλλωνος ταχὺς ἄγγελος,
κίρκος, Ἀπόλλωνος ταχὺς ἄγγελος,
sent by Apollo as an omen of success to himself, and of confusion to the Suitors.
In the final crisis of the Odyssey, which is doubtless meant to exhibit a normal example of Providential retribution, it seems to have been the object of the Poet to divide the theurgic action between Minerva and Apollo, as joint administrators of the general government of the world. To Minerva, as the goddess of wisdom, falls what may be called the intellectual share[158], the actual instruction and guidance of Ulysses, Penelope, and Telemachus, as well as the bewildering and hardening operations on the minds of the Suitors. Special arrangements appear, however, to have been introduced, so as to make a corresponding place forApollo. Hence it is that Theoclymenus, as the representative of a great prophetic family, is brought into the company of Telemachus, that he may become the organ of Apollo in the remaining part of the drama. This is the more remarkable, because Theoclymenus does not repay the friendly aid he had received by taking part in the final struggle on the side of Telemachus; so that his share in the proceeding stands out the more conspicuously as one altogether theurgic. In cooperation with this arrangement, it is provided that the crisis shall come to pass on the festival of the god, and that the manner of trial, by the Bow, shall place it especially under his auspices.
In the magnificent passage of the Twentieth Book[159], which describes the phantasmagoria in the palace of Ulysses, immediately before the trial of the Bow, there are two parts. First, the minds of the Suitors are befooled (παρέπλαγξεν δὲ νόημα). Secondly, the hall is filled with sensible portents: preternatural night envelopes the company, the walls and beams are blood-bespattered, phantoms glide along with downward movement, as on their way to Erebus, the very meat they eat is gory, their eyes are charged with involuntary tears, their lips with unnatural smiles. Of all this the announcement is made by Theoclymenus, a trait which I interpret as referring the array of the phenomena to his master Apollo. To him is thus given that part of the operation which lies within the domain of sense: while the purely intellectual one, that of stupefying the Suitors, is expressly assigned to Minerva.
But Minerva has likewise the power over signs, which is enjoyed by Jupiter and Apollo. As Diomed and Ulysses are setting out on their nocturnal expedition in the Tenth Iliad, Minerva sends the apparition of a heron to cheer them[160]: they do not see it, on account of the darkness; but they hear the flapping of its wings.
It has accordingly attracted the attention of Nägelsbach[161], that the power of exhibiting signs is confined to Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, and Minerva: though he has not proceeded to combine this with other distinctions, at least equally remarkable, enjoyed by the two latter divinities.
I have not, it will be observed, reckoned as aτέρας, or sign of the future, the case in which Juno endows the horses of Achilles with the gift of speech: because it appears that the prediction of their master’s death is their own; and that she only removes the barrier to its expression[162]. She stands, therefore, in a different position to that of Apollo and Minerva.
Their dominion over Nature.
9. This command, however, over natural portents may be viewed as part of a general dominion over nature, of which the most varied manifestation is in Minerva.
It is true that, in common with most of the Olympian deities, she does not extend her action from the inner, or Greek, into the general range of the outer, or Phœnician world. Nor does Apollo. But we have clear proof that this was by a poetical arrangement, and not from a lack of divine power: since (1) she does act in Scheria, and assists in bringing Ulysses to the shore of that island: (2) the class ofμάντειςare found among the Cyclops: (3) Calypso is amenable tothe command of the Olympian court, and speaks of herself as belonging to the same wide class of deities with Aurora and Ceres. (4) Minerva assigns a special reason, namely, regard towards her uncle Neptune, for not having accompanied Ulysses all along his voyage (Od. xiii. 341).
The power of Minerva over nature seems to be universal in kind as well as in place.
1. She and Apollo assume the human form in common with other deities: but I do not find that the gods in general become visible to one person without being visible to all. Minerva in the First Iliad (198) reveals herself only to Achilles. It seems as if, in Il. xvii. 321–34, Homer meant that Apollo did the same to Æneas. The recognition of Venus by Helen, I take as most probably a sign of nothing more than that the case was one of disguise, rather than of transformation[163].
2. Apollo frames anεἴδωλον, or image of a man, which moves and fights[164], representing Æneas on the battle field: and Minerva frames anεἴδωλονof Iphthime, to appear in a dream to her sister Penelope, and to convey to her a revelation of Minerva’s will[165]. This power is exercised by the two divinities exclusively.
