of personal virtue which depends least upon reflection, and flows most
from instinct, namely, parental affection. Mars is wrought up to fury
by learning the death of his son Ascalaphus; and Jupiter, after much
painful rumination on consenting to the fall of Sarpedon, sheds gouts
of blood over the dearest of his children[334]. This is singularly
grand as poetry, and far superior to the sheer mania of Mars. Indeed it
is evident that Homer exerted himself to the utmost in adorning this
majestic figure, as a mere figure, with the richest treasures of his
imagination.
[334] Il. xvi. 458.
When, in the Twenty-First Iliad, the great battle of the gods begins,
Jupiter has no part to take. He sits aloft in his independent security,
while they contend together, even as he was afterwards supposed to
keep aloof from trouble and responsibility for human affairs. The same
sentiment appears in the determination of Neptune and Apollo not to
quarrel on account of mortals. But in the case of Jupiter, the selfish
principle comes out with greater force: he is not merely indifferent,
but he absolutely rejoices in the strife of the Immortals:
ἐγέλασσε δέ οἱ φίλον ἦτορ
γηθοσύνῃ, ὅθ’ ὁρᾶτο θεοὺς ἔριδι ξυνιόντας.
Upon the whole it is certainly the Jupiter of Homer in whom, of all his
greater gods, notwithstanding his abstract attributes, we see, first,
the most complete surrender of personal morality and self-government
to mere appetite; secondly, the most thoroughly selfish groundwork of
character: the germ, and in no small degree the development, of what
was afterwards to afford to speculation the materials for the Epicurean
theory respecting the divine nature, as it is set forth in the verse of
Lucretius, or in the arguments of the Ciceronian Cotta.
_Juno._
~_The Juno of Homer._~
The Juno of the Iliad is by far the most conspicuous and splendid, as
she is also the most evidently national, product of the inventive power
to be found in the entire circle of the theo-mythology.
Not that Greek invention created her out of nothing. On the contrary,
she represented abundant prototypes in the mythologies of the East.
Her Greek name, Ἥρη, is, I apprehend, a form of ἔρα, the earth[335];
and in her first form she probably represented one of its oriental
impersonations. But they all had to pass through the crucible, and they
came out in a form as purely Hellenic as if it had been absolutely
original.
[335] Welsford on the English Language, p. 165.
It is plain from the nature of the case, that she can have had no
place in primitive tradition. But it may be well before discussing her
mythological origin, her dignity and positive functions, to refer to
certain indications from which we may make sure that Homer has handled
the character in the mode observed by him for deities of invention only.
There is, then, about Juno a liability to passion, and a want of moral
elevation, which are among the certain marks of mythological origin.
Jupiter declares his belief that, if she could, she would eat the
Trojans; nor does she resent the imputation[336]. When Vulcan is born,
angry at the mean appearance and lameness of the infant, she pitches
him down into the sea[337]. These representations are entirely at
variance with the constant dignity and self-command, which mark the
deportment of the great traditive deities. Her whole activity in the
Iliad is not merely energetic, but in the highest degree passionate and
ardent.
[336] Il. iv. 34-6.
[337] Il. xviii. 395-9.
So again, taking into consideration the comparative purity attaching to
her sex, which we see so fully maintained in Diana, her resort to the
use of sensual passion, in Il. xiv., even though only as an instrument
for an end, is a mark that the character is, in its basis, mythological.
Nor do we anywhere find ascribed to her ethical, or what may be
called theistic sentiments: pure power and policy are her delight;
and she nowhere enters individually within the line of the moral and
Providential order at all, nor takes any share in superintending
it[338].
[338] Hence the Ἐρινύες are in conflict with her in Il. xix. 418. On
this very curious subject see inf. sect. iv.
In the Iliad, of which the martial movement is appropriate to her,
and where the Greek nationality is placed in sharp contrast with a
foreign one, she plays a great part, is ever alert and at work, and
contributes mainly to the progress of the action. But in the Odyssey,
a poem more simply theistic and ethical, and without any opposition
of nationalities, she has no share in the action, and may be said
practically to disappear from view. To appreciate the force of this
circumstance, we must contrast it with Homer’s treatment of another
deity, inferior to her in the Olympian community. The three greatest
deities, among those who embody much of primitive tradition, are
Jupiter, Minerva, and Apollo. Of these, Jupiter, in the character of
Providence, has everywhere a place ready made for him; Minerva, as
the guide and protectress of Ulysses, has ample opportunities for her
activity; but it is not so with Apollo: and in consequence Homer has
been careful to supply in the poem points of contact with him, by the
introduction of Theoclymenus, and of the grand imagery of the second
sight, which is his gift; by fixing the critical day at the new moon,
which was sacred to him, and by causing the crisis to turn upon the
bow, his famous weapon: as though these three, Jupiter, Minerva, and
Apollo, were the universal, permanent, and indispensable deities; but
the others occasional, and to be used according to circumstances. Juno
has no such place or office provided for her in the Odyssey, as they
have.
