“Jason first sayled, in story it is tolde,
Toward Colchos, to wynne the flees of golde,
Ceres the Goddess fond first the tilthe of londe;
* * * * *
Also, Aristeus fonde first the usage
Of mylke, and cruddis, and of honey swote;
Peryodes, for grete avauntage,
From flyntes smote fuyre, daryng in the roote.”
We read that Aristeus “obtained of Jupiter and Neptune, that the
pestilential heat of the dog-days, wherein was great mortality, should
be mitigated with wind.” This is one of those dateless benefits
conferred on man, which have no record in our vulgar day, though we
still find some similitude to them in our dreams, in which we have a
more liberal and juster apprehension of things, unconstrained by habit,
which is then in some measure put off, and divested of memory, which we
call history.
According to fable, when the island of Ægina was depopulated by
sickness, at the instance of Æacus, Jupiter turned the ants into men,
that is, as some think, he made men of the inhabitants who lived meanly
like ants. This is perhaps the fullest history of those early days
extant.
The fable which is naturally and truly composed, so as to satisfy the
imagination, ere it addresses the understanding, beautiful though
strange as a wild-flower, is to the wise man an apothegm, and admits of
his most generous interpretation. When we read that Bacchus made the
Tyrrhenian mariners mad, so that they leapt into the sea, mistaking it
for a meadow full of flowers, and so became dolphins, we are not
concerned about the historical truth of this, but rather a higher
poetical truth. We seem to hear the music of a thought, and care not if
the understanding be not gratified. For their beauty, consider the
fables of Narcissus, of Endymion, of Memnon son of Morning, the
representative of all promising youths who have died a premature death,
and whose memory is melodiously prolonged to the latest morning; the
beautiful stories of Phaeton, and of the Sirens whose isle shone afar
off white with the bones of unburied men; and the pregnant ones of Pan,
Prometheus, and the Sphinx; and that long list of names which have
already become part of the universal language of civilized men, and
from proper are becoming common names or nouns,—the Sibyls, the
Eumenides, the Parcæ, the Graces, the Muses, Nemesis, &c.
It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest
sundered nations and generations consent to give completeness and
roundness to an ancient fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate
the beauty or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be
only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add
some trait to the mythus. As when astronomers call the lately
discovered planet Neptune; or the asteroid Astræa, that the Virgin who
was driven from earth to heaven at the end of the golden age, may have
her local habitation in the heavens more distinctly assigned her,—for
the slightest recognition of poetic worth is significant. By such slow
aggregation has mythology grown from the first. The very nursery tales
of this generation, were the nursery tales of primeval races. They
migrate from east to west, and again from west to east; now expanded
into the “tale divine” of bards, now shrunk into a popular rhyme. This
is an approach to that universal language which men have sought in
vain. This fond reiteration of the oldest expressions of truth by the
latest posterity, content with slightly and religiously retouching the
old material, is the most impressive proof of a common humanity.
All nations love the same jests and tales, Jews, Christians, and
Mahometans, and the same translated suffice for all. All men are
children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and
wakes them in the morning. Joseph Wolff, the missionary, distributed
copies of Robinson Crusoe, translated into Arabic, among the Arabs, and
they made a great sensation. “Robinson Crusoe’s adventures and wisdom,”
says he, “were read by Mahometans in the market-places of Sanaa,
Hodyeda, and Loheya, and admired and believed!” On reading the book,
the Arabians exclaimed, “O, that Robinson Crusoe must have been a great
prophet!”
To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history and
biography. So far from being false or fabulous in the common sense, it
contains only enduring and essential truth, the I and you, the here and
there, the now and then, being omitted. Either time or rare wisdom
writes it. Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a
thousand years. The poet is he who can write some pure mythology to-day
without the aid of posterity. In how few words, for instance, the
Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a
sentence for our classical dictionary,—and then, perchance, have stuck
up their names to shine in some corner of the firmament. We moderns, on
the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and
history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which itself is but
materials to serve for a mythology. How many volumes folio would the
Life and Labors of Prometheus have filled, if perchance it had fallen,
as perchance it did first, in days of cheap printing! Who knows what
shape the fable of Columbus will at length assume, to be confounded
with that of Jason and the expedition of the Argonauts. And
Franklin,—there may be a line for him in the future classical
dictionary, recording what that demigod did, and referring him to some
new genealogy. “Son of —— and ——. He aided the Americans to gain their
independence, instructed mankind in economy, and drew down lightning
from the clouds.”
