127512

CLASSICAL MYTHS
IN

ENGLISH LITERATURE

quidquid dicam, cut

erit

aut now

HORACE

CLASSICAL
&
BAN
S.

MYTHS

NORTON
AND

PETERS RUSHTON

Y/W

<7<St>

zJrjifo&t&trfaiM Mf>

&ir/

PRXNCJBTON IFNIVRRSITY

NKW

VOJtK

Second Printing, July 1052

Copyright, 1952, by

lUnehan & Company,

toe*

Printed in the United State* of

Designed by Stefan Sal tot

All Right* Reserved
of

CVmgJWf C&tahg Card Number:

PREFACE
one can understand English literature unless he knows something about classical myths, for our writers from the Middle Ages to the present have used and still use classical myths in their stories and poems* Handbooks of mythology are nothing new; but today, when small Latin and less Greek are taught in our schools and when very few people are able to interpret
references to classical myths from their own knowledge of Homer or Virgil or Ovid, a book of this kind is essential to most readers.
last hundred years a number of such books have been but they do not fully meet the needs of a reader of written, English literature because they focus on the myths themselves

No

In the

and pay

little

English literature* Ours

or no attention to the symbolic use of the myths in is a new kind of handbook designed

to answer the questions that the ordinary reader is likely to ask. The problem, as we see it, is twofold. First, it is necessary to
retell the

myths and to

retain, as far as

is

possible in a brief

summary,

the elements of individual character and concrete

situation that give

them life. These stories have lasted a long time because they are interesting, and we have tried to keep them

that way.

Any handbook must

retell the

myths, but

we

believe that

our

arrangement of the material has special advantages. The reader wants to be able to find without difficulty a particular character
or situation
(for

example, Procrustes or the stratagem of the

also to see this character or situation in
its

wooden

horse)

and

have therefore grouped the material around figures and great actions (Theseus and the Trojan War, great for example), but we have arranged the book alphabetically proper context.

We

and have provided

cross references that

make

the lesser persons

PREFACE
and
actions in each large

myth

easy to locate

(The mechanics

arc explained in "Mow to Use This Book.") \Ve hope that in this way we have avoided the shortcomings both oi the meie
into fragments, and ot dictionary method, which chops the muh the method oi extended narrative, which gives the texture oi the myth but makes the icaclci search the inde\ loi a panic ului

chaiacter 01 situation.

The second pan

oi the

pioblem

in this soil oi

hook

is

to

show

the relation oi the myths to English Hieiaune. \Ve aie as imuh conceincd with the symbolic value ol the myth in English lima*
ture as

we

aie with the

myth

itself.

Out aim

is

in

show the

typical ways in

which each myth

ha.s

been used bv KngliMi and

American wntcis
all

We

have not,

ol course,

attempted in collm

the leferences to classical

have we allowed oin selves to

English literature, nut myths become m\ol\ed with ;uithvopoloj?v.

in
fill

Had we

clone so,

our work would

foi
is

many volumes and would

book
is

not serve the puipose

Since out intention

which

this

designed.
literature,

to leiaie the

mvihs to Knglish

our guide in dealing with variant forms of the myths has usually been English literaiy us-age rather than classical stotv. When a

myth has

variant forms, we aie apt to give the versions used by and American writers and to ignore the other versions. English All the material in this book belongs to Creek, Roman, Knghsh,
writers.

and American

But we have paitiruiar debts to

u<

knowl-

edge. Professor Charles Crosvenor

Osgood in our happy ;tssn<ia tion with him, Km as his students and then as his friends, 1m disappointed us only by not writing this book himself. He has read our manuscript and offered many helpful Miggestiom, and
values of Greek
Classical

he has contributed a distinguished imrodurtoiy ev;y on the myth to later writer*. We have made use ol his

work prepared under

Classical

and of a similar his direction, Henry Cibbons LotHj*etch\ Mythology in the Poetry of Edmund SpMMr, Anotiwr
Mythology of Milton's Rn%li\h
/^<"///,v

vi

PREFACE
scholar to

whom we

whose Mythology

are obligated is Professor Douglas Bush, and the Renaissance Tradition in English

Poetry and Mythology and the Romantic Tradition in English Poetry have been our constant companions. If he glances through book, he will recognize many of his own ideas. His work, however, is intended for scholars; without his two volumes our
this

job would have been more difficult, but we think that for the common reader our book in the hand is worth two of the Bush.

We owe something to earlier handbooks, but with handbooks one never knows where obligations begin. The writers of a handbook may be indebted to another handbook in the vulgar sense that they have copied whatever it says, but they may also be
indebted to other handbooks in the field in a way that is complex and puzzling. Everyone who has examined a number of handbooks on any subject will agree that, no matter whose names appear on the title pages, most of the books seem to have been written by the same gray inexorable force, a force smaller than any individual author and quite inhuman. We have sacrificed hecatombs to this

anonymous

force in the

hope of escaping

its

influence.

Our special thanks are due to Professor James S. Constantine, who has generously given us the benefit of his knowledge of
Greek and Roman literature. He has read the book in manuscript and in proof, and has saved us from many errors and suggested many improvements. He also has advised us on the
appropriate forms of
classical

names.

The key

to pronunciation

and the pronunciations themselves are the work of Professor Archibald A* Hill, whose skill in linguistics is widely known and whose kindness we gratefully acknowledge,

We

are thankful to Professor

John Canaday

for

drawing the

that appears as the end papers of the book. Our late colleague Professor Walter Montgomery and Mr. Jack Dalton have assisted us with encouragement and good advice.

handsome map

To

Professor

WHlard Thorp we

are indebted for his authoritavii

PREFACE
tive article

on Priupus, the only

article in the

book that

is

not

our own work. Finally, we owe a debt* both culinary and schohuh, to Kathryn Noiton, who has feel us iu our labors and checked otu woik lor us.

we do homage to how And we try not writing.

Siiue
is
it

the Muses

and the Graces

in this

book,

sad to observe

often they deserted us while we were to think xvhat our natural talent for
the almost unlimited opportunity for

error

may have done with

error offered by our subject matter. At one point we hoped that we might not be banished from the republic of letters for telling lies about the gods. Hut later we reali/ed that this was only half
of our dilemma.
to
It

was

a mortal-- a native oi

Athens -

who wished

punish men for telling lies about the g<xls, but the gods themselves sometimes punish men for telling the truth about them (sec

SISYPHUS),

s.

N.

viii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The numerous
and prose writers
lishers of the
is

are all

quotations Irom English and American poets from standard editions. A complete list
to

seems unnecessary, but we wish

thank the editors and pub-

numerous

editions for which permission to reprint

not required, and we are grateful to the iollowing publishers

editors for permissions to reprint: to

and

Press, for excerpts

ings,

Cambridge University from Abraham Cowley (in The English Writed. A. R. Waller) and from Giles Fletcher Poetical (in
of Giles

Woiks
ed. F.

and Phmeas

Fletcher, ed. F.

S.

Boas);

to the

Clarendon

Press, for excerpts

from Herrick

(in Poetical Works,

W. Moorman), from

Keats (in Poetical Works, ed. H.

W.

Garrod), from Lovelace (in The Poems, ed C. H. Wilkinson), and from Marvell (in The Poems and Letters, ed. H. M. Margolioiuh),
B<*

and for the sonnet by Thomas Resell, "Suppos'd to Written on Lenmos," in The Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century f'rrse, ed, D. N. Smith); to Columbia University Press,
for excerpts

from Milton (in The Works, ed. F. A, Patterson and Ginn and Company, for excerpts from Shakespeare (The Complete Wor.ks, ed. G. JL Khtredge); to Houghton Miffiin Company, for excerpts from Byron (in The Complete Poetical Works, ed. P. E, More), from Chaucer (in The Complete
others); to

Works* ed.

F.

N. Robinson), and from Wordsworth

to the J, George);

(in

The

Complete Poetical Works, ed. A.

Johns Hop-

kins Press, for excerpts from Spenser (in The Works, a Variorum Edition, ed Edwin Greenlaw, C. G, Osgood, F. M* Padelford,

Ray
son);
(in

Heffner, and others); to

The Macmillan Company,

for ex-

cerpts

and

from Tennyson (in The Works, ed. Hallam, Lord Tennyto The Ronald Press Company, for excerpts from Pope
Rest of Pope, rev. ecL, ed. George Sherburn, copyright

The

1939 by

The Ronald

Press

Company).
ix

CONTENTS
Preface

v
Use This Book

How
Key

to

xiii

to Pion initiation

xv

(tuvk Myth and the Pods, an introduction

by Chinlcs Gtosvcnoi Osgood
1

The Myths
Genealogical Tables

13

The

Royal House of Athens

of Aliens

80
8(5

The House

The

Families ol Odysseus, Penelope, and Helen of Troy

ol

247 294
J520

The Family

Perseus and Heracles

Cods, N'ymphs, and Monsters of the Seas

The Royal

Family of Thebes

350 379
Aias

The* Royal Family of Troy

The Family of Peleun, Achilles, ami The Gods ol Olympus

Literary References

380

412

425

I/~\\Y/

lOW
The
entries

TV^v
1

II

USE

HCr

material
are

is

arranged alphabetically, and the

boldface
capital

titles

of the

printed in
is

letters-for

example,

APOLLO*
and

There
and

a separate entry for each important character

situation

for

some important
two kinds:

places

and

things.

The

entries are of

articles

and

cross references.

If you look in the A's for Apollo, you will under his name. But if you look in the M's

find a long article

for Marpessa,

you

will find

under her name a brief statement that she "chose for

her lover the mortal Idas instead of the god APOLLO." This refers you to the article on Apollo. In every cross reference the
title

of the article to which you are referred

is

printed in lightface

capital letters, as the title Apollo is in this example. You can find the story about Marpcssa quickly by turning to the article

on Apollo and running your eye down the pages until you find Marpessa's name printed in boldface capital and lower-case
lettenr-Marpem. Except that the common nouns are not
talized, the title of every cross reference appears in this

capi-

way

in

the article to which

to only

it refers.

Usually a cross reference sends

you

but occasionally to two or three. For the god or mortal who has both Greek and Roman names, we use chiefly the Greek name* Therefore the article on the king

one

article,

of the gods, for example,

is

found under the name Zeus. But

the article

his

Roman names are also given in

or Jupiter, or Jove
.
*

"ZEUS (it opens

(*cJ6s),

/')

and

in addition these

Roman names
whereas

appear in the

J's

as cross references to the article* In general,

identified as Greek,

Greek names are used without being

now ro
Rom, ui names

rsE

mis BOOK
Roman
in eithei the aitiYIe 01 the

air said to be
both.

tioss leieienee 01

'Iheie ate luo obvious

evepliom

lo the rule that the

in

Greek

name
is

is

pi Hen eel we

use

Roman names

Roman

stories (lleia

\eneas, lor e\ample) and in quotations and iiom I'li^Iish literatim* in which the authots have paiapluases used Roman names. One iunhei exception of a diileient kind is that, in auoidame \vith custom, a lew personages aie

Juno

in the tale oi

leletml to thielK by then Knglish names, and the unities about them appeal tmdei the Knglish jathei than the (iieek titles.

The
rh.u

tu

tide on the Crates, tor example, wilt be ioumt tuulei

nameiathe) ;han nndei the name Cllunies.

its

In

own
1

entiy, each (ireek

in

and Roman name

lor
this
oi

is

followed bv

IK

pioninjriainm
htis th ol

patentheses

to-dis'7c>s|,

(Jieek
1

name
the
I

example, ODISSEI'.S hero is prononwed at

the br^inning
rUvs<*s,
is
f*

the

artide about him, but

in

\w Roman name,
is*

pifinoim<ed
ihr* ailif le.

hsses enii\, which

rtoss

jrletrntr*

I'iniessor

\ulnbald A.
I

Hill,

who

is

an expeit

in th<*se matters,

has ^uppbed
thrinseUr-s,

he Ke\

tf>

piowin* iatuw and the pronuni iations

tit

milking the ioHowtn^ stat<*ment, 1 be piomineiarioMs;m* <<r iheuatvenienreoi readers who haxc* not alieadv d^< uled how tbr\ want ro pionoutue these name^. To

Hr

|oins us

s.i\e
1

i|e,
u'idclv

onlv niir putmiiutati'm

that

is t[tve?i

for eaih

name.
at

We
IVJNI

an well awaie, hovvrvft,

two
the*

most

o) these natttt's

ha\e

auepred pionunt
useil
lot

iafions,

and we hate no

feefin;? tb;if

ptomitKMtions

hete au* better than those not u>rd,

flu*

We

make oidv one

ptothinriations \on will find heie, they aie all a<c eptabk' and the\ aie all widrK used, l^noie them if von wish, use them ii \<>u xvish, but never think oi ihnn as what

ttaim

calls

"The ami)

oi

unalttiable l;uv/

KIV

KEY TO PRONUNCIATION
Symbol
a
3.

Examples
pate, pay
bat,

man, can

arm, pot, pa
bath, la?/gh, can't (This symbol represents a sound that may vary in the Middle West and New Eng-

land between the & of bat and the a of arm.)

a,
,

!, 6, u

adjust, silent, perceptible, apron, locust (These five symbols all represent the neutral unstressed

vowel.

may

They usually all sound the same, but they vary slightly and unimportantly in different
lea

dialects.)
l<wtsc,

$il<mt
I I

(The neutral unstressed vowel See a above.)

height, high pm, hit

percept/ble above.)
throat,

(The neutral unstressed vowel See a

throw
a sound that may between the a of arm and

wash (Thin symbol represents

vary in different dialects

represents a varies in different aialects between the

Sot awl) mourning (This symbol

the

sound that 6 o throat

and the 3 of awl)

5 6
oi
tf?>

awl, law

apron (The neutral unstressed vowel See d above.)

choice, boy
stool,

boo
book

<fa

bull,

<w
u

cowed, cow
beauty, butte,
cut,

pew
XV

&

cud

KEY TO PRONUNCIATION
u b
ch

locust
ftut,

(The neutral unstressed vowel. Sec a

aix>ve.)

a&out, ca&

r/Krsc, itchy; eac/J

d
1

day, radio, rcerf

philosophy, foot, rough

#eose, ago. rag A onus a/* a

h
j

k
1

roal,

;uinp, agent, ed/f<? an<s har/c

/oaci,

a/fow, jK>of

in

7;iean

amount^ tram

no, any, trai

sing, si?i^*r, sink

ng ngg p
r

linger

p*t f apathy, caf

raa?> <*arry^ car

<ablt% ca/(y, cat

th

fArow,

<^/u*r,

w
y
/

wil, ot'cry, stcwc win, aay

ya<-!it,

ys
ptonounced with
j)

zoo, blascT, day*

/h

mc9*vurc% rou^r (unless

CLASSICAL MYTHS
IN

ENGLISH LITERATURE

GREEK MYTH AND THE POETS

readers or students oi poetry in this latter day undoubtedly consider the use ot Greek myth by English poets merely an annoyance. A poet's rcteienccs to untamihar and rather absurd

Many

tales

and persons

as

il

they weie

known

to every reader

may

serve

but they are a hindrance to the lull enjoyment of his poetry. Either they interrupt the music until they can get themselves explained, or they are passed over and
discounted as unintelligible.

to exhibit his erudition,

Or

so

it

may

seem.
that

Earlier poets might have rctoitcd

rathei obviously

when
how-

they sang,

the myths were

a matter ot

common knowledge,
some unhappy reason,
twilight oi the gods

common

to

them and

to their audiences. Pieseut-day poets,

ever, cannot oiler this retort because, lor

the knowledge has ceased to be

common. The

has deepened into almost total darkness. In the sophisticated Roman days o the Emperoi
theie

Tiberius

came an Egyptian sailor to Rome \vith a tale that on his voyage he had heard a strange voice oil the islands ol Paxi calling
on him
tins

to proclaim:

"The

great god

Pan

is

dead!"

What

ii,

in

stii'mc

our more sophisticated day, preoccupied as and maieiial things, great Pan really is (load?
still

we

aic with

Yet Pan was

alive to the poet Kcuts,

who

prays to him:

Be them the unimaginable lodge

For solitary thinkings; such as dodge

Conception

to the very

bourne of heaven,
still

Then
That
Gives

leave the

naked brain: be
a

the leaven

spreading in this dull

it

a touch ethereal
a

and clodded earth new birth:

Be

still

symbol of immensity,
sea;
filling the*

firmament reflected in a

An element An unknown.

apace between;

MYTH AND THE POETS

even today, though a witty scholar observes that "there is sufficient evidence that Pan is dead in the almost annual assertions that

And

he

is

not/'* he

still lives

in

Kenneth Grahame's Dieam

Days,

just as

Hermes

still lives

in Housman's

The Merry Guide.

what

Certainly, whether or not

we

believe the gods are dead,

we unluckily have come

not dead.
are all
It

to call "myth," or, worse, "mythology," is can perish only with the human spirit itself, tor we inveterate makers and partakers of myth. We may have ex-

changed the glorious Athene for the Powerful Katrinka, or Zeus and Hera for Joe and Vi Green, but we must have our mythology.

One

bright

morning a

little

boy ran out to play, shouting,

Sun

a-calling,

Wind

a-calling;

Coming,

Wmdl

Coming, Sun!

ennial instinct that

call

Happy young mythmaker, all unconscious of the primitive, permoved him to song! This is what the learned
animism.
It
is

really

myth

in

its

genesis.

Who

is

not at times

beguiled or bewitched or baffled or rebuffed by that form of life other than ourselves that we call Nature so alluring, so evasive,
so inscrutable?

We

instinctively try to break

down

the barrier, or

to rend the curtain, by giving her forms like make her more familiar, more friendly, more companionable.

our own anything

But we are

like the clumsy, oafish Cyclops

on the beach, pining

foam) leaping
art

in love for the beautiful, milk-white Galatea (sea

and playing beside him. "She

flies

when thou

wooing

her;

when thou

woo'st not, she pursues thec/'t So would we clothe the mystery in human shape in vain hope
it

of exploring

sun,

tain, streams, spring,

*

moon, stars, autumn.

night, day, storm, sea,

moun-

Douglas Bush, Mythology and the Romantic Tradition in English Pot toy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1937), p. 396.
t Theocritus, Idyll 6.

MYTH AND THE POETS

Yet other mysteries confront
us, too,

'

more terrifyingthe

more intimate and often mysteries concerning life and death, and the compelling instincts, such as love, hate, greed, hope, despair, and the sense of justice; and the other mysteries concerning the many activities and occupations that spring from these first mysteries and take possession of us, such as wooing, homemaking, war, arts, government, and reform. These, too, assume human, even divine, shape in man's imagination. Hence in time there is an accumulation that

we

call a

mythology; hence Aphrodite, Ares, Athene,

Themis, Prometheus, Orpheus, and Zeus.

All peoples with any trace of civilization have thus tried to cope with the mysteries of Nature and life, sometimes grossly

and crudely, to be sure. At first local and scattered, the storiesor the best of them tended to grow and improve and merge with
the growth of a people or nation. Our good old stories are a survival of the fittest, that is, of the most beautiful and most expressive myths.

The poorer stories fade from man's memory. As children we wanted our favorite stories repeated always without variation, and this conservative instinct survives in us
Yet every good storyteller will try to improve his stories every time he tells them, if only with an added or altered detail, or tone of voice, or timing here and there. Between these two unall

and progressive, each survivceasing contrary forces, conservative and polished like a bit of quartz in has been
ing legend

ground

a glacier until it has emerged in perfectly rounded form. Thus the the telling, except what is not story fit to survive loses nought by

worth keeping, and through generations of repetition grows refined and charged with accretions of truth from its conveyors
until
it

becomes a myth that

man

does not willingly let die

all

In this matter of polishing, the Greeks of

the most successful. Greek

peoples have been

myth embodies the genius and wisdom nation with a vast experience in living-a of a most enlightened
3

MYTH AND THE POETS

both grave and gay. It is charged with high literary potentialities that have been expressed in epic, dramatic, and lyric iorms and that are still capable ot high expresbalance oi elements in
lile

sion.

Thus
lile

the Greeks' endeavor to clothe the mysteries ol Nature

and

in

human lorm and

event

their

mythology has survived

not only the Greeks themselves but all tumults ot civilization to our own day and has saturated the imagination and poetry oi the centuries. And it has survived, not primarily because the stones
are beautiiul or quaint or entertaining, but because they impart some essence of vital truth. Says Milton:
'Tis not vain or iabulous,

(Though

so esteem'd

by shallow ignorance)

What

the sage poets taught by the Heavenly Muse, Storied ol old in high immortal verse,

And

Ol dne Chimeras and enchanted isles, rilted rocks whose entrance leads Foi such theic be, but unbelief is blind.
in earlier stages oi culture
oi'

to Hell,

No

doubt

people grew

up with

they realized of the original truth and the power oi mystery that had first insphcd the myths, who shall say? But as a nation or people
belie! in the literal truth

these stones.

How much

grows more sophisticated and the old literal bdie fades, intelligent men still discern the original elements o truth and beauty
in the

myths and cling to them as vehicles of truths ar more compelling and acceptable than mere abstract statements. Indeed,

these myths in time

To
is

become universal symbols. the poet, though, whether he is ancient or modern, a myth not static and fixed. In his mind it takes new root and

blooms again. He keeps up the old practice of mythmaking.

The

story of Circe in Spenser's or in Milton's hands, the stories of Prometheus or Arethtisa in Shelley's, of Endymion in Keats's,

MYTH AND THE POETS

of Atalanta in Swinburne's, undergo transmutations that to the old intrinsic truth add new significance distilled in the poet's genius. The old legend receives new life from his handling.

Thus by the very vitality of its inherent truth best of the old lore has survived.
At
least
it

and beauty the

so.

survived until the last hundred years or

Then

the mystery that inspired and clothed the old tales evaporated under the literal sunlight of science, and in the pride of our new knowledge we discarded them as mere superstitions and supercargo. What part, we ask, can they take in the pursuit of science,
theoretical or applied, in economics, or in the currently fash-

ionable "social" studies?

Oddly enough,

this

question

is

not new.

It has

been asked in
the answer
is

one form or another for hundreds of

always the same, for there
is

years.

And

primarily eternal aspects of it that will elude scientific scrutiny for ever and baffle us with their mystery. Further, it is concerned with human life in a competent way. The perennial issue between youth and
age,

Nature myth,

is

The old myth, even the concerned with human life with those
only one.

between radical and conservative, with all its confusion of folly and wisdom, of suffering and defeat, of wrong and right

on both
of the

sides, is

In Ulysses

grandly intrinsic in the story of Prometheus. Tennyson reads the unquenchable and tragic thirst
soul for knowledge,

human

and

in Prometheus Shelley sees

the agony of genius confined in a conventional world he sees, in fact, his own agony. This habit or instinct of a man steeped in

ancient myths to identify his own plight or career with a mythical instance is not uncommon. Milton, composing in his blindness,
in

one of

his grandest passages sees in his

own

fate the

common

fate of ancient poets, blind

and in

this sense of

Homer and others more mythical, community with them he is raised to highest

utterance:

MYTH AND THE POETS

nor sometimes forget

Those other two equalled with me in fate, So were I equalled with them in renown, Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides, And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old. Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move Harmonious numbers.
from must gather unto itself a heavy freight generation of truth refined from the many minds that it has touched. The fiction thus becomes not individual, but communal to a group,
story that embodies the composite telling by thousands
to generation

to a nation, to the entire world;

vary

in

its

essential

meaning and constant soul of truth that

it.

to various poets

and though it may vary must and listeners, it contains an

is

common

to all

who

hear or repeat
Dr.
*

Johnson defended quotation from classical authors as making for 'community of mind/' The phrase applies even more
a medium, refined and assayed, for the use of poets in the traffic of their precious merchandise. It helps to establish, chiefly through poetry and art, not only community
to

Greek myth;

for

it is

of

mind but community

of imagination,

and in

fact

community

in the entire spiritual life of

man.

course earlier poets were well aware of this community with hearers who had assimilated a knowledge of the old myths almost

Of

with their mothers' milk. Most people appropriated their knowledge of Greek myths from reading Ovid and Virgil in school, but

we who have put away such reading are more or less disqualified from this community, Hence we need handbooks of mythology.
Yet in
use

even in old Greek days, there must have been a for such handbooks, because they have been compiled in almost every age, and run, I suspect, into hundreds. Most of them are dull, but when they are pleasantly indited, a*
all times,

and

demand

MYTH AND THE POETS

by that master of tales, Boccaccio, or by Hawthorne in his Wonder Book, or by William Morris in The Earthly Paradise, or in the present epitome, qualification for the community becomes most
agreeable.

We

sometimes speak of a big assignment

as

a Herculean task

or of a brawny football guard as rearing the shoulders of Atlas. Hercules and Atlas are familiar super standards of prowess and strength, much more telling than mere statistics and physical

measurements; for they at once stir and release the imagination and carry it back along the course of an age-old human tradition
to a transcendent human being at the other end. Thus Hercules and Atlas have become communal symbols with an invariable value. Certain modern poets have tried arbitrarily to establish

symbols, valid only in their own verse, but these symbols, by the very limitations of their newness and individual origin, prove weak in contrast to the incalculable power of
their

own

traditional,

Many
is

symbols. are the poets' uses of ancient myth. An obvious one maiden roves free and fearless in the wild the simile.

communal

places,

Such

Of Where all the nymphs have her unwares forlore, Wandreth alone with bow and arrows keen

Diana, by the sandy shore swift Eurotas, or on Cynthus green,

as

To

seek her game.

off a detailed portrait of

Thus Spenser rounds

ing instance
it

Belphoebe, cloth-

in the traditional

and

dateless beauty of the mythical

an instance that has gathered beauty from use by both Homer and Virgil, and, needless to say, also from the inimitable music of Spenser himself. Milton, too, added his variation.

Eve

MYTH AND THE POETS

Like a wood

nymph

light,

Oread or Dryad, or of Delia's train, Betook her to the groves, but Delia's self In gait surpassed and goddess-like deport.

To

Pomona, thus adorned, Like&t she seemed, Pomona when she fled
Pales or

Vertumnus, or to Ceres in her prime, Yet virgin of Proserpina from Jove.

teristic

Such clustering of allusive and undeveloped similes is characof late Alexandrian poetry. In the overripe, sophisticated

latter days of

Greek

civilization,

when Alexandria had become

worn but

and clearinghouse of Greek literary culture, the wellcherished myths tended to appear in poetry by allusion, not explicitly, because the reader presumably was familiar with the story and found a certain pleasure in recogthe center
still

nizing

by the allusion. Milton, in the autumn of the Renaissance, when the old myths were again a matter of everyday knowledge for the cultivated reader, practiced this same Alexit

andrian manner of allusion.

such allusiveness
or not
is

To

us, less familiar

with the myths,

we

often baffling and unenjoyable. Yet, whether recognize the myths, any of us with an ear can appre-

ciate Milton's wizardry in turning

He knew how
passage from

to

them to pure poetic delight. weave them into cadences the more enchanting

for -the very mystery of the allusions.

Hear

this lovely

Alexandrian

Comus

or, better still, get it

its

perfect music, mingled with

dim,

far-off

by heart, until its magic hints of old

legend, rings daily in your ear:

Listen and appear to us

In

name

By

of great Oceanus, the earth-shaking Neptune's mace,

And

Tethys' grave majestic pace,

look,

By hoary Kerens' wrinkled

MYTH AND THE POETS

And
By
By
the Carpathian wizard's hook,
scaly Triton's

winding

shell,
spell,

And

old sooth-saymg Glaucus' Leucothea's lovely hands,

And hei
By

son that rules the strands,

Thetis' tinsel-slippered teet, And the songs oi Sirens sweet,

By dead Parthenope's dear tomb,

And

tair Ligea's

golden comb,

Wherewith she
Sleeking her

sits

on diamond

rocks,

soft,

alluring locks,

By

all

Upon
From
It will

that nightly dance streams with wily glance, thy

the

Nymphs

Rise, rise,

and heave thy rosy head thy coral-paven bed ....

matter whether you can explain
until
I
it

not so

much

all

the

allusions,

by

its

although the music may haunt you very enchantment to look them up But

you doubt that you

drives

will enjoy the passage

much more

myth you have felt the power and for artist; such appreciation is perhaps enough both for you the poet. In this art of enchantment by musical allusion Milton
was the grand master, equaled by none except possibly Virgil; and he practiced it most of his life, in early poems and in some of the finest passages of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.
These, then, are some of the uses oi
classic

of the old

for your efforts. In cither case, in the hands of a great

myths to the poet.

They
ol

serve lo establish

life

community of mind, of imagination, and between him and his hearers. In similes they become
size,

sumdurd measures of heroism* They draw us

or grace, or beauty, or power, or into closer and more sympathetic relation with external Nature by humanizing her and thus generating

community o

between poet, understanding and imagination

9

MYTH AND THE POETS

and Nature herself. Moreover, they also embody the elements of great moral ideas and values invariable in human
listener,

In the story of Dionysus as god of inspiration, ecstasy, and mysticism, his conflict with the literal myopic common sense of
life.

the human majority is highly significant to any man keenly aware of unseen impulses. In the fate of the poet Orpheus, who sang so
ravishingly as to

draw

all

Nature

after

him

Such

strains as

Of Pluto

to

would have won the ear have quite set free

His half-regained Eurydice,

had he not

faltered

by an infuriate and stupid

great neglected poet
is

and looked backyet who was torn asunder mob that had no ear for music, a
sure to recognize his

own

suffering.

What could the Muse herself that Orpheus The Muse herself for her enchanting son,

bore,

Whom universal

Nature did lament,

the hideous roar

When by the rout that made

His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore*

The

struggle of

Prometheus for the enlightenment of mankind,

triumph what
is

with the
ultimate

static paralysis of things as they are, his sufferings, his

if

partial

this

of the course of

human

progress in all generations?

but a supreme example As such it

has been rehearsed by poet after poet, in dramatic, narrative, and

lyric verse.

That

so

many

poets have read into the myths their

own

stories

suggests another possible origin of the myths in the region between myth and history called legend. It is a fairly reasonable

view that the myths sprang, not from animism of Nature, but from actual human instances. Hercules, Samson, Beowulf, notable
10

MYTH AND THE POETS

huskies of their time, have become glorified with the heroism that thrives on tradition. Even our "strong boy of Boston"
within, or in spite of, two generations of science and enlightenment has already gathered a bit of legendary glamour. This view
of ancient myth, or of the origin of certain myths,
is

called
it

"euhemerism,"

after the ingenious

Greek

who

first

proposed

some 2,200 years

ago.

other theories of ancient Greek myth may be worth noting. The early Christian fathers, in their struggle with paganism, devised out of Holy Writ, especially the history of Israel,
ol Greece,
to seduce

Two

the idea that the pagan deities, including even the glorious gods were merely the hosts of the fallen angel Satan, seeking

and pervert mankind by their alluring disguises as Milton Aphrodite, Hermes, Ares, and the rest. Of this theory makes use in Paradise Lost, where he lists "the Ionian gods"

among

the rallied

army

of Satan:

With

Titan, Heav'n's first born enormous brood, and birthright seized By younger Saturn, he from mightier Jove. His own and Rhea's son, like measure found;
his

So Jove usurping reigned: these first in Crete And Ida known, thence on the snowy top Of cold Olympus ruled the middle air,

Their highest heav'n; or on the Delphian cliff, Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds

Of Doric

land.

This demotion of the Greek gods has always seemed to

ungrateful of Milton,
of expression.

me

a bit

who owed them so much of his poetic power He may have thought so, too, for he has mentioned
deities.
little

them, though in a brief and inconspicuous manner, at the end of

a long

The

and gorgeous catalogue of Semitic other explanation of myth finds

room

in English

11

MYTH AND THE POETS

poetry,

though
deities

it

is

basic in Dante.

By

this interpretation the

agencies of God, the divine "Intelligences*' through which God works his will on mankind. The ancients iccogni/ed these influences ot Intelligences in
the

Greek

were

angelic

love, in Ares, the agent ot human but they failed to discern the One otheis, Divine Will that actuated them. Hence the astrological influence

Aphrodite, the agent ot

contention, and in

human

of the planets, Mars to war, Venus to love, Jupiter to rule. To us the import ot all these theories is then insistence

on

the essential truth at the heart of the myths; only with the poet's sense of this truth can they come alive again.

O
O
Of

antique fablesl beautiful and bright

joyous with the joyous youth of yore: antique fables! tor a little light
that

And

which shineth in you evermoie,

To cleanse the dimness Irom our weary eyes, And bathe oiu old world with a new surprise
Of golden dawu entrancing
sea

and

shore.

CHARLES GROSVENOR OSCOOD

Princeton
February,
,

ADRASTUS

A
ABSYRTUS
NAUTS.
(ab-sir'ttls)

was the brother of Medea. See

ARGO-

ABYDOS (d-bl'd&s) was the home of Leander, lover of HERO. ACETES (d-se'tez) was a sailor who befriended DIONYSUS ACHAEANS (d-ke'dnz), one of the chief Greek tribes, migrated
to the Peloponnesus and were the ruling people there in early times. Because of the importance of this tribe, the poet Homer often calls all the Greeks Achaeans.

from Thessaly

ACHELOUS
HERACLES.

(k'W6'As), a suitor of Deianira, was defeated by

is

ACHERON
ACHILLES WAR.

(ak'$r-6n)
(d-kil'ez)

a river of

HADES.

was the chief Greek hero in the

TROJAN

ACIS (a'sls) was the lover of GALATEA. ACRISIUS (d-krlsl-tis) was the grandfather

of

PERSEUS.
of

ACROPOLIS ATHENE.

(d-kr6]y6-lls)

is

the

citadel

Athens.

See

ACTAEON
See

(SLk-te'&n),

a hunter, by chance saw Artemis naked.

stag,

She turned him into a

and

his

own hounds

killed him.

ARTEMIS.
(ad-m^te), the daughter of Heracles' master dethe girdle of Hippolyta, which was obtained for her by
(ad-me^tis) was the

ADMETE
manded

HERACLES.

ADMETUS
ADONIS
DITE.

husband of ALCESTIS.
is

a vegetation god, (d-da'nis),

beloved by

APHROTHEBES.
13

ADRASTUS

(d-draVt&s)

was one of the Seven against

ADRIATIC SEA

ADRIATIC SEA. See MEDITERRANEAN SEA. AEACUS (e'd'kus), a son of Zeus and the grandfather of Achilles
is

a judge in Hades. See

(e-e'a)
is

AEAEA

HADES, ZEUS. Circe's island. See ODYSSEUS.

possessed the

AEETES (e-e'tez) ARGONAUTS.

Golden Fleece sought by the

AEGAEON (-je'6n) was a Hecatoncheire. xSee TITANS. AEGEAN (-je'dn) SEA. See MEDITERRANEAN SEA.
AEGEUS (e'jus) was the father ot THESEUS. AEGIALEUS (e'ji-ai'oos) was one of the Epigoni. See THEBES. AEGINA (^ji'na) was one of the mistresses of ZEUS. AEGIS (e'jls) is the shield or breastplate ot ATHENE. AEGISTHUS (^-jls'thus), a son of Thyestes, was the lover of
Clytemnestra. See

ATREUS.
had on
fifty

AEGYPTUS
murdered by

(S-jIp'tus)

sons, forty-nine oi

whom

were

wedding night. See HADES. was by mythical tradition the founder ot the AENEAS ('ne'ds) Roman race and a man whose epic adventures paralleled in
their wives

their

Roman

mythology the career of Odysseus among the Greeks. As

the story ot Odysseus' life was given poetic torm by Homer in the Odyssey, so the account of most of Aeneas' life is embodied
in a long poem, the Aeneid, by the Roman poet Virgil. In the Odyssey Homer collected the myths of his people and made of

them a poem that gave not only pride of race but a code of morals to his posterity in classic Greece. Impressed by this
accomplishment, Virgil, writing in the reign of Augustus at about the turn of the Christian era, set out to achieve the same
sort of legendary origin for the Roman race; his work therefore was consciously imitative of Homer's, and he borrowed many

incidents

and

situations

from Homer's poems and invented

of the episodes for his hero that are recognizably similar to those imitative is an Odyssey. The Aeneid, though an excellent poem,

14

AENEAS
and a derivative one, but it was enormously successful day and continuingly popular with later generations.
in
its

own

Aeneas, the epic hero of the poem, was the son of Anchises of Troy and the goddess Venus. Of sernidivine origin, he was fated
to survive the fall of

Troy

to the

Greek armies and

to find his

destiny in faraway Italy after many adventures. While the city was going up in flames after its capture by the Greeks, Aeneas

took his aged father Anchises on his shoulders and his young son Ascanius, or lulus, by the hand, and with his wife Creusa following him, set out to escape. In the confusions of that woeful
night Creusa was lost, but with his father and son Aeneas reached a group of other Trojans who had escaped and who then ac-

cepted him as their leader in seeking a new life elsewhere. After a period of preparation, the band of Trojans embarked in

twenty ships and soon came to the land of Thrace, not far away, where they thought to settle down. But they were warned by a

remarkable event not to do

so.

When

Aeneas,

who was about

to

make

a sacrifice,

had broken

off several

twigs

from a young

blood. sapling, he was astonished to see the broken parts drip A voice from the ground then informed him that he was standing at the grave of the young Trojan prince Polydorus, whom Priam had sent away to be safe from the hazards of war. This young man had been murdered for the wealth he had
shafts of the spears into living plants. To the or arrows that had killed him, grown mind of Aeneas this circumstance was a bad omen, and

brought with him, and the saplings were the

divining

he and his companions sailed away. This incident

Spenser adapts to his

Edmund

own

use in

The Faerie Queene

(1.2 30-43),

The Red Cross Knight, making love to a false and deceiving witch named Duessa, breaks off the twigs of a tree to make her a
itself

and from the tree garland; from the broken twigs blood flows, comes a voice that identifies the tree as the enchanted
15

AENEAS
form
oi a

man named

Fradubio, a victim ol Duessa's baleful

magic.

The Trojans came next to the island of Deles, and there Aeneas consulted the oracle of Apollo, which told him to seek the land oi his forefathers. He remembered that Dardanus, the founder of the Trojan royal family, was said to have come from
Crete, so the Trojans set sail for that island. There, however, they met with crop failures and disease, until Aeneas' family

gods advised him in a dream that he should move on to Hesperia, the western land, which had been the original home of Dardanus.

This land was

course.

Italy,

and

for Italy the refugees

now

set their

Their next stop was the island of the Harpies, where they were attacked by these violent and malicious birds of prey, who prophesied that before the end of their travels the Trojans would
have occasion to eat their own
tables as well as the food

on

them

(see Harpies tinder

SEA GODS). The Trojans

then went to

Epirus, where they were hospitably received by other Trojans who had escaped, and later they passed the island of the Cyclopes,

where they saw the dread Cyclops Polyphemus, who had been
blinded by Odysseus; but they escaped injury. By not sailing through the terrible strait they also escaped misfortune at the

hands of

Scylla

tion on Odysseus'

and Charybdis, who had wrought such men.

destruc-

As they were sailing along the coast of Sicily, Juno, as implacable an enemy to Aeneas as Poseidon had been to Odysseus, persuaded Aeolus, the god of the winds, to stir up a terrible storm, which blew them off course toward Africa. Fortunately,
before the ships were destroyed, Neptune, annoyed at Juno's intrusion into his realm, rose above the waves and ordered them
to
subside.

Thus

the Trojans were able

to

land safely at

Carthage*

16

AENEAS
In Carthage they found a peaceful welcome from Queen Dido and her subjects. Dido herself had had to flee from Tyre, where her husband, Sychaeus, had been murdered for his wealth, and
she
as a refuge, bargaining with the of the place for as much land as a hide would enclose, aborigines and then having the hide cut into long strips that, tied end to end, enclosed enough ground for a comfortable city. Thus she to

had founded Carthage

was disposed

be kindly to other refugees.

kindly did she receive the Trojans; she gave a splendid banquet in their honor and especially in honor of their hand-

And

some

prince,

whose godlike form greatly attracted

her.

The

rich

munificence of Dido's banquet and the luxury of her house appear in ironic echo in The Waste Land (91-93), when T. S.
Eliot describes the wealthy but neurotic woman who central figure of A Game of Chess; her synthetic perfumes
. .
.

is

the

Flung

fattening the prolonged candle-flames, their smoke into the laquearia,

Stirring the pattern

on the

coffered ceiling. 1

Here
1.

Eliot consciously parallels Virgil's description

(Aeneid,

726).

Since he was a son of the goddess Aphrodite, Aeneas was always

deeply moved by beauty and love, and he responded ardently to Dido. The affair became so serious that at length Jupiter thought it wise to send Mercury to remind Aeneas of his destiny and to
this call suggest that the quest for it be resumed. Aeneas accepted to duty, bade farewell to Dido in spite of her protests, and set
sail for Italy.

The

at the loss of her rejected queen, in despair

lover,

committed suicide on a funeral

pyre.

The

departing Tro-

jans saw the flames but did not

know

their meaning.

i From "The Waste Land," by T. S* Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 19091935, Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Reprinted with their permission.

17

AENEAS
of Dido and her operatic demise have naturally attracted the attention of poets. Borrowing most of his ideas
fatal love

The

trom Virgil and Ovid, Chaucer tells her story in The Legend of Good Women. In The Merchant of Venice (5. 1. 9-12) Shakespeare has Loren/o allude to her death:
I

n such a night

Stood Dido

wuh
to

a willow in her

Upon the wild To come again

sea-banks,

hand and wait her love

Carthage.

Dtdo and Aeneas by the seventeenth-century composer, Henry PurceJl, is an excellent English opera, and Dido's farewell lament,

"When

Am

Laid in Earth,"

is

one of the most moving of

all

operatic compositions.

Diana, arguing against Venus in John Gay's light

poem The
fate of

Fan
Dido:

(95-104), proves man's unreliability by citing the

Dido there amidst her

last distress,

Pale cheeks

and blood-shot

Deep

And
View

her breast the reeking sword is drown'd, gushing blood streams irom the purple wound.
this,

eyes her grief express:

ye maids;
all,

They're Trojans

and then each swain believe; and vow but to deceive.

in equally frivolous mood, Aeneas becomes a immovable firmness of purpose. The Baron, hero symbol of The Rape of the Lock (5. 5-6), refuses all pleas to return of man's

To Alexander Pope,

the stolen lock:

Not half so fixed the Trojan could remain, While Anna begged and Dido raged in vain,

(Anna was Dido's

18

sister.)

AENEAS
After leaving Carthage, the Trojans completed the remainder of their voyage to Italy almost without incident, for Venus obtained Neptune's promise to allow no further misfortune except the loss of one more man. A faithful but unfortunate steersman

named

Palinurus was accordingly washed overboard during the

night. His fate so impressed Cyril Connolly, editor of the now defunct English magazine Horizon, that for his book, The Unquiet Grave, he adopted Palinurus' name as his pseudonym. The ship that Palinurus was steering, guided by Neptune, reached

the shore of Italy safely, near a place called Cumae. While the others made camp, Aeneas went to seek the
Sibyl, a priestess of Apollo
(see Sibyl of

Cumaean

Cumae under his way down into the underworld of Hades to consult his father Anchises, who had died during their travels, and he needed the help of the Sibyl. The aged mystic lady told him first to find m
the forest a tree with a golden bough that he must pluck as a present for Proserpina, the queen of Hades. When he brought the

possessed the gift of prophecy APOLLO). His purpose was to make

who

bough back

as the Sibyl

had

directed, she conducted

him

to

the terrible cavern of Avernus that led to Hades, and she guided

him through many

perils

and past many

terrible scenes.
is

(For

Virgil's description of the

underworld, which
refused to

than that of any other

the shade of Dido,

classical poet,

who

more detailed see HADES.) Aeneas met answer his greeting and

hurried by without speaking to him. At last he found the shade of old Anchises, safe in Elysium, and received from him a
prophetic account of the wars that he must still fight and of the great civilization of which he was to be the founder.

When Aeneas returned to the

set sail

upper world, he and his followers landed farther up the coast in the mouth of again and
fulfilled

the Tiber river. Here the prophecy of the Harpies that the

Trojans should one day eat their tables was

when

they

19

AENEAS
had nothing left to eat except the hard bread on which they had placed the rest of their food. Conscious of destiny fulfilling
they set about to find themselves a home. The land to which Aeneas had led them was called Latium, and us aged king Latinus, who was the grandson of Saturn, welcomed the
itself,

Trojans in peace when they made themselves known to him. In fact, he offered Aeneas the hand of his daughter, Lavinia, in
marriage, for it had been foretold to a husband a stranger from overseas.

him

that she should take as

old king's generosity, however, became the cause of trouble, for the king of the neighboring Rutulians, a fierce fighter by the name of Turnus, had long been a suitor for Lavinia, and he objected to her marrying Aeneas. Furthermore, Juno resumed her troublemaking at this point: she caused

The

Latinus' wife to become antagonistic to Aeneas, and she arranged for the accidental killing of a pet deer, an event that provoked

and a group of Trojans. war thereupon broke out, in spite of Latinus' unwillingness to fight. Agamst Aeneas were ranged the Latians, the Rutulians under King Turnus, a cruel warrior named Mezentius, and a swift and skillful feminine warrior named
a conflict between Latinus' herdsmen
Incited by Juno,

Camilla about

Alexander Pope composed a well-known couplet supposed to illustrate swift movement (Essay on Criticism, 372-373):
.
.

whom

when

swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flics o'er th*

unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Aeneas, however, also had an ally, for to his side came the Arcadian king, Evander, who had long been at war with Turnus for his own reasons. In the conflict that followed, many warlike
events took place, but in the end the Trojans were victorious, and Aeneas himself slew Mezentius and Turnus. With the death

20

AJAX
of

Turnus

up
city

the story to

the Aeneid ends unfinished. Other Latin poets took tell how Aeneas married Lavinia and founded a
for her. His son lulus built another city

named Lavinium

called
,

Alba Longa where in a later day were born Romulus and Remus. Romulus became the founder of Rome (see ROME) For the tradition that Brutus, a great-grandson of Aeneas, was
the
first

king of Britain see

(e-o'li-a)
is

TROJAN WAR.
WINDS.

AEOLIA AEOLUS
See

the island of the

the winds, befriended Odysseus. (e'6-lus), the king of

WINDS, ODYSSEUS.
(a-er'6-pe)

AEROPE

was the wife of

is

AESCULAPIUS

(gs'ku-la'pi-us)

the

ATREUS. Roman name

of the

god

of medicine, Asclepius. See APOLLO. AESON (e'son) was the father of Jason,

the leader of the

ARGONAUTS.
'

AETHRA (e'thnz) was the mother of THESEUS. AGAMEMNON (^d-mSm'n&n), who was commander
WAR. AGANIPPE
of the

in chief

of the Greek forces in the Trojan War, was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra when he returned home. See ATREUS, TROJAN
(ag'a-mp'e), a spring

on Mount Helicon,

is

home

MUSES.

AGAVE (a-ga've) was a daughter of Cadmus. See THEBES. AGLAIA (d-gla'yd) is one of the three GRACES.
AIAS
or Ajax, was (1) the son of King Telamon of Salamis, a great Greek hero in the TROJAN WAR; (2) the son Oileus of the Locrians, a lesser Greek hero in the of
(a'yas),

King

TROJAN WAR.
AIDES
(al-dez)
is

another
is

name

of the god

HADES.
god HADES. name of two

AIBONEUS (ai-do'nus) AJAX (a'j&ks) is the Roman form of ^Greek heroes in the TROJAN WAR.
another

name

of the

Aias, the

21

ALBA LONGA

ALBA LONGA (Wbd long'ga). See ROME. ALBION (al'bi-6n) is an English sea god invented
See

by Spenser*
like

SEA GODS. ALCESTIS (al-s&'tls). The

story of Alcestis

and Admetus,

the later story that Chaucer tells of patient Griselda and her lordly mate, glorifies the self-sacrificing devotion of the wife but
leaves the character of the

husband in doubt.
Apollo, Asclepius' father, was in-

When

Zeus killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt for the sin of

life,

restoring Hippolytus to

tensely angry. He dared not attack Zeus himself, but he killed the Cyclopes who produced the thunderbolt. For this murder he was banished from Olympus for one year and condemned to be the
slave of a mortal. Fortunately for him, he

of

King Admetus of Pherae, who

treated

him

became the herdsman kindly, and Apollo

in gratitude caused Admetus' farm to be extremely prosperous. This pleasant pastoral year is described by George Meredith in

Phoebus with Admetus. Admetus fell in love with

lolcus,

Alcestis,

daughter of King Pelias of

his daughter's
beasts.

but Pelias declared that the

man who won

hand must

arrive at his court in a chariot

drawn by wild

Admetus, who was no animal

trainer, despaired of success,

but

Apollo solved the problem for him by hitching a well-behaved lion and a tractable boar to his chariot. Admetus married
Alcestis

and they lived happily together. Admetus seemed to be a remarkably fortunate man, but Apollo

discovered that, according to the decree of the Fates, his mortal friend must soon die. The god, carrying with him a gift of wine, went to beg the Fates to spare Admetus. After they had drunk the

wine, the Fates agreed to let him live if he could find someone else to die for him on the appointed day. Admetus was confident that one of his friends would be glad to take his place, because
all

of

them had often said that Admetus' happiness was

their chief

22

ALCESTIS
pleasure.

But when he
all

told

them what they might do

for him,

they were
to his

suddenly reluctant to oblige.

father,

He

therefore

went

not only extremely fond of him but extremely old and close to death anyway They listened to him with sympathy, but they said that neither of
were, after
all,

mother and

who

them wanted to die, not even for him. At last Alcestis offered life. Admetus had not suggested that she save him, but he made no great objection when she volunteered. The appointed moment came, Alcestis died, and Admetus wept at the loss of so
her
dutiful a wife.

On
way

the burial day the great hero Heracles,

who was on

his

to capture the man-eating horses of Diomedes, arrived to

spend a few days with his friend Admetus. When he found Admetus and the other members of the household in mourning, he offered to go away; but Admetus, remembering the sacred law of hospitality, told Heracles that the dead person was merely
a

woman

of the household.

He

took the hero to a remote

room

in the palace where he would not hear the sounds of the funeral, and he sent a number of servants to wait on him. As was his

custom, Heracles ate and drank until he was

full of cheer,

and

then he roared out some bawdy songs. The sad, shocked faces of the servants annoyed him. He demanded to know what

was wrong with them, and

finally they told

him

that Alcestis

was dead.

Then

Heracles called himself a great blundering

idiot,

mar-

veled at the virtue of his friend Admetus, and wondered what he could do to excuse his bad manners. The plan he hit upon was characteristic: it called for action and it required strength and daring that only Heracles possessed. He knew that Thanatos, who is Death, would come to take Alcestis from her tomb. He lay in wait for Death, wrestled with him, and made him give Alcestis back to life. Leading the veiled woman, he came to the

23

ALCESTIS
weeping Admetus and said, "Do you know this girl?" Admetus muttered something about a ghost, but Heracles said, "No, she is Alcestis. I wrestled for her with Thanatos, and I won." In English literature many poets have praised Alcestis. In The

Legend of Good Women Chaucer makes Alcestis the queen of the god of love because she is the most virtuous woman the world has ever known. Milton, in one of his most moving sonnets, uses the return of Alcestis to Admetus as the central image to describe a dream he had about his dead wife, Katherine Woodcock. He never saw Katherine, because he went blind two or three years before they met, and he lost her in childbirth two years after
they married (Sonnet 23).

from the grave, Son to her glad Husband gave, Rescu'd from death by force though pale and faint.
like Alcestis

Methought Brought to

saw

my

late espoused Saint

me

Whom Joves great

She came, he
.

says,

Her

face

vested all in white, pure as her mind: was vail'd, yet to my fancied sight,

Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd So clear, as in no face with more delight.

But
I

as to

wak'd, she

embrace me she enclin'd fled, and day brought back

my

night.

To

Alcestis,

the early Greeks who invented the story of Admetus and Admetus was doubtless an admirable person. They con-

sidered a

man
It

to

Admetus was

also

be much more valuable than a woman, and a king on whom the welfare of his country
Alcestis' sacrifice,

spite of his great grief him worthy of the redeemed Alcestis. However, in the proved fifth century before Christ, when Euripides wrote his tragic drama

was right for him to accept depended. his observance of the law of hospitality in

and

24

ALCESTIS
Alcestisj the

so simple

Greek view, or at least the Eunpidean view, was not and straightforward. Euripides presents an Admetus,
troubled the Greek audience and
critics.

who must have

who

is

variously

interpreted by modern

As Douglas Bush observes, certain scholars maintain that the Euripidean Admetus is an ideal king whose actions are fully justified by ancient standards, while others
hold that he
is

a selfish coward

who

finally

reforms because he

is.

made

to realize his

own

baseness.

Most

critics are closer to

the

second opinion than to the first. In Balaustion's Adventure Browning creates a Greek

girl in his,

own image

the result

is

hardly Greek

who

gives a

good

transla-

tion of Euripides' play but adds a running commentary and interpretation that reveal Admetus as Browning's favorite kind

weak man who through suffering achieves goodness. According to Balaustion's interpretation, Alcestis as she dies sees, through Admetus' selfishness, and after her deatn Admetus is,
of hero, the

miserable in the knowledge that his weakness has betrayed her. Gradually he realizes how little he has gained and how much he

has

lost, and in this painful discovery he achieves moral stature. Heracles, returning with the veiled Alcestis, tests Admetus until both he and Alcestis are satisfied that her husband has become

worthy of her. In Balaustion's version, also, Heracles is much more than the brave, good-natured, but blundering Greek hero; he is the personification of unselfish service, whose mere presence

moves men

to a desire for goodness.

is

Balaustion, however,

not

satisfied

with

this interpretation.

"Could we too make a poem?" she demands, and proceeds to* do so. In her version Admetus, the perfect king, prepares without
reveals that she has
fear for death but questions the justice of the gods. Alcestis then made a secret agreement with Apollo that

she will die to save her husband's

tests,

life.

Admetus

passionately pro-

but the bargain has been made and

Alcestis dies.

Yet whent
25

ALCIDES
she reaches Hades, Persephone says wryly that a death death which doubles another life:
is

not a

"Two

souls in one were formidable odds: Admetos must not be himself and thou!"

And
The

so,

lost eyes
lo,

before the embrace relaxed a whit, opened, still beneath the look;

And And
If the

Alkestis

was

of Admetos' rapture
is

alive again, who shall speak?

reader

disappointed in Balaustion (and her creator

Browning) for simplifying and sentimentalizing an interesting story, he should be reminded that William Morris, who wrote The Love of Alcestts in 1868, three years before Balaustion'$ Adventure, and
versions o

other writers since Browning who have produced the story have, in one way or another, prevented
all

Admetus from

easily accepting his wife's sacrifice.

ALCIDES

(Sil-si'dez)

was another name of

ALCINOUS
ODYSSEUS.

(fcl-sin'o-us)

was the Phaeacian king

HERACLES. who befriended

ALCMAEON (Slk-me'dn) was one of the Epigoni. See THEBES. ALCMENE (aik-me'ne) was the wife of Amphitryon and the
paramour
of

ZEUS.

ALCYONE (ai-sl'6-ne), or Halcyone, was the wife of CEYX, ALCYONEUS (ai-si'6-nus) was one of the GIANTS. ALECTO (d-lSk'to) is one of the three FURIES. ALECTRYON (d-iek'tri-bn) was a servant of Ares. See APHRODITE.

ALEXANDER was TROJAN WAR.

NYMPHS,
26

another

name

of Paris, a prince of Troy. See

ALOEUS (d'Wobs) was ALPHEUS (l-f'us) is

one of the GIANTS.

a river

god who pursued Arethusa, See

AMPHIARAUS

ALTHAEA
the

(&lthe'a)

was the mother of Meleager, the hero of

was the goat whose milk fed the

CALYDONIAN BOAR HUNT.

(am'al-the'a)

AMALTHEA
infant

ZEUS.
(anj'a-zonz),

AMAZONS

or

AMAZONES

(am'a-zon'ez),

were

a tribe of warlike
battle scenes of

women who made

constant forays into the

Greek mythology. They are often said to be the children of Ares, god of battle, and they appear to owe their
origin to the worship of the feminine characteristics of the moon, for which see ARTEMIS. As a tribal custom, they permitted

only female children to survive, either killing their male children or sending them away to an early and permanent exile. For their
females they provided the warlike disciplines of the Greek fighter, a course of study that began for the Amazons with the amputa-

movement

tion of the right breast in order to permit a greater freedom of to the fighting right arm. The Amazons, both as defenders of their own realm and as

invaders, fought heroically but unsuccessfully against the Greeks. Bellerophon was victorious against them. Theseus joined Heracles in his task of obtaining the girdle of Hippolyta, the

Amazonian queen; from this the girdle, and Theseus with

project Heracles returned with a wife (either Hippolyta herself

or her sister Antiope, according to varying accounts). tory raid against Attica was repulsed by Theseus.

retalia-

band

of

Amazons

led

by

their later queen, Penthesilia,

fought against the Greeks at Troy; but Achilles overcame Penthesilia herself, and her army was routed. See HERACLES,

THESEUS, TROJAN WAR. AMBROSIA (am-bro'zhd) is the

food of the gods.

of

AMOR

(a'mdr)

is

Roman name

EROS.

AMPHIARAUS
THEBES.

(Sm'fi-a'ra'iis)

was one of the Seven against

27

AMPHION
AMPHION
THEBES.
(am-fi'6n)

was the husband of Niobe and the

brother of Zethus, with

whom

he ruled Thebes, See

ARTEMIS,

AMPHITRITE
of the

(am'fHri'te)

is

the wife of Poseidon, the king

SEA GODS.
(am-fit'ri-6n)

AMPHITRYON
See

was the husband of Alcmene.

ZEUS.

(fl-mu'li'us), the usurping king of Alba Longa, was Rernus and Romulus. See ROME. by AMYCUS (fl'im'kus) was a famous boxer defeated by Poly-

AMULIUS
killed

deuces,

one of the

ARGONAUTS.
(an'a-dz-6m'-ne)
is

ANADYOMENE
DITE.

a surname for

APHRO-

ANCHISES
chief hero of

(2in-ki'sez)

was the father of

AENEAS.

ANDROMACHE

ANDROMEDA
by PERSEUS.

(an*dr6m'0"ke) was the wife of Hector, the WAR. Troy in the was rescued from a sea monster (an-drftrn'^da)

TROJAN

ANTAEUS (n-te'us), an earth Giant, was killed by HERACLES. ANTEIA (an-ti'0) loved BELLEROPHON.

ANTENOR (n-te'n6r) TROJAN WAR.

ANTEROS
ANTICLIA
(Sj/tft-r&s),

was a Trojan councilor during the

the god of mutual love,
is

the brother

and attendant

ol

EROS.

(an'trkli'a)

ANTIGONE
THEBES.

was the mother of ODYSSEUS. a daughter of Oedipus, king of (an'tlg-'i-ne) wa$

ANTINOUS

ANTIOPE AMAZONS, THESEUS);

and Zethus,
28
regents of

of (&n-t!n'6-wus) was the most insolent suitor the wife of ODYSSEUS. Penelope, (an-tl'frpe) was (1) the sister of Hippolyta (see
(2)

the mother by Zeus of

Amphion

THEBES,

APHRODITE

APHRODITE

(af'r6'di'te),

or Venus,

is

the goddess of beauty

and the patroness of love of all kinds, animal and human, spiritual and sensual. According to Homer, Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and Dione^ but her name is more appropriate
to the account given

by Hesiod that she rose from the foam of

the sea where the bits of Uranus' genitals fell when he was castrated by Cronus, 'for Aphrodite means "foam born." Those who

believed in Hesiod's story of her origin often called her Aphrodite Urania, and under this title she was thought to embody the
great universe-moving love of the gods, whereas under the name of Aphrodite Pandemos she represented the love of mortals and
of animals. In later times these titles changed meaning until Aphrodite was called Urania when she represented spiritual love

between mortals, and Pandemos when she represented carnal or

sensual love.

When

Aphrodite arose from the foam she was wafted among

the islands of the Mediterranean, arriving first at Cythera or Cyprus (accounts vary), for which reason she was often given the surnames Cytherea and Cypris. She was also called Paphia after a

on Cyprus where she performed a miracle (see PYGMALION). One of the most famous Renaissance paintings is Botticelli's Aphrodite new-risen from the foam, and floating in a great scallop shell. Her best-known surname among the Romans was Erycina from a famous shrine dedicated to her at Mount Eryx on the northwest coast of Sicily. Her other nicknames included Anadyomene, which means "she who came out o the sea," and
city

Pelagia.

Aphrodite arrived on Mount Olympus she was warmly received. Her presence was so lovely that insatiable Zeus fell in love with her, but she refused to grant him her favors. In a fit

When

he compelled her to marry Hephaestus, his lame son. she Aphrodite, however, was not content with Hephaestus, and
of pique,

29

APHRODITE
became involved
in a love affair with Ares

The
fear,

relationship
love,

produced five children: Eros; Anteros, Deimos and Phobos, or Pavor, lesser gods of
Ares,
oi

a lesser

god of

who

attended

and Harmonia, who became the wife of Cadmus, founder Thebes Aphrodite and Ares began their love affair in secrecy,
set Ares' servant

having
asleep,

and the

lovers

Alectryon as a sentry, but Alectryon fell were discovered by Helios, the sun god.

Ares punished Alectryon by changing him into the rooster, which must always crow at the approach ol dawn In the meantime
Helios reported the intrigue to Hephaestus, Hephaestus made a great net of metal and threw it over the unsuspecting lovers, imprisoning them together, and summoned the other gods to

laugh

at

them

in their shame.

But who was most embarrassed

the unfaithful wife, the trapped lover, or the deceived husband is still doubtful. Chaucer wrote a poem called The Complaint
of Mars,

which

gives the thoughts of the

god of war

atte departynge Fro fresshe Venus in a morwenynge, Whan Phebus, with his firy torches rede,
.
. .

Ransaked every lover in hys drede,

Chaucer, however, has rearranged the entire myth to fit the medieval idea of courtly love, and he omits the boisterous ending described here. In John Peale Bishop's When the Net Was Unwound Venus Was Found Ravelled -with Mars Aphrodite's
affair with Ares becomes a more general symbol for an love experience between a soldier and a prostitute. Aphrodite also had a less successful love affair with a
illicit

young

huntsman named Adonis,

a personage older than the Greek, in which ologies

who

originated in mythhe occupied the position

of a vegetation god, that is, a god connected with the return of life to plants in the spring and with their decay in the fall.

30

APHRODITE
one day accidentally wounded his mother Aphrodite with one of his love-provoking arrows, and as a consequence Aphrodite fell in love with Adonis, a handsome young man and an ardent huntsman. Unfortunately for her, Adonis
According
to Ovid, Eros

did not return her love in spite of her endearing advances but continued to prefer the excitement of the chase. Aphrodite besought him to take care of himself for her sake, but in spite of

her warnings Adonis was killed by a wild boar. Aphrodite, in her grief, transformed Adonis' spilled blood into a flower, the

anemone. In the meantime Adonis' spirit went down to Hades, where Persephone, the queen of the underworld, also fell in love with him. Aphrodite's pleas to Zeus to restore Adonis to her were therefore firmly countered by the pleas of Persephone to be
allowed to keep him. Caught in this feminine crossfire, Zeus decided that Adonis should spend six months in Hades with

Persephone and

When Adonis
to die,

is

and

fall

six months in the upper world with Aphrodite. with Persephone, nature languishes and appears and winter are at hancl;' but when he returns

back into the world, and spring and summer ensue. (For another myth about the annual death and rebirth of nature see Persephone under EARTH GODto Aphrodite, her joy brings life

DESSES.)
of Aphrodite and Adonis has been used many times in English poetry. One of the most richly ornate poems in the language is Shakespeare's long narrative Venus and Adonis, in

The myth

which he plays up the reluctance of Adonis to gratify Venus, as well as the extreme ardor of Venus balked of her desire. Spenser
also uses the

myth, though more symbolically, in The Faerie

Queene

(3. 1. 35).
.

He

describes

with what sleights and sweet allurements she Entyst the Boy, as well that art she knew, And wooed him her Paramoure to be
.

APHRODITE
as the subject of a tapestry

hung

in the Castle Joyous,

which

is

one of his allegories of loose

of the affair a

living.

In

this passage

Spenser makes

symbol of lust in action. Later in the same book 6. 29-54) he uses the story as a symbol of the natural order. (3. Here he describes at length a place that he calls the Garden of
Adonis, where are accumulated
all

human

spirits

waiting to

re-

ceive the habitation of a body. In the center of this

garden

is

pleasant arbor of trees grown closely together to form a covert

in

which Venus

is

able to delight in
loyous company, sweet pleasure of the wanton boy,

Her deare Adonis

And reape

no longer troubled by misfortune. Their

of the continuance of life in the world.

love here

is

the symbol

Haxdly less famous is Aphrodite's love for Anchises, a member of a branch of the royal house of Troy. Aphrodite appeared to him as the daughter of a Phrygian king, and she subsequently
bore him a son

whom

they

named

Aeneas.

He grew up

a prince

of Troy, and his wanderings after the fall of that city to the Greeks are the subject of Virgil's Aeneid (see AENEAS). Aphrodite

was in no small degree accountable for the Greeks' war against the Trojans. For her part in provoking that great struggle

see the article

on the Trojan War.

a son

By Hermes, Aphrodite had

named

after

both of them

and called Hermaphroditus. For the story of his curious involvement with a river Nymph named Salmacis, see HERMES, In these myths Aphrodite appears in her many manifestations
as the great, complicated love instinct of

human

nature. In her

actions are found the deepest motives and the most complex involvements of love* For the Greeks she was associated with

personal symbols, including the swan, the sparrow, the dove, the apple, the rose, the myrtle, the linden, and the cypress.

many
32

APHRODITE
She was supposed to have a girdle or cincture of great virtue, which represented her chastity. Spenser makes considerable use of
this

symbol in

The
it

Faerie
"in

Queene where he

relates
fire"

how
for

Hephaestus wrought

Lemno with unquenched

Aphrodite and how a beautiful and chaste young lady named Florimell, who had been fostered by the Graces, found it one day in Aphrodite's secret bower where it had been left for the nonce. Florimell took it for her own, and the fifth canto of Book Four relates how, when Florimell had temporarily lost it, the
girdle was the subject of an argument among several light ladies, none of whom it would fit because of their lack of chastity. As
to how Aphrodite herself, who was certainly not addicted to austere virtue, could comfortably wear so demanding an article,

Spenser candidly relates

(4.

5. 3):

That

And Wiuehood

girdle gaue the vertue of chast loue, true, to all that did it beare;

But whosoeuer contrarie doth proue^ Might not the same about her middle weare, But it would loose, or else a sunder teare. Whilome it was (as faeries wont report) Dame Venus girdle, by her steem-ed deare, What time she vsd to hue in wmely sort; But layd aside, when so she vsd her looser

sport.

is the loveliest of the goddesses and the favorite of in all languages. Her attributes and her person are referred poets to in many poems of Spenser's, including the Epithalamion and

Aphrodite

Prothalamwn, and
is

addressed to her.

of his Elegie 12. writes of Belinda's lock, transformed after

star, so

poem An Hymne in Honour of Beautie Donne alludes to her in the opening lines In The Rape of the Lock (5. 135-136) Pope
his
its

rape into a shooting

that

it

3)

APHRODITE
.
.

the blest Lover shall for

Venus

take,

And send up vows from Rosamonda's

lake,

Pope's suggestion being that fond lovers will be unable to

dis-

Don Juan

tinguish between a shooting star and the planet of Venus. In (1. 55) Byron describes Donna Julia,
.
,

whom

to call

Pretty were but to give a feeble notion Of many charms in her as natural

As sweetness

to the flower, or salt to ocean,

Her zone
(But this

to

Venus, or his

bow

to Cupid,

last simile is trite

and

stupid)

Here the "zone"

is

is

Aphrodite's girdle.

the subject of a later myth in which she lured Aphrodite a knight named Tannhauser into a cave and lived with him for

seven years, a story that Swinburne made the subject of his poem, Laus Veneris. For Dante Rossetti, in Venus Victnx, she is still
the conquering force in
called
life.

In our

own

times

one

of his

poems Venus Will

is

Now

Say

W. H. Auden has a Few Words, in

which the procreative principle origin of man.

Astarte, or Ashtoroth,
is

personified to describe the

the Phoenician

name

for Aphrodite,

especially in her function as the productive

power of nature.
the

Under
Greek

this

name

she was particularly well

known among

where the trading of the Phoenicians carried her fame. Several English poets have preferred this name. Lord
islands,

Byron, for example, in Manfred, uses Astarte as the name of Manfred's dead lover- Manfred, suffering remorse for a terrible

but unnamed crime,

a

lives

alone in the Swiss Alps.

He

calls

up

of spirits of the universe in search of foigetfulness and at last calls up Astarte, who forecasts his death on the next day.

number
this

In

poem Manfred

is

clearly

Byron himself, and Astarte

is

34

APOLLO
Augusta, his half
sister,

with

whom

his

reputed incestuous

rela-

tions led to his exile

from England.
called Astarte Syriaca.

Dante Rossetti wrote a sonnet

APOLLO
father,

(a-p61'6).
is

The

Titan. His majesty

compared
1.

to

was Hyperion, a recalled by Hamlet when he says that his Claudius, was as "Hyperion to a satyr"
first

god of

light

In English literature Hyperion is occasionsun god, as in Thomas Gray's The ally regarded at times his name is used merely as Progress of Poesy (53); and another name for Apollo: in Henry V (4, 1. 289-292), for ex-

(Hamlet,

2.

140).

as the reigning

ample, the King speaks of the

common

laborer

who

from the

rise to set,

Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,

Doth

rise

and help Hyperion to

his horse.

Hyperion, however, lost his powers to younger gods. His son Helios became the god of the sun in its physical aspects.

Each morning in

his palace in the east, the four horses of the

is

sun are harnessed, the gate

opened by

Eos, goddess of the

dawn,

and Helios drives his flaming chariot across the sky. Because he is one of the few Titans who retained their godhead under Zeus,
Helios
is

simply called "Titan" in Spenser's Prothalamion

(4)

and Robert Herrick's Corinna's Going A-Maying (25). For a sun god, however, he lives a rather shadowy existence because the stories connected with him and even his position as heavenly
charioteer were eventually attributed to Apollo.

Only a few

ac-

tions of Helios are important: he observed, for example, that Aphrodite was unfaithful to Hephaestus and informed the lame

god, he told Demeter who had abducted her daughter Persephone, he required that Odysseus' crew be punished for killing

APOLLO
and eating some of the cattle of the sun, and he was the father of Circe. H. D. describes him in her poem Helios. Apollo, the son of Zeus and Leto, replaced Hyperion as god of light and gradually usurped the lesser powers of Helios. He is
also

called Phoebus,

which means "shining"; Pythius, which

reiers

to his slaying of the

is

Python

(see

ORACLES);

Lycius,

which which

thought to mean "wolf god"; and Cynthius and Delius, refer to the mountain and the island on which he was

given to Apollo, Originally

means "healer," is another name sometimes Paean was an Olympian himself, the physician of the gods, but he was little more than a personified abstraction, and his name was soon attached to Apollo and later
born, Paean, which

to Asclepius. Songs oi praise or

triumph addressed

to

Apollo the

preserver are called paeans. The mother of Apollo was Leto, or Latona, a Titaness.
Zeus's wife

When

Hera learned that Leto was with child by Zeus, she demanded that no people and no place give her refuge. Leto wandered in despair until Poseidon sent a dolphin to carry her to the floating island of Delos, which Zeus or Poseidon anchored tor her in the Mediterranean. There on Mount Cynthus she gave birth to twins, Apollo and Artemis, goddess of the moon.
In

The

Faerie Queene

(2.

12. 18)

Spenser refers to Leto's flight

from the anger of Hera and to the anchoring of Delos, and Milton in I Did But Prompt the Age recalls the rude Lycian
peasants
to let

whom

Zeus transformed into frogs because they refused

Leto drink from their lake when she was weary from travelwith her "twin born progeny." ing Apollo and Artemis were as devoted to their mother as she

was

to

them.

When

Tityus, a Giant, insulted Leto, her children

subdued him with their arrows, and he was then hurled into Tartarus, where his huge bulk covers nine acres. Vultures eternally eat his liver and his liver is constantly renewed; thus his
56

APOLLO
In English literature he appears, with others, as a great sinner who has received a welldeserved punishment; he is used in this way, for example, in

torment never

ceases.

Tantalus and

swift

Ben Jonson's Catiline (4. 2. 294). Apollo and Artemis and terrible vengeance on Niobe, who boasted
(for details, see

also took

that she

was superior to Leto

ARTEMIS).

Apollo is the god of light, archery, medicine, and poetry and music. Because he is the god of light nothing is hidden from
him, and he an archer he
is
is

therefore a prophet and a speaker of truth. As a destroyer; his arrows bring sunstroke and fever.

During the Trojan War the daughter of a priest of Apollo was captured by the Greeks and given to the Greek leader, Agamemnon,

who

refused to release her.

The

priest prayed to his god,

and Apollo

The
the

sent a pestilence on the Greeks. story of Hyacinthus symbolizes the destructive

summer sun on young

people, animals,

and

plants.

power of Hya-

cinthus was a

when
by
it

handsome youth whom Apollo loved. One day were throwing the discus together, Apollo threw, and they Hyacinthus, running forward to retrieve the discus, was struck

and

into a purple flower of sorrow, "Ai, Ai."

instantly killed. Apollo turned the blood of Hyacinthus on which he put the Greek exclamation

The

hyacinth thus became a flower of

refers
to

mourning, which Milton

in Lycidas

(106)

as "that

sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe." Although the sun sometimes kills,

it also

causes

growth and

was the preserves health. To the Greeks and Romans, Apollo the father of mediideal of handsome and vigorous youth and
cine. In one of the battles of the Trojan War Diomedes stunned and would have killed Aeneas, but Apollo rescued him and with the aid of Leto and Artemis healed his wounds. Later the god performed a similar service for Hector, who had been wounded

by Aias.

57

APOLLO
Asclepius, or Aesculapius, the first physician, was the son of Apollo by Coronis, the daughter o King Phlegyas of Thessaly.

Before Asclepius was born, Apollo was informed by his messenger the crow (which then had white plumage) that Coronis had a

mortal lover. Apollo killed her at once; but later repented, punished the crow for faithfulness by turning its feathers black, and saved his unborn son. Asclepius was trained by Chiron, the wise

Centaur, but he far surpassed his tutor in the art of healing. He became famous throughout Greece, so famous that when

Hippolytus was

killed,

Artemis,

offered Asclepius a large fee to so, and for this impiety he was killed

who had been his protector, restore him to life. Asclepius did
by a thunderbolt of Zeus.

The

Greeks and Romans worshiped Asclepius as a god. In Shakespeare's Pericles (3.2) Thaisa appears to die in childis

birth and
coffin

buried at sea by her husband, Pericles; but her cast up on shore and Cerimon, a nobleman who has skill
is
is

in medicine,

Cerimon.

When

able to revive her. "Aesculapius guide usl" says the Red Cross Knight strikes down Sansjoy in
(1. 5.

The

Faerie

Queene

12-44), Duessa hides Sansjoy in a

magic
hell.

cloud and later she and Night carry him, almost dead, to

There they persuade Aesculapius to heal his wounds. At his shrine at Epidaurus Asclepius often appeared in the form of a serpent, and Ben Jonson in Bartholomew Fair (2. L 5-6) and
Milton in Paradise Lost
with the Muses,
(9.

504-507) refer to

this story.

As the god of poetry and music, Apollo is closely associated who dance and sing to the music of his lyre at

the banquets of the gods. In English literature Apollo is referred to most frequently as the sun itself and next as the patron of poetry, Spenser calls him the "god ot Poets" (Faerie Queene,

and in the Epithalamion (121-128), his own marriage he describes Apollo as the father of the Muses and song, a&ks his blessing on both the wedding and the poem. When
7, 7. 12),

APOLLO
Milton in Lycidas (64-84) questions the value of the poetic
discipline:
Alas!

What

boots

it

with uncessant care

trade,

To tend the homely slighted Shepherds And strictly meditate the thankles Muse?

Apollo replies and gives what seems to Milton a satisfactory answer. In Keats's sonnet On First Looking into Chapman's Homer the "realms of gold" literature itself are the demesnes

"which bards in
final

song of

in the fealty to Apollo hold'*; and Callicles Matthew Arnold's Empedocles on Etna sings of the

god and the Muses:

Tis Apollo comes leading His choir, the Nine.

The
But

leader

is

fairest,

all

are divine.

The

lyre, a stringed

instrument which the god Hermes

in-

vented and gave to Apollo, is a symbol in English literature of beautiful music. In Love's Labour's Lost (4. 3. 342-343), for
example, Berowne says that love
is

... as sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute, strung with

his hair.

laments Terpsichore in Spenser's Teares of the Muses (329-330) have usurped the places of the true that the spawn of Ignorance
singers:

Mongst simple shepheards they do boast their And say their musicke matcheth Phoebus quill.

skill,

This sort of boast never went unpunished, for Apollo was

intensely jealous of his reputation as a musician.

39

APOLLO
on the pipes he had invented, once challenged Apollo to a contest. Tmolus, a mountain god, acted as judge, and King Midas, a friend of Pan's, was the audiPan,
vain of his
skill

who was

ence.

The
of

rustic

god played

well,

as Shelley

imagines in his

Hymn

Pan

(12-23):

Liquid Peneus was flowing, And all dark Tempe lay

In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing

The

light of the

Speeded by

my

dying day, sweet pipings.

The

Sileni,

and

Sylvans,

and Fauns,

And the Nymphs of the woods and the waves, To the edge of the moist river-lawns And the brink of the dewy caves, And all that did then, attend and follow,
Were silent with love, as you know, Apollo, With envy of my sweet pipings.

But Apollo drew music from his lyre that only the Muses could equal, and Tmolus awarded the prize to him. Midas, who didn't know anything about music but knew what he liked,
said that the

judgment was

unfair,

and Apollo

in

contempt

gave him a pair of donkey's ears* Midas concealed his disfigurement under a specially designed cap, but he could not hide it from his barber, whom he swore

been a garrulous trade, and this he eased his pain by digging a hole in the ground and whispering into it, "King Midas has ass's ears/* Reeds grew on the spot, and when the wind blew through them they whispered softly (but loud enough for
to secrecy. Barbering has always

barber almost burst with his

secret. Finally

everyone to hear), "King Midas has ass's ears." Chaucer's Wife of Bath, who got this tale from her fifth husband, a great critic
of women, says that
it

was Midas' wife who revealed his

secret

40

APOLLO
950-982) Pope alludes to this version of the story in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (79-82) when he gives his reason for writing The Dunciad:

(Canterbury Tales,

III.

Out with it, DUNCIAD! let the secret pass, That secret to each fool, that he's an Ass: The truth once told (and wherefore should we The Queen of Midas slept, and so may I.

lie?)

The poor

taste of

Midas

is

proverbial. In

Of

the Courtier's Life

(48-49), for example, Sir Thomas Wyatt, describing the flattering lies that are expected of a courtier but that he himself is not

willing to

tell,

declares that he cannot

. say that Pan Passe th Apollo in music manifold.
.
.

Lyly in Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit describes his. knowledgeable young hero as one who "could easily discern
Apollo's music from Pan, his pipe."
(For another story about

And John

Midas

see

DIONYSUS.)

goddess Athene invented the flute and played it until she discovered that she looked absurd when she puffed out her cheeks.

The

Then
his

she threw

learned

how

away, and Marsyas, a Satyr, found it and to make excellent music on it. Like Pan, he believed
it

own

tunes

irresistible,

and he

finally

demanded a

trial

of

with Apollo, Apollo agreed on one condition: that the winner should do what he pleased with the loser. When the
skill

alive.

had him flayed Niobe and Arachne, is intended to show the dreadful punishment that falls on one who defies a god. From bis oracles at Delphi and elsewhere, Apollo foretold the future to his worshipers (see ORACLES), and he granted the
decision

went against the

foolish Marsyas, Apollo

This

story, like those of

gift

of prophecy to two

women whom

he loved. Cassandra,
41

APOLLO
daughter of King Priam of Troy, accepted the gift but refused to yield to Apollo, and he took a terrible revenge: he made all
mortals disbelieve her prophecies. The Sibyl of Cumae also suffered because she would not become the mistress of Apollo.

gave her prophetic power and promised, if she would love him, to make her immortal. She took a handful of sand and begged him to grant her a year of life for each grain of sand.
agreed, but she forgot to ask for continuing youth, he would not give because she refused his love.

He

He

and

this

The

Sibyl lived for a thousand years in her cave at

Cumae;

she was seven hundred years old when she helped Aeneas, the Roman hero Usually she wrote her prophecies on the leaves of
trees,

and

the

wind blew them about her cave so that many

lost and the rest were in complete disorder. The title of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem Spelt from Sibyl's Leaves alludes to the difficulty of making sense out of her jumbled foretellings o the future. Once, however, she wrote nine prophetic books

were

and offered them to King Tarquin of Rome. He said the price was too high. She burned three of the books and told him that he could have six for the same price. When he still refused to the last three books pay, she burned three more and offered him for the same price. This time he gave her what she asked, and
Books were guarded bj priests and conJohn Donne writes ironically in Mr. Thomas Coryats Crudities (71-72), an extravagant Upon book ot travels,
sulted at
thereafter the Sibylline moments of
crisis.

As Sibyls was, your book is mysticall, For every peece is as much worth as

all.

The
older.

Sibyl told Aeneas that her

According to

years she was a tiny

body was shrinking as she grew one story, toward the end of her thousand shriveled thing that was kept in a cage, In

42

APOLLO
the Satyncon of the

ters says, "I myself with

Roman writer Petronius one of the characmy own eyes saw the Sibyl of Cumae

hangirtg in a cage, and when the boys shouted at her, 'Sibyl, " what do you want?' she used to answer, 'I want to die.' T. S,
Eliot uses these lines as the epigraph, or motto, of

The Waste

Land.
understand why a mortal maid might be reluctant become mistress of a god. He would not be faithful to her, but he would kill her, as Apollo killed Coronis, if she took another lover. A jealous wife like Zeus's Hera would persecute the girl, and if she became pregnant she would be harshly treated, probably put to death, by her own family. Even the
It is easy to

to

most religious father was skeptical when his daughter confessed that she was about to bear the child of a god.
to

Marpessa was aware of these disadvantages when she was forced choose between Apollo and a mortal lover. Apollo tried to
one of the Argonauts, but Zeus interthat Marpessa must make the decision. She
Idas,

away from and declared vened

take her

chose to marry Idas because he would grow old as she did and because he promised to remain faithful to her. Stephen Phillips
retold this story at the end of the nineteenth century. In his Marpessa Apollo offers the girl immortality if she will have him,

but she prefers the humble love of Idas and the opportunity to live a full mortal life with its sorrows as well as its joys. The

theme unfortunately is too much for Phillips' sweet vagueness. The most famous of the girls who refused Apollo was Daphne,
the daughter of the river god Peneus. She was a huntress who scorned love, but one day Apollo met her in the woods and

determined to have her at once. She ran, and he ran after her, shouting that he loved her and telling her who he was, which
frightened her even more. With the god just behind her, she burst through the trees at the edge of the Peneus and cried,

43

APOLLO
god transformed her on the spot, and Apollo found himself embracing not a lady but a laurel. He decreed that the laurel should be sacred to him, and 'thereafter poets and conquerors were crowned with wreaths of laurel, or bay (often called the bays), since the tree has both names. The word "laureate," which has had a doubtful value -since the British crown established the post of poet laureate, means
"Father, help me!"
river

The

"crowned with
the heroic

laurel/'

drama

of the Restoration, the leading character

In The Rehearsal, a famous burlesque of is an

absurd playwright.
represent Dryden, The Rehearsal was
satirists,

He is name4 Bayes because he is intended to who was made poet laureate shortly before
first

acted. Dryden,

one of the greatest English

took

this satire

on himself in good part and often referred

to himself as Bayes.

ture.

Daphne's story has been used in many ways in English literaSome writers have been impressed chiefly by the vivid picture

of the chase, as was Spenser in The Faerie Queene (3. 7. 26 and 4. 7. 22). To others the story has symbolized unattained loveliness.

Before Crcssida becomes his mistress, Troilus prays, in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (1, 1. 101-102),
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love, . What Cressid is
.

and Lacy in Robert Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay

(2. 3.

50-51) compares the girl he thinks he cannot have to

Daphne, the damsel that caught Phoebus

fast

And

locked

him

in the brightness of her looks.

In Milton's Comus (661-662) the enchanter imprisons the Lady in his magic chair, which he says, with unconscious irony, will

hold her

fast
. *

as

Daphne

was,
fled Apollo.

Root-bound, that

APOLLO
does not realize that although the Lady's body is his prisoner, her virtue protects her from him as securely as Daphne's
(27-30) turns defeat into victory by the suggestion that the deepest Apollo's desire of men and gods is for the innocent peace of nature:

Comus

transformation protected her from Apollo. The wit of Andrew Marvell in The Garden

The
Still

Gods, that mortal Beauty chase, in a Tree did end their race.

Apollo hunted Daphne so, Only that She might Laurel grow.

In his
the

Ode upon

Dr. Harvey (5-10)

myth

Harvey made

into ingenious absurdity. violent love to Nature, she

to tremble,

Abraham Cowley He says that when the

tortures
scientist

Began

and

to flee,

Took

Sanctuary like

Daphne
stop't,

in a tree:

There Daphnes lover

and thought

it

much

very Leaves of hef to touch, But Harvey our Apollo, stopt not so,
,

The

Into the Bark, and root he after her did goe

But James Russell Lowell's puns about Daphne's embarkation in

Fable for Critics (1-30) are just

as tiresome as

Cowley's kind

of ingenuity.
mistresses deserve

Apollo was not always unsuccessful in love. Four of his many mention here. The Nymph Cyrene, who was

wrestling with a lion when Apollo first saw her, was the mother of his son Aristaeus, a rustic deity, the inventor of beekeeping.

by the Muse Calliope Apollo became the father of Orpheus, the great musician. One of these boys brought tragedy to the other. Aristaeus lusted for Orpheus' wife, Eurydice, and as she
Also,
fled

from him one day she was bitten by a snake and died. The
45

APOLLO*
attempt of Orpheus
Clyde, a water
left

to

win her back from Hades

(see

is

one o

the

most moving stones in mythology

ORPHEUS).

Nymph, was deeply in love with Apollo, but he her for another girl. She refused to eat or take any care of
day long she watched Apollo as he traveled through and soon she was turned into a sunflower and became

herself. All

the sky,

a symbol of faithfulness William Blake writes of the

.

Who

Sun-Flower' weary of time, countest the steps of the Sun,

and Thomas Moore in Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms uses Clytie to prove that true love never alters:
...
the sun-flower tutns

The same

look which she turn'd

on her god, when he when he rose.

sets,

was Apollo.
she sent

Phaethon's schoolmates laughed at his boast that his father When he asked reassurance of his mother Clymene,

him

to sec his father at the palace ot the east.

Apollo received him kindly, swore by the Styx (the most binding oath of the gods) that he should have whatever he desired. At once the boy asked to drive the chariot of the sun for one day. Apollo tried to dissuade him,
as his son,
telling

acknowledged him

There and

him

of the fierceness of the horses

listen

and the

perils of the

road,

but Phaethon would not

to reason.

The Hours

harnessed the horses, Eos opened the eastern gate, and out went Phaethon. As soon as they realized that Apollo's hand was not

on the

ran away. They dashed up and down the heavens, frightening the constellations, making the clouds smoke,
reins, the horses

and burning

the tree-covered

hills.

Under

the terrible heat the

a desert. The sufferEthiopians turned black and Libya became earth prayed for relief, and Zeus struck Phaethon with a ing

thunderbolt, Phaethon

fell

flaming into the great and mysterious

46

APOLLO
river Eridanus,

and on

its

shores his sisters the Heliades

mourned

for

him

until they were turned into poplar trees

and

their tears

into amber.

In English literature Phaethon usually has been a symbol of rash presumption. Spenser calls him "Phoebus foolish sonne" (Teares of the Muses, 7) and compares his arrogance to that of
Lucifera, ruler of the
4. 9). (1.

House of Pride

in

The

Faerie
(3.
1.

Queene
154-155)

Valentine in

Two Gentlemen

of Verona

plans to elope with

Silvia, the

Duke's daughter.

When

the

Duke

discovers the plot, he contemptuously compares Valentine to

Phaethon and

asks,

And

Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car with thy daring folly burn the world?

In Richard II (3. 3. 178-179) the King, about to surrender his crown to the rebel Bolingbroke, speaks of himself in bitter irony:

Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaeton, Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
Spenser in the catalogue of trees in Virgils Gnat (198) describes the "Sunnes sad daughters" mourning for Phaethon, and Andrew

Marvell recalls them in The

of

Nymph

Complaining for the Death

Her Faun

(99-100):

The

brotherless Heliades Melt in such Amber Tears

as these.

Religious poets of the seventeenth century sometimes represented Apollo as an enemy of Christ and a servant of the Devil,

but generally the god of poetry has had an honored place in English literature. Because he is an advanced moralist (in the

Eumenides of Aeschylus he defends

fied

Orestes, who has been purithe Furies, the goddesses of the through suffering, against

4J

APOLLO
old law of
strict retribution)

and because he

is

the

god

of light

and therefore of

truth,

Apollo was often used in the nineteenth

century as the symbol of intellectual order.

in his prose writings gave his lellow Romantics a philosophy, contrasts the intellectual Apollo with Dionysus, the symbol ol instinctive vigor. Keats makes Apollo the hero of

Coleridge,

who

Hypenon. The theme of this unfinished poem is the spiritual the fall of the progress of man, and it is represented through Titans and the rise of the new gods. The Titans, though far superior to their predecessors, must yield to the greater excellence of the Olympians; and the qualities essential to progress, greater self-control and greater knowledge, are shown in Apollo.

When

in his difficult search for

says,

godhead he

finally arrives at

-understanding, he

Knowledge enormous makes a god of me.

Shelley's

Hymn
I

of

Apollo (31-36) expresses a similar concept:

am

Beholds
All

the eye with which the Universe itself and knows itself divine;
verse,

harmony of instrument or
all

All prophecy,

medicine are mine,

All light of art or nature; to my song Victory and praise in their own right belong.

to Apollo. Songs of victory and praise paeans were always sung In Empedocles on Etna Matthew Arnold (perhaps to his embarrassment, for his poetic statement is at variance with his
critical belief)
'full

shows Empedocles defeated in his attempt to find

satisfaction in the austere

Apollonian ideal of intellectual

of the defeat

the distance sings development. While Calliclcs and death of Marsyas (as described earlier), Empedocles commits

48

ARCADIA
suicide by leaping into the volcano. pedocles are victims of Apollo.

