in rapture over his charms; a drop of oil fell from the lamp on the shoulder of the god; he awoke, and flew away. Psyché caught his leg as he rose, and was raised into the air, but fell; and as she lay, the god reproached her from a cypress for her breach of faith. The abandoned Psyché attempted to drown herself in the neighbouring stream: but, fearing Love, it cast her upon a bank of flowers, where she was found and consoled by the god Pan. She now goes through the world in search of Cupid: she arrives at the kingdom of her sisters; and, by a false tale of Cupid's love for them, causes them to cast themselves from the rock on which she had been exposed, and through their credulity they perish. She still roams on, persecuted and subjected to numerous trials by Venus. Pitied but unaided by the higher goddesses Ceres and Juno, the plants and the animals, the reed, the owl, and the eagle, give her their advice and assistance. Venus, bent on her destruction, dispatches her to Proserpina with a box to request some of her beauty. Psyché, dismayed at the peril of the journey to the lower regions, ascends a tower, determined to cast herself from it and end her woes; but the tower pities her, and instructs her how to proceed. She accomplishes her mission in safety. As she is returning, she thinks she may venture to open the box and take a portion for herself, that she may be the more pleasing to her husband. She opens the box, when instead of beauty there issues from it a dense black exhalation, and the imprudent Psyché falls to the ground in a deep slumber from its effects. In this state she is found by Cupid, who had escaped by the window of the chamber where he had been confined by his mother; he awakens her with the point of one of his arrows, reproaches her with her curiosity, and then proceeds to the palace of Jupiter to interest him in her favour. Jupiter takes pity on her, and endows her with immortality; Venus is reconciled, and her marriage with Cupid takes place. The Hours shed roses through the sky, the Graces sprinkle the halls of Heaven with fragrant odours, Apolló plays on his lyre, the Arcadian god on his reeds, the Muses sing in chorus, while Venus dances with grace and elegance to celebrate the nuptials of her son. Thus Cupid was at length reunited to his long-lost Psyché, and their loves were speedily crowned by the birth of a child, whom his parents named Pleasure.1 This beautiful fiction is perhaps a philosophic allegory, intended by its inventor for a representation of the mystic union between the divine love and the human soul, and of the trials and purifi1 And from her fair unspotted side Two blissful twins are to be born Youth and Joy, so Jove hath sworn.-Comus, 1009. : cations which the latter must undergo, in order to be perfectly fitted for an enduring union with the divinity. It is thus explained by the Christian mythologist Fulgentius. "The city in which Psyché dwells is the world; the king and queen are God and matter; Psyché is the soul; her sisters are the flesh and the freewill she is the youngest, because the body is before the mind; and she is the fairest, because the soul is higher than free-will, more noble than the body. Venus, i. e. lust, envies her, and sends Cupido, i. e. desire, to destroy her; but as there is desire of good as well as of evil, Cupid falls in love with her: he persuades her not to see his face, that is, not to learn the joys of desire; just as Adam, though he could see, did not see that he was naked until he had eaten of the tree of desire. At the impulsion of her sisters she put the lamp from under the bushel, that is, revealed the flame of desire which was hidden in her bosom, and loved it when she saw how delightful it was; and she is said to have burned it by the dripping of the lamp, because all desire burns in proportion as it is loved, and fixes its sinful mark on the flesh. She is therefore deprived of desire and her splendid fortune, is exposed to perils, and driven out of the palace." This fanciful exposition will probably not prove satisfactory to many readers. The following one of a modern writer 2 may seem to come nearer the truth. "This fable, it is said, is a representation of the destiny of the human soul. The soul, which is of divine origin, is here below subjected to error in its prison the body. Hence trials and purifications are set before it, that it may become capable of a higher view of things, and of true desire. Two loves meet it,—the earthly, a deceiver who draws it down to earthly things; the heavenly, who directs its view to the original fair and divine, and who gaining the victory over his rival, leads off the soul as his bride." According to a third expositor3 the mythe is a moral one. It is intended to represent the dangers to which nuptial fidelity was exposed in such a country as degenerate Greece, and at the same time to present an image of a fidelity subjected to numerous temptations and victorious over them all. The interpretation of an allegory is always hazardous; for fancy presided over its birth, and fancy must always have a large share in the attempts made to develope its secret and real nature. All, therefore, that we should ever hope to arrive at is a view of the general sense and meaning. In truth many a tale seems to be allegoric which was never meant to be so by its author, and 1 Mythologicon, iii. 6. 