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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
In *The Age of Fable*, Thomas Bulfinch presents a compelling synthesis of classical mythology and modern thought, elegantly weaving together tales from Greek, Roman, and Norse traditions. Bulfinch's writing style is both accessible and erudite, employing a narrative that transforms complex mythological themes into digestible and engaging stories. Set against the backdrop of the 19th-century cultural landscape, where Enlightenment ideals and burgeoning Romanticism clash, this work serves as a bridge connecting ancient wisdom with contemporary philosophical discourse, affirming the timeless relevance of myth in human experience. Thomas Bulfinch, an American author and scholar, was deeply influenced by his upbringing in a family of intellectuals and his education at Harvard. His passion for classical literature and history, coupled with a desire to make these stories accessible to a wider audience, propelled him to compile and adapt these myths into a cohesive volume. Through his meticulous research and keen insight, Bulfinch illuminated the connection between ancient myths and living culture, enriching the literary canon. *The Age of Fable* is an indispensable read for anyone interested in the intersection of mythology and literature, inviting readers to immerse themselves in the rich tapestry of human storytelling. Whether you are a scholar, a student, or simply a lover of literature, Bulfinch's masterful retelling of these age-old tales offers a profound understanding of their enduring legacy. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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The Age of Fable
Table of Contents
Introduction
Myths endure when a patient guide translates the marvels and terrors of antiquity into clear, companionable speech, revealing how stories once told beside fires and in marketplaces still light modern imaginations, clarify the language of poets, name our aspirations and fears, and show, with a steady hand and unfussy elegance, that the gods and heroes who strode across ancient shores now wander through our books and conversations, their adventures pared to essentials, their meanings gently drawn forth, so that the distance between temple and classroom, amphitheater and armchair, becomes a single, inviting path for curious readers to walk.
Thomas Bulfinch’s The Age of Fable; or, Stories of Gods and Heroes appeared in 1855, the first installment of what later became known collectively as Bulfinch’s Mythology. Written by an American author and educator of the nineteenth century, it belongs to the genre of literary retellings and popular reference, rather than academic scholarship. The work presents classical mythology—especially Greek and Roman traditions—to an English-speaking audience in the mid-nineteenth century United States. Its publication context matters: it addresses readers for whom ancient epics, dramas, and odes were important cultural touchstones, yet often required a reliable, accessible intermediary to make their allusions intelligible.
The premise is straightforward and inviting: Bulfinch recounts the principal tales of gods and heroes in lucid prose, then situates them within the broader fabric of English-language literature. The experience is part narrative, part handbook, offering self-contained episodes arranged by figures and themes. The voice is decorous and instructive without pedantry, aiming for clarity over exhaustive detail. Rather than reconstructing ritual or linguistic roots, it presents polished stories, followed by illustrative references to poets and storytellers who have reused these materials. The mood is companionable and confident, encouraging readers to enjoy the drama while noticing how myth threads through later art.
Key themes arise naturally from this approach. The book underscores how myth explains the world through personification and story, turning forces of nature, moral dilemmas, and social bonds into memorable characters and episodes. It invites reflection on the endurance of cultural memory: why certain figures recur, how they change in new hands, and what their transformations reveal about taste and values. It also foregrounds the tension between instruction and delight; the term fable suggests usefulness as well as wonder. Readers encounter questions about fate, identity, ambition, love, and transgression framed not as doctrine but as narratives that invite interpretation.
Bulfinch’s method favors literary accessibility. He draws on widely known classical sources and their translations, shaping the material into orderly chapters and coupling the tales with references to later writers who allude to them. His editorial stance is that of a courteous mediator: he streamlines plots, clarifies relations among figures, and at times adapts details to the sensibilities of his intended nineteenth-century audience. The result is not a treatise on ancient religion or a comparative study, but a reader’s guide to stories and their afterlives in literature. This framework helps newcomers connect names, symbols, and episodes to familiar poems and narratives.
For contemporary readers, the book’s relevance is twofold. First, it offers an efficient foundation for recognizing mythic allusions across literature, visual art, and popular culture, where these narratives still function as shared shorthand. Second, it models how retelling mediates tradition: editorial choices about emphasis, omission, and tone inevitably shape what later audiences think myths mean. Approaching the work with that awareness encourages a productive double vision—enjoying the stories on their own terms while noticing the nineteenth-century perspective that organizes them. In doing so, readers gain tools not only for appreciation but also for critical reflection on cultural transmission.
To read The Age of Fable is to enter a curated gallery of ancient narratives arranged for ease, continuity, and delight, where the guide’s aim is comprehension and connection rather than controversy. It can be browsed for particular figures or read sequentially to trace motifs as they recur and evolve. The prose invites steady progress, the explanations illuminate without overwhelming, and the overall design encourages exploration beyond its pages. As an introduction to classical mythology’s narrative riches and to their long afterlife in literature, it offers a hospitable doorway—one that remains open to any reader curious about how old stories keep speaking to new times.
Synopsis
The Age of Fable, also published as Stories of Gods and Heroes, is Thomas Bulfinch’s accessible compendium of mythology intended for the general reader. He states the book’s purpose plainly: to furnish the classical and mythological knowledge needed to enjoy poetry, art, and polite literature. Organized as a sequence of brief chapters, it retells prominent myths chiefly from Greek and Roman sources, with frequent citations from English and continental poets to show how those stories reappear in modern verse. Bulfinch avoids philological debate, privileging clear narrative, recognizable names, and practical references, and arranges the materials so that the major gods, tales, and heroic cycles unfold coherently.
After the introduction, Bulfinch outlines the Greco-Roman pantheon. He presents the Olympian order—Jupiter and Juno, Minerva, Neptune, Mars, Venus, Apollo and Diana, Mercury, and Vulcan—alongside their attributes, offices, and Roman equivalents. He sketches older powers such as Saturn and the Titans, and personifications like the Graces, Muses, and Fates. Brief descriptions of sacred emblems, animals, and festivals explain how each deity figures in literature and art. The aim is practical identification: readers learn who presides over sea, war, marriage, wisdom, and song, and how myths of divine family relations supply the framework for later episodes of rivalry, favor, jealousy, and reward.
Early chapters recount foundational and transformative tales that set patterns for later stories. Accounts of Prometheus, Pandora, and the Deluge introduce themes of human origin, gift, transgression, and renewal. Short narratives from Ovid describe metamorphoses that link natural features to mythic events: Apollo and Daphne, Io, Callisto, Phaethon, and Midas explain laurel, heifer, constellations, the scorched earth, and golden touch. Episodes of Bacchus, Proserpine, and Ceres connect seasonal change and rites. Throughout, Bulfinch supplies poetical excerpts as examples of later usage, while keeping the incidents succinct, emphasizing the circumstances, agents, and outcomes without extended analysis of ritual or comparative belief.
