coast, and led the life of shepherds: they had however a passion for feeding upon human flesh: they were creatures of gigantic stature, beastly and deformed in their persons, and having each of them only one eye, which grew in the middle of their forehead: the most celebrated of the oneeyed shepherds is called Polyphemuse. The Sirens were Goddesses of the sea, beautiful in person, and much celebrated for the sweetness of their voices: they were three in number, and their names Parthenope, Ligeia and Leucosia: they are said to have challenged the Muses to a contention in singing, by whom they were defeated": it constantly happens in the Grecian mythology, when any one enters the lists with the Gods for victory and is defeated, that he is condemned to a certain punishment for his presumption: the Sirens were changed, as to the lower part of their forms, into the figure of a fish, and in their disposition into cannibals: they were confined to a certain part of the coast of Sicily; and there it was decreed that they should try to enchant with their singing every adventurer as he sailed along : they accommodated their songs to the temper of the stranger to the ambitious they promised the. gratifications of ambition, to the voluptuous endless pleasure, and to the lovers of wisdom knowledge and instruction inexhaustible: those who listened to their song, and disembarked on their coast, they devoured: but when the time should come in which any one should be found capable of resisting their inticements, it was fated them Hom. Od... 182 et seqq. Virg. Æn. iii. 641 et seqq. that they should be seized with despair, and destroy themselves. The Harpies were the offspring of Thaumas son of Pontus, by Electra one of the Oceanidesi: they had the face of a woman, the body of a vulture, and the claws of a dragon*: they were extravagantly voracious in their appetites, and filthy in their habits; and when the Gods were greatly incensed against any one of mortal race, they could scarcely impose upon him a severer penalty, than to send these monsters to haunt his meals, afflicting him with the plague of an unsated hunger, and driving him to madness. i Hes. The. 266. k Virg. Æn. iii. 216 et seqq. CHAP. XIV. OF THE GODS OF THE SEA AND THE WINDS. Pontus.-Oceanus and Tethys, Parents of the Rivers and the Oceanides.-Nereus, his Figure, and the Shapes he assumes.-Doris, the Wife of Nereus, and Mother of the Nereids.-Neptune, his Figure and Appearance.-Amphitrite and Triton.-The Winds. -Eolus.-Aurora. FROM a survey of the inferior Gods, protectors of the scenes of rural and domestic life, we will proceed to the vastest and most magnificent object which the globe of earth contains, the ocean: the sea, as well as the land, was according to the Grecian mythology full of Gods: the sea, considered merely as it strikes the organs of human sight, suggests principally ideas of what is barren, wild and tremendous: but the religion of the refined ancients filled it with life, action and hilarity: and the entranced voyager, brought up in the notions of this religion, often saw in its most solitary scenes the magnificence of the Gods, and heard the songs of the Nereids and the Sirens. Pontus (the Greek name for the sea) was the son of Tellus without a father: he was therefore half-brother to the Titans: Pontus and Tellus were the parents of Nereus. Oceanus (another name for the sea) was one of the Titans: Tethys was his sister and his wife : 114 NEREUS AND DORIS: NEPTUNE. from their marriage sprang a multitude of sons, who are the rivers, and a numerous family of daughters, called the Oceanides: these elder deities Pontus, Oceanus and Tethys, were never made the subjects of the Grecian sculpture. Nereus is represented, like most of the male deities of the ocean and the rivers, with a long flowing beard and sea-green hair: the chief place of his residence was the gean sea: he was endowed with the gift of prophecy, and could assume whatever form he pleased: when Hercules sought the golden apples of the Hesperides, be applied to the nymphs who inhabit the caverns of the Eridanus, to know in what part of the world these apples were to be found: the nymphs sent him to Nereus, who being surprised by the hero, endeavoured by a variety of metamorphoses to elude his enquiries, and escape from his chains1. The consort of Nereus was Doris, one of the Oceanides, who brought him many daughters, called the Nereids: these beautiful deities were accustomed to dance about the throne of their father, and the chariot of Neptune: and thus the term Nereids has come to be used to express generally the female deities of the ocean the most celebrated of the daughters of Nereus and Doris are Amphitrite and Thetis. Neptune, the brother of Jupiter, became the husband of Amphitrite: the authority of Pontus and Oceanus and Tethys and Nereus appears gradually to have grown antiquated: they re tired from their original honours to a condition of dignified ease and Neptune is universally re• 1 Apollod. Biblioth. ii. 5. Schol. in Apollon. Rhod. iv. 86. |