THE REMAINS OF HESIOD THE ASCRÆAN

[1] A blank-verse translation of the Battle of the Titans may be found in Bryant’s “Analysis:” and one of the descriptive part of “The Shield” in the “Exeter Essays.” Isaac Ritson translated the Theogony; but the work has remained in MS.

[2] The untimely death of the writer unfortunately precludes me from offering my particular acknowledgments to the translator of Aristotle’s Poetics, for the large and liberal praise which he has bestowed upon my work in the second number of The London Review: a journal established on the plan of a more manly system of criticism by the respectable essayist, whose translations from the Greek comedy first drew the public attention to the unjustly vilified Aristophanes.

[3] “Paintings representing the deluge of Tezpi are found among the different nations that inhabit Mexico. He saved himself conjointly with his wife, children, and several animals, on a raft. The painting represents him in the midst of the water lying in a bark. The mountain, the summit of which, crowned by a tree, rises above the waters, is the peak of Colhuacan, the Ararat of the Mexicans. The men born after the deluge were dumb: a dove, from the top of the tree distributes among them tongues. When the great Spirit ordered the waters to withdraw, Tezpi sent out a vulture. This bird did not return on account of the number of carcases, with which the earth, newly dried up, was strewn. He sent out other birds; one of which, the humming-bird, alone returned, holding in its beak a branch covered with leaves.—Ought we not to acknowledge the traces of a common origin, wherever cosmogonical ideas, and the first traditions of nations, offer striking analogies, even in the minutest circumstances? Does not the humming-bird of Tezpi remind us of Noah’s dove; that of Deucalion, and the birds, which, according to Berosus, Xisuthrus sent out from his ark, to see whether the waters were run off, and whether he might erect altars to the tutelary deities of Chaldæa?” Humboldt’s Researches, concerning the Institutions and Monuments of ancient America: translated by Helen Maria Williams.

[4] It has been a favourite theory of learned men, that Virgil had access to Sibylline prophecies, which foretold the birth of a Saviour. How came the Sibyls, any more than the Pythonesses of Delphos, to be ranked on a sudden with the really inspired prophets? or is it credible that they should have had either the curiosity, or the power, to inspect the Jewish Scriptures? The “Sibylline Verses” were confessedly interpolated, if not fabricated, by the pious fraud of Monks. The imitations from Isaiah seem no less chimerical. Every description of a golden age among the poets may be wrested into a similar parallel. Nor is it to be conceived that Virgil would have produced so dry a copy of so luxuriant an original. This argument does not affect the extraordinary coincidence of the time of the appearance of this eclogue, with the epoch of the Messiah’s birth; which is exceedingly curious.

[5] See the epigram; which, for want of an owner, is ascribed by Tzetzes to Pindar:

[6] The Greeks were extremely fanciful about dolphins. Several stories of persons preserved from drowning by dolphins, and romantic tales of their fondness for children, and their love of music, are related by Plutarch in his “Banquet of Diocles.”

[7] See “Specimens of ancient Sculpture,” by the society of Dilettanti.

[8] Robinson, Dissertatio de Hesiodo.

[9] “If we consider the chronology of Homer’s life to be sufficiently established, one would be tempted to believe that his rhapsodies, as they were called, have not only been arranged and digested in a subsequent period, as has been asserted on good authority, but have even undergone something similar to the refaccimento by Berni of Boyardo’s Orlando.” Essays annexed to Professor Millar’s History of the English Government.

[10] It is strange, however, that a critic like Gibbon should have allowed himself to talk of a definite time when “Homer wrote his Iliad;” in an age when alphabetic characters were not in use; when poets composed only rhapsodies, or such portions as could be recited at one time; which were preserved by oral tradition through the recitations of succeeding bards.

[11] The first specimen of a regular tablet of chronology is said to have been given by Demetrius Phalereus in his Αρχοντων Αναγραφη, about the middle of the fourth century B. C. The historian Timæus, who flourished in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, first arranged his narrative in the order of Olympiads; which began B. C. 776. His contemporary Sosibius, gave a work entitled Χρονων Αναγραφη: Apollodorus wrote the Συνταξις Χρονικη: and on such chronologers rests the credit of all later compilers, as well as of the Arundelian Marbles. Dr. Gillies.

We are informed by Dr. Clarke, in his “Travels,” that these marbles were not found in Paros, but in the Isle of Zia.

[12] The following are enumerated as the lost poems of Hesiod.

The Catalogue of Women or Heroines, in five parts, of which the fifth appears to have been entitled “The Herogony.” Suidas.

The Melampodia; from the sooth-sayer Melampus; a poem on divination. Pausanias, Athenæus.

The great Astronomy or Stellar Book. Pliny.

Descent of Theseus into Hades. Pausanias.

Admonitions of Chiron to Achilles. Pausanias, Aristophanes.

Soothsayings and Explications of Signs. Pausanias.

Divine Speeches. Maximus Tyrius.

Great Actions. Athenæus.

Of the Dactyli of Cretan Ida; discoverers of iron. Suidas, Pliny.

Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis. Tzetzes.

Ægimius. Athenæus. Apocryphal.

Elegy on Batrachus, a beloved youth. Suidas.

Circuit of the Earth. Strabo.

The Marriage of Ceyx. Athenæus, Plutarch.

On Herbs. Pliny.

On Medicine. Plutarch.

Fabricius (Bibliotheca Græca) supposes the two latter subjects to be alluded to as incidental topics in other works of Hesiod. But the passages quoted by him from Pliny and Plutarch seem to justify the opinion that they meant to advert to distinct poems. There is nothing in the works extant which favours the former idea. Mallows and asphodel are the only herbs mentioned: and that merely as synonymous with a frugal meal: like the cichorea levesque malvæ of Horace: nor is there anything medical; for the passages respecting bathing, children, &c. are mere superstitions, unconnected with health. Athenæus (book iii.) quotes some verses as ascribed to Hesiod respecting the fishes fit for salting; but says they seem to be rather the verses of a cook than of a poet; and adds that cities are mentioned in them which were posterior to Hesiod’s time. Lilius Gyraldus states that the fables of Æsop have been assigned to Hesiod. Plutarch, indeed, observes that Æsop might himself have profited by Hesiod’s apologue of the Hawk and the Nightingale; and Quintilian mentions Hesiod, and not Æsop, as the earliest fabulist; which passages may have been strained to bear the above meaning. As to the Greek fables, extant under the name of Æsop, they are proved to be spurious. See Bentley’s Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris, Themistocles, &c. and the fables of Æsop.

[13] Manilius, describing the subjects of Hesiod, has a line

excellently rendered by Creech, a translator now too fastidiously undervalued,

but this tale, which Ovid and Nonnus have related, is not found in the present theogony.

[14] In the same poem, which is a love-elegy to his mistress Leontium on the sufferings of lovers, Homer is made to visit Ithaca, “sighing like furnace” for the chaste Penelope.

[15] The Quarterly Reviewer, in his critique on my “Specimens of the Classic Poets,” conceives it strange that I should prefer the Medea of Apollonius to Virgil’s Dido; and talks of critical heresies. The deliberation of Medea on her purposed suicide, and her interview with Jason in the temple of Hecate, place the matter beyond all question; except with those who may be frightened by the word heresy into a surrender of their judgments to vulgar prejudice and traditional error.

[16] This fine natural image is ridiculously parodied by Addison, “The old men, too, are bitterly pinched by the weather.” Essay on Virgil’s Georgics.

[17] These were excluded from the first edition of my translation, but are now reinstated, as curiously illustrative of manners.

[18] We know from Homer (Il. vi.) that when Prætus sent Bellerophon to the king of Lycia he gave him, not a written letter, but σηματα λυγρα, mournful signs; (probably like the picture-writing of the Mexicans:) writing could not be common till many centuries afterwards, since the first written laws were given in Greece only six centuries B. C. (Herod. lib. ii. Strab. lib. vi.) Dr. Gillies.

[19] “The Trœzenian histories,” observes Ælian, book xi. ch. 2, “relate that the poems of Oræbantius, a native of Trœzene, were in existence before Homer; and I know they affirm that Dares the Phrygian, whose Iliad is even now extant, lived before Homer’s time. Melisander, the Milesian, likewise, composed the battle of the Lapithæ and the Centaurs.”

[20] Brucker, Historia Critica Philosophiæ, tom. i. Homer represents father Oceanus as the generator of all things: and the Chaos of Hesiod is merely the watery element.

[21] So Orpheus:

Night and Chaos, or the aqueous mass, seem reciprocally considered as the source of nature.

[22] La Mythologie, ou la Fable expliquée par l’Histoire.

[23] Monde Primitif.

[24] Wotton’s Reflections on ancient and modern Learning.

[25] See Sir William Jones’s Dissertation on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India.

[26] The working of metals was not among the ancient attributes of Vulcan: but a diversity of character or attributes is not always an objection. Each god had not only a twofold nature, celestial, and human or heroical, but his history and qualities changed with change of place. Thus Hercules was the Sun; he was also a vagabond hero; but he may have been one person in Greece, and another in Phœnicia. Gerard Vossius, in his treatise “de Origine et Progressu Idolatriæ,” may therefore be right in his conjecture, that among the Phœnicians both Joshua and Samson were commemorated in the Tyrian Hercules. Bacchus was the Sun, and an Indian conqueror. His history also assimilates with that of Noah. He was likewise in all probability Caphtor, the grandson of Ham; the great Ægyptian warrior who dispossessed the Avim of that part of the land of Canaan, afterwards called Philistia. (See Priestley’s Lectures on History, i. 5.) But it is natural that the Phœnicians, who visited Greece when the memory of Moses was still vivid among the Canaanites, should have brought with them miraculous reports of the Jewish lawgiver, which were added to the history of Bacchus. Bacchus is called by Orpheus, Μισης; and by Plutarch (de Iside et Osiride) Palæstinus. Bacchus was exposed in an ark upon a river: a double coincidence with Noah and Moses, which is exactly in the spirit of the old mythologists. Nonnus, in his Dionysiacs, mentions the flight of Bacchus to the red sea, and his battles with the Princes of Arabia; and relates that he touched the rivers Orontes and Hydaspes with his thyrsus, and that the rivers dried up, and he passed through dry-shod. The Indians are in darkness, while the Bacchic army are in light. The ivy-rod of Bacchus is thrown on the ground, and creeps to and fro like a live serpent. Snakes twist themselves about the hair and limbs of Bacchus; which may be a shadow of the fiery serpents in the wilderness. The host of Bacchus, like the multitude led by Moses, is accompanied by women. One of the Bacchæ touches a rock, and water gushes out; at another time wine and honey; and the rivers run with milk. These circumstances are very remarkable. See Stillingfleet, Origines Sacræ, ch. v. Nonnus, Dionysiacs.

[27] The bowed feeble rears.] This proem was wanting in the leaden-sheeted copy, seen by Pausanias in Bœotia. The affinity with scriptural language is remarkable. “The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich: he bringeth low and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dung-hill to set him among princes.” Samuel v. 1, ch. 2. “God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another. The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up them that be bowed down. The Lord lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.” Psalms 75, 145, 147. I was originally led to suspect that this introduction had been ingrafted on the poem by one of the Alexandrian Jews; who were addicted to this kind of imposture; but it is probably more ancient than the establishment of the Jewish colony at Alexandria, under the Ptolemies. There is nothing conclusive to be drawn from coincidences of this sort between ancient writings. The first principles of morality, implanted in the human heart by its author, have in all ages been the same: and Socrates and Confucius might be found to agree, surely without any suspicion of imitation. Many passages of Hesiod may be paralleled with verses in the Psalms and Proverbs: and in the proem under consideration, there seem no grounds for the conjecture of plagiarism from views of the vicissitudes of human condition, and the ordinations of a ruling providence which are continually passing before our eyes, and which must have struck the reasoning and serious part of mankind in all ages. Horace has a similar passage: b. i. od. 34.

Le Clerc conjectures this exordium to be the addition of one of the rhapsodists: of whom Pindar says, Nem. Od. 2.

[28] The other elder rose.] Night is meant to be the mother of both the Strifes. Guietus remarks that ευφρονη is a term for night: from ευφρονεω, to be wise. She was the mother of wise designs, because favourable to meditation: the mother of good, therefore, as well as of evil. The good Strife is made the elder, because the evil one arose in the later and degenerate ages of mankind.

[29] Almsmen zealous throng.] The proximity of the beggar to the bard might in a modern writer convey a satirical innuendo, of which Hesiod cannot be suspected. The bard, as is evident from Homer’s Odyssey, enjoyed a sort of conventional hospitality, bestowed with reverence and affection. It should seem, however, from this passage that the asker of alms was not regarded in the light of a common mendicant with us. It was a popular superstition that the gods often assumed similar characters for the purpose of trying the benevolence of men. A noble incentive to charity, which indicates the hospitable character of a semi-barbarous age.

[30] The patrimonial land.] The manner of inheritance in ancient Greece was that of gavelkind: the sons dividing the patrimony in equal portions. When there were children by a concubine, they also received a certain proportion. This is illustrated by a passage in the 14th book of the Odyssey:

[31] The good which asphodel and mallows yield.] A similar sentiment occurs in the Proverbs: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” Ch. 15. v. 17.

Plutarch in the “Banquet of the Seven Sages,” observes, that “the herb mallows is good for food, as is the sweet stalk of the asphodel or daffodil.” These plants were often used by metonymy for a frugal table. Homer (Odyssey 24.) places the shades of the blessed in meadows of asphodel, because they were supposed to be restored to the state of primitive innocence, when men were contented with the simple and spontaneous aliment of the ground. Perhaps the Greeks had this allusion in their custom of planting the asphodel in the cemeteries, and also burying it with the bodies of the dead. It appears from Pliny, b. xxii. c. 22. that Hesiod had treated of the asphodel in some other work: as he is said to have spoken of it as a native of the woods.

[32] The food of man in deep concealment lies.] The meaning of this passage resembles that of the passage in Virgil’s first Georgic:

[33] Have laid the rudder by.] It seems the vice of commentators to refine with needless subtleties on plain passages. Le Clerc explains this to mean that “in one day’s fishing you might have caught such an abundance of fish, as to allow of the rudder being laid by for a long interval.” The common sense of the passage, however, is that, were the former state of existence renewed, the rudder, which it was customary after a voyage to hang up in the smoke, might remain there for ever. You needed not have crossed the sea for merchandise. The custom of suspending the helms of ships in chimneys, to preserve them from decay, is adverted to again among the nautical precepts.

Virgil recommends the same process with respect to the timber hewn for the plough: Georg. 1.

[34] Mock’d by wise Prometheus.] The original deception which provoked the wrath of Jupiter was the sacrifice of bones mentioned in the Theogony.

It would appear extraordinary that the crime of Prometheus, who was a god, should be visited on man. This injustice betrays the real character of Prometheus; that he was a deified mortal. If Prometheus, the maker of man according to Ovid, and his divine benefactor according to Hesiod, be in reality Noah, as many circumstances concur to prove, the concealment of fire by Jupiter might be a type of the darkness and dreariness of nature during the interval of the deluge; and the recovery of the flame might signify the renovation of light and fertility and the restitution of the arts of life.

[35] An ill which all shall love.] In the scholia of Olympiodorus on Plato, Pandora is allegorized into the irrational soul or sensuality: as opposed to intellect. By Heinsius she is supposed to be Fortune. But there never was less occasion for straining after philosophical mysteries. Hesiod asserts in plain terms, that Pandora is the mother of woman; he tells us she brought with her a casket of diseases; and that through her the state of man became a state of labour, and his longevity was abridged. It is an ancient Asiatic legend; and Pandora is plainly the Eve of Mosaic history. How this primitive tradition came to be connected with that of the deluge is easily explained. “Time with the ancients,” observes Mr. Bryant, “commenced at the deluge; all their traditions and genealogies terminated here. The birth of mankind went with them no higher than this epocha.” We see here a confusion of events, of periods, and of characters. The fall of man to a condition of labour, disease, and death is made subsequent to the flood; because the great father of the post-diluvian world was regarded as the original father of mankind.

[36] The zone, the dress.] This office is probably assigned to Pallas, as the inventress and patroness of weaving and embroidery, and works in wool.

[37] With chains of gold.] Ορμους, rendered by the interpreter monilia, are not merely necklaces, but chains for any part of the person: as the arms and ankles. Ornaments of gold, and particularly chains, belong to the costume of very high antiquity.

“Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul: who clothed you in scarlet with other delights: who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. Samuel b. ii. ch. 1. v. 24.

“And she took sandals upon her feet, and put about her her bracelets, and her chains, and her rings, and her ear-rings, and all her ornaments, and decked herself bravely, to allure the eyes of all men that should see her.” Judith ch. x. v. 4.

[38] The beauteous-tressed Hours.] The Hours, according to Homer, made the toilette of Venus:

[39] His herald from above.] The first edition had “winged herald;” but the wings of Mercury are the additions of later mythologists. Homer, in the Odyssey, speaks only of

there is no mention of the sandals being winged. They seem to have possessed a supernatural power of velocity, like the seven-leagued boots, or the shoes of swiftness, in the Tales of the Giants.

[40] Th’ unbroken vase.] αρρηκτοισι δομοισι. Seleucus, an ancient critic, quoted by Proclus, proposed πιυοισι: as if the casket in which Hope dwelt, might not literally be called her house. Heinsius supposes an allusion to the chamber of a virgin. After this, who would expect that δομοισι means nothing more than a chest?

[41] On casual wing they glide.] Perhaps Milton had Hesiod in his eye, in the speech of Satan to Sin: Par. Lost, b. ii. line 840.

