Part 6

"The beauteous youth now found himself betrayed, And from the deck the rising waves surveyed, And seemed to weep, and as he wept he said, 'And do you thus my easy faith beguile? Thus, do you bear me to my native isle? Will such a multitude of men employ Their strength against a weak defenceless boy?'"

But behold! the vessel becomes motionless; in vain they plied their oars, their bark moved not: and suddenly vine trees seemed to spring from the planks of the ship, mingling with the cordage and the sails, and twining round the oars, which also became immoveable.

Much as the sailors were astonished at this phenomenon, it was equalled by their horror, when Bacchus waved a spear he held in his hand, in answer to which, tigers and panthers, with others of the most savage beasts of the desert, seemed to swim round the vessel and wanton with the waters.

"The God we now behold with opened eyes, An herd of spotted panthers round him lies, In glaring forms: the grapy clusters spread, On his fair brows and dangle on his head."

Unable to bear the horror of the sight, the robbers threw themselves into the sea, and Bacchus turned them into Dolphins, then seizing the helm steered the ship towards Naxos, attended by his train of Dolphins and wild beasts!

On the altar of Bacchus the goat was immolated, because he destroyed the bark and leaves of the vine, and the magpie, because wine makes the tongue of man to chatter like that of the bird. The ivy was consecrated to him, on account of its coolness, which dissipated the fumes of wine, and he carried in his hand a dart called the thyrsis, twined round with leaves of ivy, and of vine. The Bacchantes, his ordinary priestesses, bore also in their hands the thyrsis. His feasts were celebrated every three years, and were called orgies, from a word which signifies fury and impetuosity.

{61}

The Bacchantes went into the mountains with torches in their hands, covered with the skins of tigers and panthers.

"And as I sat over the light blue hills, There came a noise of revellers; the rills Into the wide stream came of purple hue, 'Twas Bacchus and his crew. The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills From kissing cymbals made a merry din-- 'Twas Bacchus and his kin.

"Like to a moving vintage down they came, Crowned with green leaves, and faces all on flame; All madly dancing through the pleasant valley, To scare thee, melancholy! O then, o then, thou wast a simple name! And I forgot thee as the berried holly By shepherds is forgotten, when in June, Tall chesnuts keep away the sun and moon, I rushed into the folly!

"Within his car aloft, young Bacchus stood. Trifling his ivy dart, in dancing mood, With sidelong laughing, And little rills of crimson wine embrued His plump white arms and shoulders, enough white, For Venus pearly bite; And near him rode Silenus on his ass, Pelted with flowers as he on did pass, Tipsily quaffing.

{62} "Whence came ye merry damsels! whence came ye, So many, and so many, and such glee? "Why have ye left your bowers desolate, Your lutes and gentler nature? We follow Bacchus! Bacchus on the wing, A conquering! Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide, We dance before him through kingdoms wide: Come hither, lady fair, and joined be, To our wild minstrelsy!

"Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs! whence came ye, So many, and so many, and such glee? Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left Your nuts in oak tree cleft? For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree; For wine we left our heath and yellow brooms, And cold mushrooms; For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth; Great God of breathless cups and chirping mirth, Come hither lady fair, and joined be, To our mad minstrelsy.

"Over wide streams and mountains great we went, And save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent, Onward the tiger and the leopard pants, With Asian elephants: Onward these myriads--with song and dance, With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians prance, Web-footed alligators, crocodiles, Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files, Plump infant laughers, mimicking the coil Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers' toil: With toying oars and silken sails they glide, Nor care for wind or tide.

"Mounted on panthers' furs, and lions' manes, From rear to van they scour about the plains; A three days' journey in a moment done, And always at the rising of the sun, About the wilds they hunt, with spear and horn, On spleenful unicorn.

"I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown, Before the vine-wreathed crown; I saw parched Abyssinia rouse and sing, To the silver cymbal's ring! I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce Old Tartary the fierce, The kings of eld their jewel sceptres vail, And from their treasures scatter pearled hail; Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans, And all his priesthood moans, Before young Bacchus' eye-wink, turning pale!"

