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 Myths of the Odyssey in ?';I,.|an[l|,',i{|f[|S|"|| 
 
 3 1924 026 672 265 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026672265 
 
MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY 
 
FRONTISPIECE. 
 
PI. 6. 
 

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 H<T I- 1-^ „ 4„i;^f a ^ v ^^ LV^L-V. 
 
 PI. 7. 
 
MYTHS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE ODYSSEY 
 
 IN 
 
 ART AND LITERATURE 
 
 BY 
 
 J. E. HARRISpN 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXII 
 
 1 ?«' 
 
4 X^t^7 
 
 >RNEtL 
 UNJVERSfTYl 
 LIBRARY 
 
TO THE 
 MEMORY OF MT. GREEK FRIEND 
 
 J. B. 
 
 I DEDICATE ALL THAT IN THIS BOOK IS WEITTEN AEIGHT. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 For English readers my book is in intention some- 
 what novel; it may be well therefore at the outset 
 clearly to define its purport. 
 
 By two voices the tales of Homer have been told 
 us : to one of these we too often neglect to listen. 
 Because the myths of Homer himself are told in 
 words that are matchless, is it well that the story 
 which art has left us should remain unread? The 
 vase - painter and the gem - engraver are indeed 
 humbler artists than the great epic poet ; sometimes 
 they are mere craftsmen, and their work little beyond 
 the rudest symbolic word-painting ; but they are 
 Greeks, and they may help us to understand some- 
 what better the spirit of their mighty kinsman. We 
 who are so far removed, by time, by place, by every 
 condition of modern life, must refuse no aid whereby 
 we may seek to draw the nearer : our eyes must 
 learn to see as well as our ears to hearken. 
 
 We read enough of the writings of scholiast and 
 grammarian, who have striven in all ages to elucidate 
 the text of Homer. Thereby we acquire, it is true, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 much verbal intelligence of our poet, but perhaps 
 attain to but little additional sypipathy. There is 
 another commentary which by all but professed 
 archaeologists remains for the most part unknown, 
 the commentary of Art, of Mythography. 
 
 It is this unread commentary of Art which I 
 have tried in the simplest fashion to lay before my 
 readers, side by side with the literary form it at once 
 embodies and elucidates. 
 
 It will be obvious that, in atteinpting this juxta- 
 position of Mythology and Mythography, while we 
 gain much, I hope, in suggestiveness of treatment, we 
 must be content to lose something of separate com- 
 pleteness. Had my object been purely artistic, I 
 should have treated of the art monuments of each 
 myth in chronological sequence, and thereby have 
 obtained a view at once more systematic, and, from 
 the artistic standpoint, more instructive. But this 
 gain would have been won at the expense of marring 
 and mutilating the Homeric form of the myth. Be- 
 cause this form is of paramount beauty I have thought 
 fit to maintain it at all costs. I must therefore ask 
 my readers to bear constantly in mind that the order 
 of the art monuments is purposely not chronological. 
 Each vase or gem or wall-painting is introduced at 
 the moment when it is needed to form a comment on 
 the Homeric myth, or on some later, significant 
 variation. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It may be asked, What is the precise advantage 
 of this juxtaposition of Mythology and Mythography ? 
 Does it result in more than an old-world picture- 
 book, more quaint perhaps, but less lovely, and no 
 more significant, than the drawings of Flaxman ? The 
 answer to these questions may be formally stated at 
 the outset, but will, I hope, be better realised at the 
 close of my work. We shall see again and again that 
 the ancient artist was no illustrator in the modern 
 sense of the term. The words of Homer may or may 
 not have sounded in his ears as he wrought : the text 
 of the last edition of the poet's works was certainly 
 not before his eyes. Frequently we have plain 
 evidence that it is not the artist who is borrowing 
 from Homer, but that both Homer and the artist 
 drew their inspiration from one common source, local 
 and national tradition. Nothing perhaps makes us 
 realise so vividly that the epics of Homer are embodi- 
 ments, not creations, of national Sagas, as this free and 
 variant treatment of his mythology by the artist. 
 Homer's influence may have been on the whole pre- 
 dominant, but the vase-painter of the fifth and fourth 
 century B.C. was also familiar with the works of the 
 so-called Cyclic poets, with the Cypria, the Aithiopis, 
 the Iliou-persis, the Lesser Iliad, the Nostoi, the 
 Telegonia, and no doubt a host of others whose very 
 names are lost to tradition. 
 
 Even where the vase-painter or the gem-engraver 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 obviously draws his inspiration from Homer, still, in 
 early days, he is no illustrator ; the servile spirit of 
 the copyist was of late growth. What the work of 
 an artist contemporary with Homer might have been, 
 we cannot surely say. So far as we at present know, 
 no monument which adequately rejDresents the art of 
 Homer's days is left us. His gods and heroes were 
 reputed to be skilled craftsmen ; so much we learn 
 from the goodly devices of sculptured shield, and 
 carven couch and gUded baldric that they wrought. 
 But works such as these we can only contemplate 
 through the haze of poetic splendour the poet has 
 cast about them, and by inference and dim conjecture 
 alone do we recover some faint shadow of their 
 semblance. 
 
