1 10 3 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/ccc349e6cb47f0fa814661ba69502797.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=RMQZLQlJtxnCNbpmLQ8iZQWZg7YxyrnQ%7EqlT7AQWMDDyJMHl6j138c1ChwRWdYrvgVbW8DrjxAMUllBe8DeuTB051mB0BvU%7EocJZulpIOKcP8Y91aj4mEJ7YVIJPwF0sHye4p9hXEhFmg0lo6DBBPt3kZQ-Dh6ZGwg5F%7EW3Eyg0M1HnyazhOHrK7y8UTYbIiZtpTILV7eYnqrUFAzUeePYqLqzQK-uYWhRSP8XrDDalNRw6PZYnsghG2gdXXX%7EoFmIOPPbYeW1rzmNHEBUdfh6w65Ht3T0KBf0yrtT5wyJo7cxsuGyX4BZVulAr2%7E6%7Ez%7ETkoPm0lABX4mI8kkYlp0w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 485421e558da79253ab8c23396c63c5b PDF Text Text 599 JFiw-JdM flje Ortass of Jobe. Familiarity with the classical gods of Greece and Rome is considered a matter-of-course accomplishment in polite education. To show ignorance on that point, would render a person liable to be placed in the Kimmerian circle of outer barbarians. But how few are there who have even so much as a faint notion of the Germanic Pantheon, in which the creed of that race was once embodied, from which Englishmen have in the main sprung! “ Bay after day, as the weeks run round,” says the author of Words and Places, the Rev. Isaac Taylor—“we have obtruded upon our notice the names of the deities who were worshipped by our pagan fore­ fathers. This heathenism is indeed so deeply ingrained into our speech that we are accustomed daily to pronounce the names of Tiu, Woden, Thunor, Frea, and Saetere. These names are so familiar to us that we are apt to forget how little is really known of the mythology of those heathen times.” Sun- and star-worship was, according to Roman testimony, among the earliest forms of creed of the Germanic tribes. The dies Solis, and the dies Luna, had therefore no difficulty in being translated into a Sun-day and Moon- or Mon-day. In Tuesday we have the name of the Germanic god of war, Tyr, Tiu, or Ziu—in some Teutonic dialects also called Era or Erich, the root of which word is no doubt the same as in the Hellenic Ares. Hence Tuesday, in High German Pinstag, is in some Alemannic and Bavarian districts called Zistig, Erschtag, or Erichstag. Wodan, the All-father, furnishes the name for Wednesday. Thursday is derived from the God of Thunder. Friday represents the day of the Germanic Venus. In Saturday, the derivation of which was formerly traced to Saturnus, a god Saetere is probably hidden—that name being, to all appearance, an aZius for Loki, or Lokko, the evil-doing god, of whose malicious mind the Edda gives so graphic an account in the song called “ The Banquet of Oegir” [Oegisdrekka e^a Lokasennai)—a Titanic satire upon the dwellers in Asgard. If we look over the topography of all countries in which the Germanic race dwells, or through which it has passed in the course of its migrations, what deep imprints do we find of its ancient creed in the very appellations of dwelling-places ! The God of War ; the All-father who rules the winds and the clouds; the God of Thunder; the Goddess of Love ; the deity who represents insidious mischief and destruction—they are all to be met with, not only in Germany, Scandinavia, and other Continental lands, but on English soil, too, where Tewesley, Tewin, and Dewerstone; Wanborough, Wednesbury, Woodnesborough, Wansdike, and Woden Hill; �600 FREIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. Thundersfield, Thurscross, and Thurso; Frathorpe, Fraisthorpe, and Freasley ; Satterleigh, and Satterthwaite, in all probability bear -witness to a decayed cultus. Even so Balderby and Balderton ; Easterford, Easterleake, and Eastermear ; Hellifield, Hellathyrne, and Helagh, are no doubt referable to the worship of Balder, the god of light and peace; of Eostre, or Ostara, the goddess of Spring; of Hel, the mistress of the underworld. And again, when in this country we meet with places called Asgardby and Aysgarth, we have no difficulty in referring them to Asgard, the Germanic Olympus. Still, with all these traces of a pagan religion—which had its grandeur and even some traits of charm—strewn thickly around us, how many are there who think it worth while to read the thoughts of their own ancestors in the mythic system so amply elaborated by them ? Among a large class of people of highly cultivated mind, where are the readers of the powerful text-book of heathen Germanic religion ? where the students of that folk­ lore in which precious fragments of ancient creed are embedded, even as glittering shells, of brilliant hue, are concealed beneath the incrustated slime of the sea ? Yet, on the mere plea of poetical enjoyment, an extended knowledge of these subjects might be urged. Assuredly—as Mannhardt puts it, who with Simrock, Kuhn, Schwarz, and others, has ably and laboriously continued the immortal labours of Grimm, and of the many Norse scholars —there is not, in the Germanic world of Gods, the perfect harmony and plastic repose of the Olympian ideals of Greece. But their forms and figures tower in lofty greatness through the immensity of space; and if they are not so well rounded off as the deities of the later Greek epoch— if they are somewhat apt to float, before the mind’s eye, like fantasticallyshaped storm-clouds, or like bright-coloured visions of dawn and sunset, they are, on the other hand, less liable to be taken for mere idols of ivory, brass, and stone. Can it be said, however, that there is a lack of poetical conception in the figure of Wodan, or Odin, the hoary god of the clouds, who, clad in a flowing mantle, careers through the sky on a milk-white horse, from whose nostrils fire issues ? Is there a want of artistic delineation in Freia, who changes darkness into light wherever she appears—the goddess with the streaming golden locks, and the siren voice, who hovers in her snow-white robe between heaven and earth, making flowers sprout along her path, and planting irresistible longings in the hearts of men ? Do we not see in bold and well-marked outlines the figure of the redbearded, steel-handed Thor, who rolls along the sky in his goat-drawn car, and who smites the mountain giants with his magic hammer ? Are these dwellers in the Germanic Olympus mere spectres, without distinct con­ tour ? And if their strength often verges upon wildness ; if their charms are sometimes allied to cruel sorcery—are they not, even in their uncouth passions, the representatives of a primitive race, in which the pulse throbs with youthful freshness ? �FEEIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. 601 Again, what a throng of minor deities—surpassing in poetic conception even Hellenic fancy—have been evolved by the Teutonic mind out of all the forces of nature! Look at the crowd of fairies, and wood-women, and elfin, and nixes, and dwarfs, and cobolds, that dance in the moon­ light, and whisk through the rustling leaves, or dwell enchanted in trees, or hide in glittering mountain-caves, or waft enthralling songs from beneath the water, or bustle day and night through the dwellings of man! The Greeks had all, or nearly all, this—for the elements of mythology are the same in all Aryan lands : but there is a greater depth in the corresponding Teutonic tales : they coil themselves round the heart like invisible threads ; they seem so familiar and homely, and yet lead the imagination into a strange dreamland. Then, what a dramatic development Germanic mythology has ! The Hellenic gods sit in ambrosian quiet in their lofty abodes ; they are eternal gods, inaccessible to the corroding power of Time. True, there are some faint indications of a final change when Jupiter himself is to make place for a juster ruler. But, in the main, the deities of classic antiquity live on in an unbroken, immortal life ; they are, as it has been aptly said, like so many statues ranged along a stately edifice, each statue perfect in itself—no idea of action, of tragic complication, arising out of the whole. How different is the Germanic view of the Universe! There, all is action, struggle: and the world of gods itself is from the very beginning destined to a catastrophe.. So long as the Aesir last, they are regarded as the girders and pillars of the Universe. But at the end of time, the world is to be consumed in a mighty conflagration ; the heavens and the earth stand in a lurid blaze; Asgard and Walhalla, the abodes of gods and heroes, are doomed to destruction; the Universe breaks down in a gigantic crash :— The sun darkens ; Earth in Ocean sinks ; From Heaven fall The bright stars. Fire’s breath assails The all-nourishing Tree ; ' Towering flames play Against Heaven itself. That cataclysm shall be preceded by— An axe-age, a sword-age ; Shields shall be cloven— A wind-age, a wolf-age, Ere the world sinks ! Only after this terrible convulsion shall have ended, will there be introduced a new and peaceful reign, with eternal bliss. Then the white god of peace, whose death Loki had encompassed, will triumphantly 29—5 �602 FREIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. return. In the Voluspa, the prophetess foresees the coming of that golden age— She sees arise, A second time, Earth from Ocean, Beauteously green ... Unsown shall The fields bring forth, All evil be amended ; Balder shall come, Hoder and Balder, The heavenly gods! A mythic system of such poetic sublimity is as much worth being studied as that of classic antiquity, or as the Hindoo Pantheon, where we meet with the germs of the pagan religion of all Aryans. I have pro­ posed to myself, in this present essay, to treat especially of Freia, who, in Norse mythology, appears already divided into two distinct figures, namely: Frigg, the consort of Odin; and Freyja, the goddess of love: whilst among the Germans, properly speaking, Freia combines the characters of Juno and of Venus—the motherly and the erotic element. It may be prefaced here that, in the Norse system, a duodecimal series of gods and goddesses is clearly discernible, to whom the figure of the fiendish Loki is to be added. Germany, so rich in tales which contain the ancient deities under a strange disguise, has in all probability had the same duodecimal system of polytheism. Laborious researches strongly tend to establish that hypothesis as a fact. .1 will not enter here more deeply into this point to show the scientific mode of procedure, but will only quote a passage from Max Muller’s work, which bears upon it. “ It might seem strange, indeed,” he wrote, i£ that so great a scholar as Grimm should have spent so much of his precious time in collecting his Mahrchen, if those Mdlivchen had only been intended for the amusement of children. When we see a Lyell or Owen pick up pretty shells and stones, we may be sure that, however much little girls may admire these pretty things, this was not the object which these wise collectors had in view. Like the blue, and green, and rosy sands which children play with in the Isle of Wight, those tales of the people, which Grimm was the first to discover and collect, are the detritus of many an ancient stratum of thought and language, buried deep in the past. They have a scientific interest.” Out of a mass of such popular tales and traditions, the fair form of the German Venus may be reconstructed with a great degree of certainty. There is good ground for believing that the deities whom we afterwards find in Asgard, gradually arose out of an elementary worship—that, like other pagan gods, they are simply the result of a successive anthropomorphic condensation of ideas connected with the worship of the forces of Nature, and with cosmogonic speculations. That historical elements entered into the formation of their divine images, I readily acknowledge. In fact, it seems to me most probable that there is a mixed origin of all mythic �FREIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OE LOVE. 603 figures. At any rate, the worship of the forces of Nature appears to be the prevailing element in their composition ; and thus the first glimpse we obtain of Freia, or Freia-Holda, shows her under the shape of a storm­ goddess—that is, as the female counterpart of Wodan, the ruler of the cloudy region, who was originally conceived as the storm himself—as the dtma, or Great Breath, which pervades the universe. Now, it speaks much for an early culture of the heart among the Germanic race, that the vague idea of a storm-goddess should have so swiftly become refined, as it actually did, into the form of Freia-Holda, whose very name indicates friendliness, love, and benevolent grace. The process of shaping and polishing the images of the other divinities of the cloudy sky was a longer one. For a considerable time they seem to have retained their floating and somewhat less circumscribed character. Even when they had assumed that form which, under a more developed reign of art, would have rendered them fit for sculptured representation, popular fancy exhibited a marked inclination towards dissolving them, ever and anon, into their aboriginal chaotic substance. Not so with Freia. Round her, also, the most variegated myths clustered. Moreover, the various attributes conferred upon her, were apt to give rise to a number of special figures, ranging—extraordinary to say—from the typification of charms to that of hideous witchcraft, from beauty to that of its very contrast. Nevertheless, there is, as with the Greek deities, a clear, unmarred, central picture, which shows Freia-Holda under an aspect of well-marked, noble beauty. The mind of the people who revered her, fondly dwelt upon the portraiture of her attractions and virtues, always adding new traits, and elaborating it with fresh touches. Hence the mythic circle which surrounds the worship of Freia, is in every respect one of the richest in German folk-lore. Lapse of time and local tradition have certainly given us a multiform variety of Freia-Holda images. The Gods of Homer and Hesiod were not exactly those of ¿Eschylus and Euripides. In the same way, the Germanic Pantheon was not at all times fitted with the identical forms. The tribal differences among the German race also went far to give a different colouring to the original character of a deity. But even as we have a welldefined idea of the character and attributes of Jupiter, of Juno, of Mars, of Venus, quite irrespective of the special myths, which vary considerably according to time and locality, so also do we possess an average image of Wodan, of Thunar, but most particularly of Freia. Whilst other deities are heard in the tempest that bends the rustling tree-tops of primeval forests, or hurriedly pass along the vault of Fleaven : the Goddess of Love gladdens more visibly the glance of men, as she glides slowly over flowery meadows, amidst a rosy sheen. She is represented as being of entrancing beauty, with long-flowing, thick, golden hair of great heaviness. Her body is snow-white; she is ©lad in a white garment, which spreads a rosy effulgence. On her forehead hangs a single tangled lock of hair. She is covered, over her �604 FREIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OE LOVE. white robe, with a light veil, from head to foot. Round her neck she wears a chain of shining jewels, from which a light streams forth, as of the dawn of morn. Rose-bushes and willow-trees are her favourite resorts : willow-trees overhanging crystal lakes. Her voice, full of melodious song, enthralls men. Rs heavenly strains transport the listener to spheres of unknown bliss ; he is drawn along, in rapture, in spite of his will. Whereever she walks, flowers sprout up on her path, and the merry sound of golden bells is heard tinkling. A radiance of ethereal worlds follows her footsteps. In the depth of night, the wanderer who has lost his way, guides his walk after her beneficent apparition. The fields over which she passes, are blessed with fruit. About Twelfth-night time—that is, at the winter solstice—when the German tribes were accustomed to celebrate one of their sun-worship rites, Freia-Holda visits the households, looking after the industry of the maidens at the spinning-wheel. She is the goddess of amorousness, but also of housewifely accomplishments. She has a virgin-like appearance; in her qualities, however, the two womanly elements are blended. Her residence is beyond the azure skies, in a sunny region behind the clouds ; limpid waters divide her reign from the outer world. There she dwells in a garden, where fragrant flowers and luscious fruits grow, and the song of birds never ceases. On the meadows, and amidst the foliage of that garden, the souls of the Unborn—whose protectress Freia is—are playing their innocent, unconscious games, gathering food from the chalices of flowers, until the heavenly messenger comes who calls them into human birth. In that garden, there is also the Fountain of Rejuvenescence—the Jungbrunnen or Quickborn, where the sources of life are incessantly renovated, and decrepit age once more changes into blooming youth. Such, with a few strokes, is the image of the Goddess whose worship was most deeply rooted among our forefathers—so much so, that it was found impossible to overthrow her reign except by a substitution which preserved the substance of her attributes. Indeed, the German Mariolatry of the middle ages is to a large degree traceable to these previous heathen customs. There are a number of highly coloured hymns to the Virgin, the imagery of which is almost literally taken from similar Freia songs, fragmentary pieces of which latter have come down to us in children’s rhymes. Many of these hymns would be perfectly unintelligible if we did not know the poetical surroundings of the pagan goddess. Freia, the Queen of the Heavens, the sorrowing mother of Balder, that god of peace who met with his death through the traitor Loki, was transfused into the Mater dolorosa, the ‘ ‘ Mother of God ” of the Roman Church; but in this transfusion she retained much of her original character. However, in order to create a division-line, a notion was fostered that Freia’s day, Friday—originally the favourite marriageday—was an unlucky day ; a superstition which prevails to this moment arqong large numbers of uneducated people. Nevertheless, there are some �FEEIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. 605 Woks and corners where, even now, Friday is regarded as the proper wedding-day—clearly a remnant of the old religion. It was “ das ewig Weiblichef the worship of which the Germanic race tenaciously clung to, though under strange forms of superstition. Out of this frame of mind grew up the chivalric view about womankind, which in Germany had its lyric representation in the poetry of the minnesinger. The fervour with which that view was held, often assumed the shapeof an abstract principle, leading to the most ardent evolutions of thought and sentiment, quite irrespective of individual passion and amatory reality. It would be an error to suppose that aristocratic chivalry had created this whole world of woman-worship. It was a trait characteristic of the Germanic races as such—even at a time when they were only just emerging into historical light. The early Roman authors mention the veneration in which womankind was held by our forefathers. The ancient Germans ascribed to woman a kind of sacred and prophetic character.—(Tacitus, Germ., cap. viii.) And, no doubt, the institution of monogamy, which was but occasionally broken through by the aris­ tocratic chieftains ; the influence exercised not only by the priestesses and prophetesses, such as Aurinia and Veleda, but by the German women in general : an influence of persuasion, of wise counsel, and of heroic, patriotic conduct, not an influence obtained by equality of political rights ■—all this points to the fact of an early development of more tender sentiments, of which the Freia cultus was the religious outcome. The name of the goddess appears in different forms, as Freia, Friia, Frea, Frigga, Frikka, Frikk. It is traceable to a root meaning “to love.” In Gothic, frijon means “ to love; ” hence the German “Freund,” friend; hence, perhaps, also “freien,” to woo, and Frau. In Low German, the verb “friggen ” is still extant, in the sense of “ to love.” Thus Freia is a loving, befriending divinity; and through the fertilising character,' naturally connected with these qualities, as well as through the sunny effulgence which envelops her attractive picture, she easily merges into the form of Ceres. There are indications, at least, that she may have been revered also as a goddess of agriculture, and that healing powers were attributed to her. Her sister was Voila (Fulness), of whom we get a glimpse in the famous incantation song of Merseburg * —a divinity evidently typifying the abundance of Nature. I have endeavoured, out of a confusing wealth of legends, to draw the form of Freia in clear colours, choosing that type which the goddess must have assumed at a certain period in the early life of the German nation, when vague conceptions about the struggle of elementary forces had been fused into more plastic expression, whilst the process of decay and deterioration had not yet set in, which afterwards reduced the figure of Freia-Holda to that of a mere sorceress, nay, even hag. But how, * It begins with the words :— • Phol ende Uodan Vuoron zi holza, �606 FREIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. it will be asked, was the goddess of love and domestic virtue wrought from the crude idea of a divinity of the clouds who flits along the horizon ? As the wife of the storm-god Wodan, she is, in the early form of the tale, chased by him, even as the cloud is by the wind. Minor cloud­ goddesses, or cloud-women, environ her; in some myths they are con­ ceived as horses or swans. They are the swift-running, fast-sailing clouds, of sombrer or of more silvery hue. The flight of the goddess from before her consort, and the representation of her companions as mares, remind us of the Hindoo myth, in which a similar female deity flies before the Ruler of the skies in the shape of a mare. Soon the tale assumes a more poetic form; It is now no longer the Ruler of the skies who chases his stormy spouse ; but, by an inversion not unfrequent in the process of mythological formation, it is henceforth she who wanders, wailing and in tears, over hill and dale in search of her long-lost lover. The lamenting wind and the rain, which were connected with the notion of a tempest-deity, are here converted into the plaints and the weeping of the longing goddess. The howling storm softens into loving grief, and the somewhat dark and dim deity which represented the first, necessarily undergoes a corresponding transfiguration. The same is the case with her cloudy retinue. The white and silvery specks on the welkin come to the foreground; from swans, under which form they were at first conceived, they change into swan-virgins. Nor do they career or sail along the sky any more. They now act as the embellishing suite of the loving goddess, who, after having scarcely met with her eagerly-sought friend, loses him once more, and has, Isis-like, to start on a new heart-rending peregrination. It would appear that the ever-repeated change of the junction and the separation of the productive and receptive faculties in nature is here shadowed forth under the guise of loving satisfaction and grief. In this gradual alteration of imagery, the successive humanization of the character of the myth is clearly discernible. Later on—I will here remark in passing—when the period of mythic decay arrives, the early form and'character of the swan-virgins is entirely lost. Of the swan, nothing then remains but the foot, which is tacked on to the body of an elf, or even a gnome. The tales in which swan’s feet occur, are very valuable for the attentive inquirer. The imprint of these birds' feet serves as a trace leading back to the sanctuary of the Teutonic Aphrodite, and thus helps to reconstruct our knowledge of the once wide­ spread cultus. To look upon the sky as a “ sea of ether,” as a“ heavenly ocean”— samudra in Sanskrit—is an ancient Vedic notion. Freia, who resides beyond the azure sky, at the bottom of a crystal well, is, however, in more than one sense a water-goddess, for she belonged originally to that circle of Vana-deities who in Norse tradition are said to have been engaged in a long and fierce struggle with the Asa-gods, until peace was concluded between the rival and hostile dynasties of gods, when Freia, with �FBEIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. 