The Classic Myths in English Literature and in Art (2nd ed.) (1911)

Oracle of Delphi. It had been observed at a very early period that the goats feeding on Parnassus were thrown into convulsions when they approached a certain long deep cleft in the side of the mountain. This was owing to a peculiar vapor arising out of the cavern, and a certain goatherd is said to have tried its effects upon himself. Inhaling the intoxicating air, he was affected in the same manner as the cattle had been; and the inhabitants of the surrounding country, unable to explain the circumstance, imputed the convulsive ravings to which he gave utterance while under the power of the exhalations to a divine inspiration. The fact was speedily spread abroad, and a temple was erected on the spot. The prophetic influence was at first variously attributed to the goddess Earth, to Neptune, Themis, and others, but it was at length assigned to Apollo, and to him alone. A priestess was appointed whose office it was to inhale the hallowed air, and she was named the Pythia. She was prepared for this duty by previous ablution at the fountain of Castalia, and being crowned with laurel was seated upon a tripod similarly adorned, which was placed over the chasm whence the divine afflatus proceeded. Her inspired words while thus situated were interpreted by the priests.

Other famous oracles were that of Trophonius in Bœotia and that of the Egyptian Apis. Since those who descended into the cave at Lebadea to consult the oracle of Trophonius were noticed to return dejected and melancholy, the proverb arose which was applied to a low-spirited person, "He has been consulting the oracle of Trophonius."

At Memphis the sacred bull Apis gave answer to those who consulted him, by the manner in which he received or rejected what was presented to him. If the bull refused food from the hand of the inquirer, it was considered an unfavorable sign, and the contrary when he received it.

It used to be questioned whether oracular responses ought to be ascribed to mere human contrivance or to the agency of evil spirits. The latter opinion would of course obtain during ages of superstition, when evil spirits were credited with an influence over human affairs. A third theory has been advanced since the phenomena of mesmerism have attracted attention: that something like the mesmeric trance was induced in the Pythoness, and the faculty of clairvoyance called into action.

Scholars have also sought to determine when the pagan oracles ceased to give responses. Ancient Christian writers assert that they became silent at the birth of Christ, and were heard no more after that date; Milton adopts this view in his Hymn on the Nativity, and in lines of solemn and elevated beauty pictures the consternation of the heathen idols at the advent of the Saviour:

The Oracles are dumb;No voice or hideous humRuns through the archèd roof in words deceiving.Apollo from his shrineCan no more divine,With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.No nightly trance, or breathèd spellInspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

Illustrative. Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 2, 2; 1, 2, 29; 1, 11, 31; 1, 12, 2. Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella; as, for instance, the pretty conceit beginning

Phœbus was judge between Jove, Mars, and Love,Of those three gods, whose arms the fairest were.

Dekker, The Sun's Darling; Burns (as in the Winter Night) and other Scotch song-writers find it hard to keep Phœbus out of their verses; Spenser, Epithalamion; Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, II, i (Apollo and Daphne); Cymbeline (Cloten's Serenade); Love's Labour's Lost, IV, iii; Taming of the Shrew, Induction ii; Winter's Tale, II, i; III, i; III, ii; Titus Andronicus, IV, i; Drayton, Song 8; Tickell, To Apollo making Love; Swift, Apollo Outwitted; Pope, Essay on Criticism, 34; Dunciad, 4, 116; Prologue to Satires, 231; Miscellaneous, 7, 16; Armstrong, The Art of Preserving Health.

Poems. Drummond of Hawthornden, Song to Phœbus; Keats, Hymn to Apollo; A. Mary F. Robinson, A Search for Apollo, and In Apollo's Garden; Shelley, Homer's Hymn to Apollo; Aubrey De Vere, Lines under Delphi; Lewis Morris, Apollo, in The Epic of Hades; R. W. Dixon, Apollo Pythius.