 The earliest art monuments we shall have to study 
 are as late, for the most part, as three or four cen- 
 turies after Homer's days. They range roughly be- 
 tween the dates B.C. 500 — a.d. 300. Now it is 
 obvious that, in the lapse of eight centuries, Homer 
 and his mythology must have been viewed through 
 very various mediums of thought and emotion. His 
 verses are indeed a KTr^i^a e? aet, but men hold their 
 heritage by every variety of tenure. It has been 
 justly said that "of Homer there can be no final 
 translation." If this be true of the poet's langua<^e, 
 it is equally true that of his thought there can be no 
 final rendering into plastic or pictorial form. To 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 each artist, as to each translator, it is given, in pro- 
 portion to his insight and in accordance with the 
 medium he employs, to seize and fix for himself and 
 his contemporaries some aspect of the poet's meaning. 
 As the translator is conditioned by the idiom of his 
 language and by the taste or feeling of his age, so the 
 artist is conditioned by the limits of the surface on 
 which he works, by its texture, by the traditions of 
 his school, by the social and religious atmosphere 
 which surrounds him. The archaic vase-painter and 
 the Roman wall-decorator may both give utterance to 
 Homer's thought ; but a whole gamut of tones and 
 semi - tones, emotional and intellectual, has been 
 sounded in the interval, and our ears note the transi- 
 tion. 
 
 We shall find in our latest monuments — those of 
 the Grseco-Eoman or Roman periods — the closest and 
 most faithful illustrations of Homer : when creative 
 power is on the wane, art can only plagiarise. For this 
 very reason an archaic design, however rough and 
 even clumsy its execution, is usually far more fruit- 
 ful in suggestion, because more independent, more 
 vigorous, than the finished but lifeless work of later 
 days. 
 
 It will be sufficiently evident, I think, even from 
 these few words, that the juxtaposition of ancient art 
 and literature is no barren task ; rather its fruits are 
 so diverse, so manifold, the fear is we fail to gather in 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 the full harvest. Adequately to appreciate the signi- 
 ficance of any single vase- picture j we need to know 
 the time, the place of its painting, and to realise 
 every influence — local, religious, artistic — which could 
 act upon its painter. Such a knowledge must extend 
 not only over well-trodden ground, but far into 
 obscure corners of Greek history, geography, and 
 mythology. A very few of the tracks through this 
 unknown land I have tried to indicate. 
 
 Purposely I have refrained from dealing, except 
 quite incidentally, with questions of comparative 
 mythology ; partly because the express object of my 
 work forbade my treating of the several myths in 
 their purely literary form, but chiefly because I believe 
 the materials for such treatment to be at present 
 incomplete. 
 
 May I add one word as to the end I hope to 
 attain ? I believe the educational value of a study of 
 archaeology to consist far more in the discipline of 
 taste and feeling it afi'ords, than in the gain of 
 definite information it has to ofi'er. Greek art does, 
 it is true, occasionally elucidate obscure passages in 
 Greek literature ; but such verbal intelligence is but 
 the small coin she deals out to the hirelings who 
 clamour for payment, not the treasure she lays up as 
 guerdon for her true servants. Such verbal intelli- 
 gence may be gained in a moment and lightly passed 
 from hand to hand ; but the best gifts of archeeology, 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 — the trained eye, quick instinct, pure taste, well- 
 balanced emotion, — these we may be thankful if we 
 gain in a lifetime ; and each man must strive to attain 
 them for himself. 
 
 This brings me to the means. The pictures I 
 offer are themselves but the shadows, more or less 
 faithful, of other pictures. Where we can look at the 
 original, no copy must suffice us. Some of these 
 originals are in our own Museum. These we are 
 bound to study. Where the original is in a foreign 
 Museum beyond our reach, we can at least familiarise 
 ourselves with analogous designs of the same style 
 and period. We can learn to kiiow what manner of 
 thing an Etruscan sarcophagos is, or a Pompeian 
 wall-painting, how a coin or a vase or a gem of the 
 fifth century B.C. differs from one of the fourth or 
 third. A very few hours will serve to make the dead 
 pictures of a book a living reality ; but I repeat again, 
 and can scarcely repeat too often, the training of taste, 
 which is the essential condition of close sympathy 
 with Greek feeling, whether in aft or literature, can 
 only come to us by constant looking, by a slow and 
 long-protracted process of habituation, by the exercise 
 of a spirit rather receptive than critical. To such a 
 process it is my highest hope that this book may 
 serve as an initiation. 
 
 I add one caution, necessary perhaps to the un- 
 wary. The pictures I offer must be regarded as the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 only certain facts : the explanations put forth partake 
 necessarily of the nature of theory. And in the 
 young science of archaeology the theory of to-day may 
 be contradicted by the new discovery of to-morrow. 
 I would have every student remember that, even 
 where no doubt is expressed, it is his part to exercise 
 a wise scepticism, to judge for himself of the pro- 
 babilities of each interpretation. 
 
 The pleasant task remains to me of acknowledging 
 my many debts. 
 
 In quoting passages from Homer I have used 
 throughout the translation of Mr. S. H. Butcher and 
 Mr. A. Lang, and my introductory note is abstracted 
 from the preface to their second edition. Where 
 lack of space has obliged me to condense instead of 
 quoting Homer's story, I have not scrupled to use 
 their phraseology. Passages of Theokritus are from 
 the prose version of Mr. A. Lang. 
 
 A tolerably complete list of the foreign authori- 
 ties consulted will be found in the Appendix. 
 
 To many of these my attention was drawn by the 
 kindness of Dr. W. Klein of Vienna, who, during his 
 stay in England, frequently afforded me valuable 
 assistance. Should this meet his eye I trust he will 
 allow my thanks. 
 
 To Mr. C. T. Newton, of the British Museum, I 
 wish here to record my gratitude for constant facili- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ties accorded to me for study in the Classical Anti- 
 quities Departments of the British Museum, and also 
 for his great kindness in undertaking the revision of 
 my proof-sheets. 
 
 My very special thanks are due to Mr. K. S. Poole, 
 of the British Museum, who throughout my work has 
 helped me with unwearied kindness, and to whom 
 I owe many more suggestions than can be acknow- 
 ledged by direct quotation. 
 
