MYTHS OF THE LESSER DIVINITIES OF EARTH, ETC.
=129. Pan, and the Personification of Nature.= It was a pleasing
trait in the old paganism that it loved to trace in every operation
of nature the agency of deity. The imagination of the Greeks peopled
the regions of earth and sea with divinities, to whose agency it
attributed the phenomena that our philosophy ascribes to the operation
of natural law. So Pan, the god of woods and fields,[169] whose name
seemed to signify _all_, came to be considered a symbol of the universe
and a personification of Nature. "Universal Pan," says Milton in his
description of the creation:
Universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
Led on the eternal Spring.
Later, Pan came to be regarded as a representative of all the Greek
gods and of paganism itself. Indeed, according to an early Christian
tradition, when the heavenly host announced to the shepherds the birth
of Christ, a deep groan, heard through the isles of Greece, told that
great Pan was dead, that the dynasty of Olympus was dethroned, and the
several deities sent wandering in cold and darkness.
The lonely mountains o'er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;
From haunted spring and dale,
Edged with poplar pale,
The parting Genius is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses torn,
The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.[170]
Many a poet has lamented the change. For even if the head did profit
for a time by the revolt against the divine prerogative of nature, it
is more than possible that the heart lost in due proportion.
His sorrow at this loss of imaginative sympathy among the moderns
Wordsworth expresses in the sonnet, already cited, beginning "The world
is too much with us." Schiller, also, by his poem, The Gods of Greece,
has immortalized his sorrow for the decadence of the ancient mythology.
[Illustration: FIG. 102. PAN BLOWING HIS PIPE, ECHO ANSWERING]
Ah, the beauteous world while yet ye ruled it,--
Yet--by gladsome touches of the hand;
Ah, the joyous hearts that still ye governed,
Gods of Beauty, ye, of Fable-land!
Then, ah, then, the mysteries resplendent
Triumphed.--Other was it then, I ween,
When thy shrines were odorous with garlands,
Thou, of Amathus the queen.
Then the gracious veil, of fancy woven,
Fell in folds about the fact uncouth;
Through the universe life flowed in fullness,
What we feel not now was felt in sooth:
Man ascribed nobility to Nature,
Rendered love unto the earth he trod,
Everywhere his eye, illuminated,
Saw the footprints of a God.
* * * * *
Lovely world, where art thou? Turn, oh, turn thee,
Fairest blossom-tide of Nature's spring!
Only in the poet's realm of wonder
Liv'st thou, still,--a fable vanishing.
Reft of life the meadows lie deserted;
Ne'er a godhead can my fancy see:
Ah, if only of those living colors
Lingered yet the ghost with me![171]
* * * * *
It was the poem from which these stanzas are taken that provoked the
well-known reply of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, contained in The Dead
Pan. Her argument may be gathered from the following stanzas:
By your beauty which confesses
Some chief Beauty conquering you,
By our grand heroic guesses
Through your falsehood at the True,
We will weep _not_! earth shall roll
Heir to each god's aureole,
And Pan is dead.
Earth outgrows the mythic fancies
Sung beside her in her youth;
And those debonair romances
Sound but dull beside the truth.
Ph[oe]bus' chariot course is run!
Look up, poets, to the sun!
Pan, Pan is dead.
=130. Stedman's Pan in Wall Street.=[172] That Pan, however, is not
yet dead but alive even in the practical atmosphere of our western
world, the poem here appended, written by one of our recently deceased
American poets, would indicate.
Just where the Treasury's marble front
Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations;
Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont
To throng for trade and last quotations;
Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
Outrival, in the ears of people,
The quarter chimes, serenely tolled
From Trinity's undaunted steeple,--
Even there I heard a strange, wild strain
Sound high above the modern clamor,
Above the cries of greed and gain,
The curbstone war, the auction's hammer;
And swift, on Music's misty ways,
It led, from all this strife for millions,
To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days
Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians.
