Chapter 28

No, no, said Rhadamant, it were not well,With loving souls to place a martialist;He died in war, and must to martial fields,Where wounded Hector lives in lasting pain,And Achilles' Myrmidons do scour the plain.

Kyd, Spanish Tragedy

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

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

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

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

63.Textual.Phrygia: a province in Asia Minor. ForMinerva'sprotection of the olive, see65.Tyanais a town in Cappadocia, Asia Minor.

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

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

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

65-66.Textual.ForCecrops, see174. He named the city that he founded Cecropia,—a name which afterwards clung to Athens. For an excellent description of ancient weaving, see Catullus, LXIV, 304-323 (The Peleus and Thetis). For translation, see191. Leda, mother of Castor, Pollux, Helen, and Clytemnestra (see194and Commentary).Danaë, mother of Perseus (see151).

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

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

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

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

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

70.Textual.Family ofCadmus: see Tables D and E.Castalian Caveof Mount Parnassus, Phocis; here was the famous Delphic oracle of Apollo.Cephissus: a river running through Doris, Phocis, and Bœotia into the Eubœan Gulf; the valley of the Cephissus was noted for its fertility.Panope: a town on the Cephissus.Tyrians: Cadmus and his followers came from Tyre in Phœnicia. TheNecklace of Harmoniawas a fateful gift. It brought evil to whomsoever it belonged: to all the descendants of Cadmus; to Eriphyle, wife of Amphiaraüs of Argos, to whom Polynices gave it; and to the sons of Eriphyle. It was finally dedicated to Apollo in Delphi. Harmonia's robe possessed the same fatality,187, 189. Enchelians: a people of Illyria. For the myths ofSemele, see60; ofIno, 144; ofAutonoëand her son,Actæon, 95; ofAgaveand her son,Pentheus,112; ofPolydorus, theLabdacidæ,Œdipus, etc.,182.Eight years: the usual period of penance. Apollo, after slaying the Python, had to clear himself of defilement by a period of purification.

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

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

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

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

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

71.Textual.Eurynomeis represented by some as one of the Titans, the wife of Ophion. Ophion and Eurynome, according to one legend, ruled over heaven before the age of Saturn (Cronus). So Milton, Paradise Lost, 10, 580, "And fabled how the Serpent, whom they called Ophion, with Eurynome (the wide-Encroaching Eve perhaps), had first the rule Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven." According to Vulcan's statement (Iliad, 18), Eurynome was daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. She was mother, by Jupiter, of the Graces.Thetis: see50.Xanthus: the principal river of Lycia in Asia Minor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

76.Textual.Clymene: a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys.Chrysolite: orgold stone, our topaz.Daystar: Phosphor, see38(II).Ambrosia(ἀμβρόσιος, ἄμβροτος, ἀ-βροτός),immortal,—here, "food for the immortals."Turn off to theleft: indicating the course of the sun, west by south. TheSerpent, orDragon: a constellation between the Great and Little Bears.Boötes: the constellation called the Wagoner. The limits of theScorpionwere restricted by the insertion of the sign of the Scales.Athos: a mountain forming the eastern of three peninsulas south of Macedonia.Mount Taurus: in Armenia.Mount Tmolus: inLydia.Mount Œte: between Thessaly and Ætolia, where Hercules ascended his funeral pile.Ida: the name of two mountains,—one in Crete, where Jupiter was nurtured by Amalthea, the other in Phrygia, near Troy.Mount Helicon: in Bœotia, sacred also to Apollo.Mount Hæmus: in Thrace.Ætna: in Sicily.Parnassus: in Phocis; one peak was sacred to Apollo, the other to the Muses. The Castalian Spring, sacred to the Muses, is at the foot of the mountain; Delphi is near by.Rhodope: part of the Hæmus range of mountains.Scythia: a general designation of Europe and Asia north of the Black Sea.Caucasus: between the Black and Caspian seas.Mount Ossa: associated withMount Pelionin the story of the giants, who piled one on top of the other in their attempt to scale Olympus. These mountains, withPindus, are in Thessaly.Libyandesert: in Africa. Libya was fabled to have been the daughter of Epaphus, king of Egypt.Tanaïs: the Don, in Scythia.Caïcus: a river of Greater Mysia, flowing into the sea at Lesbos.XanthusandMæander: rivers of Phrygia, flowing near Troy.Caÿster: a river of Ionia, noted for its so-called "tuneful" swans. For Nereus, Doris, Nereïds, etc., see50and52.Eridanus: the mythical name of the river Po in Italy (amber was found on its banks).Naiads, see52(6).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Table F

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

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

Interpretative.Max Müller derivesNiobefrom the rootsnu, orsnigh, from which come the words forsnowin the Indo-European languages. In Latin and Greek, the stem isNiv, hence Nib, Niobe. The myth, therefore, would signify the melting of snow and the destruction of its icy offspring under the rays of the spring sun (Sci. Relig. 372). According to Homer (Iliad, 24, 611), there were six sons and six daughters. After their death no one could bury them, since all who looked on them were turned to stone. The burial was, accordingly, performed on the tenth day after the massacre, by Jupiter and the other gods. This petrifaction of the onlookers may indicate the operation of the frost. Cox says that Niobe, the snow, compares her golden-tinted, wintry mists or clouds with the splendor of the sun and moon. Others look upon the myth as significant of the withering of spring vegetation under the heats of summer (Preller). The latter explanation is as satisfactory, for spring is the child of winter (Niobe).

