The Classic Myths in English Literature and in Art (2nd ed.) (1911)

Illustrative. Young, in the Night Thoughts, alludes to the Sibyl. See also Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI, II, ii; Othello, III, iv.

In Art. Figs. 181-183, in text. The Virgil of Raphael (drawing in the Museum, Venice); the Æneas of the Ægina Marbles (Glyptothek, Munich). P. Guérin's painting, Æneas at the Court of Dido; Raphael, Dido; Turner, Dido building Carthage. The Sibyls in Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, Rome; the Cumæan Sibyl of Domenichino; Elihu Vedder's Cumæan Sibyl.

255-257. Rhadamanthus: E. W. Gosse, The Island of the Blest. Tantalus: Cowper, The Progress of Error; L. Morris, Epic of Hades; W. W. Story, Tantalus. Ixion: poem by Browning in Jocoseria. See Pope, St. Cecilia's Day, 67; Rape of the Lock, 2, 133. Sisyphus: Lord Lytton, Death and Sisyphus; L. Morris, in The Epic of Hades.

The teachings of Anchises to Æneas, respecting the nature of the human soul, were in conformity with the doctrines of the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras (born about 540 B.C.) was a native of the island of Samos, but passed the chief portion of his life at Crotona in Italy. He is therefore sometimes called "the Samian," and sometimes "the philosopher of Crotona." When young he traveled extensively and is said to have visited Egypt, where he was instructed by the priests, and afterwards to have journeyed to the East, where he visited the Persian and Chaldean Magi, and the Brahmins of India. He established himself at Crotona, and enjoined sobriety, temperance, simplicity, and silence upon his throngs of disciples. Ipse dixit (Pythagoras said so) was to be held by them as sufficient proof of anything. Only advanced pupils might question. Pythagoras considered numbers as the essence and principle of all things, and attributed to them a real and distinct existence; so that, in his view, they were the elements out of which the universe was constructed.

As the numbers proceed from the monad or unit, so he regarded the pure and simple essence of the Deity as the source of all the forms of nature. Gods, demons, and heroes are emanations of the Supreme, and there is a fourth emanation, the human soul. This is immortal, and when freed from the fetters of the body, passes to the habitation of the dead, where it remains till it returns to the world, to dwell in some other human or animal body; at last, when sufficiently purified, it returns to the source from which it proceeded. This doctrine of the transmigration of souls (metempsychosis), which was originally Egyptian and connected with the doctrine of reward and punishment of human actions, was the chief reason why the Pythagoreans killed no animals. Ovid represents Pythagoras saying that in the time of the Trojan War he was Euphorbus, the son of Panthus, and fell by the spear of Menelaüs. Lately, he said, he had recognized his shield hanging among the trophies in the Temple of Juno at Argos.

On Metempsychosis, see the essay in the Spectator (No. 343) on the Transmigration of Souls; Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice (Gratiano to Shylock).

Harmony of the Spheres. The relation of the notes of the musical scale to numbers, whereby harmony results from proportional vibrations of sound, and discord from the reverse, led Pythagoras to apply the word harmony to the visible creation, meaning by it the just adaptation of parts to each other. This is the idea which Dryden expresses in the beginning of his song for St. Cecilia's Day, "From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This everlasting frame began."

In the center of the universe (as Pythagoras taught) there was a central fire, the principle of life. The central fire was surrounded by the earth, the moon, the sun, and the five planets. The distances of the various heavenly bodies from one another were conceived to correspond to the proportions of the musical scale. See Merchant of Venice, Act V (Lorenzo and Jessica), for the Music of the Spheres; also Milton, Hymn on the Nativity. See Longfellow's Verses to a Child, and Occultation of Orion, for Pythagoras as inventor of the lyre.

260. Camilla. Pope, illustrating the rule that "the sound should be an echo to the sense," says:

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line, too, labors and the words move slow;
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, or skims along the main.