The Python. Milton, Paradise Lost, 10, 531; Shelley, Adonais. Oracles. Milton, Paradise Lost, 1. 12, 515; 5, 382; 10, 182; Paradise Regained, 1. 395, 430, 456, 463; 3, 13; 4, 275; Hymn on the Nativity, 173. In Cowper's poem of Yardley Oak there are mythological allusions appropriate to this subject. On Dodona, Byron, Childe Harold, 2, 53; Tennyson, The Talking Oak. Byron alludes to the oracle of Delphi when speaking of Rousseau, whose writings he conceives did much to bring on the French Revolution: Childe Harold, 3, 81, —

For then he was inspired, and from him came,As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore,Those oracles which set the world in flame,Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more.

In Art. One of the most esteemed of all the remains of ancient sculpture is the statue of Apollo, called the Belvedere from the name of the apartment of the Pope's palace at Rome in which it is placed (see Fig. 15). The artist is unknown. It is conceded to be a work of Roman art, of about the first century of our era (and follows a type fashioned by a Greek sculptor of the Hellenistic period, probably in bronze). A variation of the type has been discovered in a bronze statuette which represents Apollo holding in the left hand an ægis. Some scholars have therefore surmised that the Apollo of the original was similarly equipped. The Belvedere Apollo, however, is a standing figure, in marble, more than seven feet high, naked except for the cloak which is fastened around the neck and hangs over the extended left arm. It is restored to represent the god in the moment when he has shot the arrow to destroy the monster Python. The victorious divinity is in the act of stepping forward. The left arm which seems to have held the bow is outstretched, and the head is turned in the same direction. In attitude and proportion the graceful majesty of the figure is unsurpassed. The effect is completed by the countenance, where, on the perfection of youthful godlike beauty, there dwells the consciousness of triumphant power. To this statue Byron alludes in Childe Harold, 4, 161:

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,The God of life, and poetry, and light, —The Sun, in human limbs arrayed, and browAll radiant from his triumph in the fight;The shaft hath just been shot – the arrow brightWith an immortal's vengeance; in his eyeAnd nostril, beautiful disdain, and mightAnd majesty flash their full lightnings by,Developing in that one glance the Deity.

The standing figure in our text reproduces this conception.427 Also famous in sculpture are the "Adonis" Apollo of the Vatican (Fig. 14, text); the Greek bronze from Thessaly (Fig. 16, text); the Palatine Apollo in the Vatican (Fig. 66, text); the Apollo Citharœdus of the National Museum, Naples, and the Glyptothek, Munich; the Lycian Apollo; the Apollo Nomios; Apollo of Thera; the Apollo of Michelangelo (National Museum, Florence). A painting of romantic interest is Paolo Veronese's St. Christina refusing to adore Apollo. Of symbolic import is the Apollo (Sunday) by Raphael in the Vatican. Phœbus and Boreas by J. F. Millet.

32. Latona. A theory of the numerous love-affairs of Jupiter is given in 24 of the text. Delos is the central island of the Cyclades group in the Ægean. With its temple of Apollo it was exceedingly prosperous.

Interpretative. Latona (Leto), according to ancient interpreters, was night, – the shadow, therefore, of Juno (Hera), if Hera be the splendor of heaven. But the early myth-makers would hardly have reasoned so abstrusely. It is not at all certain that the name Leto means darkness (Preller 1, 190, note 4); and even if light is born of or after darkness, the sun (Apollo) and the moon (Artemis, or Diana) can hardly be considered to be twins of Darkness (Leto), for they do not illuminate the heavens at the same time. – Lang, Myth, Ritual, etc., 2, 199.

Illustrative. Byron's allusion to Delos in Don Juan, 3, 86:

The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!Where burning Sappho loved and sung,Where grew the arts of war and peace,Where Delos rose, and Phœbus sprung!Eternal summer gilds them yet,But all, except their sun, is set.

See Milton's Sonnet, "I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs," for allusion to Latona.

In Art. In the shrine of Latona in Delos there was, in the days of Athenæus, a shapeless wooden idol.

