Heathen mythology Part 14

Minerva, the G.o.ddess of wisdom, war, and all the liberal arts, came forth, armed and grown up, from her father's brain, and was immediately admitted into the a.s.sociation of the G.o.ds, becoming one of the most faithful counsellors of her father. She was indeed the only one of all the divinities whose authority, and consequence, were equal to those of Jupiter.

"From Jove's awful head sprang forth to light, In golden panoply superbly dight; And while the glittering spear thy hands essayed, Olympus trembled at the martial maid.

Affrighted earth sounds from her deepest caves, And swell of Ocean tides the sable waves; The turgid billows sink; in heaven's high plains His steeds the son of Hyperion reins, Till Pallas lays her arms divine aside, While Jove his daughter views with conscious pride."

HORACE.

The strife of this G.o.ddess with Neptune is worthy attention: each of them claimed the right of giving a name to the capital of Cecropia, and the a.s.sembly of the G.o.ds decided the dispute by promising preference to whichever could produce the most useful and necessary present to the inhabitants of the earth.

Neptune, upon hearing this, struck the ground with his trident, and immediately a horse issued therefrom. Minerva produced the olive, and obtained the victory by the unanimous voice of the G.o.ds, who considered the olive, as the emblem of peace, to be far preferable to the horse, the symbol of war and bloodshed. The victorious deity called the capital Athenoe, and became the tutelar divinity of the place.

--------"The sandals of celestial mould, Fledged with ambrosial plumes and rich with gold Surround her feet: with these sublime she sails Th' aerial s.p.a.ce, and mounts the winged gales; O'er earth and ocean wide, prepared to soar, Her dreaded arm a beaming javelin bore, Ponderous and vast: which, when her fury burns, Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o'erturns."

HOMER.

Arachne, a woman of Colophon, having acquired great perfection in working with her needle, became impressed with a belief that her powers were superior to those of Minerva, G.o.ddess of the art. {89} This wounded Minerva's jealous pride, which was increased by Arachnes challenging her to a trial of skill.

"From famed Pactolus' golden stream, Drawn by her art the curious Naiads came Nor would the work, when finished, please so much As, while she wrought, to view each graceful touch: Whether the shapeless wool in b.a.l.l.s she wound, Or with quick motion turned the spindle round, Or with her pencil drew the neat design, Pallas, her mistress, shone in every line.

This the proud maid, with scornful air denies, And e'en the G.o.ddess at her work defies, Disowns her heavenly mistress every hour, Nor asks her aid, nor deprecates her power."

OVID.

Beautiful as the production of Arachne was, which recorded the intrigues of Jove, yet it could not compete with that of Minerva, who by her divine skill, surpa.s.sed all her rival's efforts.

"Pallas in figures wrought the heavenly powers, And Mars's skill among the Athenean bowers, Each G.o.d, by proper features was exprest; Jove with majestic mien, excelled the rest, His nine forked mace the dewy sea-G.o.d shook, And, looking sternly, smote the ragged rock; When, from the stone, leaped forth the sprightly steed And Neptune claims the city for the deed.

Herself she blazons with a glittering spear, And crested helm that veiled her braided hair, With s.h.i.+eld, and scaly breast-plate, implements of war.

Struck with her pointed lance, the teeming earth Seemed to produce a new surprising birth, When from the glebe, the pledge of conquest sprung, A tree, pale green with fairest olives hung."

OVID.

Although her work was perfect and masterly, the G.o.ddess was so vexed at the subjects Arachne had chosen, that she struck her two or three times on the forehead.

"The bright G.o.ddess, pa.s.sionately moved, With envy saw, yet inwardly approved, The scene of heavenly guilt, with haste she tore, Nor longer the affront with patience bore; A boxen shuttle in her hand she took, And more than once, Arachne's forehead struck."

The high spirited mortal, indignant at the blows, and in despair at her defeat, hung herself, and was changed into a spider by Minerva.

--------"She sprinkled her with juice, Which leaves of baleful aconite produce.

Touched with the poisonous drug, her flowing hair Fell to the ground, and left her temples bare.

{90} Her usual features vanished from their place, Her body lessened--but the most, her face, Her slender fingers, hanging on each side, With many joints the use of legs supplied, A spider's bag, the rest, from which she gives A thread, and still, by constant spinning lives."

OVID.

Minerva when amusing herself by playing upon her favourite flute before Juno and Venus, was ridiculed by the G.o.ddesses for the distortion of her face while blowing the instrument; Minerva convinced of the truth of their remarks, by looking at herself in a fountain near Mount Ida, threw the flute away, and denounced a melancholy death to him who should find it.

Marsyas was the unfortunate being, and in the history of Apollo may be found the fate he experienced through the veracity of her decree.

Minerva was called Athena Pallas, either from her killing the giant Pallas, or because the spear which she seems to brandish in her hands is called "_pallein_."

According to the different characters in which she has appeared, has the G.o.ddess been represented. Usually with a helmet on her head, and a large plume nodding in the air. In one hand she holds a spear, and in the other, a s.h.i.+eld, with the dying head of Medusa upon it.

"With bright wreaths of serpent tresses crowned, Severe in beauty, young Medusa frowned; Erewhile subdued, round Wisdom's aegis rolled, Hissed the dread snakes, and flamed in burnished gold Flashed on her brandished arm the immortal s.h.i.+eld, And terror lightened o'er the dazzled field."

DARWIN.

Sometimes the Gorgon's head was on her breast-plate, with living serpents writhing round it, as well as on her s.h.i.+eld and helmet.

It was in one of her temples that the following occurrence took place, from which she adopted this device.

Medusa was the only one of the Gorgons who was subject to mortality, and was celebrated for her personal charms; particularly for the beauty of her hair. Neptune became enamoured of her

Medusa once had charms, to gain her love A rival crowd of envious lovers strove.

They who have seen her, own they ne'er did trace, More moving features, in a sweeter face: Yet above all, her length of hair they own, In golden ringlets waved, and graceful shone.

{91} Her, Neptune saw: and with such beauties fired, Resolved to compa.s.s what his soul desired.

The bashful G.o.ddess turned her eyes away, Nor durst such bold impurity survey."

This violation of the sanct.i.ty of her temple provoked Minerva, and she changed the beautiful locks of Medusa, which had inspired the love of Neptune, into ghastly and living serpents, as a punishment for the desecration of that sanctuary, where only wors.h.i.+p and incense should have been offered.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"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 s.h.i.+ne, 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 gra.s.s 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 s.h.i.+fting 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."

Sh.e.l.lEY.

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, inst.i.tuted 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 t.i.tle 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 a.s.serts, 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 att.i.tude 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 impa.s.sioned 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 att.i.tude of the lower part of the statue certainly suggest that idea.

"The Greeks rarely in their representations of the characters of their G.o.ds--unless we call the poetic enthusiasm of Apollo a mortal pa.s.sion--expressed the disturbance of human feeling; and here is deep and impa.s.sioned 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 att.i.tude, are what may be seen in many other statues belonging to that astonis.h.i.+ng era which produced it: such a countenance is seen in few."

Sh.e.l.lEY.

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

[Ill.u.s.tration]