Stories of Old Greece and Rome — Appendices 41-50

XLI

Palæmon was usually represented riding on a dolphin.

He was called Portumnus by the Romans, and was believed to have jurisdiction over the ports and shores.

Some authorities state that the Isthmian Games held on the isthmus of Corinth were in honor of Neptune instead of Palæmon.

The divinities of the lakes, rivers, fountains, etc. , were hoary river gods, slender youths, beautiful maidens, and sometimes children.

The famous statue called "Father Nile" is in the Vatican at Rome.

XLII

Bacchus was worshiped very widely throughout the ancient world, and many festivals were held in his honor.

The most noted were the Greater and Lesser Dionysia, the Liberalia, and the Bacchanalia.

Bacchus is generally represented as crowned with ivy or grape leaves and bearing an ivy-circled wand (the thyrsus).

He rides in a chariot drawn by panthers or leopards.

Poems:-- Semele EDWARD R. SILL

Alexander's Feast JOHN DRYDEN The Praise of Dionysus EDMUND GOSSE Triumph of Bacchus RODEN NOËL Sophron's Hymn to Bacchus WALTER S. LANDOR

Prelude to Songs before Sunrise ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE

XLIII

As the ass was reverenced in Phrygia, the acquisition of ass's ears may not have been such a disgrace as we imagine.

Ovid thus describes Midas' golden touch:-- "Whose powerful hands the bread no sooner hold, Than all its substance is transformed to gold;

Up to his mouth he lifts the savory meat, Which turns to gold as he attempts to eat: His patron's noble juice of purple hue, Touch'd by his lips, a gilded cordial grew, Unfit for drink; and, wonderous to behold, It trickles from his jaws a fluid gold.

The rich poor fool, confounded with surprise, Starving in all his various plenty lies."

(Croxall's trans.

) XLIV

Fauns and satyrs have been favorite subjects in art and especially in sculpture.

The most famous are the Faun of Praxiteles (Vatican, copy);

the Dancing Faun (Lateran, Rome); Dancing Faun, Sleeping Faun, Drunken Faun, and Faun and Bacchus (National Museum, Naples); Sleeping Satyr, or the Barberini Faun (Glyptotek, Munich).

The use of the Faun in literature is best known in Hawthorne's "The Marble Faun."

Reference is made to fauns and naiads in Milton's "Lycidas."

Robert Buchanan has two poems entitled "The Satyr" and "The Naiad."

XLV

Poems:-- Hymn to Pan JOHN KEATS The Dead Pan ELIZABETH B. BROWNING

Hymn of Pan PERCY B. SHELLEY

Cupid and Pan WALTER S. LANDOR

Pan ROBERT BUCHANAN Pan and Luna ROBERT BROWNING Song of the Priest of Pan and Song of Pan in "The Faithful Shepherdess" FLETCHER XLVI

Keats in "Endymion" alludes to Dryope thus:-- "She took a lute from which there pulsing came A lively prelude, fashioning the way In which her voice should wander.

'Twas a lay More subtle-cadenced, more forest-wild Than Dryope's lone lulling of her child."

Poem:-- Dryope WALTER S. LANDOR

XLVII

James R. Lowell has taken the story of Rhœcus as the subject of one of his finest poems.

"Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece, As full of freedom, youth and beauty still, As the immortal freshness of that grace Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze."

Poem:-- The Hamadryad WALTER S. LANDOR

XLVIII

Janus is not the only one among the Greek and Latin deities whose name has been given to a part of the week or year.

In Latin, the names of the days are--dies Solis (Sunday); dies Lunæ (Moon day); dies Martis (Mars' day); dies Mercurii (Mercury's day); dies Jovis (Jove's day);

dies Veneris (Venus's day); dies Saturni (Saturn's day).

XLIX

Austin Dobson has a poem "The Death of Procris."

Moore, in his Legendary Ballads, devotes one ballad to "Cephalus and Procris."

L

The finest poetic treatment of the sadness of Tithonus over his immortal old age is in Tennyson's "Tithonus."

The following are a few lines from this poem, which should be read in its entirety:-- "Let me go; take back thy gift;

Why should a man desire in any way To vary from the kindly race of men, Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?

* * * * * "Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam Floats up from those dim fields about the homes Of happy men that have the power to die."