[Illustration: FIG. 103. THE MUSIC LESSON]
And as it still'd the multitude,
And yet more joyous rose, and shriller,
I saw the minstrel where he stood
At ease against a Doric pillar:
One hand a droning organ play'd,
The other held a Pan's pipe (fashioned
Like those of old) to lips that made
The reeds give out that strain impassioned.
'T was Pan himself had wandered here,
A-strolling through the sordid city,
And piping to the civic ear
The prelude of some pastoral ditty!
The demigod had cross'd the seas,--
From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr,
And Syracusan times,--to these
Far shores and twenty centuries later.
A ragged cap was on his head:
But--hidden thus--there was no doubting
That, all with crispy locks o'erspread,
His gnarlèd horns were somewhere sprouting;
His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes,
Were cross'd, as on some frieze you see them.
And trousers, patched of divers hues,
Conceal'd his crooked shanks beneath them.
[Illustration: FIG. 104. BACCHIC DANCE]
He filled the quivering reeds with sound,
And o'er his mouth their changes shifted,
And with his goat's-eyes looked around
Where'er the passing current drifted;
And soon, as on Trinacrian hills
The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him,
Even now the tradesmen from their tills,
With clerks and porters, crowded near him.
The bulls and bears together drew
From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley,
As erst, if pastorals be true,
Came beasts from every wooded valley;
The random passers stay'd to list,--
A boxer Ægon, rough and merry,--
Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst
With Naïs at the Brooklyn Ferry.
[Illustration: FIG. 105. SILENUS]
A one-eyed Cyclops halted long
In tatter'd cloak of army pattern,
And Galatea joined the throng,--
A blowsy, apple-vending slattern;
While old Silenus stagger'd out
From some new-fangled lunch-house handy
And bade the piper, with a shout,
To strike up "Yankee Doodle Dandy!"
A newsboy and a peanut girl
Like little Fauns began to caper:
His hair was all in tangled curl,
Her tawny legs were bare and taper.
And still the gathering larger grew,
And gave its pence and crowded nigher,
While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew
His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.
O heart of Nature! beating still
With throbs her vernal passion taught her,--
Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,
Or by the Arethusan water!
New forms may fold the speech, new lands
Arise within these ocean-portals,
But Music waves eternal wands,--
Enchantress of the souls of mortals!
So thought I,--but among us trod
A man in blue with legal baton;
And scoff'd the vagrant demigod,
And push'd him from the step I sat on.
Doubting I mused upon the cry--
"Great Pan is dead!"--and all the people
Went on their ways:--and clear and high
The quarter sounded from the steeple.
[Illustration: FIG. 106. SATYR]
=131. Other Lesser Gods of Earth.= Of the company of the lesser gods
of earth, besides Pan, were the Sileni, the Sylvans, the Fauns, and
the Satyrs, all male; the Oreads and the Dryads or Hamadryads, female.
To these may be added the Naiads, for, although they dwelt in the
streams, their association with the deities of earth was intimate. Of
the nymphs, the Oreads and the Naiads were immortal. The love of Pan
for Syrinx has already been mentioned, and his musical contest with
Apollo. Of Silenus we have seen something in the adventures of Bacchus.
What kind of existence the Satyr enjoyed is conveyed in the following
soliloquy:
[Illustration: FIG. 107. SATYR SWINGING MAIDEN]
The trunk of this tree,
Dusky-leaved, shaggy-rooted,
Is a pillow well suited
To a hybrid like me,
Goat-bearded, goat-footed;
For the boughs of the glade
Meet above me, and throw
A cool, pleasant shade
On the greenness below;
Dusky and brown'd
Close the leaves all around;
And yet, all the while,
Thro' the boughs I can see
A star, with a smile,
Looking at me....
[Illustration: FIG. 108. SATYR DRINKING]
Why, all day long,
I run about
With a madcap throng,
And laugh and shout.
Silenus grips
My ears, and strides
On my shaggy hips,
And up and down
In an ivy crown
Tipsily rides;
And when in doze
His eyelids close,
Off he tumbles, and I
Can his wine-skin steal,
I drink--and feel
The grass roll--sea high;
Then with shouts and yells,
Down mossy dells,
I stagger after
The wood-nymphs fleet,
Who with mocking laughter
And smiles retreat;
And just as I clasp
A yielding waist,
With a cry embraced,
--Gush! it melts from my grasp
Into water cool,
And--bubble! trouble!