Diana. The Latin Diana means either "goddess of the bright heaven," or "goddess of the bright day." She is frequently identified with Artemis, Hecate, Luna, and Selene. According to one tradition, Apollo and Diana were born at Ortygia, near Ephesus. Diana of the Ephesians, referred to (Acts xix, 28), was a goddess of not at all the maidenly characteristics that belonged to the Greek Artemis (Roscher, p. 591; A. Lang, 2, 217). Other titles of Artemis are Munychia, the moon-goddess; Calliste, the fair, or the she-bear; Orthia, the severe, worshiped among the Taurians with human sacrifices; Agrotera, the huntress; Pythia; Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth; Cynthia, born on Mount Cynthus.

Illustrative. Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 7, 5; 1, 12, 7; Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, V, i, "Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn," etc.; Twelfth Night, I, iv; Midsummer Night's Dream, I, iv; All's Well that Ends Well, I, iii; IV, ii; IV, iv; Butler, Hudibras, 3, 2, 1448. Poems: B. W. Procter, The Worship of Dian; W. W. Story, Artemis; E. W. Gosse, The Praise of Artemis; E. Arnold, Hymn of the Priestess of Diana; Wordsworth, To Lycoris; Lewis Morris, Artemis, in The Epic of Hades; A. Lang, To Artemis. Phœbe (Diana): Spenser, Epithalamion; Keats, To Psyche. Cynthia (Diana): Spenser, Prothalamion, Epithalamion; Milton, Hymn on the Nativity; H. K. White, Ode to Contemplation.

In Art. In art the goddess is represented high-girt for the chase, either in the act of drawing an arrow from her quiver or watching her missile in its flight. She is often attended by the hind. Sometimes, as moon-goddess, she bears a torch. Occasionally she is clad in a chiton, or robe of many folds, flowing to her feet. The Diana of the Hind (à la Biche), in the Palace of the Louvre (see Fig. 18), may be considered the counterpart of the Apollo Belvedere. The attitude much resembles that of Apollo, the sizes correspond and also the styles of execution. The Diana of the Hind is a work of a high order, though by no means equal to the Apollo. The attitude is that of hurried and eager motion, the face that of a huntress in the excitement of the chase. The left hand of the goddess is extended over the forehead of the hind which runs by her side, the right arm reaches backward over the shoulder to draw an arrow from the quiver. Fig. 19 in the text is the Artemis Knagia (Diana Cnagia), named after Cnageus, a servant of Diana who assisted in transferring the statue from Crete to Sparta. In Dresden there is a statue of Artemis in the style of Praxiteles (Fig. 68, text); and in the Louvre an ancient marble called the Artemis of Gabii (Fig. 77, text).

In modern painting, noteworthy are the Diana and her Nymphs of Rubens; Correggio's Diana (Fig. 17); Jules Lefebvre's Diana and her Nymphs; Domenichino's Diana's Chase. Note also the allegorical Luna (Monday) of Raphael in the Vatican; and D. G. Rossetti's Diana, in crayons.

34. Interpretative. The worship of Aphrodite was probably of Semitic origin, but was early introduced into Greece. The Aphrodite of Hesiod and Homer displays both Oriental and Grecian characteristics. All Semitic nations, except the Hebrews, worshiped a supreme goddess who presided over the moon (or the Star of Love), and over all animal and vegetable life and growth. She was the Istar of the Assyrians, the Astarte of the Phœnicians, and is the analogue of the Greek Aphrodite and the Latin Venus. See Roscher, p. 390, etc. The native Greek deity of love would appear to have been, however, Dione, goddess of the moist and productive soil (C. 26), who passes in the Iliad (5. 370, 428) as the mother of Aphrodite, is worshiped at Dodona by the side of Zeus, and is regarded by Euripides as Thyone, mother of Dionysus (Preller I, 259).

