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CHAPTER XXXIV.
PYTHAGORAS-
EGYPTIAN DEITIES- ORACLES.
PYTHAGORAS.
THE teachings of Anchises to AEneas, respecting the nature of the
human soul, were in conformity with the doctrines of the
Pythagoreans. Pythagoras (born five hundred and forty years B.C.)
was a native of the island of Samos, but passed the chief portion of
his life at Crotona in Italy. He is therefore sometimes called "the
Samian," and sometimes "the philosopher of Crotona." When young he
travelled extensively, and it is said visited Egypt, where he was
instructed by the priests in all their learning, and afterwards
journeyed to the East, and visited the Persian and Chaldean Magi,
and the Brahmins of India.
At Crotona, where he finally established himself, his
extraordinary qualities collected round him a great number of
disciples. The inhabitants were notorious for luxury and
licentiousness, but the good effects of his influence were soon
visible. Sobriety and temperance succeeded. Six hundred of the
inhabitants became his disciples and enrolled themselves in a
society to aid each other in the pursuit of wisdom, uniting their
property in one common stock for the benefit of the whole. They were
required to practise the greatest purity and simplicity of manners.
The first lesson they learned was silence; for a time they were
required to be only hearers. "He [Pythagoras] said so" (Ipse dixit),
was to be held by them as sufficient, without any proof. It was only
the advanced pupils, after years of patient submission, who were
allowed to ask questions and to state objections.
Pythagoras considered numbers as the essence and principle of all
things, and attributed to them a real and distinct existence; so
that, in his view, they were the elements out of which the universe
was constructed. How he conceived this process has never been
satisfactorily explained. He traced the various forms and phenomena
of the world to numbers as their basis and essence. The "Monad" or
unit he regarded as the source of all numbers. The number Two was
imperfect, and the cause of increase and division. Three was called
the number of the whole because it had a beginning, middle, and end.
Four, representing the square, is in the highest degree perfect; and
Ten, as it contains the sum of the four prime numbers, comprehends
all musical and arithmetical proportions, and denotes the system of
the world.
As the numbers proceed from the monad, so he regarded the pure
and simple essence of the Deity as the source of all the forms of
nature. Gods, demons, and heroes are emanations of the Supreme, and
there is a fourth emanation, the human soul. This is immortal, and
when freed from the fetters of the body passes to the habitation of
the dead, where it remains till it returns to the world, to dwell in
some other human or animal body, and at last, when sufficiently
purified, it returns to the source from which it proceeded. This
doctrine of the transmigration of souls (metempsychosis), which was
originally Egyptian and connected with the doctrine of reward and
punishment of human actions, was the chief cause why the
Pythagoreans killed no animals. Ovid represents Pythagoras
addressing his disciples in these words: "Souls never die, but
always on quitting one abode pass to another. I myself can remember
that in the time of the Trojan war I was Euphorbus, the son of
Panthus, and fell by the spear of Menelaus. Lately being in the
temple of Juno, at Argos, I recognized my shield hung up there among
the trophies. All things change, nothing perishes. The soul passes
hither and thither, occupying now this body, now that, passing from
the body of a beast into that of a man, and thence to a beast's
again. As wax is stamped with certain figures, then melted, then
stamped anew with others, yet is always the same wax, so the soul,
being always the same, yet wears, at different times, different
forms. Therefore, if the love of kindred is not extinct in your
bosoms, forbear, I entreat you, to violate the life of those who may
haply be your own relatives."
Shakespeare, in the "Merchant of Venice," makes Gratiano allude
to the metempsychosis, where he says to Shylock:
"Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith,
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men; thy currish spirit
Governed a wolf, who, hanged for human slaughter,
Infused his soul in thee; for thy desires
Are wolfish, bloody, starved and ravenous."
The relation of the notes of the musical scale to numbers,
whereby harmony results from vibrations in equal times, and discord
from the reverse, led Pythagoras to apply the word "harmony" to the
visible creation, meaning by it the just adaptation of parts to each
other. This is the idea which Dryden expresses in the beginning of
his "Song for St. Cecilia's Day":
"From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This everlasting frame began;
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The Diapason closing full in Man."
In the centre of the universe (he taught) there was a central
fire, the principle of life. The central fire was surrounded by the
earth, the moon, the sun, and the five planets. The distances of the
various heavenly bodies from one another were conceived to
correspond to the proportions of the musical scale. The heavenly
bodies, with the gods who inhabited them, were supposed to perform a
choral dance round the central fire, "not without song." It is this
doctrine which Shakespeare alludes to when he makes Lorenzo teach
astronomy to Jessica in this fashion:
"Look, Jessica, see how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!
There's not the smallest orb that thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim;
Such harmony is in immortal souls!
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in we cannot hear it."
Merchant of Venice.
The spheres were conceived to be crystalline or glassy fabrics
arranged over one another like a nest of bowls reversed. In the
substance of each sphere one or more of the heavenly bodies was
supposed to be fixed, so as to move with it. As the spheres are
transparent we look through them and see the heavenly bodies which
they contain and carry round with them. But as these spheres cannot
move on one another without friction, a sound is thereby produced
which is of exquisite harmony, too fine for mortal ears to
recognize. Milton, in his "Hymn on the Nativity," thus alludes to
the music of the spheres:
"Ring out, ye crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears
(If ye have power to charm our senses so);
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full concert to the angelic symphony."
Pythagoras is said to have invented the lyre. Our own poet
Longfellow, in "Verses to a Child," thus relates the story:
"As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door,
And hearing the hammers as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire,
And formed the seven-chorded lyre."
See also the same poet's "Occultation of Orion"-
"The Samian's great AEolian lyre."
SYBARIS AND CROTONA.
Sybaris, a neighbouring city to Crotona, was as celebrated for
luxury and effeminacy as Crotona for the reverse. The name has
become proverbial. J. R. Lowell uses it in this sense in his
charming little poem "To the Dandelion":
"Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee
Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment
In the white lily's breezy tent
(His conquered Sybaris) than I when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst."
A war arose between the two cities, and Sybaris was conquered and
destroyed. Milo, the celebrated athlete, led the army of Crotona.
Many stories are told of Milo's vast strength, such as his carrying
a heifer of four years old upon his shoulders and afterwards eating
the whole of it in a single day. The mode of his death is thus
related: As he was passing through a forest he saw the trunk of a
tree which had been partially split open by wood-cutters, and
attempted to rend it further; but the wood closed upon his hands and
held him fast, in which state he was attacked and devoured by
wolves.
Byron, in his "Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte," alludes to the story
of Milo:
"He who of old would rend the oak
Deemed not of the rebound;
Chained by the trunk he vainly broke,
Alone, how looked he round!"
EGYPTIAN DEITIES.
The Egyptians acknowledged as the highest deity Amun, afterwards
called Zeus, or Jupiter Ammon. Amun manifested himself in his word
or will, which created Kneph and Athor, of different sexes. From
Kneph and Athor proceeded Osiris and Isis. Osiris was worshipped as
the god of the sun, the source of warmth, life, and fruitfulness, in
addition to which he was also regarded as the god of the Nile, who
annually visited his wife, Isis (the Earth), by means of an
inundation. Serapis or Hermes is sometimes represented as identical
with Osiris, and sometimes as a distinct divinity, the ruler of
Tartarus and god of medicine. Anubis is the guardian god,
represented with a dog's head, emblematic of his character of
fidelity and watchfulness. Horus or Harpocrates was the son of
Osiris. He is represented seated on a Lotus flower, with his finger
on his lips, as the god of Silence.
In one of Moore's "Irish Melodies" is an allusion to Harpocrates:
"Thyself shall, under some rosy bower,
Sit mute, with thy finger on thy lip;
Like him, the boy, who born among
The flowers that on the Nile-stream blush,
Sits ever thus,- his only song
To Earth and Heaven, 'Hush all, hush!"
MYTH OF OSIRIS AND
ISIS.