 For suggestions kindly made to me in the earlier 
 stages of my book, and for the revision of a portion 
 of my MS., I am indebted to Mr. A. Sidgwick of 
 Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 
 
 Last, but also first and foremost, my thanks as a 
 pupil are offered to Mr. S. H. Butcher, of University 
 College, Oxford, but for whose past teaching, as well 
 as present help, my work would never have been 
 attempted. J E H 
 
INTEODUCTOEY NOTE 
 
 Odysseus, some ten years after the sack of Troy, reaches 
 in his wanderings the court of Alkinoos, king of tlie Phtea- 
 kians. There, to the king and queen and the assembled 
 chiefs, he tells the story of his mishaps and strange wayfar- 
 ing. It is to this story {'AXkivoov airoKo'^oi) that the myths 
 selected exclusively belong. Odysseus tells how, after 
 leaving Troy he reaches Malea, and thence is driven ten 
 days by the rxiinous winds. Henceforth he sails beyond the 
 limits of geography. He comes to the coast of the Lotophagi, 
 then to the land of the Gyd&pas, thence to the floating 
 island of ^olus, to the pirate Lcestrygones, and to the ^aea, 
 the home of Circe. Here there is a pause in his labours ; 
 he abides with Circe a year long, then, at her bidding, 
 accomplishes his descent into Hades, whence he returns to 
 her for a while. She foretells the remaining perils, and he 
 starts again on his homeward joixrney. He passes the 
 Sirens and Scylla, and reaches the isle of Thrinakia. 
 There his comrades slay the kine of Helios. When they 
 embark again a storm is sent by Poseidon in vengeance. 
 AU his comrades perish; Odysseus only escapes. He 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 retraces his journey as far as Scylla aiid Charybdis, escapes 
 from Charyldis, and lands at last alone on the island of 
 Calypso. There he stays eight years, and thence he sails 
 to the land of the Pheeakians, where, as we have seen, the 
 story is told. From this story three, episodes have been 
 necessarily omitted — i.e. the adventures with the Lotophagi 
 and with ^olus, and the sojourn in Thrinakia, in each case 
 because of their slight or doubtful representation in ancient 
 art, The remaining myths are treated in order. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Peeface .... 
 
 Inteoddctort Note 
 
 List op Illustrations 
 
 The Myth of the Cyclopes 
 
 The Myth of the L^strygones 
 
 The Myth of Circe 
 
 The Myth of the Descent into Hades 
 
 The Myth of the Sirens . 
 
 The Myth of Scylla and Ghartbdis 
 
 Appendix of Authorities . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 
 XXI 
 
 1 
 
 45 
 63 
 _93_ 
 146 
 183 
 215 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Siren Modrningi .... 
 
 (From a Terra Cotta in the British Museum. ) 
 Platf, 
 
 1. Odysseus Offering the Cup to the Cyclops 
 
 (From an Etruscan Sarcophagos. ) 
 
 2. The Blinding or the Cyclops 
 
 (From an Etruscan Sarcophagos.) 
 
 3. The Escape op Odysseus from the Oy'clops 
 
 (From an Etruscan Sarcophagos. ) 
 
 4. The Blinding of the Cyclops 
 
 (From a Greek Vase.) 
 
 5 a. Odysseus Bound Beneath the Eam 
 
 h. Comrade of Odysseus Bound Beneath a Ram 
 (From a Greek Vase.) 
 
 6 a. Odysseus Escapes Beneath the Ram 
 
 (From a Greek Vase. ) 
 
 *b. Odysseus Escapes Beneath the Ram. . 
 
 (From a Greek Vase in the British Museum. ) 
 1 a. ComBade of Odysseus Bound Beneath a Ram 
 
 (From a Greek Vase.) 
 
 h. Cyclops Pursuing Odysseus and thit Ram 
 
 c. Cyclops Pursuing Odysseus and the Ram 
 (From a Greek Vase. ) 
 
 8 a. Cyclops Talking to his Ram 
 
 (From a Greek Vase.) 
 
 h. Odysseus Clinging to the Ram 
 
 (From a Marble Statue. ) 
 
 9 a. Odysseus with Wine Skin and Cup 
 
 (From a Gem.) 
 
 h. Odysseus with Spear and Cup . 
 
 (From a Gem. ) 
 
 f. Odysseus Offering the Cup 
 
 (From a MarWe Statue.) 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 To face Page 
 
 10 
 
 12 
 
 14 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 20 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Plate To /ace Page 
 
 10 a. The Blinding of the Cyclops . . . \ 
 
 (From a Y use in the British Muse^im.) L og 
 
 b. The Blinding op the Otclops . . J 
 
 (From a Greek Vase. ) 
 
 11. The Cyclopes as Foroemen oe Hephaistos . .26 
 
 (From a Pompeian Wall-Painting. ) 
 
 12. The Lion Gate at MYKENiS . . . .28 
 
 13. The Otolops and Eros . . . . .32 
 
 (From a Roman Eelief,) 
 
 14. The Cyclops Watching Galatea phom=the Sea-Shoee 34 
 
 (From a Pompeian Wall-Painting.) 
 
 15. A Dolphin Brings a Letter to the Cyclops . .38 
 
 (From a Pompeian Wall- Painting. ) 
 
 16. The Cyclops Follows Galatea into the Sea . . 40 
 
 (From a Wall-Painting. ) 
 
 17 a. Circe and Comrade of Odysseus . . \ 
 
 (From a Greek Vase. ) I g^ 
 
 b. Circe and Odysseus 
 
 (From a Greek Vase. ) 
 
 18 a. CiacE Enchants a Comrade op Odysseus 
 
 (From a Greek Vase. ) 
 
 b. Circe Enchants a Comrade op Odysseus . J 
 
 (From a Greek Vase.) 
 
