give a satisfactory answer to these questions. Still it may be observed that the earth being the object principally in view, the failure of her productive power during the winter may have been ascribed to the want of fecundating energy in the sun, expressed here by the death of Adónis, in the Phrygian system by the mutilation of Attis. According to Homer, Aphrodité possessed an embroidered girdle (KEσTòs iμás), which had the gift of inspiring love and desire for the person who wore it. Héra, when about to lull Zeus to sleep by filling him with these affections, borrowed the magic girdle from Aphrodité.2 The animals sacred to Aphrodíté were swans, doves, and sparrows. Horace3 places her in a chariot drawn by swans, and Sapphó1 in one whose team were sparrows. In one of the odes ascribed to Anakreón a dove announces herself as a present from the goddess to the bard. The bird called Iynx or Fritillus, of which so much use was made in amatory magic, was also sacred to this goddess; as was likewise the swallow, the herald of spring, the season of love. Her favourite plants were the rose and the myrtle. She was chiefly worshipped at Kythéra and Kypros; in which latter isle her favourite places were Paphos, Golgo, Idalion, and Amathus; and also at Knidos, Milétos, Kós, Corinth, Athens, Sparta, etc. In the more ancient temples of this goddess in Kypros she was represented under the form of a rude conical stone. But the Grecian sculptors and painters, particularly Praxitelés and Apellés, vied with each other in forming her image the idéal of female beauty and attraction. She appears sometimes rising out of the sea and wringing her locks; sometimes drawn in a conch by Tritons, or riding on some marine animal. She is usually naked, or but slightly clad. The Venus de' Medici remains to us a noble specimen of ancient art and perception of the beautiful. The most usual epithets of Aphrodité were,' 1. Smile-loving; 2. Well-garlanded; 3. Golden; 4. Quick-winking; 5. Well-tressed; 6. Care-dissolving; 7. Artful; 8. Gold-bridled; etc. There is none of the Olympians of whom the foreign origin is There were, however, in antiquity some who viewed the mythe of Adonis as similar to that of Persephoné, referring to the growth of corn: see Winer, Realwörterbuch s. v. Thammus. This idea had presented itself to our own mind before we met with this place of Winer. 2 Il. xiv. 214. 3 Carm. iii. 28, 15, iv. 1, 10. In the ode preserved by Dion. Hal. I'e compos. verborum. 5 See Pind. Pyth. iv. 214 (380) cum schol. The goddess of Kypros was plainly the Phoenician Astarté. * 1. φιλομμειδής: 2. εὐστέφανος: 3. χρυσέη: 4. ἑλικοβλέφαρος, ἑλικῶπις: 5. εὐπλόκαμος: 6. λυσιμελής: 7. δολόμητις: 8. χρυσήνιος, etc. K so probable as this goddess. She is therefore in general regarded as being the same with the Astarté of the Phoenicians. There can, we freely confess, be little doubt of the identification of this last with the Grecian Aphrodíté, for the tale of Adónis sufficiently proves it; and that this took place at a very early period, the name Kypris, given to Aphrodité so frequently by Homer, evinces. Still we look on Aphrodité to be (as her name seems to denote1) an original Grecian deity; at first, probably, merely cosmogonic, but gradually adopted into the system of the Olympians, and endowed with some of the attributes of Héra (who was also identified with Astarté), and thus becoming the patroness of marriage. It was probably on account of her being esteemed the same with Astarté, the moon-goddess and queen of heaven, that Aphrodité was so frequently styled the Heavenly (Urania). It is very important to observe that she was so named at her temple in Kythéra, which was regarded as the holiest and most ancient of her fanes in Greece, and was perhaps a Phœnician foundation like that on Mount Eryx in Sicily.3 Her antique wooden statue (§óavov) in this temple was armed, as it also was at Sparta and Corinth.1 In this last city she was also styled Urania, and her worship there was eminently Asiatic in character. Lauer, who however has not developed his theory, appears to have regarded Aphrodíté as the verdant flowery earth. In this view she would coincide with the Frigga of Northern mythology, and the reason for transferring to her the mythe of Adónis would be apparent. But we see nothing in her mythology to justify this view. "Epos, "Epws. Cupido, Amor. Love.) 9 This deity is unnoticed by Homer; in the Theogony of Hésiod he is one of the first of beings, and produced without parents; in those of the comic poets Aristophanés and Antiphanés he is the offspring of Night; in the Orphic poems he was the son of Kronos. Sappho made him the progeny of Heaven and Earth, while Simónidés assigned him Aphrodíté and Arés for parents.10 In O'lén's hymn to Eileithyia" that goddess was termed the mother of Love, and Alkæos said that 'well-sandalled Iris bore Love to gold-locked Zephyros." 