Illustrative.Pope, Dunciad, 2, 311; Lewis Morris, Niobe on Sipylus (Songs Unsung); Byron's noble stanza on fallen Rome, "The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe," etc. (Childe Harold, 4, 79); W. S. Landor, Niobe; Frederick Tennyson, Niobe. OnTantalus, see Lewis Morris, Tantalus, in The Epic of Hades. On Sir Richard Blackmore, a physician and poor poet, Thomas Moore writes the following stanza:

'T was in his carriage the sublimeSir Richard Blackmore used to rhyme,And, if the wits don't do him wrong,'Twixt death and epics passed his time,Scribbling and killing all day long;Like Phœbus in his car at ease,Now warbling forth a lofty song,Now murdering the young Niobes.

In Art.The restoration of the statue of Niobe, Mount Sipylus; of extreme antiquity. The St. Petersburg relief (Fig. 61, in text) is probably the best group. Figs. 60 and 62 are from the ancient marbles in the Uffizi, Florence. The fragments of the latter group were discovered in 1583 near the Porta San Giovanni, Rome. The figure of the mother, clasping the little girl who has run to her in terror, is one of the most admired of the ancient statues. It ranks with the Laocoön and the Apollo Belvedere among the masterpieces of art. The following is a translation of a Greek epigram supposed to relate to this statue:

To stone the gods have changed her, but in vain;The sculptor's art has made her breathe again.

There is also a fine figure of a daughter of Niobe in the Vatican, Rome; and there are figures in the Louvre. Reinach in hisApolloattributes the originals to Scopas.

79.Interpretative.The month in which the festival ofLinustook place was called theLambs' Month: the days were theLambs' Days, on one of which was a massacre of dogs. According to some, Linus was a minstrel, son of Apollo and the Muse Urania, and the teacher of Orpheus and Hercules.

80. Centaurs.Monsters represented as men from the head to the loins, while the remainder of the body was that of a horse. Centaurs are the only monsters of antiquity to which any good traits were assigned. They were admitted to the companionship of men.Chironwas the wisest and justest of the Centaurs. At his death he was placed by Jupiter among the stars as the constellation Sagittarius (the Archer).Messenia: in the Peloponnesus.Æsculapius: there were numerous oracles of Æsculapius, but the most celebrated 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. An embassy, sent to the temple of Epidaurus to entreat the aid of the god, was propitiously received; and on the return of the ship Æsculapius accompanied it in the form of a serpent. Arriving in the river Tiber, the serpent glided from the vessel and took possession of an island, upon which a temple was soon erected to his honor.

Interpretative.The healing powers of nature may be here symbolized. But it is more likely that the family of Asclepiadæ (a medical clan) invented Asklepios as at once their ancestor and the son of the god of healing, Apollo.

Illustrative.Milton, Paradise Lost, 9, 506; Shakespeare, Pericles, III, ii; Merry Wives, II, iii.

In Art.Æsculapius (sculpture), Vatican; also the statue in the Uffizi, Florence (text, Fig. 63). Thorwaldsen's (sculpture) Hygea (Health) and Æsculapius, Copenhagen.

81.Interpretative.Perhaps the unceasing and unvarying round of the sun led to the conception of him as a servant. Max Müller cites the Peruvian Inca whosaid that if the sun were free, like fire, he would visit new parts of the heavens. "He is," said the Inca, "like a tied beast who goes ever round and round in the same track" (Chips, etc., 2, 113). Nearly all Greek heroes had to undergo servitude,—Hercules, Perseus, etc. No stories are more beautiful or more lofty than those which express the hope, innate in the human heart, that somewhere and at some time some god has lived as a man among men and for the good of men. Such stories are not confined to the Greeks or the Hebrews.

Illustrative. R. Browning, Apollo and the Fates; Edith M. Thomas, Apollo the Shepherd; Emma Lazarus, Admetus; W. M. W. Call, Admetus.

83.Textual.Alcestiswas a daughter of the Pelias who was killed at the instigation of Medea (167). In that affair Alcestis took no part. For her family, see Table G. She was held in the highest honor in Greek fable, and ranked with Penelope and Laodamia, the latter of whom was her niece. To explain the myth as a physical allegory would be easy, but is it not more likely that the idea ofsubstitutionfinds expression in the myth?—that idea of atonement by sacrifice, which is suggested in the words of Œdipus at Colonus (185), "For one soul working in the strength of love Is mightier than ten thousand to atone."Koré(the daughter of Ceres): Proserpina.Larissa: a city of Thessaly, on the river Peneüs.