Both Marsyas and Em-

Swinburne, revolting against Christianity, sees Apollo in The Last Oracle (73-76, 83-86) as the one enduring god:

Thou

the word, the light, the

life,

the breath, the glory,

Strong to help and heal, to lighten and to slay, Thine is all the song of man, the world's whole story,

Not

of

morning and of evening

goes out, discrowned
fast that

is

thy day.
disanointed,

God by god
Is

and

gave them shape and speech the sun yet cast out of heaven? Is the song yet cast out of man?

But the soul stands

Swinburne's kind of neopaganism, however, would have amazed

Apollo.

APPLES OF

THE HESPERIDES

(hgs-per'i-dez)

are golden

apples guarded by the Hesperides, daughters of Atlas, and the dragon Ladon. Atlas was tricked into giving three of these

apples to

HERACLES.

AQUARIUS
and a

AQUILO
wind. See

(d-kwarl-us), the Water-Bearer, is a constellation of the ZODIAC. sign (Sk'wHo) is the Roman name for Boreas, the north

WINDS.

ARACHNE
ARCADIA

to (a-rk'ne) was a maiden who challenged Athene a weaving contest. The goddess defeated her and turned her into a spider. See ATHENE.
(arka'di-a), or

ARCADY

(ar'kfl-de), is

a mountain-

ous region in the Peloponnesus, the central district of the Greek peninsula. Watered by innumerable streams, and protected in

many
its

climate by

a southern places from the harsher features of higher altitudes and frequent fogs, it is better

suited to the pasturage of flocks than to agriculture.

The summer,
49

ARCADIA
which burns many parts o Greece brown with Arcadia characteristically green and cool.
its

hot sun, leaves

people of Arcadia, therefore, remained or centuries a simple, generally rural lolk, even after other areas of Greece had been formed into city-states with more sophisticated civilizations.

The

The
arts,

Arcadians tended their flocks in the

fields

and cultivated

the

music in particular. The god Pan was supposed to have invented the rustic flute in Arcadia (see PAN); and the Arcadian
herdsman, whiling away the grazing time ol his flocks, tionally played to himself or his fellows on his flute.
tradi-

pastoral quality of Arcadia has leit its mark on Greek mythology, and even more decidedly on the literature of classical

The

England. With its glens and coverts of woods, Arcadia was supposed to have been the favorite hunting
times

and

ol later days in

ground
Indeed,

of Artemis,
it

the goddess of the

hunt and of

chastity.

was claimed not only that the human race had there but that the Arcadians themselves were Artemis' originated
Calling themselves "the bear-people," they worshiped her in the form of a bear. According to another story, the Arcadians were descended from Areas, the son of Zeus and a
descendants.

Nymph named
when

Gallisto. Callisto

was a follower of Artemis, but

of chastity and yielded to Zeus, Artemis turned her into a bear. For further details see ARTEMIS. Both

she broke her

vow

Zeus and Hermes were born in Arcadia, and the rural areas were the haunts of which Pan was most fond.

As

life in

ancient times became

more complex, the Greeks often

to the bucolic days of their
life

turned their minds nostalgically back

ancestors,

and they naturally found in the

of Arcadia their

of escape. Arcadia became, therefore, the local for poetry that praised the pastoral life, and ultimately symbol
best symbol

became indissolubly united with the pastoral tradition classical and English literature.
it

in both

50

ARCADIA
pastoral tradition in literature begins with the work of Theocritus, a Syracusan poet, whose Idylls show bucolic life both as it was and as a sort of idealized existence. Following

The

Theocritus' example, the

carries the idealization
still

Roman
further.

poet, Virgil, in his Eclogues, In these poems the shepherds

who compose music and poetry both for their own amusement and to celebrate the pure shepherdesses whom they love. The weather is usually spring or summer, the meadows are green, and the flocks of sheep
are all exemplary young men, innocent of guile,

peaceful and clean. Renaissance writers imitated the classical poets, and in 1504 an Italian poet named Sannazaro wrote Arcadia, a collection of poetic eclogues connected by prose
passages, which became extremely popular, setting the pattern for a number of Elizabethan writers.

Although the pastoral or Arcadian

over Europe in succeeding years,
its

tradition spread generally greatest exemplar in Eliza-

bethan England was the poet Spenser. To the elements of innocent, sometimes unrequited, love amid the green fields and pretty flocks, Spenser, following Italian models, added the
further element of allegory, so that his shepherds and shepherdesses, moving through the usual scenes of pipe playing and
love making, became the vehicles for satire and for moral comment. The Shepheardes Calender and Colin Clouts Come Home Againe remain signal accomplishments in the genre. Arcadian pastoral life naturally found its way into prose works
as well as into poetry. Sir Philip Sidney's prose romance, Arcadia,

the attempts to blend the traditional view of pastoral life with medieval chivalric tradition. Again, Arcadian life is the subject of both Thomas Lodge's Rosalind and As You Like It, in which

Shakespeare uses Lodge's

scene of either.

story,

though Arcadia

itself is

not the

more

direct dramatic use of the convention,

which was extraordinarily popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean

51

ARCADIA
John Fletcher's play, The Faithful Shepherdess (ca. 1610), which concerns itself altogether with shepherds and shepherdesses oi a sort much more likely to be found in fiction
times,
is

than in

fact.

did not end with the Jacobeans. Milton, for example, found it a rich field, and the best of his
tradition

The Arcadian

shorter

poems draw from it their symbolism. The shortest, not the best, of these is his Arcades, a masque though praise of the Countess of Derby, in which the Genius of the Wood

appears to speak the main part:

Stay gentle Swains, for though in this disguise,
I see

bright honour sparkle through your Of famous Arcady ye are, and sprung Of that renowned flood, so often sung,

eyes,

Divine Alpheus,
Stole

who by
to

secret sluse,
his Aretkuse.

under Seas

meet

The song

that concludes the

work

says of the

Countess herself:

Such a rural Queen

All Arcadia hath not seen.

Both Comus and Lycidas are likewise Arcadian pastoral poems. The latter mourns the death of Edward King, whom Milton had known as a fellow student at Cambridge. King is represented as a shepherd whose loss is mourned by the other shepherds still
in the pastures,

and especially by Milton:

Together both, ere the high Lawns appear'd Under the opening eye-lids of the morn, We drove a field, and both together heard

What

time the Gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night.
lif<?

The
literary

Arcadian idealization of country

lost

impetus during the eighteenth cewt^ry.

none of its Nymphs and

52

ARCADIA
swains, shepherds and shepherdesses, Strephons and Amaryllises were so widely written about that the terms themselves became

unbearable cliches for later writers The tradition on the one

hand retained classic purity in Alexander Pope's Pastorals; and on the other hand retained the pastoral spirit but found a local scene in poems such as Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village,
in

which he

writes:
oft at evening's close

Sweet was the sound, when

Up

yonder

hill

the village

murmur

rose;

There, as

The The The

This
write

with careless steps and slow, notes came soften' d from below; mingling swam responsive as the milk-maid sung,
I pass'd

sober herd that low'd to meet their young.

sort of thing
Village, a

provoked another

poet,

George Crabbe, to
life

The

poem showing

country

in

more

real

colors: his purpose was to

.
. .

As Truth

will

paint

it

and

paint the cot, as bards will not.

Gowper

in

Hope

also

remarks sadly:

The poor, inured to drudgery and distress, Act without aim, think little, and feel- less, And no where, but in feign'd Arcadian scenes, Taste happiness, or know what pleasure means.
Although Wordsworth was not given to classical conventions, in Michael, he has, like Goldsmith, found a native scene for an Arcadian mood. Wordsworth, however, avoided the more elaborate falsities that had grown up in literary Arcadias. With his tremendous faith in the purifying and simplifying powers of nature acting on the human mind, and with his close observation of human life in natural surroundings, he created an old shep-

ARCAS
herd

who

has at once the real simplicity of a true rustic

so

and

the

ideal innocence of Arcadia.

The

tradition was

still

century that lolanthe, in

elected to

W.

S.

Gilbert

much made a

alive in the late nineteenth

delightful satire about

it

in

which a shepherd, born of a brook Nymph, is Parliament. The opening scene is "an Arcadian landa

scape" with

brook running through

it,

but by the time

Strephon, the shepherd hero, has found his way into Parliament and has succeeded in extricating his loved shepherdess, Phyllis, from the toils of British chancery law, which has made her a ward
of the

Lord Chancellor, the

effect

accomplished

is

something of

which Theocritus never dreamed.

In a sonnet that bears the traditional name Amaryllis Edwin
Arlington Robinson mourns the passing of pastoral the modern tide of commercialism:
It

life

under

made me

To

lonely and it made me sad think that Amaryllis had grown old. 2

Yet the pastoral tradition will doubtless survive as long as there

who prefer the quiet simplicity of the countryside to the noisy confusions of the city.
are poets

ARCAS

(ar'kds),

the son of Callisto and Zeus, was sometimes said

'

to be the ancestor of the Arcadians. See

ARTEMIS.
ARES.

AREOPAGUS
ARES

(ar'e-6p'0-gus)

is

the hill of

or Mars, a son of Zeus and Hera, is the god of war. (a'rez), Dressed in magnificent armor and carrying a spear and a flaming
torch, Ares swaggers into battle attended

by

his sons

Deimos and

Phobos, or Pavor, gods of tumult and terror; Enyo, the goddess of

battle

and the destroyer of cities; and Eris, the goddess of discord* Enyo and Ens are variously described as sister, mother, daughter,

2 From "Amaryllis," by E. A, Robinson, In his Children of the Night* Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Charles Scribner's Sons*

54

ARES
and wife
the
of Ares. As scavengers of the battlefield, the vulture are Ares' favorite bird and animal.

and

dog

Ares and Mars hold the same position in Greek and Roman mythology, but their differences in character and achievement
point
a significant difference between the two cultures. Although the Greeks were skillful warriors, they thought of Ares as "the blood-stained bane of mortals" (Iliad, 5). He was
to

hated and feared by most

gods, including his parents

men and Hera and

disliked by nearly all the

Zeus. In one of the battles

before Troy the Greek hero Diomedes, with Athene guiding his spear, wounded Ares in the belly. The god roared with pain

and ran home to Olympus to complain to Zeus, but Zeus received him with cold contempt. Ares often opposed Athene, who was the goddess of victory, but she always defeated him because she
was
just

and wise

as well as warlike.

In contrast to the brutal, cowardly, sometimes unsuccessful Grecian Ares, the Roman Mars is brave, invincible, and glorious. Rome was founded by Romulus, the son of Mars and a Vestal
Virgin (after his death Romulus was deified as the war, Quirinus); and the god's temple within the
the
lesser

city

god of was on

Martius, or Field of Mars, a favorite place for sports and military exercises. The warriors in the Aeneid often seek a

Campus

to Mars glorious death in battle, and Roman generals prayed for victory and offered him a portion of their plunder. In The Tale Chaucer, Palamon and Arcite fight for the hand

Knight's

of Emily,

by and Arcite prays

to

Mars

for victory. Ironically, Arcite

gets the victory,

girl.

but Palamon,

who

has prayed to Venus, gets the

Like most of the other gods, Ares had several casual love
affairs

and fathered extraordinary

children, including the race

of warlike
tion,

Amazons. His only enduring affecoffhowever, was for Aphrodite, and the most remarkable
called the

women

55

ARES
spring of

union of delight and terror was Eros, the god of further details of the affair see APHRODITE.) love. (For When a son of Poseidon raped one of Ares' daughters by a
this

mortal mistress, Axes killed the boy. Poseidon accused Ares of murder, and he was tried and acquitted by the gods, who held
court

on

a hill in Athens. Thereafter this hill was called the

hill of Ares. It

Areopagus, the

was the scene of other murder

trials

presided over by the gods, notably that of Orestes (see ATREUS), and it became the seat of the highest human tribunal in Athens. In Elizabethan times the name was applied by Gabriel Harvey
to an informal group of critics who were attempting to reform the meters of English poetry, and John Milton in the seventeenth century called his written address to the English Parliament the Areopagitica in recollection of the Areopagitic Oration of the

Greek

Isocrates,

who

also

composed
is

his speeches to be read.

Although the

war god

Roman literature,

frequently mentioned in Greek and there are few stories about him. When he is not

described as the lover of Aphrodite, he almost always appears as a mere personification of war, and that is the way he is used in

English literature. Piers, for example, in Spenser's Shepheqrdes Calender (October, 89) urges the poet Guddie to "sing of bloody

Mars, of wars, of giusts." In Richard II (2. L 41) the rhapsodizing John of Gaunt calls England "this seat of Maxs," and Thersites
in Troilus and Cressida
(2* 1.

58) describes the boastful, strong,

stupid warrior Ajax as "Mars his idiot." The favorite animal of Ares is recalled by Antony in Julius Caesar (3- I. 273) when he
says that Caesar's ghost shall

"Cry

'havocl'

and

let slip the

dogs of

war."

Enyo, or Bellona, receives similar treatment, Spenser (Faerie Queene f 7. 6. 3) speaks of her as
drad Bellona, that doth sound on hie Warres and allarums vnto Nations wide.
.

56

ARETHUSA
One
of Macbeth's admirers calls

him

"Bellona's bridegroom'*

(Macbeth, 1. 2. 54), and this conceit is wittily developed by Richard Lovelace in his apology to his mistress Lucasta for going
to the wars:

True, a new Mistresse

now

chase,

The

first

Foe in the

Field;

And

A Sword,

with a stronger Faith imbrace a Horse, a Shield.

When

Eris, or Discordia,

was not invited

to the

wedding

of

Peleus and Thetis, she threw

among

the guests a golden apple

inscribed "For the fairest," and this shrewd

and

spiteful gesture

was a main cause of the Trojan War. Eris, however, is only an abstraction. There are no other important stories about her, and she seldom appears in English literature, although in Paradise Lost (2. 967; 10. 707-709) she is one of the attendants of Chaos and, after the fall, she introduces death among the beasts. In English literature, however, another personification from
classical

mythology sometimes takes Ens'

place.

This

is

Ate, the

and the goddess of infatuation, the cause of all rash actions the originator of mischief. Shakespeare, for example, makes Ate

companion
Caesar,
5.

1.

mentioned

of the ghost of Caesar raging for revenge (Julius 7. 55) Ate is 271). Early in The Faerie Queene (2. whose golden apple caused the as the false
spirit

and later, in the first canto of quarrel among the goddesses, Book Four, she takes part in the action. She and her dwelling are
described in detail. Born "of hellish brood" and nourished by
the Furies, this foul misshapen hag lives on

human blood shed

in "mischieuom debate, and deadly feood." Her dwelling place, close to the gates of hell, is hung with countless trophies of hervictories over

men.
(ir'frthu'ai)
is

ARETHUSA

one of the

NYMPHS.
57

ARGIPHONTES

ARGIPHONTES

(ar'ji-fon'tez)

is

another

name

for

HERMES.
of the

ARGO (ar'go) was the ship of the ARGONAUTS. ARGONAUTS (ar'go-nots). The story of the expedition
set

Argonauts, in spite of its many supernatural elements, possibly had its origin in the real events of some prehistoric quest that
its beginnings in however, the mythological story as we know it has the essence of the Greek heroic spirit, with its mixture of superhuman

out from Greece to the eastward. Whatever

fact,

achievements and

human

passions, especially as they

appeared

in the person of Jason, the chief and first mover of the expedition. Jason, like other Greek heroes, came of a distinguished lineage,
for

he was a great-great-grandson of Deucalion, who with

his wife

Pyrrha repeopled the earth after the great flood by throwing stones over their shoulders, a method not listed in the Kinsey
Report.

The

line passed

from Deucalion through Hellen, the

eponymous father of all the Greeks, or Hellenes, through Aeolus (not the wind god, for whose character see WINDS), to Jason's father, Aeson. Aeson, possibly because he was forced to do so,
gave up the throne of lolcus, a city in Thessaly, to his brother Pelias, but on condition that Pelias return it to Jason when the

boy came of age. Jason was reared by Chiron the Centaur until he was twenty years old. Then an oracle directed him to face Pelias and demand
his father's throne.

An

oracle

meantime had informed

Pelias

that a descendant of Aeolus,

wearing only one sandal,

Jason traveled

who would appear before him would deprive him of the throne. When

to lolcus, he found that he had to cross the river which was flooded at the time. On the bank there was a Enipeus, poor old woman lamenting her inability to reach the other side* He carried her across with difficulty, for the current was swift, and he lost one sandal in the river. The old woman was Hera

in

mortal disguise, and thereafter she favored Jason for his

ARGONAUTS
he arrived at court wearing only one sandal, Pelias recognized him and was prepared with a stratagem.
courtesy.

When

told Jason that his coming to the throne should be preceded an heroic achievement, and he suggested that Jason underby take to bring back the Golden Fleece from faraway Colchis. The Golden Fleece itself was the center of a colorful myth Aeson's other brother, Athamas, had two children, Phrixus and

He

Helle, by his wife Nephele.

aside,

Then Athamas

tired of her,

put her

Cadmus' daughter, who developed a traditionally stepmotherly attitude toward the two children and began to mistreat them. In revenge, Nephele brought down a drought on the land, and Ino retaliated by demanding the sacrifice o Phrixus and Helle to relieve it. The children were about to be sacrificed when their mother appeared on the scene with a golden-fleeced ram that had been given to her by Hermes.

and married

Ino,

She placed the children on

into the air
fell off

its

back,

whereupon the ram sprang

and

set course

for Colchis. Helle, the daughter,

and

into the sea at a place that was therefore given her name called the Hellespont; but Phrixus reached Colchis, sacrificed the ram to Ares, and hung its golden fleece in a sacred grove,
it

where

came to be guarded by a dragon. Thus to Pelias the fleece seemed both remote and secure, the recovery of it imand he borrows its possible. It seemed so to Shakespeare, too, the heroine of The Merchant of Venice qualities for Portia,
(1.
1.

161-172),

whom
is

Bassanio describes thus:

In Belmont

And

she

is fair,

a lady richly left; and, fairer than that word,

Of wondrous virtues ....

Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth; For the four winds blow in from every coast Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks
59

ARGONAUTS
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece, Which, makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strond,

And many

Jasons come in quest of her.

Jason was pleased with Pelias' suggestion. He first employed Argus, the son of Phnxus (not the hundred-eyed person slain by Hermes, for whom see ZEUS), to build a huge ship. Because
Jason's

contemporaries were

accustomed

to

boats

that

were

scarcely more than oversized canoes, the ship that Argus built to accommodate fifty men seemed in itself of heroic size, and it was named the Argo for its builder. Athene aided in the construction it a piece of oak from the tree of the of it and even placed

oracle at

Dodona.

invited all the heroes of Greece to join him in the expedition, and those who accepted included Theseus, Orpheus,

Then Jason

Heracles, Pirithous, Castor

and Polydeuces

(or Pollux), Meleager,

Admetus, Peleus, Nestor, Neleus, and two sons of the north wind Boreas, named Calais and Zetes.
the expedition was ready to sail, Jason made a sacrifice to Zeus and asked for an omen. Zeus responded by thundering

When

and

flashing his lightning, a favorable sign

which

satisfied the
call

heroes.

They

therefore set

sail.

Their

first

port of

was

Lernnos* the
to to

Aegean isle, "where they found a situation calculated delight the hearts of heroes. The women of Lemnos, provoked the act by Aphrodite, had slain their husbands and all the

the island (though unknown to them their queen, had saved her father from destruction). The heroes Hypsipyle, thus found pleasure enough available, and the use to which

other

men on

they turned

it

produced another race of heroes, Jason himself

had twin sons by Hypsipyle, though later, when the other Lemnian women learned that she had saved her father's life, they killed her sons and sold her into slavery to King Lycurgus
of

Nemea
60

(for

her

life

in

Nemea,

see

THEBES)* Chaucer made

ARGONAUTS
a touching love story of this affair between "due Jason" and
"Ysiphile" for his collection called The Legend of Good Women. deserted Ysiphile writes a letter to Jason to tell him that his two children

The

To

ben lyk of alle thyng, ywis, Jason, save they coude nat begile.

Furthermore, says Chaucer,

.

tr-ewe to

Jason was she

al hire lyf,

And evere kepte Ne nevere hadde

But deyede, for

hire chast, as for his wif;

she joye at hire herte,

(1569-1570, 1576-1579)

his love, of sorwes smerte.

Not
a
life,

delectable forgetting their quest, however, in spite of so at last set sail again and landed next at Cyzicus. the heroes

As they were leaving this island, Heracles pulled too hard on his oar and broke it. He therefore went ashore in the company of a youth named Hylas to find another oar, and while they searched, amorous Nymphs fell in love with Hylas and kidnaped him. Because Heracles would not go without him, the Argo had to
leave

them both behind.

heroes stopped next in Bithynia, where they were at once ruled the country and challenged to box with King Amycus, who took an insolent pride in his ability with his fists. His challenge

The

was accepted by Polydeuces, who quickly vanquished him. The the Argo then proceeded to the entrance to the Euxine (now a real peril faced the heroes. This entrance was Black) Sea, where commanded by two floating cliffs called the Symplegades, which crashed together on any vessel that sought to pass through to the
inner sea. However, the problem of passage was solved for the of Salmydessus Argonauts by old King Phineus, whose kingdom
61

ARGONAUTS
in

Thrace

lay close

by and

whom

they aided in a problem of his

own.
Phineus had got himself into considerable trouble with the gods He had first married Cleopatra, the daughter of Boreas, the
north wind (not to be confused with the later famous queen of Egypt) and had two sons by her. After she died, or according
to a later story, after Phineus had for some reason imprisoned her, he married Idaea, a daughter of Dardanus of Troy. Idaea falsely accused Cleopatra's sons of improper conduct and caused Phineus

This injustice led Zeus to force on Phineus the choice of being himself blinded or killed. In this dilemma
to blind them.

Phineus chose blindness, but in so doing he offended Helios, the god of the sun, because he had chosen not to see the sun again.
Consequently, Helios sent the terrible Harpies to prey on Phineus. These creatures were the monstrous daughters of the
sea deities

Thaumas and
birds,

Electra,

and claws of

but the heads of maidens.

and they had the bodies, wings, From their home,

the Strophades islands in the Ionian Sea, they flew into Phineus'

kingdom and each day stole his food or defiled it with their (see SEA GODS). Tyo of the Argonauts, Calais and Zetes, who had been his brothers-in-law when he was married to
excrement
Cleopatra, drove off the Harpies. As to the Argonauts' problem, Phineus advised

a dove to
together

fly

between the

cliffs;

the

cliffs

them to release would then crash

on

the dove,

and while they were moving back into

Argonauts could sail through. This it worked almost perfectly. The

their separate positions, the

advice the heroes followed and

Symplegades, in crashing together on the dove, missed all the bird except a few of her tail feathers* The Argo was then rowed
swiftly through the reopening passage,

and though the

cliffs

came

quickly together again, they missed all the boat except its rudder. Ever after, the two cliffis were united into one rock. The

62

ARGONAUTS
incident supplied Milton with a parallel by which to describe Satan's passage through the realm of Chaos in Paradise Lost
(2.

1013-1018). Satan sprang

.
.
.

upward
fire

like a

Pyramid of

Into the wilde expanse, and through the shock Of fighting Elements, on all sides round Environ'd wins his way; harder beset

And more

Through Bosporus betwixt

endanger 'd, then when Argo pass'd the justhng Rocks

The rest of the Argonauts' passage to Colchis was without serious incident except for their experience with the Stymphalian Birds, creatures similar to the Harpies, whose feathers were as
sharp
as

arrows and whose talons were of iron. These birds,

which attacked the Argonauts by showering down iron feathers that pierced the heroes' skin, were driven off only by a great
clamor that the Argonauts
set up.

expedition now reached Colchis in safety, and there Jason found the land ruled by Aeetes, a son of Helios. Aeetes consented

The

to give
first

of Ares, and of sowing it with dragon's teeth like those sown by Cadmus, teeth that would into armed soldiers who would attack whoever had
fire,

of Jason. that breathed

Jason the Golden Fleece only on condition that Jason rid perform a task for him, and the task was designed to get Aeetes' brazen-hooved bulls, It consisted of yoking
of

plowing the

field

spring

up

planted them.
of heroes, accepted the task Jason, in the manner characteristic and set the date on which he would perform it. He then put to use the experience that he had gained on the island of Lemnos, and made love to Aeetes' daughter, Medea, whose name means "the counseling woman," and who was actually a powerful to sorceress. Medea accepted his love and used her magic powers make him fire- and sword-proof. provide him with a mixture to

63

ARGONAUTS
Athene
also

came

to his aid.

Consequently Jason had no trouble

in yoking the fire-breathing bulls to the plow, much to the astonishment of all who watched. Moreover, he made short work
of sowing the dragon's teeth. When the armed warriors sprang up from the soil and attacked him, he first displayed an heroic

sprezzatura and fought

to

them off singlehanded. Then he resorted what Medea had taught him and threw a stone among them; this ruse caused them to fight among themselves until they
one another
off.

finally killed

Now

all

that Jason

had

to

do was

to best the

dragon that

guarded the fleece in the sacred wood. Again a woman's wiles were successful where a man's strength would have failed. Medea
gave

him

a liquid that, when sprinkled on the old dragon, put to sleep for the first time in his life. The fleece itself was sure that Aeetes did not change his mind, Jason

him

then an easy plunder.

To make
with them,
his guests

and

the other Argonauts, taking

left

Medea and her

brother, Absyrtus,

and

Colchis secretly Aeetes, however, soon missed his children and set out in hot pursuit. He might

have overtaken them had not Medea thought of another ruse. She dismembered her brother and threw the pieces out into the
sea as the ship

moved
but he

along.
felt

by

this device,

Not only was Aeetes deeply shocked bound to collect his disjunct son and

give

him a decent

he had

burial as required by the gods* By the time accomplished this sad task, his daughter and her friends

were safely beyond pursuit. The Argonauts reached lolcus again without mishap, and Jason dedicated the Argo to Poseidon, who had given it such fair
passage over his waters.
lolcus

Then Jason demanded

to

the throne of

from

Pelias.

According

one

story, Pelias refused

and

Jason slew him. Another myth is more complicated. Jason, it seems, asked Medea to restore his aged father, Aeson, to youth64

ARGONAUTS
fulness

the task. She

by her charms. Medea made elaborate preparations for first prayed to numerous deities, including Hecate
called

and Tellus, the earth Then she

up her magic

chariot

flew off to a place where she could find the mysterious herbs she needed. Nine nights were taken up in her search, though Jessica, in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, seems to think that Medea took only one,

powered by twin-winged serpents and

and consequently says of the enchanted night that she with her lover Lorenzo (5 1. 12-14),
Medea
In such a night gathered the enchanted herbs That did renew old

is

spending

modern drugstore

After gathering a collection of items that would put even a to shame, Medea built altars to Hebe, the

and goddess of youth, and to Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, began the final ritual. Into a caldron she put herbs, seeds, sand, the head and wings of a screech owl, the liver of a stag, the
entrails of a wolf, the

beak of a crow, and other exotic

things.

She had Aeson brought in, put him into a trance with one of her spells, and laid him out as if dead, on a bed of herbs. Then, shutting all others from her magic, she marched three
altars, dipping a burning twig into the blood of a sacrificed black sheep, and performing other rites. When the caldron had bubbled sufficiently, she cut Aeson's throat and let

times around her

which she poured her potpourri into his mouth and into the wound in his throat. The effect was as a young man again, his hair planned, and Aeson rose up in color although they had been white and beard
his

blood drain

forth, after

youthful

with age.
as a sensation. Pelias Naturally, Medea's success was received
tcto

was growing

old,

and

bis daughters besought

Medea

to

work

ARGONAUTS
the same rejuvenation on him. Medea pretended to consent, and actually went through the same motions, but this time she put

only a few odds and ends, together with some plain water, into the caldron. She then persuaded the daughters to kill their father and put his body in the caldron. Too late they learned
that they

had

killed

him

to

no purpose, and Medea had mean-

time escaped. But Medea's magic, powerful as it was, could not keep for her the love of Jason. Although she had two children by him,

he

fell

in love with Creusa, or Glauce, the daughter of

Creon

of

Corinth,

made her

his

wife,

and deserted Medea. Medea's

revenge was ruthless and terrible. She prepared a cursed dress by steeping it in a deadly poison. This she sent to Creusa as a
reconciliation present.

When

Creusa put

it

on,

it

burned her

to

death, and her father, too, who tried to save her. Medea also burned down Jason's house. As Jason came to her in great anger, she murdered their two sons and flew away in her serpent chariot
to Athens where Aegeus, the father of Theseus, who hoped that she could cure his impotence, gave her protection. The story of Medea's terrible revenge on Jason is the subject of a tragedy by

Euripides, which has recently been freely translated by Robinson crime that she attempted in Athens is told in this book Jeffers.

under THESEUS. In The Legend of Good

Women

(1676-1677),

Chaucer, intent on the feminine faithfulness that is the subject of the work, omits the violence that Medea did and tells only of her reproaches to Jason, concluding:

O haddest thow in thy conquest ded ybe, Ful nukel untrouthe hadde ther deyd with the

Jason himself came to a sorry end. Despondent over his misfortunes, which he certainly had brought on himself, he set out for the sacred grove where the Argo had been placed in dedication

66

ARTEMIS
to Poseidon.

There he

killed himself, or according to another

account, the stern of the Argo fell on him and killed him. The entire story of Jason is related by the indefatigable William Morris in a long poem called The Life and Death of

Jason,

and Robert Graves has

recently retold the voyage of the

Argonauts in a novel, Hercules, My Shipmate. ARGUS (ar'gus) was (1) the hundred-eyed giant who guarded
lo on Hera's orders (see ZEUS):
the ship of the
(2)

the builder of the Argo,

ARGONAUTS;

(3)

the dog of

ODYSSEUS.

ARIADNE
fell

(arl'ad'nS) aided Theseus in slaying the Minotaur. Theseus deserted her on the island of Naxos, but the god Dionysus

in love with her and married her. See

DIONYSUS, THESEUS.

ARIES (a/ri-ez), ZODIAC.

the

Ram,
(1)

is

a constellation and a sign of the

ARION

(d-ri'&n)

was
/

a musician

(see

SEA GODS);

(2)

winged horse (see

THEBES).
god of beekeeping. See
of Alcmaeon, one of the

ARISTAEUS (Sr is*te/us) is the minor ORPHEUS, SEA GODS. ARSINOE (ar-sin'6-e) was the first wife
Epigoni. See

THEBES.
(ar'tS-mis), or

ARTEMIS
of
is

Diana, the twin

the virgin goddess of the

moon

Apollo, is and the hunt, and the protector

sister of

young persons and wild animals. As goddess of the moon, sh also called Phoebe, Selene, Luna, and Hecate. The Titaness

Phoebe, whose name means "the bright one," seems to have been the first moon goddess; she was the mother of Leto and therefore
the grandmother of Artemis. She was replaced as moon goddess by Selene, a daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Thea, who were

sun god, and Eos, the goddess of the dawn. Selene was gradually overshadowed by Artemis, as Helios was by Apollo, and Artemis finally assumed all the powers of the
also the parents of Helios, the

goddess of the

moon and

all

the stories attributed to her. Luna,

67

ARTEMIS
which simply means "moon/* Artemis.
is,

like Diana, a

Roman name

for

The mixture
found in

who
and

is

of good and evil that the Greeks and Romans is seen most clearly in the moon goddess, at once the chaste and lovely Artemis and the mysterious
their gods

terrible Hecate, the goddess of the

dark of the moon.

The

as the

Roman writers sometimes represent Diana as having three natures moon has three phases, she is Luna in the sky, Diana on
and Hecate in Hades. This notion appears in English
(3.

earth,

literature also. In Paradise Lost

refers to the

730),

for example,

Uriel

moon's "countenance triform"; Robin Goodfellow

in

A Midsummer-Night's Dream

Hecate's team", and Herrick in

speaks of "triple Conjuration: To Electra adds

(5.
1.

391)

solemnity to his pleading

silent nights, and the Three Formes of Heccate.

By

approach of Hecate, as they do in the Aeneid when the Sibyl of Cumae in the middle of the night sacrifices four black bullocks to the dark goddess. Hecate is the mistress

Dogs howl

at the

of witchcraft, and she is powerful at graveyards and crossroads* As an attendant of the queen of Hades, she has power over dreams and fantasies and is able to raise the spirits of the dead. In Macbeth (3 5 and 4. 1) Hecate is the mistress of the three witches who offer riddling prophecies and raise apparitions to

Comus (534) does in Spenser's Faerie Queene "abhorred rites to Hecate"; and (1.1. 43) an evil spirit who has been sent to get a false dream from Morpheus frightens the sleepy god into wakefulness with
trick

Macbeth.

The

enchanter in Milton's

Hecate's "dreaded name/'

The most

recent use o

this

name

is

in

Edmund
6$

Wilson's

Memoirs

of Hecate County, a

book of

stories

ARTEMIS
that deal with a noticeably sulphurous suburban area of our

country.

Artemis is also called Cynthia and Delia because she was born on Mount Cynthus on the island o Delos (for stories of her birth see APOLLO). Under the names of Ilithyia, or Eileithyia, and Lucina (which are sometimes applied to Hera and sometimes are the names of a separate goddess), Artemis is the goddess of
is invoked in this capacity by Spenser in his Epithalamion (374-387). That a virgin goddess is often the goddess of childbirth is one of the divine paradoxes that the

childbirth. She

book must leave unexplained. The cypress the tree of Artemis, and all wild animals are sacred to her, but especially the deer. To the Greeks and Romans she was the ideal of beautiful and vigorous girlhood as Apollo was of robust and handsome young manhood.
authors of
this
is

human

vow

Artemis not only gloried in her own virginity but required a of chastity from the many Nymphs who were her attendants
of the

and her hunting companions. In Pope's The Rape

(2. 105-106) the heroine Belinda, who only in the sense that she is a virgin, is
is

Lock
but

a follower of Artemis
to disaster,

doomed

no one knows
Whether the nymph Or some frail China
shall

break Diana's law,

jar receive a flaw.

Artemis protected her attendants,

river

as she did

Arethusa

when

the
(see

god Alpheus attempted

to

force his love

on her

NYMPHS); and

When

she punished them if they broke their vows. Callisto, an Arcadian follower of Artemis, yielded to Zeus
son, Artemis turned her into a bear.

and bore him a

(Some

writers say that this

punishment wa imposed by

Hera, Zeus's

Callisto met her son jealous wife.) Years later the transformed his spear to kill her, Areas hunting in the forest. As he raised

69

ARTEMIS
Zeus translated them both to the
sky,

making her

the Great

Bear, Arctus, or Ursa Major, more familiarly known as the Big Dipper, and her son the Little Bear, Arcturus, or Arctophylax, a giant star that has the North Star or Cynosure at the tip of its

In Milton's Comus (340-341) the Elder Brother, lost in a black night, recalls this story when he says that a candle flame
tail.

would seem

like a
star of Arcady,

Or Tyrian

Cynosure.

Areas was often said to be the father of the inhabitants of Arcadia, a rural district in the heart of Peloponnesus (see ARCADIA).
goddess of fair and harmless light was quick to resent insults and terrible in her vengeance. When King slights Oeneus of Calydon at the festival of harvest forgot to sacrifice to

The

and

Artemis, she sent a great boar to ravage his

CALYDONIAN BOAR HUNT);

Agamemnon had atoned

kingdom (see and when Agamemnon, wait-

ing in Aulis to lead the Greeks against Troy, killed a stag sacred to Artemis, she refused to allow the Greek fleet to sail until
for his sin

by

sacrificing his

daughter

Iphigenia (see TROJAN WAR). Artemis and Apollo were exceedingly fond of their mother Leto

and

fierce

defenders of her honor.

They

killed a

Giant named

Tityus because he had insulted Leto (see APOLLO), and they wiped out the entire family of a woman who boasted that she

was superior to their -mother. Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, married Amphion, regent of Thebes, and bore him fourteen sons

and daughters. Her pride

terrible

in these children stirred in her the

and she declared that the Thebans should worship her rather than Leto. "She has only two children," Niobe said, "but I have seven times as many." Urged to vengeance by their mother, Artemis and Apollo with
arrogance of her father,

70

ARTEMIS
their arrows shot

down

Niobe's seven sons and then her seven

daughters as they wept over their brothers' bodies. Amphion, mad with grief, killed himself. Niobe was changed into a stone

from which flows continually the stream of her tears. In English literature she is usually a symbol of sorrow rather than foolish pride. Hamlet, for example, bitterly recalls that his mother, now remarried, two months before had followed his father's body "like Niobe, all tears" (Hamlet, 1. 2. 149), and in Childe Harold
(4.

79)

Byron

describes

Rome

as

The Niobe
Childless

of nations! there she stands,

voiceless woe.

and crownless, in her

Actaeon, a mighty hunter who under other circumstances might have been a favorite of Artemis, was punished by the goddess because through ill luck he offended her modesty. One day

when he was hot and

fringed pool on

tired

from hunting, he went

to a tree-

a little stream.

He

did not

know

that this

was a

favorite bathing place of Artemis, but he surprised the goddess, * naked, on the bank of the pool. SI* threw a handful of water in his face and he was transformed into a stag When he tried to run

away, his

own hunting

dogs tracked

him down and

killed him.

The significance of this story for the English Renaissance is clearly represented in a speech by the lovesick Orsino in Twelfth
Night
(1.
1.

19-23):

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia

first,

Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence! That instant was I turn'd into a hart,

And my

desires, like fell

and

cruel hounds,

E'er since pursue

me
that the Elizabethans always en-

The

hart (by a familiar

pun

joyed)

became the human heart awakened by a glimpse of divine became the beauty, and the passions that could not be satisfied
71

ARTEMIS
hounds that destroyed the
heart.

Samuel Daniel makes similar

use of the story in Sonnet 5 of Delia. In the nineteenth century Shelley compares himself to Actaeon in Adonais (274-279):

...

he, as I guess,

Had
With

Actaeon-like,

gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, and now he fled astray

feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, own thoughts, along that rugged way,

And

his

Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.

Here the myth represents the

fate of

man when he

bursts in

on

inner meanings of life and is destroyed by what he has discovered. Writing in our own time, Robinson Jeffers in a poem called Science also uses the myth gloomily to predict man's self-annihilation through his increasing knowledge

and

his

misuse of

it:

His mind forebodes his own destruction; Actaeon who saw the goddess naked among leaves and his hounds tore him. A little knowledge, a pebble from the shingle, A drop from the oceans: who would have dreamed
this infinitely little too

much? 8

John Peale Bishop expresses man's ignorance of the nature of his guilt and the nature of his quest in Another Actaeon.

John Day,

a seventeenth-century poet, writes of

A
As T.
S,

noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring Actaeon to Diana in the spring.

The Waste Land (197-201), which has replaced the hunting horns, heralds a union of vulgarities; and although Diana does not
Eliot reworks these lines in

the noise of industrialism,

'

s From "Science," by Robinson Jeffers, in his Roan Stallion, Tamar, and Other Poems. Copyright, 1925, by Bom & Liveright; copyright, 1935, by Modern Library. Reprinted with the permission of Random House, Inc.

72

ARTEMIS
bathe, she illuminates some rather extraordinary ablutions. hears

One

The sound
Sweeney

of horns

and motors, which

Mrs. Porter

shall bring

to Mrs. Porter in the spring.

O the moon shone bright on And on her daughter

They wash

their feet in soda water, 4

she was the virgin huntress who swore her Nymphs to and who protected such scorners of love as Atalanta of chastity Boeotia and Hippolytus, Artemis herself once fell in love. One night she looked down and saw the shepherd Endymion sleeping on Mount Latinos in Caria. He was so handsome that even Artemis' heart was touched. She descended from the sky and

Though

kissed

Endymion and

lay beside

him while he

slept

Through

her power or that of Zeus, Endymion was given eternal youth to be spent in eternal sleep, and night after night Artemis returns to

Mount Latmos

to lie

with her sleeping

lover.

This myth is referred to incidentally by many English poets. In The Merchant of Venice (5. 1. 109-110), for example, Portia
explains a moonless night by saying,
the moon sleeps with Endymion, And would not be awak'd.
.
.
.

Two

Elizabethans,

John Lyly and Michael Drayton, and one Ro-

mantic, John Keats, have developed the theme in detail. Lyly's Endymion, the Man in the Moon is an allegorical play in which
forsakes Tellus, the earth, because of his apparently love for Cynthia. In revenge Tellus has Endymion put hopeless into an enchanted sleep from which he is released by a kiss from

Endymion

From "The Waste

JLantf,"

1935. Copyright, 1934, 1936, with their penmsfcion,

1909by T. S. Eliot, in his Collected Poems, by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Reprinted

73

ARTEMIS
Cynthia, her love.

who

accepts

him

as

her admirer but does not grant

him

Drayton in Endimion and Phoebe works out in a more interesting way the relationship between physical and spiritual love,
Phoebe,

who

is

devoted to her worshiper Endymion, makes love

to him in the guise of a Nymph. He refuses to listen to her because he is "Phoebes servant sworne," but after she leaves him

he

is

consumed with

pleads his love, still

herself as

she wakens him at dawn, he her a Nymph, but she reveals thinking Phoebe and confesses her love for him. Then she shows
desire.

When

him
takes

the divine secrets of the sky, causes

him

to

be

deified,

and

him back

to

Mount Latmos, where

myth
is

she will often visit

him

in his immortal sleep. In Drayton's poem the

in their souls,

made

Platonic;

Phoebe

repre-

sents the divine beauty that

and her

gifts

(according to Plato) all men love to Endymion are the rewards of

the spirit. Although the symbolism of Keats's Endymion is somewhat cloudy, it is clear that in this poem, also, Diana represents

the ideal beauty that inspires ideal love. Like Drayton's Phoebe, Keats's goddess disguises herself, but she leads Endymion through

adventures which cause

him

to realize that divine love

life

is

to be

gained only by vigorous participation in

attainment of

human human sympathy and human love.

and by

Another love story about Artemisone that was rejected by certain early scholiasts, perhaps because they felt that one love story was enough for a virgin goddessis alluded to by Virgil in the Georges. In three lines he tells how Pan won Luna's love by
offering her a beautiful white fleece of wool. Spenser in his Epithalamion (378-381) soothes the commentators by attribut-

ing this bribe to Endymion, but Browning in Pan and Luna moralizes the tale. In Browning's poem the goddess, realizing that

everyone can see her naked beauty, hides herself in a fleecy cloud,
74

ARTEMIS
but the cloud
is

a trap of wool devised by Pan, thus her modesty

lust.

betrays her to his

Artemis has always been a symbol of spiritual beauty, but she appeared most frequently in English poetry during the Renaissance,

beth.

when she was one of The likeness between

the poetic disguises of Queen Elizathe two ladies is remarkable: Eliza-

beth in her day was as famous a virgin as Artemis; she demanded chastity of her maids of honor, as Artemis did of her Nymphs,

and punished them

if

they transgressed; and she, like Artemis,

at least to the

was suspected of having poems most references

one mortal

lover.

In Elizabethan

moon

goddess are addressed as

much

to Elizabeth as to Artemis.

Spenser often alludes to Diana in his poetry, and she appears in two of the stories in his Faene Queene. In the first of these
6. 1-28) Diana takes Belphoebe, one of the twin daughters (3. of Chrysogonee, to train "in perfect Maydenhed," and BelDiana succeeds. phoebe's actions in the poem show how well

Belphoebe (whose name means "beautiful Phoebe") is a type of Diana and Elizabeth; as is Britomart, the warlike virgin who
is

the heroine of

Book Three. Britomart

is

named for Britomartis,

a Cretan goddess sometimes identified with Artemis. Two of the many lyrics that praise the virgin goddess and are Sir Walter Ralegh's Praised Be Diana's Fair the

virgin queen and Harmless Light and Ben Jonson's

song,

which begins:
fair,

Queene and

huntress, chaste
is

and

Now

the sun

laid to sleep,

Seated

m thy silver chair,

wonted manner keep.

State in

Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess excellently bright.

Oberon's story in

Midsummer-Night's Dream

(2, 1.

163-164)
says that

also illustrates the technique of double reference.

He

75

ASCANIUS
he once saw Cupid shoot his arrow of love at Artemis, but the arrow's fire was quenched in her chaste beams,

And

the imperial vot'ress passed on,

In maiden meditation, tancy-free.

ASCANIUS
of

For the other virgin goddesses see ATHENE and HESTIA. the son (as-ka'ni'us), who was also called lulus, was
(as-kle'pl-us) is the

AENEAS. ASCLEPIUS
name
for

god of medicine. See

APOLLO.

ASHTOROTH
ASOPUS
tresses of

(ash't6-roth),

or Astarte, was the Phoenician

APHRODITE.
(a-so'pus)

was the father of Aegina, one of the mis-

ZEUS.

ASPHODEL (as'fo-del) is the flower that grows in HADES, ASTARTE (Ss'tar'te), or Ashtoroth, was the Phoenician name
for

APHRODITE,

ASTRAEA (as-tre'a) is the goddess of human justice, a symbol of innocence and purity. The daughter of Zeus and Themis, the goddess of divine justice, Astraea lived on earth with mortal
beings during the peaceful Golden Age, the Silver Age, and the decaying Bronze Age, as did others of the immortals. But, when the Iron Age came, and with it almost universal wicked-

and depravity among mortals, the gods one by one left the earth in disgust, until only Astraea remained. At last, she, too, left and was fixed in heaven by Zeus, where she became the conness
stellation of Virgo, or the virgin. Beside her are her scales of
justice,

the constellation Libra. Zeus afterward destroyed all

human

beings except Deucalion and Pyrrha by a great flood, for which see DEUCALION. In The Faerie Queene (5. 1. 5-12) Artegall, the knight of justice, is brought up by Astraea. She
trains

gives

him him

the sword with

in her discipline, and before she leaves the earth she which Jove fought the Titans and

76

ASTRAEA
leaves to

him her servant, the commands. Then she retires to

Talus, to carry out his the heavens.

iron

man

There was a myth among the Greeks that Astraea would some day return, as would other of the Olympians, and bring with her
a return of the primal virtues that she represents, an event to which Virgil refers in Eclogue 4 (6).

Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia Regna [Now returns the Virgin, too, the Golden Age
a

returns]

line that

Redux
ol

Dryden took as the epigraph (1660), which celebrates the return

of his

to the English

poem, Astraea throne

King Charles II after Cromwell's rule. Dryden could hardly have expected as much of Charles' reign as would have been but required to recall Astraea, and Charles must have known it; with kings, flattery is no vice. Alexander Pope somewhat more
Christ in his appropriately applies the myth to the advent of the
eclogue, Messiah (17-20),
Christ's

which

is

made up

of prophecies about

coming:
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-rob'd Innocence from heav'n descend.

One

Aphra

of Pope's contemporaries, a playwright by the name o Mrs. Behn, gave herself the nom de plume Astraea but was

refers to this incongruity in a

fond of providing rather unmaidenly action in her plays. Pope well-known passage of Imitations

of Horace, First Epistle, Second

Book

(290-291):

The

stage

loosely does Astraea tread, to bedl fairly puts all characters

how

Wordsworth,

reflecting

on the past

Swiss people glories of the

77

ASTYANAX
(Memorials of a

Tow

on the Continent, 1820, 24

2.

2),

in a

moment ol classical reminiscence seldom known poems, writes,

repeated in his better-

When
And

But Truth inspired the Bards of old of an iron age they told,
to unequal laws gave birth, drove Astraea trom the earth.

Which

After this allusion he reverts sharply to a subject of which he was fonder, a small country boy tending his goats.

ASTYANAX

(Ss-tl'fl-n&ks)

was the infant son of Hector, the

chief hero of Troy in the TROJAN WAR. ATALANTA OF ARCADIA (at'd-ian'tfl ar-ka'di-a) heroine of the CALYDONIAN BOAR HUNT. ATALANTA OF BOEOTIA (at'fl-ian'td be-o'shd)

was the was the

ried she

daughter of Schoeneus. Informed by an oracle that if she marwould bring calamity on herself, she avoided amorous and gave her time and heart instead to the chase of nonsociety
quarries

became extremely fleet of foot and so found a way to deal with the suitors who, in spite of her aversion to them, sought her hand. She informed them that whoever wanted to marry her must first beat her in a
In
this activity she

human

foot race,
his life.

and that whoever

lost to

her in the race must lose

Atalanta was so lovely that

many men

tried to

outrun her, but

Atalanta ran faster than they did, and they were put to death.

For one of these extraordinary races a youth named Hippomenes was a judge. He immediately fell in love with her and offered
to race her as the others

had done.

First,

however, he prayed to

Aphrodite, the goddess of love, urging her that she protect him because she was responsible for his ardor. Aphrodite heard his
prayer;

and moving unseen, she brought three golden apples

78

ATHENAEA
from her garden on the menes with directions
island of Cyprus for their use.

and gave them

to

Hippo-

When
about
to

the race was under way, Hippomenes, finding himself be passed by Atalanta, dropped one of the golden

apples. It pleased the girl's eye and she slowed down to pick it up. When she caught up with him again, Hippomenes dropped
effect, and in like manner the His stratagem worked only narrowly, but it worked; he reached the finish mark just ahead of Atalanta, and she was his

the second apple with the same

third.

by contract.
first reluctant to keep her word and marry but she had no alternative. Later the two discovered Hippomenes, such bliss in marriage that they forgot the proper gratitude due to Aphrodite, and so the word of the oracle came to pass. Aphrodite, angry at their neglect, caused them to offend Cybele, and

Atalanta was at

that powerful goddess turned them into animals, Atalanta into a lioness and Hippomenes into a lion, after which she yoked

them

to her chariot for the rest of time

(see

EARTH GODthan

DESSES).

Although this, racing Atalanta is probably better known her Arcadian namesake, the huntress, she is less famous for what the poets in our language have made of her. Swinburne gives fame to the huntress, but William Morris has little to add to the
luster of the racer in his retelling of her feats in Atalanta' s Race, in The Earthly Paradise. Morris prefers one of the

poems

conclude his verse with the happy marriage, omitting the later misfortune; but in spite of his subject matter, his poem is
to

pedestrian.

ATE

(a'te)

is

ATHAMAS
Ino See

the goddess of infatuation. See ARES husband of Nephele (ath'a-mds) was the

and

of

ARGONAUTS, THEBES.
(Stth'S-ne'd)
is

ATHENAEA

another

name

of

ATHENE.
79

ATHENE
ATHENE
(<i-the ne),

or Athena, or Minerva, or Pallas Athene,

as she is often called,

came into the world

in

an extraordinary

manner. Most accounts agree that Zeus swallowed his first wife Metis when she became pregnant because it had been decreed
that she
later

would give birth

to a child mightier

than he. Sometime

Zeus developed a terrible headache and requested Hephaestus to split open his head with an ax. When Hephaestus had

THE ROYAL HOUSE OF ATHENS

Hephaestus

Erichthoniu

Pandion

Erechtheus

Praxithea

Philomela

Procne = Tereus
Itys (Itylus)

Pandion

II - Pylia

Orithyia

Creusa

Procris

Aegeus^Aethra
Theseus =
(1)

Ariadne =

(2)

Hippolyta (or Antiope) *= (3) Phaedra

I
|

Hippolytus

Acamus

Dcmophoon
dress

done

so,

out of the
cry.

cleft

sprang Athene in

full

war

and

with a loud war

of war
ate

Thus came

into being the virgin goddess

to

and

of wisdom. This

way

in which to

Milton an appropridescribe the birth of Sin from the head of

myth seemed

Satan in Paradise Lost

nized by her father
Hell, reminds

(2.

who

is

752-758). In these lines, Sin, unrecogattempting to find his way out of

Heaven
SO

that in the assembly of revolting angels in Satan was struck with a headache:

him

ATHENE
on a sudden miserable pain Surpris'd thee, dim thine eyes, and
All

dizzie

swumm
fast

In darkness, while thy head flames thick and

opening wide, Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright, Then shining heav'nly fair, a Goddess arm'd
forth,
till

Threw

on the

left side

Out

of thy head I sprung.

Thus Satan produced sin out of himself, author of wisdom.

as

Zeus was the sole

As the goddess of war, Athene seems to represent the cunning side of conflict that leads to victory, and for this reason she is
usually pictured as holding a small symbolic statue of victory in one hand. Because of her superior wisdom, she always had the better of Ares, the god of rough, crude war, when the two clashed.
It

was Athene who brought victory to the Greeks

at

Troy when

she

had Odysseus arrange

and

TROJAN WAR),

the stratagem of the wooden horse (see thus she was instrumental in defeating
is

used symbolically on the United States' victory medal that commemorates our victory in World War II. On this medal she appears with her no-longer-needed sword broken and held in her hands, and her foot triumphantly
the side taken by Ares. Athene

placed on her helmet. As the goddess of wisdom, Athene has an even more distinthe guished reputation. She was the mother of contemplation, was associated with such practice of wisdom. Furthermore, she

and weaving; and she was invented the plow, the ship, and generally credited with having the wagon, as well as the craft of shoemakmg. The myth of
useful household arts as spinning

Arachne shows Athene's example of the swift and

skill

in weaving and also serves as an terrible ways in which the gods punish

a maiden who was so skillful a weaver impiety. Arachne was that she boasted her prowess was equal to Athene's. Athene
81

ATHENE
thereupon challenged her to a contest. Arachne impudently tapestry showing the love aftairs of Zeus, and Athene was
skill;

wove a

forced to admire her

but then the goddess put her own

tapestry

hand

to the

loom and wove a

showing the dignity of

the gods

and the punishments that they inflict on impious mortals. Thereupon she turned the impious Arachne into a spider that must always stay at the center of its web. This myth is recounted by Spenser in Muiopotpnos (257-352) where he invents a

son of Arachne,

named

Aragnoll, the villain of the poem.

skill in

In a civilization in which wisdom and

war were held

in high regard, as they were in Greece, Athene was bound to be a popular figure She suggested to Zeus the means by which he overcame the Giants and thus gained control of the world, and
sters that

she seems to have been the undoing of most of the violent monwere left after Zeus's battle against them, for she

mam

Cadmus in overcoming the dragon, Perseus killing Medusa, Theseus in slaying the Minotaur, and Heracles in all his gigantic achievements. She furthermore aided Bellerophon
aided
in securing Pegasus, the

winged horse; Jason in obtaining the

Golden
Ithaca.

Fleece;

and Odysseus in all his exploits in returning to hero with Athene on his side was a hero indeed, a

symbolism by which the Greeks expressed their opinion that intelligence is an essential in the heroic character. The myths of
her aid to heroes are told elsewhere in
If

this

book.

Athene was popular with the Greeks in general, she was especially so with the people of Athens, which was named for her.
myth, the city originally belonged to the Cecropians. The gods, however, decided that the city should belong to either Poseidon or Athene, whichever produced the thing more

According

to

useful to man,

Poseidon, striking the rock with his trident, forth the horse; but Athene produced the olive tree, brought

and Erichthonius or Erechtheus, the king

82

of the Cccropians,

ATHENE
awarded the victory to her. According was the king who judged the contest.
thonius
to

some

versions,

Cecrops

In the hazy genealogy of the royal house of Athens, Erichis given as the grandfather of Erechtheus, but the same

stories are told of

both kings. Like Cecrops, Erichthonius was a child of earth. Hephaestus, repulsed by Athene, dropped his seed on the ground and the earth bore Erichthonius. The boy was
protected by Athene, who put him in a covered chest and gave to the three daughters of Cecrops with a strict order that
it it

should not be opened.

curiosity

When

two of the

girls yielded to their

and opened

the chest,

and caused them

to leap to their

what they saw drove them mad death from the Acropolis, the

high tablelike rock on which the city was built. They saw either a child guarded by snakes or a child with snakes for legs, a sight

which should hardly have had such a devastating effect on girls whose own father was snake-footed. But after this excitement Athene took care of the boy herself, and when he reached manhood he showed his gratitude by building on the Acropolis a temple in Athene's honor called the Erechtheum. Later a much larger and more famous temple called the Parthenon was built on the Acropolis, and in this was placed the statue of Athene by the sculptor Phidias. This statue seems to have shown Athene in her most typical pose, standing with a spear in one hand and a small figure of victory in the other, and with her shield leaning against her; on her head a warrior's helmet, and on her breastplate the head of Medusa (see Gorgons under SEA GODS, and PERSEUS). Another statue of Athene by Phidias stood outside the Parthenon on the Acropolis and was of such colossal size that it
could be seen from miles away at sea. The oldest statue said to be of Athene was the Palladium, an image so old, in fact, that it was thought to have fallen from
heaven.

priestly family in

Athens kept charge of

this sacred

8)

ATHENE
and the belief was common that so long as the statue remained safe within the city, the city was safe from capture or destruction In their day, the Trojans had the Palladium, and
object,

had been taken from them, was stolen by Odysseus and Diomedes, or because Aeneas removed it when he departed. Because of these
their city fell only after the statue

either because

it

different versions of the story, the possession of the statue

was

variously claimed by Athens and Argos, and later by Rome, where the Romans held that it had been brought by Aeneas,

Matthew Arnold,

their uncap tured city, a symbol of the soul the Trojans sale that sends on human life a "ruling effluence/' He concludes,

m m

Palladium, makes the statue,

still

held by

remembering the powers of the Palladium,

And when it fails, fight as we will, we die; And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end.
symbols of Athene include the shield, the spear, the figure o victory, and the aegis (which means "shield"), the head of Medusa mounted on a breastplate or a shield. The olive,
the cock, the owl, the crow,
her.

The

Her

and the serpent were all sacred to other names were numerous. The best known was
"to brandish."

Pallas, a

name derived from a word meaning

Others were: Soteira, or savior; Parthenos, the virgin; Nike, the

victorious one; Mechanitis, the ingenious one;

Promachos, the

forefront of battle;

and Tritogeneia, Tritonia, and Athenaea. The Panathenaea was a festival in Athene's honor celebrated
yearly at Athens.

Well-known appearances of the goddess in English poetry include Byron's witty attack on Lord Elgin for removing the famous marbles from the Parthenon to the British Museum, a

poem
84

called

The Curse

of

Minerva

in

which he envisions the

goddess, despoiled of her fineness, appearing to him:

ATHENS
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow, Her idle aegis bore no Gorgon now; Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance
Seem'd weak and
shaftless e'en to

mortal glance;

which still she deign'd to clasp, Shrunk from her touch and withered in her grasp.
olive branch,

The

Athene's curse on Lord Elgin

Byron's wit:

is

typical

both of her powers and

Be
If

all

the sons as senseless as the

sire:

one with wit the parent brood

Believe

him bastard
this

disgrace, of a brighter race.

In Poe's
cally

poem The Raven

bird of

ill

omen

perches symboli-

on a bust of

Pallas over his

chamber door; and Tennyson,

in Oenone, gives a description of the goddess that conveys all

her chaste and intellectual aloofness from

.

human

folly:

Pallas

stood

Somewhat

apart, her clear and bared limbs O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear

Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold, The while, above, her full and earnest eye
Over her snow-cold
breast

and angry cheek

Kept watch ....

Small wonder then that Paris, to

whom

she appeared thus with

softer

Aphrodite and Hera, was more affected by the

charms of

Aphrodite. For the other virgin goddesses see ARTEMIS and HESTIA. ATHENS (Sth'fenz), the city of Athene, is on the plain of Attica about three miles from the sea. The first settlement was on the

two hundred feet above Acropolis, a large rock that rises nearly the plain; later the Acropolis remained the citadel and the town
5

ATLAS
spread out around
it.

Athens was the center of ancient Greek

holds
the heavens

cul-

ture. See ATHENE. ATLAS (t'las), a Titan,

ders.

up

on

his shoul-

He

was tricked into giving three of the golden apples of

the Hesperides to

HERACLES.
The
sufferings of the
sin

ATREUS
the

(a'trdos)

house of Atreus mirror

is

Greek

belief that

punishment for
is

visited

not only on
of this

the sinner himself but also on his children and his children's

children until the sin

somehow

expiated.

The founder

THE HOUSE

OF ATREUS

Zeus

Tantalus

Amphion = Niobe
7 sons, 7 daughters

Pclops

Hippodamia

Atreus

Aerope

Thyestes

Agamemnon
Orestes

Clytemnestra

Menelaus

Helen

2 sons

Pelopia

Thyestes

Hermione
Iphigenia
Electra

Aegisthus

tragic family was Tantalus, a son of Zeus. He had great wealth and power; his marriage was blest with a son and a daughter, Pelops and Niobe; and the gods were so fond ot him that they often invited him to attend their banquets and councils. His good fortune, however, seems to have unbalanced him, and he became the victim of pride and skepticism: although he doubted

the superhuman power of the gods, he aspired to be a god himself.

86

ATREVS
In his insolence Tantalus killed his son Pelops, cooked the
body, and invited the gods to a banquet, hoping to prove that they could not tell human flesh from animal. At this time

Demeter was distracted with the loss of her daughter Persephone, and she absent-mindedly ate a part of Pelops' shoulder, but all
the other gods recognized the impiety of Tantalus. They resolved to punish him in a way that would always be an example to

erring men, and they therefore confined him in a special place in Hades: he always stands up to his neck in water, but the

water recedes whenever he

tries to

drink; branches loaded with

ripe pomegranates and peaches and figs always dangle in front of his eyes, but the fruit is snatched away whenever he tries to

pluck

it.

Sir

talus thus

Guyon, Spenser's knight of temperance, tormented (Faerie Queene, 2. 7. 59):

finds

Tan-

Askt

The knight him seeing labour so in vaine, who he was, and what he ment thereby:
Most cursed
groning deepe, thus answerd him agame, of all creatures vnder skye,
bee,
.

Who

Lo Tantalus, I here tormented lye: Of whom high loue wont whylome feasted Lo here I now for want of food doe dye.
.
.

From

Tantalus' punishment comes our verb "to tantalize."

and given an ivory Pelops was restored to life by the gods shoulder in place of the one that Demeter had eaten. This first
instance of

bone surgery
says in

is

Herrick
is

when he

To

recalled Hghtheartedly by Robert Electro, that the skin of his mistress

whiter than "Pelops arme of yvorie." In spite of his unfortunate start in life, Pelops won the girl of his choice and ruled
the southern part of Greece, which was

named

for

him

the

Peloponnesus.

He
maus

fell

in love with

Hippodamia, the daughter

of

King Oeno-

of Pisa,

who demanded

that her suitors risk their lives

87

ATREVS
for her.

Ares, and he staged a chariot gift to race with each of his prospective sons-in-law. I he won, he killed the boy; and if the boy won, he got Hippodamia. Twelve
suitors

Oenomaus had a pair him from the war god

of miraculously swift horses, a

had tried and failed when Pelops made his challenge, but he had two special advantages: first, he owned a pair of winged horses that had been given to him by Poseidon, and second, he or Hippodamia bribed Myrtilus, Oenomaus' servant, to tamper with one of the wheels of the king's chariot, Pelops won the race, and Oenomaus was killed in the wreck of his chariot. But when Myrtilus claimed his reward, Pelops was moved by his father's violent temper, and he threw Myrtilus in the ocean,

where he drowned, cursing Pelops. Niobe, Pelops' sister, married Amphion, regent of Thebes, and bore him seven sons and seven daughters. As she considered her queenly state and her many children, she was touched by her
father's terrible pride,

and she demanded that the Thebans wor-

ship her instead ol Leto, the goddess who was the mother of Apollo and Artemis. Urged on by their mother, Artemis and

Apollo killed Niobe's fourteen children, and she was transformed into a stone from which flows continually the stream of her tears.

For further

details see

Niobe under ARTEMIS.

Niobe's end was tragic, but Pelops, although he had tempted the gods to vengeance by killing Myrtilus, lived a long and happy life. Yet the family curse fell heavily on his sons, Atreus and Thyestes. Atreus married ASrope and became king of Mycenae,

and Thyestes was honored In the country

to seduce her.

as

the brother

of the king; but Thyestes lusted for his brother's wife

finally

and

crime,

this managed he first acted temperately and merely banished Thyestes from the country, but he continued to brood ov^r his brother's

When

Atreus learned of

treachery.

88

ATREUS
Two
of Thyestes' children were
still

at the court,

and Atreus

decided to use them in his revenge. He pretended to pardon Thyestes and ordered a magnificent banquet to celebrate his return, but the children of Thyestes were the

meat

for this cele-

bration,

and Thyestes, lacking the

insight of the gods, ate his

trick,

own offspring When

his brother

Atreus boasted of his

Thyestes cursed

and departed. Later he learned that he might breed an avenger by mating with his surviving daughter Pelopia; the
son of
this incestuous

union was Aegisthus.

gods were so shocked by Atreus' crime that Apollo for one day turned the course of his sun chariot from west to east.

The

Milton

refers to this action

m Paradise Lost

(10.

687-691) when,
fruit,

after telling of

Eve and Adam's eating the forbidden

he

describes the rearrangements made in the universe to replace the perfect climate of Eden with a climate that included the extremes

of heat

and

cold:
that tasted Fruit

... At

Sun, as from Thyestean Banquet, turn'd His course intended; else how had the World
Inhabited, though sinless, more then now, Avoided pinching cold and scorching heate?

The

Andronicus, Shakespeare's most bloody Atreus revenges himself on the play, Titus taking his cue from men who have raped and mutilated his daughter; he kills them

In the

final scene of Titus

in a pie to their mother. Louis MacNeice in in evil 'of Thyestes, pondering the question of the complicity those who have not willed it, asks:

and

serves

them

Did

his

blood

-tell

him what

his

mind

concealed?

Didn't he
s

know

or did

hewhat

he was eating? 5

From

1944. Copyright, 1945, by

Poems 1941"Thyestes," by Louis MacNeice, in his Springboard, Random House, Inc., and reprinted with their

permission.

89

ATREUS
In
//

Penseroso (97-100)

Milton

says,

Som time let Gorgeous Tragedy In Scepter'd Pall com sweeping by, Presenting Thebs, or Pelops line,
Or
the tale of Troy divine

It is not surprising that he mentions Pelops' line, for eight of the surviving tragedies by the three great Greek tragedians concern members of this doomed family: Sophocles' Electra, Eurip-

ides'

and

Orestes,

Iphigema at Auhs, Iphigema among the Tauri, Electra, and Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Choephoroe, and

Aeschylus' three plays are the most important source of the myth, for they give a connected account of the culmination of the curse in terrible violence within the family
of one of Atreus' sons.

Eumenides

Agamemnon and Menelaus, and both made an excellent start in hie. Agamemnon as king of Mycenae was the most powerful man in Greece. He married Clytemnestra, a princess of Sparta; and Menelaus won for his wife Helen, the hall sister ot Clytemnestra and the most beautiful woman in the world. She was later called Helen of Troy. The king of Sparta
Atreus had two sons,

was so pleased to have Agamemnon and Menelaus as sons-in-law that he resigned his throne to Menelaus, and all went well with

young king until three goddesses disputed over who was the most beautiful and Aphrodite bribed the mortal judge, Prince
the
Paris of Troy, to choose her.

The

bribe she offered

him was

the

most beautiful
to

woman
steal

have Paris

and she therefore arranged Helen from Menelaus. The result was the
in the world,

War and, for Menelaus, the painful notoriety o becomthe world's most famous cuckold. After Troy was burned, ing Helen was restored to Menelaus and they lived happily together. (For the birth of Helen and Clytemnestra, the exploits
Trojan
90

ATREUS
of

Agamemnon and Menelaus

against the Trojans,

and the

reuniting of Menelaus and Helen, see

TROJAN WAR.)
Greek
forces in the

Agamemnon and his children curse. He was the commander in

Trojan War, but only three

bore the burden of the family

chief of the

of his actions in that

tributed directly to his violent death.

When

the Greek

campaign conarmy had

assembled at Aulis, on the coast of Boeotia, a contrary north wind blew constantly and prevented the expedition from sailing

toward Troy. The soothsayer Calchas declared that Agamemnon had killed a stag sacred to Artemis and that the angry goddess

would not permit

the fleet to sail until

Agamemnon had sacrificed

choice was a terrible one.
his brother's

to her his daughter Iphigenia.

The

Agamemnon

loved his daughter, but he thought of

desire for vengeance, the army's eagerness to attack Troy,

and

supreme commander. Finally he sent word to Clytemnestra that he wished to marry Iphigenia to the hero Achilles; and when the lovely girl arrived in happy
particularly his
prestige as

own

anticipation of her marriage, he allowed her to be sacrificed to Artemis (for further details see WAR).

TROJAN

Clytemnestra never forgave him for this deed. She heard also that in Troy he had taken a girl named Chryseis as his mistress,

and that when he had been forced to give her up he had demanded and received another Trojan girl who^ had been
awarded
Finally, to Achilles (for further details see

TROJAN WAR).

when

the war was over

and Agamemnon returned in

triumph to Argos, he brought with him the Trojan princess Cassandra. Clytemnestra bitterly, resented this flaunting of his mistresses, although she herself had long since taken a lover.

Agamemnon had
welcomed
and

a quick and easy voyage home, and he was with all the pomp that befitted a conqueror. He did

not sense the tension that underlay his wife's gracious welcome
his subjects' songs of triumph. All the people

knew

that

91

ATREUS
Clytemnestra had been living for years with Aegisthus, the surviving son of Agamemnon's uncle and enemy Thyestes, and they knew that she had not sent him away. But the prophetic Cassevil.

andra, as soon as she approached the palace, felt all its pent-up Apollo had granted her the power to foretell the future but,

because she would not yield to him, had cursed her with the terrible sentence that no man should believe her prophecies.

When Agamemnon
come by
visions.

She saw the multiplying

entered the palace, she lingered outside oversins of the family from

Tantalus to Atreus, and she knew the ugly deed that was even then being done inside the palace. Finally she, too, went inside,
saying that she was going to her death. Soon Clytemnestra threw open the palace door. She had a bloody ax in her hand, and she shouted in wild triumph that

she had killed

Agamemnon

in his bath because he

had murdered

her child Iphigenia, and that she had also killed his paramour, Cassandra, one of the many paramours with whom he had
destroyed his marriage. Her lover Aegisthus then appeared at her side and exulted in this vengeance for Atreus' sin against his
father. Thereafter this

bloody pair ruled in Argos. In Sweeney among the Nightingales T. S. Eliot introduces us to an evening party in a low dive where some tough characters

are plotting against Sweeney. The animality of Sweeney others is constantly emphasized. Then Eliot writes,

and the

The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart,

And sang within the bloody wood When Agamemnon cried aloud, And let their liquid sittings fall To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud. 6
e From "Sweeney among the Nightingales/' by T. S. Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 1909-1935. Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Reprinted with their permission.

92

ATREUS
The two
images remind us of the two great western civilizations, the Christian and the classical. In spite of nineteen centuries of Christianity, the low intrigue in the bar is still a typical human
love

and the song of the nightingale (whose unhappy story of and death is described in Aeschylus' Agamemnon by the Chorus and Cassandra shortly before Cassandra enters the palace
scene,

to die) links the sordid crime about to be

committed with the

of Troy's conqueror. In this sudden vision of man's tragic of pain and passion, some critics see the grandeur of the history

murder

past contrasted with the squalor of the present, and others see the sensual Agamemnon equated with the sensual Sweeney. Eliot

has transferred the scene of Agamemnon's death from his palace in Argos to the sacred grove in Colonus where Oedipus died (see

Oedipus under THEBES).

Clytemnestra still lived, Doubtless Aegisthus would have killed Orestes had the boy been in Argos, but his sister had taken him to the court of Strophius, the king of Phocis. For seven years
Orestes

Two

children of

Agamemnon and

and

Electra.

Electra was abused

and neglected by her mother and Aegisthus; she hated them and existed only in the hope that Orestes would come back. In the seventh year the oracle at Delphi ordered
Orestes to avenge his father's murder. He arrived in Argos in the company of his good friend tylades, the son of his protector King Strophius, and he met Electra at Agamemnon's grave, where

she had gone to pray for Orestes' return. Starved for tenderness, Electra poured out her love to Orestes.

"Four places in my heart are yours," she said. "I see my father in your face. You have the love that should belong to my mother, whom I must hate, and to my sister, who is pitifully dead. And

you are my faithful brother, who alone has cared for me/' Their to the plan was quickly made. Orestes and Pylades would go as messengers come to announce the death of Orestes. palace

ATREUS
Aegisthus and Clytemnestra would be eager to hear this news

and

to question those

who brought

it.

Orestes killed Aegisthus and then met his mother. The oracle of Apollo had ordered him to commit a terrible crime in order to avenge a terrible crime: he must murder his mother because

she had murdered his father. Clytemnestra held out her arms and said, "My child, can you kill me?" Deeply moved, Orestes

asked his friend,

"May I let my mother live?" But Pylades reminded him of the words of the oracle, and Orestes killed her. As he explained to the people oi Argos that he had done
deed
at the

this

command
"They

of Apollo, Orestes suddenly

saw in

his mind's eye the Furies, the grisly goddesses

who

represent the

agonies oi remorse.

are here/' he shouted, "like Gorgons,

dressed in darkness, twined with snakes. I

am

hunted.

shall

never rest again."

The

Furies were agents of a narrow justice

completely lacking in mercy; they pursued anyone who offended against the old law, without any regard tor his motive. For years
Orestes was tormented by these terrible creatures, but finally

Athene presided at a court in Athens where the Furies accused, and Apollo defended, Orestes. According to the new dispensation of Zeus, Orestes was judged to have done a necessary evil

and to have been purified through suffering. In the last play of Aeschylus' trilogy even the Furies accept the new law of mercy and thereafter are known as the Eumenides, "the kind ones/'
Orestes by the purity oi his intention and by the agonies of his remorse had atoned not only ior his own sin but for all the sins of the house of Atreus He had liited the curse.

The

oi Pylades, Orestes' inend;

passionate and lonely Electra found happiness as the wife and in a later version of the myth
life.

even Iphigenia was recalled to

As Euripides

tells

the story

in Iphigenia at Aulis and Iphigenia

among

the Tauri, Artemis

took pity on Iphigenia just as she was about to be sacrificed at

94

ATREUS
Aulis, snatched her

away from the

priest's knife,

and

left

a deer

in her place. Iphigenia was transported to the land of a barbarian people called the Taurians, and there became the priestess
of Artemis;
it

of all strangers

was her duty to preside over the whom the Taurians captured.

sacrificial

murder

According to Euripides, even after the judgment of Athene some of the Furies were not placated, and Orestes, still suffering, asked the oracle at Delphi what more he must do to free himself from guilt. The oracle replied that he must go to the land of the Taurians, steal a statue of Artemis from the Taurian temple, and bring it back to Athens. His friend Pylades went with him, and they were both immediately captured by the Taurians and
sent to Iphigenia to be prepared for death. Orestes and Iphigenia rapturously discovered that they were brother and sister and,

through a ruse of Iphigenia's, the three managed to steal the at image of Artemis and embark on their ship. Unfortunately the mouth of the harbor a contrary wind blew them back toward
the bloodthirsty barbarians.

the point Athene came down from Olympus and told that he must let the two Greeks and the king of the Taurians Poseidon altered the wind; and priestess go free. He agreed;

At

this

of an old serial Iphigenia like Pearl White in the last sequence movie was rescued by the hero and his faithful friend. Although back to life Euripides pleased the crowd by bringing Iphigenia he did it at the expense again and by absolving Artemis of cruelty,
of the tragic dignity of the original story. Cassandra, the prophetess nobody believes, appears

whom

most

as the sad foreseer of the fall frequently in English literature Chaucer's Troilus and Cnseyde of Troy. She plays this role

and

in Shakespeare's Troilus

and

Cressida.

The Nymph Oenone,

in Tennyson's

Paris of Troy,

poem who

of that name, has been forsaken by Prince the love of Helen in has been

promised

95

ATREUS
return for awarding the golden apple to Aphrodite. Oenone believes that she must die of sorrow, but she feels that she will

not die alone.

...
Talk

I will rise

and go

Down

into Troy, and ere the stars come forth with the wild Cassandra, for she says

fire dances before her, and a sound Rings ever in her ears of armed men. What may be I know not, but I know

That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day, All earth and air seem only burning fire.

Dante Gabriel

Rossetti's

two sonnets

for a

drawing of Cassandra

show her
as

(as

does the drawing) predicting the death of Hector

fight Achilles.

he

sets

out to

In Cassandra (46-60, 91-95)

last

George Meredith writes of her

prophecy

as she stands before the palace of

Still

Agamemnon:

upon her

sunless soul

Gleams the narrow hidden space Forward, where her fiery race Falters on its ashen goal: Still the Future strikes her face.
See toward the conqueror's car Queen whose hate

Step the purple

Wraps red-armed her royal mate With his Asian tempest-star:

Now

Cassandra views her Fate.

the blinded host

King of men!
Shout:
she

lifts

her brooding chin:

Glad along the joyous din Smiles the grand majestic ghost: Clytemnestra kads him in.

96

ATREUS
Captive on a foreign shore, Far from Ihon's hoary wave,

Agamemnon's

bridal slave

Speaks Futurity no more: Death is busy with her grave. 7

When his
bers

hero,

Don Juan,
4.

loses the lovely Haide'e,

(Don Juan, was invariably miserable:

Here
I

52) that the future

Byron rememwhich Cassandra foresaw

must

leave him, for I

grow

pathetic,

Moved by the Chinese nymph of tears, green tea! Than whom Cassandra was not more prophetic;
'Tis pity wine should be so deleterious, For tea and coffee leave us much more serious

But Robinson

Jeffers in his

poem

called Cassandra delights in

the bitterness of her prophecies and at the same time claims her himself. Men hate the truth, he says; of gift and her curse for
the poet, the preacher, and the politician they ask only Therefore he advises the prophetess:
lies.

Poor bitch be
you'll
still

wise.

No:

mumble

in a corner a crust of truth, to

men

And

gods disgusting,

you and

I,

Cassandra. 8

the Spartans conquered Athens in 404 B.C., they would have destroyed the city if one of their officers had not sung the

When

first

chorus of Euripides' Electra and reminded them that Euriphis sonnet ides was an Athenian. Milton recalls this story in
Poetical Works of George T From "Cassandra," by George Meredith, in The with their Meredith. Copyright, 1912, by Charles Scribner's Sons Reprinted

Axe and Other s From "Cassandra," by Robinson Jeffers, m his The Double with the permisPoems Copyright, 1948, by Random House, lac Reprinted
sion of the publisher.

97

ATREUS
When
the Assault

Was Intended on
same

writers have felt the

the City. Most English high regard for the tragic story oi

the house of Atreus as told by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, but few of them have tried to use the material themselves.

Three contemporary writers, however, have made the attempt: T. S. Eliot, Robinson Jeffers, and Eugene O'Neill. In his inadequate verse play The Family Reunion, Eliot tries to create an Orestes-like character of our own time in the person
Lord Monchensey. Harry feels himself responsible tor the death of his wife: he has murdered her or at least has willed her death. Pursued by the Furies, he returns to his mother Amy
of Harry,

and a houseful ot aunts and uncles To relieve his mind, his sympathetic Aunt Agatha explains that his father, now long dead, had loved her rather than Amy and had wished to kill

Amy. Harry seems to have inherited his father's frustrated desire, and his sense of guilt is for his father as well as himself. Harry
does not
kill his

by leaving shock will

ment.

home

mother, as Orestes did, but he causes her death abruptly even though he has been told that any

kill her.

He

goes off in rather vague pursuit of atone-

Robinson

Jeffers in

The Tower beyond Tragedy, a long

retells the action ot the first

ex-

travagant dramatic poem,

of Aeschylus' trilogy,

with the murder oi

ritual slaying of

Agamemnon Agamemnon by Clytemnestra and Orestes' his mother. The violence and passion of the
and
his

two plays and Choephoroe, which deal

story appeal to Jeffers,

ters'

poem

feelings

and the

action,

deals chiefly with the characone high point of which is a

remarkable

strip tease

put on by Clytemnestra* In the conclusion,

didactic.

however, the

poem becomes

Electra oilers herself to

is

Orestes. (Her incestuous passion,

to Jeffers,
is

symbolically important recogni/ed by psychologists, who have named the unsatisfied sexual desire of a daughter for her father the Electra

which

98

ATTICA
complex; here Electra has transferred her passion for her dead father to her brother.) Orestes, however, refuses her, saying that

he has "fallen in love outward/' The attitudes of Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and Electra are contrasted with that of Orestes.
Cassandra only waits for death, and Clytemnestra and Electra have become too deeply involved in human relationships (the

commonest symbol
but Orestes has
.
.

of this involvement in Jeffers'

poems

is

incest);

climbed the tower beyond time, consciously,

and

cast

9 humanity, entered the earlier fountain.

In his poetry Jeffers has never

made

his central belief

more

not man but nature. explicit: that the proper study of mankind is The best contemporary use of this Greek myth has been made

by Eugene O'Neill. In his formidable dramatic trilogy, Mourning Becomes Electra, he has worked out the entire tragic story in

England family of Mannon at the close of the Civil War. Depending equally on Aeschylus and Freud, O'Neill succeeds admirably in recreating the fear and horror and the fate that belong to the original story. But sense of
terms of the

New

implacable

like

many

of his contemporaries,
suffering as

he

is

unable to imagine Orestes'

Aeschylus represented it in the Eumenides. Orin Mannon, the Orestes of O'Neill's play, shoots himself lo escape from the horrors of remorse. ATROPOS (at'r6-pos) is one of the three Fates. See FATE.
purification through

ATTICA
cludes in

(SLi/Hui)
its

a great

many

a region of the Greek peninsula that inbounds the cities of Athens and Eleusis, as well as miles of mostly infertile soil. The Athenians were,
is

naturally, the
9

most prominent inhabitants of

Attica,
Jeffers,

and

like

Stallion,

& Livenght; Tamar, and Other Poems. Copyright, 1925, by Bom with the permission of 1935, by Modern Library. Reprinted copyright,

From "The Tower beyond Tragedy," by Robinson

House, Inc

in his

Roan

Random

99

AUGEAN STABLES
their fellows, traced their lineage

a child of the earth

snakes

He had

back to Cecrops. Gecrops was a man's body, but his legs were

He began the process of civilizing his people, who called themselves Cecropians, and some say that he mediated in the
to

famous dispute between Athene and Poseidon as these Olympians was to become the patron of the

which

of

city.

Because

Cecrops decided in favor of Athene, the city took her name and bears it to this day. According to other stories, Erichthonius or
Erechtheus was the

king

who meditated

this

dispute

(see

ATHENE).
larly in literature

Since Athens became the center of the classical world, particuand philosophy, Attica has survived as a name

for classical purity in the arts.

Milton alludes to

this significance

in his sonnet to Lawrence

(20)

when he

asks,

What

Of

neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Attick tast, with Wine, whence we may rise

To
and Keats
also,

hear the Lute well toucht.

when he exclaims
I

of the Grecian urn,

Attic shape

Fair attitude! with brede

.
.

Oi marble men and maid-ens overwrought

AUGEAN
AUGEAS

(6-je'an)

STABLES
owned

were cleaned in a single day by

HERACLES.
(d'je'as)

the filthy stables that were cleaned

by

HERACLES. AULIS (cKlis) was

sailed for the

the port in Boeotia from which the Greeks the

TROJAN WAR.
is

AURORA
dawn, EOS.

(a-r^rd)

Roman name

of the goddess of the

for Notus, the south

AUSTER
wind. See

(6s'tr)

is

the

Roman name

WINDS.

100

BELLEROPHON

AUTOLYCUS
Hermes. See

(6-toll-kus),

famous
the

thief,

was
of

son

of

HERMES, SISYPHUS.
(o-tSn'6-e)

AUTONOE
THEBES.

was

daughter

Cadmus.

See

AVENTINE (av'n-tln) is one of the seven hills of later ROME. AVERNUS (d-vfer'nus) is the cave through which Aeneas entered
HADES.

BACCHANALIA
of Bacchus, or

(bak'a-nali-a)

was a celebration of the

rites

DIONYSUS.
(ba-kSLn'tez)

BACCHANTES
DIONYSUS.

were followers of Bacchus, or

of

BACCHUS

(bak'us)

is

name

BASSARIDS (bSs'ar-Idz) were followers BAUCIS (bc/sis) and Philemon were

charity

DIONYSUS. of DIONYSUS.
an aged couple whose

and
is

BAYS

name
/

piety were signally honored by ZEUS. for the laurel. See Daphne under

APOLLO.

(M-ia/6-fdn), the rider of Pegasus and the slayer of the Chimaera, was a prince of Corinth. His father, King Glaucus, a

BELLEROPHON
(b-lr 6-f6n
/

or

BELLEROPHONTES

tez),

skillful
fierce.

horseman, fed his horses

human

flesh

to

make them

they upset his chariot and ate him. Bellerophon was also a horse fancier, but his great ambition was to ride the winged horse Pegasus. This magnificent animal, a son of Poseidon

One day

and the Gorgon Medusa, was born of Medusa's blood when she was killed by Perseus. Pegasus flew at once to Olympus, where he
101

BELLEROPHON
was caught and tamed by Athene. He was also the horse of the Muses, and on Mount Helicon the sacred fountain Hippocrene, which means "horse's fountain," sprang up where he stamped
his hoof.

Bellerophon had little hope that he could master this animal, but he consulted a wise man who advised him to spend a night in Athene's temple. There he dreamed that the goddess gave

him
him.

a golden bridle,

and when he awoke the

bridle was beside

rushed out of the temple and found Pegasus grazing beside the spring Pirene, ready to be bridled. Soon tamely Bellerophon, astride the marvelous horse, was racing across the
sky.

He

He

did not forget to give thanks to Athene, and the winged

horse never failed

him

Bellerophon killed a

until pride led him into impiety. man in Corinth, the stories do not say

why, and went to Argos to be purified by King Proetus. Anteia, the wife of Proetus, fell in love with Bellerophon and, when he
reiused her advances, told her husband that he

had

tried to

attack her. Because Bellerophon was his guest, Proetus concealed his jealous anger, and sent the young man with a sealed letter
to Anteia's father,

King lobates ot Lycia. The

letter

asked that

Bellerophon be put to death, but lobates had entertained Bellerophon for several days before he read the letter, and therefore he was in the
hospitality forbade

same dilemma

as his son-in-law: the rule of

him

to

do violence

to a guest.

he thought of an honorable way to get rid of Bellerophon. requested him to free Lycia from the Chimaera. This fire-breathing monster, a daughter of Typhon and Echidna,

But

finally

He

was a lion in

front, a
(2.

In Paradise Lost

dragon behind, and a goat in the middle. 624-628) Milton puts Chimaeras among

the monstrous shapes of hell, and Spenser in The Faerie Queene 1. (6. 8) makes the Chimaera and Cerberus the parents of the foulest monster that he can imagine, the Blatant Beast. No man

102

BELLEROPHON
on foot was a match for the Chimaera; but Bellerophon, mounted on Pegasus, kept out of range of her flames and daws and was
thus able to shoot her with his arrows.

When

lobates sent

Bellerophon returned unharmed to the Lycian court, him to fight first against the Solymi, a nation of

mighty warriors, and then against the Amazons. Bellerophon was successful in both undertakings, and as he returned from the
second campaign he killed a large company of Lycians whom lobates had sent to ambush him. At this point lobates decided

one of

that Bellerophon was not an ordinary mortal, and he gave him his daughters in marriage and half his kingdom. Yet as

time passed Bellerophon found himself unsatisfied with his wife and his children and his kingship. Filled with a terrible pride,

he declared himself a god, and

to the top ot

Mount Olympus; but

tried to force Pegasus to carry him Pegasus, wiser than his tem-

porary master, threw him off in midair. Bellerophon was blinded by the fall but not killed. Thereafter he wandered, bitter and alone, on the Aleian plain in Asia Minor.

Spenser (Faerie Queene, 3. 11. 42) recalls that Poseidon took the shape of a winged horse

To

snaky-locke

Medusa

to repayre,

On whom

he got

faire Pegasus, that flitteth in the ayre.

Sometimes Pegasus is compared with other wonderful horses, magical or real. In The Squire's Tale (V. 207-208) by Chaucer, for example, the people marveled at the horse of brass, and
. .

The

seyden it was lyk the Pegasee, hors that hadde wynges for to

flee,

and Vernon in
sits

Henry IV

(4.

1.

108-110) says that Prince Hal

his horse

with such ease

103

BELLEROPHON
As
if

an angel dropp'd down from the clouds

horsemanship.

To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus And witch the world with noble

Usually, however, Pegasus is a symbol of poetic inspiration. Spenser, for example, completely disregards the disastrous conclusion of Bellerophon's ride toward Olympus in an image in

which Pegasus represents poetry and his rider any noble person whose fame may be made permanent by a poet (Ruines of Time,
425-427):

Then who To mount

so will with vertuous deeds assay to heuen,

And
In

on Pegasus must ride, with sweete Poets verse be glonfide.

An

Essay on Criticism (150-153) Pegasus dwindles from horse

to abstraction

when Pope

declares:

Pegasus, a nearer way to take, boldly deviate from the common track; From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,

Thus

May

And

snatch a grace beyond the reach of

(like the others)

art.

Only Milton, remembering

that Pegasus sym-

bolizes poetic inspiration, also

remembers that Pegasus bucked off Bellerophon. In Paradise Lost (7. 4-20) Milton asks his Muse Urania, who has helped him to soar "Above the flight of Pegnsean

wing," to help

him

to descend again:

...

Up

led by thee
I

Into the Heav'n of Heav'ns

have presum'd,
Aire,

An

Earthlie Guest,

and drawn Empyreal

Thy temprmg; with like safetie guided down Return me to my Native Element:
Least from this flying Steed unrein'd, (as once

Bellerophon, though from a lower Clime)

204

BUSKIN
Dismounted, on
th'

Aleian Field I

fall

Erroneous, there to wander and forlorne

BELLONA
of battle. See

(b-l6'n<i)

is

the

Roman name
name
for

of Enyo, the goddess

ARES.
is

BIFRONS

(bl'fronz)

another

JANUS.

BLESSED ISLANDS

are the equivalent of the Elysian Fields,

which are paradise. See HADES, SEA GODS.

BONA DEA
is

(bo'na de'a), or Fauna, a the daughter or wife of Faunus, the

BOREAS (bo're-as) is the north BOSPHORUS (b6s'f6-rus), which

is

Roman fertility Roman PAN. wind See WINDS.

means "the ford

goddess,

of the cow/'
east.

the strait where the transformed lo crossed to the

See

ZEUS.

BRAZEN AGE
BRIAREUS
TITANS.
BRISEIS
and given

preceded the great flood that drowned

all

man-

kind except Pyrrha and

DEUCALION.
Aegaeon, was a Hecatoncheire. See

(bri'ar'eus), or

(bri-sels), a

Trojan

girl,

was captured by the Greeks

the
girl,

to Achilles.

When Agamemnon demanded

is

Achilles refused to take any further part in the

TROJAN WAR.

BRITOMARTIS
tified

(brit'o-mar'tis)

a Cretan goddess often iden-

with

ARTEMIS.
(broc/tus), or

BRUTUS
BUSKIN

BRUT,

according to medieval but not

first

classical legend,

was a great-grandson of Aeneas and the

king of Britain. See

TROJAN WAR.
is

(bus'km), or cothurnus,

once worn by actors in tragic drama and often used of tragedy. Milton says in II Penseroso (97-102):

a high, thick-soled boot, as the symbol

Som time let Gorgeous Tragedy In Scepter'd Pall com sweeping by, Presenting Thebs, or Pelops line,

Or

the tale of Troy divine.