3. Minerva on many occasions assumes the shape of a bird[166]: sometimes in common with Apollo[167]. Ino Leucothee, the marine goddess, becomes a water-bird, andὝπνοςtakes the form of the bird Chalcis, when he has to act upon Jupiter. Both these operations may probably be considered as belonging to the special functions of these agents: with Apollo and Minerva, thepower appears to belong to a general supremacy over nature, which the other Olympian deities do not share.
4. The transformations and retransformations of Ulysses in Ithaca by Minerva, appear to indicate some organic power over matter and life. It is not the appearance but the reality of his person that is stated to be changed. Not only is the skin wrinkled and the eye darkened, but the hairs are destroyed. They are afterwards restored, and his stature is increased. In like manner she gives increased height to Penelope, and again to Laertes[168].
As respects power over inanimate nature, we have seen Minerva joined with Juno in the act of thundering. She can order out a rattling zephyr (κελάδοντα), or simply a toward breeze, or again a stiff Boreas (κραιπνὸν), to speed her friend across the main[169]: and, as Juno accelerated the setting of the sun before Troy, so Minerva forbids the dawn to appear in Ithaca, until, when she thinks the proper time has come, she withdraws the prohibition[170].
Nor is the power of Minerva over nature for purposes of wrath less clear than for purposes of favour: since Mercury tells Calypso that, inasmuch as the Greeks had offended her, she sent a storm upon them[171],
Ἀθηναίην ἀλίτοντο,ἥ σφιν ἐπῶρσ’ ἄνεμόν τε κακὸν καὶ κύματα μακρά.
Ἀθηναίην ἀλίτοντο,ἥ σφιν ἐπῶρσ’ ἄνεμόν τε κακὸν καὶ κύματα μακρά.
Ἀθηναίην ἀλίτοντο,ἥ σφιν ἐπῶρσ’ ἄνεμόν τε κακὸν καὶ κύματα μακρά.
Ἀθηναίην ἀλίτοντο,
ἥ σφιν ἐπῶρσ’ ἄνεμόν τε κακὸν καὶ κύματα μακρά.
On the other hand, when Ulysses and his companions have propitiated Apollo on behalf of the Greek army, then he sends them a toward breeze for their return to the camp[172]. But we have a still more notable instance of miraculous power over nature ascribed to Apollo, over and above the sublime portents of the Twentieth Odyssey, in the conversion of the mouths of the eight Idæan rivers for nine whole days to efface the Greek rampart[173]. To Neptune is left the task of restoring them to their channels: perhaps on the same principle as the treatment of Juno, relatively to Minerva, in the preparation and use of the chariot[174].
We have not yet, however, done with the subject of powers exercised over nature.
Relation of Apollo together with Diana to Death.
The most prominent and pointed characteristic of Apollo is one shared with his sister Diana. It is the mysterious relation which these two deities hold in common to death.
The Messianic tradition, first divided between Apollo and the great Minerva, is now subdivided between him and his sister Diana, who forms a kind of supplement to his divinity. The bow and arrows, the symbol which they bear in common, marks the original union in character, out of which their twin peculiarities had grown.
Apollo, indeed, as we see in the first Book of the Iliad, could himself become, like his sister, the immediate agent in the destruction of animals: but his principal function is with men. Hence the terrible slaughter of the Plague: hence his extraordinary and otherwise unsatisfactory participation in the death of Patroclus: hence, above all, though he is not the patron of Ulysses, and has no special connection with him, yet the slaughter of the Suitors in the Odyssey is appointed to take place on his festival, and therefore, as well as because it is effected by the Bow, under his auspices. But again; his office is not of a single aspect: he is a saviour from death, as well as a destroyer. Hence it is he, and not Venus, who savesÆneas[175]: it is he who carries Hector out of danger[176]. Yet a third, and very peculiar form of his office do we discover, common to him and to his sister. She is upon occasion strong enough to exercise the office of destruction properly so called[177], for sometimes she slays in wrath. But more usually, as he does for men, so she more especially exercises for women the mysterious function of administering painless and gentle death.
