Ph[oe]bus Apollo was the Greek god of day, who drove the great chariot
of the sun across the sky from dawn to sunset. As the sun's rays pierce
the air with darts of fire, so Apollo is an archer god carrying a quiver
full of arrows. The old Homeric hymn calls him--
"Heaven's far darter, the fair king of days
Whom even the gods themselves fear when he goes
Through Jove's high house; and when his goodly bows
He goes to bend, all from their thrones arise
And cluster near t' admire his faculties."[15]
[15] In Chapman's translation.
If we count up all the gifts which the sunlight brings us, we shall have
a list of the offices of Apollo. He brought the spring and the summer,
and ripened the grain for harvest. He warded off disease and healed the
sick. One of his earliest adventures was to slay the serpent Python
lurking in the caves of Mt. Parnassus. Like the legend of St. George and
the Dragon, the story is an allegory of the triumph of light over
darkness, health over disease, the power of good over the power of evil.
Apollo was also the patron of music, having received from Hermes the
gift of the lyre. He was wont to play at the banquets of the gods, and
the poet Shelley describes his music in these words:--
"And then Apollo with the plectrum strook
The chords, and from beneath his hands a crash
Of mighty sounds rushed up, whose music shook
The soul with sweetness, and like an adept
His sweeter voice a just accordance kept."[16]
[16] From Shelley's translation of the Homeric _Hymn to Mercury_.
Poetry and the dance were also under Apollo's protection, and he was the
leader of the nine muses.
His highest office was prophecy, and in all his temples the priestesses
gave mystic revelations of the future. The most famous of these was at
Delphi, built over an opening in the ground, whence a strange vapor
rose. The priestess, a young woman called a _pythia_, from the python
slain by Apollo, sat over this opening on a three-legged seat, or
tripod, and answered the questions brought to her. Her sayings were in
verses called _oracles_, supposed to be communicated to her by the god.
Now, as might be expected, the character of Apollo was as pure and
transparent as the sunlight itself. He required clean hands and pure
hearts of those who worshiped him. As the sunlight shines into the dark
places of the earth, driving the shadows away, so Apollo hated all that
was dark and evil in human life. He was not only the rewarder of good
but the punisher of evil. In Shelley's "Hymn of Apollo" these words are
put in the god's mouth:--
"The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;
All men who do or even imagine ill
Fly me, and from the glory of my ray
Good minds and open actions take new might,
Until diminished by the reign of night."
[Illustration: D. Anderson, Photo. John Andrew & Son, Sc.