105

CABIRI
Or what (though rare) of later age, Ennobled hath the Buskind stage.
See

Melpomene under MUSES.

CABIRI
brated at

(ka-bi'ri) are secret deities

whose mysteries were

from

cele-

SAMOTHRACE.
HERACLES.
at the top

CACUS

(ka'kus) was killed for stealing cattle

CADMUS (kad'mtis) was the founder of THEBES. CADUCEUS (kfl-du'shus), a golden staff with wings
is

the badge of office of HERMES. and intertwined with serpents, CAELIAN (se'li-an) is one of the seven hills of later ROME.
(kal'a-is) was one of the ARGONAUTS. CALCHAS (kai'kas) was a Greek Prophet prominent TROJAN WAR. CALLIOPE (ktf'li'6'pe) is the Muse of heroic or epic

CALAIS

in the

poetry.

See

MUSES.
(ka'lir'6-e)

CALLIRHOE
CALLISTO

was the second wife of Alcmaeon,

one of the Epigoni. See THEBES. (ka-lis'to) was a Nymph of

(kan-do'm-an)

ARTEMIS.
Like the ex-

CALYBONIAN

BOAR HUNT.

pedition of the Argonauts, the Calydonian Boar Hunt was an adventure in which many of the great heroes took part; and also as in irtany another happening of Greek mythology, the final
result of the hero's actions

had been predicted

as well as deter-

story exemplifies the favorite Greek concept not only that fate is inescapable but that its decrees

mined by

the Fates.

The

106

CALYDONIAN BOAR HUNT

actually

come about through

the willful acts of

man, even when

he has been forewarned and has

tried to escape his destiny.

leader of the Calydonian hunt was Meleager, prince of Calydon, and son of King Oeneus and Queen Althaea. Soon after
his birth the three Fates, spinning their fatal thread, appeared to his mother, and one of them, Atropos, foretold that the life of

The

Meleager would
fire.

last

only as long as a brand then burning in the

Althaea,

who

appears to have been a

woman

of action,
its

quickly seized the vital brand from the fire and put out flames. Then she hid it away, thinking that it and her son's

life

would be

sate.

This experience of Althaea's

is

used

as

a conceit
page,

by bandying words with red-nosed Bardolph, exclaims

(2. 2. 94,

Shakespeare in 2

Henry IV

96-98). Falstaff's
at last:

Away, you

rascally Althaea's dream, away!

When

Prince Hal asks

Marry,

him

to explain the allusion,

he

replies:

my

lord,

Althaea dreamt she was delivered

I call

of a firebrand, and therefore

him her dream.

Althaea's

name
title

is

and

in the

preserved to us, too, in the name of a flower of Richard Lovelace's well-known lyric, To

Althaea from Prison, but both usages are fortuitous.

The word

"althaea" meant originally a marsh plant. Lovelace merely borrowed a classical name as a pseudonym for his mistress, as

Cavalier poets were fond of doing.

As Meleager grew

to

manhood,

his father

Oeneus one day

sacrificed to the gods and,

through oversight or neglect, failed to

include Artemis in his offerings.

The

goddess was naturally

terrible quick to resent this slight, boar to ravage the land of Calydon. His bristles were spearlike. and his eyes were red and fiery. He trampled out the crops,

and she sent a tremendous and

wrecked the vineyards and the olive

groves,

and

terrorized the

107

CALYDONIAN BOAR HUNT

herds of

Obviously there was a hero's job to be done, and decided that he was the man to do it. Meleager Meleager therefore issued an invitation, as Jason had done, to the other heroes of Greece to join with him in hunting the boar.
cattle.

number

Peleus,

oi great heroes answered, including Jason, Pirithous, Theseus, Telamon, Nestor, Castor and Polydeuces

(Pollux), Idas, Lynceus, Admetus, and Anceus. Most important to Meleager, there came Atalanta of Arcadia (not to be contused

with Atalanta of Boeotia, whose foot race with Hippomenes is told under her name), the beautiful and athletic heroine who

had been reared in her early youth by a bear and who consequently had grown up to be a fierce huntress as well as a lovely woman. She came dressed in an off-the-shoulder tunic clasped by a buckle of gold, and with a quiver of ivory over her shoulder, a costume designed to combine the practical needs of
a huntress with the usual feminine advantages. First, as was customary, Meleager oftered nine days of hospitable entertainment. On the tenth day the hunt began. The
heroes set

up a game run by stretching nets between trees, and they brought their best hounds into the field. Soon the boar was attracted by the noise of the hunt and rushed to attack the huntsfirst
it

men. The

accompanied

spear cast against him was that of Jason, who with a prayer to Artemis. Artemis acknowledged

the prayer by allowing the spear to strike the boar lightly, but only after she had removed its tip while it was in flight. In the

excitement caused by the attack of the boar, Nestor was forced to climb a tree to escape; and Telamon, rushing forward to cast
his spear, tripped over the roots of a tree and fell. At this point Atalanta, with feminine calm in the midst of male confusion,

loosed an arrow at the boar and

drew

first

blood, an event which

Meleager, already in love with her, proclaimed with sportsmanly enthusiasm.

more than

103

CALEDONIAN BOAR HUNT

Atalanta's success, slight though it was, excited her masculine rivals to greater efforts. Anceus rushed the boar, defying in one

breath the beast and the beauty who had sent it, with the result that he received a mortal wound from the boar's tusk. Both

Theseus and Jason were likewise unsuccessful, the former's lance being turned aside in flight by a branch and the latter's going astray to kill one of the dogs. Then Meleager drove his spear into the animal and killed it. Meleager awarded the boar's head and
hide to Atalanta because she had drawn the
this act excited the other
first

blood, but

huntsmen to unsportsmanlike envy, and Toxeus, the brothers of Melespecially Plexippus eager's mother, who even seized the trophies from Atalanta's hands. This rude act enraged Meleager, and he slew his own

and

uncles.

The news

of her brothers' death reached Althaea as she was

offering victory sacrifices in the temples stricken; but later she felt a murderous

At

first

she was grief

toward her son. She took from

and, after

its

and revengeful anger hiding place the fated brand

of a
fire

many

indecisions in

which the love

it

mother

fought against sisterly love, she cast burned.

into

the

and

it

As the brand caught fire, it gave a moan; at the same moment was struck with pain. Meleager, who was some distance away, brand was consumed by the fire, his life ran out Then, as the its time in agony, and he died, regretful that his death was not a hero's death and calling the while on his parents and his sisters. When the act was done, Althaea killed herself; and Meleagef s
sisters

that Artemis, repenting gave way to such unremitting grief turned them into birds to the misfortune that she had caused,

give

them

solace.

Thus again

fate

found

its

long way to
is

ful-

fillment.

The best-known

of this poetic use

myth

in Swinburne's

109

CALYPSO
drama, Atalanta in Calydon, in which a famous song to Artemis
begins:

hounds of spring are on winter's traces, of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of ram.
the

When

The mother

CALYPSO
ODYSSEUS.

(ka-lip'so) for eight years

'

held Odysseus captive. See

CAMILLA
against

(ka-mil'd)

was a feminine warrior who fought

AENEAS.
(km'pus mar'shus) was
a constellation

CAMPUS MARTIUS
in

the field of Mars

Rome. See ARES,

ROME.
is

CANCER, the Grab,

and a sign

of the

ZODIAC.

CAPANEUS (kaj/d-nus) was one of the Seven against THEBES. CAPITOLINE (kap1-t&-lm) is one of the seven hills o later
ROME. CAPRICORNUS
(klp'ri'kdr'nxis), the Goat, is

a constellation

and a sign of the ZODIAC. CARIA (ka'ri-a) was a section of Asia Minor that contained the cities of Miletus, Halicarnassus, and Cnidus, the river Maeander,

and Mount Latmos, where Endymion

sleeps

immortally. See
cities of

ARTEMIS.

CARTHAGE
times,

(kar'thij),

one of the most famous

ancient

was situated on a large bay on the northern coast of Africa. For a time the Carthaginians were the most formidable
rivals of the

Romans, with whom they fought the three Punic Wars, The first war began in 265 B.C., and the last, in which Carthage was captured and destroyed, began and ended in
146 B
c.

A myth relates that Carthage was established by Queen who welcomed and fell in love with Aeneas, the homeless Dido, wanderer who was to found the Roman race. Dido committed suicide when she was deserted by AENEAS.
110

CASTOR
CASSANDRA
(k#-san'dr0), the
a slave of

Trojan prophetess

whom

nobody
See

believed, became

Agamemnon when Troy

fell.

ATREUS, TROJAN WAR. CASSIOPEA (kasl-6-pe'fl) was the mother of Andromeda. See PERSEUS CASTALIA (kas-ta'li-fl), pursued by Apollo, jumped into a
spring on Mount Parnassus. The spring thereafter was named for her and was sacred to Apollo and the Muses See ORACLES.

CASTOR

(kas'tor)

only half brothers. Their

and Polydeuces, or Pollux, were twins but mother Leda, the wife of King Tyn-

dareus of Sparta, was seduced by the god Zeus in the guise of a swan, and she produced two eggs: from one came her immortal

son and daughter by Zeus, Polydeuces and Helen, and from the other her mortal son and daughter by Tyndareus, Castor and Clytemnestra. All four children were destined for fame.

The twin brothers became inseparable companions and great heroes Because there were conflicting stories about their parentof Zeus, and age, they were often called the Dioscuri, the sons sometimes the Tyndaridae, the sons of Tyndareus In Roman
fine boxer

times they were frequently called the Castores. Polydeuces was a and Castor a skillful horseman. They joined the Argo-

nauts in quest of the Golden Fleece; and in Bithynia, where King Amycus insisted on boxing with strangers, Polydeuces represented the Argonauts and knocked out the pugnacious king. The twins
also took part in the Calydonian Boar Hunt. Their sister Helen, who was later known as Helen of Troy, was so beautiful even as

a child that the hero Theseus, with the aid of his friend Pirithous, carried her off to marry her. But he left her before the marriage in order to help Pirithous, who also wished to steal a bride, and while he was gone Castor and Polydeuces rescued Helen and took
her back to Sparta.
Idas and Lynceus, Finally the twins quarreled with

who were
111

CASTORES
also brothers. Either they disagreed over the division of spoils the other in a cattle raid, or the Dioscuri stole the girls to

whom

brothers were betrothed. Whatever the cause of the fight, Castor, the mortal twin, was killed, as were Lynceus and Idas. Polydeuces
ielt that

to let

without his brother, and he asked Zeus him share his immortality with Castor. Zeus "agreed, and

he could not

live

the twins are always together: they spend one day in Hades and the next day in Olympus. They are patrons of athletes and soldiers, and also of mariners, to whom they appear in the form
of

what

is

now

called St. Elmo's

fire.

They

are identified with the

stellation that they

and it is usually as the conin English literature. Spenser's referappear ence in the Prothalamion is typical; he concludes his praise of
constellation Gemini, the Twins;

two young
. .

men by

saying, of loue they seem'd

like the twins

sight,

Which decke
For the adventures

the Bauldricke of the

Heauens

bright.
sisters

of

Helen and Clytemnestra, the

of these

heroes, see TROJAN WAR, ATREUS. CASTORES (kas-tdr'ez) was a Roman name for Pollux and CASTOR, CATTLE OF GERYON (je'ri-6n) were captured by HER-

ACLES.

CATTLE OF THE SUN

lived

on the

island of Thrinacia. In

spite of Odysseus' warning, his shipmates killed and ate some of these sacred cattle. Soon after the mariners put to sea again, a storm destroyed the ship and all the men were drowned except

ODYSSEUS.

CECROPIANS

(s-kr6'pi*<znz) were the original inhabitants of the city that became Athens. See ATTICA. CECROPS (se'krSps) was the first king of ATTICA.

CELAJSNO
112

(sMe'nd)

is

one of the Harpies. See SEA GODS.

CENTAURS
CELEUS
Demeter
(sSl'e-us)

was the father of a family that befriended

See

at Eleusis

EARTH
The

GODDESSES.

CENTAURS
(see

IXION),

(sen'torz). offspring of Ixion and a cloud the Centaurs were a race of savage monsters, half-

man and

halt-horse. In classical

ture they usually appear as

mythology and English liteiafighters, drinkers, and rapists Their

at the marriage ot

most celebrated brawl occurred

Hippodamia

Pirithous, king of the Lapiths. The Centaurs came to the wedding as invited guests, but they soon got drunk; one tried

and

and the others went after the remaining Lapiths, led by Pirithous and his friend Theseus, killed many Centaurs and drove the rest out of Thessaly. Heracles, a quarrelsome type himself, had a great deal of trouble with Centaurs. When he and Deianira were first married they wished to cross a river at which the Centaur Nessus acted as ferryman. Nessus insulted Deianira as he was carrying her over
to violate the bride,

women. The

him with a poisoned arrow Before Nessus gave the bride a fatal charm against he died, however, unfaithfulness (see HERACLES). On another occasion Heracles,
the river, and Heracles shot

who was

being entertained by the Centaur Pholus, demanded some of the wine that was stored in Pholus' cave but that belonged to the whole community o Centaurs. According to one version of the story, this wine had been given to the Centaurs by Dionysus on the understanding that they share it with Heracles; in another version Heracles has no claim on the wine except his
the hero a drink, great thirst But when Pholus reluctantly gave Heracles killed a great many the other Centaurs attacked, and describes both this fight and the Lapithof them.

Spenser

Centaur battle among the

tapestries in the

house of Ate (Faerie

Queene,

4. 1. 23):

And there the relicks of the drunken fray, The which amongst the Lapithees befell,
113

CENTAURS
And
of the bloodie feast,

which sent away

hell,

So many Centaures drunken soules to That vnder great Alades fune fell.

In the
Pholus,

fight

who
it

dropped

over the wine Heracles not only lost his host while examining one of the hero's poisoned arrows on his loot and died oi the scratch, but inadvertently

caused the death of his good friend Chiron, who had nothing in common with his fellow Centaurs except his appearance. The

son ol Cronus and a sea

kindness and his

Nymph, Chiron was renowned for his wisdom Apollo and Artemis taught him the arts of hunting, music, medicine, and prophecy, and he became the tutor of such famous men as Asclepius, Jason, and Achilles. In Matthew Arnold's Empedocles on Etna Calhcles sings:
In such a glen, on such a day, On Pehon, on the grassy ground, Chiron, the aged Centaur, lay,

The young Achilles standing by. The Centaur taught him to explore The mountains, where the glens are dry And the tired Centaurs come to rest,

And where the soaking springs abound And the straight ashes grow lor spears, And where the hill-goats come to feed, And the sea-eagles build their nest.

He

told

The

tides;

him of the Gods, the stars, and then of mortal wars,

life

And

of the

which heroes lead

Before they reach the Elysian place And rest in the immortal mead,

And

all

the

wisdom

of his race.

he was wounded by one ol Heracles' poisoned arrows, Chiron found the pain unbearable and achieved death by
114

When

CEYX
presenting
his

immortality
stars

to

Prometheus.

Zeus

placed
the

Chiron among the

Archer.

as

the constellation Sagittarius,

Not

the gentleness ot Chiron but the violence of the other

Centaurs gave the unhappily married Byron a metaphor for marriage: "that moral Centaur, man and wife" (Don Juan,
5. 158).

CEPHALUS

(sef'a-lus),

the husband of Procris, was carried off

by the goddess Eos, but he remained true to his wife. Eos at last allowed him to return to Procris but contrived to ruin their
marriage. See EOS.

CEPHEUS
CEPHISUS

(se'fus)

was the father of Andromeda. See PERSEUS.

(sfrfl'sfts)

was the father of NARCISSUS.

is

CERBERUS
entrance to

(sr'ber-us)

the three-headed dog

killed all
slain

who guards

the

HADES.
(sr'si-6n),

CERCYON
CERES
dess,

who

whom

he overcame in

wrestling, was defeated and

(se'rez)
is

by THESEUS.
of the

the

Roman name

Olympian earth godhills

Demeter. See

EARTH

GODDESSES.
of earliest

CERMALUS
ROME. CERYNEIAN

(s&r'md-lus) was one of the seven

CETO
CEYX

was captured by (sSrl-ne'yan) is the wife of Phorcys, one of the SEA GODS. (se'to) was king of (selks), the son of Hesperus, the evening star,

STAG

HERACLES.

of Thessaly. His wife, Alcyone, or Halcyone, was the daughter that agree Aeolus, the god of the winds. Two different myths
his wife. only in their conclusions grew up about Ceyx and to the first myth, the two were so happily married that According thus offended the they called themselves Zeus and Hera and as punishment. The betterinto birds gods, who changed them known myth, however, is of a gentler sort. Ceyx, because of omens attendant on the death of his brother, decided to consult

115

CEYX
of Apollo in Ionia, and he set out on a voyage to this the way place in spite of his wife's direful feminine intuitions. a storm destroyed his boat, and he was drowned with all his men.

an oracle

On

Alcyone made constant

sacrifices to the

gods for her husband's

safety, especially she implored Hera for his safe return, until that goddess decided to reveal to the luckless woman that

and

Ceyx had drowned. So Hera sent

arrange for a vision to
as

Iris

to

the underworld to

inform Alcyone of her husband's death.

Accordingly, Morpheus, the chief god of dreams, appeared to

Alcyone

Ceyx and told her that he had drowned. Alcyone awoke and went down to the seashore, where she soon

discovered her husband's body floating in on the tide. In her grief, as she cast herself over the cliff to her death or, according
to another version, as she

ran down the sea wall to meet her

husband's body, she was changed into a bird, the halcyon, and Ceyx likewise. All versions of the myth agree that the two were

mated

as birds as

they had been as

human

beings

and that

Aeolus quiets his winds during the season when his daughter sits on her nest, which floats on the waves. These quiet windless
days are
still called halcyon days. Chaucer borrowed this story from Ovid

as part of the introcalls

duction to
it

The Book

of the Duchess,

and although he

(60-61)

... a tale That me thoughte a wonder

after telling
it,

thing,

he observes that reading it put him to sleep. But since Chaucer was writing a "dream vision," a conventional

poem

in

which the poet

is

required to

fall

asleep,

we may

suppose that poetic necessity, rather than the story itself, got the better of him. Milton turns the myth to a more symbolic use in

On

the

Morning

of Christ's Nativity (61-68):

116

CHLORIS
But peacefull was the night Wherein the Prince of light
His raign of peace upon the earth began:

The Windes

with wonder whist,

to the

Smoothly the waters kist,

Whispering new joyes
milde Ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While Birds of Calm
Also, in that
(1.
sit

brooding on the charmed wave.

compendium

of mythological references,

Endymion

453-455), Keats apostrophizes sleep:

. . .

comfortable bird,

That broodest
Till
it is

o'er the troubled sea of the

mind

hush'd and smooth!

an image that misconstrues the cause of the calmness associated

with the halycons but
loses

nothing of

its effect.

CHARICLO (karl-klo) was the mother of CHARITES (kaVHez) are the GRACES.

TIRESIAS.

CHARON
dead

the (ka'ron) is the boatman who ferries the souls of the Styx or the Acheron to HADES. across
(ka-rib'dis)

CHARYBDIS
See

was condemned by Zeus

to live

under

a rock on the Sicilian

straits,

where she became

terrible

a whirlpool.

SEA GODS, ODYSSEUS.

(ki-me'ra)

CHIMAERA
by

was a

monster that was killed

BELLEROPHON.
(ki'ron), a gentle

CHIRON
heroes. See

and learned Centaur, was a tutor of

is

CENTAURS.
(kld'ris),

CHLORIS

the goddess of spring and flowers and the wife of Zephyrus, the west wind. Her use in words to his mistress English literature is typified by Herrick's Corinncfs Going A-Maymg (15-17): in
or Flora,
Rise,

and put on your

Foliage,

and be scene

To come forth, hke And sweet as flora.

the Spring-time, fresh and greene,

117

CHRYSEIS

CHRYSEIS (kri-se'is), the daughter of Chryses, priest of Apollo, was captured by the Greeks and given to Agamemnon. When
Agamemnon
refused to release her, her father persuaded Apollo to send a pestilence among the Greeks See

CHRYSES (kri'sez) was a Trojan priest of Apollo. WAR. CICONES (si'ko-nez) fought against ODYSSEUS.
CILIX
(sil'iks),

TROJAN WAR See TROJAN

searching for his

sister

Europa, gave his name

to

Cihcia. See

THEBES.
(si-me'ri'tfnz) lived in

CIMMERIANS
CIRCE

perpetual darkness beyond

the great river ol Oceanus. See

(sir'se) is

SEA GODS an enchantress. See ODYSSEUS.

was one of the seven
hills of earliest

CISPIUS

(sis'pi-us)

ROME.
who

CLEOPATRA (kle'6-pa'tnz) aided the ARGONAUTS.

CLIO
(kll'6)
is

was die

first

wife of Phineus,

the

Muse
is

of history. See

MUSES.
of

CLOTHO
APOLLO.

(klo'tho)

one of the three Fates See FATE.

was
the

CLYMENE

(klim'e-ne)

mother

Phaethon

by
of

CLYTEMNESTRA
Troy,

(kli'tem-ngs'tro), the half sister of

Helen

murdered her husband Agamemnon.

(kli'te),

See

ATREUS,

TROJAN WAR.
CLYTIE
a

Nymph whose

heart was broken

when Apollo

deserted her, was. transformed into a symbol ol faithfulness, the

sunflower. See

APOLLO.
was one of the

CLYTIUS CNOSSUS

(cll'ti-us)

GIANTS.

(nos'sus) was the capital city of Crete and of the Cretan civilization. At Cnossus lived King Minos and Queen Pasiphae, and there Daedalus built the Labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur that Theseus slew. Ancient ruins of great arche-

ological interest

have been excavated

there. See

DAEDALUS,,

THESEUS.
118

CRONUS
COCALUS (kok'tf-lus) was a protector of DAEDALUS. COCYTUS (k6-si'tus) is a river of HADES. COEUS (se'us) is one of the TITANS. COLCHIS (kol'kis) was the place where the Golden Fleece located. See ARGONAUTS.

was

CORA

(k6 ra)

is

another

name

of Persephone, the daughter of

Demeter and the wife

of Hades. See

EARTH GODDESSES,

HADES.

CORONIS (k6-ro'nis) was the mother CORYBANTES (korl-ban'tez) were Cybele. See EARTH GODDESSES.
is

of Asclepius by APOLLO. the half-divine priests of

COTHURNUS (ko-thur'nus) another name for the BUSKIN. COTTUS (kdt'us) was a Hecatoncheire. See TITANS. CREON (kre'on) became regent when Oedipus left the throne
of

THEBES. CRETAN BULL,

the father by Pasiphae of the Minotaur, was

captured by Heracles. See DAEDALUS, CREUS (kre'us) is one of the TITANS.

HERACLES.

CREUSA
AENEAS; NAUTS.

(kre-u'sa)

was

(1)

a Trojan princess, the wife of

leader of the (2) the second wife of Jason,

ARGO-

CRONIA
CRONUS.

(krc/nl-fl)

was a harvest celebration in honor of

CRONUS
hated

the sky, (kro'nus), or Saturn, or Saturnus. Uranus, the earth. When he connearly all his children by Gaea,

fined a large

number

of

beneath Hades

as earth is

them in Tartarus, which beneath heaven, Gaea was

is

as

far

so

angry

that she urged her Titan sons to rebel against their father. All except Cronus, the youngest, were afraid to attack him.

Armed with

and irom the blood

a sickle provided by Gaea, Cronus ambushed Uranus castrated him. The Furies and the Giants sprang up
of the mutilated god,

and (according

to

one

119

CRONUS
story)
fell.

Aphrodite rose from the sea where the

his sister

bits of his genitals

Cronus married

Rhea and ruled

the universe for

many prophecy troubled him. It had been predicted that one of his children would overthrow him, as he had
centuries. Yet a

overthrown his

father,

and

to prevent this eventuality

he swalafter the

lowed each of
other,

his children as they

were born.

One

he gulped down Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon, and Hades. Rhea, like her mother, preferred her children to her

husband, and she watched the regular disappearance of her offspring with growing dismay. When Zeus was born, she hid

him away and

clothes.
If

offered

Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling

the stone lay heavy

for long. Zeus

on Cronus' stomach, it did not do so grew up rapidly and soon challenged his father's

power. With the aid of his grandmother, Gaea, he compelled Cronus to disgorge the stone and the five children, and then he and his brothers and sisters fought a great war with Cronus and
the other Titans, for a detailed account of which see

ZEUS. The
(803-804)

Titans were defeated, and most of them were hurled into

Tartarus.

Comus

in Milton's

masque of

that

name

recalls that

Jove proclaimed
.

the chains of Erebus

of Saturns crew.

To som

Certain Greek writers said that Zeus and Cronus were finally reconciled, and that Cronus became the ruler of the Blessed
Islands
writers,
(see

HADES, SEA GODS). According

to the

Roman
51&-520)

when Cronus, or
refers to this

Saturn, was defeated in Greece, he fled

(1.

to

Italy,

where Janus ruled. In Paradise Lost

migration to
art
Italy.

Milton

the people, taught

them the

There Saturn civilized of agriculture, and made them

120

CRONUS
prosperous. Janus, impressed by Saturn's wisdom, shared the throne with him, and they ruled amicably together. Sometimes

JANUS). As supreme ruler he is a remote, crafty, terrible figure who seized the throne by violence and attempted to hold it by the same means. The Greek Hesiod calls him Cronus of the crooked counsel. The only sympathetic
(see

Janus was confused with Saturn

Few

stories

are told of Cronus.

portrait of him in English literature is offered by John Keats, who describes him in defeat (Hyperion, 1. 1-7, 106-112):

Deep

in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery moon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone, the silence round about his lair;

Still as

Forast

on

forest

hung about

his

head

Like cloud on cloud.

When he

tries to comfort him, speaks to the Titaness Thea, who Saturn regrets chiefly the loss of his power to do good:

...

am

smothered up,
all

And

buried from

godlike exercise

Of influence benign on planets pale, Of admonitions to the winds and seas, Of peaceful sway above man's harvesting,

And

all

those acts
its

Doth

ease

which Deity supreme heart of love in.

In English literature Cronus is usually a dark and malignant on classical story but god. This interpretation depends partly
the influence of the astrological notions concerning House of Alma (Faerie planet Saturn. In Spenser's allegorical for Phantastes, the inhabitant of the 2. 9.
chiefly
"

on

Queene,
first

52),

example,

room

of the

human

brain, seems

young

yet full of melan-

choly:

121

CRONUS
one by his vew Mote deeme him borne with
.
.

When

ill disposed skyes, oblique Saturne sate in the house of agonyes.

(The house of agonies is the twelfth heavenly house, but for further explanations the authors refer the reader to any standard work on astrology). In Shakespeare's the villainous Moor, (2. 3. 32-39) Aaron,
Titus Andronicus
tells

Tamora

that

Saturn governs his desires:

What

signifies

My

silence,

and

my deadly-standing eye, my cloudy melancholy,

Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.

And in The Knight's Tale by Chaucer (I. 2456-2469) Saturn himself gives a full account of his evil proclivities:
Myn Myn Myn
is
is

the drenchyng in the see so wan;

is

the prison in the derke cote; the stranglyng and hangyng by the throte,

The murmure and the cherles rebellyng, The groynynge, and the pryvee empoysonyng;
I

do vengeance and pleyn correccioun,

I dwelle in the signe of the leoun.

Whil

And

myn-e be the maladyes colde,

tresons,

The derke

and the

castes olde;

My lookyng is the fader of pestilence.

Yet Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, and
of the Golden

many

others also wrote

Age over which a benignant Saturn reigned. describes this period of lost innocence in The Faerie Spenser
Queene
122
(5.

Prologue.

9):

CRONUS
For during Saturnes ancient raigne it's sayd, That all the world with goodnesse did abound: All loued vertue, no man was affrayd Of force, ne fraud in wight was to be found. No warre was knowne, no dreadfull trompets sound, Peace vniuersall rayn'd mongst men and beasts,

And all things freely grew out of the ground: Justice sate high ador'd with solemne feasts, And to all people did diuide her dred beheasts
Chaucer, without mentioning Saturn, tells of the delights of this time in The Former Age, and Shakespeare several times speaks
of the

Age

of Gold.

This dichotomy in the character of Cronus seems to be the result of his two functions: the first as the dark supreme ruler and
the second as the gentle harvest god. In Greece, because his worship coincided with the development of agriculture, he was

recognized as a harvest god; and in Athens, Rhodes, and Thebes a festival called the Cronia was celebrated in his honor, a happy
harvest celebration in which social distinctions were eliminated.

mythology Saturn was at first a rather humble god his wife Ops was the harvest helper. Later he was identified with Cronus, and Ops with Rhea, and the Golden Age
In
of harvest,

Roman

and

whose departure was lamented by the Greeks was thought by

the

Romans

to have occurred at a later time

when Saturn

fled

from defeat in Greece

to peaceful reign in Italy. For

many

years

Saturn shared the rule of Italy with Janus, but one day he suddenly disappeared. In his honor Janus established the Saturnalia, which was celebrated in December. As long as the

pretended that the Golden Age had returned. Declarations of war were forbidden, executions were and people postponed, master and man ate at the same table,
festival lasted, everyone

exchanged

presents.

The

season of this festival was later chosen

by

Christians for the Christmas celebration.

123

CUMAE
See also

TITANS.
(ku'me)
is

CUMAE
See

the place where Aeneas

first

landed in

Italy.

AENEAS. CUMAEAN SIBYL (ku-me'an

sib'il),

or Sibyl of

Cumae, who

was given the power of prophecy and a thousand years o life by Apollo, guided Aeneas to Hades. See APOLLO, AENEAS.

CUPID (ku'pid) is a Roman name for EROS. CURETES (ku-re'tez), the half-divine priests of
Zeus when he was a child. See

Rhea, protected

EARTH

GODDESSES.
was the Phrygian

CYBELE
name
DESSES.

(sib'e-le),

or

CYBEBE

(si-be'be),

of the

Titan earth goddess, Rhea. See

(si-klo'pez; singular,
first

EARTH GOD-

si'klops) are huge were sons ot Uranus and one-eyed giants The Cyclopes Gaea. They were confined in Tartarus by Uranus and liberated

CYCLOPES

CYCLOPS,

by Zeus when the Olympians were overthrowing the Titans. In gratitude the Cyclopes created for Zeus the thunderbolt, which
Zeus killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt, Apollo, Asclepius' father, was afraid to attack Zeus but took his revenge by killing the Cyclopes. In the Odyssey,

became

his favorite

weapon.

When

however, the Cyclopes are giant one-eyed cannibals, the sons of Poseidon, who keep flocks on the volcanic island of Sicily. For

them

see

ODYSSEUS.
(slk'nus),

CYCNUS

which means "swan/* was the name of three

all

young men who were

turned into swans.

The

first,

a son of

Ares, was a thief whom Heracles killed. The second, a son of Poseidon, was abandoned at birth by his mother but was cared for by a swan. He was an ally of the Trojans against the Greeks,

and in the
first

first

fight the

Greek hero Achilles strangled him. The

two Cycnuses became swans after death, but the third was simply translated from youth to swan. He was a friend of
Phaethon, the foolish son of Apollo

who

tried to drive his father's

124

CYZICUS
chariot of the sun. Zeus killed Phaethon with a thunderbolt,

and

Cycnus grieved
swan.

so bitterly that the gods transformed

him

into a

runners of

These rather vague and unsatisfactory stories are the foremany later tales of swan transformation found England and on the continent, both in folk tale and in the

literature of conscious art.

The

best

known

is

Knight of the Swan,

who

is

called Helias, Lohengrin,

the story of the and various

other names. In 1512, Robert Copland translated from a French version The History of Helyas, Knight of the Swan as a compli-

ment to the noble English families who claimed descent from Swan Knight Edmund Spenser made a swan transformation

the
the

CYLLENE

central motif of his betrothal poem, the Prothalamion. (sHe'ne) is the mountain famous as the birthplace of

HERMES. CYULENIUS

(sMe'ni-tis)

is

another

name

for

HERMES.

CYNTHIA (sm'thi-fl) is another name for ARTEMIS. CYNTHIUS (sm'thi-us) is another name for APOLLO. CYNTHUS (sm'thus) is the mountain on Delos famous
birthplace of Artemis

as the

and

APOLLO.
name
for

CYPRIS

(sl'pris) is
(si'prtis)

another

APHRODITE.
when
she arose from the

CYPRUS

contends with Cythera for the honor of being

the island to which Aphrodite floated foam. See APHRODITE.

CYRENE

Nymph who liked to wrestle with lions, was the mother of Aristaeus by APOLLO.
(si-re'ne),

CYTHERA
CYTHEREA
CYZICUS

(slth'&r'd)

contends with Cyprus for the honor of

being the island to which Aphrodite floated

the foam. See

when

she arose from

APHRODITE.
(s!th'r-e>d)
is
is

name

for

APHRODITE.
left

(sizl-ktis)

the island

on which Heracles

the

expedition of the

ARGONAUTS.
125

DAEDALUS

DAEDALUS
and
artist,

(d&l'tf-lus),

the skillful artificer

brothers, was a

who
god

anticipated

the achievement oi the

Wright

famous inventor
ol craftsmen.

and

a descendant ol Hephaestus, the

Athens was

his native city,

and

there he created

many marvelous
nephew,

things, including statues that

moved

of themselves. His

(not to be confused with the Talus who guarded the shores of Crete, for whom see THESEUS), became

Perdix, or Talus

apprentice and eventually his rival. Perdix, after over the backbone of a fish, invented the saw, and brooding Daedalus was so filled with jealous rage that he threw Perdix

Daedalus'

into the sea.

The
to

gods transformed the young

bears his name.

man

into the

Cnossus in Crete, where he was hospitably received by King Minos. At this time Minos had incurred the anger of Poseidon. He had prayed to the god for a bull to
sacrifice in his

partridge, which Daedalus fled

still

honor; but when Poseidon sent him the Cretan Bull Minos was so delighted with the animal that he kept it and sacrificed an inferior bull in its place. Poseidon, who took the simplest means of revenge, this time devised a usually

from the

sea,

subtler punishment: he caused Pasiphae, Minos' wife, to conceive a violent passion for the bull. When Daedalus appeared, Pasiphae

took him into her confidence, and he disguised her as a cow so that she might satisfy her lust. In due time she bore the Minotaur, who was half-bull and half-man; and Daedalus, at the command
of Minos, built the famous Labyrinth, an intricate maze in which the monster was kept. For the story of the human sacrifices offered to the Minotaur and of his death at the hands of Theseus,
see the article

on that hero.

126

DAEDALUS
Daedalus and Ins son Icarus (who at this point suddenly appears in the story) lived happily in Crete until Minos learned that Daedalus had helped Pasiphae to indulge her unnatural passion for the bull. Then the king confined Daedalus and Icarus
in the Labyrinth and thus provided the ultimate proof ot its effectiveness, for not even Daedalus, its creator, could find his

way out
tried to

of

therefore

it. The sky was the only way of made wings of leathers and wax.

escape,

and Daedalus

Before he and Icarus

to a middle fly, he warned the boy that they must hold course between sky and sea. if they flew too high the sun would melt the wax and the wings would fall apart. But after they had soared into the air, Icarus was so delighted with his new power that he ranged far up into the heavens. The wax melted,

the wings fell from his shoulders, and he plunged sea that thereafter was called the Icarian Sea.

down

into a

Daedalus flew saiely

to Sicily

King

Cocalus.

When Minos

and sought the protection of discovered that Daedalus had

not rest until he escaped, he was furiously angry, and he could discover the inventor's hiding place. He had thought of a way to the civilized world that he would give a large sent word

reward

through anyone who could string a thread through every spiral of a sea shell. Daedalus quickly solved the problem He tied a thread to an ant, bored a small hole in the closed end of a
to
shell,

the hole and put the ant in the hole, and then plugged up the thread The ant worked its way to the open secured the end of

end of the

pulled the thread through every shell arrived from Sicily with a request for the spiral. When this have accomreward, Minos was sure that only Daedalus could
shell and, in

doing

so,

sail at once for Sicily to capture plished the task, and he set servant. King Cocalus received him with proper his errant Daedalus. Doubtless war ceremony but refused to surrender of Cocalus' daughters had not ended would have resulted if one

the dispute by scalding Minos to death in his bath.

127

DAEDALUS
In English literature Daedalus and Icarus are sometimes refor their boldness. Lord Talbot in Shakespeare's 1 Henry VI (4. 6. 54-57), for example, urges his son to reckless

membered

bravery with these words:

Then follow thou Thou Icarus Thy

If

thy desp'rate
life to

sire

of Crete,

me

is

sweet.

thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side; And, commendable prov'd, let's die in pride.

More frequently, however, Icarus, like Phaethon, symbolizes rash and foolish pride. In 3 Henry VI (5. 6. 18-25) King Henry in an elaborate image describes himself and his son as Daedalus and
Icarus,

but

his

labored

comparison

is

less

effective

than

Gloucester's contemptuous thrust:

Why, what a peevish fool was That taught his son the office

that of Crete

of a fowl

And
Similarly,

yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.

George Santayana in his sonnet

On

the Death of a

Metaphysician represents the failure of the "unhappy dreamer" of his poem in terms of the myth:
I

stood and saw you

fall,

befooled in death,

As, in your numbed spirit's fatal swoon, You cried you were a god, or were to be; I heard with feeble moan your boastful breath

Bubble from depths of

th-e

Icarian sea. 1

In Musee des Beaux Arts

of the story of Icarus as

W. H. Auden

an example

uses a painter's treatment of the irony of human suffer-

ing and of

human

indifference to the suffering of others:

iFrom "On the Death of a Metaphysician," by George Santayana, in Poems (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925). Reprinted with the permission of the publishers.

128

DANAIDS
In Breughel's Icarus, for example: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As

it

had

to

on

the white legs disappearing into the green

Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on J

Daedalus

is

often

the statues that

of

remembered for his inventions: the wings, moved of themselves, and what Chaucer (House
calls

Fame, 1920-1921)
.

that

Domus Dedaly,
ys.

That Laboryntus cleped

Socrates, because he

was a sculptor

as well as a philosopher,

claimed descent from Daedalus (Plato, Alcibiades I, 121); and Stephen Dedalus, the aspiring artist who is the hero of James
for help to Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, prays the first Daedalus: "Old father, old artificer, stand me now and

ever in good stead." Spenser borrowed from Greek the adjective "daedal," which means "cunningly wrought," and Shelley and

DAEMON

Keats and a number of other poets have also used the word. of a person, (de'm&n) is usually the guardian spirit society, or place. See HESTIA. DANAE (dan'a-e) was a mistress of Zeus whom the god visited as
a shower of gold See

PERSEUS, ZEUS.

DANAIDS

of Danaus, who (dan'a-idz) were the fifty daughters husbands on their wedding night. ordered them to murder their
suffer a special torment in Forty-nine of them obeyed, and they

HADES.
2

of

From "Musee des Beaux W. H. Auden. Copyright,

Arts,"

1945,

mission of the publisher,

Random

by W. H. Auden, in The Collected Poetry the perby W. H. Auden. Reprinted with House, Inc.

129

DANAUS
DANAUS
(dan'a-us) ordered his fifty daughters to

murder

their

husbands on their wedding night* See

HADES.

DAPHNE
laurel,

(da^ne), pursued by Apollo, was transformed into the and Apollo adopted the laurel as his tree. See APOLLO. DAPHNIS (daf'nis) was a shepherd who invented pastoral song

and

story.

He

loved Piplea and tried to win her from her

master, Lityerses, by defeating him in a reaping contest. Daphnis was losing until Lityerses was killed by HERACLES. DARDANUS (dar'dd-nus) was the founder of the Trojan royal

house. See

AENEAS.

DEATH. See Thanatos under HADES. DEIANIRA (de'ya-m'ra) was the second wife of HERACLES. DEIDAMIA (de-id'a-mi'd) was the mother by Achilles of Pyrrhus, or Neoptolemus, who fought in the TROJAN WAR. DEIMOS (dl'mfts) is an attendant of his father ARES. DEIPHOBUS (de-if'6-bus), a prince of Troy, was a minor hero in the TROJAN WAR. DELIA (de'li-a) is another name for ARTEMIS. DELIUS (de'li-us) is another name for APOLLO. DELOS (de'16s) is the Aegean island on which Leto gave birth to
Artemis and

APOLLO.

DELPHI

Greek town at the foot of Mount Parnassus, was the place of the most iamous oracle of: Apollo. See ORACLES.
(d&'fl), a
is

DEMETER (d-me'tr) EARTH GODDESSES.

DEUCALION

the

Olympian earth goddess. See

(du-ka'lr&n). Before the great flood there were three or four ages of man. First was the Golden Age when Cronus ruled. This was a time of innocence, peace, and ease, when the

earth provided food without man's labor. For the poets' use of the Golden Age see the article on Cronus. Next came the
Silver

Age

in

which

man

suffered from heat

and cold and was

this

forced to cultivate the earth to get his food.

Men in

time were

130

DEUCALION
strong and brave, but their tempers were bad and they often neglected their duties to the gods. In the next period, the

Brazen Age, mankind was

fiercer, crueler, and more impious. One survivor of this time was Talus, the brazen giant who possible is described in the article on Theseus. Byron alludes to the

characteristics of this age in his satire,

The Age of Bronze. There followed the Iron Age, a time of pain, sickness, poverty, war,

oppression. One by one the gods departed, and finally Astraea, the goddess of human justice, also abandoned the earth. According to some stories, the great flood followed the Age of

and

Brass and the present age is the Age of Iron, a view for which evidence could be found in ancient Greece and in the world

and

today. But other stones hold that the flood ended the Iron Age, that the present time might be called the Age of Stone. In one of the darkest ages, Brass or Iron, mankind became so

evil that

Zeus determined to destroy the

race.

With

the help of

his brother Poseidon,

god

of the sea

and the

rivers,

he caused

such a great flood that all the earth was covered except the tip of the tallest mountain, Mount Parnassus Prometheus, the
benefactor of man, had foreseen the anger of Zeus, and he had
instructed his son Deucalion to build a chest or ark and to stock

with provisions. When the waters rose Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha were safe in their ark, but all other human beings were
it

drowned.
For nine days and nights the two survivors floated on the desert of waters until their ark touched on the tip of Mount Parnassus, and there they landed. Zeus, knowing they were a
recede.
to

pious and decent couple, took pity on them and made the flood As they made their way down the mountain, they came

ruined temple, where they gave thanks for their deliverance and prayed that the race of man might be restored.

an

old, partly

This shrine belonged

to

Themis, goddess of divine

justice,

and

131

DEUCALION
a voice spoke from the temple telling them to throw the bones of their mother behind them. Pyrrha and Deucalion were shocked
this apparently impious command, but it soon occurred to Deucalion that the earth was the mother of all men and that

by

stones might be called her bones. He and Pyrrha took stones and threw them over their shoulders; those thrown by her became

women and those thrown by him became men. Thus the race of man was recreated Pyrrha and Deucalion also had children by
the more familiar method, and one of them was Hellen, eponymous father of the Greeks or Hellenes.

The
(3.

similarities

between

classical

myth and
says:

Biblical story

are striking,

and Giles Fletcher in Ghnsts Victone and Triumph

7) speaks for

many

Christians

when he

Who

doth not see drown'd in Deucalions name,

his
.

(When earth Old Noah

.

men, and

sea

had

lost his shore)

In Milton's Paradise Lost

(11. 9-14),

when Adam and Eve have

sinned and repented, they pray for forgiveness:

nor important less Seem'd their Petition, then when th' ancient Pair In Fables old, less ancient yet then these, Deucalion and chaste Pyrrha to restore The Race of Mankind drownd, before the Shrine
.
.

Of Themis stood devout

The most
Queene,
5.

effective use of the

myth, however,

is

made by Spenser

in a lament for the decline of civilization in his time (Faerie

Prologue.

2):
first

For from the golden age, that

It's

was named,

now at earst become a stonie one; And men themselves, the which at first were framed
Of
132
earthly mould,

and form'd

of flesh

and bone,

DIONYSUS
Are now transformed into hardest
stone:

Such as behind their backs (so backward bred) Were throwne by Pyrrha and Deucahone

DIANA

(dMLn'a)

is

Roman name

ot

ARTEMIS.
Perseus

DICTYS

(dik'tis),

a fisherman

mother, was later made a

who befriended king by PERSEUS.

and

his

DIDO

(di'do), queen of Carthage, committed suicide when she was deserted by her lover AENEAS. DIOMEDES (di'6-me'dez) was (1) one of the Epigoni who con-

quered Thebes and a Greek hero in the Trojan

War

(see

THEBES, TROJAN WAR);

(2)

a son of Ares

who owned

man-eating horses for which he was killed by HERACLES. DIONE (dl-o'ne) was said by Homer to be the mother of

APHRODITE. DIONYSUS (di'6-m'sus),

general fertility of nature,

or Bacchus, or Liber, is a god of the and as such is related to the earth

known goddesses, to Poseidon, and to Priapus, but he is doubtless and that is as the god best for only one of his many attributes,
of the vine and the wine that it produces Dionysus was the son of Zeus by Semele. Hera, in her unceasing campaign to discourage Zeus's amours, persuaded Semele to ask her lover tor a sight of him in his full splendor. When Zeus accordingly appeared in his

panoply of thunder and lightning, Semele was burnt to ashes by the splendor of the sight, but Zeus seized her unborn son,
Dionysus, and, as some accounts have
his

pwn name Dithyrambus is The infant Dionysus was given at first to Ino, his mother's sister, to tend at Mount Nysa; but later he was reared by Silenus, a son of Pan. Silenus was a fat old Satyr who loved to drink and
thigh until
it

it, implanted the child in was ready for birth. Dionysus' other thus thought to have meant "twice-born/'

appeared riding on a donkey. Hera's anger against man she Dionysus did not cease, and while he was still a young
usually

DIONYSUS
drove him

mad and

sent

him wandering about

the

world

Dionysus was restored to his senses by the earth goddess Rhea, and afterward continued in his travels for the purpose of teaching the cultivation of the vine and the use of wine. He was variously received in different countries. While in the kingdom

o Midas in Asia Minor, Silenus became lost during a bout of drunkenness and was rescued and kindly treated by Midas. For
courtesy Dionysus granted Midas the choice of his own reward, and Midas asked that everything that he touched be
this

turned

enjoyed his magic touch immensely until he discovered that the food he wished to eat also turned to the
to gold.

He

valuable but indigestible metal. Then he prayed for release irom the power, and the god directed him to bathe in the river Pactolus, an act which freed Midas but changed the sands of the
river to gold. (For another story

about Midas see

APOLLO

At another
sell

time, Dionysus

was

seized by sailors

who wished

to

into slavery in Egypt. During the course ol the voyage, however, vines grew up out of the sea and entwined the mast

him

of the ship, while Dionysus himself was released fiom his bonds and appeared in his godly person, attended by his symbolic wild

and crowned with ivy. All the sailors were turned into dolphins except one named Acetes who had recognized and
beasts

island of Naxos,
this

attempted to befriend the god. Acetes then piloted the ship to the where the god wished to go. Alfred Noyes uses

myth

in

Bacchus and the Pirates

On Naxos

Dionysus found

Ariadne, who had been deserted by Theseus. The god comforted Ariadne, made her his wife, and persuaded Zeus to grant her immortality. The golden crown that was her wedding gift from Dionysus appears in the constellation of Taurus, and is
called the

Corona

Borealis.

Dionysus sometimes met with opposition to his teachings. Such

was the situation when he brought them

134

to his

own

city of

DIONYSUS
Thebes. King Pentheus opposed the cultivation of the vine and the celebration of the god's rites. He even attempted to put Acetes, whom he captured, to death for celebrating the rites,

but Dionysus rescued Acetes and caused Pentheus to be torn to pieces by his own mother when Pentheus interrupted the Dionysian rites that the women were celebrating on Mount Cithaeron.

A similar fate the god provided for King Lycurgus of Thrace who
opposed him. He drove Lycurgus mad and caused him to own son under the impression, some accounts say, that was a vine in the need of pruning
slay his

his son

By whatever means they were

worship
of the

god became general

spread, Dionysus' rites and the in Greece and later in the

western Mediterranean. Because nature flourishes in the spring and summer, Dionysus was associated with Demeter as a
seasonal divinity. Consequently he was thought to suffer during the winter months, and festivals were held to comfort and honor

him. These
tions

festivals usually

by women. One another in January was featured chiefly by a nocturnal proces-

took the form oi orgiastic celebrasuch was held in Athens in December;

sion oi

women,
for

the wine and the pouring of

a third in February celebrated the opening of it; and the last of the series In
six

March ran
These
chanalia, a

festivals,

Great Dionysia. when they spread to Rome, were called Bacdays

called the

and was

name

that survives today.

the figure Dionysus, or Bacchus, is well known in our time as aloft a bunch of ol a man crowned with ivy leaves and holding other. In ancient times, grapes in one hand and a cup in the was sometimes represented as old and somehowever,

Dionysus

times as young and delicate, nearly always crowned with the traditional ivy and wearing a stag's skin on his shoulders. He

was usually attended by lynxes,

carried a
staff,

tigers,

and panthers, and he

called a Thyrsus, tipped with a pine cone. Besides

DIONYSUS
Silenus, his inveterate
Satyrs, or Silem, of

companions were the Satyrs and the older Silenus was the prototype. The Satyrs were human in form except that they had the ears, legs, and tails ot horses or goats. They were always inflamed with wine

whom

of the

and sexual passion, so that there are many stories of their pursuit woodland Nymphs (tor further details see PAN). Centaurs, who had the trunks of men but the full bodies of horses, also
attended the god.

The female

called Maenads, Bacchantes, or Bassarids. In

followers of Dionysus were usually Ode to the West

(20-23) Shelley uses the disordered hair of a image of gathering storm clouds:

Wind

Maenad

as

an

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height,

The

locks of the approaching storm,

and Swinburne
Calydon

in the

recalls the

first chorus (41-44, 49-52) of Atalanta in female followers of the god:

And Pan by noon and Bacchus

Follows with dancing and
fills

by night, Fleeter of foot than the fleet-loot kid,

with delight

The Maenad and

The

the Bassarid;

ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair

eyes;

Over her eyebrows hiding her

The wild vine Her bright

slipping down leaves bare breast shortening into sighs.

Dionysus* connection with poetry was a close one. The choral songs sung in his honor, as Aristotle observes in The Poetics, led ultimately to the development of the drama, ot which Dio* nysxas was the patron god, in association with Apollo and the

Muses. At the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, against the foot

136

DIONYSUS
o the Acropolis, were played the great comedies and tragedies of classical times. The dithyramb, a wild and vehement song improvised and sung by the Bacchanals, has given its name to a kind of poetry that appears to be written under strong inspiration and consequently makes up in fervor what it often lacks in
good poetry seemed to be of this sort. In a famous passage in the Ion, Socrates tells Ion that "all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by
significance.
all

To

Plato

art,

but because they are inspired and possessed." He compares the poets thus to Dionysian maidens "who draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are under the influence of Dionysus,

but not when they are in their right mind," a dictum which has been the subject of much subsequent debate. Spenser allows one ol his shepherds to express this idea in The Shepheardes Calender
(October, 103-114).

In English poetry Dionysus appears most frequently as the god of revelry. Allusions to Bacchanalian festivals are numberless.

Herrick wrote several poems about Bacchus. Milton rejects the Bacchanalia as a form of pagan idolatry in Paradise Lost
(7.

31-33) in the famous lines where he calls on the

his song

Muse

to

govern

and

... fit audience find, though few. But drive fan off the barbarous dissonance of Bacchus and his Revellers.

In his

poem Upon Drinking

in a

Bowl, on the contrary, John

Wilmot, Earl of Rochester,

declares.
Saints are;
reign.
is

Cupid and Bacchus

my

May Drink and Love

Another well-known
Nightingale:

still

allusion to Bacchus

in Keats's

Ode

to

DIOSCURI
Away' Away' for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
lines in

which Keats

rejects the intoxicating

power

of

wine

for

that of poetry, and in which many an American school boy has iound a mistaken reference to the world of cowboys ("pards"

means

"leopards"). Yet in

Endymion

(4.

193-267) Keats gives a

colorful description of a Bacchanalian procession; and Arnold, in a poem called Bacchanalia: or, The New Age,

Matthew makes of

the Bacchanalia a symbol of the triumph of the future over the a poem called Bacchus, past. Ralph Waldo Emerson, also, wrote
in

which he

the

power

calls on the god to restore the past in memory through of his wine. Frederick Faust wrote Dionysus in Hades.

DIOSCURI (di'os-ku'ri) were Polydeuces and CASTOR. DIRAE (di're) is a Roman name of the FURIES. DIRGE (dlr'se) was the wife of Lycus, regent of THEBES. DIS (dis) is a Roman name of the god HADES. DISCORDIA (dls-kor'dl-d) is the Roman name for Eris, goddess
of discord. See

ARES.
song

DITHYRAMB

(dithl-ram) was a wild Bacchanals, followers of DIONYSUS.

(dithl-ram/btis)
is

sung by the
for

DITHYRAMBUS
SUS.

another

name

DIONYthe most

DODONA

(dfrdo'nd), a city in Epirus, was the place o

famous oracle of Zeus. See

ORACLES.
Olympian ruler of
the

DOLPHINS
SEA GODS.

are sacred to Poseidon, the

DORIS

is

the wife of Nereus, one ol the

(dri'ad/) are tree
(dri'6'pe),

SEA GODS.

DRYADS DRYOPE
See

NYMPHS.
girl,

a mortal

was transformed into a Dryad.

NYMPHS.

138

EARTH GODDESSES

divinity of the Greeks was Gaea, or Ge, the goddess of the earth, whom the Romans called Tellus, or Terra Mater. Her son and husband Uranus, the sky,
first

EARTH

GODDESSES, The

was not worshiped, apparently because he was so vaguely imagined. Gaea's chief characteristic was fecundity. Not only was she the mother by Uranus of the creatures of the earth, but she
also

mated with her son Pontus and her grandson Poseidon

to

produce various creatures ot the sea. She always sided with a son against his father, but when son or grandson opposed son or grandson her allegiance wavered.
Because Uranus confined most of
his children in Tartarus,

Gaea

persuaded her son Cronus to attack and castrate his father. Cronus then became the supreme ruler and took Rhea for his queen Knowing that one of his offspring was fated to overthrow him, Cronus swallowed his first five children; but after Zeus was
born,

when Cronus asked

for

what he had bred, Rhea gave him

a stone.

As soon as Zeus reached maturity, Gaea helped him to compel Cronus to disgorge the other children, and then the Olympians and the Titans fought a great war. At first Gaea assisted her
excellent advice grandchildren against her children, and her for the defeat of the Titans; but when was responsible
chiefly

some of the Titans were confined in Tartarus, she mourned for them and created a monster named Typhon and incited her
children the Giants to fight against Zeus. The Olympians needed the help of Heracles to subdue the last of Gaea's children.

Rhea, the wife of Cronus and the daughter of Gaea,

as-

139

EARTH GODDESSES
sumed
all

the attributes of her mother. She

was called Cybele,

or Cybebe, in Phrygia, and the

Romans named her Ops. Like

Gaea, Rhea was inexhaustibly fertile, and she helped her children against their father. A part of her plot against Cronus has
already been described. After saving Zeus's life, she sent him to Crete to be raised by her half-divine priests the Curetes, who

drowned out
shields.

his

cries

by beating their spears against their

In Phrygia, where she was worshiped as Cybele, her halfdivine followers were called Corybantes. Like the Curetes, they honored their goddess with wild and warlike dances; Spenser
(Faerie Queene,
art
1.

6.

15) speaks of "Cybeles franticke rites.*' In

on a throne with lions Her crown is shaped in the form of towers and battlements. Other priests of Rhea or Cybele were the Idaean Dactyls, fabulous discoverers of iron and copper and workers of magic. Their home was on Mount Ida in Crete or Phrygia, and their number was variously said
Cybele
is

usually veiled,

by her

side or in a chariot

and she drawn by

sits

lions.

According to one writer, there were thirty- two Dactyls who worked evil charms and twenty Dactyls who prevented the -charms from taking effect.
to
five,

be

nine, ten, twenty, or a hundred.

All of these numbers or combinations of numbers were significant in the Pythagorean system, and for explanations the authors
of this

book

refer the reader to the works of Pythagoras.

Dionysus was driven mad by Hera, Rhea cured him and taught him her religious rites. This instruction was to be expected, since Dionysus and the earth goddess, whatever her

When

name, were both deities of fertility. Because Atalanta of Boeotia and Hippomenes, in their happiness after their marriage, forgot to offer sacrifices to Aphrodite, she caused them to offend Cybele, and Cybele turned them into a lioness and a lion and yoked them to her chariot.
140

EARTH GODDESSES
Spenser and Milton both remember this goddess as Cybele rather than Rhea, and call her the great mother and the goddess of cities. Spenser (Faerie Queene, 4. 11. 28) sees her as
Cybele, arayd with pompous pride, Wearing a Diademe embattild wide With hundred turrets,

Old

and

also

(Ruines of Rome,
. . .

6) as

Renowm'd

that great Phrygian mother for fruite of famous progenie.

In Arcades (21-22) Milton echoes Spenser

. .

when he

describes

the towred Cybele,

a

Mother of

hunderd

gods,

and Byron (Childe Harold,

4. 2) says

of Venice:

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, Rising with her tiara of proud towers.

Demeter, or Ceres, a daughter of Rhea and Cronus, is the Olympian goddess of the earth and especially of agriculture.

Corn and poppies are sacred to her and her daughter Persephone, and cows, sheep, and pigs are sacrificed to the two goddesses. In art Demeter is represented as carrying a cornucopia of plenty filled with ears of corn. Ceres means "corn," and in English poetry
corn
ture.
is

often related to or personified as the goddess of agricul-

sees Pope, for example, in his Moral Essays (4. 176) "laughing Ceres re-assume the land," and in The Progress of Demeter was Poesy (9) Gray speaks of "Ceres' golden reign." associated with Dionysus and Poseidon and other deities of fertility;

was

she agriculture was the basis of civilization, In the betrothal masque also a goddess of law and marriage.

and because

141

EARTH GODDESSES
of

The Tempest

(4.

1)

Ceres and Juno together bless the troth-

pligfot oi

Miranda and Ferdinand

ter oi

Persephone, or Cora, or Proserpina, or Libera, was the daughDemeter by Zeus Once when Hades, the god of the under-

world,

made one

oi his

mirequent

visits

to eaith,

he saw the

lovely Persephone gatheung fioweis with her attendants in the vale of Enna in Sioiy The daik god immediately iell in love

with her, caught her up into his chariot, and disappeared beneath the earth. Demeter heard hei daughter's cries but ariived too
late to save her. Aiter she

had wandered nine days in sorrow

looking lor Persephone, Helios, the sun,

told

who

sees everything,

Demeter what had happened.

In terrible anger she cursed the earth ioi allowing Hades passage to the underworld. Thereatter drought and flood and
all sorts oi disasters

plagued the earth, and mankind came close death through iamine. The fountain Nymph Arethusa, who in her journey under the ocean had seen Persephone in the
to

underworld, told Demeter that her daughter looked sad but queenlike, and begged Demeter to be merciful. The goddess demanded that Zeus restore Persephone Although he was reluctant

Hades, Zeus be returned to earth on conagreed Persephone dition that she had eaten nothing while in the underworld.
to require that

to assert his authority over his powerful brother

Before Hades

let

her go, he persuaded Persephone to eat four

pomegranate

seeds,

and

thercaiter, according to the decree of

the Fates, she spent four months of each year with "Hades and the rest of the time with her mother. (For Persephone as the queen
of the

underworld

see

HADES, and

for another

myth about the

annual death and rebirth oi nature see Adonis under

APHRO-

DITE).
This myth symbolizes the yearly death and rebirth ot nature and especially ot what the English call coin and we call wheat
142

EARTH GODDESSES
In the winter the seed belongs to Hades, but in the spring it is restored to Demeter. In the course of her sorrowful search for
her daughter, Demeter was kindly entertained at Eleusis in Attica by Celeus and Metanira and their children. Later one of
these children, Triptolemus, became a priest of Demeter. She gave him a chariot drawn by dragons, and he traveled around the

world teaching men the

art of planting. Spenser (Virgils Gnat, of the time before men knew the seed of Ceres, 208) speaks

"which

Tnptoleme taught how to be sowne," and in Swinburne's At Eleusis Demeter tells of her stay with Celeus and Metanira. At Eleusis were established the Eleusinian Festivals and Mysteries, both of which were celebrated in February and
first

September.

The

festivals

were open
little is

to all,

but the mysteries were

oi

them except that they probably interpreted the annual death and rebirth of Perrestricted to initiates

and

known

sephone

symbol of the immortality of the human spirit. Demeter and Persephone is the only tragic story The myth about the gods. Olympians are often involved in dark and violent
as a

of

happenings and sometimes they feel intense sorrow, but their hurts are rather quickly healed. One sentence frequently repeated by Homer seems to symbolize their lives on Olympus: "Laughter

unquenchable arose among the blessed gods." In English

ture

litera-

Milton poets have recalled the rape of Persephone. 4. 268-272) describes (Paradise Lost,

many

that faire field

Of Enna, where Pioserpin gathnng flours Her self a fairer Floure by gloomie Dis

Was gatherd, which To seek her through

(Dis
1

cost Ceres all that pain

the world.

is

Roman name

tor Hades.) In

The Winters Tale

(4.

4.

wishes 16-118) Perdita, as the hostess of the sheepsheanng feast,

for spring flowers:

143

EARTH GODDESSES
. .

O Proserpina,
now
that, frighted,

For the flowers

thou

let'st fall

From

Dis's

wagon'

Shelley wrote a Song of Proserpine, While Gathering Flowers the Plain of Enna:
Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,

on

Thou from whose immortal bosom

Gods, and men, and beasts have birth, Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom,

Breathe thine influence most divine

On
If

thine

own

child, Proserpine.

Thou

with mists of evening dew dost nourish these young flowers

Till they grow, scent and hue, Fairest children of the Hours,

Breathe thine influence most divine

On

thine

own

child, Proserpine.

Tennyson in Demeter and Persephone tells with warm sympathy the story of the rape of the daughter, the mother's search and sorrow, and their ftnal reunion. In The Appeasement of Demeter
George Meredith alters the myth. In his version, the curse is from the dying earth, not by the return of Persephone, but by a pitiful attempt at play between a thin stallion and a
lifted

thin mare. Instinct

stirs faintly in them, Demeter sees and laughs kindly at their parody ol pleasure, and the earth then revives. Meredith also makes an addition to mythology in The Day of

the Daughter of Hades. In springtime in the vale of Enna a mortal boy sees Demeter and Persephone reunited. As their
chariot starts toward Olympus, a girl, Skiageneia, the daughter of Persephone and Hades, leaves the chariot and joins the boy. They wander about together with the girl delighting in the life

of the *earth. Finally her lovely song of growing things

tells

her

144

ENCELADUS
father where she
is
is, and the daughter ot Hades and springtime taken back to the house of death.

poets in English literature, drawing on classical and other pagan traditions as well as the Christian tradition, have

Many

written of the majesty and fruitfulness of nature. Probably the most impressive results are Spenser's description of Dame Nature in The Faerie Queene (7. 7. 5-13) and Milton's account of the creation of the earth and of the creatures of the earth in Paradise Lost (7).

ECHIDNA

(fi-kJd'nd)

was the wife of

ECHO

(Sk'6) was a Nymph. See NARCISSUS,

Ilithyia,
is

TYPHON. NYMPHS.
the goddess of child-

EILEITHYIA (I'li-thi'ya), or birth. See ARTEMIS, HERA.

(-lk'tra) (1) was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who aided her brother Orestes in the ritual killing
ot their
(see

ELECTRA

mother

as retribution for the

(2)
is

murder of

their father

ATREUS);

a Pleiad

who

had a love affair with

Zeus that resulted in the birth of Dardanus, the founder of the Oceanid who marroyal house of Troy (see ZEUS); (3) is an
ried

Thaumas and became

the

mother of

Iris,

goddess of the

rainbow, and of the Harpies

(see

ELEUSINIAN
of

(gl'oo-sinl-an)

SEA GODS). FESTIVALS and MYSTERIES

were celebrated at Eleusis in February and September in honor

Demeter and Persephone. See EARTH GODDESSES. ELEUSIS (-loc/sis) is a town in Attica where Demeter, searching for her daughter Persephone, was kindly entertained, and where the Eleusinian Festivals and Mysteries were established in honor
ot

Demeter and Persephone. See

(6-lIzh'dn)

EARTH

GODDESSES.

ELPENOR
ELYSIAN

a follower of ODYSSEUS. (gl-pe'ndr) was

FIELDS

ELYSIUM (-lizh'ihn) is ENCELADUS (Sn-sSi'd-dus)

are the paradise the paradise in HADES.

HADES.

was one of the GIANTS.

145

ENDYMION
ENDYMION
(en-diml-on)
is

the shepherd

who

is

visited each

ENNA
ENYO
EOS

night in his immortal sleep by ARTEMIS. x (en a) is the vale in Sicily where Persephone was gathering flowers when she was kidnaped by Hades. See

EARTH

GODDESSES.
(frnl'6)
is

the goddess of battle. See

ARES.

(e'os),

or Aurora, or

eastern gate of heaven for the chariot of the sun.

Mater Matuta, each morning opens the "Morn," says

2-4),
rosie

Milton (Paradise Lost,

6.

Wak't by the circling Hours, with Unbarr'd the gates of Light.

hand

Countless English poets have echoed Homer in describing the goddess of the dawn as rosy fingered and saffron robed. Many of these references are mere formal periphrases, but sometimes
they express the deep joy

men

leel at

the

coming

of day, as

when Herrick happily

See

says

(Connna's Going A-Maymg> 3-4),

throwes her faire

how Auiora

Fresh-quilted colours through the air'

The Greek Eos

Hehos and

a daughter of Hyperion, and the sister of Titan deities of the sun and the moon. The Selene, Romans usually recognized Aurora as the dawn goddess, but
is

sometimes they gave her

goddess ol sea travel.

minor Greek
Leucothea

sea

office to Mater Matuta, who was also a Matuta was identified with Leucothea, a goddess, and Milton therefore once speaks of

as the

goddess of the

According

to classical

dawn (Paradise Lost, myth, the dawn likes men

11. 135).

as

much

as

men

like her.

a son of

Her most famous love affair was with Tithonus, King Laomedon-of Troy. Eos persuaded Zeus to make
Cumac, grew
old, then

Tithonus immortal, but she forgot to ask that he be given

eternal youth. Tithonus, like the Sibyl of

146

EOS
shriveled with age, finally there was nothing left of him but a According to one version of the story, Eos transformed him into a grasshopper. This love affair is mentioned by many
poets, as, for example, Spenser in
. .
.

voice.

The

Faerie

Queen

(3.

3. 20):

faire

Aurora, rising hastily,

tell,

Doth by her blushing

that she did lye

.

All night in old Tithonus frosen bed.

But Tennyson provides the most extended and effective treatment of this myth in Tithonus^ a dramatic monologue in which
the aged mortal addresses the goddess:

The woods decay, The vapours weep

their

the woods decay and fall, burthen to the ground, the field

Man
And

comes and
after

tills

and

lies

beneath,

many

summer

dies the swan.

only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms.

Me

recalls his love for

In the gentle elegiac mood established by these Eos and begs for death;
Release me, and restore

lines,

Tithonus

Thou Thou

seest all things,

me to the ground, thou wilt see my grave:

wilt

renew thy beauty morn by morn;

I earth in earth forget these empty courts, thee returning on thy silver wheels.

And

Among

others

whom

Eos loved and carried

off to

her palace

in the east were Cephalus and Orion. Cephalus was married to to her Procris, a daughter of Erechtheus, and he remained true released him, but The of Eos' in finally
spite

beauty.

goddess

not before she had

cast

doubt on

his wife's fidelity.

With

the

and made help of Eos, he disguised himself did not yield to him, but once she was so tempted that she did not object to his wooing. At once he revealed his identity and
147

love to Procris. She

EPAPHOS
accused her of unfaithfulness. Procris, to show her scorn of such
jealousy,

became a servant ot Artemis and received from her a

that never lost his quarry and a spear that never missed mark. Cephalus begged her to take him back, and finally she did so and gave the unerring spear to him as a proof of her
its

hound

became as jealous as he had and followed him wherever he went. One day when he been was hunting he saw in the underbrush what he thought was an animal, hurled his spear, and killed his wife. For Eos' affair with Orion see the article under his name.
forgiveness. Soon, however, she

Having many lovers, Eos also has many children. By Tithonus she was the mother of Memnon and Emathion. Memnon, king o Ethiopia, fought against the Greeks at Troy and was killed
by
as

Achilles.

Eos in great sorrow carried

tears that she still

his

body back

to Ethito

opia,

and the

weeps

for

him appear

men

dewdrops. Her grief is recalled perpetually at Thebes, in Egypt, where a statue of Memnon was erected: when dawn came and the sun's rays first touched the statue, it made a sound

twanging of a harp string. In our day the statue stands but the sound of grief is no longer heard. Eos was also the mistress either of the wind god Aeolus, or ot
like the

the winds

the Titan Astraeus, by one of whom she became the mother of and the stars. Her favorite son is Phosphor, the morn-

ing star, whom Shakespeare calls "Aurora's harbinger" (Midsummer-Night's Dream, 3. 2. 380) Milton in Paradise Lost (5. 6-7) alludes to the winds as the sons of Eos when he speaks o
the

sound
Of
leaves

and fuming
. . .

rills,

Aurora's fan,

Lightly dispers'd

EPAPHOS (Sj/a-i&s) was a son of lo and ZEUS. EPHIALTES (HTMU'tfa) was one of the GIANTS.
148

EROS

EPIDAURUS
its

(Spl-d^rus) was a city-state of Greece famous for temple of Asdepius. See APOLLO. EPIGONI (-pig'6-m) were the sons of the Seven against

THEBES.

EPIMETHEUS
THEUS. EPIRUS

(epl-me'thus) was the brother of

PROME-

(e-pi'rus)

was a Grecian kingdom in which was located

its

the city of Dodona, famous for

oracle of Zeus. See

ORACLES.
songs.

ERATO
See

(Sr'd-to) is

the

Muse

of love poetry

and marriage

MUSES.
(Sr'e-bus)
is

EREBUS
to

name

of

HADES.

ERECHTHEUM
ATHENE.

(gr'ek-the'um) was a temple in Athens sacred

ERECHTHEUS

(e-rgk'thus),

who

is

usually identified with

Erichthonius, was an early king of Athens See

ATHENE.

ERICHTHONIUS
ERIDANUS
Phaethon
fell.

(Sr'ik-tho'ni-us),

who

is

usually identified

with Erechtheus, was an early king of Athens. See

ATHENE.

(^rid^nus)
See

is

the mysterious river into which

APOLLO.

ERINYES

ERIPHYLE
ERIS
(e'ris)

(-rin1-ez) are the FURIES. one of the (gr'i-fi'le) was the wife of Amphiaraus,

Seven against

THEBES.

EROS

the goddess of discord. See ARES. or Cupid, or Amor, is the god and personification (ir 6s), of love. According to one myth, he is one of the oldest of the
is

gods, arising out of Chaos

and helping

to

shape the world from

that formless mass. In this origin he is thought of, as in Spenser's Hymne in Honour of Love, as the organizing and unifying power of love. According to another and widely accepted myth,

the son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, and Ares, the god of war. In either case, the relationship of Eros to the other gods and goddesses is a symbolic one in

however, he

is

149

EROS
that he has the
chooses. This

power
is

to

make any

of

them

fall

in love as

he

power

well illustrated in the stories o

Apollo

and Daphne,
of Zeus.

of Aphrodite

and Adonis, and of

as

all

the love affairs

Eros was commonly figured

handsome young man. In

Alexandrian times he degenerated into a fat little boy, although his power was undimimshed. Equipped with a pair of golden
wings, he could fly about at will, and with his bow and quiver of arrows he caused mortals and gods alike to fall uncontrollably
in love. Sometimes he was pictured as blindfolded, to signalize the unexplamably random quality of some of the affairs that he caused. In one of his songs Sir Charles Sedley gives a reason for the troubles of lovers:

Love

still

has something of the sea,

his

From whence

mother

rose,

No

time his slaves from doubt can free,

give their thoughts repose.

Nor
They

are becalmed in clearest days,

in

And

rough weather

tossed,

They wither under cold delays, Or are in tempests lost.

Eros' close associates are usually his brother, Anteros, the
of

god

mutual

love; Peitho, the goddess of persuasion;

god of
Graces.

desire; Pothos, the

god

oi

Himeros, the and the Muses and longing,

is

The

best-known myth concerning Eros

his love aftair

with

Psyche, the personification o the human soul. Psyche was a young woman of such great beauty that Aphrodite became jealous of her and sent Eros to make her fall in love with some base
mortal. Eros, gazing on her beauty, accidentally wounded himself with his dart and tell in love with her himself. He carried

150

EROS
her
a hideaway to live with her, but he came to her only in the darkness of night. All would have been well had not
off to
sisters,

Psyche's

the traditional interfering relatives, stirred

up

her curiosity about her husband on the pretext that he might be some ugly beast. In the night Psyche arose and lit a lamp. While she was leaning over Eros, she spilled a drop ot hot oil on him

and woke him. He

he
still

flew

away and

left

her inconsolable, though

loved her.

regain Eros, Psyche wandered about until she came to the temple of Demeter, whose aid she sought. Demeter advised her
to seek Aphrodite's forgiveness, but Aphrodite agreed to forgive her only if she would perform a series of difficult tasks. The first

To

oi these consisted in trying to separate a large heap of mixed with grains into types, an assignment that Psyche accomplished

the help of ants sent by Eros. The second task required her to obtain a bit of fleece from each member of a large flock of
that she gather sheep; but a river god aided her by suggesting the samples from the thorns along the river after the sheep had

watered. Finally she was sent to Hades for a box of the ointment with which Persephone maintained her beauty. The queen of

Hades gave her the desired box, but warned her not to look inside it. On the way back, Psyche was overcome by curiosity and opened the box, tor which act she would inevitably have had to return to Hades had not Eros persuaded Zeus to rescue her. Zeus also made her immortal and permitted Eros to marry
her.

The daughter

of this marriage

was Voluptas, the goddess of

3. 6 50) calls this child Pleasure pleasure. Spenser (Faerie Queene, and makes her a symbol of ideal love.

According to some mythologists, the story of Psyche represents the human soul as passing through three conditions- a prenatal
state ot blessedness, followed

by

life

on earth

in

its

difficulties

and

struggles,

and afterwards by the return

of the soul to beati-

151

EROS
tude. Psyche was so often portrayed as a butterfly, which shows as it passes from the caterpillar stage to the

a similar transition

beauty of the winged insect, that the word "psyche" came ultimately to mean "butterfly/* The butterfly therefore is still a

symbol

of the soul.

of Eros naturally appeal to poets, both for their romantic associations and for their symbolic value. Allusions to

The myths

Eros and his power are without number in English poetry. The story of his love for Psyche has frequently been retold. In The Faerie Queene (3. 11. 29-30, 35) Spenser holds Eros responsible
for all the love affairs of the gods described in the tapestries of

the

House

of Busyrane the enchanter.

John Lyly in Cupid and

My
of

Campaspe

Played at Cards for Kisses gives a pleasant account

to be blind. The song explains that Camin what appears to have been an early instance of strip paspe,

how Cupid came

won
all

poker,

of Cupid's accouterments

and

his eyes as well.

to Eros,

Milton ends Comus (1004-1007) with an allusion

Holds
his dear Psyche sweet intranc't

who

After her wandring labours long, Till free consent the gods among

Make her

his eternal Bride,

and Milton attributes to this marriage not one child but two, Youth and Joy. In Endymion (2. 535-544), that texture of so

many

classic

myths, Keats gives a colorful description of Cupid:

Love's
self,

who

stands superb to share

The

general gladness, awfully he stands; sovereign quell is in his waving hands;

sight

No

His quiver

can bear the lightning of his bow; is mysterious, none can know
it;

What

themselves think of

from forth

his eyes

There darts strange

light of varied hues

and

dies:

152

EURYSTHEUS
A scowl is sometimes on his brow,
but who
their souls.

Look upon it feel anon the blue Of his fair eyes run liquid through
In his

Ode

to Psyche

another's arms, and pledges to shrine in his imagination.

he describes Eros and Psyche in one make for them and their love a

famous statue

of Eros stands in the center of Piccadilly

Circus,

London.
(Srl'Si'na)
is

ERYCINA

Roman surname

for

APHRODITE.
was captured by

ERYMANTHIAN
HERACLES.

(gi^-man'thi-an)

BOAR

ERYX (e'riks) is a mountain on the northwest coast of where there was a famous shrine to APHRODITE.
ESQUILINE
(Ss'kwHin)
(-te'6-klez)
is

Sicily

one of the seven

hills of later

ROME.

ETEOCLES
for the

and

Polynices, sons of Oedipus, vied

kingdom

of

THEBES.
south beyond the were burned black on the day that

ETHIOPIANS
Phaethon

(e'thi-6'pi-anz) lived in the

great river of Oceanus. They tried to drive the chariot of the sun. See

APOLLO,

SEA GODS.

EUMAEUS

(u-me'us)

was the
is

faithful swineherd of

ODYSSEUS.

EUMENIDES

(u-mgnl-dez)

name

of the

FURIES.

EUPHROSYNE (u-fros'i-ne) is one of the three GRACES. EUROPA (u-ro'pd) was one of the mistresses of ZEUS. EURUS (u'rus) is the east wind. See WINDS.
EURYCLEIA (u'ri-kle'yd) was EURYDICE (u-ridl-se) was (1)
wife of Creon, king of
the aged nurse of ODYSSEUS. the wife of ORPHEUS; (2) the

THEBES.
was a follower of ODYSSEUS.
is

EURYLOCHUS

(u-ril'6-kus)

EURYNOME
CLES.

(u-rin'6-me), a great ruler,

(u-ris^thus)

one of the

TITANS.

EURYSTHEUS

commanded

the labors of

HERA153

EURYTION

EURYTION
killed

(u-ri'ti^n), the

herdsman of Geryon's
archer,

cattle,

was

by HERACLES EURYTUS (u'ri-tus), a

cles for refusing to

renowned
his

was killed by Hera-

permit

daughter lole to

Iphitus, the son of Eurytus, gave his father's Odysseus. See HERACLES, ODYSSEUS.

marry that hero. famous bow to

EUTERPE (u-t&r'pe) is the Muse of music See MUSES. EVADNE (e'vad'ne) was the wile of Capaneus, one of the
against

Seven

THEBES
(e-vfcn'der)

EVANDER

was an

ally oi

AENEAS.

FAGUTAL
ROME. FATAE
FATE.

(fa'gu-tdl)

was one ot the seven

hills

of earliest

(fa'te) are

the three Fates See

to the

FATE.
'

is a fate According that is stronger than the gods, and there are also three Fates, or Moerae, or Parcae, or Fatae, who are goddesses. Fate itself is not personified, but its power is manifest. It has dethroned two

Greeks and Romans, there

kings of the gods, Uranus and Cronus, and in time it may also dethrone Zeus. Shelley makes skillful use of the idea of the fall of Zeus in Prometheus Unbound.

The Moerae

are the daughters of Zeus

of divine justice,

and Themis, the goddess and thus the Hours are their sisters. II it is

possible to relate the Fates clearly to the universal fate, they are the part of fate that is known to the gods. They are thought ot
as presiding especially over birth

and death, but every moment

J54

FATE
of

human life is subject to their decree. Sometimes they appear to be old and sometimes young, but they are always grave faced and are dressed in long garments. Clotho carries the spindle, Lachesis
a scroll or globe, and Atropos the shears. The first spins the thread of life, the second decides how long it shall be, and

the third cuts

it.

No

mortal can escape the

life

allotted to

him by

the Fates,

nor

can any god compel them to alter their decrees. At the urging
of Apollo, they agreed to let Admetus live for his death, but only on condition that

beyond the day fixed someone else die lor

ALCESTIS). The mother of Meleager was informed of her son's doom. When he was a week old, the Fates appeared to her and said that he would die as soon as a log then burning in

him

(see

was consumed. She snatdied the log from the hearth, quenched its flame, and hid it away, but this knowledge, which
the
fire

made her
son's
(see

believe that her son was safe from death, later forced well as her tragic choice that involved her death as

upon her a

CALYDONIAN BOAR HUNT).

was strong,

In addition to fate and the three Moerae, there is also Tyche, or Fortuna, the goddess of chance, whose symbol is a wheel that

shows her

fickleness.

As long

as belief in the gods

Tyche was no more than a servant

of the Fates; their eternal

decrees were sometimes hidden behind her giddiness When men lost their faith, however, Fortune became the ironic substitute for divine order, ruling

by her whims

all

the mutable

world beneath the moon.

The Furies and Nemesis, the goddesses of vengeance, are also associated with the Fates (see FURIES). The relation between the power of fate and these powers of vengeance depends on the
notion that the gods punish sin and that
of a sinner's destiny. for
if

this

punishment

is

part

The

concept involves a profound irony,

man

is

fated to

do

evil,

how can he be

considered

155

FATE
responsible for his sin? The Greeks and Romans found no satisfactory solution for this problem of predestination and free will, and for Christians it is still a major paradox.

English literature has

made much
of Venice

use of

what Launcelot

Gobbo

in

The Merchant

(2. 2.

65-67) calls the "Fates

and Destinies and such odd

sayings, the Sisters

Three and such

branches of learning." One of the commonest images is that of the thread of human life. In Elizabethan times Thomas Sackville
in his Induction (300-301) writes of Old Age when the Fates would have untwined
His
vital

who

feared the time

thread and ended with their knife

The

fleeting course of fast declining life,

and

Pistol pleads in

Henry V

(3.

6.

49-50):

... let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut With edge of penny cord and vile reproach.

In the seventeenth century George Herbert, in a letter to his mother, changes the pagan symbol into a thoroughly Christian one. "I have alwaies observ'd the thred of Life to be like other

and incumbrances: Happy is he, whose laid ready for work in the New And John Donne, using the thread and the shore Jerusalem''
threds
.
. .

full of snarl es
is

bottom [skein]
Dt the

wound up and
to

Styx in

A Hymne
to

God
its

alters the

image

rob fate of

the Father, characteristically power and to make him re-

sponsible for his actions:

I

have a sinne of

feare, that

when

have spunne

My
In our

last thred, I shall

perish on

the shore.

own

time

Henry

C. Calhoun, a character created

bitterly

by
de-

Edgar Lee Masters, ruminates

on

his father,

who

nanded
156

that his son avenge

him on Spoon

River:

FATE
.

what did he do but send me along

The path
I

that leads to the grove of the Furies? followed the path and I tell you this: On the way to the grove you'll pass the Fates,
if

Shadow-eyed, bent over their weaving.

Stop for a moment, and

you

see

The thread of revenge leap out of the shuttle Then quickly snatch from Atropos The shears and cut it, lest your sons, And the children of them and their children Wear the envenomed robe. 1
(For the envenomed robe see HERACLES). The three witches in Macbeth owe something to the

Moerae

but more to the notions of witchcraft in Shakespeare's time. Like the Fates, the witches have power to foretell the future, and

Macbeth calls them "the weird sisters" ("weird" is the AngloSaxon word for "fate"). There is no suggestion, however, that
the witches control the future, as the Fates do.

The

Fates,

more-

over, are instruments of divine order, whereas the witches, with

charms and apparitions, are doers of evil and servants of evil. They offer Macbeth incomplete and riddling prophecies that are designed to lead him on to further crimes and eventually
their
to his downfall.

and midnight hags," the Parcae of Ben Jonson's Epitaph on Solomon Pavy are absentminded but tenderhearted creatures. Solomon, a thirteen-yearold actor in one of the children's companies, had played the parts
In contrast to these
"secret, black,

of old

men

so well
As, sooth, the Parcae thought He played so truly.

him

one,

i From "Henry C Calhoun," by Edgar Lee Masters, in his Spoon Rwer with Anthology. Copyright, 1915, by The Macmillan Company. Reprinted the permission of the estate of Edgar Lee Masters.

157

FATE
They
therefore cut his thread.

As soon

as they discovered their

mistake, they tried to restore him to life, but heaven resolved to keep him because he was too good for earth.

much

In the nineteenth century neither Byron nor Browning found kindness in the Fates. The three Destinies in Manfred are

Byron modeled them on the witches in Macbeth but tried to give them more dignity, with the unfortunate result that they are much less terrifying than he intended them to be. In Apollo and the Fates Browning makes the three goddesses express the idea that life is blank and evil
servants of Arimanes, the devil.

except

when touched by

the illusion of Apollo's sunshine. Brownis

ing, disguised as Apollo, argues that life

good.

Not with

his

argument but with a gilt oi wine, he persuades the Fates to agree with him that man's struggle is "no defeat but a triumph!" An explosion from the earth's center ends the discussion, but the
goddesses admit that they have spoken a truth that Apollo can
interpret.

Since western culture has fostered a belief in free will,

it is

not

surprising that in English literature the Moerae usually are regarded either as servants of evil or as powers at best unsym-

pathetic to man and at worst inimical to him. As Atropos says in Browning's poem*

My shears cut asunder, each snap shrieks "One more Mortal makes sport lor us Moirai who dangled
The puppet
Proved
grotesquely
till

earth's solid floor

film he tell through, lost in

Nought

as before."

Fate makes free will impossible and reduces man to an ignorant but obedient actor doing the deeds and saying the words prepared for him by necessity. This view of human life is expressed, for example, in

Lear

(4.

1.

36-37) by Gloucester:
th'

As

flies

to

They
158

kill

wanton boys are we to us for their sport,

gods.

FATE
The same
attitude is found in every one of Thomas Hardy's novels and in John O'Hara's Appointment in Samarra. Most western writers, however, have refused to accept this idea related notion, but one that does not necessarily destroy

the possibility ot free will, is that the punishment for the sin of a father is visited not only on him but on his children and his children's children until the sin is expiated (See Masters' poem

quoted

earlier.)

This belief
is

and Christian

cultures. It

a powerful force in both classical the cause of the terrible sufferings of

is

the Greek house of Atreus, and

its

simplest Christian statement

fall
all.

is

In Adam's

We
Shakespeare in
form.

sinned

the tragedy is the result of the the Montagues and the Capulets and also the feud between means of bringing the two families together. Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet The Prologue explains that

uses this notion in an extreme

have no opportunity

to

exercise

free

will

They

are

"star-

cross'd lovers," the Prologue says, and throughout the play there are references to the "yoke of inauspicious stars" that dooms

them

unhappiness and violent death. symbol for fate because the Elizabethans inherited from the late classical era and the Middle human life. This Ages a belief that the stars strongly influenced the pseudo science of astrology, notion was systematized into which still has its devotees today. In Christian times the powers of the goddess Fortune and the stars were reconciled with the when power of God. God's providence was above all. However, the universe was wrenched irom its Adam and Eve sinned,
to

The

stars are Shakespeare's

and thereafter the planets had evil influences on human life. Beneath the lowest heavenly body, the mutable moon, the evil and inexplicable earth was ruled by Fortune. Because
perfect order,

159

FATE
of his sins,

man must

suffer

on earth the cruel whimsicalities of

Theologians ento withdraw as much as
stars.

Fortune and the malignancy of the

couraged
possible

this view. They urged men from worldly life and to fix their minds on heaven. This kind of thinking strongly colored the minds even of men

like Chaucer who found joy and beauty in life on earth. Chaucer's Monk, for example, tells a series of medieval tragedies, each designed to show that Fortune capriciously raises men to

great prosperity and then hurls them ence of the stars on the rival lovers

down
is

again;

and the

influ-

carefully

worked out

in

The Knight's Tale. The stars and Fortune's Wheel

val

are

common images

in medie-

and Renaissance literature, even though in Elizabethan times men were rejecting the notion that these influences ruled their lives on earth, and asserting that they themselves were responsible for what happened to them. Cassius, for example, says in Julius
Caesar (L
2.

140-141).

The

fault,

dear Brutus,

is

not in our

stars,

But in

ourselves, that
2.

we

are underlings,

and Edgar
in fate:

in Lear

(1.

128-137) sneers at Gloucester's belief

This

is

the excellent foppery of the world, that,

guilty of our disasters the sun, the
as
if

are sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our

when we own behaviour,

moon, and
fools

we make
the
stars;

we were

villains

on

necessity;

by

heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers

by an enforc'd obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on

Yet Fortune and the

continued to be important not only because they were traditional but also because most men were
stars

160

FATE
keenly aware of a stream of circumstance that sometimes brought them good luck or bad luck without reference to their intentions
or their
efforts.

The mournful Alcyon

the customary warning:

in Spenser's

Daphnaida (498-502)

offers

And

ye fond men, or fortunes wheele that ride, Oi in ought vnder heauen repose assurance, Be it riches, beau tie, or honours prideBe sure that they shall haue no long endurance, But ere ye be aware will flit away.

all the great ones that ebbed and flowed by the moon their complaint to Fortune at the moment of their downspoke fall. Mortimer in Marlowe's Edward II uses the (5. 6. 58-60)

Nearly

common

image:
Base Fortune,

now

I see that

in thy wheel

There

is

a point, to

which when

men

aspire,

They tumble headlong down,

but Richard II in Shakespeare's play of that name (4. 1. 184-189) invents a new image to convey the old idea. As he is forced to
offer the

usurping Bolingbroke the crown, he

says:

Now
The The

is

this

golden crown like a deep well

buckets, filling

That owes two

one another,

emptier ever dancing in the air, other down, unseen, and full of water.
full of tears

That bucket down and

Drinking

am

I,

my

griefs whilst

you mount up on
to

high.

Only Marlowe's Tamburlaine continues

his boast
(1.

triumph in

spite of

2.

174-175):

I hold the Fates

bound

fast

in iron chains,

And

with

my hand

turn Fortune's wheel about.

161

FAUNA
Yet there
is

not aware of

irony in this arrogance, although Tamburlaine is it. As Marlowe seems to conceive of the situation,
is

Tamburlaine's successes have been decreed by the fate that stronger than the gods.

Since the Renaissance, Fortune has been represented in various ways. Tennyson, for example, produces in Enid a typically

Victorian song about the goddess:

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; that wild wheel we go not up or down; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

With

Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands; For man is man and master of his fate.

In our

whom
his

own time Phelps Putnam has written a Hymn to Chance, he celebrates as the masculine creative force of the universe
insulted

("We have
image:

you

as

2 Lady Luck" ), and W. H. Auden

in

poem In War Time

has given a witty turn to the traditional

Abruptly mounting her ramshackle wheel, . Fortune has pedalled furiously away.
.

FAUNA

(fo'na), or

Bona Dea, a Roman

fertility goddess, is the

daughter or wife of Faunus, the Roman FAUNS (fonz), or FAUNI (fo'm), are

PAN. wood

gods, followers of

PAN.