Osiris and Isis were at one time induced to descend to the earth
to bestow gifts and blessings on its inhabitants. Isis showed them
first the use of wheat and barley, and Osiris made the instruments
of agriculture and taught men the use of them, as well as how to
harness the ox to the plough. He then gave men laws, the institution
of marriage, a civil organization, and taught them how to worship
the gods. After he had thus made the valley of the Nile a happy
country, he assembled a host with which he went to bestow his
blessings upon the rest of the world. He conquered the nations
everywhere, but not with weapons, only with music and eloquence. His
brother, Typhon saw this, and filled with envy and malice sought
during his absence to usurp his throne. But Isis, who held the reins
of government, frustrated his plans. Still more embittered, he now
resolved to kill his brother. This he did in the following manner:
Having organized a conspiracy of seventy-two members, he went with
them to the feast which was celebrated in honour of the king's
return. He then caused a box or chest to be brought in, which had
been made to fit exactly the size of Osiris, and declared that he
would give that chest of precious wood to whomsoever could get into
it. The rest tried in vain, but no sooner was Osiris in it than
Typhon and his companions closed the lid and flung the chest into
the Nile. When Isis heard of the cruel murder she wept and mourned,
and then with her hair shorn, clothed in black and beating her
breast, she sought diligently for the body of her husband. In this
search she was materially assisted by Anubis, the son of Osiris and
Nephthys. They sought in vain for some time; for when the chest,
carried by the waves to the shores of Byblos, had become entangled
in the reeds that grew at the edge of the water, the divine power
that dwelt in the body of Osiris imparted such strength to the shrub
that it grew into a mighty tree, enclosing in its trunk the coffin
of the god. This tree with its sacred deposit was shortly after
felled, and erected as a column in the palace of the king of
Phoenicia. But at length by the aid of Anubis and the sacred birds,
Isis ascertained these facts, and then went to the royal city. There
she offered herself at the palace as a servant, and being admitted,
threw off her disguise and appeared as the goddess, surrounded with
thunder and lightning. Striking the column with her wand she caused
it to split open and give up the sacred coffin. This she seized and
returned with it, and concealed it in the depth of a forest, but
Typhon discovered it, and cutting the body into fourteen pieces
scattered them hither and thither. After a tedious search, Isis
found thirteen pieces, the fishes of the Nile having eaten the
other. This she replaced by an imitation of sycamore wood, and
buried the body at Philoe, which became ever after the great burying
place of the nation, and the spot to which pilgrimages were made
from all parts of the country. A temple of surpassing magnificence
was also erected there in honour of the god, and at every place
where one of his limbs had been found minor temples and tombs were
built to commemorate the event. Osiris became after that the tutelar
deity of the Egyptians. His soul was supposed always to inhabit the
body of the bull Apis, and at his death to transfer itself to his
successor.
Apis, the Bull of Memphis, was worshipped with the greatest
reverence by the Egyptians. The individual animal who was held to be
Apis was recognized by certain signs. It was requisite that he
should be quite black, have a white square mark on the forehead,
another, in the form of an eagle, on his back, and under his tongue
a lump somewhat in the shape of a scarabaeus or beetle. As soon as a
bull thus marked was found by those sent in search of him, he was
placed in a building facing the east, and was fed with milk for four
months. At the expiration of this term the priests repaired at new
moon, with great pomp, to his habitation and saluted him Apis. He
was placed in a vessel magnificently decorated and conveyed down the
Nile to Memphis, where a temple, with two chapels and a court for
exercise, was assigned to him. Sacrifices were made to him, and once
every year, about the time when the Nile began to rise, a golden cup
was thrown into the river, and a grand festival was held to
celebrate his birthday. The people believed that during this
festival the crocodiles forgot their natural ferocity and became
harmless. There was, however, one drawback to his happy lot: he was
not permitted to live beyond a certain period, and if, when he had
attained the age of twenty-five years, he still survived, the
priests drowned him in the sacred cistern and then buried him in the
temple of Serapis. On the death of this bull, whether it occurred in
the course of nature or by violence, the whole land was filled with
sorrow and lamentations, which lasted until his successor was found.
We find the following item in one of the newspapers of the day:
"The Tomb of Apis.- The excavations going on at Memphis bid fair
to make that buried city as interesting as Pompeii. The monster tomb
of Apis is now open, after having lain unknown for centuries."
Milton, in his "Hymn on the Nativity," alludes to the Egyptian
deities, not as imaginary beings, but as real demons, put to flight
by the coming of Christ.
"The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis and Horus and the dog Anubis haste.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green
Trampling the unshowered* grass with lowings loud;
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest;
Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud.
In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark
The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark."
* There being no rain in Egypt, the grass is "unshowered," and
the country depends for its fertility upon the overflowings of the
Nile. The ark alluded to in the last line is shown by pictures still
remaining on the walk of the Egyptian temple to have been borne by
the priests in their religious processions. It probable represented
the chest in which Osiris was placed.
Isis was represented in statuary with the head veiled, a symbol
of mystery. It is this which Tennyson alludes to in "Maud," IV. 8:
"For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by the veil,"
etc.
ORACLES.
Oracle was the name used to denote the place where answers were
supposed to be given by any of the divinities to those who consulted
them respecting the future. The word was also used to signify the
response which was given.
The most ancient Grecian oracle was that of Jupiter at Dodona.
According to one account, it was established in the following
manner: Two black doves took their flight from Thebes in Egypt. One
flew to Dodona in Epirus, and alighting in a grove of oaks, it
proclaimed in human language to the inhabitants of the district that
they must establish there an oracle of Jupiter. The other dove flew
to the temple of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan Oasis, and delivered a
similar command there. Another account is, that they were not doves,
but priestesses, who were carried off from Thebes in Egypt by the
Phoenicians, and set up oracles at the Oasis and Dodona. The
responses of the oracle were given from the trees, by the branches
rustling in the wind, the sounds being interpreted by the priests.
But the most celebrated of the Grecian oracles was that of Apollo
at Delphi, a city built on the slopes of Parnassus in Phocis.
It had been observed at a very early period that the goats
feeding on Parnassus were thrown into convulsions when they
approached a certain long deep cleft in the side of the mountain.
This was owing to a peculiar vapour arising out of the cavern, and
one of the goatherds was induced to try its effects upon himself.
Inhaling the intoxicating air, he was affected in the same manner as
the cattle had been, and the inhabitants of the surrounding country,
unable to explain the circumstance, imputed the convulsive ravings
to which he gave utterance while under the power of the exhalations
to a divine inspiration. The fact was speedily circulated widely,
and a temple was erected on the spot. The prophetic influence was at
first variously attributed to the goddess Earth, to Neptune, Themis,
and others, but it was at length assigned to Apollo, and to him
alone. A priestess was appointed whose office it was to inhale the
hallowed air, and who was named the Pythia. She was prepared for
this duty by previous ablution at the fountain of Castalia, and
being crowned with laurel was seated upon a tripod similarly
adorned, which was placed over the chasm whence the divine afflatus
proceeded. Her inspired words while thus situated were interpreted
by the priests.
ORACLE OF TROPHONIUS.
Besides the oracles of Jupiter and Apollo, at Dodona and Delphi,
that of Trophonius in Boeotia was held in high estimation.
Trophonius and Agamedes were brothers. They were distinguished
architects, and built the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and a treasury
for King Hyrieus. In the wall of the treasury they placed a stone,
in such a manner that it could be taken out; and by this means, from
time to time, purloined the treasure. This amazed Hyrieus, for his
locks and seals were untouched, and yet his wealth continually
diminished. At length he set a trap for the thief and Agamedes was
caught.
Trophonius, unable to extricate him, and fearing that when found
he would be compelled by torture to discover his accomplice, cut off
his head. Trophonius himself is said to have been shortly afterwards
swallowed up by the earth.
The oracle of Trophonius was at Lebadea in Boeotia. During a
great drought the Boeotians, it is said, were directed by the god at
Delphi to seek aid of Trophonius at Lebadea. They came thither, but
could find no oracle. One of them, however, happening to see a swarm
of bees, followed them to a chasm in the earth, which proved to be
the place sought.
