Part 8

"Oh! Goddess, hear these tuneless numbers, wrung By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, And pardon that thy secrets should be sung, Even into thine own soft-couched ear: Surely I dreamt to day, or did I see The winged Psyche with awakened eyes? I wandered in a forest thoughtlessly, And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise, Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side, In deepest grass, beneath the whispering roof Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran A brooklet, scarce espied: 'Mid hushed, cool rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed, Blue, silver white, and budded Tyrian, They lay calm breathing on the bedded grass; Their arms embraced, and their pinions too; Their lips touched not, but had not bade adieu, As if disjoined by soft handed slumber, And ready still, past kisses to outnumber, At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love: The winged boy I knew; But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove? His Psyche true! {85} O latest born and loveliest vision far Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy! Fairer than Phoebus sapphire-regioned star Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky; Fairer than these, tho' temple thou hast none, Nor altar heaped with flowers; Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan Upon the midnight hours; No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet, From chain swung censer teeming; No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming. O brightest! though too late for antique vows Too, too late for the fond, believing lyre When holy were the haunted forest boughs, Holy the air, the water and the fire."

KEATS.

Of this deity, poets have written until the God, become identified with the passion, which is addressed by many as immortal.

"They sin who tell us Love can die; With life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity; In heaven ambition cannot dwell Nor avarice in the vaults of hell: Earthly these passions of the earth They perish where they have their birth; But Love is indestructible: Its holy flame for ever burneth, From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. Too oft on earth a troubled guest, At times deceived, at times opprest, It here is tried and purified, Then hath in heaven its perfect rest: It soweth here with toil and care, But the harvest time of Love is there."

SOUTHEY.

Cupid is usually represented as a winged infant, naked, armed with a bow and quiver full of arrows. On gems and all other pieces of antiquity, he is represented as amusing himself with childish diversions. Sometimes, like a conqueror, he marches triumphantly with a helmet on his head, a spear on his shoulder, and a buckler on his arm, intimating that even Mars himself owns the superiority of love.

"To Love, the soft and blooming child, I touch the harp in descant wild; To Love, the babe of Cyprian bowers, The boy who breathes and blushes flowers, To Love, for heaven and earth adore him, And gods and mortals bow before him!"

ANACREON.

Among the ancients, he was worshipped with the same solemnity {86} as his mother Venus; and as his influence was extended over the heavens, the sea and the earth, and even the empire of the dead, his divinity was universally acknowledged, and vows, prayers and sacrifices, were daily offered to him.

"Bright-winged child! Who has another care when thou hast smiled? Unfortunates on earth, we see at last All death-shadows, and glooms that overcast Our spirits, fanned away by thy light pinions. O sweetest essence! sweetest of all minions! God of warm pulses, and dishevelled hair; Dear unseen light in darkness! eclipser Of light in light! delicious poisoner! Thy venomed goblet will we quaff, until We fill--we fill!"

KEATS.

One of the most beautiful of his temples was built within a myrtle grove, the God being extended in the attitude of a sleeping child, under the title of L'Amore Dominatore.

"They built a temple for the God, 'Twas in a myrtle grove, Where the sweet bee and butterfly, Vied for each blossom's love.

"I looked upon the altar,--there The pictured semblance lay, Of him the temple's lord, it shone More beautiful than day.

"It was a sleeping child, as fair As the first-born of spring: Like Indian gold waved the bright curls, In many a sunny ring.

"I heard them hymn his name, his power, I heard them, and I smiled: How could they say the earth was ruled, By but a sleeping child?

"I went then forth into the world, To see what might be there; And there I heard a voice of woe, Of weeping, and despair.

"I saw a youthful warrior stand In his first light of fame, His native city, filled the air With her deliverer's name:

"I saw him hurry from the crowd, And fling his laurel crown, In weariness, in hopelessness, In utter misery down.

"And what the sorrow, then I asked. Can thus the warrior move, To scorn his meed of victory? They told me it was Love! {87}

"I sought the Forum, there was one, With dark and haughty brow, His voice was as the trumpet's tone, Mine ear rings with it now.

"They quailed before his flashing eye, They watched his lightest word: When suddenly that eye was dim, That voice no longer heard.

"I looked upon his lonely hour, The weary solitude: When over dark, and bitter thoughts, The sick hearts' left to brood.