 19. Tyrrhenian Pirate Transformed into a Dolphin . 68 
 
 (From the Frieze of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates.) 
 
 20 «. CiECE Feeding Enchanted Comrade of Odysseus 
 (From a Greek Vase. ) 
 
 b. Odysseus with the Herb Moly . I »q 
 
 (From a Gem. ) 
 
 c. Enchanted Comrade of Odysseus holding Cup 
 
 (From a Gem.) 
 
 21. Circe Mixing the Magic Cop 
 
 (From a Greek Vase. ) 
 
 22. Odysseus, Circe, and Elpenor 
 
 (From an Etruscan Mirroft) 
 
 23. Odysseus Draws his Sword against Circe 
 
 (From a Pompeian Wall-Painting.) 
 
 I 
 J 
 
 I 
 
 72 
 74 
 76 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ■^'■'^'^^ To Jim Page 
 
 24 a. Odysseus and Ciroe ... <i 
 
 (From a Eoman Lamp.) ! kq 
 
 h. Circe Emplores Mercy op Odysseus . . J 
 
 (From a Contorniat.) 
 
 25. GiROE Disenchants the Comrades of Odysseus . .82 
 
 (From a Roman Relief.) 
 
 26 a. Hermes Psychopompos Summons Beast-Souls . ^ 
 
 (From a Eoman Sepulchral Painting.) \. qq 
 
 &. Circe and Enchanted Comrades op Odysseus . ) 
 
 (From an Etruscan Sarcophagos.) 
 
 27. Teiresias Appears to Odysseus .... 102 
 
 (From a Greek Vase.) 
 
 28. Teiresias Speaks to Odysseus . . . .104 
 
 (From a Roman Relief.) 
 
 29. Hermes Brings Teiresias to Odysseus . . . 106 
 
 (From an Etruscan Mirror.) 
 
 30 a. Odysseus Holding Oar and Torch 
 (From a Gem.) 
 
 6. Odysseus and the Planted Oar 
 
 (From a Gem.) \\\0 
 
 c. Odysseus with his Foot on Slain Sheep's Head 
 
 (From a Gem.) 
 
 d. Odysseus Caressing Sheep 
 
 (From a Gem in the British Museum. ) 
 
 31. Bird letting fall the Trygon on the Head op Odysseus 112 
 
 (From a Greek Vase.) 
 
 32. The Descent op Odysseus into Hades . . .120 
 
 (Restoration by Riepenhausen of the Lesche Wall- Painting of 
 Folygnotos.) 
 
 33. Scene in Hades ..... 134 
 
 (From a Greek Vase. ) 
 
 34. Scene in Hades . . * . • ■ . 140 
 
 (From a Greek Vase in the British Museum.) 
 
 35. Teiresias and Memnon . .... 142 
 
 (From a Sepulchral Etruscan Wall-Painting.) 
 
 36. Charon with his Hammer . . . .144 
 
 (From a Sepulchral Etruscan Wall-Painting.) 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Plate 2'o Jam Paoe 
 
 ,37. The Passing of Odysseus by the Sirens . .150 
 
 (From a Greek Vase in the British Museum.) 
 
 *38. The Passing op Odysseds by the Sirens . .154 
 
 (From a Pompeiau Wall-Painting in the British Museum.) 
 
 *39. Siren Standing on a Stele .... 156 
 
 (From a Greek Vase in the British Museum. ) 
 
 10. Siren at the Death of Pkokris . . . .158 
 
 (From a Vase in tJie British Museum. ) 
 
 41 a. SiEEN Holding Tympanon and Taenia. 
 
 (From a Greek Vase.) 
 
 b. Siren Holding Torch axd Aiiphoha . . |-ieO 
 
 (From a Gem.) 
 
 *c. Siren 'Waving Thyrsos ... 
 
 (From a Vase in the British Museum.) 
 
 *42. Dionysos, Satyrs, and Sirens . . . .162 
 
 (From a Vase in the British Museum.) 
 
 *43. M^NAD, Satyrs, and Sirens . . . 164 
 
 (From a Vase in the Briiish Museum.) 
 
 44. Apollo, Hermes, and Siren . . . .164 
 
 (From a Greek Vase.) 
 
 /15. Contest of Muses and Sirens . . . .166 
 
 (From an Etruscan Sarcophagos.) 
 
 46. Passing of Odysseus by the Sirens . . .168 
 
 (From an Etruscan Sarcophggos. ) 
 
 47 a. Odysseus and Fish-tatlkd Siren . . ^ 
 
 (From a Eoman ? Lamp.) > 170 
 
 6. Siren Enchanting Sailors ... J 
 (From a Latin Bestiary;) 
 
 48. Women-Sirens WITH Bird's Feet . . .172 
 
 (From an lUimiiuated MS.) 
 
 49. Five Fish-tailed Sirens . . . _ I74 
 
 (From a French Wall-Painfing.) 
 
 *50 ». Harpy Carrying off Soul . . . \ 
 
 (From the Harpy Tomb /)i the British 'Museum. ) [ 1 
 
 *6. Soul Revisiting Body • . . . J 
 
 (From an Egyptian Papyrus in tU British Museum. ) 
 
 80 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Plate To face Paoe 
 
 51. ScYLLA WITH Oak and Polypus . . . .186 
 
 (From a Greek Vase in the British Museum.) 
 
 52 a. ScTLLA ON Helmet of Athene — Butting Bull . ^ 
 
 (Obverse and Reverse of a Coin.) 1 188 
 
 6. Chaeybdis and Soylla . . . . j 
 
 (From a Contorniat. ) 
 
 53 a. Soylla Brandishing Oak 
 
 (From a Gem.) 
 
 h. Soylla Brandishing Oar . . . |-190 
 
 (From a Bomau Coin.) 
 
 c. Soylla Brandishing Oar 
 
 (From a Pompeian Wall- Painting.) 
 