Peculiar ceremonies were to be performed by the person who came
to consult the oracle. After these preliminaries, he descended into
the cave by a narrow passage. This place could be entered only in
the night. The person returned from the cave by the same narrow
passage, but walking backwards. He appeared melancholy and dejected;
and hence the proverb which was applied to a person low-spirited and
gloomy, "He has been consulting the oracle of Trophonius."
ORACLE OF AESCULAPIUS.
There were numerous oracles of AEsculapius, but the most
celebrated one was at Epidaurus. Here the sick sought responses and
the recovery of their health by sleeping in the temple. It has been
inferred from the accounts that have come down to us that the
treatment of the sick resembled what is now called Animal Magnetism
or Mesmerism.
Serpents were sacred to AEsculapius, probably because of a
superstition that those animals have a faculty of renewing their
youth by a change of skin.
The worship of AEsculapius was introduced into Rome in a time of
great sickness, and an embassy sent to the temple of Epidaurus to
entreat the aid of the god. AEsculapius was propitious and on the
return of the ship accompanied it in the form of a serpent. Arriving
in the river Tiber, the serpent glided from the vessel and took
possession of an island in the river, and a temple was there erected
to his honour.
ORACLE OF APIS.
At Memphis the sacred bull Apis gave answer to those who
consulted him by the manner in which he received or rejected what
was presented to him. If the bull refused food from the hand of the
inquirer it was considered an unfavourable sign, and the contrary
when he received it.
It has been a question whether oracular responses ought to be
ascribed to mere human contrivance or to the agency of evil spirits.
The latter opinion has been most general in past ages. A third
theory has been advanced since the phenomena of Mesmerism have
attracted attention, that something like the mesmeric trance was
induced in the Pythoness, and the faculty of clairvoyance really
called into action.
Another question is as to the time when the Pagan oracles ceased
to give responses. Ancient Christian writers assert that they became
silent at the birth of Christ, and were heard no more after that
date. Milton adopts this view in his "Hymn on the Nativity," and in
lines of solemn and elevated beauty pictures the consternation of
the heathen idols at the advent of the Saviour:
"The oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Rings through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell."
In Cowper's poem of "Yardley Oak" there are some beautiful
mythological allusions. The former of the two following is to the
fable of Castor and Pollux; the latter is more appropriate to our
present subject. Addressing the acorn he says,
"Thou fell'st mature; and in the loamy clod,
Swelling with vegetative force instinct,
Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins
Now stars; two lobes protruding, paired exact;
A leaf succeeded and another leaf,
And, all the elements thy puny growth
Fostering propitious, thou becam'st a twig.
Who lived when thou wast such? O, couldst thou speak,
As in Dodona once thy kindred trees
Oracular, I would not curious ask
The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth
Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past."
Tennyson, in his "Talking Oak," alludes to the oaks of Dodona in
these lines:
"And I will work in prose and rhyme,
And praise thee more in both
Than bard has honored beech or lime,
Or that Thessalian growth
In which the swarthy ring-dove sat
And mystic sentence spoke;" etc.
Byron alludes to the oracle of Delphi where, speaking of
Rousseau, whose writings he conceives did much to bring on the
French revolution, he says,
"For then he was inspired, and from him came,
As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore,
Those oracles which set the world in flame,
Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more."
CHAPTER XXXV.
ORIGIN OF MYTHOLOGY- STATUES OF GODS AND GODDESSES- POETS
OF MYTHOLOGY.
ORIGIN OF MYTHOLOGY.
HAVING reached the close of our series of stories of Pagan
mythology, an inquiry suggests itself. "Whence came these stories?
Have they a foundation in truth, or are they simply dreams of the
imagination?" Philosophers have suggested various theories of the
subject; and 1. The Scriptural theory; according to which all
mythological legends are derived from the narratives of Scriptures,
though the real facts have been disguised and altered. Thus
Deucalion is only another name for Noah, Hercules for Samson, Arion
for Jonah, etc. Sir Walter Raleigh, in his "History of the World,"
says, "Jubal, Tubal, and Tubal-Cain were Mercury, Vulcan, and
Apollo, inventors of Pasturage, Smithing, and Music. The Dragon
which kept the golden apples was the serpent that beguiled Eve.
Nimrod's tower was the attempt of the Giants against Heaven." There
are doubtless many curious coincidences like these, but the theory
cannot without extravagance be pushed so far as to account for any
great proportion of the stories.
2. The Historical theory; according to which all the persons
mentioned in mythology were once real human beings, and the legends
and fabulous traditions relating to them are merely the additions
and embellishments of later times. Thus the story of AEolus, the
king and god of the winds, is supposed to have risen from the fact
that AEolus was the ruler of some islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea,
where be reigned as a just and pious king, and taught the natives
the use of sails for or ships, and how to tell from the signs of the
atmosphere the changes of the weather and the winds. Cadmus, who,
the legend says, sowed the earth with dragon's teeth, from which
sprang a crop of armed men, was in fact an emigrant from Phoenicia,
and brought with him into Greece the knowledge of the letters of the
alphabet, which be taught to the natives. From these rudiments of
learning sprung civilization, which the poets have always been prone
to describe as a deterioration of man's first estate, the Golden Age
of innocence and simplicity.
3. The Allegorical theory supposes that all the myths of the
ancients were allegorical and symbolical, and contained some moral,
religious, or philosophical truth or historical fact, under the form
of an allegory, but came in process of time to be understood
literally. Thus Saturn, who devours his own children, is the same
power whom the Greeks called Cronos (Time), which may truly be said
to destroy whatever it has brought into existence. The story of Io
is interpreted in a similar manner. Io is the moon, and Argus the
starry sky, which, as it were, keeps sleepless watch over her. The
fabulous wanderings of lo represent the continual revolutions of the
moon, which also suggested to Milton the same idea.
"To behold the wandering moon
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
In the heaven's wide, pathless way."
Il Penseroso.
4. The Physical theory; according to which the elements of air,
fire, and water were originally the objects of religious adoration,
and the principal deities were personifications of the powers of
nature. The transition was easy from a personification of the
elements to the notion of supernatural beings presiding over and
governing the different objects of nature. The Greeks, whose
imagination was lively, peopled all nature with invisible beings,
and supposed that every object, from the sun and sea to the smallest
fountain and rivulet, was under the care of some particular
divinity. Wordsworth, in his "Excursion," has beautifully developed
this view of Grecian mythology:
"In that fair clime the lonely herdsman, stretched
On the soft grass through half a summer's day,
With music lulled his indolent repose;
And, in some fit of weariness, if he,
When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear
A distant strain far sweeter than the sounds
Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched
Even from the blazing chariot of the Sun
A beardless youth who touched a golden lute,
And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.
The mighty hunter, lifting up his eyes
Toward the crescent Moon, with grateful heart
Called on the lovely Wanderer who bestowed
That timely light to share his joyous sport;
And hence a beaming goddess with her nymphs
Across the lawn and through the darksome grove
(Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes
By echo multiplied from rock or cave)
Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and stars
Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven
When winds are blowing strong. The Traveller slaked
His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked
The Naiad. Sunbeams upon distant hills
Gliding apace with shadows in their train,
Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed
Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly.
The Zephyrs, fanning, as they passed, their wings,
Lacked not for love fair objects whom they wooed
With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque,
Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,
From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth
In the low vale, or on steep mountain side;
And sometimes intermixed with stirring horns
Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard;
These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood
Of gamesome deities; or Pan himself,
That simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god."
All the theories which have been mentioned are true to a certain
extent. It would therefore be more correct to say that the mythology
of a nation has sprung from all these sources combined than from any
one in particular. We may add also that there are many myths which
have arisen from the desire of man to account for those natural
phenomena which he cannot understand; and not a few have had their
rise from a similar desire of giving a reason for the names of
places and persons.