2 Hirt. ap. Creuzer, Symbolik, iii. 573. Thorlacius, ap. eundem, i. many a tale is allegoric in which the vulgar discern nothing but amusing narrative. The story of Cupid and Psyché may after all have been, as some think, nothing more than a Milésian tale like that, for instance, of the Matron of Ephesos.1 We ourselves long inclined to the current opinion of its having been originally a philosophic allegory, but we now feel disposed to regard it as merely a tale of fancy. Ere we quit this subject we must observe, that a Greek name for the moth was Psyché (yuxý). The fondness of this insect for approaching at night the flame of the lamp or candle, in which it so frequently finds its death, reminds a mystic philosopher of the fate of the soul destroyed by the desire of knowledge, or absorbed and losing its separate existence in the deity, who dwells in light according to the philosophy of the East. But further, the world presents no illustration so striking or so beautiful of the immortality of the soul, as that of the moth or butterfly bursting on brilliant wings from the dull groveling caterpillar- or larva-state in which it had previously existed, fluttering in the blaze of day, and feeding on the sweetest and most fragrant products of the spring. Hence it was, in all probability, that the Greeks named the butterfly the soul.2 The fable of Love and Psyché has been the original of many a pleasing fairy-tale. It forms an episode in the Adone of the Italian poet Marini; it has been told in French prose by the naïf and charming La Fontaine; and the united powers of Corneille, Molière, and Quinault produced a tragédie-ballet named Psyché, for the amusement of the court of Louis XIV. In English, the amiable and accomplished Mrs. H. Tighe has narrated the tale of Psyché and her celestial lover in elegant and harmonious Spenserian verse. CHAPTER X. PALLAS-ATHÉNÉ, AND HERMÉS. WE place these deities together, dissimilar as they may appear in office and character, as they form two remarkable instances of gods altering their characters and attributes with a change of manners or institutions in the people. 1 See Paldamus, Römische Erotik, p. 92 seq. 2 The earliest instance of this mode of thought that we have met with is the following passage of Dante: Non v'accorgete voi che noi siam vermi, Nati a formar l' angelica farfall Che vola a la giustizia senza schermi.—Purg. x. terz. 42. Παλλάς Αθηναίη, καὶ ̓Αθήνη, Αθηνα. (Minerva.) The Pallas-Athéné of both the Homéric poems is the daughter of Zeus; in one place1 it seems to be intimated that she had no other parent. In the Theogony Zeus swallows Métis, and the blue-eyed Tritogeneia' is born from his head,2 which, Pindar 3 says, Héphæstos opened with a brazen axe; Athéna then, the poet adds, sprang forth with a shout which terrified Heaven and Mother Earth, while the king of the gods poured a shower of gold on Rhodes, the sacred isle of the Sun-god. Stésichoros had already sung how the goddess issued from the head of her sire in perfect panoply,‚—a circumstance however evidently to be understood in the narrative of Pindar. According to the Homérid Olympos shook at the divine birth, the earth resounded, the sea was moved, and Hélios checked his steeds in their career till the new-born goddess took off her radiant armour. Later authorities assign the task of opening the head of Zeus to Prométheus, or Hermés.' It was even added that she issued from the head of her sire, not only armed, but furnished with a war-car and horses. According to Hérodotos the goddess was the offspring of Poseidón and the nymph Tritónis. Pallas-Athéné is in Homer, and in the general popular system, the goddess of wisdom and skill. She is in war opposed to Arés, the wild war-god, as the patroness and teacher of just and scientific warfare. She is therefore on the side of the Greeks, and he on that of the Trojans. But on the shield of Achilleus, where the people of the besieged town are represented as going forth to lie in ambush, they are led by Arés and Athéna together,1o possibly to denote the union of skill and courage required for that service." Every prudent chief was esteemed to be under the patronage of Athéna, and Odysseus was therefore her especial favourite, whom she relieved from all his perils, and whose son Télemachos she also took under her protection, assuming a human form to be his 1 Il. v. 875 seq. For 2 Th. 886 seq. 924. The scholion on v. 890 is as follows: Aéyetaι öтi † Μῆτις τοιαύτην εἶχε δύναμιν ὥστε μεταβάλλειν εἰς ὁποῖαν ἂν ἐβούλετο. Πλανήσας οὖν αὐτὴν ὁ Ζεὺς καὶ πικρὰν ποιήσας κατέπιεν ἔγκυον οὖσαν. Tikpaν, which gives little or no sense, Lobeck (Aglaoph. p. 613) would drea uvîav; we however prefer μikpàv, which Göttling proposes. This critic points out the similarity between this fiction and that of Puss in Boots and the Ogre. See above, p. 71. 3 Ol. vii. 34 (63) seq. cum Schol. 5 Hom. Hymn xxviii. 7 Sch. Pind. ut supra. Hérod. iv. 180. 11 I. xiii. 277. Od. xiv. 217. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 1310. Eur. Tón. 455. Apollod. i. 3. 8 Et. Mag. υ. ἱππία. 10 Il. xviii. 516: comp. Od. xiv. 216. guide and director. In like manner Kadmos, Héraklés, Perseus, and other heroes were, as we shall see, favoured and aided by this goddess. As the patroness of arts and industry in general, Pallas-Athéné was regarded as the inspirer and teacher of able artists. Thus she taught Epeios to frame the wooden horse, by means of which Troy was taken;1 and she also superintended the building of the ship Argó.2 Athéna was likewise expert in female accomplishments; she wove her own robe and that of Héra, which last she is said to have embroidered very richly. When the hero Iasón was setting forth in quest of the Golden Fleece, Athéna gave him a cloak wrought by herself. She taught this art to mortal females who had won her affection.5 When Pandóra was formed by Héphæstos for the ruin of man she was attired by Pallas-Athéné. 3 6 By the Homérid' Athéna and Héphæstos are united as the benefactors and civilisers of mankind by means of the arts which they taught them, and we shall find them in intimate union in the mythic system of Attica. This goddess is in various mythes also united with Poseidón. 8 Homer thus describes Pallas-Athéné arraying herself in the arms of Zeus, when preparing to accompany Héra to the plain where the Greeks and Trojans were engaged in conflict. But Athénæé, child of Zeus supreme, Herself had wrought, and laboured with her hands. She on her put, and clad herself in arms For tearful war; and round her shoulders cast The fringed ægis dire, which all about Was compassed with fear. In it was Strife, In it was Strength, and in it chill Pursuit; In it the Gorgon-head, the portent dire,- She placed the four-coned helmet formed of gold, With whom she is wroth. A Mæonian maid named Arachné, proud of her skill in weaving 1 Od. viii. 493. Hésiod (Epy. 428) terms a carpenter 'Aonvaías dμwós. 2 See also Il. v. 61; xv. 412. Apoll. Rh. i. 721. 5 Od. xx. 72. 3 Il. v. 735; xiv. 178. Héз. Theog. 573. 7 See above, p. 98. 9 Il. v. 733. 8 See above, p. 78, and Part II. ch. vi. Bellerophontés. |