Bulfinch continues with compact retellings of moral and domestic narratives that display divine justice and favor. Stories such as Pyramus and Thisbe, Cupid and Psyche, Orpheus and Eurydice, and Pygmalion portray love, loss, and transformation. Others—Arachne, Niobe, Baucis and Philemon, and Vertumnus and Pomona—illustrate punishment for pride, reward for piety, and the intimacy of gods with rural life. Figures like Echo and Narcissus account for familiar words and motifs. Each vignette is framed to highlight essential incidents and their emblematic meanings, accompanied by illustrative lines from poets who adapted them, demonstrating how these episodes furnish images and comparisons in later literature.
The focus then shifts to legendary heroes whose exploits structure larger cycles. Perseus’s slaying of Medusa, Bellerophon’s conquest of the Chimera with Pegasus, and Theseus’s adventures in Crete mark the transition from divine myth to heroic saga. The labors of Hercules present a catalog of feats against monsters and challenges that recur in art. The Calydonian boar hunt brings together Meleager, Atalanta, and regional champions. Jason’s voyage for the Golden Fleece gathers the Argonauts, a roster of Greek heroes whose cooperative quest establishes patterns for later narratives of expedition. Bulfinch keeps the sequence straightforward, noting essential companions, ordeals, and outcomes.
A Theban strand outlines Cadmus’s founding of Thebes, the dragon’s teeth, and the later fate of Oedipus and his house, furnishing background for recurring tragic references. The narrative then turns to the Trojan cycle: the judgment of Paris, the abduction of Helen, and the gathering of Greek leaders frame the conflict. Summaries of principal episodes emphasize Achilles, Hector, and the stratagems and duels that define the war’s course. Bulfinch condenses material from Homer and later poets to give readers the names, alliances, and symbolic episodes they will encounter in poetry, without lingering on textual debates or variant national traditions.
After the war, the homeward voyages supply further exempla. Odysseus’s encounters with Cyclopes, Circe, Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and other marvels are briefly sketched to mark their sequence and function. From Troy’s fall, the narrative follows Aeneas through storms, hospitality, and underworld vision to the Italian contests that prefigure Roman destiny. Bulfinch shows how Roman names, rites, and places absorb Greek materials, then adds foundational legends such as Evander, the Alba line, and Romulus and Remus. A concise account of later Roman heroes and festivals clarifies how myth intersects with early history and civic ceremony in Latin literature.
Beyond the classical sphere, Bulfinch appends concise surveys of other traditions for comparative breadth. Notably, the Norse materials introduce Odin, Thor, Freya, Loki, the giants and dwarfs, and the cosmology that culminates in Ragnarok, with episodes such as the theft of Thor’s hammer and the death of Balder illustrating the tone of the Northern myths. Brief notices touch on Celtic druidic lore and selected Egyptian and Eastern stories, identifying principal deities and symbols rather than exhaustive systems. These chapters offer readers a vocabulary of names and images that appear in English poetry and prose outside the Greco-Roman canon.
The closing sections collect explanations for constellations and natural features—Orion, the Pleiades, Argo, and others—along with catalogues of nymphs, satyrs, and personified abstractions that populate pastoral verse. Throughout, Bulfinch integrates short extracts from Milton, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, and contemporaries to demonstrate practical application. The book’s organizing principle remains constant: clear, succinct retellings placed in useful order, equipping readers to recognize allusions without technical study. The overall message is instructional rather than argumentative: myth is a shared cultural language. By presenting its figures and episodes in orderly sequence, The Age of Fable enables efficient reference while preserving the narratives’ essential outlines.
Historical Context
The Age of Fable does not unfold in a single, continuous setting; it assembles narratives whose imagined geographies and periods range across the ancient Mediterranean and northern Europe. Its Greek and Roman tales point to the archaic and classical Greek world (roughly the 8th–5th centuries BCE) and to Rome of the late Republic and early Empire (1st century BCE–1st century CE), invoking locales such as Olympus, Athens, Thebes, Troy, Sicily, and Latium. Its “Northern” selections draw on medieval Scandinavian sources for older Germanic myths. Although it recounts antiquity, the compilation itself belongs to mid-19th-century Boston, where Thomas Bulfinch (1796–1867) organized these materials for modern American readers and classrooms.
Thomas Bulfinch’s formation occurred amid the early American republic’s classicizing public culture. His father, Charles Bulfinch (1763–1844), was a leading neoclassical architect who designed the Massachusetts State House in Boston (completed 1798) and, as Architect of the Capitol in Washington, oversaw reconstruction and expansion of the United States Capitol from 1818 to 1829 after the British burning of public buildings in 1814. Growing up in Newton and Boston, Harvard-educated Thomas inhabited spaces where Greek and Roman forms symbolized civic virtue. The Age of Fable (1855) translates that civic classicism into narrative: by presenting gods and heroes clearly, it equips citizens to read the symbols carved into their courthouses, statehouses, and monuments.
The Common School movement reshaped education in Massachusetts and beyond in the decades before The Age of Fable. The state created a Board of Education in 1837, appointing Horace Mann (1796–1859) as its first secretary (1837–1848), and opened the nation’s first public normal school at Lexington in 1839, followed by Bridgewater (1840) and Westfield (1844). Standardized readers and reference books—such as McGuffey’s Readers (first volumes, 1836–1837)—proliferated in an expanding market for school texts. Bulfinch wrote in lucid English to match this pedagogy, advertising his book as a practical aid to readers of poetry, painting, and opera who lacked Greek or Latin. The work’s organization and summaries mirror classroom needs and the era’s drive for accessible cultural capital.
The religious temper of the early nineteenth century also shaped Bulfinch’s approach. The Second Great Awakening (c. 1790s–1840s) spread evangelical revivalism, moral reform societies, and Sunday-school networks across the United States, while Boston’s influential Unitarian circles formed the American Unitarian Association in 1825, promoting a rational, decorous faith. In that environment, pagan mythology required careful framing. Bulfinch repeatedly presents the myths as poetic heritage, not belief, softening violent or erotic details and adding moral commentary. By doing so, he made pre-Christian stories acceptable to Protestant households and schools, a strategy that reflects the era’s negotiation between religious scruple and the desire for classical knowledge in a self-improving republic.