STATUES OF THE GODS.
To adequately represent to the eye the ideas intended to be
conveyed to the mind under the several names of deities was a task
which called into exercise the highest powers of genius and art. Of
to many attempts four have been most celebrated the first two known
to us only by the descriptions of the ancients, the others still
extant and the acknowledged masterpieces of the sculptor's art.
THE OLYMPIAN JUPITER.
The statue of the Olympian Jupiter by Phidias was considered the
highest achievement of this department of Grecian art. It was of
colossal dimensions, and was what the ancients called
"chryselephantine"; that is, composed of ivory and gold; the parts
representing flesh being of ivory laid on a core of wood or stone,
while the drapery and other ornaments were of gold. The height of
the figure was forty feet, on a pedestal twelve feet high. The god
was represented seated on his throne. His brows were crowned with a
wreath of olive, and he held in his right hand a sceptre, and in his
left a statue of Victory. The throne was of cedar, adorned with gold
and precious stones.
The idea which the artist essayed to embody was that of the
supreme deity of the Hellenic (Grecian) nation, enthroned as a
conqueror, in perfect majesty and repose, and ruling with a nod the
subject world. Phidias avowed that he took his idea from the
representation which Homer gives in the first book of the "Iliad,"
in the passage thus translated by Pope:
"He spoke and awful bends his sable brows,
Shakes his ambrosial curls and gives the nod,
The stamp of fate and sanction of the god.
High heaven with reverence the dread signal took,
And all Olympus to the centre shook."*
* Cowper's version is less elegant, but truer to the original:
"He ceased, and under his dark brows the nod
Vouchsafed of confirmation. All around
The sovereign's everlasting head his curls
Ambrosial shook, and the huge mountain reeled."
It may interest our readers to see how this passage appears in
another famous version, that which was issued under the name of
Tickell, contemporaneously with Pope's, and which, being by many
attributed to Addison, led to the quarrel which ensued between
Addison and Pope:
"This said, his kingly brow the sire inclined;
The large black curls fell awful from behind,
Thick shadowing the stern forehead of the god;
Olympus trembled at the almighty nod."
THE MINERVA OF
THE PARTHENON.
This was also the work of Phidias. It stood in the Parthenon, or
temple of Minerva at Athens. The goddess was represented standing.
In one hand she held a spear, in the other a statue of Victory. Her
helmet, highly decorated, was surmounted by a Sphinx. The statue was
forty feet in height, and, like the Jupiter, composed of ivory and
gold. The eyes were of marble, and probably painted to represent the
iris and pupil. The Parthenon, in which this statue stood, was also
constructed under the direction and superintendence of Phidias. Its
exterior was enriched with sculptures, many of them from the hand of
Phidias. The Elgin marbles, now in the British Museum, are a part of
them.
Both the Jupiter and Minerva of Phidias are lost, but there is
good ground to believe that we have, in several extant statues and
busts, the artist's conceptions of the countenances of both. They
are characterized by grave and dignified beauty, and freedom from
any transient expression, which in the language of art is called
repose.
THE VENUS DE' MEDICI.
The Venus of the Medici is so called from its having been in the
possession of the princes of that name in Rome when it first
attracted attention, about two hundred years ago. An inscription on
the base records it to be the work of Cleomenes, an Athenian
sculptor of 200 B.C., but the authenticity of the inscription is
doubtful. There is a story that the artist was employed by public
authority to make a statue exhibiting the perfection of female
beauty, and to aid him in his task the most perfect forms the city
could supply were furnished him for models. It is this which Thomson
alludes to in his "Summer":
"So stands the statue that enchants the world;
So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,
The mingled beauties of exulting Greece."
Byron also alludes to this statue. Speaking of the Florence
Museum, he says:
"There, too, the goddess loves in stone, and fills
The air around with beauty;" etc.
And in the next stanza,
"Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan shepherd's
prize."
See this last allusion explained in Chapter XXVII.
THE APOLLO BELVEDERE.
The most highly esteemed of all the remains of ancient sculpture
is the statue of Apollo, called the Belvedere, from the name of the
apartment of the Pope's palace at Rome in which it was placed. The
artist is unknown. It is supposed to be a work of Roman art, of
about the first century of our era. It is a standing figure, in
marble, more than seven feet high, naked except for the cloak which
is fastened around the neck and hangs over the extended left arm. It
is supposed to represent the god in the moment when he has shot the
arrow to destroy the monster Python. (See Chapter III.) The
victorious divinity is in the act of stepping forward. The left arm,
which seems to have held the bow, is outstretched, and the head is
turned in the same direction. In attitude and proportion the
graceful majesty of the figure is unsurpassed. The effect is
completed by the countenance, where on the perfection of youthful
godlike beauty there dwells the consciousness of triumphant power.
THE DIANA A LA BICHE.
The Diana of the Hind, in the palace of the Louvre, may be
considered the counterpart to the Apollo Belvedere. The attitude
much resembles that of the Apollo, the sizes correspond and also the
style of execution. It is a work of the highest order, though by no
means equal to the Apollo. The attitude is that of hurried and eager
motion, the face that of a huntress in the excitement of the chase.
The left hand is extended over the forehead of the Hind, which runs
by her side, the right arm reaches backward over the shoulder to
draw an arrow from the quiver.
THE POETS OF MYTHOLOGY.
Homer, from whose poems of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" we have
taken the chief part of our chapters of the Trojan war and the
return of the Grecians, is almost as mythical a personage as the
heroes he celebrates. The traditionary story is that he was a
wandering minstrel, blind and old, who travelled from place to place
singing his lays to the music of his harp, in the courts of princes
or the cottages of peasants, and dependent upon the voluntary
offerings of his hearers for support. Byron calls him "The blind old
man of Scio's rocky isle," and a well-known epigram, alluding to the
uncertainty of the fact of his birthplace, says:
"Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread."
These seven were Smyrna, Scio, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis, Argos,
and Athens.
Modern scholars have doubted whether the Homeric poems are the
work of any single mind. This arises from the difficulty of
believing that poems of such length could have been committed to
writing at so early an age as that usually assigned to these, an age
earlier than the date of any remaining inscriptions or coins, and
when no materials capable of containing such long productions were
yet introduced into use. On the other hand it is asked how poems of
such length could have been handed down from age to age by means of
the memory alone. This is answered by the statement that there was a
professional body of men, called Rhapsodists, who recited the poems
of others, and whose business it was to commit to memory and
rehearse for pay the national and patriotic legends.
The prevailing opinion of the learned, at this time, seems to be
that the framework and much of the structure of the poems belongs to
Homer, but that there are numerous interpolations and additions by
other hands.
The date assigned to Homer, on the authority of Herodotus, is 850
B.C.
VIRGIL.
Virgil, called also by his surname, Maro, from whose poem of the
"AEneid" we have taken the story of AEneas, was one of the great
poets who made the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus so
celebrated, under the name of the Augustan age. Virgil was born in
Mantua in the year 70 B.C. His great poem is ranked next to those of
Homer, in the highest class of poetical composition, the Epic.
Virgil is far inferior to Homer in originality and invention, but
superior to him in correctness and elegance. To critics of English
lineage Milton alone of modern poets seems worthy to be classed with
these illustrious ancients. His poem of "Paradise Lost," from which
we have borrowed so many illustrations, is in many respects equal,
in some superior, to either of the great works of antiquity. The
following epigram of Dryden characterizes the three poets with as
much truth as it is usual to find in such pointed criticism.
"ON MILTON.
"Three poets in three different ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of soul surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third she joined the other two."
From Cowper's "Table Talk":
"Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared,
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard.
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.
Thus genius rose and set at ordered times,
And shot a dayspring into distant climes,
Ennobling every region that he chose;
He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose,
And, tedious years of Gothic darkness past,
Emerged all splendour in our isle at last.
Thus lovely Halcyons dive into the main,
Then show far off their shining plumes again."