The hidden significance of these fables which is sometimes thought to
have been detected, the ethics running parallel to the poetry and
history, are not so remarkable as the readiness with which they may be
made to express a variety of truths. As if they were the skeletons of
still older and more universal truths than any whose flesh and blood
they are for the time made to wear. It is like striving to make the
sun, or the wind, or the sea symbols to signify exclusively the
particular thoughts of our day. But what signifies it? In the mythus a
superhuman intelligence uses the unconscious thoughts and dreams of men
as its hieroglyphics to address men unborn. In the history of the human
mind, these glowing and ruddy fables precede the noonday thoughts of
men, as Aurora the sun’s rays. The matutine intellect of the poet,
keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this
auroral atmosphere.
As we said before, the Concord is a dead stream, but its scenery is the
more suggestive to the contemplative voyager, and this day its water
was fuller of reflections than our pages even. Just before it reaches
the falls in Billerica, it is contracted, and becomes swifter and
shallower, with a yellow pebbly bottom, hardly passable for a
canal-boat, leaving the broader and more stagnant portion above like a
lake among the hills. All through the Concord, Bedford, and Billerica
meadows we had heard no murmur from its stream, except where some
tributary runnel tumbled in,—
Some tumultuous little rill,
Purling round its storied pebble,
Tinkling to the selfsame tune,
From September until June,
Which no drought doth e’er enfeeble.
Silent flows the parent stream,
And if rocks do lie below,
Smothers with her waves the din,
As it were a youthful sin,
Just as still, and just as slow.
But now at length we heard this staid and primitive river rushing to
her fall, like any rill. We here left its channel, just above the
Billerica Falls, and entered the canal, which runs, or rather is
conducted, six miles through the woods to the Merrimack, at Middlesex,
and as we did not care to loiter in this part of our voyage, while one
ran along the tow-path drawing the boat by a cord, the other kept it
off the shore with a pole, so that we accomplished the whole distance
in little more than an hour. This canal, which is the oldest in the
country, and has even an antique look beside the more modern railroads,
is fed by the Concord, so that we were still floating on its familiar
waters. It is so much water which the river _lets_ for the advantage of
commerce. There appeared some want of harmony in its scenery, since it
was not of equal date with the woods and meadows through which it is
led, and we missed the conciliatory influence of time on land and
water; but in the lapse of ages, Nature will recover and indemnify
herself, and gradually plant fit shrubs and flowers along its borders.
Already the kingfisher sat upon a pine over the water, and the bream
and pickerel swam below. Thus all works pass directly out of the hands
of the architect into the hands of Nature, to be perfected.
It was a retired and pleasant route, without houses or travellers,
except some young men who were lounging upon a bridge in Chelmsford,
who leaned impudently over the rails to pry into our concerns, but we
caught the eye of the most forward, and looked at him till he was
visibly discomfited. Not that there was any peculiar efficacy in our
look, but rather a sense of shame left in him which disarmed him.
It is a very true and expressive phrase, “He looked daggers at me,” for
the first pattern and prototype of all daggers must have been a glance
of the eye. First, there was the glance of Jove’s eye, then his fiery
bolt, then, the material gradually hardening, tridents, spears,
javelins, and finally, for the convenience of private men, daggers,
krisses, and so forth, were invented. It is wonderful how we get about
the streets without being wounded by these delicate and glancing
weapons, a man can so nimbly whip out his rapier, or without being
noticed carry it unsheathed. Yet it is rare that one gets seriously
looked at.
As we passed under the last bridge over the canal, just before reaching
the Merrimack, the people coming out of church paused to look at us
from above, and apparently, so strong is custom, indulged in some
heathenish comparisons; but we were the truest observers of this sunny
day. According to Hesiod,
“The seventh is a holy day,
For then Latona brought forth golden-rayed Apollo,”
and by our reckoning this was the seventh day of the week, and not the
first. I find among the papers of an old Justice of the Peace and
Deacon of the town of Concord, this singular memorandum, which is worth
preserving as a relic of an ancient custom. After reforming the
spelling and grammar, it runs as follows: “Men that travelled with
teams on the Sabbath, Dec. 18th, 1803, were Jeremiah Richardson and
Jonas Parker, both of Shirley. They had teams with rigging such as is
used to carry barrels, and they were travelling westward. Richardson
was questioned by the Hon. Ephraim Wood, Esq., and he said that Jonas
Parker was his fellow-traveller, and he further said that a Mr. Longley
was his employer, who promised to bear him out.” We were the men that
were gliding northward, this Sept. 1st, 1839, with still team, and
rigging not the most convenient to carry barrels, unquestioned by any
Squire or Church Deacon and ready to bear ourselves out if need were.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century, according to the
historian of Dunstable, “Towns were directed to erect ‘_a cage_’ near
the meeting-house, and in this all offenders against the sanctity of
the Sabbath were confined.” Society has relaxed a little from its
strictness, one would say, but I presume that there is not less
_religion_ than formerly. If the _ligature_ is found to be loosened in
one part, it is only drawn the tighter in another.