Illustrative.Milton's sonnet, On his Deceased Wife:

Methought I saw my late espousèd saintBrought to me like Alcestis from the grave,Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint.

Chaucer, Legende of Good Women, 208et seq.; Court of Love (?), 100et seq.

Poems.Robert Browning's noble poem, Balaustion's Adventure, purports to be a paraphrase of the Alcestis of Euripides, but while it maintains the classical spirit, it is in execution an original poem. The Love of Alcestis, by William Morris; Mrs. Hemans, The Alcestis of Alfieri, and The Death Song of Alcestis; W. S. Landor, Hercules, Pluto, Alcestis, and Admetus; Alcestis: F. T. Palgrave, W. M. W. Call, John Todhunter (a drama).

In Art.Fig. 64, in text, Naples Museum; also the relief on a Roman sarcophagus in the Vatican.

84.Textual.This Laomedon was descended, through Dardanus (the forefather of the Trojan race), from Jupiter and the Pleiad Electra. For further information about him, see119,161, and Table I.

Interpretative.Apollo evidently fulfills, under Laomedon, his function as god of colonization.

85-86.Textual.For Pan, see43; for Tmolus,76.Peneüs: a river in Thessaly, which rises in Mount Pindus and flows through the wooded valley of Tempe.Dædal: variously adorned, variegated. Midas was king of Phrygia (see113).

Illustrative.The story of King Midas has been told by others with some variations. Dryden, in the Wife of Bath's Tale, makes Midas' queen the betrayer of the secret:

This Midas knew, and durst communicateTo none but to his wife his ears of state.

87.Illustrative.M. Arnold, Empedocles (Song of Callicles); L. Morris, Marsyas, in The Epic of Hades; Edith M. Thomas, Marsyas; E. Lee-Hamilton, Apollo and Marsyas.

In Art.Raphael's drawing, Apollo and Marsyas (Museum, Venice); Bordone's Apollo, Marsyas, and Midas (Dresden); the Græco-Roman sculpture, Marsyas (Louvre); Marsyas (or Dancing Faun), in the Lateran, Rome.

89.Textual.Daphne was a sister of Cyrene, another sweetheart of Apollo's (145).Delphi, in Phocis, andTenedos, an island off the coast of Asia Minor, near Troy, were celebrated for their temples of Apollo. The latter temple was sacred toApollo Smintheus, the Mouse-Apollo, probably because he had rid that country of mice as St. Patrick rid Ireland of snakes and toads.Dido: queen of Carthage (252), whose lover, Æneas, sailed away from her.

Interpretative.Max Müller's explanation is poetic though not philologically probable. "Daphne, or Ahanâ, means the Dawn. There is first the appearance of the dawn in the eastern sky, then the rising of the sun as if hurrying after his bride, then the gradual fading away of the bright dawn at the touch of the fiery rays of the sun, and at last her death or disappearance in the lap of her mother, the earth." The wordDaphnealso means, in Greek, alaurel; hence the legend that Daphne was changed into a laurel tree (Sci. Relig., 378, 379). Others construe Daphne as thelightning. It is, however, very probable that the Greeks of the myth-making age, finding certain plants and flowers sacred to Apollo, would invent stories to explain why he preferred the laurel, the hyacinth, the sunflower, etc. "Such myths of metamorphoses" are, as Mr. Lang says, "an universal growth of savage fancy, and spring from a want of a sense of difference between men and things" (Myth, Ritual, etc., 2, 206).

Illustrative.Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, II, ii; Taming of the Shrew, Induction ii; Troilus and Cressida, I, i; Milton, Comus, 59, 662; Hymn on the Nativity, II. 176-180, Vacation, 33-40; Paradise Lost, 4, 268-275; Paradise Regained, 2, 187; Lord de Tabley (Wm. Lancaster), Daphne, "All day long, In devious forest, Grove, and fountain side, The god had sought his Daphne," etc.; Lyly, King Mydas; Apollo's Song to Daphne; Frederick Tennyson, Daphne. Waller applies this story to the case of one whose amatory verses, though they did not soften the heart of his mistress, yet won for the poet widespread fame:

Yet what he sung in his immortal strain,Though unsuccessful, was not sung in vain.All but the nymph that should redress his wrong,Attend his passion and approve his song.Like Phœbus thus, acquiring unsought praise,He caught at love and filled his arms with bays.

In Art.Fig. 67, in text; Bernini's Apollo and Daphne, in the Villa Borghese, Rome (see text, opp. p.112). Painting: G. F. Watts' Daphne.

91.Illustrative.Hood, Flowers, "I will not have the mad Clytia, Whose head is turned by the sun," etc.; W. W. Story, Clytie; Mrs. A. Fields, Clytia. The so-called bust of Clytie (discovered not long ago) is possibly a representation of Isis.