KEATS.

However, Bacchus was often found to be inspired by sentiments of a profoundly tender nature. Coressus, one of his favourite priests, {63} having unhappily formed a violent attachment to a maiden named Callirhoe, found his love returned with hatred, and the more he sought to impress her with his affection, the more hateful did he become. Unable to gain her, the priest sought the aid of his God, who, to avenge his sufferings, struck the Calydonians with a continual drunkenness, many of them dying of it as of a disease. In the height of their misery they sought the oracle, which declared that their calamity would not cease, until Callirhoe was sacrificed, unless some one could be found to pay the penalty for her.

The oracle must be obeyed: but who would be the substitute? Parents wept, and kindred mourned, but none would offer in her stead: and the hour arrived when the unhappy maiden, guilty only of not loving, was crowned and led to the altar, where he who had once been her lover, stood ready to be her slayer. At sight of her, his passion, which had slumbered for a while, burst forth anew, and in an agony of transport, rather than strike one so loved, he {64} determined to be her substitute, and on the instant slew himself in her stead.

"Great father Bacchus, to my song repair, For clustering grapes are thy peculiar care; For thee large bunches load the bending vine, And the last blessings of the year are thine; To thee his joys the jolly autumn owes, While the fermenting juice the vat o'erflows, Come steep with me, my god; come drench all o'er Thy limbs in wine, and drink at every pore!" * * * * * * Thus Roman youth, derived from ruined Troy, In rude Saturnian rhymes express their joy; With taunts and laughter loud their audience please, Deformed with vizards cut from bark of trees: In jolly hymns they praise the god of wine, Whose earthen images adorn the pine; And there are hung on high, in honour of the vine A madness so devout the vineyard fills, In hollow valleys, and on rising hills, On whate'er side he turns his honest face, And dances in the wind, those fields are in his grace. To Bacchus, therefore, let us tune our lays, And in our mother tongue resound his praise."

VIRGIL.

As Bacchus was the god of vintage, of wine and of drinkers, he is generally represented crowned with vine and ivy leaves, with a thyrsus in his hand. His figure is that of an effeminate young man, to denote the joys which commonly prevail at feasts; and sometimes an old man, to teach us that wine taken immoderately, will enervate us, consume our health, render us loquacious and childish, like old men, and unable to keep secrets.

Bacchus is sometimes represented like an infant, holding a thyrsus and clusters of grapes, with a horn.

His beauty is compared to that of Apollo, and like him, he is represented with fine hair, flowing loosely down his shoulders; the roundness of his limbs and visage, evidence the generous life he leads; while his smiling countenance and laughing eye, are meant to indicate the merry thoughts that are inspired by the juice of the grape. All writers agree in their delineation of the wild madness which distinguished his festivals: witness the following description of a pedestal, on which was an imitation of an altar to Bacchus.

"Under the festoons of fruits and flowers that grace the pedestal, the corners of which are ornamented by the sculls of goats, are sculptured some figures of moenads, under the inspiration of the {65} God. Nothing can be conceived more wild and terrible than their gestures, touching, as they do, the verge of distortion, into which their fine limbs and lovely forms are thrown. There is nothing, however, which exceeds the possibility of nature, though it borders on its utmost line.

"The tremendous spirit of superstition, aided by drunkenness, producing something beyond insanity, seems to have caught them in its whirlwinds, and to bear them over the earth, as the rapid volutions of a tempest have the everchanging trunk of a waterspout; or as the torrent of a mountain river whirls the autumnal leaves resistlessly along, in its full eddies.

"The hair, loose and floating, seems caught in the tempest of their own tumultuous motion; their heads are thrown back, leaning with a kind of delirium upon their necks, and looking up to heaven, whilst they totter and stumble, even in the energy of their tempestuous dance.

