Heathen mythology Part 9

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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 a.s.s, Pelted with flowers as he on did pa.s.s, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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.

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The oracle must be obeyed: but who would be the subst.i.tute? 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 pa.s.sion, 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 subst.i.tute, and on the instant slew himself in her stead.

"Great father Bacchus, to my song repair, For cl.u.s.tering 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 G.o.d; 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 cl.u.s.ters 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} G.o.d. 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 superst.i.tion, 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 superst.i.tion, 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 a.n.a.lagous to its effect upon the Greeks, who turned all things--superst.i.tion, prejudice, murder, madness--to beauty."

Sh.e.l.lEY.

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VENUS.

Venus, one of the most celebrated deities of the ancients, was the G.o.ddess 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 sh.o.r.e, From Ocean's foam the lovely G.o.ddess bore,"

after the mutilated body of Ura.n.u.s 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.

G.o.ddess! o'er Cyprus fragrant groves who reigns, And Salamis high cultivated plains."

HORACE.

Hither she was wafted by Zephyr in a sea-sh.e.l.l, which served as a chariot, and received on the sh.o.r.e by the Seasons, daughters of Jupiter and Themis.

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She was soon after carried to heaven, where all the G.o.ds admired her beauty, and all the G.o.ddesses became jealous of her personal charms.

Jupiter even attempted to gain her affections, but Venus refused, and the G.o.d, to fulfil her destiny, gave her in marriage to Vulcan, the most ugly and deformed of the G.o.ds. This {67} marriage did not prevent the G.o.ddess 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 pa.s.sions, 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."