912 1 Αφροδίτη, quasi Αφροδύτη, Foam-sprung. 3 See our note on Ov. Fasti, iv. 871. Paus. iii. 23, 1; and ii. 5, 1; iii. 15, 10. Il. v. 429. 5 Pind. Fr. Schol. 1. Boeckh and Dissen. in loc.: comp. Jacobs Anthol. xvii. 6 Theog. 120. p. 377. Jablonski, Panth. Equpt. i. 14. 7 Aristoph. Birds, 695. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iii. 26. 11 Paus. ix. 27, 2. 12 Ap. Plut. Amator. 20. Nonn. xxxi. 110, 111. This strange poet had a little before (xxix. 334) called Héphæstos the sire of Love. The cosmogonic Erós is apparently a personification of the principle of attraction, on which the coherence of the material world depends. Nothing was more natural than to term Aphrodíté the mother of Love, but the reason for so calling Eileithyia, the president of child-birth, is not equally apparent. It may be perhaps that in the hymn ascribed to O'lén this goddess was identified with Aphrodíté Archæa, to whom Théseus was said to have dedicated an altar at Délos: possibly it was meant to express the increase of conjugal affection produced by the birth of children. The making Love the offspring of the West-wind and the Rainbow would seem to be only a poetic mode of expressing the well-known fact, that the spring, the season in which they most prevail, is also that of Love.2 In the bucolic and some of the Latin poets the Loves are spoken of in the plural number, but no distinct offices are assigned them.3 Thespiæ in Boótia was the place in which Erós was most worshipped. The Thespians used to celebrate games in his honour on Mount Helikón. The oldest image of the god in their city was of plain stone, but Praxitelés afterwards made for them one of Pentelican marble of rare beauty. Erós also had altars at Athens and elsewhere. The poetic epithets of this deity were,5 1. Gold-haired; 2. Goldwinged; 3. Sweet-minded. The god of love was usually represented as a plump-cheeked boy, rosy and naked, with light hair floating on his shoulders. He is always winged, and armed with a bow and arrows." 1 Müller, Dor. i. 333. 2 Ὡραῖος καὶ Ἔρως ἐπιτέλλεται, ἡνίκα περ γῆ ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοῖς θάλλει ἀεξομένη.—Theognis, 1275. See Plut. ut supra, for another explication of this fiction. one of the companions of Cama, the Hindoo Erós. 3 Theocr. vii. 96. Bión, i. passim. Hor. Carm. i. 19, 1. 4 Paus. ix. 27, 1; 31, 3. 5 1. χρυσοκόμης ; 2. χρυσόπτερος; 3. γλυκύθυμος. Vasanta (Spring) is 6 Nonnos (vii. 194) seems to represent his arrows as tipt with flowers. The arrows of the Hindoo Cama are thus pointed, and the Portuguese poet Camões seems to have had a similar conception, for when enumerating flowers (Eleg. vi.) he says that of them Cupid Muitas capellas tece, que de settas Lhe servem contra peitos de donzellas. The Scottish song, on the other hand, says that Love tips his arrows with woods and parks, And castles and riggs and muirs and meadows. (In the earlier poets as well as in the most ancient works of art Erós is not represented as a boy, but as a full-grown youth.-ED.) 132 There was a being named Anterós (ávrì ëpws), who was in some cases viewed as the avenger of slighted love;1 in others as the symbol of reciprocal affection. The Platónic philosopher Porphyrius tells the following pretty legend. 2 Aphrodíté, complaining to Themis that her son Erós continued always a child, was told by her that the cause was his being solitary, and that if he had a brother he would grow apace. Anterós was soon afterwards born, and Erós immediately found his wings enlarge, and his person and strength greatly increase. But this was only when Anterós was near; for if he was at a distance, Erós found himself shrink to his original dimensions. The meaning of this fable is so apparent that it needs not explication. 