"One represents a faun, with the head of Pentheus in one hand, and in the other a great knife. Another has a spear with its pine cane, which was the thyrsus; another dances with mad voluptuousness; the fourth is beating a kind of tambourine.

"This was indeed a monstrous superstition, even in Greece, where it was alone capable of combining ideal beauty, and poetical and abstract enthusiasm, with the wild errors from which it sprung. In Rome it had a more familiar, wicked, and dry appearance; it was not suited to the severe and exact apprehensions of the Romans, and their strict morals were violated by it, and sustained a deep injury, little analagous to its effect upon the Greeks, who turned all things--superstition, prejudice, murder, madness--to beauty."

SHELLEY.

* * * * *

{66}

VENUS.

Venus, one of the most celebrated deities of the ancients, was the goddess of beauty, the mother of love, the queen of laughter, the mistress of the graces, and the patroness of pleasure. Some mythologists speak of more than one. Of these, however, the Venus sprung from the froth of the sea

"Where the moist Zephyrs to the favoured shore, From Ocean's foam the lovely goddess bore,"

after the mutilated body of Uranus had been thrown there by Saturn, is the most known, and of her in particular, ancient mythologists, as well as painters, make mention. She arose from the sea near the island of Cyprus,

"Cytherea! whom the favoured earth Of Cyprus claims, exulting in thy birth Bright queen! adorned with every winning grace, The smile enchanting, and the blooming face. Goddess! o'er Cyprus fragrant groves who reigns, And Salamis high cultivated plains."

HORACE.

Hither she was wafted by Zephyr in a sea-shell, which served as a chariot, and received on the shore by the Seasons, daughters of Jupiter and Themis.

She was soon after carried to heaven, where all the gods admired her beauty, and all the goddesses became jealous of her personal charms. Jupiter even attempted to gain her affections, but Venus refused, and the god, to fulfil her destiny, gave her in marriage to Vulcan, the most ugly and deformed of the Gods. This {67} marriage did not prevent the goddess of love from gratifying her inclinations, and her conduct frequently tended to cast dishonour on her husband. Her love for Mars is perhaps the most notorious on account of the disgrace which accompanied it, while her great partiality for Adonis, induced her to abandon her seat in Olympus. This mortal, who was fond of the chase, was often cautioned by his mistress not to hunt wild beasts, fearful of his being killed in the attempt; this advice he however slighted, and at last received a mortal wound from a wild boar which he had speared; and great was the misery evinced by Venus at his loss.

"Over one shoulder doth she hang her head; Dumbly she passions, frantickly she doteth, She thinks he could not die, he is not dead; Her voice is stopped, her joints forget to bow, Her eyes are mad, that they have wept till now. * * * * * * "She looks upon his lips, and they are pale; She takes him by the hand, that is cold; She whispers in his ears a heavy tale, As if they heard the woeful words she told: She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes, Where, lo! two lamps, burnt out, in darkness lies."

SHAKSPERE.

Venus, after shedding many tears at his death, changed him into a flower.

"And in his blood, that on the ground lay spilled, A purple flower sprung up, checkered with white; Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood, Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood."

SHAKSPERE.

Proserpine is said to have restored him to life, on condition of his spending six months of the year with her, and six with Venus, but this is a fable meant to apply to the alternate return of summer and winter.

"There is a flower, Anemone, The mourner's path it cheers: Lo! Venus, bowed with agony, By the slain huntsman bends the knee:-- It springs, a child of tears.

"Then hither, meekest flower!--here blow With Hyacinth:--whate'er The legend, 'tis of ruth, of woe: Companions meet, together grow, Twin nurslings of Despair."

ANON.

The affection also which Venus entertained for Anchises, a youth distinguished by the most exquisite beauty, again drew her {68} from heaven, and induced her often to visit, in all her glory, the woods and solitary retreats of Mount Ida.