Transatlantic philhellenism, intensified by the Greek War of Independence (1821–1830), flooded America with images of Hellenic heroism and suffering. Committees in Boston and New York raised funds and supplies; the American physician Samuel Gridley Howe sailed to Greece in 1824 to aid insurgents; the combined British-French-Russian fleet destroyed the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino (1827); and the London Protocol (1830) recognized a sovereign Greek state. In the United States, Greek Revival architecture dominated civic construction in the 1820s–1840s. The Age of Fable, focused on Greek gods and heroes, aligned with this political sympathy and visual culture, supplying narratives that matched the columned facades and public oratory celebrating liberty in classical terms.
The lyceum and lecture movement created a nationwide appetite for digestible knowledge. Beginning with Josiah Holbrook’s Millbury, Massachusetts, lyceum in 1826, hundreds of local societies formed by the 1830s, hosting talks on science, history, and the arts that often invoked classical examples. Simultaneously, a maturing publishing industry—Harper & Brothers in New York (founded 1817), and Boston houses such as Ticknor and Fields (from 1832)—perfected inexpensive, durable editions for middle-class readers. Bulfinch’s 1855 volume fit these circuits. It could be purchased cheaply, carried to lectures, and consulted when listening to an oration or attending an opera like Gluck’s Orfeo. The book functioned as a portable encyclopedia for public culture rooted in antiquity.
Developments in museums and archaeology heightened public curiosity about antiquity’s images and artifacts. The British Museum’s acquisition of the Parthenon sculptures—purchased by Parliament in 1816 and displayed from 1817—sparked debates about Greek art that crossed the Atlantic. Excavations at Pompeii, begun in 1748 and vigorously pursued in the early nineteenth century under the Bourbon kingdom of Naples, furnished vivid scenes of ancient life. In the United States, the Boston Athenaeum opened an art gallery in 1827 and later acquired plaster casts of classical sculpture; the Smithsonian Institution was chartered in 1846. Bulfinch’s frequent references to paintings and statuary presume such viewing publics, pairing myth summaries with cues to recognize subjects in galleries and public halls.
While not polemical, The Age of Fable operates as a quiet social critique of mid-nineteenth-century America. By translating elite classical learning into plain English and inexpensive print, it challenges the exclusivity of a college-bound curriculum and redistributes cultural capital across class and gender lines amid ongoing common-school debates. In a decade strained by nativism (the Know-Nothing surge of 1854–1856) and sectional rancor, its cosmopolitan reach—embracing Greek, Roman, and Northern myths—argues for a shared civic vocabulary larger than partisan or sectarian identities. Its tactful moral framing of pagan lore exposes the era’s anxiety about taste and virtue, yet insists that the republic can master antiquity without surrendering to superstition.
The Age of Fable
STORIES OF GODS AND HEROES
I. Introduction II. Prometheus and Pandora III. Apollo and Daphne—Pyramus and Thisbe—Cephalus and Procris IV. Juno and her Rivals, Io and Callisto—Diana and Actaeon —Latona and the Rustics V. Phaeton VI. Midas—Baucis and Philemon VII. Proserpine—Glaucus and Scylla VIII. Pygmalion—Dryope—Venus and Adonis—Apollo and Hyacinthus IX. Ceyx and Halcyone X. Vertumnus and Pomona—Iphis and Anaxarete XI. Cupid and Psyche XII. Cadmus—The Myrmidons XIII. Nisus and Scylla—Echo and Narcissus—Clytie—Hero and Leander XIV. Minerva and Arachne—Niobe XV. The Graeae and Gorgons—Perseus and Medusa—Atlas—Andromeda XVI. Monsters: Giants—Sphinx—Pegasus and Chimaera—Centaurs —Griffin—Pygmies XVII. The Golden Fleece—Medea XVIII. Meleager and Atalanta XIX. Hercules—Hebe and Ganymede XX. Theseus and Daedalus—Castor and Pollux—Festivals and Games XXI. Bacchus and Ariadne XXII. The Rural Deities—The Dryads and Erisichthon —Rhoecus—Water Deities—Camenae—Winds XXIII. Achelous and Hercules—Admetus and Alcestis—Antigone—Penelope XXIV. Orpheus and Eurydice—Aristaeus—Amphion—Linus —Thamyris—Marsyas—Melampus—Musaeus XXV. Arion—Ibycus—Simonides—Sappho XXVI. Endymion—Orion—Aurora and Tithonus—Acis and Galatea XXVII. The Trojan War XXVIII. The Fall of Troy—Return of the Greeks—Orestes and Electra XXIX. Adventures of Ulysses—The Lotus-eaters—The Cyclopes —Circe—Sirens—Scylla and Charybdis—Calypso XXX. The Phaeacians—Fate of the Suitors XXXI. Adventures of Aeneas—The Harpies—Dido—Palinurus XXXII. The Infernal Regions—The Sibyl XXXIII. Aeneas in Italy—Camilla—Evander—Nisus and Euryalus —Mezentius—Turnus XXXIV. Pythagoras—Egyptian Deities—Oracles XXXV. Origin of Mythology—Statues of Gods and Goddesses —Poets of Mythology XXXVI. Monsters (modern)—The Phoenix—Basilisk—Unicorn—Salamander XXXVII. Eastern Mythology—Zoroaster—Hindu Mythology—Castes—Buddha —The Grand Lama—Prester John XXXVIII. Northern Mythology—Valhalla—The Valkyrior XXXIX. Thor's Visit to Jotunheim XL. The Death of Baldur—The Elves—Runic Letters—Skalds—Iceland —Teutonic Mythology—The Nibelungen Lied —Wagner's Nibelungen Ring XLI. The Druids—Iona
GLOSSARY
STORIES OF GODS AND HEROES
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The religions of ancient Greece and Rome are extinct.[1q] The so- called divinities of Olympus have not a single worshipper among living men. They belong now not to the department of theology, but to those of literature and taste. There they still hold their place, and will continue to hold it, for they are too closely connected with the finest productions of poetry and art, both ancient and modern, to pass into oblivion.
We propose to tell the stories relating to them which have come down to us from the ancients, and which are alluded to by modern poets, essayists, and orators. Our readers may thus at the same time be entertained by the most charming fictions which fancy has ever created, and put in possession of information indispensable to every one who would read with intelligence the elegant literature of his own day.
In order to understand these stories, it will be necessary to acquaint ourselves with the ideas of the structure of the universe which prevailed among the Greeks—the people from whom the Romans, and other nations through them, received their science and religion.
The Greeks believed the earth to be flat and circular, their own country occupying the middle of it, the central point being either Mount Olympus, the abode of the gods, or Delphi, so famous for its oracle.
The circular disk of the earth was crossed from west to east and divided into two equal parts by the Sea, as they called the Mediterranean, and its continuation the Euxine, the only seas with which they were acquainted.
Around the earth flowed the River Ocean, its course being from south to north on the western side of the earth, and in a contrary direction on the eastern side. It flowed in a steady, equable current, unvexed by storm or tempest. The sea, and all the rivers on earth, received their waters from it.