607 some others, was received into Asgard. Whether this tale refers to two different cosmogonic systems held by different races in pre-historic times, or whether it marks a religious struggle among separate Germanic tribes, it is impossible now to decide. But the original character of Freia-Holda as a water-goddess of the Vana-circle is still apparent in the fairy tale, current to this day among the German peasantry, about 11 Frau Hoile,” who is represented as walking up a hill with a golden, bottomless pail, a kind of Danaides tub, from which water incessantly flows. In another tale, Frau Hoile is said, when it snows, to have spread and shaken her white mantle. It is the white robe which the Germanic god­ dess once wore. Again, when white, shimmering cloudlets—called to this day “lambs” (Lämmer) in German—make their appearance, Hoile is said to drive her flock. The former character of the protectress of agriculture appears in this form of the legend. The sunny attributes of the original water-goddess linger in another legend, which says that when there has been rain during the whole week, it is expected to cease on Friday—Freia’s day—when Frau Hoile has to dry her veil, which she spreads for that purpose over rose-bushes and willows, the trees anciently sacred to that northern Venus. In the same way, the conception of Freia as a solar deity lingers in a Low German children’s rhyme, which, though slightly deteriorated, describes with wonderful fidelity the heavenly abode of the goddess in all its typical particulars. In that rhyme, the water-carrying goddess, who walks up the hill with the golden bucket, is called “ the little sun,”— Wo dat sönneken den berg herop geit. In German children’s rhymes, tales, plays, and dances, the last shreds and fragments of the old heathen system of religion are wonderfully pre­ served. The rhymes constitute a sort of poetised mythology for the use of the nursery. They are the traditionary oral catechism of a creed which is no longer understood. The Freia worship ; the adoration of the Nomes, the weird Sisters of Fate ; the belief in a coming downfall of Asgard;— all these pagan notions have left their vestiges in childish ditties. The quaint Cockchafer ditties, to which I have yet to allude, are among the most important in this respect. It is often difficult to sort out the mere dross which has crept in by the misapprehension of words, leading to new associations of ideas, in which the original meaning of the myth disap­ pears. Yet these infantile songs, often apparently devoid of sense, are a rich mine, from which ancient forms of religious thought may be dug out. One of these rhymes runs thus : Mutter Gottes thut Wasser tragen Mit goldenen Kannen Aus dem goldenen Brünnei. Da liegen Viel' drinne. Sie legt sie auf die Kissen, Und thät sie schön wiegen Auf der goldenen Stiegen. �608 FREIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. The “ golden buckets ” of Freia are, in this ditty, already carried by the “ Mother of God.” The mother of Balder, of the transfixed deity ■who has died, but who will hereafter introduce a millennium of peace, is, under Roman Catholic influence, changed into Mutter Gottes. But her heathen paraphernalia still cling to her. She still resides in the golden, or sunlit, well. She is still the water-goddess; and “the many that are lying ” in her celestial abode, behind the azure waves of the ethereal ocean, are still the Unborn who dwell in Freia’s fragrant domain. If we follow that train of ideas, in which Freia was regarded as a representative of warmth, of light, of fire, we find it fabled that the souls of the Unborn, when awaiting their human embodiment, are carried earthwards in flashes of lightning. The soul, in other words, was con­ sidered a heavenly ray or flash. In connection with this idea is the sanctification of many things and beings who, on account of their colour being that of lightning,—namely, red,—are received into the special service of the Goddess of the Unborn. The red-billed and red-legged stork and the red-winged lady-bird must here specially be mentioned. They were once nearly worshipped. A halo of inviolability still protects in Germany the stork. The lady-bird also continues to be held, by children at least, in some sort of friendly reverence. The lady-bird was supposed to aid in carrying, on its red wings, the souls of children to their terrestrial destination. The very name “ lady­ bird” points to the former goddess: the “Lady” originally was the Germanic Queen of the Heavens, for whom the Virgin Mary was afterwards substituted. In a Low-German dialect, the lady-bird is called Mai-Katt (May-cat), which name points to the time of the year that was sacred to Freia, and to the cat, a team of whom drew the car of the goddess. * Other names are : Sonnenkalb, Sonnenkdfer, Sonnenhithnchen, SonnemcendKafer, bringing us back to Freia’s sunny domain. The lady-bird is also called Marien-Kafer, from the Virgin Mary; or lastly, Herrgotts-Kdfer, the Lord (Herrgott') being, in this case, substituted for the Lady, a trans­ position frequently observable in mythology, the male and female forms of the ruling spirit of the Universe (“ Woden ” and “ Frau Gaude ”) often taking each other’s place. There is a Suabian song, in which the lady-bird {Herrgotts-Moggela') is called upon to fly into heaven, there to fetch, on a golden basin, a golden baby. In other tales, children are supposed to come from a “hollow tree ”—aus holdem Baum, or aus dem Ilollenbaum. This strange notion of the origin of mankind from the vegetable reign, which appears in * There is a children’s rhyme in the Austrian dialect, representing the cat as going to Hollabrunn,—that is, the well of Holda—where she finds a baby “in the sun.” The Freia-Holda worship, in its bearings upon a Neptunic and a solar cultus, is in this verse given in a few quaint words :— Hop, hop, Heserlmann! Unsa Katz hat Stieferln an, Rennt damit nach Hollabrunn, Findt a Kindla in da Sunn! �FREIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OE LOVE. 609 Wrious German doggrels, is to be met with also among the ancient Greeks, aS the saying shows : “ ou yap airo bpvoQ tart iraXaityarov ovS’ airo irkrpriQ.” In the “ hollow ” tree we have, however, unquestionably Holda’s, or Hoile’s, ¡tree, on whose branches the unborn sat. We shall afterwards see how a similar deterioration of terms led to the idea of Holda as a witch who was charming in the face, but hollow in the back, similar to an excavated stem with gnarly bark. In Hessian trials of witches, long after the middle ages, we read of “ FrawHolt ” under such a description ; the name of Holda, Hoile, or Holt, having, by a double assimilation of sounds, given rise to the comparison of the sorceress with a hollow tree—holt or holz signifying wood or tree. The corruption of words is, indeed, one of the most frequent sources of new mythical formations. Even as the lady-bird, so the stork also was in the service of Freia. His red colours, too, made him the representative of lightning, of electricity, of the principle of vivification. He helped in carrying the souls of the unborn earthwards. His mythic name, therefore, was “Adebar” or “ Odebar ”—carrier of children, bringer of souls. Even now, he has that name in various German dialects ; but its meaning is obliterated or obscured in the popular memory. As the typification of the spark of heaven, the stork was connected with sun-worship. Hence, he was doubly sacred to our forefathers, and is still partly so to our village folk, who frequently place a wheel for him on house-tops and chimneys, that he may the more commodiously build his nest on them. In solar worship, the wheel particularlyrepresents the orb of the sun. It is used as such in the solstice-fires (SonnenwendFeuer), which German peasants light to this day amidst great jubilation. When the peasant boys of Upper Bavaria and the Tyrol roll their tarred wheels, which are set on fire, in the dark night down the mountains, making them describe most wonderful gyrations, they sing songs in honour of their loves. There are set rhymes to that effect, which have been handed down through generations, and in which, according to the occasion, the name of the particular sweetheart has only to be inserted. The solar 8>nd the Aphroditean cultus of Freia were blended in early mythology; the traces of this connection are yet visible in such boorish merryBiakings ! So late down as the sixteenth century, the Roman Church thought it advisable to take the heathen myth of Freia’s well, within which the unborn are playing, and of Adebar the bringer of children, under its own protection. So-called Kindlein's-Brunnen, to which women proceeded, in ftrder to drink the consecrated water, were erected, or changed into holy places of the Catholic Church, in many towns and villages of Germany. Bishop John, of Saalhausen, had a chapel built, in 1512, over one of these old places of Freia worship. Numbers of women congregated there, doing reverence to the “ holy and chaste virgin at the Fountain of Life ” {Qu&ckbrunneri). The weather-vane of the chapel was a stork, who carried �610 FREIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. a child in his bill—even as is still to be seen in the toys of German children, who are much given to the notion that a fresh arrival of a brother or sister is due to the obliging stork. The cockchafer, too, seems to have been a hallowed insect of yore. It is called Mai-Käfer in German, from the period of the year when it gene­ rally comes first out of the ground ; and that period, as said before, was the sacred time of the Goddess of Love. German children have a custom of placing that beetle on their left hand, to which they generally attach it by a thread, and then they sing a verse the meaning of which has long puzzled investigators. Mannhardt has collected quite a variety of such verses, all taken direct from the lips of German boys, in order to prove that they refer to that final catastrophe when the gods and their giant antagonists are warring with each other, and the Asa-world collapses in a fearful tumult and universal conflagration. All the rhymes collected until now make it extremely probable that they refer to the danger which envelops, and finally destroys, Holda’s reign. Still, Mannhardt was not able to give any verse in which her name is distinctly traceable. Now, in the same way, it had formerly been rendered very probable that all the Holda myths were Freia myths ; Holda being simply one of the appellatives of the Goddess, which had branched out into a well-nigh identical form. For a while, the hypothesis of the original identity of the two forms seemed unsubstantiated. At last, however, in a Latin manu­ script preserved at Madrid, the name of the deity was discovered in the form “ Friga-Holda,” when the substantial unity of the two mythic figures was placed beyond doubt. Even so, I believe I can supply the missing link in regard to the curious Cockchafer Songs, which are of such high mythological interest. I distinctly remember a ditty sung by children, in which the cockchafer is bidden to fly to his father (presumably Wodan, the consort of FreiaHolda),who is said to be “ at war,” and to his mother who is “in Holler­ land,” where a conflagration has broken out, which consumes Holler­ land :— Maikäfer, flieg’! Dein Vater ist im Krieg! Deine Mutter ist im Hollerland— Hollerland ist abgebrannt! Iuchhe1 The latter joyful exclamation may be supposed to be the Christian “ Io triumphe," the utterance of joy over the destruction of the heathen Asa-world. I need scarcely remind the reader that the song which is sung in Germany about the cockchafer, is also sung in some parts of this country about the lady-bird. (“ Lady-bird, lady-bird, hie thy way home ! Thy house is on fire I Thy children all roam ! ” Or : “ Lady-bird, lady­ bird, fly away home ! Your house is on fire ! Your children will burn! ” See, for instance, Jamieson’s Northern Antiquities.') In the folk-lore still current in Germany, the name of “ Freia ” is only �FREÏA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. 611 preserved yet among the people of the Ukermark and the Altmark. Other­ wise, we meet with it in some Suabian, Franconian, Alemannic, and Lower Saxon designations of villages, and different places, where her worship once flourished. Thus there are several Frickenhausen, situated near lakes—quite in keeping with the myth which makes the Goddess haunt the water, even as Aphrodite rose from the waves of the sea. In other parts of Germany the goddess is called Holda ; Frau Gode, Gauden, or Gaue (that is, Woden’s wife, the “W” being changed into “G”—even as war, in old-German werra, becomes, in French, guerre'); or Frau Hera, or Harke ; Mother Rose ; Perchta, or Bertha. All these seemingly distinct fairy figures arose from the personification of Freia’s attributes and appellatives. There is a multiform mass of legends, of a mixed heathen and Chris­ tian character, in which the image of Freia is recognisable under the oddest masks. As “Mother Rose” she has been received into the legendary circle of the Roman Church. But why, many will wonder, should the Virgin pass under the name of Mother Rose ? I forego entering into the etymological explanation, which traces that name to a cognomen of Freia, and will only mention an old pagan sorcery song, clearly referable to that goddess, which says :—• Kam eine Jungfer aus Engelland; Eine Rose trug sie in ihrer Hand. This “Engelland” is not, as some misunderstand it, England, but the land of the white elfs, the fairyland of Freia. The “ Jungfer,” or Virgin, who reigns over it, became the Virgin Mary; and the favourite flower of the German goddess of love was converted into a symbol of the Madonna. As Mother Rose, Freia appears in a Christianised garb. But under the names of Holda, Gode, Hera, and Perchta, she preserves, in the tales, her heathen character as a fay—in a good or an evil sense. Most astonishing are the transformations she undergoes under these various appellations. Even as the storm-god Wodan, who led the departed heroes into Walhalla, became changed, after the introduction of Chris­ tianity, into a wild huntsman who careers along the sky with his ghostly retinue, so Freia-Holda also becomes a wild huntress, who hurries round at night with the unfortunate souls. Through this same association with hobgoblin devilry, she is converted into a Mother Haule, or Ilaule-mutter, a howling utterer of mournful wails about the dead. By way of direct contrast, the once white-robed goddess with the snow-white body changes, as Hera, into a white dove, a typification of loving innocence. At a first glance, such quid pro quo's and metamorphoses into the very opposite would appear incredible; but he who has studied the effect of misapprehended words and sounds upon the untutored mind of man will not be astonished at these changeling substitutions. The way in which the souls of the unborn were supposed to be called from Freia s garden, is to this day represented in various children’s games �612 FREIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. in Germany, by words and expressive mimicry. In the Perchta, or Bertha myths, that linger in some secluded valleys, the crowd of the unborn still appear as a suite of elfs, called Heimchen, who follow the goddess. The Perchta legends are of a somewhat wild—occasionally Bacchantic and Korybantic—-character, in which the gloomy element is, however, not wanting. The goddess, who once typified the purest beauty, assumes in them rather motley and multiform shapes : there are beautiful Perchtas as well as “ wild- Perchteln,” the latter with a satyr-like appear­ ance, running about with dishevelled hair. The Bacchantic and Korybantic character of the goddess appears even from a passage in Luther’s writings. He calls her, not Perchta, but with her softer name, “Frau Hulda,” makes a Dame Nature of her, who rebels against her God, and describes her as “ donning her old rag-tag livery, the straw-harness, and singing and dancing whilst fiddling on the violin ” (liengt um sick iren alten trewdelmarkt, den stroharnss, Jiebt an und scharret daher mit irer geigen). The straw-harness may be supposed to symbolize the former character of the Teutonic Cythere as a Ceres, a goddess of productiveness and fertility in every sense. Representations of the Perchta myth have until lately been going on, at stated times of the year, among the peasantry of Southern Germany; and are, no doubt, still in vogue here and there. Near Salzburg, a “Perchtel” is represented, in such masquerades, with a sky-blue dress, wearing a crown of tinkling bells, and singing in highly jubilant manner. The goddess, or fairy, here shows something of a vulgivaga character; a trait cropping up already in the Eddie Hyndlu-Song. The decay of the Freia myth may be said to have begun when her powers of entrancing men made her to be looked upon as a dangerous sorceress, as the incarnation of witchcraft. Still, before the goddess simply became a hag—an ole Moder Tarsclie, that is, Old Mother Sorceress —popular fancy wove some charming legends about her magic qualities. On the banks of the river Main, there are Hulli-steine, Holda’s stones, or hollow stones, on which a fairy form sits at night, bewailing the loss of her betrothed one who has left her. There she sits, sunk in sorrow, shedding tears over the rock until it is worn down and becomes hollowed out. In another Franconian tale, the bewitching fay sits on a rock in the moon-light, when the bloom of the vine fills the mountains and the valleys with sweet ffagrancy; she is clad in a white, shining garment, pouring forth heart-enthralling songs. The children, in those parts of the country, are warned not to listen to the seductive voice, but ardently to pray their pater-noster, lest they should have to remain with “ Holli ” in the wood until the Day of Judgment. From this legend, Heine took the subject of his Lorelei song, transplanting it from the Main to the Rhine. Holda appears, in this Franconian version, with faintly-indicated surroundings of a Bacchic nature ; and her abode is described as “in the wood, whither many pagan deities were relegated after Christianity had obtained the upper-hand. �FREIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. 613 Some myths of later growth convert Freia into a “Venus ” who has lost all the attributes of domestic virtue, connected with the earlier image of the goddess ; nay, into a sort of grim Lakshmi, half Venus, half infernal deity, who sits in a mountain cave, where there is much groaning of souls suffering damnation. Other legends, though painting her as a she-devil, do not depict the “ Venusinne ’’-grotto as a place of torment, but rather as one of magic attractiveness, from which even the repentant sinner, who has been allowed to leave it for a pilgrimage to Rome, cannot break loose for ever. This view of the abode of Venus we get in the famed Tannhäuser legend, about which we possess various ancient poems, dating from the fifteenth century. The identity of the German Venus legends with the Freia-Holda cycle is proveable from various facts. There is a “Venus-Berg” in Suabia, situated close to a “ Hollenhof.” In a Swiss version of the Tannhäuser song, Frau Venus is called “Frau Frene,” a name evoking the memory of Frea or Freia. The IIorseel-Berg, near Eisenach, an old place of Freia worship, was especially pointed out as containing the under­ ground abode of Venus. And in the same way as Wodan’s wife, when she left the mountain at midnight, as a wild huntress, with her army of souls, was preceded by a grey-bearded man, the trusty Eckhart, who with a white staff warned off all people not to obstruct the path of the goddess ; so also Venus, when she leaves the mountain, is preceded by the trusty Eckhart. The identity is therefore fully established. To complete the picture of strange transformations, I ought to speak of Freia-Bertha becoming the Ahn-frau and the ueisse Frau of German princely families and royal castles. The presiding female deity of the Asa-dynasty is changed into the ancestress of kings who, with the pride of rulers by right divine, trace their pedigree to celestial origin. In the same way, the white-robed goddess, who once exercised a powerful influence, is metamorphosed into a spectral “ woman in white,” whose appearance foretells the coming of great events, or is even a harbinger 'of royal death. I will not treat here of the curious chapter of Berthas, ancestresses- of kings, who were represented as swan-footed, flat-footed, large-footed, or club-footed, a characteristic which brings us back to the bevy of swan­ damsels who surrounded Freia. I will only, in conclusion, speak of the strange transfiguration of Holda into a Hel, of a goddess of Love into a goddess of Death, whose name afterwards furnished the designation for the infernal region, or hell. And here it is first to be observed that Hel, the Germanic mistress of the under-world, originally was a mother of life, like Holda, as well as a mother of death. Her natne, which comes from lielen or hehlen—in Latin celare—indicates that she is a deity who works in darkness and secrecy. Hence, she represents, in the beginning, the forces of nature that are active beneath the hiding soil. Consequently, she is not, properly speaking, destructive ; she rather aids in nature’s rejuvenation. She typifies the idea of life emerging from death, and of death being only a �614 FREIA-HOLDA, THE TEUTONIC GODDESS OF LOVE. transformation of life. In the Edda, Hel is half dark or livid, half of the hue of the human skin (bld half en half me# horundur lit); similar to the Hindoo Bhavani or Maha Kali, the mother of nature and life, the goddess who creates and destroys, the representative of love and of death, whose face alternately is radiant with beauty, like that of Aphrodite, or expressive of hideous terrors. In her beneficent quality, Bhavani carries a lotos­ flower in her hand, even as Freia the rose ; and the waters of the Ganges murmur her praise, as crystal lakes may have done that of the Germanic deity. In her destroying and avenging character, the Hindoo goddess is Kali the bloodthirsty, who rides a hellish horse. So Holda is converted into a fiendish Hel. Thus the images of life and death, of creation and destruction, of beauty and of horrors, touch each other in a mysterious twilight. It is an idea which may be followed through many religious systems ; for is not Apollo also, the sunny'god, a typification of the pernicious power as well as of ideal beauty ? and does not his very name bear the trace of the destructive force ascribed to him ? The deep meaning contained in these contradictory combinations attaches also to the mythological fancies of our ruder forefathers ; and though it may sometimes be difficult to grasp the sense that is enclosed in the veiling legends, they have, irrespective of the philosophical significance which they struggle to express, a poetical merit of their own, often exhibiting a bold and many-coloured imagery, and a power of fashioning forms, such as we are wont to admire in the products of classic antiquity. KARL BLIND. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Freia-Holda, the Teutonic goddess of love Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Blind, Karl [author] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: 599-614 p. ; 23 cm. Notes: From the Cornhill Magazine 25 (May 1872). Attribution from Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [Smith, Elder & Co.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1872] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5349 Subject The topic of the resource Mythology Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Freia-Holda, the Teutonic goddess of love), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Freia-Holda Germany Goddesses Mythology Paganism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/f411f54300cb7ac9001e34aa5a0faf55.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=sl44LTn7t4Ep9V9gg5EhfrVlEa4d9DzDeaANpfIrpRyYAO0FYZD7owv3zQFQ-UI0i3LLJCRXznBTnyEhdmA34NB2bkIxZL5tUL0jxlkLTfm%7EGXXmujPIF9HUQN9WLIJhOqT6izRY32S5ATKRNm-gxOBTOleemtBDZOmgDLLYEEl%7EyDzRYyEAI1dARJrnO6SOQeDUWsWNM9RFMA-pPWksr%7EjI9KRMqBukmATRMv6MF%7EqdrP3BsXYIUCRX%7EYuR0B8CR0LiEfrmoYzfWD6ZiD9uaN0uKWn3BjZE7w5vca8fBU9azK9qL8WgtRPe4iizPmvRSxxyok3n-oJWToM7yaBO9w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 500a19a11fb2a5f436f827a6fa5b2ebf PDF Text Text PAGAN MYTHOLOGY OH THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS BY LORD BACON. Price One Shilling --------- ——_————— / * th V»\GR£At ST HELENS X ITtmbcit! IV E PUBLISHING 28 Stonecutter Street, E.C. ��B AbJOSt NATIONAL SECULAR SOCiRt y PAGAN MYTHOLOGY OR THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS BY LORD bacon. LONDON: PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28 Stonecutter, Street, E.O, 1891. �LONDON: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. FOOTE, 28 STONECUTTER, STREET, E.C. �Pagan Mythology OR THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. PREFACE. The earliest antiquity lies buried in silence and oblivion, excepting the remains we have of it in sacred writ. This silence was succeeded by poetical fables, and these, at length, by the writings we now enjoy ; so that the concealed and secret learning of the ancients seems separated from the history and knowledge of the following ages by a veil, or partition wall of fables, interposing between the things that are lost and those that remain. Many may imagine that I am here entering upon a work of fancy, or amusement, and design to use a poetical liberty, in explaining poetical fables. It is true, fables in general are composed of ductile matter, that may be drawn into great variety by a witty'talent or an inventive genius, and be delivered of plausible meanings which they never contained. But this pro­ cedure has already been carried to excess ; and great numbers, to procure the sanction of antiquity to, their own notions and inventions, have miserably wrested and abused the fables of the ancients. Nor is this only a late or unfrequent practice, but of ancient date, and common even to this day. Thus Chrysippus, like an interpreter of dreams, attributed �4 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. the opinions of the Stoics to the poets of old ; and the chemists, at present, more childishly apply the poetical transformations to their experiments of the furnace. And though I have well weighed and considered all this, and thoroughly seen into the levity which the mind indulges for allegories and allusions, yet I cannot but retain a high value for the ancient mythology. And, certainly, it were very injudicious to suffer the fondness and licentiousness of a few to detract from the honor of allegory and parable in general. This would be rash, and almost profane ; for, since religion delights in such shadows and disguises, to abolish them were, in a manner, to prohibit all intercourse betwixt things divine and human. Upon deliberate consideration, my judgment is, that a concealed instruction and allegory was originally intended in many of the ancient fables. This opinion may, in some respect, be owing to the veneration I have for antiquity, but more to observing that some fables discover a great and evident similitude, relation, and connection with the thing they signify, as well in the structure of the fable as in the propriety of the names whereby the persons or actors are characterised; insomuch, that no one could positively deny a sense and meaning to be from the first intended, and pur­ posely shadowed out in them. For who can hear that Fame, after the giants were destroyed, sprung up as their posthumous sister, and not apply it to the clamor of parties and the seditious rumors which commonly fly about for a time upon the quelling of insurrections ? Or who can read how the giant Typhon cut out and carried away Jupiter’s sinews—which Mercury after­ wards stole and again restored to Jupiter—and not presently observe that this allegory denotes strong and powerful rebellions, which cut away from kings their sinews, both of money and authority ; and that’ the �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 5 way to have them restored is by lenity, affability, and prudent edicts, which soon reconcile, and as it were steal upon the affections of the subject ? Or who, upon hearing that memorable expedition of the gods against the giants, when the braying of Silenus’s ass greatly contributed in putting the giants to flight, does not clearly conceive that this directly points at the mon­ strous enterprises of rebellious subjects, which are frequently frustrated and disappointed by vain fears and empty rumors ? Again, the conformity and purport of the names is frequently manifest and self-evident. Thus Metis, the wife of Jupiter, plainly signifies counsel ; Typhon, swelling; Pan, universality ; Nemesis, revenge ; etc. Nor is it a wonder, if sometimes a piece of history or other things are introduced, by way of ornament; or if the times of the action are confounded; or if part of one fable be tacked to another ; or if the allegory be new turned ; for all this must necessarily happen, as the fables were the inventions of men who lived in different ages and had different views ; some of them being ancient, others more modern ; some having an eye to natural philosophy, and others to morality or civil policy. It may pass for a farther indication of a concealed and secret meaning, that some of these fables are so absurd and idle in their narration as to show and pro­ claim an allegory, even afar off. A fable that carries probability with it may be supposed invented for pleasure, or in imitation of history ; but those that could never be conceived or related in this way must surely have a different use. For example, what a monstrous fiction is this, that Jupiter should take Metis to wife, and as soon as he found her pregnant eat her up, whereby he also conceived, and out of his head brought forth Pallas armed. Certainly no mortal could, �6 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. but for the sake of the moral it couches, invent such an absurd dream as this, so much out of the road of thought! But the argument of most weight with me is this, that many of these fables by no means appear to have been invented by the persons who relate and divulge them, whether Homer, Hesiod, or others; for if I were assured they first flowed from those later times and authors that transmit them to us, I should never expect anything singularly great or noble from such an origin. But whoever attentively considers the thing will find that these fables are delivered down and related by those writers, not as matters then first invented and proposed, but as things received and embraced in earlier ages. Besides, as they are diferently related by writers nearly of the same ages, it is easily perceived that the relators drew from the common stock of ancient tradition, and varied but in point of embellishment, which is their own. And this principally raises my esteem of these fables, which I receive, not as the product of the age, or invention of the poets, but as sacred relics, gentle whispers, and the breath of better times, that from the traditions of more ancient nations came, at length, into the flutes and trumpets of the Greeks. But if any one shall, notwithstanding this, contend that allegories are always adventitious, or imposed upon the ancient fables, and no way native or genuinely contained in them, we might here leave him undisturbed in that gravity of judgment he affects (though we cannot help accounting it something dull and phlegmatic), and if it were worth the trouble, proceed to another kind of argument. Men have proposed to answer two different and contrary ends by the use of parable ; for parables serve as well to instruct or illustrate as to wrap up or envelop, �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 7 so that though, for the present, we drop the concealed use, and suppose the ancient fables to be vague, un­ determinate things, formed for amusement, still the other use must remain, and can never be given up. And every man, of any learning, must readily allow that this method of instructing is grave, sober, or exceedingly useful, and sometimes necessary in the sciences, as it opens an easy and familial- passage to the human understanding, in all new discoveries that are abstruse and out of the road of vulgar opinions. Hence, in the first ages, when such inventions and con­ clusions of the human reason as are now trite and common were new and little known, all things abounded with fables, parables, similes, comparisons, and allusions, which were not intended to conceal, but to inform and teach, whilst the minds of men con­ tinued rude and unpractised in matters of subtility and speculation, or even impatient, and in a manner uncapable of receiving such things as did not directly fall under and strike the senses. For as hieroglyphics were in use before writing, so were parables in use before arguments. And even to this day, if any man would let new light in upon the human understanding, and conquer prejudice, without raising contests, animosities, opposition, or disturbance, he must still go in the same path, and have recourse to the like method of allegory, metaphor, and allusion. To conclude, the knowledge of the early ages was either great or happy ; great, if they by design made this use of trope and figure ; happy, if, whilst they had other views, they afforded matter and occasion to such noble contemplations. Let either be the case, our pains, perhaps, will not be misemployed, whether we illustrate antiquity or things themselves. The like indeed has been attempted by others ; but to speak „ ingenuously, their great and voluminous �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. labors have almost destroyed the energy, the efficacy, and grace of the thing, whilst, being unskilled in nature, and their learning no more than that of com­ mon-place, they have applied the sense of the parables to certain general and vulgar matters, without reaching to their real purport, genuine interpretation, and full depth. For myself, therefore, I expect to appear new in these common things, because, leaving untouched such as are sufficiently plain and open, I shall drive only at those that are either deep or rich. I.