There is yet another mark adhering to Juno, which clearly separates
between her and the Homeric deities of strongly marked traditional
character: namely, that she was not exempt from the touch of defeat and
dishonour. For, in the course of her long feud with Hercules, that hero
wounded her with an arrow in the left breast, and caused her to suffer
desperate pain[339]. Again, she was ignominiously punished by Jupiter;
who suspended her with her hands in chains, and with anvils hanging
from her feet[340].
[339] Il. v. 392.
[340] Il. xv. 18-21.
~_Her intense nationality._~
Her strong and profound Greek nationality has obtained for her the
name of Argeian Juno. The fervour of this nationality is most signally
exemplified in the passage where Jupiter tells her, that she regards
the Greeks as her children[341]; and again, where she lets us know
that it was she[342] who collected the armament against Troy. She
conducts Agamemnon the head of the Greek nation safely on the sea[343];
and carries Jason through the Πλαγκταί[344]. This is the vivifying
idea of her whole character, and fills it with energy, vigilance,
determination, and perseverance. Her hatred of Hercules cannot have
been owing to conjugal jealousy, with which she is not troubled in
Homer, for Jupiter recites his conquests in addressing her on Ida;
indeed, had she been liable to this emotion, it must, from the frequent
recurrence of its occasions, have supplied the main thread of her
feeling and action. It was her identification in soul with the Perseid
dynasty, the legitimate representative, in its own day, of the Hellenic
race, and in occupation of its sovereign seat, that made her filch, on
behalf of Eurystheus, the effect of the promise intended by Jupiter
for Hercules, and that engaged her afterwards in a constant struggle
to bear down that elastic hero, whose high personal gifts still
threatened to eclipse his royal relative and competitor. So again,
unlike Minerva[345], even while seeking to operate through Trojans,
she studiously avoids contact with them. Minerva is sent as agent to
Pandarus[346]; but this is on the suggestion of Juno. In truth, this
intensely national stamp localizes the divinity of Juno, and, being
counteracted by no other sign, fixes on her the note both of invention,
and of Greek invention.
[341] Il. xviii. 358, 9.
[342] Il. iv. 24.
[343] Od. iv. 513.
[344] Od. xii. 72.
[345] Vid. Il. iv. 94.
[346] Il. iv. 64.
With respect now to her dignity and positive functions, these are of a
very high order.
The Olympian gods rise from their seats to greet her (as they do to
Jupiter) when she comes among them[347].
[347] Il. xv. 85.
She acts immediately upon the thoughts of men: as when, at the outset
of the Iliad, she prompts Achilles to call the first Greek assembly;
τῷ γὰρ ἐπὶ φρεσὶ θῆκε θεὰ λευκώλενος Ἥρη[348]. On various occasions,
she suggests action to Minerva, and it follows[349]: in the First Book,
Juno is even said to send her, though by another arrangement the Poet
has provided against attaching inferiority to that goddess[350]. It
may be that in her seeming to employ Minerva, as in so many of her
highest functions, she is reflecting one of the high prerogatives of
Jupiter. Certain it is that by the side of her ceaseless and passionate
activity, even Minerva appears, except on the battle-field, to play,
in the Iliad, a part secondary to hers. She was so powerful[351], not
only as to form one of the great trine rebellion against Jupiter, which
so nearly dethroned him, but as to make him feel greatly relieved and
rejoiced, in his differences with Neptune, when she promises to side
with him[352]: ‘with your aid,’ so thinks Jupiter, ‘he will easily
be kept in order, and will have to act as _we_ could wish.’ She is
certainly the most bold, untiring, zealous, and effective assistant to
the Greeks: while she never bates a hair of her wrath, in compassion or
otherwise, towards any Trojan.
[348] Il. i. 55. Comp. viii. 218.