FAUNUS (fo'nus) is a Roman name for PAN, FAUSTULUS (fos'tyu-lus), a shepherd, adopted Remus
Romulus, founder of

and

ROME.

2 From "Hymn to Chance," by Phelps Putnam, in his The Five Seasons. Copyright, 1927, 1931, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Repnnted with the permission of the publisher. s From "In War Time/' H. Auden, in The Collected Poetry of by W. H. Auden Copyright, 1945, by W. H. Auden. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Random House, Inc.

162

FURIES

FAVONIUS

(fa-vo'ni-us) is the

Roman name

of Zephyrus, the

west wind. See

WINDS.
the

FLORA

(flo'nz) is

Roman name
is

of the goddess of spring,

CHLORIS.

FORTUNA (f6r-tu'nd)
of iortune. See

the

Roman name

of Tyche, the goddess

FATE.

FORTUNE'S WHEEL. See FATE. FURIAE (fu'ri-e) are the Roman FURIES.
FURIES. From
the blood of Uranus, castrated by his son Cronus, sprang the three Erinyes, the goddesses of vengeance, whom the Romans called the Furiae and the Dirae. Their names

are Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera, and (as Orestes sees them) they are dressed in black, with snakes for hair, and their eyes

weep blood Cleopatra (Antony and

messenger who she fears "Thou shouldst come like
is

Cleopatra,

2. 5.

40) says to a

bringing her bad news of Antony, a Fury crown'd with snakes." On earth

the Furies implacably pursue anyone guilty of a crime against the old law, and in Hades they continue the sinner's punishment.
are the agents of a narrow justice completely lacking in mercy, and they represent the agonies of remorse Yet after they

They

had tormented Orestes for many years, he was judged by Athene and her court to be purified through suffering, and Athene even succeeded in persuading the Furies to accept the new law of
mercy. Thereafter they were known as the Eumenides, the kind ones (see ATREUS). This is one story. It is also said that the
Furies are called the Eumenides in the vain hope of placating

them.

In English literature they are usually seen where Virgil put them, in hell tormenting the guilty. In Richard III (1. 4. 55-63) and they seize the Duke of Clarence in his dream of damnation, are the jailors of the damned. In Lost in Paradise they
(2.

596)

Lycidas (75) Milton

calls

Atropos, the Fate

who

cuts the threads

163

FURIES
of men's lives, "the blind Fury." The Fates and the Furies are often linked in classical mythology, and here Milton probably wanted to join the images of terrible violence and doom. W. B.

Yeats in

To Dorothy

Wellesley represents the Furies in their

greatest dignity:

What

climbs the stair?

Nothing that common women ponder on If you are worth my hope! Neither Content

Nor satisfied Conscience, but that great family Some ancient famous authors misrepresent, The Proud Furies each with her torch on high. 4

figure closely associated

with the Furies

is

Nemesis, the

personification of the righteous anger of the gods. This terrible

creature punishes mortals who are arrogant because they have been lucky, especially holders of great place and scorners of love. Thus Nemesis pursues Agamemnon for his pride in victory and

Narcissus for his contemptuous rejection of the love of Echo. In the mock-heroic introduction to Muiopotmos (2), Spenser says

Nemesis.
(2.
3),

that the deadly quarrel he celebrates was stirred up by wrathful An untraditional Nemesis appears in Byron's Manfred

where she describes her day's work

as

a servant o

Arimanes, the devil:

I

was detain'd repairing

shatter' d thrones,

men upon their enemies, And making them repent their own
Goading the wise
to madness;
to

Marrying Avenging

fools, restoring dynasties,

revenge;

Shaping out oracles

from the dull rule the world

date,

Afresh, for they were

waxing out of

And
*

mortals dared to ponder for themselves.

Wellesley," by W. B. Yeats, in his Last Poems and by Georgia Yeats. Reprinted with the permission of

From "To Dorothy

Plays. Copyright, 1940,

The Macmillan Company.

164

GALATEA

GAEA (je'a), or Ge, is the first of the EARTH GODDESSES. GALATEA (gal'a-te'd), the Nereid sister of Thetis and Amphitrite, fell in love

with a youth

named

Acis.

For

this reason,

and doubtless

for others, she refused the advances of

Polyphemus

the Cyclops, the terrible and crude one-eyed son of Poseidon (for his other adventures, see ODYSSEUS). Polyphemus nevertheless

continued to yearn for her.

He

even tried to make himself more

and trimming his beard, and presentable by combing his hair he sang long laments to her by the seashore; but Galatea continued to prefer Acis.

One day Polyphemus,

came suddenly on
Galatea
escape

in the melancholy of unrequited love, Galatea and Acis enjoying each other's atten-

tions in the covert of a rock.

fled into the sea,

He

where she was

was overcome with jealous rage. safe; but Acis could not

shore and Polyphemus' violence. Running along the a huge rock he was crushed by calling for refuge in the sea, which Polyphemus hurled at him. According to Ovid, his blood the rock, but gradually it gushed purple at first from under into the sea. Thus was Acis turned into water that flowed down of the sea with Galatea, and the finally granted the safety fountain on the slopes of Mount Aetna in Sicily that originated in
this event still bears Acis'

name.

and Ovid in his Theocritus, the Sicilian poet, in his Idylls (11) of this myth, and both Metamorphoses (13) give good accounts
have dwell on the love laments of Polyphemus. English poets
their conception of the story. generally followed

Thomas Lodge
165

GANYMEDES
in Rosalind provides for his character

Montanus a

lyric that

describes

The

lovesick

Polypheme

that could not see,

Who on
And

the barren shore,

His fortunes doth deplore, melteth all in moan

For Galatea gone.

Montanus, a shepherd in love with a maid, wonders whether she

will reject

him

as

Galatea rejected Polyphemus John

is

Gay made

of the

myth
is

a light opera, Acis

unfortunate demise

and Galatea, in which Ads' surrounded with many songs and the whole

carried off in the gayest possible fashion. And the nineteenth-century poet Austin Dobson found for the myth a

matter

sentimental parallel in A Tale of Polypheme, in which he recounts the vain love of a one-eyed blacksmith hermit for a young
girl

ends in a
fact

who came to his neighborhood as a tourist. The parallel much less intense fashion than its original and is in not much of a parallel nor much of a poem.
(gn1'med
/ ez)

GANYMEDES
ZEUS.

was the paramour and cupbearer of

GATE OF HORN
to

men from
to

GATE OF
come

is the gate through which true dreams come the cave of Hypnos, god of sleep. See HADES. IVORY is the gate through which deceitful dreams

men from

the cave of Hypnos,

god of
are two

sleep. See

HADES.

mountains which face each other across the strait where the Mediterranean Sea meets the great river of Oceanus, now called the Atlantic Ocean. These mountains, one of which is now called the Rock of

GATES,

or Pillars,

OF HERACLES

Gibraltar, were raised by

HERACLES.

GE (je), or Gaea, is the Hm of the EARTH GODDESSES. GEMINI (jgrnl-m), the Twins, is a constellation and a sign
of the

ZODIAC.

166

GIANTS

GENIUS

(jen'yus)

is

the

Roman name

of the guardian spirit of

GERYON
GIANTS

a person, society, or place See HESTIA. (je'ri-dn), a triple man of great strength, of cattle for which he was killed by HERACLES.

owned a herd

were huge creatures, usually the sons of Titans or Olympian gods. The best-known group of Giants sprang up from the blood of the mutilated Uranus as it mingled with Gaea, the
earth,
legs.

who

thus became their mother. These Giants had snakes for

Gaea, by means of a miraculous herb, made them invulnerable against the weapons of the gods, but she neglected to protect

them

similarly against the

Porphyrion, Pallene, near

they established themselves

weapons of mortals. Led by on the peninsula of

declared war on the gods. Others in the group included Alcyoneus, the greatest fighter of them all, and Pallas (not Athene), Enceladus, Polybotes, Ephialtes,

Mount Olympus, and

Rhoetus, and Clytius. In the war that followed, the gods seemed likely to be defeated until Athene, remembering that the Giants were not proof
against wounds caused by human weapons, brought Heracles into the fray. The gods took the precaution of destroying the magic

herb that had given invulnerability to the Giants, and Zeus extinguished the lights of heaven, the sun and moon. Then
Heracles slew Alcyoneus with his arrows, an event that seems to have broken the charm, for Athene was then able to slay Pallas

and Enceladus, and Poseidon

forced to surrender.

to kill Polybotes.

The

rest

were

who made

myth concerns Ephialtes and Otus, another Giant, a kind of private attack on the gods These two were the sons of the god Poseidon or of his son Aloeus, whose name
similar
planter/'

power of Otus were born agriculture to produce strength. Ephialtes and small and weak; but, nourished by the grain of the fields, they

means "the

and

their career illustrates the

167

GLAUCE
grew rapidly to gigantic size and strength. As farmers, they soon saw that war and agriculture are enemies; so they captured Ares, the god of war, and imprisoned him in a large brass jar, where he might still be had Hermes not released him after
thirteen months.

The

brothers

now were

so confident of their strength that they

decided to attack the gods en masse. In order to reach the abode of the immortals, they first put Mount Ossa on top of Mount

Olympus, and then Mount Pelion on top of Mount Ossa, but as they worked, Apollo killed them with his arrows. In his translation of the Odyssey
(9.

387-388) Pope writes:

On

Heav'd on Olympus tott'ring Ossa stood; Ossa Pelion nods with all his wood.
still

"Piling Pelion on Ossa"

dinary activity, caused Hamlet to say (Hamlet, 5. 1. 302-306), as he seeks to rival Laertes in a demonstration of his love for Ophelia,

and

this idea

survives as a description of extraorwas in Shakespeare's mind when he

Be buried quick with

her,

and

so will

I.

And

thou prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us, till our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart!
if

Other well-known Giants were Antaeus, the son of Poseidon and Gaea, whose story is told under HERACLES; and Tityus, whose story is told under APOLLO.

CLAUCE

(glo^ke)

was another name for Creusa, the second wife

the the

of Jason. See

ARGONAUTS.

GLAUCUS (glS'kus) (1) is one of the SEA GODS; (2) was father of BELLEROPHON; (3) was a Trojan ally in TROJAN WAR. GOLDEN AGE was an age of innocence. See CRONUS.
168

GRACES

GOLDEN BOUGH
AENEAS.

was the passport

to

Hades obtained by

GOLDEN FLEECE was sought by the ARGONAUTS. GORDIAN (gor'di-an) KNOT was tied by Gordius, the father of
of Phrygia. Gordius was a plain man who came riding into Phrygia in a wagon with his wife and son at the very moment when the people of that land were puzzling over a

King Midas

message from an oracle which said that their king would come to them in a wagon. He thus became king. In gratitude he
dedicated his wagon to the god of the orade and tied
it

in

its

dedicated place with an intricate and subtle knot that provided John Milton with a metaphor in Paradise Lost (4. 347-350).

Describing the blissful condition of Adam and Eve in Eden before the Fall of Man, Milton writes of the guileful serpent:
.

close the Serpent sly

wove with Gordian twine His breaded train, and of his fateful guile Gave proof unheeded.
Insinuating,

After Gordius had tied his knot, the legend grew up that whoever could untie it would rule over all of Asia. For a long time no one succeeded, though many tried. Then Alexander the
Great, passing by on his road of conquest, tried his

hand

at the

he also was unsuccessful, with imperial improject. he patience he drew his sword and cut the knot in two. Since later became ruler of a great deal of Asia, he appeared to have
fulfilled the legend,

When

and

his act has

become

proverbial. "Cutting

the Gordian knot"

is still

today the figure for solving a problem

by

direct action.

GORDIUS

(g6r'dHis) tied the

GORDIAN KNOT.
whose glance turns

GORGONS
stone. See

(gdr'gonz) are monsters

men

to

SEA GODS. GRACES. The three Charites,

or Graces, give inward happiness

169

GRAEAE
they favor. Although they almost always appear together, they are thought of as representing different qualities of grace: Euphrosyne mirth (Milton into those

and outward charm

whom

vokes her in L' Allegro), Aglaia splendor, and Thalia bloom. They are the handmaidens of Aphrodite; the companions of the

Muses, with
lyre;

whom

they often dance to the music of Apollo's

and the

close associates of all the other

powers

who make

hfe delightful.

In English literature the Graces frequently appear dancing with the Hours in fields of eternal beauty. Milton's description in Comus (984-991) is typical. To the Elizabethans the Graces
symbolized the ideal of courtesy, which demanded the perfect fusion of good intentions and good manners. As Spenser says in

The

Faerie Queene

(6.

10. 23):

These three on

men

all

gracious gifts bestow,

Which decke the body or adorne the raynde, To make them louely or well fauoured show,
As comely
Sweete semblaunt, friendly
carriage, entertainment kynde, offices that bynde,

And

all

the complements of curtesie:

They

We
To

vs, how to each degree and kynde should our selues demeane, to low, to hie;

teach

friends, to foes;

which

skill

men

call ciuility.

The hopeless
is

struggle of the dull for the patronage of these ladies

",

described by John Donne in The True Character of a Dunce: . the Muses and the Graces are his -hard Mistresses, though
.

he daily invocate them, though he

look asquint."

sacrifice

Hecatombs, they

still

GRAEAE

(gre'e) are three

hags of the ocean. See

PERSEUS,

SEA GODS. GRIFFINS

(griflnz)

were monsters half-eagle and half-lion.

GYGES
170

(jf'jez)

was a Hecatoncheire. See

TITANS*

HADES

H
HADES
ruler.

(ha'dez)

is

the

name both

of the underworld

and

of

its

Greeks also called the god Aides, Aidoneus, and Pluton, or Pluto, which means "giver of wealth" and refers to

The

the god's ownership of the precious metals under the earth; and the Romans usually called him Pluto, Dis (which means "rich"),
is also a name of his kingdom. Frequently confused with Pluto was Plutus, a figure that in ancient times symbolized agricultural wealth but later came to represent the

and Orcus, which

wealth of money. In English literature this god of wealth has been replaced by Mammon, whose name comes from a Syriac

word

and who appears in the New Testament as the wealth and worldliness. The shrewd and personification
for riches
of

has pled his case many times in English poetry, most brilliantly in Spenser's Faerie Queene (2. 7) and Milton's Paradise Lost (1. 678-692; 2. 228-298).
avaricious

Mammon

After the Titans were defeated, the three male Olympians, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus, divided the universe by lot, and
the underworld where men's souls go after death became the of Hades. The attributes of this dark god are the

kingdom

horn of plenty, and the helmet that makes its wearer invisible (the name Hades means "unseen"). Since Hades rules the land of death, men seldom tell stories about him and
scepter, the

even fear

to speak his
is

name.

He
is

is

not, however, the

evil.

death (who

Thanatos), and he

not

god of Hades has none of

the qualities of the Christian Satan. He is a stern but just god who, according to the ancients who believed in judgment after

171

HADES
death, acts through his chosen judges to reward the good and punish the wicked. This terrible but kingly figure looks like Jove, says the Roman Seneca, but like Jove when he thunders.

Except for his deeds in the war against the Titans, Hades' only notable action above ground was to acquire a queen. Persephone, or Cora, or Proserpina, or Libera, is the daughter of the earth
goddess Demeter. One day Hades saw this lovely girl gathering flowers with her attendants in the vale of Enna. He at once fell
in love with her, pulled her into his chariot, and disappeared with her beneath the ground. When Demeter demanded that her daughter be returned, Zeus agreed to order Hades to release her

world. Before he

on condition that she had eaten nothing while in the underlet her go, however, Hades persuaded her to eat four pomegranate seeds, and thereafter she was destined to spend
the four winter
spring,
this

months in the underworld and the months of summer, and autumn on earth (For further details of fertility myth see Persephone under EARTH GODDESSES.)

Persephone, ruling in Hades, looks forward to the release ot

English poets she is, as Spenser describes her (Ruines of Time, 373), "sad Proserpina." From a hint in the Roman poet Claudian, Spenser develops the beautiful but baleful
springtime.

To many

"Gardin of Proserpina" (Faerie Queene, with herbs and fruits

. .
.

2. 7.

51-56), garnished

direfull deadly blacke,

Fit to

both leafe and bloom, adorne the dead, and decke the drery toombe,

containing the tree of the golden apples of the Hesperides but surrounded by the black waters of Cocytus, one of the rivers
of Hades, in which

damned souh were tormented

for their crimes

on

earth.

The

list

of deadly herbs in Spenser

to Keats the reference in

may have suggested Ode on Melancholy to "nightshade,

ruby grape of Proserpine."

172

HADES
Swinburne's version of The Garden of Proserpine (49-52) lacks the deceptive glamour of Spenser's garden. Here are the plants of death, but here is no mocking contrast between the glittering
apples of the Hespendes and the damned souls in the black river. Swinburne in his neopaganism represents Proserpina simply as
the giver of endless sleep:
Pale,

beyond porch and portal, Crowned with calm leaves, she

.

stands

Who

gathers all things mortal With cold immortal hands

His

Hymn
Thou

to Proserpine (103-104, 109-110) reaffirms the

art

theme:

more than

the

Gods who number

the days of

our temporal breath;

For these give labor and slumber; but thou, Proserpina,

death.

So long. I endure, no longer, and laugh not again,

neither weep.

For there
death

is

no God found stronger than death, and

a sleep.

is

Ernest Dowson,

also,

in Villanelle of Acheron, looks forward to

"the sleep of immortality":

Life, of thy gifts I will

have none,

My

By Beyond

that Persephone, queen the pale marge of Acheron,

is

the scope of any sun. 1

In English poetry, however, these pale romantic echoes of one

a

From

Dodd, Mead & Company,

lisher.

"Villanelle of Acheron," by Ernest Dowson, in Poems (New York: the permission of the pub1929). Reprinted with

173

HADES
pagan view
to

of

Persephone are

much

less

frequent than references

her

as the terrible

Thomas Campion's
as the

queen of the hell of damned souls. Yet in song, Hark, All You Ladies, she is imagined

charming ruler of fairyland:

Hark,

you ladies that do sleep fairy queen Proserpina Bids you awake, and pity them that weep. You may do in the dark What day doth forbid. Fear not the dogs that bark; Night will have all hid.
all
I

The

But

if

you

let

your lovers moan,

fairy queen Proserpina Will send abroad her fairies everyone,

The

That shall pinch black and blue Your white hands and fair arms, That did not kindly rue Your paramours' harms.

No one escapes after death from the vast shadowy region ruled by Hades and Persephone, but six living people one girl and five heroes went to the underworld on various errands and
These were Psyche, Odysseus, Orpheus, Theseus, Heracles, and Aeneas (for their stories see Psyche under EROS and the articles under the heroes' names). From their
returned to earth.
adventures come descriptions, sometimes incomplete and contradictory, of the geography of Hades, which is also called

Erebus, Tartarus, and Orcus.

There

are various entrances to Hades,

one

far in the

unknown

west and several in Greece and Italy

When

Odysseus visited

the underworld, he sailed across the great river of Ocean and past the dark land of the Cimmerians until he found the entrance; but Aeneas, guided

by the Sybil of Cumae, descended

to

174

HADES
Hades in the volcanic region of Vesuvius, through the cave of Avernus beside the foul-smelling lake of that name. This cave has become so well known as an entrance to the underworld that
its

sometimes given to Hades itself Ezra Pound, for example, in Prayer for His Lady's Life, a poem based on the Roman poet Propertius, pleads with Pluto and Persephone:
is

name

So many thousand beauties are gone down Ye might let one remain above with us 2

to Avernus,

When

man

died, his spirit

was claimed by Thanatos, the god

of death (who is discussed later on); and Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, escorted the spirit to the underworld. According to
Virgil in the Aeneid, the dark neutral region between earth and Hades is filled with terrible monsters that once preyed on man:

Hydras and Chimaeras, and

also

grim

figures representing

human

troubles: disease, fear, grief, hunger, poverty, and old age. Hades itself is bounded by four rivers and contains at least one other

of

stream. These are Styx, the abhorrent river; Acheron, the river woe; Cocytus, the river of lamentation; Phlegethon, or

Pyriphlegethon, the river of

fulness.

fire;

and Lethe,

the river of forget(2.

Milton describes them in Paradise Lost

577-584):

Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate, Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep; Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud Heard on the ruful stream; fierce Phlegeton "Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Fair off from these a slow and silent stream, Lethe the River of Oblivion roules

Her

watrie Labyrinth

The

Styx from which comes our adjective "stygian"

was the

2 From "Prayer for His Lady's Life,'* by Ezra Pound, in his Personae. Reprinted with the permission of the publishers, New Directions.

175

HADES
name by which
granted
the gods swore their most binding oaths. Zeus the river this honor because, when the Olympians

fought the Titans, the Styx sent her children to support the Olympians. The Nymph Thetis dipped her infant son Achilles
in the Styx to

make him invulnerable

and he
finally

him by one
(see

heel

weapons, but she held received his death wound there

to

TROJAN WAR),
beings sufter,

human
(4. 4):

Thinking of the remorse from which all Byron comments ironically in Don Juan

A
The Lethe
is

Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx; mortal mother would on Lethe fix.

discussed later in this article.

the dead gained entrance to

Hades by being ferried Acheron by an ill-tempered old creature named Charon. If the spirit's body had not been given proper burial, or if he had not been provided with an obolus, or penny, to pay his fare, Charon refused to take him, and he must wait a hundred years before he was permitted to enter. The second epigraph of T. S. Eliot's The Hollow Men "A penny for the Old Guy" refers to Guy Fawkes, whose straw-stuffed effigy is hung each year in England in celebration of Guy Fawkes Day, but it also refers to Hades' crusty boatman and his fare. By
across the river Styx or

A spirit of

Acheron, says Spenser (Faerie Queene, 1. 5. 33), "many soules sit wailing woefully"; these have not come properly prepared for admission to the underworld. Walter Savage Landor writes
of the death of the beautiful but cruel Dirce (for whose
life

see

THEBES):
Stand close around, ye Stygian set, With Dirce in one boat conveyed,

Or Charon,
That he
is

seeing,
old,

may

and she a

forget shade.

176

HADES
On the other side of the river the spirit of the dead encountered
Cerberus, a three-headed dog with a mane and tail of snakes. Spenser describes the beast in The Faerie Queen (1. 5. 34):
Before the threshold dreadfull Cerberus

His three deformed heads did lay along, Curled with a thousand adders venemous,

And

lilled forth his

bloudie flaming tong.

(4. 2.

In Sheridan's comedy The Rivals

demands of Captain Absolute, who ading as Ensign Beverley, "You are not
at once, are you>"

296-297) Mrs. Malaprop she knows has been masquerlike Cerberus, three

This watchdog, a son of Typhon gentleman and Echidna, is supposed to allow only the spirits of the dead to enter and none to leave. There have been some notable excephowever: Psyche and the Sybil of Cumae, Aeneas' guide, appeased Cerberus with cakes; Orpheus charmed him with music;
tions,

and Herades, having received permission from Hades to capture the dog if he did so without using weapons, seized Cerberus in his hands and carried him up to earth but later returned him to
his place.
river stretch the shadowy plains of asphodel, the flower of Hades. Sometimes this middle region is called pale Erebus, but the name is also applied to the entire underworld.

Beyond the

In this dreary place, according to the belief of

many Greeks

and Romans,

the spirits of the dead exist as vague shadows of their former selves. When Odysseus on his visit to Hades en-

countered the shade of the great hero Achilles, Achilles said, "I would rather be the basest slave on earth than a prince among
the dead/'

the dead, however, suffer this dull eternity. Some who are highly favored by the gods are taken to die Elysian Fields, or

Not

all

Elysium, where they live in endless happiness. This paradise

177

is

HADES
sometimes imagined
as the Blessed Islands, located outside of

Hades and

far to the west of the great river of

Ocean.

On

the

other hand, those

who have
below

greatly offended the gods are thrown

into the abyss of Tartarus,

which

is

as far

below the

rest of

Hades
to

as

Hades

is

the earth. Originally this great pit

seems

have been merely a prison for troublesome creatures. When Uranus ruled the universe, he hurled a number of his children
into Tartarus simply because they annoyed and frightened him; and when the Olympians finally defeated the Titans, they confined a

number
and

Although many
favorites

of these dangerous older gods in the abyss. ancients believed that all except the special

special

enemies of the gods must endure the vague

miserable afterlife that Achilles* shade despises and that A. E. Housman imagines in To an Athlete Dying Young as the life of
"the strengthless dead," many others influenced probably by the Mysteries, especially those of Eleusis, and by the Orphic faith
(see

ORPHEUS, and
They

GODDESSES)-believed in an
ments.

Mysteries under afterlife of rewards and punishconceived of the Elysian Fields, not as a place of

Eleusinian

EARTH

privilege for those whom the gods paradise reserved for the virtuous;

happened to like, but and of Tartarus, not

as a as a

convenient prison for those who annoyed the gods, but of torment reserved for the wicked.

as a place

Since Hades himself rarely sits in judgment on the souls of the newly dead, this office is usually performed by the shades of three celebrated men* Rhadamanthus, Minos, and Aeacus.

Rhadamanthus and Minos were both sons of Zeus and Europa. On earth Rhadamanthus had a rather shadowy career as a law giver, but in Hades he is well established as a judge. He is
perhaps the only Greek whose real career began after death. Sometimes he or Cronus is represented as the ruler of the Elysian
Fields.

Minos wa$ king of

Crete. Because

he was the mightiest

178

HADES
ruler of his time, his

name

is

associated with law

and order even

and

though

his actions as related

under

DAEDALUS

THESEUS

hardly offer a pattern for the just man to follow. Aeacus was the son of Zeus and Aegina and the grandfather of Achilles. He was made a judge in Hades because of his great piety.

In Tartarus the wicked

Furies can devise
are reserved for
(see

suffer all the

punishments that the

FURIES), but the most ingenious torments the most celebrated sinners. Spenser describes

them

in

The

Faerie

Queene

(I.

5.

35):

There was Ixton turned on a wheele, For daring tempt the Queene of heauen to sin; And Sisyphus an huge round stone did reele Against an hill, ne might from labour lin; There thristie Tantalum hong by the chin;

And

Tityus fed a vulture

on

his

maw;

Typhoeus ioynts were stretched on a gin, Theseus condemned to endlesse slouth by law, And fifty sisters water in leake vessels draw.

Typhoeus, or Typhon, a monster who terrified the gods until Zeus thrust him into Tartarus, is not usually represented as enduring a special punishment Spenser seems to have invented
this

detailand Theseus, though

for a long time

bound

to

a rock

for helping his friend Pirithous in an attempt to abduct Persephone, was finally released by the hero Heracles. But the

others

named

in this stanza of Spenser's are the most famous

sinners suffering their special tortures. Ixion, who tried to make love to Zeus's wife Hera,

is

bound

to a fiery wheel that turns forever; for further details see the article under his name. Sisyphus, a king of Corinth, saw Zeus in

the form of an eagle carrying off Aegina; this affair, as was noted earlier, produced Aeacus, the third judge in Hades. When Aegina's' father asked help in finding his daughter, Sisyphus

179

HADES
revealed what he had seen. Thereafter Zeus was his enemy, and in Tartarus Sisyphus is compelled to try to roll a huge rock up

a hill John Dyer (Epistle to a his eternal frustration:

Sisyphus, with toil

Famous

Painter, 58-61) describes

and

sweat,

And

Up
For the
in water
to drink.

muscles strain'd, striving to get a steep hill a ponderous stone,

the top recoils,

Which near
life
is

and

rolls

impetuous down.

Tantalus

of the wily Sisyphus see the article "hong by the chin" in the sense that
to his

under

his

name.

up

he stands always but the water recedes whenever he tries neck,

hunger are unceasing. Close to his hands hang branches covered with ripe fruit, but whenever he tries to pick the fruit, the branches move out of his reach. Tantalus suffers this punishment because he killed his son
his thirst
his

Both

and

Pelops and served his cooked flesh to the gods at a banquet. This terrible crime bred further crimes and caused his descendants
for four

generations to

be cursed; for the details see

ATREUS.
Tityus was a Giant

who

dren, Apollo and Artemis,

insulted the goddess Leto. Her chilkilled him with their arrows, and in

Tartarus he

lies

eternally eat his liver

"fifty sisters"

chained to the ground while two vultures and his liver is constantly renewed. The

of

whom

whom Spenser mentions are the Danaids, forty-nine sinned at the command of their father. Danaus and
first

Aegyptus were brothers; the

second
fifty

had

fifty

daughters and the

sons.

The

brothers

quarreled,

and Danaus

left

Egypt nephews followed to claim their cousins in marriage. This was according to Greek law and custom, which, held that a girl who had no brothers was an encumbrance to the
estate

for Argos, but his

and should marry her next of

kin.

Danaus pretended ta

l&Q

HADES
accept his nephews as sons-in-law, but secretly he ordered his daughters to kill their husbands on the wedding night. All but
one,
father's

Hypermnestra, who married Lynceus, carried out their command. The forty-nine Danaids who murdered their

husbands (Spenser was wrong to include Hypermnestra in the punishment) are condemned in Tartarus always to draw water in
leaky vessels or to fetch water to fill a large jar that is so leaky that it always remains empty. Chaucer tells the story of Hypermnestra in

The Legend

of

Good Women

(2562-2723), but he

leaves out her sisters

and Lynceus'

brothers,

and makes her the

daughter of Aegyptus and Lynceus the son o Danaus. Far from the abyss of Tartarus the virtuous souls enjoy the eternal felicity of the Elysian Fields. Here, as Robert Herrick

(The Apparition of His Mistresse Calling Him to Ehzium, eternall May," and all that may 13), "in green meddowes sits comfort and please the inhabitants has been provided. When Aeneas visited his father Anchises in Elysium, he saw nearby a large valley through which flowed the river Lethe, and many spirits of the dead wandered along its banks. Anchises explained that these were souls who were to live again on earth and that while they waited to be reborn they drank of the river and forgot
says

their former existence.

The

river of forgetfulness

frequently used by English poets.

"May

this

is a symbol be wash'd in Lethe

and forgotten?" asks the new King Henry in Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV (5. 2. 72); and in Julius Caesar (3. 1. 205-206) the gushing of the murdered Caesar's blood is described as his own
river of oblivion:

here thy hunters stand, ^ Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy letbe.
.
.

John Keats twice

uses Lethe to

mean death of

the senses in for-

181

HADES
getfulness, once in the

well-known opening lines of the Ode

to

Nightingale:

My heart aches My sense, as

and a drowsy numbness pains though of hemlock I had drunk Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk,
first

and once in the

line of the

Ode on Melancholy:
. .

No, No! go not

to Lethe.

In our time, John Crowe

Ransom

in Parting at

Dawn

ironically

advises two parting lovers

flows beneath your casement, ten years have not brought full effacement, 8 Philosophy was wrong, and you may meet.
. .

if

no Lethe

And when

a remote place on the bank of the Lethe is the cave of the twin sons of Night, Thanatos, or Mors, the god of death, and

At

Hypnos, or Somnus, the god of

sleep.

The

Elizabethans were

particularly fond of this symbolic relationship, and Samuel Daniel in Sonnet 51 of Delia is one of the many poets who put
it

into verse:
Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born.

As was mentioned

th^Juty of Thanatos to claim Once he was defeated by the hero Heracles, who fought with him for the spirit of Alcestis and restored her to life (see ALCESTIS), and once he was outwitted
earlier, it is

the spirits of the newly dead.

by Sisyphus
s

(see

SISYPHUS).

When

Sarpedon, a son of Zeus,

From

"Parting at Dawn," by John Crowe Ransom, in his Selected Poems.

Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Alfred

Knopf, Inc.

182

HADES
in the defense of Troy, Thanatos back to his native Lycia for burial.
fell

and Hypnos carried

his

body

as

is usually deep in sleep "Flat on the ground and still stone," he appears in Thomas Sackville's Induction to the any Complaint of the Duke of Buckingham (282, 288-294):

Hypnos

The The

body's
of our

rest,

the quiet of the heart,

travail's ease, the still night's fere

life

was he,

And

Reaver

Things Without

in earth the better part; of sight, and yet in whom we see oft that tide, and oft that never be;
respect, esteeming equally pomp, and Irus' poverty

King

Croesus'

Hypnos'
Icelus,

gifts to

men

are rest

and dreams. The gods

creates

of

dreams
beings;

are his sons: Morpheus,

who

dreams of
beasts,

human

who

creates

dreams of birds and

and Phantastus,

who creates dreams of inanimate objects. Morpheus is so well known that he often takes his father's place. He is "the god of
slep" to

Chaucer (Book

of the Duchess, 137), as he

less gifted

is

to

many

other poets and to

many

mortals today

who

say that

when they sleep they are "in the arms of Murphy." The cave of Hypnos and Thanatos has two gates, one

and one of horn; the dreams that come Ivory are deceitful, but those that come Horn are true. In Chaucer's Book of the Duchess (136-213) Morpheus shows Alcyone in a true dream that her husband is
dead
Faerie
(for the rest of the story see

of ivory through the Gate of through the Gate of

Queene

(1.

1.

CEYX), and in Spenser's 39^4) Morpheus sends a false dream to

delude the

Cross Knight. The notion that true dreams issue from the gate of horn and false dreams from the gate of ivory, which is found first in Homer (Odyssey, 19), is used somewhat

Red

cryptically by T. S. Eliot in Sweeney among the Nightingales, where "Sweeney guards the horned gate." The image suggests not

183

HARMON
only that Sweeney
also that he has

an instinctive enemy of true dreams, but shrugged off any foreboding that he may have had
is

of the violent death that awaits him.

(he'mon) killed himself for grief at the death of See THEBES. Antigone. HALCYONE (hal-sl'6-ne), or Alcyone, was the wife of CEYX.

HAEMON

HAMADRYADS (hSm'a-dri'adz) are tree NYMPHS. HARMONIA (har-mc/m'0) was the wife of Cadmus,
of

founder
See

THEBES.
are monsters,

HARPIES

half-woman and

half-bird.

SEA

GODS, AENEAS, ARGONAUTS.

HEBE
(26-29)

(he'be), a

youth, and Milton

daughter of Zeus and Hera, is the goddess of salutes her in this capacity in L'Allegro

when he
Jest

asks for

and youthful Jollity, Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods, and Becks, and Wreathed Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek ....

She was also the cupbearer of the gods until that job was given
to
(4.

Ganymedes. When Endymion in Keats's poem of that name 415-419) dreams of Olympus,
.
.

. arch Hebe brings full-brimmed goblet, dances

And And

lightly, sings tantalizes long; at last he drinks lost in pleasure at her feet he sinks,

Touching with dazzled

lips

her starlight hand.

After the hero Heracles finished his

to

life on earth, he was taken and made the husband of Hebe. As a reward for his Olympus great deeds, Spenser says (Ruines of Time, 384L-385), the hero

enjoys
All happinesse in Hebes siluer bowe, Chosen to be her dearest Paramoure.

194

HELLESPONT

HECATE

(hk'fl-te)

is

Artemis in her

evil aspect as

goddess of

the dark of the moon. See

ARTEMIS.
were hundred-handed

HECATONCHEIRES
monsters. See

(hSk^-ton-kl'rez)

TITANS.
prince,

HECTOR, a royal TROJAN WAR.

was the chief hero of Troy in the

HECUBA (hgk'u'txi) was queen of Troy at the time of the TROJAN WAR. HELEN OF TROY was the daughter of Zeus and Leda. Her eloping with Paris was the immediate cause of the TROJAN
WAR. HELENUS
(hl''nus) was a Trojan prince who had the gift of prophecy. The Greeks captured him and forced him to assist

them in the

TROJAN WAR.
(hHi'fl-dez)

HELIADES APOLLO.

were

the sisters

of

Phaethon.

See

HELICON

(hfcl^-kon)

is

a mountain sacred to the

MUSES.

HELIOPOLIS

(he'!T-6p'6-lis) was an Egyptian city; the temple of the sun to which the Phoenix made its regular pilgrimage

was located here. See

PHOENIX.
a Titan sun god. See

HELIOS

(he'li-os)

is

APOLLO

(hl'e) fell off the golden-fleeced ram into the HelSee ARGONAUTS. lespont. HELLEN (hl'n), the mythical ancestor of the Greeks, or Hellenes,

HELLE

was the son of Pyrrha and

DEUCALION.

(hgl'enz) are the Greeks. Their mythical ancestor, Hellen, was the son of Pyrrha and DEUCALION. HELLESPONT (ha/fes-p6nt) is a narrow strait between Europe

HELLENES

and Asia where the

sea of

Marmora
into
it

named
(see

for Helle,

who

fell

flows into the Aegean. It was from the golden-fleeced ram

see his

ARGONAUTS). lady HERO.

Leander swam the Hellespont to

185

HEPHAESTUS

HEPHAESTUS
fire.

(h-fes'tus), or Vulcan, or Mulciber,

is

is

the god of

The son of Zeus and Hera, he smith of the gods and their chief artificer and builder. He is supposed to have forges on Olympus; under Moschylus, the now extinct volcano on the island of Lemnos; and under Mount
most famous
as the black-

Aetna, the Sicilian volcano. Hephaestus' association with fire and the forge led to his becoming the god of pottery, metalwork,

and the other

artifices that

make

use of

fire.

He

is

famed

in

Homer and
builder,

other classical poets for his skill as a metalsmith

and

in these capacities he is supposed to have built the dwelling places of the gods, to have forged Zeus's scepter and

and

and to have made the breastplate of Heracles and and armor of Achilles. On Zeus's orders, he created the girl Pandora for the purpose of penalizing man for his acquisition of fire from Prometheus.
aegis (shield),

the shield

Hephaestus

is

lame.

Some

stories attribute this characteristic

to the flickering of fire, his native element. Other stories say that he was born lame, and that Hera his mother was ashamed

of Olympus, whereupon he was rescued by the Nymphs Thetis ancl Eurynome, who kept him under the sea and reared him. As Hephaestus grew in strength and skill, he took his revenge by constructing a throne of metal for Hera. When she sat on it, she found herself held so firmly that only

of

him and threw him out

Hephaestus could release her, and

Dionysus,
his

this

he refused

to

do until

trusted

friend,

tricked

him

into returning to

Olympus and releasing her. There is another myth, however, that Hephaestus' lameness resulted from a fall. He interceded one
day between Zeus and Hera while they were quarreling, and Zeus in anger seized him by the heel and hurled him from Olympus. Milton tells the end of this story in Paradise Lost (I. 738-746), where he pictures Hephaestus as the architect of Pandemonium,
the council hall of Hell,

186

HERA
Nor was
his name unheard or unador'd In ancient Greece, and in Ausoman land

Men call'd him Mulciber, and how he fell From Heav'n, they fabl'd, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o're the Chrystal Battlements: from Morn To Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve,

Summers day; and with the setting Sun Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star, On Lemnos th' Aegaean He.

Hephaestus was rescued by the Sintians, and the island remained one of his principal places of worship.

On Lemnos

Accounts vary as to whom Hephaestus married. Some say he was the husband of Aglaia, one of the Graces, but according to most accounts he married Aphrodite, whom he afterward trapped
in a metal net
(see

when

she was being unfaithful to

him with Ares

is

APHRODITE).

Hephaestus seldom appears in English

his

poetry. In addition to Milton's reference to his fall there

Hamlet's speech to Horatio, which concerns

ings as well as his plot to discover

own

sick imagin-

King Claudius*
85-89):

guilt

by the

play-within-the-play (Hamlet,

3. 2.

...

if

his occulted guilt

Do

not

itself

unkennel in one speech,

And my

ghost that we have seen, imaginations are as foul As Vulcan's stithy.

It is a

damned

The stithy in

this

image
1

Volcanoes are named

the forge blackened by smoke and soot. for Vulcan, who is also the source of our
is

verb "to 'vulcanize/ which refers to a chemical process for ing crude rubber.

treat-

HERA

Juno, like Zeus, her brother and husband, is the child of Cronus and Rhea. Less fortunate than Zeus, however,
(he'rd), or

she was swallowed by Cronus along with her other brothers and

187

HERA
and was subsequently rescued by Zeus when he made Cronus disgorge them all. Zeus -had a particular fondness for Hera, and after two other marriages that did not satisfy him, he married her. Hera thus became the queen of all the gods, and in this capacity she came to represent for the Greeks and the Romans the great feminine element of motherhood in the natural order
sisters,

of things.

Like Zeus, however, Hera developed two rather different

of characteristics. As the suspicious wife of Zeus, she
as jealous
if

sets

and demanding, even willing

to

was imagined overthrow her husband

her jealousy,

she could. Zeus gave her

many

justifications for

and she vented her anger sometimes in reproaches against him and sometimes in persecutions directed against his lovers and
She plotted so much against Heracles, Zeus's son by Alcmene, that Zeus in exasperation hung her out of Olympus with golden chains on her wrists and anvils on her ankles. On
their children.

another occasion,
succeeded.

Homer

tells

us,

Athene and Poseidon, attempted

to

Hera, in conspiracy with overcome Zeus and nearly

faithful wife

Hera's benignant characteristics, however, are those of the and mother, and she is therefore the patroness of those who endure the labor pains of motherhood. In this char-

acter,

Hera was known

as a

Her name was

variously

heaven" or "the lady," with the epithet, "ox-eyed." She was especially fond of Argos, Mycenae, and Sparta, and every fifth year a festival was held in her honor at Olympia. The Romans, calling her Juno and emphasizing -her connection with childbirth, gave her a festival called the Matronalia on the first day of March. The most
,

woman of supreme dignity and virtue. interpreted to mean "splendor of and she was complimented by Homer

famous statue of her was that by Polyditus at Argos, so splendid that it rivaled Phidias' statue of Zeus at Olympia. Hera's favorite
188

HERA
companions are the Graces and the Hours, and her favorite bird is the peacock, whose tail she made brilliant with the eyes of
Argus, the watchman

whom

she placed

on guard over

lo,

and

whom Hermes

gave Hera many nicknames, the best known of which, Parthenia, refers to her as a bride. She bore Zeus four children, Hephaestus, Hebe, Ares, and Ilithyia,
slew.

The Greeks

or Eileithyia,

according to

the goddess of childbirth and who had, a 'cave dedicated to her in Crete. The funcHomer, tion and the name of Ilithyia, who was called Lucina by the
to

who became

Romans, were given sometimes

Artemis.

Hera and sometimes

to

Hera's faithfulness to her marriage vows and her disapproval

of
lived loosely outside of wedlock became proverbial. In the higher sense she became the symbol of married virtue,
all

who

became the prototype of the checks the roving eye of her husband from following the passing blonde. She was the forceful personification of monogamy.
in the lower order of things she

and

shrewish and suspicious wife

who

References to Hera's severe virtues are

poetry. In
his

common

in English

Epithalamion (390-397), the song for his own marriage, Spenser asks for her blessing as the patron of faithful

and happy wedlock. Richard Cleveland strikes a keynote for her personality when he writes in his poem, Mark Antony, that she graces Zeus "with embraces more stately than warm." Milton follows the same vein in Paradise Lost (4. 497-502) when he lends chasteness to the love of Adam and Eve before the fall by comparing their innocent embraces to those of Zeus and Hera.

Adam
... in delight Both of her Beauty and submissive Charms
Smil'd with superior Love, as Jupiter On Juno smiles, when he impregns the Clouds

189

HERACLES
That shed May Flowers; and With kisses pure.
press'd her

Matron

lip

gives a vivid description of her dignity and grandeur in Oenone, using her advent as a golden cloud that encircles her

Tennyson

sacred bird, the peacock:

On

the tree-tops a crested peacock

lit,

And o'er him flow'd a golden cloud, and lean'd Upon him, slowly dropping fragrant dew.
heard the voice of her, to whom Heaven, like a light that grows Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods

Then

first

Coming

thro*

Rise up for reverence.

Robert Bridges
25):

is

more

detailed in Eros

and Psyche (October,

Her curling hair with plaited braid and brail, Pendant or loop'd about her head divine, Lay hidden half beneath a golden veil, Bright as the rippling ocean in sunshine: And on the ground, flashing whene'er she stept, Beneath her feet the dazzling lightnings lept From the gold network of her sandals fine. 4

HERACLES

(hSr'a-klez), or Hercules, the

totype of great physical strength, at the

Greek hero and proend of his mortal life

gained immortality not alone

among

the

Olympian

deities

but

among

all succeeding generations in Western Europe. His fame has remained secure, and though shorn of an attribute here and

there by the forgetfulness of time, it has continued remarkably true to its original character as conceived by the Greek myth-

makers.

The

Greeks were apparently unable wholeheartedly to admire

4 From "Eros and Psyche," by Robert Bridges, in his Poetical Works Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Clarendon Press, Oxford

190

HERACLES
for his physical strength alone, and originally the of Heracles was matched by the sturdiness of his moral strength

any

man

fiber.

He

dutifulness,

was an early symbol of patience, determination, and and he used his great strength primarily to fulfill

the
his

moral obligations that were placed squarely before him by destiny. Though he erred occasionally, being half-mortal, he

remained dutiful even in the preparation of his own funeral rites at the end of his life, and symbolically his immortal half, when his mortal half had been burned away by the funeral fire, was

Olympus and immortality. Heracles was the son of Zeus and of a mortal girl named Alcmene (the details of this ungodly affair can be found under ZEUS), though many supposed him to be the son of Alcmene's husband Amphitryon, and Heracles was therefore sometimes
carried

up

to

called Alcides, as a descendant of Alcaeus, Amphitryon's father. Since Hera, the wife of Zeus and the goddess of matrimony,

habitually and energetically opposed her husband's affairs with mortals, she resolved to make life difficult for Heracles. First,

having determined the day on which the hero was to be born,

she extracted from Zeus the promise that whatever boy should be born on that day should have command over all his neighbors.

she arranged to delay the birth of Heracles and at once hurried down to Argos, where she caused the wife of

Then

Sthenelus to give premature birth to a weakly son named Eurystheus on the day on which Heracles' birth had originally been
scheduled.

By

this

arrangement, she managed to give Eurystheus

command

over Heracles, and thus she hoped to deny fame and

too;

importance to Heracles. Zeus, however, was not without stratagem,

he had Hermes

bring the infant Heracles to Hera to suckle without telling her the child's identity. Hera, with a motherly generosity rare in our
times, gave the child her breast,

and from

it

he drew the great

191

HERACLES
strength that became his chief virtue. His first use of this strength was to protect himself and Iphicles, his twin and half brother,

from Hera's wrath. While the boys were still in their cradles, Hera discovered the identity of Heracles and sent two huge snakes to kill him and his brother; but he strangled the snakes.
In

On

the

Morning

of Christ's Nativity

(227-228) Milton by a

kind of parallelism attributes this precocious act to the newborn Christ, in that Christ's birth put an end to all the pagan
mythologies of false gods:

Our Babe to shew his Godhead true, Can in his swadling bands controul the damned
Heracles spent the rest of his youth in a

crew.
less

manner no

heroic

than

its

beginning.

He

was

first

given to be educated to Rhada-

manthus, the learned and just son of Zeus and Europa, and to Linus, a famous singer who was a son of Apollo. From the former

he acquired much of his moral character, the latter, from whom he was learning music, he slew in a fit of anger at being disciplined Because of his slaying of Linus, the hero was taken

away from more formal training and given over

of the kingdom to rear.
fellows

to the

herdsmen

The

effect ot his life

among

these rugged

was
to

to develop Heracles' great physical strength.

The freedom
brought

of his youth and the first phase of his life were an end when he was eighteen, by two remarkable

demonstrations of his strength. First he slew a tremendous lion that had been ravaging flocks in the vicinity of Mount Cithaeron.

Then, on

his

way

to

Thebes

to display the skin of the lion as

he offended and rejected the ambassadors of the king of the Minyae who were coming to claim, annual tribute from Thebes. This offense naturally led to war between
evidence of his
feat,

Thebes and the Minyae, and in this war Heracles by deeds gave proof that he was undeniably a hero.
192

his great

HERACLES
His prowess and growing reputation were noticed by none more than Hera, who was annoyed to see her maneuvers coming
to nothing.

She therefore prompted Eury&theus, her protege, to

claim the service that was due

him because

of his fateful birth.

Heracles was reluctant to serve Eurystheus. He asked the oracle at Delphi whether he could refuse and received the reply that he
oracle informed him, however, that in Euryshe would perform twelve labors that would gain his immortality; he therefore yielded to his duty and presented
theus' service

could not.

The

himself to Eurystheus at Mycenae. Eurystheus' motives in demanding the services of Heracles

may

have been partly humanitarian, but they appear also to have been colored with envy and the hope of killing the hero. Many
of the labors that

he required Heracles

to

perform represented

great accomplishments for public welfare, but eath also

might

well have been

Heracles'
of

fatal.

first

task was to kill the

Nemean
It

Lion. This child

Typhon and Echidna was

a terribly destructive beast that was

invulnerable

against mortal

weapons.

had been

sent

by

to terrorize the plain of Nemea and it accomplished its mission with a success so conspicuous that it was to become pro-

Hera

verbial for violent strength. Prince Hamlet, about to accost his father's ghost, protests against the restraining hands of his friends

(Hamlet,

1. 4.

81-83) with the exclamation:

My fate
And makes
As hardy

cries

out
this

each petty artire in

body

as the

Nemean

lion's nerve.

Heracles, however, bearded the lion in

its

with his bare hands.

Its

invulnerable hide he tore

den and strangled it' off and made

into a garment for himselt His second task was to destroy the Lernean Hydra, a child

193

HERACLES
of the same parentage as the lion. This monster had nine heads, one of which was immortal, and it infested a swamp near the

spring of
fatal

Amymone where
its

it

gave

off a foul

smell scarcely

less

than

heads. Assisted
first

by

lolaus, Heracles

drove the

nephew and close friend, into the open by shooting hydra

his

it, and then he began cutting off its heads. To his dhagrin he found that each head that he lopped off was replaced by two new heads. With his hands occupied by an arithmetical progression of monstrous heads, the hero now found his handi-

arrows at

foot.

cap increased by the arrival of a huge crab that took hold of his He therefore wisely retired to a prepared position to replan
his tactics. First

he had lolaus
fire

set fire to the

woods nearby; then

he renewed his attack on the hydra each stump as he cut off the head. This process by cauterizing brought him at last to the immortal head, which lie cut off and buried. The hydra being now dead, he dipped his arrows
with a brand from the
into the poison theus.

and returned

to report his success to Eurys-

Eurystheus was not pleased; he claimed that Heracles, because he used the aid of lolaus, had not lived up fully to the terms
of his contract.
labor, the

But he sent him off next to capture, as his third Erymanthian Boar. As the hydra symbolized the un-

healthy qualities of a swamp, the boar seems to have figured forth the wild dangers of the mountains, especially of Mount

Erymanthus where it lived. Yet Heracles was native to this rugged life, and his fulfillment of the task was correspondingly easy and was even characterized by an element of low comedy. Indeed,
Heracles' chief exertions

on

this task

had

little

to

do with the

boar

In searching out the boar he came across the Centaur Pholus living in a cave on Mount Pholoe and maintaining* guard over the wine supply of the Centaur race. According to one veritself.

sion of the story, the

wine had been given to the Centaurs by

194

HERACLES
Dionysus on the express understanding that Heracles have some of it when he passed by; in another version this detail is omitted.

However, whether or not Pholus was

justified in

doing

so,

he

poured Heracles a drink. The bouquet oi the wine was extremely powerful, and it soon reached the sensitive noses ot the other
Centaurs,
fight
(see

who

on which the

gathered intent on mayhem. There was a wild clouds, whose children the Centaurs were
torrents of rain

IXION), poured down

Heracles, however,
his

was

equal to the odds against him,

and with the aid of

poisoned arrows succeeded in driving off the enraged Centaurs, though he killed by mistake his old friend Chiron and lost

Pholus when

this inquisitive soul,

it

examining one of the hero's

the scratch (see

arrows, dropped

on

-his

foot

and died of

CENTAURS).
fight;

Capturing the wild boar alive, as Heracles had been ordered to do, was something of an anticlimax after this

he approached Mycenae with it, the sight so frightened Eurystheus that he hid himself in a great bronze pot. Heracles, looking about for a safe place in which to confine the

but

as

boar, put

it

into the

same

pot,

and the comic consequences are

easily imagined.

Heracles' fourth labor was to capture alive the Ceryneian little need be Stag, which was sacred to Artemis. Of this labor
said except that Heracles had to pursue the stag tor a full year, it fled. At one following it over the open countryside wherever

took refuge in a temple of Artemis and had to be routed. At another time Heracles was on the point of killing it, but both Artemis and Apollo appeared to prevent him. In the end
time
it

he caught it. His fifth labor was

to drive the fierce, destructive birds

out of

the vale of Stymphalus. These Stymphalian Birds were similar to tKe Harpies (see Harpies under SEA GODS). They had iron
talons,

and

their feathers,

which they

cast

downward, were
195

as

HERACLES
sharp
they killed human beings and ate them. Heracles' method of attack was typically direct. He first rang a bell to arouse the birds and then fired his arrows at them as
as

arrows;

they flew about. Frightened, the birds flew away forever to an island in the Black Sea from which they flew into mythology
at least
.

once more

when

they attacked the Argonauts (see

AR-

GONAUTS).
For a
sixth labor, Eurystheus provided a

somewhat

less excit-

ing project. Prince Augeas of Elis, a son of Helios, the sun god, was the owner of a tremendous herd of cattle that he stabled
in buildings

on the banks of the

river Alpheus.

The Augean
of cattle

Stables, partly because they held a large

number

and

partly because they had not been cleaned for a long time, gained a permanent reputation for overwhelming filth, which William Wordsworth echoed in The Prelude (10. 583-585) when he described Robespierre's followers in the French Revolution
as a

group
.
. .

who

with clumsy desperation brought

river of Blood,

and preached

that nothing else

Could cleanse the Augean

of French politics.

stable

a familiar figure to Wordsworth is even today a continuing figure of speech, for "cleaning out the Augean Stables" still means cleaning up an awful mess.

What was

made the task doubly hard for Heracles by requirthat he clean out the stables not only by himself but in a ing single day's time. When Heracles appeared at Elis, Augeas himEurystheus
self

was so pleased with the idea that he offered the hero a tenth of his herds as a reward for completing the job. Heracles then

cleverly diverted the river

Alpheus into the

stables

and the waters

washed them clean within a single day,

as required. Augeas, however, when he discovered that Heracles had been compelled

196

HERACLES
by Eurystheus to perform the
task, refused to

pay the reward he

his sons.

had

offered; Heracles in retaliation killed

him and

Eurystheus now sent Heracles to capture the Cretan Bull, a magnificent animal that Poseidon, the sea god, had presented to King Minos of Crete. Minos' wiie, Pasiphae, fell in love with
a child, the Minotaur, after which the bull roamed at will over the island of Crete. Heracles captured it
this bull
it

and bore

without unusual
bearing him on
either sacrificed

difficulty
its it

and caused

it

to

swim back
it

to

Mycenae

back.

He

presented
it

to Eurystheus,

who

to

Hera or turned

loose again, according to

varying accounts.

For an eighth labor Heracles was sent

to fetch the carnivorous

Horses of Diomedes. Diomedes, a fierce warrior who was said to be a son of Ares, the god of war, customarily fed these horses on the flesh of men who were shipwrecked on his coast. This diet

imbued

the horses with such violence that they 'had to be confined with iron chains. Their fierce wildness, however, was no

protection against the might of Heracles, who first overcame their keepers and then led the horses away. When Diomedes and his

men

sought to prevent him, Heracles not only routed their forces

to his horses.

but retributively fed Diomedes himself

The

horses

did not long belong to Eurystheus, however, for they escaped into the Arcadian hills where they were thought to have been eaten by
wolves.

Eurystheus' daughter, Admete, provided the ninth labor by desiring the girdle of Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons. This
girdle,

an outer garment, Heracles dutifully procured, even though according to some accounts he had to kill its owner in the process. He was accompanied on this raid by the hero
Theseus,
brougiht back Hippolyta or her sister Antiope as his wife (for further details see THESEUS), The tenth labor is tlie story of an anticlimax. Eurystheus de-

who

197

HERACLES
the Cattle of Geryon. Geryon, the son of Calhrhoe the Oceanid, was a triple man of great strength and gigantic size. He possessed three bodies, three heads, and six arms, not to mention a pair of wings. Furthermore, he
that Heracles bring

manded

him

dwelt far beyond the

known world

in the distant west

on an

island called Erytheia, where he kept his cattle in a dark cave, and where he was aided in protecting them by a two-headed dog and a fierce herdsman named Eurytion.

Heracles
the cup in

made

his

way westward

in a vessel that

may have been

east,

which Helios, the sun, nightly returns to the

until he found himself at the point where Europe and Africa give way to the great stream of Oceanus. Here he set up two

mountains
better

markers of his progress. These mountains are still called the Pillars or Gates of Heracles, though one of them is
as

known

as the

Rock

of Gibraltar. Spenser in the Protha-

(147-149), praising the Earl of Essex for a successful raid against the Spanish, declares that his
.

lamwn

dreadfull name, late through

to

And

all Spaine did thunder, Hercules two pillars standing neere,

Did make

quake and

feare.

Sailing westward, Heracles ran into a terrible storm

and had
still

to
it.

threaten Oceanus himself with his arrows in order to

he reached Erytheia he was attacked first by the twoheaded dog, which he killed, and then by Eurytion, whom he
also slew.

When

Even Geryon himself quickly

fell

before the hero's

arrows

when he sought

to prevent the theft of his cattle.

With

this part of his mission accomplished, Heracles

drove Geryon's

and set sail again for Mycenae. For some reason he chose to land in Spain and to make a rather circuitous way back to Greece by crossing the Alps and making a round trip down the west coast of Italy and up the
cattle into his vessel

198

HERACLES
the spot that was later to become Rome he had a curious adventure. While he was sleeping, a son of Hepihaestus
east coast.

On

named Cacus
their
tails,

stole

some of

his cattle.

He

led

them

off

backward

by he found their footprints leading toward him and was deceived. However, as he was about to abandon the search, he heard the
stolen cattle lowing and found them hidden in Cacus' cave. Naturally he slew Cacus and retrieved his cattle. The event was

so that

when

Heracles awoke and missed them,

memorialized with an altar by the Romans, who had their

cattle

market on
his theft

this place in later years. Cacus'

method

of disguising

was the same

as that of the infant

Hermes when he

rustled

some of the

cattle of Apollo.

Further south in Italy Heracles had some minor adventures. At Cumae he fought a set of Giants. Past Rhegium he found
that the grasshoppers interfered with his sleep, and this prayer that something be done about the nuisance led to grasshoppers being forever banned from the area by the gods. Later one of
his

oxen escaped and swam across the strait into Sicily, so that to recover it Heracles had to make his way across the strait on
the back of another ox and travel
all

the

way around
at last in

Sicily.

But in most of

spite of these delays,

he succeeded

the cattle

up

the east coast of Italy

and down

driving the Greek

peninsula to Mycenae, whereupon Eurystheus promptly sacrificed the entire lot to Hera. What Heracles must have said about this
event has not been recorded.

His eleventh labor, which consisted in obtaining the Apples

of the Hesperides for Eurystheus, involved him in no less varied adventures. These apples were golden, and they were guarded by
Atlas' daughters, the Hesperides. Atlas, who was a son of the Titan lapetus, had fought with the Titans against the gods, and

as

shoulders.

punishment he was made to hold up the heavens on his The golden apples had been the wedding gift of Gaea
199

HERACLES
to Hera, they were tended in

an orchard by the Hesperides, with

the assistance of a dragon named Ladon. Heracles' first problem was to find Atlas,

matter of

much argument

at the time, because

whose habitat was a some averred that

the garden of the Hesperides was in the country of the northern Hyperboreans, and others held that it lay far to the west. Accord-

ing to one myth, he set out to the north until he reached the Rhone river, whose Nymphs informed him that Nereus, the
(see SEA GODS), could tell him where to had the power to change his form at will, but Heracles caught and held him in spite of his changes and forced him at last to reveal the location of Atlas, which proved

old

man

of the sea

find Atlas. Nereus

to

be in Libya.

Journeying through Libya, Heracles encountered almost at one time two extremes of size and strength. The first of tlhese

was Antaeus, the Giant son of Poseidon and Gaea, the Titan
earth goddess; his strength remained unconquerable as long as he was in actual contact with his mother the earth. Wrestling with

him, Heracles was unable to overcome him, for the Giant's

strength was constantly renewed. At last he conceived the idea of holding the Giant in the air and strangling him as his power waned away. In Spenser's Faerie Queen (2. 1 1. 23-46) the leader of

the evil forces

who

attack the castle of

Sir

Temperance

is

Maleger,
the same

a son

of earth,

whom

Guyon

finally kills in

much

way
ant

that Heracles killed Antaeus.

As Heracles was

resting

from

this struggle,
little

he was attacked by a band of Pygmies, an unpleasfolk 13i/ indies in height. Heracles was amused by

their attack
skin;

and met it by simply wrapping them up in his lion's some accounts say that he killed them, and others that he brought them back to Eurystheus.
In Egypt Heracles was seized by King
Busiris,

who had

the

habit of sacrificing

all strangers

on

his altar.

In Heracles, how-

20D

HERACLES
found more of a stranger than he could handle, and the hero turned the tables by bursting free and sacrificing Busiris himself. He now made his way to India and thence to the Cauever, foe

casus mountains, where he freed Prometheus, an act related

somewhat perfunctorily by Shelley in his long poetic drama Prometheus Unbound (3. 3)- In myth, though not in Shelley's
account, Prometheus gave Heracles final instructions as to
to find Atlas (see

how

PROMETHEUS).
at last

he conceived a stratagem to obtain the apples without a struggle. He offered to hold up the heavens in Atlas' place if the giant would obtain for him
Atlas,

Wlhen Heracles

found

three of the golden apples from the garden* To this the tired old giant agreed and did so without delay, saving Heracles what
task. Berowne, in Love's seems not to have heard of this 340-341), (4, arrangement nor to have regarded tihe difficulties of the project with much seriousness, because he asks:

might well have been an impossible

3.

Labour's Lost

For valour,
Still

is

not Love a Hercules,

climbing trees in the Hespendes?

the apples back to Heracles, he proposed that he himself should deliver them to Eury&theus. For a moment the hero's fate hung in the balance, but his sJhrewdness

When

Atlas

had brought

saved him.

He

Atlas relieve

him

agreed to Atlas' proposal on the condition that of the weight of the heavens long enough for
for his shoulders. Atlas was taken in

him
ruse,

to find a

pad

by

this

and once he had

the heavens firmly back

on

his shoulders,

Heracles took the apples and returned with them to Eurystheus. ^The last labor that Eurystheus provided seemed impossible even for Heracles. He directed Heracles to bring back from Hades'

kingdom

in

the underworld the three-headed dog Cerberus,

the guardian, of the entrance to this awful place- Fortunately,

201

HERACLES
Athene and Hermes came

him down

and guided Hades granted Heracles permission to seize Cerberus and carry him to t)he upper world if he could do so without using weapons. Having first freed his friend
to the assistance of Heracles

to Hades' presence.

who was imprisoned there for having tried to kidnap Hades' wife, Persephone, Heracles seized Cerberus with his bare hands and carried him off to Eurystheus, who ordered that the
Theseus,

monster be returned to the lower regions. Holofernes the Pedant, in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost (5. 2. 539), in the manner
of

pedants seems to

have had

the

wrong information on

this point, for

he says that Heracles killed Cerberus with his

club.

Thus
heroic

life

Heracles completed his long term of servitude, but his did not end with his obligations to Eurystheus. Indeed,
to

he appears
the
fit

continued to

have got so habituated to heroic deeds that he indulge in them as a kind of reflex action up to

moment

of his death,

whose circumstances he arranged to

the heroism of his inner nature. His rescue of Alcestis from

death, for example, remarkable as it was (see ALCESTIS), was only a minor action in the course of his obtaining the man-eating

horses of Diomedes.

When
wife

he was free of Eurystheus' yoke, Heracles put aside his Megara because in his first fit of madness he had killed

their children,

and he considered

that his wedlock

must have

been counter

to the will of the gods.

As

if

to contradict his

reasoning, however, the gods put

violence,

on him another fit of mad which he committed a murder and even profaned during

the oracle of Apollo at Delphi by trying to make off with the sacred tripod of the temple. When he regained his senses, the oracle informed him that he must expiate his insane misdeeds by becoming the slave of Queen Omphale of Lydia for three
years.

curiously

mixed

affair resulted

from

his acceptance of

202

HERACLES
this

to

second period of servitude. In the first place, Omphale seems have made Heracles become extremely effeminate, so that he

gave over to her his lion's skin and took up weaving and spinning with the ladies of her court; but when Omphale fell in
love with him, he caused her to produce a son

whom

they

named

Ladus.

As if to counterbalance his effeminacy during this period, Heracles took an early part in the expedition of the Argonauts
(see

ARGONAUTS)

the king of old Troy,

and he made war on Troy. Laomedon, had promised Heracles the hand of

Hesione, his daughter, in return for Heracles' having rescued her from a sea monster; but he later changed his mind and would not live up to his promise. Heracles therefore gathered around

him Telamon,
and

the father of Aias, Peleus, the father of Achilles,

others, with whom he laid siege to Troy. They captured the city and slew Laomedon and all his family except Hesione, whom Heracles gave as wife to Telamon, and her brother Priam,

who

fathered the royal family that was to defend the city in the major Trojan War of later times (see TROJAN WAR).

Heracles also found time to rescue the shepherd youjth Daph-

from the cruelty of King Lityerses of Phrygia. This youth was the son of Hermes and a Sicilian Nymph who brought him to the favorable attention of Apollo by placing him as a babe
nis

in a grove of laurel, a tree sacred to the god. In return for this thoughtful compliment, Apollo gave Daphnis a talent for idyllic

song and caused him to invent pastoral song and story. He grew up an innocent and pure shepherd among the Nymphs and
shepherds who kept flocks near Mount Aetna in Sicily. As even innocent shepherds will, he fell in love with a maiden. Her

name was Piplea, and she was soon after abducted by robbers who carried her to Phrygia. Daphnis naturally followed, and
found Piplea in the possession
of

King

Lityerses. Lityerses, it

203

HERACLES
seems, was

proud of

his ability to

reap grain, so proud that he

habitually challenged strangers to a reaping contest

and

killed

them
fell

his challenge, and they both and singing appropriate songs. Daphnis was losing when Heracles arrived and put an end to the match by cutting off Lityerses* head and throwing it into the river Maeander. Matthew Arnold, mourning the loss of his friend A. H. Clough
if

he won. Daphnis accepted

to reaping

in his elegiac

poem

Thyrsis (182-185), recalls the reaping contest:

Patting his sickle to the perilous grain In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king, For thee the Lityerses-song again

Young Daphnis with

his silver voice

doth

sing.

Daphnis, according to the version of the myth that Arnold mentions iri a note to his poem, later fell in love with a princess and

was struck blind by jealous Piplea. Lesser exploits of Heracles are without number.
of his death, however, was in
Still

The manner

many ways the greatest of his deeds. in search of a wife, he tried to win lole, the daughter of

of Oechalia, but the king refused to permit the marriage although Heracles fulfilled all the conditions that had

King Eurytus

been imposed.

He

therefore asked the

hand

of Deianira, the

daughter of King Oeneus of Calydon. To win her, Heracles had to outwrestle the river god Achelous, who was also her suitor, but this he was able to do without unusual difficulty. For three
years he lived happily with Deianira. But in the first days of their marriage, they came to a river across which the Centaur

Nessus offered to ferry them. Heracles swam the river but entrusted Deianira to Nessus, who, in a manner native to the lusty

and

bestial Centaurs, tried to carry her off for his own pleasure. Heracles at once killed him with an arrow, but as he died he confided in Deianira that she should save some of his blood and

XX

HERACLES
Heracles' garments as a love potion appear to be unfaithful to her.

put

it

on

if

he should ever

Later Heracles decided on revenge against King Eurytus. He besieged Oechalia and with his customary success killed the

king and almost

all his

family except lole,

whom

he proposed

to sacrifice to the gods. As he was proceeding to this sacrifice, Deianira, misunderstanding and fearing that she was losing his love to lole, soaked his sacrificial robe in Nessus' blood and sent

When Heracles put on the robe, immediately seized him with its poison and began to kill him. All his efforts to remove it were in vain, for his flesh itself came
it

to

him by

his friend Lichas.

it

away with the

robe. In his agony he threw Lichas into the sea.

it is

The

more commonly called, have become proverbial for unbearable and inescapable pain. The use to which Shakespeare puts it in Antony and Cleoterrible effects oi this robe, or shirt as
is typical; Antony, who considers himself to (4. 12. 43-47) be the descendant of Heracles and who finds his fortune running

patra

out in defeat,

calls

out in despair:
Nessus
is

The

shirt of

upon me. Teach me,

Alcides, thou

mine

ancestor, thy rage.

Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o' th* moon And with those hands that grasp'd the heaviest Subdue my -worthiest self.

club

The
when

event served Milton as an image for violent upheaval

(2.

in Paradise Lost

543-547) he described the tumultuous

activities of the reviving fallen angels:

As when Alcides from Oechalia Crown'd With conquest, felt th' envenom'd robe, and

tore

Through pain up by

the roots Thessalian Pines,

And

Lichas from the top of Oeta threw

Into th* Euboic Sea.

The

incident seems to have been in T.

S, Eliot's

mind when he
205

HERACLES
wrote the fourth movement of Little Giddmg, the
final

poem

of

Four Quartets:
Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove

The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. 5

Knowing now
die.

that death was near, Heracles returned

herself

home

to

Deianira hanged

when

she learned

what she had

brought on him, but Heracles prepared to die atop Mount Oeta. There he had a funeral pyre built, and when it was ready he
gave his bow and arrows to his friend Philoctetes or Philoctetes' father Poeas and then lay down on the pyre with his lion skin

and

his club.

At

the pyre, and the hero was enveloped in

Heracles' signal, Philoctetes or Poeas lighted its flames (see PHIL-

not forgotten the promise they made to Heracles through the Delphic oracle. Zeus permitted only his body to be burned, he sent down Iris to conduct his spirit to

OCTETES). The gods, however, had

was
ter

Olympus where promised immortality awaited him. There he at last reconciled to Hera, who became his mother-in-law in fact, as she had been in practice, by marrying him to her daughHebe.
like

Heracles,

Samson, continues

strength. Shakespeare, for example,

to be a symbol of great mentions him thirty-six times;

and

ihis

figure,

clothed in a lion skin

and carrying a

club,

is

today the trade-mark of a manufacturer of explosives. Herculean labors are still what they have always been: tasks of overwhelming difficulty required by duty. The gods kept their they promised Heracles immortality.
5

word when

"Little Giddmg," by T. S. Eliot, in his Four Quartets. Copyright, by T S. Eliot. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Harcourt, Brace and Company.

From

1943,

206

HERMES
HERCULES
(hSrluHez)
is

the

Roman name

of

HERACLES.

(hr-m&f'r&-di'tus), a son of Hermes and was united with the Nymph Salmacis and became a Aphrodite, hermaphrodite. See HERMES.

HERMAPHROBITUS
HERMES
The

(h^r'mez), or Mercury,

is

the son of Zeus

and Maia.

exact meaning of his name is not known, but it is thought to be "the hastener." His attributes are the most varied and

complex of all the major gods. He is best known as the herald and messenger of Zeus, but he is also generally thought of as the god responsible for breeding and increase in the animal
world, especially for the increase of cattle. This latter responsibility led to a whole chain of associated duties. Since wealth
in agrarian Greece consisted mostly of
cattle,

he became a deity
ihe

of wealth; since wealth was derived from trade,

became the

god of trade and, by association, of travelers who carry on trade; since trade in its general form is commerce, he became the god
of commerce.

From

these

major

fields of responsibility several

other responsibilities were derived. Smoothness of tongue and shrewdness of mind make for successful trade, and Hermes thus

became the god

of oratory. It is but a step from high-pressure to cheating and thievery, of which Hermes also salesmanship became the patron. Because he was a god of luck, he became the

protector of gamblers. Somewhere along the line, he became also the patron of athletes and a god of the wind, with whose

speed he was able to move about.

Hermes' precociousness was as great as his versatility of interHe was born on Mount Cyllene, and therefore is often called Cyllenius. Within a few hours of his birth he had stolen some of Apollo's cattle by tying brush to their hooves and driving
ests.

into a cave at Pylos, so that their tracks made it appear that they had gone in the opposite direction. Apollo him before quickly discovered the thief, however, and haled

them backward

Zeus for

justice.

Hermes, meanwhile, had taken a

tortoise

from
207

HERMES
its

shell,

invented the

stretched strings across the empty shell, and thu lyre. He so amused Zeus with this instrument an<

with (his feigned naivete that Zeus forgave him on conditioi that the cattle be returned to Apollo. Hermes also made Apollt a present of the lyre, in return for which Apollo forgivingly gav<

Hermes

the Caduceus, a golden staff with wings at the top anc intertwined with serpents, the symbol of his authority as mes

senger of the gods,

fession.

Apollo also gave

and today the symbol of the medical pro him the power to prophesy to humai

beings,

though in actions instead of words. Hermes appears not to have married, but he was the father o

Pan by a Nymph, and he had a son by Aphrodite, whom the;; named Hermaphroditus. A river Nymph named Salmacis fell ii
love with Hermaphroditus, but he ignored her. One day wher he was bathing in her river, however, Salmacis seized him anc

prayed the gods to unite her with him. Taking her prayer per haps more literally than she had intended, the gods fused the two into a single person having the characteristics both of Her

maphroditus and of Salmacis, and therefore both a male and

female.

<

The word "hermaphrodite" survives today to mean airj organism which is able to reproduce by fertilizing its own eggs or which has both male and female sex organs.

Hermes had another son named Autolycus who became th* champion thief of the world, an achievement less surprising ir view of this ability to cast invisibility on himself and wihat h< stole. He was the grandfather of Odysseus, and he has a name sake in Shakespeare's play The Winter's Tale (4. 3. 24-28), whc
describes himself thus:

nam'd me Autolycus, who being, as I am, under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and drab I purchas'd this caparison, and my revenue is the silly

My

father

litter'd

cheat.

208

HERMES
For an adventure in which Autolycus was outwitted
see SISY-

PHUS. The inventiveness

of

Hermes was not

limited to thievery, for

he was credited with instituting the sacrifice of animals to the gods and with inventing the alphabet and numbers. His position as messenger of Zeus gave him many important duties. He conducted the souls of the dead down to Hades, for which task he had the name Psychopompos; he brought Hera, Athene, and

Mount Ida for the judgment of Pans (see TROand he was the companion of Zeus in his visit to JAN WAR); Philemon and Baucis. As a constant traveler himself, he was
Aphrodite
to

thought to be the friend of travelers, much as St. Christopher is in our time, and for this reason many highway posts were made with his head on the top and called Hermae. His best-known
nickname, however, was Argiphontes, which he earned for killing the hundred-eyed Argus, whom Hera had set to watch over
lo (see ZEUS). Hermes played to Argus on his pipes and told him the story of Pan and Syrinx and many other stories. Gradually

Argus closed
killed him.

all his

hundred

eyes,

whereupon Hermes quickly

Hermes is pictured typically as a young god. His special symbols are his Caduceus, already described; his low-crowned hat
with wings, called a Petasus; and his winged sandals, which are called Talaria. Hermes in his hat and sandals, and carrying
his Caduceus,
is

a favorite symbol for transportation agencies and

he ihas usually telegraph companies today. In English poetry served as a symbol of the messenger, or of speed and majesty in to add a note of gaiety in Comus flight. Milton uses him
(963-964), where he pictures

him somewhat out

of character

dancing
With
the mincing Dryades and on the Leas;

On

the Lawns,

209

HERMIONE
and he
uses

him again

in Paradise Lost

(5.

285-287) to give

vividness to the flight of Raphael, the sociable spirit, sent to warn Adam and Eve against the guile of Satan;

down

Like

ata's

son he stood,
filld

And The
John Keats
serpent

shook his Plumes, that Heav'nly fragrance

circuit wide.

describes

him more

fully in

Lamia, the story of a

nearly

whom Hermes

changed into a

woman and who

succeeded in entrapping a Corinthian youth named Lycias. The poem opens with Hermes, "ever-smitten" with love, departing

from Olympus in search of a favorite Nymph.

He

cannot find
invisibility.

her until Lamia charms his eyes against the Nymph's

contains a famous image of Hermes as "the star of Lethe'* (81), a reference to Hermes' duties in conducting the
souls of the dead to Hades,

The poem

where the

river of

Lethe
tells

flows. Shel-

ley translated the fourth Homeric hymn, which story of the infant Hermes, under the title

the amusing
to

Hymn

In our

own

times, in the

New

Year Letter

(1.

301-306),

Mercury. W. H.

Auden

alludes to Hermes' ability to prophesy

through actions:

And

often

when

the searcher stood

it

Before the Oracle,

would

Ignore his grown-up earnestness But not the child of his distress,

For through the Janus of a joke

The candid psychopompos

spoke.

HERMIONE
Menelaus. See
e

(hr-mi'6-ne) was the daughter of Helen and

TROJAN WAR.
Letter/'

From

the

"New Year

by

Copyright, 1941, by W. H. Auden publisher, Random House, Inc.

W. H. Auden, in his The Double, Man. Repnnted with the permission of the

210

HERO

HERO

and Leander were a famous pair of lovers of later classical times who resided one on each side of the Hellespont, the narrow strait that separates Europe from Asia where
(hir'o)

the sea of

Marmora

flows

toward the Aegean. Hero, to the

side of the

eternal confusion of her name, was a beautiful

lived in Sestos

on the European

woman who strait and who

served there as a priestess of Aphrodite. Leander lived in Abydos on the Asiatic side. One day while he was in Sestos to celebrate
a festival in honor of Aphrodite, he saw and fell in love with Hero. Thereafter, guided by a torch that she placed on a tower,

he swam the

strait

each night to be with her. At

last,

however,

he was caught in a storm and drowned, whereupon Hero, discovering his body, cast herself into the sea and was drowned
also.

treatment of this story in English poetry is undoubtedly Christopher Marlowe's long and ornately sensuous poem, Hero and Leander. The meeting of the two lovers pro-

The most famous

duced one of Marlowe's best known

lines (1. 176):

Who
a line that

ever lov'd, that lov'd not at

first

sight?

is echoed by Shakespeare in As You Like where he has Phebe exclaim: 81-82)

It (3. 5.

Dead shepherd, now

"Who
Since
it

I find thy saw of might, ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight?"

what often happens, "love at first sight" has become a clich& Marlowe handled the story so brilliantly that no other English poet has been able to touch it without showing
describes
his influence.
It is

not surprising that the

tale

had an

for especial appeal

Romantic and

later-nineteenth-century poets.

Byron, in

The
211

HERO
Bride of Abydos (2. 1-5), a poem about a different love altogether, was moved by the identity of locale to write:
affair

The winds

are high

on

Helle's wave,

As on that night of stormy water

When

Love,

who

sent, forgot to save

The young, the beautiful, the The lonely hope of Sestos'

Briefly

brave,

daughter.

he adds that although Hero's "turret-torch was blazing and although the storminess of the weather acted as a high" warning, Leander set out to swim the strait and was drowned. Byron himself had swum this course and was proud of having done so.
the
Keats, too, seeing a gem with Leander's form cut into it, states theme in a sonnet, On an Engraved Gem of Leander in
-,

which he describes the unfortunate and imprudent youth

Sinking bewilder' d 'mid the dreary
sea.

In Hero
ful,

Leander a poem that is not one of his most successTennyson imagines a plea from Hero to her lover not to
to
*,

leave her:

No Western odors wander On the black and moaning sea, And when thou art dead, Leander,

My soul must follow

Oh
go not
yet,

theel
I

my

love

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in Sonnet 88 of The House of Life, makes use of a subsidiary myth, that the torch or lamp which Hero had lit each night to guide Leander had, after their deaths,
been dedicated in a temple and was not to be relit until some mortal had experienced a life oi successful love.

contemporary poet, Malcolm Cowley, resensing the myth,

212

HESPERUS
says in

Leander that the drowned lover returned into the natural

order of things:
his hair is wreathed with algae; luminous with jellyfishes; coral 7 blooms on his thighs
.
.

his eyes

gleam

song in The Tempest about the which he told Prince Ferdinand (had occurred to change
lines that recall Ariel's

sea
his

father.

HESIONE

/
(he'-si

6-ne)

was rescued from a sea monster by

the western land, was the

HERACLES. HESPERIA (he's*pe/ri-d),

which
tree
Italy

name by

was known

to

AENEAS.
the daughters of Atlas, guard the apples. See HERACLES.

HESPERIDES

(he'S'pe'r'i-dez),

on which grow the golden

(heVpe>us), or

HESPERUS

(heVper), or Vesper, is the evening star and the king of the west. He is the father of Ceyx and the grandfather of the Hesperides, who guard the

HESPER

golden apples that were Gaea's wedding present to Hera, Sometimes Hesperus is said to be the father rather than the grandfather of the Hesperides; Milton in
. .

Comus

(980-982) describes

the Gardens fair

Of Hesperus, and his daughters three That sing about the golden tree ....
Usually, however, Hesperus is seen in English literature as the evening star. He appears thus in Ben Jonson's song to the moon

goddess:
Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess excellently bright,
7 From "Leander," by Malcolm Cowley, in his Blue Juniata (New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1929). Copyright, 1929, by Malcolm Cowley. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

213'

HESTIA
and
in Milton's Paradise Lost
(9.

50-51) he

is

the bringer of

Twilight upon the Earth, short Arbiter

Twixt Day and Night ....

Because in Greek and

Roman

miters Hesperus

is

often the

taking the place of, or becoming, his brother Phosphor, Spenser in The Faerie Queene (1. 2. 6) speaks of him as bringing "forth dawning light."

morning

star also,

Hesperus is the planet Venus and therefore, as Spenser says in the Epithalamion (288), the "glorious lampe of loue." In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries writers of
star

The

marriage songs frequently praised Hesperus not only because he was the lamp of love but also because his coming showed that
the long day of public celebration was past and the married couple might soon be alone together. John Donne, for example, writes in his Epithalamion Made at Lincolnes Inne,

The amorous evening

starre

is

rose,

Why

then should not our amorous starre inclose

selfe in

Her

her wish'd bed?

virgin goddess Hestia, or Vesta, the

HESTIA

(h&'ti-d).

The

first-born child of

Cronus and Rhea, is the oldest and most sacred of the Olympians. The Greeks and Romans swore their most binding oaths in her name. She is the goddess of the hearth and
to Hestia.

the symbol of home. Each meal began and ended with prayers The hearth of every house was sacred to her, and in

had a public hearth on which the fire was never allowed to go out. Colonists carried with them coals from this public hearth and used them to kindle the perpetual flame on
each
city she

the public hearth of the new city that they founded. In the temple of Vesta at Rome the eternal flame was kept by six priestesses called Vestal Virgins. These girls, between the ages

214

HESTIA
were chosen from the best families of Rome, and they promised to remain chaste and to serve the goddess for thirty years. The Vestals were honored by the Romans and given
of six
ten,

and

many

special privileges, but

to death.
it

cruelly put dess in the temple,

(see

anyone who broke her vow was Although there was no statue of the godfire

contained the sacred

and the Palladium

ATHENE), the two symbols essential to the welfare of the city.

Because the chaste protectress of the household is not to be gossiped about, the Greeks and Romans told no stories of Hestia.
In English literature she is seldom mentioned, yet Milton in II Penseroso (23-30) makes her the mother of Melancholy. It seems curious that he should invent this myth about the virgin
goddess, but penhaps he intended to indicate the purity in which Melancholy was conceived. Vesta's priestesses appear much more

frequently than she does in English literature, but the word "vestal" loses its relation to the goddess and signifies "dedicated
virgin" or simply "virgin." In Pope's Eloisa to Abelard (207), for example, "the blameless vestal" is a Christian nun, and

Romeo (Romeo and

vestal

Juliet, 3. 3. 38) speaks of the

"pure and

modesty" of Juliet's lips. In a Roman household Vesta was worshiped along with the Penates, the Lar, and the Genius of the father of the family.
Tihe Penates were gods of the storeroom; they watched over the food supply and the general welfare of the household. The Lar

was a benevolent
the

spirit of the

dead, an ancestor

who

protected

members of the family and shared their secrets. Each household had one Lar, but he and the Penates were often referred
to together as Lares or Penates or both. There were public as well as family Lares and Penates. Herrick in Hymn to the Lares;

worships

ihis

own household
With crowns

gods

And Garhck

of greenest Parsley, chives not scarcely,

215

HESTIA
and
salt

in

A Panegenck
sacrifice

to Sir

Lewis Pemberton (3-4) he sends

his

and

To
As

Thee, thy Lady, younglings, and as farre

to thy Genius,

and thy

Larre.

writes of a dishonest antique dealer who hopes to persuade each young collector to pay through the nose for false antiquities with the ironic result that he will
(4.

In The Dunciad

366)

Pope

"keep

his

Lares though his house be sold."

The Romans

also

believed in the Manes, the good spirits of the dead in Hades, and the Lemures, or Larvae, the evil spirits of the dead who

wandered on earth

at night

and haunted the

living,

Richard

Aldington in his poem Lemures describes man's fear of the spirits of the dead even in our skeptical age that says, "They are not."

And

in James Joyce's Ulysses Stephen Dedalus, in the drunken scene in Bella Cohen's brothel, sees in his mind's eye his mother, whose death has haunted him all day. "Lemur," he says in hor-

"who are you? What bogeyman's trick is this?" The Roman Genius is related to one conception of the Greek Daemon. The Greeks sometimes applied this term to the gods and sometimes reserved it for spirits like the Satyrs who were neither gods nor human beings, but they also conceived of the Daemon as a protective spirit like the Roman Genius. Human
ror,

beings, social groups,

and

places all

had

these guardian spirits.

man's Genius came into being

at his birth,

accompanied him

through life, and became his living soul after death. His Genius was the essence of him, his personality. Since every Roman family
worshiped a Lar, the benevolent spirit of an ancestor, it was natural that they should also worship the Genius of the living head of the household. A Genius of place was represented as a
serpent, but a personal Genius was usually portrayed as a likeness of the person whom he protected. Sometimes the Genius

216

HIPPO CRENE
had wings and sometimes 332-334), when the Duke twin Dromios together, he
not. In
first

The Comedy

of Errots

(5.

1.

sees the twin Antipholi

and the

says,

One of these men is genius to the other; And so of these Which is the natural man And which the spirit?
In his Epithalamion (398-399) and in his description of the of Adonis (Faerie Queene, 3 6. 31-32), Spenser refers to
as the

Garden
Genius

god of generation, and three times he uses the notion of the Genius of place (Rumes of Time, 19; Ruines of

Rome,

27; Faerie Queene,

2.

12.

46-49). Milton describes the

retreat of the

pagan

gods in

On

the

Morning

of Christ's Nativity

(184-186),

From haunted

spring,

and dale
sent,

Edg'd with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing

and

similar

references

is Penseroso (154); one of the characters in the masque, and in Lycidas (182-185),

Genius of place occur in in Arcades, where the Genius of the Wood

to

the

II

where Milton imagines Edward King Irish Sea, in which he was drowned:

as the local

god of the

Now

Hence

Lycidas the Shepherds weep no more; forth thou art the Genius of the shore,
that

In thy large recompense, and shalt be good

To

all

wander

in that perilous flood.

For the other virgin goddesses

see

ARTEMIS
is

HIMEROS
EROS.

(hi'mfr-os),

the

god
is

of desire,

and ATHENE. an attendant of

Helicon, a

HIPPOCRENE
home
of the

(hip'6-kren)

a spring on

Mount

MUSES.
217

HIPPODAMIA

HIPPODAMIA
and

ATREUS;

(hlp'6-da-ml'a) was (1) the mother of Thyestes a friend of THESEUS. (2) the wife of Pirithous,

HIPPOLYTA
called the

(hi-poll'ta) was a queen of the warlike women Amazons. One of the twelve tasks of Heracles was to

obtain Hippolyta's girdle. Some accounts say that Theseus, who assisted Heracles in this task, abducted and married Hippolyta.
See AMAZONS, THESEUS HIPPOLYTUS (hi-poll-tus)

was the son of Theseus

who

re-

jected the love of his stepmother Phaedra and was killed because of her false accusation to THESEUS.

HIPPOMEDON
THEBES HIPPOMENES OF BOEOTIA. HIPPOTADES
of the

(hi-pom'S-don) was one of the Seven against

(hl-pam'4-nez) was the lover of

ATALANTA

(hi-pdt'tf-dez)

is

another name of Aeolus, king

WINDS.

HORAE (ho're) are the HOURS.

HORSES OF DIOMEDES (di'6-me'dez), which ate men, were HERACLES HOURS. The Horae, or Hours, are the daughters of Zeus and
captured by
justice. The Hours regulate the and the seasons, and they stand at the cloud gate of Olympus days through which the gods pass when they descend to the earth. The happy conjunction of the Hours and the Graces lends beauty to people and occasions, and therefore these goddesses are attendants of Aphrodite and patrons of every pleasant event and gracious season. In the Epithalamion (98-105) Spenser asks them and the Graces to attend on his bride as they do on Aphrodite:

Themis, the goddess of divine

. come ye fayre Houres which were begot In loues sweet paradice, of Day and Night, Which doe the seasons of the yeare allot,
.
.

And
218

al that

euer in

this

world

is

fayre

HYMEN
Doe make and
still

repayre

And ye three handmayds of the Cyprian Queene, The which doe still adorne her beauties pride, Helpe to addorne my beautifullest bride.

HYACINTHUS
killed

by

(hi'0-sm'thus) was a boy whom Apollo loved but accident. From his blood grew a flower of mourning.

See

APOLLO.
(hl'lds)

HYLAS

was the youth for

whom

Heracles deserted the

expedition of the

ARGONAUTS.

HYMEN

(hi'mtn), or

HYMENAEUS

(hi'mi-ne'us), the

god of

marriage, appears to have been born of an exclamation. Shouts of "Hymen io Hymen!" were a traditional part of the Greek marriage festival, and when the meaning of the expression became
obscure, people assumed that

He

was imagined

as

Hymen was the god of marriage. handsome young man dressed in a saffron-

colored robe and carrying the traditional marriage torch. Apollo and the Muse Urania were said to be his parents. A. E. Housman
in Last

Poems

XXIV writes,
He is here, Urania's son, Hymen come from Helicon. 8

has no existence apart from the marriage feast, and the only story in which he has a dramatic role is that of Orpheus

He

and Eurydice. At the celebration

his torch

of their marriage,

which was

fated to be unfortunate, he arrived without a lucky omen,

and

it burning. spite of his attempts to keep literature he appears in marriage songs and masquesIn English that imitate the classical epithalamia. A typical reference is

went out in

From "Poem XXIV," by

1922,

A. E. Housman, in his Last Poems. Copyright, of the by Henry Holt and Company, Inc Reprinted with the permission

publisher.

219

HYPERBIUS
found in Spenser's Epithalamion (25-29) when Spenser that his bride be waked from her sleep:
Bid her awake;
for

asks

Hymen

is

awake,

long since ready forth his maske to moue, With his bright Tead that flames with many a flake,

And

And many

a bachelor to waite

on him,

In theyr fresh garments trim.