The epithets and names most frequently applied to Aphrodite are the Paphian, Cypris (the Cyprus-born), Cytherea, Erycina (from Mount Eryx), Pandemos (goddess of vulgar love), Pelagia (Aphrodite of the sea), Urania (Aphrodite of ideal love), Anadyomene (rising from the water); she is, also, the sweetly smiling, laughter-loving, bright, golden, fruitful, winsome, flower-faced, blushing, swift-eyed, golden-crowned.

She had temples and groves in Paphos, Abydos, Samos, Ephesus, Cyprus, Cythera, in some of which – for instance, Paphos – gorgeous annual festivals were held. See Childe Harold, I, 66.

Venus was a deity of extreme antiquity among the Romans, but not of great importance until she had acquired certain attributes of the Eastern Aphrodite. She was worshiped as goddess of love, as presiding over marriage, as the goddess who turns the hearts of men, and, later, even as a goddess of victory. A festival in her honor, called the Veneralia, was held in Rome in April.

Illustrative. See Chaucer's Knight's Tale for frequent references to the goddess of love; also the Court of Love; Spenser's Prothalamion, and Epithalamion, "Handmaids of the Cyprian queen"; Shakespeare, Tempest, IV, i; Merchant of Venice, II, vi; Troilus and Cressida, IV, v; Cymbeline, V, v; Romeo and Juliet, II, i; Milton, L'Allegro; Paradise Regained, 2, 214; Comus, 124; Pope, Rape of the Lock 4, 135; Spring, 65; Summer, 61; Thomas Woolner, Pygmalion (Cytherea).

Poems. Certain parts of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and occasional stanzas in Swinburne's volume, Laus Veneris, may be adapted to illustrative purposes. Chaucer, The Complaint of Mars and Venus; Thomas Wyatt, The Lover prayeth Venus to conduct him to the Desired Haven. See the melodious chorus to Aphrodite in Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon; Lewis Morris, Aphrodite, in The Epic of Hades; Thomas Gordon Hake, The Birth of Venus, in New Symbols; D. G. Rossetti, Sonnets; Venus Verticordia, Venus Victrix.

35. In Art. One of the most famous of ancient paintings was the Venus rising from the foam, of Apelles. The Venus found (1820) in the island of Melos, or of Milo (see text, opp. p. 32), now to be seen in the Louvre in Paris, is the work of some sculptor of about the fourth century B.C. Some say that the left hand uplifted held a mirrorlike shield; others, an apple; still others, a trident; and that the goddess was Amphitrite. A masterpiece of Praxiteles was the Venus of Cnidos, based upon which are the Venus of the Capitoline in Rome and the Venus de' Medici in Florence. Also the Venus of the Vatican, which is, in my opinion, superior to both. The Venus of the Medici was in the possession of the princes of that name in Rome when, about two hundred years ago, it first attracted attention. An inscription on the base assigns it to Cleomenes, an Athenian sculptor of 200 B.C., but the authenticity of the inscription is doubtful. There is a story that the artist was employed by public authority to make a statue exhibiting the perfection of female beauty, and that to aid him in his task the most perfect forms the city could supply were furnished him for models. Note Thomson's allusion in the Summer:

So stands the statue that enchants the world;So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.

And Byron's

There too the goddess loves in stone, and fillsThe air around with beauty. – Childe Harold, 4, 49-53.

One of the most beautiful of the Greek Aphrodites is the Petworth (opp. p. 126, text).

Of modern paintings the most famous are: the Sleeping Venus and other representations of Venus by Titian; the Birth of Venus by Bouguereau; Tintoretto's Cupid, Venus, and Vulcan; Veronese's Venus with Satyr and Cupid. Modern sculpture: Thorwaldsen's Venus with the Apple; Venus and Cupid; Cellini's Venus; Canova's Venus Victrix, and the Venus in the Pitti Gallery; Rossetti's Venus Verticordia (crayons, water colors, oil).

36. Interpretative. Max Müller traces Hermes, child of the Dawn with its fresh breezes, herald of the gods, spy of the night, to the Vedic Saramâ, goddess of the Dawn. Others translate Saramâ, storm. Roscher derives from the same root as Sarameyas (son of Saramâ), with the meaning Hastener, the swift wind. The invention of the syrinx is attributed also to Pan.