Seeing double!
I stumble and gasp
In some icy pool![173]
=132. Echo and Narcissus.=[174] Echo was a beautiful Oread, fond of
the woods and hills, a favorite of Diana, whom she attended in the
chase. But by her chatter she came under the displeasure of Juno, who
condemned her to the loss of voice save for purposes of reply.
[Illustration: FIG. 109. NARCISSUS]
Subsequently having fallen in love with Narcissus, the beautiful son of
the river-god Cephissus, Echo found it impossible to express her regard
for him in any way but by mimicking what he said; and what he said,
unfortunately, did not always convey her sentiments. When, however,
he once called across the hills to her, "Let us join one another,"
the maid, answering with all her heart, hastened to the spot, ready to
throw her arms about his neck. He started back, exclaiming, "Hands off!
I would rather die than thou shouldst have me!" "Have me," said she;
but in vain. From that time forth she lived in caves and among mountain
cliffs, and faded away till there was nothing left of her but her
voice. But through his future fortunes she was constant to her cruel
lover.
This Narcissus was the embodiment of self-conceit. He shunned the rest
of the nymphs as he had shunned Echo. One maiden, however, uttered a
prayer that he might some time or other feel what it was to love and
meet no return of affection. The avenging goddess heard. Narcissus,
stooping over a river brink, fell in love with his own image in the
water. He talked to it, tried to embrace it, languished for it, and
pined until he died. Indeed, even after death, it is said that when his
shade passed the Stygian river it leaned over the boat to catch a look
of itself in the waters. The nymphs mourned for Narcissus, especially
the water-nymphs; and when they smote their breasts, Echo smote hers
also. They prepared a funeral pile and would have burned the body, but
it was nowhere to be found. In its place had sprung up a flower, purple
within and surrounded with white leaves, which bears the name and
preserves the memory of the son of Cephissus.
=133. Echo, Pan, Lyde, and the Satyr.= Another interesting episode in
the life of Echo is given by Moschus:[175]
Pan loved his neighbor Echo; Echo loved
A gamesome Satyr; he, by her unmoved,
Loved only Lyde; thus through Echo, Pan,
Lyde, and Satyr, Love his circle ran.
Thus all, while their true lovers' hearts they grieved,
Were scorned in turn, and what they gave received.
O all Love's scorners, learn this lesson true:
Be kind to love, that he be kind to you.
=134. The Naiads.= These nymphs guarded streams and fountains of fresh
water and, like the Naiad who speaks in the following verses, kept them
sacred for Diana or some other divinity.
Dian white-arm'd has given me this cool shrine
Deep in the bosom of a wood of pine:
The silver-sparkling showers
That hive me in, the flowers
That prink my fountain's brim, are hers and mine;
And when the days are mild and fair,
And grass is springing, buds are blowing,
Sweet it is, 'mid waters flowing,
Here to sit and know no care,
'Mid the waters flowing, flowing, flowing,
Combing my yellow, yellow hair.
The ounce and panther down the mountain side
Creep thro' dark greenness in the eventide;
And at the fountain's brink
Casting great shades, they drink,
Gazing upon me, tame and sapphire-eyed;
For, awed by my pale face, whose light
Gleameth thro' sedge and lilies yellow
They, lapping at my fountain mellow,
Harm not the lamb that in affright
Throws in the pool so mellow, mellow, mellow,
Its shadow small and dusky-white.
Oft do the fauns and satyrs, flusht with play,
Come to my coolness in the hot noonday.
Nay, once indeed, I vow
By Dian's truthful brow,
The great god Pan himself did pass this way,
And, all in festal oak-leaves clad,
His limbs among these lilies throwing,
Watch'd the silver waters flowing,
Listen'd to their music glad,
Saw and heard them flowing, flowing, flowing,
And ah! his face was worn and sad!