HYPERBIUS

(hi-pr'bi-us) helped Eteocles defend

/

THEBES.

HYPERBOREANS

(hi'pr-bo ri-4nz) lived in perpetual springtime to the north of the great river of Oceanus. See SEA GODS.
See

HYPERION (hi-plrl-on) was the first sun god. HYPERMNESTRA (hi'perm-nes'tra) was the
fifty

APOLLO.

only one of the

Danaids who did not murder her husband on her wedding

night. See

HADES.
(hip'nos)
is

HYPNOS
slave of

HYPSIPYLE

god of sleep. See HADES (hip-sip'Me) was first queen of Lemnos and then a the king of Nemea. See ARGONAUTS, THEBES.
the

IAPETUS THEUS. ICARIAN

he tried

(I-ap'-tus),

a Titan, was the father of

PROMEfell

(I-karl-an)

SEA

is

the sea in which Icarus

when

to fly

ICARUS ICELUS (is'S-ltis) is a god of IDA (I'da) is the mountain

'

with wings invented by his father was the son of DAEDALUS. (ik'0-rtis)
dreams. See

DAEDALUS.

HADES.
home
of

near Troy that was the

220

IRIS

Oenone and

the scene of the

judgment of Pans. See

NYMPHS,

TROJAN WAR.
IDAEA
the
(i-de'0)

was the second wife of Phineus, a king who aided

(I-de'an dak'tilz),

ARGONAUTS
who
lived

IDAEAN DACTYLS

on Mount Ida
Rhea,

in Crete or Phrygia, were workers of magic or Cybele. See GODDESSES.

and

priests of

EARTH

IDAS

(I'das)

was chosen by Marpessa

as her lover,

although she
the

was also wooed by

APOLLO.
the epic

ILIAD

(ill-ad)

is

poem by Homer about

also called Troy,

TROJAN

WAR.
ILION
city.

(Ill-dn),

which was

was the chief Trojan

See

TROJAN WAR.
the goddess of childthe sea goddess Leu-

ILITHYIA (ill-thi'ya), or Eileithyia, is birth. See ARTEMIS, HERA. INO (I'no), a Theban princess, became cothea. See SEA GODS, THEBES.
IO
(Ko) was one of the mistresses of

ZEUS.

IOBATES (I-ot/d-tez) was first the enemy and then the patron of BELLEROPHON. IOLAUS (i'0-la'us) was the nephew and companion of HERACLES.
was wooed unsuccessfully by HERACLES. was named for lo, who wandered beside (i'0 nl-n) SEA it, along the west coast of the Greek peninsula. See ZEUS.. IPHICLES (if'i'klez) was a son of Amphitryon, whereas his twin Heracles was a son of ZEUS.

IOLE

(i'o-le)

IONIAN

IPHIGENIA
Agamemnon.

(if'i-jS-ni'a)

was

sacrificed to Artemis

by her father
to

See

ATREUS, TROJAN WAR.

gave the

IPHITUS
ODYSSEUS.
IRIS
(I'ris),

(if'i-tus)

bow

of his father Eurytus

a daughter of the sea deities

Thaumas and

Electra,

is

221

IRON AGE
the goddess of the rainbow,
dress

and she shows

its

varied colors
is

on her
fill

and on her wings. One

of her functions

to

the

clouds with water so that they may rain on the earth and fructify the soil, and her rainbow has thus become a symbol
of the blessings of rain, promising the early Greeks as

much

as

Noah's rainbow promised Iris' chief duty, however,

of the gods,

his people.
is

as

and in

this capacity she

messenger of Hera, the queen is the feminine counterpart

same way. Running errands for pathway from heaven to earth or to other parts of the mythological world. Paintings of her show her as a lovely maiden of varicolored clothes and wings, with
of Hermes,
serves Zeus in the

who

Hera, she uses her

rainbow

as a

sometimes a nimbus behind her head. Naturally the peacock her favorite bird.

is

For

poets, Iris provides

an image of

airy colorfulness. Milton,

for example, uses her for this purpose, once in Paradise Lost of the angel Michael and again (11. 244) to describe the vestment

in

Comus

(83)

where

this

malicious spirit says that his "skie robes"

were "spun out

of Iris

Wooff."

IRON AGE

is

either the present time or the time just before

the great flood that

drowned

all

mankind except Pyrrha and

DEUCALION. ISMENE (iz-me'ne) was a daughter of Oedipus, king of THEBES. ITYS (i'tfs), or ITYLUS (It'Mus), was the son of Procne and Tereus. See PHILOMELA. IULUS (i*u/lus) was another name for Ascanius, the son of
AENEAS.

IXION

(iks-i^n), like

sinner for

whom

Tantalus and Sisyphus, was a celebrated a special torment was devised in Hades. When
gifts

Ixion married, he promised rich bridal

that he hated to give.

He

therefore

murdered

his father-in-law,

who would have

re-

ceived the

gifts.

No

earthly means could purify Ixion of

this

222

IX10N
crime; but Zeus, taking pity on him, carried him to Olympus, purified him, and made him a guest at the banquet of the gods.

Ixion at once began to make love to Hera, Zeus's wife. For this ingratitude Zeus found ingenious punishment. He created out of a cloud a phantom that resembled Hera; Ixion made love to
the

phantom and

CENTAURS).

In Hades Ixion was tied

endlessly.

fathered the monstrous race of Centaurs (see to the side of a fiery

his

wheel that turns

Ixion's father

and

reputed son Pirithous were also famous

for their impiety. His father Phlegyas set fire to Apollo's temple at Delphi because Apollo had got hdon's sister Coronis with

child

(see

APOLLO).

Phlegyas was put to death by the god,

and

Hades he is forced to stand under a huge rock that is always on the point of falling, while his food is constantly befouled by a Fury. For the sin and punishment of Pirithous, who some say was Ixion's son and some say the son of Zeus, see
in

THESEUS.
In literature Ixion usually appears in Hades on
his wheel.

He is seen there by Orpheus, Aeneas, and others,

in Spenser's Faerie

including Duessa

Queene (1. 5. 35). In Browning's philosophical Ixion the hero gains spiritual insight through his suffering poem and becomes conscious of a divine justice higher than that of
Zeus.

the

Pope uses Ixion's punishment charmingly in The Rape of Lock (2. 133) and pretentiously in Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.

In one image of Sonnet 45 in Delia, Samuel Daniel recalls Ixion's deluded love-making and uses it as a symbol of hopeless
passion.

Herrick, characteristically avoiding the thought of consequences, takes pleasure in the story of Ixion. He praises the incomparable whiteness of the skin of his mistress Electra, but

Only

confesses that she will not fully please

Till, like Ixion's

him
with me.

cloud you be
soft to lie

White, wanne, and

223

JANUS

JANUS
"going/'

(ja'nus),
is

whose name comes from the Latin word for

the most important of the Latin deities who were not borrowed from, the Greeks. Although Janus was unknown to the

Greeks, the

Romans

believed that he

had come over from Greece

as

in ancient times

and had reigned benevolently

King of Latium,

the region of Italy in which Rome was founded. He was thought to have civilized the early Romans, teaching them to farm and to build buildings, especially temples in honor of the gods.

Because these achievements were also credited to Saturn

(see

CRONUS), Janus was sometimes

all

confused with this Titan,

whom

agreed he had at least befriended when Saturn, cast out of Greece by Zeus, fled to Italy and spread his useful arts of husthere.

bandry

place of Janus in Roman theology seems to have been second only to that of Jupiter. Worship of him began in earliest

The

times not only because of the cultural advantages that he brought but because he was of material assistance in warding

Roman
off

moment in a Sabine attack against the a spring of boiling water appeared by means of which early city, the Romans were able to beat off their attackers. On the location
enemies. At a critical
of this spring a temple to Janus was built, and thereafter, whenever Rome was at war, the gates o the temple stood open.

As history has recorded the matter, the gates were in

fact almost

never closed. Augustus claimed with pride that during his long reign (27 B.C.-14 A.D.) they were closed three times.
Janus' significance
to

the

Romans

begins in the concrete

224

JANUS
symbol and ends in the abstract. His name is closely associated with the Latin word "janua," which means a passageway or door. Thus he is the god of openings and therefore of beginnings. Moreover, because the beginning of an undertaking has much to
ending (an undertaking well begun has the best chance of ending well), he is also the god of endings. Like a door, Janus faces two ways; and he is usually depicted as having two
its

do with

faces, one that of a youth, to represent the beginning, and the other that of an old man, to represent the ending. Hence his other name, Bifrons. His temple also faced two ways, one of its

doors toward the

begins, and the other ends. Naturally, too, the first month of the calendar, January, was named after him, and the first day of this month, which looks backward on the old year and
east,

where the day

toward the west, where

it

forward into the new one, was his holiday (though the first day of every month, having the same kind of significance on a smaller scale, was also a day of sacrifice to him). Every enterprise, and especially war, was begun with an invocation of his aid; and

even though the

final decision as to

Jupiter, after Jupiter

what must happen was had decided, Janus was in charge.

left to

Though not

signally popular in English poetry, Janus has pro-

vided his share of allusions.

To

Milton (Paradise Lost,

11.

128-129), wishing to describe the

to

Cherubim who were preparing descend with Michael and evict Adam and Eve from Eden, he

suggested a simile:

Four
Had,
like

faces each

a double Janus

....

Also, for Salarino, a Venetian gentleman (Merchant of Venice, 1,1. 50-51), he provided an oath suitable to the context:

Now, by two-headed Janus, Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time.
225

JASON
Dean Jonathan
Swift, seeking a vehicle for wit,

found the god

adequate to a short poem,

To Janus on New
God
rhime

Year's

Day

(1729):

Two-fac'd Janus,

of Time,
I

Be my Phoebus while

oblige your crony S[wif]t, Bring our Dame a New-Year's Gift: She has got but half a Face, Janus, since thou hast a Brace,

To

To my

lady once be kind, Give her half thy Face behind

Swift apparently wanted the lady to look backward so that she would not see the ruin that, he said, was coming, but she wittily
declined:

Give

me Time when coming on-

Who
By

regards him when he's gone? the D[ea]n though gravely told,

New

Years help to

make me

old

But she agreed to accept a gift. In The Faene Queene (4. 10. 12) Doubt, the gatekeeper of the temple of Venus, has two faces,
Th'one forward looking, th'other backeward bent, Therein resembling lanus auncient
. .

W. H. Auden, who

For Spenser the double face symbolizes uncertainty, and for speaks in the New Year Letter (1. 305) of

"the Janus of a joke/' it suggests a significant ambiguity. JASON (ja'sfin) was the chief of the ARGONAUTS.

JOCASTA

(j&'kas'td)

was the mother and

later

the wife of

Oedipus, king of THEBES. JOVE (jov) is a Roman name for

is

ZEUS.

Roman name of HERA. JUNO (joc/no) JUPITER (j<x/pi'tr) is a Roman name for ZEUS.
the
226-

LAPITHS

LABDACUS (lab'cta-kus) was a LABYRINTH (lab'i-rmth), an

king of

THEBES.
maze on Crete in which

intricate

LACEDAEMON
Nymph

the Minotaur was imprisoned, was built by DAEDALUS. a (las'-de'mon) was the son of Zeus and

married Sparta, and because he succeeded in uniting the various peoples of Laconia, he became king of the chief region and gave both his own and his wife's name to the
Taygeta.
city

He

and

to the area.

Thus

the Lacomans, famous for their

military prowess, are also known in mythology as the Spartans and the Lacedaemonians.

and history both

LACHESIS

(Bk't-sJs)

is

LACONIA (Id-ko'm-d) LACEDAEMON.

one of the three Fates. See FATE. was a name of the country first ruled by
guard the golden apples of

LADON

to (Ia'd6n), a dragon, helps

the Hesperides. See

HERACLES.

LADUS (la'dus) was the son of Omphale and HERACLES. LAERTES (la-r'tez) was the father of ODYSSEUS. IAESTRYGONIANS (Igs'tri-go'ni-dnz), or Lestrygonians, fought
against

ODYSSEUS
(la/yus), the father of

LAIUS

LAOCOON

Oedipus, was a king of THEBES. of Poseidon who (la-6k'6-wSn) was the Trojan priest feared the Greeks even when they bore gifts. See TROJAN WAR. LAODAMIA (la'6-dd-mi'd) persuaded the gods to bring her husband Protesilaus back to her from Hades for three hours. See

TROJAN WAR.
LAPITHS
(tep'iths)

were a Thessalian people who warred con-

tinually against the Centaurs. See

THESEUS.
227,

LAR
LAR
(lar; plural,

LARES,

la'rez) is a

Roman

household god. See

HESTIA.

LARVAE

(lar've),

or Lemures, according to

Roman

mythology,

are evil spirits of the dead.

See

HESTIA.

LASTHENES (la$'th-nez) helped Eteocles defend THEBES. LATINUS (Id'tl'nus) was king of the Latians, who fought against
AENEAS.

LATIUM
AENEAS.

(la'shum)

was a region

in

Italy

conquered by

LATMOS
sleeps

(lat'mos)

is

the mountain in Caria where

is

Endymion
by
to

immortally and

visited each night

by ARTEMIS.

Roman name of Leto, the mother Zeus of Artemis and APOLLO. LAUREL, into which Daphne was transformed, is sacred APOLLO. IAVINIA (Ifl-ital-d) was the second wife of AENEAS. LAVINIUM (la-vim/I-taL) was a city founded by AENEAS. LEANDER (M-Sn'dAr) was the lover of HERO.
(Id-to'nd) is the

LATONA

LEDA WAR.

(le'da)

was the mother of Helen of Troy. See

TROJAN

(Im'n6s) is the island on which Hephaestus fell when Zeus hurled him out of heaven, and the first port of call of the
Argonauts. See

LEMNOS

ARGONAUTS, HEPHAESTUS.
Roman
mythol-

LEMURES

(ISm'u-rez), or Larvae, according to

ogy, are evil spirits of the dead. See HESTIA. LEO, the Lion, is a constellation and a sign of the

ZODIAC.

LERNEAN HYDRA
LESTRYGONIANS
against

(l&r-n&dn hi'drd), a water serpent with

nine heads, was killed by

HERACLES.
fought

(l&'tri-go'ni-dnz), or Laestrygonians,

ODYSSEUS.
is

LETHE (le'the) is a river of HADES. LETO (le'to) the mother by Zeus of

228

Artemis and

APOLLO.

LYRE
LEUCOSIA
GODS.
(loo-ko'si-a)
is

one of the three

Sirens. See

SEA
when

LEUCOTHEA
LIBERA
of

(Iod-k6th'-d) was the name given to Ino she became a sea goddess. See SEA GODS, ODYSSEUS. LIBER (li'Mr) is a Roman name of DIONYSUS.
(ll'bfr'd) is

Roman name of Persephone,

the daughter

Demeter and the wife of Hades. See

the Scales,
is

EARTH GODDESSES,

HADES.

LIBRA
LICHAS

(ll'bra),

a constellation and a sign of the

ZODIAC.
(ll'&is),

a friend of Heracles, was thrown into the sea

by the hero in his death agony. See HERACLES. LIGEIA (li-ji'a) is one of the three Sirens. See SEA

GODS.

LIRIOPE (lir-i'6-pe) LITYERSES (litl-Sr'sez) was killed by HERACLES.

was the mother of NARCISSUS.

LOTOS EATERS were visited by ODYSSEUS. LUCINA (166-si'na) is the Roman name of Ilithyia,
childbirth. See ARTEMIS, HERA. LUNA (loc/nd) is a Roman name of ARTEMIS.

the goddess of

LUPERCALIA
the

(loo'p&r-ka'H-a)

was a

festival in

honor of Faunus,

Roman PAN.
(loo-ti'mis) is
(lisl-us) is

LUTINUS
LYCIUS
suspected

Roman name for PRIAPUS. name of APOLLO.

a

LYCOMEDES

who was (li'k&-me'dez) was the king of Scyros of murdering Theseus. On his island Thetis hid
girl.

Achilles disguised as a

LYCURGUS
SUS.

(H-ktir'gus)

THESEUS, TROJAN WAR. was driven mad for opposing DIONYSee

LYCUS

(li'kus)

was the husband of Dirce and a regent of

was the only one of
brothers

THEBES.

LYNCEUS

(Inn/sods)

fifty

not murdered by his wife on his wedding night. See

who was HADES.

229

MACHAON
LYRE
shell.
is

a musical instrument that

tortoise

from

its

shell

and stretching

Hermes invented by taking a strings across the empty

He

presented the lyre to

APOLLO.

M
MACHAON
central Asia
(m<2'ka'6n), a son of Asclepius,

was a Greek leader

is a river (now called Menderes) of Minor that flows in so circuitous a course that its name has come down to our times as a symbol for aimless and involved movement It played a small part in many myths. It smoked, for example, with other rivers when Phaethon allowed

in the TROJAN WAR. MAEANDER (me-an'dr)

the chariot of the sun to approach too close to the earth; Heracles, having rescued Daphnis from bloodthirsty Lityerses,

were said

threw Lityerses* severed head into its stream, and its involutions to have served Daedalus as a model for the complex
next to
its

passages of the Labyrinth. The most famous attribute of the Maeander,

wandering
all swans,

course,

was

its

fine swans.

Some myths

relate that

when

they

felt

the approach of death, returned to the

banks of the Maeander

to
(5.

to sing their

dying swan song; and

it is

this

idea

that

Pope

alludes

in

65-66) when he describes the fall attack of the enraged virago Thalestris:

The Rape of the Lock of Sir Foplmg under the

Thus on Maeander's flowery margin lies Th' expiring Swan, and as he sings he dies,
lines that echo the

Roman

poet Ovid.

230

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

MAENADS (me'nSdz) were followers of DIONYSUS MANES (ma/nez), according to Roman mythology, are
MARPESSA

the

good

spirits of the dead in Hades. See HESTJA. (mar-pes'a) chose for her lover the mortal Idas

instead of the god APOLLO. is the Roman name of the god of war, ARES. MARSYAS (mar'si-ds) was a Satyr who entered a musical contest

MARS

with

APOLLO.

MATER MATUTA
SEA GODS.

is a (ma'tir m<H6c/td), or Roman goddess of dawn and sea travel; in the second aspect she is identified with Leucothea. See EOS, and Leucothea under

MATUTA,

MATRONALIA
HERA.

(m^t'ro-na !!^)

was a

festival

in honor of

MECHANITIS

MEDEA

(mgk'a-m'tis) is a surname of ATHENE. en(m-de'<i) was the wife of Jason and a powerful

chantress. See

ARGONAUTS, THESEUS.
was given
its

MEDITERRANEAN SEA
therefore

name because

it

lay

in the midst of most of the lands

known

to the ancients

and was

m a sense the middle of the world. Located between the

its

Dardanelles and Gibraltar on

east-west axis

and between
its

Europe and the continents of Asia and Africa on

axis, it

north-south
the dis-

has not entirely lost

title to its

name even with

lands in later days. Into this sea from its European side thrust out the Greek and Italian peninsulas, the two great centers of classic civilization. In early times Greek culture spread

covery of

new

out across its waters into Asia Minor, Egypt, and Sicily, even before the military genius of Alexander the Great spread its seeds in the recesses of Asia. Later, from Italy, the Roman
civilization

reached out to include

all

the lands that surround

the sea.

The Mediterranean

includes several lesser seas or subdivisions,

231

MEDUSA
of

which the best known are the Aegean Sea, lying between Greece and Asia Minor; the Ionian Sea, lying off the west coast

of the Greek peninsula;

Italian peninsula

and the

the Adriatic Sea, lying between the coast of modern Yugoslavia; and the
Italy

Tyrrhenian Sea, lying between the west coast of

island of Sardinia. In classic times the straits o

and the

Gibraltar were

known
all the

as the

Gates of Heracles and were thought to open out

on a waste of
way

water, the great river of Oceanus, to the end of the world.

which extended

MEDUSA

(me-du'sfl)

was the mortal Gorgon; the other two are

immortal See PERSEUS,

is

SEA GODS.

MEGAERA (m^-je'nz) one of the three FURIES. MEGARA (mSg'a-rtf) was the first wife of HERACLES. MEGAREUS (mgg'^rdos) helped Eteocles defend THEBES. MELAMPUS (m'lam/pus) became a prophet because he was
his servants
as if they

allowed to share some of the wisdom of the serpent. Learning that had killed two snakes, Melampus burned their bodies

had been human beings and protected their offspring. When the two young snakes grew up, they came one night where Melampus was sleeping and licked his ears. He woke up in a
terrible fright,

but he soon discovered that he could understand

the speech of

all creatures.

some of the

Shortly after he acquired this gift Melampus tried to steal cattle of Iphiclus for his brother, who was forbidden

to see the girl he loved until

prospective father-in-law.

The

cattle

he presented these cattle to his were closely guarded, and

in a

in Iphiclus' house. After nearly a year of captivity he heard two termites chuckling because the beams were almost eaten through and the

Melampus was captured and imprisoned

room

house was about

his prisoner

Melampus warned Iphiclus, who humored him outside. At once the house collapsed, by taking and Iphiclus, with a new respect for Melampus, offered him a
to fall.

232

METAMORPHOSES
herd of
cattle in return for a cure for his impotence.

From a

bird

Melampus learned
goats.

by the bloody knife with which

Melampus

that Iphiclus as a child had been frightened his father had been castrating a glass of wine mixed with rust from prescribed

the knife, and within nine months Iphiclus became a father. The herd of cattle Melampus gave to his brother, who was thus

able to marry the girl of his choice. Melampus continued his career as a soothsayer with great success.

MELANIPPUS

MELANTHIUS
ODYSSEUS.

(mgl'a-mp'us) helped Eteocles defend THEBES. (m-lan'thi-us) was the unfaithful goatherd of

MELEAGER (m&l-a'j&r) BOAR HUNT.

MELICERTES
Palaemon. See

was the hero of the

CALYDONIAN

(mSll-sfe/tez),

a mortal, became the sea god

the

SEA GODS.
(mgl-pom'i-ne)
is

MELPOMENE
MUSES.

Muse of

tragedy.

See

(mSm'non), a king of Ethiopia, fought with the Trojans against the Greeks. See EOS, TROJAN WAR. MENELAUS (men'Ma'us) was the husband of Helen of Troy.
See

MEMNON

ATREUS, TROJAN WAR.

(m*ne's6os), because of a prophecy, sacrificed his
save

MENOECEUS
life to
is

THEBES.
(2)

MERCURY the Roman name for HERMES. MEROPE (mgr'6-pe) (1) was loved by ORlON;
of

was the wife

SISYPHUS.
/

METAMORPHOSES (mt a-m6r'f&-sez),

"transformations,"
is

a Greek

word meaning

the

title

hexameters by the Roman familiarly, Ovid. These poems take their

that each story
is

of a large group of poems in Latin poet P. Ovidius Naso or, more

title

from the

fact

at least theoretically based

on a miraculous

transformation, such as that of Narcissus Into a flower, though

2)3

METANIRA
minor part in the Ovid's tales of transformations range all the way from story. the change of Chaos into the created world down to the change
actually the transformation often plays a rather

and they include the myths of and Adonis, Pyramus and Thisbe, Perseus and Aphrodite Andromeda, Jason and Medea, and Ceyx and Alcyone, to name
of Julius Caesar into a god,

but a few

(all

Indeed, the Metamorphoses

of these are recounted elsewhere in this book). is one of the great sources of informa-

tion about myths of this kind,

and

it

has been a quarry for poets

and prose

writers of all succeeding ages.

METANJRA
METIS
ZEUS.

(met'd-mr'a) was the mother of a family that beGODDESSES. friended Demeter at Eleusis. See

EARTH

(mentis)

was the goddess of cleverness and the

first

wife of

MEZENTIUS (me-'zen'shi-us) fought against AENEAS MIDAS (mi'dds), king of Phrygia, was given two gifts by two gods.
Because Midas did him a favor, Dionysus granted him one wish. Midas chose that everything he touched should turn to gold, but
troublesome that he had to ask the god to take it away from him. On another occasion Midas declared that Pan's music was superior to Apollo's, and Apollo gave Midas a

he found

this talent so

pair of donkey's ears See

MINERVA (mi-ner'vtf) MINOS (mi'nos), once

is

APOLLO, DIONYSUS. the Roman name for ATHENE.

is

king of Crete,

a judge in Hades. See

DAEDALUS, HADES, THESEUS

MINOTAUR
human
See

(mm'&'tor) was a monster, half-bull and halfis

DAEDALUS, THESEUS
(n^-mozl-ne)
the goddess of

MNEMOSYNE

memory and

the

mother by Zeus of the MUSES.

MOERAE (me're) are the Fates. See FATE. MOLY (mo'le) the magic herb that saved Odysseus from Circe's
is

enchantment. See
234

ODYSSEUS.

MUSES

MOMUS
lor

(mo'rnus), a son of Night, is the god of faultfinding and mockery. As the licensed grumbler of Olympus, he blamed Zeus

putting the bull's horns on its head rather than on its shoulders, which were stronger, and he found fault e\en with the

beauty of Aphrodite he criticized her shoes. Finally the gods tired of his mockery and kicked him out of Olympus. In Ode to
the

Comic
this

healthy criticism that

In

George Meredith uses Momus as a symbol of the is needed to keep both gods and men sane. poem, after Momus is thrown out of Olympus, all the
Spirit

other gods degenerate.

MORPHEUS MORS (morz)

See HADES MULCIBER

(mor'fus) is the chief god of dreams. See HADES. is the Roman name of Thanatos, the god of death.

(mul'si-ber)

is

Roman name
on

for

HEPHAESTUS.
of

MUSES, The
their

Muses, or the Pierides, as they are often called after

the spring Pieria
the slopes

birthplace,

Mount

and Olympus, are goddesses whose special nature is to inspire of encourage the arts. They are supposed to be the daughters Zeus and the Titaness Mnemosyne, who is the goddess of memory.

The symbolism
duce the
arts.

is

obvious: divine inspiration and

memory

pro-

The Muses

are nine in

group of related arts as with her name a symbol or symbols drawn from the art that she their associated arts and symbols patronizes. The nine Muses with
are:

number, and each has a single art or her province. Each also has associated

Clio

history

wreath of laurel and

scroll

Melpomene

tragedy

tragic

mask and buskin, or

co-

thurnus (a high, thick-soled boot worn by actors in tragic drama)

235

Terpsichore

dancing

wreath,

lyre,

and cymbals

Traditionally the Muses reside in several springs, Castalia on

and Aganippe and Hippocrene on Mount Helicon. Hippocrene sprang from a place where Pegasus, the winged horse of the Muses, stamped his hoof on dry ground (for this famous horse see BELLEROPHON). The waters of these springs were supposed to give inspiration in the arts to whoever drank of them. Worship of the Muses seems to have been located originally on Mount Olympus where they were thought to have been born, but it later spread to Mount Helicon and also to Mount Parnassus, where Apollo, who is a close associate of the Muses, had his oracle at Delph} on the steep side of the mountain. Besides inspiring poets and other artists, the Muses themselves
Parnassus,

Mount

sometimes providing entertainment for the gods on Olympus, and sometimes even appearing at human
engage in the
arts,

236

MUSES
occasions such as the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. They also engaged in a contest with the nine daughters of a man named

Pierus

equals; into birds.

who boastfully had said that his daughters were their when the Muses had won, the daughters were changed

In English poetry the Muses are referred to probably more often than any other classical figures, for poets have habitually
to supply the inspiration with which to make good or have habitually complained about their unreliability poetry when they were needed most. The Teares of the Muses (1591)

called

on them

by

state to

Spenser shows them lamenting individually the low which letters in England had fallen at that time, a lament that must be considered to have had a good -effect in view of the or twenty literary works that were produced in the next fifteen

Edmund

years.

William Blake expresses a similar complaint about

letters

in his

own

time, in a short

poem

called

To

the Muses, in

which

he surmises that they must be absent from the scene. Milton, whose love of things classical was second only to his love of
Christian theology, turns the Muse Urania to special use in the first book of Paradise Lost where he converts her to Christianity as the inspirer of the Hebrew prophets and calls her to sing of man's first disobedience, an invocation that he varies at the

on beginning of the seventh book of the same poem. In his Essay Criticism (L 215-216) Pope warns the critic,
'

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;

Drink deep, or
taste

not the Pierian spring;

here he alludes to the ability of the Muses to inspire through the waters of the spring in which they were born. Nearer to our own times, in 1807, Lord Byron wrote his farewell to the Muse,

was still on bidding her an "eternal Adieu"; but in 1812 he familiar terms with her and her sisters and spoke of them in
237

MYRMIDONS
admiring
lines in Childe
It

Harold
for

(1

62)

where he memorializes
his
as his

Mount

Parnassus.

remained

Walt Whitman, beginning

invoke himself

unclassical yawp,

Song of

Myself., to

own

Muse, using the poetic formula found in most classical epics and in other poems. Perhaps the best-known allusion to the Muses

own day is Archibald MacLeish's Invocation to the Social Muse, a poem in which he explains the dangers of being inspired
in our
to write

MYRMIDONS
MYRTILUS
of

contemporary political events into one's poetry. (mir'ml-dSnz) were the ant people given
(mir'tHus), the servant of King

to

Aeacus by ZEUS.

Oenomaus, was

bribed to betray his master by Hippodamia or Pelops, the parents

ATREUS.

N
NAIADS (na'adz) are water NYMPHS. NARCISSUS (nar-sls'us) was the handsome son of Liriope and a river god named Cephisus. Many fell in love with him, but he was indifferent to their advances and rejected their love. The Nymph
Echo was
so fond of

him

that

when he

refused her attentions,

she wasted away until only her voice remained (see NYMPHS), whereupon the other unfortunates prayed to the gods that
Narcissus be punished, and their prayer was answered. Some say the goddess Nemesis, who destroys the arrogant, brought about
his

punishment. One day Narcissus saw his own reflection in the clear water of a fountain and fell in love with it. He became

238

NARCISSUS
himself the victim of unrequited love, finally wasting away until

only the flower that bears his name remained in his place. Thus did divine irony make the punishment fit the crime, and thus did it provide also an appealing image to poets. Spenser
in

The

Faerie Queene

(3.

6.

45) refers to

Foolish Narcisse, that likes the watry shore,

and Christopher Marlowe in Hero and Leander (1. 74-76), wishing to make a comparison favorable to his hero, writes that
Leander 's features exceed
That
his

leapt into the water for a kiss

Of

his

own shadow, and despising many, ere he could enjoy the love of any.
postclassical version of the

Marlowe followed a

myth

that at-

tributed Narcissus' death to drowning. The original version seems to have been in Milton's mind when in Paiadise Lost
(4.

460-467) he has Eve describe

how

first

she saw her

own

reflection in limpid water:

I bent down to look, just opposite, Shape within the watry gleam appeerd Bending to look on me, I started back, It started back, but pleas'd I soon returnd, Pleas'd it returnd as soon with answenng looks Of sympathie and love, there I had fixt Mine eyes till now, and pm'd with vain desire, Had not a voice thus warnd me.

As

John Keats, who left few myths untouched, in 1 Stood Tip-toe upon a Little Hill (163) summarizes briefly the tale of
Narcissus pining o'er the untainted spring,

239

NAUSICAA
and
Shelley, describing other flowers in
(1.

The

Sensitive Plant,

allows three lines to the narcissi

18-20):

the fairest

among them

all

Who

gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess Till they die of their own dear loveliness.

Doubtless the best-known contemporary use of the myth

is

that of the psychologists, who apply the term "narcissism" to the condition of abnormal self-love

NAUSICAA
friended

(no-sik'a-fl)

was a lovely Phaeacian princess who be-

ODYSSEUS.
(nk't*r)
is

NECTAR NEMEAN

the drink of the gods.

(ne-me'^n)

GAMES originated in a funeral celebrated

LION
is

by the Seven against

THEBES.
was killed by

NEMEAN
NEMESIS

(nfrmMm)

HERACLES.

(n&n^'Sis) of the gods See FURIES.

the personification of the righteous anger

NEOPTOLEMUS

(ne'op-tol'S-mus),

who was also called Pyrrhus,

was the son of Achilles

NEPENTHE

fought in the TROJAN WAR. (ne-pSn'the), a magic drink that banished sorrow,

He

was given by the queen of Egypt

to

Helen of Troy

after the

TROJAN WAR.
NEPHELE (nf'-le) was the mother of Phrixus and Helle See ARGONAUTS. NEPTUNE is the Roman name for Poseidon. See SEA GODS.
NEREIDS (mrl-yidz) are the Nymphs of the See NYMPHS, SEA GODS. NEREUS (nir'oos) is one of the SEA GODSNESSUS
wife,

Mediterranean Sea.

(n&'us), a Centaur, tried to attack Deianira, Heracles'

and was

Deianira to
240

by Heracles. Before he died, he persuaded save some of his blood as a charm against unfaithfulkilled

NYMPHS
ness.

A sacrificial robe envenomed with his blood caused the death

(n&'t&r) was a Grecian councilor in the

ot

HERACLES.

NESTOR

TROJAN

WAR. NIKE (ni'ke), the goddess of victory, ATHENE. NINUS (nl'nus) was a king of ancient
NIOBE

is

one of the aspects of

Babylon; his tomb was

the trystmg place of Thisbe and PYRAMUS. (m'6-be) boasted that she was superior to Leto; therefore
terrible venge-

Apollo and Artemis, the children of Leto, took a

ance. See

ARTEMIS, ATREUS.
(no'tus)
is

NOTUS

the south wind. See

WINDS.

NUMITOR
Remus. See

(num/Hor) was the grandfather of Romulus and

ROME.
(nik'tus)

NYCTEUS
THEBES.

was the father of Antiope and a regent of

the Greek hierarchy, a

NYMPHS are lesser divinities in

group of

the world beings who ihave the form of lovely girls and live in with human beings but are more closely kin to the gods, whose children or wives they often are. The word "nymph" is derived

from the Greek word

for "bride,"

which became generalized to

Each
tree,

mean "maiden."
Specifically, the

Nymphs

are nature spirits.

stream,

meadow, and mountain has

one such guardian spirit, thousands of them in the world of and consequently there are nature. Nymphs are classified by the part of nature that they inhabit, and of the many such classifications, the most important are:
living in
it

Oreads

mountain Nymphs
tree

Dryads and Hamadryads

Naiads

Nymphs
of rivers

Nymphs
tains

and foun-

241

NYMPHS
Oceanids

Nymphs
Oceanus

of the great river of

Nereids

fifty

daughters of Nereus

who

are the

Nymphs

of the Medi-

terranean Sea

Greek mythology recounts many involvements between the Nymphs and the gods and between the Nymphs and the human
frequent attendants at divine weddings, or at the weddings of mortals of wihom they were fond. It is with this in mind that Spenser, having called on the Muses to aid him
race.

The Nymphs were

in the celebration of his

own wedding

in his

Epithalamion (37-

39), asks these divine ladies to bring with

them

all the Nymphes that you can heare Both of the nuers and the forrests greener

And

of the sea that neighbours to her neare,

to deck the bridal

bower of his beloved.

Also, in the Prothalamion

(34-36), a

poem

written to celebrate the betrothal of the two

daughters of the Earl of Worcester, he describes the

Nymphs

of

Thames River gathering were brides who wished

the

flowers along the riverbank as

if all

To

decke their Bndegromes posies

Against the Brydale day, which was not long: Sweet Themmes runne softly till I end my song.

For Spenser these Nymphs express the spiritual loveliness of nature, and his description made an impression on T. S. Eliot, who echoes it ironically when the wishes to express the debase-

ment

of values in our

own

materialistic times

(The Waste Land,

179-183):

242

NYMPHS
The nymphs
are departed.

And

their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors, Departed, have left no addresses.

Sweet Thames, run

softly

till

end

my

song

There

is

irony, too, in Pope's use of the

description of
(2.

word "nymph" as a Belinda, the heroine in The Rape of the Lock

19-20):

This Nymph, to the destruction of mankind, Nourished two Locks, which graceful hung behind.

Among

all

the thousands of

Nymphs who

expressed nature

good many were the subjects of individual to one myth, an Oread named Echo talked so myths. According
for the Greeks, a

much

that she annoyed Hera, the queen of the gods, who in to exasperation at last laid on her the curse of not being able
all

speak at

except to repeat what others said in her hearing. love Subsequently Echo fell in love with Narcissus, and when her faded away until only her voice was unrequited, she gradually remained, still echoing what she heard among the hills and
valleys (see

NARCISSUS). Milton has a song about her in his Comus (229-242), and allusions to Echo are frequent in masque

other English poetry.

Another Nymph, Arethusa, was pursued in passion by the river god Alpheus. When Arethusa called on Artemis for help, Artemis changed her into a stream and caused her to flow
under the ground and under the sea to return to the surface on the island of Ortygia. Alpheus, however, was equal to the
occasion

and flowed
as

after her, ultimately

mingling his waters

this

with Arethusa's
i

he desired. Spenser gives a parallel to

From "The Waste Land," by

1935 Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and

their permission.

S Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 1909Company Reprinted with

241

NYMPHS
myth in his story of Molanna and Fanchin, two Irish streams, in The Faerie Queene (7. 6. 40-55), his purpose being to add the
patina of myth to the countryside of Ireland.

He

also echoes the

Arethusa story in Colin Clouts

of

Come Home A game

in the story

Bregog and Mulla. John Keats, in Endymion (2. 936-1017), takes up where the myth leaves oft and tells a symbolic aftermath in which Arethusa, still treasuring her chastity and still
ebulliently pursued by Alpheus,
still

refuses

and

still flees

him

as

the two streams rush through Keats's fanciful countryside ley provides a colorful retelling of this myth in his

Shel-

poem

Arethusa.

Another Nymph who has been the subject of much attention in later poetry is Oenone, a Nymph of Mount Ida, who lived with Prince Paris of Troy for several years. When Paris left her
marry Helen, she foretold that he would be wounded in the Trojan War and made him promise to return to her to be healed. Paris was wounded just as she had foreseen, and he did have
to

himself carried back to Oenone; but she exercised a feminine

privilege

and refused

to help him,

Oenone then
counts, died
story in

on

regretted her refusal Paris* funeral pyre. Tennyson has retold Oenone's

and he consequently died. and, according to some ac-

two poems. In Oenone the Nymph speaks for herself and, in her grief at Paris' desertion, recounts all the events leading up to his departure to seek Helen; she closes with a foreboding

of the coming war. In a much later poem, The Death of Oenone, Tennyson returns to the theme to tell the rest of the story of

Oenone's refusal to see her former lover and of both their deaths.
Several other

Nymphs

as the

English poetry. Three mother of the great Achilles,

are the subject of notable reference in of the Nereids are well known: Thetis

Amphi trite
Panope

as the wife of
as

Poseidon, the Olympian sea god; and

the

Nymph
first

whom
244

Milton describes in Lycidas (50-51, 98-102) where he

NYMPHS
blames the Nymphs
T

for allowing

ihis

and

their beloved friend

ycidas to

drown

in the sea:

Where were ye Nymphs when the remorseless deep Clos'd o're the head of your lov'd Lycidatf

and then exonerates them of negligence, blaming fortune on the unlucky ship in which he sailed,

Lycidas' mis-

The Ayr was

It

calm,

and on the
all

level brine,

Skek Panope with

was that
fatall

her

sisters

play'd
curses dark,
thine.

and perfidious Bark Built in th'echpse, and rigg'd with That sunk so low that sacred head o

Dryope, a mortal

girl,

was transformed into a Dryad because

she injured the Dryad of the lotus tree. The story illustrates the ancients' reverence for the spirits who inhabited and protected the forms of nature. One day Dryope with her child and her sister

was picnicking by a pool on a tree-fringed stream. When the child cried for a lotus flower, Dryope picked one, but she saw blood
drip from the stem. She had hurt the Dryad Lotis. In horror Dryope tried to run, but her feet were rooted in the ground and

soon bark covered her body. As she

lost the last of her mortality she begged her sister to teach the child not to pick flowers or tear branches off trees. Walter Savage Landor tells this story in a poem

of the island of Ogygia, kept the homeher prisoner of love for eight years and seeking Odysseus released him only on orders from Zeus himself. A Nymph of latter-day creation is Sabrina, whom Milton in his masque Comus

called Dryope. Calypso, the

Nymph
as

invented to be the resident

frequent use of

Nymph

of the Severn river.

The most

Nymphs

the generalized use of the

in English poetry, however, is doubtless word to mean merely a beautiful

245

OCEANIDS
woman.
It is in this

sense that
3.
1.

Hamlet

uses the

word in speaking

to Ophelia (Hamlet,
.

88-89):
in thy orisons

Nymph,

Be

all

my

sins

rememb'red.

OCEANIDS

(6-se'a-nidz) are the

of Oceanus. See

Nymphs NYMPHS, SEA GODS.

was the
first

of the great stream

OCEANUS
ODYSSEUS

(o-se'a-nus)

of the

SEA GODS.

character com(6-dis'dos), or Ulysses, in his heroic of physical strength and skill with greatness of bined greatness mind; thus he was the prototype of classical greatness and a
fitting

hero for Homer's epic poem, the Odyssey. His huge stature

and

his great strength caused strangers constantly to mistake

him

for a god,

wisdom was responsible not only for the Greeks' winning the war against Troy but for making possible his own survival against years of hardships on his way home, hardships that cost the lives of all his men and left him
and
his resourceful
all

a solitary survivor. Perhaps the key to

in

Odysseus' greatness,
to his

Greek

eyes,

was

his piety, especially for

it

Zeus and Athene, who

were his patrons, for

strength, that

was

this piecy,

added

wisdom and

the immortal favors necessary to provide the happy ending to all his struggles. Odysseus was ior the Greeks the figure of heroic success against all the hardships of
this world,

won him

and

as

such a figure he has survived even to the

twentieth century.

246

ODYSSEUS
Odysseus was the son of Anticlia and Laertes, king of Ithaca the neighboring islands His young manhood was distinleast
first

and

guished by at
later
life.

two incidents that were important to his

of these occurred

The

on

a visit to his grand-

THE

FAMILIES OF ODYSSEUS, PENELOPE, AND

Prometheus Epimetheus

HELEN OF TROY

Pandora

Perieres

Deion

Icarms

Tyndareus

Leda

Zeus

Cephalus

Procris

Penelope

Castor

Clytemnestra

Polydeuces

Helen

Arcesms

Anticlia = Laertes

Penelope

Odysseus

Telemachus

Mount Parnassus. Odysseus parents, who lived on the slopes of killed a great boar, but not before he had been wounded on the knee by the boar's tusks, a wound that left a scar during his
entire life and

made

identification of

him

always possible to

all

who knew The second

of

it.

incident brought

him a bow

of great strength.

Laertes sent Odysseus as an ambassador to Lacedaemon, and there

247

ODYSSEUS
he became friendly with Iphitus, who gave him the bow of
his

father Eurytus, a bow that in later rimes only Odysseus himself had the strength to bend This fact his wife's insolent suitors

found out

to their grief.

Odysseus reached young manhood, his father retired from the throne and gave over the kingdom to him. Shortly thereafter Odysseus became a suitor for Helen, the most beautiful

When

woman

of classic times (see

TROJAN WAR).

Because

many

other kings of Greece were also suitors for her hand, Odysseus proposed that she be allowed to make her own choice but that
first

all

her suitors take an oath to protect and defend her

wedlock. This scheme being agreed, on, Helen chose Menelaus Odysseus prudently found another object for ihis affections and

married Penelope, a young lady of virtue as great who in due course bore him a son, Telemachus.

as

her wealth,

Odysseus for some years found himself in the enviable position of being 'happily married and in control of a peaceful and pros-

perous kingdom. Such happiness could not last long, and its end came abruptly. Queen Helen, moved by the mortal charm of Prince Paris of Troy and the immortal urgings of Aphrodite,
left

her husband and eloped to Troy. Menelaus therefore de-

manded the fulfillment of the contract that all his fellow kings had sworn to at the time of the marriage, and -he called on them to make war against the Trojans for the recovery of his
wife.

Odysseus, who had invented the contract, could hardly refuse the summons; yet he found the leaving of his wife and infant

son too

much

to face. Moreover,

he went he would return only

of friends.
insane; as

after severe hardship

an oracle had told him that if and the loss

an ox
248

therefore resorted to guile and pretended to be proof of his insanity, he yoked together a horse and and set about plowing the sands of the seashore. Yet

He

ODYSSEUS
method showed through
his madness, for when his friends, to him, placed the baby Telemachus in the path of the plow, try he turned aside to spare the child. They accused him of sanity,

and he had
Odysseus'

to

abandon the
task

ruse.

first

was

to

draw another

hiding. This hero was

Achilles,

who was

great hero out of destined to live a long

die

undistinguished

life

or to

win fame and

young in the

siege

him from of Troy. His mother Thetis was determined going to Troy, and she disguised him as a woman and hid him
to prevent

in the court of

King Lycomedes on the

seeking Achilles.

island of Scyros. Odysseus

donned a

disguise to detect a disguise. Dressed as a trader,

he

traveled about

At

the court of Lycomedes, while

showing his wares to the ladies, he showed also a splendid suit of armor and at the same time had a call to arms sounded. The martial combination was too much for Achilles, who with his unladylike eagerness seized on the armor and thus revealed
identity.

readily accepted the invitation to war. were nuOdysseus' other services to the Greek cause at Troy merous. The details are given in the article on the Trojan War;

He

so here

it

will suffice to

name them

briefly.

Most

of

them show

the ingenuity of Odysseus and his skill chief mediator between the quarreling

with words.

He was

the

Greek

leaders,

Aga-

memnon and

Achilles;

and

later,

when

Achilles was killed

by the

arrow from Paris* bow, Odysseus rescued his body and fought his way back with it to the Greek camp so that it might have armor was awarded to Odysseus. fitting burial. Achilles' Late in the war, when the Greek cause was making little headHis name was way, a son of King Priam of Troy was captured. of prophecy. To the Greeks he had the Helenus, and the
gift

must do three prophesied that in order to obtain victory they aid of Achilles' son, Neoptolemus; things: obtain the fighting the bow and arrows of Heracles; and, finally,, secure procure
249

ODYSSEUS
possession of the Palladium (see ATHENE), a sacred statue of Athene whose presence in Troy guaranteed the security of the city. Odysseus was able to accomplish all three of these tasks. First

he sailed

to Scyros again

and won the aid

task

of

Neoptolemus by pre-

senting to him the Greek forces.

his father's armor.

The second

Neoptolemus promptly joined was more difficult, for Heracles'

bow and

arrows belonged to Philoctetes, a wounded hero whom the Greeks had abandoned on Lemnos because his screams and the

smell of his
tetes

wound had been

too
this

much

had naturally resented

Greek nerves, Philoctreatment and was not kindly

for

disposed to his

former friends, but Odysseus and Neoptolemus or

to join the Greek forces again (see third project also was compassed by Odysseus' wile. Disguised as a beggar, lie made his way into the citadel of Troy and found where the Palladium was kept. Later

Diomedes persuaded him

PHILOCTETES). The

he returned with Diomedes and carried

Greek camp. and all that repreliminary steps mained was to force the issue with the Trojans, no small problem in view of their resolute refusal to come out of the town.
it oft

to the

The

had now been

taken,

Prompted by Athene, his patroness, Odysseus proposed the stratagem of the wooden horse, which carried the day. When Troy had been captured and sacked and when all the spoils of the city had been divided, the Greek chieftains set out for their homes. For some this was only a short journey, but for

who was soon to be cursed by the sea god Poseidon, the ended only aften ten long years and brought him home, journey
Odysseus,
as

Poseidon decreed,

late,

"in evil case, with the loss of all his

[to]

company, in the ship of strangers, and

house" (Odyssey,
9).

find sorrows in his

The

story of his travels forms the subject of

Homer's Odyssey, an epic poem whose title has survived as the modern word for a long adventuresome journey and whose contents

have proved a rich quarry for English poets for the past four

250

ODYSSEUS
centuries. In the following brief account of this journey, a few typical literary references have been included.

When Odysseus and ,his men set sail for Ithaca, they began at once to suffer the hardships foreseen by the oracle that Odysseus had consulted before he embaiked ior Troy. Landing at Ismarus,
the city of the Cicones, the Ithacans captured it and seized a great deal of spoil; but the Cicones gathered together a larger force and counterattacked. In the battle that ensued, Odysseus
lost six of his

men from each ship and had to flee seaward. On the sea, a tempest beset them for two days and two nights, so that they had to furl their sails and run before the north wind.
tried to sail

On

the third day, the tempest having subsided somewhat, they around Cape alea, the southernmost point ot the

Creek mainland, and to turn northward toward Ithaca; but the north wind renewed its fury and drove them off course. For nine days they were blown across the seas, and on the tenth they landed in the country of the Lotos Eaters. Here they
weie able to get fresh water, and Odysseus sent a scouting party inland to see what the inhabitants were like. There they found men who ate the "honey-sweet*' fruit of the lotos, an enchanted fruit. These men gave the fruit to some of the Ithacans, and its Inmagic effect caused them to lose all desire to return home.
wished to remain forever with the Lotos Eaters in the sweet forgetfulness caused by the fruit. Their feelings are described by Tennyson in The Lotos Eaters:
stead, they

They sat them down upon the yellow sand, Between the sun and moon upon the shore; And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, Of child, and wife, and slave, but evermore Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Weary
the wandering fields of barren foam.

Then someone said, "We will return no more"; And all at once they sang, "Our island home Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."
251

ODYSSEUS
Odysseus, however, forced them to return to the ships, where he so that they could not escape; and the Ithacans

had them bound

set

They came next on the name means "round-eyes"). The (whose

out once more.

island of the Cyclopes

seidon, were a fierce

and unruly race o

Cyclopes, sons of Pogiants, each ot whom

his forehead

had but

a single eye placed in the

middle of

They

were shepherds who lived on their flocks and on the crops that grew without cultivation on the island.
Fearing danger,
to the

Odysseus

left

eleven

of

his

twelve

ships

beached on a waste island

offshore,

and in the twelfth ship went

mam

wine for a

present.

island to explore, taking along a goatskin full of On the main island he and his men found a

great cave stored plentifully with cheeses and with young lambs and kids. Ignoring his men's urgings that they content themselves

with taking the cheeses and escaping, Odysseus resolved to await the return of the giant Cyclops to whom the cave belonged.

Soon their waiting was rewarded, and the Cyclops Polyphemus came back, shepherding his flocks. He drove his flocks inside the cave and then blocked its entrance with a stone so great that
twenty-two wagons could not hold it. Polyphemus first milked his ewes and then, discovering his guests, asked who they were. Odysseus replied that they were

Greeks and asked hospitality in the name of Zeus. Polyphemus replied that he had no regard for Zeus; and die seized two of
the men, dashed out their brains, and ate

watched in horror while he finished

until he
fell

his dinner,

them raw. The Ithacans and then waited

asleep.

murder him
if

counsel as to whether they should before he awoke again, but Odysseus perceived that

They took

they did so they would perish because of the great stone blocking the entrance of the cave.

dilemma, Odysseus was able to devise a stratagem. He and his men waited until the Cyclops had left with his flocks
In
this

252

ODYSSEUS
and then they took his club, a large pole o and sharpened its end. When they had hardened the point in the fire, they put it in hiding until the following night. The Cyclops took two more Ithacans for his supper Odysseus then gave him the skin oi wine for dessert; thus Polyphemus went drunk to sleep. When he was deeply asleep, Odysseus and his men took out the pointed pole, heated it again in the fire, and
for the next day,

olive wood,

plunged its point into the giant's eye. Polyphemus awoke in a rage of pain and

called

on the other

Cyclopes to aid him. Unfortunately for him, the wily Odysseus

had assumed the pseudonym of "Noman" in his conversations with Polyphemus, and when the other Cyclopes asked Polyphemus who was injuring him, the giant replied, "Noman/* to which his fellows counseled him somewhat dryly to turn tor aid to his
father, the

god Poseidon. morning the Cyclops rolled away the stone his flock to go out to graze, but he felt the back of to permit each sheep as it passed by him, Odysseus tied the rams together in threes, and his men, one by one, suspended themselves under the middle ram of each group. In this way they all escaped; Odysseus himself came out under the last ram. They had embarked safely and were making for the open sea when pride overcame Odysseus, and he could not resist call-

On

the following

ing back to the giant to taunt him. He even told Polyphemus his true identity and thus laid himself open to the wrath of Poseidon,

whose curse was quoted

earlier in this account. Polyphe-

a great stone that nearly swamped the ship, but Odysseus and his men safely rejoined the other Ithacans waiting on the small island, and all put out to sea, leaving the frustrated violence of Polyphemus on the receding shore. T. S. Eliot draws

mus

cast

from that brutal personality its essence for ironic use in Sweeney Erect where he describes Sweeney, the symbol of coarse vulgarity, in bed with an epileptic prostitute:
253

ODYSSEUS
Morning
stirs

the feet and hands

(Nausicaa and Polypheme), Gesture of orang-outang Rises from the sheets in steam

Here

(he

probably intends a contrast between Sweeney,

is

who

though physically healthy,

woman, who though

will

epileptic

all lust, and the has about her nonetheless some

violence and

possibility of the sweet innocence of

meet

later in his journeyings

see

whom Odysseus another story about (For

Nausicaa

Polyphemus

GALATEA

Odysseus and his men next encountered Aeolus, the god of the winds, on his island The god was kind to the wanderers from Ithaca, and they stayed to enjoy his hospitality for an entire month, during which time Odysseus told him about the Trojan War. Then as a parting gift, Aeolus gave to Odysseus a bag in which he had enclosed all adverse winds; he also gave him a favorable west wind to blow him on his way. For nine days the expedition sailed securely toward home, and the travelers were
actually in sight of their native land when the curiosity of the men as to what the bag contained overcame them and they

At once the stormy winds burst forth and blew them all the way baetf' to Aeolus' island, where the god met them with disfavor because he interpreted their misfortune to mean that they were in bad standing with the Olympians. He asked them to leave his island at once, and they did so, heavy of heart. After six more days of sailing the seas, they came on the opened
it.

seventh to the island of the Laestrygonians, or Lestrygonians, a race of giant man-eaters who, like the Cyclopes, were children
of the

god Poseidon

reconnaissance party of three

whom

Odysseus sent to examine the place was attacked and one man eaten. There followed a fierce battle in which the Laestrygonians

iFrom "Sweeney Erect," by T. S Ehot, in his Collected Poems, 19091935. Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Reprinted with their permission

254

ODYSSEUS
fought with huge stones as their cousin Polyphemus had done, and the outcome was that only Odysseus and his single ship escaped death and destruction.

This single boatload, escaping in hasty flight, came next to Aeaea, an island on which lived the enchantress Circe, a daughter of Helios, the sun. Here they spent a day or two in peace,

but Odysseus while hunting saw the smoke rising from Circe's house. He divided his men into two groups, and they drew lots to see which would explore the island. The band led by Eurylolot, and they set off in the direction of Circe's house. There they tound an abundance of wild animals who fawned about them instead of attacking them, and they heard

chus drew the

Circe singing as she wove her web After some hesitation they entered and greeted the enchantress, all except Eurylochus, who

suspected a trap Circe gave them magical food, and when they had eaten it, she turned them into swine and drove them off to
the pigpen. All this Eurylochus reported to Odysseus. The hero decided therefore that he himself must face the enchantress, and, girding on his sword, he set off for Circe's house. On the way he was

met by Hermes, the messenger of the gods, who not only forewarned him of Circe's power but provided him with a charmed

When
him

herb called Moly, which would counteract her enchantments. a for Odysseus reached Circe's house, she prepared repast

which she put the customary charms; and when these failed, she struck him with her wand and commanded him to be changed into a hog. At this point, in accordance with Hermes' advice, Odysseus sprang up, drew his sword, and threatened to kill her. Circe then fell at his feet and acknowlalso, into

him by his edged him her superior in occult charms, calling own name and in the same breath inviting him to bed with her.
Carrying out Hermes' instructions, Odysseus
first

extracted a

255

ODYSSEUS
promise that she would try no more mischief and then accepted her invitation After the lovemaking, Odysseus persuaded Circe
to return his

companions

to their

former

selves.

Then

the entire

company, overriding the objection ot Eurylochus, settled down to a year of feasting and drinking. The myth of Circe has been a popular theme for English poets, who usually have seen it as a symbol of the power of the sensual
life to

transform

men

his needs,

embedded

it

into beasts. Spenser, modifying it to suit in the final canto of the Second Book

Faerie Queene, where it appears as the "Bower of Bliss," a wonderful garden ruled over by an enchantress named Acrasia
of

The

who has

Circe's power.

To

this

bower comes Guyon, the Red

Cross Knight of temperance, guided by a holy man, and violently destroys it. By a stroke of the holy man's "vertuous staffe" the
victims of Acrasia are returned from beastly to human form, all of them except a hog named Grill, who so much prefers being

hog

that he

is

allowed to remain one. Spenser's point

(2. 12. 87):

is

clearly

made by Guyon
.

See the

That hath

mind of beastly man, so soone forgot the excellence

Of his creation, when he life began, That now he chooseth, with vile difference, To be a beast, and lacke intelligence. This fragment of the main theme was also taken up in the nineteenth century by Thomas Love Peacock and made into a satirical

novel under the

title

of Grill Grange.

Milton provides Circe and Bacchus with a son Comus, whose name is the title of Milton's poem and who was in olden time
a minor god of mirth and orgy. The theme of of virtue to triumph over vice. The conflict Lady symbolizing chastity and the licentious
(46-58):

Comus
is

is the power between a lovely

and sensual Comus

256

ODYSSEUS
Bacchus that
first

from out the purple Grape,

Crush't the sweet poyson of mis-used

Wine

On Ctrces Hand The daughter o

Whoever

fell

the Sun?

(who knows not Circe Whose charmed Cup

tasted, lost his upright shape,

And downward fell into a groveling Swine) This Nymph that gaz'd upon his clustnng locks,
With
Ivy berries wreath'd, and his blithe youth,

Had by him, ere he parted thence, a Son Much like his Father, but his Mother more,

Whom therefore she brought up and Comus nam'd.

In the

poem we

find the tempter

up

to Circe's tricks.

who

(like his mother) has a

horde of human beings

whom
way

Comus, he has
of
life.

changed into

beasts, tries to

win the Lady

to his

able to imprison her in a magic chair, but he cannot persuade her to accept him. Her brothers with the aid of a guardian
is

He

spirit who gives them the magic herb (here called Haemony), and with the help of the river Nymph Sabrina finally rescue their
sister.

Circe also appears in Matthew Arnold's poem, The Strayed Reveller, where she provides a weaker drink whose power does not transform but merely affords a wonderful vision of pleas-

and her magic is the poem, The Wine of Circe:

ure;

subject of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's

Dusk-haired and gold-robed o'er the golden wine She stoops, wherein, distilled of death and shame, Sink the black drops; while, lit with fragrant flame,

Round

her spread board the golden sunflowers shine.

Hecatfc

Doth Helios here with

combine

(O For these thy guests all rapture in Love's name, Till pitiless Night give Day the countersign? Lords of their hour, they come. And by her knee
257

Circe, thou their votaress?) to proclaim

ODYSSEUS
Those cowering beasts, their equals who with them in new equality
Tonight
shall

heretofore,

Wait;

echo back the

sea's dull

roar

With a vain wail from passion's tide-strown shore Where the dishevelled seaweed hates the sea
This description
is

based on a painting by Burne-Jones.

When
minded

the seasons began to repeat themselves, the men reOdysseus that they ought to be getting home. The hero

thereupon called on Circe to fulfill her promise and give them their freedom. Circe agreed but informed him that first he must
seek out Tiresias, the blind soothsayer, in the underground realm of Hades. At this news, Odysseus, in a classic manner not fashionable in our times, sat

down on her bed and

wept, but the goddess

was adamant and gave him form the task.

full instructions as to

how

to per-

them

Accordingly, the Ithacans set sail again, and the wind brought at last to the entrance of Hades, which was close to the
city of the

land and the

Cimmerians, on the western side of Oceanus' stream Here, taking with him Perimedes and Eurylochus, Odysseus made his way into the underworld and, by per-

forming the sacrifices that Circe had specified, caused the strengthless dead to swarm around him. The first to appear was the spirit

who had fallen off Circe's roof and broken his neck. Then came Odysseus' mother, Anticlia, whom he had left alive when he sailed for Troy. Finally came Tiresias, who prophesied hardships yet to come on the journey back to Ithaca and who warned Odysseus that when he and his men should land on the island of Thrinacia they must avoid doing harm to the cattle
of Elpenor, of Helios, the sun. Failure to obey this warning, said Tiresias, would bring destruction to the ship and death to the men,

though Odysseus himself would escape. The Theban seer also told Odysseus that his house in Ithaca was filled with unruly
258

ODYSSEUS
suitors seeking the
his faithful wife, Penelope, and eating her lord's substance away. These, however, Odysseus was to

hand of

overcome and
Odysseus

slay in revenge.

also held conversation with his mother,

who

told

that Penelope remained alive and faithful to him. When she had done, he talked to Achilles and was struck with grief
to hear
(see

him

from Agamemnon the story of Clytemnestra's treachery ATREUS), which had sent Agamemnon's spirit to Hades.

Looking about him, Odysseus saw many of the famous inmates of Hades' kingdom, such as Sisyphus and Tantalus. Then Odysseus returned to his ship and set sail with his men again on the
stream of Oceanus.
they had returned to Circe's isle, their first act was to carry out a promise made to the spirit of Elpenor: they gave his body a suitable funeral and burial. Then Circe foretold to

When

Odysseus

how he might escape destruction by the Sirens, whom he must pass, and how he must deal with the two monsters, Scylla and Charybdis. The Sirens were mermaids who lived on a
rocky island and sang so enchantingly that passing mariners leaped in the sea or ran their ships against the rocks and were drowned.
Scylla
side

and Charybdis were two monsters who guarded either of a narrow passage of the sea, Scylla with her body halfcliff

sunk into a

so that her six dogs' heads reared themselves into

strait,

and Charybdis in a deep cave on the other side, into which three times a day she sucked down the waters of the sea and then spewed them up. Both these monsters and the Sirens are discussed in more detail under SEA GODS.
the air over the

Before passing the Sirens' isle, Odysseus followed the advice of Circe and stopped the ears of his men with wax. He also had them bind him to the mast of the ship, so that he could hear
the fatal song but be powerless to yield to it. The Sirens tempted him in every way, but his men, following their instructions,

259

ODYSSEUS
refused to loose him, and the ship consequently passed safely by. They now heard the sea roaring and saw the smoke rising above
dis.

that they were approaching Scylla and Charybordered the helmsman to steer away from Charybdis, Odysseus for that monster would have taken the whole ship, but this course
it;

so they

knew

naturally caused

them

to pass close

snatched up six of the

distress of their fellows.

men and devoured

ship
itself

by six-headed Scylla, and she them, to the great

escaped and came safely to the island of Thrinacia where the cattle of the sun lived.

In spite of

this disaster, the

Odysseus, remembering the words of Tiresias and of Circe, urged his men not to stop there, but they listened to the persuasions
of Eurylochus and decided to land. There they were delayed an entire month by the blowing of a southeast wind, which was

unfavorable to their course. During this time they kept their oath to Odysseus and did not disturb the cattle of the sun as

long as they had corn and wine; but one day, when their provisions were gone, and while Odysseus was asleep, they slew some
of the cattle

and prepared

to eat them.

Odysseus expected the

when he discovered what they had done, and Helios on Olympus demanded revenge from Zeus. A few days later the unfavorable wind fell off, and the men
worst

put their ship to sea again. Zeus kept his promise to Helios. He sent a great storm and then struck the ship suddenly with a thunderbolt. The ship came apart, and the men were drowned; only Odysseus, who had not offended Helios, survived. He kept
himself afloat by clinging to the mast and keel of the ship, which he had been able to bind together. Floating along in this manner, he came again to Scylla and Charybdis. Though Charybdis swallowed down the fragments to which he clung, Odysseus was able to save himself by seizing on a fig tree that grew over her

mouth and
260

waiting there for her to spew

up

the wreckage again.

ODYSSEUS
After floating along on the sea for nine days, he came to the
island of Ogygia, which belonged to the

Nymph

Calypso,

who

gave him

refuge.

Calypso not only gave him refuge; she also gave him her love, though Odysseus, remembering Penelope, accepted her love, as

he had that of
the

Circe, only because of necessity.

Nymph kept him on her

the

For eight years island while he yearned for home.

set

At

about having him released. She chose a time when Poseidon was away from Olympus on a

end of

this time,

Athene

visit

to the Ethiopians,

and she persuaded Zeus that Odysseus

had

enough to compensate Poseidon for his anger at for blinding Polyphemus. Zeus accordingly sent Hermes Odysseus
suffered

with orders to Calypso that she not only release Odysseus but help him on his way. These orders Calypso received with regret, but she obeyed
them. With her help, Odysseus fashioned a raft and set off again for home. Unfortunately, Poseidon on his way back from the
fche Ethiopians saw Odysseus and stirred up a storm to him. A great wave turned over the raft and threw the destroy hero into the sea, where he nearly drowned; but the sea goddess Leucothea took pity on him. She gave him a veil to wind around

land of

his chest

and promised that

it

would bring him

safely to shore.

Thus Odysseus reached

without mortal friend.

the shore naked except for the veil,

and

The

land to which he had come was Scheria, the land of the

Phaeacians, of

whom Alcmous

off his weariness in a small

was king. While Odysseus slept grove of trees, Athene went to the

house of Alcinous and put into the head of his daughter Nausicaa the idea that she should go down to the river to wash clothes.

This lovely girl did so, taking along a cart full of clothes and some maidens as attendants. When they had done their washing, they played a game of ball, and their shouts awakened Odysseus.
261

ODYSSEUS
The
hero looked forth from the grove, saw the young
ladies,

and

decided to throw himself on their mercy.

When

they all fled except Nausicaa, to whom Odysseus used all his guile in a winning speech, and as a result Nausicaa gave him clothes and took liim back to her father's
house.

he approached, Athene gave courage.

Alcinous accorded to
stranger.

Odysseus

all

the

hospitality

due

a-

he did

He offered him aid on his homeward journey, although not know who Odysseus was, and on the following day
his people to celebrate

he called in

games in Odysseus' honor.

at first

During
far
feat

these

games Odysseus, though

part, yielded to provocation, seized a large stone,

unwilling to take and threw it

beyond where anyone

proved him
a hero,

else had been able to throw it. This and Alcinous persuaded him then to

tell his

long story to the court.

Odysseus had completed the account of his wanderings, Alcinous suggested in the manner of the times that all should give gifts to Odysseus that he might not return home empty

When

handed from

taheir hospitality.

The

next morning the Phaeacians

provided a ship and stowed in it all these gifts. For Odysseus they prepared a pallet so that he might sleep. Odysseus was still
ried

deep asleep when they reached Ithaca, but the Phaeacians carhim and his possessions safely ashore. Thus he at last escaped
the wrath of Poseidon, wiho, discovering the deed, worked his

vengeance on the Phaeacian sailors by turning them to stone just as they were about to reach their home port.

Meanwhile Athene, in the form of a herdsman, woke up the sleepy Odysseus and asked him who he was, a question that the
crafty king,

who never
lie

trusted prying strangers, answered with

worthy in later days of Huckleberry Finn. Then resumed her own form and received with good temthe goddess per his mistaken reproach that she had for a long time desert* d

an elaborate

262

ODYSSEUS
him. Athene instructed him not to go directly to his palace, where the suitors of his wife were living a violent and debauched liie,

but to go instead

to the cottage of

an old and faithful swineherd

named Eumaeus;
there.

For a

disguise, she

she promised to send him further instructions changed him into an old man.

When Odysseus reached the cottage of Eumaeus, the old swineherd did not recognize him but received him hospitably anyway. He told Odysseus how the suitors were wasting his
master's goods in their riotous ways, and Odysseus gave him a long fictitious account of his own identity. Soon they were Telemachus, who had been off searching for news of

escaped the murderous hands of the suitors only by Athene's aid. Telemachus sent the old swineherd off to the palace to tell his mother of his safe return, and in
his

joined by father and

who had

Eumaeus' absence, Odysseus disclosed his identity to his son. Together father and son planned the destruction of the suitors. Then Telemachus went to the palace and gave his mother he Penelope an account of his trip. Following Odysseus' orders, not tell her that he had seen his father, but he assured her did that Odysseus was still alive, and to this encouragement one of his companions on the journey added that the omens showed that Odysseus was actually in Ithaca somewhere. Soon Odysseus, guided by Eumaeus and in disguise, made his

way toward
the suitors,

his palace

In the

fields

he encountered a friend to

an unfaithful goatherd named Melanthius, who kicked Odysseus as he passed; but Odysseus restrained his wrath, and he and Eumaeus at last came to his palace where the suitors
were
midst of a party. Pausing before the gate, his disguise by his dog Argus, Odysseus was recognized even in on a heap of dung. This wagging of now old and outcast,
as usual in the

lying

his tail

was

his last gesture, for as Odysseus passed

on into the

palace, old

Argus

died.

263

ODYSSEUS
Inside the palace Odysseus received hard words and slight courtesy from the suitors. One of them, Antinous, even struck

him with
treated

a stool, but Odysseus invoked the

wrath of the gods

against inhospitality to a stranger,

and

thereafter the suitors

kindly. When Penelope heard of the presence she wished to talk with him in the hope of of the stranger, hearing news of her lord, but Athene put her to sleep and thus postponed the interview. In the night, Odysseus and Telemachus,

him more

aided by Athene, stowed in

usually

a*

private

room

all

the weapons that

hung

in the hall.

Afterward, while the suitors slept, Odysseus remained in the hall, and there Penelope came to talk to him by the fire. She

did not penetrate his disguise, and he told her an elaborate lie about his identity. He also told her that her lord was not far

away and would

return,

word which he reinforced with such a

good description of his real self that Penelope was moved, though in her despair she did not believe the prophecy. As a
courtesy, however, she ordered Odysseus' old nurse, Eurycleia,
to

wash

his feet.

This old woman, while washing him, recognized

him by
boar,

had received in his youth from the and Odysseus was barely able to prevent her giving away
the scar that he

his secret.

The

lord's return,

night was a fateful one, for Penelope, despairing of her had agreed to choose from among the suitors a
the

new husband on
conditions:

first,

the next day, her choice to be based on two that they should rival one another to

present lavish gifts to her, her favors to incline to the most generous; and the second, that she would choose whoever could

bend and
last

string the great

bow

arrow through twelve axheads

of Odysseus and with it shoot an set in a row. These were the

of the devices of faithful Penelope to stave off an unwelcome marriage. Six years after the victory at Troy, when her husband's

264

ODYSSEUS
return had begun to seem impossible, she tried to keep off the suitors with the pretext that she could not marry until she

had completed

the weaving of a suitable shroud for old Laertes, For three years each day she worked on the but at night she secretly unraveled her work. During the web,

Odysseus' father.

fourth year, one of her maidens betrayed her secret, and the suitors forced her to finish the robe. She had scarcely finished
it

and taken it to Laertes when this fateful night forced decision on her. Thus Penelope became the symbol of the faithful wife, as
(23),

she appears, for example, in Spenser's Amoretti Thomas Carew in A Rapture (125-130) seeks to

though

impugn her

virtue in order to persuade his mistress to yield to him:

The Grecian dame,

That in her endless web toyl'd for a name As fruitless as her work, doth there display
Herself before the youth of Ithaca,

And

th'

amorous sport of gamesome nights prefer

lost traveller.

Before dull dreams of the

When

the others had gone to bed, Odysseus

made

himself a

and slept apart. Athene appeared to him, promised him aid, and gave him sleep. The next day Odysseus revealed himself to Eumaeus and another herdsman, asking their come at the suitors help in bolting the doors so that he might
pallet of sheepskins

without giving them an opportunity to escape. The suitors now before them gathered for the celebration. Penelope had brought and set the test. Telemachus placed the great bow of her lord
the twelve axheads in a row.
tried his
it

One by

one, each o

the suitors

hand

by the fire bend it. Then they decided to make sacrifices to Apollo, the god of archery, and to try the bow again the next day. At this point, Odysseus, in spite of their protests, seized
265

bending the bow, and all failed. They warmed and greased it with lard, but still they could not
at

ODYSSEUS
the bow.

He

bent

it

easily

and strung

it.

Then he

to the string

A which Odysseus soon used up all his arrows; but Telemachus supplied him with other arms and fought by his side. The suitors, too, obtained
arms, through the treachery of Melanthius, the wicked goatherd, but Athene gave the victory at last to Odysseus and his son. All
the suitors save one or two, for

and pierced the axheads; his violent fight ensued, in the insolent Antinous

an arrow second arrow killed

fitted

were

who

whom Telemachus asked mercy, then sent for the maidens of the house Odysseus had lived loosely with the suitors. He had them clean out
slain.

the mess of battle

and stack the dead

suitors neatly

on the

outside.

Then he had Telemachus hang When Penelope came down

these girls in

an outer

hall.

into the hall, she found order

restored. She refused to believe the old nurse Eurycleia,

who

told

her that Odysseus had returned and won this battle. Only after a long conversation with Odysseus himself was she at last per-

suaded that the good news was

fashioned out of a growing olive

true,

he

finally

convinced her

by his knowledge of the nature of

his

own

bed,

which he had

tree.

Now

there remained for Odysseus only to

to his father Laertes.

make himself known With Telemachus, he set off for the old

man's house

He found

old clothes and

Laertes working in his garden in filthy in great grief of mind that his son was lost.
sight,

Odysseus was moved by the

and

after lengthy conversation,

showed the old man that his grief was now without foundation. Their reunion was interrupted by the news that the kinsmen of several of the dead suitors were approaching, armed and intent on revenge; but these Odysseus and Telemachus, with the aid of
Athene, soon routed, and in fact Odysseus would have slain them all had not Athene stayed his hand.

now

Odysseus' troubles, as they are recorded in the Odyssey, were over, and he was free to return to Penelope and live out

266

ODYSSEUS
his days, awaiting the peaceful death at sea that Tiresias had foreseen for him. It remained for a poet of a later day, Lord

Tennyson,

to take

up

the story here. In the

poem

that bears the

Roman equivalent of Odysseus' name,

that the active old hero

Ulysses,

had been unable

to live

Tennyson imagines a quiet and

peaceful life after so much activity. He shows Ulysses setting forth to seek death at sea on another quest for knowledge and

Victorian

adventure. Reading this poem, one is more impressed with the mind of its author than with the classic personality of

its subject; for Tennyson, tired of the Victorian effort to reconcile science and religious faith, sees in the figure of Ulysses the person

who must go on
him.

learning,

It is restlessness that drives

its

though what he learns does not comfort him on, and the final statement
stoic attitude:

has become famous for

To

strive, to seek, to find,

and not

to yield.

use that James Joyce made of the Odyssean myths in his novel, Ulysses, though conventional in the basic respect that it
represents Ulysses as the symbolic wanderer of the world, is strikingly unconventional in other respects. Joyce has created a

The

modern counterpart of Ulysses in the person of Bloom, and for him he provides a series of incidents that are parallel to those of
have
the Odyssey; but like the character of the protagonist, the events all been translated into modern counterparts as they would

occur in everyday Dublin, and all the incidents occupy the space of only twenty-four hours. In this way the commonplace and
ineffectual

Bloom

is

ironically contrasted with the heroic

and

successful Odysseus,

and

at the

same time the

carefully

worked

out parallel touches the acts and character of Bloom with pathos

and a certain

dignity.
is

ODYSSEY
ings of

(Sdt-se)

an epic poem by Homer about the wander267

ODYSSEUS.

OEDIPUS

OEDIPUS

(gdl-pus) unknowingly killed his father his mother. See THEBES.

of

and married

OENEUS (e'nus) was the father CALYDONIAN BOAR HUNT.

Meleager, hero of the

OENOMAUS
OENONE OENOPION
blinded

(S-no'ma-us) was killed in a chariot race with Pelops, father of (S-nd'ne) is one of the NYMPHS.

ATREUS

(g-no'pi-on),

avenging an insult to his daughter,

his

ORION.
(e'ta) is the

OETA
own

mountain on which Heracles prepared

funeral pyre. See

is

HERACLES.

OGYGIA
OILEUS

the island of Calypso. See ODYSSEUS, (6-j!j1-fl) (6'wi'loos) was the father of the lesser Aias. See

TROJAN WAR. OLYMPIC (6-lhn'pik) GAMES

ZEUS.

were established in honor of

OLYMPUS
gods
live.

(6-Hm'pus)

is

the mountain

on whose summit the

OMPHALE (Sm'ffl-K) was served for three years by HERACLES. OMPHALUS (Sm'ta-lus) is a sacred stone at Delphi. See
ORACLES.

OPHELTES
THEBES.

(6-fel'tez),

who was killed by a serpent, was renamed

Archemorus and given a splendid funeral by the Seven against

OPHION

(o-fi'&n) is

one of the TITANS.

OPPIUS (of/i-us) was one of the seven hills of earliest ROME. OPS (ops) is the Roman name of the Titan earth goddess Rhea.
See

EARTH GODDESSES. ORACLES. The two most famous

oracles of the ancient

world

were the oracle of Zeus at Dodona in Epirus and the oracle of Apollo at Delphi on the slope of Mount Parnassus. Zeus's was
the oldest oracle in Greece, but Apollo's was the most renowned;

268

ORACLES
so

many pilgrims visited Delphi that it was said to be the center of the earth. When people were perplexed by fears and uncertainties they took their questions to the oracles and, if the

gods
they

were willing and the attendants of the

received the answers of the gods. At Dodona, in the land of oak
trees,

oracles skillful,

Zeus answered questions by causing a wind to rustle the branches of the oaks. The priests who interpreted these answers hung brass vessels on the branches
to

make

of Apollo

the god's voice clearer to them. At Delphi the priestess who was sometimes called Pythia, or the Pythoness,

because a great serpent named Python had possessed the place of the oracle until Apollo killed him sat on a tripod over a cleft in the rocks; the vapor rising from this cleft put her into a
trance

and caused her

to

speak with the wisdom of the god.

A. E.

Housman

writes in

The

Oracles:

'Tis mute, the

word they went

to hear

on high Dodona mountain,

winds were in the oakenshaws and all the cauldrons tolled, And mute's the midland navel-stone beside the singing fountain, And echoes list to silence now where gods told lies of old. 2

When

In these lines the cauldrons are the brass

vessels that the priests

hung

in the oak

trees at

Dodona; "the cauldrons tolled"

when

the they were struck together by the wind blowing through not the branches. As the oracular symbol at Delphi Housman uses This is a large stone tripod of the Pythoness but the Omphalus. a knifelike piece of iron; the archaic letters carved pierced with on the stone seem to spell "Earth's." Housman calls it "the midland navel-stone" because Delphi, as explained earlier, was considered the center of the earth, and

Omphalus means

"central

to Gaea, the point." Probably the oracle originally belonged

2

1922, by

From "The Oracles," by A. E Housman, in his Last Poems. Copyright, with the permission of the Henry Holt and Company, Inc. Reprinted

publisher.

269

ORACLES
ancient earth goddess and the mother of the Titans and many of the monsters. The Python who guarded the oracle until Apollo
killed

him was one of Gaea's sons. The Omphalus was believed to be

it

the stone that Cronus

swallowed, thinking
his children

was Zeus. Cronus learned that one of

the

first

by Rhea was fated to dethrone him, so he swallowed five as soon as they were born. After the birth of Zeus,

however, Rhea wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and gave it to Cronus. As soon as Zeus was grown he sought the aid of his

grandmother Gaea, and together they compelled Cronus to disgorge the five children and also the stone, which was then placed
at Delphi.

The "singing fountain" that Housman mentions is the spring near Delphi named Castalia for the daughter of a river god who took refuge in it when she was pursued by Apollo. The spring
thereafter was sacred to Apollo

and

the Muses,

and those who

drank of

were touched by poetic inspiration. in The Talking Oak refers to Dodona when he Tennyson
it

or bathed in

it

speaks of the Thessalian tree

In which the swarthy ringdove And mystic sentence spoke.
sat,

The

oracle at

there

Dodona was founded because a black dove alighted and commanded the people to establish an oracle of Zeus.
as

Sometimes the oracles spoke plainly to men,

at

when

the oracle

Delphi ordered Orestes to avenge his father's murder by killing his mother and her lover; but often they spoke ifi riddles, as when
Apollo's oracle at Delos told Aeneas,

who had

his wanderings, to seek the land of his forefathers:

asked guidance in it took time

and trouble and finally the advice of Aeneas' family gods for to discover where the land of his forefathers was. Because oracular utterances were so frequently ambiguous, they required

him

270

ORACLES
the interpretation of wise men;

and the wise men's

interpretations

were sometimes
(3. 2.

as obscure as the oracles.

In The Winter's Tale

as it

133-137) the Delphic oracle speaks as clearly

did to

Orestes. In

Cymbehne

(5.

5.

443-458), however, the oracle of

it

Jupiter

is

so mysterious

that

^soothsayer,

and then only

after the events

can be explained only by a it predicts have taken

place. Similarly, in

John Ford's The Broken Heart (4. 3. 35-38) the dark prophecy of the oracle at Delphi is only partly explained by the sage Tecnicus As the king and his courtiers attempt to
construe the meaning, one of the councilors declares:
.
. .

Is to

the pith of oracles be then digested when th* events

their truth,

Expound
As
utter'd

not brought

as
.
.

soon to light
.

Truth

is

child of

Time

An

that any guess about the future,

unbeliever would describe the same phenomenon by saying if expressed with sufficient

ambiguity, can by hindsight be

that

made

to apply to the events

it purported to foretell. In Christian times a belief grew up that Satan and his rebel angels (as Robert Burton says) "gave oracles at Delphos, and

elsewhere,"
forever.
earlier,

and

that the birth of Christ silenced the oracles

Housman

but he does not describe

alludes to this silence in the lines quoted it as a triumph for Christ, as

the

Milton does in

On

Morning

of Christ's Nativity

(173-180):

The

Oracles are dum,

No

voice or hideous

humm

Runs through

the arched roof in words deceiving.

Apollo from his shrine

the steep of Delphos leaving. trance, or breathed spell, nightly from the prophetic cell, Inspires the pale-ey'd Priest

Can no more divine, With hollow shreik

No

271

ORCUS
In English literature, however, the oracles and the prophets
of classical mythology usually represent divine rather than satanic inspiration. Their utterances, as the illustrations have shown, are

often difficult to understand. In Paradise Lost

the words of the Son of

(10.

163-191)

to the serpent are typically oracular not only because they are spoken by a divinity but also be-

God

they are ambiguous, what the Son means when he says that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head is revealed only in the fullness of time Satan misinterprets the cause

and does not recognize the doom that awaits him. Describing a considerably less reliable prophet, Byron Rousseau in Childe Harold (3. 81):
oracle

says of

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

W.

B. Yeats writes of Plotmus' mystical vision of truth in

The

Delphic Oracle upon Plotmus.

ORCUS
HADES.

(drTtus)

is

Roman name

of the

god and of the place

OREADS (6'ri-adz) are mountain NYMPHS. ORESTES (6-rfcs'tez) was ordered by Apollo
Clytemnestra because she had murdered
See

to kill his

mother

his father

Agamemnon.

ATREUS.

ORION

the sea god Poseidon, was a huge hand(O'ri'&n), a son of some fellow and a mighty hunter. His first wife was Side, whose name means "pomegranate"; she was cast into Hades for boasting that she was more beautiful than Hera, the queen of the gods.

see Persephone

(For the connection of the pomegranate with the underworld, under HADES.) Orion then fell in. love with

Merope, the daughter of King Oenopion of the island of Chios.

272

ORION
While he wooed
this girl,

Orion hunted so

successfully that

he

practically cleared the island of wild beasts.

The

king, however,

found many reasons to put off the marriage, and one day Orion got drunk and seduced Merope. Oenopion caught him in his drunken sleep and blinded him; but Orion learned that he
might regain his sight from the rays of the rising sun, and he therefore went to the island of Lemnos and got one of the
attendants of the god Hephaestus to guide him toward the east. The sun restored his sight, and he hurried back to Chios to
take his revenge on Oenopion, but the king had been hidden away by Poseidon. Accounts differ as to Orion's later adventures. Some say that he went to Delos to become a servant of Artemis, the goddess of hunting, and that she grew so fond of him that her brother Apollo disapproved and tricked her into shooting him According to another version, Orion met Artemis on Chios and tried to rape her. She summoned a huge scorpion which stung him to death^ and then both he and the scorpion were turned into constellations. Spenser alludes to this myth in The Faene Queene
third story maintains that while Orion was serving Artemis, he was seen by Eos, the goddess of the dawn, who fell
(7.

7. 39).

in love with
jealous and

him and

killed him.

the goddess of the derful line (Endymton,

him off. Then Artemis grew The love affair between Orion and dawn caused Keats to produce his woncarried
2.

198),

"blind Orion hungry for the

morn."

At one time
Atlas.

in his crowded life Orion

met and desired the

the daughters of say that the chase

Pleiads, or Pleiades, seven

Nymphs who were

The

ladies ran

and Orion pursued. Some

lasted for years until Zeus, taking pity on the Nymphs, turned them into stars; but when Orion was killed by Artemis, he became

a constellation, and ever since he has continued to pursue the

273

ORION
is not surprising that the king of the gods decided to help these ladies. Before they made a career of escaping from Orion, three of them had been the mistresses of

Pleiades across the heavens. It

by him Maia became the mother of the god Hermes; founder of the royal house of Troy; and of Lacedaemon, the first king of Sparta. In the sky Orion Taygeta,
Zeus:
Electra, of Dardanus,

appears as he did on earth, the mighty hunter with his sword,

club,
also

and

lion's skin.

translated to the skies

According to certain stories, his dog was and became the dog star Sinus.

Spenser (Faerie Queene,

3.

31) calls this star "fierce

Onons

hound/' and T.
in Sweeney

S.

Eliot,

creating an atmosphere of foreboding

among
Are

the Nightingales, writes:

Gloomy Orion and the Dog veiled; and hushed the shrunken

seas. 3

In English literature Orion is mentioned most frequently as a constellation, and often in connection with the Pleiades. Since

Orion usually
1,

rises in a period of storms, Milton (Paradise Lost, 305-306) speaks of the roiling of seaweed

when with fierce Winds Orion arm'd Hath vext the Red-Sea Coast.
.

Tennyson

recalls in

Locksley Hall (7-10):

rest,

Many
Did

I look

a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many

Glitter like a

a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through the mellow shade, swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

And in More Poems XI A.

E.

Housman

writes:

s From "Sweeney among the Nightingales," by T. S. Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 1909-1935. Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company Reprinted with their permission.

274

ORPHEUS
The
rainy Pleiads wester,
hastens,

Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and

And
The

I lie

down

alone.

And

rainy Pleiads wester seek beyond the sea

that I shall
will not

The head
That

dream of dream of me. 4

The most extended and serious use of the myths about Orion was made by the nineteenth-century poet Richard Henry Home, whose long narrative poem Orion is an allegory of spiritual love with Artemis progress. The hero, a giant of the earth, falls in
and
aspires to intellectual

and

spiritual understanding;

but he

is distracted by sensual passion for the lovely Merope, another creature of earth, until he is blinded by her father's soldiers and

she

taken away from him. His misery, however, leads him to his sight and gives happiness, for he goes to Eos, and she restores
is

him her

love.

This love

is

not

all spirit, like

that of Artemis,

nor

all passion, like that of Merope, but a blend of the two. Orion learns that man, to be happy and useful, must achieve this

balance between the intellect and the emotions. As Douglas Bush

points
out,

Home's poem
Hyperion.
(or'i-thl'ya)

is

strongly

influenced

by Keats's
See

Endymwn and

ORITHYIA
WINDS.

was

kidnaped

by

Boreas.

ORPHEUS

(dr'fi-yus) the

Thracian, the son of the Muse Calliope

and Apollo, the patron

of artists,

was the

greatest singer

and

musician of classical myth. When he sang and played on the he moved men and gods to do his lyre, his father's instrument, From "Poem XI," by A. E. Housman, in his More Poems. Copyright, 1936, the permission of Henry Holt and Barclays Bank, Ltd. Reprinted with by
*

Company,

Inc.

275

ORPHEUS
bidding and, when he chose, charmed wild beasts and
Fletcher * writes)
.
.
.

(as

John

made

trees

And the mountain tops that freeze Bow themselves when he did sing. To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung as sun and showers

There had made a

lasting spring
1.

Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice

love,

(5.

79-82),

made
of

wise by

moonlight, and music, moralizes the powers

.
.

Orpheus:

therefore the poet

Did

feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods, Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage
his nature.

But music for the time doth change

In ancient Greece, however,
all

poems were made

to

be sung,

and Orpheus composed

English literature
great musician.

his

own poems;

thus he has

come

in

to symbolize the great poet as well as

the

He

sailed with the

(44),

Argonauts and,

as

Spenser says in the

Amoretti

When

those

renoumed noble Peres of Greece,

thrugh stubborn pride amongst themselues did iar forgetfull of the famous golden fleece, then Orpheus with his harp theyr strife did bar.

on many times to lift their drooping spirits and but his most notable deed on this expedicompose tion was to outsing the Sirens. These lovely but cruel mermaids
called
their quarrels,

He was

lived

on a rocky island and lured mariners

and
Fletcher's

to death
(3.

by their
1.

* This song from Shakespeare

Henry VIII

3-8)

is

usually attributed to Fletcher.

276

ORPHEUS
seductive music.

On

the return voyage the Argonauts passed

close to this island,

drowned if Sirens and thus persuaded

and they would have wrecked their ship and Orpheus had not sung louder and sweeter than the
the heroes to hold their course.

Some

versions of the story say that the Sirens committed suicide after this failure, but there is contrary evidence (see Sirens under SEA

GODS). William Morris (The

Life

and Death

of Jason, 14) in-

vented antiphonal songs for the Sirens and Orpheus, but the songs seem oddly interchangeable, and are not good enough to

make men

either wreck a ship or keep

on rowing.

Orpheus married a beautiful Dryad named Eurydice, but their time of happiness was short. Aristaeus, a half brother of Orpheus, lusted for Eurydice, and one day when he found her alone he
on her. As she ran from him she on a poisonous snake, and its bite killed her. Orpheus stepped found his sorrow unbearable, and finally he resolved to go to the underworld and beg the return of Eurydice. This journey was forbidden to any living man, but Orpheus subdued the guards with his music and presented himself at the palace of Pluto and
tried to force his attentions

the Furies wept Persephone. As he sang his grief for Eurydice, their own suffering. and the spirits tormented in Tartarus forgot touched the heart of Persephone and, as Milton says His

song

(II

Penseroso, 107-108),

Drew

Iron tears

down

Pluto's cheek,

And made

Hell grant what Love did seek.

Pluto gave him permission to take Eurydice back to life on condition that she follow behind him and that he refrain from reached the upper world. He turning to look at her until they the perils of Hades, but although kept his word. They passed all he feared for her safety and yearned to see and touch her, he looked straight ahead. At last he stepped out into daylight and

277

ORPHEUS
turned to embrace her, but he turned too soon. She was
still

in

the darkness; and as his arms went around her, she faded. She

could only whisper, "Goodbye." Even Orpheus' great courage and

genius had not, in Milton's words

(UAllegro,

149-150),

...

set free

His half-regain'd Eurydtce.