[349] Il. ii. 156. v. 711. viii. 331.
[350] Vid. supr. p. 66.
[351] Il. i. 195.
[352] Il. xv. 49-52.
~_Her mythological functions._~
Like Neptune and others, she assumes the human form[353], and evokes
a cloud of vapour this way or that: but she does much more. Her power
displays itself in various forms, both over deities, and over animate
and inanimate nature. In some of these particularly, her proceedings
seem to be a reflected image of her husband’s. Iris[354] is not only
his messenger, but her’s. She not only orders the Winds, but she sends
the Sun to his setting[355], in spite of his reluctance. When, in
her indignation at the boast of Hector, she rocks on her throne, she
shakes Olympus[356]. She endows the deathless horses of Achilles with
a voice[357]. And conjoined with Minerva, she thunders in honour of
Agamemnon when just armed. Except the case of the horse, all these
appear to be the reflected uses of the power of Jupiter as god of air.
[353] Il. v. 784-92.
[354] Il. xviii. 168.
[355] Ibid. 239.
[356] Il. viii. 193.
[357] Il. xix. 407.
We find from the speech of Phœnix, that with Minerva she can confer
valour[358]. In a curious passage of the Odyssey, Homer tells us how
the daughters of Pandarus were supplied by various goddesses with
various qualities and gifts. Diana gave them size, Juno gave them εἶδος
καὶ πινυτήν. We should rather have expected the last to come from
Minerva: but she endowed them with ἔργα or industrial skill, so that
her dignity has been in another way provided for. But if the lines are
genuine, then in the capacity of Juno to confer the gift of πινυτὴ
or prudence, we see a point of contact between her powerful but more
limited, and Minerva’s larger character[359].
[358] Il. ix. 254.
[359] Od. xx. 70-2.
The full idea of her mind is in fact contained in the union of great
astuteness with her self-command, force, and courage: which, in effect,
makes it the reflection of the genius of the Greeks when deprived of
its moral element: and places it in very near correspondence with that
of the Phœnicians, who are like Greeks, somewhat seriously maimed in
that one great department. This full idea is exhibited on two great
occasions. Once when she outwits Jupiter, by fastening him with an
oath to his promise, and then, hastening one birth, and by her command
over the Eilithuiæ retarding another, proceeds to make Eurystheus
the recipient of what Jupiter had intended for another less remote
descendant of his own. Again, in the Fourteenth Iliad, by a daring
combination, she hoaxes Venus to obtain her capital charm, induces
Sleep by a bribe to undertake an almost desperate enterprise, and then,
though on account of his sentiments towards Troy she felt disgust (Il.
xiv. 158) as she looked upon Jupiter, enslaves him for the time through
a passion of which she is not herself the slave, but which she uses as
her instrument for a great end of policy. She is, in short, a great,
fervid, unscrupulous, and most able Greek patriot, exhibiting little
of divine ingredients, but gifted with a marked and powerful human
individuality.
It may be worth while to observe in passing, an indication as to the
limited powers of locomotion which Homer ascribed to his deities. The
horses of Juno, when she drives, cover at each step a space as great
as the human eye can command looking along the sea. But when she has
the two operations to perform on the same day, one upon the mother of
Eurystheus, and the other on the mother of Hercules, she attends to the
first in her own person, and apparently manages the other by command
given to the Eilithuiæ (Il. xix. 119). If so, then she was evidently in
the Poet’s mind subject to the laws of space and corporal presence: and
his figure of the horse’s spring was one on which he would not rely for
the management of an important piece of business.
There are three places, and three only, in the poems, which could
connect Juno with the Trojans. One is the Judgment of Paris (Il. xxiv.
29). The others are no more than verbal only. Hector swears by Jupiter
“the loud thundering husband of Here[360].” And again, he wishes he
had as certainly Jupiter for his father, and Juno for his mother[361],
as he is certain that the day will bring disaster to the Greeks. We
cannot, then, say that she was absolutely unknown to the Trojans in her
Hellenic form, while they may have been more familiar with her eastern
prototypes[362]. It does not, however, follow, that she was a deity of
established worship among them. There is no notice of any institution
or act of religion on the one side, or of care on the other, between
her and any member of their race. In the mention of her among the
Trojans, we may perhaps have an instance of the very common tendency of
the heathen nations to adopt, by sympathy as it were, deities from one
another; independently of all positive causes, such as migration, or
ethnical or political connection.
[360] Il. x. 329.