—CASSANDRA, OR DIVINATION. EXPLAINED OF TOO FREE AND UNSEASONABLE ADVICE. The Poets relate that Apollo, falling in love with Cassandra, was still deluded and put off by her, yet fed with hopes, till she had got from him the gift of prophecy ; and having now obtained her end, she flatly rejected his suit. Apollo, unable to recall his rash gift, yet enraged to be outwitted by a girl, annexed this penalty to it, that though she should always prophesy true, she should never be believed ; whence her divinations were always slighted, even when she again and again predicted the ruin of her country. Explanation.—This fable seems invented to express the insignificance of unreasonable advice. For they who are conceited, stubborn, or intractable, and listen not to the instructions of Apollo, the god of harmony, so as to learn and observe the modulations and measures of affairs, the sharps and fiats of discourse, the difference between judicious and vulgar ears, and the proper times of speech and silence, let them be ever so intelligent, and ever so frank of their advice, or their �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 9 counsels ever so good and just, yet all their endeavors, either of persuasion or force, are of little significance, and rather hasten the ruin of those they advise. But, at last, when the calamitous event has made the sufferers feel the effect of their neglect, they too late reverence their advisers, as deep, foreseeing, and faith­ ful prophets. Of this we have a remarkable instance in Cato of Utica, who discovered afar off, and long foretold, the approaching ruin of his country, both in the first con­ spiracy, and as it was prosecuted in the civil war between Csesar and Pompey yet did no good the while, but rather hurt the commonwealth, and hurried on its destruction, which Cicero wisely observed in these words : “ Cato, indeed, judges excellently, but pre­ judices the state; for he speaks as in the common­ wealth of Plato, and not as in the dregs of Romulus.” II.—TYPHON: OR A REBEL. EXPLAINED OF REBELLION. The fable runs, that Juno, enraged at Jupiter’s bringing forth Pallas without her assistance, incessantly solicited all the gods and goddesses, that she might produce without Jupiter : and having by violence and importunity obtained the grant, she struck the earth, and thence immediately sprung up Typhon, a huge and dreadful monster, whom she committed to the nursing of a serpent. As soon as he was grown up, this monster waged war on Jupiter, and taking him prisoner in the battle, carried him away on his shoulders, into a remote and obscure quarter: and there cutting out the sinews of his hands and feet, he �10 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. bore them off, leaving Jupiter behind miserably maimed and mangled. But Mercury afterwards stole these sinews from Typhon and restored them to Jupiter. Hence, recover­ ing his strength, Jupiter again pursues the monster; first wounds him with a stroke of his thunder, when serpents arose from the blood of the wound : and now the monster being dismayed, and taking to flight,. Jupiter next darted Mount JEtna upon him, and crushed him with the weight. Explanation.—This fable seems designed to express the various fates of kings, and the turns that rebellions sometimes take, in kingdoms. For princes may be justly esteemed married to their states, as Jupiter to Juno ; but it sometimes happens, that, being depraved by long wielding of the sceptre, and growing tyrannical, they would engross all to themselves ; and slighting the counsel of their senators and nobles, conceive by themselves ; that is, govern according to their own arbitrary will and pleasure. This inflames the people, and makes them endeavor to create and set up some head of their own. Such designs are generally set on foot by the secret motion and instigation of the peers and nobles, under whose connivance the common sort are prepared for rising : whence proceeds a swell in the state, which is appositely denoted by the nursing of Typhon. This growing posture of affairs is fed by the natural depravity, and malignant dispositions of the vulgar, which to kings is an envenomed serpent. And now the disaffected, uniting their force, at length break out into open rebellion, which, producing infinite mischiefs, both to prince and people, is represented by the horrid and multiplied deformity of Typhon, with his hundred heads, denoting the divided powers ; his flaming mouths, denoting fire and devastation; his girdles of snakes, denoting sieges and destruction ; his �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 11 iron hands, slaughter and cruelty ; his eagle’s talons, rapine and plunder ; his plumed body, perpetual rumors, contradictory accounts, etc. And sometimes these rebellions grow so high, that kings are obliged, as if carried on the backs of the rebels, to quit the throne, and retire to some remote and obscure part of their dominions, with the loss of their sinews, both of money and majesty, But if now they prudently bear this reverse of fortune, they may, in a short time, by the assistance of Mercury, recover their sinews again; that is, by becom­ ing moderate and affable ; reconciling the minds and affections of the people to them, by gracious speeches and prudent proclamations, which will win over the subject cheerfully to afford new aids and supplies, and add fresh vigor to authority. But prudent and wary princes here seldom incline to try fortune by a war, yet do their utmost, by some grand exploit, to crush the reputation of the rebels: and if the attempt succeeds, the rebels, conscious of the wound received, and distrustful of their cause, first betake themselves to broken and empty threats, like the hissings of serpents ; and next, when matters are grown desperate, to flight. And now, when they thus begin to shrink, it is safe and seasonable for kings to pursue them with their forces, and the whole strength of the kingdom ; thus effectually quashing and suppressing them, as it were by the weight of a mountain. III.—THE CYCLOPS : OR THE MINISTERS OF TERROR. EXPLAINED OF BASE COURT OFFICERS. It is related that the Cyclops, for their savageness and cruelty, were by Jupiter first thrown into Tartarus, �12 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. and there condemned to perpetual imprisonment ; but, that afterwards, Tellus, persuaded Jupiter it would be for his service to release them, and employ them in forging thunderbolts. This he accordingly did ; and they, with unwearied pains and diligence, hammered out his bolts, and other instruments of terror, with a frightful and continual din of the anvil. It happened long after, that Jupiter was displeased with .ZEsculapius, the son of Apollo, for having, by the art of medicine, restored a dead man to life ; but con­ cealing his indignation, because the action in itself was pious and illustrious, he secretly incensed the Cyclops against him, who, without remorse, presently slew him with their thunderbolts ; in revenge whereof, Apollo, with Jupiter’s connivance, shot them all dead with his arrows. Explanation.—This fable seems to point at the behavior of princes, who, having cruel, bloody, and oppressive ministers, first punish and displace them; but afterwards, by the advice of Tellus, that is, some earthly-minded and ignoble person, employ them again, to serve a turn, when there is occasion for cruelty in execution, or severity in exaction : but these ministers being base in their nature, whet by their former disgrace, and well aware of what is expected from them, use double diligence in their office ; till, proceeding unwarily, and over-eager to gain favor, they sometimes, from the private nods and ambiguous orders of their prince, perform some odious or execrable action : When princes, to decline the envy themselves, and knowing they shall never want such tools at their back, drop them, and give them up to the friends and followers of the injured person; thus exposing them, as sacrifices to revenge and populai’ odium : whence with great applause, acclamations, and good wishes to the prince, these miscreants at last meet with their desert. �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 13 IV.—NARCISSUS : OR SELF-LOVE. Narcissus is said to have been extremely beautiful and comely, but intolerably proud and disdainful ; so that, pleased with himself, and scorning the world, he led a solitary life in the woods ; hunting only with a few followers, who were his professed admirers, amongst whom the nymph Echo was his constant attendant. In this method of life it was once his fate to approach a clear fountain, where he laid himself down to rest, in the noonday heat ; when, beholding his image in the water, he fell into such a rapture and admiration of himself, that he could by no means be got away, but remained continually fixed and gazing, till at length he was turned into a flower, of his own name, which appears early in the spring, and is consecrated to the infernal deities, Pluto, Proserpine, and the Furies. Explanation. —This fable seems to paint the behavior and fortune of those who, for their beauty, or other endowments, wherewith nature (without any industry of their own) has graced and adorned them, are extra­ vagantly fond of themselves : for men of such a disposition generally affect retirement, and absence from public affairs ; as a life of business must neces­ sarily subject them to many neglects and contempts, which might disturb and ruffle their minds : whence such persons commonly lead a solitary, private, and shadowy life ; see little company, and those only such as highly admire and reverence them ; or, like an echo, assent to all they say. And they who are depraved, and rendered still fonder of themselves by this custom, grow strangely indolent, unactive, and perfectly stupid. The Narcissus, a spring flower, is an elegant emblem of this temper, which" at first flourishes, and is talked of, but when ripe, frus­ trates the expectation conceived of it. �14 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. And that this flower should be sacred to the infernal powers, carries out the allusion still farther ; because men of this humor are perfectly useless in all respects ; for whatever yields no fruit, but passes, and is no more, like the way of a ship in the sea, was by the ancients consecrated to the infernal shades and powers. V.—THE RIVER STYX: OR LEAGUES. EXPLAINED OE NECESSITY, IN THE OATHS OR SOLEMN LEAGUES OF PRINCES. The only solemn oath, by which the gods irrevocably obliged themselves, is a well-known thing, and makes a part of many ancient fables. To this oath they did not invoke any celestial divinity, or divine attribute, but only called to witness the river Styx; which, with many meanders, surrounds the infernal court of Dis. For this form alone, and none but this, was held inviolable and obligatory: and the punishment of falsifying it, was that dreaded one of being excluded, for a certain number of years, the table of the gods. Explanation.—This fable seems invented to show the nature of the compacts and confederacies of princes ; which, though ever so solemnly and religiously sworn to, prove but little the more binding for it : so that oaths in this case seem used, rather for decorum, repu­ tation, and ceremony, than for fidelity, security, and effectuating. And though these oaths were strengthened with the bonds of affinity, which are the links and ties of nature, and again, by mutual services and good offices, yet we see all this will generally give way to ambition, convenience, and the thirst of power ; the rather, because it is easy for princes, under various specious pretences, to defend, disguise, and conceal �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 15 their ambitious desires and insincerity ; having no judge to call them to account. There is, however, one true and proper confirmation of their faith, though no celestial divinity; but that great divinity of princes, Necessity ; or, the danger of the state ; and the securing of advantage. This necessity is elegantly represented by Styx, the fatal river, that can never be crossed back. And this deity it was, which Iphicrates the Athenian invoked in making a league: and because he roundly and openly avows what most others studiously conceal, it may be proper to give his own words. Observing that the Lacedsemonians were inventing and proposing a variety of securities, sanctions, and bonds of alliance, he interrupted them thus : “ There may, indeed, my friends, be one bond and means of security between us ; and that is, for you to demonstrate you have delivered into our hands such things as that if you had the greatest desire to hurt us you could not be able.” Therefore, if the power of offending be taken away, or if by a breach of compact there be danger of destruction or diminution to the state or tribute, then it is that covenants will be ratified, and confirmed, as it were, by the Stygian oath, whilst there remains an impending danger of being prohibited and excluded the banquet of the gods ; by which expression the ancients denoted the rights and prerogatives, the the affluence and the felicities, of empire and dominion. VI.—PAN : OR NATURE. EXPLAINED OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, The ancients have, with great exactness, delineated universal nature under the person of Pan. They leave �16 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. his origin doubtful ; some asserting him the son of Mercury, and others the common offspring of all Penelope’s suitors. The latter supposition doubtless occasioned some later rivals to entitle this ancient fable Penelope ; a thing frequently practised when the earlier relations are applied to more modern characters and persons, though sometimes with great absurdity and ignorance, as in the present case ; for Pan was one of the ancientest gods, and long before the time of Ulysses; besides, Penelope was venerated by antiquity for her matronal chastity. A third sort will have him the issue of Jupiter and Hybris, that is, Reproach. But whatever his origin was, the Destinies are allowed his sisters. He is described by antiquity, with pyramidal horns reaching up to heaven, a rough and shaggy body, a very long beard, of a biform figure, human above, half brute below, ending in goat’s feet. His arms, or ensigns of power, are, a pipe in his left hand, composed of seven reeds; in his right a crook; and he wore for his mantle a leopard’s skin. His attributes and titles were the god of hunters, shepherds, and all the rural inhabitants ; president of the mountains ; and, after Mercury, the next messenger of the gods. He was also held the leader and ruler of the Nymphs, who continually danced and frisked about him, attended with the Satyrs and their elders, the Sileni. He had also the power of striking terrors, especially such as were vain and superstitious ; whence they came to be called panic terrors. Few actions are recorded of him, only a principal one is, that he challenged Cupid at wrestling, and was worsted. He also catched the giant Typhon in a net, and held him fast. They relate farther of him, that when Ceres, growing disconsolate for the rape of Prosperine, hid herself, and all the gods took the utmost �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 17 pains to find her, by going out different ways for that purpose, Pan only had the good fortune to meet her, as he was hunting, and discovered her to the rest. He likewise had the assurance to rival Apollo in music ; and in the judgment of Midas was preferred ; but the judge had, though with great privacy and secrecy, a pair of ass’s ears fastened on him for his sentence. There is very little said of his amours ; which may • seem strange among such a multitude of gods, so pro­ fusely amorous. He is only reported to have been very fond of Echo, who was also esteemed his wife ; and one nymph more, called Syrinx, with the love of whom Cupid inflamed him for his insolent challenge ; so he is reported once to have solicited the moon to accompany him apart into the deep woods. Lastly, Pan had no descendant, which also is a wonder, when the male gods were so extremely pro­ lific ; only he was the reputed father of a servant-girl called Iambe, who used to divert strangers with her ridiculous prattling stories. This fable is perhaps the noblest of all antiquity, and pregnant with the mysteries and secrets of nature. Pan, as the name imports, represents the universe, about whose origin there are two opinions, viz., that it either sprung from Mercury, that is, the divine word, according to the Scriptures and philosophical divines, or from the confused seeds of things. For they who allow only one beginning of all things, either ascribe it to God; or, if they suppose a material beginning, acknowledge it to be various in its powers ; so that the whole dispute comes to these points ; namely, either that nature proceeds from Mercury, or from Penelope and all her suitors. The third origin of Pan seems borrowed by the Greeks from the Hebrew mysteries, either by means of the Egyptians, or otherwise ; for it relates to the state �18 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. of the world, not in its first creation, but as made subject to death and corruption after the fall; and in this state it was, and remains, the offspring of God and Sin, or Jupiter and Reproach. And therefore these three several accounts of Pan’s birth may seem true, if duly distinguished in respect of things and times. For this Pan, or the universal nature of things, which we view and contemplate, had its origin from the divine Word and confused matter, first created by God himself, with the subsequent introduction of sin, and consequently corruption. The Destinies, or the natures and fates of things, are justly made Pan’s sisters, as the chain of natural causes links together the rise, duration, and corruption ; the exaltation, degeneration, and workings ; the processes, the effects, and changes, of all that can any way happen to things. Horns are given him, broad at the roots, but narrow and sharp at the top, because the nature of all things seems pyramidal; for individuals are infinite, but being collected into a variety of species, they rise up into kinds, and these again ascend, and are contracted into generals, till at length nature may seem collected to a point. And no wonder if Pan’s horns reach to the heavens, since the sublimities of nature, or abstract ideas, reach in a manner to things divine ; for there is a short and ready passage from metaphysics to natural theology. Pan’s body, or the body of nature, is, with great pro­ priety and elegance, painted shaggy and hairy, as repre­ senting the rays of things ; for rays are as the hair, or fleece of nature, and more or less worn by all bodies. This evidently appears in vision, and in all effects or operations at a distance; for whatever operates thus may be properly said to emit rays. But particularly the beard of Pan is exceedingly long, because the rays �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 19 of the celestial bodies penetrate, and act to a prodigious distance, and have descended into the interior of the earth so far as to change its surface ; and the sun him­ self, when clouded on its upper part, appears to the eye bearded. Again, the body of nature is justly described biform, because of the difference between its superior and inferior parts, as the former, for their beauty, regularity of motion, and influence over the earth, may be pro­ perly represented by the human figure, and the latter, because of their disorder, irregularity, and subjection to the celestial bodies, are by the brutal. This biform figure also represents the participation of one species with another ; for there appear to be no simple natures ; but all participate or consist of two: thus man has somewhat of the brute, the brute somewhat of the plant, the plant somewhat of the mineral; so that all natural bodies have really two faces, or consist of a superior and an inferior species. There lies a curious allegory in the making of Pan goatfooted, on account of the motion of ascent which the terrestrial bodies have towards the air and heavens ; for the goat is a clambering creature, that delights in climbing up rocks and precipices ; and in the same manner the. matters destined to this lower globe strongly affect to rise upwards, as appears from the clouds and meteors. Pan’s arms, or the ensigns he bears in his hands, are of two kinds—the one an emblem of harmony, the other of empire. His pipe, composed of seven reeds, plainly denotes the consent and harmony, or the con­ cords and discords of things, produced by the motion of the seven planets. His crook also contains a fine representation of the ways of nature, which are partly straight and partly crooked ; thus the staff, having an extraordinary bend towards the top, denotes that the �20 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. works of Divine Providence are generally brought about by remote means, or in a circuit, as if somewhat else were intended rather than the effect produced, as in the sending of Joseph into Egypt, etc. So likewise in human government, they who sit at the helm manage and wind the people more successfully by pretext and oblique courses, than they could by such as are direct and straight; so that, in effect, all sceptres are crooked at the top. Pan’s mantle, or clothing, is with great ingenuity made of a leopard’s skin, because of the spots it has ; for in like manner the heavens are sprinkled with stars, the sea with islands, the earth with flowers, and almost each particular thing is variegated, or wears a mottled coat. The office of Pan could not be more livelily expressed than by making him the god of hunters ; for every natural action, every motion and process, is no other than a chase: thus arts and sciences hunt out their works, and human schemes and counsels their several ends ; and all living creatures either hunt out their aliment, pursue their prey, or seek their pleasures, and this in a skilful and sagacious manner. He is also styled the god of the rural inhabitants, because men in this situation live more according to nature than they do in cities and courts, where nature is so corrupted with effeminate arts, that the saying of the poet may be verified— ----- pars minima est ipsa puella sui. He is likewise particularly styled President of the Mountains, because in mountains and lofty places the nature of things lies more open and exposed to the eye and the understanding. In his being called the messenger of the gods, next after Mercury, lies a divine allegory, as next after the �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 21 Word of God, the image of the world is the herald of the Divine power and wisdom, according to the expression of the Psalmist, “ The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handi­ work.” Pan is delighted with the company of the Nymphs ; that is, the souls of all living creatures are the delight of the world ; and he is properly called their governor, because each of them follows its own nature as a leader, and all dance about their own respective rings, with infinite variety and never-ceasing motion. And with these continually j oin the Satyrs and Sileni; that is, youth and age : for all things have a kind of young, cheerful? and dancing time ; and again their time of slowness, tottering, and creeping. And whoever, in a true light, considers the motions and endeavors of both these ages, like another Democritus, will perhaps find them as odd and strange as the gesticulations and antic motions of the Satyrs and Sileni. The power he had of striking terrors contains a very sensible doctrine ; for nature has implanted fear in all living creatures ; as well to keep them from risking their lives, as to guard against injuries and violence ; and yet this nature or passion keeps not its bounds, but with just and profitable fears always mixes such as are vain and senseless ; so that all things, if we could see their insides, would appear full of panic terrors. Thus mankind, particularly the vulgar, labor under a high degree of superstition, which is nothing more than a panic-dread that principally reigns in unsettled and troublesome times. The presumption of Pan in challenging Cupid to the conflict, denotes that matter has an appetite and ten­ dency to a dissolution of the world, and falling back to its first chaos again, unless this depravity and inclination were restrained and subdued by a more �22 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. powerful concord and agreement of things, properly expressed by Love or Cupid ; it is therefore well for mankind, and the state of all things, that Pan was thrown and conquered in the struggle. His catching and detaining Typhon in the net receives a similar explanation ; for whatever vast and unusual swells, which the word typhon signifies, may sometimes be raised in nature, as in the sea, the clouds, the earth, or the like, yet nature catches, entangles, and holds all such outrages and insurrections in her inextricable net, wove as it were of adamant. That part of the fable w'hich attributes the discovery of lost Ceres to Pan whilst he was hunting—a happi­ ness denied the other gods, though they diligently and expressly sought her—contains an exceeding just and prudent admonition ; namely, that we are not to expect the discovery of things useful in common life, as that of corn, denoted by Ceres, from abstract philosophies, as if these were the gods of the first order,—no, not though we used our utmost endeavors this way,—but only from Pan, that is a sagacious experience and general knowledge- of nature, which is often found, even by accident, to stumble upon such discoveries whilst the pursuit was directed another way. The event of his contending with Apollo in music affords us a useful instruction, that may help to humble the human reason and judgment, which is too apt to boast and glory in itself. There seem to be two kinds of harmony—the one of Divine Providence, the othei’ of human reason ; but the government of the world, the administration of its affairs, and the more secret Divine judgments, sound harsh and dissonant to human ears or human judgment; and though this ignorance be justly rewarded with asses ears, yet they are put on and worn, not openly, but with great secrecy; nor is the deformity of the thing seen or observed by the vulgar. �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 23 We must not find it strange if no amors are related of Pan besides his marriage with Echo ; for nature enjoys itself, and in itself all other things. He that loves desires enjoyment, but in profusion there is no room for desire ; and therefore Pan, remaining content with himself, has no passion unless it be for discourse, which is well shadowed out by Echo or talk, or when it is more accurate, by Syrinx or writing. But Echo makes a most excellent wife for Pan, as being no other than genuine philosophy, which faithfully repeats his words, or only transcribes exactly as nature dictates ; thus representing the true image and reflection of the world without adding a tittle. It tends also to the support and perfection of Pan or nature to be without offspring ; for the world generates in its parts, and not in the way of a whole, as wanting a body external to itself wherewith to generate. Lastly, for the supposed or spurious prattling daughter of Pan, it is an excellent addition to the fable, and aptly represents the talkative philosophies that have at all times been stirring, and filled the word with idle tales, being ever barren, empty, and servile, though sometimes indeed diverting and entertaining, and sometimes again troublesome and importunate. VII.