The northern portion of the earth was supposed to be inhabited by a happy race named the Hyperboreans, dwelling in everlasting bliss and spring beyond the lofty mountains whose caverns were supposed to send forth the piercing blasts of the north wind, which chilled the people of Hellas (Greece). Their country was inaccessible by land or sea. They lived exempt from disease or old age, from toils and warfare. Moore has given us the "Song of a Hyperborean," beginning
"I come from a land in the sun-bright deep, Where golden gardens glow, Where the winds of the north, becalmed in sleep, Their conch shells never blow."
On the south side of the earth, close to the stream of Ocean, dwelt a people happy and virtuous as the Hyperboreans. They were named the Aethiopians. The gods favored them so highly that they were wont to leave at times their Olympian abodes and go to share their sacrifices and banquets.
On the western margin of the earth, by the stream of Ocean, lay a happy place named the Elysian Plain[1], whither mortals favored by the gods were transported without tasting of death, to enjoy an immortality of bliss. This happy region was also called the "Fortunate Fields," and the "Isles of the Blessed."
We thus see that the Greeks of the early ages knew little of any real people except those to the east and south of their own country, or near the coast of the Mediterranean. Their imagination meantime peopled the western portion of this sea with giants, monsters, and enchantresses; while they placed around the disk of the earth, which they probably regarded as of no great width, nations enjoying the peculiar favor of the gods, and blessed with happiness and longevity.
The Dawn, the Sun, and the Moon were supposed to rise out of the Ocean, on the eastern side, and to drive through the air, giving light to gods and men. The stars, also, except those forming the Wain or Bear, and others near them, rose out of and sank into the stream of Ocean. There the sun-god embarked in a winged boat, which conveyed him round by the northern part of the earth, back to his place of rising in the east. Milton alludes to this in his "Comus":
"Now the gilded car of day His golden axle doth allay In the steep Atlantic stream, And the slope Sun his upward beam Shoots against the dusky pole, Pacing towards the other goal Of his chamber in the east"
The abode of the gods was on the summit of Mount Olympus, in Thessaly. A gate of clouds, kept by the goddesses named the Seasons, opened to permit the passage of the Celestials to earth, and to receive them on their return. The gods had their separate dwellings; but all, when summoned, repaired to the palace of Jupiter, as did also those deities whose usual abode was the earth, the waters, or the underworld. It was also in the great hall of the palace of the Olympian king that the gods feasted each day on ambrosia and nectar[2], their food and drink, the latter being handed round by the lovely goddess Hebe. Here they conversed of the affairs of heaven and earth; and as they quaffed their nectar, Apollo, the god of music, delighted them with the tones of his lyre, to which the Muses sang in responsive strains. When the sun was set, the gods retired to sleep in their respective dwellings.
The following lines from the "Odyssey" will show how Homer conceived of Olympus:
"So saying, Minerva, goddess azure-eyed, Rose to Olympus, the reputed seat Eternal of the gods, which never storms Disturb, rains drench, or snow invades, but calm The expanse and cloudless shmes with purest day. There the inhabitants divine rejoice Forever"—Cowper.
The robes and other parts of the dress of the goddesses were woven by Minerva and the Graces and everything of a more solid nature was formed of the various metals. Vulcan was architect, smith, armorer, chariot builder, and artist of all work in Olympus. He built of brass the houses of the gods; he made for them the golden shoes with which they trod the air or the water, and moved from place to place with the speed of the wind, or even of thought. He also shod with brass the celestial steeds, which whirled the chariots of the gods through the air, or along the surface of the sea. He was able to bestow on his workmanship self-motion, so that the tripods (chairs and tables) could move of themselves in and out of the celestial hall. He even endowed with intelligence the golden handmaidens whom he made to wait on himself.
Jupiter, or Jove (Zeus [Footnote: The names included in parentheses are the Greek, the others being the Roman or Latin names] ), though called the father of gods and men, had himself a beginning. Saturn (Cronos) was his father, and Rhea (Ops) his mother. Saturn and Rhea were of the race of Titans, who were the children of Earth and Heaven, which sprang from Chaos, of which we shall give a further account in our next chapter.
There is another cosmogony, or account of the creation, according to which Earth, Erebus, and Love were the first of beings. Love (Eros) issued from the egg of Night, which floated on Chaos. By his arrows and torch he pierced and vivified all things, producing life and joy.
Saturn and Rhea were not the only Titans. There were others, whose names were Oceanus, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Ophion, males; and Themis, Mnemosyne, Eurynome, females. They are spoken of as the elder gods, whose dominion was afterwards transferred to others. Saturn yielded to Jupiter, Oceanus to Neptune, Hyperion to Apollo. Hyperion was the father of the Sun, Moon, and Dawn. He is therefore the original sun-god, and is painted with the splendor and beauty which were afterwards bestowed on Apollo.
"Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself"
—Shakspeare.
Ophion and Eurynome ruled over Olympus till they were dethroned by Saturn and Rhea. Milton alludes to them in "Paradise Lost." He says the heathens seem to have had some knowledge of the temptation and fall of man.
"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."
The representations given of Saturn are not very consistent; for on the one hand his reign is said to have been the golden age of innocence and purity, and on the other he is described as a monster who devoured his children. [Footnote: This inconsistency arises from considering the Saturn of the Romans the same with the Grecian deity Cronos (Time), which, as it brings an end to all things which have had a beginning, may be said to devour its own offspring] Jupiter, however, escaped this fate, and when grown up espoused Metis (Prudence), who administered a draught to Saturn which caused him to disgorge his children. Jupiter, with his brothers and sisters, now rebelled against their father Saturn and his brothers the Titans; vanquished them, and imprisoned some of them in Tartarus, inflicting other penalties on others. Atlas was condemned to bear up the heavens on his shoulders.
On the dethronement of Saturn, Jupiter with his brothers Neptune (Poseidon) and Pluto (Dis) divided his dominions. Jupiter's portion was the heavens, Neptune's the ocean, and Pluto's the realms of the dead. Earth and Olympus were common property. Jupiter was king of gods and men. The thunder was his weapon, and he bore a shield called Aegis, made for him by Vulcan. The eagle was his favorite bird, and bore his thunderbolts.
Juno (Hera) was the wife of Jupiter, and queen of the gods. Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, was her attendant and messenger. The peacock was her favorite bird.