93.Textual.Elis: northwestern part of the Peloponnesus.Alpheüs: a river of Elis flowing to the Mediterranean. The river Alpheüs does in fact disappear under ground, in part of its course, finding its way through subterranean channels, till it again appears on the surface. It was said that the Sicilian fountain Arethusa was the same stream, which, after passing under the sea, came up again in Sicily. Hence the story ran that a cup thrown into the Alpheüs appeared again in the Arethusa. It is, possibly, this fable of the underground course of Alpheüs that Coleridge has in mind in his dream of Kubla Khan:

In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree:Where Alph, the sacred river, ranThrough caverns measureless to man,Down to a sunless sea.

In one of Moore's juvenile poems he alludes to the practice of throwing garlands or other light objects on the stream of Alpheüs, to be carried downward by it, and afterward reproduced at its emerging, "as an offering To lay at Arethusa's feet."

The Acroceraunian Mountainsare in Epirus in the northern part of Greece. It is hardly necessary to point out that a river Arethusa arising there could not possibly be approached by an Alpheüs of the Peloponnesus. Such a criticism of Shelley's sparkling verses would however be pedantic rather than just. Probably Shelley uses the wordAcroceraunianas synonymous withsteep,dangerous. If so, he had the practice of Ovid behind him (Remedium Amoris, 739).Mount Erymanthus: between Arcadia and Achaia. TheDoriandeep: the Peloponnesus was inhabited by descendants of the fabulous Dorus.Enna: a city in the center of Sicily.Ortygia: an island on which part of the city of Syracuse is built.

Illustrative.Milton, Arcades, 30; Lycidas, 132; Margaret J. Preston, The Flight of Arethusa; Keats, Endymion, Bk. 2, "On either side out-gushed, with misty spray, A copious spring."

95.See genealogical tableEforActæon. In this myth Preller finds another allegory of the baleful influence of the dog days upon those exposed to the heat. Cox's theory that here we have large masses of cloud which, having dared to look upon the clear sky, are torn to pieces and scattered by the winds, is principally instructive as illustrating how far afield theorists have gone, and how easy it is to invent ingenious explanations.

Illustrative.Shakespeare, Merry Wives, II, i; III, ii; Titus Andronicus, II, iii; Shelley, Adonais, 31, "Midst others of less note, came one frail Form," etc., a touching allusion to himself; A. H. Clough, Actæon; L. Morris, Actæon (Epic of Hades).

96. Chios: an island in the Ægean.Lemnos: another island in the Ægean, where Vulcan had a forge.

Interpretative.The ancients were wont to glorify in fable constellations of remarkable brilliancy or form. The heavenly adventures ofOrionare sufficiently explained by the text.

Illustrative.Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 3, 31; Milton, Paradise Lost, 1, 299, "Natheless he so endured," etc.; Longfellow, Occultation of Orion; R. H. Horne, Orion; Charles Tennyson Turner, Orion (a sonnet).

97. Electra.See genealogical table I. See same table forMerope, the mother of Glaucus and grandmother of Bellerophon (155).

Illustrative.Pleiads: Milton, Paradise Lost, 7, 374; Pope, Spring, 102; Mrs. Hemans has verses on the same subject; Byron, "Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below."

In modern sculpture, The Lost Pleiad of Randolph Rogers is famous; in painting, the Pleiades of Elihu Vedder (Fig. 72, in text).

98. Mount Latmos: in Caria. Diana is sometimes calledPhœbe, the shining one. For the descendants of Endymion, the Ætolians, etc., see Table I.

Interpretative.According to the simplest explanation of theEndymionmyth, the hero is the setting sun on whom the upward rising moon delights to gaze. His fifty children by Selene would then be the fifty months of the Olympiad, or Greek period of four years. Some, however, consider him to be a personification of sleep, the king whose influence comes over one in the cool caves of Latmos, "the Mount of Oblivion"; others, the growth of vegetation under the dewy moonlight; still others, euhemeristically, a young hunter, who under the moonlight followed the chase, but in the daytime slept.

Illustrative.The Endymion of Keats. Fletcher, in the Faithful Shepherdess, tells, "How the pale Phœbe, hunting in a grove, First saw the boy Endymion," etc. Young, Night Thoughts, "So Cynthia, poets feign, In shadows veiled, ... Her shepherd cheered"; Spenser, Epithalamion, "The Latmian Shepherd," etc.; Marvel, Songs on Lord Fauconberg and the Lady Mary Cromwell (chorus, Endymion and Laura); O. W. Holmes, Metrical Essays, "And, Night's chaste empress, in her bridal play, Laughed through the foliage where Endymion lay."

Poems.Besides Keats' the most important are by Lowell, Longfellow, Clough (Epi Latmo, and Selene), T. B. Read, Buchanan, L. Morris (Epic of Hades). John Lyly's prose drama, Endymion, contains quaint and delicate songs.

In Art.Fig. 73, in text; Diana and the sleeping Endymion (Vatican).

Paintings.Carracci's fresco, Diana embracing Endymion (Farnese Palace, Rome); Guercino's Sleeping Endymion; G. F. Watts' Endymion.