Robert Browning in Eurydice

ing of the couple

to

Orpheus, writing about a paintof

by Lord Leighton, imagines the thoughts

Eurydice at the parting:

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow Let them once more absorb mel One look now Will lap me round forever, not to pass
I

Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond: Hold me but safe again within the bond Of one immortal look! All woe that was, Forgotten, and all terror that may be, Defied, no past is mine, no future: look at mel

When Orpheus found that he could not return to Hades, he abandoned himself to despair. He avoided other people and wandered in the wild places of Thrace, singing his songs. One day he was found near Mount Rhodope by a band of Maenads who were drunk in* the celebration of the rites of Dionysus. They drowned out his music with their shouts, killed him, and tore his body to pieces. His lyre and his bloody head were thrown in the river Hebrus, and they floated to the island of Lesbos.
Milton, lamenting in Lycidas (58-63) the untimely death of a fellow poet, first asks the Nymphs (in the traditional fashion of the pastoral elegy) why they could not save Lycidas, and then he realizes the emptiness of his question:

What could the Muse her The Muse her self, for her
278

self that

Orpheus bore,

inchanting son

ORPHEUS
Whom Universal
When
nature did lament,

by the rout that made the hideous roar, His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?

Musing on duty and fame and the uncertainty of human life, Milton relates the myth of Orpheus not only to Edward King, the
Lycidas of his poem, but also to himself. Later, when he writes Paradise Lost (7. 26-27, 32-39),

On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues; In darkness, and with dangers compast round,
he returns to the death of Orpheus. Muse Urania to guide his song,
But drive

He

asks his

own

Protestant

farr off the barbarous dissonance

Of Bacchus and his Revellers, the Race Of that wilde Rout that tore the Thracian Bard In Rhodope, where Woods and Rocks had Eares

To rapture, till the savage clamor dround Both Harp and Voice, nor could the Muse defend
Son. So fail not thou, who thee implores: For thou art Heav'nlie, shee an empty dreame.

Her

Even when

classical

forgot to point out that to a Christian

myth moved Milton most mind

deeply, he never
it

was

false.

Yet

in this particular myth he found a partial parallel between the circumstances of Orpheus' death and his own immediate circumstanceshe was also a successful artist but a deeply dis-

appointed man to whom many of his countrymen were hostile; and he found a poetic truth more important than the parallel. Orpheus, with his supreme accomplishment, his terrible failure, and his violent death at the hands of his own people, was a

symbol of the tragic fate of human greatness. Though Orpheus' life was sad and his death shocking, he and
279

ORPHEUS
Eurydice were reunited for eternal happiness in the Elysian
Fields,

and

his lyre, according to certain versions of the

myth, was

translated to

the

heavens to become the constellation Lyra.

Lamenting the death of Sir Philip Sidney in The Rumes of Time (607-615), Spenser tells this story of the lyre but transfers
its

ownership to Sidney,

whom

he

calls Philisides,

"the lover of

the star," a
love

name that Sidney invented for himself because his were addressed to Stella, Spenser sees floating down a poems
harp made of gold and ivory,

river a

The harpe, on which Dan Orpheus was scene Wylde beasts and forrests after him to leade, But was th' Harpe of Philisides now dead.
At length out
Whilst
all

of the Riuer

it

was reard

And borne aboue

the

the cloudes to be diuin'd,

way most heauenly noyse was heard

the strings, stirred with the warbling wind, That wrought both icy and sorrow in my mind:

Of

So

now

in

heauen a signe

it

doth appeare.

an oracle of Orpheus was established on Lesbos, the island to which his bloody head had floated, and Orpheus was endowed with magical and prophetic powers and made the center of the Orphic religion, which flourished from about the
In
later times

sixth century before Christ until the

coming of Christianity. The

Orphic worshipers believed in the divine origin of man, original sin, reincarnation, and the ultimate translation of the virtuous
soul to paradise. The Renaissance poet Giles Fletcher in Chnsts Victorie and Triumph (3. 7) has in mind the religious figure of

Orpheus when he writesf

But he that conquered hell, to fetch againe His virgin widowe, by a serpent slaine, Another Orpheus was then dreaming poets feigne.

280

PALLADIUM

ORPHIC

(dr'fik)

religion

was

centered

on the

figure

of

ORPHEUS.

ORTYGIA

(dr-tijl-fl)

is

the island

on which the waters of

Arethusa and Alpheus were finally joined. See NYMPHS. OSSA (6s'd) is a mountain which two Giants placed on Mount

Olympus, then they piled Mount Pelion on top in their attempt to reach and attack the gods. See GIANTS. OTHRYS (oth'ris) was the mountain stronghold of the Titans.
See

ZEUS.
(o'tus)

OTUS

was one of the GIANTS.

PACTOLUS
PAEAN

(pak'to'lus) is the river

whose sands turned to gold

when Midas bathed

(pe'dn)
is

in

it.

See

DIONYSUS.

PALAEMON
PALATINE ROME.

given to Apollo and also Asclepius. Paeans were songs of praise or triumph addressed to APOLLO. to Melicertes when (pd-le'mSn) was the name given a

name

he became one of the

SEA GODS.
is

(pSQ'dtm)

the hill on which

Romulus founded
hills of earliest

PALATIUM
ROME. PALINURUS
from one

(pd'la'shiim)

was one of the seven

(pSll-nu'rus), a steersman, of the ships of AENEAS.

(pd-la-di-ftm),

was washed overboard

PALLADIUM
of

the security of any city

which was reputed to guarantee that held it safely, was an ancient image

ATHENE.
281

PALLANTIDES

PALLANTIDES
whose
attempt to
defeated by

(pal'an-ti'dez)

were the

fifty

sons of Pallas

put

their father

on the throne of Athens was

for

THESEUS.
(1) is

PALLAS
of the

(pJLl'fls)

another

name

ATHENE,

(2)

was one

(3) was a brother of Aegeus who tried to usurp the throne of Athens but was defeated by THESEUS. PAN (pan), or Faunus, or Sylvanus, the son of Hermes and a

GIANTS;

god of the fields and woods and the and shepherds. He protects flocks and herds, and he inspires travelers in wild and lonely country with panic. He has the legs and hooves of a goat but the trunk and arms of a man. Goat horns sprout from his head, his ears are pointed, and his bearded face is jovial and ugly. Because he has the gift of

Nymph,

is

the Arcadian

patron of hunters

prophecy,

the

Romans

established

shrine

to

the

Faunus

at Lupercal, at the foot of the Palatine Hill,

prophet where the

festival of

Lupercalia was held in his honor. Usually, however,

Pan has no temples, offerings of milk, honey, and lambs are made to him anywhere in the woods and fields. As Swinburne explains, rather feverishly, in The Palace of Pan (36-40), this
god has

temple whose transepts are measured by miles,

defiles,

Whose chancel has morning for priest, Whose floor-work the foot of no spoiler Whose musical silence no music beguiles,

No

festivals limit its feast.

As a symbol of the

vital

powers of nature, Pan

is

associated

with Dionysus, the earth goddesses, and Aphrodite. He is a simple god, lustful and playful, short tempered only if disturbed in his midday nap. He appears in scenes of rustic beauty surrounded

by a happy crew of Satyrs, Fauns, Sileni, Sylvans, and Nymphs, In Virgils Gnat (178) Spenser imagines the vale of Tempe where

"Woodgods, and
282

Satyres,

and

swift Dryades" play together

on the

PAY
grassy green,

and Milton

says in Paradise Lost

(4.

705-708),

describing the nuptial place of

Adam and

Eve,

... In bhady Bower More sacred and sequesterd, though but Pan or Silvanw never slept, nor Nymph,

feignd,

Nor Faunus haunted

always lecherous. The lecherous old churchman in Browning's The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St Praxed's

Pan

is

Church understands he asks that the bas

nature well enough when tomb show the god "Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off." But Pan is usuall) an unfortunate lover, probably because he is ugly. His rumored affair
this side oi Pan's

relief

on

his

with Artemis

is

he

fell

in love with a

described in the article on that goddess. When Nymph named Pitys, she fled from him,

into the pine tree, prayed for protection, and was transformed Another metamorphosis which thereafter was sacred to Pan.

thwarted his passion for Syrinx, a Hamadryad.

after her, she

When Pan

ran

god

to

Ladon and asked the river jumped turned her into a bunch of reeds, and save her. He
in the river

Pan took a melancholy satisfaction in cutting reeds of various and creating his musical instrulengths, tying them together,
ment, the syrinx, or pipes of Pan. As he says in Phelps Putnam's Ballad of a Strange Thing,
Sometimes
there's

music in these

girls,

Sometimes. 1

Keats

retells this

myth

in the

first

poem

his 1817 (157-158) of

volume,

how fair, trembling Syrinx fled . Arcadian Pan, with such a fearful dread.
.
.

Trine, of a Strange Thing," by Phelps Putnam, in his Charles Scribner's Sons. Reprinted with their permission. Copyright, 1927, by
i

From "Ballad

283

PAN
Andrew Marvell (31-32) when he
.

gives the

implies that
.
.

myth fresh meaning in The Garden Pan intended the change:

Pan did
as a

Not

after Syrinx speed, Nymph, but for a Reed.

Pan was proud

of his skill

on the

pipes,

and the

tale of his

unsuccessful musical contest with Apollo is on that god. On one occasion he turned warrior
the

told in the article

and fought

for

Athenians

at

Marathon. His exploits are described by

Browning in Echetlos:
Nor helmed nor
Like a
tiller

shielded, he' but, a goat-skin all his wear,

soil,

of the

Went he ploughing on and on he pushed

Bid the steady phalanx
falter?

with a clown's limbs broad and bare, with a ploughman's share.

To

The clown was ploughing

Persia, clearing

the rescue, at the need, Greek earth of weed,

As he routed through the Sakian and rooted up the Mede.

After their victory, the grateful Athenians built a shrine to Pan under the Acropolis. Ordinarily, however, Pan is no warrior but the simple god of nature whom shepherds worship He has this
familiar aspect in, for example, John Fletcher's Shepherdess and the last eclogue of Spenser's

The

Faithful

Shepheardes

Calender (7-18), in the prayer of Colin Clout:

O soueraigne Pan thou God of shepheards all, Which of our tender lambkins takest keepe: And when our flocks into mischaunce mought
Doest saue from mischiefe the vnwary sheepe:

fall,

Als of their maisters hast no lesse regarde, Then of the flocks, which thou doest watch and ward:
I thee beseche (so be thou deigne to heare, Rude ditties tund to sbepheards Oaten reede,

284

PAN
Or
if I

euer sonet song so cleare,

fancie feede)
cabinet,

As it with pleasaunce mought thy Hearken awhile from thy greene

The

rurall song of carefull Colinet.

Along with this idea of the god, however, there grew up another more exalted conception in which Pan is the symbol of the universe. The notion depends largely on a mistaken etymology; the name "Pan" means "the feeder," that is, the feeder of flocks,
but
led
it

was taken

to

mean

"all."
4.

This conception

lies

behind

Milton's image (Paradise Lost,

266-267) of the eternal spring

on by
.
.

Universal Pan

Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance.

The

exalted notion of the god was given force in English literature by the elaborate allegory of pastoral poetry. In The
as

Shepheardes Calender,

we have

already seen, Pan sometimes

more frequently appears as the mere rustic god of shepherds; but he represents Christ (May, 54; July, 49) or the Christian God
(May, 111; September,
96). Since Christian poets

wrote of their

contemporaries as shepherds, the pastoral disguise necessarily turned Christ or God into Pan. In On the Morning of Christ's who were Nativity (89-90) Milton speaks of the simple shepherds
still

unaware
That the mighty Pan

Was

kindly

com

to live with

them below.

In the same poem, however, Milton describes the retreat of the pagan gods at the birth of Christ, and in Paradise Lost he other pagan deities as deceiving represents Greek gods and taken by the fallen angels. On the one hand, then, Pan shapes became a symbol of the Christian God; and on the other hand,

PAN
he or Apollo or Dionysus became the symbol of
all false religions

defeated by the spread of Christianity. Plutarch tells a story of the days when Tiberius ruled the Roman empire. ship piloted a man named Thamuz sailed from Greece toward Italy but by

was becalmed near the island of Paxi. A voice from the shore three times shouted, "Thamuz!" and when the pilot finally
replied, the voice said,

"When you

reach Palodes,

tell

them

that

great Pan is dead." Thamuz did as he was told, and was answered at Palodes by a great wail of surprise and sorrow. This story was often repeated by the poets of triumphant
Christianity. In the seventeenth century

Abraham Cowley
it

in

On

the Death of

Mr. Crashaw (19-22) used

in his reproof to

his fellow poets:

Nor have we
Still idols

yet quite purg'd the Christian land; here, like calves at Bethel, stand.

And though Pans Death long since all oracles Yet still in Rhyme the Fiend Apollo spoke.

broke,

In the nineteenth century the contest between Christ and Pan was revived; and while sturdy Christians like Elizabeth Barrett Browning declared with delight that Pan was dead, neopagans
like

Swinburne lamented the triumph of Christ ("Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from
thy breath").

Much more
use of

important to literature was the fresh imaginative

the works of such poets as

Wordsworth and Keats. In The Excursion (4. 883-887) Wordsworth writes of the presence that the shepherd of pagan Greece felt, heard, and saw in nature:

Pan in

And, sometimes, intermixed with

-

stirring

horns

Of the

live deer,

These were the lurking

or goat's depending beard, Satyrs, a wild brood

Of gamesome

Deities; or

Pan

himself,

The
286

simple shepherd's awe-inspiring God!

PAN
Keats in his
to Pan (Endymwn, 1. 232-306) invokes the god and protector of woods, meadows, and cultivated the hunter, the tender of flocks, the king of Fauns and

hymn

as the lover
fields,

Satyrs, and, finally, the universal Pan:

Be

still a symbol of immensity; firmament reflected in a sea;

An element filling the space between; An unknown but no more we humbly screen
uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending, giving out a shout most heaven rending, Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,

With

And

Upon

thy

Mount Lyceanl

Although Ezra Pound titled one of his poems Pan Is Dead, he seems to have been mistaken. Pan is active enough, for example, in the novels and tales of E. M. Forster (ior a brilliant evocation
of Pan-inspired fear see The Stoiy of a Panic). In the E. E. Cummings' Chansons Innocentes
it's

first

of

spring

and
the
goat-footed

baloonMan
far

whistles

and
wee. 2

And Harpo Marx

always plays the role of Pan. Silenus, the son or brother of Pan, is an old fat Satyr who loves to drink and who usually has to ride on a donkey because

his Collected 2 From "Chansons Innocentes, I," by E E. Curamings, in Poems (New York- Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1938). Copyright, 1923, by E. E. Cummings. Reprinted with the permission of Brandt & Brandt 287

PAN
he
is

too fat and too drunk to walk.

He

was the tutor and later

the follower of Dionysus,

article

and

his adventures are related in the

on that god. The Sileni, of whom, Silenus is the prototype, are old Satyrs. The Satyrs, or Satyri, are first represented as human in form but with the tails of horses; later they have the
goathke ears, horns, legs, and hooves of Pan. The Fauns, or Fauni, the sons of Faunus, are Roman Satyrs. Fauna, or Bona

Dea, the daughter or wife of Faunus,

is

Roman

fertility

god-

The Sylvans, or Sylvani, who Roman spirits of the woods.

dess.

are

named

for Sylvanus, are

Although the Sileni are usually drunk, they are skillful musicians and they have a certain amount of homely wisdom.
Silenus

In Ben Jonson's Oberon, a masque for Prince Henry, there is a who explains the action to a chorus of Satyrs; these were

the stock characters of the Satyr-drama of classical Greece. In English literature the Satyrs usually represent two different but
art

related qualities. Sometimes they symbolize brutish disregard for and ethics, and brutish lust. In Spenser's Teares of the
leads a rout of

Muses (265-282) Ignorance

tear

Fauns and Satyrs

Sir Satyrane in

to

down

the bowers of the Muses,

(1.

and

The

faerie Queene
Satyr

6.

22)

is

the son of a modest

matron and a

who found
And
The

her wandering in the woods,

kindling coles of lust in brutish eye, loyall linkes of wedlocke did vnbmde,

And made

her person thrall vnto his beastly kind.

This interpretation of the Satyr is reflected in the modern English term for uncontrollable sexual desire in men, satyriasis. Yet
sometimes the Satyr symbolizes the morally unconscious child of nature. In Hawthorne's The Marble Faun Count Donatello is
such a

man

until tragedy awakens his moral sense.

PAVOR

PANATHENAEA
yearly at

(pan'th--ne'a)

was

festival

celebrated

Athens in honor of

ATHENE.
foolish

PANDARUS (pan'da-rus) was a the TROJAN WAR. PANDION (pan-dl'on) was the
MELA.

Trojan who fought in

father of Procne

and PHILOthe

PANDORA

(p^n-dc/ra),

the

first

woman, was

wife

of

Epimetheus. See PROMETHEUS. PANIC is a sudden fear inspired by

PAN.

PANOPE (p-:n'op-e) is one of the Nereids. See NYMPHS. PAPHIA (pa'fl-a) is a name for APHRODITE. PAPHOS (pa'fSs) was the son of Pygmalion whose name
to

the

Cyprians gave to their city because of Aphrodite's miraculous gift

PYGMALION.
(par'se)
is

PARCAE
PARIS

Roman name

of the Fates. See

FATE.

and thus (pr1s), a prince of Troy, eloped with Helen the immediate cause of the TROJAN WAR. provided

PARNASSUS
to Apollo. See

(par-nas'us)

is

a mountain sacred to the Muses and

MUSES, ORACLES.
(par-the'm-a)
is

PARTHENIA

another name for

HERA.
Athens, was

PARTHENON

(par'the-n6n), the chief temple of ATHENE.

on

the Acropolis at

PARTHENOPAEUS
against

/ of the Seven (par-th'n6-pe us) was one

THEBES.
(par-thgn'6-pe)
is

PARTHENOPE
SEA GODS.

one of the three

Sirens. See

PARTHENOS
PASIPHAE
Minotaur. See

(par'the--n6s)

is

a surname of

ATHENE.

(p^-sif'a-e)

was queen of Crete and mother of the was the retainer and
close friend of

DAEDALUS.
(pa-tro'klus)

PATROCLUS
Achilles in the

TROJAN WAR.
is

PAVOR
of

(pa'vdr)

the

Roman name

for Phobos,

an attendant

ARES.
289

PEGASUS

PEGASUS
inspiration.

(peg'a'sus), the

winged
of:

horse,

is

a symbol of poetic

He was

the horse

the hero

BELLEROPHON.
is

PEITHO EROS

(pi'tho), the

goddess of persuasion,
is

an attendant of

PELAGIA (pA-la'jta) PELEUS (pe'lods) is

name

for

APHRODITE.
as

usually remembered

the husband of

Thetis and the father of Achilles, but not all his accomplishments were connubial He was the king of Phthia in Thessaly, and he sailed with the Argonauts, took part in the Calydonian Boar

Hunt, and helped Heracles conquer Troy in the days when

ruled by Priam's father Laomedon. At one time Peleus unintentionally killed a

it

was
to

man and went

be purified of his blood guilt at the court of King Acastus of lolcus. The wife of Acastus took a fancy to the handsome hero,

but he paid no attention

to her.

When

she spitefully told her

husband that Peleus had

revenge.

tried to seduce her, Acastus plotted

took Peleus hunting on the wild slopes of Mount Pelion, and soon established the custom of resting for an hour or two at noontime, with only two or three hunters keeping guard

He

against Centaurs
siesta,

and wild beasts One day,

in the

middle of the

Acastus hid Peleus' sworcl and then he and the other

hunters stole away, leaving Peleus asleep and weaponless. Doubtless the hero would have perished there if Chiron, the wise and gentle Centaur, had not waked him and returned his sword.
aid, Peleus acquitted himself well against wild Centaurs. Zeus, when he heard the whole story, praised Peleus for his chastity, a virtue which the king of the gods

With

this

much
fierce

beasts

and

frequently admired in others.

This adventure recommended the hero

to

Zeus as a husband for

the Nereid Thetis, a fateful lady whose charms almost lost Zeus his godhead. Thetis was destined to have a son greater than his father; and if Zeus had made love to her as he intended, his
universal rule

would soon have ended. Thetis' destiny was known

290

PELEUS
only to Prometheus and his mother Themis. According to some
stories,

Prometheus refused to reveal the

secret in spite of his

constant torment; other stories say that he told Zeus and thus regained the god's favor. Whoever his informer was, Prometheus

or his mother, Zeus learned the decree of fate, gave up his courtship of Thetis, and decided that she should marry the mortal
Peleus.

Although the heavens favored Peleus' suit, Thetis was a sea Nymph, and before he could marry her he had to catch and tame her. This was no easy task because she*, like her father Nereus and Poseidon's son Proteus, could change her shape at will; but Peleus persisted and at last Thetis yielded. Their magnificent wedding, which was attended by the gods, is frequently mentioned in English literature. Edmund Spenser, for example, says in The Faerie Queene (7. 7. 12),

Was
That

neuer so great ioyance since the day, all the gods whylome assembled were,

On Haemus hill in their dmme array, To celebrate the solemne bridall cheare,
Twixt Peleus and Dame Thetis pointed there; Where Phoebus self, that god of Poets hight,

They say did sing the spousall hymne full deere, That all the gods were rauisht with delight Of his celestiall song, and Musicks wondrous might.

The

and she threw into

Eris, the goddess of discord, the assembly a golden apple inscribed "For the fairest." This spiteful gesture began the contest among the god-

only goddess not invited was

Trojan War. The rich wedding presents included a pair of immortal horses, the gift of Poseidon; these horses drew Achilles' chariot at Troy. Because Thetis was immortal, she wished to have an immortal each child; and as her first seven children were born she threw
desses that caused the

291

PELIAS
one into fire or boiling water to burn away its mortal part. This was the usual way in which goddesses conferred immortality, but Thetis somehow failed to wind up the charm because when the mortal part of her babies was burned away, nothing was left. The
eighth child was Achilles. Peleus refused to have him treated as the others had been, and Thetis, in the fashion of supernatural
brides, departed in great anger. But she was always very fond of Achilles who, in spite of her efforts to protect him, became, as
fate

had decreed, much greater than

his father.

pened to the golden apple, Thetis' efforts

'and Achilles' brief glory see

For what hapon behalf of Achilles,

TROJAN WAR.
Alcestis

PELIAS

(pe'li-ds)

was the father of

and

the uncle of

Jason, the leader of the Argonauts. See

ALCESTIS, ARGO-

NAUTS. PELION
of

(pe li6n)

is

Mount

Ossa and
gods.

and attack the

Mount Olympus See GIANTS.

a mountain that two Giants piled on top in their attempt to reach

the daughter of Thyestes, bore

PELOPIA

(pfc'lo'pi'a),

him

a son,

Aegisthus. See

ATREUS.
(pgl'd-p6-ne'sus), the southern peninsula of

PELOPONNESUS
Greece, was

named

for

its

first

ruler Pelops,

the

father of

ATREUS. PELOPS (pe'lops)

PENATES
HESTIA.

was the father of Thyestes and ATREUS. Roman household gods. See axe (pg-na'tez)
(p-nl'6-pe)

PENELOPE
SEUS.

was

the

faithful

wife

of

ODYS-

PENEUS

(p^-ne'tis),

the principal river of Thessaly in Greece,

flows through the lovely vale o

Tempe. The most famous

lines

about the vale and the river occur in Spenser's Prothalamion had thrown flowers on the waves of the ,(78-80), where Nymphs

Thames River
292

PERSEUS
That like
old

Pencm Waters they

When downe
Peneus
his
is

did seeme. along by pleasant Tempes shore

Scattred with Flowres, through Thessaly they streeme.

also the

name

of the

god

of the river. For the story of

daughter Daphne
ally of

see

APOLLO.

PENTHESILIA
an

Troy

in the

(pSn'th^sMe'0), a queen of the Amazons, was Trojan War. See TROJAN WAR, AMA-

ZONS.

PENTHEUS
mother Agave

his (pSn'thus), a king of Thebes, was killed by in a Dionysian frenzy. See DIONYSUS, THEBES.

PERDIX

(pr'd!ks), or Talus,

who

invented the saw, was a

nephew and apprentice of DAEDALUS-

PERIBOEA
THEBES.

(pSr'i-be'a)

was

foster

mother of Oedipus, king of

PERIMEDES (pSrl-me'dez) PERIPHETES (p&r'i-fe'tez),

travelers

was a follower of ODYSSEUS.

a brigand of Epidaurus

who

killed

with his iron club, was slain by

(pSr-sSf'6-ne)
is

THESEUS.
and the

PERSEPHONE
PERSES

the daughter of Demeter

wife of Hades. See

EARTH GODDESSES, HADES.

whom the
Persian kings claimed descent,

(pr'sz), from

was a son of PERSEUS.

PERSEUS
his

(pfer'soos).

The

winning of Andromeda and fell intent of an island king, is one of the best known It is a story that begins in miracle pleasantest of the Greek myths. and ends in domestic commonplace. To King Acrisius of Argos, oracle sent word that he would who had no children, the

culminates in story of Perseus, which and the rescue of his mother from the

Delphic have a daughter whose son would cause the death of Acrisius. Therefore, when Ms daughter Danae was born, he imprisoned
her underground, or, according to some accounts, in a brazen Zeus fell in love tower, so that she might never have a son; but of witfe her beauty ancE manifested himself to her in a skower

PERSEUS
gold.

As a

result of this visit,

Danae bore a son who was

named

Perseus. (For the poets' use of this

myth

see

ZEUS.)

THE FAMILY OF PERSEUS AND HERACLES

Zeus = Io

Epaphos
Poseidon = Libya

Belus of Egypt

Aegyptus

Danaus

Cepheus I

49 other
sons

Lynceus

Hypermnestra

49 other daughters

Abas
Acrisius

Danae = Zeus
l

Cepheus II = Gassiopea
i

Perseus

= Andromeda
Alcaeus

Perses

Electryon
= Alcmene

Zeus

= Amphitryon

Heracles

Iphicles

lolaus

When Acrisius heard of the birth of his grandson, he was greatly

worried.

Not believing Danae's

story of the cause of the event,

he

put both mother and child into a wooden chest that he

set adrift

on the
294

sea.

The

chest floated to the island of Seriphos

where

PERSEUS
Danae and
Perseus were rescued by a fisherman

named

Dictys,

who cared

tor

them and

later

Polydectes. Polydectes fell found that Perseus was likely to

introduced them to his brother, King in love with Danae, and when he

persuaded Perseus

to

seek the

hamper his intentions, he head of Medusa, the Gorgon,

whose glance turned men to stone (see SEA GODS). In his project Perseus was aided by both Hermes and Athene. Hermes led him first to the Graeae, sisters of the Gorgons, three old women who had only one eye and one tooth, which they
passed about from one to another in turn. Perseus seized their told prized accessories and returned them only after they had find the Nymphs who kept the miraculous him where to
wallet, winged sandals, and helmet of Hades. The magical helmet made whoever wore it invisible. When Perseus had obtained these articles, Hermes added the curved sword with

which he had

slain Argus,

and Athene gave him a

shield of

polished brass. Thus accoutered, Perseus sought the abode of the Gorgons and, not to be looking in the mirror of his brazen shield in order of Medusa, he cut off her affected by the petrifying glance head and put it in his wallet. The two other Gorgons pursued

him for revenge, but he escaped in his invisibility. As he was returning to Seriphos, Perseus saw a

beautiful girl

chained to a rock by the seashore. This was Andromeda. mother Cassiopea, who after death was made a constellation, boasted that she was more beautiful than the Nereids,

Her
had and

waste her Poseidon, to punish her, had sent a sea monster to lay the king, learned that husband's kingdom of Ethiopia. Cepheus,

which he could save his kingdom was to sacrifice had his daughter to the monster, and under protest he finally Andromeda chained to the rock where Perseus saw her.
the only

way

in

Perseus rescued her, after turning the sea monster into stone

295

PERSEUS
by causing it to look on the head of Medusa, and then he claimed Andromeda's hand. Cepheus consented, but he had previously
promised Andromeda
to

Phineus,

who

arrived at the crucial

moment
and

to claim his rights. After a fight, Perseus

turned Phineus

his followers into stone

and carried

off

Andromeda.

When
her

Perseus

that the king was about to force

will. It

and Andromeda reached Seriphos, they found Danae to marry him against
difficult

was no

matter for Perseus to turn Polydectes

with Medusa's head, a trick that he followed by placing the good Dictys on the vacant throne. Then the three, Perseus,
to stone

Andromeda, and Danae,

fate,

set

unfortunate king, however,

out to return to King Acrisius. This still seeking to avoid his decreed

Argos and gone to Larissa. At Larissa, Perseus, in his search for him, entered the athletic games, and during the contests hurled a discus an extraordinary distance. It fell on the

had

left

foot of Acnsius
filled,

and caused his death. Thus was the oracle fuland the Greek belief expressed that man can never avoid
fate

his

determined

Perseus became king of Argos, but as he preferred the town of Tiryns, he traded towns with Megapenthes, the king of Tiryns. Thereafter he settled down and raised a family consist-

ing of Gorgophone, Alcaeus, Electryon, Mestor, Sthenelus, and Perses, from the last of whom the Persian kings claimed descent.

In English literature Andromeda has been more popular than

Perseus; but the Elizabethan playwright, George Chapman, retold the entire story in a long poem called Andromeda Liberata, in

which, according to Douglas Bush, Perseus is made to represent the Earl of Somerset and Andromeda the Countess of Essex,

whom the earl figuratively rescues from "the ravenous multitude,"

and the
a representation that gives undeserved virtue to both the earl countess. In the Epithalamion (189-190), which celebrates his

own wedding,

Spenser, wishing to describe the trans-

PETASUS
fixing quality o

the spiritual beauty of his bride, writes that

it

if

one could gaze on

.

direct,

he would

stand astonisht lyke to those which red

Medusaes mazeful hed,

and the Dauphin

in Shakespeare's

Henry V

(3. 7.

21-24), ecstati-

cally praising his horse's mettle, exclaims,

It
is

a beast for Perseus:

dull elements of earth

he is pure air and fire, and the and water never appear in him
.
.

lines in

with

which the vain prince seems to have confused Perseus Bellerophon. Robert Browning describes Andromeda's

is vague, plight in Pauline (636-641), though here the symbolism of a picture of if indeed the passage is not merely a description

Andromeda that Browning knew. Among the other Victorians, William Morris, Charles Kingsley, and Gerard Manley Hopkins
all

wrote poems about the

of

story.

Morris

retells it at

length in

The Doom
is

King Amsius, and

difficult

Kingsley in

Andromeda. For

Hopkins, however, in his

coming

sonnet Andromeda, the girl church awaiting rescue in the second possibly a symbol of the the Christ. In our time Louis MacNeice makes of of

Perseus with the Gorgon's head a symbol of the power of friends in their own mortality to remind a man of the relentless passage
of time that petrifies all

human

values:

Ever to meet

me

comes, in sun or dull,

of the sun,
.

The gay hero swinging the Gorgon's head And I am left, with the dull drumming

suspended and dead.

.*

PETASUS (pfa-sus)
s

is

the winged cap of

HERMES.

From

1940,

"Perseus/* by Louis MacNeice, in his Poems, 1925-1940. Copyright, of the publisher. by Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission

297

PHAEA

PHAEA

(fe'a),

wild

boar

of

Crommyon, was

killed

by
be-

THESEUS.

PHAEACIANS

(fe-a'shanz)

were a seafaring people

who

inended ODYSSEUS. PHAEDRA (fe'dnz) was

a wife of

Theseus and the betrayer of

her stepson Hippolytus. See

THESEUS.

PHAETHON
PHEGEUS

(fa''th6n) was Apollo's foolish son who insisted on driving the chariot of the sun for one day. See APOLLO. PHANTASTUS (&n-ts'tus) is a god of dreams See HADES.

whose daughter married Alcmaeon, had him killed lor deserting her, and Alcmaeon's death ended the long chain of events that began with Zeus's abduction of Europa and
(fe'joos),

led to the founding

and

the eventual destruction of

THEBES.

PHILEMON (fHe'mbn) and Baucis were an aged couple whose charity and piety were signally honored by ZEUS.
PHILOCTETES
(fil'6k-te'tez)

or his father Poeas helped to put

Heracles out of his misery by lighting the funeral pyre of that great hero, and received from him, in return, his famous bow

and poisoned arrows Philoctetes was regarded as the greatest archer in Greece when he joined the expedition against the Trojans On the way to Troy, he and his companions landed on a small island to offer sacrifice to an obscure goddess, and Philocwas bitten by a snake or scratched by the point of one of his own arrows Whatever the cause of his wound, it did not heal,
tetes

and the stench

Lemnos.

of

it

depressing that his

and his cries of pain marooned him on the island companions

became
so terrible

so

of

For nearly ten years he existed alone on the island, enduring

the torment of his

wound and
last

and

despair.

But in the

struggling to control his anger year of the Trojan War the Greeks

captured the Trojan prophet Helenus, who told them that they could not win until they had obtained, among other things, the

298

PHILOCTETES
bow and
arrows of Heracles.

The

crafty Odysseus

emus or Diomedes

(accounts differ as to Odysseus'

and Neoptolcompanion)
f

were sent to get the bow and arrows. In Philoctetes a tragedy

persuade Neoptolemus to trick Philoctetes into giving up the bow and arrows, but Neoptolemus

by Sophocles, Odysseus
reluses to

tries to

do

so.

The

conflict

is

resolved by the deified Heracles,

tells

who appears
fight at

to Philoctetes

and

him

that

it is

his destiny to

Troy. When was cured of his wound by Machaon, a son of Asclepius, and the first victim of his arrows was Paris of Troy In his rare appearances in English literature Philoctetes has
Philoctetes arrived at the

Grecian camp, he

been a symbol of lonely suffering. Thomas Russell in the eighteenth century imagined Philoctetes' years of exile in Suppos'd to Be Written on Lemnos:

On

this

lone

Isle,

whose rugged rocks

affright

cautious pilot, ten revolving years Great Paean's Son, unwonted erst to tears,

The

Wept

o'er his

wound*

alike each rolling light

flight,

Of heaven he

By day
Drove

its lingering the sea-mew screaming round his cave slumber from his eyes, the chiding wave,

watch'd, and blam'd

And

savage howlmgs chas'd his dreams by night.

Hope

in each low breeze, that sigh'd still was his Thro' his rude grot, he heard a coming oar, In each white cloud a coming sail he spied, Nor seldom listened to the fancied roar

Of Oeta's torrents, or the hoarser tide That parts fam'd Trachis from th' Euboic
Trachis
lies at

shore.

Oeta, the peak where PhilocRussell tetes or his father lighted the funeral pyre of Heracles. because of mistakenly calls Philoctetes' father Paean, probably "Paeas" for "Poeas." the variant Latin spelling
the foot of

Mount

299

PHILOMELA
Lord de Tabley's nineteenth-century play of that name is an exemplar not only of pagan fortitude but also of Christian forgiveness. Sophocles would have been astonished to see Philoctetes forgiving Odysseus. Edmund Wilson in
Philoctetes of

The

our own time has used the myth of Philoctetes as a symbol of what he considers to be the plight of the artist or, at least, of

some

artists.

In The

Wound and
together."

the

Bow he

develops "the idea

that genius

and

disease, like strength

and mutilation, may be

inextricably

bound up

PHILOMELA

(fil'6-me'la), or

Philomena, and Procne were the

daughters of Pandion. They avenged the crime of their mutual husband, King Tereus, with one of the most terrible acts recorded in classical mythology. Tereus had first married Procne, who had

been offered

to

him by Pandion

as a

reward for his assistance in

a war that Pandion fought against King Labdacus of Thebes. After their son Itys, or Itylus, was born, Tereus grew tired of Procne. He therefore cut out her tongue and imprisoned her

in a cage in a forest. Telling Philomela that her sister

was dead,

he persuaded her to marry him. Procne, however, wove the story of her plight into a tapestry and sent it to Philomela. Then the two sisters took their vengeance on Tereus by killing and cooking Itys and serving him to Tereus at dinner. When Tereus discovered that he had eaten

he set out in pursuit of the two sisters. The gods, the affair, changed Philomela into a nightingale, by Procne into a swallow, and Tereus into a hawk or lapwing, so
his

own

son,

horrified

that symbolically the pursuit

still

continues.
sisters;

The

Latin poets sometimes reversed the role of the two

some accounts specify Philomela as the sister who lost her tongue and thus explain the fact that the nightingale at some seasons is
silent.

Chaucer prefers this version in the partial account of the myth that he gives in The Legend of Good Women (2228-2393),
300

PHILOMELA
an account that makes
to be trusted
its

moral point that

men

are not always

and

that stops short of telling

what subsequently

happened

to Itys.

story was so interesting to Elizabethan poets and their successors that by the eighteenth century the musical cry of

The

Philomela had become a thoroughly worn

cliche,

and

it

was

restored to poetic use only by a renewed insight that occurred among nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets. The Elizabethan

a rather typical use poet, Sir Philip Sidney, for example, makes of the myth when in a short song (The Nightingale) he comhis own: pares the nightingale's experience in love with

The

Unto her
While

nightingale, as soon as April bnngeth rested sense a perfect waking,

late bare earth,
.

proud of new

clothing, springeth,

Sings out her woes.

Edmund

Spenser in Virgils Gnat

to (401-403), alluding

many

Greek myths, remembers

.
.
.

those two Pandionian maides,

Itis, Itts euermore, wretched boy they slew with

Calling on

Whom

guiltie

blades.

the elements in his bloody Shakespeare makes the story one of in which Titus' daughter Lavinia is tragedy Titus Andronicus,
sons of the empress Tamora. raped and mutilated by the lustful In // Penseroso (56-62) John Milton, wishing to be rid of vain deluding joys, calls for silence unbroken
'Less Philomel will deign a Song, In her sweetest, saddest plight,

Smoothing the rugged brow of night, While Cynthia checks her Dragon yoke, Gendy o're th'accustom'd Oke;
Sweet Bird that shunn'st the noise of
folly,

Most musical, most Melancholy!

301

PHILOMELA
Whereafter for two centuries the name of Philomela was good for an ounce of unfortunate love and fine bird music wherever
it

was thrust
It is

in.

remarkable that John Keats,

as

as full of classical lore as

he

the song of a nightingale, should ignore the myth altogether in Ode to a Nightingale. To him the bird is but a "light-winged Dryad of the trees" that
was,

and

moved by

Smgest of summer in full-throated

references that relieve the bird of all
it
its

ease,

mythical sorrow and

instead a free spiritual blissfulness. give Matthew Arnold in Philomela, however, hears in the bird's

song again

its classic

sadness:

wanderer from a Grecian shore,

after

Still,

many

years, in distant lands,

Still

nourishing in thy bewildered brain That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world

it

pain-

Say, will

never heal?

And
With

can
its

this fragrant lawn cool trees, and night,

And the sweet, tranquil Thames, And moonshine, and the dew, To thy rack'd heart and brain
Afford no balm?

Dost thou tonight behold, Here, through the moonlight on this English The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild? Dost thou again peruse

grass,

With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes The too clear web, and thy dumb

sister's

shame?

Arnold concludes that the song expresses

Eternal passion Eternal pain!
1

302

PHILOMELA
much
poetic
in his

as

own day

as in the

day of

its

origin.

Thus, because

he found the emotional center of the myth, he was able to give

it

life again.

Swinburne, striving for the kind of realization that Arnold had been able to achieve, puts into his poem Itylus an echo of the myth itself but does not approach the intensity of Arnold's
feeling. Itylus
is

occupied with Philomela's reproach to Procne

for

seeming

to forget

The woven web The small slain

and concludes,

that was plain to follow, body, the flowerlike face,

Thou
But
If the

hast forgotten, the world shall end

is

summer when I
Itylus,

swallow,
forget.
it is

tragic feeling

weaker in

almost entirely

missing in Oscar Wilde's

.

The Burden

of Itys,

where

On
gives

starlit hills

that throbbing throat which once I heard of flower-starred Arcady

Wilde the occasion to review, as Spenser had done, a great many Greek myths. But Wilde lacks the poetic finesse of Spenser, and he seems frequently to be drawing on Keats for his effects. As remarkable in its way as Keats's ignoring of the myth is the

revivification of

it that T. S. Eliot accomplishes in two poems, Sweeney among the Nightingales and The Waste Land. The myth provides a poignant irony in the context of both poems.

In the

going on in a cheap dive, probably to be followed by a murder, while outside

first,

a seduction

is

The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
303

PHILOMELA
And sang within the bloody wood When Agamemnon cried aloud, And let then: liquid siftrngs fall To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.4
Here the nightingales form one of Eliot's favorite points of refthe theme of the conversion of meaningful suffering into significance and beauty. The modern cheap vulgarity of

erence,

Sweeney's behavior in toying with sensuality is ironically contrasted with the classically tragic but now lovely suffering of
Philomela. (For further

under
of

ATREUS

comment on these lines and Oedipus under THEBES.)

see

Agamemnon

The theme is given fuller expression in the second section The Waste Land, A Game of Chess (98-103). Here the neurotic lady, who is for the moment the poem's protagonist, sits
uncomprehendingly before a mantel above which a picture shows
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene

The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king So rudely forced, yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice

And
"Jug

still

she cried,

and

still

the world pursues,

Jug'* to dirty ears.*

The
she

lady, like the other inhabitants of the waste land in

lives,

which

has failed to grasp what the myth makes clear, that refusal for high moral reasons to submit to sensuality may lead
to a tragic fate, but that the tragedy itself may lead to a higher kind of existence and to an inviolability of spirit, whereas the
4 From "Sweeney among the Nightingales," by T S. Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 1909-1935. Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Reprinted with their permission. s From "The Waste Land/' by T S Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 19091935. Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company Reprinted with

their permission.

PHOEBE
indulgence of sensuality with no other aim than self-gratification leads to a neurotic and meaningless existence. The idea is given
a brief echo in

The

Fire

Sermon

of the poem. After a mocking Sweeney and Mrs. Porter, the poem continues:

(203-206), the third section account of the dalliance of

Twit

twit twit

Jug jug jug jug jug jug

So rudely Tereu 6
lines that
forc'd.

might appear meaningless

if

the final

word did not

make

clear that they represent the song of the nightingale. In Elizabethan times the word "jug" was used to indicate the note of a bird's song, and the word "tereu" is not only a shortened

form of King Tereus' name but a word that the Elizabethan writer, George Gascoigne, in his poem, The Complaynt of Philomene, identified as a trill in the song of the nightingale. Thus again Eliot makes the myth provide an ironic contrast 'between Philomela's agony because of Tereus' lust and the easy submission of Mrs. Porter to Sweeney.

PHILOMENA
PHINEUS

(fil'6-me'nfl) is

another

name
of

for

PHILOMELA.
fianc

(fi'nus)

was

(1)

Andromeda's

first

turned to stone by PERSEUS; (2) a was aided by the ARGONAUTS.

man

many

troubles

who was who

PHLEGETHON
HADES.

(flg'-th6n), or Pyriphlegethon,

is

a river of

PHLEGYAS (flSjI-ds) was the father of IXION. PHOBOS (fo'bos) is an attendant of his father ARES. PHOEBE (fe'be), whose name is often given to Artemis,
first
e

was the

moon

goddess and the grandmother of

S. Eliot,

ARTEMIS.
Poems, 1909-

From "The Waste Land," by T.

in his Collected

1935. Copyright, 1934/1936, by Harcourt, Brace their permission.

and Company Reprinted with

305

PHOEBUS

PHOEBUS PHOENIX

(fe'bus)

is

name

of

APOLLO.

(fe'niks).

(1)

the search for their sister

Phoenix, a brother of Cadmus, gave up Europa and settled at last in a land that

was thereafter called Phoenicia. See

is

THEBES.

(2)

The Phoenix

a miraculous bird of wonderful red and gold plumage that inhabits an earthly paradise in Arabia where it sits on or near
a specially reserved tree.

Only one of the

this single

species

is

be alive at any one time, but

Phoenix

lives to

supposed to an ex-

traordinary age, according to some accounts, five hundred years, and according to others, a thousand or more. At the end of its life span, the Phoenix builds itself a nest of spice and aromatic woods, settles on it, and sets fire to it. From the ashes of this
fire arises

new Phoenix. Some

say that the

new bird then

them
to the

takes

up

the remains of the old bird

and

carries

temple

of the sun at Heliopolis in Egypt, where it either buries or sacrifices them on the high altar. But others say that

them
it is

the same bird that arises from the ashes of the

by the

fire

which

it

created,

and that

this

regenerated bird then makes a

fire,

pilgrimage to Heliopolis. In either event, the bird is supposed to be visible to mortals only while it is on its flight to and from
Heliopolis.
early Egyptians were first to see in the myth a symbol of immortality. To them the life cycle of the Phoenix symbolized

The

the life cycle of the sun, which dies every day at sunset and is reborn every morning; consequently they held that the bird was

sacred to the sun. Other people interpreted the myth as a more general symbol for the regeneration of life after death, and this
is

the interpretation usually given it. symbolic bird naturally appealed to Christians because of the parallel between its rebirth and the resurrection of the Christ.

The

The Phoenix
is

thus became a favorite early Christian symbol. It used to this end in The Phoenix, one of the few poems in

306

PHOENIX
The bird also appears in a The Phoenix, and the Turtle, the meaning poem of which is obscure, but a much moie typical Shakespearian use of the symbol is the remark of Sebastian in The Tempest (3. 3.
Old English
that have survived.
of Shakespeare's,

21-24):

Now

I will

believe

That there are unicorns, that in Arabia There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix At this hour reigning there.
Sebastian has just seen a vision of strange shapes sent by Prospero, the magician, and his credulity has been considerably enlarged by the experience, as the quoted lines indicate. typically metaphysical use of the symbol appears in

The

Canonization, where John Donne, expressing the mystic unity that love has made of him and his mistress, writes:

The Phoenix ndle hath more wit By us, we two being one, are it.

To

Milton, the bird's remarkable flight to Egypt seems an apt

simile for the flight of the angel Raphael from Heaven to Eden in Paradise Lost (5. 272-274), sent to warn Adam, Raphael as

he

flies

downward

looks like
as that sole

Phoenix, gaz'd by

all,

Bird

When

to enshrine his rehques in the Sun's Bright Temple, to Aegyptian Theb's he flies.

Milton obviously
at

is

following a variant that locates the temple

Thebes rather than at Heliopolis. In our own time the Phoenix was a personal symbol for the poet and novelist D. H. Lawrence, and his posthumous papers are
307

PHOLUS
appropriately entitled Phoenix. Maurice Cramer's novel, Phoenix <it East Hadley, published in 1941, suggests in a light mood what

might happen

to a quiet Massachusetts town took up residence there.

(fo'lus),

if

three Phoenixes

PHOLUS
provoked

who guarded

the wine
a

of

the

Centaurs,

battle

by giving Heracles

drink.

See

CEN-

TAURS.

PHORCYS (for'sis) is one of the SEA GODS. PHOSPHOR (6s'for), the morning star, is a son of EOS.
PHRIXUS (frik'sus) See ARGONAUTS.
PIERIA
rode on the golden-fleeced

ram

to Colchis.

(pHr'ivi) is a spring on the slopes of near which were born the MUSES

Mount Olympus,

PIERIDES (pi-e'rl-dez) are the, MUSES. PILLARS, or Gates, OF HERACLES (hSr'd-klez)

tains

are two

mounthe

which
the

face

each

other
the

across

the
river

strait

where

Mediterranean Sea meets

called
is

great

of

Oceanus, now

Atlantic Ocean.
the

now

called

These mountains, one of which Rock of Gibraltar, were raised by

loved by Daphnis,
at

HERACLES. PIPLEA (pip'le'd) was death by HERACLES.

who was

saved from

PIRENE

(pi're'ne)

was a famous spring

was a
is

Corinth near which

Pegasus was bridled by

BELLEROPHON.
close friend of

PIRITHOUS

(pi-rith'6'us)

THESEUS.
sign of the

PISCES (pis'ez), ZODIAC.

the Fish,

a constellation

and a

PITYS

(pitls)

was a

Nymph whom Pan

loved.

When

she fled
there-

from him, she was transformed into the pine after was sacred to PAN.

tree,

which

PLEIADS
308

(ple'yads), or

ning away from

PLEIADES ORION.

(ple'yd-dez^ are always run-

POLYXENA

PLUTON
the

(ploc/ton), or

PLUTO

(ploc/to),

is

another

name o

god HADES.
(ploc/tus)
is

PLUTUS

god of wealth frequently confused with

was a Greek
See

the god Pluto, or-

HADES.

PODALIRIUS
leader

(po'd^Hirl-us), a son of Asclepius,

the

TROJAN WAR.
(po-dar'je)
is

PODARGE
GODS.

one

of

the

Harpies.

SEA

POEAS

(pe'as)

was the father of

is

POLLUX
brother of

(pol'uks)

the

PHILOCTETES. Roman name of Polydeuces,

the twin

CASTOR.
king of

POLYBOTES (pSl'i-bo'tez) was one of the GIANTS. POLYBUS (pol'i-bus) was foster father of Oedipus,
THEBES.

POLYDAMNA
POLYDECTES

(p61 i-dam'na),

queen of Egypt, entertained

Helen of Troy. See

TROJAN WAR.
Danae
to

marry him, was turned

POLYDEUCES POLYDORUS (p511-d6r-us)

of

(p6H-dgk'tez), who tried to force to stone by PERSEUS. (poll-du'sez) was the twin brother of

CASTOR.
a young

was

(1)

the son of Cadmus, founder

(see

THEBES;

(2)

one of the Epigoni

THEBES);

(3)

Trojan prince
is

(see

AENEAS).

POLYHYMNIA
the

Muse

(p611-him'm-0}, or POLYMNIA (p6*lim'ni-a), of sacred song and oratory. See MUSES.

(pSll-m'sez)

POLYNICES

and

Eteocles, sons of Oedipus, vied

for the kingship of

THEBES.
was
the

POLYPHEMUS
SEUS.

(poll-fe'miis)

Cyclops

who

loved

Galatea and was blinded by Odysseus. See

GALATEA, ODYSEteodes
defend

POLYPHONTES
THEBES.

(p61'i-f6n'tez)

helped

POLYXENA

(po-lik'sfe-nd),

a Trojan princess, was sacrificed on

309

POMONA
the grave of Achilles at the

demand

of Achilles' ghost. See

TROthe

JAN WAR.

POMONA
mistress of

(pd-mo'nfl), the

Roman

goddess of fruit

trees, is

VERTUMNUS.

PONTUS (p6n'tus) is one of the SEA GODS. PORPHYRION (p6r-fir1-6n) was one of the GIANTS. PORTUNUS (por-tu'nus), the Roman god of harbors, is
fied

identi-

with Palaemon. See

(pfrsi'd&n)

SEA GODS.
is

POSEIDON
See

the chief

Olympian god
is

of the sea.

SEA GODS.
(po'thos),

POTHOS
EROS.

the god of longing,

an attendant ot

PRIAM

(pri'am), or

at the time of the

PRIAMUS (prl'a-mus), TROJAN WAR.

god of

was king of Troy

fertility in

PRIAPUS
and man,

(pri-a'pus), or Lutinus, a
is

nature

the son of Aphrodite or Chione, the Titaness, by or Zeus. He is a guardian of all who cultivate the soil Dionysus and a friend and protector, as well, of travelers, shepherds, and

mariners. Statues of

the fertility of the soil

him were erected and to ward off

thieves.

in gardens to increase On these, short

humorous poems, Priapea, were often carved. Eighty of the poems were collected in the time of Augustus. The narrator in
Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls (253-259) remembers:

The God Priapus saw I, as I wente, Withinne the temple in sovereyn place stonde.
Priapus "with his company" is in the procession of deities and animals in Shelley's Witch of Atlas (41-88). Swinburne's Dolores

("Our Lady of Pain") is the "daughter of Death and Priapus" (53). D. H. Lawrence wrote a Hymn to Priapus, and Mr. Apollinax, the foreigner, in the

poem

that bears his name, reminds

T.

S.

Eliot of

310

PROMETHEUS
.
. .

Gaping

Priapus in the shrubbery at the lady in the swing. 7

PROCNE
PROCRIS
off

(pr6k'ne) was the sister of PHILOMELA. (pro'kris) was the wife of Cephalus, who was carried
/

by EOS.
(pr6-krijs tez)

PROCRUSTES
fit

had a way
to
fit it

of

making

all his

guests

his guest bed.

He was made

also

by THESEUS.

PROETUS (pre'tus) LEROPHON.

tried to bring

about the death of BELa surname of

PROMACHOS
(2)

(pr6m'd-kos)

(1)

is

ATHENE;

was one of the Epigoni

(see

THEBES).

PROMETHEUS (pr6-me'thus) was the son of the Titan, lapetus,

and either the goddess Themis, who later married Zeus, ^or the Oceanid Clymene. By a rather doubtful etymology, his name was commonly taken to mean "forethought," and with his brother Epimetheus, or "afterthought," he was credited with a substantial part in the creation of mankind. Though accounts vary widely in detail, they all agree that Prometheus gave fire to mankind against the will of Zeus, and that for this act he was
severely punished. When the world was
first

organized out of Chaos,

it

was ruled

by Uranus, the sky. Uranus was overthrown by his son Cronus, for ages he and his fellow Titans were supreme. Finally Zeus and the other Olympian children of Cronus challenged their father's might, and a great war ensued between the Titans and the Olympians. In this struggle Prometheus had the fore-

and

thought to side with Zeus against his own kind, since the Olympians were destined by fate to win, and therefore Prometheus and his brother were not cast into Tartarus with other defeated
Titans.
T From "Mr. Apollmax," by T. S Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 1909-1935. Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company Reprinted with theil permission.

311

PROMETHEUS
Instead, he

the animals

tion to

and Epimetheus were charged with the creation and of mankind. Epimetheus gave his chief attenshaping animals and endowing them with their various and shaped
it

natures. Prometheus, however, took earth

with

water, he gave to

man

the form of the gods themselves, so that

man, of

the animals, alone stands upright and is always able to look at the heavens, whereas his animal kindred gaze
all

downward
and
for

at

the earth.

Meantime Epimetheus had been

so-

generous in

endowing animals with faculties such as strength

and courage that there appeared to be little left man. Prometheus therefore determined to endow man with
swiftness
fire,

the use of

the sacred property of the

it,

Olympian

gods.

With
it

the aid of Athene he obtained

at the chariot of the sun.

The

gift

probably by was a magnificent one, for

lighting a torch

enabled

man
in

to

warm

his house against the inclemency of the

weather, to cook his food, to shape utensils and weapons out of

metal,

and

many

ways, to bring about his

own advancement.

and so close to the put that the gods were alarmed, and a great debate gods themselves ensued on Mount Olympus as to the proper portion of mankind
In
fact, it

man

so far above the animals

-in the world.

Prometheus was by now in disfavor with Zeus, but he was

ordered to decide what portion of a sacrificial bull was due to man and what to the gods. Still determined to favor man, he

wrapped the edible parts in the hide and concealed them with useless entrails, and at the same time wrapped the skeleton in fat so that it appeared to be rich. When Zeus was asked to choose between these two portions, he was not taken in by the stratagem; but he chose the skeleton and the fat, thus leaving
the better portion to

man. Then,

as

a punishment, he deprived

Prometheus, however, stole the fire again from heaven in a hollow reed and gave it back to man. Where.
fire.

man

of the use of

312

PROMETHEUS
upon Zeus determined to punish both the race of man and and friend, Prometheus, in more terrible ways.
As a punishment
struct the
first
its

creator

for

man, he ordered Hephaestus

to this cynical myth,

to con-

woman. According
endowed with

Hephaes-

tus built a creature

named Pandora, whom

suitably

the various gods

and

goddesses

then

dangerous

qualities;

Athene gave her womanly skill in handicrafts, Aphrodite gave Jtier beauty, and Hermes gave her guile. Then, when she was fatally complete, Hermes led her down to Epimetheus to begin her work of causing the downfall of mankind, an occasion aptly remembered by Milton in Paradise Lost (4. 713-719) when he wished to describe the fatal glamour of Eve, who was, he says,
... in naked beauty more adorn'd,

More lovely then Pandora, whom the Gods Endowd with all thir gifts, and O too like In sad event, when to the unwiser Son Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnar'd Mankind with her faire looks, to be aveng'd On him who had stole Joves authentic fire.
^Here Japhet is lapetus.) The first woman met with the same success that has been hereditary in her beautiful descendants ever since; she at once caught the eye of Epimetheus who, ignoring his brother's warning ants), made her his wife.
(a trait also hereditary in his

descend-

Pandora had brought with her as a gift a magic box into which the gods had put multifarious woes from all of which
was warned not
at that Dearly time wholly free. Epimetheus open the box. Some stories say that it belonged to Epimetheus and contained \he ills which had not been distributed in the creation of man and that Pandora was warned
blissful

mankind was
to

against opening

it.

In any event, the

box was opened, and

313

PROMETHEUS
immediately out flew
all

the grievous things

it

contained, pain

and

sickness,

envy and anger, sorrow and despair.

Hope alone

was kept

in, so that it

might

still

remain

to

man, although the

nineteenth-century poet, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in his Pandora, asks a pertinent question even about hope:

poem

What of the end? These beat The ill-born things, the good

their wings at will,

things turned to

ill,

Powers of the impassioned hours prohibited. Aye, clench the casket now! Whither they go Thou mayst not dare to think nor canst thou know If Hope still pent there be alive or dead.

did Zeus penalize man for the possession of fire, and thus did the Greeks symbolize their adherence to the timeless masculine conviction that all man's troubles begin with woman.

Thus

For Prometheus Zeus provided a cruel fate. He had Hephaestus chain the Titan to a crag in the Caucasus mountains, where every day an eagle or a vulture visited him and ate out his
liver,

which grew back

daily.

At

this

point again there are

variables in the myth.

One

story says that

Prometheus had
that Zeus

re-

ceived from his mother

Themis information

would

have a son who would overthrow him. Because Zeus knew that

Prometheus had
Tartarus, and he
willing to ever, told
tell

this

information, he did not cast the Titan into

would have freed him if Prometheus had been what he knew. Prometheus' prophetic gift, howalso that a descendant of Zeus in the thirteenth

him

generation would free him, and he therefore preferred to await this rescue. It came in the person of Heracles, who shot the hungry eagle and broke the confining chains to free the Titan, in return for which Prometheus told Heracles where to find Atlas

and the garden of the Hesperides. According to another story, Prometheus seems
314

to

have divulged

PROMETHEUS
to Zeus,

who was about

to

make

love to Thetis, the vital inforto

mation that Thetis' son was destined

father.
tal,

be greater than his

Zeus therefore decreed that Thetis should marry a morshe did so, and her son Achilles fulfilled the prophecy b)

becoming much greater than his father Peleus. Prometheus was released for saving Zeus from disaster. He also received immortality from Chiron, the Centaur, who, in trying to make peace
between Heracles and the other Centaurs, was wounded with a poisoned arrow; the agony was so great that he offered to give his immortality to Prometheus so that he might die of his wound. This arrangement was permitted, and Prometheus joined
the gods on Olympus. As a champion of mankind against the ruling forces of the universe, Prometheus has always had a great attraction for poets,

Beginning with the ancient Greek dramatist, Aeschylus, who seems to have written two plays about him, Prometheus Bound and Prometheus Unbound, the second
especially for

Romantic

poets.

which has been lost in the passage of time, Prometheus has been the subject of many symbolic poems. His more idealistic values are ignored by Jonathan Swift, who
of

him in Prometheus of stealing the golden chain that from the throne of Zeus and who uses this story to belabor hung an eighteenth-century Irish patentee named Wood:
accuses
Say,

who

is

to

be understood

By
I

that old thief Prometheus?

it is

WOOD

For Jove,

mean

not hard to guess him; his m[ajesty], God bless him.

Swift says that Prometheus substituted a brass chain for the golden one, and it is clear that in this poem Swift himself, steal-

ing from his

own

sovereign, has replaced the gold of the

myth

with both brass and irony.

PROMETHEUS
Byron
gives

Prometheus more

his

due in a poem

to

which he

gave the Titan's name:

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.
Here the poet follows the common idea that the fire which stole for man was intellectual and not physical. He

Prometheus

adds, generalizing his symbol:

Like thee, Man is in part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee

His

own

funereal destiny;

but

like

Prometheus,
his

man

he makes of

own death

does not give a victory.

in,

and thus

(says

Byron)

of all the English poetic uses of the myth, represents the idealistic symbolic value of Prome-

Shelley, too, in the best

known

drama

to Zeus. In Prometheus Unbound, a poetic in part by Aeschylus, he identifies Zeus with inspired the principle of evil in the world, and the old Titan, Saturn,

theus' resistance

with good. Prometheus he

assist

mankind

sees as a regenerative power able to in returning to the state of early innocence. Shelas refusing to yield to

ley describes

Prometheus

Zeus the secret

fatal

that

would prevent his overthrow, so that Zeus makes the

error of marrying Thetis and is deposed by Demogorgon, who leads him down to dwell in Tartarus. Hercules, who typifies
strength, frees Prometheus,
state.

and the world returns

to

an

ideal

The poem ends with

a speech by Demogorgon, a character

introduced into the myth by Shelley:

316

PROSERPINA
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite, To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent, To love, and bear, to hope till Hope creates
From
its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be

Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

To
In his

Longfellow, Prometheus seems a good symbol of the poet. poem Prometheus, or The Poet's Forethought he writes:
All
is

but a symbol painted

the Poet, Prophet, Seer; those are crowned and sainted

Of
Only

Who

with grief have been acquainted,

nobler, freer.
all

Making nations

Although he wonders whether

the

work of poets has

it

beent

in vain in this unyielding world,

he decides that

has not;

and

he concludes that the poets must continue to hold their torches, on high. In Epimetheus, or The Poet's Afterthought, he expresses
puzzlement that the gods created Pandora so lovely and so> destructive, and relief that she did at least save hope for the
world.

Prometheus provided a similar inspiration for James Russell Lowell, and for Robert Bridges he offered the opportunity to see, somewhat dimly in spite of two thousand years of hindsight, the

state of

coming of Christianity as the overthrow of Zeus. The the world in recent decades, however, has not encouraged

poets to use a

myth

PROSERPINA

that foresees so clearly an end to woe. is a Roman name of Persephone, (pr&'seY'pi'iui)

the daughter of Demeter

and the wife of Hades. See

EARTH

GODDESSES, HADES.

PROTESILAUS

PROTESILAUS
the

Trojan

(pr&-ts'Ma'iis) was the first Greek to land shore and the first to die in the

on

TROJAN

WAR. PROTEUS
He
See

herd of seals. (pro'tl-us) is the shepherd of Poseidon's can change his shape at will, and he is skilled in prophecy.

SEA GODS.
(si'ke),

PSYCHE

the personification of the

human

soul,

married

the god of love,

EROS.
(si'ko-pom'pos)
is

PSYCHOPOMPOS
HERMES.

another

name

for

PYGMALION

(pig'ma'li'&n) was a mythical sculptor of enormously good fortune. A scorner of women and of lascivious living, according to Ovid (Metamorphoses 10), he lived apart from the daily life of Cyprus, his native isle. One day he carved out of

ivory a statue of a woman so beautiful and so perfect that he fell in love with it. As his ardor grew greater he began to wish earnestly that the statue had life, and at last he went to the

temple of Aphrodite and prayed

to the

goddess to grant his wish.

Aphrodite was moved by his prayer and caused the statue to come to life. Pygmalion was naturally overjoyed and made this extraordinary woman his wife. The result of their union was a son

named Paphos, whose name

as

the Cyprians gave to their city a memorial of Aphrodite's miracle. Pygmalion's experience has appealed to many poets. Some of

them, congenitally of the opinion that

as unyielding as ivory, see in
it

women

are as fair and

One

of

them whose name

the symbol of their frustration. has not come down to us but whose

poem, The Tale

tress in

of Pigmalion, survives in Tottel's Miscellany, a famous Elizabethan anthology, recounts the story to his mis-

order to conclude pointedly,

Since that this

My
318

dere, alas since I

ymage dum enflamde so wyse a man: you loue, what wonder is it than?

PYGMIES

Elizabethan, John Marston, takes a somewhat more view of the story in his poem, The Metamorphosis of worldly
later

Pygmalion's Image. According to his version, Pygmalion made such violent love to the statue that Aphrodite's act was less of
a miracle. "Tut," he writes,
.

women

will relent

Whenas

they find such

moving blandishment.

And

in his sonnet prefatory to this

poem he

promises his mistress

sweet bhsse,

Then when thy kindnes grants me such He gladly write' thy Metamorphosis.

As might be expected, William Morris expands the myth of Pygmalion to considerable length in The Earthly Paradise, his
long collection of mythical stories in poetic form, but he has little to add to the story except length. On the other hand,

Thomas
out,

Lovell Beddoes' Pygmalion, as Douglas Bush points

artist

makes the sculptor a symbol of the

who

lives

remote
in

by ence with the world, and Beddoes' modifications show

his version Pygmalion's prayer
is

from the world about him. The

artist is frustrated

his experithis;

unanswered until he

dies,

and

then the statue comes to

life.

The best-known modern

use of the

myth

is

Bernard Shaw's

play Pygmalion. In this play the statue is represented by a Cockney girl of the lowest social caste, and Pygmalion is a learned professor of phonetics. The girl is in effect transformed
into an elegant lady
is

and an equal of high-born snobs when she

to

taught to speak upper-class English. Thus the giving of life an inanimate figure is ironic in the play, and Shaw turns

his parallel of the

into a witty satire on snobbery. attacked Heracles, who wrapped them (pig'mez) in his lion's skin. See HERACLES.

myth

PYGMIES

up

319

PYLADES
PYLADES ATREUS.
(pil'd-dez)

was the faithful friend of Orestes. See

PYRAMUS

(pir'fl-mus)

and Thisbe were two

lovers in ancient

Babylon during the reign of Queen Semiramis. Their story was not originally a classical myth, but it became closely assoMetamorphoses, a
parents to see
their parents

ciated with classical mythology when Ovid incorporated it in his series of tales of transformations. The two

but were forbidden by their each other. With an independence familiar to readers of romances, they contrived to make love in spite of
lovers lived in adjoining houses

and held converse through a chink in the wall two dwellings. At last they agreed to run and they arranged to meet outside the city at away together, the tomb of King Ninus. Thisbe arrived first; and while she waited, a lioness, fresh from a kill, approached and frightened
that separated their

her into fleeing for refuge in such haste that she dropped her
veil.

The lioness drank at a near-by spring and tossed with bloody mouth the veil that Thisbe had dropped.

its

When Pyramus

arrived, the lioness

had

left,

but Thisbe had

not dared to return from her refuge. Seeing the bloody veil, Pyramus hastily concluded that a wild beast had slain Thisbe
After blaming himself in lover's fashion for having brought so unkind a fate on her, he killed himself with his sword. Thisbe, when she returned,
her, bones, gristle,
all.

and eaten

and

this incontrovertible evidence of Pyramus' death, and after an appropriate lover's speech, she also killed herself, first praying that her ashes and those of Pyramus be mingled in the funeral obsequies. In the meantime the mingled blood of the

found

soaking into the ground, caused the berries of a near-by mulberry tree to turn purple, though previously they
lovers,

two

had been

white.

Ovid's version of this

myth has been retold countless

times.

320

PYTHONESS
in medieval style in The Legend of Good (921-923) as an example of "A man that can in love been trewe and kynde" and of a woman who "dar and can as " wel as he Doubtless the best-known later rendition is Shake-

Chaucer

relates

it

Women

speare's burlesque of the story in the last act of

A Midsummer-

play within the play, pathos is made bathos by Bottom, Quince, and the other low comic characters. To spare the ladies' feelings, Bottom suggests that the prothis small

Night's Dream. In

logue say

(3. 1.

19-23)

We
not

will

kill'd indeed,

that I

do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is and for the more better assurance, tell them am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver. Pyramus

Bottom and his fellows manage to personify even the separating wall and the moonlight, and they make each moment of feeling so explicit that Hippolyta, watching them, is moved to exclaim,
This
is

the

silliest stuff

that ever I heard

(5.

1.213).
is

PYRIPHLEGETHON
river of

(pir'i-flgg'-th6n), or Phlegethon,

HADES.
was the

PYRRHA (pir'd) was the wife of DEUCALION. PYRRHUS (pir'us), who was also called Neoptolemus,
son of Achilles.

PYTHIA
See

fought in the TROJAN' WAR. (pithl-a) is a name of Apollo's priestess at Delphi.

He

ORACLES.
(pith/i-us)
is

PYTHIUS

name

given to Apollo in reference to

his killing the Python. See

APOLLO.

PYTHON
serpent

(pi'th6n), a son of the earth goddess Gaea,

who

was a great guarded the Delphic oracle until he was killed by

/ (p! th6-ne's)
is

Apollo. See
Delphi. See

ORACLES.
a

PYTHONESS

name

of Apollo's priestess at

ORACLES.
321

QUIRINAL

QUIRINAL
ROME. QUIRINUS
See
deified as a

(kwir'i'ndl)

is

one of the seven

hills

of later

ROME.

QUIRINAUA (kwir'i-na'li-fl) was a festival in honor of Romulus.

(kwi-rl'nus)
is

the

minor god of war.

name under which Romulus was See ARES, ROME.

REMUS
ROME.

(re'mus) was the brother of Romulus,

founder of

RHADAMANTHUS (rM'4-man'thto), a son of Zeus and Europa,

became a judge in HADES. (re'd) was the Titan earth goddess. See DESSES.

RHEA

EARTH GOD-

RHEA
ROME,

SILVIA

(re'd sil'vi-a)

was the mother of Remus and

Romulus. See

ROME.
was one of the GIANTS.

RHOETUS
or
civilization,

(re'tus)

ROMA, the capital of the Roman empire and was founded by Romulus, according to mythology,
to April 21, 753 B.C.

on a date that corresponds

hills,

calendar. According to tradition, also, the city was built

on the Christian on seven

and consequently

it is

often referred to as the City of the

322

ROME
Seven Hills; but the seven hills on which the ancient city was built are not the seven that became famous in later times, chiefly
several of the larger the earliest city were Palatium, Cermalus, Velia, Oppius, Cispius, Fagutal, and Sucusa. The Palatium and the Cermalus were both peaks of the
hills in their system.

because the ancient

Romans subdivided The seven hills of

Palatine hill of later fame; the Velia was the saddle ridge that connected the Palatine with the Esquiline; the Oppius and
Cispius were both spurs of the Esquiline; the Fagutal was the highest part of the Oppius; and the Sucusa was a spur of the

Caelian
hills

hill.

In the

much

larger city of a later day, the

famous

include the Palatine, Esquiline, and Caelian hills already mentioned, and the Aventine, Capitoline, Viminal, and Quirinal
hills.

The Romans maintained

that before their capital city was

founded, the area was dominated by the town of Alba Longa that had been founded by Aeneas' son, Ascanius, and ruled over
ever since by his descendants.

One

of these,

King Numitor, was

deposed by his younger brother, Amulius, who also arranged to have Numitor's son killed on a hunt and then forced Numitor's

Rhea Silvia, to become a Vestal Virgin. Rhea Silvia, was visited by Mars, and as a result had twin boys, however, Romulus and Remus. This annoyed Amulius, who put the lady in prison and the two boys into a basket which he had thrown
daughter,
in^o the Tiber River.

The
to rest.

basket floated along to the Palatine Hill, where it came There a she-wolf took care of the boys and suckled them.

They were rescued and adopted by one of the king's shepherds named Faustulus. One day when they had grown to youth, the
twins and some of their fellow shepherds quarreled with the shepherds of Numitor, and in the ensuing fray Remus was taken
prisoner

and afterward brought before Numitor, who recognized

523

ROME
him
as his

had long suspected the

joined

grandson because of Remus' bearing. Faustulus, who relationship, now confirmed it. Romulus
in his grandfather's house,

Remus

and the three

of

them plotted
process.

to restore the throne of

Numitor, a project that

they at length successfully completed, slaying Amulius in the

Romulus and Remus now decided

own,
to

to

found a

city of their

which one of them was

to give his

name. Since they were

set

twins, this intention led to trouble.

as the site for the

They

chose the Palatine Hill

new

city,

and Romulus

out to define the

locations of the walls by driving a plowshare with a bullock along the lines. Remus, to show his contempt for these walls,

leaped over them in mockery, and Romulus in a

killed him.

fit

of anger

Thus Romulus was free to name the city after himself, and he called it Roma. Romulus now set out to build up the population of his city. He had his own group of followers, and some of the Alba Longans had moved with him, but the population was small Romulus therefore declared the city a refuge for slaves and homicides and anyone else who cared to live there, a device that brought a great many men to Rome, but very few women. 'He
then invited the neighboring towns to send

women

in marriage,

but they declined for reasons that are not hard to imagine As a stratagem, Romulus invited the same towns to a celebration in

Rome. large number of the Sabine tribes came, bringing th.eir wives and families, according to the custom of the time. At an
appropriate moment, the
off

Romans

seized the daughters

settled

and made
married

with them into the

city,

where they

down

to

life.

This

act,

famous
city.

as the rape of the

Sabine

Women, brought

war on the

The Romans were generally

successful in defend-

ing themselves until attacked by an army under the Sabine king,

ROME
The capable generalship of this king brought the Sabines to the very walls of Rome, and at the critical moment, the city was betrayed to them from within by one of their
Titus Tatius.
Tarpeia, after whom in later days was named the famous Tarpeian Rock from which condemned criminals were cast down to their destruction. In the battle that followed, the

women named

for the Romans partly by the intercession of in response to a prayer of Romulus; partly by an accident Jupiter that befell a Sabine leader named Mettius Curtius, who fell into

day was saved

a mire and had to be rescued; but chiefly by the Sabine women whom the Romans had stolen, who rushed between the combatants to

make

peace.

agreed to join the new city and to add to it by settlements on adjoining hills, over all of which, however, Romulus was to be sole king. Romulus subsequently ruled in
Sabines

The

now

comparative peace for nearly forty years, during which time he founded, according to the myth, most of the Roman institutions such as the Senate, the Patrician and Plebeian classes, the system
of patrons and clients, and the army. One day while reviewing the army on the Campus Martius, or Field of Mars, a large

training ground, Romulus was seized up into heaven in the midst of a great thunderstorm. Later, however, he appeared to a Roman named Julius Paterculus and predicted the future
greatness of Rome. He warned his people to become proficient in arms so that they might live up to their destiny, and he directed that he be worshiped as Quirinus, a lesser Mars. Al-

though some suspected that Romulus had been killed by the Senators in the darkness of the storm, most accepted the story of

and consequently Romulus a god. was religious festival called the Quirinalia was established in his honor.
the miraculous seizure into heaven,

considered to be

The famous

statue that represents

Romulus and Remus being

325

ROMULUS
suckled by the she-wolf has become emblematic of the city of

Rome.

ROMULUS
against

(r6m'u-lils)

was the founder of

ROME.

RUTULIANS

(roo-toc/li^nz) were a people of Italy who fought

AENEAS.

SABINE

(sa'bin)

WOMEN

were stolen from their families by

the Romans in the early days of ROME. SABRINA (sa-bri'na) is a river Nymph invented by Milton. See NYMPHS, SEA GODS. SAGITTARIUS (sajl-ta'ri-us), the Archer, is a constellation and

a sign of the

ZODIAC.
(s&Fmd'Sis)

SALMACIS

was the
first

Hermaphroditus produced the

Nymph whose union with hermaphrodite. See HERMES.

SAMOTHRACE
the

Aegean

(sm'6-thras), an island in the northern part of Sea, was famous in ancient times for its religious
Cabiri, deities whose nature

mysteries.

The

and worship were

kept so secret that nothing definite is known of them, were sometimes called Samothracian gods because of the celebration of their

on the island. In the third poem of Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, in which Ezra Pound contrasts the gimcrack present
mysteries
is

with the beauty of the past, he observes that the Christian mystery inferior to that of Samothrace. Exploration of the ancient ruins
of the island recovered a statue which has

become famous

as the

Victory of Samothrace. It

is

in the Louvre at Paris.

326

SEA GODS

SARPEDON (sar'pe'don) fought valiantly against the Greeks in the TROJAN WAR. SATURN (sat'urn), or SATURNUS (sa-tur'nus), is a Roman
name
for

CRONUS.
(sat'ur-na'li-a)

SATURNALIA
of Saturn, the

was a harvest celebration in honor

are

SATYRS
of

Roman CRONUS. (sa'tirz), or SATYRI (sa'tir-i), PAN and DIONYSUS.

(se'dn)

wood

gods, followers

SCAEAN

GATES

were the chief entrance to Troy. See

TROJAN WAR. SCAMANDER (sk-man'dr)

WAR. SCHERIA
SEUS.
(ske'ri-d)

was a

river of Troy. See

TROJAN

was the land of the Phaeacians. See ODYS-

SCHOENEUS
BOEOTIA.

(ske'nf-us)

was the father of

ATALANTA OF
sea.

SCIRON

(si'r6n)

was a robber

who

kicked travelers into the

He suffered the same fate at the hands (or feet) of THESEUS. SCORPIO (skor'pi-o), the Scorpion, is a constellation and a sign
of the

ZODIAC.
(sil'a),

SCYLLA
and

a sea

Nymph, was transformed

into a monster,

thereafter she preyed on the ships that sailed through the Sicilian straits. See SEA GODS, ODYSSEUS.
is

SCYROS (si'r&s) He died and was

to the

the Aegean island to which Theseus retired.

Theseum

buried there, but his bones were later removed in Athens. Scyros is also the place where Thetis
girl, to

hid her son Achilles, disguised as a fated death at Troy. See THESEUS,

save

him from

his

TROJAN WAR.

SEA GODS, The

first sea god was Oceamis, a Titan. After the war in the heavens, he did not lose his place to an Olympian, great

as most of the Titans did. He retained his power partly because he declined to fight against the younger gods and partly be-

327

SEA GODS
cause
his

domain was remote from

that

of

Poseidon,

the

the god of the sea. Oceanus rules the mighty river that flows in a circle around the edge of the world and forms the boundary of earth, heaven, ap.d Hades. He
is

Olympian who became

mysterious, powerful, but kindly. He usually appears (as he does in

Ben Jonson's Masque

of

Blackness) with his head horned and garlanded with seaweed. Sometimes he rides on a seahorse and sometimes in a chariot
beside
his

wife Tethys,

by

whom
6.

he

is

the
all

father

of

the

Oceanids, the

Nymphs

of the ocean,

and
7),

Spenser says (Faene Queene,

all riuers

Prologue.

the river gods. "So from the Ocean

Oceanus and Tethys took care of Hera when she was a child and sheltered her when the Olympians were at war with the Titans.
spring."

of the

This royal pair has an honored place in the marriage procession Thames and the Medway in The Faerie Queene (4. 11, 18):
Next came the aged Ocean, and his Dame, Old Tethys, th' eldest two of all the rest.

At Whitehall in 1610 the Queen of England played the part of Tethys in Tethys' Festival, a masque by Samuel Daniel; and in
Milton's

Comus

(866-869) the Spirit invokes the river

Nymph

Sabrina:

and appear to us In name of great Oceanus,

Listen

And

Tethys grave majestick pace.

Titans

Keats in Hyperion presents Oceanus as the only one of the who understands and accepts their defeat at the hands of
(2.

the younger gods. His speech to his fellows

173-243)

is

the

328

SEA GODS

-8

I
8

H
-I

a,

<
p O

-(

J~
S
CL,

I
o

I"

^n
1

1
.59

329

SEA GODS
central expression of the theme of progress, sophical basis of the poem.

which

is

the philo-

Poseidon, or Neptune, is the Olympian god of the sea, the one who was feared and worshiped by the seafaring Greeks and, to a lesser extent, by the land-loving Romans. After the defeat of the Titans, the sons of Cronus Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon-

and

divided the universe by lot. Zeus became god of the heavens earth, Hades of the underworld, and Poseidon of the ocean.

Poseidon
ceived of

is

him

the supreme sea god, but the Greeks apparently conas active only in the waters on which they sailed, the

Mediterranean and the Euxine Sea (now the Black Sea). Unnavigated waters were still ruled by Oceanus and Pontus, another

Titan

as old as Oceanus but much more shadowy, memorable because of his children, who will be described later. only ''..With his wife Amphitrite, a daughter of Nereus/jPoseidon lives

in a golden palace at the bottom of the sea. His chariot, entirely of gold, is drawn by horses with brass hooves and golden manes,

and the ocean waters grow calm

kingship
is
is

as

he approaches !Jigf*ymb01 of

the trident, a three-pronged spear, and the dolphin sacred to him. He is a strong and moody spirit, with great power

on land as well as at sea, for he is also the lord of inland waterways and therefore one of the gods of fertility. Sometimes in sudden rage he raises a storm on the ocean or strikes the land with his trident and causes an earthquake; yet, in spite of his occasional delight in destruction, he
tector of cities. Because
is also a god of birth and a prohe created the horse and became the

patron of horse racing, millions of people today are aware of his uncertain temper, now benign and now malignant. In spite of his strength on sea and land, Poseidon was seldom

Athene
the

successful in contests with other gods. When for Athens, it was agreed that the

he disputed with

one who created

city.

more

useful gift for

man

should possess the

Poseidon

330

SEA GODS
struck a stone with his trident

Athene invented

the olive tree,

and produced the horse, but and the city was awarded to her.

Poseidon also failed in his attempts to win Argos from Hera, Corinth from Helios, and other places from other gods.

The quick anger and terrible destructiveness of the sea are described in several stories ol Poseidon's vengeance. Once, because
he had disputed the power of Zeus, Poseidon was compelled to work for Laomedon, a king of Troy. For a fixed price Poseidon and Apollo, who also had offended Zeus, built the walls of Troy;

and when Laomedon refused

to

pay them, Poseidon sent a

finally

monster who killed so many Trojans that Laomedon

offered his daughter Hesione as a sacrifice to the god. Hesione was saved by Heracles as Andromeda was saved by Perseus from

another monster sent by Poseidon to ravage the shores of Ethiopia but Poseidon never lost his enmity for Troy. When the Greeks

under Agamemnon attacked the city, Poseidon aided them until they had burnt the topless towers of Ilium to the ground. On his way home from this victory Odysseus, one of the Greek
heroes,

was compelled

to blind the one-eyed cannibal

Polyphemus

in order to escape death at his hands; but Polyphemus was a son of Poseidon, and thereafter the god pursued Odysseus with

implacable fury and for ten years prevented him from returning
of Ithaca. When King Minos of Crete prayed Poseidon sent him a bull, but the animal was so beautiful that Minos kept it and sacrificed another bull to to his

kingdom

for favor,

Poseidon.

The god responded

to this impiety with a terrible

and

Yet (for him) rather subtle punishment (see DAEDALUS). Poseidon was as kind to some people as he was cruel to others.

He

Achilles' father, the

helped Pelops to win Hippodamia, and he gave to Peleus, famous talking horses that drew the chariot
is

of Achilles.

^Poseidon

a lusty god whose love

affairs

are

almost as
331

SEA GODS
numerous though not
so celebrated as those of Zeus.

The

ancient

earth goddess Gaea, the younger earth goddess Demeter, Aphrodite, the Gorgon Medusa, and many Nymphs and mortal girls

(some of whom were horses) were Amycus, Antaeus, Anon, Orion, Pegasus, and Polyphemus. Most of them inherited from their father great strength and uncertain tempers. Their exploits are related else-

were his

mistresses.

Among

his illegitimate sons

where in

this

book.

In Spenser's Faerie Queene (3. 11. 40-42) the house of the enchanter Busirane is hung with tapestries depicting all the wars
of Cupid,
affairs.

and prominent among them

are

some of Neptune's love

the

marriage procession of the in the same poem (4. 1 1. 1 1-16) is led by

The

Thames and

Medway

and they are

Spenser needs

Neptune and Amphitrite, followed by such a crowd of Neptune's sons that

five stanzas to list

them. Several times he refers

to the sacrifices offered to

safely

from perilous

Neptune by those who have returned voyages, and in Muiopotmos (305-336) he

with Athene.

retells the story of the sea god's contest

Among the sons of Neptune, Spenser names Albion, sea god of England. This addition to classical mythology is natural enough,
for

Neptune was the king of

(3.
I.

islands.

Cymbehne
England

19-20) recalls his sovereignty

The Queen in Shakespeare's when she describes

With

As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in rocks unscalable and roaring waters;

but, as the Spirit says in Milton's Comus (18-29), Neptune graced "his tributary gods" by allowing them to reign on his isjands. Neptune often appears as a character in the masques of the late

sixteenth

and the

early seventeenth centuries; see, for example,

Ben Jonson's Neptune's Triumph and the masque in the first act of The Maid's Tragedy by Beaumont and Fletcher. In Paradise
332

SEA GODS
18-19) Milton speaks of the god's persecution of Odysseus. Yet Poseidon is used most commonly in English literature as the
(9.

Lost

ruler or merely the personification of the ocean. Macbeth's are typical (Macbeth, 2. 2. 60-61):

words

Will

all

great Neptune's ocean

wash

this

blood

Clean from
v

my

hand?

lThe dolphins are Poseidon's favorite fish, probably because a dolphin helped him to win his wife. Amphitrite at first rejected Poseidon and tried to hide from him in the great river of
Oceanus, but a dolphin found her and brought her back, and Poseidon in gratitude placed the fish in the heavens as the
Delphinus. Dolphins are always represented as friendly and helpful to gods and men. When Hera learned that Leto was with child by Zeus, she commanded that no land give
constellation

refuge to her rival; but Poseidon sent a dolphin to take Leto to the floating island of Delos, and Zeus or Poseidon anchored the
island for her in the Mediterranean (see

APOLLO).

The

poet and harpist Arion (not

to be confused with Poseidon's

son Arion, the horse, for whom see THEBES) once sailed with a piratical crew who decided to murder him for his money. After singing one last song, Arion leaped overboard, and a
land. Spenser

dolphin that had been attracted by his music carried him to had this musician play at the marriage of the

Thames and
Milton

may

(Faerie Queene, have remembered Arion's story

the

Medway

4.

11. 23-24),
h"e

and

when

asked the

dolphins to bring the drowned Lycidas to shore (Lycidas, 164):

And,
It

ye Dolphins, waft the haples youth.

however, that Milton had in mind the to Corinth story of Melicertes, whose drowned body was brought a dolphin but whose spirit became a patron of sailors and by

seems more

likely,

333

SEA GODS
the god of harbors.

As T. O. Mabbott has recently pointed out, both youths were drowned, both became genii of the shore, and the parallel would have been complete, as Milton seems to indicate, if the dolphins had brought the body of Lycidas to

land. In addition to these myths, there are

many

later stones of

dolphins that saved men from the sea or brought their drowned bodies into harbor. Out of these myths and tales although again
the

myth of

Melicertes

is

the closest parallelWilliam Butler

Yeats in Byzantium created his symbol of the dolphin that carries the souls of the dead to Paradise, through

That dolphin-torn,

that gong-tormented sea 1

it

Since Melicertes has been mentioned,

discuss

will

be convenient to

him and his mother

here, although they are less important

than several of the sea gods described hereafter. When Hera learned that Semele was with child by Zeus, she successfully
girl's death, but Zeus saved the child, the god Diand put him in the care of Semele's sister Ino, who was onysus, married to Athamas. Hera drove Athamas mad and caused him to

plotted the

kill his son,

Learchus. Ino snatched

up

the other son, Melicertes,

pursued by her husband, leaped from a high cliff There she was transformed into the goddess Leucothea and Melicertes into the god Palaemon.
closely

and

into

the sea.

Leucothea and Palaemon were minor

seafarers,

deities

who

protected

Palaemon with Portunus, who was the god of harbors, and Leucothea with Mater Matuta, who was the goddess of sea travel and especially of the dawn.
but the
identified

Romans

Milton therefore once mentions Leucothea

Lost,
11.

as the

dawn

(Paradise

133-136).
as sea

Usually,
deities,
as

however, she and her son are

they are in

remembered
i

Comus

(875-876).

From "Byzantium/' by B. Yeats, in his The Winding Stair. Copyright, 1938, by The Macmillan Company, and used with their permission.

334

SEA GODS
Spenser (Faerie Queene, of the story, speaks of
. .

4. 11. 13),

following a confused version

A God
Now

tragicke Inocs sonne, the which became of seas through his mad mothers blame

hight Palemorij

and

is

saylers frend

For Leucothea's most notable exploit, another story of Ino and Athamas, see

ODYSSEUS; and THEBES.

see

for

An older but less powerful god than Poseidon is Nereus, a son of the shadowy Pontus and the earth goddess Gaea. He is a wise and gentle old god who possesses the gift of prophecy, but
his greatest distinction

came to him through his wife Doris, an Oceanid, by whom he is the father of the fifty Nereids, the Nymphs of the Mediterranean. One of these is Amphitrite,

and Nereus

is

thus the father-in-law of Poseidon. In

The Faerie
his great

Queene (4. 11. 18-19) Nereus' skill in prophecy virtue are emphasized:
.
. .

and

none more vpright sincere in word and deed profest; Most void of guile, most free from fowle despight, Doing him selfe, and teaching others to doe right.

Ne more

Milton pictures Nereus as the kind old god who revives the drowned Sabrina and gives her immortality as the Nymph of
the Severn River (Comus, 823-841).
classical authority.

The

story of course has

no

Proteus and Triton are both sons of Poseidon by Amphitrite. Triton, who has a dolphin's tail instead of legs, is the herald

and trumpeter of the seas. His trumpet is a conch shell with which he can calm the ocean or rouse it into storm. He is his father's messenger and attendant. Proteus is the keeper of Poseidon's herd of seals, and he carries a shepherd's crook as
335

SEA GODS
the symbol of his office. He has the power of prophecy but also the power to transform himself into a hundred different shapes,

and anyone who wishes to question him about the future must have the strength and courage to hold him fast while he turns, for example, from lion to snake to tree to water to panther to fire.

At noon Proteus often drives his herd of seals ashore and takes nap on the beach. When Aristaeus, the god of beekeeping and a son of Apollo, pursued Eurydice in lust and caused her death (see
a

Nymphs killed his bees to punish him His mother Gyrene told him that Proteus could help him to recover his bees and she warned him of the sea god's tricks. Aristaeus, finding Proteus asleep, tied him so securely that in spite of his

ORPHEUS),

the

transformations he could not escape. At last he admitted his defeat and told Aristaeus to sacrifice cattle and to return to their

bodies after nine days. Aristaeus followed instructions and on the ninth day found swarms of bees in the decayed carcasses. (This
folktale,

based on the likeness of a certain carrion

fly

to the

bee,

is

an important part of Samson's riddle in Judges.

to

W.

B.

Yeats alludes

the story in his

poem

Vacillation.)