Vulcan (Hephaestos), the celestial artist, was the son of Jupiter and Juno. He was born lame, and his mother was so displeased at the sight of him that she flung him out of heaven. Other accounts say that Jupiter kicked him out for taking part with his mother in a quarrel which occurred between them. Vulcan's lameness, according to this account, was the consequence of his fall. He was a whole day falling, and at last alighted in the island of Lemnos, which was thenceforth sacred to him. Milton alludes to this story in "Paradise Lost," Book I.:
"… From morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day; and with the setting sun Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star, On Lemnos, the Aegean isle."
Mars (Ares), the god of war, was the son of Jupiter and Juno.
Phoebus Apollo, the god of archery, prophecy, and music, was the son of Jupiter and Latona, and brother of Diana (Artemis). He was god of the sun, as Diana, his sister, was the goddess of the moon.
Venus (Aphrodite), the goddess of love and beauty, was the daughter of Jupiter and Dione. Others say that Venus sprang from the foam of the sea. The zephyr wafted her along the waves to the Isle of Cyprus, where she was received and attired by the Seasons, and then led to the assembly of the gods. All were charmed with her beauty, and each one demanded her for his wife. Jupiter gave her to Vulcan, in gratitude for the service he had rendered in forging thunderbolts. So the most beautiful of the goddesses became the wife of the most ill-favored of gods. Venus possessed an embroidered girdle called Cestus, which had the power of inspiring love. Her favorite birds were swans and doves, and the plants sacred to her were the rose and the myrtle.
Cupid (Eros), the god of love, was the son of Venus. He was her constant companion; and, armed with bow and arrows, he shot the darts of desire into the bosoms of both gods and men. There was a deity named Anteros, who was sometimes represented as the avenger of slighted love, and sometimes as the symbol of reciprocal affection. The following legend is told of him:
Venus, complaining to Themis that her son Eros continued always a child, was told by her that it was because he was solitary, and that if he had a brother he would grow apace. Anteros was soon afterwards born, and Eros immediately was seen to increase rapidly in size and strength.
Minerva (Pallas, Athene), the goddess of wisdom, was the offspring of Jupiter, without a mother. She sprang forth from his head completely armed. Her favorite bird was the owl, and the plant sacred to her the olive.
Byron, in "Childe Harold," alludes to the birth of Minerva thus:
"Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be, And Freedom find no champion and no child, Such as Columbia saw arise, when she Sprang forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled? Or must such minds be nourished in the wild, Deep in the unpruned forest,'midst the roar Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled On infant Washington? Has earth no more Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore?"
Mercury (Hermes) was the son of Jupiter and Maia. He presided over commerce, wrestling, and other gymnastic exercises, even over thieving, and everything, in short, which required skill and dexterity. He was the messenger of Jupiter, and wore a winged cap and winged shoes. He bore in his hand a rod entwined with two serpents, called the caduceus.
Mercury is said to have invented the lyre. He found, one day, a tortoise, of which he took the shell, made holes in the opposite edges of it, and drew cords of linen through them, and the instrument was complete. The cords were nine, in honor of the nine Muses. Mercury gave the lyre to Apollo, and received from him in exchange the caduceus.
[Footnote: From this origin of the instrument, the word "shell" is often used as synonymous with "lyre," and figuratively for music and poetry. Thus Gray, in his ode on the "Progress of Poesy," says:
"O Sovereign of the willing Soul, Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares And frantic Passions hear thy soft control."]
Ceres (Demeter) was the daughter of Saturn and Rhea. She had a daughter named Proserpine (Persephone), who became the wife of Pluto, and queen of the realms of the dead. Ceres presided over agriculture.
Bacchus (Dionysus), the god of wine, was the son of Jupiter and Semele. He represents not only the intoxicating power of wine, but its social and beneficent influences likewise, so that he is viewed as the promoter of civilization, and a lawgiver and lover of peace.
The Muses were the daughters of Jupiter and Mnemosyne (Memory). They presided over song, and prompted the memory. They were nine in number, to each of whom was assigned the presidence over some particular department of literature, art, or science. Calliope was the muse of epic poetry, Clio of history, Euterpe of lyric poetry, Melpomene of tragedy, Terpsichore of choral dance and song, Erato of love poetry, Polyhymnia of sacred poetry, Urania of astronomy, Thalia of comedy.
The Graces were goddesses presiding over the banquet, the dance, and all social enjoyments and elegant arts. They were three in number. Their names were Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia.
Spenser describes the office of the Graces thus:
"These three on men all gracious gifts bestow Which deck the body or adorn the mind, To make them lovely or well-favored show; As comely carriage, entertainment kind, Sweet semblance, friendly offices that bind, And all the complements of courtesy; They teach us how to each degree and kind We should ourselves demean, to low, to high, To friends, to foes; which skill men call Civility."
The Fates were also three—Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Their office was to spin the thread of human destiny, and they were armed with shears, with which they cut it off when they pleased. They were the daughters of Themis (Law), who sits by Jove on his throne to give him counsel.
The Erinnyes, or Furies, were three goddesses who punished by their secret stings the crimes of those who escaped or defied public justice. The heads of the Furies were wreathed with serpents, and their whole appearance was terrific and appalling. Their names were Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera. They were also called Eumenides.
Nemesis was also an avenging goddess. She represents the righteous anger of the gods, particularly towards the proud and insolent.
Pan was the god of flocks and shepherds. His favorite residence was in Arcadia.
The Satyrs were deities of the woods and fields. They were conceived to be covered with bristly hair, their heads decorated with short, sprouting horns, and their feet like goats' feet.
Momus was the god of laughter, and Plutus the god of wealth.
ROMAN DIVINITIES
The preceding are Grecian divinities, though received also by the Romans. Those which follow are peculiar to Roman mythology:
Saturn was an ancient Italian deity. It was attempted to identify him with the Grecian god Cronos, and fabled that after his dethronement by Jupiter he fled to Italy, where he reigned during what was called the Golden Age. In memory of his beneficent dominion, the feast of Saturnalia was held every year in the winter season. Then all public business was suspended, declarations of war and criminal executions were postponed, friends made presents to one another and the slaves were indulged with great liberties. A feast was given them at which they sat at table, while their masters served them, to show the natural equality of men, and that all things belonged equally to all, in the reign of Saturn.
Faunus, [Footnote: There was also a goddess called Fauna, or Bona Dea.] the grandson of Saturn, was worshipped as the god of fields and shepherds, and also as a prophetic god. His name in the plural, Fauns, expressed a class of gamesome deities, like the Satyrs of the Greeks.
Quirinus was a war god, said to be no other than Romulus, the founder of Rome, exalted after his death to a place among the gods.
Bellona, a war goddess.
Terminus, the god of landmarks. His statue was a rude stone or post, set in the ground to mark the boundaries of fields.
Pales, the goddess presiding over cattle and pastures.
Pomona presided over fruit trees.
Flora, the goddess of flowers.
Lucina, the goddess of childbirth.