 54. Comrade of Odysseus bitten by Dog of Soylla . . 192 
 
 (From a Marble Group.) 
 
 55 a. Soylla at Rest ..... ^ 
 
 (From a Terra Cotta in the British Museum.) I 194 
 
 h. Soylla as Caryatid . . . . j 
 
 (From a Greek Vase.) 
 
 56 a. Soylla Hurling Stones . . . ^ 
 
 (From a Terra Cotta. ) 1 1 96 
 
 b. Soylla Brandishing Daggers . . , / 
 
 (From a Terra Cotta Water-Bottle.) 
 
 57 a. Soylla with Torches . . . . \ 
 
 (From a Terra Cotta Water-Boltle. ) >. 198 
 
 h. Soylla with Female Centaurs . . . j 
 
 (From an Etruscan Sarcophagos, ) 
 
 58. Soylla and Charybdis, Strait of ... 200 
 
 (Prom a Sketch by a Dutch Geographer.) 
 
 59. SCYLLA WITH THE LoCK OP NiSOS' HaIR . . . 204 
 
 (From a Roman Wall-Painting. ) 
 
 60. Soylla Offering the Lock to Minos . . .206 
 
 (From a Pompeian Wall-Paiuting. ) 
 
 61. Glauous and Soylla . . • • .208 
 
 (From a Roman Wall-Painting.) 
 
 62 a. Sea-god Tormented by two Loves on Dolphins \ 
 
 (From a Terra Cotta in the British Museum.) I 2 1 
 
 *b. Tridachnis Squamosa. The Love-Gift op Glaucus 
 
 (From a Shell in the British Museum.) 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Autotype 
 Plates. To face Page 
 
 I. Hebalds of Odysseus bboeivbd by Daughter of Anti- 
 
 PHATES . . . . . ,48 
 
 II. Gathering op the Host of the LjBsiRYaoNEs . 50 
 
 III. SEA-riGHT of the Gkeeks and THE'L^STEYGONES . 52 
 
 IV. Escape of Odysseus. Coast of Circe's Island . 54 
 *IV. B. Diagram showing Consecution of the Frieze 
 
 Panels . . . . . .56 
 
 V. Palace of Circe . . . . .84 
 
 VI. Entrance into Hades . . . .99 
 
 VII. Scene in Hades . . . . .116 
 
 (Plates I. -VII. from a series of Wall-Paintings found on the Esquiline Hill. ) 
 
 Those plates which are (to the best of my knowledge) now pub- 
 lished for the iirst time are distinguished by a„ii asterisk. 
 
 J. E. H. 
 
MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY 
 
 THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES 
 
 Homeric scholars and comparative mytliologists tell us that 
 the stories with which the Odyssey is thick-strewn were not 
 invented by Homer; that he took the folk-lore that lay 
 ready to hand, and wove its diverse legends into an epic 
 whole ; that many of his myths are the common property of 
 both Aryan and non-Aryan peoples. When we come to the 
 story of the Cyclopes we welcome this view. The tale is 
 essentially an ugly one ; we are glad that Homer did not 
 invent it ; force is too brutal, cunning too childish ; the 
 craft and daring of the godlike Odysseus is changed into 
 reckless folly and shallow deceit, such as we think even 
 Athene could scarcely have approved in her well-loved 
 hero. All the more interesting it is to see how the Greek 
 poets dealt with material so shapeless and witless, and how 
 Greek artists toned down by degrees its harsh outlines to 
 even excessive softness. 
 
 Later on we must notice shortly how the one-eyed giant 
 story fared in other lands, but first we will make detailed 
 acquaintance with the Greek Polyphemus. The story should 
 
MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 be read in full, but its length forces us to confine quotation 
 to such parts as bear directly on our immediate purpose. 
 
 Sore against their will Odysseus has dragged away his 
 comrades from the land of the Lotus-eaters, ^ and " bound 
 them, weeping, beneath the benches in the hollow barks." 
 From their soft forgetfulness there was to be full soon a 
 rude awakening ; the horrors of the cave of Polyphemus 
 must have come with double harshness upon the men who 
 had tasted of the honey-sweet fruit. 
 
 And they came " to the land of the Cyclopes, a froward 
 and a lawless folk, who, trusting tO; the deathless gods, 
 plant not aught with their hands, neither plough; but, 
 behold, all these things spring for them in plenty, unsown 
 and untiEed; wheat, and barley, and vines, which bear 
 great clusters of the juice of the grape, and the rain of Zeus 
 gives them increase. These have neither gatherings for 
 counsel nor oracles of law, but they dwell in hollow caves 
 on the high hiUs, and each one utters the law to his chil- 
 dren and his wives, and they reck not one of another." 
 
 For a night the whole company abide on a waste isle 
 stretching without the harbour of the land of the Cyclopes ; 
 but in the early dawn, Odysseus, with his own ship's com- 
 pany alone, rows across the fair haven to the mainland of 
 the Cyclopes. 
 
 "Now, when we had come to the land that lies hard by, 
 we saw a cave on the border near to the sea, lofty, and 
 roofed over with laurels, and there many flocks of sheep and 
 goats were used to rest. And about it a high outer court 
 was built with stones, deep bedded, and with taU pines and 
 oaks with their high crown of leaves. And a man was wont 
 
 ^ Od. ix. 98. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 
 
 to sleep therein, of monstrous size, who shepherded his 
 flocks alone and afar, and was not conversant with others, 
 but dwelt apart in lawlessness of mind. Yea, for he was a 
 monstrous thing, and fashioned marvellously ; nor was he 
 like to any man that lives by bread, but like a wooded peak 
 of the towering hiUs, which stands out apart and alone 
 from others." 
 
