[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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This, perhaps, suggested to Milton the arming the angels with mountains:
This is expanded by Milton with uncommon sublimity:
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.
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:
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.:
Virgil, Æn. vi. 577:
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.:
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.:
Milton, Par. Lost, vi. 4:
[219] Sleep, Death’s half brother.] Virg. Æn. vi. 278:
Odyssey, xi. 14:
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.
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.