—PERSEUS : OR WAR. EXPLAINED OF THE PREPARATION AND CONDUCT NECESSARY TO WAR. “ The fable relates, that Perseus was despatched from the east by Pallas, to cut off Medusa’s head, who had committed great ravage upon the people of the west ; for this Medusa was so dire a monster as to turn into �24 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. stone all those who but looked upon her. She was a Gorgon, and the only mortal one of the three, the other two being invulnerable. Perseus, therefore, preparing himself for this grand enterprise, had presents made him from three of the g.ods : Mercury gave him wings for his heels ; Pluto, a helmet ; and Pallas, a shield and a mirror. But though he was now so well equipped, he posted not directly to Medusa, but first turned aside to the Grese, who were half-sisters to the Gorgons. These Greae were gray-headed, and like old women from their birth, having among them all three but one eye, and one tooth, which as they had occasion to go out, they each wore by turns, and laid them down again upon coming back. This eye and this tooth they lent to Perseus, who now judging himself sufficiently furnished, he, without further stop, flies swiftly away to Medusa, and finds her asleep. But not venturing his eyes, for fear she should wake, he turned his head aside, and viewed her in Pallas’s mirror; and thus directing his stroke, cut off her head; when im­ mediately, from the gushing blood, there darted Pegasus, winged. Perseus now inserted Medusa’s head into Pallas’s shield, which thence retained the faculty of astonishing and benumbing all who looked on it.” This fable seems invented to show the prudent method of choosing, undertaking, and conducting a war ; and, accordingly, lays down three useful precepts about it, as if they were the precepts of Pallas. (1) The first is, that no prince should be oversolicitous to subdue a neighboring nation ; for the method of enlarging the empire is very different from that of increasing an estate. Regard is justly had to contiguity, or adjacency, in private lands and posses­ sions ; but in the extending of empire, the occasion, the facility, and advantage of a war, are to be regarded instead of vicinity. It is certain that the Romans, at �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 25 the time they stretched but little beyond Liguria to the west, had by their arms subdued the provinces as far as Mount Taurus to the east. And thus Perseus readily undertook a very long expedition, even from the east to the extremities of the west. The second precept is, that the cause of the war be just and honorable ; for this adds alacrity both to the soldiers, and the people who find the supplies : pro­ cures aids, alliances, and numerous other conveniences. Now there is no cause of war more just and laudable than the suppressing of tyranny, by which a people are dispirited, benumbed, or left without life and vigor, as at the sight of Medusa. Lastly, it is prudently added, that as there were three of the Gorgons, who represent war, Perseus singled her out for his expedition that was mortal ; which affords this precept, that such kind of wars should be chose as may be brought to a conclusion, without pursuing vast and infinite hopes. Again, Perseus’s setting-out is extremely well adapted to his undertaking, and in a manner commands success ; he received despatch from Mercury, secrecy from Pluto, and foresight from Pallas. It also contains an excellent allegory, that the wings given him by Mercury were for his heels, not for his shoulders; because expedition is not so much required in the first preparations for war, as in the subsequent matters, that administer to the first; for there is no error more frequent in war, than, after brisk preparations, to halt for subsidiary forces and effective supplies. The allegory of Pluto’s helmet, rendering men invisible and secret, is sufficiently evident of itself ; but the mystery of the shield and the mirror lies deeper, and denotes, that not only a prudent caution must be had to defend, like the shield, but also such an address and penetration as may discover the strength, �26 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. the motions, the counsels, and designs of the enemy ; like the mirror of Pallas. But though Perseus may now seem extremely well prepared, there still remains the most important thing of all ; before he enters upon the war, he must of necessity consult the Grese. These Grese are treasons ; half, but degenerate sisters of the Gorgons ; who are representatives of wars : for wars are generous and noble ; but treasons base and vile. The Grese are elegantly described as hoary-headed, and like old women from their birth ; on account of the perpetual cares, fears, and trepidations attending traitors. Their force, also, before it breaks out into open revolt, con­ sists either in an eye or a tooth ; for all faction alienated from a state, is both watchful and biting ; and this eye and tooth are, as it were, common to all the disaffected ; because whatever they learn and know is transmitted from one to another, as by the hands of faction. And for the tooth, they all bite with the same ; and clamor with one throat; so that each of them singly expresses the multitude. These Grese, therefore, must be prevailed upon by Perseus to lend him their eye and their tooth; the eye to give him indications, and make discoveries; the tooth for sowing rumors, raising envy, and stirring up the minds of the people. And when all these things are thus disposed and prepared, then follows the action of the war. He finds Medusa asleep; for whoever undertakes a war with prudence, generally falls upon the enemy un­ prepared, and nearly in a state of security; and here is the occasion for Pallas’s mirror : for it is common enough, before the danger presents itself, to see exactly into the state and posture of the enemy; but the principal use of the glass is, in the very instant of danger, to discover the manner thereof, and prevent �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 27 consternation ; which, is the thing intended by Per­ seus’s turning his head aside, and viewing the enemy in the glass. Two effects here follow the conquest : 1. The darting forth of Pegasus; which evidently denotes fame, that flies abroad, proclaiming the victory far and near. 2. The bearing of Medusa’s head in the shield, which is the greatest possible defence and safeguard ; for one grand and memorable enterprise, happily accomplished, bridles all the motions and attempts of the enemy, stupifi.es disaffections, and quells commotions. VIII.—ENDYMION: OR A FAVORITE. EXPLAINED OE COURT FAVORITES. The goddess Luna is said to have fallen in love with the shepherd Endymion, and to have carried on her amours with him in a new and singular manner; it being her custom, whilst he lay reposing in his native cave, under Mount Latmus, to descend frequently from her sphere, enjoy his company whilst he slept, and then go up to heaven again. And all this while Endymion’s fortune was no way prejudiced by his unactive and sleepy life, the goddess causing his flocks to thrive, and grow so exceeding numerous, that none of the other shepherds could compare with him. Explanation.—This fable seems to describe the tempers and dispositions of princes, who, being thoughtful and suspicious, do not easily admit to their privacies such men as are prying, curious, and vigilant, or, as it were, sleepless; but rather such as are of an easy, obliging nature, and indulge them in their pleasures, without seeking anything farther; but �28 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. seeming ignorant, insensible, or, as it were, lulled asleep before them. Princes usually treat such persons familiarly ; and, quitting their throne dike Luna, think they may with safety unbosom to them. This temper was very remarkable in Tiberius, a prince exceeding difficult to please, and who had no favorites but those that perfectly understood his way, and, at the same time, obstinately dissembled their knowledge, almost to a degree of stupidity. The cave is not improperly mentioned in the fable ; it being a common thing for the favorites of a prince to have their pleasant retreats, whither to invite him, by way of relaxation, though without prejudice to their own fortunes ; these favorites usually making a good provision for themselves. I or though their prince should not, perhaps, promote them to dignities, yet, out of real affection, and not only for convenience, they generally feel the enriching influence of his bounty. IX.—THE SISTERS OF THE GIANTS: OR FAME. EXPLAINED OF PUBLIC DETRACTION. The poets relate, that the giants, produced from the earth, made war upon Jupiter, and the other gods, but were repulsed and conquered by thunder ; whereat the earth, provoked, brought forth Fame, the youngest sister of the giants, in revenge for the death of her sons. Explanation.—The meaning of the fable seems to be this : the earth denotes the nature of the vulgar who are always swelling, and rising against their rulers, �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. , 29 and endeavoring at changes. This disposition, getting a fit opportunity, breeds rebels and traitors, who, with impetuous rage, threaten and contrive the overthrow and destruction of princes. And when brought under and subdued, the same vile and restless nature of the people, impatient of peace, produces rumors, detractions, slanders, libels, etc., to blacken those in authority ; so that rebellious actions and seditious rumors, differ not in origin and stock, but only as it were in sex ; treasons and rebel­ lions being the brothers, and scandal or detraction the sister. X.—ACTEON AND PENTHEUS: OR A CURIOUS MAN. EXPLAINED OF CURIOSITY, OR PRYING INTO THE SECRETS OF PRINCES AND DIVINE MYSTERIES. The ancients afford us two examples for suppressing the impertinent curiosity of mankind, in diving into secrets, and imprudently longing and endeavoring to discover them. The one of these is in the person of Acteon, and the other in that of Pentheus. Acteon, undesignedly chancing to see Diana naked, was turned into a stag, and torn to pieces by his own hounds. And Pentheus, desiring to pry into the hidden mysteries of Bacchus’s sacrifice, and climbing a tree for that purpose, was struck with a phrensy. This phrensy of Pentheus caused him to see things double particularly the sun, and his own city Thebes, so that running homewards, and immediately espying another Thebes, he runs towards that; and thus continues incessantly tending first to the one, and then to the other, without coming at either. �30 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. Explanation. —The first of these fables may relate to the secrets of princes, and the second to divine mysteries. For they who are not intimate with a prince, yet against his will have a knowledge of his secrets, inevitably incur his displeasure ; and therefore, being aware that they are singled out, and all oppor­ tunities watched against them, they lead the life of a stag, full of fears and suspicions. It likewise fre­ quently happens that their servants and domestics accuse them, and plot their overthrow, in order to procure favor with the prince ; for whenever the king manifests his displeasure, the person it falls upon must expect his servants to betray him, and worry him down, as Acteon was worried by his own dogs. The punishment of Pentheus is of another kind ; for they who, unmindful of their mortal state, rashly aspire to divine mysteries, by climbing the heights of nature and philosophy, here represented by climbing a tree,—their fate is perpetual inconstancy, perplexity, and instability of judgment. For as there is one light of nature, and another light that is divine, they see, as it were, two suns. And as the actions of life, and the determinations of the will, depend upon the under­ standing, they are distracted as much in opinion as in will; and therefore judge very inconsistently, or con­ tradictorily ; and see, as it were, Thebes double ; for Thebes, being the refuge and habitation of Pentheus, here denotes the ends of actions : whence they know not what course to take, but remaining undetermined and unresolved in their views and designs, they are merely driven about by every sudden gust and impulse of the mind. �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 31 XI.—ORPHEUS : OR PHILOSOPHY. EXPLAINED OF NATURAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY, Introduction.—The fable of Orpheus, though trite and common, has never been well interpreted, and seems to hold out a picture of universal philosophy ; for to this sense may be easily transferred what is said of his being a wonderful and perfectly divine person, skilled in all kinds of harmony, subduing and drawing all things after him by sweet and gentle methods and modulations. For the labors of Orpheus exceed the labors of Hercules, both in power and dignity, as the works of knowledge exceed the works of strength. Fable.—Orpheus having his beloved wife snatched from him by sudden death, resolved upon descending to the infernal regions, to try if, by the power of his harp, he could re-obtain her. And, in effect, he so appeased and soothed the infernal powers by the melody and sweetness of his harp and voice, that they indulged him the liberty of taking her back, on con­ dition that she should follow him behind, and he not turn to look upon her till they came into open day ; but he, through the impatience of his care and affection, and thinking himself almost past danger, at length looked behind him, whereby the condition was violated, and she again precipitated to Pluto’s regions. From this time Orpheus grew pensive and sad, a hater of the sex, and went into solitude, where, by the same sweetness of his harp and voice, he first drew the wild beasts of all sorts about him ; so that, forgetting their natures, they were neither actuated by revenge, cruelty, lust, hunger, or the desire of prey, but stood gazing about him, in a tame and gentle manner, listen­ ing attentively to his music. Nay, so great was the power and efficacy of his harmony, that it even caused �32 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. the trees and stones to remove, and place themselves in a regular manner about him. When he had for a time, and with great admiration, continued to do this, at length the Thracian women, raised by the instigation of Bacchus, first blew a deep and hoarse-sounding horn, in such an outrageous manner, that it quite drowned the music of Orpheus. And thus the power which, as the link of their society, held all things in order, being dissolved, disturbance reigned anew; each creature returned to its own nature, and pursued and preyed upon its fellow, as before. The rocks and woods also started back to their former places ; and •even Orpheus himself was at last torn to pieces by these female furies, and his limbs scattered all over the desert. But, in sorrow and revenge for his death, the river Helicon, sacred to the Muses, hid its waters under ground, and rose again in other places. Explanation.—The fable receives this explanation. The music of Orpheus is of two kinds; one that appeases the infernal powers, and the other that draws together the wild beasts and trees. The former pro­ perly relates to natural, and the latter to moral philosophy, or civil society. The reinstatement and restoration of corruptible things is the noblest work of natural philosophy ; and, in a less degree, the preser­ vation of bodies in their own state, or a prevention of their dissolution and corruption. And if this be possible, it can certainly be effected no other way than by proper and exquisite attemperations of nature ; as it were by the harmony and fine touching of the harp. But as this is a thing of exceeding great difficulty, the end is seldom obtained ; and that, probably, for no reason more than a curious and unseasonable im­ patience and solicitude. And, therefore, philosophy, being almost unequal to the task, has cause to grow sad, and hence betakes �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 33 itself to human affairs, insinuating into men’s minds the love of virtue, equity, and peace, by means of eloquence and persuasion ; thus forming men into societies ; bringing them under laws and regulations ; and making them forget their unbridled passions and affections, so long as they hearken to precepts and submit to discipline. And thus they soon after build themselves habitations, form cities, cultivate lands, plant orchards, gardens, etc. So that they may not improperly be said to remove and call the trees and stones together. . And this regard to civil affairs is justly and regularly placed after diligent trial made for restoring the mortal body; the attempt being frustrated in the end— because the unavoidable necessity of death, thus evi­ dently laid before mankind, animates them to seek a kind of eternity by works of perpetuity, character, and fame. It is also prudently added, that Orpheus was after­ wards averse to women and wedlock, because the indulgence of a married state, and the natural affec­ tions which men have for their children, often prevent them from entering upon any grand, noble, or meri­ torious enterprise for the public good ; as thinking it sufficient to obtain immortality by their descendants, without endeavoring a.t great actions. And even the works of knowledge, though the most, excellent among human things, have their periods ; for after kingdoms and commonwealths have flourished for a time, disturbances, seditions, and wars, often arise, in the din whereof, first the laws are silent and not heard ; and then men return to their own depraved natures—whence cultivated lands and cities soon become desolate and waste. And if this disorder con­ tinues, learning and philosophy is infallibly torn to pieces ; so that only some scattered fragments thereof c �34 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. can afterwards be found up and down, in a few places, like planks after a shipwreck. And barbarous times succeeding, the river Helicon dips under-ground ; that is, letters are buried, till things having undergone their due course of changes, learning rises again, and shows its head, though seldom in the same place, but in some other nation. XII.—CCELUM : OR BEGINNINGS. EXPLAINED OF THE CREATION, OR ORIGIN OF ALL THINGS. The poets relate, that Coelum was the most ancient of all the gods ; that his parts of generation were cut off by his son Saturn; that Saturn had a numerous offspring, but devoured all his sons, as soon as they were born ; that Jupiter at length escaped the common fate; and when grown up, drove his father Saturn into Tartarus ; usurped the kingdom; cut off his father’s genitals, with the same knife wherewith Saturn had dismembered Ccelum, and throwing them into the sea, thence sprung Venus. Before Jupiter was well established in his empire, two memorable wars were made upon him : the first by the Titans, in subduing of whom Sol, the only one of the Titans who favored Jupiter, performed him singular service ; the second by the giants, who being destroyed and subdued by the thunder and arms of Jupiter, he now reigned secure. Explanation.—This fable appears to be an enigmati­ cal account of the origin of all things, not greatly differing from the philosophy afterwards embraced by Democritus, who expressly asserts the eternity of matter, but denies the eternity of the world ; thereby �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 35 approaching to the truth of sacred writ, which makes chaos, or uninformed matter, to exist before the six days’ works. The meaning of the fable seems to be this : Ccelum denotes the concave space, or vaulted roof that incloses all matter, and Saturn the matter itself, which cuts off all power of generation from his father ; as one and the same quantity of matter remains invariable in nature, without addition or diminution. But the agitations and struggling motions of matter first pro­ duced certain imperfect and ill-joined compositions of things, as it were so many first rudiments, or essays of worlds ; till, in process of time, there arose a fabric capable of preserving its form and structure. Whence the first age was shadowed out by the reign of Saturn ; who, on account of the frequent dissolutions, and short durations of things, was said to devour his children. And the second age was denoted by the reign of Jupiter ; who thrust, or drove those frequent and transitory changes into Tartarus—a place expres­ sive of disorder. This place seems to be in the middle space, between the lower heavens and the internal parts of the earth, wherein disorder, imperfection, mutation, mortality, destruction, and corruption, are principally found. Venus was not born during the former generation of things, under the reign of Saturn ; for whilst discord and jar had the upper hand of concord and uniformity in the matter of the universe, a change of the entire structure was necessary. And in this manner things were generated and destroyed, before Saturn was dis­ membered. But when this manner of generation ceased, there immediately followed another, brought about by Venus, or a perfect and established harmony of things ; whereby changes were wrought in the parts, whilst the universal fabric remained entire and �36 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. undisturbed. Saturn, however, is said to be thrust out and dethroned, not killed, and become extinct ; because, agreeably to the opinion of Democritus, the world might relapse into its old confusion and dis­ order, which Lucretius hoped would not happen in his time. But now, when the world was compact, and held together by its own bulk and energy, yet there was no rest from the beginning ; for first, there followed con­ siderable motions and disturbances in the celestial regions, though so regulated and moderated by the power of the Sun, prevailing over the heavenly bodies, as to continue the world in its state. Afterwards there followed the like in the lower parts, by inundations, storms, winds, general earthquakes, etc., which, how­ ever, being subdued and kept under, there ensued a more peaceable and lasting harmony, and consent of things. It may be said of this fable, that it includes philo­ sophy ; and again, that philosophy includes the fable ; for we know, by faith, that all these things are but the oracle of sense, long since ceased and decayed ; but the matter and fabric of the world being justly attributed to a creator. XIII.—PROTEUS : OR MATTER. EXPLAINED OP MATTER AND ITS CHANGES. Proteus, according to the poets, was Neptune’s herds­ man ; an old man, and a most extraordinary prophet, who understood things past and present, as well as future : so that besides the business of divination, he was the revealer and interpreter of all antiquity, and �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 37 secrets of every kind. He lived in a vast cave, where his custom was to tell over his herd of sea-calves at noon, and then to sleep. Whoever consulted him had no other way of obtaining an answer but by binding him with manacles and fetters ; when he, endeavoring to free himself, would change into all kinds of shapes and miraculous forms; as of fire, water, wild beasts, etc.; till at length he resumed his own shape again. Explanation. —This fable seems to point at the secrets of nature, and the states of matter. For the person of Proteus denotes matter, the oldest of all things, after God himself ; that resides, as in a cave, under the vast concavity of the heavens. He is repre­ sented as the servant of Neptune, because the various operations and modifications of matter are principally wrought in a fluid state. The herd, or flock of Proteus, seems to be no other than the several kinds of animals, plants, and minerals, in which matter appears to diffuse and spend itself; so that after having formed these several species, and as it were finished its task, it seems to sleep and repose, without otherwise attempting to produce any new ones. And this is the moral of Proteus’s counting his herd, then going to sleep. This is said to be done at noon, not in the morning or evening ; by which is meant the time best fitted and disposed for the production of species, from a matter duly prepared, and made ready beforehand, and now lying in a middle state, between its first rudiments and decline ; which, we learn from sacred history, was the case at the time of the creation ; when, by the efficacy of the divine command, matter directly came together, without any transformation or intermediate changes, which it affects ; instantly obeyed the order, and appeared in the form of creatures. And thus far the fable reaches of Proteus, and his flock, at liberty and unrestrained. For the universe5 �38 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. with the common structures and fabrics of the creatures, is the face of matter, not under constraint, or as the flock wrought upon and tortured by human means. But if any skilful minister of nature shall apply force to matter, and by design torture and vex it, in order to its annihilation, it, on the contrary, being brought under this necessity, changes and transforms itself into a strange variety of shapes and appearances; for nothing but the power of the Creator can annihilate, or truly destroy it ; so that at length, running through the whole circle of transformations, and completing its period, it in some degree restores itself, if the force be continued. And that method of binding, torturing, or detaining, will prove the most effectual and expeditious, which makes use of manacles and fetters ; that is, lays hold and works upon matter in the extremest degrees. The addition in the fable that makes Proteus a prophet, who had the knowledge of things past, present, and future, excellently agrees with the nature of matter; as he who knows the properties, the changes, and the processes of matter, must of necessity understand the effects and sum of what it does, has done, or can do, though his knowledge extends not to all the parts and particulars thereof. XIV.