[42] Wealthy in flocks.] Grævius has misled all the editors by arguing that μῆλα are, in this place, fruits of any trees; as arbutes, figs, nuts; and not flocks: but his arguments respecting the food of primitive mankind are drawn from the conceptions of modern poets; such as Lucretius and Ovid. The traditionary age described by Hesiod was a shepherd age. Flocks are the most ancient symbol of prosperity, and are often synonymous with riches and dominion.

[43] High Jove as dæmons raised them from the ground.] In the account of this age we have a just history of the rise of idolatry; when deified men had first divine honours paid to them; and we may be assured of the family in which it began; as what was termed Crusean, the golden race, should have been expressed Cusean; for it relates to the age of Chus, and the denomination of his sons. This substitution was the cause of the other divisions being introduced; that each age might be distinguished in succession by one of baser metal. Had there been no mistake about a golden age, we should never have been treated with one of silver; much less with the subsequent of brass and iron. The original history relates to the patriarchic age, when the time of man’s life was not yet abridged to its present standard, and when the love of rule and acts of violence first displayed themselves on the earth. The Amonians, wherever they settled, carried these traditions along with them, which were thus added to the history of the country; so that the scene of action was changed. A colony who styled themselves Saturnians came to Italy, and greatly benefited the natives. But the ancients, who generally speak collectively in the singular, and instead of Herculeans introduce Hercules; instead of Cadmians, Cadmus; suppose a single person, Saturn, to have betaken himself to this country. Virgil mentions the story in this light, and speaks of Saturn’s settling there; and of the rude state of the nation upon his arrival; where he introduced an age of gold. Æn. viii. 314. The account is confused; yet we may discern in it a true history of the first ages, as may be observed likewise in Hesiod. Both the poets, however the scene may be varied, allude to the happy times immediately after the deluge; when the great patriarch had full power over his descendants, and equity prevailed without written law. Bryant.

[44] Their kingly state.] The administration of forensic justice is implied in the words γερας βασιληιον, regal office.

[45] The wealth of fields.] Heinsius quotes Hesychius to show that πλοῦτος does not always mean riches, properly so called; but the riches of the soil: and says that it is here applied to the good dæmons as presiding over the productions of the seasons. Bacchus, in the Lenæan rites, was invoked by the epithet πλουτοδοτης, wealth-bestower; in allusion to the vineyard. It seems intimated here, that the Spirits reward the deeds of the just by abundant harvests; the common belief of the Greeks, as appears both from Hesiod and Homer.

[46] A hundred years.] Heinsius explains this passage to mean, that “although this age was indeed deteriorated from the former, this much of good remained; that the boys were not early exposed to the contagion of vice, but long participated the chaste and retired education of their sisters in the seclusion of the female apartments.” Grævius, on the contrary, insists that Hesiod notes it as a mark of depravation, that the youth were educated in sloth and effeminacy, and grew up, as it were, on the lap of their mothers. These two opinions are about equally to the purpose. [“The poet manifestly alludes to the longevity of persons in the patriarchic age: for they did not, it seems, die at three-score and ten, but took more time even in advancing towards puberty. He speaks, however, of their being cut off in their prime; and whatever portion of life nature might have allotted to them, they were abridged of it by their own folly and injustice.”] Bryant.

[47] To Troy’s far shore.] Dr. Clarke in his travels in Greece, Egypt, and the Holy-land, has noticed that the existence of Troy, and the facts relative to the Trojan war, are supported by a variety of evidence independent of Homer: as has been abundantly shown in the course of the controversy between Mr. Bryant and his able antagonist, Mr. Morritt. This passage of Hesiod seems to me decisive testimony. If Hesiod be older than Homer, as is computed by the chronicler of the Parian Marbles, it is self-evident that the Trojan war is not of Homeric invention: and if they were contemporary, or even if Hesiod, according to the vulgar chronology, were really junior by a century, it is not at all probable that he should have copied the fiction of another bard, while tracing the primitive history of mankind. He manifestly used the ancient traditions of his nation, of which the war of Troy was one.

[48] In those blest isles.] Pindar also alludes to these in his second Olympic Ode:

As the life of these beatified heroes was a renewal of that in the golden age, it is figured by the reign of Saturn or Cronus: the father of post-diluvian time. The era in which, after the waste of the deluge, the vine was planted and corn again sown, was represented by tradition as a time of wonderful abundance and fruitfulness. Hence apparently the fable of the Elysian fields: which some have supposed to originate from the reports of voyagers, who had visited distant fertile regions. Saturn is usually placed in Tartarus: but Tartarus meant the west: from the association of darkness with sunset: and the Blessed Islands were the Fortunate Isles on the Western Coast of Afric.

“These heroes, whose equity is so much spoken of, upon a nearer inquiry are found to be continually engaged in wars and murders; and like the specimens exhibited of the former ages, are finally cut off by each other’s hands in acts of robbery and violence: some for stealing sheep, others for carrying away the wives of their friends and neighbours. Such was the end of these laudable banditti: of whom Jupiter, we are told, had so high an opinion, that after they had plundered and butchered one another, he sent them to the island of the Blest to partake of perpetual felicity.” Bryant.

[49] This iron age of earth.] Les écrivains de tous les tems ont regardé leur siècle comme le pire de tous: il n’y a que Voltaire qui ait dit du sien,

Encore était-ce dans un accès de gaieté: car ailleurs il appelle le dixhuitième siècle, l’égout des siècles. C’est un de ces sujets sur lesquels on dit ce qu’on veut: selon qu’il plait d’envisager tel ou tel côté des objêts. La Harpe, Lycée, tome premier.

[50]

Dr. Martyn, in a note on Virgil’s 4th Eclogue, has fallen into the error of the old interpreters; when he quotes Hesiod as describing the iron age “which was to end when the men of that time grew old and gray.” Postquam facti circa tempora cani fuerint: but the proper interpretation is, quum vix nati canescant: as Grævius has corrected it. The same critic is unquestionably right in his opinion, that the future tenses of this passage in the original are to be understood as indefinite present: μεμψονται, incusabunt: i. e. incusare solent: use to revile.

Mark, iii. 27. και τοτε την οικιᾶν αυτου διαρπασει: “and then he will spoil his house:” that is, he is accustomed to spoil. The imperfect time has also frequently the same acceptation: as in the same evangelist: ch. xiv. 12. το πασχα εθυον, they killed the passover: they are used to kill it.

[51] Now man’s right hand is law.] Imitated by Milton in the vision of Adam:

[52] Leave the broad earth.] Virgil alludes to this passage, Georg. ii. 473.

As also Juvenal: Sat. vi. line 19.

[53] Now unto kings.] Βασιλευς, which we render king, was properly, in the early times of Greece, a magistrate. The kings against whom Hesiod inveighs, are therefore simply a kind of nobles, who exercised the judicial office in Bœotia; like the twelve of Phœacia mentioned in the Odyssey. See Mitford’s History of Greece, vol. i. ch. 3.

[54] A neck-streak’d nightingale.] Ποικιλοδειρον, with variegated throat. This has not been thought appropriate to the nightingale. Tzetzes and Moschopolus interpreted the term by ποικιλοφωνον, with varied voice; a very forced construction; yet it is adopted by Loesner, who renders it by canoram. Ruhnken proposes the emendation of ποικιλογηρυν, which is synonymous. Others have doubted whether αηδων, which is literally singer, might not apply to some other bird, as the thrush, which is defined by Linnæus, “back brown, neck spotted with white.” But the name singer might have been applied to the nightingale by way of eminence. In fact I see no difficulty. Linnæus, indeed, describes the nightingale, “bill brown, head and back pale mouse-colour, with olive spots,” and says nothing of the throat. Simonides, however, speaks of χλοραυχενες αειδονες, green-necked nightingales, which might justify Hesiod’s epithet. Bewick in the “British Birds” thus describes the luscinia: “the whole upper part of the body of a rusty brown tinged with olive; under parts pale ash-colour; almost white at the throat.” A more ancient ornithologist has a description still more nearly approximating to the term of Hesiod; and it seems evident that there is more than one species of nightingale.

“Luscinia, philomela, αηδων.

“The nightingale is about the bigness of a goldfinch. The colour on the upper part, i. e. the head and back, is a pale fulvous (lion, or deep gold colour) with a certain mixture of green, like that of a red-wing. Its tail is of a deeper fulvous or red, like a red-start’s. From its red colour it took the name of rossignuolo, in Italian: (rossignol, French). The belly is white. The parts under the wings, breast, and throat, are of a darker colour, with a tincture of green.” Willoughby’s Ornithology, fol. 1678.

[55] The fool by suffering his experience buys.] Παυων δε τε νηπιος εγνω. This seems to have been a national proverb. Homer has a similar apophthegm: Il. 17. 33.

Plato uses the same proverbial sentiment:

Beware lest, after the proverb, you get knowledge like the fool, by suffering.

[56] Walks in awful grief the city-ways.] Something similar is the prosopopœia of Wisdom in the Proverbs of Solomon, ch. viii. She standeth on the top of high places, by the way, and the places of the paths.

She crieth at the gates: at the entry of the city: at the coming in of the doors.

[57] O’er their stain’d manners.] Grævius observes that the interpreters render ηθεα λαῶν, “most foolishly” by the manners of the people: because ηθεα signifies also habitations. But as it is not pretended that ηθεα does not equally signify manners, “the extreme folly” of the interpreters has, I confess, escaped my penetration. Is it so very forced an image that Justice should weep over the manners of a depraved people?

[58] They and their cities flourish.] This passage resembles one in the nineteenth book of the Odyssey: but not so closely as to justify the charge of plagiarism which Dr. Clarke prefers against Hesiod, and which might be retorted upon Homer. These were sentiments common to the popular religion.

[59] Reflects the father’s face.] Montesquieu remarks: “The people mentioned by Pomponius Mela (the Garamantes) had no other way of discovering the father but by resemblance. Pater est quem nuptiæ demonstrant.” But this uncertain criterion was considered as infallible generally by the ancients.

[60]

Milton is thought to have copied Hesiod in this passage:

But the coincidence seems merely incidental, as the parallel wants completeness. There is nothing of angelic guardianship or judicial inspection in the spirits of Milton: he says only,

[61]

The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. Proverbs, xv. 3.

[62] So rue the nations when their kings offend.] Theobald, in a note on Cooke’s translation, proposes to change δημος, the people, into τημος, then: and renders αποτιση in the sense of punish, instead of rue: thus the meaning would be, “that he might then, at that instant, punish the sins of the judges.” Never was an interference with the text so little called for. The meaning which Theobald is so scrupulous to admit is exactly conformable with that of a preceding passage:

It is idle to inquire where is the justice of this kind of retribution? since it is evident from all the history of mankind that such is the course of nature.

By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted: but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. Proverbs, xi. 11.

The king by judgment establisheth the land; but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it. Ch. xxix. 4.

In Simpson’s notes on Beaumont and Fletcher, this passage is compared with the following in Philaster:

and it is proposed to understand it in the sense of Fletcher, “that the people might be raised up to punish the crimes of their prince.” There is taste and spirit in this interpretation, which cannot be said for the amendment of Theobald: but the common acceptation seems to me the right one, for the reasons already stated.

[63] Pours down the treasures of felicity.] In the house of the righteous is much treasure: but in the revenues of the wicked there is trouble. Proverbs, xv. 6.

The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish: but he casteth away the substance of the wicked. Ch. x. 3.

The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot. Ch. x. 7.

A false witness shall not be unpunished: and he that speaketh lies shall perish. Ch. xix. 9.

The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth. Ch. x. 30.

The inheritance of sinners’ children shall perish: and their posterity shall have a perpetual reproach. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, xli. 6.

Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men. Psalms, xxi. 10.

[64] Smooth is the track of vice.] The way of sinners is made plain with stones: but at the end thereof is the pit of hell. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, xxi. 10.

Both Plato and Xenophon who quote this line of Hesiod, read λειη, smooth, instead of ολιγη, short. Krebsius prefers the reading, as a short road and dwells near make a vapid tautology: and smooth forms a good antithesis to rough.

[65] The sweat that bathes the brow.] Spenser has imitated this parable in his description of Honour:

This allegory of Hesiod seems the basis of the apologue of Hercules, Virtue and Vice, which Xenophon in his “Memorabilia,” 2, 21, quotes by memory from Prodicus’s “History of Hercules.”

[66] To the wiser friend.] The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth to counsel is wise. Proverbs, xii. 15.

A scorner loveth not one that reproveth him: neither will he go unto the wise. Ch. xv. 12.

[67] Oh son of Dios.] Διον γενος: Tzetzes had written in the margin Διου γενος, and this is in all probability the true reading; not that there is any thing extraordinary in the application of the term divine, as the Greeks used it in a wide latitude, and on frequent occasions. Homer applies it to the swineherd of Ulysses. It was a term of courtesy or respect; and Hesiod may have intended to compliment, not Perses, but their father. We have, however, the testimony of Ephorus, as recorded by Plutarch, that Dius was the father of Hesiod; and a copyist might easily have mistaken a υ for a ν. The author of the “Contest of Homer and Hesiod” seems to have read Διου γενος, as he makes Homer address his competitor,

The reading is recommended by the Abbé Sevin in the “Histoire de l’Académie des Inscriptions,” and by Villoison; and is adopted by Brunck in his “Gnomici Poetæ Græci.” The herma of Hesiod exhibited by Bellorio in his “Veterûm Poetarûm Imagines” has the inscription, Ησιοδου Διου Ασκραιος, Ascræan Hesiod the son of Dios.

[68] Still on the sluggard hungry want attends.] He that gathereth in summer is a wise son; but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame. Proverbs, x. 5.

He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough. Ch. xxviii. 19.

Hate not laborious work; neither husbandry: which the Most High has ordained. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, vii. 15.

He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. Proverbs, x. 4.

The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour: he coveteth greedily all the day long: but the righteous giveth and spareth not. Ch. xxi. 25.

[69] Shame, which our aid or injury we find.] The verse

occurs in the Iliad, 24; and in the Odyssey, 17, we meet with

but Le Clerc should have known better than to follow Plutarch in the supposition of the lines being inserted from Homer by some other hand. It is one of the proverbial and traditionary sayings which frequently occur in their writings, and which belong rather to the language than to the poet.

The admirable Jewish scribe, in that ancient book of the Apocrypha entitled Ecclesiasticus, uses the same proverb:

Observe the opportunity and beware of evil; and be not ashamed when it concerneth thy soul.

For there is a shame that bringeth sin; and there is a shame which is glory and grace. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, iv. 20, 21.

[70] But shun extorted riches.] He that hasteth to be rich, hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him. Proverbs, xxviii. 22.

He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. Ch. xxviii. 8.

[71] Who spurns the suppliant.] The ninth book of the Odyssey exhibits a beautiful passage illustrative of the high reverence in which the Grecians held the duties of hospitality.

[72] If aught thou borrowest.] Lend to thy neighbour in time of his need, and pay thou thy neighbour again in due season.

Keep thy word and deal faithfully with him, and thou shalt always find the thing that is necessary for thee. Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach.

[73] Who loves thee, love.] Far different is the spirit of the Gospel. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” Matthew, v. 43.

If ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest; for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Luke, vi. 32.

[74] Spare the middle wine.] Hesiod says that we should use the middle of the cask more sparingly, that we might enjoy the best wine the longer. It was the ancient opinion that wine was best in the middle, oil at the top, and honey at the bottom. Grævius.

This opinion of Hesiod is discussed by Plutarch in his Symposiacs, iii. 7, and by Macrobius in his Saturnalia, vii. 12.

[75] As in laughter.] Και τε κασιγνητω γελασας επι μαρτυρα θεσθαι. The interpreters say,

But I should place the comma after fratre, and join ludens with testem adhibeto. “Even in a compact with your brother, have a witness: you may do it laughingly, or as if in jest.”

[76] With garment gather’d in a knot behind.] πυγοστολος, adorning the hinder parts, seems to refer to some meretricious distinction of dress. Solon compelled women of loose character to appear in public in flowered robes. Solomon in that beautiful chapter of the Proverbs has a similar allusion. “There met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart.” Ch. vii. 10.

[77] Prattling with gay speech.] With her much fair speech she caused him to yield: with the flattering of her lips she forced him. Proverbs, vii. 21.

[78]

In the words of Hesiod there is made mention of one rising of the Pleiads, which is heliacal, and of a double setting: the time of the rising may be referred to the 11th of May. The first setting, which indicated ploughing-time, was cosmical; when, as the sun rises, the Pleiads sink below the opposite horizon, which, in the time of Hesiod, happened about the beginning of November. The second setting is somewhat obscurely designated in the line

and is the heliacal setting, which happened the third of April, and after which the Pleiads were immerged in the sun’s splendour forty days. Hesiod, however, speaks as if he confounded the two settings, for no one would suppose but that the first-mentioned setting was that after which the Pleiads are said to be hidden previous to the harvest. But his words are to be explained with more indulgence, since he could not be ignorant of the time that intervened between the season of ploughing and that of harvest. Le Clerc.

[79] ’Tis time to sow.] In the original, begin ploughing; by which is meant the last ploughing, when they turned up the soil to receive the seed. Thus Virgil, Georg. 1:

Heyne observes, “they sink below the region of the West, at the same time that the sun emerges from the East;” the cosmical setting described by Hesiod. The receding of the bright star of the crown of Ariadne, which Virgil mentions, is its receding from the sun; that is, its heliacal rising.