Mild joys like silvery waters fall;
But it is sweetest, sweetest far of all,
In the calm summer night,
When the tree-tops look white,
To be exhaled in dew at Dian's call,
Among my sister-clouds to move
Over the darkness, earth bedimming,
Milky-robed thro' heaven swimming,
Floating round the stars above,
Swimming proudly, swimming proudly, swimming,
And waiting on the Moon I love.
So tenderly I keep this cool, green shrine,
Deep in the bosom of a wood of pine;
Faithful thro' shade and sun,
That service due and done
May haply earn for me a place divine
Among the white-robed deities
That thread thro' starry paths, attending
My sweet Lady, calmly wending
Thro' the silence of the skies,
Changing in hues of beauty never ending,
Drinking the light of Dian's eyes.[176]
=135. The Dryads=, or =Hamadryads=, assumed at times the forms of
peasant girls, shepherdesses, or followers of the hunt. But they were
believed to perish with certain trees which had been their abode and
with which they had come into existence. Wantonly to destroy a tree was
therefore an impious act, sometimes severely punished, as in the cases
of Erysichthon and Dryope.
=136. Erysichthon=,[177] a despiser of the gods, presumed to violate
with the ax a grove sacred to Ceres. A venerable oak, whereon votive
tablets had often been hung inscribed with the gratitude of mortals
to the nymph of the tree,--an oak round which the Dryads hand in hand
had often danced,--he ordered his servants to fell. When he saw them
hesitate, he snatched an ax from one, and boasting that he cared not
whether it were a tree beloved of the goddess or not, addressed himself
to the task. The oak seemed to shudder and utter a groan. When the
first blow fell upon the trunk, blood flowed from the wound. Warned by
a bystander to desist, Erysichthon slew him; warned by a voice from the
nymph of the tree, he redoubled his blows and brought down the oak. The
Dryads invoked punishment upon Erysichthon.
The goddess Ceres, whom they had supplicated, nodded her assent. She
dispatched an Oread to ice-clad Scythia, where Cold abides, and Fear
and Shuddering and Famine. At Mount Caucasus, the Oread stayed the
dragons of Ceres that drew her chariot; for afar off she beheld Famine,
forespent with hunger, pulling up with teeth and claws the scanty
herbage from a stony field. To her the nymph delivered the commands of
Ceres, then returned in haste to Thessaly, for she herself began to be
an hungered.
The orders of Ceres were executed by Famine, who, speeding through the
air, entered the dwelling of Erysichthon and, as he slept, enfolded him
with her wings and breathed herself into him. In his dreams the caitiff
craved food; and when he awoke, his hunger raged. The more he ate, the
more he craved, till, in default of money, he sold his daughter into
slavery for edibles. Neptune, however, rescued the girl by changing her
into a fisherman; and in that form she assured the slave-owner that
she had seen no woman or other person, except herself, thereabouts.
Then, resuming her own appearance, she was again and again sold by
her father; while by Neptune's favor she became on each occasion a
different animal, and so regained her home. Finally, increasing demands
of hunger compelled the father to devour his own limbs; and in due time
he finished himself off.
=137. Dryope=, the wife of Andræmon, purposing with her sister Iole
to gather flowers for the altars of the nymphs, plucked the purple
blossoms of a lotus plant that grew near the water, and offered them to
her child. Iole, about to do the same thing, perceived that the stem of
the plant was bleeding. Indeed, the plant was none other than a nymph,
Lotis, who, escaping from a base pursuer, had been thus transformed.
Dryope would have hastened from the spot, but the displeasure of the
nymph had fallen upon her. While protesting her innocence, she began
to put forth branches and leaves. Praying her husband to see that no
violence was done to her, to remind their child that every flower or
bush might be a goddess in disguise, to bring him often to be nursed
under her branches, and to teach him to say "My mother lies hid under
this bark,"--the luckless woman assumed the shape of a lotus.
=138. Rh[oe]cus.=[178] The Hamadryads could appreciate services as well
as punish injuries.
Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece,
As full of freedom, youth, and beauty still,
As the immortal freshness of that grace
Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze.[179]
Rh[oe]cus, happening to see an oak just ready to fall, propped it
up. The nymph, who had been on the point of perishing with the tree,
expressed her gratitude to him and bade him ask what reward he would.
Rh[oe]cus boldly asked her love, and the nymph yielded to his desire.
At the same time charging him to be mindful and constant, she promised
to expect him an hour before sunset and, meanwhile, to communicate with
him by means of her messenger,--a bee:
Now, in those days of simpleness and faith,
Men did not think that happy things were dreams
Because they overstepped the narrow bourn
Of likelihood, but reverently deemed
Nothing too wondrous or too beautiful
To be the guerdon of a daring heart.
So Rh[oe]cus made no doubt that he was blest,
And all along unto the city's gate
Earth seemed to spring beneath him as he walked,
The clear, broad sky looked bluer than its wont,
And he could scarce believe he had not wings,
Such sunshine seemed to glitter through his veins
Instead of blood, so light he felt and strange.
But the day was past its noon. Joining some comrades over the dice,
Rh[oe]cus forgot all else. A bee buzzed about his ear. Impatiently he
brushed it aside:
Then through the window flew the wounded bee,
And Rh[oe]cus, tracking him with angry eyes,
Saw a sharp mountain peak of Thessaly
Against the red disk of the setting sun,--
And instantly the blood sank from his heart....
... Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree,
And, listening fearfully, he heard once more
The low voice murmur, "Rh[oe]cus!" close at hand:
Whereat he looked around him, but could see
Naught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak.
Then sighed the voice, "O Rh[oe]cus! nevermore
Shalt thou behold me or by day or night,
Me, who would fain have blessed thee with a love
More ripe and bounteous than ever yet
Filled up with nectar any mortal heart:
But thou didst scorn my humble messenger
And sent'st him back to me with bruisèd wings.
We spirits only show to gentle eyes,
We ever ask an undivided love,
And he who scorns the least of Nature's works
Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from all.
Farewell! for thou canst never see me more."
Then Rh[oe]cus beat his breast, and groaned aloud,
And cried, "Be pitiful! forgive me yet
This once, and I shall never need it more!"
"Alas!" the voice returned, "'tis thou art blind,
Not I unmerciful; I can forgive,
But have no skill to heal thy spirit's eyes;
Only the soul hath power o'er itself."
With that again there murmured, "Nevermore!"
And Rh[oe]cus after heard no other sound,
Except the rattling of the oak's crisp leaves,
Like the long surf upon a distant shore,
Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and down.
The night had gathered round him: o'er the plain
The city sparkled with its thousand lights,
And sounds of revel fell upon his ear
Harshly and like a curse; above, the sky,
With all its bright sublimity of stars,
Deepened, and on his forehead smote the breeze:
Beauty was all around him and delight,
But from that eve he was alone on earth.
According to the older tradition, the nymph deprived Rh[oe]cus of his
physical sight; but the superior insight of Lowell's interpretation is
evident.
=139. Pomona and Vertumnus.=[180] Pomona was a Hamadryad of Roman
mythology, guardian especially of the apple orchards, but presiding
also over other fruits. "Bear me, Pomona," sings one of our poets,--
Bear me, Pomona, to thy citron groves,
To where the lemon and the piercing lime,
With the deep orange, glowing through the green,
Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclined
Beneath the spreading tamarind that shakes,
Fanned by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit.[181]
[Illustration: FIG. 110. A RUSTIC]
This nymph had scorned the offers of love made her by Pan, Sylvanus,
and innumerable Fauns and Satyrs. Vertumnus, too, she had time and
again refused. But he, the deity of gardens and of the changing
seasons, unwearied, wooed her in as many guises as his seasons
themselves could assume. Now as a reaper, now as haymaker, now as
plowman, now as vinedresser, now as apple-picker, now as fisherman, now
as soldier,--all to no avail. Finally, as an old woman, he came to her,
admired her fruit, admired especially the luxuriance of her grapes,
descanted on the dependence of the luxuriant vine, close by, upon the
elm to which it was clinging; advised Pomona, likewise, to choose some
youth--say, for instance, the young Vertumnus--about whom to twine
_her_ arms. Then he told how the worthy Iphis, spurned by Anaxarete,
had hanged himself to her gatepost; and how the gods had turned the
hard-hearted virgin to stone even as she gazed on her lover's funeral.
