[Picture: Decorative chapter header]
The god and goddess of light were the glorious twin brother and sister,
Phoebus Apollo and Diana or Artemis. They were born in the isle of
Delos, which was caused to rise out of the sea to save their mother,
Latona, from the horrid serpent, Python, who wanted to devour her. Gods
were born strong and mighty; and the first thing Apollo did was to slay
the serpent at Delphi with his arrows. Here was a dim remembrance of the
promise that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, and
also a thought of the way Light slays the dragon of darkness with his
beams. Apollo was lord of the day, and Diana queen of the night. They
were as bright and pure as the thought of man could make them, and always
young. The beams or rays were their arrows, and so Diana was a huntress,
always in the woods with her nymphs; and she was so modest, that once,
when an unfortunate wanderer, named Actaeon, came on her with her nymphs
by chance when they were bathing in a stream, she splashed some water in
his face and turned him into a stag, so that his own dogs gave chase to
him and killed him. I am afraid Apollo and Diana were rather cruel; but
the darting rays of the sun and moon kill sometimes as well as bless; and
so they were the senders of all sharp, sudden strokes. There was a queen
called Niobe, who had six sons and daughters so bright and fair that she
boasted that they were equal to Apollo and Diana, which made Latona so
angry, that she sent her son and daughter to slay them all with their
darts. The unhappy Niobe, thus punished for her impiety, wept a river of
tears till she was turned into stone.
[Picture: Supposed Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius in AEgina]
The moon belonged to Diana, and was her car; the sun, in like manner, to
Apollo, though he did not drive the car himself, but Helios, the sun-god,
did. The world was thought to be a flat plate, with Delphi in the
middle, and the ocean all round. In the far east the lady dawn, Aurora,
or Eos, opened the gates with her rosy fingers, and out came the golden
car of the sun, with glorious white horses driven by Helios, attended by
the Hours strewing dew and flowers. It passed over the arch of the
heavens to the ocean again on the west, and there Aurora met it again in
fair colours, took out the horses, and let them feed. Aurora had married
a man named Tithonus. She gave him ambrosia, which made him immortal,
but she could not keep him from growing old, so he became smaller and
smaller, till he dwindled into a grasshopper, and at last only his voice
was to be heard chirping at sunrise and sunset.
Helios had an earthly wife too, and a son named Phaeton, who once begged
to be allowed to drive the chariot of the sun for just one day. Helios
yielded; but poor Phaeton had no strength nor skill to guide the horses
in the right curve. At one moment they rushed to the earth and scorched
the trees, at another they flew up to heaven and would have burnt
Olympus, if Jupiter had not cast his thunderbolts at the rash driver and
hurled him down into a river, where he was drowned. His sisters wept
till they were changed into poplar trees, and their tears hardened into
amber drops.
Mercury gave his lyre to Apollo, who was the true god of music and
poetry, and under him were nine nymphs--the Muses, daughters of
memory--who dwelt on Mount Parnassus, and were thought to inspire all
noble and heroic song, all poems in praise to or of the gods or of brave
men, and the graceful music and dancing at their feasts, also the
knowledge of the stars of earth and heaven.
[Picture: Head of Pallas] These three--Apollo, Diana, and Pallas--were
the gods of all that was nobly, purely, and wisely lovely; but the Greeks
also believed in powers of ill, and there was a goddess of beauty, called
Venus (Aphrodite). Such beauty was hers as is the mere prettiness and
charm of pleasure--nothing high or fine. She was said to have risen out
of the sea, as the sunshine touched the waves, with her golden hair
dripping with the spray; and her favourite home was in myrtle groves,
where she drove her car, drawn by doves, attended by the three Graces,
and by multitudes of little winged children, called Loves; but there was
generally said to be one special son of hers, called Love--Cupid in
Latin, Eros in Greek--whose arrows, when tipped with gold, made people
fall in love, and when tipped with lead, made them hate one another. Her
husband was the ugly, crooked smith, Vulcan--perhaps because pretty
ornaments come of the hard work of the smith; but she never behaved well
to him, and only coaxed him when she wanted something that his clever
hands could make.