OVID,
often alluded to in
poetry by his other name of Naso, was born in the year 43 B.C. He
was educated for public life and held some offices of considerable
dignity, but poetry was his delight, and he early resolved to devote
himself to it. He accordingly sought the society of the contemporary
poets, and was acquainted with Horace and saw Virgil, though the
latter died when Ovid was yet too young and undistinguished to have
formed his acquaintance. Ovid spent an easy life at Rome in the
enjoyment of a competent income. He was intimate with the family of
Augustus, the emperor, and it is supposed that some serious offence
given to some member of that family was the cause of an event which
reversed the poet's happy circumstances and clouded all the latter
portion of his life. At the age of fifty he was banished from Rome,
and ordered to betake himself to Tomi, on the borders of the Black
Sea. Here, among the barbarous people and in a severe climate, the
poet, who had been accustomed to all the pleasures of a luxurious
capital and the society of his most distinguished contemporaries,
spent the last ten years of his life, worn out with grief and
anxiety. His only consolation in exile was to address his wife and
absent friends, and his letters were all poetical. Though these
poems (the "Tristia" and "Letters from Pontus") have no other topic
than the poet's sorrow's, his exquisite taste and fruitful invention
have redeemed them from the charge of being tedious, and they are
read with pleasure and even with sympathy.
The two great works of Ovid are his "Metamorphoses" and his "Fasti."
They are both mythological poems, and from the former we have taken
most of our stories of Grecian and Roman mythology. A late writer
thus characterizes these poems:
"The rich mythology of Greece furnished Ovid, as it may still
furnish the poet, the painter, and the sculptor, with materials for
his art. With exquisite taste, simplicity, and pathos he has
narrated the fabulous traditions of early ages, and given to them
that appearance of reality which only a master-hand could impart.
His pictures of nature are striking and true; he selects with care
that which is appropriate; he rejects the superfluous; and when he
has completed his work, it is neither defective nor redundant. The
'Metamorphoses' are read with pleasure by youth, and are re-read in
more advanced age with still greater delight. The poet ventured to
predict that his poem would survive him, and be read wherever the
Roman name was known."
The prediction above alluded to is contained in the closing lines
of the "Metamorphoses," of which we give a literal translation
below:
"And now I close my work, which not the ire
Of Jove, nor tooth of time, nor sword, nor fire
Shall bring to nought. Come when it will that day
Which o'er the body, not the mind, has sway,
And snatch the remnant of my life away,
My better part above the stars shall soar,
And my renown endure for evermore.
Where'er the Roman arms and arts shall spread,
There by the people shall my book be read;
And, if aught true in poet's visions be,
My name and fame have immortality."
CHAPTER XXXVI.
MODERN MONSTERS- THE PHOENIX- BASILISK- UNICORN-
-SALAMANDER.
MODERN MONSTERS.
THERE is a set of imaginary beings which seem to have been the
successors of the "Gorgons, Hydras, and Chimeras dire" of the old
superstitions, and, having no connection with the false gods of
Paganism, to have continued to enjoy an existence in the popular
belief after Paganism was superseded by Christianity. They are
mentioned perhaps by the classical writers, but their chief
popularity and currency seem to have been in more modern times. We
seek our accounts of them not so much in the poetry of the ancients
as in the old natural history books and narrations of travellers.
The accounts which we are about to give are taken chiefly from the
Penny Cyclopedia.
THE PHOENIX.
Ovid tells the story of the Phoenix as follows: "Most beings
spring from other individuals; but there is a certain kind which
reproduces itself. The Assyrians call it the Phoenix. It does not
live on fruit or flowers, but on frankincense and odoriferous gums.
When it has lived five hundred years, it builds itself a nest in the
branches of an oak, or on the top of a palm tree. In this it
collects cinnamon, and spikenard, and myrrh, and of these 'materials
builds a pile on which it deposits itself, and dying, breathes out
its last breath amidst odours. From the body of the parent bird, a
young Phoenix issues forth, destined to live as long a life as its
predecessor. When this has grown up and gained sufficient strength,
it lifts its nest from the tree (its own cradle and its parent's
sepulchre), and carries it to the city of Heliopolis in Egypt, and
deposits it in the temple of the Sun."
Such is the account given by a poet. Now let us see that of a
philosophic historian. Tacitus says, "in the consulship of Paulus
Fabius (A.D. 34) the miraculous bird known to the world by the name
of the Phoenix, after disappearing for a series of ages, revisited
Egypt. It was attended in its flight by a group of various birds,
all attracted by the novelty, and gazing with wonder at so beautiful
an appearance." He then gives an account of the bird, not varying
materially from the preceding, but adding some details. "The first
care of the young bird as soon as fledged, and able to trust to his
wings, is to perform the obsequies of his father. But this duty is
not undertaken rashly. He collects a quantity of myrrh, and to try
his strength makes frequent excursions with a load on his back. When
he has gained sufficient confidence in his own vigour, he takes up
the body of his father and flies with it to the altar of the Sun,
where he leaves it to be consumed in flames of fragrance." Other
writers add a few particulars. The myrrh is compacted in the form of
an egg, in which the dead Phoenix is enclosed. From the mouldering
flesh of the dead bird a worm springs, and this worm, when grown
large, is transformed into a bird. Herodotus describes the bird,
though he says, "I have not seen it myself, except in a picture.
Part of his plumage is gold-coloured, and part crimson; and he is
for the most part very much like an eagle in outline and bulk."
The first writer who disclaimed a belief in the existence of the
Phoenix was Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Vulgar Errors," published in
1646. He was replied to a few years later by Alexander Ross, who
says, in answer to the objection of the Phoenix so seldom making his
appearance, "His instinct teaches him to keep out of the way of the
tyrant of the creation, man, for if he were to be got at, some
wealthy glutton would surely devour him, though there were no more
in the world."
Dryden in one of his early poems has this allusion to the
Phoenix:
"So when the new-born Phoenix first is seen
Her feathered subjects all adore their queen,
And while she makes her progress through the East,
From every grove her numerous train 's increased;
Each poet of the air her glory sings,
And round him the pleased audience clap their wings."
Milton, in "Paradise Lost," Book V., compares the angel Raphael
descending to earth to a Phoenix:
"...Down thither, prone in flight
He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky
Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing,
Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan
Winnows the buxom air; till within soar
Of towering eagles, to all the fowls he seems
A Phoenix, gazed by all; as that sole bird
When, to enshrine his relics in the sun's
Bright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies."
THE COCKATRICE, OR
BASILISK.
This animal was called the king of the serpents. In confirmation
of his royalty, he was said to be endowed with a crest, or comb upon
the head, constituting a crown. He was supposed to be produced from
the egg of a cock hatched under toads or serpents. There were
several species of this animal. One species burned up whatever they
approached; a second were a kind of wandering Medusa's heads, and
their look caused an instant horror which was immediately followed
by death. In Shakespeare's play of "Richard the Third," Lady Anne,
in answer to Richard's compliment on her eyes, says "Would they were
basilisk's, to strike thee dead!"
The basilisks were called kings of serpents because all other
serpents and snakes, behaving like good subjects, and wisely not
wishing to be burned up or struck dead, fled the moment they heard
the distant hiss of their king, although they might be in full feed
upon the most delicious prey, leaving the sole enjoyment of the
banquet to the royal monster.
The Roman naturalist Pliny thus describes him. "He does not impel
his body, like other serpents, by a multiplied flexion, but advances
lofty and upright. He kills the shrubs, not only by contact, but by
breathing on them, and splits the rocks, such power of evil is there
in him." It was formerly believed that if killed by a spear from on
horseback the power of the poison conducted through the weapon
killed not only the rider, but the horse also. To this Lucan alludes
in these lines:
"What though the Moor the basilisk hath slain,
And pinned him lifeless to the sandy plain,
Up through the spear the subtle venom flies,
The hand imbibes it, and the victor dies."