"She comes! the Goddess; through the whispering air, Bright as the morn, descends her blushing car, Each circling wheel a wreath of flowers entwines, And gemmed with flowers, the silken harness shines; The golden bits with flowery studs are decked, And knots of flowers the crimson reins connect. And now on earth the silver axle rings, And the shell sinks upon its slender springs; Light from her airy seat the Goddess bounds, And steps celestial, press the pansied grounds."

DARWIN.

Anchises, however, though warned by her not to speak of their intimacy, boasted of it one day at a feast, and was struck by thunder as a punishment for his disobedience. The power of Venus over the heart, was supported and assisted by a celebrated girdle, called _zone_ by the Greeks, and _cestus_ by the Latins. This mysterious girdle which gave beauty, grace, and elegance when worn even by the most deformed, was irresistible when around beauty: it excited love, and kindled even extinguished flames. Juno herself was indebted to this powerful ornament in gaining the favours of Jupiter; and Venus, though possessed of every charm, no sooner put on her cestus, than Vulcan, unable to resist the influence of love, forgot all the intrigues and infidelities of his wife, and fabricated arms even for her illegitimate children.

"In this was every art and every charm, To win the wisest, and the coldest warm, Kind love, the gentle vow, the gay desire, The kind deceit, the still reviving fire, Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs, Silence that spoke and eloquence of eyes."

HOMER.

The contest of Venus for the golden apple is well known. The Goddess of Discord, not having been invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, evinced her disappointment, by throwing among the assembly of the gods, who were celebrating the nuptials, a golden apple, on which was inscribed, _Detur pulchriori_. All the goddesses claimed it as their own, and the contention at first became general; however, Juno, Venus, and Minerva, were left at last to decide between them, their respective right to beauty. Neither of the gods was willing, by deciding in favour of one, to draw on him {69} the enmity of the remaining two, they therefore appointed Paris to the unenviable task.

The goddesses appeared before their judge, and endeavoured, by profuse offers, to influence his decision. Juno promised a kingdom, Minerva glory, and Venus the fairest woman in the world for a wife. When Paris had heard their several claims, he adjudged the prize to Venus, and gave her the apple, to which she seems entitled from her beauty.

The worship of Venus was universally established; statues and temples were erected to her in every kingdom; and the ancients were fond of paying homage to a divinity who presided over love, and by whose influence alone, mankind existed. In her sacrifices, and at the festivals celebrated in her honour, too much licentiousness prevailed: victims, however, were seldom offered to her, or her altars stained with blood. The rose, the myrtle, and the apple, were sacred to Venus; among birds, the dove, the swan, and the sparrow, were her favourites. The goddess of beauty was represented among the ancients in different forms. Among the most highly valued, was that in the temple of Jupiter Olympus, where she was represented by Phidias, as rising from the sea, and crowned by the goddess of Persuasion.

"Phidias his keen chisel swayed To carve the marble of the matchless maid, That all the youth of Athens, in amaze, At that cold beauty, with sad tears did gaze."

THURLOW.

She is generally imaged with her son Cupid, in a chariot drawn by doves, or at other times by swans or sparrows. The surnames of the goddess are numerous, and serve to show how well established her worship was all over the earth. She was called Cypria, {70} because particularly worshipped in the island of Cyprus; and received the name of Paphia, because at Paphos, she had a temple with an altar, on which it was asserted rain never fell, though exposed in the open air.

"O queen of love! whose smile all bright Glads Paphos and the Cyprian isle, Forsake those loved retreats awhile, And to the temple bend thy flight, Where Glycera, the young, the fair, Invokes thy presence high, While clouds of incense fill the air, And waft her suppliant sigh.

"Bring in thy train the vengeful boy, And Graces (while their robes loose flow Gives glances of a breast of snow;) Wantoning in their thoughtless joy. Let Hermes grace the jocund scene, And youth so gay and free; For what is youth, though fair, oh! queen, If destitute of thee?"

HORACE.

The Cnidians worshipped her under the name of Venus Acraea, of Doris, and of Euploca. In her temple of Euploca, at Cnidos, was the most admired of her statues, being the most perfect piece of Praxiteles. It was formed of white marble, and appeared so much like life, that, according to some historians, a youth of the place secretly introduced himself into her temple, to offer his vows of adoration before the lifeless image.