When

Menelaus was stranded in Pharos

caught Proteus and held return to Greece.

after the

him

fast until

Trojan War, he also the god told him how to

In English literature Triton usually appears as the herald or

messenger of Poseidon. At the marriage of the Thames and the Medway in The Faerie Queene (4. 11. 12) he marched in front of

Neptune and Amphitrite and

blew", in Milton's

Comus

"his trompet shrill before them (872) his symbol is his conch-shell
is

trumpet; and in Lycidas (89-94) he

"the Herald of the Sea"

who, in Neptune's defense, questions the cause of the death of Lycidas.

his father's servants

about

The myth
336

of Proteus

is

richer
his

and more productive. His power

knowledge, reluctantly revealed

to transform himself,

and

SEA GODS
to the brave

and the
faces

persistent,

both of die
has
a

relativist

who

believes that for a

have touched the imaginations hundred men truth

idealist

hundred

and

of

the

who

believes

that

truth can be discovered behind the countless shifting disguises of mutability. Our adjective "protean" is derived from the god. In The Faerie Queene (1. 2. 10) the great deceiver Archirnago

can take
As many formes and shapes in seeming wise, As euer Proteus to himself e could make,

and Milton in Comus

(871) calls Proteus "the Carpathian wisard"

because, according to Virgil, Proteus spent most of his time in the Carpathian Sea between Crete and Rhodes. Francis Bacon in The Wisdom of the Ancients interprets Proteus as a symbol of the primary substance that he thought

might be obtained by
in Paradise Lost
(3.

distilling various materials in alembics,

and

603-605) Milton

refers to the philosophers

who

try to
call

up unbound

In various shapes old Proteits from the Sea, Draind through a Limbec to his Native forme.

The
ately

unfaithful friend in

named

appropriProteus because he changes his loyalty as rapidly

his shape, and Pope in The Dunciad Cave of Poverty from which the bad poets,

Two Gentlemen

of Verona

is

as the sea

god changes

(1. 37-38) speaks of the

like

Escape in Monsters,

Proteus long in vain tied down, and amaze the town.

contemporary poets have made interesting use of the myth. In Men of My Century Loved Mozart Archibald MacLeish describes Mozart's music as having power to make men discard

Two

SEA GODS
their disguises
selves,

"All cheats and falsehoods"~and

of

become them-

and in Proteus, or the Shapes

offers

Conscience Rolfe

Humphries terms of modern psychology. Proteus and Triton are often seen

a convincing interpretation of the

myth

in

together,

especially

as

attendants at any formal appearance of their father Poseidon, but in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (244-248) Spenser writes of both of them as shepherds of the flocks of the ocean:
.
.

Is

the shepheard which hath charge in chief, . Triton blowing loud his wreathed home

And
Critics agree

Proteus eke with

him does

driue his heard.

lines in

Wordsworth must have had these mind when he wrote The World Is Too Much with Us:
that

Great Godl I'd rather be Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
.
.
.

that we have explored the earth pretty but the sea is still mysterious to us. The Greeks and thoroughly, the Romans, who were more ignorant of facts than we are,

Today we think

believed that both the earth and the sea

that fabulous lands existed

spawned monsters and

on the farther side of the great river Beyond the great river the melancholy Cimmerians inhabited a region of continual night; in the north the Hyperboreans lived in happiness and endless springtime; in the south dwelt the Ethiopians, whose banquets were often attended by the gods; and in the west were the Blessed Islands, a paradise
of Oceanus.

338

SEA GODS
where heroes enjoyed
their immortality. (For another location

of this paradise, see Elysian Fields under HADES). Spenser in The Teares of the Muses (256) uses

Cimmerian

blackness as an image of man's ignorance:

Darknesse more than Cymenans daylie night;

and in L'Allegro

(10)

Milton banishes Melancholy to find her

dwelling place "in dark Cimmerian desert." The Song of a Hyperborean by Thomas Moore represents the delights of a life in eternal springtime, and Milton in // Penseroso (17-21) describes
the dark majesty of the Ethiopians. These people were burned black by the terrible heat of the chariot of the sun when Apollo's horses refused to be guided by Phaethon and ran wild in the

heavens (see

APOLLO). As

Ulysses, in Tennyson's

poem
on

of that
his last

(63-64), prepares to sail beyond the sunset voyage, his reference to the Blessed Islands is typical:

name

may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
It

In addition to Nereus, the dim sea god Pontus and his mother

and Thaumas. These two are just as shadowy as their father, but they begot most of the monsters of the sea. The daughters of Thaumas by Electra, an Oceanid, were the charming Iris, goddess of the rainbow, and the

Gaea had two other

sons, Phorcys

hideous Harpies.
of birds

The Harpies had

but the

faces of girls.

the bodies, wings, and claws Sometimes these creatures were con-

ceived of as spirits of the wind; the talking horses of Achilles were the children of the Harpy Podarge (which means "fleet foot") and the west wind, Zephyrus. But more often the Harpies were

thought of as ravenous, filthy creatures who stole from travelers the food they could eat and defiled the rest.

all

339

SEA GODS
In The Faene Queeve
12.

(2.

36) Spenser calJs

them "The

hellish Harpies, prophets of sad destiny/' probably in reference to the doleful prophecies that the Harpy Celaeno made to Aeneas,

and

earlier in the
ill

same book

(2.

7.

23) this

Harpy perches with

cave:

other birds of

omen
.

at the gate of

Mammon's

A
In

sad CelenOj sitting on a clift song of bale and bitter sorrow sings.

Comus

creatures of Hell,

(603-605) Milton associates the Harpies with the and in Paradise Regained (2. 403) the banquet

created by Satan vanishes "With sound of Harpies wings, and Talons heard." For other stories about the Harpies see AENEAS

and
at

ARGONAUTS.

If his

performances in Renaissance masques are excepted Elvetham in 1591, for example, in an entertainment presented

to

Queen

Elizabeth, he rose

from

pond

in the

company

of

Neptune, Oceanus, Nereus, and Glaucus, "with a pinnace, in which three virgins played Scottish jigs" Phorcys is notable in
English literature only as Spenser describes
4. 11. 13):

him

(Faerie Queene,

... the father of that fatall brood, By whom those old Heroes wonne such fame.

Themselves children of

incest,

Phorcys and his

sister

Ceto pro-

duced more
together.

terrifying daughters than the Jukes

and the Kallikaks

They were the parents of the Graeae, the Gorgons, the Sirens, and Scylla. The Graeae, three gray-haired crones who acted as sentries for the Gorgons, were of necessity the first practicers of planned
economy: they had one eye and one tooth among them, and they passed these about so that each of them could do a little seeing

and chewing. Their

340

sisters,

the three Gorgons, lived in a cave

SEA GODS
far at sea;

and bra2en
their faces
die,

they were shaped like women, but they had wings claws, and snakes for hair. Anyone who looked at

to stone. Two of the Gorgons could not Medusa, was mortal. For her death and the confusion of the Graeae see PERSEUS.

was turned
third,

but the

Parthenope, Ligeia, and and the bodies and wings of birds, but in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance they were pictured as girls with fishes' tails. They lived on a treacherous reef in the sea, and when a ship passed by they sang so enchantingly that the sailors leaped overboard and were drowned, and the steersman turned toward the reef and wrecked his ship. According to certain storytellers, these lovely enticers committed suicide on three separate occasions: once when they lost a singing contest with the Muses, again when Orpheus defeated them in song, and finally when the wily Odysseus managed to hear them sing and yet avoid the penalty. If all these stories are true, the Sirens were born again each time, for they have never ceased to

In

classical story

the three Sirens

girls

Leucosia had the heads of

reported suicide, they were hauntthe Rhine, where the Germans renamed them the Lorelei; ing and if other reports are veracious, they have not confined their activities to that river or that section of the world.
sing. Centuries after their last

Milton
Sabrina

is

sirens" (Arcades, 63;

is

inclined to glorify these ladies as "the celestial At a Solemn Music, 1); in Comus (877-881)

invoked by calling not only on the attributes of the benevolent sea gods but also on
. .
.

the Songs of Sirens sweet,

fair Ligea's

By dead Parthenope's dear tomb,

And

golden comb,
sits

Wherewith she

on diamond

rocks

Sleeking her soft alluring locks.

Other English poets are more traditional and more

strict

than
341

SEA GODS
Milton. Since they conceive of
tails,

all

sea maids as girls with fishes'

and of

all as

dangerous, they are likely to call the Sirens

all

simply mermaids, and to attribute to

mermaids the power

of

seductive song. Thus Chaucer (Nun's Priest's Tale, VII. 3270) writes of a lady who "soong murier than the mermayde in the

mermaids' unsuccessful attempt to entice Sir Guyon by their melodies (Faerie Queene, 2. 12. 17, 30-34); Samuel Daniel skillfully arranges for the defeat of the
sea"; Spenser describes the

mermaid

in Ulysses

and the Siren; John Donne

in his ironic

Song urges his listeners to teach him, among other impossibilities, "to heare Mermaides singing"; and the hero in T. S. Eliot's

Love Song

of J.

Alfred Prufrock (124-125) remembers with

regretful irony:
I

have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

do not think that they

will sing to

me 2

In each of these poems, except those of the ordinarily stern

Milton, the Sirens are the symbol of physical desire. Only the contemporary poet John Manifold, in The Sirens, has suggested that business is sometimes more seductive than sex:
Odysseus saw the sirens; they were charming, Blonde, with snub breasts and little neat posteriors, But could not take his mind off the alarming

Weather

report, his mutineers in irons,

it was bloody serious. In twenty minutes he forgot the sirens. 8

The

radio failing,

of J. Alfred Prufrock/ by S. Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 1909-1935. Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Reprinted with their permission

From "The Love Song

From "The Sirens," by John Manifold, in his Selected Verse. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, The John Day Company.

342

SEA GODS
For other
stories

of

the

Sirens

see

ORPHEUS

and ODYSa* fair

SEUS.
Scylla was the only child of Phorcys
start in life.

and Ceto who had

She was a pretty and good-tempered sea Nymph and doubtless would have remained one if a newly created sea god named Glaucus had not fallen in love with her. Glaucus
beach,

had been a fisherman, but one day he emptied his net on the and the fish he had caught, instead of flopping helplessly

about, touched a strange herb that grew there and immediately leaped back into the sea. Glaucus ate a bit of the herb and at
felt a passionate desire to jump in the ocean. He did so and was made immortal. Although he kept his man's body, his legs became a fish's tail, and seaweed, stones, and mussels always

once

hung rather untidily about him. He had the gift of prophecyMilton (Comus, 873) calls him "old sooth-saying Glaucus" and he was kind to unlucky sailors.
Scylla haughtily rejected Glaucus* advances, and he asked the enchantress Circe for a love potion. Circe, however, fell in love with

him

herself; and when he paid no attention to her, she poisoned the water of the bay where Scylla bathed, and Scylla was transformed into a monster. From head to waist she remained a
girl,

but below she was disfigured with various appendages, including six dogs' heads on long necks. Filled with hatred, she lived in a cave on the straits between Italy and Sicily
beautiful

and preyed on passing ships. The myth of Scylla and Glaucus has been

interpreted in several ways by English poets. In Scillaes Metamorphosis by the Elizabethan Thomas Lodge the transformation of Scylla is a

punishment

commoner
tion,
is

on her for scorning the love of Glaucus. A explanation, which depends entirely on the appearance of Scylla the monster and not on the cause of her transformavisited

that she

is

a symbol of uncontrolled lust. George Sandys

SEA GODS
Douglas Bush observes), commenting on his translation of

(as

Ovid's Metamorphoses, says the upper part of Scylla's body "is feigned to retaine a humane figure, and the lower to be bestiall;

[which] intimates

how man,

a divine creature,

can neuer

so degenerate into a beast, as when he giueth himself over to the loe delights of those baser parts of the body." In the nineteenth

century,

however,
as

Glaucus

Keats (Endymion, 3. 421-472) represents seduced from his pure love of Scylla by the sensual

enchantress Circe.
Scylla
Italy.

was not the only peril of the straits between Sicily and On the other side of the narrow passage was the monster

Charybdis.

daughter of Poseidon and Gaea, she was an, obstreperous girl with a big appetite. Because of some notable display of intemperance, Zeus condemned her to live under a

great stone
as

on the
sailed

straits.

much

water

as she

Her gluttony caused her to swallow could hold and then spew it out again.
straits

Mariners

who

through the

had

to risk the

whirlpool
is

of Charybdis or the six ravenous dogs' heads of Scylla. Spenser's

description
typical:

(Virgils Gnat, 539-542) of the sailor's

dilemma

he must choose between

.

greedie Scilla, vnder whom there bay Manic great bandogs, which her gird about:
. .

And deep
Naturally
this

Charybdis gulphing in and out.

allegorized into that of the temperate
defect; in

dilemma was

man
The

steering

between the two extremes of excess and

Faerie

Queene
.
.
.

(2.

12.

9)

Scylla

and Charybdis are de-

scribed as
th*

ensamples in our

sights,

Of

lustfull luxurie

and

thriftlesse wast.

For other
344

stories

about Charybdis and Scylla see

ODYSSEUS.

SISYPHUS

SELENE

(se-le'ne)

was the Titan moon goddess. Her name

is

often given to

ARTEMIS.
was one of the
mistresses

SEMELE

(sm'e-le)

of

Zeus.

See

DIONYSUS, ZEUS. SESTOS (s&'t&s) was the home of HERO. SIBYL OF CUMAE (sib'il ku'me), or Cumaean

Sibyl,

who was

given the power of prophecy and a thousand years of life by Apollo, guided Aeneas to Hades. See APOLLO, AENEAS. SIBYLLINE (sib'Min) BOOKS were prophetic books written by
the Sibyl of

Cumae

See

SIDE (sid'e) was the SILENI (sHe'm) are wood

SUS.

APOLLO. first wife of ORION.

gods, followers of

PAN

and DIONY-

SILENUS

(sHe'nus) is the son or brother of Pan and the tutor and follower of Dionysus. See DIONYSUS, PAN.

SILVER AGE preceded the great flood that drowned all mankind except Pyrrha and DEUCALION. SIMOIS (sim'6-is) was a river of Troy See TROJAN WAR.
SINIS (smls) was
a murderer
tried to kill

who became

the victim of his

own

trick

when he

THESEUS.

SINON
horse,

(si'n&n) assisted

which brought victory

Odysseus with the ruse of the wooden to the Greeks in the TROJAN

WAR.
SIRENS
are three enchantresses

whose sweet songs lure

sailors

to disaster. See

SEA GODS, ODYSSEUS, ORPHEUS.

SISYPHUS

a king of Corinth, was a famous sinner who suffers a special torment in Hades. He was also the shrewdest of men. He outwitted even Autolycus, the thief who could make
(sis'i-fus),

himself and his loot invisible or cause whatever he had stolen to

Autolycus took some of Sisyphus' cattle and changed their appearance so that Sisyphus could not recognize them. When more of his cattle disappeared, Sisyphus

assume a new shape or

color.

345

SLEEP
exposed the thief by examining
all

and identifying his bottom of their hooves. Although Greek and Roman writers agree that Sisyphus was a rascal and often accuse him of large but vague crimes, his first mistake seems to have been to tell the truth. He saw Zeus in the form of an eagle carrying off Aegina, and when her grieving father asked help in finding her, Sisyphus told him what he had seen. Thereafter the king of the gods hated Sisyphus, but he suca small

own by

the cattle in Autolycus' herd mark that he had cut in the

ceeded in escaping punishment for many years. Thanatos, the god of death, was sent to take him, but the wily king trapped Thanatos and held him captive until Zeus had him freed by force.

Then Thanatos

seized his victim, but not before Sisyphus

to

had

perform none of the required Merope funeral rites but simply to throw his body out in the street. This impiety so shocked Hades that he told Sisyphus to return to life
instructed his wife
for a few hours in order to

punish

his wife. Sisyphus gladly

rejoined the living, but he never punished Merope and thus he was able to live to a triumphant and impious old age. In Virgils

Gnat
to

(390) Spenser says that the sin of Sisyphus

was "scorning
felt

the sacred

Gods

to pray,"

but perhaps Sisyphus

that

nothing could help him short of a revolution on Olympus. When he died at last, he was thrust into Tartarus. There he must
eternally try to roll a big rock to the top of a hill; whenever he gets it near the top, it tumbles down to the bottom again. Many

ment

English and American writers have commented on the punishof Sisyphus. John Dyer's description of it is quoted in the

section

on famous sinners in HADES.

SLEEP. See Hypnos under HADES.

SOCK

is a light thin-soled shoe once worn by actors in Greek and Roman comedy, and therefore a symbol of comedy, as it

appears in Milton's L' Allegro (131-132):

346

SYLVAN US
Then
If

to the well-trod stage anon,

Jonsons learned Sock be on.

See Thalia under

MUSES.
race of mighty warriors

SOLYMI (sol'i'me) were a against BELLEROPHON.

who fought
god of

SOMNUS
sleep. See

(som'nus)

is

the

Roman name

of Hypnos, the

HADES.

SOTEIRA (so-ti'ni) is a surname of ATHENE. SPARTA (spar'ta) and her husband Lacedaemon both gave their names to the land they ruled, Laconia. See LACEDAEMON. SPARTAE (spar'te) were the sons of the serpent's teeth. See
THEBES.

SPHINX

(sfingks)

was a monster whose riddle was

finally an-

STHENELUS
commanded
(see

swered by Oedipus, later king of (sthgn'-lus) was

the labors of

THEBES.
(1)

HERACLES;

the father of Eurystheus, who (2) one of the Epigoui

THEBES).
(stro'fi-us)

STROPHIUS

was the father of Pylades and the

were driven from the

protector of Orestes. See

STYMPHALIAN

ATREUS. (stim-fa'li-dn) BIRDS

vale of Stymphalus by Heracles. They flew to an island in the Black Sea from which they attacked the Argonauts. See ARGO-

NAUTS, HERACLES.

STYX (stiks) is a river of HADES. SUCUSA (su-ku'sa) was one of the SYCHAEUS (sl-ke'us) was once
AENEAS.

seven

hills of earliest

ROME.

the husband of Dido. See

SYLVANS
followers of

(sil'v^nz),

or

SYLVANI
a

(sil-va'm),

are

wood

gods,

PAN.
(sil-va'ntis) is

SYLVANUS

Roman

deity of the

woods who was

identified with

PAN.
347

SYMPLEGADES

SYMPLEGADES
SYRINX
/

(sim-plgg'a-dez)

were two

cliffs

floating at the

entrance to the Black Sea.

They imperiled who gave her name (s!r !ngks), Hamadryad loved by PAN.

the

ARGONAUTS.
was a

to Pan's pipes,

TALARIA (tMa'rrd) are the winged TALUS (ta'lus) was (1) the inventor
of

sandals of
of the saw

HERMES.
and a nephew
the island of

DAEDALUS;

(2)

a bronze giant

who guarded

Crete (see

THESEUS).
(tan'fcHus)

TANTALUS
house of

was the

earliest ancestor of the tragic

ATREUS.

TARPEIA (tar-pe'yfl) was a Sabine woman who tried to betray ROME. TARPEIAN (tar-pe'yan) ROCK was a rock from which condemned
criminals were cast to their destruction in the city of

ROME.

TARTARUS (tar'td-rus) is the TAURUS (td'rus), the Bull, is

ZODIAC.

place of punishment in HADES. a constellation and a sign of the

TAYGETA TELAMON

(ta-ij'e-ta)

was the mother of

LACEDAEMON.

(tel'd-mon) was the father of the greater Aias. See

TROJAN WAR. TELEMACHUS

TELEPHASSA
THEBES.
348

(tft-lm'<Hkfls)

was the son of ODYSSEUS.

(tH'ft-a'sd)

was the mother of Cadmus. See

THEBES

TELLUS
Gaea. See

(tl'us)

was a

EARTH
(tem'pe)

Roman name GODDESSES.

of the

first

earth goddess,

TEMPE
river

is

a vale in Thessaly through which flows the

the husband of Procne, deceived Procne's

PENEUS.
(tir'oos),

TEREUS
sister,

PHILOMELA.
(terp-sik'6-re)
is

TERPSICHORE
MUSES.

the

Muse

of dancing.

See

TERRA MATER
TETHYS THALIA
(te'this)

(ter'a

ma'tr) was a Roman name

for the

first

earth goddess, Gaea See

is

EARTH
one of

the wife of Oceanus. See

(1)

(thd-H'd)

is

GODDESSES. SEA GODS. the GRACES; (2) the Muse

MUSES).

of

comedy and

pastoral poetry (see

THANATOS (tb&n'd-tos) is the god of death. See HADES. THAUMAS (tho'ims) is one of the SEA GODS. THEA (the'a) was the mother of Helios, Eos, and Selene,
predecessor of

the

ARTEMIS.

A whole fabric of myth surrounds the city of Thebes from the day of its foundation by the hero Cadmus until the day of its destruction by the Epigom, a fabric that provided the matter for some of the great tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, The myth had its beginning in one of the love indiscretions of Zeus. When Zeus, in the form of a bull, swam off with
THEBES
(thebz).

ZEUS), the maiden's father, King Agenor, sent his and Cadmus, to find her, and ordered them not to return without her. Phoenix wandered through a land that later bore his name, Phoenicia, and Cilix through the land that came to be called Cilicia after him. Both were unsuccessful in their quest, and consequently settled down to new lives

Europa

(see

three sons, Phoenix, Cilix,

among

strangers.
off

Cadmus, with his mother, Telephassa, set islands and finally reached Thrace, where

among

his

the Greek mother died. In

349

THEBES

350

THEBES
despair,

he consulted the oracle at Delphi and was told to abandon his search. The oracle directed him to follow a cow that he would encounter and to build a city on the spot to which she led him. Cadmus accepted this strange order, and as he left the oracle, he at once saw a cow and followed her. She led him
to the plain of Panope where at last, lowing she lay down. Cadmus, having examined the meaningfully, place and observed the mountains around it, decided to sacrifice

through Boeotia

the fateful
for

cow to Athene, his patroness. He sent his followers water for the ceremony, and they entered a dark wood pure

where they found a pure spring. When they dipped in their vessels, the sound of the water rushing into them aroused a terrible

serpent,

which
return,

sacred to Ares or possibly even his offspring, plunged forth and slew them all. When the men did not

Cadmus went
it

to look for them.

Near

the spring he, too,

was attacked by the

cast his javelin at

terrible monster. First, aided

by Athene, he

and wounded it in the body. The serpent, in pain, turned back on itself and tried to draw out the writhing
it off. javelin with its teeth, but succeeded only in breaking As the snake pursued Cadmus through the wood, he waited his

moment and
so killed
it.

caught

it

at last

with

its

head near a
its

tree.

Hurling

his spear full at the monster, he

pinned

head

to the tree

and

While Cadmus contemplated

his success, he heard a voice,

doubtless Athene's, telling him to sow the teeth of the dragon in the ground. Had not Cadmus been suggestible, he would never

have followed the cow in the

first

place;

and he now made

fur-

rows and planted in them the teeth of his dead enemy. No sooner had he done this than the teeth began to grow. First
there appeared spear points, breaking through the soil; next helmets; and finally a tribe of fierce, fully armed men. Cadmus

expected them to attack him, but they did not.

One

story says

THEBES
that they exclaimed to him, "Don't

meddle in our

civil

war/'

and straightway
stone

fighting among themselves. According to another version, Cadmus, at the suggestion of Athene, threw a
fell to

among them and touched off their strife. In any event, the men (who were called Spartae, which means "sown men") fought each other violently until all except five were dead. Then one threw away his weapons and invited his fellows to make peace, an offer that they accepted. These five then joined Cadmus in
constructing a citadel,

and from them the

oldest families o

Thebes in later times traced their lineage. But before Cadmus could settle down in peace to found his city, he had to serve Ares for eight years because he had killed the
god's serpent-

gave his

At the end of this period, Ares, fully appeased, and Aphrodite's lovely daughter Harmonia to Cadmus in marriage, and Athene made Cadmus king of Thebes. The marriage was celebrated in heaven and attended by all the Olympian gods, and music for the occasion was provided, fittingly, by the Muses themselves, who sang a marriage song. Among the

wedding gifts were a peplos, or splendid dress, made by Athene, and a necklace wrought by Hephaestus; some say that these gifts
were responsible for Cadmus' later misfortunes. The wedlock of Cadmus and Harmonia was as
children as of myths
fertile

of

royal pair had four daughters: Agave, Autonoe, Ino, and Semele; and one son: Polydorus. Agave married one of the five surviving Spartae, a man named Echion, and their son, Pentheus, became king of Thebes after Cadmus. Autonoe married Aristaeus and had a son named Actaeon, the

The

whose unfortunate encounter with a goddess in deshaunder ARTEMIS. Ino married Athamas, and they had two children. Athamas had previously married a goddess
story of
is

bille

told

named Nephele, under

children by her.

orders from Hera,

and he had had two

When

he abandoned her for Ino, Nephele

352

THEBES
brought a drought on the land, and Ino declared that an oracle

demanded

the sacrifice of Nephele's children to relieve the drought. The story of the children's rescue is told in the article on the Argonauts. For a time Ino cared for Dionysus', the divine son of

her

sister Semele, and thus brought on herself the wrath of Hera. Because she hated Athamas for deserting Nephele, and Ino for

taking care of one of Zeus's illegitimate children, Hera drove Athamas mad and caused him to turn against Ino. He killed his son Learchus and pursued Ino until she threw herself and their

other son, Melicertes, into the

sea deities

where they were changed into under the names of Leucothea and Palaemon (see SEA
sea,

GODS).
relations with Zeus; her story can be

For Semele was reserved the doubtful privilege of illicit sexual found in the article on that

god. Her son, Dionysus, was nursed by Ino, but she and Semele's other sisters, Autonoe and Agave, refused to believe that Zeus was
the boy's father. Some years later, however, when Dionysus returned in triumph to Thebes, Agave led the other women in the

celebration of his

rites;

and in a frenzy she

killed her son,

King

Pentheus,

god

(see

when he opposed the worship of the frenzy-inspiring DIONYSUS). When she recovered her senses, she fled

to Illyrium.

on their children made Thebes a sad place for Cadmus and Harmonia. Consequently they left the city and went to Illyrium, where they were well received and Cadmus was accepted as king. Even there, however, they could
These
fatal misfortunes that fell

not forget their woes.

One day Cadmus, remembering his

on
is

troubles

and blaming them

all

"If a serpent's life

serpent." His prayer

his fate

his having slain the serpent, exclaimed, so dear to the gods, I wish I were a was answered. Harmonia wished to share
to

and was allowed

do

so.

This miraculous change

(9.

is

referred to by Milton in Paradise Lost

503-506) in lines

THEBES
where he describes the
snake:
pleasing was his shape, never since of Serpent kind

attractive air of Satan disguised as

And lovely,
Lovelier,

not those that in Illyna chang'd

.
. . ,

Heimione and Cadmus

though Milton seems to have thought that Cadmus' wife was not Harmonia but Hermione. The incident is also the subject of a
song sung by cles on Etna:
Callicles in

Matthew Arnold's long poem, Empedo-

There those two live, far in the Illyrian brakes. They had stay'd long enough to see,
In Thebes, the billow of calamity Over their own dear children roll'd, Curse upon curse, pang upon pang,

For

years, they sitting helpless in their

home,

A grey old man

The Gods had

and woman;
all

yet of old

to their marriage come,

And

at the

banquet

the Muses sang

Therefore they did not end their days In sight of blood; but were rapt, far away, To where the west-wind plays,

And murmurs of the Adriatic come To those untrodden mountain-lawns, and

there

Placed safely in changed forms, the pair Wholly forget their first sad life, and home,

And

all

that

Theban woe, and

stray

For ever through the

glens, placid

and dumb.

The

tions later

curse did not leave their line, however, until five generawhen almost all the family were destroyed in the war

of the Seven against Thebes. After the death of Pentheus, the throne of the city passed

354

THEBES
through the regencies of Nycteus and Lycus and of Amphion and Zethus to Polydorus' son, Labdacus. (The shadowy Polydorus should have ruled when Pentheus did, but instead he simply
provided a genealogical link between Cadmus and Labdacus.) During this period Thebes owed most to the twin brothers,

Amphion and
approached

Zethus. These two were sons of Zeus,

who had

their mother, Antiope, in the

form of a Centaur.

When

would not

Antiope became pregnant, her father, Nycteus the regent, believe her story that Zeus was to blame. She fled to the court of King Epopeus of Sicyon; but Nycteus, before com-

mitting suicide because of his shame, demanded that his wayward daughter be punished, and Lycus compelled Epopeus to return

Antiope

to Thebes.

On

the

way back she gave

birth to twin sons,

Amphion and Zethus,

in the vicinity of Eleutherae, and left them to be cared for by a herdsman. In Thebes Antiope received such cruel treatment from Lycus and Dirce, his wife, that she fled again

and this time found temporary safety in the house of the very herdsman who was rearing her youthful twins on the slopes of Mount Cithaeron, though she did not recognize him or them. Soon after, Dirce, who had arrived in the same neighborhood to
celebrate the rites of Dionysus, found Antiope.

The

unrelenting

woman ordered Amphion and Zethus to bind Antiope to the horns of a wild bull and allow her to be dragged to death. At this inpoint, however, the herdsman realized the identity of the tended victim and made it known to the boys, who in anger gave Dirce the fate that she had intended for Antiopfe. Dirce,
after her death,

was transformed into a fountain.

sons returned to Thebes,

Antiope and her

to them.

or intimidated Lycus,

who

and the boys killed over the regency of the city gave

Their most famous accomplishment was the building of new walls for the city, which had outgrown the smaller enclosure built by Cadmus and the Spartae. Zethus was a man
355

THEBES
of great physical strength, and as his share of the work he dragged huge stones in for the wall; but Amphion was so

him

greatly skilled in the use of the lyre which Hermes had given that when he played on it he could persuade equally great

own accord to be fitted into the wall, a made the subject of a somewhat heavily Tennyson power humorous poem called Amphion, which contains the following
stones to

move

of their

that

stanza:
is said he had a tuneful tongue, Such happy intonation, Wherever he sat down and sung

'T

He
He

Wherever

a small plantation, in a lonely grove set up his forlorn pipes,

left

The gouty oak began

to

move,

And
This
is

flounder into hornpipes.

only another of the

is

many Greek myths which show

that

intellectual skill

strength,

and

it is

the equal, if not the superior, of mere physical a close parallel to the myth that describes the

building of Troy's walls by Apollo and Poseidon. In the walls of Thebes, Amphion and Zethus built seven gates, symbolic of the seven strings of the lyre. These gates were later to be attacked by
the Seven against Thebes.

Amphion married Niobe,

the daughter of Tantalus,

and had

fourteen children by her. The story of Niobe's pride in these children and how it brought down on her the wrath of Leto and

her son and daughter

of

is

told

under

ARTEMIS. On
of

the deaths
to

Amphion and

Zethus,

the

kingship

Thebes came

Labdacus. For him the curse on the house of Cadmus seems to

have remitted

its effect,

because he had a peaceful reign; but the

curse returned in full force

Laius, the son of

on his descendants. Labdacus, became the next Theban

king.

He

356

THEBES
and his wife, Jocasta, had a single son, of whom they were informed by an oracle that he would be the death of his father if he grew to manhood. Following an old Greek custom, Laius
therefore "exposed" the child; that is, abandoned him on the wild slopes of Mount Cithaeron, expecting him to die of exposure. As was so often the case in Greek myths, the child did not die.
Instead, he was found by herdsmen and brought to King Polybus and Queen Periboea of Corinth. They named the child Oedipus,

which means "swollen foot," because his feet had been pierced with a spike before he was abandoned; and they raised him as
their

own

son, for they were childless. Shelley's dramatic satire

difficulties

on the matrimonial

of King George

IV

is

called

Oedipus Tyrannus, or Swellfoot the Tyrant. When he reached young manhood, Oedipus consulted an oracle
to learn, if

that he

he could, who his parents were. The oracle told him would cause the death of his father and marry his mother.

Oedipus, not unnaturally, wished to avoid the fulfilment of this prediction. On the chance that it referred to his foster father

and mother, he left Corinth and became a wanderer. Fate, however, was not so easily to be avoided. On a narrow road in the mountains, Oedipus met King Laius, his real father, who was returning from the oracle at Delphi. Neither recognized the
Oedipus angrily blocked the road, and he would not yield passage to Laius. In the altercation a servant of Laius killed one of Oedipus' horses. In a rage, Oedipus attacked and
other.

slew not only the servant but Laius himself. Thus, though Oedipus did not know it, the first half of the oracle was fulfilled.

second of the oracle's predictions came about in a similarly unexpected way. In Thebes, where Oedipus arrived soon

The

he found great distress resulting from the ravages of a monster called the Sphinx. This winged monster
after slaying Laius,

557

THEBES
body of a lion and the head and breasts of a woman; she infested one of the highways. Crouching on a rock above the road, she blocked the way of travelers and asked them a

had

tiie

answer it, she permitted them to pass; but could not, she killed them by throwing them from they her high rock. Oedipus determined to overcome her. When he
riddle. If they could
if

approached, she asked

that in the

him her question, "What animal is morning goes on four feet, at noon on two, and

it

in

the evening on three?" Oedipus answered that the animal was man, who in childhood crawls on hands and knees, in manhood
feet, and in old age must use a staff. The Sphinx, her riddle answered correctly, in chagrin threw herself off the high rock and was killed. Much later a statue of the Sphinx was

walks on two

carved in Egypt, and of this enigmatic figure

writes:

W. H. Auden

Did

it

once issue from the carver's hand

earliest

Healthy? Even the

conquerors saw

The

face of a sick ape, a bandaged Presence in the hot invaded land.

paw,

The
It

lion of a tortured stubborn star,

does not like the young, nor love, nor learning: Time hurt it like a person; it lies, turning

vast

behind on

shrill

America,

And witnesses. The huge hurt face accuses, And pardons nothing, least of all success. The answers that it utters have no uses To those who face akimbo its distress: "Do people like me?" No. The slave amuses The hon: "Am I to suffer always?" Yes.*
i "The Sphinx," by W. H. Auden, in The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden. Copyright, 1945, by W. H. Auden. Reprinted with the permission of Random

House, Inc

358

THEBES
See also Caesar's address to the Sphinx in the Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra.
first

act

of

Returning to Thebes, Oedipus was greeted with considerable gratitude and accepted as king. The Thebans also gave him

and so he came to marry his own he was ignorant that he was doing so. Oedipus mother, although and Jocasta lived together for many years, and had two daughters,

Queen

Jocasta for his wife;

Antigone and Ismene, and two

sons,

Eteocles

and Polynices.

Retribution for their incest finally came, however, in the form of a famine and pestilence that wasted the land. To know the
cause of this misfortune, they sent to the oracle and received the answer that it would continue until the man who had killed

King Laius should be found. Oedipus therefore sent for Tiresias, the blind prophet (see TIRESIAS), and asked him who had killed Laius. Tiresias was at first reluctant to discuss the matter, but on being urged, he revealed that Oedipus himself had committed the crime and that in killing Laius, he had killed his

own

father.

Both Oedipus and Jocasta were

horrified to learn

what they

in marrying Jocasta at once committed suicide, and Oedipus blinded himself. The throne of Thebes was given over to Jocasta's brother Creon as regent until Eteocles

had unintentionally done

and Polynices should be old enough to rule. Oedipus desired to leave the kingdom but Creon, acting on instructions from the oracle, refused to let him go Later Creon changed his mind and
exiled Oedipus,

who
time

set forth for

the second time in his

his

life as a

wanderer,

this

accompanied by

faithful

daughter,
life is

Antigone. The reached

its

curse of the
first

House

of

Cadmus had

not, however,

end. This

phase of Oedipus' unfortunate

the subject of Sophocles' great tragedy, Oedipus Tyrannus, often

called

Oedipus Rex.
struggles of Eteocles

The

and Polynices

for the throne of

359

THEBES
Thebes
set off the last

as the story of the

phase of the curse, and this phase, known Seven against Thebes, provided the subject

matter for a tragedy by Aeschylus that bears that title. The two brothers at first could not agree as to which should be king, until at last they reached the compromise that they would both
reign,

though in alternate

years. Eteocles took the

throne

first

because he was the elder; but at the end of his year of the kingship he refused to turn it over to Polynices and instead
expelled

him from Thebes.

Polynices betook himself to the court of King Adrastus of

Sicyon,

where he found not only sympathy for his grievance

exile,

but a fellow

The two exiles

an

Tydeus, who hoped for the throne of Argos. married the daughters of Adrastus and thus formed

were formed to attack first Thebes, to reinand then Argos, to instate Tydeus; and Adrastus raised a large and powerful army for the purpose. Four other heroes joined the expedition to make up the Seven. The four consisted of Capaneus of Argos, Hippomedon of Argos, Parthenopaeus of Arcadia, and Amphiaraus, the brother-in-law of Adalliance. Plans

state Polynices,

rastus.

Amphiaraus,
befall
it,

who was
enterprise

a soothsayer, foresaw that disaster

would
survive
to

the

and that only Adrastus would

since Polynices,

invade his

though wronged, had no moral right native city with an army of foreigners. Consequently,

Amphiaraus demurred at joining the campaign; but Adrastus urged him to do so with such vigor that at last the two agreed
to leave the decision to

Amphiaraus' wife and Adrastus'

sister,

Eriphyle. Polynices bribed Eriphyle by giving her the baleful but beautiful necklace of Harmonia, and she therefore decided in

favor of Amphiaraus' participation in the war, though he had told her that he could not return from it alive. As he departed,

Amphiaraus cursed
avenge his death.
360

his wife

and

called

on

his son

Alcmaeon

to

THEBES When
the forces of the Seven were gathered for the attack, an who would be the victor. The

oracle was consulted to learn

oracle stated that whichever side

had Oedipus

in

its

camp would

win. Polynices thereupon traveled into Attica where the old man and his faithful daughter Antigone had taken refuge, and there

he besought Oedipus for

cursed
it

his blessing on the attack. Oedipus instead. Eteocles, hearing of the oracular prophecy, sent

Creon to bring back Oedipus by force if necessary, but Oedipus was protected by Theseus of Athens, who drove out Creon and
his followers.

Oedipus cursed both his faithless sons, declaring that they should each die by the other's hand, and soon thereafter he died himself in the grove sacred to the Eumenides at Colonus,
not far from Athens, leaving Antigone to return with her grief to Thebes. The story of this attempt to involve Oedipus in the war and of his refusal and death is the subject of Sophocles'
that tragedy, Oedipus at Colonus. It is interesting to note, also, T. S. Eliot 'borrows from Sophocles' tragedy the account of

Oedipus' death in the grove and transfers it to Agamemnon in the climax of his famous poem, Sweeney among the Nightingales:

The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart,

And And

sang within the bloody wood

cried aloud,
let their liquid sif tings fall
stiff

When Agamemnon
To
stain the

dishonoured shroud. 2

Agamemnon was murdered

borrows for him

in his bath (see ATREUS), but Eliot the death scene of Oedipus, in order to make a

2 From "Sweeney among the Nightingales," by T. S. Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 1909-1935. Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Reprinted with their permission.

361

THEBES
closer connection

between the symbolic nightingales and the

murdered hero.*

The

from the

expedition against Thebes was attended by misfortune first. When the heroes reached Nemea, they found that

on

Dionysus, the protective deity of Thebes, had brought a drought the land; so there was no water to drink. In the midst of this

misfortune they met Hypsipyle, once queen of Lemnos, who was tending to Opheltes, the child of King Lycurgus of Nemea, whose
slave she was.

Under

their persuasion, she led

them

to a well,

but she foolishly left Opheltes on the ground. When they returned to him, they found a snake had killed him in its coils. Tydeus

and Capaneus wanted to kill the snake, but Amphiaraus warned them that it had probably been sent as an omen by Zeus; perhaps heedful of Cadmus' experience, they withheld their hands. Amphiaraus renamed the child Archemorus, which means "beginner of death," because his death was the first of many on the ill-fated expedition; and the army then put on a tremendous
funeral celebration to soothe his angry parents The athletic contests at this funeral are reported to be the origin of the Nemean Games. (For the earlier life of the child's nurse Hypsipyle see
arrived at Thebes, an attempt was made to without bloodshed. Tydeus was sent to demand that Eteocles surrender the throne, but Eteocles set an ambush

ARGONAUTS.) When the army

settle the dispute

for him,

and Tydeus barely escaped with

fifty

his life,

having killed

forty-nine of the
city

men

began, and its both sides. Thebes' seven gates were defended by seven heroes within: Eteocles, Melanippus, Polyphontes, Megareus, Hyper*

now

sent against him The siege of the progress was a series of calamities for

T.S E
it

"I

because
P.R. on

suited
this

my

arbitrarily revised the circumstances of Agamemnon's death convenience to do so I'm surprised that no one has
else."

pounced on

They have pounced on everything

Conversation with

May

20, 1947.

362

THEBES
bius, Lasthenes,

and Menoeceus; and attacked by the Seven from

without. Early in the contest Eteocles consulted the soothsayer Tiresias and was told that Thebes would be successfully defended
if

sacrifice.

give himself as a voluntary a son of Creon, allowed himself Accordingly, Menoeceus, to be killed early in the attack.

a descendant of the Spartae

would

In one engagement Amphiaraus, after fighting bravely, was

forced to flee along a river when Zeus hurled a thunderbolt that opened the ground before his chariot, and he was swallowed up,
to be seen no more. Capaneus, in an excess of zeal, declared that he would burst into the city in spite of Zeus himself. While he

bolt

was scaling the wall on a ladder, Zeus killed him with a thunderfor his impiety His wife, Evadne, cast herself on his
funeral pyre and died in its flames. The intransigence of Capaneus is attributed by Ezra Pound to his character Mauberley, in Hugh

Selwyn Mauberley, I. Fighting with his usual Tydeus was fatally wounded. Athene intended
mortality, but

reckless courage, to grant

him

im-

when

she found

yielded to wild anger

fallen enemies.

him on the battlefield he had and was chewing on the head of one of his
left

The

goddess

him

to die. so indecisive that finally

The

siege lasted so long

and was

Eteocles

and Polynices decided

to settle the issue

by personal
each

combat. Thus they

killed the other.

fulfilled the curse of their father, for

and

the two armies joined in combat again, the invaders were at last forced to flee without even burying

Then

their

dead.

The

Seven against Thebes were defeated. Only

Adrastus survived, and he only because of the swiftness of his winged horse Arion, the son of Poseidon and Demeter.

But the curse on the house of Cadmus had not yet reached its end Creon now became king of Thebes, and he ordered that
body of Eteocles the patriot be buried with all fitting unburied. obsequies but that the body of Polynices the traitor lie
the

36?

THEBES
He
promised death to anyone who disobeyed his order, but even this threat could not frighten Antigone, who determined in
bury her brother's body. When Ismene proved too timid to help her, she set out alone and buried Polynices. Caught in the act and condemned by Creon to be buried alive,
sisterly piety to

she declared that she had acted in compliance with laws made by Zeus himself Creon, however, was adamant, and his sentence was carried out Creon's son, Haemon, Antigone's lover, killed

himself in grief for her; and Eurydice, wife of Creon, killed

herself in grief for
sternness.

The

Haemon. Thus Creon was pun shed for his story of Antigone's devotion is embodied in a

tragedy by Sophocles that bears her name.

had only one more act to play. In that last act the city of Thebes was destroyed by the sons of the Seven, called the Epigoni, which means "offspring." These sons consisted of
curse

The

Aegialeus, the son of Adrastus; Diomedes, the son of Tydeus; Promachos, the son of Parthenopaeus; Sthenelus, the son of

Capaneus; Thersander, the son of Polynices; Polydorus, the son of Hippomedon; and Alcmaeon, the son of Amphiaraus.

Although Alcmaeon's mother Eriphyle had sent Amphiaraus to his death, as he had foretold, the son had not yet carried out
his father's

command and

killed his mother.

When

the oracle

at Delphi ordered him to undertake another expedition against Thebes, this order was reinforced by his mother's persuasion, for she had been bribed again, this time by Thersander, who gave

her the peplos of Harmonia Harmonia's necklace.

as

his

father

had given her

The

gods, and

second expedition against Thebes had the sanction of the it succeeded completely. Only one of the Epigoni,

Aegialeus, was killed.

The

city

was leveled and remained an

empty plain

for years. Its inhabitants,

fled to other lands,

on the advice of Tiresias, and Tiresias died in the flight. Alcmaeon

364

THESEUM
returned to Argos and killed his mother, as his father had commanded, though in doing so he incurred the same fate as Orestes
(see

ATREUS). The
he

Furies drove

until
guilt

fled to Psophis in Arcadia,

him mad and pursued him where he was cleansed of his

by King Phegeus.

He

married Phegeus' daughter, Arsinoe,

and gave her as wedding gifts the fateful peplos and necklace of Harmonia, which he had taken from his mother. King Phegeus' lands, however, now became sterile because of
Alcmaeon's presence. The oracle at Delphi, always ready with an answer, told Alcmaeon to travel to a land that had not existed

when he committed

his crime. Alcmaeon solved this problem on land that was formed by silt in the mouth of the by settling river Achelous. Here he married Callirhoe, the daughter of the river god, and she required of him the peplos and necklace. Alcmaeon accordingly returned to Psophis and persuaded Phegeus to return the two gifts to him on the pretext that they would

restore

him

to his right mind.

When

Phegeus learned

later that

Alcmaeon had deceived him and had given

the gifts to Callirhoe,

he sent his sons to slay Alcmaeon. Alcmaeon's death brought to an end the long chain of events that began with the abduction of Europa by Zeus and that
for the peplos and necklace, they in the temple at Delphi where they could no placed longer bring mortals under their terrible influence. THEMIS (the'mis) is the goddess of divine justice and the second wife of ZEUS. the Epigoni. See (thr-san'der) was one of

destroyed

cities

and men. As

were at

last

THERSANDER
THEBES.

THERSITES

(thfcr-sl'tez)

was a crippled and foul-mouthed

Greek who fought in the

TROJAN WAR.
was a temple in Athens that contained

THESEUM
the bones of

(the-se'fim)

THESEUS.
365

THESEUS
'
i

THESEUS

was the great hero of the Athenians and one of their early kings. The story of his life is a blend of the historical and the mythical in which the governmental activities
(the'soos)

of a primitive city ruler

merge with the prodigious exploits of a

superman.

He

was born in faraway Troezen, the son of Aethra, a

and of Aegeus, who was king of Athens. Before Theseus' birth, his father left Troezen to return to Athens,
princess of that place,

but at his parting he hid his sword and sandals under a huge stone and directed Aethra to send her son to Athens with them

when he became The lifting of

strength.

strong enough to lift the stone. this stone was not the first of Theseus' feats of

He had been

taught to hunt by Chiron, the Centaur

who

trained other famous heroes such as Asclepius and Achilles, and his proficiency in athletics was such that he was later credited

with inventing certain forms of sport. He dared to face even Heracles himself when Heracles appeared in Troezen and was mistaken for a lion because of his lion-skin garb. Thus the day

on which Theseus

lifted the stone

and recovered

his father's

sword and sandals was the climax of a vigorous youth and the
beginning of a heroic manhood. In traveling to Athens to meet his father, Theseus declined to
take the easy

way by

sea

and chose instead

to

make

his

hard way

six

through all the perils of the land route. On his way he performed famous exploits and rid the world of six violent destroyers of
first
it

men. The

whose custom

of these was a brigand, Periphetes of Epidaurus, was to kill with his iron club all travelers who

came

his way.

Theseus killed him.

who induced

travelers to help

The next was Sinis, a man him bend down a great pine tree

and then unexpectedly released it so that the helpful travelers were catapulted into the air and killed. Theseus, however, released his grasp first, and Sinis was thrown to his own death.
In Crommyon, Theseus killed a wild sow

named Phaea

that

366

THESEUS
made dangerous
cliff

the countryside there. As he walked along a high by the sea, he met a robber named Sciron who was fond of

forcing travelers to wash his feet near the edge of the cliff. While he was receiving this unwilling service, he customarily pushed the unfortunate foot washers over the cliff into the sea, where a

great tortoise ate them.

Sciron,

however, met his match in

tortoise

Theseus and consequently became food for the

by

his

own device. At Eleusis, Theseus wrestled with King Cercyon, who made a practice of killing all whom he overcame at the sport.

When

Theseus won, he naturally killed Cercyon. last of Theseus' exploits on the road to Athens was his most famous. The giant Procrustes had an iron bed on which he

The

made

all

passers-by lie

down.

If they

were longer than the

bed, he accommodatingly lopped them off to size, or if they were too short, he stretched them to fit. With his usual sense of

appropriateness, Theseus eliminated the giant on his own bed, and passed on to Athens. Procrustes' bed has been commonly

used as a symbol of tyranny and of enforced order. Ben Jonson, for example, in his Conversations with Drummond

Hawthornden, "cursed Petrarch for redacting verses to Sonnets, which he said were like that Tirrants bed, where some who were too short were racked, others too long cut short." Since the trip to Athens had caused the hero to shed the blood of five men and one wild sow, on reaching the city he first felt the need of purifying himself. Later, as he was proceeding to his father's house, his long hair and the strangeness of his garb
of

provoked several workmen to laugh at him for being effeminate, but Theseus put an end to their merriment by throwing their
loaded wagon into the air. When Theseus reached his father's house, he was at first recognized only by Medea, the sorceress, who was living with his
father.

This contriving Asiatic woman, wishing

to

be rid of the
367

THESEUS
hero for fear that he might diminish her influence with the king, persuaded Aegeus that Theseus would be the cause of trouble
in the

kingdom and that he should be poisoned. As Theseus accepted the poisoned cup, however, Aegeus recognized his sword and knew that Theseus was his son. Medea, for her plotting, had
from Athens.
Theseus was now proclaimed to be the son and heir of Aegeus. soon had to fight against his uncle Pallas who, with his fifty

to flee

He

sons, the Pallantides, attacked

Athens in the hope of obtaining the

throne for himself, but Theseus defeated him.

He

also over-

came a great bull that was ravaging the country near Maraand sacrificed it to Athene. At this time the people of Athens were required to send each year seven maids and seven
thon,

youths to Crete to be eaten by the Minotaur, a monster with

the

body

of a

man and

the

head of a bull

(for details of his

strange origin, see DAEDALUS). This penalty had been exacted of the Athenians by King Minos to avenge his son, who had been
killed in a

war between the Athenians and the Cretans in which

the latter were victorious. Theseus volunteered and, with the

consent of his father, went off to Crete as a

group.

member o

this

The island of Crete was guarded by a great living bronze giant named Talus, who either was the last survivor of the Age of Bronze or had been made for King Minos by Hephaestus, the
god of craftsmen. Talus patrolled the shores of the island three times a day, and when he found intruders he burned them to death by heating himself red-hot and throwing his arms around them or by tossing them into a fire. In the fifth book of The
Faerie Queene an iron man named Talus serves Artegall, the knight of justice. Talus allowed the Athenian ship to reach

Crete safely, and at the capital city of Cnossus Theseus and his companions presented themselves to King Minos as the annual

368

THESEUS
tribute.

At

this

and

his action endeared

point Theseus offered himself as the first victim, him to Minos' daughter, Ariadne, who

was present.

When

Theseus was taken

to the

off to

confinement until

he should be given

him

Minotaur, Ariadne found her way to and offered him her aid in overcoming the monster and in
kept in a maze that had been built by
the intricacies of this

escaping from the island.

The Minotaur was

Daedalus
(see

DAEDALUS), and

maze

were such that no one could find his way out of it alone. But Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of thread that he unrolled as he

when he had slain the Minotaur, he found his way out again by following the thread back to the gate. Taking Ariadne along, Theseus and the other Athenians then set sail on
went, and
their return trip to Athens.

On

the way, Theseus

abandoned

Ariadne on the island of Naxos, some say because he was ordered to do so by the goddess Athene. Whatever the circumstances, the

god Dionysus and married her. Theseus had left Athens with black sails on his ship and with the agreement that the ship would return with white sails if he had been successful in killing the Minotaur; but he forgot to make the change of sails, and Aegeus, who had watched every day for the ship, sighting
fell

harshness of Ariadne's fate was lessened

in love with her

when

the

the black sails from afar, threw himself over a

cliff

into the sea

and was

killed.

Theseus thus became king of Athens on his

arrival there.

Theseus brought about a great flourishing of the city. There appears to be historical basis for some of the achievements with

which he was

credited.

He

was thought to have united the

cities

of Attica into a single state, and to have introduced the coinage of money, and in other ways to have organized the city into its
that he was and greatness. Yet he could not be content, hero accustomed to a strenuous life, with a peaceful overlordship.

369

THESEUS
the expedition o the Argonauts with Consequently, he joined and he participated in the Calydonian Boar Hunt. MoreJason,
over,

he joined Heracles in his expedition against the Amazons, renowned female warriors, and carried off their queen Hippolyta, or as is more oiten said, her sister Antiope. In order to rescue Antiope, the Amazons made war against Athens and almost entered the city. But Antiope had fallen in love with
the

Theseus, and while fighting by his side she was killed, though not before she had borne him a son called Hippolytus. This boy

grew up

to

be a hunter, a favorite of Artemis and a scorner of

Aphrodite, who marked him for destruction. After the death of Antiope, Theseus mdefatigably married Phaedra, another daughter of King Minos of Crete. Unfortunately,
this

lady

fell

When

the

young

in love with Theseus' son, Hippolytus. man rejected her love, she told Theseus

that Hippolytus had made love to her, and Theseus prayed to Poseidon for revenge. Poseidon caused a sea monster to frighten

the horses drawing Hippolytus' chariot, and Hippolytus was killed in the ensuing wreck. His innocence, however, became

known to Theseus, and Phaedra, who had given him two sons, Acamas and Demophoon, killed herself. According to some
stories,

Artemis persuaded the great physician Asclepius to restore Hippolytus to life, and Zeus killed Asclepius for this act of

impiety.

About

this time, Pirithous,

Theseus' character.

He
to

stole

king of the Lapiths, decided to test some of Theseus' cattle, and as

engage him in a fight, Pirithous was struck with admiration for the hero. The same feeling for Pirithous

Theseus was about

liness.

touched Theseus, and the two united in a firm contract of friendTheseus attended the marriage of Pirithous and Hippothis

wedding the Centaurs also attended, all became drunk, and one attempted to violate the bride. With Theseus'
370

damia. At

THESEUS
help,

Pinthous and

his

other

friends

routed the

Centaurs.
to find

When Hippodamia died, Pinthous and Theseus decided

themselves other wives
First, for

who should

be daughters of Zeus himself.

become famous they went down

Theseus, they kidnaped Helen of Lacedaemon, later to as Helen of Troy, and made off with her. Then
to

for Pinthous, but

Hades to attempt the kidnaping of Persephone Hades himself caught them and imprisoned them, some accounts say by fastening Pirithous to the fiery wheel with his father Ixion. (Pirithous was the son of either the daring and impious Ixion or Zeus.) Theseus was later rescued by Heracles, and he returned to Athens. He found that during his absence Menestheus had become king with so much continuing popular

support that supplanting him appeared impossible. Helen, too, had been rescued by her brothers Castor and Polydeuces. Thus without his kingdom or his prospective wife, Theseus retired to Scyros, where he had lands. He was well received by Lycomedes, the king of the island, but later he fell in a mysterious manner over a cliff into the sea and was killed. There were some

who thought

Lycomedes was responsible; in any event, the came to a close as dramatically as it had begun. Theseus' bones were later removed to Athens, where they were placed in a temple called the Theseum and
that

career of the Athenian hero

made

the subject of religious ceremonies.

all

For the Athenians, Theseus represented admire in a man vigor, strength, bravery,
keen desire for the active and adventurous
they identify their native spirit with
his death, at the battle of

that they could

intelligence,
life

and a

So closely did

him that centuries after Marathon when the fate of the city lay

in the balance, they thought they saw the figure of Theseus fighting with them against the Persians.

Of Theseus, Nicholas Grimald

accurately in

writes epigrammatically

but

in-

Of Friendship,
371

THESEUS
Down
Theseus went to
hell, Pirith, his frend, to finde:

O that the wives in these our dayes, were to their mates so kind.
The marriage of Theseus to Hippolyta,
is

the

queen of the Amazons,

the chief event of Shakespeare's Midsummer-Night's Dream, though in this play Theseus is much more of a Renaissance noble-

man
(4.

than an early Athenian; and in

Two Gentlemen

of Verona

4.

172-173) Julia, disguised in boy's clothes, professes to

have

acted a "lamentable part":

Madam,

'twas Ariadne, passioning

flight.

For Theseus' perjury and unjust

is one of Shakespeare's many ironies that depend on the Elizabethan custom of having young boys play women's parts. Here, on the Elizabethan stage, a boy playing the part of a girl

This

who

has disguised herself as a boy speaks of having taken the a play. The theme of Ariadne's desertion is part of a girl the favorite poetic reference to Theseus, and echoes of perhaps

it

are to be found in Christina Rossetti's Ariadne to Theseus, as

well as in later poems. In Sweeney Erect T. S. Eliot the desertion:

remembers

Display

me Aeolus above Reviewing the insurgent gales

tangle Ariadne's hair swell with haste the perjured
sails,
8

Which

And
lines that provide

an ironic contrast
is

to the

the love affair that he

about

to describe.

animal quality of In Casino Auden

compares modern life to the maze from which Theseus escaped by means of Ariadne's device:
s From "Sweeney Erect/' by T. S Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 1909-1935 Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Reprinted with their permission

372

TIRESIAS
The
labyrinth
is

safe

but endless, and broken

Is Ariadne's thread. 4

Phaedra's involvement with Hippolytus has been the subject of

THESSALY

by the Greek Euripides and the Roman Seneca. (thes'<He) was in the northeast section of ancient Greece. Its mountains included Olympus, Pehon, and Ossa. Through it flowed the river Peneus, creating the famous vale of Tempe, and its chief plain was a grain-producing area. In ancient myths Thessaly figures as the home of the Centaurs and the Lapiths, among others, and it was famous for its magicians. THETIS (thesis), a Nereid, was the wife of Peleus and the
tragedies

mother of

Achilles. See

PELEUS,

TROJAN WAR.
PYRAMUS.

THISBE

(thiz'be)

was the lover of

THRACE
its

of Orpheus, was the region (thras), the birthplace was its principal river and Rhodope north of Greece. The Hebrus

the Trojans principal mountain range. The Thracians aided in their war against the Greeks. THRINACIA (thri-na'sha) was the island of the cattle of the

sun. See

ODYSSEUS.
a symbol

THYESTES (thl-gs'tez) was the brother of ATREUS. THYRSUS (thlr'sus), a staff tipped with a pine cone, is
of

DIONYSUS.
(ti'ber) is the river of
(tl-re'si-ds),

TIBER

ROME.
Theban
prophet, was de-

TIRESIAS

the famous

from one of the Spartae, the five sons scended on of the dragon's teeth who helped Cadmus found Thebes; his mother was the Nymph Chariclo. One day on Mount Cithaeron he
his father's side

saw two snakes mating and killed the female. At once he became a woman. Sometime later he saw another pair of snakes mating; this time he killed the male and was turned into a man again.
* From "Casino," by W. H. Auden, in The Collected Poetry of with the permission of Copyright, 1945, by W. H. Auden. Reprinted

WH

Auden.

Random
373

House, Inc.

TIRES1AS
This unique experience made Tiresias the only person who settle an argument that had arisen between Zeus and Hera. Zeus said that women get more pleasure from sex than men do,
could

and Hera maintained that the opposite is true. When they called on Tiresias for his expert opinion, he declared that a woman has nine times as much pleasure as a man. The queen of the gods became so angry that she blinded Tiresias, but Zeus made it
by giving him the power of prophecy and promising him an extremely long life. According to Hesiod, he lived for seven generations.
easier for

him

to

endure

this infirmity

Another myth accounts for Tiresias' blindness and prophetic powers by relating that he once surprised Athene bathing, as Actaeon had surprised Artemis, and that the goddess blinded him but granted him the gift of foreknowledge. The blind seer, such as Tiresias, and the blind poet, such as Homer, are familiar figures in primitive societies. Unable to work or fight beside his fellows, the blind man spends most of his time with his own thoughts; his leisure and his introspection produce visions and works of the imagination. In the course of his long life Tiresias foresaw much evil and some good. He prophesied the future greatness of Heracles in the childhood of that great hero. When King Pentheus of Thebes

thus brought about his own death. Reluctantly Tiresias revealed that King Oedipus of Thebes had killed his father and married his mother. When the Seven attacked Thebes, Tiresias

him and

forbade the newly introduced worship of Dionysus, Tiresias told that Dionysus was a true god; but Pentheus refused to listen

foresaw that the city might be saved by the sacrifice of a descendant of the Spartae. Menoeceus, a son of Creon, allowed himself to be killed, and the siege of the Seven failed. Later

Thebes was again

the Seven.

attacked, this time

by the Epigoni, the sons of

the

Knowing that the city was fated to fall, Tiresias urged Thebans to put the besiegers off guard by pretending to negopeace and then to
flee

tiate for

from the

city secretly at night.

TIRESIAS
His advice was taken and many Thebans escaped, but Tiresias
died on the journey. In Hades he power, and
still

retained his prophetic

the enchantress Circe sent Odysseus to Hades to consult Tiresias about the dangers that would face him on his

journey from Aeaea to Ithaca. (For a detailed account of the events mentioned in this paragraph see the articles on Heracles,
Thebes, and Odysseus.) In The Strayed Reveller by Matthew Arnold, the youth has drunk of Circe's enchanted cup sees a vision of Tiresias
Sitting, staff in

who

hand,

On

the warm, grassy

Asopus' bank, His robe drawn over

His

old, sightless head,

Revolving inly The doom of Thebes.

Tiresias in Tennyson's dramatic monologue of that name is engaged in prophesying that Thebes will be saved from the Seven,

who

his life

are at the city gates, if a descendant of the Spartae will give a prophecy that is to be followed by Menoeceus' sacrifice of himself. Tennyson accepts the myth that Tiresias was blinded

and given the gift of foreknowledge by the goddess Athene, whom he saw naked, and the prophet describes this experience in the
course of the monologue.

Swinburne alludes to the same myth in his poem Tiresias, in which he imagines the old man at the grave of Antigone, filled
with sad thoughts about the house of Cadmus but firmly convinced that joy, love, truth, and freedom will finally prevail. In
the second part of the piece the poet, looking at the prophet, observes that the face is "not of Tiresias"; instead it is the face of Dante and some other Italians. In this poem Tiresias' habit of

becoming other people is confusing, and his fervent hopes for the future make him seem remote from the old Greek soothsayer.
375

TISIPHONE
In T.
S.

Eliot's

The Waste Land

Tiresias,

although only a

spectator of one scene, is, according to a note of Eliot's, "the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest." His im-

portance seems to come from his gift of foresight and from his experience of both femaleness and maleness (218-219):
.

Tiresias,

though blind, throbbing between two

breasts,
5

lives,

Old man with wrinkled female

in witnessing the weary

and casual surrender of the

typist to "the

young man

carbuncular," understands the joyless lust and foresees the spiritual death of a whole generation.
three

TISIPHONE (ti-sif'6-ne) is one of the TITANS (ti'tanz), or TITANES

The

FURIES.
or

(ti-tan'ez),

TITANI

(tHanl). Gaea, the earth. Although their nuifcber varies in different accounts, the theory gradually developed that there were twelve of
them, as there are twelve of the Olympian gods.

Titans were the children of Uranus, the sky, and

The

Titans were

gigantic figures that personified the many forces of nature, some of them constructive, but most of them destructive. The significance of

some of

their

names has survived:

the harvester
the earth

Cronus

Rhea
Oceanus
Tethys

the river of

Ocean
on high, the sun

the nourisher or nurse

Hyperion

the wanderer

Thea
Phoebe

the divine one

the bright one
justice or

Themis

law

Mnemosyne
lapetus*
5

memory
the hurler or

wounder

From "The Waste Land," by T. S. Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 1909-1935. Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Reprinted with their permission.

376

TITANS
Others were Coeus; Creus; Ophion, a great serpent; and Eurynome, a great ruler. Fourteen are here accounted for. Classical
lists

to the thirteen

vary from the two, Cronus and lapetus, mentioned by Homer, named by Hesiod.
the parents of the Titans,

Uranus and Gaea,

also.

had other children

The

the Odyssey

three Cyclopes were reputed to be theirs, though in Homer names Poseidon as the father of the best-

known

Cyclops,

Polyphemus.

The

Hecatoncheires, hundred-

handed monsters named Aegaeon (or Briareus), Cottus, and Gyges, were certainly children of Uranus and Gaea. The Cyclopes seem to represent the violence of the thunderstorm and the volcano, and the Hecatoncheires to embody the terrors of the stormy sea. No wonder that Uranus became nervous about the hundredhanded monsters and thrust them down into Tartarus, the great depth in Hades that always served as a catchall for those unwanted
by the ruling gods. This act, however, alienated the affections of Gaea, who urged her other children, the Titans, to revolt. Cronus led the revolution, destroyed his father, and became master of the world, though a tradition to which Milton refers
in Paradise Lost (10. 582-583) says that
.

Ophion and Eurynome

had first the Of high Olympus

.

rule

and had also to be displaced. See CRONUS for an account of his revolt and long rule. The Titans under Cronus were finally attacked and defeated by. Cronus' children, the Olympians, led
by Zeus. See ZEUS for the story of that heavenly warfare. Zeus cast most of the Titans except Oceanus, Tethys, Themis, Mnemosyne, Prometheus, and Epimetheus intp Tartarus. In the battle between the Olympians and the Titans, Oceanus and his
wife Tethys took no part, and under Zeus they continued to rule the great river of Ocean (see SEA GODS). Themis, too,

377

TITHONUS
must not have fought against Zeus, for he chose her for his. second wife, and Mnemosyne also had his favor, for she became by him the mother of the Muses. Prometheus and Epimetheus,
the sons of lapetus, actively sided with Zeus and thus were saved from Tartarus; but Prometheus because of his kindness to-

man
Of

later

endured a

fate equally terrible.

For his

life

and his

brother's, see
all

PROMETHEUS.

the Titans, Hyperion, the sun god, has been perhaps the best known to English poets. For him, see APOLLO; for

Rhea, see EARTH GODDESSES; for Mnemosyne, see MUSES; for Phoebe and Thea, see ARTEMIS, for Themis, see ZEUS. TITHONUS (tHho'niis) was the most famous lover of EOS.

TITUS TATIUS (ti'tfts ta'shi-us) led the Sabines against ROME. TITYUS (titl-us), a Giant, insulted Leto, and was killed by her
children, Artemis

and

APOLLO.
judged the music contest between Pan and

TMOLUS
APOLLO.

(t-mo'lfts)

TRIPTOLEMUS
GODDESSES.

(trip-tSl'-mus), a priest of Demeter, traveled about the world teaching men the art of planting. See

EARTH

TRITOGENEIA

(trit'6-j-ni'a) is
is

another

name

of

ATHENE.

TRITON

(tri'ton)

the

trumpeter and the messenger of

Poseidon. See

SEA GODS.
forty miles

TRITONIA (tri-to'm-fl) is a surname of ATHENE. TROEZEN (tre'z&a), a city of Peloponnesus about

southwest of Athens by sea, was the birthplace of THESEUS. TROILUS (troi'ltis), a prince of Troy, was one of the minor heroes in the TROJAN WAR.

TROJAN WAR. A
Christ the Greeks

thousand years or so before the birth of

the Trojans, a people near the Hellespont. The

made war on

who

in-

habited a section of Asia Minor

war was

probably the result of trade

rivalry; the

Greek strategy apparently

378

TROJAN WAR

J
-I-

ffi

S O
I

w
"I
8
s
"S

<

K
I

J3
ti

&

37P

TROJAN WAR
consisted of blockading the Trojan fortress city, and the economic and military exhaustion of the Trojans seems finally to have

given the victory to the Greeks. As soon as the war was over, the Greeks began to turn history into legend, and of all their stories none is richer than that of the Trojan War. Its events

THE FAMILY

OF PELEUS, ACHILLES, AND AIAS

Oceanus - Tethys

Asopus
Zeus = Aegina Aeacus

Nereus=: Doris

Telamon -

(1)

Eriboea (or Periboea)

= (2) Hesione

Peleus

= Thetis
- Deidamia

Aias

Teucer

Achilles

Pyrrhus (Neoptolemus)

and
sical

its

consequences provided the material for the three

clas-

Virgil's Aeneid; by the three great tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; and for scores of tales and commentaries in
epics,

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and

for plays

Greek and Latin.

The
rivalry

cause of the war, according to the poets, was not trade

between Greeks and Trojans but personal rivalry between three powerful goddesses. When Peleus, a mortal hero, married the Nereid Thetis, all the gods and goddesses were invited to the wedding except Eris, the goddess of discord. Angered by this
social slight, Eris

threw into the midst of the happy party a

380

TROJAN WAR
golden apple inscribed "For the fairest." Naturally, all the goddesses claimed the apple, but finally the rivalry narrowed to
Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite These three demanded that Zeus choose the most beautihil, but the king of the gods knew better than to judge a beauty contest in which the candidates were his
wife and two of his daughters. He referred them to Paris, a Trojan prince who, because his mother dreamed that she had

been delivered of a firebrand when he was born, had been lett to die on Mount Ida; but he had been suckled by a she-bear, brought up by shepherds, and now kept sheep on Mount Ida and
enjoyed the favors of a lovely

Nymph named

Oenone.

The goddesses appeared before Paris dressed in their most gorgeous attire, and each one offered him a bribe in accordance
with her nature. Hera promised him royal dominion, Athene in the prowess in war, and Aphrodite the most beautiful woman
point is never made by the the most beautiful storytellers, Paris may simply have chosen in spite of the delights and dangers attendant on his goddess choice. Whatever his motives were, he awarded the golden

world for his wife. Although

this

apple to Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty Spenser says (Faerie

Queene,
.

2. 7. 55):
it Venus dew, partiall Paris dempt her, faire Helen for his meed,

And had of That many

noble Greekes and Troians made to bleed.

The most
of

beautiful

woman

in the world was Helen, the wife

of Sparta, and Helen's story is full of the of divine ordination of human destiny. Helen's tragic irony mother Leda, the wife of the Spartan king Tyndareus, found

King Menelaus

favor in the eyes of Zeus, and he visited her one day in the two eggs: from the first were guise of a swan. Leda produced

hatched her immortal daughter and son by Zeus, Helen und

381

TROJAN WAR
Polydeuces, or Pollux;

and from the second her mortal daughter and son by Tyndareus, Clytemnestra and Castor. (For the exploits of the two boys see CASTOR.) In English poetry the mating of Leda and Zeus is described in every key from Spenser's luxurious stanza in

The
lie

Faerie

Queene

(3. 11. 32):

Then was

turnd into a snowy Swan,

To win

faire

Leda
skill,

to his louely trade:

wondrous

and sweet wit of

the

man,

That her

From

in daffadillies sleeping made, scorching heat her daintie limbes to shade:

Whiles the proud Bird ruffing his fethers wyde, And brushing his faire brest, did her inuade; She slept, yet twixt her eyelids closely spyde, How towards her he rusht, and smiled at his pryde
to Sir
5. 5.

John FalstafFs sly comment (Merry Wives of Windsor, Leda. 7-9): "You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love of

omnipotent Love!

how

near the god drew to the complexion

of a goosel" But the most effective use of the myth is made by W. B. Yeats in Leda and the Swan. Having described the

strange
writes:

coupling of the

woman and

the

divine bird, Yeats

shudder in the loins engenders there

the burning roof dead.

The broken wall, And Agamemnon

and tower

Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could
let

her drop? 6

Zeus, while about his pleasure, knew the great and terrible events in which Leda's children would take part, for which they would
e

1928,

From "Leda and the Swan," by W. B. Yeats, in his The Tower. Copyright, by The Macmillan Company and used with their permission.

382

TROJAN WAR
in a sense be responsible. Helen, whose abduction by Paris would be the immediate cause of the Trojan War and the fall of Troy,

and Clytemnestra, whose hatred of her husband Agamemnon would lead her to murder him after he returned in triumph from this war (see ATREUS). Yeats leaves us to wonder whether Leda for an instant shared the god's knowledge. Zeus not only

human

foresaw but ordained the Trojan War; he believed that the population of the world should be reduced.

Helen was so lovely that she was kidnaped by Theseus and had to be rescued by her brothers Castor and Polydeuces, and as she grew up she became so beautiful that every bachelor king in Greece wished to marry her. Because the rivalry
as a child

Even

was so intense, Odysseus of Ithaca wisely proposed that he and all the other suitors swear to support the husband whom Helen
chose and to avenge any wrong done

him

because of his marriage.

This agreement was made, and Helen chose Menelaus, whose brother Agamemnon was already the husband of her sister
Clytemnestra. Well pleased with Helen's marriage, Tyndareus resigned the crown of Sparta to Menelaus.

Helen and Menelaus lived happily together and had a daughter whom they named Hermione. But Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world, and after Pans awarded the golden apple to Aphrodite the goddess kept her promise and led him to Sparta. There he was entertained in friendly fashion by Menelaus and Helen until Menelaus was called away on business. Because custom and religion demanded that host and guest deal honorably with each other, Menelaus did not fear to leave Paris with Helen; but when he was gone, Aphrodite caused Helen to give her love to Paris and the two lovers set sail for Troy. As soon as Menelaus discovered that his wife was gone, he called on the kings of Greece to fulfill their promise and avenge
the

wrong done

to

him because

of his marriage. All the heroes

383

TROJAN WAR
responded except Odysseus and Achilles. Although Odysseus had proposed the oath that bound him to support Menelaus, he now had a wife and an infant son whom he was loth to leave. He
therefore pretended to be

urge him
seashore

to join the expedition, they

it

mad; and when messengers arrived to found him plowing the

salt.

and sowing

with

To

test

him

the messengers

laid his infant son in front of the plow. Odysseus stopped plowing,

He
him

admitted his ruse, and reluctantly joined the army. was then given the job of finding Achilles and persuading
to fight. Achilles, the son of Peleus

to live a long undistinguished life or to in the siege of Troy. While he was still a baby his immortal mother tried to make him invulnerable to weapons by dipping

and Thetis, was destined win glory and die young

him in

the River Styx in Hades, but she held him by one heel, and the arrow that finally killed him struck him in that place. Today
is still

heel. Achilles

any man's unhideable weakness was trained in the

described as his Achilles'

arts of

peace and war by Chiron

the Centaur,

who was

also the tutor of such heroes as Asclepius

and Jason. Thetis was determined to save her son from any death, no matter how glorious, and when she heard of the preparations
to' the island of Scyros to live disthe daughters of King Lycomedes. Achilles among fell in love with Deidamia, one of Lycomedes' daughters, and

against

Troy she

sent Achilles

guised as a girl

they had a son named Pyrrhus, who was afterward called Neoptolemus ("the recruit") because he joined the Greek forces late in

the war.

army, however, needed Achilles because the prophet Calchas had said that without him the Greeks could not defeat
the Trojans. Odysseus, learning that Achilles was on Scyros, disguised himself as a peddler and offered Lycomedes' daughters

The

fine collection of dresses

.weapons. Achilles

and jewels and also a few handsome revealed himself by handling the weapons,

384

TROJAN WAR
and Odysseus had no trouble
in persuading

him

to disregard

his mother's warnings. Karl Shapiro's

poem

man

newly drafted into the army, and the

Scyros concerns a title alludes to

Achilles' hiding place as a

symbol of every man's reluctance

to leave civilian life to enter a war.

Under

the leadership of

Agamemnon,

the Greek kings

and

their followers mobilized at Aulis, a

town on the eastern coast

of Boeotia.
elaborate.

The army was

Seeing

huge, and the preparations were a vision of Helen, Marlowe's Faustus asks

(Dr. Faustus, 13. 112-113),

Is this the face that

And
According

launched a thousand burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

ships,

to tradition, a

thousand

vessels

were used

to transport

the expeditionary force to Troy. At Aulis the soothsayer Calchas snake climbed a tree to get at a bird's interpreted a portent.

nest,

devoured the eight young birds and the mother bird that tried to protect them, and then was turned to stone by
it

Zeus.

The meaning

of

this,

said Calchas, was that nine years

fruitlessly consumed by the war but that in the tenth the Greeks would be victorious. year At length the expedition was ready, but a strong north wind day after day prevented it from sailing. When Calchas was consulted, he declared that the goddess Artemis was angry because Agamemnon, diverting himself while the army assembled, had

would be

killed a stag sacred to her. If

to

Agamemnon

wished a

safe passage

Troy, he must appease the goddess by sacrificing his eldest daughter Iphigenia. There was no alternative, and in deep sorrow Agamemnon made his decision. He sent a false message

marry Iphigenia to Achilles before the army sailed for Troy; and when the lovely girl arrived, happily anticipating her wedding with the hero,
to his wife Clytemnestra that to

he wished

3*5

TROJAN WAR
she was ceremonially put to death. The pathos of this death has been represented many times in English poetry. Walter Savage

Landor, for example, in Iphigeneia and

girl pleading gently for
life,

Agamemnon shows

the

yet

when

the priest's knife was raised

cried

Then turn'd she where her parent stood, and "O father! grieve no more, the ships can sail."
In Tennyson's
still full

A Dieam

of Fair

Women, however,

she appears

of hate for Helen,

who

she says was the cause of her

death:

My
I,

father held his

hand upon
tears,

his face;

blinded with

my

Still

strove to speaka

my

voice was thick with sighs

As in

The

dream. Dimly I could descry stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes,
to
t>ee

Waiting

me

die.

The high masts flicker'd as they lay afloat, The crowds, the temples, waver' d, and the shore; The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat; Touch'd, and I knew no more.
According to Euripides' version of the story, Artemis pitied the girl and, as she was about to be sacrificed, took her away and
left

and

a deer in her place. For Iphigenia's further adventures for the effect of her sacrifice on the relations between

Clytemnestra and
of

Agamemnon

see

ATREUS

Iphigenia and her mother were only the first of thousands women who suffered because of the Trojan War. An oracle
that the
first
first

had predicted
should be the
of honor.

Greek

to

land on the hostile shore

to die; to land first therefore

fell to

The honor

Protesilaus,

became a point who had left behind him

386

TROJAN WAR
in Greece a bride of only one day, Laodamia. The oracle was fulfilled, and when the news reached Laodamia, she was inconsolable.

In her grief the gods took pity on

her,

and granted her

urgent prayer that Protesilaus

for three hours.

When

might return to her from death the time was up, she joined her husband

in Hades by committing suicide. Wordsworth tells this story in Laodamia, an overmoralized poem but nevertheless his best

excursion into

classic

myth.

After landing and establishing themselves on the windy plains of Troy between the rivers Simois and Scamander (the second

was sometimes called Xanthus after the god who inhabited it), the Greeks spent nine years in subduing minor cities and besieging without success the capital and fortress city of Troy, or Ilion
(from which the title of Homer's epic, the Iliad). Besides Agamemnon, the commander in chief, and Menelaus, the celebrated
cuckold, the leaders in war

and council

in the Grecian

camp

were Achilles, Odysseus, Diomedes, the two Aiases, or Ajaxes, Nestor, Machaon, Podalirius, and Calchas. Diomedes, king of Argos, was almost the equal of Achilles and the greater Aias in
warfare,

and of Odysseus

in wisdom.

As

a favorite of Athene,

he

was successful in battle and respected in council; he

assisted

Odysseus in several of the clever exploits that helped to bring about the fall of Troy.

The

greater

Aias,

the

on of King Telamon

of

Salamis,

was usually called Telamonian <Aias to distinguish him from his lesser namesake, the son of King Oileus of the Locrians. Telamonian Aias was a stupid man, but he had Unshakable courage and great skill in battle. In the Essay on Criticism
(370-371) Pope describes the sort of verse which he considers , appropriate to this warrior:

When
The

Ajax

strives

line too labours,

some rock's and the

vast weight to throw, -words move slow.

387

TROJAN WAR
Unfortunately, Aias was as proud as he was slow wit ted, and his pride caused his tragic death. The lesser Aias was a brave man

with bad manners; he was disliked by the gods and by Homer,

who

at the beginning of the war.

told his story. Nestor, the king of Pylos, was sixty years old He was full of good advice and

rather too fond of reminiscence, though the stories he remembered were almost always interesting. Machaon and Podalirius were
sons of Asclepius who inherited their father's skill in medicine and therefore were able to save many Greek heroes from death.

Odysseus was a great warrior, but he was chiefly valued for his shrewdness and piety. He became equally famous for his exploits in the war and for his adventures on his long journey home,

which are related in a separate article under his name. The chief Grecian hero was Achilles, and he had all the shortcomings that accompany his sort of greatness He was an inspiring leader and
an invincible
he was
fighter, passionate

and tender in

his loyalties;

but
a

also self-centered,

moody,

quick to take offense,

and

great nurser of grudges. While these brave Greeks competed with the Trojans and with one another, the crippled and ugly-

minded Thersites delighted

in every misfortune and tried to turn each noble action to ridicule. He is best represented for English readers in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.
a magnificently fortified city and a number of capable defenders. King Priam, or Priamus, was an old man

The Trojans had

the

when

war began, but

his wife

Hecuba had borne him many

strong sons, among whom were Hector, Paris, Troilus, Deiphobus,

and Helenus; and three daughters, Cassandra, Creusa, and Polyxena. One of Priam's chief councilors was Antenor, who urged from the first that Helen be returned to Menelaus but whose advice was disregarded. Aeneas, a son of Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite, married Princess Creusa and distinguished
himself not only in the defence of Troy but also in his later

388

TROJAN WAR
adventures, which ended in his founding the Roman race and which are told in a separate article under his name. The most

important
his
silia,

allies of the

companion Glaucus;

Trojans were Sarpedon, a son of Zeus; Memnon, king of Ethiopia; and Penthe-

queen of the Amazons.

Priam's sons, Paris

Of

won

the

name

of Alexander (which

means "champion") when he

among shepherds, but he was really a cowardly man who was more concerned with Helen than he was with the war. On the battlefield he was as apt to run away as he was to fight. Troilus, Deiphobus, and Helenus
lived

fought bravely, but Troilus was soon killed and Helenus (who had the gift of prophecy) was finally captured by the
all

Greeks and forced to reveal the obstacles to their victory.

chief

The
and

Trojan champion was Prince Hector, a

brilliant

chivalrous fighter and a loving husband and father. At his moment of greatest crisis he was moved equally by his duty to maintain his honor on the battlefield and by his love for his

wife

Andromache and
events that

The

Homer

his infant son Astyanax. relates in the Iliad occurred in the

tenth year of the indecisive siege of Troy. In one of their raids

on a minor Trojan stronghold the Greeks had captured two girls, Chryseis and Briseis. The first was awarded to Agamemnon and
the second to Achilles. Chryseis, however, was the daughter of Chryses, a priest of Apollo. When Agamemnon refused to release her, Chryses prayed to Apollo for yengeance, and the god sent a pestilence among the Greeks. When the plague was at
its height, Achilles called a conference of the Greek leaders and said that they must either appease Apollo or give up the war.

The prophet

Calchas, after begging the protection of Achilles,

declared that Chryseis must be returned to her father. non was forced to agree, but he insisted that Briseis,

Agamem-

who had
389

been awarded

to Achilles,

must then be given

to

him. Although

TROJAN WAR
he had become fond of the
of the
girl,

Achilles yielded to the order

commander
of the

in chief, but he

announced that hereafter he

in the fighting. (For the

and

his

Myrmidons would take no part

meaning

name

of Achilles' followers see the account of

Aeacus under ZEUS.)

Fate had decreed that the Greeks would win
if

they persisted,

but several of the gods used their power to protect their favorites and even to influence the outcome of the war Aphrodite of course favored the Trojans, and she enlisted the help of her

Athene and Hera championed the Greeks. Poseidon aided the Greeks because he and Apollo had built the walls of Troy but had received no payment from
lover Ares, the

god of

battle.

Laomedon, Priam's

father. Apollo,

more forgiving in

this in-

stance, simply protected his favorites. Zeus preferred the Trojans,

but he tried to remain neutral to avoid trouble with his wife.

The Nereid
ment

Thetis, however, angered by

Agamemnon's

treat-

Olympus and begged Zeus to assist the so that the insult to Achilles might be avenged. Zeus Trojans allowed himself to be persuaded, and he sent a false dream to
of her son,

came

to

Agamemnon

that promised

him

victory.

Agamemnon

addressed

the troops and, in an effort to inspire them to great deeds, spoke so movingly of home and peace that the common soldiers, under that they give up the siege. Nestor and Odysseus, however, managed to quell the revolt, and the next day the Greeks attacked in force.
the leadership of Thersites,
Sitting above the battle

demanded

on the walls of Troy, Priam and

his

who sat with them, and said in their hearts that it was right that men should fight and die for her. Suddenly the fighting was stopped by Pans, who challenged any
advisors looked at Helen,

Grecian champion to single combat. A truce was declared, Menelaus accepted the challenge, and for a time it looked as if the war might be brought to a sensible conclusion by a fight

390

TROJAN WAR
between the two men most concerned. While the armies watched, Paris threw his spear, but Menelaus turned it aside with his

and the two champions drew their swords. At the first exchange Menelaus broke his sword, but in the next instant he grabbed Pans by
shield. Menelaus' spear only ripped the tunic of Paris,

the helmet and was dragging him toward the Greek side when Aphrodite cut the chin strap of the helmet, wrapped Paris in

a cloud, and carried him

off to

Helen's bedroom.

Agamemnon,

addressing the armies, argued that Menelaus

had

won and

Helen should be returned to him. The Trojans and the war would have ended there if Athene, urged on by the implacable Hera, had not persuaded a foolish Trojan named Pandarus to shoot an arrow at Menelaus It wounded
that
all agreed,

him only

slightly,

but because of

this treacherous

breaking of the

truce the battle was resumed.

Many Greeks fought well, but Diomedes He killed Pandarus with his spear and then

felled

seemed invincible. Aeneas with

a great stone. Aphrodite tried to protect her son Aeneas, but Diomedes, knowing that she was a cowardly goddess, dared to wound her in the hand, and she fled, weeping, to Olympus.
Aeneas'

was saved by Apollo, who carried him to Artemis and Leto to be healed Cheated of this victory, Diomedes sought out Hector but found that the war god Ares was fighting beside
life

the Trojan champion. Diomedes called for an orderly retreat, but Athene, seeing his plight, stood beside him and urged him to strike the war god himself. Athene guided his spear and it

wounded Ares
screamed
like

in the belly The blustering but cowardly god a stuck pig and rushed off to Olympus to complain to Zeus, but Zeus told him to stop whining. As Diomedes raged about the field and the Trojans retreated,

Hector returned to the

pray for victory.

city to

urge the

women and

old

men

to

On

the wall he

met Andromache and Astyanax.

391

TROJAN WAR
"My dear," she said, "stay here with us. Do not make our boy an orphan and me a widow." Deeply touched, Hector admitted (as he never had before) that he expected death for himself and defeat for Troy. But his greatest fear was that harm would come to Andromache and Astyanax. He took the boy in his arms and prayed to Zeus, "May men sometime say of my son
that he is greater than his father." To Andromache he said, "I must do my part until my time comes." Then he returned to the battle and fought so brilliantly that the Greeks, until then
victorious,

were driven back almost to their

ships.

That night the Greeks built a wall to protect their ships, and Agamemnon was so disheartened that he was ready to give
the war; but Nestor pointed out that responsible for the defeat because he

up

Agamemnon

admitted that

Agamemnon alone was had insulted Achilles. he had been foolish, and he sent
to Achilles,

Odysseus and Telamonian Aias to take Briseis back

to offer his apologies,

and

to urge Achilles to fight again.

No

one

could have asked for a fuller confession of fault or a hand-

somer apology, but

home, he
likewise.
said,

with black anger, refused to be reconciled with Agamemnon. He was sailing for
Achilles,
still

filled

and he advised

all

the other Greeks to

do

The next day

the Greeks fought with desperate courage,

and
that

for a time a ruse of Hera's brought

them

success.

Knowing

Zeus was helping the Trojans, she used every queenly art to make herself beautiful and then offered herself to Zeus. Surprised and delighted, the king of the gods enjoyed his wife and then
JHector,

While he slept Telamonian Aias beat down and although Hector was rescued by Aeneas, the Trojans had to retreat. At this point Zeus awoke, snarled at Hera for her trickery, and ordered Poseidon, who was helping the
fell

into a deep sleep.

Greeks, to leave the battlefield. Apollo then revived the

wounded

392

TROJAN WAR
Hector, and the Trojans drove the Greeks before them and breached the wall that protected the ships. Not even this disaster touched the heart o Achilles, but
his retainer

and friend Patroclus (the relation between them and so intense that it may have been homosexual) asked to wear Achilles' armor and to lead the Myrmidons into the fight A Greek ship burst into flame as he spoke, and Achilles gave his permission but cautioned Patroclus to do no
was so
close

more than defend the ships. The appearance of a man dressed in Achilles' armor and followed by the Myrmidons rallied the Greeks, and they soon drove the Trojans away from the ships. Patroclus seemed Achilles himself on the battlefield. The lesser Trojans fled before him, and when he encountered Sarpedon, a son of Zeus, he gave him a mortal wound (for Sarpedon's burial see Thanatos under HADES). Then he met Hector. The Trojan hero killed him, stripped from him the armor of Achilles, put it on, and returned to the fight. Aias and Menelaus managed to
save the

body of

Patroclus, but otherwise the victory belonged to

the Trojans. When Achilles learned of the death of Patroclus, he

overwhelmed with
keep him make one
alive.

grief.

Only

his desire for revenge

was seemed to

His mother Thetis came to comfort him and to

She reminded him that

last effort to avert his destiny.

he was fated to die soon after Hector, but he answered, "I mil of Patroclus." At accept death when I have avenged the death
the request of Thetis, the god Hephaestus built a new magnificent suit of armor, and at dawn the goddess brought it to

her son's

tent.

Agamemnon and Achilles were formally reconciled, and Agamemnon in a gracious speech blamed their disagreement on Ate,
the goddess of infatuation. As Achilles drove his chariot toward to his Troy, one of his immortal horses, which had been given

393

TROJAN WAR
father by Poseidon, spoke and warned him of his approaching death; but Achilles was undisturbed. The Trojans fought bravely

but

futilely, Achilles

slew

all

fought with one another, although they

who opposed him. The gods still knew how the battle
retreated,

would end. Finally the Trojans

and the Scaean Gates,

to receive them.

the chief entrance to Ilion, were thrown

open

Hector stood alone to meet the victorious Achilles. His mother

and father shouted from the

in the

walls

and begged him

to take refuge

city, general fighting was over, and the Greeks watched from the field and the Trojans from the

but he refused.

The

walls as Achilles approached Hector. But the Trojan's courage failed, and he ran three times around the city with Achilles in
pursuit.