This singular and solemn relation of Apollo and Diana to death appears to have an entirely exclusive character attaching to it. There is a clear distinction between death inflicted by the symbolical arrows of these twin deities, which are the symbols of an invisible Power, and death resulting from physical or any other palpable causes, whether it be violent, or what we term natural. I do not now speak of the agency of Apollo the destroyer in (what we call) the Plague, nor of his slaying Eurytus on account of a personal insult (Od. viii. 227), but of the much more distinctive and prominent office assigned to him and to Diana, that of (so to speak) taking the sting from Death. Death by disease, Death by a broken heart[178], Death by shipwreck, or by the lightning of heaven[179], or by the fury of Scamander, whirling warriors to the sea, and burying them in the sand and shingle[180], are matters altogether distinct from this. Death through second causes, even man can bring about: Death without second causes is palpably Divine; and this it is that is assigned to Apollo and Diana only among the Homeric gods. There is no instance, if I remember rightly, in which any other among them brings about the death of a mortal, otherwise than by means of second causes. And there is one curious passage, from which itwould appear that some other deities had to apply to them in order to set in motion this Divine prerogative. For when Theseus was carrying Ariadne to Athens, she did not reach her journey’s end:
πάρος δέ μιν Ἄρτεμις ἔκταΔίῃ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, Διονύσου μαρτυρίῃσιν[181].
πάρος δέ μιν Ἄρτεμις ἔκταΔίῃ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, Διονύσου μαρτυρίῃσιν[181].
πάρος δέ μιν Ἄρτεμις ἔκταΔίῃ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, Διονύσου μαρτυρίῃσιν[181].
πάρος δέ μιν Ἄρτεμις ἔκτα
Δίῃ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, Διονύσου μαρτυρίῃσιν[181].
A period was put to her life in the island of Dia, by the goddess Artemis, at the instance of Dionysus. As if the tradition bore, that Dionysus or Bacchus, desiring her death, and having at his command no natural agency of mortal effect, was obliged to apply to Artemis or Diana to bring about this purpose.
The great enemy and scourge of mankind, under the treatment of the twin deities, is stripped of his terrors; and the very verse of Homer, ever responsive to his thought, changes to an easy and flowing movement as he describes this mode of passage from the world[182]:
τὴν δ’ Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιραοἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχομένη κατέπεφνεν.
τὴν δ’ Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιραοἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχομένη κατέπεφνεν.
τὴν δ’ Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιραοἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχομένη κατέπεφνεν.
τὴν δ’ Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιρα
οἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχομένη κατέπεφνεν.
Nor is the expression casual; it is one of the regular Homericformulæ. Sometimes she discharges this office in actual concurrence with Apollo. The happy island, where Eumæus passed his childhood, knew neither famine nor disease: but when its people reached the term of their old age, then[183]
ἐλθὼν ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων Ἀρτέμιδι ξὺνοἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχόμενος κατέπεφνεν.
ἐλθὼν ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων Ἀρτέμιδι ξὺνοἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχόμενος κατέπεφνεν.
ἐλθὼν ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων Ἀρτέμιδι ξὺνοἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχόμενος κατέπεφνεν.
ἐλθὼν ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων Ἀρτέμιδι ξὺν
οἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχόμενος κατέπεφνεν.
Again, when the corpse of Hector is by preternatural agency restored, after the lacerations it had undergone, to integrity and freshness, it is said to have become like to the body of him upon whom Apollo has come, and put him to death with his tender darts[184].The god has a sword, indeed, which must appertain to his destroying office. But his sword, and his only, among all we hear of, is formed of gold,χρυσάορος. The epithet has probably been chosen from its affinity to Light.
Among the instances in which Diana ministers to death, there are many where she clearly exercises a mitigating and favouring agency; and this may probably be signified in nearly all. Even of the children of Niobe[185]it may be meant, that they were thus gently removed, the innocent causes of their mother’s pride; while she was reserved for heavier punishment, and doomed to weep eternally in stone.
In considering what may have been the early traditional source of these remarkable attributes of the children of Latona, we should tread softly and carefully, for we are on very sacred ground. But we seem to see in them the traces of the form of One, who, as an all-conquering King, was to be terrible and destructive to His enemies, but who was also, on behalf of mankind, to take away the sting from Death, and to change its iron band for a thread of silken slumber.
The share of Messianic tradition accorded in this particular province to Minerva appears, as has already been observed, to consist in her peculiar power within the realm of Aidoneus himself.
Independence of second causes.
10. Lastly, we appear to find, that in the conduct of those operations in which their power over Nature is exhibited, Minerva and Apollo are not tied down, or at least are not tied down in the same degree with the other deities generally, to the use of instruments or symbols.