Vesta (the Hestia of the Greeks) was a deity presiding over the public and private hearth. A sacred fire, tended by six virgin priestesses called Vestals, flamed in her temple. As the safety of the city was held to be connected with its conservation, the neglect of the virgins, if they let it go out, was severely punished, and the fire was rekindled from the rays of the sun.
Liber is the Latin name of Bacchus; and Mulciber of Vulcan.
Janus was the porter of heaven. He opens the year, the first month being named after him. He is the guardian deity of gates, on which account he is commonly represented with two heads, because every door looks two ways. His temples at Rome were numerous. In war time the gates of the principal one were always open. In peace they were closed; but they were shut only once between the reign of Numa and that of Augustus.
The Penates were the gods who were supposed to attend to the welfare and prosperity of the family. Their name is derived from Penus, the pantry, which was sacred to them. Every master of a family was the priest to the Penates of his own house.
The Lares, or Lars, were also household gods, but differed from the Penates in being regarded as the deified spirits of mortals. The family Lars were held to be the souls of the ancestors, who watched over and protected their descendants. The words Lemur and Larva more nearly correspond to our word Ghost.
The Romans believed that every man had his Genius, and every woman her Juno: that is, a spirit who had given them being, and was regarded as their protector through life. On their birthdays men made offerings to their Genius, women to their Juno.
A modern poet thus alludes to some of the Roman gods:
"Pomona loves the orchard, And Liber loves the vine, And Pales loves the straw-built shed Warm with the breath of kine; And Venus loves the whisper Of plighted youth and maid, In April's ivory moonlight, Beneath the chestnut shade."
—Macaulay, "Prophecy of Capys."
N.B.—It is to be observed that in proper names the final e and es are to be sounded. Thus Cybele and Penates are words of three syllables. But Proserpine and Thebes are exceptions, and to be pronounced as English words. In the Index at the close of the volume we shall mark the accented syllable in all words which appear to require it.
CHAPTER II
PROMETHEUS AND PANDORA
The creation of the world is a problem naturally fitted to excite the liveliest interest of man, its inhabitant. The ancient pagans, not having the information on the subject which we derive from the pages of Scripture, had their own way of telling the story, which is as follows:
Before earth and sea and heaven were created, all things wore one aspect, to which we give the name of Chaos—a confused and shapeless mass, nothing but dead weight, in which, however, slumbered the seeds of things. Earth, sea, and air were all mixed up together; so the earth was not solid, the sea was not fluid, and the air was not transparent. God and Nature at last interposed, and put an end to this discord, separating earth from sea, and heaven from both. The fiery part, being the lightest, sprang up, and formed the skies; the air was next in weight and place. The earth, being heavier, sank below; and the water took the lowest place, and buoyed up the earth.
Here some god—it is not known which—gave his good offices in arranging and disposing the earth. He appointed rivers and bays their places, raised mountains, scooped out valleys, distributed woods, fountains, fertile fields, and stony plains. The air being cleared, the stars began to appear, fishes took possession of the sea, birds of the air, and four-footed beasts of the land.
But a nobler animal was wanted, and Man was made. It is not known whether the creator made him of divine materials, or whether in the earth, so lately separated from heaven, there lurked still some heavenly seeds. Prometheus[3] took some of this earth, and kneading it up with water, made man in the image of the gods. He gave him an upright stature, so that while all other animals turn their faces downward, and look to the earth, he raises his to heaven, and gazes on the stars.
Prometheus was one of the Titans, a gigantic race, who inhabited the earth before the creation of man. To him and his brother Epimetheus was committed the office of making man, and providing him and all other animals with the faculties necessary for their preservation. Epimetheus undertook to do this, and Prometheus was to overlook his work, when it was done. Epimetheus accordingly proceeded to bestow upon the different animals the various gifts of courage, strength, swiftness, sagacity; wings to one, claws to another, a shelly covering to a third, etc. But when man came to be provided for, who was to be superior to all other animals, Epimetheus had been so prodigal of his resources that he had nothing left to bestow upon him. In his perplexity he resorted to his brother Prometheus, who, with the aid of Minerva, went up to heaven, and lighted his torch at the chariot of the sun, and brought down fire to man. With this gift man was more than a match for all other animals. It enabled him to make weapons wherewith to subdue them; tools with which to cultivate the earth; to warm his dwelling, so as to be comparatively independent of climate; and finally to introduce the arts and to coin money, the means of trade and commerce. Woman was not yet made. The story (absurd enough!) is that Jupiter made her, and sent her to Prometheus and his brother, to punish them for their presumption in stealing fire from heaven; and man, for accepting the gift. The first woman was named Pandora[4]. She was made in heaven, every god contributing something to perfect her. Venus gave her beauty, Mercury persuasion, Apollo music, etc. Thus equipped, she was conveyed to earth, and presented to Epimetheus, who gladly accepted her, though cautioned by his brother to beware of Jupiter and his gifts. Epimetheus had in his house a jar, in which were kept certain noxious articles, for which, in fitting man for his new abode, he had had no occasion. Pandora was seized with an eager curiosity to know what this jar contained; and one day she slipped off the cover and looked in. Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues for hapless man,—such as gout, rheumatism, and colic for his body, and envy, spite, and revenge for his mind,—and scattered themselves far and wide. Pandora hastened to replace the lid! but, alas! the whole contents of the jar had escaped, one thing only excepted, which lay at the bottom, and that was HOPE. So we see at this day, whatever evils are abroad, hope never entirely leaves us; and while we have THAT, no amount of other ills can make us completely wretched.
Another story is that Pandora was sent in good faith, by Jupiter, to bless man; that she was furnished with a box, containing her marriage presents, into which every god had put some blessing. She opened the box incautiously, and the blessings all escaped, HOPE only excepted. This story seems more probable than the former; for how could HOPE, so precious a jewel as it is, have been kept in a jar full of all manner of evils, as in the former statement?
The world being thus furnished with inhabitants, the first age was an age of innocence and happiness, called the Golden Age. Truth and right prevailed, though not enforced by law, nor was there any magistrate to threaten or punish. The forest had not yet been robbed of its trees to furnish timbers for vessels, nor had men built fortifications round their towns. There were no such things as swords, spears, or helmets. The earth brought forth all things necessary for man, without his labor in ploughing or sowing. Perpetual spring reigned, flowers sprang up without seed, the rivers flowed with milk and wine, and yellow honey distilled from the oaks.
Then succeeded the Silver Age, inferior to the golden, but better than that of brass. Jupiter shortened the spring, and divided the year into seasons. Then, first, men had to endure the extremes of heat and cold, and houses became necessary. Caves were the first dwellings, and leafy coverts of the woods, and huts woven of twigs. Crops would no longer grow without planting. The farmer was obliged to sow the seed and the toiling ox to draw the plough.