You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must
content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is
slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be. The geologists
tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are
organic, and one hundred and fifty more, to prove that they are not to
be referred to the Noachian deluge. I am not sure but I should betake
myself in extremities to the liberal divinities of Greece, rather than
to my country’s God. Jehovah, though with us he has acquired new
attributes, is more absolute and unapproachable, but hardly more
divine, than Jove. He is not so much of a gentleman, not so gracious
and catholic, he does not exert so intimate and genial an influence on
nature, as many a god of the Greeks. I should fear the infinite power
and inflexible justice of the almighty mortal, hardly as yet
apotheosized, so wholly masculine, with no Sister Juno, no Apollo, no
Venus, nor Minerva, to intercede for me, θυμῷ φιλέουσά τε, κηδομένη τε.
The Grecian are youthful and erring and fallen gods, with the vices of
men, but in many important respects essentially of the divine race. In
my Pantheon, Pan still reigns in his pristine glory, with his ruddy
face, his flowing beard, and his shaggy body, his pipe and his crook,
his nymph Echo, and his chosen daughter Iambe; for the great god Pan is
not dead, as was rumored. No god ever dies. Perhaps of all the gods of
New England and of ancient Greece, I am most constant at his shrine.
It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized
countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is
the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men
reverence one another, not yet God. If I thought that I could speak
with discrimination and impartiality of the nations of Christendom, I
should praise them, but it tasks me too much. They seem to be the most
civil and humane, but I may be mistaken. Every people have gods to suit
their circumstances; the Society Islanders had a god called Toahitu,
“in shape like a dog; he saved such as were in danger of falling from
rocks and trees.” I think that we can do without him, as we have not
much climbing to do. Among them a man could make himself a god out of a
piece of wood in a few minutes, which would frighten him out of his
wits.
I fancy that some indefatigable spinster of the old school, who had the
supreme felicity to be born in “days that tried men’s souls,” hearing
this, may say with Nestor, another of the old school, “But you are
younger than I. For time was when I conversed with greater men than
you. For not at any time have I seen such men, nor shall see them, as
Perithous, and Dryas, and ποιμένα λαῶν,” that is probably Washington,
sole “Shepherd of the People.” And when Apollo has now six times rolled
westward, or seemed to roll, and now for the seventh time shows his
face in the east, eyes wellnigh glazed, long glassed, which have
fluctuated only between lamb’s wool and worsted, explore ceaselessly
some good sermon book. For six days shalt thou labor and do all thy
knitting, but on the seventh, forsooth, thy reading. Happy we who can
bask in this warm September sun, which illumines all creatures, as well
when they rest as when they toil, not without a feeling of gratitude;
whose life is as blameless, how blameworthy soever it may be, on the
Lord’s Mona-day as on his Suna-day.
There are various, nay, incredible faiths; why should we be alarmed at
any of them? What man believes, God believes. Long as I have lived, and
many blasphemers as I have heard and seen, I have never yet heard or
witnessed any direct and conscious blasphemy or irreverence; but of
indirect and habitual, enough. Where is the man who is guilty of direct
and personal insolence to Him that made him?
One memorable addition to the old mythology is due to this era,—the
Christian fable. With what pains, and tears, and blood these centuries
have woven this and added it to the mythology of mankind. The new
Prometheus. With what miraculous consent, and patience, and persistency
has this mythus been stamped on the memory of the race! It would seem
as if it were in the progress of our mythology to dethrone Jehovah, and
crown Christ in his stead.
If it is not a tragical life we live, then I know not what to call it.
Such a story as that of Jesus Christ,—the history of Jerusalem, say,
being a part of the Universal History. The naked, the embalmed,
unburied death of Jerusalem amid its desolate hills,—think of it. In
Tasso’s poem I trust some things are sweetly buried. Consider the
snappish tenacity with which they preach Christianity still. What are
time and space to Christianity, eighteen hundred years, and a new
world?—that the humble life of a Jewish peasant should have force to
make a New York bishop so bigoted. Forty-four lamps, the gift of kings,
now burning in a place called the Holy Sepulchre;—a church-bell
ringing;—some unaffected tears shed by a pilgrim on Mount Calvary
within the week.—
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, when I forget thee, may my right hand forget her
cunning.”
“By the waters of Babylon there we sat down, and we wept when we
remembered Zion.”
I trust that some may be as near and dear to Buddha, or Christ, or
Swedenborg, who are without the pale of their churches. It is necessary
not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the
life of Christ. I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when
they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am
willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha, for the love
is the main thing, and I like him too. “God is the letter Ku, as well
as Khu.” Why need Christians be still intolerant and superstitious? The
simple-minded sailors were unwilling to cast overboard Jonah at his own
request.—
“Where is this love become in later age?
Alas! ’tis gone in endless pilgrimage
From hence, and never to return, I doubt,
Till revolution wheel those times about.”