 Here, again, Odysseus leaves part of his well-loved com- 
 pany to guard the ship, and takes with him twelve only — 
 and they the best ; most important of all, he bears a goatskin 
 of dark wine and sweet, which Maron, the priest of Apollo, 
 had given him as guerdon for reverent protection. 
 
 They come to the cave of the Cyclops, but he is abroad 
 shepherding his flocks. His comrades beseech Odysseus 
 to take of the cheeses that lie piled in baskets, and drive off 
 the kids and lambs ; the foolhardy hero wUl not hearken, 
 but abides to tempt his fate. At supper-time the giant 
 comes home bearing a grievous weight of wood for kindling ; 
 he drives in his fat flocks, and sets against the cave mouth 
 his doorstone, a mighty, sheer rock. When his milking is 
 done he espies the strangers, and asks them of their busi- 
 ness. And Odysseus, though his heart is broken within 
 him for terror of the monstrous shape and voice, makes 
 answer that they are wandering suppliants, and "come to 
 these thy knees, if perchance thou wilt give us a stranger's 
 gift, or make any present, as is the due of strangers. Nay, 
 lord, have regard to the gods, for we are thy suppliants 
 and Zeus is the avenger of suppliants and sojourners." 
 
 But the Cyclops answers out of his pitiless heart, 
 "Thou art witless, my stranger, or thou hast come from 
 afar, who biddest me either to fear or shun the gods. For 
 
MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 the Cyclopes pay no heed to Zeus, lord of the segis, nor to 
 the blessed gods, for verily we are better men than they. 
 Nor would I, to shun the enmity of Zeus, spare either thee 
 or thy company, unless my spirit bade me." 
 
 His spirit does not bid him that night, for straightway 
 he seizes two of the comrades of Odysseus, and slays them 
 for his horrid meal, and when he has filled his huge maw 
 and thereafter drunk pure milk, he falls asleep on the floor 
 of the cave. Next day two more perish as victims for the 
 midday meal, and with a loud whoop the Cyclops sets out 
 with his flocks for the hills. 
 
 Odysseus takes counsel in his heart and bethinks him 
 of the huge club of the Cyclops, like in size to the mast of 
 a dark ship of twenty oars. From it he cuts off a fathom 
 length and sharpens it to a point, and hardens it in the fire. 
 They cast lots, and upon four of the bravest the lot falls 
 to bore out the eye of the giant, and Odysseus is fifth. 
 Again, at eventide, the giant comes home, and this time 
 drives in his whole flock, males and females, " whether 
 through some foreboding, or perchance the god so bade 
 him do." When the milking is done he seizes other two of 
 the companions, and makes ready for supper. " Then, verily, 
 I stood by the Cyclops and spake to him, holding in my 
 hands an ivy bowl of the dark wine. 
 
 " ' Cyclops, take and drink wine after thy feast of man's 
 meat, that thou mayest know what manner of drink this 
 was that our ship held. And lo ! I was bringing it thee as a 
 drink-offering, if haply thou mayest take pity and send me on 
 my way home, but thy mad rage is past all sufferance. hard 
 of heart ! how may another of the many men there be come 
 ever to thee again, seeing that thy deeds have been lawless ? ' 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 5 
 
 " So I spake ; and he took the cup and drank it off, and 
 found great delight in drinking the sweet draught, and asked 
 me for it yet a second time. 
 
 " ' Give it me again of thy grace, and tell me thy name 
 straightway, that I may give thee a stranger's gifts, wherein 
 thou mayest be glad. Yea, for the earth, the grain-giver,- 
 bears for the Cyclopes the mighty clusters of the juice of 
 the grape, and the rain of Zeus givea them increase, but 
 this is a rill of very nectar and ambrosia.' 
 
 " So he spake, and again I handed him the dark wine. 
 Thrice I bare and gave it him, and thrice in his folly he 
 drank it to the lees. Now, when the wine had got about the 
 wits of the Cyclops, then did I speak to him with soft words: 
 
 " ' Cyclops, thou askest me my renowned name, and I will 
 declare it unto thee, and do thou grant me a stranger's gift, as 
 thou- didst promise. IsTo-man is my name, and No-man they 
 call me, my father and my mother, and aU my fellows.' 
 
 " So I spake, and straightway he answered me out of 
 his pitiless heart : 
 
 " ' No-man wiU I eat last in the number of his fellows, 
 and the others before him — that shall be thy gift.' " 
 
 This scene, Odysseus offering the cup, is a favourite one 
 for presentation by Greek artists. It afforded scope for 
 skilful oTouping and posture, and there needed only some 
 hint of horrors past and to come to make the picture 
 dramatic and yet not disgusting. To a Bornan artist belongs 
 the shame of depicting with horrid accuracy the actual 
 banquet, and a Koman poet ^ delighted to describe it. But 
 Greek vase and Etruscan sarcophagus are alike free from 
 this revolting realism. 
 
 1 Ovid. 
 
MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 Our first design (Plate 1) is from a bas-relief in the 
 museiim at Volterrse, executed evidently in the best style of 
 this kind of work. The monument is fortunately very well 
 preserved, so that the motive and expression of nearly all 
 the figures is unusually clear. 
 
 In the centre of the group is Polyphemus, seated at the 
 entrance of his cave. With the left foot he tramples on one 
 of the comrades of Odysseus, whom he prepares to devour. 
 This is the only indication of the banquet. He lifts his 
 right hand towards Odysseus, who approaches, offering in 
 both his hands the cup of wine. This cup is not the one- 
 handled kissubion, which we shall notice in another and earlier 
 monument. Odysseus wears the cuirass and chlamys and 
 sailor's cap.^ This is his usual dress in late art ; in archaic 
 and even middle period designs he appears naked but for 
 the chlamys, and with his head bare or wearing a helmet. 
 