Illustrative. To Mercury's construction of the lyre out of a tortoise shell, Gray refers (Progress of Poesy), "Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, Enchanting shell!" etc. See Shakespeare, King John, IV, ii; Henry IV, IV, i; Richard III, II, i; IV, iii; Hamlet, III, iv; Milton, Paradise Lost, 3, "Though by their powerful art they bind Volatile Hermes"; 4, 717; 11, 133; Il Penseroso, 88; Comus, 637, 962. Poems: Sir T. Martin, Goethe's Phœbus and Hermes; Shelley's translation of Homer's Hymn to Mercury.

In Art. The Mercury in the Central Museum, Athens; Mercury Belvedere (Vatican); Mercury in Repose (National Museum, Naples). The Hermes by Praxiteles, in Olympia (text, opp. p. 150), and the Hermes Psychopompos leading to the underworld the spirit of a woman who has just died (text, Fig. 20; from a relief sculptured on the tomb of Myrrhina), are especially fine specimens of ancient sculpture.

In modern sculpture: Cellini's Mercury (base of Perseus, Loggia del Lanzi, Florence); Giov. di Bologna's Flying Mercury (bronze, Bargello, Florence: text, opp. p. 330); Thorwaldsen's Mercury. In modern painting: Tintoretto's Mercury and the Graces; Francesco Albani's Mercury and Apollo; Claude Lorrain's Mercury and Battus; Turner's Mercury and Argus; Raphael's allegorical Mercury (Wednesday), Vatican, Rome; and his Mercury with Psyche (Farnese Frescoes).

37. Interpretative. The name Hestia (Latin Vesta) has been variously derived from roots meaning to sit, to stand, to burn. The two former are consistent with the domestic nature of the goddess; the latter with her relation to the hearth-fire. She is "first of the goddesses," the holy, the chaste, the sacred.

Illustrative. Milton, Il Penseroso (Melancholy), "Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore To solitary Saturn bore," etc.

38. (1) Cupid (Eros). References and allusions to Cupid throng our poetry. Only a few are here given. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, I, iv; Merchant of Venice, II, vi; Merry Wives, II, ii; Much Ado About Nothing, I, i; II, i; III, ii; Midsummer Night's Dream, I, i; II, ii; IV, i; Cymbeline, II, iv; Milton, Comus, 445, 1004; Herrick, The Cheat of Cupid; Pope, Rape of the Lock, 5, 102; Dunciad, 4, 308; Moral Essays, 4, 111; Windsor Forest, – on Lord Surrey, "In the same shades the Cupids tuned his lyre To the same notes of love and soft desire."

Poems. Chaucer, The Cuckow and Nightingale, or Boke of Cupid (?); Occleve, The Letter of Cupid; Beaumont and Fletcher, Cupid's Revenge, and the Masque, A Wife for a Month; J.G. Saxe, Death and Cupid, on their exchange of arrows, "And that explains the reason why Despite the gods above, The young are often doomed to die, The old to fall in love"; Thomas Ashe, The Lost Eros; Coventry Patmore, The Unknown Eros. Also John Lyly's Campaspe:

Cupid and my Campaspe playd,At cardes for kisses, Cupid payd;He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,His mother's doves, and teeme of sparows;Looses them too; then, downe he throwesThe corrall of his lippe, the roseGrowing on's cheek (but none knows how),With these, the cristall of his brow,And then the dimple of his chinne:All these did my Campaspe winne.At last hee set her both his eyes;Shee won, and Cupid blind did rise.O love! has shee done this to thee?What shall (alas!) become of mee?

See also Lang's translation of Moschus, Idyl I, and O. Wilde, The Garden of Eros.