    Essay on Criticism.
268-281. On Norse mythology, see R. B. Anderson, Norse Mythology, or the Religion of our Forefathers (Chicago, 1875); Anderson, Horn's Scandinavian Literature (Chicago, S. C. Griggs & Co., 1884); Dasent, Popular Tales from the Norse (transl. from P. C. Asbjörnsen, New York, 1859); Thorpe's translation of Sæmund's Edda, 2 vols. (London, 1866); Icelandic Poetry or Edda of Sæmund, transl. into English verse (Bristol, A. S. Cottle, 1797); Augusta Larned, Tales from the Norse Grandmother (New York, 1881); H. W. Mabie, Norse Stories (Boston, 1882). A critical edition of the Elder Edda is Sophus Bugge's (Christiania, 1867). The Younger Edda: Edda Snorra Sturlasonar, 2 vols. (Hafniae, 1848-1852); by Thorleif Jonsson (Copenhagen, 1875); Translation: Anderson's Younger Edda (Chicago, S. C. Griggs & Co., 1880) (see references at foot of pp. 458-461 and in C. 282). Illustrative poems: Gray, Ode on the Descent of Odin, Ode on the Fatal Sisters; Matthew Arnold, Balder Dead; Longfellow, Tegnér's Drapa, on Balder's Death; William Morris, The Funeral of Balder, in The Lovers of Gudrun (Earthly Paradise); Robert Buchanan, Balder the Beautiful; W. M. W. Call, Balder; and Thor. Sydney Dobell's Balder does not rehearse the Norse myth. It is a poem dealing with the spiritual maladies of the time, excellent in parts, but confused and uneven. Longfellow's Saga of King Olaf (the Musician's Tale, Wayside Inn) is from the Heimskriṅgla, or Book of Stories of the Kings, edited by Snorri Sturlason. Many of the cantos of the Saga throw light on Norse mythology. See also the Hon. Roden Noël's Ragnarok (in the Modern Faust), for an ethical modification of the ancient theme.

Anses (the Asa-folk, Æsir, etc.). The word probably means ghost, ancestralspirit, – of such kind as the Manes of the Romans. The derivation may be from the root AN, 'to breathe,' whence animus (Vigfusson and Powell, Corp. Poet. Bor. 1, 515). According to Jordanes, the Anses were demigods, ancestors of royal races. The main cult of the older religion was ancestor-worship, Thor and Woden being worshiped by a tribe, but each family having its own anses, or deified ancestors (Corp. Poet. Bor. 2, 413). Elf was another name used of spirits of the dead. Later it sinks to the significance of "fairy." Indeed, say Vigfusson and Powell, half our ideas about fairies are derived from the heathen beliefs as to the spirits of the dead, their purity, kindliness, homes in hillocks (cf. the Irish "folk of the hills," Banshees, etc.) (Corp. Poet. Bor. 2, 418).

The Norse Religion consists evidently of two distinct strata: the lower, of gods, that are personifications of natural forces, or deified heroes, with regular sacrifices, with belief in ghosts, etc.; the upper, of doctrines introduced by Christianity. To the latter belong the Last Battle to be fought by Warrior-Angels and the Elect against the Beast, the Dragon, and the Demons of Fire (Corp. Poet. Bor. 2, 459).

Odin or Woden was first the god of the heaven, or heaven itself, then husband of earth, god of war and of wisdom, lord of the ravens, lord of the gallows (which was called Woden's tree or Woden's steed). Frigga is Mother Earth. Thor is the lord of the hammer – the thunderbolt, the adversary of giants and all oppressors of man. He is dear to man, always connected with earth, – the husband of Sif (the Norse Ceres). His goat-drawn car makes the rumbling of the thunder. Freyr means lord; patron of the Swedes, harvest-god. Balder means also lord or king. On the one hand, his attributes recall those of Apollo; on the other hand, his story appeals to, and is colored by, the Christian imagination. He is another figure of that radiant type to which belong all bright and genial heroes, righters of wrong, blazing to consume evil, gentle and strong to uplift weakness: Apollo, Hercules, Perseus, Achilles, Sigurd, St. George, and many another. Höder is the "adversary."

Nanna, Balder's wife, is the ensample of constancy; her name is maiden.

