Heathen mythology, Illustrated by extracts from the most celebrated writers, both ancient and modern
mind with, in its most unearthly mood,
When each conception was a heavenly guest,
A ray of immortality, and stood
Star like, around, until they gathered to a God!
"And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven
The fire which we endure, it was repaid
By him to whom the energy was given,
Which this poetic marble hath arrayed
With an eternal glory, which if made
By human hands, is not of human thought,
And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laid
One ringlet in the dust, nor hath it caught
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought."
Byron.
But the gods grew jealous of the homage shewn to Apollo, and recalling him from earth, replaced him in his seat at Olympus.
The fable of Apollo is, perhaps, that which is most spread over the faith of antiquity. Pæans were the hymns chanted in his honour, and this was the war cry he shouted in his onset against the serpent Python. On his altars are immolated a bull or a white lamb—to him is offered the crow, supposed to read the future, the eagle who can gaze on the sun, the cock whose cry welcomes his return, and the grasshopper, who sings during his empire.
This God is represented in the figure of a young man without beard, with curling locks of hair, his brow wreathed with laurels, and his head surrounded with beams of light. In his right hand he holds a bow and arrows; in the left, a lyre with seven chords, emblem of the seven planets to which he grants his celestial harmony. Sometimes he carries a buckler, and is accompanied by the three Graces, who are the animating deities of genius and the fine arts, and at his feet is placed a swan.
He had temples and statues in every country, particularly in Egypt, Greece, and Italy; the most famous was that of Delos, where they celebrated the Pythian games, that of Soractes, where the priests worshipped by treading with their naked feet on burning coals, though without feeling pain, and that of Delphi, in which the youth of the place offered to the gods their locks of hair, possibly because this offering was most difficult to the vanity of youth. Apollo made known his oracles through the medium of a sibyl. This was a female, named also a Pythoness, on account of her seat being formed of massive gold resembling the skin of the serpent Python. The history of the tripod will be found to afford much interest. The fishermen who had found it in their nets, sought the oracle to consult its responses. This was to offer it to the wisest man in Greece. They presented it to Thales, who had told them that the most difficult of all human knowledge was the art of knowing ourselves. Thales offered the tripod to Bias. When the enemy was reducing his native city to ashes, he withdrew, leaving behind him his wealth, saying, "I carry all that is worthy within myself." After frequent adventures, and passing into the possession of many, the tripod finally returned to Thales, and was deposited in the temple; where, as we have seen, it served the sibyl for a seat. This story shows us at a glance, the principles and the conduct of the greatest philosophers of Greece. These sages who considered philosophy to consist in the science of practising virtue, and living happily, endeavoured to show by the adventures of the tripod that, though the way was sometimes different, the end was the same.
The sibyl delivered the answer of the god to such as came to consult the oracle, and while the divine inspiration was on her, her eyes sparkled, her hair stood on end, and a shivering ran through her body. In this convulsive state, she spoke the oracles of the deity, often with loud howlings and cries, and her articulations were taken down by the priest, and set in order. Sometimes the spirit of inspiration was more gentle, and not always violent, yet Plutarch mentions one of the priestesses who was thrown into such excessive fury, that not only those who consulted the oracle, but also the priests who conducted her to the sacred tripod, and attended her during her inspiration, were terrified and forsook the temple; and so violent was the fit, that she continued for some days in the most agonizing situation, and at last died.
It was always required that those who consulted this oracle should make presents to Apollo, and from thence arose the opulence, splendour, and magnificence, of the temple of Delphi.
There were other temples of Apollo more celebrated, such as that at Palmyra, which was constructed of the most gigantic proportions; and for which nothing was spared to give it a magnificence hitherto unknown. Augustus, who pretended to be the son of Apollo, built a temple to him on Mount Palatine. Delian feasts were those which the Athenian, and the other Greek states celebrated every four years at Delos.
The history of the Muses is so closely allied to that of Apollo that we shall present some of their adventures in this part of our work.
The first is the struggle which the Muses maintained against the nine daughters of Pierus, King of Macedon, who dared to dispute with them the palm of singing; being overcome, they were turned into magpies, and since their transformation, they have preserved the talent so dear to beauty, of being able in many words to express very little.
One day when the Muses were distant from their place of abode, a storm surprised them, and they took shelter in the palace of Pyrenæus: but scarcely had they entered, when the tyrant shut the gates, and sought to offer them insult. They immediately spread their wings and flew away. The king wishing to fly after them, essayed the daring adventure, and throwing himself from the top of the tower as if he had wings, was killed in the attempt. Notwithstanding the high reputation of the Muses, it is pretended by some, that Rheseus was the son of Terpsichore, Linus of Clio, and Orpheus of Calliope. Arion and Pindar were also stated to be the children of the Muses, to whom the Romans built a temple and consecrated a fountain.
D I A N A.
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The goddess Diana was daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and twin sister to Apollo. In heaven she bore another name, and conducted the chariot of the Moon, while on earth she presided over the chase, was the peculiar deity of hunters, and called Diana. In Hell she is named Hecate and revered by magicians.
—————"Hecate, loved by Jove,
And honour'd by the inhabitants above,
Profusely gifted from the almighty hand,
With power extensive o'er the sea and land;
And great the honour, she, by Jove's high leave,
Does from the starry vault of heaven receive.
When to the gods the sacred flames aspire,
Does from the starry vault of heaven receive.
From human offerings, as the laws require,
To Hecate the vows are first prefer'd;
Happy of men whose prayers are kindly heard,
Success attends his every act below,
Honour, wealth, power, to him abundant flow."
Hesiod.