The heliacal rising is a star’s emersion out of the sun’s rays; that is, a star rises heliacally when, having been in conjunction with the sun, the sun passes it and recedes from it. The star then emerges out of the sun’s rays so far that it becomes again visible, after having been for some time lost in the superiority of day-light. The time of day in which the star rises heliacally is at the dawn of day; it is then seen for a few minutes near the horizon, just out of the reach of the morning light; and it rises in a double sense from the horizon and from the sun’s rays. Afterwards, as the sun’s distance increases, it is seen more and more every morning.

The heliacal rising and setting is then, properly, an apparition and occultation. With respect to the Pleiads, it appears that different authors vary in fixing the duration of their occultation from about thirty-one days to above forty.

In a note by Holdsworth on Warton’s Georgics, it is observed that the heliacal setting of these stars is pointed out by the word abscondantur. But this is a contradiction; for Eoæ absconduntur is the same as occidunt matutinæ, set in the morning; but the time of day in which a star sets heliacally is in the evening, just after sun-set, when it is seen only for a few minutes in the west near the horizon, on the edge of the sun’s splendour, into which in a few days more it sinks.

[80] Plough naked still.] Virgil copies this direction, Georg. i:

Servius explains the meaning to be, that he should plough and sow “in fair weather, when it was so hot as to make clothing superfluous.” This seems to be very idle advice, and fixes on Virgil the imputation of a truism. An equally superfluous counsel is ascribed by Robinson and Grævius to Hesiod. We are correctly told that both γυμνος and nudus applied to men who had laid aside their upper garment, whether the pallia or toga, the Grecian cloak or the Roman gown; and thus is explained the passage in Matthew, xxiv. 18: “Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes:” but as no husbandman, whether Greek or Italian, unless insane, would dream of following the plough in a trailing cloak, Hesiod may safely be acquitted of so unnecessary a piece of advice. In the hot climates of Greece and Italy, it was probably the custom for active husbandmen to bare the upper part of their bodies. Virgil does not say “Plough in fine weather and not in winter;” but “Plough with your best diligence, for winter will soon be here:” equivalent to Hesiod’s “Summer will not last for ever.”

[81] The idler never shall his garners fill.] He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough. Proverbs, xxviii. 19.

[82] Trees bud no more.] The sap of the trees, which causes them to germinate, is then at rest. Trees when moist with sap are subject to worms, and the timber in consequence would be liable to putrefaction. Vitruvius also recommends that timber be felled in the autumn.

[83] A mortar of three feet.] The purposes to which ancient marbles are applied by the Turks may serve to explain the use of the mortar, which Hesiod mentions as part of the apparatus of the husbandman. “Capitals, when of large dimensions, are turned upside down, and being hollowed out are placed in the middle of the street, and used publicly for bruising wheat and rice, as in a mortar.” Dallaway’s Constantinople.

[84] Of bending figure.] So also Virgil, Georg. i. 169:

Dr. Martyn, in his comparison of Virgil’s plough with that of Hesiod, has fallen into the mistake of the old interpreters who render γοην dentale, the share-beam: whereas γυην is burim, the plough-tail, to which the share-beam joins.

[85] Thy artist join the whole.] In the original “the servant of Minerva,” that is, the carpenter. Minerva presided over all crafts, and was the patroness of works in iron and wood.

[86]

The loaf here mentioned is similar to the quadra of the Romans: so denominated from its being marked four-square by incisions at equal distances. See Athenæus, iii. 29.

By “a quadruple loaf containing eight portions,” Hesiod, perhaps, means a loaf double the usual size; similar, probably, to that mentioned by Theocritus, Idyl. xxiv. 135:

[87] The shrill crane’s migratory cry.] The cranes generally leave Europe for a more southern climate about the latter end of autumn; and return in the beginning of summer. Their cry is the loudest among birds; and although they soar to such a height as to be invisible, it is distinctly heard. It is often a prognostic of rain: as from the immense altitude of their ascent they are peculiarly susceptible of the motions and changes of the atmosphere: but Tzetzes is mistaken in supposing that the migratory cry of the crane denotes only its sensibility of cold. These migrations are performed in the night-time, and in numerous bodies; and the clangous scream, alluded to by Hesiod, is of use to govern their course. By this cry they are kept together; are directed to descend upon the corn-fields, the favourite scene of their depredations, and to betake themselves again to flight in case of alarm. Though they soar above the reach of sight they can, themselves, clearly distinguish every thing upon the earth beneath them. See “Goldsmith’s Animated Nature.” Virgil notices the crane’s instinct as to rain, Georg. i. 375:

[88] Of ploughing-time the sign.] Of the first ploughing Hesiod says, ειαρι πολειν: turn the soil in spring; of the second, θερεος νεωμενη, ploughed again in summer; the summer tilth: of the third αροτον: by which he invariably means the seed-ploughing, when they both ploughed up and sowed the ground. Salmasius in Solinum, 509.

Robinson quotes a passage of Aristophanes: Birds, 711:

The ploughing first mentioned by Hesiod is, then, actually the last. It appears that he recommends ground to be twi-fallowed: or prepared twice by ploughing before the seed-ploughing. Virgil directs it to be tri-fallowed, Georg. i. 47:

Fallowing, or ploughing the soil while at rest from yielding a crop, prepares it for the growth of seed by pulverizing it, exposing it to the influences of the atmosphere, and destroying the weeds: and is of essential use in recovering land that had been impoverished and exhausted by a succession of the same crops. The practice of fallows seems, however, to be now in a great degree superseded by that of an interchange of other crops in rotation; and the succession of green or leguminous plants alternately with the white crops or grain: the frequent hoeings, in this mode of tillage, cleaning the soil no less effectually than fallowings.

[89] Rich in his own conceit.] The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can render a reason. Proverbs, xxvi. 16.

[90] These let thy timely care provide before.] See Virgil, Georg. i. 167:

[91] Jove subterrene.] Guietus supposes that the husband of Proserpine is invoked from the consanguinity between Pluto, Proserpine, and Ceres. But this is not the only reason. Grævius properly remarks, that the earth, and all under the earth, were subject to Pluto, as the air was to Jupiter: Pluto, therefore, was supposed the giver of those treasures which the earth produces: whether of metals or grain. He was in fact the same with Plutus: and both names are formed from the Greek word πλουτος, wealth.

[92] And scare the birds away.] So Virgil, Georg. i. 156:

[93] Nor thou on others’ heaps a gazer be.] Virgil, Georg. i. 158:

[94] And few shall pass thee then with honouring eye.] The Psalmist alludes to a blessing given by the passers-by at harvest: while comparing the wicked to grass withering on the house-top: “Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom: neither do they which go by say, “The blessing of the Lord be upon you.” Psalm cxxix. 7, 8.

[95] The brazier’s forge.] Θακος was properly a seat or bench: and λεσχη, conversation, chit-chat—but they came to be applied to the places where loungers sat and talked: hence the former meant a shop, and the latter a portico, piazza, or public exchange, whither idlers of all kinds resorted. It should seem from Homer that beggars took up their night’s lodging in such places: Odyssey xvii. Melantho, taking Ulysses for a mendicant, says to him,

[96] To gripe thy tumid foot.] Aristotle remarks that, in famished persons, the upper parts of the body are dried up, and the lower extremities become tumid. Scaliger.

[97] Make now your nests.] Grævius finds out that καλιαι may mean huts and barns, as well as nests: and in the true spirit of a verbal commentator, explodes the old interpretation of “facite nidos” and substitutes “exstruite casas:” in which he is followed, like the leader of the flock, by all the modern editors. These viri doctissimi are for ever stumbling on school-boy absurdities in their labour to be critical and sagacious: “they strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” Are the labourers to set about building huts and barns in the middle of harvest? Who does not see that “make nests,” as old Chapman properly renders it, is a mere proverbial figure? “Make hay while the sun shines.”

[98] Those frosts.] Hesiod is said, in this description, to have imitated Orpheus: as if two poets could not describe the appearances and effects of winter, without copying from each other.

[99] Yet from bland Venus’ mystic rites aloof.] Hesiod introduces the privacy and retiredness of a virgin’s apartment in the house of her mother, as conveying the idea of more complete shelter.

[100] With shining ointment.] Ointment always accompanied the bath. Thus Homer describes the bathing of Nausicaa and her maids in the sixth book of the Odyssey:

And afterwards of Ulysses:

[101] Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet.] Athenæus, book vii. explodes the notion of the polypus gnawing its own feet, and states that its feet are so injured by the congers or sea-eels. Pliny accounts for the mutilation in rather a marvellous manner. “They are ravenously fond of oysters: these, at the touch, close their shell, and cutting off the claws of the polypus take their food from their plunderer. The polypi, therefore, lie in wait for them when they are open; and placing a little stone, so as not to touch the body of the oyster, and so as not to be ejected by the muscular motion of the shell, assail them in security and extract the flesh. The oyster contracts itself, but to no purpose, having been thus wedged open.” Lib. ix. c. 30.

The same story has been told, with greater probability, of the monkey. “The name of polypi has been peculiarly ascribed to these animals by the ancients, because of the number of feelers or feet of which they are all possessed, and with which they have a slow progressive motion: but the moderns have given the name of polypus to a reptile that lives in fresh water, by no means so large or observable. These are found at the bottom of wet ditches, or attached to the under-surface of the broad-leaved plants that grow and swim on the waters. The same difference holds between these and the sea-water polypi, as between all the productions of the land and the ocean. The marine vegetables and animals grow to a monstrous size. The eel, the pike, or the bream of fresh waters is but small: in the sea they grow to an enormous magnitude. It is so between the polypi of both elements. Those of the sea are found from two feet in length to three or four: and Pliny has even described one, the arms of which were no less than thirty feet long. The polypus contracts itself more or less in proportion as it is touched, or as the water is agitated in which they are seen. Warmth animates them, and cold benumbs them: but it requires a degree of cold approaching congelation, before they are reduced to perfect inactivity. The arms, when the animal is not disturbed, and the season is not unfavourable, are thrown about in various directions in order to seize and entangle its prey. Sometimes three or four of the arms are thus employed; while the rest are contracted, like the horns of a snail, within the animal’s body. It seems capable of giving what length it pleases to these arms: it contracts and extends them at pleasure; and stretches them only in proportion to the remoteness of the object it would seize. Some of these animals so strongly resemble a flowering vegetable in their forms, that they have been mistaken for such by many naturalists. Mr. Hughes, the author of the Natural History of Barbadoes, has described a species of this animal, but has mistaken its nature, and called it a sensitive flowering plant. He observed it to take refuge in the holes of rocks, and, when undisturbed, to spread forth a number of ramifications, each terminated by a flowery petal, which shrunk at the approach of the hand, and withdrew into the hole from which it had before been seen to issue. This plant, however, was no other than an animal of the polypus kind: which is not only to be found in Barbadoes, but also on many parts of the coast of Cornwall, and along the shores of the Continent.” Goldsmith, Animated Nature, vol. vi.

The Polypus is mentioned by Homer, Odys. v.:

[102] Like aged men.] In the original, τριποδι βροτᾶ, a three-footed mortal: that is, a man with a crutch: a metaphor suggested, probably, by the ænigma of the Sphinx.

“What is that, which is two-footed, three-footed, and four-footed, yet one and the same? Œdipus declared that the thing propounded to him was man: for that a man, while an infant, went on four: when grown up, on two; and when old, on three: as using a staff through feebleness.” Diodorus, Bibl. 4.

[103] On a scant warp.] The nap is formed by the threads of the woof: Hesiod therefore directs the woof to be thick and strong, that the nap may the better exclude wet.

[104] A strong-dying ox.] This expression is borrowed from Chapman. Thus we find in Homer, “a thong from a slaughtered ox.” This is illustrated by Plutarch in his Symposiacs, 2. by the fact that the skins of slaughtered beasts are tougher, less flaccid, and less liable to be broken than those of animals which have died of age or distemper. The ancients, says Grævius, made their shoes of the raw hide.

Πιλοι, in Latin udones, were woollen socks; worn, when abroad, inside the shoes; or as substitutes for shoes, in the manner of slippers, when within doors and in the bed-chamber. Le Clerc.

[105] And kid-skins ’gainst the rigid season sew.] This was a sort of rough cloak of skins common to the country people of Greece.

Grævius quotes Varro as authority for a similar covering being worn among the Romans: by soldiers in camp, by mariners, and poor people.

[106] A well-wrought-cap.] In very ancient times the cap answered no other purpose for the head than the sock, which was worn inside the shoe, did for the foot. The helmets were lined with it. Of this kind was that of the helmet which Ulysses, Odys. x. received from Merion:

Eustathius tells us, that in after-times they gave the same term, πιλος, to any covering for the head, and thus they ascribed to Ulysses a cap such as they then used. Thus as the club is the badge of Hercules, so is the cap of Ulysses: as appears from coins and other antiques. The ancient Greeks did not use any covering for the head: and it was from them that the Romans borrowed the custom of going bare-headed. They used caps only on journeys; in excessive heat or cold; or in rainy weather. These caps the Latins called petasos: they were a kind of broad-brimmed hat, like that which is observed in the figures of Mercury. Otherwise, when in the city, they merely wrapped their heads in the lappet of the gown. Grævius.

[107] The wintry tropic.] The winter solstice, according to the table of Petavius, happened in Hesiod’s time on the 30th of December. The acronychal rising of Arcturus took place in the 14th degree of Pisces, which corresponds in the calendar with the 5th of March. Le Clerc.

The acronychal rising of a star is when it rises at the beginning of night: the acronychal setting is when it sets at the end of night. But there are two acronychal risings and settings: the one when the star rises exactly as the sun sets, and sets exactly as the sun rises. This is the true acronychal rising and setting, but it is invisible by reason of the day-light. The other is the visible or apparent acronychal rising and setting; which is, when the star is actually seen in the horizon.

[108] The green artichoke.] Σκολυμος is not the thistle, as has been commonly supposed. Pliny says of it, lib. xxii. c. 22, “The scolymos is also received for food in the East. The stalk is never more than a cubit in height, with scaly leaves, and a black root of a sweet taste.” It is, therefore, the artichoke.

[109] The loud cicada.] The interpreters translate ηχετα canora, and λιγυρην dulcem; and hence an idea is prevalent that Hesiod speaks of the cicada as having a sweet note; but of these epithets the first is properly vocal or sonorous, and the second shrill or stridulous. Anacreon calls the insect “wise in music,” but he seems to think the note musical from its cheerful association with summer:

Virgil applies to it the characteristics of hoarse and querulous. Ecl. ii. Georgic. iii.

“Of this genus the most common European species is the cicada plebeia of Linnæus. This is the insect so often commemorated by the ancient poets; and generally confounded by the major part of translators with the grasshopper. It is a native of the warmer parts of Europe, and particularly of Italy and Greece: appearing in the latter months of summer, and continuing its shrill chirping during the greatest part of the day: generally sitting among the leaves of trees. Notwithstanding the romantic attestations in honour of the cicada, it is certain that modern ears are offended rather than pleased with its voice; which is so very strong and stridulous, that it fatigues by its incessant repetition; and a single cicada, hung up in a cage, has been found to drown the voice of a whole company. The male cicada alone exerts this powerful note, the female being entirely mute. That a sound so piercing should proceed from so small a body may well excite our astonishment; and the curious apparatus, by which it is produced, has justly claimed the attention of the most celebrated investigators. Reaumur and Roësel, in particular, have endeavoured to ascertain the nature of the mechanism by which the noise is produced; and have found that it proceeds from a pair of concave membranes, seated on each side of the first joints of the abdomen: the large concavities of the abdomen, immediately under the two broad lamellæ in the male insect, are also faced by a thin, pellucid, iridescent membrane, serving to increase and reverberate the sound; and a strong muscular apparatus is exerted for the purpose of moving the necessary organs.” Shaw, General Zoology, vol. vi.

The same naturalist specifies several large and elegant insects in this division of the genus cicada. One with the body of a polished black colour, marked with scarlet rings: another of a green hue, with transparent wings, veined also with green; and a third of a fine black varied beneath with yellow streaks, and the wings black towards the base.

[110] Then the plump goat.] This is imitated by Virgil, Georg. i. 341:

[111] But weak of man the heat-enfeebled reins.] Aristotle is of the same opinion. The curious reader may consult the Dictionnaire de Bayle, iv. 222. Note A.

[112] Byblian wine.] This was so called from a region of Thrace: it was a thin wine, and not intoxicating. See Athenæus, i. 31. It is mentioned by Theocritus, Idyl. xiv. 15:

[113] Orion’s beamy strength.] In the table of Petavius the bright star of the foot of Orion makes its heliacal rise in the 18th degree of Cancer: that is, on the 12th of July. Le Clerc.

[114] On gusty ground.] So Varro, de Re Rusticâ, lib. i. c. 51. “The threshing-floor should be in a field, on higher ground, where the wind might blow over it.” See also Columella, lib. xi. c. 20.

[115]

Θητα αοικον ποιεισθαι is rendered by Grævius comparare sibi servum domo carentem: and Schrevelius explains the passage to mean that “you should seek out a servant who, having no house of his own to look after, could direct his whole attention to your concerns.” So when the harvest is over, and the corn laid up in the granaries, he is to look out for a labourer! Was there ever a direction so unmeaning as this? I translate the words, (meo periculo) “servum operarium è domo dimitte.”

[116] Keep, too, a sharp-tooth’d dog.] Virgil has a more poetical passage on the same subject, Georg. iii. 404:

[117]

By this is understood the heliacal rising of Arcturus, which happened in the time of Hesiod about the 21st of September. Le Clerc.

[118]

This is the morning, or cosmical, setting of the Pleiads; which, according to Petavius, happened some time in November. Le Clerc.