282. The Volsunga Saga. The songs of the Elder Edda, from which Eirikr Magnússon and William Morris draw their Story of the Volsungs and the Nibelungs (London, 1870), are The Lay of Helgi the Hunding's-Bane, The Lay of Sigrdrifa, The Short Lay of Sigurd, The Hell-Ride of Brynhild, The Lay of Brynhild, The Ancient Lay of Gudrun, The Song of Atli, The Whetting of Gudrun, The Lay of Hamdir, The Lament of Oddrun. For translations of these fragments, see pp. 167-270 of the volume mentioned above. For the originals and literal translations of these and other Norse lays of importance, see Vigfusson and Powell's Corpus Poeticum Boreale; and Vigfusson's Sturlunga Saga, 2 vols. For the story of Sigurd, read William Morris' spirited epic, Sigurd the Volsung. Illustrative of the Norse spirit are Motherwell's Battle-Flag of Sigurd, the Wooing Song of Jarl Egill Skallagrim, and the Sword Chant of Thorstein Raudi; also Dora Greenwell's Battle-Flag of Sigurd; and Charles Kingsley's Longbeard's Saga, in Hypatia. Baldwin's Story of Siegfried (New York, 1888) is a good introduction for young people.

283. The Nibelungenlied. The little book entitled Echoes from Mist Land, by Auber Forestier (Chicago, Griggs & Co., 1877) will be of value to the beginner. Other translations are made by A. G. Foster-Barham (London, 1887) and by W. N. Lettsom, The Fall of the Nibelungers (London, 1874), both in verse. See also T. Carlyle, Nibelungenlied (Crit. Miscell.), Essays, 2, 220. Modern German editions by Simrock, Bartsch, Marbach, and Gerlach are procurable. The edition by Werner Hahn (Uebersetzung d. Handschrift A, Collection Spemann, Berlin u. Stuttgart) has been used in the preparation of this account. The original was published in part by Bodmer in 1757; later, in full by C. H. Myller, by K. K. Lachmann (Nibelunge Nôt mit der Klage, 1826); by K. F. Bartsch (Der Nibelunge Nôt, 2 vols. in 3, 1870-1880), and in Pfeiffer's Deutsch. Classik. des Mittelalt., Vol. 3, (1872); and by others (see James Sime's Nibelungenlied, Encyc. Brit.). Of some effect in stimulating interest were Dr. W. Jordan's Studies and Recitations of the Nibelunge, which comprised the Siegfried Saga, and Hildebrandt's Return. Especially of value is Richard Wagner's series of operas, The Ring of the Nibelung, 284-288. In painting, Schnorr von Carolsfeld's wall pictures illustrative of the Nibelungenlied, in the royal palace at Munich, are well known; also the illustrations of the four operas by J. Hoffmann, and by Th. Pixis.

282-283. Historically, Siegfried has been identified, variously, with (1) the great German warrior Arminius (or Hermann), the son of Sigimer, chief of the tribe of the Cherusci, who inhabited the southern part of what is now Hanover and Brunswick. Born 18 B.C. and trained in the Roman army, in the year 9 A.D. he overcame with fearful slaughter the Roman tyrants of Germany, defeating the Roman commander Varus and his legions in the Teutoburg Forest in the valley of the Lippe; (2) Sigibert, king of the Ripuarian Franks, who in 508 A.D. was treacherously slain while taking a midday nap in the forest; (3) Sigibert, king of the Austrasian Franks whose history recalls more than one event of the Sigurd and Siegfried stories; for he discovered a treasure, fought with and overcame foreign nations, – the Huns, the Saxons, the Danes, – and finally in consequence of a quarrel between his wife Brünhilde and his sister-in-law Fredegunde, was, in 576 A.D., assassinated by the retainers of the latter; (4) Julius, or Claudius Civilis, the leader of the Batavi in the revolt against Rome, 69-70 A.D. It is probable that in Sigurd and Siegfried we have recollections combined of two or more of these historic characters.

Mythologically, Sigurd (of the shining eyes that no man might face unabashed) has been regarded as a reflection of the god Balder.

Gunnar and Gunther are, historically, recognized in a slightly known king of the Burgundians, Gundicar, who with his people was overwhelmed by the Huns in 437 A.D.