100.Textual.PaphosandAmathus: towns in Cyprus, of which the former contained a temple to Venus.Cnidos(Cnidus or Gnidus): a town in Caria, where stood a famous statue of Venus, attributed to Praxiteles.Cytherea: Venus, an adjective derived from her island Cythera in the Ægean Sea.Acheron, andPersephoneorProserpine: see44-48. The wind-flower of the Greeks was of bloody hue, like that of the pomegranate. It is said the wind blows the blossoms open, and afterwards scatters the petals.

Interpretative.Among the Pœnicians Venus is known as Astarte, among the Assyrians as Istar. TheAdonisof this story is the PhœnicianAdon, or the HebrewAdonai, 'Lord.' The myth derives its origin from the Babylonian worship of Thammuz or Adon, who represents the verdure of spring, and whom his mistress, the goddess of fertility, seeks, after his death, in the lower regions.With their departure all birth and fruitage cease on the earth; but when he has been revived by sprinkling of water, and restored to his mistress and to earth, all nature again rejoices. The myth is akin to those of Linus, Hyacinthus, and Narcissus. Mannhardt (Wald-und Feld-kulte, 274), cited by Roscher, supplies the following characteristics common to such religious rites in various lands: (1) The spring is personified as a beautiful youth who is represented by an image surrounded by quickly fading flowers from the "garden of Adonis." (2) He comes in the early year and is beloved by a goddess of vegetation, goddess sometimes of the moon, sometimes of the star of Love. (3) In midsummer he dies, and during autumn and winter inhabits the underworld. (4) His burial is attended with lamentations, his resurrection with festivals. (5) These events take place in midsummer and in spring. (6) The image and theAdonisplants are thrown into water. (7) Sham marriages are celebrated between pairs of worshipers.

Illustrative.The realistic Idyl XV of Theocritus contains a typical Psalm of Adonis, sung at Alexandria, for his resurrection. Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis; Taming of the Shrew, Induction ii; 1 Henry VI, I, vi. In Milton, Comus, 998:

Beds of hyacinth and roses,Where young Adonis oft reposes,Waxing well of his deep wound,In slumber soft, and on the groundSadly sits th' Assyrian queen.

Drummond, The Statue of Adonis; Pope, Summer, 61; Winter, 24; Miscel. 7, 10; Moral Essays, 3, 73; Dunciad, 5, 202. See C. S. Calverley, Death of Adonis (Theocritus); L. Morris, Adonis (Epic of Hades).

In Art.Fig. 74, in text, from a Roman sarcophagus. The Dying Adonis, (sculpture), Michelangelo; the Adonis of Thorwaldsen in the Glyptothek, Munich.

101-102.Textual.Psychedoes not eat anything in Hades, because, by accepting the hospitality of Proserpina, she would become an inmate of her household. The scene with the lamp and knife probably indicates the infringement of some ancient matrimonial custom.Erebus: the land of darkness, Hades. ForZephyr,Acheron,Cerberus,Charon, etc., see Index.

Interpretative.The fable of Cupid and Psyche is usually regarded as allegorical. The Greek name forbutterflyis Psyche, and the same word means thesoul. There is no illustration of the immortality of the soul so striking and beautiful as that of the butterfly, bursting on brilliant wings from the tomb in which it has lain, after a dull, groveling, caterpillar existence, to flutter in the blaze of day and feed on the most fragrant and delicate productions of the spring. Psyche, then, is the human soul, which is purified by sufferings and misfortunes, and is thus prepared for the enjoyment of true and pure happiness. It is probable that the story allegorizes a philosophical conception concerningthreestages of the soul's life: first, a former existence of bliss; second, an earthly existence of trial; third, a heavenly future of fruition. Cox, by his usual method, finds here a myth of the search for the Sun (Eros) by the Dawn (Psyche). Many of the incidents of the story will be found in modern fairy tales and romances, such as Beauty andthe Beast, Grimm's Twelve Brothers; the Gaelic stories: The Three Daughters of King O'Hara; Fair, Brown, and Trembling; The Daughter of the Skies; and the Norse tale—East of the Sun and West of the Moon. See Cox 1, 403-411.

Illustrative.Thomas Moore, Cupid and Psyche; Mrs. Browning, Psyche, Paraphrase on Apuleius; L. Morris, in The Epic of Hades; Frederick Tennyson, Psyche; Robert Bridges, Eros and Psyche. Most important is W. H. Pater's Marius the Epicurean, which contains the story as given by Apuleius.

In Art.Psyche is represented as a maiden with the wings of a butterfly, in the different situations described in the allegory. The Græco-Roman sculpture of Cupid and Psyche, in the Capitol at Rome, is of surpassing beauty; so also is Canova's Cupid and Psyche.

Paintings.Raphael's frescoes in the Farnesina Villa, twelve in number, illustrating the story; François Gérard's Cupid and Psyche; Paul Thumann's nine illustrations of the story (see Figs. 75, 76, in text); R. Beyschlag's Psyche with the Urn, Psyche Grieving, and Psyche and Pan; W. Kray's Psyche and Zephyr; Psyche: by A. de Curzon; by G. F. Watts, a series of three illustrations by H. Bates. The Charon and Psyche of E. Neide is a sentimental, simpering conception. A. Zick also has a Psyche.