 The attitude of Polyphemus and that of the fallen com- 
 rade should be carefully noted. Similar grouping occurs in 
 many other monuments, marble statues, gems, reliefs ; in fact, 
 so frequently do we find it that we are driven to suppose 
 that all these various yet analogous designs are replicas of 
 the motive of some great original group, so famous and ad- 
 mired as to be widely reproduced. We give only one of 
 these designs, our frieze in Plate 1, because the numerous 
 variations have no fresh interest or significance, but the fact 
 of their existence is noteworthy, 
 
 1 This cap becomes a note of time. PKny tells us that Nicomachus was 
 the first to depict Odysseus wearing it. If this statement is correct it helps to 
 fix the approximate date of many monuments. Nicomachus lived about th 
 early part of the fourth century B.o. Certainly in vases of the archaic period 
 Odysseus usually appears bareheaded or with the casque ; on gems and Ro 
 bas-reliefs, with the pilos. oman 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 1 
 
 To return to our description of the relief. On the op- 
 posite side to Odysseus are three of his companions, pre- 
 paring, it seems, for flight, in accordance with the scheme of 
 their leader. One seems to have slipped down beneath the 
 ram, as if ready to grasp its wool; or possibly this figure 
 may be Odysseus himself, as he appears in the scene im- 
 mediately to follow; the other caresses the creature's 
 head, probably to quiet him, so that he may not distract 
 the attention of the Cyclops. The motive of the third 
 companion is obscure : he seems to be inciting the Cyclops 
 to drink, or cheering on Odysseus. The whole composition 
 is very brightly conceived and almost crowded with action. 
 This confusion of many scenes and consecutive moments 
 into one, we must be prepared constantly to find. Art has 
 only one tense — the present. 
 
 We must pass to the central act. 
 
 " Therewith he sank backwards and fell with face up- 
 turned, and there he lay with his great neck bent round ; 
 and sleep, that conquers all men, overcame him. Then I 
 thrust in that stake under the deep ashes, untH it should 
 gTOw hot, and I spake to my companions comfortable words, 
 lest any should hang back from me in fear. But when that 
 bar of olive wood was just about to catch fire in the flame, 
 green though it was, and began to glow terribly, even then 
 I came nigh and drew it from the coals, and my fellows 
 gathered about me, and some god breathed great courage 
 into us. For their part they seized the bar of olive wood, 
 that was sharpened at the point, and thrust it into his eye, 
 while I from my place aloft turned it about, as when a man 
 bores a ship's plank with an auger, while his fellows below 
 spin it with a strap, which they hold at either end, and the 
 
MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 auger runs round continually. Even so did we seize the 
 fiery-pointed brand and whirled it round in his eye, and 
 the blood flowed about the heated bar." 
 
 Exactly this central moment has been seized for pre- 
 sentation by the artist of a second Etruscan sarcoijhagus 
 at Volternc (figured in Plate 2). This relief is as well 
 executed as the first, but unfortunately is much mutilated. 
 Polyphemus lies outstretched in the floor of his cave, drunk 
 and asleep. He is of monstrous bulk, his brow is rough, his 
 beard long and bristly. He has distinctly two eyes. "We 
 may note once for all that, so far as at present known, the 
 Cyclops has two eyes in all art monuments until we come to 
 Eoman times ;■* he then has either three or one. Probably 
 the one eye was rejected as too hideous for presentation. 
 
 Close to the Cyclops, in the mouth of the cave, are two 
 persons, the figure of one is mutilated beyond the hope of 
 recognition, the other naively clasps a tree as if still 
 frightened at the Cyclops even when sleeping, also perhaps 
 in terror of the deed about to be done. Behind the giant, 
 four figures are struggling to raise a huge pole, " Like in size 
 to the mast of a black ship of twenty oars ;" the fourth and 
 front figure seems to try and direct it towards the giant's 
 eye ; the action of the farthest standing figure exactly repre- 
 
 ^ We can study tliis unlovely one-eyed conception at its best in a finely 
 executed bronze in the British Museum (published as frontispiece to the trans- 
 lation of "The Odyssey," by S. H. Butcher anji A. Lang). Nothinn- can 
 make him pleasing, but the monster's deformity is somewhat veiled by his 
 splendid luxuriantly treated hair. The one eye is rendered with happy vao-ue- 
 ness, and the small size of the head (two and a half inches) helps to tone down 
 it.s ugliness. 
 
 The most morbid craving after sensationalism in the portrayal of the 
 Cyclops may be satisfied by the shameless realism of a wall-painting found at 
 Corneto, in the third chamber of the tomb of Orous. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 
 
 sents the action attributed to Odysseus by Homer, " while 
 I, from my place aloft, turned it about.'' ^ I think, however, 
 that the front figure, distinguished from the rest by his 
 ornamented cuirass, and occupying, so to speak, the place of 
 honour, is meant to be Odysseus. We have, however, another 
 alternative interpretation : the figure in the cuirass may be a 
 distinguished comrade, perhaps Eurylochus, appointed by 
 Odysseus to superintend the work ; and Odysseus himself 
 may be the fully-draped figure seated in the ship. This 
 figure raises his left hand with a gesture of command. The 
 eager action of the four figures who are boring out is very 
 vigorously expressed, and the gradual decline of posture and 
 action from the figure straining on tiptoe to the prostrate 
 unconscious giant, is very pleasant and: satisfying ; one only 
 desires something to balance it on the opposite side, where 
 the figure seated in the ship is scarcely adequate. 
 