We find that Neptune, when he has to inspire courage into the two Ajaxes, strikes them, (Il. xiii. 59.) Asan accompanying significant act, of a nature tending by itself to produce the result, this greatly weakens the force of the passage in proof of divine or extraordinary power. In like manner, when the same divinity converts the ship of the Phæacians into a rock, he drives it downward with his hand[186].
But Apollo performs no such outward act when he infuses courage into Hector, or into Glaucus; or when he heals the wounds of the latter chieftain[187].
So likewise, when Minerva alters the personal appearance of Telemachus, Ulysses, Laertes, or Penelope, by improving it, she uses no sign or ministrative act. Only when she effects an organic though partial transformation in the case of Ulysses[188]does she strike him with her wand: but then this total transformation is an exercise of power, of which we have no other example among the Olympian deities. Again, when Minerva finally endows the hero with heightened beauty of figure and countenance, it is done without the use of any visible sign whatever[189].
This employment of instruments is, in fact, susceptible of two significations. They may be, like the tokens of Jupiter, intended to act upon the senses of men. But where they have not this meaning, there is a decided tendency to convey the conception of the instrument as being itself the power which the deity merely directs and applies. Thus it is in the cestus of Venus and the wand of Mercury that the divine energy resides[190], not less than it is in the herbs of Paieon and in the fire of Vulcan. So that any exemption from the use of these symbols is a sign of belonging to a high order of deity.
Superiority of their moral standard.
We now approach the third and last division of this subject; namely, those points of distinction which most essentially belong to the moral tone and personal character of these two great divinities.
Their moral standard is conspicuously raised above that of the Olympian family in general.
It partakes indeed, as we might expect, of taint. Each has begun to give way; and each in the way adapted to their several relations with man and woman’s nature respectively. Apollo’s character has just begun to be touched by licentiousness: and the character of Minerva is not above condescension to deceit.
She is nowhere, however, associated either directly or indirectly, in word or act, with anything impure. The contest of beauty, in which Paris was the judge, is mentioned by Homer[191]: but the notice, a very succinct one, though not quite in keeping with her highest dignity, does not imply any deviation from her elevated chastity. Neither of Juno, nor of Thetis, can the same virtue be fully predicated: both of them, though in different modes, are brought into immediate contact with the subject of sensual passion.
Pallas is, in truth, no less chaste than Diana: but her purity is absorbed in the dazzling splendour of her august prerogatives, while it is more observed in the Huntress-maid, because it is the most salient and distinguished point in her character.
In the post-Homeric, but yet early, hymn to Venus, three beings alone in the wide universe are declared to be exempt from her sway. One of them is Hestie, who represents the impersonation of the marriage bond and the family life, and whose exemption thereforetestifies directly to the nature of the dominion from which it frees her. The other two privileged beings are Pallas and Diana[192].
The character of Apollo in this respect is by some degrees less elevated: for he is an enjoying spectator of the scene described by the certainly licentious lay of Demodocus in the Eighth Odyssey, from which the goddesses in a body absent themselves. In the legend, too, of the Ninth Iliad we find that Apollo carried off the daughter of Marpessa, afterwards named by her parents Alcyone: but this passage, we shall see, is susceptible of an interpretation, which gives it another construction, and one certainly far more agreeable to the general character of this divinity. The epithet enjoyed by the Homeric Diana, expressive of purity, is accorded by Æschylus[193](whose accuracy and truthfulness often recall those of Homer) to Apollo;
ἁγνόν τ’ Ἀπόλλω φυγάδ’ ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ θεόν.
ἁγνόν τ’ Ἀπόλλω φυγάδ’ ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ θεόν.
ἁγνόν τ’ Ἀπόλλω φυγάδ’ ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ θεόν.
ἁγνόν τ’ Ἀπόλλω φυγάδ’ ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ θεόν.
And here the question arises, how did it happen that, while the element of purity was strictly preserved in the tradition of the Wisdom, it was lost in the twin tradition of the Seed of the woman?