—MEMNON: OR A YOUTH TOO FORWARD. EXPLAINED OF THE FATAL PRECIPITANCY OF YOUTH. The poets made Memnon the son of Aurora, and bring him to the Trojan war in beautiful armor, and flushed with popular praise; where, thirsting after farther glory, and rashly hurrying on to the greatest enterprises, he engages the bravest warrior of all the �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 39 Greeks, Achilles, and falls by his hand in single combat. Jupiter, in commisseration of his death, sent birds to grace his funeral, that perpetually chanted certain mournful and bewailing dirges. It is also reported, that the rays of the rising sun, striking his statue, used to give a lamenting sound. Explanation. —This fable regards the unfortunate end of those promising youths, who, like sons of the morning, elate with empty hopes and glittering out­ sides, attempt things beyond their strength : challenge the bravest heroes ; provoke them to the combat; and proving unequal, die in their high attempts. The death of such youths seldom fails to meet with infinite pity; as no mortal calamity is more moving and afflicting, than to see the flower of virtue cropped before its time. Nay, the prime of life enjoyed to the full, or even to a degree of envy, does not assuage or moderate the grief occasioned by the untimely death of such hopeful youths ; but lamentations and bewailings fly, like mournful birds, about their tombs, for a long while after; especially upon all fresh occasions, new commotions, and the beginning of great actions, the passionate desire of them is renewed, as by the sun’s morning rays. XV.—TYTHONUS : OR SATIETY. EXPLAINED OF PREDOMINANT PASSIONS. It is elegantly fabled by Tythonus, that being exceed­ ingly beloved by Aurora, she petitioned Jupiter that he might prove immortal, thereby to secure herself the everlasting enjoyment of his company; but through female inadvertence she forgot to add, that he might �40 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. never grow old ; so that, though he proved immortal, he became miserably worn and consumed with age, insomuch that Jupiter, out of pity, at length trans­ formed him to a grasshopper. Explanation.—This fable seems to contain an ingenious description of pleasure ; which at first, as it were, in the morning of the day, is so welcome, that men pray to have it everlasting, but forget that satiety and weariness of it will, like old age, overtake them, though they think not of it; so that at length, when their appetite for pleasurable actions is gone, their desires and affections often continue; whence we commonly find that aged persons delight themselves with the discourse and remembrance of the things agreeable to them in their better days. This is very remarkable in men of a loose, and men of a military life ; the former whereof are always talking over their amours, and the latter the exploits of their youth ; like grasshoppers, that show their vigor only by their chirping. XVI.—JUNO’S SUITOR : OR BASENESS. EXPLAINED OF SUBMISSION AND ABJECTION. The poets tell us, that Jupiter, to carry on his love intrigues, assumed many different shapes ; as of a bull, an eagle, a swan, a golden shower, etc.; but when he attempted Juno, he turned himself into the most ignoble and ridiculous creature—even that of a wretched, wet, weather-beaten, affrighted, trembling, and half-starved cuckoo. Explanation.—This a wise fable, and drawn from the very entrails of morality. The moral is, that men should not be conceited of themselves, and imagine �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 41 that a discovery of their excellences will always render them acceptable; for this can only succeed according to the nature and manners of the person they court, or solicit ; who, if he be a man not of the same gifts and endowments, but altogether of a haughty and con­ temptuous behavior, here represented by the person of Juno, they must entirely drop the character that carries the least show of worth, or gracefulness ; if they pro­ ceed upon any other footing, it is downright folly ; nor is it sufficient to act the deformity of obsequiousness, unless they really change themselves, and become abject and contemptible in their persons. XVII.—CUPID : OR AN ATOM. EXPLAINED OF THE CORPUSCULAR PHILOSOPHY. The particulars related by the poets of Cupid, or Love, do not properly agree to the same person ; yet they differ only so far, that if the confusion of persons be rejected, the correspondence may hold. They say, that Love was the most ancient of all the gods, and existed before everything else, except Chaos, which is held coeval therewith. But for Chaos, the ancients never paid divine honors, nor gave the title of a god thereto. Love is represented absolutely without pro­ genitor, excepting only that he is said to have proceeded from the egg of Nox ; but that himself begot the gods, and all things else, on Chaos. His attributes are four, viz.—1, perpetual infancy ; 2, blindness ; 3, nakedness; and 4, archery. There was also another Cupid, or Love, the youngest son of the gods, born of Venus; and upon him the attributes of the elder are transferred, with some degree of correspondence. �42 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. Explanation.—This fable points at, and enters, the cradle of nature. Love seems to be the appetite, or incentive, of the primitive matter ; or, to speak more distinctly, the natural motion, or moving principle, of the original corpuscles, or atoms; this being the most ancient and only power that made and wrought all things out of matter. It is absolutely without parent, that is, without cause : for causes are as parents to effects ; but this power or efficacy could have no natural cause ; for, excepting God, nothing was before it; and therefore it could have no efficient in nature. And as nothing is more inward with nature, it can neither be a genus nor a form; and therefore, whatever it is, it must be somewhat positive, though inexpressible. And if it were possible to conceive its modus and pro­ cess. yet it could not be known from its cause, as being, next to God, the cause of causes, and itself without a cause. And perhaps we are not to hope that the modus of it should fall, or be comprehended, under human inquiry. Whence it is properly feigned to be the egg of Nox, or laid in the dark. The divine philosopher declares, that “ God has made everything beautiful in its season ; and has given ■over the world to our disputes and inquiries : but that man cannot find out the work which God has wrought, from its beginning up to its end.” Thus the summary or collective law of nature, or the principle of love, impressed by God upon the original particles of all things, so as to make them attack each other and come together, by the repetition and multiplication whereof •all the variety in the universe is produced, can scarce possibly find full admittance into the thoughts of men, though some faint notion may be had thereof. The Greek philosophy is subtile, and busied in discovering the material principles of things, but negligent and languid in discovering the principles of motion, in �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 43 ■which the energy and efficacy of every operation consists. And here the Greek philosophers seem per­ fectly blind and childish ; for the opinion of the Peri­ patetics, as to the stimulus of matter, by privation, is little more than words, or rather sound than significa­ tion. And they who refer it to God, though they do well therein, yet they do it by a start, and not by proper degrees of assent; for doubtless there is one summary, or capital law, in which nature meets, subordinate to God, viz., the law mentioned in the passage above quoted from Solomon; or the work which God has wrought from its *beginning up to its end. Democritus, who farther considered this subject, having first supposed an atom, or corpuscle, of some dimension or figure, attributed thereto an appetite, desire, or first motion simply, and another compara­ tively, imagining that all things properly tended to the centre of the world; those containing more matter falling faster to the centre, and thereby removing, and in the shock driving away, such as held less. But this is a slender conceit, and regards too few particulars; for neither the revolutions of the e celestial bodies, nor the contractions and expansions of things, can be reduced to this principle. And for the opinion of Epicurus, as to the declination and fortuitous agitation of atoms, this only brings the matter back again to a trifle, and wraps it up in ignorance and night. Cupid is elegantly drawn a perpetual child ; for com­ pounds are larger things, and have their periods of age; but the first seeds or atoms of bodies are small, and remain in a perpetual infant state. He is again justly represented naked; as all com­ pounds may properly be said to be dressed and clothed, or to assume a personage ; whence nothing remains truly naked, but the original particles of things. �44 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. The blindness of Cupid, contains a deep allegory ; for this same Cupid, Love, or appetite of the world, seems to have very little foresight, but directs his steps and motions conformably to what he finds next him, as blind men do when they feel out their way; which renders the divine and over-ruling Providence and foresight the more surprising ; as by a certain steady law, it brings such a beautiful order and regularity of things out of what seems extremely casual, void of design, and, as it were, really blind. The last attribute of Cupid is archery, viz., a virtue or power operating at a distance ; for everything that operates at a distance, may seem, as it were, to dart, or Shoot with arrows. And whoever allows of atoms and vacuity, necessarily supposes that the virtue of atoms operates at a distance ; for without this operation, no motion could be excited, on account of the vacuum interposing, but all things would remain sluggish and unmoved. As to the other Cupid, he is properly said to be the youngest sons of the gods, as his power could not take place before the formation of species, or particular bodies. The description given us of him transfers the allegory to morality, though he still retains some resemblance with the ancient Cupid ; for as Venus universally excites the affection of association, and the desire of procreation, her son Cupid applies the affec­ tion to individuals ; so that the general disposition proceeds from Venus, but the more close sympathy from Cupid. The former depends upon a near approxi­ mation of causes, but the latter upon deeper, more necessitating and uncontrollable principles, as if they proceeded from the ancient Cupid, on whom all exquisite sympathies depend. �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 45 XVIII.—DIOMED : OR ZEAL. EXPLAINED OE PERSECUTION, OR ZEAL FOR RELIGION. Diomed acquired great glory and honor at the Trojan war, and was highly favored by Pallas, who encouraged and excited him by no means to spare Venus, if he should casually meet her in fight. He followed the advice with too much eagerness and intrepidity, and accordingly wounded that goddess in her hand. This presumptuous action remained unpunished for a time, and when the war was ended he returned with great glory and renown to his own country, where, finding himself embroiled with domestic affairs, he retired into Italy. Here also at first he was well received and nobly entertained by King Daunus, who, besides other gifts and honors, erected statues for him over all his dominions. But upon the first calamity that afflicted the people after the stranger’s arrival, Daunus imme­ diately reflected that he entertained a devoted person in his palace, an enemy to the gods, and one who had sacrilegiously wounded a goddess with his sword, whom it was impious but to touch. To expiate, there­ fore, his country’s guilt, he, without regard to the laws of hospitality, which were less regarded by him than the laws of religion, directly slew his guest, and com­ manded his statues and all his honors to be razed and abolished. Nor was it safe for others to commiserate or bewail so cruel a destiny ; but even his companions in arms, whilst they lamented the death of their leader, and filled all places with their complaints, were turned into a kind of swans, which are said, at the approach of their own death, to chant sweet melancholy dirges. Explanation.—This fable intimates an extraordinary and almost singular thing, for no hero besides Diomed is recorded to have wounded any of the gods. Doubt­ less we have here described the nature and fate of a �46 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. man who professedly makes any divine worship or sect of religion, though in itself vain and light, the only scope of his actions, and resolves to propagate it by fire and sword. For although the bloody dissen­ sions and differences about religion were unknown to the ancients, yet so copious and diffusive was their knowledge, that what they knew not by experience they comprehended in thought and representation. Those, therefore, who endeavor to reform or establish any sect of religion, though vain, corrupt, or infamous (which is here denoted under the person of Venus), not by the force of reason, learning, sanctity of man­ ners, the weight of arguments, and examples, but would spread or extirpate it by persecution, pains, penalties, tortures, fire and sword, may perhaps be instigated hereto by Pallas, that is, by a certain rigid, prudential consideration, and a severity of judgment, by the vigor and efficacy wffiereof they see thoroughly into the fallacies and fictions of the delusions of this kind; and through aversion to depravity and a wellmeant zeal, these men usually for a time acquire great fame and glory, and are by the vulgar, to whom no moderate measures can be acceptable, extolled and almost adored, as the only patrons and protectors of truth and religion, men of any other disposition seem­ ing, in comparison with these, to be lukewarm, meanspirited, and cowardly. This fame and felicity, how­ ever, seldom endures to the end ; but all violence, unless it escapes the reverses and changes of things by untimely death, is commonly unprosperous in the issue ; and if a change of affairs happens, and that sect of religion which was persecuted and oppressed gains strength and rises again, then the zeal and warm endeavors of this sort of men are condemned, their very name becomes odious, and all their honors ter­ minate in disgrace. �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 4:7 As to the point that Diomed. should be slain by his hospitable entertainer, this denotes that religious dis­ sensions may cause treachery, bloody animosities, and deceit, even between the nearest friends. That complaining or bewailing should not, in so enormous a case, be permitted to friends affected by the catastrophe without punishment, includes this prudent admonition, that almost in all kinds of wicked­ ness and depravity men have still room left for com­ miseration, so that they who hate the crime may yet pity the person and bewail his calamity, from a principle of humanity and good nature ; and to forbid the overflowings and intercourses of pity upon such occasions were the extremest of evils ; yet in the cause of religion and impiety the very commiserations of men are noted and suspected. On the other hand, the lamentations and complainings of the followers and attendants of Diomed, that is, of men of the same sect or persuasion, are usually very sweet, agreeable, and moving, like the dying notes of swans, or the birds of Diomed. This is also a noble and remarkable part of the allegory, denoting that the last words of those who suffer for the sake of religion strongly affect and sway men’s minds, and leave a lasting impression upon the sense and memory. XIX.—DAEDALUS : OR MECHANICAL SKILL. EXPLAINED OF ARTS AND ARTISTS IN KINGDOMS AND STATES. • The ancients have left us a description of mechanical skill, industry, and curious arts converted to ill uses, in the person of Daedalus, a most ingenious but execrable artist. This Daedalus was banished for the �48 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. murder of his brother artist and rival, yet found a kind reception in his banishment from the kings and states where he came. He raised many incomparable edifices to the honor of the gods, and invented many new con­ trivances for the beautifying and ennobling of cities and public places, but still he was most famous for wicked inventions. Among the rest, by his abominable industry and destructive genius, he assisted in the fatal and infamous production of the monster Minotaur, that devourer of promising youths. And then, to cover one mischief with another, and provide for the security of this monster, he invented and built a labyrinth ; a work infamous for its end and design? but admirable and prodigious for art and workmanship. After this, that he might not only be celebrated for wicked inventions, but be sought after, as well for prevention, as for instruments of mischief, he formed that ingenious device of his clue, which led directly through all the windings of the labyrinth. This Daedalus was persecuted by Minos with the utmost severity, diligence, and inquiry ; but he always found refuge and means of escaping. Lastly, endeavoring to teach his son Icarus the art of flying, the novice, trusting too much to his wings, fell from his towering flight, and was drowned in the sea. Explanation.—The sense of the fable runs thus. It first denotes envy, which is continually upon the watch, and strangely prevails among excellent artificers; for no kind of people are observed to be more im­ placably and destructively envious to one another than these. In the next place, it observes an impolitic and im­ provident kind of punishment inflicted upon Daedalus —that of banishment; for good workmen are gladly received everywhere, so that banishment to an excellent artificer is scarce any punishment at all; whereas other �49 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. conditions of life cannot easily flourish from home. For the admiration of artists is propagated and increased among foreigners and strangers ; it being a principle in the minds of men to slight and despise the mechani­ cal operators of their own nation. The succeeding part of the fable is plain, concerning the use of mechanical arts, whereto human life stands greatly indebted, as receiving from this treasury numerous particulars for the service of religion, the ornament of civil society, and the whole provision and apparatus of life; but then the same magazine supplies instruments of lust, cruelty, and death. For, not to mention the arts of luxury and debauchery, we plainly see how far the business of exquisite poisons, guns, engines of war, and such kind of destructive inven­ tions, exceeds the cruelty and barbarity of the Minotaur himself. The addition of the labyrinth contains a beautiful allegory, representing the nature of mechanic arts in general ; for all ingenious and accurate mechanical inventions may be conceived as a labyrinth, which, by reason of their subtilty, intricacy, crossing, and inter­ fering with one another, and the apparent resemblances they have among themselves, scarce any power of the judgment can unravel and distinguish ; so that they are only to be understood and traced by the clue of experience. It is no less prudently added, that he who invented the windings of the labyrinth, should also show the use and management of the clue ; for mechanical arts have an ambiguous or double use, and serve as well to produce as to prevent mischief and destruction ; so that their virtue almost destroys or unwinds itself. Unlawful arts, and indeed frequently arts themselves, are persecuted by Minos, that is, by laws, which pro­ hibit and forbid their use among the people ; but D �50 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. notwithstanding this, they are hid, concealed, retained, and everywhere find reception and sknlking-places ; a thing well observed by Tacitus of the astrologers and fortune-tellers of his time. “ These,” says he, “ are a kind of men that will always be prohibited, and yet will always be retained in our city.” But lastly, all unlawful and vain arts, of what kind soever, lose their reputation in tract of time; grow contemptible and perish, through their over-confidence, like Icarus ; being commonly unable to perform what they boasted. And to say the truth, such arts are better suppressed by their own vain pretensions, than checked or restrained by the bridle of laws. XX.—ERICTHONIUS : OR IMPOSTURE. EXPLAINED OF THE IMPROPER USE OF FORCE IN NATURAL (PHILOSOPHY. The poets feign that Vulcan attempted the chastity of Minerva, and impatient of refusal, had recourse to force; the consequence of which was the birth of Ericthonius, whose body from the middle upwards was comely and well-proportioned, but his thighs and legs small, shrunk, and deformed, like an eel. Conscious of this defect, he became the inventor of chariots, so as to show the graceful, but conceal the deformed part of his body. Explanation.—This strange fable seems to carry this meaning. Art is here represented] under the person of Vulcan, by reason of the various uses it makes of fire ; and nature under the person of Minerva, by reason of the industry employed in her works. Art, therefore, whenever it offers violence to nature, in order to conquer, subdue, and bend her to its purpose, by �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 51 tortures and force of all kinds, seldom obtains the end proposed ; yet upon great struggle and application, there proceed certain imperfect births, or lame abortive works, specious in appearance, but weak and unstable in usd ; which are, nevertheless, with great pomp and deceitful appearances, triumphantly carried about and shown by impostors. A procedure very familiar, and remarkable in chemical productions, and new mecha­ nical inventions ; especially when the inventors rather hug their errors than improve upon them, and go on struggling with nature, not courting her. XXI.—DEUCALION : OR RESTITUTION. EXPLAINED OF A USEFUL HINT IN NATURAL PHILOSOPHY The poets tell us that the inhabitants of the old world being totally destroyed by the universal deluge, excepting Deucalion and Pyrrha, these two, desiring with zealous and fervent devotion to restore mankind, received this oracle for answer, that “ they should succeed by throwing their mother’s bones behind them.” This at first cast them into great sorrow and despair, because, as all things were levelled by the deluge, it was in vain to seek their mother’s tomb ; but at length they understood the expression of the oracle to signify the stones of the earth, which is esteemed the mother of all things. Explanation. —This fable seems to reveal a secret of nature, and correct an error familiar to the mind; for men’s ignorance leads them to expect the renovation or restoration of things from their corruption and remains, as the phoenix is said to be restored out of its ashes ; which is a very improper procedure, because such kind �52 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. of materials have finished their course, and are become absolutely unfit to supply the first rudiments of the same things again; whence, in cases of renovation, recourse should be had to more common principles. XXII.—NEMESIS : OR THE VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. EXPLAINED OF THE REVERSES OF FORTUNE. Nemesis is represented as a goddess venerated by all, but feared by the powerful and the fortunate. She is said to be the daughter of Nox and Oceanus. She is drawn with wings, and a crown ; a javelin of ash in her right hand ; a glass containing Ethiopians in her left; and riding upon a stag. Explanation.—The fable receives this explanation. The word Nemesis manifestly signifies revenge, or retribution ; for the office of this goddess consisted in interposing, like the Roman tribunes, with an “ I forbid it,” in all courses of constant and perpetual felicity, so as not only to chastise haughtiness, but also to repay oven innocent and moderate happiness with adversity ; as if it were decreed, that none of human race should be admitted to the banquet of the gods, but for sport. And, indeed, to read over that chapter of Pliny wherein he has collected the miseries and misfortunes of Augustus Cassar, whom of all mankind one would judge most fortunate,—as he had a certain art of using and enjoying prosperity, with a mind no way tumid, light, effeminate, confused, or melancholic,—one cannot but think this a very great and powerful goddess, who could bring such a victim to her altar. The parents of this goddess were Oceanus and Nox ; that is, the fluctuating change of things, and the obscure �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 53 and secret divine decrees. The changes of things are aptly represented by the Ocean, on account of its perpetual ebbing and flowing ; and secret providence is justly expressed by Night. Even the heathenshave observed this secret Nemesis of the night, or the difference betwixt divine and human judgment. Wings are given to Nemesis, because of the sudden and unforeseen changes of things ; for, from the earliest account of time, it has been common for great and prudent men to fall by the dangers they most despised. Thus Cicero, when admonished by Brutus of the infidelity and rancor of Octavius, coolly wrote back, 111 cannot, however, but be obliged to you, Brutus, as I ought, for informing me, though of such a trifle.” Nemesis also has her crown, by reason of the invi­ dious and malignant nature of the vulgar, who generally rejoice, triumph, and crown her, at the fall of the fortunate and the powerful. And the javelin in her right hand, it has regard to those whom she has actually struck and transfixed. But whoever escapes her stroke, or feels not actual calamity or misfortune, she affrights with a black and dismal sight in her left hand ; for doubtless, mortals on the highest pinnacle of felicity have a prospect of death, diseases, calamities, perfidious friends, undermining enemies, reverses of fortune, etc., represented by the Ethiopians in her glass. Thus Virgil, with great elegance, describing the battle of Actium, says of Cleopatra, that, “ she did not yet perceive the two asps behind her ” ; but soon after, which way soever she turned, she saw whole troops of Ethiopians still before her. Lastly, it is significantly added, that Nemesis rides upon a stag, which is a very long-lived creature ; for though perhaps some, by an untimely death in youth, may prevent or escape this goddess, yet they who enjoy a long flow of happiness and power, doubtless �54 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. become subject to her at length, and are brought to yield. XXIII.