[119] Then varying winds.] Virgil cautions the navigator against the appearances of the sun, Georg. i. 455:

[120] Black ocean.] Οινοπι ποντω, wine-coloured. This evidently means black: as the Greek poets apply the epithet black to wine. Hesiod has αιθοπα οινοι, black coloured wine. The sense of this latter epithet is deduced from the blackness caused by burning: as αιθω is to burn.

[121] In summer irksome.] This inconvenience arose from the site of the place: as the scholiasts Proclus and Tzetzes relate: for by the neighbourhood of so high a mountain as Helicon, the breezes, which might have alleviated the summer heat, were intercepted: and in winter, the rays of the sun were excluded from the village; which was also exposed to torrents from the melting of the snow. Robinson.

[122] Decline a slender bark.] Αινειν, commend. This passage is quoted by Plutarch in illustration of words used in a different sense from what they seem to import. Praise means refuse. The same idiom occurs in Virgil’s second Georgic:

[123] O’er the sea’s broad way.] From the following extracts it will not appear extraordinary that this prodigious voyage of Hesiod should have afforded him but little opportunity of acquiring a practical knowledge of navigation. On an inspection of the map we must, however, concede that the passage from Aulis direct to Chalcis is somewhat wider than the part of the strait crossed by a draw-bridge.

“Elle (Chalcis) est située dans un endroit où à la faveur de deux promontoires qui s’avançent de part et d’autre, les côtes de l’île touchent presque à celles de Bèotie.

“Ce leger intervalle, qu’on appelle Euripe, est en partie comblé par une digue. A chacune de ses extrémités est une tour pour le défendre, et un pont-lever pour laisser passer un vaisseau.” Barthelemy, Voyages d’Anacharsis, tom. ii. p. 82.

[124] Where first their tuneful inspiration flow’d.] That is, on mount Helicon. Both Le Clerc and Robinson unaccountably refer the term ενθα, where, to Chalcis: and regard this passage as contradictory to that in the proem to the Theogony: whereas the one confirms the other.

[125]

If no verses be wanting here, Hesiod truly needs not boast of his skill in nautical affairs. For what can be more absurd than to confine all navigation within fifty days, and those beginning from the summer-solstice; especially as the summer solstice fell on the 3d of July? I should suppose that there was a deficiency of two verses to this effect:

The similarity of the lines may have caused the copyist’s omission of the two former. I am aware that the art of navigation was in that age imperfect: but if sea-faring men had learnt from experience that navigation was safe fifty days after the summer solstice, they could have learnt from the same teacher that it was equally safe fifty days before it: namely, in the months of May and June. Le Clerc.

[126] Men, too, may sail in spring.] What the poet says here of a spring voyage, I understand of that which may be made in the month of April: which is not much less liable to gales and storms than even the winter months. Certainly it was in April that the fig-tree began to be in leaf. Le Clerc.

[127] And wed the fifth of her expanded bloom.] She begins to bloom in her twelfth year. Let her wed in the fifth year of her puberty; that is, in her sixteenth. Guietus.

Robinson, not considering the difference of climate, supposes that the fourteenth year is the first of her puberty, and that she is directed to wed in her nineteenth.

[128] Shall send a fire thy vigorous bones within.] A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. Proverbs, xii. 4.

[129] Nor lie with idle tongue.] Devise not a lie against thy brother, neither do the like to thy friend. Ecclesiasticus, vii. 12.

[130] Chastise his sin.] Far more liberal is the counsel of the son of Sirach:

Admonish a friend: it may be, he hath not done it; and if he have done it, that he may do it no more.

Admonish thy friend: it may be he hath not said it; and if he have, that he speak it not again.

Admonish a friend, for many times it is a slander; and believe not every tale.

There is one that slippeth in his speech, but not from his heart: and who is he, that hath not offended with his tongue? Ecclesiasticus, xix.

Cicero says elegantly, “Care is to be taken lest friendships convert themselves even into grievous enmities: whence arise bickerings, backbitings, contumelies: these are yet to be borne, if they be bearable: and this compliment should be paid to the ancient friendship, that the person in fault should be he that inflicts the injury, not he that suffers it.” De Amicitia, c. 21.

The author of the Pythagorean “golden verses” has a line which deserves indeed to be written in letters of gold:

This is probably one of the maxims of Hesiod which induced La Harpe to observe, “Cette morale n’est pas toujours la meilleure du monde.” Lycée, tom. i. Hésiode.

[131] Rebuke not want.] Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker. Proverbs, xvii. 5.

[132] Lo! the best treasure is a frugal tongue.] In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise. The tongue of the just is as choice silver. Proverbs, x. 19, 20.

[133] When many guests combine.] There were two sorts of entertainments among the ancient Grecians: the first was provided at the expense of one man, the second was at the common charge of all present: at the latter some of the guests occasionally contributed more than their exact proportion. These were generally most frequented, and are recommended by the wise men of those times as most apt to promote friendship and good neighbourhood. They were for the most part managed with more order and decency, because the guests who ate of their own collation were usually more sparing than when they were feasted at another man’s expense; as we are informed by Eustathius. So different was their behaviour at the public feasts from that at private entertainments, that Minerva, in Homer, having seen the intemperance and unseemly actions of Penelope’s courtiers, concludes their entertainment was not provided at the common charge.

Potter, Archæologia Græca.

[134] The feast of gods.] A sacrifice was followed by a general banquet, and the tables were spread in the temple itself. The gods were supposed invisibly to be present. Thus we are to explain their visit to the Æthiopians in Homer, Il. i:

[135] Ne’er to thy five-branch’d hand apply the blade.] This precept is somewhat obscurely expressed, like the symbols of Pythagoras: that things of no value might appear to involve a mysterious importance. Hesiod seems to intimate that we should not choose the precise time of the feast for washing the hands and paring the nails, but sit down to table with hands ready washed. No person, indeed, even at a private entertainment, would have thought of cutting his nails at table, if he did not wish the parings to fly into the dishes, which I conceive could not have been more agreeable to the Greeks than to ourselves. Le Clerc.

[136] Upon the goblet’s edge.] Robinson supposes a sentiment of hospitality; that the flaggon is not to stand still. Others suppose οινοχοη to be a bowl used only in libation, and which it was indecent to prostitute to common use. But for this there seems not the least authority.

“All the allegorical glosses invented by the latter Greeks to varnish over the doting superstitions of their ancestors are utterly destitute of verisimilitude. Even in our day traces of the old superstitions remain in many places. There are people, for instance, who think it a bad omen if the loaf be inverted, so that the flat part is uppermost; if the knives be laid across, or the salt spilt on the table. It would be just as easy to find a mystical sense in these, as in the idle fancies of Hesiod.” Le Clerc.

[137] Unhallow’d vessels.] There is here an allusion to the ancient custom of purifying new vessels and consecrating them to a happy use; or, as we say, blessing them. Guietus.

Le Clerc imagines a prohibition against seizing the flesh from the tripods before a sacrifice, which he illustrates by the offence of the sons of Eli, 1 Sam. ii. 13; but what has the bathing to do with this?

[138] On moveless stones.] By ακινητα, immoveable things, he appears to mean the ground or stones, which are cold and hard; or by sitting on immoveable things we may understand habits of sloth. Guietus.

Proclus interprets the word to mean sepulchres, which it was unlawful to move: but on the same grounds it may be interpreted land-marks. One should rather understand by it any sort of stones; Hesiod preferring that a boy should be placed on wooden slabs that might be moved about. But the being placed on a stone could not be more hurtful to him on the twelfth day or month than at any other period of his childhood. This was a mere superstition; and we may as well seek to interpret the dreams of a man who is light-headed. Le Clerc.

[139] The thirtieth of the moon.] That is, the last day of each month; for the most ancient Greeks, as well as the Orientals, employed lunar months of thirty days. Le Clerc.

The Greek month was divided into τρια δεκημερα, three decades of days. The first was called μηνος αρχομενου or ισταμενου; the second, μηνος μησουντος; and the third, μηνος φθινοντος, παυομενου, or ληγοντος: the beginning month, the middle month, the declining or ending month. The words were put in the genitive case because some day was placed before them. Thus the middle-first or first of the second decade was the eleventh of the whole month; and the first of the end, or of the last decade, was the twenty-first: the twenty-ninth was called εικας μεγαλη, the great twentieth. The French Republican calendar was formed on the Greek model.

[140] What time the people to the courts repair.] The forenoon was distinguished by the time of the court of judicature sitting, as in this passage of Hesiod; the afternoon by the time of its breaking up, as in the following of Homer:

[141] Beware the fifth.] Virgil copies this, as well as some other of these superstitions, Georg. i. 275:

[142] They lightly leap in dance.] This representation of the Muses is taken from the ancient custom of dancing round the altar during sacrifice.

[143] In springs that gush’d fresh from the courser’s hoof.] Hippos was an Ægyptian title of the sun. This ancient term became obsolete, and was misapplied by the Greeks, who uniformly applied it to horses. Hippocrene was a sacred fountain denominated from the god of light, who was the patron of verse and science. But by the Greeks it was referred to an animal, and supposed to have been produced by the hoof of a horse. Other nations, says Athanasius, reverenced rivers and fountains: but above all people in the world the Ægyptians held them in the highest honour, and esteemed them as divine. From hence the custom passed westward to Greece, Italy, and the extremities of Europe. One reason for holding waters so sacred arose from a notion that they were gifted with supernatural powers. Bryant.

[144] Sire of prophecy.] Phœbus is thought to be derived from Φαος βιου, light of life: but the Greeks always associated with the name the prophetic attribute of Apollo: hence they formed from it the word φοιβαζω, to prophecy: as βακχευν, to celebrate orgies or madden, is formed from βακχος: like the debacchor of the Latins. Lycophron, v. 6:

[145] And Venus twinkling bland her tremulous lids.] Ελικοβλεφαρος is explained by Guietus arcuatis superciliis: so Creech, in his translation of a chapter of Plutarch’s Morals, where the verse is quoted;

But the Greek for an eyebrow is οφρυς. Robinson more properly interprets it orbiculatis palpebris, with semicircular eye-lids: after the old scholiast; who conceives it a metaphor drawn from ελιξ: the bending tendril of ivy or the vine. Le Clerc explains it volubilibus palpebris: and is supported by Grævius, who quotes Petronius in illustration of the peculiar propriety of the epithet as applied to Venus:

Ελισσω is circumvolvo, to roll about.

[146] Ye fleshly appetites.] This degrading address seems to betray a modern hand. If the proem be genuine, the shepherd’s occupation must have degenerated in the time of Hesiod from its ancient honourable character. But it is not likely that an agricultural poet should speak of husbandmen in these debasing terms. Le Clerc’s apology, that revilings such as these belong to the manners of primeval simplicity, does not appear very satisfactory. The poet, whoever he was, meant the address, probably, as an exhortation to higher pursuits.

[147] A laurel-bough.] Salmasius observes that they who aspired to skill in divination, chewed the leaf of the laurel. Its poisonous quality produced a preternatural action on the nerves, and a convulsion and frothing at the mouth, favourable to the idea of being possessed or inspired. As poets feigned a kind of divination, and a knowledge of supernatural things, the laurel was equally a symbol of poesy and prophecy: and held sacred to Phœbus, the god of verse and divination. We find from Pausanias that those poets who did not play on the lyre held a laurel-bough in their hand, during their public recitations, as the badge of their profession. Hence probably the term “rhapsodist:” επι ραβδω αδειν, “to sing to the branch.” and a rhapsody seems to have designated such a portion of verses as the bard would recite at one time. Salmasius seems therefore mistaken in deriving the word from ραπτειν τας ωδας, stitching together songs: in allusion to the centos which the Homeric rhapsodists were accustomed to recite from the works of Homer: although the derivation appears countenanced by Pindar’s expression of ραπτων επεων αοιδοι, singers of tissued verses.

[148] This tale of oaks.] This seems to have been a proverbial expression to signify any idle tale or preamble. The Scholiasts illustrate it from Odyssey xvii. 163, where Penelope asks Ulysses, whom she does not yet recognise, “whence he is?” and observes,

in allusion to the fable of men born from trees: originating, possibly, in children being found exposed in hollow trees and cavities of rocks. But there is another passage in Homer more to the purpose, Il. xx. 126:

Mr. Bryant explains this passage in Homer by the traditionary reverence paid to caverns: which in the first ages were deemed oracular temples: whence persons entered into compacts under rocks and oaks as places of security. But surely there is no need to go back to the first ages, or to dive into traditional superstitions for the solution of a circumstance so extremely obvious, as that of two lovers conversing in the shade. Harmer in his “Illustrations of the Classics,” vol. iii. of his “Observations on Scripture,” renders απο δρυος, on account of an oak: instead of from an oak: “when people meet each other on account of some rock or some tree which they happen upon in travelling.” But the alteration is quite unnecessary: the word from perhaps indicates that one is resting under the tree, while the other is passing by. The adage in Hesiod is expressed “around an oak:” which implies a number of persons. The rock associated with the oak marks the peculiar climate of Greece and the East. The shade cast by a rock is described by Eastern travellers as singularly cool.

[149] Pieria’s groves.] The Pierians were celebrated for their skill in music and poetry. Hence Pieria came to be regarded as the birth place of the Muses. Bryant.

[150] Bare the nine maids.] The origin of verse itself, which is to be sought in the necessity of some mechanical help for the memory at an æra when letters were not invented, and every thing depended on oral tradition, obviously accounts for the fiction of memory being the mother of the Muses. But there is a farther reason. The ancient temples were the depositaries of all traditionary knowledge. We are told by Homer that the voice of the Syrens was enchanting, but their knowledge of the past equally so. The Syrens appear to have been merely priestesses of one of this description of temples, which stood in Sicily, and was erected on the sea-shore, answering also the purpose of a lighthouse. The rites of the temple consisted partly of hymns chanted by young and beautiful women to the sound of harps and flutes: and it was their office to entangle by their allurements such strangers as touched upon the coast: who were instantly seized by the priests and sacrificed to the solar god. The Syrens are described as the daughters of Calliope, Melpomene, and Terpsichore; three of the Muses: they were in fact the same with the Muses. These temples were sacred colleges: sciences were taught there: in particular music and astronomy. The transition was easy from the young priestesses of these temples, to blooming goddesses who presided over history, poetry, &c. See the “Analysis of Ancient Mythology.”

[151] Soothing eloquence.] This passage is exactly similar to one in the Odyssey, b. viii.:

[152] The great assembly.] The ancient Grecian princes, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus remarks, were not absolute like the Asiatic monarchs: their power being limited by laws and established customs:” and this is perfectly consonant to the higher authority of Homer. The poet himself appears a warm friend to monarchical rule, and takes every opportunity zealously to inculcate loyalty. “The government of many is bad: let there be one chief, one king.” It is, however, sufficiently evident that the poet means here to speak of executive government only: “Let there be one chief, one king,” he says: but he adds, “to whom Jupiter has intrusted the sceptre and the laws, that by them he may govern.” Accordingly in every Grecian government which he has occasion to enlarge upon, he plainly discovers to us strong principles of republican rule. Not only the council of principal men, but the assembly of the people also is familiar to him. The name agora signifying a place of meeting, and the verb formed from it to express haranguing in assemblies of the people, were already in common use; and to be a good public speaker was esteemed among the highest qualifications a man could possess. In the government of Phæacia, as described in the Odyssey, the mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy is not less clearly marked than in the British constitution. One chief, twelve peers (all honoured, like the chief, with the title which we translate king), and the assembly of the people, shared the supreme authority. The universal and undoubted prerogatives of kings were religious supremacy and military command. They often also exercised judicial power. But in all civil concerns their authority appears very limited. Every thing, indeed, that remains concerning government in the oldest Grecian poets and historians, tends to demonstrate that the general spirit of it among the early Greeks was nearly the same as among our Teutonic ancestors. The ordinary business of the community was directed by the chiefs. Concerning extraordinary matters and more essential interests, the multitude claimed a right to be consulted. Mitford, History of Greece, i. 3.

[153] Harpers and men of song.] Singer was a common name among the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and other ancient people, for poet and musician; employments which were then inseparable: as no poetry was written but to be sung; and little or no music composed, but as an accompaniment to poetry. Burney, History of Music, 312.

[154]

This whole passage is found among the fragments attributed to Homer. This sentiment of the power of poesy and the subjects chosen by the bard is entirely in the spirit of antiquity, when mythology and heroism were the favourite themes. Achilles is described by Homer as diverting the uneasiness of his mind by warlike odes which he accompanied on the lyre, Il. ix. 189:

[155] The servant of the Muse.] Laws were always promulgated in verse, and often publicly sung; a practice which remained in many places long after letters were become common: morality was taught: history was delivered in verse. Lawgivers, philosophers, historians, all who would apply their experience or their genius to the instruction and amusement of others, were necessarily poets. The character of poet was therefore a character of dignity: an opinion even of sacredness became attached to it: a poetical genius was esteemed an effect of divine inspiration and a mark of divine favour: and the poet, who moreover carried with him instruction and entertainment, not to be obtained without him, was a privileged person, enjoying by a kind of prescription the rights of universal hospitality. Mitford.

Yet in the vulgar tradition, Homer is represented as a mere ballad-singing mendicant! and whoever attempts to refute, by the light of historic evidence and of reason, this or similar absurdities of modern ignorance, when sanctioned by popular prejudice, must expect to be set down as a dealer in paradoxes.

[156] First of all beings Chaos was.] The ancients were in general materialists, and thought the world eternal. But the mundane system, or at least the history of the world, they supposed to commence from the deluge. The confusion which prevailed at the deluge is often represented as the chaotic state of nature: for the earth was hid, and the heavens obscured, and all the elements in disorder. Bryant.