The Wisdom naturally, when impersonated, assumed the feminine form. Now the character of woman seems to be in itself better fenced against impurity than that of man. Her comparatively dependent condition, and the more direct operation of her failure in this respect on the marriage tie through the disorganization of the family, have had a further influence in giving an additional stringency to the ideas of mankind with respect to her observance of this virtue; a stringency not the less real, because it exemplifies the partial administration of a law essentially just, nor because ithas become rather less conspicuous since the Gospel laid down with rigour, upon higher grounds, one law for all. Thus it remained possible to conceive a woman chaste, after the conditions of that idea had been almost lost in connection with the standard of excellence in the other sex: and this virtue, banished from the earth in general, still found here and there, even down to the fœtid corruption of the time of Martial[194], a last refuge in individual cases of untainted womanhood. This course of thought and feeling is exemplified in the Minerva of the Olympian Court.
Yet the idea was not simply extinguished in the twin tradition, of which Apollo is the chief representative. Submerged in him, a home is found for it in the appropriate form of Diana as his sister. The power and majesty of this form of the Messianic tradition fall chiefly to his share: she retains what was then, to the shame of our race, thought its less precious ingredient, freedom from sensual taint. Apollo would have been its natural vehicle: but in him, for the reason that he was a man, it was perhaps to the Greek mind inconceivable: a new vehicle was either framed, or adapted, in order to carry it: the idea of the great Deliverer that should be born was thus disintegrated, like other traditions, and like other historical characters, which men could not so readily embrace in their integrity.
As this is the first point in the discussion at which we have encountered an actual instance of this disintegration, it may be well to explain the meaning I attach to the term.
Disintegration of traditions.
It seems indubitable, that moral combinations, which are intelligible as well as credible to one age, may become incredible to another. Just as there are individual men at every epoch, who cannot believe in generosity and elevation of character, because they have in themselves no mirror which can reflect such qualities; so a generation ruled by more debased ideas cannot comprehend what another, influenced by less impure tendencies, could readily embrace. On the same principle, the Gospel gives not to the sagacious, but to the ‘pure in heart,’ the greatest triumph of mental vision, namely, that ‘they shall see God[195].’
Accordingly, when it happens that a tradition becomes unintelligible to the mind of a given people, it is lost. It may be lost by the disappearance even of its outward form and shell. Or it may be lost by the alteration of its meaning while its words are retained. Or the work of destruction may take another turn: it may be lost by being torn into pieces; the effect being that one old tradition disappears, and more than one partial substitute for it is created.
The highest fraud and the highest force appear to have been, according to original tradition, joined in the Evil One: they were separated in the Grecian forms of[196]that tradition. The Apollo of Homer was still one, with a great diversity of gifts; but mythological solecisms were already apparent in his character, like cracks in a stately building. This, too, was settled by disintegration; and in the later mythology there were many Apollos: other causes probably concurring to extend the multiplying process.
The same operation took effect upon the traditions of human character. Homer, with the finest powers of light and shade, has represented Helen as erring,and as penitent. The moral sense of later, less simple, and more deeply corrupted, times became impervious to a balanced conception of this kind. Accordingly, the one Helen was torn into two, and supplied material both for the guilty Helen, orεἴδωλονof Helen, at Troy, and for the innocent Helen detained in Egypt. In like manner, it became a question, probably first when Athens had grown great, how Minos could on the one hand be great and wise, and could on the other have made war and imposed tribute upon Attica. Hence the fable of two Minoses[197]: so that those who venerated the ancient traditions of Crete might still be allowed to cherish their pious sentiment, while, upon the other hand, the Athenian dramatists might exercise a fertile imagination in inventing circumstances of horror for the biography of the piratical enemy of their country.
It was, I conceive, an early example of this disintegration, which divided between Apollo and Diana different members of a primitive Messianic tradition. And, when we again combine the two personalities of the brother and the sister in one, the tradition resumes its completeness and roundness.
It is likely that the same mental process, which thus deposited the element of chastity in the person of the comparatively feeble Diana, also conferred on her the figure of the Huntress-Queen. For thus she lived in seclusion from the ways and haunts of man: and it was only by seclusion that she could be kept in maiden innocence.
But although the logical turn of the Greek mind soon came to place Apollo in morally disadvantageous contrast, under this particular head, both with his sister and with Pallas, he may be favourably compared with theother Homeric gods. There is something in the tradition that he was unshorn (ἀκερσεκόμης), which is evidently intended to connect him with the innocence of youth. And in Homer, unless it be by the legend of the Ninth Iliad, he is unharmed by connection with any of those relations which assign to Jupiter, Neptune, Mars, and Mercury, human children as the fruit of their indulgence.