103.According to another tradition,Atalanta'slove was Milanion. The nuptial vow was ratified by Hera (Juno). This, the Bœotian, Atalanta is sometimes identified with the Arcadian Atalanta of the Calydonian Hunt. (See168and Table D). It is better to discriminate between them. The genealogy of this Atalanta will be seen in Tables G and I.

Illustrative.W. Morris, Atalanta's Race (Earthly Paradise); Moore, Rhymes on the Road, on Alpine Scenery,—an allusion to Hippomenes.

In Art.Painting by E. J. Poynter, Atalanta's Race (Fig. 78, in text); and Guido Reni's brilliant picture of the same subject.

104.TextualandIllustrative.The story ofHero and Leanderis the subject of a romantic poem by Musæus, a grammarian of Alexandria, who lived in the fifth centuryA.D.This author, in distinction from the mythical poet of the same name, is styled the Pseudo-Musæus. Theepyllionhas been translated by Sir Robert Stapylton, Sir Edwin Arnold, and others. The feat of swimming the Hellespont was performed by Lord Byron. The distance in the narrowest part is not more than a mile, but there is a constant dangerous current setting out from the Sea of Marmora into the Archipelago. For an allusion to the story see Byron, Bride of Abydos, Canto II. For Byron's statement concerning the breadth of the water see footnote to "Stanzas written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos."

Poems.Hero and Leander: by Leigh Hunt, by Tom Hood, by Moore; sonnet by D. G. Rossetti, Hero's Lamp (House of Life); a poem not in later editions of Tennyson, Hero to Leander, 1830; Chapman's continuation of Marlowe's Hero and Leander.

Paintings.G. von Bodenhausen; F. Keller (Fig. 79, in text).

105.Interpretative.Another illustration of the vivifying influence of love. Preller deems Pygmalion's story nearly akin to the Adonis myth. He regardsthe festival of Venus, during which the statue of Galatea (or passive love) receives life, as the usual Adonis-festival.

Table G. The Connections of Atalanta the Bœotian

Illustrative.Thomson, Castle of Indolence, 2, 12; R. Buchanan, Pygmalion the Sculptor; Morris, and Lang, as in text; Pygmalion: by T. L. Beddoes, by W. C. Bennett. The seventeenth-century satirist, Marston, wrote a Pygmalion, of no great worth. Frederick Tennyson, Pygmalion (in Daphne and other Poems); Arthur Henry Hallam, Lines spoken in the Character of Pygmalion; Thomas Woolner, Pygmalion.

In Art.The Pygmalion series of four scenes, by E. Burne-Jones.

106.Textual.Semiramis: wife of King Ninus and the queen of Assyria. Famous for her administrative and military ability. A mythical character with features of historic probability.

Illustrative.Chaucer, Thisbe, the Martyr of Babylon (Legende of Good Women). Allusions in Surrey, Of the Death of Sir Thomas Wyatt; Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, III, ii; V, i; Merchant of Venice, V, i. Moore, in the Sylph's Ball, draws a comparison between Thisbe's wall and the gauze of Davy's safety lamp. Mickle's translation of the Lusiad (Island of Love).

In Art.Burne-Jones' three paintings, Cupid, Pyramus, and Thisbe (Fig. 80, in text); E. J. Paupion's painting, Thisbe.

107.Textual.LesbosandChios: islands in the Ægean. ForSapphosee298(3).

Illustrative.The second lyric of Sappho, beginning "Like to the gods he seems to me, The man that sits reclined by thee," has been translated by Phillips, by Fawkes, and by recent poets. The reference is probably to Phaon. Allusions in Pope, Moral Essays, 3, 121; 2, 24; Prologue to Satires, 309, 101; Byron's Isles of Greece, already referred to. Compare the translation in Catullus, LI.

Poemson Sappho or on Phaon: Charles Kingsley, Sappho; Buchanan, Sappho on the Leucadian Rock; Landor,—Sappho, Alcæus, Anacreon, and Phaon; Frederick Tennyson, Kleïs or the Return (in the Isles of Greece). See also Lyly's amusing prose drama, Sappho and Phao.

109.Textual.Mount Cyllene: between Arcadia and Achæa.Pierian Mountains: in Macedonia, directly north of Thessaly; the birthplace of the Muses.Pylos: an ancient city of Elis.