"Consider these things, dearest child," said the seeming old woman,
"lay aside thy scorn and thy delays, and accept a lover. So may neither
the vernal frosts blight thy young fruits, nor furious winds scatter
thy blossoms!"
When Vertumnus had thus spoken, he dropped his disguise and stood
before Pomona in his proper person,--a comely youth. Such wooing, of
course, could not but win its just reward.
=140. The Cranes of Ibycus=.[182] The Furies, called also Diræ (the
terrible ones), Erinyes (the persecutors, or the angered ones), and
finally, by way of euphemism, Eumenides (the well-meaning), though
they were spirits of the underworld, visited earth to punish filial
disobedience, irreverence to old age, perjury, murder, treachery to
guests, even unkindness toward beggars. They avenged the ghosts of
such as, dying violent deaths, possessed on earth no representatives
either by law or by kindred to avenge them. Therefore, as we shall see,
they persecuted Orestes, who had slain his mother. Therefore, like
the accusing voice of conscience, they marshaled to punishment the
murderers of Ibycus.
[Illustration: FIG. 111. A RUSTIC]
This poet, beloved of Apollo, was, while journeying to the musical
contest of the Isthmus at Corinth, attacked by two robbers in the
Corinthian grove of Neptune. Overcome by them, he commended his cause
as he fell to a flock of cranes that happened to be screaming hoarsely
overhead. But when his body was found, all Greece, then gathered at the
festival, demanded vengeance on the murderer.
Soon afterward, the vast assemblage in the amphitheater sat listening
to a play in which the Chorus personated the Furies. The Choristers,
clad in black, bore in their fleshless hands torches blazing with a
pitchy flame. Advancing with measured step, they formed ranks in the
orchestra. Their cheeks were bloodless, and in place of hair writhing
serpents curled around their brows. Forming a circle, these awful
beings sang their hymn. High it swelled, overpowering the sound of the
instruments:
"Happy the man whose heart is pure from guilt and crime! Him we
avengers touch not; he treads the path of life secure from us. But woe!
woe! to him who has done the deed of secret murder. We, the fearful
brood of Night, fasten ourselves upon him, soul and flesh. Thinks he by
flight to escape us? Fly we still faster in pursuit, twine our snakes
around his feet, and bring him to the ground. Unwearied we pursue; no
pity checks our course; still on, still on to the end of life, we give
no peace, no rest."
Stillness like the stillness of death sat over the assembly. Suddenly
a cry burst from one of the uppermost benches,--"Lo, comrade, the
avengers of Ibycus!" A flock of cranes crossed the sky. "The murderer
has informed against himself," shouted the assemblage. The inference
was correct. The criminals, straightway seized, confessed the crime and
suffered the penalty.
FOOTNOTES:
[169] His name is not derived from the Greek _p[=a]n_, all, but from
the root _p[)a]_, to feed, to pasture (i.e. the flocks and herds).
[170] Milton, Hymn on the Nativity.
[171] Translated by C. M. Gayley.
[172] By Edmund Clarence Stedman.
[173] From The Satyr, by Robert Buchanan.
[174] Ovid, Metam. 3, 339-510.
[175] Idyl VI (Lang's translation). For Moschus, see Commentary, § 298.
[176] From The Naiad, by Robert Buchanan.
[177] Ovid, Metam. 8, 738-884.
[178] See note (Scholium) on the Argonautics of Apollonius, B 477.
Keil's edition, p. 415, l. 32.
[179] J. R. Lowell, Rh[oe]cus. The student should read the whole poem.
[180] Ovid, Metam. 14, 623-771.
[181] Thomson, Seasons.
[182] Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 4. 33, 71; and Statius, Silvæ,
5. 3, 152.