66 At the time when it had become the mode to exalt the characters of philosophers by ascribing to them all kinds of wonderful works, the sophist Eunapius told the following curious legend in his life of Jamblichus, the author of as marvellous a life of Pythagoras. Jamblichus and his companions having gone to the warm baths of Gadara in Lykia, and bathed in them, a conversation arose among them on the nature of the baths. philosopher smiled and said, The me to do so, yet I will show you something new. Though it is not strictly right in desired them to inquire of the inhabitants, what were the tradiHe then tional names of two of the smaller but handsomer of the warm springs. They replied that one of them was called Erós and the other Anterós, but that they knew not the cause of their being so styled. Jamblichus, who was just then standing at the brink of the fount of Erós, touched the water, and murmured a few words over it. Immediately there rose from the bottom a little boy of a fair complexion and moderate size: his hair, of a rich golden hue, hung down his back, which was bright and clean as that of a person who had just bathed. All present were in amazement: the philosopher then leading them to the other spring did as he had done before; and instantly another Love, similar to the first, except that his hair was of a bright dark hue, rose to light. The two embraced, and clung round the philosopher as if he had been their father; and after caressing them for some time, he restored them to their native element. His companions, who had been previously disposed to regard him as an impostor, convinced by this wonder, henceforth received his words as those of a divinity. The adventures of Erós are not numerous. trifles respecting him will be found in the bucolic poets, and his Some pretty little adventure with Apolló has been already noticed. The most 1 Paus. i. 30, 1. Plut. Amat. 20. 2 Plato, Phædr. 255. Paus. vi. 23, 4, celebrated is that contained in the agreeable tale of his love for Psyché (vxn, the soul), preserved by Apuleius in his Metamorphoses, and which we will here give in an abridged form. There were one time a king and a queen who had three daughters, of whom the youngest named Psyché was one of the loveliest creatures earth ever beheld. People crowded from all parts to gaze upon her charms, altars were erected to her, and she was worshipped as a second Venus. The queen of beauty was irritated on seeing her own altars neglected, and her adorers diminishing. She summoned her son; and conducting him to the city where Psyché dwelt, showed him the lovely maid, and ordered him to inspire her with a passion for some vile and abject wretch. The goddess departed, leaving her son to execute her mandate. Meantime Psyché, though adored by all, was sought as a wife by none. Her sisters, who were far inferior to her in charms, were married, and she remained single, hating that beauty which all admired. Her father consulted the oracle of Apolló, and was ordered to expose her on a rock, whence she would be carried away by a monster, the terror of heaven, earth, and hell. The oracle was obeyed, and Psyché amidst the tears of the people placed on a lofty rock. Here, while she sat weeping, a Zephyr sent for the purpose gently raised and carried her to a charming valley. Overcome by grief she falls asleep, and on awaking beholds a grove with a fountain in the midst of it, and near it a stately palace of most splendid structure. She ventures to enter this palace, goes over it lost in admiration at its magnificence; when suddenly she hears a voice, telling her that all there is hers, and all her commands will be obeyed. She bathes, sits down to a rich repast, and is regaled with music by invisible performers. At night she retires to bed; an unseen youth addresses her in the softest accents, and she becomes his wife. Her sisters had meanwhile come to console their parents for the loss of Psyché, whose invisible spouse informs her of this event, and warns her of the danger likely to arise from it. Moved by the tears of his bride, he however consents that her sisters should come to the palace. The obedient Zephyr conveys them thither. They grow envious of Psyché's happiness, and try to persuade her that her invisible lord is a serpent, who will finally devour her. By their advice she provides herself with a lamp and a razor to destroy the monster. When her husband was asleep she arose, took her lamp from its place of concealment, and ap. proached the couch; but there she beheld, instead of a dragon, Love himself. Filled with amazement at his beauty, she leaned |