Interpretative.On the supposition that the herds of Apollo are the bright rays of the sun, a plausible physical explanation of the relations ofMercury(Hermes) to Apollo is the following from Max Müller: "Hermes is the god of the twilight, who betrays his equivocal nature by stealing, though only in fun, the herds of Apollo, but restoring them without the violent combat that (in the analogous Indian story) is waged for the herds between Indra, the bright god, and Vala, the robber. In India the dawn brings the light; in Greece the twilight itself is supposed to have stolen it, or to hold back the light, and Hermes, the twilight, surrenders the booty when challenged by the sun-god Apollo" (Lect. on Lang., 2 Ser., 521-522). Hermes is connected by Professor Müller with the Vedic godSarameya, son of the twilight. Mercury, or Hermes, as morning or as eveningtwilight, loves the Dew, is herald of the gods, is spy of the night, is sender of sleep and dreams, is accompanied by the cock, herald of dawn, is the guide of the departed on their last journey. To the conception of twilight, Cox adds that ofmotion, and explains Hermes as theair in motionthat springs up with the dawn, gains rapidly in force, sweeps before it theclouds(here the cattle of Apollo), makes soft music through the trees (lyre), etc. Other theorists make Hermes the Divine Activity, the god of the ether, of clouds, of storm, etc. Though the explanations of Professor Müller and the Rev. Sir G. W. Cox are more satisfactory here than usual, Roscher'sthe swift windis scientifically preferable.

Illustrative.See Shelley, Homeric Hymn to Mercury, on which the text of this section is based, and passages in Prometheus Unbound; Keats, Ode to Maia.

In Art.The intent of the disguise in Fig. 81 (text) is to deceive Demeter with a sham sacrifice.

110-112.Textual.See Table E, for Bacchus, Pentheus, etc.Nysa"has been identified as a mountain in Thrace, in Bœotia, in Arabia, India, Libya; and Naxos, as a town in Caria or the Caucasus, and as an island in the Nile."Thebes: the capital of Bœotia.Mæonia: Lydia, in Asia Minor.Dia: Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades Islands in the Ægean.Mount Cithæron: in Bœotia. TheThyrsuswas a wand, wreathed with ivy and surmounted by a pine cone, carried by Bacchus and his votaries.MænadsandBacchanteswere female followers of Bacchus.Bacchanalis a general term for his devotees.

Interpretative."Bacchus(Dionysus) is regarded by many as thespiritual formof the new vernal life, the sap and pulse of vegetation and of the new-born year, especially as manifest in the vine and juice of the grape."—Lang, Myth, Ritual, etc., 2, 221 (from Preller 1, 554). TheHyades(rain-stars), that nurtured the deity, perhaps symbolize the rains that nourish sprouting vegetation. He became identified very soon with thespirituous effectsof the vine. His sufferings may typify the "ruin of the summer year at the hands of storm and winter," or, perhaps, the agony of the bleeding grapes in the wine press. The orgies would, according to this theory, be a survival of the ungoverned actions of savages when celebrating a festival in honor of the deity of plenty, of harvest home, and of intoxication. But in cultivated Greece, Dionysus, in spite of the surviving orgiastic ceremonies, is a poetic incarnation of blithe, changeable, spirited youth. See Lang, Myth, Ritual, etc., 2, 221-241. ThatRheataught him would account for the Oriental nature of his rites; for Rhea is an Eastern deity by origin. The opposition ofPentheuswould indicate the reluctance with which the Greeks adopted his doctrine and ceremonial. The Dionysiac worship came from Thrace, a barbarous clime;—but wandering, like the springtide, over the earth, Bacchus conquered each nation in turn. It is probable that the Dionysus-Iacchus cult was one of evangelical enthusiasm and individual cleansing from sin, of ideals in this life and of personal immortality in the next. By introducing it into Greece, Pisistratus reformed the exclusive ritual of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Of theFestivals of Dionysus, the more important in Attica were the Lesser Dionysia, in December; the Lenæa, in January; the Anthesteria, or spring festival,in February; and the Great Dionysia, in March. These all, in greater or less degree, witnessed of the culture and the glories of the vine, and of the reawakening of the spirits of vegetation. They were celebrated, as the case might be, with a sacrifice of a victim in reminiscence of the blood by which the spirits of the departed were supposed to be nourished, with processions of women, profusion of flowers, orgiastic songs and dances, or dramatic representations.

Illustrative.Bacchus: Milton, Comus, 46.Pentheus: Landor, The Last Fruit of an Old Tree; H. H. Milman, The Bacchanals of Euripides; Calverley's and Lang's translations of Theocritus, Idyl XXVI; Thomas Love Peacock, Rhododaphne: The Vengeance of Bacchus; B. W. Procter, Bacchanalian Song.Naxos: Milton, Paradise Lost, 4, 275.

In Art.Figs. 31, 82-87, 143, in text.

113.Textual.Hesperides, see Index.River Pactolus: in Lydia.Midas: the son of one Gordius, who from a farmer had become king of Phrygia, because he happened to fulfill a prophecy by entering the public square of some city just as the people were casting about for a king. He tied his wagon in the temple of the prophetic deity with the celebratedGordian Knot, which none but the future lord of Asia might undo. Alexander the Great undid the knot with his sword.

Interpretative.An ingenious, but not highly probable, theory explains the golden touch of Midas as the rising sun that gilds all things, and his bathing in Pactolus as the quenching of the sun's splendor in the western ocean.Midasis fabled to have been the son of the "great mother," Cybele, whose worship in Phrygia was closely related to that of Bacchus or Dionysus. TheSileniwere there regarded as tutelarygeniiof the rivers and springs, promoting fertility of the soil.Marsyas, an inspired musician in the service of Cybele, was naturally associated in fable with Midas. The ass being the favorite animal of Silenus, the ass's ears of Midas merely symbolize his fondness for and devotion to such habits as were attributed to the Sileni. The ass, by the way, was reverenced in Phrygia; the acquisition of ass's ears may therefore have been originally a glory, not a disgrace.