Atli and Etzel are poetic idealizations of the renowned Hunnish chieftain, Attila, who united under his rule the German and Slavonic nations, ravaged the Eastern Roman Empire between 445 and 450 A.D., and, invading the Western Empire, was defeated by the Romans in the great battle of Châlons-sur-Marne, 451. He died 454 A.D.

Dietrich of Berne (Verona) bears some very slight resemblance to Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, who, between 493 and 526 A.D., ruled from Italy what had been the Western Empire. In these poems, however, his earlier illustrious career is overlooked; he is merely a refugee in the court of the Hunnish king, and, even so, is confounded with uncles of his who had been retainers of Attila; for the historic Theodoric was not born until two years after the historic Attila's death.

These historic figures were, of course, merely suggestions for, or contributions to, the great heroes of the epics, not prototypes; the same is true of any apparently confirmed historic forerunners of Brynhild, or Gudrun, or Kriemhild. The mythological connection of these epics with the Norse myths of the seasons, Sigurd being Balder of the spring, and Hogni Höder of winter and darkness, is ingenious; but, except as reminding us of the mythic material which the bards were likely to recall and utilize, it is not of substantial worth.

In the Norse version, the name Nibelung is interchangeable with the patronymic Giuking, – it is the name of the family that ruins Sigurd. But, in the German version, the name is of purely mythical import: the Nibelungs are not a human race; none but Siegfried may have intercourse with them. The land of the Nibelungs is equally vague in the German poem; it is at one time an island, again a mountain, and in one manuscript it is confounded with Norway. But mythically it is connected with Niflheim, the kingdom of Hela, the shadowy realm of death. The earth, that gathers to her bosom the dead, cherishes also in her bosom the hoard of gold. Naturally, therefore, the hoard is guarded by Alberich, the dwarf, for dwarfs have always preferred the underworld. So (according to Werner Hahn, and others) there is a deep mythical meaning in the Lay of the Nibelungs: beings that dwell far from the light of day; or that, possessing the riches of mortality, march toward the land of death.

284-288. Wagner finished this series of operas in 1876. For a translation the reader is referred to the four librettos, Englished by Frederick Jameson (Schott & Co., London); or to the series published by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York.

298. Homer is also called Melesigenes, son of Meles – the stream on which Smyrna was built. The Homeridæ, who lived on Chios, claimed to be descended from Homer. They devoted themselves to the cultivation of epic poetry.

Arion. See George Eliot's poem beginning

Arion, whose melodic soul
Taught the dithyramb to roll.

Other Greek Poets of Mythology to be noted are Callimachus (260 B.C.), whose Lock of Berenice is reproduced in the elegiacs of Catullus, and from whose Origins (of sacred rites) Ovid drew much of his information. Also Nicander (150 B.C.), whose Transformations, and Parthenius, whose Metamorphoses furnished material to the Latin poet. With Theocritus should be read Bion and Moschus, all three masters of the idyl and elegy. See Andrew Lang's translation of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus; and the verses by Dobson and Gosse with which Lang prefaces the translation. Lycophron (260 B.C.) wrote a poem called Alexandra, on the consequences of the voyage of Paris to Sparta. The Loves of Hero and Leander were probably written by a grammarian, Musæus, as late as 500 A.D.

Translations of Greek Poets. The best verse translations of Homer are those of Chapman, Pope, the Earl of Derby, Cowper, and Worsley.

An excellent prose translation of the Iliad is that of Lang, Leaf, and Myers (London, Macmillan & Co., 1889); of the Odyssey, that by Butcher and Lang (London, Macmillan & Co., 1883); or the translation into rhythmical prose by G. H. Palmer (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1892).

The Tragic Poets. Plumptre's translations of Æschylus and Sophocles, 2 vols. (New York, Routledge, 1882); A. S. Way's translation of Euripides, into verse (London, 1894); Wodhull, Potter, and Milman's translation of Euripides in Morley's Universal Library (London, Routledge, 1888); Potter's Æschylus, Francklin's Sophocles, Wodhull's Euripides, 5 vols. (London, 1809). Other translations of Æschylus are J. S. Blackie's (1850); T. A. Buckley's (London, Bohn, 1848); E. A. A. Morshead's (1881); and Verrall's; – of Sophocles: Thos. Dale's, into verse, 2 vols. (1824); R. Whitelaw's, into verse (1883); Lewis Campbell's Seven Plays, into verse (1883); – of Euripides: T. A. Buckley's, 2 vols. (London, Bohn, 1854-1858); and Verrall's.

