Satyrs described--Diana's Retirement--Pallas, the
Goddess of Shepherds and Pasture--The vile
Flora--Pomona deceived--Celestial Nymphs--Terrestrial
Nymphs--River Gods and Goddesses--Sirens--Witch
Circe--Infernal Deities--Passage to Tartarus--Palace
of Pluto--Judges of Hell--Goddesses of
Destiny--Furies--Night, Death, and Sleep: by whom
presided over--Names of Monsters condemned in the
place of Punishment--Tartarian Regions--Delights of
the Elysian Fields--Food and Drink of Pagan
Gods--Festivals of Heathens--Colour of
Gods--Sacrifices to Deities--Things sacred to Gods.
Satyrs are partly of human likeness and partly of bestial shape. They
have heads of human form, with horns and brutish ears; they have
crooked hands, rough hairy bodies, goats' legs and feet and tails. The
chief of these monsters is the god Pan, the inventor of the musical
pipe.
Diana, out of love to Chastity, avoids consort with men, retires into
the woods, and there diverts herself with hunting, whence she is
reckoned the goddess of the woods and the chase. Pallas is esteemed
the goddess of shepherds and pasture, and is the reputed inventress of
corn, and is thought by some to be Ceres or Vesta. Flora is the
goddess of flowers. By a vile trade, she accumulated a vast amount of
money, and made the people of Rome her heirs, who, in return, placed
her among the divinities.
Ferona and Pomona are two goddesses of trees and fruits. The latter
was advised by the god Vertumnus to enter the matrimonial state in the
guise of a hagged old woman; but without success, till he appeared to
her as a fair young man, and then she felt the power of love, and
yielded to his wishes. The Nymphs are a company of neat charming
virgins, living near the gardens of Pomona. They are of three
classes:--1st the Celestial Nymphs, called Genii, who guide the
spheres and dispense the influences of the stars to things on earth.
2nd, the Terrestrial Nymphs, as Dryades, who preside over the woods
and live in the oaks; and Hamadryades, who are born and die with the
oaks; the Oreades, who preside over the mountains; the Napaeae, who
preside over the groves and valleys; the Limnatides, who look after
the meadows and fields. 3rd, Marine Nymphs.
As the chief of the marine and river gods and goddesses, Neptune
stands at the head. He is represented with black hair and blue eyes,
arrayed in a mantle of azure, holding a trident in his right hand, and
embracing his queen with his left arm. He stands upright in his
chariot, drawn by sea horses, and is attended by nymphs. Proteus is
the son of Neptune, but some say he is the offspring of Oceanus and
Tethys. His business is to tend the sea-calves. He can turn himself
into any shape. Triton, the son and trumpeter of Neptune, is a man to
the middle and a dolphin below; he has two fore feet, like those of
horses, and is provided with two tails. Oceanus is the son of C[oe]lum
and Vesta, husband to Tethys, god of the sea, and father of the rivers
and springs. Nereus, also the son of Oceanus and Tethys, is father of
fifty daughters, called Nereides or Sea Nymphs. Palaemon and his mother
Ino, together with the fisherman Glaucus, are reckoned among the sea
deities. The Sirens resemble mermaids, having the faces of women, but
bodies of flying fish. They are reported to be excellent songsters,
that play on the Sicilian coasts, and tempt passengers on shore, where
they sing them asleep and kill them. Scylla and Charybdis are two
other sea monsters. Scylla is the daughter of Phorcys, and beloved by
Glaucus, whom therefore the witch Circe by her enchantments turned
into a rock, with dogs around her. Charybdis is a very ravenous woman,
who stole Hercules's oxen, for which crime Jupiter struck her dead
with a thunder-bolt, and then turned her into a gulf or whirlpool in
the Sicilian Sea. The Sea Nymphs are the Nereides already referred to.
The Naides or Naiades preside over fountains and springs; the
Potameides preside over rivers, and Limniades over lakes.
In noticing the Infernal Deities, we shall describe the dismal
regions, where wicked spirits dwell, and over which they are reported
to preside. The name commonly given to these regions is Hades or
Tartarus, understood to signify hell. The passage leading thereto is a
wide dark cave, through which one has to pass by a steep rocky descent
till he arrives at a gloomy grove and an unnavigable lake called
Avernus, from which such poisonous vapours rise as to kill birds
flying over it. Yet over this lake the souls of the dead must pass. To
assist them, an old decrepit, long-bearded fellow, the oft-heard of
Charon, attends with a ferry-boat to carry them to the other side, at
a fare not less than a halfpenny.
After this there are four rivers to be passed over--Acheron, whose
waters are very bitter; the Styx, a lake rather than a river, and so
sacred to the gods, that if any of them swore by it and broke his
oath, he was deprived of his godhead, and was prohibited from drinking
nectar for a hundred years; the river Cocytus, which flows out of Styx
with a lamentable groaning, resembling the painful sounds and
exclamations of the damned; the river Phlegethon, so called because it
swells with waves of fire and streams of flames.
The souls having passed these rivers, are conducted to the palace of
Pluto, king of the infernal regions, where the gate is guarded by
Cerberus, a dog with three heads, whose body is covered with snakes in
place of hair. This dog is the porter of hell.