Such a prodigy was not likely to be passed over in the legends of
the saints. Accordingly we find it recorded that a certain holy man,
going to a fountain in the desert, suddenly beheld a basilisk. He
immediately raised his eyes to heaven, and with a pious appeal to
the Deity laid the monster dead at his feet.
These wonderful powers of the basilisk are attested by a host of
learned persons, such as Galen, Avicenna, Scaliger, and others.
Occasionally one would demur to some part of the tale while he
admitted the rest. Jonston, a learned physician, sagely remarks, "I
would scarcely believe that it kills with its look, for who could
have seen it and lived to tell the story?" The worthy sage was not
aware that those who went to hunt the basilisk of this sort took
with them a mirror, which reflected back the deadly glare upon its
author, and by a kind of poetical justice slew the basilisk with his
own weapon.
But what was to attack this terrible and unapproachable monster?
There is an old saying that "everything has its enemy"- and the
cockatrice quailed before the weasel. The basilisk might look
daggers, the weasel cared not, but advanced boldly to the conflict.
When bitten, the weasel retired for a moment to eat some rue, which
was the only plant the basilisks could not wither, returned with
renewed strength and soundness to the charge, and never left the
enemy till he was stretched dead on the plain. The monster, too, as
if conscious of the irregular way in which he came into the world,
was supposed to have a great antipathy to a cock; and well he might,
for as soon as he heard the cock crow he expired.
The basilisk was of some use after death. Thus we read that its
carcass was suspended in the temple of Apollo, and in private
houses, as a sovereign remedy against spiders, and that it was also
hung up in the temple of Diana, for which reason no swallow ever
dared enter the sacred place.
The reader will, we apprehend, by this time have had enough of
absurdities, but still we can imagine his anxiety to know what a
cockatrice was like. The following is from Aldrovandus, a celebrated
naturalist of the sixteenth century, whose work on natural history,
in thirteen folio volumes, contains with much that is valuable a
large proportion of fables and inutilities. In particular he is so
ample on the subject of the cock and the bull that from his
practice, all rambling, gossiping tales of doubtful credibility are
called cock and bull stories.
Shelley, in his "Ode to Naples," full of the enthusiasm excited
by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional
Government at Naples, in 1820, thus uses an allusion to the
basilisk:
"What though Cimmerian anarchs dare blaspheme
Freedom and thee? a new Actaeon's error
Shall theirs have been,- devoured by their own hounds!
Be thou like the imperial basilisk,
Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!
Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk,
Aghast she pass from the earth's disk.
Fear not, but gaze,- for freemen mightier grow,
And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe."
THE UNICORN.
Pliny, the Roman naturalist, out of whose account of the unicorn
most of the modern unicorns have been described and figured, records
it as "a very ferocious beast, similar in the rest of its body to a
horse, with the head of a deer, the feet of an elephant, the tail of
a boar, a deep, bellowing voice, and a single black horn, two cubits
in length, standing out in the middle of its forehead." He adds that
"it cannot be taken alive"; and some such excuse may have been
necessary in those days for not producing the living animal upon the
arena of the amphitheatre.
The unicorn seems to have been a sad puzzle to the hunters, who
hardly knew how to come at so valuable a piece of game. Some
described the horn as movable at the will of the animal, a kind of
small sword, in short, with which no hunter who was not exceedingly
cunning in fence could have a chance. Others maintained that all the
animal's strength lay in its horn, and that when hard pressed in
pursuit, it would throw itself from the pinnacle of the highest
rocks horn foremost, so as to pitch upon it, and then quietly march
off not a whit the worse for its fall.
But it seems they found out how to circumvent the poor unicorn at
last. They discovered that it was a great lover of purity and
innocence, so they took the field with a young virgin, who was
placed in the unsuspecting admirer's way. When the unicorn spied
her, he approached with all reverence, crouched beside her, and
laying his head in her lap, fell asleep. The treacherous virgin then
gave a signal, and the hunters made in and captured the simple
beast.
Modern zoologists, disgusted as they well may be with such fables
as these, disbelieved generally the existence of the unicorn. Yet
there are animals bearing on their heads a bony protuberance more or
less like a horn, which may have given rise to the story. The
rhinoceros horn, as it is called, is such a protuberance, though it
does not exceed a few inches in height, and is far from agreeing
with the descriptions of the horn of the unicorn. The nearest
approach to a horn in the middle of the forehead is exhibited in the
bony protuberance on the forehead of the giraffe; but this also is
short and blunt, and is not the only horn of the animal, but a third
horn, standing in front of the two others. In fine, though it would
be presumptuous to deny the existence of a one-horned quadruped
other than the rhinoceros, it may be safely stated that the
insertion of a long and solid horn in the living forehead of a
horse-like or deer-like animal is as near an impossibility as
anything can be.
THE SALAMANDER.
The following is from the "Life of Benvenuto Cellini," an Italian
artist of the sixteenth century, written by himself: "When I was
about five years of age, my father, happening to be in a little room
in which they had been washing, and where there was a good fire of
oak burning, looked into the flames and saw a little animal
resembling a lizard, which could live in the hottest part of that
element. Instantly perceiving what it was, he called for my sister
and me, and after he had shown us the creature, he gave me a box on
the ear. I fell a-crying, while he, soothing me with caresses, spoke
these words: 'My dear child, I do not give you that blow for any
fault you have committed, but that you may recollect that the little
creature you see in the fire is a salamander; such a one as never
was beheld before to my knowledge.' So saying he embraced me, and
gave me some money."
It seems unreasonable to doubt a story of which Signor Cellini
was both an eye and ear witness. Add to which the authority of
numerous sage philosophers, at the head of whom are Aristotle and
Pliny, affirms this power of the salamander. According to them, the
animal not only resists fire, but extinguishes it, and when he sees
the flame charges it as an enemy which he well knows how to
vanquish.
That the skin of an animal which could resist the action of fire
should be considered proof against that element is not to be
wondered at. We accordingly find that a cloth made of the skin of
salamanders (for there really is such an animal, a kind of lizard)
was incombustible, and very valuable, for wrapping up such articles
as were too precious to be intrusted to any other envelopes. These
fire-proof cloths were actually produced, said to be made of
salamander's wool, though the knowing ones detected that the
substance of which they were composed was asbestos, a mineral, which
is in fine filaments capable of being woven into a flexible cloth.
The foundation of the above fables is supposed to be the fact
that the salamander really does secrete from the pores of his body a
milky juice, which when he is irritated is produced in considerable
quantity, and would doubtless, for a few moments, defend the body
from fire. Then it is a hibernating animal, and in winter retires to
some hollow tree or other cavity, where it coils itself up and
remains in a torpid state till the spring again calls it forth. It
may therefore sometimes be carried with the fuel to the fire, and
wake up only time enough to put forth all its faculties for its
defence. Its viscous juice would do good service, and all who
profess to have seen it, acknowledge that it got out of the fire as
fast as its legs could carry it; indeed, too fast for them ever to
make prize of one, except in one instance, and in that one the
animal's feet and some parts of its body were badly burned.
Dr. Young, in the "Night Thoughts," with more quaintness than
good taste, compares the sceptic who can remain unmoved in the
contemplation of the starry heavens to a salamander unwarmed in the
fire:
"An undevout astronomer is mad!
. . . . . . .
"O, what a genius must inform the skies!
And is Lorenzo's salamander-heart
Cold and untouched amid these sacred fires?"
CHAPTER XXXVII.
EASTERN MYTHOLOGY- ZOROASTER- HINDU MYTHOLOGY- CASTES-
BUDDHA- GRAND LAMA.
ZOROASTER.
OUR knowledge of the religion of the ancient Persians is
principally derived from the Zendavesta, or sacred books of that
people. Zoroaster was the founder of their religion, or rather the
reformer of the religion which preceded him. The time when he lived
is doubtful, but it is certain that his system became the dominant
religion of Western Asia from the time of Cyrus (550 B.C.) to the
conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great. Under the Macedonian
monarchy the doctrines of Zoroaster appear to have been considerably
corrupted by the introduction of foreign opinions; but they
afterwards recovered their ascendency.