—ACHELOUS : OR BATTLE. EXPLAINED OF WAR BY INVASION. The ancients relate, that Hercules and Achelous being rivals in the courtship of Deianira, the matter was contested by single combat; when Achelous having transformed himself, as he had power to do, into various shapes, by way of trial; at length, in the form of a fierce wild bull, prepares himself for the fight; but Hercules still retains his human shape, engages sharply with him, and in the issue broke off one of the bull’s horns ; and now Achelous, in great pain and fright, to redeem his horn, presents Hercules with the cornucopia. Explanation.—This fable relates to military expedi­ tions and preparations ; for the preparation of war on the defensive side, here denoted by Achelous, appears in various shapes, whilst the invading side has but one simple form, consisting either in an army, or perhaps a fleet. But the country that expects the invasion is employed infinite ways, in fortifying towns, blockading passes, rivers, and ports, raising soldiers, disposing garrisons, building and breaking down bridges, pro­ curing aids, securing provisions, arms, ammunition, etc. So that there appears a new face of things every day ; and at length, when the country is sufficiently fortified and prepared, it represents to the life the form and threats of a fierce fighting bull. On the other side, the invader presses on to the fight, fearing to be distressed in an enemy’s country. And if after the battle he remains master of the field, and has now broke, as it were, the horn of his enemy, the �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 55 besieged, of course, retire inglorious, affrighted, and dismayed, to their stronghold, there endeavoring to secure themselves, and repair their strength ; leaving, at the same time, their country a prey to the conqueror, which is well expressed by the Amalthean horn, or cornucopia. XXIV.—DIONYSUS : OR BACCHUS. EXPLAINED OF THE PASSIONS. The fable runs, that Semele, Jupiter’s mistress, having bound him by an inviolable oath to grant her an unknown request, desired he would embrace her in the same form and manner he used to embrace Juno ; and the promise being irrevocable, she was burnt to death with lightning in the performance. The embry however, was sewed up, and carried in Jupiter’s thigh till the complete time of its birth ; but the burthen, thus rendering the father lame, and causing him pain, the child was thence called Dionysus. When born, he was committed for some years, to be nursed by Pros­ erpina ; and when grown up, appeared with so effe­ minate a face, that his sex seemed somewhat doubtful. He also died, and was buried for a time, but afterwards revived. When a youth, he first introduced the culti­ vation and dressing of vines, the method of preparing wine, and taught the use thereof ; whence becoming famous, he subdued the world, even to the utmost bounds of the Indies. He rode in a chariot drawn by tigers. There danced about him certain deformed demons called Cobali, etc. The Muses also joined in his train. He married Ariadne, who was deserted by Theseus. The ivy was sacred to him. He was also held the inventor and institutor of religious rites and ceremonies, but such as were wild, frantic and full of �56 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. corruption and cruelty. He had also the power of striking men with frenzies. Pentheus and Orpheus were torn to pieces by the frantic women at his orgies ; the first for climbing a tree to behold their outrageous ceremonies, and the other for the music of his harp. But the acts of this god are much entangled and con­ founded with those of Jupiter. Explanation.—This fable seems to contain a little system of morality, so that there is scarce any better invention in all ethics. Under the history of Bacchus is drawn the nature of unlawful desire or affection, and disorder; for the appetite and thirst of apparent good is the mother of all unlawful desire, though ever so destructive, and all unlawful desires are conceived in unlawful wishes or requests, rashly indulged or granted before they are well understood or considered, and when the affection begins to grow warm, the mother of it (the nature of good) is destroyed and burnt up by the heat. And whilst an unlawful desire lies in the embryo, or unripened in the mind, which is its father, and here represented by Jupiter, it is cherished and concealed, especially in the inferior part of the mind, corresponding to the thigh of the body, where pain twitches and depresses the mind so far as to render its resolutions and actions imperfect and lame. And even after this child of the mind is con­ firmed, and gains strength by consent and habit, and comes forth into action, it must still be nursed by Proserpina for a time; that is, it skulks and hides its head in a clandestine manner, as it were under ground, till at length, when the checks of shame and fear are removed, and the requisite boldness acquired, it either assumes the pretext of some virtue, or openly despises infamy. And it is justly observed, that every vehement passion appears of a doubtful sex, as having the strength of a man at first, but at last the impotence of a woman. �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 57 It is also excellently added, that Bacchus died and rose again ; for the affections sometimes seem to die and beno more ; but there is no trusting them, even though they were buried, being always apt and ready to rise again whenever the occasion or object offers. That Bacchus should be the inventor of wine carries a fine allegory with it; for every affection is cunning and subtile in discovering a proper manner to nourish and feed it; and of all things known to mortals, wine is the most powerful and effectual for exciting and inflaming passions of all kinds, being indeed like a. common fuel to all. It is again with great elegance observed of Bacchus,, that he subdued provinces, and undertook endless expeditions, for the affections never rest satisfied with what they enjoy, but with an endless and insatiable appetite, thirst after something further. And tigers are prettily feigned to draw the chariot; for as soon as. any affection shall, from going on foot, be advanced to ride, it triumphs over reason, and exerts its cruelty,, fierceness, and strength against all that oppose it. It is also humorously imagined, that ridiculous demons dance and frisk about this chariot; for every passion produces indecent, disorderly, interchangeable, deformed motions in the eyes, countenance, and gesture, so that the person under the impulse, whether of anger, insult, love, etc., though to himself, he may seen grand, lofty, or obliging, yet in the eyes of others appears mean, contemptible, or ridiculous. The Muses also are found in the train of Bacchus,, for there is scarce any passion without its art, science,, or doctrine to court and flatter it ; but in this respect the indulgence of men of genius has greatly detracted from the majesty of the Muses, who ought to be the leaders and conductors of human life, and not the handmaids of the passions. �58 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. The allegory of Bacchus falling in love with a cast mistress, is extremely noble ; for it is certain that the affections always court and covet what has been rejected upon experience. And all those who by serving and indulging their passions immensely raise the value of enjoyment, should know, that whatever they covet and pursue, whether riches, pleasure, glory, learning, or anything else, they only pursue those things that have been forsaken and cast off with contempt by great numbers in all ages, after possession and experience. Nor is it without a mystery that the ivy was sacred to Bacchus, and this for two reasons : first, because ivy is an evergreen, or flourishes in the winter; and secondly, because it winds and creeps about so many things, as trees, walls, and buildings, and raises itself above them. As to the first, every passion grows fresh, strong, and vigorous by opposition and prohibition, as it were by a kind of contrast or antiperistasis, like the ivy in the winter. And for the second, the predominant passion of the mind throws itself, like the ivy, round all human actions, entwines all our resolutions, and perpetually adheres to, and mixes itself among, or even overtops them. And no wonder that superstitious rites and cere­ monies are attributed to Bacchus, when almost every ungovernable passion grows wanton and luxuriant in corrupt religions ; nor again, that fury and frenzy should be sent and dealt out by him, because every passion is a short frenzy, and if it be vehement, lasting, and take deep root, it terminates in madness. And hence the allegory of Pentheus and Orpheus being torn to pieces is evident ; for every headstrong passion is extremely bitter, severe, inveterate, and revengeful upon all curious inquiry, wholesome admonition, free counsel and persuasion. Lastly, the confusion between the persons of Jupiter �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 59 and Bacchus will justly admit of an allegory, because noble and meritorious actions may sometimes proceed from virtue, sound reason, and magnanimity, and sometimes again from a concealed passion and secret desire of ill, however they may be extolled and praised, insomuch that it is not easy to distinguish betwixt the acts of Bacchus and the acts of Jupiter. XXV.—ATALANTA AND HIPPOMENES : OR GAIN. EXPLAINED OF THE CONTEST BETWIXT ART AND NATURE. Atalanta, who was exceeding fleet, contended with Hippomenes in the course, on condition that if Hippomenes won, he should espouse her, or forfeit his life if he lost. The match was very unequal, for Atalanta had conquered numbers, to their destruction. Hippo­ menes, therefore, had recourse to stratagem. He procured three golden apples, and purposely carried them with him : they started ; Atalanta outstripped him soon ; then Hippomenes bowled one of his apples before her, across the course, in order not only to make her stoop, but to draw her out of the path. She, prompted by female curiosity, and the beauty of the golden fruit, starts from the course to take up the apple. Hippomenes, in the mean time, holds on his way, and steps before her ; but she, by her natural swiftness, soon fetches up her lost ground, and leaves him again behind. Hippomenes, however, by rightly timing his second and third throw, at length won the race, not by his swiftness, but his cunning. Explanation.—This fable seems to contain a noble allegory of the contest betwixt art and nature. For art here denoted by Atalanta, is much swifter, or more �60 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. expeditious in its operations than nature, when all obstacles and impediments are removed, and sooner arrives at its end. This appears almost in every instance. Thus fruit comes slowly from the kernel, but soon by inoculation or incision ; clay, left to itself, is a long time in acquiring a stony hardness, but fs presently burnt by fire into brick. So again in human life, nature is a long while in alleviating and abolish­ ing the remembrance of pain, and assuaging the troubles of the mind ; but moral philosophy, which is the art of living, performs it presently. Yet this prerogative and singular efficacy of art is stopped and retarded to the infinite detriment of human life, by certain golden apples ; for there is no one science or art that con­ stantly holds on its true and proper course to the end, but they are all continually stopping short, forsaking the track, and turning aside to profit and convenience, exactly like Atalanta. Whence it is no wonder that art gets not the victory over nature, nor, according to the condition of the contest, brings her under sub­ jection ; but, on the contrary, remains subject to her, as a wife to a husband. XXVI.—PROMETHEUS : OR THE STATE OF MAN. EXPLAINED OF AN OVER-RULING PROVIDENCE, AND OF HUMAN NATURE. The ancients relate that man was the work of Pro­ metheus, and formed of clay ; only the artificer mixed in with the mass, particles taken from different animals. And being desirous to improve his workmanship, and endow, as well as create, the human race, he stole up to heaven with a bundle of birch-rods, and kindling them at the chariot of the Sun, thence brought down fire to the earth for the service of men. �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 61 They add, that for this meritorious act Prometheus ’was repayed with ingratitude by mankind, so that, forming a conspiracy, they arraigned both him and his invention before Jupiter. But the matter was other­ wise received than they imagined ; for the accusation proved extremely grateful to Jupiter and the gods, insomuch that, delighted with the action, they not only indulged mankind the use of fire, but moreover conferred upon them a most acceptable and desirable present, namely, perpetual youth. But men, foolishly overjoyed hereat, laid this present •of the gods upon an ass, who, in returning back with it, being extremely thirsty, strayed to a fountain. The serpent, who was guardian thereof, would not suffer him to drink, but upon condition of receiving the burden he carried, whatever it should be. The silly .ass complied, and thus the perpetual renewal of youth was, for a drop of water, transferred from men to the race of serpents. Prometheus, not desisting from his unwarrantable practices, though now reconciled to mankind, after they were thus tricked of their present, but still con­ tinuing inveterate against Jupiter, had the boldness to attempt deceit, even in a sacrifice, and is said to have •once offered up two bulls to Jupiter, but so as in the hide of one of them to wrap all the flesh and fat of both, and stuffing out the other hide only with the bones ; then in a religious and devout manner, gave Jupiter his choice of the two. Jupiter, detesting this sly fraud and hypocrisy, but having thus an opporunity of punishing the offender, purposely chose the mock bull. And now giving way to revenge, but finding he could not chastise the insolence of Prometheus without afflicting the human race (in the production whereof Prometheus had strangely and insufferably prided him­ �62 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. self), he commanded Vulcan to form a beautiful and graceful woman, to whom every god presented a certain gift, whence she was called Pandora. They put into her hands an elegant box, containing all sorts of miseries and misfortunes ; but Hope was placed at the bottom of it. With this box she first goes to Pro­ metheus, to try if she could prevail upon him to receive and open it; but he, being upon his guard, warily refused the offer. Upon this refusal, she comes to hisbrother Epimetheus, a man of a very different temper, who rashly and inconsiderately opens the box. When finding all kinds of miseries and misfortunes issued out of it, he grew wise too late, and with great hurry and struggle endeavored to clap the cover on again ; but with all his endeavor could scarce keep in Hope,, which lay at the bottom. Lastly, Jupiter arraigned Prometheus of many heinous crimes : as that he formerly stole fire from heaven; that he contemptuously and deceitfully mocked him by a sacrifice of bones ; that he despised his present, adding withal a new crime, that he attempted to ravish Pallas : for all which, he was sentenced to be bound in chains, and doomed to per­ petual torments. Accordingly, by Jupiter’s command, he was brought to Mount Caucasus, and there fastened to a pillar, so firmly that he could no way stir. A vulture or eagle stood by him, which in the daytime gnawed and consumed his liver ; but in the night thewasted parts were supplied again ; whence matter for his pain was never wanting. They relate, however, that his punishment had an end; for Hercules sailing the ocean, in a cup, or pitcher, presented him by the Sun, came at length to Caucasus, shot the eagle with his arrows, and set Prometheus free. In certain nations, also, there wereinstituted particular games of the torch, to the honor �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 63 of Prometheus, in which they who ran for the prize carried lighted torches ; and as any one of these torches happened to go out, the bearer withdrew himself, and gave way to the next ; and that person was allowed to win the prize who first brought in his lighted torch to the goal. Explanation. —This fable contains and enforces many just and serious considerations; some whereof have been long since well observed, but some again remain perfectly untouched. Prometheus clearly and expressly signifies Providence ; for of all things in nature, the formation and endowment of man was singled out by the ancients, and esteemed the peculiar work of Providence. The reason hereof seems, 1. That the nature of man includes a mind and under­ standing, which is the seat of Providence. 2. That it is harsh and incredible to suppose reason and mind should be raised, and drawn out of senseless and irra­ tional principles ; whence it becomes almost inevitable,, that providence is implanted in the human mind in conformity with, and by the direction and the design of the greater over-ruling Providence. But, 3. The principal cause is this : that man seems to be the thing in which the whole world centres, with respect to final causes; so that if he were away, all other things would stray and fluctuate, without end or intention, or become perfectly disjointed, and out of frame ; for all things, are made subservient to man, and he receives use and benefit from them all. Thus the revolutions, places, and periods, of the celestial bodies, serve him for dis­ tinguishing times and seasons, and for dividing the world into different regions ; the meteors afford him prognostications of the weather ; the winds sail our ships, drive our mills, and move our machines; and the vegetables and animals of all kinds either afford US matter for houses and habitations, clothing, food, �€4 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. physic, or tend to ease, or delight, to support, or refresh us : so that everything in nature seems not made for itself, but for man. And it is not without reason added, that the mass of matter whereof man was formed, should be mixed up with particles taken from different animals, and wrought in with the clay, because it is certain, that of all the things in the universe, man is the most com­ pounded and recompounded body ; so that the ancients not improperly styled him a Microcosm, or little world within himself. For although the chemists have absurdly, and too literally, wrested and perverted the elegance of the term microcosm, whilst they pretend to find all kind of mineral and vegetable matters, or something corresponding to them, in man, yet it remains firm and unshaken, that the human body is of all substances the most mixed and organical ; whence it has surprising powers and faculties : for the powers of simple bodies are but few, though certain and quick; as being little broken, or weakened, and not counter­ balanced by mixture : but excellence and quantity of energy reside in mixture and composition. Man, however, in his first origin, seems to be a defenceless naked creature, slow in assisting himself, and standing in need of numerous things. Prometheus, therefore, hastened to the invention of fire, which supplies and administers to nearly all human uses and necessities, insomuch that, if the soul may be called the form of forms, if the hand may be called the instrument of instruments, fire may as properly be •called the assistant of assistants, or helper of helps; for hence proceed numberless operations, hence all the mechanic arts, and hence infinite assistances are afforded to the sciences themselves. The manner wherein Prometheus stole this fire is ^properly described from the nature of the thing; he �65 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. being said to have done it by applying a rod of birch to the chariot of the Sun : for birch is used in striking and beating, which clearly denotes the generation of fire to be from the violent percussions and collisions of bodies ; whereby the matters struck are subtilised, rarefied, put into motion, and so prepared to receive the heat of the celestial bodies ; whence they, in a clandestine and secret manner, collect and snatch fire, as it were by stealth, from the chariot of the Sun. The next is a remarkable part of the fable, which represents that men, instead of gratitude and thanks, fell into indignation and expostulation, accusing both Prometheus and his fire to Jupiter,—and yet the accusa­ tion proved highly pleasing to Jupiter; so that he, for this reason, crowned these benefits of mankind with a new bounty. Here it may seem strange that the sin of ingratitude to a creator and benefactor, a sin so heinous as to include almost all others, should meet with appro­ bation and reward. But the allegory has another view, and denotes, that the accusation and arraignment, both of human nature and human art among mankind, proceeds from a most noble and laudable temper of the mind, and tends to a very good purpose ; whereas the contrary temper is odious to the gods, and unbeneficial in itself. For they who break into extravagant praises of human nature and the arts in vogue, and who lay themselves out in admiring the things they already possess, and will needs have the sciences cultivated among them, to be thought absolutely perfect and complete, in the first place, show little regard to the divine nature, whilst they extol their own inventions almost as high as his perfection. In the next place, men of this temper are unserviceable and prejudicial in life, whilst they imagine themselves already got to the top of things, and there rest, without farther inquiry. On the contrary, they who arraign E �66 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. and accuse both nature and art, and are always full of complaints against them, not only preserve a more just and modest sense of mind, but are also perpetually stirred up to fresh industry and new discoveries. Is not, then, the ignorance and fatality of mankind to be extremely pitied, whilst they remain slaves to the arrogance of a few of their own fellows, and are dotingly fond of that scrap of Grecian knowledge, the Peripatetic philosophy; and this to such a degree, as not only to think all accusation or arraignment thereof useless, but even hold it suspect and dangerous ? Cer­ tainly the procedure of Empedocles, though furious— but especially that of Democritus (who with great modesty complained that all things were abstruse; that we know nothing; that truth lies hid in deep pits; that falsehood is strangely joined and twisted along with truth, etc.)—is to be preferred before the con­ fident, assuming, and dogmatical school of Aristotle. Mankind are, therefore, to be admonished, that the arraignment of nature and of art is pleasing to the gods; and that a sharp and vehement accusation of Prometheus, though a creator, a founder, and a master, obtained new blessings and presents from the divine bounty, and proved more sound and serviceable than a diffusive harangue of praise and gratulation. And let men be assured that the fond opinion that they have already acquired enough, is a principal reason why they have acquired so little. That the perpetual flower of youth should be the present which mankind received as a reward for their accusation, carries this moral : that the ancients seem not to have despaired of discovering methods, and remedies, for retarding old age, and prolonging the period of human life, but rather reckoned it among those things which, through sloth and want of diligent inquiry, perish and come to nothing, after having been �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 67 once undertaken, than among such as are absolutely impossible, or placed beyond the reach of the human power. For they signify and intimate from the true use of fire, and the just and strenuous accusation and conviction of the errors of art, that the divine bounty is not wanting to men in such kind of presents, but that men indeed are wanting to themselves, and lay such an inestimable gift upon the back of a slow-paced ass ; that is, upon the back of the heavy, dull, lingering thing, experience; from whose sluggish and tortoise­ pace proceeds that ancient complaint of the shortness of life, and the slow advancement of arts. And certainly it may well seem, that the two faculties of reasoning and experience are not hitherto properly joined and coupled together, but to be still new gifts of the gods, separately laid, the one upon the back of a light bird, or abstract philosophy, and the other upon an ass, or slow-paced practice and trial. And yet good hopes might be conceived of this ass, if it were not for his thirst and the accidents of the way. For we judge, that if any one would constantly proceed, by a certain law and method, in the road of experience, and not by the way thirst after such experiments as make for profit or ostentation, nor exchange his burden, or quit the original design for the sake of these, he might be a useful bearer of a new and accumulated divine bounty to mankind. That this gift of perpetual youth should pass from men to serpents, seems added by way of ornament, and illustration to the fable ; perhaps intimating, at■ the same time, the shame it is for men, that they, with their fire, and numerous arts, cannot procure to them­ selves those things which nature has bestowed upon many other creatures. The sudden reconciliation of Prometheus to man­ kind, after being disappointed of their hopes, contains �68 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. a prudent and useful admonition. It points out the levity and temerity of men in new experiments, when, not presently succeeding, or answering to expectation, they precipitantly quit their new undertakings, hurry back to their old ones, and grow reconciled thereto. After the fable has described the state of man, with regard to arts and intellectual matters, it passes on to religion ; for after the inventing and settling of arts, follows the establishment of divine worship, which hypocrisy presently enters into and corrupts. So that by the two sacrifices we have elegantly painted the person of a man truly religious, and of an hypocrite. One of these sacrifices contained the fat, or the portion of God, used for burning and incensing; thereby denoting affection and zeal, offered up to his glory. It likewise contained the bowels, which are expressive of charity, along with the good and useful flesh. But the other contained nothing more than dry bones, which nevertheless stuffed out the hide, so as to make it resemble a fair, beautiful, and magnificent sacrifice; hereby finely denoting the external and empty rites and barren ceremonies, wherewith men burden and stuff out the divine worship,—things rather intended for show and ostentation than conducing to piety. Nor are mankind simply content with this mock­ worship of God, but also impose and father it upon him, as if he had chosen and ordained it. Certainly the prophet, in the person of God, has a fine expostu­ lation, as to this matter of choice :—“ Is this the fasting which I have chosen, that a man should afflict his soul for a day, and bow down his head like bulrush ?” After thus touching the state of religion, the fable next turns to manners, and the conditions of human life. And though it be a very common, yet is it a just interpretation, that Pandora denotes the pleasures and �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 