[157] Or in the dark abysses of the ground.] Tartarus is considered by Brucker in his epitome of the Theogony (Historia Critica Philosophiæ, tom. 1.) as the third birth. Tartarus is, indeed, after introduced as a person, but in the singular number: the word is here used in the plural, and I conceive it to mean simply the cavities of the earth, and to be connected with the preceding sentence.

[158] The Cyclops brethren.] Thucydides acquaints us concerning the Cyclopes, that they were the most ancient inhabitants of Sicily, but that he could not find out their race. Strabo places them near Ætna and Icontina, and supposes that they once ruled over that part of the island; and it is certain that a people called Cyclopians did possess that province. It is generally agreed by writers upon the subject, that they were of a size superior to the common race of mankind. Among the many tribes of the Amonians who went abroad, were to be found people who were styled Anakim; and were descended from the sons of Anak: so that this history, though carried to a great excess, was probably founded in truth. They were particularly famous for architecture; and in all parts whither they came, they erected noble structures, which were remarkable for their height and beauty: and were often dedicated to the chief deity, the sun, under the name of Elorus and P’Elorus. People were so struck with their grandeur, that they called every thing great or stupendous Pelorian (πελωρος, huge): and when they described the Cyclopians as a lofty towering race, they came at last to borrow their ideas of this people from the towers to which they alluded. They supposed them in height to reach the clouds, and in bulk equal to the promontories on which these edifices were founded. As these buildings were often-times light-houses, and had in their upper story one round casement, “like an Argolick buckler or the moon,” by which they afforded light in the night-season, the Greeks made this a characteristic of the people. They supposed this aperture to have been an eye, which was fiery and glaring, and placed in the middle of their foreheads. What confirmed the mistake was the representation of an eye, which was often engraved over the entrance of these temples: the chief deity of Ægypt being elegantly represented by the symbol of an eye, which was intended to signify the superintendency of Providence. The notion of the Cyclopes framing the thunder and lightning for Jupiter, arose chiefly from the Cyclopians engraving hieroglyphics of this sort upon the temples of the deity. The poets considered them merely in the capacity of blacksmiths, and condemned them to the anvil. Bryant.

The proximity of Ætna doubtless had its share in this delusion, Virg. Æn. viii. 417:

[159] He took the sickle.] In a fragment of Sanchoniatho, the Phœnician philosopher, translated by Philo the Jew, is recorded this very history of Uranus and Cronus, or Saturn. De Gebelin, in his “Monde Primitif,” resolves it, according to his system, into the invention of reaping, which he supposes Saturn to personify. But Saturn is often represented with a ship, as well as a sickle; which has no reference to agriculture. The explanation may, however, be correct, if we consider Saturn not as a mere figurative prosopopœia of reaping, but as the real person who restored the labours of harvest; in the same manner as his Greek name Cronus, which some have thought to intimate a personification of Time, points out very significantly the person who began the new æra of time: the great father of the post-diluvian world. The type of the ship on the ancient coins of Saturn is an apposite emblem of the ark: and the concealment of the children of Heaven in a cavern seems an obscure remnant of the same tradition.

[160] The foam-born goddess.] The name of the Dove among the ancient Amonians was Iön and Iönah. This term is often found compounded, and expressed Ad-Iönah, queen dove: from which title another deity, Adiona, was constituted. This mode of idolatry must have been very ancient, as it is mentioned in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and is one species of false worship, which Moses forbade by name. According to our method of rendering the Hebrew term it is called Idione. This Idione or Adione was the Dione of the Greeks: the deity who was sometimes looked upon as the mother of Venus: at other times as Venus herself: and styled Venus Dionæa. Venus was no other than the ancient Iönah: and we shall find in her history numberless circumstances relating to the Noachic dove, and to the deluge. We are told, when the waters covered the earth, that the dove came back to Noah, having roamed over a vast uninterrupted ocean, and found no rest for the sole of her foot. But upon being sent forth a second time by the patriarch, in order to form a judgment of the state of the earth, she returned to the ark in the evening, and “Lo! in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off.” From hence Noah conceived his first hopes of the waters being assuaged, and the elements reduced to order. He likewise began to foresee the change that was to happen in the earth: that seed-time and harvest would be renewed, and the ground restored to its pristine fecundity. In the hieroglyphical sculptures and paintings where this history was represented, the dove was depicted hovering over the face of the deep. Hence it is that Dione, or Venus, is said to have risen from the sea. Hence it is, also, that she is said to preside over waters, to appease the troubled ocean, and to cause by her presence a universal calm: that to her were owing the fruits of the earth, and the flowers of the field were renewed by her influence. The address of Lucretius to this goddess is founded on traditions, which manifestly allude to the history above mentioned. Bryant.

[161] Love track’d her steps.] What the Greeks called Iris, was expressed Eiras by the Ægyptians. The Greeks out of Eiras formed Eros, a god of love, whom they annexed to Venus, and made her son: and finding that the bow was his symbol, instead of the iris they gave him a material bow, with the addition of a quiver and arrows. The bows of Apollo and Diana were formed from the same original. After the descent from the ark the first wonderful occurrence was the bow in the clouds, and the covenant of which it was made an emblem. At this season another æra began. The earth was supposed to be renewed, and Time to return to a second infancy. They therefore formed an emblem of a child with the rainbow, to denote this renovation in the world, and called him Eros, or Divine Love. But however like a child he might be expressed, the more early mythologists esteemed him the most ancient of the gods; and Lucian, with great humour, makes Jupiter very much puzzled to account for the appearance of this infant deity. “Why thou urchin,” says the father of the gods, “how came you with that little childish face, when I know you to be as old as Iapetus?” The Greek and Roman poets reduced the character of this deity to that of a wanton, mischievous pigmy: but he was otherwise esteemed of old. He is styled by Plato a mighty god; and it is said that Eros was the cause of the greatest blessings to mankind. Bryant.

[162] Virgin whisperings.] These attributes of Venus suggest a comparison with the properties of her cestus as described by Homer:

[163] Then bare she Momus.] Hesiod has truly painted the nature of detraction (Momus) in describing it as born from Night. The same origin is given to Care: because all anxieties are increased in the night-season: whence Night is styled by Ovid, “the mighty nurse of Cares.” Le Clerc.

[164] Th’ Hesperian maids.] The ancient temples in which the sun was adored often stood within enclosures of large extent. Some of them were beautifully planted, and ornamented with pavilions and fountains. Places of this nature are alluded to under the description of the gardens of the Hesperides and Alcinous. They were also regal edifices: and termed Tor-chom and Tar-chon; which signified a regal tower, and was of old a high place or temple of Cham. By a corruption it was in later times rendered Trachon. The term was still further sophisticated by the Greeks, and expressed Drachon. The situation of these buildings on a high eminence, and the reverence in which they were held, made them be looked upon as places of great security. On these accounts they were the repositories of much treasure. When the Greeks understood that in these temples the people worshipped a serpent-deity, they concluded that Trachon was a serpent: hence the name Draco came to be appropriated to that imaginary animal. Hence also arose the notion of treasures being guarded by dragons, and of the gardens of the Hesperides being under the protection of a serpent. Bryant.

Perhaps also in these gardens was kept up the ancient Paradisiacal tradition: as the golden apples and the dragon present an analogy with the hieroglyphic account given by Moses of the forbidden fruit and the serpent. This is the more probable, as it is evident this tradition had mixed itself in the dispersed legends of pagan mythology from the remarkable coincidence of the “serpent-woman,” considered by the Mexicans as the mother of the human race, and ranked next to “the god of the celestial paradise.” The Mexican temples, also, where “the great spirit,” or sun personified, was worshipped, are described by Humboldt in his “American Researches,” as raised in the midst of a square and walled enclosure, which contained gardens and fountains. This mixed worship of the Paradisiacal serpent may account for a serpent, twisted into the form of a fillet, being made an emblem of the sun’s disk: and for snaky hair being typical of divine wisdom: while the tresses were, at the same time, so disposed as to figure the sun’s rays, and the human visage represented his orb.

The Hesperian virgins seem the same with the Muses and Syrens, the priestesses of the temple: and their singing sweetly on their watch, as described afterwards by Hesiod, alludes to the hymns which they chanted at the altar. They are made the daughters of Night, because the gardens were in Afric: which, equally with Italy and Spain, was denominated Hesperia by the Greeks: and the region of the west was considered as synonymous with Night.

[165] Eldest of all his race.] The history of the patriarch was recorded by the ancients through their whole theology. All the principal deities of the sea, however diversified, have a manifest relation to him. Noah was figured under the history of Nereus: and his character of an unerring prophet, as well as of a just, righteous, and benevolent man, is plainly described by Hesiod. Bryant.

[166] Then rose Thaumas vast.] That beautiful phenomenon in the heavens, which we call the rainbow, was by the Ægyptians styled Thamuz, and signified “the wonder.” The Greeks expressed it Thaumas: and hence was derived θαυμαζω, to wonder. This Thaumas they did not immediately appropriate to the bow: but supposed them to be two personages, and Thaumas the parent. Bryant.

[167] Phorcys the mighty.] Homer calls him “the old man of the sea:” and gives precisely the same appellation to Proteus. The character of the latter varies only from that of Nereus in the quality of transforming himself into sundry shapes. This may have a reference to the great diluvian changes, varying the face of nature. The connexion of Phorcys and Ceto favours the supposition that these three deities are one and the same personage.

“The ark in which mankind were preserved was figured under the semblance of a large fish. It was called Cetos.” Bryant.

Cetos is the Greek term for a whale.

[168] Rose-arm’d Eunice.] ροδοπῃχυς, rosy-elbow’d: this epithet, together with that of ροδοδακτυλος, rosy-fingered, was derived from the artificial custom of staining the elbow and tops of the fingers with rose-colour. In Dallaway’s Constantinople it is remarked of the modern Greek girls “that the nails both of the fingers and the feet are always stained of a rose-colour:” a curious vestige of Grecian antiquity.

[169] Nereid nymphs.] Spenser, in his “Spousals of the Thames and Medway,” b. 4. cant. ii. of the “Faery Queen,” has imposed on himself a task, from which a translator would fain escape: and has transposed into his stanzas the whole fifty Nereids of Hesiod, together with his catalogue of Rivers.

[170] The sister-harpies.] The harpies were priests of the sun: they were denominated from their seat of residence, which was an oracular temple called Harpi. The representation of them as winged animals was only the insigne of the people, as the eagle and vulture were of the Ægyptians. They seem to have been a set of rapacious persons, who for their repeated acts of violence and cruelty were driven out of Bithynia, their country. Bryant.

[171] The Graiæ; from their birth-hour gray.] The circumstance of their being gray seems to be explained by a passage of Æschylus, who describes them as half-women, half-swans:

“This history relates to an Amonian temple founded in the extreme parts of Africa, in which there were three priestesses of Canaänitish race, who on that account are said to be in the shape of swans: the swan being the insigne under which their country was denoted. The notion of their having but one eye among them took its rise from a hieroglyphic very common in Ægypt and Canaän: this was the representation of an eye, which was engraved on the pediment of their temples.” Bryant.

The Gorgons were probably similar personages: they are described by Æschylus with wings and serpentine locks: attributes apparently borrowed from the emblematical devices in the temples of Ægypt. Gorgon was a title of Minerva at Cyrene in Lybia.

[172]

The island of Seriphus is represented as having once abounded with serpents; and it is styled by Virgil in his Ciris serpentifera: it had this epithet, not on account of any real serpents, but according to the Greeks, from Medusa’s head, which was brought thither by Perseus. By this is meant the serpent-deity, whose worship was here introduced by a people called Peresians. It was usual with the Ægyptians to describe upon the architrave of their temples some emblem of the deity who there presided: among others the serpent was esteemed a most salutary emblem, and they made use of it to signify superior skill and knowledge. A beautiful female countenance surrounded with an assemblage of serpents was made to denote divine wisdom. Many ancient temples were ornamented with this curious hieroglyphic. These devices upon temples were often esteemed as talismans, and supposed to have a hidden influence by which the building was preserved. In the temple of Minerva, at Tigea, was some sculpture of Medusa, which the goddess was said to have given to preserve the city from ever being taken in war. It was probably from this opinion that the Athenians had the head of Medusa represented on the walls of their Acropolis; and it was the insigne of many cities, as we find from ancient coins. Perseus was one of the most ancient heroes in the mythology of Greece: the merit of whose supposed achievements the Helladians took to themselves, and gave out that he was a native of Argos. Herodotus more truly represents him as an Assyrian; by which is meant a Babylonian. Yet he resided in Ægypt, and is said to have reigned at Memphis. To say the truth, he was worshipped at that place: for Perseus was a title of the deity, and was no other than the Sun, the chief god of the gentile world. His true name was Perez; rendered Peresis, Perses, and Perseus: and in the account given of this personage we have the history of the Peresians in their several peregrinations; who were no other than the Heliadæ and Osirians. It is a mixed history in which their forefathers are alluded to: particularly their great progenitor, the father of mankind. He was supposed to have had a renewal of life: they therefore described Perseus as enclosed in an ark and exposed in a state of childhood on the waters, after having been conceived in a shower of gold. Bryant.

[173] The great Chrysaor.] Chus by the Ægyptians and Canaanites was styled Or-chus, and Chus-or: the latter of which was expressed by the Greeks by a word more familiar to their ear Chrusor; as if it had a reference to gold. This name was sometimes changed into Chrusaor: and occurs in many places where the Cuthites were known to have settled. They were a long time in Ægypt: and we read of a Chrusaor in those parts, who is said to have sprung from the blood of Medusa. We meet with the same Chrusaor in the regions of Asia Minor, especially among the Carians: in those parts he was particularly worshipped, and said to have been the first deified mortal. The Grecians borrowed this term, and applied it to Apollo: and from this epithet, Chrusaor, he was denominated the god of the golden sword. This weapon was at no time ascribed to him, nor is he ever represented with one either on a gem or marble. He is described by Homer in the hymn to Apollo, as wishing for a harp and a bow. There is never any mention made of a sword, nor was the term Chrusaor of Grecian etymology. Since, then, we may be assured that Chus was the person alluded to, we need not wonder that so many cities, where Apollo was particularly worshipped, should be called Chruse, and Chrusopolis. Nor is this observable in cities only, but in rivers. It was usual in the first ages to consecrate rivers to deities, and to call them after their names. Hence many were denominated from Chrusorus: which by the Greeks was changed to χρυσορροας, flowing with gold: and from this mistake, the Nile was called Chrusorrhoas, which had no pretensions to gold. In all the places where the sons of Chus spread themselves, the Greeks introduced some legend about gold. Hence we read of a golden fleece at Colchis: golden apples at the Hesperides: at Tartessus a golden cup: and at Cuma in Campania a golden branch. But although this repeated mistake arose in great measure from the term Chusus being easily convertible into Chrusus, there was another obvious reason for the change. Chus was by many of the Eastern nations expressed Cuth; and his posterity, the Cuthim. This term, in the ancient Chaldaic and other Amonian languages, signified gold: and hence many cities and countries where the Cuthites settled were described as golden. Bryant.

[174] And Pegasus the steed.] Pegasus received its name from a well-known emblem, the horse of Poseidon: by which we are to understand an ark or ship. “By horses,” says Artemidorus, “the poets mean ships:” and hence it is that Poseidon is called Hippius; for there is a strict analogy between the poetical or winged horse on land, and a real ship in the sea. Hence it came that Pegasus was esteemed the horse of Poseidon (Neptune), and often named scuphius; a name which relates to a ship, and shows the purport of the emblem. The ark, we know, was preserved by divine providence from the sea, which would have overwhelmed it: and as it was often represented under this symbol of a horse, it gave rise to the fable of the two chief deities, Jupiter and Neptune, disputing about horses. Bryant.

To this we may add the still more remarkable fable of the dispute between Neptune and Pallas: when the former produces a horse, and the latter an olive-tree. “These notions,” observes the author of the Analysis, “arose from emblematical descriptions of the deluge, which the Grecians had received by tradition: but what was general they limited, and appropriated to particular places.”

[175] Old Nilus’ fountains.] Ωκεανου περι πηγας. Le Clerc remarks that “this derivation is absurd: as we do not talk of the fountains of the sea, but of rivers.” He adds, however, that “Hesiod more than once calls the ocean the river:” and this should have led him to perceive that it is in fact a river of which Hesiod speaks. The oceanic river was the Nile, which in very ancient times was called the Oceanus.

[176] Geryon rose.] One of the principal and most ancient settlements of the Amonians upon the ocean was at Gades; where a prince was supposed to have reigned, named Geryon. The harbour at Gades was a very fine one, and had several tor, or towers, to direct shipping: and as it was usual to imagine the deity to whom the temple was erected to have been the builder, this temple was said to have been built by Hercules. All this the Grecians took to themselves. They attributed the whole to Hercules of Thebes: and as he was supposed to conquer wherever he came, they made him subdue Geryon: and changing the tor or towers into so many head of cattle, they describe him as leading them off in triumph. Tor-keren signified a regal tower; and this being interpreted τρικαρηνος, this personage was in consequence described with three heads. Bryant.

Erythia, according to Pliny, is another name for Gades.

[177] In the deep-hollow’d cavern of a rock.] It is probable that at Arima in Cilicia there was an Ophite temple; which, like all the most ancient temples, was a vast cavern. Some emblematical sculpture of the serpent-deity may have given rise to the creation of this mythological prodigy. The Hydra had, probably, a similar origin.

[178] A whirlwind, rude and wild.] There were two distinct Typhons or Typhaons, although they are sometimes confounded together. The one is the same as the gigantic Typhæus, subsequently described by Hesiod: the other the whirlwind here mentioned.