She was much more fond of amusing herself with Mars (Ares), the god of
war, another of the evil gods, for he was fierce, cruel, and violent, and
where he went slaughter and blood were sure to follow him and his horrid
daughter Bellona. His star was "the red planet Mars;" but Venus had the
beautiful clear one, which, according as it is seen either at sunrise or
sunset, is called the morning or evening star. Venus also loved a
beautiful young earthly youth, called Adonis, who died of a thrust from a
wild boar's tusk, while his blood stained crimson the pretty flower,
pheasant's eye, which is still called Adonis. Venus was so wretched that
she persuaded Jupiter to decree that Adonis should come back and live for
one-half of the year, but he was to go down to Pluto's underground
kingdom the other half. This is because plants and flowers are beautiful
for one year, die down, and rise again.
[Picture: Triptolemus] But there is a much prettier story, with something
of the same meaning, about Ceres (Demeter), the grave, motherly goddess
of corn and all the fruits of the earth. She had one fair daughter,
named Proserpine (Persephone), who was playing with her companions near
Mount Etna, gathering flowers in the meadows, when grim old Pluto pounced
upon her and carried her off into his underground world to be his bride.
Poor Ceres did not know what had become of her darling, and wandered up
and down the world seeking for her, tasting no food or drink, till at
last, quite spent, she was taken in as a poor woman by Celeus, king of
Eleusis, and became nurse to his infant child Triptolemus. All Eleusis
was made rich with corn, while no rain fell and no crops grew on the rest
of the earth; and though first Iris and then all the gods came to beg
Ceres to relent, she would grant nothing unless she had her daughter
back. So Jupiter sent Mercury to bring Proserpine home; but she was only
to be allowed to stay on earth on condition that she had eaten nothing
while in the under world. Pluto, knowing this, had made her eat half a
pomegranate, and so she could not stay with her mother; but Ceres's tears
prevailed so far that she was to spend the summer above ground and the
winter below. For she really was the flowers and fruit. Ceres had grown
so fond of little Triptolemus that she wanted to make him immortal; but,
as she had no ambrosia, this could only be done by putting him on the
fire night after night to burn away his mortal part. His mother looked
in one night during the operation, and shrieked so that she prevented it;
so all Ceres could do for him was to give him grains of wheat and a
dragon car, with which he travelled all about the world, teaching men to
sow corn and reap harvests.
Proserpine seems to have been contented in her underground kingdom, where
she ruled with Pluto. It was supposed to be below the volcanic grounds
in southern Italy, near Lake Avernus. The entrance to it was guarded by
a three-headed dog, named Cerberus, and the way to it was barred by the
River Styx. Every evening Mercury brought all the spirits of the people
who had died during the day to the shore of the Styx, and if their
funeral rites had been properly performed, and they had a little coin on
the tongue to pay the fare, Charon, the ferryman, took them across; but
if their corpses were in the sea, or on battle-fields, unburied, the poor
shades had to flit about vainly begging to be ferried over. After they
had crossed, they were judged by three judges, and if they had been
wicked, were sent over the river of fire to be tormented by the three
Furies, Alecto, Megara, and Tisiphone, who had snakes as scourges and in
their hair. If they had been brave and virtuous, they were allowed to
live among beautiful trees and flowers in the Elysian fields, where Pluto
reigned; but they seem always to have longed after the life they had
lost; and these Greek notions of bliss seem sad besides what we know to
be the truth. Here, too, lived the three Fates, always spinning the
threads of men's lives; Clotho held the distaff, Lachesis drew out the
thread, and Atropos with her shears cut it off when the man was to die.
And, though Jupiter was mighty, nothing could happen but by Fate, which
was stronger than he.
[Picture: Mars and Victory]