[Illustration: Dexter supporter of Baron Hawke.]
Poseidon or Neptune, the younger brother of Zeus (Jupiter), sometimes
appears in heraldry, usually as a supporter. In the ancient mythology he
was originally a mere symbol of the watery element, he afterwards became a
distinct personality; the mighty ruler of the sea who with his powerful
arms upholds and circumscribes the earth, violent and impetuous like the
element he represents. When he strikes the sea with his trident, the
symbol of his sovereignty, the waves rise with violence, as a word or look
from him suffices to allay the fiercest tempest. Poseidon (Neptune) was
naturally regarded as the chief patron and tutelary deity of the seafaring
Greeks. To him they addressed their prayers before entering on a voyage,
and to him they brought their offerings in gratitude for their safe
return from the perils of the deep.
In a famous episode of the "Faerie Queen" (Book iv. c. xi.) Spenser
glowingly pictures the procession of all the water deities and their
attendants:
"First came great Neptune with his three-forked mace,
That rules the seas and makes them rise and fall;
His dewy locks did drop with brine apace
Under his diadem imperial:
"And by his side his Queen with coronal,
Fair Amphitrite, most divinely fair,
Whose ivory shoulders weren covered all,
As with a robe, with her own silver hair,
And decked with pearls which the Indian seas for her prepare."
Amphitrite, his wife, one of the Nereids in ancient art, is represented as
a slim and beautiful young woman, her hair falling loosely about her
shoulders, and distinguished from all the other deities by the royal
insignia. On ancient coins and gems she appears enthroned on the back of a
mighty triton, or riding on a sea-horse, or dolphin.
EXAMPLES.--Baron Hawke bears for supporters to his shield an aggroupment
of classic personations of a remarkable symbolic character, granted for
the achievements of the renowned Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the
Fleet, Vice-Admiral of Great Britain, &c. &c., created Baron Hawke of
Tarton, Yorks, 1776. _The dexter supporter is a figure of Neptune, his
mantle vert, edged argent, crowned with an eastern crown, or, his dexter
arm erect and holding a trident pointing downwards in the act of striking,
sable, headed silver, and resting his left foot on a dolphin proper._
Sir Isaac Heard, Somersetshire; Lancaster Herald, afterwards Garter. His
arms, granted 1762, are thus blazoned in Burke's "General Armory": _Argent
a Neptune crowned with an eastern crown of gold, his trident sable headed
or, issuing from a stormy ocean, the sinister hand grasping the head of a
ship's mast appearing above the waves, as part of a wreck, all proper; on
a chief azure, the Arctic pole-star of the first between two water-bougets
of the second_.