Zoroaster taught the existence of a supreme being, who created
two other mighty beings and imparted to them as much of his own
nature as seemed good to him. Of these, Ormuzd (called by the Greeks
Oromasdes) remained faithful to his creator, and was regarded as the
source of all good, while Ahriman (Arimanes) rebelled, and became
the author of all evil upon the earth. Ormuzd created man and
supplied him with all the materials of happiness; but Ahriman marred
this happiness by introducing evil into the world, and creating
savage beasts and poisonous reptiles and plants. In consequence of
this, evil and good are now mingled together in every part of the
world, and the followers of good and evil- the adherents of Ormuzd
and Ahriman- carry on incessant war. But this state of things will
not last for ever. The time will come when the adherents of Ormuzd
shall everywhere be victorious, and Ahriman and his followers be
consigned to darkness for ever.
The religious rites of the ancient Persians were exceedingly
simple. They used neither temples, altars, nor statues, and
performed their sacrifices on the tops of mountains. They adored
fire, light, and the sun as emblems of Ormuzd, the source of all
light and purity, but did not regard them as independent deities.
The religious rites and ceremonies were regulated by the priests,
who were called Magi. The learning of the Magi was connected with
astrology and enchantment, in which they were so celebrated that
their name was applied to all orders of magicians and enchanters.
Wordsworth thus alludes to the worship of the Persians:
"...the Persians,- zealous to reject
Altar and Image, and the inclusive walls
And roofs of temples built by human hands,-
The loftiest heights ascending, from their tops,
With myrtle-wreathed Tiara on his brows,
Presented sacrifice to Moon and Stars,
And to the Winds and mother Elements,
And the whole circle of the Heavens, for him
A sensitive existence and a God."
Excursion, Book IV.
In "Childe Harold" Byron speaks thus of the Persian worship:
"Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth-o'er-gazing mountains, and thus take
A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek
The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak,
Upreared of human hands. Come and compare
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,
With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer."
III. 91.
The religion of Zoroaster continued to flourish even after the
introduction of Christianity, and in the third century was the
dominant faith of the East, till the rise of the Mahometan power and
the conquest of Persia by the Arabs in the seventh century, who
compelled the greater number of the Persians to renounce their
ancient faith. Those who refused to abandon the religion of their
ancestors fled to the deserts of Kerman and to Hindustan, where they
still exist under the name of Parsees, a name derived from Paris,
the ancient name of Persia. The Arabs call them Guebers, from an
Arabic word signifying unbelievers. At Bombay the Parsees are at
this day a very active, intelligent, and wealthy class. For purity
of life, honesty, and conciliatory manners, they are favourably
distinguished. They have numerous temples to Fire, which they adore
as the symbol of the divinity.
The Persian religion makes the subject of the finest tale in
Moore's "Lalla Rookh," the "Fire Worshippers." The Gueber chief
says:
"Yes! I am of that impious race,
Those slaves of Fire, that morn and even
Hail their creator's dwelling-place
Among the living lights of heaven;
Yes I am of that outcast crew
To Iran and to vengeance true,
Who curse the hour your Arabs came
To desecrate our shrines of flame,
And swear before God's burning eye
To break our country's chains or die."
HINDU MYTHOLOGY.
The religion of the Hindus is professedly founded on the Vedas.
To these books of their scripture they attach the greatest sanctity,
and state that Brahma himself composed them at the creation. But the
present arrangement of the Vedas is attributed to the sage Vyasa,
about five thousand years ago.
The Vedas undoubtedly teach the belief of one supreme God. The
name of this deity is Brahma. His attributes are represented by the
three personified powers of creation, preservation, and destruction,
which under the respective names of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva form
the Trimurti or triad of principal Hindu gods. Of the inferior gods
the most important are: 1. Indra, the god of heaven, of thunder,
lightning, storm, and rain; 2. Agni, the god of fire; 3. Yama, the
god of the infernal regions; 4. Surya, the god of the sun.
Brahma is the creator of the universe, and the source from which
all the individual deities have sprung, and into which all will
ultimately be absorbed. "As milk changes to curd, and water to ice,
so is Brahma variously transformed and diversified, without aid of
exterior means of any sort." The human soul, according to the Vedas,
is a portion of the supreme ruler, as a spark is of the fire.
VISHNU.
Vishnu occupies the second place in the triad of the Hindus, and
is the personification of the preserving principle. To protect the
world in various epochs of danger, Vishnu descended to the earth in
different incarnations, or bodily forms, which descents are called
Avatars. They are very numerous, but ten are more particularly
specified. The first Avatar was as Matsya, the Fish, under which
form Vishnu preserved Manu, the ancestor of the human race, during a
universal deluge. The second Avatar was in the form of a Tortoise,
which form he assumed to support the earth when the gods were
churning the sea for the beverage of immortality, Amrita.
We may omit the other Avatars, which were of the same general
character, that is, interpositions to protect the right or to punish
wrong-doers, and come to the ninth, which is the most celebrated of
the Avatars of Vishnu, in which he appeared in the human form of
Krishna, an invincible warrior, who by his exploits relieved the
earth from the tyrants who oppressed it.
Buddha is by the followers of the Brahminical religion regarded
as a delusive incarnation of Vishnu, assumed by him in order to
induce the Asuras, opponents of the gods, to abandon the sacred
ordinances of the Vedas, by which means they lost their strength and
supremacy.
Kalki is the name of the tenth Avatar, in which Vishnu will
appear at the end of the present age of the world to destroy all
vice and wickedness, and to restore mankind to virtue and purity.
SIVA.
Siva is the third person of the Hindu triad. He is the
personification of the destroying principle. Though the third name,
he is, in respect to the number of his worshippers and the extension
of his worship, before either of the others. In the Puranas (the
scriptures of the modern Hindu religion) no allusion is made to the
original power of this god as a destroyer; that power not being to
be called into exercise till after the expiration of twelve millions
of years, or when the universe will come to an end; and Mahadeva
(another name for Siva) is rather the representative of regeneration
than of destruction.
The worshippers of Vishnu and Siva form two sects, each of which
proclaims the superiority of its favourite deity, denying the claims
of the other, and Brahma, the creator, having finished his work,
seems to be regarded as no longer active, and has now only one
temple in India, while Mahadeva and Vishnu have many. The
worshippers of Vishnu are generally distinguished by a greater
tenderness for life, and consequent abstinence from animal food, and
a worship less cruel than that of the followers of Siva.
JUGGERNAUT.
Whether the worshippers of juggernaut are to be reckoned among
the followers of Vishnu or Siva, our authorities differ. The temple
stands near the shore, about three hundred miles southwest of
Calcutta. The idol is a carved block of wood, with a hideous face,
painted black, and a distended blood-red mouth. On festival days the
throne of the image is placed on a tower sixty feet high, moving on
wheels. Six long ropes are attached to the tower, by which the
people draw it along. The priests and their attendants stand round
the throne on the tower, and occasionally turn to the worshippers
with songs and gestures. While the tower moves along numbers of the
devout worshippers throw themselves on the ground, in order to be
crushed by the wheels, and the multitude shout in approbation of the
act, as a pleasing sacrifice to the idol. Every year, particularly
at two great festivals in March and July, pilgrims flock in crowds
to the temple. Not less than seventy or eighty thousand people are
said to visit the place on these occasions, when all castes eat
together.
CASTES.
The division of the Hindus into classes or castes, with fixed
occupations, existed from the earliest times. It is supposed by some
to have been founded upon conquest, the first three castes being
composed of a foreign race, who subdued the natives of the country
and reduced them to an inferior caste. Others trace it to the
fondness of perpetuating, by descent from father to son, certain
offices or occupations.
The Hindu tradition gives the following account of the origin of
the various castes: At the creation Brahma resolved to give the
earth inhabitants who should be direct emanations from his own body.