“By this Typhon was signified a mighty whirlwind, or inundation. It had a relation to the deluge. In hieroglyphical descriptions, the dove was represented as hovering over the mundane egg which was exposed to the fury of Typhon: for an egg, containing in it the proper elements of life, was thought no improper emblem of the ark, in which were preserved the rudiments of the future world.” Bryant.

Robinson is therefore manifestly wrong in proposing to substitute ανομον, lawless, for ανεμον, a wind: though the reading be countenanced by the Bodleian copy and the Florentine edition of Junta.

[179] The fifty-headed Cerberus.] Cerberus was the name of a place, though esteemed the dog of hell. We are told by Eusebius from Plutarch, that Cerberus was the Sun: but the term properly signified the temple, or place, of the Sun. The great luminary was styled by the Amonians both Or and Abor; that is, light, and the parent of light: and Cerberus is properly Kir-abor, the place of that deity. The same temple had different names from the diversity of the god’s titles, who was there worshipped. It was called Tor-caph-el; which was changed to τρικεφαλος: and Cerberus was from hence supposed to have had three heads. Bryant.

The poets increased the number of heads, as they seem to have thought a multitude of heads or arras sublimely terrific. Pindar out-does Hesiod by a whole fifty, and speaks of the hundred-headed Cerberus. Εκατον τα κεφαλον.

[180] Chimæra, breathing fire unquenchable.] The same passage occurs in the 6th book of the Iliad. “In Lycia was the city Phaselis, situated upon the mountain Chimæra; which mountain was sacred to the god of fire. Phaselis is a compound of Phi, which in the Amonian language is a mouth or opening, and of Az-el: another name for Orus, the god of light. Phaselis signifies a chasm of fire. The reason why this name was imposed may be seen in the history of the place. All the country around abounded in fiery eruptions. Chimæra is a compound of Chamur, the name of the deity, whose altar stood towards the top of the mountain. But the most satisfactory idea of it may be obtained from coins which were struck in its vicinity, and particularly describe it as a hollow and inflamed mountain.” Bryant.

[181] Depopulating Sphinx.] The Nile begins to rise during the fall of the Abyssinian rains; when the sun is vertical over Æthiopia: and its waters are at their height of inundation when the sun is in the signs Leo and Virgo. The Ægyptians seem to have invented a colossal representation of the two zodiacal signs, which served as a water-mark to point out the risings of the Nile: and this biform emblem of a virgin and lion constituted the famous ænigma.

[182] Tethys to Ocean brought the rivers forth.] When towers were situated upon eminences fashioned very round, they were by the Amonians called Tith, answering to Titthos in Greek. They were so denominated from their resemblance to a woman’s breast, and were particularly sacred to Orus and Osiris, the deities of light, who by the Grecians were represented under the title of Apollo. Tethys, the ancient goddess of the sea, was nothing else but an old tower upon a mount. On this account it was called Tith-is, the mount of fire. Thetis seems to have been a transposition of the same name, and was probably a Pharos, or fire-tower, near the sea. Bryant.

[183] Claim the shorn locks.] It was the custom of the Greeks for adult youths to poll their hair as an offering to Apollo and the Rivers.

[184] And Ploto, with the bright dilated eyes.] Βοωπις, ox-eyed: that is, with eyes artificially enlarged. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 6, speaks of the stibium or antimony as an astringent, especially as to the eye-lid: and mentions that it was called platyophthalmum, eye-opener: from its forming an ingredient in the washes of women, as it had the effect of opening or dilating the eye by contracting the lid. The modern Greek women retain the custom. “Of the few that I have seen with an open veil or without one, the faces were remarkable for symmetry and brilliant complexion: with the nose straight and small: the eyes vivacious: either black or dark-blue: having the eyebrows, partly from nature, and as much from art, very full, and joining over the nose. They have a custom, too, of drawing a black line with a mixture of powder of antimony and oil above and under the eye-lashes in order to give the eye more fire.” Dallaway, Constantinople Ancient and Modern.

Strutt, in the general introduction to his “View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England,” observes that the Moorish ladies in Barbary, the women in Arabia Felix, and those about Aleppo continue the same traditional custom of tinging the inside of the eye-lid. Dr. Russel describes the operation as effected “by means of a short smooth probe of ivory, wood, or silver; charged with a powder named the black Kohol. This substance is a kind of lead-ore brought from Persia: and is prepared by roasting it in a quince, an apple, or a truffle; then, adding a few drops of oil of almonds, it is ground to a subtile powder on a marble. The probe being first dipped in water, a little of the powder is sprinkled on it. The middle part is then applied horizontally to the eye, and the eye-lids being shut upon it, the probe is drawn through between them, leaving the inside tinged, and a black rim all round the edge. The Kohol is used likewise by the men: but not so generally by way of ornament merely: the practice being deemed rather effeminate. It is supposed to strengthen the sight and prevent various disorders of the eye.” Natural History of Aleppo, vol. i. iii. 22.

Mr. Gifford, in the notes to his admirable version of Juvenal, supposes the effeminate practice of the Roman fops to assimilate with this: in the passage which he translates,

Juvenal, however, mentions only the painting of the eye-brows: unless by the epithet tremulous, trementes, which he applies to the eyes, he means to intimate the whole operation, and the eye-ball quivering under the application of the needle.

In the second book of Kings, ix. 30, when it is said “Jezebel painted her face,” the Septuagint has it, “she antimonized her eyes:” Εστιμμιζατο τους οφθαλμους αυτης.

[185] Long-stepping tread the earth.] The Greeks, as appears from their female epithets, were very attentive to the form of the ankle, and the manner of walking: and a long step, no less than a well-turned ankle, as implying a tallness of figure, was thought characteristic of graceful beauty.

[186] The glassy depth of lakes.] All fountains were esteemed sacred: but especially those which had any preternatural quality and abounded with exhalations. It was an universal notion that a divine energy proceeded from the effluvia; and that the persons who resided in their vicinity were gifted with a prophetic quality. Fountains of this nature, from the divine influence with which they were supposed to abound, the Amonians styled Ain-omphe, or oracular fountain. These terms the Greeks contracted to numphe, a nymph: and supposed such a person to be an inferior goddess who presided over waters. Hot springs were imagined to be more immediately under the inspection of the nymphs. Another name for these places was Ain-Ades, the fountain of Ades or the Sun; which in like manner was changed to Naïades, a species of deities of the same class. Bryant.

[187] East, West, and South, and North.] Le Clerc and the generality of editors suppose Hesiod to omit the east-wind entirely: and consider αργεστεω as an epithet, signifying swift or serene: as the term is so used by Homer. Grævius quotes a subsequent line of the Theogony as authority for αργεστης being so used by Hesiod also: but there is evidence for αργεστης being the name of a wind; though Aulus Gellius and Pliny suppose it to be a west-wind, called by the Latins Caurus. Aristotle also, as is observed by the Monthly Reviewer, describes the αργεστης as a westerly wind, which blows from that part of the heaven in which the sun sets at the summer solstice: and adds that by some it is called Olympias, by others Iapyx. We see however from this very passage of Aristotle, that the names of winds were capricious and arbitrary: and in fact almost every district in Greece called the winds by names different from those which the neighbouring district used. The same critic observes that in a note to the word σκειροιν (Caurus), in Alberti’s edition of Hesychius, an opinion is intimated that αργεστης is properly an easterly wind, απηλιωτης ανεμος: nor can there be the least doubt of the matter, in so far as regards Hesiod. The London Reviewer, indeed, remarks that “the omission of the wind would be no proof of Hesiod’s ignorance of its existence”: a similar omission occurs in the Psalms. “Promotion cometh neither from the east, nor the west, nor yet from the south.” But it is forgotten that Hesiod is describing the genealogy of the winds: and it is very inconceivable that one of the four cardinal winds should have escaped his notice. The editions of Stephens and Trincavellus read

instead of αργεστεω Ζεφιροιο: and I have no doubt that this is the true reading.

[188]

So Callimachus, Hymn to Jupiter:

Strength and Force are introduced by Æschylus as characters, in the first scene of his “Prometheus Chained.”

[189] Asteria, blest in fame.] According to Callimachus Asteria was metamorphosed into the Isle of Delos: a term which alludes to its appearing after having been submerged in the sea: δηλος, visible. Asteria is from αστηρ a star.

[190]

Εκατη was a title of Diana, as εκατος of Apollo: from εκας far off: alluding to the distance to which the sun and moon dart their rays. This goddess is represented in ancient sculptures as three females joined in one, with various attributes in their hands: this triple figure was combined of the three characters sustained by the moon: who was Selene or Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Proserpine in the subterranean regions. Luna is said by Cicero to be the same as Lucina, the goddess of child-bearing: a title given also to Diana and Juno. Hecate has also assigned to her by Hesiod the office of foster-mother of children. This may be explained partly by the reckoning of pregnant women being guided by the number of lunar periods; and partly by the emblematic character of the moon, as an object of worship.

“The moon was a type of the ark: the sacred ship of Osiris being represented in the form of a crescent, of which the moon was made an emblem. Selene was the reputed mother of the world, as Plutarch confesses: which character cannot be made in any degree to correspond with the planet. Selene was the same as Isis: the same also as Rhea, Vesta, Cubele, and Damater, or Ceres.” Bryant.

These female deities not only melt into each other, but at last resolve themselves into the one Zeus: so that the lunar idolatry is absorbed ultimately in the solar. “The patriarch had the names of Meen or Menes; which signify a moon, and was worshipped all over the east as Deus Lunus. Strabo mentions several temples of this lunar god in different places: all these were dedicated to the same Arkite deity, called Lunus, Luna, and Selene. The same deity was both masculine and feminine: what was Deus Lunus in one country was Dea Luna in another. Meen was also one of the most ancient titles of the Ægyptian Osiris; the same as Apollo.” Bryant.

The sacred bull Apis is figured in the ancient coins and sculptures, with a crescent moon upon his head instead of horns: by which the great restorer of husbandry, Noah, was connected with the ark in which he had been miraculously preserved; and of which the lunar crescent was an emblem.

[191] Her wide allotment stands.] The other gods were either celestial, terrestrial, marine, or subterranean: but the divinity of Hecate pervaded heaven, earth, and the abyss, from her being intermixed with Luna, Dian, and Proserpine: and the sea, from the moon influencing the tides. She was invoked at sacrifices, probably, as presiding over divination from the entrails of beasts: because she was the patroness of magical rites and incantations: from such ceremonies being performed in the secrecy of night by the light of the moon. The Greeks, on every new moon, were accustomed to spread a feast in the cross-ways, which was carried away by the poor: this was called “Hecate’s supper;” and was said to have been eaten by Hecaté. See Aristophanes, Plutus.

[192] Her solitary birth.] This alludes to the honour and the privileges attached by the ancients to numerous children. The moon is said to be single in birth, as the only planet of the same apparent size and lustre.

[193] A gleam of glory o’er his parents’ days.] The odes of Pindar are traditional records of the glory attached by the Greeks to the conquerors in their games: a glory which extended to their parents and connexions, and even to the city in which they were born. Cicero describes the return from an Olympic victory as equivalent to a Roman triumph. The victor in fact rode in a triumphal chariot, and entered through a breach in the walls into the city: which Plutarch explains to signify that walls are useless with such defenders. The same writer relates, that a Spartan meeting Diagoras, who had been crowned in the Olympic games, and had seen his sons and grand-children crowned after him, exclaimed, “Die Diagoras! for thou canst not be a god.” A memorial on the gymnastic exercises of the Greeks will be found in the “Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres,” tom. i. 286.

[194] Golden-sandal’d Juno.] Juno was the same as Iöna: and she was particularly styled Juno of Argus. Argus was one of the terms by which the ark was distinguished. The Grecians called her Hera; which was not originally a proper name, but a title: the same as Ada of the Babylonians; and expressed “the Lady” or “Queen.” She was the same as Luna or Selene, from her connexion with the ark; and at Samos she was described as standing in a lunette, with the lunar emblem on her head. She was sometimes worshipped under the symbol of an egg: so that her history had the same reference as that of Venus. She presided equally over the seas, which she was supposed to calm or trouble. Isis, Io, and Ino were the same as Juno, and Venus also was the same deity under a different title. Hence in Laconia there was an ancient statue of the goddess styled Venus Junonia. Juno was also called Cupris, and under that title was worshipped by the Hetrurians. As Juno was the same with Iöna we need not wonder at the Iris being her concomitant. Bryant.

[195] Ceres, and Vesta.] Ceres was the deity of fire; hence at Cnidus she was called Cura: a title of the Sun. The Roman name Ceres, expressed by Hesychius Gerys, was by the Dorians more properly rendered Garis. It was originally the name of a city called Charis: for many of the deities were erroneously called by the names of the places where they were worshipped. Charis is Char-is, the city of fire: the place where Orus and Hephaistus were worshipped. It may after this seem extraordinary that she should ever be esteemed the goddess of corn. This notion arose from the Greeks not understanding their own theology. The towers of Ceres were P’urtain or Prutaneia: so called from the fires which were perpetually there preserved. The Grecians interpreted this purou tameion: and rendered what was a temple, a granary of corn. In consequence of this, though they did not abolish the ancient usage of the place, they made it a repository of grain; from whence they gave largesses to the people. In early times the corn there deposited seems to have been for the priests or divines: but this was only a secondary use to which these places were adapted. They were properly sacred towers, where a perpetual fire was preserved. It was sacred to Hestia, the Vesta of the Romans, which was only another title for Damater or Ceres: and the sacred hearth had the same name. Bryant.

[196] Pluto strong.] “Some,” says Diodorus, “think that Osiris is Serapis: others that he is Dionusus: others still that he is Pluto: many take him for Zeus or Jupiter, and not a few for Pan.” This was an unnecessary embarrassment, for they were all titles of the same god. Pluto, among the best mythologists, was esteemed the same as Jupiter; and indeed the same as Proserpine, Ceres, Hermes, Apollo, and every other deity. Bryant.

[197] Earth-shaker Neptune.] The patriarch was commemorated by the name of Poseidon. Under the character of Neptune Genesius he had a temple in Argolis: hard by was a spot of ground called the place of descent; similar to the place on mount Ararat, mentioned by Josephus; and undoubtedly named from the same ancient history. The tradition of the people of Argolis was, that it was so called because in this spot Danaus made his first descent from the ship in which he came over. In Arcadia was a temple of “Neptune looking-out.” Poseidon god of the sea was also reputed the chief god, the deity of fire. This we may infer from his priest; who was styled P’urcon. P’urcon is the lord of fire or light; and from the name of the priest we may know the department of the god. He was no other than the supreme deity, the Sun: from whom all may be supposed to descend. Hence Neptune in the Orphic verses is, like Zeus or Jupiter, styled the father of gods and men. Bryant.

[198] Jupiter th’ all-wise.] In the Orphic fragments both Jove and Bacchus are identified with the Sun: which is described as the source of all things. Hammon, the African Jupiter, is mentioned by Lucan; who specifies his having horns. These were the lunar crescent of Apis or Osiris, the Arkite god. The patriarch, his son Ham, and his grandson Chus, are reciprocally mixed with each other; in the same manner as the ark and the dove: the moon, the sun, and the typical serpent, are often mixed and confounded in this hieroglyphical mythology.

[199] To his own son he should bow down his strength.] Although the Romans made a distinction between Janus and Saturn they were two titles of one and the same person. The former had the remarkable characteristic of being the author of time, and the god of the new year: the latter also was looked upon as the author of time, and held in his hand a serpent, whose tail was in his mouth and formed a circle: by which emblem was denoted the renovation of the year. On their coins they were equally represented with keys in their hand and a ship near them. Janus was described with two faces: the one that of an aged man; the other that of a youthful personage. Saturn as of an uncommon age with hair white like snow: but they had a notion that he would return to infancy. He is also said to have destroyed all things: which however were restored with vast increase. Bryant.

The faces of Janus, supposed to look to the time past and that which is to come, evidently regard the æra before the flood and that after it: and the aged and youthful visage represent the old world and the new. The keys may allude to the shutting up the productions of the earth, and again opening them. The ship is the ark. The story of Saturn and the infant Jupiter involves similar allusions. The old god devouring his children significantly points to the destruction of the human race. Saturn and Jupiter seem only separate personifications of the double visage of Janus: and the infant Jupiter personifies the second infancy of Saturn. The new order of things which took place on the renovation of nature is typified in the dethronement of the aged monarch by his youthful son.

[200]

The stone, which Saturn was supposed to have swallowed instead of a child, stood according to Pausanias at Delphi: it was esteemed very sacred, and used to have libations of wine poured upon it daily: and upon festivals was otherwise honoured. The purport of the above history I take to have been this. It was for a long time the custom to offer children at the altar of Saturn: but in process of time they removed it, and in its form erected a stone pillar, before which they made their vows, and offered sacrifices of another nature. Bryant.

[201] Props the broad heaven.] “This Atlas,” says Maximus Tyrius, “is a mountain, with a cavity of a tolerable height, which the natives esteem both as a temple and a deity: and it is the great object by which they swear, and to which they pay their devotions.” The cave in the mountain was certainly named Cöel, the house of god: equivalent to Cœlus of the Romans: and this was the heaven which Atlas was supposed to support. Bryant.

