Methinks that man must lie sore stricken under the hand of sorrow, who
has not a smile left for the folly of his superstitious brethren, when
he sees them at work on sacrifice and festival and worship of the gods,
hears the subject of their prayers, and marks the nature of their
creed. Nor, I fancy, will a smile be all. He will first have a question
to ask himself: Is he to call them devout worshippers or very outcasts,
who think so meanly of God as to suppose that he can require anything
at the hand of man, can take pleasure in their flattery, or be wounded
by their neglect? Thus the afflictions of the Calydonians, that long
tale of misery and violence, ending with the death of Meleager—all is
attributed to the resentment of Artemis, at Oeneus's neglect in not
inviting her to a feast. She must have taken the disappointment very
much to heart. I fancy I see her, poor Goddess, left all alone in
Heaven, after the rest have set out for Calydon, brooding darkly over
the fine spread at which she will not be present. Those Ethiopians,
too; privileged, thrice-happy mortals! Zeus, one supposes, is not
unmindful of the handsome manner in which they entertained him and all
his family for twelve days running. With the Gods, clearly, nothing
goes for nothing. Each blessing has its price. Health is to be had,
say, for a calf; wealth, for a couple of yoke of oxen; a kingdom, for a
hecatomb. A safe conduct from Troy to Pylos has fetched as much as nine
bulls, and a passage from Aulis to Troy has been quoted at a princess.
For six yoke of oxen and a robe, Athene sold Hecuba a reprieve for
Troy; and it is to be presumed that a cock, a garland, a handful of
frankincense, will each buy something.
Chryses, that experienced divine and eminent theologian, seems to have
realized this principle. Returning from his fruitless visit to
Agamemnon, he approaches Apollo with the air of a creditor, and demands
repayment of his loan. His attitude is one of remonstrance, almost,
'Good Apollo,' he cries, 'here have I been garlanding your temple,
where never garland hung before, and burning unlimited thigh-pieces of
bulls and goats upon your altars: yet when I suffer wrong, you take no
heed; you count my benefactions as nothing worth.' The God is quite put
out of countenance: he seizes his bow, settles down in the harbour and
smites the Achaeans with shafts of pestilence, them and their mules and
their dogs.
And now that I have mentioned Apollo, I cannot refrain from an allusion
to certain other passages in his life, which are recorded by the sages.
With his unfortunate love affairs—the sad end of Hyacinth, and the
cruelty of Daphne—we are not concerned. But when that vote of censure
was passed on him for the slaughter of the Cyclopes, he was dismissed
from Heaven, and condemned to share the fortunes of men upon earth. It
was then that he served Admetus in Thessaly, and Laomedon in Phrygia;
and in the latter service he was not alone. He and Posidon together,
since better might not be, made bricks and built the walls of Troy; and
did not even get their full wages;—the Phrygian, it is said, remained
their debtor for no less a sum than five-and-twenty shillings Trojan,
and odd pence. These, and yet holier mysteries than these, are the high
themes of our poets. They tell of Hephaestus and of Prometheus; of
Cronus and Rhea, and well-nigh all the family of Zeus. And as they
never commence their poems without bespeaking the assistance of the
Muses, we must conclude that it is under that divine inspiration that
they sing, how Cronus unmanned his father Uranus, and was king in his
room; and how, like Argive Thyestes, he swallowed his own children; and
how thereafter Rhea saved Zeus by the fraud of the stone, and the child
was exposed in Crete, and suckled by a goat, as Telephus was by a hind,
and Cyrus the Great by a bitch; and how he dethroned his father, and
threw him into prison, and was king; and of his many wives, and how
finally (like a Persian or an Assyrian) he married his own sister Hera;
and of his love adventures, and how he peopled the Heaven with gods,
ay, and with demi-gods, the rogue! for he wooed the daughters of earth,
appearing to them now in a shower of gold, now in the form of a bull or
a swan or an eagle; a very Proteus for versatility. Once, and only
once, he conceived within his own brain, and gave birth to Athene. For
Dionysus, they say, he tore from the womb of Semele before the fire had
yet consumed her, and hid the child within his thigh, till the time of
travail was come.
Similarly, we find Hera conceiving without external assistance, and
giving birth to Hephaestus; no child of fortune he, but a base
mechanic, living all his life at the forge, soot-begrimed as any
stoker. He is not even sound of limb; he has been lame ever since Zeus
threw him down from Heaven. Fortunately for us the Lemnians broke his
fall, or there would have been an end of him, as surely as there was of
Astyanax when he was flung from the battlements. But Hephaestus is
nothing to Prometheus. Who knows not the sorrows of that officious
philanthropist? How he too fell a victim to the wrath of Zeus, and was
carried into Scythia, and nailed up on Caucasus, with an eagle to keep
him company and make daily havoc of his liver? However, _there_ was a
reckoning settled, at any rate. But Rhea, now! We cannot, I think, pass
over her conduct unnoticed. It is surely most discreditable;—a lady of
her venerable years, the mother of such a family, still feeling the
pangs of love and jealousy, and carrying her beloved Attis about with
her in the lion-drawn car,—and he so ill qualified to play the lover's
part! After that, we can but wink, if we find Aphrodite making a slip,
or Selene time after time pulling up in mid-career to pay a visit to
Endymion.
But enough of scandal. Borne on the wings of poesy, let us take flight
for Heaven itself, as Homer and Hesiod have done before us, and see how
all is disposed up there. The vault is of brass on the under side, as
we know from Homer. But climb over the edge, and take a peep up. You
are now actually in Heaven. Observe the increase of light; here is a
purer Sun, and brighter stars; daylight is everywhere, and the floor is
of gold. We arrive first at the abode of the Seasons; they are the
fortresses of Heaven. Then we have Iris and Hermes, the servants and
messengers of Zeus; and next Hephaestus's smithy, which is stocked with
all manner of cunning contrivances. Last come the dwellings of the
Gods, and the palace of Zeus. All are the work of Hephaestus; and noble
work it is.