69 licentiousness which the cultivation and luxury of the arts of civil life introduce, as it were, by the instru­ mental efficacy of fire; whence the works of the voluptuary arts are properly attributed to Vulcan, the God of Fire. And hence infinite miseries and calamities have proceeded to the minds, the bodies, and the fortunes of men, together with a late repentance; and this not only in each man’s particular, but also in kingdoms and states ; for wars, and tumults, and tyrannies, have all arisen from this same fountain, or box of Pandora. It is worth observing, how beautifully and elegantly the fable has drawn two reigning characters in human, life, and given two examples, or tablatures of them, under the persons of Prometheus and Epimetheus. The followers of Epimetheus are improvident, see not far before them, and prefer such things as are agreeable for the present; whence they are oppressed with numerous straits, difficulties, and calamities, with which they almost continually struggle; but in the meantime gratify their own temper, and, for want of a better knowledge of things, feed their minds with many vain hopes ; and as with so many pleasing dreams, delight themselves, and sweeten the miseries of life. But the followers of Prometheus are the prudent, wary men, that look into futurity, and cautiously guard against, prevent, and undermine many calamities and misfortunes. But this watchful, provident temper, is attended with a deprivation of numerous pleasures, and the loss of various delights, whilst such men debar themselves the use even of innocent things, and what is still worse, rack and torture themselves with cares, fears, and disquiets ; being bound fast to the pillar of necessity, and tormented with numberless thoughts (which for their swiftness are well compared to an �70 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. eagle), that continually wound, tear, and gnaw their liver or mind, unless, perhaps, they find some small remission by intervals, or as it were at nights ; but then new anxieties, dreads, and fears, soon return again, as it were in the morning. And, therefore, very few men, of either temper, have secured to them­ selves the advantages of providence, and kept clear of disquiets, troubles, and misfortunes. Nor indeed can any man obtain this end without the assistance of Hercules; that is, of such fortitude and constancy of mind as stands prepared against every event, and remains indifferent to every change ; looking forward without being daunted, enjoying the good without disdain, and enduring the bad without impatience. And it must be observed, that even Pro­ metheus had not the power to free himself, but owed his deliverance to another ; for no natural inbred force and fortitude could prove equal to such a task. The power of releasing him came from the utmost confines of the ocean, and from the sun ; that is, from Apollo, or knowledge ; and again, from a due consideration of the uncertainty, instability, and fluctuating state of human life, which is aptly represented by sailing the ocean. Accordingly, Virgil has prudently joined these two together, accounting him happy who knows the causes of things, and has conquered all his fears, apprehensions, and superstitions. It is added, with great elegance, for supporting and confirming the human mind, that the great hero who thus delivered him sailed the ocean in a cup, or pitcher, to prevent fear, or complaint; as if, through the narrowness of our nature, or a too great fragility thereof, we were absolutely incapable of that fortitude and constancy to which Seneca finely alludes, when he says, “ It is a noble thing, at once to participate in the frailty of man and the security of a god.” �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 71 We have hitherto, that we might not break the connection of things, designedly omitted the last crime, of Prometheus—that of attempting the chastity of Minerva—which heinous offence it doubtless was, that caused the punishment of having his liver gnawed by the vulture. The meaning seems to be this,—that when men are puffed up with arts and knowledge, they often try to subdue even the divine wisdom and bring it under the dominion of sense and reason, whence inevitably follows a perpetual and restless rending and tearing of the mind. A sober and humble distinction must, therefore, be made betwixt divine and human things, and betwixt the oracles of sense and faith, unless mankind had rather choose an here­ tical religion, and a fictitious and romantic philosophy. The last particular in the fable is the Games of the Torch, instituted to Prometheus, which again relates to arts and sciences, as well as the invention of fire, for the commemoration and celebration whereof these games were held. And here we have an extremely prudent admonition, directing us to expect the per­ fection of the sciences from succession, and not from the swiftness and abilities of any single person ; for he who is fleetest and strongest in the course may perhaps be less fit to keep his torch alight, since there is danger of its going out from too rapid as well as from too slow a motion. But this kind of contest, with the torch, se'ems to have been long dropped and neglected ; the sciences appearing to have flourished principally in their first authors, as Aristotle, Galen, Euclid, Ptolemy, etc.; whilst their successors have done very little, or scarce made any attempts. But it were highly to be wished that these games might be renewed, to the honor of Prometheus, or human nature, and that they might excite contest, emulation, and laudable endeavors, and the design meet with such success as not to hang �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. tottering, tremulous, and hazarded, upon the torch'of any single person. Mankind, therefore, should be admonished to rouse themselves, and try and exert their own strength and chance, and not place all their dependence upon a few men, whose abilities and capacities, perhaps, are not greater than their own. These are the particulars which appear to us shadowed out by this trite and vulgar fable, though without denying that there may be contained in it several intimations that have a surprising correspondence with the Christian mysteries. In particular, the voyage of Hercules, made in a pitcher, to release Prometheus, bears an allusion to the word of God, coming in the frail vessel of the flesh to redeem mankind. But we indulge ourselves no such liberties as these, for fear of using strange fire at the altar of the Lord. XXVII.—ICARUS and SCYLLA and CHARYBDIS : OR THE MIDDLE WAY. EXPLAINED OF MEDIOCRITY IN NATURAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY. Mediocrity, or the holding a middle course, has been highly extolled in morality, but little in matters of science, though no less useful and proper here ; whilst in politics it is held suspected, and ought to be employed with judgment. The ancients described mediocrity in manners by the course prescribed to Icarus ; and in matters of the understanding by the steering betwixt Scylla and Charybdis, on account of the great difficulty and danger in passing those straits. Icarus, being to fly across the sea, was ordered by his father neither to soar too high nor fly too low, for, �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 73 as his wings were fastened together with wax, there was danger of its melting by the sun’s heat in too high a flight, and of its becoming less tenacious by the moisture if he kept too near the vapor of the sea. But he, with a juvenile confidence, soared aloft, and fell down headlong. Explanation.—The fable is vulgar, and easily inter­ preted ; for the path of virtue lies straight between excess on the one side, and defect on the other. And no wander that excess should prove the bane of Icarus, exulting in juvenile strength and vigor ; for excess is the natural vice of youth, as defect is that of old age; and if a man must perish by either, Icarus chose the better of the two ; for all defects are justly esteemed more depraved than excesses. There is some mag­ nanimity in excess, that, like a bird, claims kindred with the heavens; but defect is a reptile, that basely crawls upon the earth. It was excellently said by Heraclitus, “ A dry light makes the best soul ” ; for if the soul contracts moisture from the earth, it perfectly degenerates and sinks. On the other hand, moderation must be observed, to prevent this fine light from burning, by its too great subtilty and dryness. But these observations are common. In matters of the understanding, it requires great skill and a particular felicity to steer clear of Scylla and Charybdis. If the ship strikes upon Scylla, it is dashed in pieces against the rocks ; if upon Charybdis, it is swallowed outright. This allegory is pregnant with matter ; but we shall only observe that the force of it lies here, that a mean be observed in every doctrine and science, and in the rules and axioms thereof, between the rocks of distinctions and the whirlpools of universalities ; for these two are the bane and shipwreck of fine geniuses and arts. �74 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. XXVIII.—SPHINX : OR SCIENCE. EXPLAINED OF THE SCIENCES. They relate that Sphinx was a monster, variously formed, having the face and voice of a virgin, the wings of a bird, and the talons of a griffin. She resided on the top of a mountain, near the city Thebes, and also beset the highways; Her manner was to lie in ambush and seize the travellers, and having them in her power, to propose to them certain dark and per­ plexed riddles, which it was thought she received from the Muses, and if her wretched captives could not solve and interpret these riddles, she with great cruelty fell upon them, in their hesitation and confusion, and tore them to pieces. This plague having reigned a long time, the Thebans at length offered their kingdom to the man who could interpret her riddles, there being no other way to subdue her. (Edipus, a penetrating and prudent man, though lame in his feet, excited by so great a reward, accepted the condition, and with a good assurance of mind, cheerfully presented himself before the monster, who directly asked him, “ What creature that was, which being born four-footed, after­ wards became two-footed, then tbree-footed, and lastly four-footed again ?” CEdipus, with presence of mind, replied it was man, who, upon his first, birth and infant state, crawled upon all fours in endeavoring to walk ; but not long after went upright upon his two natural feet; again, in old age walked three-footed, with a stick ; and at last, growing decrepit, lay four-footed confined to his bed ; and having by this exact solution obtained the victory, he slew the monster, and, laying the carcass upon an ass, led her away in triumph ; and upon this he was, according to the agreement, made king of Thebes. �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 75 Explanation.—This is an elegant, instructive fable, and seems invented to represent science, especially as joined with practice. For science may, without absurdity, be called a monster, being strangely gazed at and admired by the ignorant and unskilful. Her figure and form is various, by reason of the vast variety of subjects that science considers; her voice and countenance are represented female, by reason of her gay appearance and volubility of speech ; wings are added, because the sciences and their inventions run and fly about in a moment, for knowledge, like light communicated from one torch to another, is presently caught and copiously diffused; sharp and hooked talons are elegantly attributed to her, because the axioms and arguments of science enter the mind, lay hold of it, fix it down, and keep it from moving or slipping away. This the sacred philosopher observed, when he said, “ The words of the wise are like goads or nails driven far in.” Again, all science seems placed on high, as it were on the tops of mountains that are hard to climb ; for science is justly imagined a sublime and lofty thing, looking down upon igno­ rance from an eminence, and at the same time taking an extensive view on all sides, as is usual on the tops of mouniains. Science is said to beset the highways, because through all the journey and peregrination of human life there is matter and occasion offered of contemplation. Sphinx is said to propose various difficult questions and riddles to men, which she received from the Muses ; and these questions, so long as they remain with the Muses, may very well be unaccompanied with severity, for while there is no other end of contem­ plation and inquiry but that of knowledge alone, the understanding is not opposed, or driven to straits and difficulties, but expatiates and ranges at large, and �76 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. even receives a degree of pleasure from doubt and variety; but after the Muses have given over their riddles to Sphinx, that is, to practice, which urges and impels to action, choice, and determination, then it is that they become torturing, severe, and trying, and, unless solved and interpreted, strangely perplex and harass the human mind, rend it every way, and perfectly tear it to pieces. All the riddles of Sphinx, therefore, have two conditions annexed, namely, dila­ ceration to those who do not solve them, and empire to those that do. For he who understands the thing proposed obtains his end, and every artificer rules over his work. Sphinx has no more than two kinds of riddles, one relating to the nature of things, the other to the nature of man ; and correspondent to these, the prizes of the solution are two kinds of empire,—the empire over nature, and the empire over man. For the true and ultimate end of natural philosophy is dominion over natural things, natural bodies, remedies, machines, and numberless other particulars, though the schools, con­ tended with what spontaneously offers, and swollen with their own discourses, neglect, and in a manner despise, both things and works. But the riddle proposed to CEdipus, the solution whereof acquired him the Theban kingdon, regarded the nature of man ; for he who has throughly looked into and examined human nature, may in a manner command his own fortune, and seems born to acquire dominion and rule. Accordingly, Virgil properly makes the arts of government to be the arts of the Romans. It was, therefore extremely apposite in Augustus Caesar to use the image of Sphinx in his signet, whether this happened by accident or by design ; for he of all men was deeply versed in politics, and through the course of his life very happily solved �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 77 abundance of new riddles with regard to the nature of man ; and unless he had done this with great dexterity and ready address, he would frequently have been involved in imminent danger, if not destruction. It is with the utmost elegance added in the fable, that when Sphinx was conquered, her carcass was laid upon an ass; for there is nothing so subtile and abstruse, but after being once made plain, intelligible, and common, it may be received by the slowest capacity. We must not omit that Sphinx was conquered by a lame man, and impotent in his feet; for men usually make too much haste to the solution of Sphinx’s riddles; whence it happens, that she prevailing, their minds are rather racked and torn by disputes, than invested with command by works and effects. XXIX.—PROSERPINE : OR SPIRIT. EXPLAINED OF THE SPIRIT INCLUDED IN NATURAL BODIES. They tell us, Pluto having, upon that memorable division of empire among the gods, received the infernal regions for his share, despaired of winning any one of the goddesses in marriage by an obsequious courtship, and therefore through necessity resolved upon a rape. Having watched his opportunity, he sud­ denly seized upon Proserpine, a most beautiful virgin, the daughter of Ceres, as she was gathering narcissus flowers in the meads of Sicily, and hurrying her to his chariot, carried her with him to the subterraneal regions, where she was treated with the highest rever­ ence, and styled the Lady of Dis. But Ceres missing her only daughter, whom she extremely loved, grew pensive and anxious beyond measure, and taking a �78 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. lighted torch in her hand, wandered the world over in quest of her daughter,—but all to no purpose, till, sus­ pecting she might be carried to the infernal regions, she, with great lamentation and abundance of tears, impor­ tuned Jupiter to restore her ; and with much ado pre­ vailed so far as to recover and bring her away, if she had tasted nothing there. This proved a hard condition upon the mother, for Proserpine was found to have eaten three kernels of a pomegranate. Ceres, however, desisted not, but fell to her entreaties and lamentations afresh, insomuch that at last it was indulged her that Proserpine should divide the year betwixt her husband and her mother, and live six months with the one and as many with the other. After this, Theseus, and Perithous, with uncommon audacity, attempted to force Proserpine away from Pluto’s bed, but happening* to grow tired in their journey, and resting themselves upon a stone in the realms below, they could never rise from it again, but remain sitting there for ever. Proserpine, therefore, still continued queen of the lower regions, in honor of whom there was also added this grand privilege, that though it had never been per­ mitted any one to return after having once descended thither, a particular exception was made, that he who brought a golden bough as a present to Proserpine, might on that condition descend and return. This was an only bough that grew in a large dark grove, not from a tree of its own, but like the mistletoe, from another, and when plucked away a fresh one always shot out in its stead. Explanation. —This fable seems to regard natural philosophy, and searches deep into that rich and fruitful virtue and supply in subterraneous bodies, from whence all the things upon the earth’s surface spring, and into which they again relapse and return. By Proserpine the ancients denoted that ethereal spirit �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 79 shut up and detained within the earth, here represented by Pluto,—the spirit being separated from the superior globe, according to the expression of the poet. This spirit is conceived as ravished, or snatched up by the earth, because it can no way be detained, when it has time and opportunity to fly off, but is only wrought together and fixed by sudden intermixture and commi­ nution, in the same manner as if one should endeavor to mix air with water, which cannot otherwise be done than by a quick and rapid agitation, that joins them together in froth whilst the air is thus caught up by the water. And it is elegantly added, that Proserpine was ravished whilst she gathered narcissus flowers, which have their name from numbedness or stupefac­ tion ; for the spirit we speak of is in the fittest dis­ position to be embraced by terrestrial matter when it begins to coagulate, or grow torpid as it were. It is an honor justly attributed to Proserpine, and not to any other wife of the gods, that of being the lady or mistress of her husband, because this spirit performs all its operations in the subterraneal regions, whilst Pluto, or the earth, remains stupid, or as it were ignorant of them. The aether, or the efficacy of the heavenly bodies, denoted by Ceres, endeavors with infinite diligence to force out this spirit, and restore it to its pristine state. And by the torch in the hand of Ceres, or the aether, is doubtless meant the sun, which disperses light over the whole globe of the earth, and if the thing were possible, must have the greatest share in recovering Proserpine, or reinstating the subterraneal spirit. Yet Proserpine still continues and dwells below, after the manner excellently described in the condition betwixt Jupiter and Ceres. For first, it is certain that there are two ways of detaining the spirit, in solid and terrestrial matter,—the one by condensation or obstruc­ �80 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. tion, which is mere violence and imprisonment ; the other by administering a proper aliment, which is spontaneous and free. For after the included spirit begins to feed and nourish itself, it is not in a hurry to fly off, but remains, as it were, fixed in its own earth. And this is the moral of Proserpine’s tasting the pomegranate ; and were it not for this, she must long ago have been carried up by Geres, who with her torch wandered the world over, and so the earth have been left without its spirit. For though the spirit in metals and minerals may perhaps be, after a particular manner, wrought in by the solidity of the mass, yet the spirit of vegetables and animals has open passages to escape at, unless it be willingly detained, in the way of sipping and tasting them. The second article of agreement, that of Proserpine’s remaining six months with her mother and six with her husband, is an elegant description of the division of the year ; for the spirit diffused through the earth lives above-ground in the vegetable during the summer months, but in the winter returns under-ground again. The attempts of Theseus and Perithous to bring Proserpine away, denotes that the more subtile spirits, which descend in many bodies to the earth, may frequently be unable to drink in, unite with themselves, and carry off the subterraneous spirit but on the con­ trary be coagulated by it, and rise no more, so as to increase the inhabitants and add to the dominion of Proserpine. The alchemists will be apt to fall in with our inter­ pretation of the golden bough, whether we will or no, because they promise golden mountains, and the resto­ ration of natural bodies from their stone, as from the gates of Pluto ; but we are well assured that their theory has no just foundation, and suspect they have no very encouraging or practical proofs of its sound­ �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 81 ness. Leaving, therefore, their conceits to themselves, we shall freely declare our own sentiments upon this last part of the fable. We are certain, from numerous figures and expressions of the ancients, that they judged the conservation, and in some degree the reno­ vation, of natural bodies to be no desperate or impossible thing, but rather abstruse and out of the common road than wholly impracticable. And this seems to be their opinion in the present case, as they have placed this bough among an infinite number of shrubs, in a. spacious and thick wood. They supposed it of gold, because gold is the emblem of duration. They feigned it adventitious, not native, because such an effect is to be expected from art, and not from any medicine or any simple or mere natural way of working. XXX.—METIS : OR COUNSEL. EXPLAINED OF PRINCES AND THEIR COUNCIL. The ancient poets relate that Jupiter took Metis to wife, whose name plainly denotes counsel, and that he, perceiving she was pregnant by him, would by no means wait the time of her delivery, but directly devoured her; whence himself also became pregnant, and was delivered in a wonderful manner ; for he from his head or brain brought forth Pallas armed. Explanation.—This fable, which in its literal sens© appears monstrously absurd, seems to contain a stat© secret, and shows with what art kings usually carry themselves towards their council, in order to preserve their own authority and majesty not only inviolate, but so as to have it magnified and heightened among the people. For kings commonly F �82 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. link themselves, as it were, in a nuptial bond to their council, and deliberate and communicate with them after a prudent and laudable custom upon matters of the greatest importance, at the same time justly con­ ceiving this no diminution of their majesty ; but when the matter once ripens to a decree or order, which is a kind of birth, the king then suffers the council to go on no further, lest the act should seem to depend upon their pleasure. Now, therefore, the king usually assumes to himself whatever was wrought, elaborated, or formed, as it were, in the womb of the council (unless it be a matter of an invidious nature, which he is sure to put from him), so that the decree and the execution shall seem to flow from himself. And as this decree or execution proceeds with prudence and power, so as to imply necessity, it is elegantly wrapt up under the figure of Pallas armed. Nor are kings content to have this seem the effect of their own authority, free will, and uncontrollable choice, unless they also take the whole honor to themselves, and make the people imagine that all good and wholesome decrees proceed entirely from their own head, that is, their own sole prudence and judgment. .—THE SIRENS : OR PLEASURES. EXPLAINED OF MEN’S PASSION FOR PLEASURES. Introduction.—The fable of the Sirens is, in a vulgar sense, justly enough explained of the pernicious incen­ tives to pleasure ; but the ancient mythology seems to us like a vintage ill-pressed and trod; for though something has been drawn from it, yet all the more excellent parts remain behind in the grapes that are untouched. �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 83 Fable.—The Sirens are said to be the daughters of Achelous and Terpsichore, one of the Muses. In their early days they had wings, but lost them upon being conquered by the Muses, with whom they rashly con­ tended ; and with the feathers of these wings the Muses made themselves crowns, so that from this time the Muses wore wings on their heads, excepting only the mother to the Sirens. These Sirens resided in certain pleasant islands, and when, from their watch-tower, they saw any ship approaching, they first detained the sailors by their music, then, enticing them to shore, destroyed them. Their singing was not of one and the same kind, but they adapted their tunes exactly to the nature of each person, in order to captivate and secure him. And so destructive had they been, that these islands of the Sirens appeared, to a very great distance, white with the bones of their unburied captives. Two different remedies were invented to protect persons against them, the one by Ulysses, the other by Orpheus. Ulysses commanded his associates to stop their ears close with wax; and he, determining to make the trial, and yet avoid the danger, ordered him­ self to be tied fast to a mast of the ship, giving strict charge not to be unbound, even though himself should entreat it; but Orpheus, without any binding at all, escaped the danger, by loudly chanting to his harp the praises of the gods, whereby he drowned the voices of the Sirens. Explanation.