Next came the Brazen Age, more savage of temper, and readier to the strife of arms, yet not altogether wicked. The hardest and worst was the Iron Age[6]. Crime burst in like a flood; modesty, truth, and honor fled. In their places came fraud and cunning, violence, and the wicked love of gain. Then seamen spread sails to the wind, and the trees were torn from the mountains to serve for keels to ships, and vex the face of ocean. The earth, which till now had been cultivated in common, began to be divided off into possessions. Men were not satisfied with what the surface produced, but must dig into its bowels, and draw forth from thence the ores of metals. Mischievous IRON, and more mischievous GOLD, were produced. War sprang up, using both as weapons; the guest was not safe in his friend's house; and sons-in-law and fathers-in- law, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, could not trust one another. Sons wished their fathers dead, that they might come to the inheritance; family love lay prostrate. The earth was wet with slaughter, and the gods abandoned it, one by one, till Astraea[5] alone was left, and finally she also took her departure.
[Footnote: The goddess of innocence and purity. After leaving earth, she was placed among the stars, where she became the constellation Virgo—the Virgin. Themis (Justice) was the mother of Astraea. She is represented as holding aloft a pair of scales, in which she weighs the claims of opposing parties.
It was a favorite idea of the old poets that these goddesses would one day return, and bring back the Golden Age. Even in a Christian hymn, the "Messiah" of Pope, this idea occurs:
"All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail, Returning Justice lift aloft her scale, Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend, And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend."
See, also, Milton's "Hymn on the Nativity," stanzas xiv. and xv.]
Jupiter, seeing this state of things, burned with anger. He summoned the gods to council. They obeyed the call, and took the road to the palace of heaven. The road, which any one may see in a clear night, stretches across the face of the sky, and is called the Milky Way. Along the road stand the palaces of the illustrious gods; the common people of the skies live apart, on either side. Jupiter addressed the assembly. He set forth the frightful condition of things on the earth, and closed by announcing his intention to destroy the whole of its inhabitants, and provide a new race, unlike the first, who would be more worthy of life, and much better worshippers of the gods. So saying he took a thunderbolt, and was about to launch it at the world, and destroy it by burning; but recollecting the danger that such a conflagration might set heaven itself on fire, he changed his plan, and resolved to drown it. The north wind, which scatters the clouds, was chained up; the south was sent out, and soon covered all the face of heaven with a cloak of pitchy darkness. The clouds, driven together, resound with a crash; torrents of rain fall; the crops are laid low; the year's labor of the husbandman perishes in an hour. Jupiter, not satisfied with his own waters, calls on his brother Neptune to aid him with his. He lets loose the rivers, and pours them over the land. At the same time, he heaves the land with an earthquake, and brings in the reflux of the ocean over the shores. Flocks, herds, men, and houses are swept away, and temples, with their sacred enclosures, profaned. If any edifice remained standing, it was overwhelmed, and its turrets lay hid beneath the waves. Now all was sea, sea without shore. Here and there an individual remained on a projecting hilltop, and a few, in boats, pulled the oar where they had lately driven the plough. The fishes swim among the tree-tops; the anchor is let down into a garden. Where the graceful lambs played but now, unwieldy sea calves gambol. The wolf swims among the sheep, the yellow lions and tigers struggle in the water. The strength of the wild boar serves him not, nor his swiftness the stag. The birds fall with weary wing into the water, having found no land for a resting-place. Those living beings whom the water spared fell a prey to hunger.
Parnassus alone, of all the mountains, overtopped the waves; and there Deucalion, and his wife Pyrrha, of the race of Prometheus, found refuge—he a just man, and she a faithful worshipper of the gods. Jupiter, when he saw none left alive but this pair, and remembered their harmless lives and pious demeanor, ordered the north winds to drive away the clouds, and disclose the skies to earth, and earth to the skies. Neptune also directed Triton to blow on his shell, and sound a retreat to the waters. The waters obeyed, and the sea returned to its shores, and the rivers to their channels. Then Deucalion thus addressed Pyrrha: "O wife, only surviving woman, joined to me first by the ties of kindred and marriage, and now by a common danger, would that we possessed the power of our ancestor Prometheus, and could renew the race as he at first made it! But as we cannot, let us seek yonder temple, and inquire of the gods what remains for us to do." They entered the temple, deformed as it was with slime, and approached the altar, where no fire burned. There they fell prostrate on the earth, and prayed the goddess to inform them how they might retrieve their miserable affairs. The oracle answered, "Depart from the temple with head veiled and garments unbound, and cast behind you the bones of your mother." They heard the words with astonishment. Pyrrha first broke silence: "We cannot obey; we dare not profane the remains of our parents." They sought the thickest shades of the wood, and revolved the oracle in their minds. At length Deucalion spoke: "Either my sagacity deceives me, or the command is one we may obey without impiety. The earth is the great parent of all; the stones are her bones; these we may cast behind us; and I think this is what the oracle means. At least, it will do no harm to try." They veiled their faces, unbound their garments, and picked up stones, and cast them behind them. The stones (wonderful to relate) began to grow soft, and assume shape. By degrees, they put on a rude resemblance to the human form, like a block half-finished in the hands of the sculptor. The moisture and slime that were about them became flesh; the stony part became bones; the veins remained veins, retaining their name, only changing their use. Those thrown by the hand of the man became men, and those by the woman became women. It was a hard race, and well adapted to labor, as we find ourselves to be at this day, giving plain indications of our origin.
The comparison of Eve to Pandora is too obvious to have escaped Milton, who introduces it in Book IV. of "Paradise Lost":
"More lovely than Pandora, whom the gods Endowed with all their gifts; and O, too like In sad event, when to the unwiser son Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she insnared Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged On him who had stole Jove's authentic fire."
Prometheus and Epimetheus were sons of Iapetus, which Milton changes to Japhet.
Prometheus has been a favorite subject with the poets. He is represented as the friend of mankind, who interposed in their behalf when Jove was incensed against them, and who taught them civilization and the arts. But as, in so doing, he transgressed the will of Jupiter, he drew down on himself the anger of the ruler of gods and men. Jupiter had him chained to a rock on Mount Caucasus, where a vulture preyed on his liver, which was renewed as fast as devoured. This state of torment might have been brought to an end at any time by Prometheus, if he had been willing to submit to his oppressor; for he possessed a secret which involved the stability of Jove's throne, and if he would have revealed it, he might have been at once taken into favor. But that he disdained to do. He has therefore become the symbol of magnanimous endurance of unmerited suffering, and strength of will resisting oppression.