Other Poets. Lang's prose translation of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus; C. S. Calverley's verse translation of Theocritus (Boston, 1906). Pindar, – Odes, transl. by F. A. Paley (London, 1868); by Ernest Myers (London, 1874). Translations of Greek Lyric Poets, – Collections from the Greek Anthology, by Bland and Merivale (London, 1833); The Greek Anthology, by Lord Neaves, Ancient Classics for English Readers Series (London, 1874); Bohn's Greek Anthology, by Burges (London, 1852).

On Homer, Hesiod, Theocritus, the tragic poets, Pindar, etc., see also Collins' excellent series of Ancient Classics for English Readers, Philadelphia (Lippincott); and the series entitled "English Translations from Ancient and Modern Poems," by Various Authors, 3 vols. (London, 1810). Also W. C. Wilkinson's College Greek Course, and College Latin Course, in English (1884-1886). Of Æschylus read the Prometheus Bound, to illustrate 15; the Agamemnon, Choëphori, and Eumenides, to illustrate 193, 228-230; and the Seven against Thebes, for 187. Of Sophocles read Œdipus Rex, Œdipus at Colonus, Antigone, with 182-185, etc.; Electra, with 228; Ajax and Philoctetes, with the Trojan War; Women of Trachis, with 162. Of Euripides read Medea, Ion, Alcestis, Iphigenia in Aulis and in Tauris, Electra.

299. Roman Poets. Horace (65 B.C.) in his Odes, Epodes, and Satires makes frequent reference and allusion to the common stock of mythology, sometimes telling a whole story, as that of the daughters of Danaüs. Catullus (87 B.C.), the most original of Roman love-poets, gives us the Nuptials of Peleus and Thetis (for selections in English hexameters, see 177 and 191), the Lock of Berenice, and the Atys. Manilius of the age of Augustus wrote a poem on Astronomy, which contains a philosophic statement of star-myths. Valerius Flaccus (d. 88 A.D.) based his Argonautics upon the poem of that name by Apollonius of Rhodes. Statius (61 A.D.) revived in the brilliant verses of his Thebaid and his Achilleïd the epic myths and epic machinery, but not the vigor and naturalness of the ancient style. To a prose writer, Hyginus, who lived on terms of close intimacy with Ovid, a fragmentary work called the Book of Fables, which is sometimes a useful source of information, and four books of Poetical Astronomy, have been attributed. The works, as we have them, could not have been written by a friend of the cultivated Ovid.

Translations and Studies. For a general treatment of the great poets of Rome, the student is referred to W. L. Collins' series of Ancient Classics for English Readers (Philadelphia, Lippincott). For the Cupid and Psyche of Apuleius, read Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean (London, 1885). Of translations, the following are noteworthy: Ovid, – the Metamorphoses, by Dryden, Addison, and others; into English blank verse by Ed. King (Edinburgh, 1871); prose by Riley (London, 1851); verse by Geo. Sandys (London, 1626). Virgil: complete works into prose by J. Lonsdale and S. Lee (New York, Macmillan); Æneid, translations, – into verse by John Conington (London, 1873); into dactylic hexameter by Oliver Crane (New York, 1888); the Æneids into verse by Wm. Morris (London, 1876); and by Theodore C. Williams (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co.); Bks. 1-4, by Stanyhurst (Arber's Reprint) (1582); Æneis, by Dryden. Catullus: transl. by Robinson Ellis (London, 1871); by Sir Theodore Martin (Edinburgh, 1875). Horace: transl. by Theodore Martin (Edinburgh, 1881); by Smart (London, 1853); Odes and Epodes in Calverley's translations (London, 1886); Odes, etc., by Conington (London, 1872); Odes and Epodes, by Lord Lytton (New York, 1870); complete, by E. C. Wickham (Oxford, Clarendon Press); Odes, by A. S. Way (London, 1876) and Epodes (1898). Statius: Thebaid, transl. by Pope.

