vanced since the phenomena of mesmerism have attracted attention: that something like the mesmeric trance was induced in the Pythoness, and the faculty of clairvoyance really 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 to 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; Illustrative. No voice or hideous hum Rings through the arched roof in words deceiving. Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. Inspires the pale-eyed Priest from the prophetic cell." Spenser, Faery Queene 1, 2:2; 1, 2: 29; 1, 11:31; 1, 12:2. Sir Philip Sidney, Ashophel and Stella, as, for instance, the pretty conceit beginning "Phoebus was judge between Jove, Mars and Love, Dekker, The Sun's Darling; Burns (as in the Winter Night) and other Scotch song-writers find it hard to keep Phoebus out of their verses; Spenser, Epithalamion; Shakespeare, M. N. Dream 2: 1 (Apollo and Daphne); Cymbeline (Clotens' Serenade); Love's Labour's Lost 4:3; Taming of Shrew, Induction 2; Winter's Tale 2:1; 3:1; 3:2; Titus Andron. 4:1; 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 Phoebus; Keats, Hymn to Apollo; A. Mary F. Robinson, A Search for Apollo; In Apollo's Garden; Shelley's 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, P. L. 10:531; Shelley's Adonais. Oracles. Milton, P. L. 1:12, 515; 5:382; 10: 182; Paradise Regained 1: 395, 430, 456, 463; 3:13; 4:275; Hymn to 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, Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more." In Art. — The most highly 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. The artist is unknown. It is supposed 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). It 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 supposed 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 conception of Apollo, Byron alludes in Childe Harold 4: 161: "The lord of the unerring bow, The god of life, and poetry, and light- And nostril, beautiful disdain, and might An earlier variation of this type represents Apollo holding in the left hand, not the bow, but probably an ægis. The standing figure in our text reproduces this conception. Also famous in sculpture are the Apollo Citharœdus of the National Museum, Naples, and the Glyptothek, Munich; the Lycian Apollo; the Apollo Nomios; Apollo of Thera; the Apollo of Michael Angelo (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. Phoebus and Boreas by J. F. Millet. § 39. Latona. A theory of the numerous love-affairs of Jupiter is given in § 33 of the text. Delos is the central island of the Cyclades group in the Egean. 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, 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. 66 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 19: 28, was a goddess of not at all the maidenly characteristics that belonged to the Greek Artemis (Roscher, 591; A. Lang, 2. 217). Other titles of Artemis are Munychia, the moon-goddess; Calliste, the fair, or the she-bear; Orthia, the severe, worshipped among the Taurians with human sacrifices; Agrotera, the huntress; Pythia; Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth; Cynthia, born on Mount Cynthus. Illustrative. Spenser, F. Q. 1, 7:5; 1, 12:7; Shakespeare, M. of Venice 5: 1, "Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn," etc.; Twelfth N. 1:4; M. N. Dream 1:4; All's Well 1:3; 4:2; 4:4; 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. Phoebe (Diana): Spenser, Epithalamion; Keats, To Psyche. Cynthia (Diana): Spenser, Prothalamion, Epithalamion; Milton, Hymn to Nativity; H. K. White, Ode to Contempla tion. 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 moongoddess, 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 text, § 39), 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 the highest 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. The second illustration 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 modern painting, noteworthy are the Diana and her Nymphs of Rubens; Correggio's Diana; Jules Lefebvre's Diana and her Nymphs; Domenichino's Diana's Chase. Note also the allegorical Luna (Monday) of Raphael in the Vatican. § 40. 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, worshipped 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 Phoenicians, and is the analogue of the Greek Aphrodite and the Latin Venus. (See Roscher, 390, etc.) The native Greek deity of love would appear to have been, however, Dione, goddess of the moist and productive soil (§ 34 C), who passes in the Iliad (5: 370, 428) as the mother of Aphrodite; is worshipped at Dodona by the side of Zeus, and is regarded by Euripides as Thyone, mother of Dionysus (Preller 1. 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, flowerfaced, blushing, swift-eyed, golden-crowned. She had temples and groves in Paphos, Abydos, Samos, Ephesus, Cyprus, Cythere, in some of which, for instance, Paphos, vals were held. See Childe Harold I: 66. gorgeous annual festi 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 worshipped as goddess of love, as presiding over mar riage, 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 4:1; M. of Venice 2: 6; Troil. and Cressida 4:5; Cymbeline 5:5; Rom. and Jul. 2:1; Milton's L'Allegro; P. R. 2:214; Comus 124; Pope, Rape of 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; Thos. Wyatt, The Lover prayeth Venus to conduct him to the Desired Haven. See the grand chorus to Aphrodite in Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon; Lewis Morris, Aphrodite, in the Epic of Hades; Thos. Gordon Hake, The Birth of Venus, in New Symbols; D. G. Rossetti, Sonnets; Venus Verticordia, Venus Victrix. In Art. One of the most famous of ancient statues was the Venus rising from the foam, of Phidias. The Venus found in the island of Melos, or of Milo (see text, § 40), now to be seen in the Louvre in Paris, is the work of some sculptor of about the third century B. C. He followed an original of the age of Praxiteles, probably in bronze, which represented the goddess partly draped, gazing at her reflection in an uplifted shield. A masterpiece of Praxiteles was the Venus of Cnidos, from which are copied the Venus of the Capitoline in Rome and the Venus de' Medici in Florence, both of them nude figures and of a lower type of art than the Milo. 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: And Byron's "So stands the statue that enchants the world; So bending tries to veil the matchless boast, There too the goddess loves in stone, and fills Also to be noted is the Venus coming from the Bath in the Vatican at Rome. |