Hero, in pursuit of whom, Leander braved the Hellespont, and whose touching story will be more minutely given hereafter, was one of the priestesses of Venus, and it was in this occupation that Leander first saw and loved her: a love which led to results so disastrous.

"Come hither, all sweet maidens, soberly, Down looking, aye, and with a chastened light, Hid in the fringes of your eye-lids white, And meekly let your fair hands joined be, As if so gentle that ye could not see Untouched, a victim of your beauty bright, Sinking away to his young spirit's night, Sinking bewildered mid the dreary sea: 'Tis young Leander toiling to his death; Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile. O horrid dream! see how his body dips, Dead--heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile: He's gone--up bubbles all his amorous breath."

KEATS.

{71}

Venus was also surnamed Cytheraea, because she was the chief deity of Cythera; Phillommeis, as the queen of laughter; Tellesigama, because she presided over marriage; Verticordia, because she could turn the hearts of women to cultivate chastity; Basilea, as the queen of love; Myrtea, from the myrtle being sacred to her; Mechanitis, in allusion to the many artifices practised in love; and also goddess of the sea, because born in the bosom of the waters;

"Behold a nymph arise, divinely fair, Whom to Cythera first the surges bear; Hence is she borne, safe o'er the deeps profound, To Cyprus, watered by the waves around: And here she walks, endowed with every grace To charm, the goddess blooming in her face; Her looks demand respect, and where she goes Beneath her tender feet the herbage blows; And Aphrodite, from the foam, her name, Among the race of gods and men the same; And Cytheraea from Cythera came; Whence, beauteous crown'd, she safely cross'd the sea, And call'd, O Cyprus, Cypria from thee; Nor less by Philomeda known on earth, A name derived immediate from her birth: Her first attendants to the immortal choir Were Love, the oldest god, and fair Desire; The virgin whisper, and the tempting smile, The sweet allurements that can hearts beguile, Soft blandishments which never fail to move, Friendship, and all the fond deceits in love, Constant her steps pursue, or will she go Among the gods above, or men below."

HESIOD.

As rising from the sea, the name of Anadyomine is applied to her, and rendered immortal by the celebrated painting of Apelles, which represented her issuing from the bosom of the waves, and wringing her tresses on her shoulder.

DESCRIPTION OF THE ANADYOMINE VENUS.

"She has just issued from the bath, and yet is animated with the enjoyment of it. She seems all soft and mild enjoyment, and the curved lines of her fine limbs, flow into each other with a never ending sinuosity of sweetness. Her face expresses a breathless yet passive and innocent voluptuousness, free from affectation. Her lips, without the sublimity of lofty and impetuous passion, the grandeur of enthusiastic imagination of the Apollo of the capital, or the union of both like the Apollo Belvidere, have the tenderness of arch, yet pure and affectionate desire; and the mode in which the ends {72} of the mouth are drawn in, yet lifted or half opened, with the smile that for ever circles round them, and the tremulous curve into which they are wrought, by inextinguishable desire, and the tongue lying against the lower lip, as in the listlessness of passive joy, express love, still love!

"Her eyes seem heavy and swimming with pleasure, and her small forehead fades on both sides into that sweet swelling, and then declension of the bone over the eye, in the mode which expresses simple and tender feelings.

"The neck is full and panting, as with the aspiration of delight, and flows with gentle curves into her perfect form.

"Her form is indeed perfect. She is half sitting and half rising from a shell, and the fullness of her limbs, and their complete roundness and perfection, do not diminish the vital energy with which they seem to be animated. The position of the arms, which are lovely beyond imagination, is natural, unaffected and easy. This perhaps is the finest personification of Venus, the deity of superficial desire, in all antique statuary. Her pointed and pear-like person, ever virgin, and her attitude modesty itself."

SHELLEY.