"I marked the haughty spirit's strife, To rend its bonds in vain: Again I heard the cause of ill, And heard loves name again.

"I saw an Urn, and round it hung, An April diadem Of flowers, telling they mourned one, Faded and fair like them.

"I turned to tales of other days, They spoke of breath and bloom: And proud hearts that were bowed by love, Into an early tomb.

"I heard of every suffering, That on this earth can be: How can they call a sleeping child, A likeness, love, of thee?

"They cannot paint thee, let them dream A dark and nameless thing: Why give the likeness of the dove, Where is the serpent's sting?

L. E. L.

We cannot better conclude our account of this important Deity, than by the following epigram, written under one of his statues.

"Whoe'er thou art, thy master see, Who was, or is,--or is to be."

VOLTAIRE.

"It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky, Upon the cloudy mountain peak supine; Below, the far lands are seen tremblingly: Its horror and its beauty are divine. Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie, Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, The agonies of anguish and of death.

"Yet it is less the horror than the grace, Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone: Whereon the lineaments of that dead face Are graven, till the characters be grown Into itself, and thought no more can trace; 'Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain, Which humanize and harmonize the strain.

"And from its head as from one body grow, As grass out of a watery rock, Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow, And their long tangles in each other lock: And with unending involutions show, Their mailed radiance as it were to mock, The torture and the death within, and saw The solid air with many a ragged jaw,

{92} "'Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror; For from the serpents gleam a brazen glare, Kindled by that inextricable error, Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air Become a strange, and ever shifting mirror Of all the beauty, and the terror there-- A woman's countenance, with serpent locks, Gazing in death on heaven, from those evil rocks."

SHELLEY.

Some of the statues of Minerva represented her helmet with a sphinx in the middle, supported on either side by griffins. In some medals, a chariot drawn by four horses, appears at the top of her helmet.

But it was at the Panathenaea, instituted in her behalf, that she received the greatest honour. On the evening of the first day, there was a race with torches, in which men on foot, and afterwards on horseback, contended.

To celebrate these festivals, also, the maidens divided into troops, and armed with sticks and stones, attacked each other with fury. Those who were overcome in this combat, were devoted to infamy, while they who conquered, and had received no wounds, were honoured with triumphant rejoicings.

These fetes, established in Lybia, were transferred to Athens, the city to which Minerva had granted the olive tree, and which she had taken under her protection.

She was adored at Troy by the title of Pallas, and her statue guarded the city under the name of Palladium. Some authors maintain that this was made with the bones of Pelops--while Apollodorus asserts, it was no more than a piece of clock-work which moved of itself. To its possession, was attached the safety of the city; and during the Trojan war, Ulysses and Diomedes were commissioned to steal it away.

DESCRIPTION OF MINERVA IN THE FLORENCE GALLERY.

"The head is of the highest beauty. It has a close helmet from which the hair, delicately parted on the forehead, half escapes. The attitude gives entire effect to the perfect form of the neck, and to that full and beautiful moulding of the lower part of the face and mouth, which is in living beings the seat of the expression of a simplicity and integrity of nature. Her face, upraised to heaven, is animated with a profound, sweet, and impassioned melancholy, with an earnest, and fervid and disinterested pleading against some vast and inevitable wrong. It is the joy and poetry of sorrow making {93} grief beautiful, and giving it that nameless feeling, which, from the imperfection of language, we call pain, but which is not all pain, though a feeling which makes not only its possessor, but the spectator of it, prefer it to what is called pleasure, in which all is not pleasure. It is difficult to think that this head, though of the highest ideal beauty is the head of Minerva, although the attributes and attitude of the lower part of the statue certainly suggest that idea.

"The Greeks rarely in their representations of the characters of their Gods--unless we call the poetic enthusiasm of Apollo a mortal passion--expressed the disturbance of human feeling; and here is deep and impassioned grief animating a divine countenance. It is indeed divine. The drapery of the statue, the gentle beauty of the feet, and the grace of the attitude, are what may be seen in many other statues belonging to that astonishing era which produced it: such a countenance is seen in few."

SHELLEY.

We have already seen that Minerva, not satisfied with being goddess of Wisdom, claimed also pre-eminence in beauty, although Paris by his judgment, gave the palm of loveliness to Venus.

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MARS.