Pluto initiated funeral obsequies for the dead: he sits on a throne
covered with darkness, holding a key in his hand, and crowned with
ebony. Beside him is his queen Proserpina, whom he stole from Ceres.
Minos, AEacus, and Rhadamanthus are judges in hell. The first two are
sons of Jupiter by Europa, and the last is his son by AEgina. These
are believed to judge the souls of the dead.
The Fates are named Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, and are the
goddesses of destiny. They order and manage the fatal thread of life.
Clotho draws the thread, Lachesis turns the wheel, and Atropos cuts
the string asunder when spun to a due length.
The Furies, called sometimes Eumenides, Dirae, and Manes, are the
daughters of Nox and Acheron: their names are Alecto, Tisiphone, and
Megaera, and are known by the common name of Erinnys. They have faces
like women, their looks are full of terror, they hold lighted torches
in their hands, and snakes and serpents cling to their necks and
shoulders. Their office is to punish the crimes of wicked men, and to
torment and frighten them by following them with ghastly looks and
burning material.
Erebus and Nox preside over darkness and the night; Mors over death;
and Somnus is the god of sleep, who, by his servant Morpheus, sends
dreams to men while asleep.
Besides others, there are in the infernal regions the following
monsters:--The Centaurs, whose upper parts are human, but whose bodies
and legs are those of a horse. They were begotten of a cloud by Ixion.
Gorgon is a monster with three heads. The Harpies, born of Oceanus and
Terra, have the faces of virgins, and the bodies of birds with claws.
Their names are Ocypete, Aello, and Celeno. The Gorgons are Medusa,
Stheno, and Euryale, daughters of Phorcys and Cete. They have heads
covered with snakes instead of hair, which so terrifies beholders that
they immediately turn into stones. The Lamiae and Empusae have each only
one eye and one tooth. They have faces, necks, and breasts like women,
but their bodies are covered with scales, and they have the tails of
serpents. The Chim[oe]ra is a monster that vomits fire, and has the
head and breast of a lion, the belly of a goat, and the tail of a
dragon. The Sphinx, begotten of Typhon and Echidna, has the head and
face of a virgin, the wings of a bird, and the body of a dog. A riddle
she put forth being explained by [OE]dipus, so enraged her that she
threw herself from a rock and was killed.
The most famous of the condemned in the place of punishment are the
Giants; they are great in stature, and have horrible feet, like
dragons. They make war against the celestial gods, but never prevail,
and are struck down to hell by Jupiter's thunder-bolts and the arms of
the gods. The principal offenders are Typhon, AEgaeon, Al[oe]us, and
Tityus; and, to prevent them rising again, the Island of Sicily is
fixed on Typhon, and Mount AEtna on AEgaeon, and Tityus is doomed to have
a vulture always gnawing his liver, which grows afresh every month.
Phlegias fired Apollo's temple at Delphi, for which he was sentenced
to have a great stone hung over his head, ready every moment to fall
and crush him to pieces. Ixion, for an assault on Juno, was struck
down to hell, and tied to a wheel, which kept continually turning.
Sisyphus is a notorious robber, condemned to roll a stone up to the
top of a hill, which is made to roll down again immediately; and as he
has to begin and roll it up again as soon as it comes down, his labour
is perpetual. The Danaides are fifty virgins (sisters), who all but
one, by the command of their father Danaus, slew their husbands on
their wedding night. For this they were condemned to draw water out of
a deep well, to fill a tub whose bottom was full of holes like a
sieve. Tantalus invited the gods to a feast, and, to improve their
divinity, he killed, boiled, and served up Pelops on the table before
them to eat. They refused to partake of this horrid dish, and
condemned Tantalus to stand in water which he could not drink, and to
have meat placed before him which he could not taste, though suffering
the pangs of hunger and thirst--a punishment he was to endure for
ever.
In the Tartarian regions there is a place supposed to abound with all
kinds of pleasures and delights, called Elysium, because thither the
souls of good men are conveyed after being freed from the body. This
is the heathen paradise, consisting of pleasant plains, the most
verdant fields, the shadiest groves, and the finest and most temperate
air that can be found. After the souls of the pious have spent many
ages in these Elysian fields, they drink the water of the river Lethe,
which makes them forget all things past; and then they return to the
world and pass into new bodies.
The Pagan deities have ambrosia for their food, and nectar for their
drink, both of which have the property of giving immortality to those
who partake of them.
The festivals of the heathens were many, as almost every deity was
allowed sacred honours. In sacrificing, the animals offered to the
celestial deities were white, and those to the infernal gods were
black. To Jupiter a white ox was sacrificed; to Neptune, Mars, and
Apollo a bull, ram, and boar; to Ceres, milk, honey, and a sow-pig
were offered; to AEsculapius, goats and poultry; to the Lares, a cock;
to the Sun, a horse; to Juno, a she-lamb; to Venus, a dove; to Diana,
a crow; to Pan and Minerva, she-goats; and to the Fauns, kids.
The fir and vine were sacred to Bacchus, the cypress to Pluto, the
cedar to the Furies, the ash to Mars, the oak to Jove, the laurel to
Apollo, the myrtle to Venus, the olive to Minerva, the poplar to
Hercules, the pine to Cybele, and the rose to Venus.