[361] Il. xiii. 827.
[362] See Il. iii. 104.
~_Her mythological origin._~
The origin of Juno, which would thus on many grounds appear to have
been Hellenic, appears to be referable to the principle, which I have
called œconomy, and under which the relations of deities were thrown
into the known forms of the human family. This process, according to
the symmetrical and logical turn of the Greek mind, began when it was
needed for its purpose, and stopped when it had done its work. Gods,
that were to generate or rear other gods, were coupled; and partners
were supplied by simple reflection of the character of the male,
where there was no Idea or Power ready for impersonation that would
serve the turn. Thus, Ῥέα, Earth or Matter, found a suitable mate
for Κρόνος, or Time. But to make a match for Oceanus, his own mere
reflected image, or feminine, was called into being under the name
of Tethys. Such was, but only after the time of Homer, Amphitrite
for Neptune, and Proserpine for Hades. In Homer the latter is more,
and the former less than this. It was by nothing less than an entire
metamorphosis, that the Greek Juno was educed from, or substituted for,
some old deification of the Earth. She is much more a creation than
an adaptation. What she really represents in Olympus, is supernatural
wifehood; of which the common mark is, the want of positive and
distinct attributes in the goddess. With this may be combined a
negative sign not less pregnant with evidence; namely, the derivation
and secondary handling of the prerogatives of the husband. The case of
Juno is clear and strong under both heads. Her grandeur arises from her
being clothed in the reflected rays of her husband’s supremacy, like
Achilles in the flash of the Ægis. But positive divine function she has
none whatever, except the slender one of presiding over maternity by
her own agency, and by that of her figurative daughters, the Eilithuiæ.
She is, when we contemplate her critically, the goddess of motherhood
and of nothing else. And in truth, as the fire made Vulcan, and war
made Mars, her mythological children, so motherhood made Juno, and is
her type in actual nature. She became a goddess, to give effect to the
principle of œconomy, to bring the children of Jupiter into the world,
to enable man, in short, to construct that Olympian order, which he was
to worship. Having been thus conceived, she assumed high powers and
dignities in right of her husband, whose sister she was fabled to be,
upon becoming also his wife, because either logical instinct, or the
ancient traditions of our race rendered it a necessity for the Greeks
to derive the divine, as well as the human, family from a single pair.
However strictly Hellenic may have been the position of Juno, we must
reckon her as the sister of Jupiter to have been worshipped, in Homer’s
time, from beyond the memory of man. For she carries upon her no token,
which can entitle us to assign to her a recent origin. Recent, I mean,
in her Hellenic form: apart from the fact that she was not conceived
by the Greeks, so to speak, out of nothing; and that she, in common
with many other deities, represents the Greek remodelling, in this
case peculiarly searching and complete, of eastern traditions. The
representation in theology of the female principle was eastern, and,
as we have seen, even Jewish. Had Juno been simply adopted, she would
probably have been an elemental power, corresponding with Earth in the
visible creation. In lieu of this she became Queen of Olympus, and, in
relation to men, goddess of Greece. Earth remains, in Homer, almost
unvivified in consequence. But it may have been on account of this
affinity, as well as of her relation to Jupiter, that she has been so
liberally endowed with power over nature.
_Neptune._
~_The Neptune of Homer._~
Neptune is one of three sons of Κρόνος and Ῥέα, and comes next to
Jupiter in order of birth. In the Fifteenth Iliad he claims an equality
of rank, and avers that the distribution of sovereignties among the
three brothers was made by lot. The Sea is his, the Shades are subject
to Aides, Jupiter has the Heaven and Air; Earth and Olympus are
common to them all. Wherefore, says Neptune, I am no mere satellite
of Jupiter: great as he is, let him rest content with his own share;
and if he wants somebody to command, let him command his own sons
and daughters. Perhaps there may here be conveyed a taunt at Jupiter
with respect to the independent and adverse policy of Minerva. This
very curious speech is delivered by Neptune in reply to the command
of Jupiter, that he should leave the field of battle before Troy,
which was backed by threats. Iris, the messenger, who hears him, in
her reply founds the superiority of Jupiter on his seniority only.
To this Neptune yields: but reserves his right of resentment if
Jupiter should spare Troy[363]. Nor does Jupiter send down Apollo to
encourage the Trojans, until Neptune has actually retired: he then
expresses great satisfaction at the withdrawal of Neptune without a
battle between them, which would have been heard and felt in Tartarus;
possibly implying that Neptune would have been hurled into it[364], but
referring distinctly to the certain difficulty of the affair;
[363] Il. xv. 174-217.