Byron and Shelley have both treated this theme. The following are Byron's lines:
"Titan! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise; What was thy pity's recompense? A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain; All that the proud can feel of pain; The agony they do not show; The suffocating sense of woe.
"Thy godlike crime was to be kind; To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness, And strengthen man with his own mind. And, baffled as thou wert from high, Still, in thy patient energy In the endurance and repulse Of thine impenetrable spirit, Which earth and heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit[2q]."
Byron also employs the same allusion, in his "Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte":
"Or, like the thief of fire from heaven, Wilt thou withstand the shock? And share with him—the unforgiven— His vulture and his rock?"
CHAPTER III
APOLLO AND DAPHNE—PYRAMUS AND THISBE CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS
The slime with which the earth was covered by the waters of the flood produced an excessive fertility, which called forth every variety of production, both bad and good. Among the rest, Python, an enormous serpent, crept forth, the terror of the people, and lurked in the caves of Mount Parnassus. Apollo slew him with his arrows—weapons which he had not before used against any but feeble animals, hares, wild goats, and such game. In commemoration of this illustrious conquest he instituted the Pythian games, in which the victor in feats of strength, swiftness of foot, or in the chariot race was crowned with a wreath of beech leaves; for the laurel was not yet adopted by Apollo as his own tree.
The famous statue of Apollo called the Belvedere represents the god after this victory over the serpent Python. To this Byron alludes in his "Childe Harold," iv., 161:
"… The lord of the unerring bow, The god of life, and poetry, and light, The Sun, in human limbs arrayed, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight The shaft has just been shot; the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye And nostril, beautiful disdain, and might And majesty flash their full lightnings by, Developing in that one glance the Deity."
APOLLO AND DAPHNE
Daphne was Apollo's first love. It was not brought about by accident, but by the malice of Cupid. Apollo saw the boy playing with his bow and arrows; and being himself elated with his recent victory over Python, he said to him, "What have you to do with warlike weapons, saucy boy? Leave them for hands worthy of them. Behold the conquest I have won by means of them over the vast serpent who stretched his poisonous body over acres of the plain! Be content with your torch, child, and kindle up your flames, as you call them, where you will, but presume not to meddle with my weapons." Venus's boy heard these words, and rejoined, "Your arrows may strike all things else, Apollo, but mine shall strike you." So saying, he took his stand on a rock of Parnassus, and drew from his quiver two arrows of different workmanship, one to excite love, the other to repel it. The former was of gold and sharp pointed, the latter blunt and tipped with lead. With the leaden shaft he struck the nymph Daphne, the daughter of the river god Peneus, and with the golden one Apollo, through the heart. Forthwith the god was seized with love for the maiden, and she abhorred the thought of loving. Her delight was in woodland sports and in the spoils of the chase. Many lovers sought her, but she spurned them all, ranging the woods, and taking no thought of Cupid nor of Hymen. Her father often said to her, "Daughter, you owe me a son-in-law; you owe me grandchildren." She, hating the thought of marriage as a crime, with her beautiful face tinged all over with blushes, threw arms around her father's neck, and said, "Dearest father, grant me this favor, that I may always remain unmarried, like Diana." He consented, but at the same time said, "Your own face will forbid it."
Apollo loved her, and longed to obtain her; and he who gives oracles to all the world was not wise enough to look into his own fortunes. He saw her hair flung loose over her shoulders, and said, "If so charming in disorder, what would it be if arranged?" He saw her eyes bright as stars; he saw her lips, and was not satisfied with only seeing them. He admired her hands and arms, naked to the shoulder, and whatever was hidden from view he imagined more beautiful still. He followed her; she fled, swifter than the wind, and delayed not a moment at his entreaties. "Stay," said he, "daughter of Peneus; I am not a foe. Do not fly me as a lamb flies the wolf, or a dove the hawk. It is for love I pursue you. You make me miserable, for fear you should fall and hurt yourself on these stones, and I should be the cause. Pray run slower, and I will follow slower. I am no clown, no rude peasant. Jupiter is my father, and I am lord of Delphos and Tenedos, and know all things, present and future. I am the god of song and the lyre. My arrows fly true to the mark; but, alas! an arrow more fatal than mine has pierced my heart! I am the god of medicine, and know the virtues of all healing plants. Alas! I suffer a malady that no balm can cure!"
The nymph continued her flight, and left his plea half uttered. And even as she fled she charmed him. The wind blew her garments, and her unbound hair streamed loose behind her. The god grew impatient to find his wooings thrown away, and, sped by Cupid, gained upon her in the race. It was like a hound pursuing a hare, with open jaws ready to seize, while the feebler animal darts forward, slipping from the very grasp. So flew the god and the virgin—he on the wings of love, and she on those of fear. The pursuer is the more rapid, however, and gains upon her, and his panting breath blows upon her hair. Her strength begins to fail, and, ready to sink, she calls upon her father, the river god: "Help me, Peneus! open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger!" Scarcely had she spoken, when a stiffness seized all her limbs; her bosom began to be enclosed in a tender bark; her hair became leaves; her arms became branches; her foot stuck fast in the ground, as a root; her face, became a tree-top, retaining nothing of its former self but its beauty. Apollo stood amazed. He touched the stem, and felt the flesh tremble under the new bark. He embraced the branches, and lavished kisses on the wood. The branches shrank from his lips. "Since you cannot be my wife," said he, "you shall assuredly be my tree. I will wear you for my crown; I will decorate with you my harp and my quiver; and when the great Roman conquerors lead up the triumphal pomp to the Capitol, you shall be woven into wreaths for their brows. And, as eternal youth is mine, you also shall be always green, and your leaf know no decay." The nymph, now changed into a Laurel tree, bowed its head in grateful acknowledgment.
That Apollo should be the god both of music and poetry will not appear strange, but that medicine should also be assigned to his province, may. The poet Armstrong, himself a physician, thus accounts for it:
"Music exalts each joy, allays each grief, Expels diseases, softens every pain; And hence the wise of ancient days adored One power of physic, melody, and song."
The story of Apollo and Daphne is often alluded to by the poets. Waller applies it to the case of one whose amatory verses, though they did not soften the heart of his mistress, yet won for the poet wide-spread 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 Phoebus thus, acquiring unsought praise, He caught at love and filled his arms with bays."
The following stanza from Shelley's "Adonais" alludes to Byron's early quarrel with the reviewers:
"The herded wolves, bold only to pursue; The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead; The vultures, to the conqueror's banner true, Who feed where Desolation first has fed, And whose wings rain contagion: how they fled, When like Apollo, from his golden bow, The Pythian of the age one arrow sped And smiled! The spoilers tempt no second blow; They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them as they go."