In Art. Antique sculpture: the Eros in Naples, ancient marble from an original perhaps by Praxiteles (text, Fig. 21); Eros bending the Bow, in the Museum at Berlin; Cupid bending his Bow (Vatican); Eros with his Bow, in the Capitoline (text, opp. p. 136).

Modern sculpture: Thorwaldsen's Mars and Cupid. Modern paintings: Bouguereau's Cupid and a Butterfly; Raphael's Cupids (among drawings in the Museum at Venice); Burne-Jones' Cupid (in series with Pyramus and Thisbe); Raphael Mengs' Cupid sharpening his Arrow; Guido Reni's Cupid; Van Dyck's Sleeping Cupid. See also under Psyche, C. 101.

Hymen. See Sir Theodore Martin's translations of the Collis O Heliconii, and the Vesper adest, juvenes, of Catullus (LXI and LXII); Milton, Paradise Lost, 11, 591; L'Allegro, 125; Pope, Chorus of Youths and Virgins.

(2) Hebe. Thomas Lodge's Sonnet to Phyllis, "Fair art thou, Phyllis, ay, so fair, sweet maid"; Milton, Vacation Exercise, 38; Comus, 290; L'Allegro, 29; Spenser, Epithalamion. Poems: T. Moore, The Fall of Hebe; J. R. Lowell, Hebe. In Art: Ary Scheffer's painting of Hebe; N. Schiavoni's painting.

Ganymede. Chaucer, Hous of Fame, 81; Tennyson, in the Palace of Art, "Or else flushed Ganymede, his rosy thigh Half-buried in the Eagle's down," etc.; Shelley in the Prometheus (Jove's order to Ganymede); Milton, Paradise Regained, 2,353; Drayton, Song 4, "The birds of Ganymed." Poems: Lord Lytton, Ganymede; Bowring, Goethe's Ganymede; Roden Noël, Ganymede; Edith M. Thomas, Homesickness of Ganymede; S. Margaret Fuller, Ganymede to his Eagle; Drummond on Ganymede's lament, "When eagle's talons bare him through the air." In Art: The Rape of Ganymede, marble in the Vatican, probably from the original in bronze by Leochares (text, Fig. 22). Græco-Roman sculpture: Ganymede and the Eagle (National Museum, Naples). Modern sculpture: Thorwaldsen's Ganymede.

(3) The Graces. Rogers, Inscription for a Temple; Matthew Arnold, Euphrosyne. These goddesses are continually referred to in poetry. Note the painting by J. B. Regnault (Louvre), also the sculpture by Canova.

(4) The Muses. Spenser, The Tears of the Muses; Milton, Il Penseroso; Byron, Childe Harold, 1, 1, 62, 88; Thomson, Castle of Indolence, 2, 2; 2, 8; Akenside, Pleasures of Imagination, 3. 280, 327; Ode on Lyric Poetry; Crabbe, The Village, Bk. 1; Introductions to the Parish Register, Newspaper, Birth of Flattery; M. Arnold, Urania. Delphi, Parnassus, etc.: Gray, Progress of Poesy, 2, 3. Vale of Tempe: Keats, On a Grecian Urn; Young, Ocean, an ode. In Art. Sculpture: Polyhymnia, ancient marble in Berlin (text, Fig. 23); Clio and Calliope, in the Vatican in Rome; Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, and Urania, in the Louvre, Paris; Terpsichore by Thorwaldsen. Painting: Apollo and the Muses, by Raphael Mengs and by Giulio Romano; Terpsichore (picture), by Schützenberger.

(5) The Hours, in art: Raphael's Six Hours of the Day and Night.

(6) The Fates. Refrain stanzas in Lowell's Villa Franca, "Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever!" In Art: The Fates, painting attributed to Michelangelo, but now by some to Rosso Fiorentino from Michelangelo's design (text, Fig. 24, Pitti Gallery, Florence); painting by Paul Thumann.

(7) Nemesis. For genealogy see Table B, C. 49.

(8) Æsculapius. Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1, 5, 36-43; Milton, Paradise Lost, 9, 507.