At

last

he stood, and threw

his spear,

but

it

rebounded

harmlessly from the magic shield of Achilles. He realized then that his time had come to die, and he drew his sword and rushed
at his

knew
throat.

its

enemy. Since Hector wore Achilles' old armor, Achilles weakness, and he thrust his spear through Hector's

As a

final

humiliation to the Trojans, he stripped Hector's

body, tied the city.

it

to his chariot,

and dragged

it

around and around

Zeus was angered by Achilles' treatment of the corpse of his enemy, and he sent word to King Priam that he should go to
Achilles
Achilles' tent.
said,

and ask for Hector's body. Hermes guided the old man to There Priam kissed the hands of the Greek, and
father, who is perhaps as old and as but remember that I am more pitiable than am, have stretched out my hands in entreaty to the killer
as I

"Remember your

wretched
he, for I

of my son." Achilles was moved to pity and admiration, and he ordered that Hector's body be given to King Priam. For nine days the Trojans lamented the death of their hero, and on the tenth day they lighted his funeral pyre.

Homer's Iliad ends with the funeral of Hector, but the

394

siege of

TROJAN WAR
Troy dragged
two of Troy's principal allies. One was Penthesilia, queen of the Amazons, a warlike race of women whose right breasts were cut off so that they
on. Achilles
killed

met and

would have the free movement of their fighting right arms. The Amazons were dangerous warriors, and as beautiful as they were brave; when Achilles had killed Penthesilia he wept for
her beauty.

The foul-mouthed
and Achilles

Thersites chose this

moment
sorry.

to

make

jokes,

killed him, but

nobody was

In

Spenser's Faerie Queene (5. 5. 6-17) Artegall, knight of justice, defeats the Amazonian queen Radigund; but when he unlaces

her helmet he

is

so struck

make him
by
Achilles'

captive,

by her beauty that he allows her to and he remains her thrall until he is released

his warlike fiancee Britomart.

the king of Ethiopia, a son of Tithonus and Eos, the goddess of the dawn. That the allies of Troy came from as far east or south as Ethiopia and
as far

other victim was

Memnon,

north

as the

kingdom

of the
conflict.

Amazons

indicates that the

fell,

Trojan War

was a world

When Memnon

his

mother Eos in great sorrow carried his body back to Ethiopia, and at Thebes in Egypt a miraculous monument was erected to

him

(see

EOS).

Shortly after his victory over Memnon, Achilles himself died from an arrow wound in his vulnerable heel. Ironically, the arrow

was shot by

Paris,

the lion in love

story, Achilles

and the dastard in war.

had fallen in love with the and he was killed when he kept a tryst Trojan princess Polyxena, with her in the temple of Apollo. After Troy fell, the ghost of Achilles demanded that Polyxena be sacrificed on his grave. Achilles was given a magnificent funeral, and then his arms were claimed by Telamonian Aias and Odysseus. Athene presided over a solemn meeting of the Greek army at which Trojan prisoners testified that Odysseus rather than Aias had done more
According to one

TROJAN WAR
harm
to Troy.

The army

therefore voted that Achilles' arms

should be awarded to Odysseus. This was a triumph for Odysseus but a disgrace for the brave and stupid Aias, who could not
accept this blow to his pride. Filled with anger, he determined to murder Agamemnon and Menelaus; but as he approached their tents, Athene touched him with madness and he attacked a flock of sheep, believing them to be his enemies. When the madness
left

him and he saw

the slaughtered sheep lying about the

field,

he was overcome with shame and committed suicide. Sophocles describes this tragic death in his play Aias.

Now

the Greeks

had

lost

two of

their greatest heroes,

and the

Trojans, although fighters were also dead, were still protected by the walls of Ilion. At this point, the Greeks captheir

best

He
'

tured the Trojan prince Helenus, who had the gift of prophecy. revealed that the Greeks could win the war if they would
three conditions:
first,

join their army; second, they

Achilles' son Neoptolemus must must have the bows and arrows of Heracles; and third, they must remove from Troy the Palladium, a statue of Athene which guaranteed security to the city that
fulfill
,

possessed

it

(see

ATHENE).

Odysseus, the Greek strategist, made the necessary arrangements. He sailed to Scyros and persuaded Neoptolemus to join the army by offering him his father's armor. It was a more
difficult

job to obtain the

to

bow and

belonged

Philoctetes,

a great archer

arrows of Heracles, for they who had joined the

the

expedition against Troy but

who had been wounded on

and marooned on the

his other

island of

way Lemnos because Odysseus and

and

his cries of pain.

companions could not stand the smell of his wound For more than nine years Philoctetes, whose
never healed, had existed in pain on

wound had

Lemnos and

cursed the companions who had deserted him. Nevertheless Odysseus, with the aid of Neoptolemus or Diomedes (accounts

396

TROJAN WAR
vary as to
to

who was his helper), succeeded in persuading Philoctetes come to Troy. There his wound was healed by Machaon, the

son of Asclepius, and Philoctetes fought skillfully for the Greeks. For a fuller account of this archer see PHILOCTETES.
victim of Philoctetes' arrows was Pans. Dying of the wound, Paris asked his men to carry him to Oenone, the Nymph
first

The

of Mount Ida whom he had deserted when Aphrodite promised him Helen. Oenone, although she had made him promise to return to her when he was wounded, refused to save him because of his unfaithfulness; but when he was dead she killed herself The third (for further details see Oenone under NYMPHS).
exploit, the stealing of the

Palladium from

Ilion,

was carried

out by Odysseus and Diomedes, some say with the help o Helen.

Even though Odysseus had fulfilled the three conditions necessary to a Grecian victory, Troy continued to hold out. Odysseus win the finally proposed that they abandon the siege and try to was built big city by a trick. On his orders a wooden horse to accommodate in its hollow belly Odysseus and a enough
picked group of warriors. One morning the Trojan watchers were astonished because a huge wooden horse stood before the Scaean Gates, and the Greek camp was empty and every ship was
gone. In the abandoned

Sinon, a pitiful wretch

the Trojans found a Greek named swore that he had escaped the night before from his cruel countrymen, who had intended to sacrifice

camp

who

him

to

Athene in order

to appease her anger because of the

Palladium from Troy. He also said that the wooden a Greek offering to Athene and that the Greeks hoped horse was the Trojans would destroy it and thus bring the wrath of the
theft of the

Sinon
It

goddess on Ilion. If the Trojans took the horse into the said, they would win the favor of Athene.

city,

was a plausible story, and only two Trojans disbelieved it. One was the prophetic princess Cassandra, to whom no one ever
397

TROJAN WAR
listened; the other

was a priest of Poseidon named Laocoon. He said that he feared the Greeks even when they bore gifts, a

remark that has since become proverbial; but as he spoke, two terrible snakes came out of the sea and strangled him and his two sons. Since Laocoon was a priest of Poseidon and his destroyers came from the sea, the Trojans drew the obvious inference that Laocoon was wrong. The serpents' attack on the priest and his sons is the subject of a famous sculpture now in the Vatican at Rome, and in Chtlde Harold (4. 160) Byron
describes Laocoon's death:
. .

Vain

The

struggle; vain, against the coiling strain

gripe,

And
The

and deepening of the dragon's grasp, old man's clench; the long envenom'd chain Rivets the living links, the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp.

The Trojans
the
first

pulled the wooden horse inside the city, and for time in ten years they failed to post a guard as the

entire city celebrated the end of the war. When the last revelers had gone drunk to bed, Sinon opened the trap door in the
gates of the city.

and Odysseus and his warriors hurried to open the The Greek fleet of course had gone only far to hide its sails from Trojan watchers; in the enough away dark the fleet returned, and the entire Greek army entered

wooden

horse,

the

city.

rest was butchery. The well-organized Greeks set fire to various parts of the city and then proceeded to exterminate the Trojans. Some were slaughtered in their beds, some seized their

The

weapons and fought desperately for a time; but before the night was over the city was burned to the ground, and all the Trojan heroes except one had been killed. The surviving hero was
Aeneas,

who fought until he saw that the cause was lost, and then tried to save his family and retainers. His wife Creusa was
398

TROJAN WAR
lost,

but with the aid of his mother Aphrodite, Aeneas led out

of the carnage his aged father, his son, and a few followers. Cassandra tried to take refuge in the temple of Athene, but

she was dragged from the sacred building and raped by the
lesser Aias,

punished for this and other crimes. His ship was wrecked, but with the aid of Poseidon he managed to swim to shore, and there he boasted that
his
finally

who on

way home was

he had saved his

life

in spite of the gods. Poseidon

smashed the

big rock he stood on, and he was drowned. Priam and Hecuba sought the protection of Zeus's temple, but Neoptolemus, Achilles'
son,

found them there and

killed the aged king. In

Hamlet

from a play (2. 2. 472-541) the First Player and Hamlet, quoting about Dido, describe Priam's death and Hecuba's tears.
of

day came, the only Trojan survivors were a handful weeping women and children. Queen Hecuba, with her sons and her husband dead and her city destroyed, was a figure of

When

heroic sorrow. Hamlet, comparing his own real grief for his murdered father with the First Player's artistic assumption of

sorrow for the Trojan queen, asks himself

(2. 2.

585-586),

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?

In Antic

Hay Aldous Huxley

at all."

lets

his characters

dance in a

smart cabaret to the

latest jazz tune:

"What's he to Hecuba?

Nothing

This ironic recollection of Hamlet's words that

contrasts the cheapness of the present with the tragic dignity of the past may have been suggested to Huxley by what T. S. Eliot

in

The Waste Land

. .

(128-130) calls
.

that Shakespeherian

Rag-

It's so

elegant
7

So

intelligent.

7 From "The Waste Land," by T* S. Eliot, in his Collected Poems, 19091935. Copyright, 1934, 1936, by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Reprinted with their permission.

399

TROJAN WAR
Achilles' ghost claimed the life o

Hecuba's daughter Polyxena,

and she was put to death on his grave. Andromache, the wife of Hector, became the slave of Neoptolemus, and her little son Astyanax, for whom Hector had prayed that he might be a greater man than his father, was thrown from the wall of

whom Apollo graced with the and then cursed (because she would not love him) with the terrible sentence that no man should believe her prophecies, became the slave of Agamemnon. For his death and
Troy
to his death. Cassandra,
gift of foresight

hers see

ATREUS.

Helen, the lovely cause of all this woe, was returned to her husband Menelaus, who accepted her without question. The ship of this royal pair was driven from its course by adverse winds

and touched on Cyprus, Phoenicia, and Egypt before Menelaus captured and held the sea god Proteus and forced him to reveal the proper course to steer for home. In Egypt Queen Polydamna gave Helen a magic drink called Nepenthe which had the power
to banish sad recollections (Milton mentions this draught in Camus, 675-677); and apparently Menelaus and Helen lived happily together after their return to Sparta. Few were inclined to blame Helen for what had happened. Indeed, a Greek poet

Stesichorus, having been blinded for speaking ill of invented in his Palinode a myth that excused Helen Helen, entirely. According to this story, Paris carried her off by force

named

but
of

lost

Menelaus came

her to the king of Egypt, who kept her safe until to claim her after the war. Meantime a phantom

Helen accompanied Paris to Troy, and it was for this phantom that the war was fought. Most poets did not accept Stesichorus' invention but thought of Helen as the hapless
possessor of fatal beauty.

Spenser describes her thus in

The

Faerie

Queen

(3.

9.

35):

Faire Helene, flowre of beautie excellent,

And
400

girlond of the mighty Conquerours,

TROJAN WAR
That madest many Ladies deare lament

The heuie losse of their braue Paramours, Which they far off beheld from Trotan toures,

And

saw the

fieldes of faire

Scamander strowne

With carcases of noble warrioures, Whose fruitless hues were vnder furrow sowne,

And Xanthus sandy bankes with

bloud

all

ouerflowne.

Thomas Nashe
showing the

in a song in Summers Last Will and Testament, power of death over human beings, chooses as his

most poignant symbol the extinguishing of Helen's radiance:

Beauty
is

but a flowre,

Which

wrinckles will deuoure, Brightnesse falls from the ayre,

Queenes haue died yong and Dust hath closde Helens eye.

faire,

And

Poe's

To Helen owes
is

its classical

imagery to Helen of Troy,

even though she

not the Helen of his poem. Helen seems as powerless to understand as to avert the disasters caused by her loveliness; and she is sometimes
It is true that

represented, as in Ovid's Heroides, as a personification of lust, a shallow courtesan who delights in the death o the heroes and

in the final destruction of Troy. Men have usually taken her a seriously, either as a girl of innocent and fatal charm or as
heartless

courtesan;
of

quatrain (Words

but Dorothy Parker produced this gay Comfort to Be Scratched on a Mirror):

of

Helen

Troy had

a wandering glance;

Sappho's restriction was only the sky;

Ninon was ever the chatter of France; But oh, what a good girl am II 8
"Words of Comfort to Be Scratched on a Mirror," by Dorothy Parker, in her Enough Rope. Copyright, 1926, by Boni & Liveright. Reprinted with the permission of The Viking Press.

401

TROJAN WAR
Rupert Brooke in Menelaus and Helen adds a footnote
Helen's history:
So far the poet. How should he behold That journey home, the long connubial years? He does not tell you how white Helen bears Child on legitimate child, becomes a scold,
to

Haggard with

virtue.

Menelaus bold

Waxed
Got

garrulous,

and sacked a hundred Troys

'Twixt noon and supper. And her golden voice shrill as he grew deafer. And both were old.

Often he wonders

why on

earth he went

Troyward, or why poor Paris ever came. Oft she weeps, gummy-eyed and impotent;

Her dry shanks twitch at Paris' mumbled name. So Menelaus nagged; and Helen cried;

And

Paris slept

on by Scamander

side. 9

the

In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the significance of Trojan War for English poets was strongly colored by two

medieval legends. The first of these, as recorded in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin History of the Kings of Britain, Layamon's Middle-English Brut, and elsewhere, maintains that the first king
Aeneas.
of Britain was Brutus, or Brut, a great-grandson of the The English therefore, when they described the
as

Trojan Trojan

War, favored the Trojans

much

as possible.
affair of

The

second legend concerns the love

Troilus and

Criseyde, which was

added

to the story of the

Trojan

War

by
re-

BenoJt de Sainte-Maure in Le

Roman

de Troie (1160), and

peated by Guido delle Colonne in his Historia Trojana (1287). In // Filostrato (1341-1346) the Italian writer Boccaccio added
Troilus' wooing
gins with the separation of the lovers)

and winning of Criseyde (Benoit's episode beand made the story com-

9 "Menelaus and Helen/' II, by Rupert Brooke, in The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke Copyright, 1915, by Dodd, Mead & Company. Reprinted with the permission of Dodd, Mead & Company.

402

TROJAN WAR
plete in
itself.

In Boccaccio's

tale the fall of

Troy becomes a

background

for the tragic love affair.

The

English poet Chaucer,

making some use

of the earlier versions but relying chiefly on Boccaccio, wrote in Troilus and Griseyde a subtle, witty, and

touching account of a doomed love. In this tale the Trojan prince Troilus (in the classical account an unimportant son of Priam who was killed early in the war)
desperately in love with Criseyde, the daughter of the prophet Calchas who, in this version, is a Trojan who deserts to the Greeks because he foresees the fall of Troy. Pandarus,
falls

the Trojan who in Homer's Iliad is distinguished only for his foolish breaking of the truce after the duel between Menelaus and Paris, in Chaucer's story is responsible for bringing the lovers
together.

As

Criseyde's uncle
is

and
finally

Troilus' friend, he

is

the

kindly ironist whose irony

stakes his life

turned on himself, for he

on

the faithfulness of Criseyde.

Almost

as

soon

as she yields to Troilus, Criseyde's father Calchas arranges that

Antenor,

who

has

been captured by the Greeks, shall be

compelled to leave her lover. They vow eternal faithfulness, but in the Greek camp Criseyde finds her heart turning toward Diomedes, and finally

exchanged for

his daughter,

and she

is

she gives her favors to him. Troilus and Diomedes fight one inconclusive duel, and later Troilus is killed by Achilles.

Chaucer shows Criseyde as a faithless woman, but he understands her so well and pities her so much that he is finally driven
to say (5. 1093-1099):

Ne me ne list this sely womman chyde Forther than the storye wol devyse.
punysshed so wide, oughte ynough suffise. And it I myghte excuse hire any wise, For she so sory was for hire untrouthe, Iwis, I wolde excuse hire yet for routhe.
allasl is

Hire name,

That

for hire gilt

it

403

TROJAN WAR
Later poets were
less

kind.

The

Scot,
as

Testament of Cresseid shows her

Robert Henryson, in the a whore soon deserted by

finally deprived of her beauty and stricken with In the final scene she sits by the road with her beggar's leprosy.

Diomedes and

cup and Troilus, riding by, tosses her a coin. He does not recognize her nor she him; but when she learns who has befriended her, she sends him a nng that he once gave her and then she dies. In
the Elizabethan
(2.
1

Age her name

is

so debased that Pistol in

Henry V

80) represents the

popular opinion when he describes the

whore Doll Tearsheet

as a "lazar kite of Cressid's kind."

Working with
is

this

degraded tradition, Shakespeare wrote his

Cressida,

bitter play Troilus

Now, the dry suppeago on the and war and lechery confound alll" (2. 3. 78-82). subject, And the argument is not one whore but two: Cressida as well
.
.

a revealing the a whore and a cuckold.

and chorus. Of

war
.

evil-tongued Thersites he says, "All the argument is

The

as

prettily to

Helen. Although Cressida, as she leaves Troilus, promises be true to him, Ulysses, when he first sees her at the
is

Greek camp, recognizes her for what she

Fie, fie

(4. 5.

54-57):

upon

her!

There's language in her eye, iher cheek, her lip; Nay, her foot speaks Her wanton spirits look out

At every

joint

and motive of her body.

Pandarus
says
(3. 2.

reduced to his lowest possible denominator. 208-212) that if Cressida and Troilus prove false,
is

He

let all pitiful

after

my name;

goers-between be call'd to the world's end call them all Pandars. Let all constant men
all

be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and between Pandersl Say 'Amen/

brokers-

Most

of the other characters are equally degraded. Troilus

is

is

soft fool, Achilles

an unscrupulous

fighter,

and Ajax

is

"Mars

404

TYPHON
his idiot"
(2.
1.

59). Thersites
I.

pun when he
be,

says (2.

70), ".

makes the common Elizabethan whomsoever you take him to

.
.

he is Ajax [that is, a jakes or outhouse]/* Sir cracks this joke in the title of his famous book

John Harington on privies, The

Metamorphosis of Ajax. In Shakespeare's play very few characters

retain the heroic stature that

Homer

gives them.

TROY was conquered by Greece in the TROJAN WAR. TURNUS (tur'nus) fought against AENEAS. TYCHE (ti'ke) is the goddess of fortune. See FATE.
TYDEUS (ti'dus) was one of the Seven against THEBES. TYNDARIUS (tin-da'ii-us) was Leda's husband. See TROJAN WAR. TYPHOEUS (ti-fe'us) is TYPHON.

TYPHON

(ti'f6n),

dragon heads,

fiery eyes,

or Typhoeus, was a monster with a hundred and a loud voice. He was made especially

for causing trouble in the world, and he carried out his mission with terrible success. His father was Tartarus, the great abyss at the very bottom of Hades, and his mother was Gaea, the earth,

into the world to fight against Zeus when that newly powerful god had just overcome the Titans and was, in the opinion of Gaea, mistreating them by confining some of them in Tartarus. Typhon made war against Zeus in the most

who brought him

violent manner, throwing against the

Olympian everything that

late story,

came
at

to hand, even mountains.

According to a

Zeus
fled

first

was

terrified

and he and the other gods and goddesses

to Egypt,
as a cat,

where
as

they disguised themselves as animals,

Artemis

Hera

Later Zeus returned to Greece, struck

a cow, Aphrodite and Eros as fish, and so onTyphon with a thunderbolt,

his struggles to

and confined the monster in Tartarus, where

escape
still

cause earthquakes. of Typhon's troublemaking was direct. He married Echidna, a monstrous creature half-woman and half-snake, and

Not

all

TYRRHENIAN SEA
by her sired a family of children who would have seemed hopeless even to modern child psychologists. One of them was

whom

Bellerophon slew; another was the Sphinx overcame; third and fourth were the Nemean Oedipus Lion and the Lernean Hydra whom Heracles killed. Typhon was
the Chimaera
also the father of Cerberus, the three-headed

whom

dog who guards the

realm of Hades, and (according to some

destructive winds.

stories) of all the fierce,

Typhon appears in Egyptian mythology, where he is credited with being the brother of the benevolent Osiris, whom he murdered, and for whose wife Isis he made almost as much
trouble as he caused for Zeus.

The many loud and dangerous

heads of

Typhon seemed

to

Dryden an apt figure for the multiheaded mob that deposed King Charles I. In Astraea Redux (37-40), a poem celebrating the restoration of this king's son, Charles II, Dryden describes the action of the rabble against the king as having been like the
occasion
.
.

when

the bold

Typhoeus

scal'd the sky

And

Jove from his own heaven to fly, (What king, what crown from treason's reach is free, If Jove and heaven can violated be?).
forc'd great

TYRRHENIAN
SEA.

(ti-re'nMn)

SEA. See

MEDITERRANEAN

ULYSSES

(xHis'ez)

is

the

Roman name
Muse

for

URANIA
406

(u-ra'ni-d) is the

of astronomy. See

ODYSSEUS. MUSES.

VERTUMNUS

UEANUS

(u'rd-nus), the sky,

was the son and husband of the

earth goddess Gaea, and the first ruler of the universe. By Gaea he was the father of many creatures, including the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hecatoncheires. The Titan Cronus, urged on

by Gaea, attacked and castrated Uranus, and succeeded him

as

supreme

ruler. See

CRONUS, EARTH GODDESSES, TITANS.

v
VELIA
(ve'li'd)

was one of the Seven Hills of

is

VENUS
one,"
is

(ve'nus)

the

Roman name

of

earliest ROME. APHRODITE.

VERTUMNUS

(vr-tum'nus), whose name means "the changing a minor Roman god who is connected chiefly with the

crops of the changing seasons and with the plants' transformation from blossom into fruit Sacrifices were made to him of garlands of budding flowers and the first fruits of the garden. He fell in
love with Pomona, the

Roman
9.

goddess of fruit

trees,

but she had

also.

refused

many

suitors

and

for a long time refused

Vertumnus

Milton (Paradise Lost,

394-395), describing the innocence of

Eve before the

fall, says,

Likeliest she seemd,

Pomona when

she fled

Vertumnus ....

The god, using his power Pomona in many guises; but

until he assumed the form of
his cause.

to change his shape, approached nothing he did or said pleased her

him

person as as her lover.

an old woman and eloquently pled At the climax of the speech he appeared in his own a handsome young man, and Pomona at last accepted

407

VESPER

VESPER

(v&'pSr)

is

the

Roman name

of the

evening

star,

HESPERUS.

VESTA

(v&'tfl)

is

the

Roman name

of the goddess of the hearth,

HESTIA.

VESTAL VIRGINS
Rome.
See

were priestesses of the temple of Vesta at

HESTIA.

VIMINAL (viml-nal) is one of the seven hills of later ROME. VIRGO (vlr'go), the Virgin, is a constellation and a sign of the
ZODIAC.

VOLUPTAS
of Psyche

(v&'ltip'tas),

the goddess of pleasure,

is

the daughter

and EROS.
(vtil'kan) is

VULCAN

Roman name

of

HEPHAESTUS.

w
WINDS. The
four winds are brothers: the north wind, Boreas,

or Aquilo; the west wind, Zephyrus, or Favonius; the south wind, Notus, or Auster; and the east wind, Eurus. Their king Aeolus,

who is also called Hippotades, lives a gay life on the island of Aeolia where he carouses perpetually with his six sons and six daughters. He keeps the winds imprisoned in a cave and releases
them at his pleasure, at the command of a god, and sometimes at the request of a mortal. He once gave Odysseus the storm winds in a bag to assure the safe return of Odysseus' ship to Ithaca; and
at the urging of Juno he sent the winds which was saved by Neptune. In Lycidas
to

wreck Aeneas'

fleet,

(97)

when Triton

seeks

the cause of Lycidas' drowning, sage Hippotades replies that "not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd," and T. S. Eliot in

408

WINDS
Sweeney Erect writes of Aeolus "Reviewing the insurgent gales." In imitation of Pindar, the famous Greek writer of odes, Thomas Gray invokes the Aeolian lyre (The Progress of Poesy, 1), a
stringed instrument on which the winds produce musical tones. The parents of the winds are usually said to be Astraeus or

Aeolus and Eos, the goddess of the dawn, but according to one story all the winds but Zephyrus and Notus are the sons of

Typhon, the

terrible

monster created by Gaea, the ancient earth

goddess, to fight against the Olympians. This of an amusing poem called The Weather of

myth is the basis Olympus by the

contemporary poet Robert Graves:

Zeus was once overheard to shout at Hera:
Boreas
it, do you? Well, I hate it worseMay, Sirocco all the Summer. Hell take this whole impossible Universe 1"

"You hate
all

warm rejoinder too manlike for Olympic use, By noting that the snake-tailed Chthonian winds Were answerable to Fate alone, not Zeus. 1
scholiast explains this

Which seems

("Chthonian" means "of the earth.") Most of the stories about the winds are of Boreas and Zephyrus, the fiercest and the gentlest. Boreas fell in love with Orithyia, but
the match was opposed by her father, the king of Athens. One day when Orithyia was playing with her sisters on the bank of a
river,

Boreas roared

down and

carried her away.

Donne

refers to

Elegy 16. Zephyrus, at the bidding of Eros, gently her transported Psyche from the mountain top where she awaited fate to the valley where Eros made love to her. Zephyrus is also
this story in
i "The Weather of Olympus/' by Robert Graves, in his Poems, 1938-1945. Inc. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Creative Age Press,

409

WOODEN HORSE
the lover of Chloris, or Flora, the goddess of spring. Chaucer (Canterbury Tales, I. 5-7) wrote of the time

Whan

Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes,

and

countless other poets have related Zephyrus to the spring-

time and any time of gentle weather. In Spenser's Prothalamion

(1-4), for

example,

Calme was the day, and through the trembling ayre, Sweete breathing Zephyrus did softly play A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay

Hot

Titans beames.

And

Sappho, in Herrick's The Apron of Flowers, bringing spring flowers in her apron,
. .

home

By

lookt as she'd been got with child young Favonius.

.

WOODEN HORSE
brought

victory to the

was the device invented by Odysseus that Greeks in the TROJAN WAR.

x
XANTHUS
See
(zfri'thus)
is

the

god of the Scamander

river of

Troy.

TROJAN WAR.

410

ZEUS

ZEPHYRUS

(zf'ir-us)

is

the west wind. See

WINDS.
regents

ZETES (ze'tez)

was one of the

ARGONAUTS.
Amphion were

ZETHUS
of

(ze'thus)

and

his twin brother

or Jupiter, or Jove, is the son of Cronus and Rhea, v 'and the supreme power of all the Olympian gods. Cronus,

THEBES. ZEUS (zoos),

Having been told that he would be supplanted by one of his children, swallowed each of them at its birth. By the time
Zeus was born, Rhea was tired of losing offspring to her husband's digestive tract, so she gave Cronus a stone wrapped like
.

a child and hid Zeus in the island of Crete on

,

Mount

Ida.

the milk of a goat named Amalthea, while Rhea's servants, the Curetes, made a continual clatter with their

There he was fed by

to prevent

weapons
Zeus
is

said to have

Cronus from hearing the young god's crying. grown up in a single year. When he reached

maturity, he turned to his grandmother Gaea for aid, and together they succeeded in making Cronus disgorge his five other
'children

Hades, Poseidon, Demeter, Hestia, and Hera.

He

also

'disgorged the stone he

it

was Zeus, and

this

had swallowed in the mistaken idea that Zeus placed at Delphi where it became a

sacred treasure (see Omphalus under ORACLES). Zeus then with the support of his brother and sister gods overthrew his father

and replaced him in control of the world. This usurpation led to a war with the other Titans, most of whom opposed Zeus (see TITANS). The Titans established themselves on Mount Othrys, and the gods of course held Mount Olympus. The war
was waged inconclusively for a long time, until Zeus again turned
411

ZEUS
I
ii

-5
1

1
fe

il-i * & ^
-I
i

ii-

-I.

I
s

-I
O Ll

31

-^ -i

&

-I
3

-1

ZEUS
grandmother Gaea for help. She advised him to liberate her sons the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires whom Uranus/ her husband, had imprisoned in Tartarus. The Cyclopes proto his

duced a

secret

weapon

for Zeus, the thunderbolt,

force,

which thereafter

remained his chief destructive

and the hundred-handed

Hecatoncheires lent their enormous strength. As a result, the their ruin some were destroyed and (Titans were defeated;

^some imprisoned undergroundZeus thus became the ruler of the world, but he was soon faced
another danger in the form of an insurrection led by Gaea, turned against him because of his treatment of the Titans. Saea created a terrible monster called Typhon, who very nearly

>vercame the gods but was at last defeated by Zeus's thunderbolt. Then Gaea stirred up her sons the Giants to attack the Olympians,
but the gods with the help of Heracles subdued them also, and in the peace was again established. Zeus then created order
tmiverse. First he accepted his brother
his

divine government.
lot;

He

gods as part of and his brothers divided the universe

sister

and

seas, and Hades of the by underworld. The others Zeus took with him into the Olympian

Poseidon became the ruler of the

household, where they assisted or advised

him when

necessary

and fostered projects among men. Having gained control of the world of gods and men, Zeus's next preoccupation was to raise a family. He first married Metis* whose name means "cleverness," but he was informed by fate
that Metis

would bear him a child who would be more powerful

than he. Fearing a fate like his own father's, he swallowed Metis when she became pregnant. Soon after, he was overcome with a
Zeus's Hephaestus at his request split open a goddess in full Jiead, and out of the opening' tbere sprang the $piendor with a load battle cry. This was Pallas Athene,
terrible headache.
(

o wisdom, goddess of war atid

vho became otie of Zeus's favorites.

ZEUS
Zeus's second wife was Themis, the goddess of divine justice. She bore him six children the three Fates and the three Horae.

or Hours. But apparently Zeus had always favored Hera, his sister, and at last he married her; they became the parents of Ares, the

god of war, Hephaestus, the god of fire, Hebe, the goddess of youth, and (some say) Ilithyia, the goddess of childbirth. Zeus's lust was as great as his power, and his marriages never accounted
for

with

much of his sex life. In his affairs with other goddesses and human girls he became the father of a great number of

By the goddess Leto, he had Apollo and Artemis; by Mnemosyne, the Muses; by Demeter, Persephone; by Dione (according to one story), Aphrodite; and by Maia, Hermes. Of Zeus's illicit affairs, all of which enraged Hera, the best known were with Nymphs or human beings. Because of Hera's
distinguished children.
jealousy,

and

for other reasons too, Zeus often

disguise.

paramours in

One

to

whom he appeared

approached his as an eagle was

Aegina, the daughter of a river god named Asopus. Zeus surreptitiously flew off with this young lady, but his abduction of

her was seen by Sisyphus, the king of Corinth, who suffers eternally for not keeping the secret (see HADES). Aegina bore Zeus a son named Aeacus, and the small island on which the
birth occurred was
to

named

after Aegina. Hera, in jealousy, sent a

and destroyed most of its inhabitants. plague Aeacus, by then the island's king, called on Zeus for aid, and Zeus changed a number of ants into human beings to repopulate
the island

'

the island, for which reason the people were afterward known as Myrmidons, which means "of the ant." Aeacus was the father of

Peleus and the grandfather of Achilles; after his death he became one of the three judges in Hades. Another young lady whom Zeus loved was Alcmene, his own great-granddaughter by a previous affair. She was the grand-

daughter of Perseus and Andromeda and the wife of Amphitryon*

414

ZEUS
Zeus
fell in love with her and, on the night when Amphitryon was to return from war, appeared to her as her own husband

and, to prolong his pleasure,

made

usual length. In the Epithalamion

the night three times its (328) Spenser asks that his

wedding night may be

Lyke
as

when loue with

fayre

Alcmena

lay

....

Later in the same night the real Amphitryon returned to his wife. From this affair twin sons were born: Heracles, the son of Zeus,

and

Iphicles, the son of

Amphitryon. The central

situation, the

appearance of two connubially inclined Amphitryons in a single evening, has always appealed to writers of sophisticated comedy. The Roman Plautus made a play of it, and later both Moli&re, the

French playwright, and John Dryden followed suit. A few years ago this myth appeared on Broadway under the title Amphitryon 38, the thirty-eighth version of the story, by a French-

man, Jean Giraudoux. By a girl named Antiope Zeus had two sons out of wedlock. Their names were Amphion and Zethus, and they rebuilt the walls of the city of Thebes, Zethus by lifting and carrying stones and Amphion by charming them into position with the music
of his lyre (see

THEBES). By

Callisto, a

Nymph

of the train of

Artemis, Zeus became the father of a son named Areas and thereby the cause of two constellations and (according to some
stories)

a whole tribe of Greeks. For this story see

ARTEMIS.

Milton alludes to both Antiope and Callisto in Paradise Regained another fallen (2. 184-187) where he has Satan accuse Belial,
angel, of having sought in other guises,

In Wood or Grove by mossie Fountain In Valley or Green Meadow ito way-lay Some beauty rare, Calisto, Glymene, Daphne, or Semele, Antiopa.
. . .

side,

415

ZEUS
One
o the best

known

of Zeus's love involvements

was with a

princess

named Danae,

the daughter of

King Acrisius of Argos.

An

King Acrisius that his daughter's son would him. After giving thought to the matter, Acrisius shut destroy Danae inside a brass prison; but brass was not proof against the
oracle foretold to

desires of Zeus,

who

visited

Danae

in the form of a shower of

unusual metallurgy was Danae's son, gold. Perseus. Danae's adventure has been one of the favorite stories of
result of this

The

English poets. Spenser in The Faerie Queene (3. 11. 31) describes many of Zeus's love encounters as tapestries in the House of

Busyrane, an enchanter

who for Spenser Of Zeus and Danae, Spenser writes,

.
.

symbolizes

illicit

love*

Danae to vew, through the roofe of her strong brasen towre Did raine into her lap an hony dew, The whiles her foolish garde, that httle knew Of such deceipt, kept th'yron dore fast hard, And watcht, that none should enter nor issew;

Him selfe

into a golden showre he chaung'd faire

And

Vaine was the watch, and bootlesse

all

the ward,
transfard.

Whenas
In the
1860's,

the

God to golden hew him selfe

William Morris retold the story at length and with

full imaginative detail in a

poem

Acrisius in

The Earthly

Paradise,

The Doom of King and Tennyson made of it a

called

distinguished metaphor in one of the songs poem, The Princess, in 1853:

added

to his

long

Now
And
It is also

lies

the Earth all

Danae to the

stars,

all

thy heart

lies

open unto me.

speech of

alluded to by the contemporary poet Herod in For the Time Being.

W. H. Auden in

the

By
416

Electra, the Pleiad, Zeus

had one of the most important of

ZEUS
This son was Dardanus, founder of the house of Troy. One of the main reasons for Hera's unreroyal mitting enmity for the Trojans was this unfaithful act by Zeus. To
his extramarital sons.

Europa, the daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre, Zeus appeared as a snow-white bull who played so gently before her and her

companions that she was tempted at last to sit on his back, whereupon the bull arose and swam off with her into the sea to the island of Crete, where he made love to her. From Crete,

Europa went ultimately

that
sons,
still

to the

mainland of Europe, a continent

for Zeus three
is

bears her name.

The amour produced

Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon. This myth

fre-

quently used in English poetry. Europa's ride is one of the II. 30), subjects of Busyrane's tapestries in The Faerie Queene (3. and Spenser also describes the scene more fully in Muiopotmos
(277-288),

where Arachne wove the

story to

show
did abuse

how loue
Europa
like

Bull,

and on

his backe

Her through
That
it

true Sea,

the sea did beare; so liuely scene, and true Bull ye would weene.

She seem'd

And
The Her

still backe vnto the land to looke, her play-fellowes aide to call, and feare dashing of the waues, that vp she tooke

daintie feete, and garments gathered nearer But (Lord) how she in euerie member shooke, When as the land she saw no more appeare,

But a wilde wildernes

Then gan

of waters deeper she greatly to lament and weepe.

In later times, Walter Savage Landor in his poem Europa and

Her Mother gave

a full account, in rather stilted terms, of

Europa's departure on her unorthodox voyage. Zeus appeared to lo in his own form, but he became aware that his attentions to this girl were about to be discovered by

ZEUS
Hera.

He

therefore transformed lo into a heifer. Hera, arriving

on the

scene, asked the origin of the beast;

and when Zeus swore

just created it, she begged it of him. Zeus could refuse so small a gift without disclosing his guilty secret; hardly so he turned poor lo over to Hera, who put her under the guard

that he

had

of Argus, the

watchman with a hundred

eyes,

some of which

were always awake. lo was rescued by Hermes, who sang and told stories until all the eyes of Argus were asleep, and then killed
him. Hera put Argus' eyes into the tail of the peacock, but she did not abandon her jealousy. She sent a gadfly to sting lo, who

wandered in torment over half the classical world. The Ionian Sea, which lies off the west coast of the Greek peninsula, was named for her; and she crossed to the east at the Bosphorus,
"the ford of the cow." Arriving at last in Egypt, she bore a son named Epaphos. Robert Bridges gives a colorful recounting of
this

myth

in

prophesies to Inachus

Prometheus the Firegiver (1883) where Prometheus what will happen to his daughter lo.

The

story of Zeus's love affair with Leda,

which

is

one of the

most important myths, is related in the article on the Trojan War. Another mistress of Zeus was Semele, who was the daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. Since Harmonia was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, and since Ares and perhaps Aphrodite
Zeus was again adventuring Semele, Zeus appeared as himself, though without his full splendor. Hera, by way of revenge, persuaded Semele to insist on seeing the god in his glory, and he
this affair

were Zeus's children, in

within his

own

family.

To

reluctantly consented.

Semele

fell

was so overwhelming that mortal to the ground in ashes, though not before Zeus had
sight

The

rescued their unborn son, Dionysus.

The most

questionable of Zeus's love

affairs

was with a hand-

some youth named Ganymedes, who was the son of King Tros of Troy and his wife Callirhoe. Zeus saw this young man on the
418

ZEUS
slopes of

and

carried

Mount Ida, and in the form of an eagle he seized him him off to Olympus to be his paramour and cup-

bearer, in the latter of which functions he replaced Hebe, the earlier holder of the office. This scandalous behavior of Zeus did

not escape his wife nor English poets. The former appears to have been able to accept it without comment, but the latter

have frequently alluded to it publicly. Christopher Marlowe, in Hero and Leander (1. 148-149), a poem not noted for constraint
in
as
its

treatment of passions, describes the

affair of

one of the pictures in the

glass floor of the temple of

Ganymedes Venus

at Sestos:

Jove

To

slyly stealing from his sister's dally with Idalian Ganymed.

bed

The

nineteenth-century poet, Robert Lytton, devotes an entire poem to the love affair, and in Sonnet 11 of In Time of War
alludes to the myth. understand the Greek idea of Zeus, one must turn away from the -myths of his licentious private life, for Zeus to the

W. H. Auden

To

Greeks represented a personage of great and compelling dignity, the upholder of justice and the punisher of wrong, and the controller of the natural order, of the coming of day and night and the seasons. He was the overlord of Olympus who made the other gods as subject to his wishes as were mere mortals. It was that the great temple at Olympia was to this
majestic power
its

erected, with

statue of the

and gold by Olympic Games

the

god forty feet high, made of ivory renowned sculptor Phidias. In Zeus's honor the

in Olympia; occupations, while the athletes competed. The oldest oracle in Greece was Zeus's oracle at Dodona in Epirus, where the god made known
his will

'were celebrated every fourth year at the stadium even war, were laid aside all other

by rustling the

leaves of the

oak

trees (see

ORACLES).
419

ZODIAC
The
respectable character of this regal Zeus by the story of Philemon and Baucis,
is

perhaps best

illustrated

who

dwelt in poverty on the outskirts of

an aged couple a village. Zeus and

Hermes, traveling in
hospitality at

human

disguise through the country, sought

many

houses and were refused; but Philemon and

Baucis welcomed them, though they were strangers, and gave them the best that their house had to offer. As a reward Zeus

them the fulfillment of their most cherished desire. Philemon and Baucis asked that neither of them should survive the other, and by way of granting their wish, Zeus transformed
offered
their

end of

house into a temple and made them its custodians. At the their lives, he changed both of them into trees growing

by the temple, so that they could continue in each other's company. Thus did Zeus reward piety and fitting charity.

One must
the gods.

On

recognize a duality of character in the chief of all the one hand, there is the philandering Zeus whose

amours have been one of the favorite subjects for poets even down to our own day. On the other hand, there is the Zeus who,
he
second only to fate, represents supreme power in the universe; is the wielder of the thunderbolt and the source of order

among men and gods. How the two characters of Zeus, conflicting as they are,- came into existence is a question for an oracle to answer. Plato blamed the disreputable Zeus on the
and
justice

Homer, who, Plato said, told lies about the gods, which reason he decided to expel poets from his ideal republic. Whatever the justice, of Plato's accusation, Homer's successors in English have continued to tell his kind of story. ZODIAC (zo'di-ak) means "relating to animals," and it was
for

poets such as

applied by ancient astronomers to an area of the celestial sphere because the constellations that fill this area were named after

tion. If

animals and were supposed partly to outline them in configuraone imagines the celestial sphere as enclosing the earth

420

ZODIAC
at its center, then

one can also imagine that

it

would have

coordinates such as a north and south pole and an equator similar to the earth's which would be located immediately outward from the earth's. Thus the north-south pole of the earth,

extended to intersect the

celestial sphere,

would become

the

north-south pole of the sphere; and the earth's equator Would be a circle concentric with and in the same plane as the equator of
the celestial sphere. With these coordinates in mind, one can visualize the Ecliptic also, for it is the path of the sun moving in its annual course.

As every one knows, the sun follows an annual course that moves from south to north and back to south again, bringing summer with it and leaving winter behind. This path is a circle on the celestial sphere concentric with the celestial equator, but intersecting it at an angle; and it is called the Ecliptic. The Zodiac is a band 16 degrees in width, whose center line
is

order that

the Ecliptic. It was imagined to be 16 degrees in width in it might include the paths of the five planets (Mercury,

Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn)

as the

known

to the ancients, as well

arcs of path of the sun; and it was subdivided into twelve 30 degrees each in such a way that a major constellation was included in the area of each arc. The sun in moving along its path from summer to winter each,

and through each of these twelve areas of the Zodiac, so also do the five planets. Beginning at the point where the suti's path crosses the sphere's equator going from south to north, and following around the Zodiac in order, the twelve areas,
year, passes

or "celestial houses/' are:

Aries
the

Ram

Cancer

Taurus Gemini

the Bull

Lea
Virgo

theCrab the Lion

theVirgin
491

theTwins

ZODIAC
Libra
Scorpio
Sagittarius

the Scales
the Scorpion

Capricornus

the

Goat

Aquarius
Pisces

the Water-Bearer
the Fish

the Archer

Each of
it

these houses gets its

name from

the constellation that

includes,

figure derived

and each is commonly represented by the appropriate from the mythological origin of the constellation.

the golden-fleeced one that carried off Phrixus and (see ARGONAUTS); the Bull is the form in which Zeus made love to Europa (see ZEUS) and which he afterward
is

The Ram
Helle

placed in the heavens as a constellation; the Twins are Castor and

Polydeuces (see CASTOR); the Crab is the one dispatched by Hera to bite the toes of Heracles while he was fighting the Lernean Hydra; later Hera placed this crab among the stars (see HERACLES); the Lion is the Nemean monster slain by
Heracles
of
(see

human

HERACLES); the Virgin is Astraea, the goddess justice, who fled the earth when the Iron Age came;
belong to her and are the symbol of her justice the Scorpion was summoned by Artemis to
the Archer
is

and the
(see

Scales

ASTRAEA);

bite Orion, the

(see ORION); TAURS); the Goat

huntsman, when he tried to rape the goddess is Chiron the Centaur (see CENthe

nanny named Amalthea whose milk

fed the infant Zeus (see ZEUS); the Water-Bearer is the young boy Ganymedes, the gods cupbearer, whom Zeus snatched up
1

from among mortals (see ZEUS); and the Fish are the two forms that Aphrodite and Eros assumed to hide from Typhon in Egypt
(see

TYPHON).

first invented by the Babylonians, but its use over the classical world of ancient times, and spread ultimately it was the chief means of telling calendar time. Later astronomical

The Zodiac was

discoveries, chiefly that of Copernicus, which revealed that the earth moves around the sun (instead of the sun around the earth)

422

ZODIAC
and that even the apparent path of the sun should be an ellipse instead of the true circle which the Zodiac represented, caused the Zodiac to be abandoned by the astronomers before it was abandoned by the poets. Chaucer uses it in his treatise, The Astrolabe, which describes the operation of a mechanical device for indicating planetary movements; and in the Prologue to

The Canterbury

Tales to indicate the season of the year:

that Aprille with his shoures soote

Whan
The
.
.

droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

the yonge sonne
the

and Hath in
.

Ram

his halve cours

yronne ....

Spenser, in the second of the two cantos of Mutabilitie that are appended to The Faerie Queene (7. 7. 32-43), gives a symbolic
description of the months riding by in procession each on or with the appropriate figure from the Zodiac, March astride a ram,

April on a bull, and so on.

In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (L

3.

144-147) Sir

Andrew

Aguecheek

asks,

Shall

we

set

about some

revels?

and

Sir

Toby Belch replies:

shall

What

we do

else?

Were we not

-born

under Taurus?

by which he means that they were born in April, or in astrological language, under the sign of Taurus. According to astrological medicine, Taurus ruled conditions of the throat and neck, and
inferring that revelry means drinking and is therefore appropriate to this sign of the Zodiac and to people born under
Sir

Toby is

its

influence.
to

A fine poetic use of the Zodiac is

be found in Paradise Lost

423

ZODIAC
(10.

mands
the

671-679) where the angels of Heaven, obeying the comof the Almighty to make the world less comfortable after

of man, arrange for the heat of summer and the cold of winter to replace the equable climate of Eden:
fall
.
.

Som
th'

say the

Sun

Was

Equinoctial Rode Like distant breadth to Taunts with the Seav'n

bid turn Reines from

and the Spartan Twins Tropic Crab; thence down amaine Up By Leo and the Virgin and the Scales, As deep as Capricorne, to bring in change Of Seasons to each Clime; else had the Spring
Atlantick
Sisters,

to the

Perpetual smil'd

on Earth with vernant

Flours.

424

LITERARY REFERENCES

Anonymous
Beowulf, 10
Acis and Galatea (Gay), 166 Adonais (Shelley), 72

Phoenix, The, 306-307

Aeneid

(Virgil),

15,

17, 21, 32, 55,

68, 163, 175, 380

Pnapea, 310 Tale of Pigmalion, The, 318 Another Actaeon (Bishop), 72

Antic Hay (Huxley), 399

Aeschylus, 316, 380

Agamemnon,

90, 93, 98, 99

Choephoroe, 90, 98, 99 Eumenides, 47, 90, 94, 99 Prometheus Bound, 315

Antigone (Sophocles), 349, 364 Antony and (ShakesCleopatra

peare), 163, 205

Apollo

and the fates

158

(Browning),

Prometheus Unbound, 315

Seven against Thebes, 349, 360

Agamemnon
99

(Aeschylus), 90, 93, 98,

Apparition of His Mistress Calling Him to Elizium, The (Hernck), 181

Age of Bronze, The (Byron), A h t Sunflower (Blake), 46

Aias (Sophocles), 396 Alcestis (Euripides), 24-25
Alcibiades
(Plato), 129

131

Appeasement

of

Demeter,

The

(Meredith), 144 Appointment in Samarra

(O'Hara),

159

Apron

of

Flowers,

The

(Herrick),

Aldington, Richard Lemures, 216

410

Arcades (Milton), 52, 141, 217, 341 Arcadia (Sannazaro), 51 Arcadia (Sidney), 51
Areopagitic Oration (Isocrates), 56 Areopagitica (Milton), 56 Arethusa (Shelley), 4, 244

Amaryllis (Robinson), 54 Amorettt (Spenser), 265, 276

Amphion

(Tennyson), 356

Amphitryon (Dryden), 415 Amphitryon 38 (Giraudoux), 415 Amphitryon (Moliere), 415 Amphitryon (Plautus) 415
,

Ariadne
372
Aristotle

to

Theseus

(C.

Rossetti),

Anatomy

of Melancholy,

The

(Bur-

ton), 271

Andromeda (Hopkins), 297 Andromeda (Kingsley), 297 Andromeda Liberata (Chapman), 296

Poetics, The, 136 Arnold, Matthew

Bacchanalia: or,
138

The New Age,

427

LITERARY REFERENCES
Arnold, Matthew
(cont.)

Empedocles on Etna,
114, 354 Palladium, 84 Philomela, 302-305

39, 48-49,

Bartholomew Fair (Jonson), 38 Beaumont, Fr-anos, and John Fletcher

Beddoes,
Maid's Tragedy, The, 332 Thomas Lovell

Strayed Reveller, The, 257, 375 Thyrsis, 204

Pygmalion, 319 Behn, Mrs Aphra ("Astraea"), 77 Believe Me, If All Those Endearing

As You Like

It (Shakespeare), 51, 211 Astarte Synaca (D Rossetti), 35 "Astraea" (Mrs Aphra Behn), 77

Young Charms (Moore), 46 Benoit de Sainte Maure Roman de Troie, Le, 402-403
Beowulf (anon),
Bible, 10, 11
10

Astraea

Astrolabe,

Redux (Dryden), 77, 406 The (Chaucer), 423

At Eleusis (Swinburne), 143 At a Solemn Music (Milton) , 341

Atalanta in Calydon (Swinburne), 5, 79, 109-110, 136
Atalanta's Race (Morris), 79

Bishop, John Peale Another Actaeon, 72 When the Net Was

Unwound

Venus Was Found Ravelled

with Mars, 30 Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church, The (Browning),
283
Blake, William

Auden, W. H.
Casino, 372-373

For the Time Being, 416 In Time of War, 419 In War Time, 162 Musee des Beaux Arts, 128-129

Ah, Sunflower, 46

To

the Muses, 237

New

Year Letter, 210, 226 Sphinx, The, 358

Boccaccio, Giovanni

De
a Few

genealogia
7

deorum gentihum,

Venus

Will

Now
B

Say

Words, 34

11 Filostrato,

402-403

Book

of the Duchess,
116, 183

The

(Chaucer),

Bacchanalia: or, nold), 138

The New Age

(Ar-

Bride of Abydos, 212

The

(Byron), 211-

Bridges, Robert, 317

Bacchus (Emerson), 138 Bacchus and the Pirates (Noyes), 134 Bacon, Francis

Eros and Psyche, 190 Prometheus the Firegiver, 418 Broken Heart, The (Ford), 271
Brooke, Rupert

Wisdom
337
Balaustion's

of the Ancients,

The,

Adventure

(Browning),

25-26 Ballad of a Strange Thing (Putnam), 283

Menelaus and Helen, 402 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 286 Browning, Robert Apollo and the Fates, 158 Balaustion's Adventure, 25-26

428

LITERARY REFERENCES
Browning, Robert (cont.) Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church, The, 283
Echetlos, 284

Casino

(Auden), 372-373 Cassandra (Jeffers), 97

Cassandra (Meredith), 96-97

Cassandra (D. Rossetti), 96

Catiline
(Jonson), 37

Eurydice

to

Orpheus, 278
74r-75

Ixion, 223

Chansons
287

Innocentes

(Cummmgs),

Pan and Luna,

Pauline, 297

Brut (Layamon), 402

Chapman, George Andromeda Liberata, 296

(Wilde), 303

Burden of

Itys,

The

Burton, Robert

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 122 Astrolabe, The, 423

Anatomy
271

of

Melancholy*

The,

Book

of the Duchess* The, 116, 183

Bush, Douglas

Mythology and the Renaissance

Tradition in English Poetry,
296, 344

Canterbury Tales, The, 41, 410, 423 Clerk's Tale, The, 22

Complaint of Mars, The, 30

the

Mythology and
2, 25, 275,

Romantic

Tradition in English Poetry, 319

Former Age, The, 123 House of fame, The, 129

Knights
160
Tale,

The,

55,

122,

Byron, George Gordon Age of Bronze, The, 131 Bride of Abydos, The, 211-212 Childe Harold, 71, 141, 237-238, 272, 398
Curse of Minerva, The, 84-85

Legend of Good Women, The,

18, 24, 60-61, 66, 181,

300-

301, 321

Don Juan, 34, 97, 115, 176 Farewell to the Muse, 237 Manfred, 34-35, 158, 164
Prometheus^ 316 Byzantium (Yeats),, 334

Monk's Tale, The, 160 Nun's Priesfs Tale, The, 342 Parliament of Fowls, The,, 310
Squire's Tale, The, 103 Troilus and Cnseyde, 95, 403

Wife of Bath's Talc, The, 4041

Childe Harold (Byron), 71, 141, 237238, 272, 398

Caesar and Cleopatra (Shaw), 359

Campion, Thomas
Hark, All You Ladies, 174
Canonization, The (Donne), 307 Canterbury Tales, The (Chaucer),
41, 410, 423 Carew, Thomas Rapture, A* 265

Choephoroe (Aeschylus), 90, 98, 99 Christs Victorie and Triumph

(Fletcher), 132, 280

Claudian, 172
Clerk's Tale, The (Chaucer), 22 Cleveland, Richard Mark Antony, 189

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 48

429

LITERARY REFERENCES
Colin
Clouts

Come Home Agatne

Errors,

Cymbehne

(Shakespeare), 271, 332

(Spenser), 51, 244, 338

Comedy

of

The

(Shakes-

D
Daniel, Samuel
Delia, 72, 182, 223

peare), 217

Complaint of Mars, The (Chaucer),

30

Complaynt

of Philomene9

The

(Gas-

coigne), 305

Tethys* Festival, 328 Ulysses and the Siren, 342

Comus

(Milton), 4, 8-9, 44-45, 52,

68, 70, 120, 152, 170, 209, 213,

222, 243, 245, 256-257, 328, 332,

334, 335, 336,

337, 340,

341-

Dante Alighieri Dwtna Commedia, 12 Daphnaida (Spenser), 161 Day, John

342, 343, 400

Conjuration: To nek), 68
Connolly, Cyril

Electra,

(Her-

Day

Parliament of Bees, The, 72 of the Daughter of Hades, The (Meredith), 144-145

genealogia

De
with

deorum
7

gentilium
(Tennyson),

Unquiet Grave, The, 19

Conversations

(Boccaccio),

Drummond
(Jonson), 367

of

Death of Oenone, The

244

Hawthomden

Copland, Robert (trans)

History of Helyas, Knight of the

Swan, The, 125

Corinna's Going A-Maying (Herrick), 35, 117, 146

Delia (Daniel), 72, 182, 223 Delphic Oracle upon Plotinus, The (Yeats), 272

Demeter and Persephone (Tennyson),

144

Cowley,

Abraham
Dr. Harvey, 45
the Death of Mr. Crashaw,

Deserted Village,

The

(Goldsmith), 53

Ode upon

Dido and Aeneas

(Purcell), 18

On

Dionysus in Hades (Faust), 138

Dirce (Landor), 176

286
Cowley, Malcolm Leander, 212-213

Dwina Commedia

(Dante), 12

Cowper, William Hope, 53 Crabbe, George

Village,

Dobson, Austin Tale of Polypheme, A, 166 Dr. Faustus (Marlowe), 385

Dolores (Swinburne), 310

The, 53

Don Juan

(Byron), 34, 97, 115, 176

Cramer, Maurice Phoenix at East Hadley, 308

Donne, John
Canonization, The, 307 Elegie 12, 33

Cummings,
Cupid and

E.

E
Campaspe Played
at

Chansons Innocentes, 287

Elegy 16, 409

My

Cards for Kisses (Lyly), 152 Curse of Minerva, The (Byron), 84-85

Epithalamion Inne, 214

Made

at

Lincolnes

Hymne

to

God

the Father, A, 156

430

LITERARY REFERENCES
Donne, John (cont.) Song ("Goe, and catche a
starre"), 342
Eliot,

T.

S.

(cont.)

falling

True Character
170

of a

Dunce, The,
Coryats

Four Quartets, 205-206 Hollow Men, The, 176 Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
The, 342

Upon

Mr.

Thomas
("H. D.")
Acrisius,

Crudities, 42

Mr. Apollinax, 310-311 Sweeney Erect, 253-254,

408-409

372,

Doohttle, Hilda
Helios, 36

Sweeney among the Nightingales,

Doom

of
ris),

King

The (Mor-

92-93, 183-184, 274, 303-304,

297, 416

361-362

Dowson, Ernest
Villanelle of Acheron, 173

Waste Land, The,

Eloisa

17, 43, 72-73,

242-243, 303-305, 376, 399

Drayton, Michael

Endimion and Phoebe, 73-74 Dream Days (Grahame), 2

and Abelard (Pope), 215 Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Bacchus, 138
(Arnold),
39,

Dream

of Fair

Women, A (Tenny-

Empedodes on Etna
48-49, 114, 354

son), 386

Dryden, John, 44 Amphitryon, 415

Astraea Redux, 77, 406 Dry ope (Landor), 245

Endimion
73-74

and

Phoebe
1, 4,

(Drayton),
73-74, 117,

Endymion

(Keats),

138, 152-153, 184, 244, 273, 275,

Dunciad, The (Pope),

Dyer, John
Epistle to a

41, 216, 337

287, 344

Endymwn,
famous
Painter, 180,

the

Man

in

the

Moon

(Lyly),

73-74

346

Enid (Tennyson), 162

Epimetheus, or the Poet's Afterthought (Longfellow), 317

Earthly Paradise, 79, 319, 416

The

(Morris),

7,

41 Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (Pope), Painter (Dyer), Epistle to a Famous

180, 346

Echetlos (Browning), 284 Eclogues (Virgil), 51, 77

Epitaph on Solomon Pavy (Jonson),

157

Edward
Electro*

II

(Marlowe), 161

Eptthalamion
98

(Spenser), 33,

38, 69,

(Euripides), 90, 97, (Sophocles), 90

74, 189, 214, 217, 218-219, 220,

Electra

Elegiae

(Proper tius),

175

Elegie 12
Eliot,

(Donne), 33 Elegy 16 (Donne), 409

Epithalamion Inne (Donne), 214

242, 296-297, 415 Made at

Lincolnes

T.

S.

Eros and Psyche (Bridges), 190 Essay on Criticism, An (Pope), 20,

104, 237, 387

Family Reunion, The, 98

431

LITERARY REFERENCES
Eumenides
98,

(Aeschylus), 47,

90,

94,

Fletcher, Giles

99

Chrtsts

Victone

and Triumph,

Euphues:

The

Anatomy

of

Wit
Fletcher,

132, 280

(Lyly), 41

John
Shepherdess,

Euripides, 380
Alcestis, 24-25

Faithful 284
,

The,

52,

Electra, 90, 97, 98

and Francis Beaumont

Hippolytus, 373
Iphtgenia 386
at

Aulis,

90,

94-95,

Maid's Tragedy, The, 332 and William Shakespeare ,

Iphtgenia 94-95

among

the Tauri, 90,

Medea

(See Jeffers, trans.) Orestes, 90

Henry V1U, 276 For the Time Being (Auden), 416 Ford, John Broken Heart, The, 271 Former Age, The (Chaucer), 123
Forster, E.

Europe and Her Mother (Landor),

417

M.

Eurydice to 278
Excursion,

Orpheus

(Browning),

a Panic, The, 287 Four Quartets (Eliot), 205-206

Story of

The

(Wordsworth), 286

Freud, Sigmund, 99 Friar Bacon and

(Greene), 44

Friar

Bungay

Fable for

Critics,

(Lowell), 45

Faerie Queene, The (Spenser), 4, 7, 15-16, 22, 31-32, 33, 36, 38, 44,
47, 56, 57, 68, 75, 76, 87, 102,

Ganymede (Lytton), 419 Garden. The (Marvell), 45, 284 Garden of Proserpine, The (Swinburne), 173

103, 113-114, 121-122, 122-123,

132-133, 140-141, 145, 147, 151,

152, 170, 171, 172, 176, 177, 179,
181, 183, 200, 214, 217,

Gascoigne, George

Complaynt of Philomene, The,

305

223,

226, 239, 243-244, 256, 273, 274,

288, 291, 303, 328, 332, 333, 335,
336, 337, 340, 342, 344, 368, 381,

Gay, John
Acts and Galatea, 166 Fan, The, 18

382, 395, 400-401, 416, 417, 423

Geoffrey of

Monmouth

Faithful Shepherdess,

The

(Fletcher),

52, 284 Family Reunion, The Fan, The (Gay), 18

History of the Kings of Britain, 402

(Eliot),

98

Georgia
Gilbert,

(Virgil),

74

W.

S.

Farewell to the
Faust, Frederick

Muse

(Byron), 237

lolanthe, 54

Giraudoux, Jean

Dionysus in Hades, 138

Amphitryon 38, 415

432

LITERARY REFERENCES
Goldsmith, Oliver Deserted Village, The, 53

Henryson, Robert Testament of Cresseid, 404

Herbert, George, 156
Hercules,

Grahame, Kenneth

Dream

Days, %

My

Shipmate (Graves), 67
211,

Graves, Robert

Hero and Leander (Marlowe),

239, 419

Hercules,

Shipmate, 67 Weather of Olympus, The, 409

My

Hero

to

Leander (Tennyson), 212

Gray,

Thomas
409

Heroides (Ovid), 230, 401

Progress of Poesy, The, 35, 141,

Hemck,

Greene, Robert Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 44

Robert, 137 Apparition of His Mistress Calling Him to Elizium, The,

181

Apron

Gnll Grange (Peacock), 256

Grimald, Nicholas

of Flowers, Thev 410 Conjuration: To Electro, A, 68 Corinna's Going A-Maying, 35,

117, 146

Of Friendship, 371-372 Guido delle Colonne Histona Trojana, 402

H
Hamlet
(Shakespeare), 35, 71, 187, 193, 246, 399
168,

to the Lares, 215 Panegerick to Sir Lewis Pemberton, A, 216 To Electra, 87, 223

Hymn

Hesiod, 374

Theogony, 29, 121

Hippolytus (Euripides), 373 (Seneca), Hippolytus, or Phaedra
373
Historia Trojana lonne), 402

Hardy, Thomas, 159

Harington, John

Metamorphosis of Ajax, The, 405 Hark, All You Ladies (Campion), 174 Harvey, Gabnel, 56 Hawthorne, Nathaniel Marble Faun, The, 288

(Guido delle Coof

History

of

Helyas, Knight

the

Swan, The
125

(Copland, trans.),

Wonder Book,

History

Helios (Doolittle), 36 / Henry IV (Shakespeare), 103-104

of the Kings of Britain (Geoffrey of Monmouth), 402

(Eliot),

2 Henry IV (Shakespeare), 107, 181

Hollow Men, The Homer, 5, 7, 13,

176

143, 186, 188, 189,

Henry V
404
1

(Shakespeare), 35, 156, 297,

210, 388, 420

Iliad, 55, 380, 387, 389, 391-392,

Henry VI (Shakespeare), 128 2 Henry VI (Shakespeare), 128 Henry

VIII
(Shakespeare

394, 403

Odyssey, 14, 124, 177, 183, 246,

and

250, 266, 267, 377, 380

also Pope, trans.)

(See

Fletcher), 276

Henry C Calhoun

(Masters), 156-157

Hope

(Cowper), 53

433

LITERARY REFERENCES
Hopkins, Gerard Manley

I Stood Tip-Toe upon a Little Hill

(Keats), 239, 283

Andromeda, 297 Spelt from Sibyl's Leaves* 42 Home, Richard Henry

Orion, 275

Idylls (Theocritus), 2, 51, 165 I/ Filostrato (Boccaccio), 402

//

Penseroso

House of Fame, The (Chaucer), 129 House of Life* The (D. Rossetti), 212 Housman, A. E Last Poems XXIV, 219
Merry Guide, The, 2

(Milton), 90, 105-106, 215, 217, 277, 301, 339

Iliad

(Homer), 55, 380, 387, 389, 391392, 394, 403

Imitations of Horace (Pope), 77

More Poems XI, 274-275

Oracles, The, 269-271

In Time of War (Auden), 419 In War Time (Auden), 162 Induction to the Complaint of the

To an Athlete Dying Young, 178 Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (Pound),

326, 363

Duke

of

Buckingham
183

(Sack-

ville), 156,

Invocation to the Social

Leish), 238

Muse (Mac-

Humphries, Rolfe
Proteus, or the Shapes of Conscience, 338

lolanthe

(Gilbert),

54

Ion

(Plato),

137

Huxley, Aldous Antic Hay, 399

Iphigenia and 386

Agamemnon

(Landor),

Hymn Hymn Hymn Hymn Hymn Hymn Hymn

to

of Apollo (Shelley), 48 Chance (Putnam), 162

to the to

Iphigenia at Aulis 94-95, 386

(Euripides), 90,

Mercury

Lares (Herrick), 215 (Shelley), 210

(Shelley),

Iphigenia
Isocrates

among

the Tauri (Euripi-

des), 90,

94-95

of

Pan

40

to Priapus
to

(Lawrence), 310

Areopagitic Oration, 56
Itylus (Swinburne), 303

Proserpine

(Swinburne),
Father,

173,

286

Ixion
the

(Browning), 223

Hymne
Hymne

to

God
Honour

A
An
Jeffers,

(Donne), 156
in

of Beautie,

(Spenser), 33

Robinson
(free trans, of Euripides),

Hymne

in

Honour

of

Love,

An
328-

Cassandra, 97

(Spenser), 149

Medea
66

Hyperion
330

(Keats), 48, 121, 275,

Science^ 72

Tower beyond
98-99 / Did But Prompt the Age, Sonnet 12
(Milton), 36

Tragedy*

Thet

Johnson, Samuel, 6 Jonson, Ben

Bartholomew

Fair, 38

434

LITERARY REFERENCES
Jonson,

Ben

(cont.)

Catiline, 37

Conversations

with

Drummond

L'Allegro (Milton), 10, 170, 184, 278, 339, 346-347

of Hawthornden, 367 Epitaph on Solomon Pavy, 157

Lamia

(Keats), 210

Landor, Walter Savage

Dirce, 176

Masque

of Blackness, 328

Neptune's Triumph* 332 Oberon, 288

Dryope, 245
75, 213

"Queene and Huntress," Joyce, James

Portrait of the Artist as a Man, A, 129
Ulysses, 216, 267

Europa and Her Mother, 417 Iphigema and Agamemnon, 386 Laodamia (Wordsworth), 387
Last Poems
Last Oracle,

Young

XXIV

(Housman), 219

The (Swinburne), 49

Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), 56, 57, 160, 181

Laus Venens (Swinburne), 34 Lawrence, D. H.

Hymn
Layamon

to

Priapus, 310

Phoenix, 307-308
Brut, 402
Keats, John, 129
73-74, 117, 138,

Endymton,

1, 4,

Leander (M. Cowley), 212-213 Leda and the Swan (Yeats), 382

152-153, 184, 244, 273, 275,

287, 344

Legend

of

Good

Women,

The

Hyperion,
330

48,

121,

275,

328-

(Chaucer), 18, 24, 60-61, 66, 181, 300-301, 321

/ Stood Tip-To upon a Little Hill, 239, 283

Lemures (Aldington), 216 Life and Death of Jason,

(Morris), 67, 277

The

Lamia, 210

Locksley Hall (Tennyson), 274

Ode on a Grecian Urn, 100 Ode on Melancholy, 172, 182 Ode to a Nightingale, 137-138,
181-182, 302, 303 Ode to Psyche, 153

Lodge, Thomas
Rosalind, 51, 165-166
Scillaes

Metamorphosis, 343

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth Epimetheus, or the Poefs Afterof Leanthought, 317

On an

Engraved

Gem

der, 212
First Looking into Chapman's Homer, 39 King Lear (Shakespeare), 158, 160

Prometheus, or the Poet's Forethought, 317

On

Lotos

Eaters,,

The (Tennyson),

251

Kingsley, Charles

Love of Alcestis, The (Morris), 26 Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The

(EUot), 342

Andromeda,, 297
Knight's
Tale,

The

(Chaucer),

55,

"Love

Still

Has Something

of the Sea

122, 160

(Sedley), 150

435

LITERARY REFERENCES
Lovelace, Richard

Marlowe, Christopher
Dr. Faustus, 385

To Althaea from Prison, 107 To Lucasta, Going to the Warres,

57
Love's Labour's Lost
39, 201, 202

Edward II, 161 Hero and Leander,

211, 239, 419

(Shakespeare),

Lowell, James Russell, 317 Fable for Critics, A, 45

Tamburlaine, 161-162 Marpessa (Phillips), 43 Marston, John

Metamorphosis
Marvell,

Lycidas (Milton), 10, 37, 39, 52, 163164, 217, 244-245, 278-279, 333334, 336, 408
Lyly,

of Pygmalion's Image, The, 319

Andrew
Complaining for the Death of Her Faun, The, 47
of Slackness

Garden, The, 45, 284

John Cupid and

Nymph

My

Campaspe Played

Endymion, the Man

73-74

at Cards for Kisses, 152 tn the Moon,

Masque

(Jonson), 328

Masters, Edgar Lee

Henry

C.

Calhoun, 156-157
free
trans,

Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit,

41

Medea
1

(Euripides,

by

Jeffers),

66

Lytton, Robert

Memoirs

of

Hecate County (Wilson),

of a

Ganymede, 419

68-69

Memorials

M
Mabbott, T. O., 334

Tour on the Conti(Wordsworth),

nent,

1820

77-78

Men
157,

of

My

Macbeth

Century Loved Mozart

(Shakespeare), 57, 68, 158, 333

(MacLeish), 337

MacLeish, Archibald
Invocation
to

Menelaus and Helen (Brooke), 402 Merchant of Venice, The (ShakesPeare), 18, 59-60, 65, 73, 156,

the Social

Muse,

238

225, 276

Men

of

My

Century

Loved

Meredith, George

Mozart, 337 MacNeice, Louis

Perseus, 297

Appeasement of Demeter, The,

144

Cassandra, 96-97

Thyestes, 89

Day

of the

Maid's Tragedy, The (Beaumont and

Fletcher), 332

Daughter of Hades,

The, 144-145

Manfred

(Byron),

34^35,

158,

164

Ode to the Comic Spirit, 235 Phoebus with Admetus, 22

Merry Guide, The Merry Wives of
Messiah
(Pope), 77

Manifold, John Sirens, The, 342

(Housraan), 2

Marble Faun, The (Hawthorne), 288 Mark Antony (Cleveland), 189

Windsor,

The

(Shakespeare), 382

436

LITERARY REFERENCES
Metamorphoses (Ovid),
31, 116, 165,

233-234, 318, 320, 344

Metamorphosis of Ajax, The

ington), 405

(Har-

Milton, John (cont.) Paradise Regained, Sonnet 20, 100

9, 340,

415

Sonnet 23, 24

Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image,

When

the Assault

Was Intended
310-311

The

(Marston), 319

on the
Mr. Apolhnax

City (Sonnet 8), 97-38

(Eliot),

Michael (Wordsworth), 53-54 Dreamt Midsummer-Night's

Mohere (Jean

Baptiste Poquelin)

(Shakespeare), 68, 75-76, 148, 321, 372

Milton,

John

Arcades, 52, 141, 217, 341 Areopagiticaf 56

Amphitryon, 415 Monk's Tale, The (Chaucer), 160 Moore, Thomas Believe Me, If All Those EnCharms> dearing Young
46

At a Solemn Music, 341 Comus, 4, 8-9, 44-45, 52,

68, 70,

Song of a Hyperborean,
339

The,

120, 152, 170, 209, 213, 222,

243, 245, 256-257, 328, 332,

334, 335, 336, 337, 340, 341342, 343, 400

Moral Essays (Pope), 141 More Poems XI (Housman), 274275

Morris, "William
Atalanta's Race, 79

Did

But Prompt
12),

the

Age

(Sonnet
II

36

Penseroso, 90, 105-106, 215, 217, 277, 301, 339

Doom

of

King

Acrisius,

The,

297, 416

L'Atlegro, 10, 170, 184, 278, 339,

Earthly Paradise* The,

7, 79, 319,

346-347
Lycidas, 10, 37, 39, 52, 163-164, 217, 244-245, 278-279, 333334, 336, 408

416
Life and Death of Jason, 277

Thef

67,

On

the

Morning

of Christ's Na-

Love of Alccstis, The, 26 Mourning Becomes Electro, (O'NeiU),

98,99

tivity,

116-117, 192, 217, 271,

285 Paradise Lost, 5-6, 7-8,

104-105,
171,

Muiopotmos
9,
11,

(Spenser), 82, 164, 332,

417

38, 57, 63, 68, 80-81, 89, 102,

Musee des Beaux Arts (Auden), 1281

120-121,
18&-187,

132,

137,

129

143, 145, 146, 148, 163, 169,

175,

189-190,

Mutabilitie Cantos (Spenser), 423 Mythology and the Renaissance

205, 209-210, 214, 222, 225, 237, 239, 272, 274, 279, 283,
285, 307, 313, 332-333, 334,

Tradition

in

English

Poetry

(Bush), 29$, 344

Mythology^ and the Romantic Tradition in English Poetry

2, 25, 275,

837, 353-354, 377, 407, 423-

(Bush),

424

319

437

LITERARY REFERENCES
N
Nashe,

O'Hara, John

Thomas Summers Last

ment, 401

On
Will and
Testa-

Appointment in Samarra, 159 the Death of a Metaphysician

(Santayana), 128 the Death of Mr.

On
(Sidney), 301

Crashaw
of

Neptune's Triumph (Jonson), 532 New Year Letter (Auden), 210, 226
Nightingale, The Noyes, Alfred

(A.

Cowley), 286

On an Engraved Gem On On
(Keats), 212 First Looking

Leander

into

Bacchus end the Pirates, 134 Nun's Priest's Tale, The (Chaucer),
342

Chapman's

Homer

(Keats), 39

Nymph
of

Complaining for the Death Her Faun, The (Marvell),

the Morning of Christ's Nativity (Milton), 116-117, 192, 217,

271, 285

O'Neill,

47

Eugene Mourning Becomes Electra, 98, 99 Oracles, The (Housman), 269-271

Orestes
(Euripides), 90

Oberon

(Jonson), 288

Ode

to the

Comic

Spirit

(Meredith),

Orion Ovid

(Home), 275
6,

235

(P. Ovidius Naso), Heroides, 230, 401

Ode upon Dr. Harvey (A. Cowley), 45 Ode on a Grecian Urn (Keats), 100 Ode on Melancholy (Keats), 172, 182 Ode to a Nightingale (Keats), 137138, 181-182, 302, 303

Metamorphoses,

31,

116,

165,

233-234, 318, 320, 344

Ode to Psyche (Keats), 153 Ode on St. Cecilia's Day (Pope), 223 Ode to the West Wind (Shelley), 136
Odyssey
(Homer),
250,
also
14, 124,

^Palace of Pan, The (Swinburne), 282 Palinode (Stesichorus), 400

Palladium (Arnold), 84

177, 183,
377,

Dead (Pound), 287 VPan and Luna (Browning), 74-75

\foan Is

246,
(See

266,

267,

380

Pope, trans.) Oedipus at Colonus (Sophodes), 349, 361

Pandora (D Rossetti), 314 Panegenck to Sir Lewis Pemberton,

A
11,

(Herrick), 216

Paradise Lost

(Milton^ 5-6, 7-8,

9,

Oedipus Tyrannus, or Oedipus Rex

(Sophocles), 349, 359

38, 57, 63, 68,

80-81, 89,

102, 104-105, 120-121, 132, 137,

143, 145, 146, 148, 163, 169, 171,

Oedipus Tyrannus, or Swellfoot the Tyrant (Shelley), 357

175, 186-187, 189-190, 205,

209313,

Oenone (Tennyson),
244

85, 95-96,

190,

210, 214, 222, 225, 237, 239, 272,

274,

279, 283,

285,

307,

Of the Courtier's Life (Wyatt), 41 Of Friendship (Grimald), 371-372

332-333, 334, 337, 353-354, 377,

407, 423-424

438

LITERARY REFERENCES
Paradise Regained 415
Parker, Dorothy
(Milton), 9, 340,

Poe, Edgar Allan To Helen, 401

Raven, The, 85
to

Words

of Comfort Scratched on a

Be

Poetics,

The

(Aristotle),

136

Mirror,

401

Parliament

of

Bees,

The

(Day),

Pope, Alexander Dunciad, The, 41, 216, 337 Eloisa and Abelard, 215
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot* 41

72 Parliament of Fowlsf The (Chaucer), 310

Parting at
Pastorals

Essay on Criticism, An, 20, 104, 237, 387

Imitations of Horace, 77

Dawn

(Ransom), 182

(Pope), 53

Messiah, 77

Pauline (Browning), 297 Peacock, Thomas Love

Grill Grange, 256

Moral Essays, 141 Ode on St. Cecilia's

Odyssey
(trans,

Day,,

223

of Homer), 168

Pericles (Shakespeare), 38

Pastorals, 53

Perseus (MacNeice), 297 Petronius

Satyricon, 43

Rape
Portrait
(Seneca),

of the Lock, The, 18, 33-34,

69, 223, 230, 243

of

the Artist as a
(Joyce),

Young

Phaedra, or 373
Phillips,

Hippolytus

Man, A
Pound, Ezra

129

Stephen
(Sophocles), 299

Marpessa, 43
Philoctetes
Philoctetes
(Tabley), 300

Mauberley, 326, 363 Dead, 287 Prayer for His Lady's Life, 175 Praised Be Diana's Fair and Harmless

Hugh Selwyn
Pan
Is

Philomela (Arnold), 302-303 Phoebus with Admetus (Meredith),

22 Phoenix, The (anon), 306-307

Light (Ralegh), 75 Prayer for His Lady's Life (Pound),

175

Prelude,

The (Wordsworth), 196

(anon), 310

Phoenix (Lawrence), 307-308 Phoenix at East Hadley (Cramer),

308

Priapea

Phoenix and the Turtle, The (Shakespeare), 307 Pindar, 409

Princess, The (Tennyson), 416 Proem (Thomson), 12 Progress of Poesy, The (Gray),
141,

35,

409

Plato, 420

Alcibiades,

129

Jon, 137

Prometheus (Byron), 316 Prometheus (Swift), 315 Prometheus Bound (Aeschylus), 315 Prometheus the Firegiver (Bridges),
418

Plautus

Amphitryon, 415
Plutarch, 286

Prometheus,
thought

or

the

Poefs

Fore-

(Longfellow), 317

439

LITERARY REFERENCES
Prometheus
315

Unbound

(Aeschylus),

Robinson, Edwin Arlington Amaryllis, 54

Prometheus

Unbound
316-317

(Shelley),

4,

Roman

154, 201,

de Troie, Le (Benott Sainte Maure), 402-403

de

Propertius
Elegiae, 175 Proteus* or the Shapes of Conscience

Romeo and
215

Juliet (Shakespeare), 159,

Rosalind (Lodge), 51, 165-166

Rossetti, Christina

(Humphries), 338 Prothalamion (Spenser), 33, 35, 112, 125, 198, 242, 292-293, 410
Purcell,

Rossetti,

Ariadne to Theseus, 372 Dante Gabriel

Astarte Syriaca

Henry

35

Dido and Aeneas, 18 "When I Am Laid in Earth," 18 Putnam, Phelps

Ballad of a Strange Thing, 285

Cassandra, 96

House
Venus

of Life,

The, 212
34

Pandora* 314
Vtctrix,

Chance; 162 Pygmalion (Beddoes), 319

Hymn

to

Wine
Ruines
of

of Circe, The, 257-258

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 272

Pygmalion (Shaw), 319

Pythagoras, 140

Rome, The

(Spenser), 141,

217

Ruines of Time, The (Spenser),

172, 184, 217, 280

104,

Russell,

Thomas
to

"Queene and Huntress"

213

(Jonson), 75,

Supposed

Be

Written

on

Lemnos, 299

Ralegh, Walter Praised e

Diana's

Fair

and

Sackville,

Thomas

Harmless Light, 75 Ransom, John Crowe

Rape

Parting at Dawn, 182 of the Lock, The (Pope), 18,

33-34, 69, 223, 230, 243

Induction to the Complaint of the Duke of Buckingham, 156, 183

Sannazaro, Jacopo Arcadia, 51

Rapture, A (Carew), 265 Raven, The (Poe), 85

Rehearsal,

The

(Villiers),

44
47, 56,

Santayana, George On the Death of a Metaphysician, 128

Satyricon (Petronius), 45 Science (Jeffers), 72
Scillaes

Richard
161

II

(Shakespeare).

Richard III (Shakespeare), 163

Rivals,

Metamorphosis (Lodge),

MS

The

(Sheridan), 177

Scyros (Shapiro), 385

440

LITERARY REFERENCES
Sedley, Charles

Shakespeare, William

(cont.)

"Love
Seneca, 172

Still

Has Something

of

Two Gentlemen
47, 337, 372

of Verona,

The

the Sea," 150

Phaedra, or Hippolytus, 373 Sensitive Plant, The (Shelley), 240 Seven against Thebes (Aeschylus),
349,

Venus and Adonis, 31 Winter's Tale, The, 143-144, 208,

271
,

and John Fletcher

VIII, 276

360

Henry

Shakespeare, William, 122, 123, 206 Antony and Cleopatra, 163, 205

Shapiro, Karl Scyros, 385

As You Like

It, 51,

211

Comedy

of Errors, The, 217

Shaw, George Bernard Caesar and Cleopatra, 359

Pygmalion, 319
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 5, 129 Adonais, 72

Cymbehne, 271, 332 Hamlet, 35, 71, 168, 187,

399
1

193, 246,

Henry IV, 103-104 2 Henry IV, 107, 181 Henry V, 35, 156, 297, 404 1 Henry VI, 128 3 Henry VI, 128 Juhus Caesar, 56, 57, 160, 181 King Lear, 158, 160 Love's Labours Lost, 39, 201, 202
Macbeth,
57, 68, 157, 158, 333
18,

Arethusa,

4,

244

Hymn Hymn Hymn

Ode

of Apollo, 48
to

Meicury, 210

of Pan, 40

to the

West Wind* 136

Oedipus Tyrannus, or Swellfoot

the Tyrant, 357

Prometheus

Unbound,

4,

154,

201, 316-317
Sensitive Plant,

Merchant of Venice, The,

The, 240

59-60, 65, 73, 156, 225, 276

Merry Wives of Windsor, The^

382

Song of Proserpine, While Gathering Flowers on the Plain

of Enna, 144 Witch of Atlas, 310

Midsummer-Night's Dream,

A,

68, 75-76, 148, 321, 372 Pencles, 38 Phoenix and the Turtle, The, 307

Shepheardes Calender, The (Spenser), 51, 56, 137, 28^-285

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley Rivals, The t 177
Sidney, Philip Arcadia, 51

Richard II, 47, 56, 161 Richard HI, 163

Romeo and

Juliet, 159,

215

Tempest, The, 142, 213, 307 Titus Andronicus, 89, 122, 301
Troilus and Cressida, 44, 56, 95, 388, 404-405

Sirens,

Nightingale, The, 301 The (Manifold), 342

Song,

"Goe,
starre"

and catche a
(Donne), 342

falling

Song

of a Hyperborean,

The

(Moore),

Twelfth Night,

71, 423

339

441

LITERARY REFERENCES
Song of Myself (Whitman), 238 Song of Proserpine, While Gathering Flowers on the Plain of Enna
(Shelley), 144

Spenser,

Edmund

(cont)
82,

Muiopotmos,
Prothalamwn,

164,

332, 417

Mutabihtie Cantos, 423

33,

35,

112,

125,

Sonnet 20 (Milton), 100 Sonnet 23 (Milton), 24

Sophocles, 98, 300, 380
Aias, 396

198, 242, 292-293, 410

Rumes Rumes

of

Rome, The,

141,

217

of Time, The, 104, 172,

184, 217, 280

Antigone, 349, 364 Electra, 90

Shepheardes Calender, The, 28, 51, 56, 137, 284-285

Teares of the Muses, The, 39, 47, 237, 288, 339
Virgils

Oedipus at Colonus, 349, 361 Oedipus Tyrannus, or Oedipus Rex, 349, 359
Philoctetes, 299

Gnat* 47,

143,

282-283,

301, 303, 344, 346

Spelt

from
42

Sibyl's

Leaves (Hopkins),
122, 129

Sphinx, The
Squire's Tale, Stesichorus

(Auden), 358

The

(Chaucer), 10S

Spenser,

Edmund,

Amorettt, 265, 276 Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, 51, 244, 338

Palinode* 400
Story of a Panic,

Daphnaida, 161
Epithalamion,
33, 38, 69, 74, 189,

Strayed Reveller, 375

The The

(Forster),

287

(Arnold), 257,

Summers Last Will and Testament

(Nashe), 401

214, 217, 218-219, 220, 242,

296-297, 415
Faerie Queene, The,
4, 7,

Supposed
15-16,

to

Be Written on Lemnos
299
(Eliot),

(Russell),

22, 31-32, 33, 36, 38, 44, 47,

56, 57, 68, 75, 76,
87,

Sweeney Erect
408-409

253-254, 372,

102,

103,
123,

113-114, 121-122, 122132-133, 140, 141, 145,

Sweeney

among

the

Nightingales
183-184,
274,

(Eliot),

92-93,

147, 151, 152, 170, 171, 172,

303-304, 361-362

176, 177, 179, 181, 183, 200,

214, 217, 223, 226, 239, 243244, 256, 273, 274, 288, 291,
303, 328, 332, 333, 335, 336,

337, 340, 342, 344, 368, 381,

382, 395, 400-401, 416, 417,

Jonathan Prometheus, 315 To Janus on New Year's Day, 226 Swinburne, Algernon Charles

Swift,

At

Eleusis, 143
5, 79,

423

Hymne

in

Honour

of Beautie,

Atalanta in Calydon, 110, 136

Dolores, 310

109-

An, $3

Hymne
149

in

Honour

of Love, An,

Hymn

Garden of Proserpine, The, 175 to Proserpine, 173, 286

442

LITERARY REFERENCES
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
Itylus, 303
(cont.)

Thomson, James
Proem, 12
Thyestes (MacNeice), 89 Thyrsis (Arnold), 204
Tiresias
Tiresias

Last Oracle, The, 49 Laus Veneris, 34

Palace of Pan, The, 282 Tiresias, 375-376

(Swinburne), 375-376 (Tennyson), 375

(Shakespeare), 89,

Tithonus (Tennyson), 147

Titus

Andromcus
122, 301

Tabley,
*

Lord

de

(John

Byrne

Leicester Warren)
Philoctetes, 300

To Althaea from Prison (Lovelace), 107 To an Athlete Dying Young (Housman), 178

Tale of Pigmahon, The (anon), 318 Tale of Polypheme, A (Dobson), 166

Talking Oak, The (Tennyson), 270

Tamburlaine (Marlowe), 161-162

Teares of the Muses,
39, 47, 237, 288,

To Dorothy Wellesley (Yeats), 164 To Electra (Hernck), 87, 223 To Helen (Poe), 401 To Janus on New Year's Day (Swift),
226

The
339

(Spenser),

To

Lucasta,

Going

to

the

Warres

Tempest, The
307

(Shakespeare), 142, 213,

(Lovelace), 57

To

the Muses (Blake), 237

Tennyson, Alfred

Totters Miscellany, 318

Amphion, 356
Death of Oenone, The, 244 Demeter and Persephone, 144

Tower beyond Tragedy, The

fers),

(Jef-

98-99

Troilus and Cressida

44, 56, 95, 388 M

Dream
Hero

of Fair

Women, A, 386

Enid, 162

Troiluswd

Criseyde
a

(Chaucer), SSr

Leander, 212 Locksley Hall, 274

to

True Character

of

Dunce,

The

Lotos Eaters, The, 251

(Donne), 170

Oenone,

85, 95-96, 190, 244

Princess, The, 416

Two

Twelfth Night (Shakespeare), 71, 423 Gentlemen of Verona, The

(Shakespeare), 47, 337, 372

Talking Oak, The, 270

Tiresias, 375

Tithonus, 147
Ulysses, 5, 267, 339

U
(Henryson),
Ulysses (Joyce), 216, 267
Ulysses (Tennyson), 5, 267, 339 and the Siren (Daniel), 342

Testament of Cresseid 404

Tethys* Festival

(Daniel), 328

Ulysses

Theocritus, 54
Idylls, 2, 51, 165

Unquiet Grave, The (Connolly), 19 Upon Drinking in a Bowl (WUmot),

137

Theogony

(Hesiod), 29, 121

443

LITERARY REFERENCES
Upon Mr. Thomas
(Donne), 42
Coryats Crudities

Wilmot, John Upon Drinking in a Bowl, 137

Wilson,

Edmund
69

V
Vacillation
(Yeats),

Memoirs of Hecate County, 68336

Venus and Adonis (Shakespeare), 31 Venus Victnx (D. Rossetti), 34 Venus Will Now Say a Few Words
(Auden), 34
Village, Vtltanelle of

Wound and
Wine
of
Circe,

the

Bow, The, 300

(D.
Rossetti),

The
The

257-258
Winter's
Tale,,

(Shakespeare),

The

143-144, 208, 271

(Crabbe), 53

Wisdom

Acheron (Dowson), 173 Villiers, George Rehearsal, The, 44

Virgil, 6, 7, 9, 18, 19

of

the

Ancients,

The

(Bacon), 337 Witch of Atlas (Shelley), 310

Wonder Book (Hawthorne), 7 Words of Comfort to Be Scratched on

a Mirror (Parker), 401 Wordsworth, William
Excursion, The, 286 Laodamia, 387 Memorials of a Tour on
Continent, 1820, 77-78 Michael, 53-54
Prelude, The, 196

Aeneld, 14-15, 17, 21, 32, 55, 68, 163, 175, 380
Eclogues, 51, 77 Georgics, 74
Vtrgils

Gnat (Spenser), 47, 143, 282283, 301, 303, 344, 346

the

W
Waste Land, The
(Eliot), 17, 43,

72399

World

Is

Too Much with

Us,

73, 242-243, 303-305, 376,

The, 338

Weather of Olympus, The (Graves),

409

World

Is

Too Much with

the

Us, The,

(Wordsworth), 338

When

the Assault

Was Intended on
(Milton),

Wound and
300

Bowf The

(Wilson),

the

City,

Sonnet 8

97-98

"When

Am

Wyatt, Thomas Laid

in

Earth"

Of the

Courtier's Life, 41

(Purcell), 18

When

the Net

Was

Was Unwound Venus Found Ravelted with

Yeats, William Butler

Mars (Bishop), 30 Whitman, Walt

Song of Myself, 238 Wife of Bath's Tale, The (Chaucer),
40-41

Byzantium, 334 Delphic Oracle upon Plotwus, The, 272 Leda and the Swan, 382

Wilde, Oscar

To Dorothy
The, 303

Wellesley, 164

Burden

of Uys,

Vacillation, 336

444

&REECE