Illustrative.John Lyly, Play of Mydas, especially the song, "Sing to Apollo, god of day"; Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, III, ii (casket scene); Pope, Dunciad, 3, 342; Prologue to Satires, 82; Swift, The Fable of Midas; J. G. Saxe, The Choice of King Midas (a travesty).Gordian Knot: Henry V, I, i; Cymbeline, II, ii; Milton, Paradise Lost, 4, 348; Vacation, 90.Pactolus: Pope, Spring, 61; allusions also to the sisters of Phaëthon.Silenus, by W. S. Landor.

114-117.Textual.Mount Eryx, the vale ofEnna, andCyaneare in Sicily.Eleusis: in Attica. ForArethusasee Index.

Interpretative.The Italian goddess Ceres assumed the attributes of the Greek Demeter in 496 B.C. Proserpine signifies the seed-corn which, when cast into the ground, lies there concealed,—is carried off by the god of the underworld; when the corn reappears, Proserpine is restored to her mother. Spring leads her back to the light of day. The following, from Aubrey De Vere's Introduction to his Search for Proserpine, is suggestive: "Of all the beautiful fictions of Greek Mythology, there are few more exquisite than the story of Proserpine, andnone deeper in symbolical meaning. Considering the fable with reference to the physical world, Bacon says, in his Wisdom of the Ancients, that by the Rape of Proserpine is signified the disappearance of flowers at the end of the year, when the vital juices are, as it were, drawn down to the central darkness, and held there in bondage. Following up this view of the subject, the Search of her Mother, sad and unavailing as it was, would seem no unfit emblem of Autumn and the restless melancholy of the season; while the hope with which the Goddess was finally cheered may perhaps remind us of that unexpected return of fine weather which occurs so frequently, like an omen of Spring, just before Winter closes in. The fable has, however, its moral significance also, being connected with that great mystery of Joy and Grief, of Life and Death, which pressed so heavily on the mind of Pagan Greece, and imparts to the whole of her mythology a profound interest, spiritual as well as philosophical. It was the restoration of Man, not of flowers, the victory over Death, not over Winter, with which that high Intelligence felt itself to be really concerned." In Greece two kinds ofFestivals, theEleusiniaand theThesmophoria, were held in honor of Demeter and Persephone. The former was divided into the lesser, celebrated in February, and the greater (lasting nine days), in September. Distinction must be made between the Festivals and the Mysteries of Eleusis. In the Festivals all classes might participate. Those of the Spring represented the restoration of Persephone to her mother; those of the Autumn the rape of Persephone. An image of the youthful Iacchus (Bacchus) headed the procession in its march toward Eleusis. At that place and in the neighborhood were enacted in realistic fashion the wanderings and the sufferings of Demeter, the scenes in the house of Celeus, and finally the successful conclusion of the search for Persephone. TheMysteriesof Eleusis were witnessed only by the initiated, and were invested with a veil of secrecy which has never been fully withdrawn. The initiates passed through certain symbolic ceremonies from one degree of mystic enlightenment to another till the highest was attained. The Lesser Mysteries were an introduction to the Greater; and it is known that the rites involved partook of the nature of purification from passion, crime, and the various degradations of human existence. By pious contemplation of the dramatic scenes presenting the sorrows of Demeter, and by participation in sacramental rites, it is probable that the initiated were instructed in the nature of life and death, and consoled with the hope of immortality (Preller). On the development of the Eleusinian Mysteries from the savage to the civilized ceremonial, see Lang, Myth, Ritual, etc., 2, 275, and Lobeck, Aglaophamus, 133.

TheThesmophoriawere celebrated by married women in honor of Ceres (Demeter), and referred to institutions of married life.

That Proserpine should be under bonds to the underworld because she had partaken of food in Hades accords with a superstition not peculiar to the Greeks, but to be "found in New Zealand, Melanesia, Scotland, Finland, and among the Ojibbeways" (Lang, Myth, Ritual, etc., 2, 273).

Illustrative.Aubrey De Vere, as above; B. W. Procter, The Rape of Proserpine; R. H. Stoddard, The Search for Persephone; G. Meredith, The Appeasementof Demeter; Tennyson, Demeter and Persephone; Dora Greenwell, Demeter and Cora; T. L. Beddoes, Song of the Stygian Naiades; A. C. Swinburne, Song to Proserpine. See also notes under Persephone,44, Demeter and Pluto.Eleusis: Schiller, Festival of Eleusis, translated by N. L. Frothingham; At Eleusis, by Swinburne. See, for poetical reference, Milton, Paradise Lost, 4, 269, "Not that fair field Of Enna," etc.; Hood, Ode to Melancholy:

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