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Mythology in Marble

Chapter 66: INTERPRETATION.
By Louie M. Bell
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About This Book

A concise guide that pairs brief retellings of classical myths with descriptive analyses of the marble sculptures inspired by them, offering readers accessible explanations of how narrative themes inform pose, expression, and iconography. Each entry includes notes on artistic features and provenance alongside poetic quotations and illustrations to reinforce popular interpretations. Practical tools such as a table of Greek and Roman deity equivalents and a suggested reading list are appended to aid further study. The overall aim is to equip museumgoers and general readers with the background needed to appreciate mythological sculpture without requiring specialized art-historical training.

Diana.
“The Virgin Huntress.”

“Oh! Hunter chaste
Of riverside and woods, and healthy waste,
Where with thy silver bow and arrows keen,
Art thou now forested? O woodland queen,
What smoother air thy smoother forehead woos?
Where dost thou listen to the wide haloos
Of thy departed nymphs? Through what dark tree
Glimmers thy crescent?”
—Ben Jonson.

STORY.
THE MOON GODDESS.

“Goddess serene, transcending every star!
Queen of the sky whose beams are seen afar!
By night heaven owns thy sway, by day the grove,
When as chaste Dian, here thou deign’st to rove.”
—Byron.

Diana was the twin sister of Apollo. She had many lovers, but her heart remained cold to all of them until one calm, clear night, in bending down from her moon-car over the shadowy, dream-like earth, she beheld Endymion sleeping. At once her heart was warmed by his surpassing beauty, and gliding gently from her chariot, she kissed him and watched lovingly over him while he slept.

“Chaste Artemis, who guides the lunar car,
The pale nocturnal vigils ever keeping,
Sped through the silent space from star to star,
And, blushing, stooped to kiss Endymion sleeping.”
—Boyesen.

Partly awakened, Endymion rested his eyes for an instant upon the bright maiden ere she vanished, but that one glance kindled a great passion in his heart. Diana descended night after night to caress him while he slept, and even while wrapped in slumber he watched for her coming and enjoyed the bliss of her presence. At last she threw over him the spell of eternal sleep and, that none might know of her passion, concealed him in a cave, where she continued always to come and gaze enraptured upon his face and press soft kisses upon his lips.

“Queen of the wide air; thou most lovely queen,
Of all the brightness that mine eyes have seen;
As thou exceedest all things in thy shrine,
So every tale does this sweet tale of thine.”
—Keats.

INTERPRETATION.

“This story suggests aspiring and poetic love, a life spent more in dreams than in reality, and an early and welcome death.” Mueller, the great authority on philology, says that in ancient language the people said, “Diana kisses Endymion to sleep,” instead of, “It is night.” Some mythologists consider Endymion the personification of sleep.

ART.

This beautiful representation of the gentle goddess of night in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, was found in the ruins of Hadrian’s Villa, on the Tiber. Diana, in a very graceful attitude, with head bowed and hands outstretched, rapturously gazes at her sleeping lover. The forearms are modern, but the restoration is in admirable keeping with the motive and is undoubtedly correct.