Mars, the God of War, was the son of Juno, who jealous of the birth of Minerva, consulted Flora, and on the plains near Olenus, was shown by her a flower, through the very touch of which she might become a mother. The goddess tried, and from her touch sprang Mars. His education was entrusted by Juno to the god Priapus, who instructed him in dancing, and in every manly exercise. His trial before the celebrated court of Areopagus, for the murder of Hallirhotius, who insulted a daughter of Mars because she slighted his addresses, forms an important epoch in his history. The fiery blood of Mars, which would submit to no insult, was immediately in arms at so tender a point, and he slew the insulter. Neptune, father of the slain, cited Mars to appear before the tribunal of justice, to answer for the murder of his son. The cause was tried at Athens, in a place which has been called from thence Areopagus, and Mars was acquitted.

"Mars! God of Armies! mid the ranks of war, Known by thy golden helm, and rushing car, Before whose lance, with sound terrific, fall The massy fortress and embattled wall.

"Father of victory! whose mighty powers, And brazen spears, protect Olympus' towers; By whom the brave to high renown are led, Whom justice honours, and whom tyrants dread. Hail! friend to man! whose cares to youth, impart The arm unwearied, and the undaunted heart!"

HORACE.

During the Trojan war, Mars interested himself on the side of the Trojans; but while he defended these favourites of Venus with great activity, he was wounded by Diomedes, and hastily retreated to Heaven, complaining to Jupiter that Minerva had directed the unerring weapon of his antagonist.

"Wild with his pain, he sought the bright abodes, There, sullen, sate beneath the sire of gods, Shewed the celestial blood, and with a groan, Thus poured his plaints before the immortal throne. Can Jove, supine, flagitious acts survey And brook the furies of the daring day? For mortal men, celestial powers engage, And gods on gods exert eternal rage. From thee, O father! all these ills we bear, And thy fell daughter with the shield and spear. {95} Thou gavest that fury to the realms of light, Pernicious, wild, regardless of the right; All Heaven besides, reveres thy sovereign sway, Thy voice we hear, and thy behests obey: 'Tis hers to offend, and e'en offending, share Thy breast, thy counsels, thy distinguished care: So boundless she, and thou so partial grown, Well may we deem, the wondrous birth thine own; Now frantic Diomed, at her command, Against the immortals lifts his raging hand; The heavenly Venus first his fury found: Me next encountering, me he dared to wound: Vanquished I fled; e'en I, the god of fight, From mortal madness, scarce was saved by flight, Else hadst thou seen me sink on yonder plain, Heaped round, and heaving under loads of slain, Or pierced with Grecian darts, for ages lie Condemned to pain, though fated not to die.'"

HOMER.

The Thunderer treated with disregard the complaint of Mars against his favourite daughter, and thus upbraided him:

"'To me, perfidious! this lamenting strain, Of lawless force, shall lawless Mars complain? Of all the gods who tread the spangled skies, Thou most unjust, most odious in our eyes! Inhuman discord is thy dire delight, The waste of slaughter, and the rage of fight. No bound, no law, thy fiery temper quells, And all thy mother in thy soul rebels. In vain our threats, in vain our power, we use, She gives the example, and her son pursues. Yet long the inflicted pangs thou shalt not mourn, Sprung since thou art from Jove, and heavenly born: Else singed with lightning, hadst thou hence been thrown, Where, chained on burning rocks, the Titans groan.'"

HOMER.

Under the direction of Jupiter, the God of War soon recovered.

"Thus he, who shakes Olympus with his nod, Then gave to Poeon's care the bleeding god. With gentle hand, the balm he poured around, And healed th' immortal flesh, and closed the wound. Cleansed from the dust and gore, fair Hebe dressed His mighty limbs in an immortal vest, Glorious he sat, in majesty restored, Fast by the throne of Heaven's superior lord."

HOMER.

The worship of Mars, was not very universal among the ancients, nor were his temples very numerous in Greece, but among the warlike Romans he received great homage, as they were proud of sacrificing to a deity, whom they considered the patron of their city, and the father of the first of their monarchs; a faith to which {96} they loved to give credit. Among this people, it was customary for the consul, before he went on an expedition, to visit the temple of Mars, where he offered his prayers, and shook in a solemn manner, the spear which was in the hand of the statue of the God, exclaiming "_Mars vigila!_ God of War, watch over the safety of this city."

The influence of Cupid, as God of love, was felt even by Mars, who was compelled to acknowledge his power, and the sharpness of his arrows.