[202] He bound Prometheus.] Prometheus, who renewed the race of men, was Noos, or Noah. Prometheus raised the first altar to the gods, constructed the first ship, and transmitted to posterity many useful inventions. He was supposed to have lived at the time of the deluge, and to have been guardian of Ægypt at that season. He was the same as Osiris, the great husbandman, the planter of the vine, and inventor of the plough. Prometheus is said to have been exposed on mount Caucasus, near Colchis, with an eagle placed over him, preying on his heart. These strange histories are undoubtedly taken from the symbols and devices which were carved upon the front of the ancient Amonian temples, and especially those of Ægypt. The eagle and vulture were the insignia of that country. We are told by Orus Apollo that a heart over burning coals was an emblem of Ægypt. The history of Tityus, Prometheus, and many other poetical personages was certainly taken from hieroglyphics misunderstood and badly explained. Prometheus was worshipped by the Colchians as a deity, and had a temple and high place upon mount Caucasus: and the device upon the portal was Ægyptian, an eagle over a heart. Bryant.

[203] Parted a huge ox.] Pliny, book vii. ch. 56, speaks of Prometheus as the first who slaughtered an ox. This traditionary circumstance is agreeable to that passage in scriptural history, where Noah receives the divine permission to kill animals for food: and Hesiod’s tale of the division of the ox may be only a disfigured representation of the first sacrifice after the flood. The affinity of Iäpetus, the father of Prometheus, with Japhet, is very remarkable. This confusion of personages has been already noticed as common in the ancient mythology.

[204] Pernicious is the race.] Lord Kaimes, in his sketches of the History of Man, i. 6. observes that in the more polished age of Greece women were treated with but little consideration by their husbands: and female influence was confined to the artful accomplishments of courtezans. But it was very different at an earlier æra of society. “Women in the Homeric age,” remarks Mr. Mitford, “enjoyed more freedom, and communicated more in business and amusement among men, than in after-ages has been usual in those eastern countries; far more than at Athens, in the flourishing times of the commonwealth. Equally, indeed, Homer’s elegant eulogies and Hesiod’s severe sarcasm prove women to have been in their days important members of society.”

Milton has imitated this description of the infelicities supposed to be produced by woman-kind, in a prophetic complaint, which comes with beautiful propriety from the lips of Adam: and which his own domestic unhappiness enabled him to express with feeling.

[205]

The giants, whom Abydenus makes the builders of Babel, are by other writers represented as the Titans. They are said to have received their name from their mother Titæa: by which we are to understand that they were denominated from their religion and place of worship. The ancient altars consisted of a conical hill of earth, in the shape of a woman’s breast. Titæa was one of these. It is a term compounded of Tit-aia, and signifies literally a breast of earth. These altars were also called Tit-an, and Tit-anis, from the great fountain of night, styled An and Anis: hence many places were called Titanis and Titana where the worship of the sun prevailed. By these giants and Titans are always meant the sons of Ham and Chus. That the sons of Chus were the chief agents both in erecting the tower of Babel, and in maintaining principles of rebellion, is plain: for it is said of Nimrod, the son of Chus, that “the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.” The sons of Chus would not submit to the divine dispensation in the original disposition of the several families: and Nimrod, who first took upon him regal state, drove Ashur from his demesnes, and forced him to take shelter in the higher parts of Mesopotamia. This was their first act of rebellion and apostacy. Their second was to erect a lofty tower, as a landmark to repair to, as a token to direct them, and prevent their being scattered abroad. It was an idolatrous temple, erected in honour of the sun, and called the tower of Bel: as the city, from its consecration to the sun, was named Bel-on: the city of the solar god. Their intention was to have founded a great, if not an universal, empire: but their purpose was defeated by the confounding of their labial utterance. By this judgment they were dispersed; the tower was deserted; and the city left unfinished. These circumstances seem, in great measure, to be recorded by the gentile writers. They add, that a war soon after commenced between the Titans and the family of Zeuth. This was no other than the war mentioned by Moses; which was carried on by four kings of the family of Shem against the sons of Ham and Chus. The dispersion from Babylonia had weakened the Cuthites. The house of Shem took advantage of their dissipation, and recovered the land of Shinar, which had been unduly usurped by their enemies. After this success they proceeded farther: and attacked the Titans in all their quarters. After a contest of some time they made them tributaries: but upon their rising in rebellion, after a space of thirteen years, the confederates made a fresh inroad into their countries. “Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer: and in the thirteenth they rebelled: and in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashtaroth Karnaim;” who were no other than the Titans. They were accordingly rendered by the Seventy, “the giant brood of Ashtaroth:” and the valley of the Rephaim, in Samuel, is translated “the valley of the Titans.” From the sacred historians we may then infer that there were two periods of this war. The first, when the king of Elam and his associates laid the Rephaim under contribution: the other, when, upon their rebellion, they reduced them a second time to obedience. The first part is mentioned by several ancient writers, and is said to have lasted ten years. Hesiod takes notice of both, but makes the first rather of longer duration:

In the second engagement the poet informs us that the Titans were quite discomfited and ruined: and according to the mythology of the Greeks, they were condemned to reside in Tartarus, at the extremity of the known world. A large body of Titanians, after their dispersion, settled in Mauritania: which is the region called Tartarus. The mythologists adjudged the Titans to the realms of night merely from not attending to the purport of the term ζοφος. This word described the West, and it signified also darkness. From this secondary acceptation the Titans of the West were consigned to the realms of night: being situated, with respect to Greece towards the regions of the setting sun. Bryant.

[206]

This, perhaps, suggested to Milton the arming the angels with mountains:

[207]

This is expanded by Milton with uncommon sublimity:

[208]

Milton attains to a higher conception of omnipotence in the passage:

There is, however, nothing in Milton which equals in sublimity the sudden expansion of power in the soul of the deity: ειθαρ μεν μενεος πληντο φρενες. The plan of the battle of angels is evidently built on that of the battle of giants: the Messiah, like Hesiod’s Jove, coming forth to decide the contest; and sending before him thunderbolts and plagues. Milton’s magnificent imagery of the chariot is borrowed from the vision of the prophet Ezekiel.

[209]

Χαος is here only a gulf or void. Le Clerc quotes Aristophanes to show that it is the vacuity of air: but the conflagration of air has already been described. Grævius is undoubtedly right in interpreting it the subterraneous abyss, or Erebus: in which sense it is afterwards used by Hesiod; when the Titans are said to dwell “beyond the obscure chaos,” or chasm. Virgil uses chaos in this acceptation, Æneid. vi. 205:

So also Ovid, Metamorph. x. Orpheus to Pluto and Proserpine:

[210]

Milton, Paradise Lost, book ii:

[211] The war-unsated Gyges.] Hesiod has confounded the history by supposing the Giants and Titans to have been different persons. He accordingly makes them oppose each other: and even Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, whom all other writers mention as Titans, are by him introduced in opposition, and described as of another family. His description is however much to the purpose, and the first contest and dispersion are plainly alluded to. Bryant.

[212] The Titan host o’er-shadowing.] Milton, Par. Lost, b. vi.:

[213]

Virgil, Æn. vi. 577:

[214]

The ancients had a notion that the earth was a widely extended plain, which terminated abruptly in a vast clift of immeasurable descent. At the bottom was a chaotic pool, which so far sunk beneath the confines of the world, that, to express the depth and distance, they imagined an anvil of iron, tossed from the top, could not reach it in ten days. This mighty pool was the great Atlantic ocean: and these extreme parts of the earth were Mauritania and Iberia: for in each of these countries the Titans resided. Bryant.

This explains the introduction of Atlas before the gates of Tartarus: Guietus is therefore in error when, not being able to account for this situation of Atlas, he marks the passage as supposititious.

Milton’s classical reading appears in his admeasurement of the distance which the rebel angels passed in their fall from heaven:

[215] Arise and end.] Seneca, Hercules Frantic:

[216] A drear and ghastly wilderness.] Homer, Il. xx.:

[217]

Dante, Inferno, canto quinto:

Milton seems to have conceived from this passage of Hesiod his idea of Satan falling down the chaotic void, book ii.:

[218]

Milton, Par. Lost, vi. 4:

[219] Sleep, Death’s half brother.] Virg. Æn. vi. 278:

[220]

Odyssey, xi. 14:

[221]

Probably from his destroying the human favourites of the gods, and the sons of the goddesses who have descended to mortal amours: as in the instances of Hyacinthus, the favourite of Apollo; and Memnon, the son of Aurora; whose death and burial are described with such romantic fancy in Quintus Calaber, Post-Homerics, or Supplemental Iliad.

[222] And stern Prosérpina.] Many of the temples of Ceres were dedicated to the deity under the name of Persephone or Proserpine, who was supposed her daughter; but they were in reality the same personage. Persephone was styled Cora; which the Greeks misinterpreted the virgin or damsel. This was the same as Cura, a feminine title of the Sun; by which Ceres also was called at Cnidos. However mild and gentle Proserpine may have been represented in her virgin state by the poets, yet her tribunal seems in many places to have been very formidable. In consequence of this we find her, with Minos and Rhadamanthus, condemned to the shades below as an infernal inquisitor. Nonnus says, “Proserpine armed the Furies:” the notion of which Furies arose from the cruelties practised in the Prutaneia, or fire-temples. They were originally only priests of fire; but were at last ranked among the hellish tormentors. Herodotus speaks of a Prutaneion in Achaia Pthiotic, of which he gives a fearful account. No person, he says, ever entered the precincts, that returned: whatever person strayed that way was immediately seized upon by the priests and sacrificed. Bryant.

[223]

Not far from the ruins (of Nonacrum, a town of Arcadia,) is a lofty cliff: I have seen none that ascended to such a height. A stream distils from the declivity. This water is denominated Styx by the Greeks. It is deadly to man and to all animals whatever. Pausanias, Arcadics, b. viii.

Le Clerc supposes an opinion to have existed, that a person wrongfully accused might securely drink the water of Styx: and conceives Hesiod to mean that the gods drank of the water at the same time that they made a libation, and if they took a false oath, were convicted by the lethargic properties of this noxious stream.

[224] Jove sends Iris down.] To this covenant (with Noah) Hesiod alludes: he calls it the great oath. He says that this oath was Iris, or the bow in the heavens; to which the deity appealed when any of the inferior divinities were guilty of an untruth. On such an occasion the great oath of the gods was appointed to fetch water from the extremities of the ocean, with which those were tried who had falsified their word. Bryant.

The words will certainly admit of this construction; but the context directs that the great oath be connected with the Stygian water. The employment of Iris on the mission is still a remarkable coincidence with the diluvian covenant.

[225] The sacred river-head.] That is, the ocean; which probably received this title from the Nile, a river highly venerated, being of old called the Oceanus. Styx is said to be a horn, or branch of the ocean, from the ancient idea that all rivers sprang from it: Homer Il. 21:

The rivers of Earth and Orcus were believed to communicate; thus Virgil, Æn. vi. 658, of the Elysian fields:

[226]

It was customary to pour a libation, while taking a solemn oath. Thus in the third Iliad:

[227] Her youngest-born Typhœus.] Taph, which at times was rendered Tuph, Toph, and Taphos, was a name current among the Amonians, by which they called their high places. Lower Ægypt being a flat, and annually overflowed, the natives were forced to raise the soil on which they built their principal edifices, in order to secure them from the inundation: and many of their sacred towers were erected on conical mounds of earth. There were often hills of the same form constructed for religious purposes, upon which there was no building. These were high altars; on which they used sometimes to offer human sacrifices. Tophet, where the Israelites made their children pass through fire to Moloch, was a mount of this form. Those cities in Ægypt which had a high place of this sort, and rites in consequence of it, were styled Typhonian. Many writers say that these rites were performed to Typhon at the tomb of Osiris. Hence he was in later times supposed to have been a person; one of immense size; and he was also esteemed a god. But this arose from the common mistake by which places were substituted for the deities there worshipped. Typhon was the Tuph-on, or altar; and the offerings were made to the Sun, styled On; the same as Osiris and Busiris. What they called his tombs were mounds of earth raised very high: some of these had also lofty towers adorned with pinnacles and battlements. They had also carved on them various symbols; and particularly serpentine hieroglyphics; in memorial of the god to whom they were sacred. In their upper story was a perpetual fire, that was plainly seen in the night. The gigantic stature of Typhon was borrowed from this object: and his character was formed from the hieroglyphical representations in the temples styled Typhonian. This may be inferred from the allegorical description of Typhœus given by Hesiod. Typhon and Typhœus were the same personage; and the poet represents him of a mixed form; being partly a man, and partly a monstrous dragon, whose head consisted of an assemblage of smaller serpents: and as there was a perpetual fire kept up in the upper story, he describes it as shining through the apertures of the building. The tower of Babel was undoubtedly a Tuph-on, or altar of the Sun; though generally represented as a temple. Hesiod certainly alludes to some ancient history concerning the demolition of Babel, when he describes Typhon or Typhœus as overthrown by Jove. He represents him as the youngest son of Earth; as a deity of great strength and immense stature; and adds what is very remarkable, that had it not been for the interposition of the chief god, this dæmon would have obtained a universal empire. Bryant.

Equally remarkable is the diversity of voices, described as issuing from the different heads of the giant. In the Mexican mythology a giant builds an artificial hill, in the form of a pyramid, as a memorial of the mountain, in whose caverns he, with six others, had taken shelter from a deluge. This monument was to reach the clouds; but the gods destroyed it with fire. See Humboldt’s American Researches.

[228]

Mr. Todd, in his notes on Milton, quotes the passage describing the rushing of the Messiah’s chariot, as superior in grandeur to this of Hesiod:

The majesty of Milton’s exception certainly exceeds Hesiod in loftiness of thought: but the mere rising of Jupiter causing the mountain to rock beneath his eternal feet, is more sublime than the shaking of the firmament from the rolling of wheels.

[229] The lightning-stricken deity.] Τοιο ανακτος. King is merely a title of deity, and was applied before to Prometheus.

[230] The woody dales.] Forges were erected in woody valleys, on account of the abundance of fuel. Guietus.

[231] Lo! from Typhœus is the strength of winds.] By these are meant the intermediary winds: with some of which it is evident that Hesiod was acquainted, although perhaps they were not yet distinguished by names. The ancient Greeks at first used only the four cardinal winds: but afterwards admitted four collaterals. Vitruvius enumerates twenty collateral winds in the Roman practice.

[232] These born from gods.] That is, from superior gods: as Aurora and Astræus.

[233] Led Metis.] One of the most ancient deities of the Amonians was named Meed or Meet; by which was signified divine wisdom. It was rendered by the Grecians Metis. It was represented under the symbol of a beautiful female countenance surrounded with serpents. Bryant.

The figure of wedding Wisdom occurs in “The Wisdom of Solomon,” ch. viii. v. 2. “I loved her, and sought her out from my youth: I desired to make her my spouse, and I was a lover of her beauty.”

In the Proverbs, Solomon describes Wisdom as the companion of Deity, in the language of exquisite poetry:

“I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths I was brought forth: when there were no fountains abounding with water. When he prepared the heavens I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depths: when he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: when he gave to the sea his decree: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.” Chap. viii.

[234]

An-ath signified the fountain of light: and was abbreviated Nath and Neith by the Ægyptians. They worshipped under this title a divine emanation, supposed to be the goddess of Wisdom. The Athenians, who came from Sais, in Ægypt, were denominated from this deity, whom they expressed Athana, or in the Ionian manner, Athene. Bryant.

Cudworth mentions Hammon and Neith as titles for one and the same deity; and quotes Plutarch as authority that Isis and Neith were also the same among the Ægyptians: and therefore the temple of Neith or Athene (Minerva) at Sais, was by him called the temple of Isis. Intellectual System, b. i. ch. 4.

[235] Brought the three Graces forth.] As Charis was a tower sacred to fire, some of the poets supposed a nymph of that name, who was beloved by Vulcan. Homer speaks of her as his wife. The Graces were said to be related to the Sun, who was, in reality, the same as Vulcan. The Sun, among the people of the East, was called Hares, and with a strong guttural, Chares: and his temple was styled Tor-chares: this the Greeks expressed Tricharis; and from thence formed a notion of three Graces. Bryant.

[236] The arrow-shooting Dian.] Artemis Diana and Venus Dione were in reality the same deity, and had the same departments. This sylvan goddess was distinguished by a crescent, as well as Juno Samia; and was an emblem of the Arkite history, and in consequence of it was supposed to preside over waters. Bryant.

[237] Hebe.] Hebe is a mere personification of youth. The poets made her the cup-bearer of the gods, as an emblem of their immortality.

[238]

In her martial character Minerva is intended to personify the wisdom and policy of war as opposed to brute force and animal courage; which are represented by Mars.

[239] Illustrious Vulcan.] The author of the New Analysis has exploded the notion that Vulcan was the same with Tubal-cain: who is mentioned in Genesis iv. 22, as “an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron:” for nothing of this craft was of old attached to Hephaistus or Vulcan: who was the god of fire; that is, the Sun. Later mythologists degraded him to a blacksmith; and placed him over the Cyclops, or Cyclopians, the Sicilian worshippers of fire. The emblems carved in the temples led to the idea of Vulcan and the Cyclops forging thunderbolts and weapons for the celestial armoury.

[240] Sea-potent Triton.] The Hetrurians erected on their shores towers and beacons for the sake of their navigation, which they called Tor-ain: whence they had a still farther denomination of Tor-aini (Tyrrheni). Another name for buildings of this nature was Tirit or Turit: which signified a tower or turret. The name of Triton is a contraction of Tirit-on: and signifies the tower of the Sun: but a deity was framed from it, who was supposed to have had the appearance of a man upwards, but downwards to have been like a fish. The Hetrurians are thought to have been the inventors of trumpets; and in their towers on the sea-coast there were people appointed to be continually on the watch, both by day and by night, and to give a proper signal if any thing happened extraordinary. This was done by a blast from the trumpet. In early times, however, these brazen instruments were but little known; and people were obliged to use what were near at hand; the conchs of the sea: by sounding these they gave signals from the tops of the towers when any ship appeared: and this is the implement with which Triton is more commonly furnished. So Amphi-tirit is merely an oracular tower, which by the poets has been changed into Amphitrite, and made the wife of Neptune. Bryant.