Accordingly from his mouth came forth the eldest born, Brahma (the
priest), to whom he confided the four Vedas; from his right arm
issued Shatriya (the warrior), and from his left, the warrior's
wife. His thighs produced Vaissyas, male and female (agriculturists
and traders), and lastly from his feet sprang Sudras (mechanics and
labourers).
The four sons of Brahma, so significantly brought into the world,
became the fathers of the human race, and heads of their respective
castes. They were commanded to regard the four Vedas as containing
all the rules of their faith, and all that was necessary to guide
them in their religious ceremonies. They were also commanded to take
rank in the order of their birth, the Brahmans uppermost, as having
sprung from the head of Brahma.
A strong line of demarcation is drawn between the first three
castes and the Sudras. The former are allowed to receive instruction
from the Vedas, which is not permitted to the Sudras. The Brahmans
possess the privilege of teaching the Vedas, and were in former
times in exclusive possession of all knowledge. Though the sovereign
of the country was chosen from the Shatriya class, also called
Rajputs, the Brahmans possessed the real power, and were the royal
counsellors, the judges and magistrates of the country; their
persons and property were inviolable; and though they committed the
greatest crimes, they could only be banished from the kingdom. They
were to be treated by sovereigns with the greatest respect, for "a
Brahman, whether learned or ignorant, is a powerful divinity."
When the Brahman arrives at years of maturity it becomes his duty
to marry. He ought to be supported by the contributions of the rich,
and not to be obliged to gain his subsistence by any laborious or
productive occupation. But as all the Brahmans could not be
maintained by the working classes of the community, it was found
necessary to allow them to engage in productive employments.
We need say little of the two intermediate classes, whose rank
and privileges may be readily inferred from their occupations. The
Sudras or fourth class are bound to servile attendance on the higher
classes, especially the Brahmans, but they may follow mechanical
occupations and practical arts, as painting and writing, or become
traders or husbandmen. Consequently they sometimes grow rich, and it
will also sometimes happen that Brahmans become poor. That fact
works its usual consequence, and rich Sudras sometimes employ poor
Brahmans in menial occupations.
There is another class lower even than the Sudras, for it is not
one of the original pure classes, but springs from an unauthorized
union of individuals of different castes. These are the Pariahs, who
are employed in the lowest services and treated with the utmost
severity. They are compelled to do what no one else can do without
pollution. They are not only considered unclean themselves, but they
render unclean everything they touch. They are deprived of all civil
rights, and stigmatized by particular laws regulating their mode of
life, their houses, and their furniture. They are not allowed to
visit the pagodas or temples of the other castes, but have their own
pagodas and religious exercises. They are not suffered to enter the
houses of the other castes; if it is done incautiously or from
necessity, the place must be purified by religious ceremonies. They
must not appear at public markets, and are confined to the use of
particular wells, which they are obliged to surround with bones of
animals, to warn others against using them. They dwell in miserable
hovels, distant from cities and villages, and are under no
restrictions in regard to food, which last is not a privilege, but a
mark of ignominy, as if they were so degraded that nothing could
pollute them. The three higher castes are prohibited entirely the
use of flesh. The fourth is allowed to use all kinds except beef,
but only the lowest caste is allowed every kind of food without
restriction.
BUDDHA.
Buddha, whom the Vedas represent as a delusive incarnation of
Vishnu, is said by his followers to have been a mortal sage, whose
name was Gautama, called also by the complimentary epithets of
Sakyasinha, the Lion, and Buddha, the Sage.
By a comparison of the various epochs assigned to his birth, it
is inferred that he lived about one thousand years before Christ.
He was the son of a king; and when in conformity to the usage of
the country he was, a few days after his birth, presented before the
altar of a deity, the image is said to have inclined its head as a
presage of the future greatness of the new-born prophet. The child
soon developed faculties of the first order, and became equally
distinguished by the uncommon beauty of his person. No sooner had he
grown to years of maturity than he began to reflect deeply on the
depravity and misery of mankind, and he conceived the idea of
retiring from society and devoting himself to meditation. His father
in vain opposed this design. Buddha escaped the vigilance of his
guards, and having found a secure retreat, lived for six years
undisturbed in his devout contemplations. At the expiration of that
period he came forward at Benares as a religious teacher. At first
some who heard him doubted of the soundness of his mind; but his
doctrines soon gained credit, and were propagated so rapidly that
Buddha himself lived to see them spread all over India. He died at
the age of eighty years.
The Buddhists reject entirely the authority of the Vedas, and the
religious observances prescribed in them and kept by the Hindus.
They also reject the distinction of castes, and prohibit all bloody
sacrifices, and allow animal food. Their priests are chosen from all
classes; they are expected to procure their maintenance by
perambulation and begging, and among other things it is their duty
to endeavour to turn to some use things thrown aside as useless by
others, and to discover the medicinal power of plants. But in Ceylon
three orders of priests are recognized; those of the highest order
are usually men of high birth and learning, and are supported at the
principal temples, most of which have been richly endowed by the
former monarchs of the country.
For several centuries after the appearance of buddha, his sect
seems to have been tolerated by the Brahmans, and Buddhism appears
to have penetrated the peninsula of Hindustan in every direction,
and to have been carried to Ceylon, and to the eastern peninsula.
But afterwards it had to endure in India a long-continued
persecution, which ultimately had the effect of entirely abolishing
it in the country where it had originated, but to scatter it widely
over adjacent countries. Buddhism appears to have been introduced
into China about the year 65 of our era. From China it was
subsequently extended to Corea, Japan, and Java.
THE GRAND LAMA.
It is a doctrine alike of the Brahminical Hindus and of the
Buddhist sect that the confinement of the human soul, an emanation
of the divine spirit, in a human body, is a state of misery, and the
consequence of frailties and sins committed during former
existences. But they hold that some few individuals have appeared on
this earth from time to time, not under the necessity of terrestrial
existence, but who voluntarily descended to the earth to promote the
welfare of mankind. These individuals have gradually assumed the
character of reappearances of Buddha himself, in which capacity the
line is continued till the present day, in the several Lamas of
Thibet, China, and other countries where Buddhism prevails. In
consequence of the victories of Gengis Khan and his successors, the
Lama residing in Thibet was raised to the dignity of chief pontiff
of the sect. A separate province was assigned to him as his own
territory, and besides his spiritual dignity he became to a limited
extent a temporal monarch. He is styled the Dalai Lama.
The first Christian missionaries who proceeded to Thibet were
surprised to find there in the heart of Asia a pontifical court and
several other ecclesiastical institutions resembling those of the
Roman Catholic church. They found convents for priests and nuns,
also processions and forms of religious worship, attended with much
pomp and splendour; and many were induced by these similarities to
consider Lamaism as a sort of degenerated Christianity. It is not
improbable that the Lamas derived some of these practices from the
Nestorian Christians, who were settled in Tartary when Buddhism was
introduced into Thibet.
PRESTER JOHN.
An early account, communicated probably by travelling merchants,
of a Lama or spiritual chief among the Tartars, seems to have
occasioned in Europe the report of a Presbyter or Prester John, a
Christian pontiff resident in Upper Asia. The Pope sent a mission in
search of him, as did also Louis IX of France, some years later, but
both missions were unsuccessful, though the small communities of
Nestorian Christians, which they did find, served to keep up the
belief in Europe that such a personage did exist somewhere in the
East. At last in the fifteenth century, a Portuguese traveller,
Pedro Covilham, happening to hear that there was a Christian prince
in the country of the Abessines (Abyssinia), not far from the Red
Sea, concluded that this must be the true Prester John. He
accordingly went thither, and penetrated to the court of the king,
whom he calls Negus. Milton alludes to him in "Paradise Lost," Book
XI., where, describing Adam's vision of his descendants in their
various nations and cities, scattered over the face of the earth, he
says,-
"...Nor did his eyes not ken
Th' empire of Negus, to his utmost port,
Ercoco, and the less maritime kings,
Mombaza and Quiloa and Melind."
Next CHAPTER XXXVIII. Northern Mythology-
Valhalla- The Valkyrior. |
