Heathen mythology, Illustrated by extracts from the most celebrated writers, both ancient and modern. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ The fishermen who had found it in their nets, sought the oracle to consult its responses. This was to offer it to the wisest man in Greece. They presented it to Thales, who had told them that the most difficult of all human knowledge was the art of knowing ourselves. Thales offered the tripod to Bias. When the enemy was reducing his native city to ashes, he withdrew, leaving behind him his wealth, saying, "I carry all that is worthy within myself." After frequent adventures, and passing into the possession of many, the tripod finally returned to Thales, and was deposited in the temple; where, as we have seen, it served the sibyl for a seat. This story shows us at a glance, the principles and the conduct of the greatest philosophers of Greece. These sages who considered philosophy to consist in the science of practising virtue, and living happily, endeavoured to show by the adventures of the tripod that, though the way was sometimes different, the end was the same.

      The sibyl delivered the answer of the god to such as came to consult the oracle, and while the divine inspiration was on her, her eyes sparkled, her hair stood on end, and a shivering ran through her body. In this convulsive state, she spoke the oracles of the deity, often with loud howlings and cries, and her articulations were taken down by the priest, and set in order. Sometimes the spirit of inspiration was more gentle, and not always violent, yet Plutarch mentions one of the priestesses who was thrown into such excessive fury, that not only those who consulted the oracle, but also the priests who conducted her to the sacred tripod, and attended her during her inspiration, were terrified and forsook the temple; and so violent was the fit, that she continued for some days in the most agonizing situation, and at last died.

      It was always required that those who consulted this oracle should make presents to Apollo, and from thence arose the opulence, splendour, and magnificence, of the temple of Delphi.

      There were other temples of Apollo more celebrated, such as that at Palmyra, which was constructed of the most gigantic proportions; and for which nothing was spared to give it a magnificence hitherto unknown. Augustus, who pretended to be the son of Apollo, built a temple to him on Mount Palatine. Delian feasts were those which the Athenian, and the other Greek states celebrated every four years at Delos.

      The history of the Muses is so closely allied to that of Apollo that we shall present some of their adventures in this part of our work.

      The first is the struggle which the Muses maintained against the nine daughters of Pierus, King of Macedon, who dared to dispute with them the palm of singing; being overcome, they were turned into magpies, and since their transformation, they have preserved the talent so dear to beauty, of being able in many words to express very little.

      One day when the Muses were distant from their place of abode, a storm surprised them, and they took shelter in the palace of Pyrenæus: but scarcely had they entered, when the tyrant shut the gates, and sought to offer them insult. They immediately spread their wings and flew away. The king wishing to fly after them, essayed the daring adventure, and throwing himself from the top of the tower as if he had wings, was killed in the attempt. Notwithstanding the high reputation of the Muses, it is pretended by some, that Rheseus was the son of Terpsichore, Linus of Clio, and Orpheus of Calliope. Arion and Pindar were also stated to be the children of the Muses, to whom the Romans built a temple and consecrated a fountain.

D I A N A.

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      The goddess Diana was daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and twin sister to Apollo. In heaven she bore another name, and conducted the chariot of the Moon, while on earth she presided over the chase, was the peculiar deity of hunters, and called Diana. In Hell she is named Hecate and revered by magicians.

      —————"Hecate, loved by Jove,

      And honour'd by the inhabitants above,

      Profusely gifted from the almighty hand,

      With power extensive o'er the sea and land;

      And great the honour, she, by Jove's high leave,

      Does from the starry vault of heaven receive.

      When to the gods the sacred flames aspire,

      Does from the starry vault of heaven receive.

      From human offerings, as the laws require,

      To Hecate the vows are first prefer'd;

      Happy of men whose prayers are kindly heard,

      Success attends his every act below,

      Honour, wealth, power, to him abundant flow."

      Hesiod.

      She was also the Goddess of chastity, and it was in this character that her vengeance fell so heavily on Actæon, who following the chase one day with all the ardour of his profession, unhappily came suddenly on the retired spot, in which the pure Diana, with her nymphs, was enjoying, in the heat of the summer's day, the luxury of bathing. Horrified by this violation, though unintentional, of her privacy, she changed him into a stag, and inspiring with madness the dogs that accompanied him to the chase, they turned upon their metamorphosed master, who, in horrible dread of the fate he had himself so often inflicted, fled rapidly from them. True to their breed, however, the dogs succeeded in running him down and devouring him.

      Calista, nymph of Diana was seduced by Jupiter, who taking one of the innumerable shapes, which he is described as assuming when his passions were inflamed towards any particular nymph, introduced himself to her in the form of her mistress, and in this shape, what wonder that the nymph lost her virtue, or that the God was successful! Diana herself, however, took a very different view, and though Calista concealed the effects of her divine intrigue from her mistress for a long time, the latter noticed the alteration in her person when bathing in

      "Such streams as Dian loves,

      And Naiads of old frequented; when she tripped

      Amidst her frolic nymphs, laughing, or when

      Just risen from the bath, she fled in sport,

      Round oaks and sparkling fountains,

      Chased by the wanton Orcades."

      Barry Cornwall.

      To evince her detestation of the crime, her divine mistress changed her into a bear. This however was before

      "The veiled Dian lost her lonely sphere,

      And her proud name of chaste, for him whose sleep

      Drank in Elysium on the Latmos steep."

      Bulwer.

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