[364] Vid. Il. viii. 13.
ἐπεὶ οὔ κεν ἀνιδρωτί γ’ ἐτελέσθη[365].
[365] Il. xv. 220-35.
We have now clearly enough before us the very singular combination of
ideas that entered into the conception of the Homeric Neptune, and we
may pronounce, with tolerable confidence, upon the manner in which each
one of them acquired its place there. They are these:
1. As one of the trine brotherhood, who are jointly possessed of the
highest power over the regions of creation, he is part-representative
of the primeval tradition respecting the Divine Nature and Persons.
2. As god of the Sea, he provides an impersonation to take charge of
one of the great domains of external nature.
3. As the eldest and strongest, next to Jupiter, of the Immortal
family, he represents the nucleus of rivalry and material, or
main-force, opposition to the head of the Olympian family.
~_His traits chiefly mythological._~
With respect to the first, the proposition itself seems to contain
nearly all that can be said to belong to Neptune in right of primitive
tradition, except indeed as to certain stray relics. One of these
seems to hang about him, in the form of an extraordinary respect
paid to him by the children of Jupiter. Apollo is restrained by
this feeling (αἰδὼς) from coming to blows with him[366]: a similar
sentiment restrains Minerva, not only from appearing to Ulysses in
her own Phæacian ἄλσος[367], but even, as she says, from assisting
him at all during his previous adventures[368]. But this is all. The
prerogatives which are so conspicuous in Apollo and Minerva, and which
establish their origin as something set higher than the lust of pure
human invention, are but rarely and slightly discernible in Neptune. In
simple strength he stands with Homer next to Jupiter, for to no other
deity would Jupiter have paid the compliment of declaring it a serious
matter to coerce him. But there is no sign of intellectual or moral
elevation about him. Of the former we may judge from his speeches; for
the speeches of gods are in Homer nearly as characteristic as those of
heroes. As to the latter, his numerous human children show that he did
not rise above the mythological standard; and his implacable resentment
against Ulysses was occasioned by a retribution that the monster
Polyphemus had received, not only just in itself, but even relatively
slight.
[366] Il. xxi. 468.
[367] Od. vi. 329.
[368] Od. xiii. 341.
It does not appear that prayer is addressed to him except in connection
with particular places, or in virtue of special titles; as when
the Neleids, his descendants, offer sacrifice to him on the Pylian
shore[369], or the Phæacians[370] seek to avert threatened disaster, or
when Polyphemus his son roars to him for help[371]. The sacrifices to
him have apparently a local character: at Onchestus is his ἄλσος[372],
and Juno appeals to him in the name of the offerings made to him by the
Greeks at Helice and Ægæ[373]. The Envoys of the Ninth Iliad pray to
him for the success of their enterprise; but it is while their mission
is leading them along the sea-beach[374]. He can assume the form of
a man; can carry off his friends in vapour, or lift them through the
air[375]; can inspire fire and vigour into heroes, yet this is done
only through a sensible medium, namely, by a stroke of his staff[376].
He blunts, too, the point of an hostile spear[377]. But none of these
operations are of the highest order of power. And when Polyphemus
faintly expresses the idea that Neptune can restore his eye, (which
however he does not ask in prayer,) Ulysses taunts him in reply with
it as an undoubted certainty, that the god can do no such thing.
With this we may contrast the remarkable bodily changes operated by
Minerva upon Ulysses: they do not indeed involve the precise point of
restoring a destroyed member; but they are far beyond anything which
Homer has ascribed to his Neptune. Nor does the Poet ever speak of any
operation of this kind as exceeding the power of Minerva; who enjoyed
in a larger form, and by a general title, something like that power of
transformation, which was the special gift and function of Circe and
the Sirens. The discussion of the prerogatives of that half-sorceress,
half-goddess, will throw some further light upon the rank of Neptune.
[369] Il. xi. 728. Od. iii. 5.
[370] Od. xiii. 181.
[371] Od. ix. 526.
[372] Il. ii. 506.
[373] Il. viii. 203.
[374] Il. ix. 183.
[375] Il. xiii. 43, 216. xiv. 135. xi. 752. xx. 321-9.
[376] Il. xiii. 59.
[377] xiii. 562.