[241]

The making the goddess of Love, Concord, and Fertility, the spouse of Mars, and the mother of Fear and Terror, is obviously of later invention and of Grecian origin: and was, no doubt, suggested by the Rape of Helen, which was supposed to be instigated by Venus, and which kindled the war of Troy. See that elegant and classical poem of the sixth century: “The Rape of Helen” of Coluthus.

[242]

I am persuaded that no such person as Cadmus ever existed. If we consider the whole history of this celebrated hero, we shall find that it was impossible for any one person to have effected what he is supposed to have performed. They were not the achievements of one person nor of one age: the travels of Cadmus, like the expeditions of Perseus, Sesostris, and Osiris, relate to colonies, which at different times went abroad and were distinguished by this title. As colonies of the same denomination went to parts of the world widely distant, their ideal chieftain, whether Cadmus, or Bacchus, or Hercules, was supposed to have traversed the same ground.

Harmonia, the wife of Cadmus, who has been esteemed a mere woman, seems to have been an emblem of nature, and the fostering nurse of all things. In some of the Orphic verses she is represented not only as a deity, but as the light of the world. She was supposed to have been a personage from whom all knowledge was derived. On this account the books of science were styled the books of Harmonia: as well as the books of Hermes. These were four in number; of which Nonnus gives a curious account, and says that they contained matter of wonderful antiquity. The first of them is said to be coeval with the world. Hence we find that Hermon or Harmonia was a deity to whom the first writing is ascribed. The same is said of Hermes. The invention is also attributed to Thoth. Cadmus is said not only to have brought letters into Greece, but to have been the inventor of them. Whence we may fairly conclude, that under the characters of Hermon, Hermes, Thoth, and Cadmus, one person is alluded to.

The story of Cadmus, and of the serpent with which he engaged upon his arrival in Bœotia, relates to the Ophite worship which was there instituted by the Cadmians. So Jason in Colchis, Apollo in Phocis, Hercules at Lerna, engaged with serpents: all of which are histories of the same purport, but mistaken by the latter Grecians. It is said of Cadmus that, at the close of his life, he was, together with his wife Harmonia, changed into a serpent of stone. This wonderful metamorphosis is supposed to have happened at Encheliæ, a town of Illyria. The true history is this. These two personages were here enshrined in a temple, and worshipped under the symbol of a serpent. Bryant.

[243] The glorious Hermes, herald of the gods.] The Ægyptians acknowledged two personages under the title of Hermes and Thoth. The first was the same as Osiris; the most ancient of all the gods, and the head of all. The other was called the second Hermes; and likewise, for excellence, styled Trismegistus. This person is said to have been a great adept in mysterious knowledge, and an interpreter of the will of the gods. He was a great prophet; and on that account was looked upon as a divinity. To him they ascribed the reformation of the Ægyptian year: and there were many books, either written by him, or concerning him, which were preserved by the Ægyptians in the most sacred recesses of their temples. As he had been the cause of great riches to their nation, they styled him the dispenser of wealth, and esteemed him the god of gain. We are told that the true name of this Hermes was Siphoas. What is Siphoas but Aosiph misplaced? and is not Aosiph the Ægyptian name of the patriarch Joseph, as he was called by the Hebrews? Bryant.

[244] Semele.] The amour of Jupiter with Semele is described with brilliant luxuriancy of fancy and diction by Nonnus in his Dionysiacs.

[245] Bacchus of golden hair.] The history of Dionusus is closely connected with that of Bacchus, though they were two distinct persons. Dionusos is interpreted by the Latins Bacchus; but very improperly. Bacchus was Chus, the grandson of Noah; as Ammon was Ham. Dionusus was Noah; expressed Noos, Nus, Nusus; the planter of the vine, and the inventor of fermented liquors: whence he was also denominated Zeuth; which signifies ferment; rendered Zeus by the Greeks. Dionusus was the same as Osiris. According to the Grecian mythology, he is represented as having been twice born; and is said to have had two fathers and two mothers. He was also exposed in an ark, and wonderfully preserved. The purport of which histories is plain. We must, however, for the most part, consider the account given of Dionusus as the history of the Dionusians. This is two-fold: part relates to their rites and religion, in which the great events of the infant world and preservation of mankind in general were recorded: in the other part, which contains the expeditions and conquests of this personage, are enumerated the various colonies of the people who were denominated from him. They were the same as the Osirians and Herculeans. There were many places which claimed his birth: and as many where was shown the spot of his interment. The Grecians, wherever they met with a grot or cavern sacred to him, took it for granted that he was born there: and wherever he had a taphos, or high altar, supposed that he was there buried. The same is also observable in the history of all the gods.

There are few characters which at first sight appear more distinct than those of Apollo and Bacchus. Yet the department which is generally appropriated to Apollo as the Sun, I mean the conduct of the year, is by Virgil given to Bacchus, Georg. i. 5:

Hence we find that Bacchus is the Sun or Apollo; in reality they were all three the same; he was the ruling deity of the world. Bryant.

In this passage of Virgil, Ceres is Luna, or the Moon.

[246] Alcmena’s valiant son.] Hercules was a title given to the chief deity of the gentiles: who has been multiplied into almost as many personages as there were countries where he was worshipped. What has been attributed to this god singly was the work of Herculeans, a people who went under this title, among the many which they assumed, and who were the same as the Osirians, Peresians, and Cuthites. Wherever there were Herculeans, a Hercules has been supposed. Hence his character has been variously represented. One while he appears little better than a sturdy vagrant: at other times he is mentioned as a great benefactor; also as the patron of science; the god of eloquence, with the Muses in his train. He was the same as Hermes, Osiris, and Dionusus; and his rites were introduced into various parts by the Cuthites. In the detail of his peregrinations is contained in great measure a history of that people, and of their settlements. Each of these the Greeks have described as a warlike expedition, and have taken the glory of it to themselves. Bryant.

[247] Medea.] The natives of Colchis and Pontus were of the Cuthite race: they were much skilled in simples. Their country abounded in medicinal herbs, of which they made use both to good and bad purposes. In the fable of Medea we may read the character of the people: for that princess is represented as very knowing in all the productions of nature, and as gifted with supernatural powers. Bryant.

[248] Plutus.] Plutus is the same with Pluto: who, in his subterranean character, presided over all the riches of the ground: whether metallic or vegetable.

[249] Jason.] In the account of the Argo we have, undeniably, the history of a sacred ship; the first which was ever constructed. This truth the best writers among the Grecians confess; though the merit of the performance they would fain take to themselves. Yet after all their prejudices, they continually betray the truth, and show that the history was derived to them from Ægypt. Plutarch informs us, that the constellation, which the Greeks called the Argo, was a representation of the sacred ship of Osiris: and that it was out of reverence placed in the heavens. The ship of Osiris was esteemed the first ship constructed; and was no other than the ark. Jason was certainly a title of the Arkite god; the same as Areas, Argus, Inachus, and Prometheus: and the temples supposed to have been built by him in regions so remote were temples erected to his honour. It is said of this personage that, when a child, he underwent the same fate as Osiris, Perseus, and Dionusus: “he was concealed, and shut up in an ark, as if he had been dead.” Bryant.

[250] Sage Chiron.] Chiron, so celebrated for his knowledge, was a mere personage formed from a tower or temple of that name. It stood in Thessaly; and was inhabited by a set of priests called Centauri. They were so denominated from the deity they worshipped, who was represented under a particular form. They styled him Cahen-taur: and he was the same as the Minotaur of Crete, and the Tauromen of Sicilia: consequently of an emblematical and mixed figure. The people, by whom this worship was introduced, were many of them Anakim; and are accordingly represented as of great strength and stature. Such persons among the people of the East were styled nephele, which the Greeks, in after-times, supposed to relate to Nephele, a cloud: and in consequence described the Centaurs as born of a cloud. Chiron was a temple: probably at Nephele in Thessalia; the most ancient seat of the Nephelim. His name is a compound of Chir-on: the tower or temple of the Sun. In places of this sort, people used to study the heavenly motions; and they were made use of for seminaries, where young persons were instructed. Hence Achilles was said to have been taught by Chiron; who is reported to have had many disciples. Bryant.

[251] Circe.] From the knowledge of the Cuthites in herbs we may justly infer a great excellence in physic. Ægypt the nurse of arts, was much celebrated for botany. To the Titanians, or race of Chus, was attributed the invention of chemistry: hence it is said by Syncellus, that chemistry was the discovery of the Giants. Circe and Calypso are, like Medea, represented as very experienced in pharmacy and simples. Under these characters we have the history of Cuthite priestesses, who presided in particular temples near the sea-coast, and whose charms and incantations were thought to have a wonderful influence. The nymphs who attended them were a lower order in these sacred colleges; and they were instructed by their superiors in their arts and mysteries. Bryant.

[252] In height surpass’d.] Aristotle observes that persons of small stature may be elegantly and justly formed, but cannot be styled beautiful, Ethics, iv. 7. Xenophon in his Cyropædia, ii. 5, describes the beautiful Panthea as “of surpassing height and vigour.” Theocritus mentions a fulness of form as equally characteristic of beauty:

It is remarkable that Chaucer appears to glance at this comparison:

[253]

I am satisfied that this is to be taken in a literal, not in a metaphysical or poetic sense. Nearly all the Greek female epithets had a reference to some artificial mode of heightening the personal allurements: as rosy-fingered; rosy-elbowed: I think κυανεαων, black, is an epithet of the same cast: and alludes to the darkening of the eye-lid by the rim drawn round it with a needle dipped in antimonial oil. “The eye-lashes breathing of Venus,” has a palpable connexion with this. Athenæus, xv. describes the several unguents for the hair, breast, and arms, which were in use among the Greeks, as impregnated with the odour of rose, myrtle, or crocus. The oily dye employed by the women to blacken their eye-brows and eye-lashes was doubtless perfumed in the same manner. Virgil probably had in his mind the perfumed hair of a Roman lady, when he described the tresses of Venus breathing ambrosia, Æn. i. 402:

[254] Those herds, the cause of strife.] The story commonly runs, that the Taphians, and Teloboans, a lawless and piratical people, had made an inroad into the territory of Argos, and carried off Electryon’s herds: that in the pursuit a battle took place, and the robbers killed the brothers of Alcmena: and Amphitryon himself accidentally killed Electryon. But it should appear from Hesiod that he killed him by design on some provocation or dispute.

[255] The wall of Thebes.] Noah was directed in express terms to build Thiba, an ark: it is the very word made use of by the sacred writer. Many colonies that went abroad styled themselves Thebeans, in reference to the ark: as the memory of the deluge was held very sacred. Hence there occur many cities of the name of Theba, not in Ægypt only and Bœotia, but in Cilicia, Ionia, Attica, &c. It was sometimes expressed Thiba; a town of which name was in Pontus: it is called Thibis by Pliny; and he mentions a notion which prevailed, that the people of this place could not sink in water. Bryant.

[256] Bull-visaged Neptune.] The patriarch was esteemed the great deity of the sea: and at the same time was represented under the semblance of a bull, or with the head of that animal: and as all rivers were looked upon as the children of the ocean, they likewise were represented in the same manner. Bryant.

This seems to have been a double emblem: referring to the bull Apis, the representative of the father of husbandry, Osiris, and to the roaring of waters.

[257] Mingled metal.] Ηλεκτρον is not amber, but a mixed metal: which Pliny describes as consisting of three parts gold, and the fourth silver. Electrum is one of the materials in the Shield of Æneas, Æn. viii.:

[258] Pursuit was there.] Homer, Il. vi. 5:

[259] Herds of boars.] That animal (the wild boar) was no less terrible on the opposite coast of Asia than in Greece: as we learn from Herodotus, book i. c. 34. Gillies.

[260] The battle of the Lapithæ.] This forms the subject of the alto-relievo on the entablature of the Parthenon, or the temple of Minerva: ascribed to Phidias. See the “Memorandum” on the Elgin marbles.

[261] Some from their city.] Homer, Il. book xvii. Shield of Achilles:

[262]

Warton observes, History of English poetry, vol. i. p. 468: “The French and Italian poets, whom Chaucer imitates, abound in allegorical personages: and it is remarkable that the early poets of Greece and Rome were fond of these creations: we have in Hesiod ‘Darkness:’ and many others; if the Shield of Hercules be of his hand.” But it seems to have escaped the writer that it is not literal, but figurative Darkness which is personified. Guietus ingeniously supposes that it is meant for the dimness of death. Homer, indeed, applies to this the same term: in the death of Eurymachus, Od. xxii. 88:

Tanaquil Faber, on Longinus, contends that αχλυς is here Sorrow. Sorrow is personified in a fragment of Ennius:

This is adopted by Grævius and Robinson. In like manner φως its opposite, light, is often used for χαρα, joy: as appears in the oriental style of scripture. But they have omitted to notice that this is a specific sorrow: for what connexion have these horrible symptoms with sorrow in general? I conceive that the prosopopœia describes the misery attendant on war: and especially in a city besieged, with its usual accompaniments of famine, blood, and tears, and the dust or ashes of mourning. Longinus selects the line “an ichor from her nostrils flowed,” as an instance of the false sublime; and compares it with Homer’s verse on Discord,

This is to compare two things totally unlike: why should an image of exhaustion and disease be thought to aim at sublimity? The objection of Longinus that it tends to excite disgust rather than terror is nugatory. The poet did not intend to excite terror, but horror: that kind of horror which arises from the contemplation of physical suffering.

[263] A well-tower’d city.] Homer, Il. book xviii. Shield of Achilles:

[264] Vaulted on steeds.] This circumstance has been thought to betray a later age: as it is alleged, that the only instance of riding on horseback mentioned by Homer is that of Diomed, who, with Ulysses, rides the horses of Rhesus of which he has made prize. But though chariot-horses only are found in the Homeric battles, there is an allusion to horsemanship, as an exhibition of skill, in a simile of the 15th book of the Iliad, v. 679; where the rider is described as riding four horses at once, and vaulting from one to the other.

[265] Others as husbandmen appear’d.] Homer Il. xviii. Shield of Achilles:

[266] In baskets thus up-piled.] Homer Il. xviii. Shield of Achilles:

[267]

This may be compared with the chariot-race at the funeral games of Patroclus, in the Iliad, xxiii. 362, to which, however, it is very inferior.

This description apparently suggested to Virgil the chariot-race in the Georgics iii. 402, which Dryden has rendered with all the fire of the original.

[268] The ocean flow’d.] Homer, Il. xviii. Shield of Achilles:

[269] Race of the far-famed Lyngeus.] Lyngeus was the ancestor of Perseus, the son of Danaë, and the father of Alcæus: of whom Amphitryon was the son.

[270]

Homer, Il. book xiii.

[271] He cast forth dews of blood.] Iliad, xvi, 459. Death of Sarpedon:

[272] As in the mountain thickets.] Homer, Iliad xiii.

[273] As two grim lions.] Iliad xvi.:

[274] As vultures curved of beak.] Iliad xvi.:

[275] As falls a thunder-blasted oak.] Iliad xiv.:

[276]

Iliad xvii.:

[277] Stoop’d from the chariot.] Iliad v.:

[278] The huge mount and monumental stone.] By the words tomb and monument, ταφος and σημα, I understand a mount of earth and a pillar of stone on the top of it: although Homer Il. xxiv. v. 801, applies σημα to the mount: which he seems to describe as raised of stones:

[279] Granger, in his biographical history of England, speaks slightingly of Chapman’s Homer on Pope’s authority. Pope singularly explains what he considers as the defects of this translation, by saying that “the nature of the man may account for his whole performance: as he appears to have been of an arrogant turn, and an enthusiast in poetry.” A strange disqualification! He confesses, also, that “what very much contributed to cover his defects, is a daring fiery spirit that animates his translation: which is something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have written before he arrived at years of discretion.” Preface to Homer.

Mr. Godwin, in his “Lives of Edward and John Philips, nephews of Milton,” has illustrated the natural energy of style in Chapman’s Homer with critical taste and just feeling. Chap. x. p. 243.

[280] Feed upon or emaciate the features by dissipated excess.

[281] Vulcan.

[282] Persuasion.

[283] Necklaces; from Carquan, Fr. or Carcan. Dict. de l’Ac. Fr.

[284] To rack here means to give what is exacted; yeelds is yieldings, produce.

[285] Hinder.

[286] Hesitate.

[287] Beyond that which was sown first.

[288] Exertions.

[289] So much as.

[290] The Man of Thrift. Thie in the old Saxon is thrift.

[291] Animated with whose hardihood in braving the season for the sake of wealth.

[292] Slothful averseness to meet the rigour of the season, of which the consequence is poverty.

[293] Avoided through love of delicacy; or slothful indulgence.

[294] Remain unemployed; sit starving in idleness as long as the frost and snow endure.

[295] Thick, swollen.

[296] Clusters.

[297] The whole deluge of air being let loose in him, the (north-wind) on the surface of earth.

[298] In the original, many-nourishing. Chapman has elsewhere more faithfully the same epithet “many-a-creature-nourishing earth.”

[299] Being sheared.

[300] Skins.

[301] They keep out the whole force of the winter, which is concentrated in his (the winter’s) wind.

[302] She was of too tender an age to sustain the bridal embrace.

[303] A Grecism: swimming in beauty: in the Greek, many-golden Venus: abounding with charms.