300. For Scandinavian literature, see footnotes to 300, and references in C. 268-282.

Runes were "the letters of the alphabets used by all the old Teutonic tribes… The letters were even considered magical, and cast into the air written separately upon chips or spills of wood, to fall, as fate determined, on a cloth, and then be read by the interpreters… The association of the runic letters with heathen mysteries and superstition caused the first Christian teachers to discourage, and, indeed, as far as possible, suppress their use. They were therefore superseded by the Latin alphabet, which in First English was supplemented by retention of two of the runes, named 'thorn' and 'wen,' to represent sounds of 'th' and 'w,' for which the Latin alphabet had no letters provided. Each rune was named after some object whose name began with the sound represented. The first letter was F, Feoh, money; the second U, Ur, a bull; the third Th, Thorn, a thorn; the fourth O, Os, the mouth; the fifth R, Rad, a saddle; the sixth C, Cen, a torch; and the six sounds being joined together make Futhorc, which is the name given to the runic A B C." – Morley, English Writers, 1, 267. See also Vigfusson and Powell's Corpus Poeticum Boreale, 2, 691, under Runes and Rune-Stones; Cleasby and Vigfusson's Icelandic-English Dictionary; and George Stephens' Old Northern Runic Monuments, 2 vols. (London, 1866-1868).

301. For Translations of the Nibelungenlied, see C. 283. For other German lays of myth, – the Gudrun, the Great Rose Garden, the Horned Siegfried, etc., – see Vilmar's Geschichte der deutschen National-Litteratur, 42-101 (Leipzig, 1886). See also, in general, Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie (Göttingen, 1855); Ludlow's Popular Epics of the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (London, 1865); George T. Dippold's Great Epics of Mediæval Germany (Boston, 1891).

302. Egyptian. See Birch's Guide to the First and Second Egyptian Rooms, British Museum; Miss A. B. Edwards' A Thousand Miles up the Nile (London, 1876).

For the principal divinities, see Index to this work.

303. Indian. Max Müller's translation of the Rig-Veda-Sanhita; Sacred Books of the East, 35 vols., edited by Max Müller, – the Upanishads, Bhagavadgita, Institutes of Vishnu, etc., translated by various scholars (Oxford, 1874-1890); Müller's History of Sanskrit Literature (London, 1859); Weber's History of Indian Literature (London, 1878); H. H. Wilson's Rig-Veda-Sanhita, 6 vols. (London, 1850-1870), and his Theatre of the Hindus, 2 vols. (London, 1871); Muir's Sanskrit Texts, and his Principal Deities of the Rig-Veda, 5 vols. (London, 1868-1873); J. Freeman Clarke's Ten Great Religions (Boston, 1880); the Mahâbhârata, translated by Protap Chundra Roy, Nos. 1-76 (Calcutta, 1883-1893). See Indian Idylls, by Edwin Arnold; The Episode of Nala, – Nalopákhyánam, – translated by Monier Williams (Oxford, 1879). Of the Râmâyana, a paraphrase (in brief) is given by F. Richardson in the Iliad of the East (London, 1870). Sir William Jones' translation of the Sakuntala; E. A. Reed's Hindu Literature, with translations (Chicago, 1891), W. Ward's History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos, 3 vols. (London, 1822). On Buddhism, read Arnold's Light of Asia.

For the chief divinities of the Hindus, see Index to this work.

304. Persian. J. Freeman Clarke's Ten Great Religions; Johnson's Oriental Religions; Haug's Essays on the Sacred Language, Literature, etc., of the Parsis, by E. W. West (Boston, 1879). In illustration should be read Moore's Fire-Worshipers in Lalla Rookh.

A FEW RULES FOR THE ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK AND LATIN PROPER NAMES

[These rules will cover most cases, but they are not intended to exhaust the subject. The reader is referred to the Latin grammars and the English dictionaries.]

I. Quantity. The reader must first ascertain whether the second last syllable of the word is long. In general a syllable is long in quantity:

(1) If it contains a diphthong, or a long vowel: Bau-cis, Ac-tae-on, Mē-tis, O-rī-on, Flō-ra.