—This fable is of the moral kind, and appears no less elegant than easy to interpret. For pleasures proceed from plenty and affluence, attended with activity or exultation of the mind. Anciently their first incentives were quick, and seized upon men as if they had been winged, but learning and philosophy afterwards prevailing, had at least the power to lay the �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. mind under some restraint, and make it consider the issue of things, and thus deprived pleasures of their wings. This conquest redounded greatly to the honor and ornament of the Muses ; for after it appeared, by the example of a few, that philosophy could introduce a contempt of pleasures, it immediately seemed to be a sublime thing that could raise and elevate the soul, fixed in a manner down to the earth, and thus render men’s thoughts, which reside in the head, winged as it were, or sublime. Only the mother of the Sirens was not thus plumed on the head, which doubtless denotes superficial learn­ ing, invented and used for delight and levity ; an eminent example whereof we have in Petronius, who, after receiving sentence of death, still continued his gay frothy humor, and, as Tacitus observes, used his learning to solace or divert himself, and instead of such discourses as give firmness and constancy of mind, read nothing but loose poems and verses. Such learning as this seems to pluck the crowns again from the Muses’ heads, and restore them to the Sirens. The Sirens are said to inhabit certain islands, because pleasures generally seek retirement, and often shun society. And for their songs, with the manifold artifice and destructiveness thereof, this is too obvious and common to need explanation. But that particular of the bones stretching like white cliffs along the shores, and appearing afar off, contains a more subtile allegory, and denotes that the examples of others’ calamity and misfortunes, though ever so manifest and apparent, have yet but little force to deter the corrupt nature of of man from pleasures. This allegory of the remedies against the Sirens is not difficult, but very wise and noble : it proposes, in effect, three remedies, as well against subtile as violent �PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 85 '■mischiefs, two drawn from philosophy and one from ^religion. The first means of escaping is to resist the earliest temptation in the beginning, and diligently avoid and cut off all occasions that may solicit or sway the mind ; . and this is well represented by shutting up the ears, a kind of remedy to be necessarily used with mean and vulgar minds, such as the retinue of Ulysses. But noble spirits may converse, even in the midst of pleasures, if the mind be well guarded with constancy and resolution. And thus some delight to make a severe trial of their own virtue, and thoroughly acquaint themselves with the folly and madness of pleasures, without complying or being wholly given up to them ; which is what Solomon professes of himself when he ■closes the account of all the numerous pleasures he gave a loose to, with this expression—“ But wisdom . still continued with me.” Such heroes in virtue may, therefore, remain unmoved by the greatest incentives to pleasure, and stop themselves on the very precipice of danger ; if, according to the example of Ulysses, they turn a deaf ear to pernicious counsel, and the flatteries of their friends and companions, which have the greatest power to shake and unsettle the mind. But the most excellent remedy, in every temptation, is that of Orpheus, who, by loudly chanting and resounding the praises of the gods, confounded the voices, and kept himself from hearing the music of the Sirens; for divine contemplations exceed the pleasures of sense, not only in power but also in ;■ sweetness. ���■ ��FREETHOUGHT PUBLICATIONS. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM EXAMINED By Jeremy Bentham. With a Biographical Preface by J. M. Wheeler -------FREE WILL AND NECESSITY. By Anthony Collins Reprinted from 1715 ed., with Preface and Annotations by G. W. Foote, and a Biographical Introduction by J. M. Wheeler. Superior edition, on superfine paper, bound in cloth TSE ESSENCE OF RELIGION. By Ludwig Feuerbach IS SOCIALISM SOUND? Four Nights’Public Debate between Annie Besant and G. W. Foote . . Superior edition, in cloth ------CHRISTIANITY AND SECULARISM. Four Nights’ Public Debate between G. W. Foote and the Rev. Dr. J. McCann Superior edition, in cloth ------DARWIN ON GOD. By G. W. Foote .... Superior edition, in cloth ------INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS. By G. W. Foote. Second edition. Much enlarged -------Superior edition, on superfine paper, bound in cloth LETTERS TO THE CLERGY. By G. W. Foote. 128pp. BIBLE HEROES. By G. W. Foote. First series, in elegant wrapper --------BIBLE HEROES. Second series, in elegant wrapper BIBLE HANDBOOK FOB FREETHINKERS and INQUIRING CHRISTIANS. By G. W. Foote and W. P. Ball. Complete, paper covers -------Superior edition, on superfine paper, bound in cloth THE JEWISH LIFE OF CHRIST. By G. W. Foote and J.M. Wheeler. With Historical Preface and Voluminous Notes CRIMES OF CHRISTIANITY. By G. W. Foote and J. M. Wheeler. Vol. I., cloth gilt, 216pp. . SATIRES AND PROFANITIES. By James Thomson (B.V.) BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF FREETHINKERS of all Ages and Nations. By J. M. Wheeler. Handsomely bound in cloth --------DEFENCE OF FREE THOUGHT. A five hours’ speech at the Trial of C. B. Reynolds for Blasphemy. ByCol.R.G. Ingersoll LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. By David Hume A REFUTATION OF DEISM. In a Dialogue. By Shelley. With an Introduction by G. W. Foote R. FORDER, 28 Stonecutter Street, London, E.C. - 1 1 0 0 2 1 0 0 1 2 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 6 6 0 0 8 1 3 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 2 4 0 0 6 2 1 6 0 7 6 0 0 6 4 0 4 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Pagan mythology, or the wisdom of the ancients Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bacon, Francis [1561-1626] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 85 p. ; 19 cm. Notes: Stamp on front cover: 'M. Steinberger,4,5, & 6 Great St Helens, London, E.C'. Printed and published by G.W. Foote. Publisher's list on back cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Progressive Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1891 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N051 Subject The topic of the resource Mythology Paganism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Pagan mythology, or the wisdom of the ancients), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Mythology NSS Paganism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/c9f18a6acd154bc921ebf9aa6e64aa5c.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=HYE1Y4uKk0fA-TiPBKnfZmZwk-cQMcBxuO4MhiIUhjUjNC3b1-V-7nk9Rywy1kjwcmIDtsgvAUWQHlkU6kUxkhnz98omZ-yZuJRMlp3xWdeBqY7xeeK5iH3xh8y%7EsWuwtzFe3ijULvrO8SVVABaXWtYaKDXKRPb4iMFGg3mmcovypv63NAPXrwkLZP05bJrIQ5gQJ5ESGkSrO8PPx-Fei0RJp8VYRMarGvx9uaCNKRmrvtDABe-rls2fsgNMihQjQXZp1kJpQk3Lvz3sRc0aEEotbqnhMu6no-%7E0w4MIl-DJvGF1FyZSJUUmUWHPYrSDfsIIVV1-4H-qSXQJqWw7BA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM ad100fa724fab3a3760cfa21ad381675 PDF Text Text NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. tyw Jhorau ratones. BY ROBERT FORDER. PRICE ONE PENNY. « LONDON : B. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, 1 8 8 8. E.C, �PRINTED BY -ARTHUR BONNER, 34 BOUVERIE STREET, ’LONDON, E.C. �PREFACE. 'The following pages are the substance of a lecture given by me from many platforms in London and the Provinces, and which also has appeared in the National Reformer. Mr. Bradlaugh has kindly given me permission to reprint the articles, to which there are some slight alterations -and a few additions. I venture to hope that the facts here stated may be useful for our friends to lend or give to enquirers whose .minds are open to the reception of truth. �6 tions at trials in place of oaths, had precedence over consuls and chief magistrates, and even had power to pardon condemned criminals. So ancient was the worship that Ovid says it was brought to Italy from Troy by 2Eneas (“Fasti”, book iii). We are at once enabled to trace this myth to its origin, for Butler says that St. Ambrose declares that agues in Greek means chastity, and in Latin, lamb. “ The parents of St. Agnes, who escaped her fate, were, after her decease, blessed with a vision while praying at her tomb, in which she appeared to them, in a garment of glory, and a lamb standing by her side of the purest white, a companion which the painters havevery appropriately given to her, not only for that cause, but upon a consideration of a lamb being the universallyacknowledged emblem of innocence with which her name so fortunately accords, and to preserve which coincidenceshe was no doubt, so miraculously saved from all impurity” (Brady, “ Clavis Calendaria ”, vol. i., p. 168). St Agneshaving been transferred into the Church of England calendar at the lieformation, a proceeding somewhat puzzling to Brady, who was a staunch Protestant, it wasnecessary for him to present the legend of her in a piousand decorous manner. This story, like all the others, has been turned to excellent account by the Church. The Pope is often figuratively called the shepherd. “ Ego sum Pastor Sonus ” is the state­ ment made of himself by Innocent XI. in a medal described by Bonanni, a title that Hartwell Horne regarded as absolutely blasphemous. But we shall see that the popes have been careful and business-like in their sheep dealing. There is in Pome a magnificent church dedicated, to St. Agnes, to which the popes were wont to repair on St. Agnes day. Two white lambs were brought to the high altar and solemnly blessed by his holiness; beingsheared, the wool was handed over to the nuns of St. Agnes. By these it was woven, and of the cloth palls were made which fetched high prices from newly-made archbishops who were compelled to purchase them. “ That the Pope sheared the Christian sheep is allegory ; but it is fact also that he is a breeder of real four-legged ewes and. rams, and knows how to sell his wool at a price that would astonish all our farmers. He keeps a little flock of lambs, which have been consecrated over the graves of the- �Apostles, and. from the wool of which the bishops’ palls are woven............ The price set'on a pall was very high indeed ; the revenue got from this source pleased the popes well, and John VIII. ordained that every Archbishop who* had not obtaind his pall from Rome after three months’ time was to be considered as deposed. The popes gave, however, in the cloak some little for the treasure of a price they set upon it; this was yet to be saved, so the cloak dwindled away into a worsted ribbon, a few inches wide, with a red cross for its ornament. Such ribbons are woven by nuns from the consecrated wool, and weigh about three ounces. The wool of the Pope’s little flock would fetch about three millions of florins ” {AU The Year Hound, vol. iii., p. 431). The writer of the above tells us that Arnold, Archbishop of Treves, was very much at a loss when he received two palls, with the bills, from two opposing popes, and that Marculph, Archbishop of Mayence was compelled to sell the left leg of a golden Christ to pay for his. Barnaby Googe, an old English poet, has these lines : For in St. Agnes’ church this day, the while the Mass they sing Two Lambs as white as snow the Nuns do yearly use to bring. I should hesitate to quote the following ode, which is a long, long way after Horace, did I not And it in a Roman Catholic author, Forster, on page 25 of his “Perennial Calendar It is headed “Verses on St. Agnes’ Shrine “ Where each pretty Ba-lamb most gaily appears, With ribbons stuck round on its tail and its ears, On gold fringed cushions they’re stretched out to eat, And piously ba, and to church music bleat. Yet to me they seem crying, Alack, and Alas ’ What’s all this white damask to daisies and grass ! Then they’re brought to the Pope, and with transport z they’re kissed, And receive consecration from sanctity’s fist; To chaste Nuns he consigns them, instead of their dams, And orders the Friars to keep them from rams.” From the Pagan deification of one of the most sacred of human virtues there can be no doubt was evolved this myth of Agnes. Vesta was invoked by the Roman women; childless matrons implored her intervention in their behalf; �8 young girls sought her aid to complement their lives ; thy priests received their common offerings and grew rich on the credulity of the votaries of the Goddess. As with the heathen myth, so with its Christian successor; numberless superstitions grew and flourished among Christian women, artfully counselled by their priests to regard Agnes as their patron and protectress. Our own Keats has immortalised one of these legends as only poets can. His “Eve of St. Agnes” was being read by Shelley when that sudden squall deprived the world of his genius and him of life, for when his body was found he was holding in his hand the poems of Keats opened at this very piece. Of Madeline, Keats says :— ‘ ‘ They told her liow^ upon St. Agnes’ Eve, Young virgins might have visions of delight, And soft adoiings from their loves receive Upon the honeyed middle of the night, If ceremonies due they did aright.” Paine rightly said that the heathens having had gods for everything, the Christians have saints for everything. The Church has, therefore, canonised Agnes again under her ' other name of Pudentiana, and she is remembered in the calendar under that title on May 19th. On the door of the church dedicated to her at Rome “ is a Lamb of God in a medallion with the following inscription: ‘ Dead and living I am but one ; I am at once the shepherd and the lamb ’ ” (Didron, “ Christian Iconography”, p. 338). Every symbol connected with the myth is Pagan too, but we reserve observations on the “lamb” cult for Corpus Christi day. Didron, who was an ardent Christian, has this admission in connexion with the figure of the good shepherd: “In conclusion, it has been affirmed at least by Pagan antiquaries, that the subject of the Good Shepherd does not belong properly, and as an invention of its own, to Christianity; according to them, Christians borrowed that idea, as they.had done the nimbus, from Pagan art”. This contention he does not controvert, contenting himself with saying (p. 341), “ the subject was one of love, which had strayed into Paganism”; but that the religion of Christ being emphatically that of love, it was entitled to claim it as its own. Strange logic this; but the fact is op.e to be remembered, especially in reading the Fourth �9 ’Gospel, in which the Galilean legend is presented in its Platonic dress. Hone, in his “ Book of Days ”, 1825 (p. 143), quotes a '•curious story from Stopford’s “ Pagano-Papismus ” of sheep being driven into churches and blessed by the priests after being sprinkled with holy water. It concludes: “Then he signed all the sheep with'the sign of the cross, repeated thrice some Latin verses, with the Paternostei’ and some Ave Maria, sung the mass of the Holy Ghost, and at the conclusions an offering of fourpence was for him­ self and another of threepence for the poor. This cere­ mony was adopted by the Romish Church from certain customs of the ancient Romans in their worship of Pales, tue Goddess of sheepfolds and pastures. They prayed her to bless the sheep, and sprinkled them with water. The -chief difference seems to have consisted in this, that the ancient Romans let the sheep remain in their folds, while the moderns drove them into the Church.” SAINT BRIDGET. Prom Italy to Ireland is a far cry, but there is a very close resemblance between the two countries and the two peoples. A volume might be written on the tempers, prejudices, sufferings and aspirations of these nations, both having experienced the same mental and political bondage and from precisely the same causes. Italy, thanks to Garibaldi, Mazzini, and the band of stainless patriots who gave or risked their lives for freedom, has at least rid herself of Bourbon despotism and political serf­ dom ; although the abject ignorance of the masses and the accursed militarism of her present rulers—a disease that infects the whole of Europe—still keep her poor. But let us turn to Ireland and observe the misery, the utter �10 hopelessness, and the dense ignorance that envelope the peasantry of that land, keeping in remembrance that this wretchedness is not of recent growth, but the outcome of nearly a thousand years of misrule and centuries of super­ stitious teaching. “God save Ireland” has been the prayer of millions of patriots, but God has hithero refused •or been unable to do so. Periodic famine has devastated it, and removed a fourth of its population ; myriads of its sons and daughters have fled its shores to escape starva­ tion; pestilence has followed in the footsteps of want and claimed its victims in turn. Is it not on record that even sea-weed has to furnish life-giving sustenance on which landlords claim their royalty ? Yet with this ever accumulating load of horror and misery it has boasted for a dozen centuries that it has possessed a blessing and a jewel that more fortunate peoples have lacked—the True Church, Ireland has reared magnificent cathedrals, built churches in every hamlet; abbeys, convents, retreats, and chapels have overspread its fertile valleys and its barren hills; gold and silver ornaments have been given by its faithful children to deck the shrines of dead men and women, and of mythical men and women too. Rich vestments of the finest linen is furnished for its great black army; tithes and church dues have been paid wiih the utmost regularity; shiploads of luscious wines have been imported at the cost of its votaries from Spain and Portugal, to be miraculously transformed into the blood of their .God, not one drop of which comes to their share. In addition to all this faith and liberality, this suffering and credulous people subscribes largely to Peter’s Pence for the' Pope, to Foreign Missions and other causes to enable heathen and heretic to share in their good fortune; and thousands of its stalwart sons have enlisted under the flag of foreign despots to crush liberty and heresy—pouring out their blood under the blessings of their church on a hundred battlefields from Fontenoy to Mentana. And what has the church in return for all this, given to the people ? Did the priests ever teach the people self-reliance ' or prudence ? Did they ever recommend them to restrict their numbers to the measure of capacity of the land to support them ? Have they ever initiated either productive or distributive co-operation ? Did they when their power was paramount, and their faith unchallenged in pre- �11 \ Reformation days, give education to their devoted flocks ? The priest to-day frequently boasts of the seminaries and colleges founded by pious Catholics of ages past; institu­ tions that were reserved for the priests to manufacture his successor, or for the rich few whose wealth was the only passport to knowledge. But they have given something to Ireland. Heaven and hell I Purgatory I St. Patrick and hundreds of other legendary male and female saints, among whom are St.Bridget. Even this is doubtful; for the probability is that Bridget was stolen from the old Pagan religion of Ireland. Let us go to her priestly historian to see who the Church alleges she was, what she did, and where shecame from. Butler (“Lives,” vol. ii, p. 28) says she was born at Pochard, but gives no date or particulars. She received the veil from St. Mel, nephew of St. Patrick, flourished in the beginning of the sixth century, and “her five modern lives mention little else but wonderful miracles. . Thisis the usual story. Ages after the assumed period when the saint lived, fiction supplied what is deemed essential for the ignorant and the credulous. In a note Butler says that her name occurs in most copies of the martyrology which bears the name of St. Jerome, which in itself wouldi be sufficient to prove her a Goddess, considering that that holy saint lived in, the preceding century to herself. Her body with those <ff St. Patrick and St. Columba, were found in a triple vault at Downpatrick in 1185,.“ but their monument was destroyed in the reign of King Henry VIII. ”. The Jesuits, however, are fortunate in having her head in their church at Lisbon, but Butler, who states this, and also that she was buried in Downpatrick Cathe­ dral, does not tell us where these lucky Jesuits got the extra head from. But, seriously, was there ever such a woman as St. Bridget or such men as Saints Mel and Patrick? Was Ireland a Christian country in the fifth century, with nunneries and kindred institutions ? History —real history—is against such an assumption; but there was a Bridget—Pagan, not Papal. Ireland, centuries before the time under consideration, had a religion, priests, temples, ritual, holy books, hymns, heaven, hell, and Bridget. The Irish language bears ample proof that the Phaenicians had traded on its shores, and left behind. �12 the impress of their speech and faith. Lieutenant-Colonel oft«1 oqTa de Rebus Hibernicix, no. 8, p. . -91): To those who, do not trace the origin of the ancient Celtes and their language from the Orientals, it is matter of wonder how the worship of Baal should be known to the Iberno - Celts or Irish”. Again “ Bal >nhairth ort and Bal Shia Shall the good Bal, and the God Bal to you, are to this day common salutations in Munster, and particularly about Waterford”. Further he says “Ceres or Beres was worshipped as the moon ? m Irish signifies clouds, vapors, and Be is the moon, which compounded form Ceore. She was also named ' ^eolestis and AioZerZzs, and was invoked in droughts to ' obtain ram ipsa virgo Ceolistis pluviarum pollicitatrix ; Mertullian Apol., c. xxiii). M. Bolin thinks this deity was Ae same Queen of Heaven, to whom the Jewish women incense, poured out drink offerings, and made cakes with their own hands. Ut facit placentas regince Ceadi. I he children gathered the wood, the fathers kindled the fire, and the women kneaded the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven1 (Jer. vii, 18). This Pagan custom is still preserved m Ireland on the eve of St. Bridget, and it was probably transposed to this date from the festival of a tamed poetess of that name in the time of Paganism, i ailcien^ glossary now before me she is thus ■described : Brighid ban shileadh ingheau aeu Bagha ; beau dhe Bu-inn ; 1 e Brigit, a poetess, the daughter of Dagha ; a .goddess of Ireland. On St. Bridget’s Eve every farmer’s wife m Ireland makes a cake called Bairin-breac; the neighbours are invited, the madder of ale and the pipe go round, and the evening concludes with mirth and festivity.” Here, then, we have the fact that, just as in all the aeligions of the ancients the sun and the moon were personified, and eventually had divine honors paid to them m pre-Christian Ireland, and Ceres or Brighed was their <Queen of Heaven. When the latter was transformed into a Christian saint it is exceeding doubtful if the worship of Mary had found a footing in that country. Valiancy is not the only authority who proves the legendary character 1 is the exact rendering of the revised version : the authorised version having’ their Queen of Heaven. �13 * . of this Christian saint. Even Moore, good Catholic as hewas, is compelled to admit that “ by one of those violations of chronology not unfrequently hazarded for the purpose of bringing extraordinary personages together, an intimate friendship is supposed to have existed between St. Bridget and St. Patrick, and she is even said to have woven, at the apostle’s own request, the shroud in which he was buried.. But with this imagined intercourse between the two saints,. the dates of the respective lives are inconsistent: and it is but just possible that Brigid might have seen the great apostle of her country as she was a child of about twelve years old when he died.” Of course Moore has no evidencefor the date of the birth or death of either, but it would not have done for the faithful to have been apprised of tin's difficulty. Giraldus Cambrensus says that at her cell at Kildare—Kill dara, Cell of the Oak, there was an altar on which perpetual fire kept ablaze, and in his time six hundred years after Brigid’s supposed death it was still: burning. Moore, in noticing this heathen practice, seeksto extenuate the force of our and other writers’ contention, that the Christian Brigid was manufactured from the Pagan Brigha. ‘ ‘ Whether this rite formed any part of the Saint’s original' institution, or is to be considered as an innovation of later times, it is, at all events, certain that when Kildare wasfounded, the policy of converting to the purposes of the new faith those ancient forms and usages which had so long been made to serve as instruments of error, was very generally acted upon.” Exactly, even to the creation of .' the saint out of the goddess. Moore goes on to say, “ and, in the very choice of a site for St. Brigid’s Monastery, the same principle is manifest, the old venerable oak, already invested with the solemnity of druidical associations, having, in this, as in most other instances of religiousfoundation, suggested the selection of the spot where the • Christian temple was to rise.” Here, then, we have four indisputable facts (1) the name of the saint corresponds with the name of the Pagan goddess; (2) the shrine is erected at a spot where a druidical temple stood, which name it has since con­ tinued to bear; (3) the rites attendant upon her worship' were a continuation of the old fire-worship of the Pagan Irish; and (4) that this was the usual course of procedure- �14 in converting heathen rites and festivals into Christian ones. Another curious parallel allied to this subject is to be found in its Priapean aspect. Payne Knight has indu­ bitably shown that indecent rites were an accompaniment of the worship of Mylitta of the Assyrians, and of Aphro­ dite of the Greeks; and “while the temples of the Hindoos possessed their establishments, most of them had bands of -consecrated prostitutes, called the Women of the Idol, se­ lected in their infancy by the Brahmas for the beauty of their persons”. Brand, Popular Antiquities, vol. i., p. 357, Bohn’s Edition, says: “In imitation of heathenism, the Romanists assigned tutelar gods to distinct professions and ranks of people (some of them not of the best sort), to different trades, etc............... It is observable in this place how closely Popery has in this respect copied the heathen mythology. She has the Supreme Being for Jupiter; ■ she has substituted angels for genii, and the souls of saints for heroes, retaining all kinds of demons ”. Then follows a list of the saints, and the diseases and trades they pre­ side over, common women having for their patrons “ St. Magdalen, St. Afra (Aphra or Aphrodite), and St. Brigit”. In Payne Knight’s great work on “the Worship of Priapus ” there are engravings of most disgusting figures of women taken from Irish churches, which the natives •call “bad Bridgets”. It may therefore be taken as an established fact that this saint, honored in many lands on the 1st of February, is no other than the Pagan concept which honored a passion and a vice now happily regarded with abhorence. Much as the writer desires to see self-rule in Ireland, he -cannot conceal the fact that real progress and prosperity is unattainable there until legends like this of St. Bridget •and many others are exploded, and the inhabitants of that • over-religious country are indoctrinated with Freethought. > * -.1 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christianity and paganism: St. Agnes and St. Bridget, and their pagan prototypes Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Forder, Robert Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 14 p. ; 17 cm. Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. 'The following pages are the substance of a lecture ....which has also appeared in the National Reformer' [Preface]. Printed by Arthur Bonner, London. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available R. Forder Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1888 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N273 G5081 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p class="western"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" name="graphics1" align="bottom" width="88" height="31" border="0" alt="88x31.png" /></p> <p class="western">This work (Christianity and paganism: St. Agnes and St. Bridget, and their pagan prototypes), identified by <span style="color:#0000ff;"><span lang="zxx"><u>Humanist Library and Archives</u></span></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Christianity Christianity NSS Paganism