 We have a third Etruscan monument (Plate 3), also 
 in the museum at Volterrse, and for completeness' sake it 
 shall be noticed here, though it embodies a later scene, the 
 escape in the ship. 
 
 "And swiftly we drave on those stiff-shanked sheep, so 
 rich in fat, and often turned to look about, till we came to 
 the ship. And a glad sight to our fellows were we that 
 had fled from death, but the others they would have be- 
 moaned with tears ; howbeit, I suffered it not, but with 
 frowning brows forbade each man to weep. Eather I bade 
 
 1 01 ijiv p-oxKhv i\6vTes iXdii/ov, 6^iviir' HKfiif 
 
 hiveov, wy iJre ris rpvirip S6pv vqCov avy]p 
 TpvTravip, oi Si T'li>ep0cv inroiyaelovatv l/xdvTi 
 afafievoi eKarepde, rb Si rp^x^L ip.fi.evh aid. 
 
 Oa. ix. 382. 
 
10 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 them to cast on board the many shee]3 with goodly fleece, 
 and to sail over the salt sea-water. So they embarked 
 forthwith, and sate upon the benches, and, sitting orderly, 
 smote the grey sea-water with their oars. But when I had 
 not gone so far but that a man's shout might be heard, then 
 I spake unto the Cyclops, taunting him : 
 
 " ' Cyclops, so thou wert not to eat the company of a 
 weakling by main might in thy hollow cave ! Thine evil 
 deeds were very sure to find thee out, thou cruel man, who 
 hadst no shame to eat thy guests within thy gates, where- 
 fore Zeus hath requited thee, and the other gods.' 
 
 " So I spake, and he was yet the more angered at heart, 
 and he brake off the peak of a great hill and threw it at us, 
 and it fell in front of the dark-prowed ship." 
 
 This is the moment chosen by the artist — Odysseus and 
 his comrades are already in the ship, a richly ornamented 
 Eoman-looking galley. The comrades are certainly " sitting 
 orderly " enough — at least the three who are rowing ; the 
 faces are terror-stricken, but there is a want of life in the 
 attitudes. Odysseus, distinguished by his richer shield and 
 more ornamented pilos, stands up to shout his taunt ; the 
 Cyclops is accompanied by two rams to" represent his flocks, 
 one just emerging from the cave behind ; his hand is lifted to 
 hurl the stone. A curious and thoroughly Etruscan addi- 
 tion to the picture is the woman figure with wino-ed head 
 and uplifted sword. She is a sort of genius who would 
 protect Odysseus from the fury of the giant. This relief is I 
 think, scarcely equal to the two preceding either in concep- 
 tion or execution. 
 
 So far our monuments have been taken from a late 
 period of art, and though executed with unusual skill and 
 
CO 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 11 
 
 care, have lacked strength and originality. We turn back 
 now, by a somewhat violent but most instructive transition, 
 to a specimen of very archaic ceramography. 
 
 The design in Plate 4 is from a cylix found at Nola. 
 The figures are black, on a ground of pale dull red. On the 
 right is a stiffly-seated figure, Polyphemus ; he holds in either 
 hand the leg of a dismembered comrade of Odysseus. Even 
 in these early simple times there was a decorous reserve as 
 to the depictiug of horrors. The Cyclops has a bristly 
 beard, and his long hair falls curiously down the back of his 
 neck. It seems fastened back by formal bands into a sort of 
 bag. Odysseus, beardless, stands in front and offers him, the 
 one-handled kissubion, or ivy cup, to drink from. Odysseus 
 appears to hold the cup rather to the nose than the mouth 
 of the Cyclops. At the same time, with the help of the 
 three companions behind him, he plunges a long sharpened 
 pole apparently into the eye on the other side of the giant's 
 face. The parallelism in the attitudes of the four advancing 
 Greeks is very quaint. Above them extends a long ser- 
 pent, whose jaws open on Polyphemus ; beneath, turned the 
 opposite way, is a fish, which seems about to swallow a bait. 
 Possibly the fish in some way symbolises Polyphemus, per- 
 haps as son of Poseidon, perhaps because of the stupid 
 ferocity with which it swallows the proffered bait. About 
 the spotted serpent there is much difference of opinion ; 
 it may indicate the cunning of the Greek, or it may repre- 
 sent a sort of sacred, god-sent cestrus, pain and madness 
 that must overtake the Cyclops for his evil deeds. It is, 
 on the other hand, very possible that both fish and serpent 
 are simply due to the horror vacui of archaic art. 
 
 The cup offered is noticeable ; it is of the shape usually 
 
12 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 attributed to the kissubion or ivy cup, i.e. one -handled. 
 The giant is seen in profile — one eye only is visible, but no 
 doubt a second eye is supposed in the other side. The 
 design in its extreme naiveti^ is a good specimen of 
 very early ceramography ; the figures, are wooden, the ex- 
 pression rigid, yet the whole conception is forcible. Three 
 distinct scenes are compressed into one, after the pregnant 
 manner of early art. The meal of the Cyclops, the pre- 
 sentation of the cup, the blinding with the pole — material 
 which would have served to decorate three reliefs on late 
 Etruscan sarcophagi — are bounded byithe small circle of an 
 early cylix. It is the work of an artist who has so much 
 to say that he uses the simplest painted words — a mere 
 series of symbols — to say it. These symbols are of almost 
 excessive directness. The severe absence of detail is partly 
 of course due to the lack of skill for elaboration, but it 
 must also have been owing to a child -like simplicity of 
 thought. 
 
 Such a design as this, executed some three or four 
 centuries after the latest date we can assign to Homer, 
 compels us to realise how lagging were the steps with 
 which art followed upon literature. I^ seems strange that 
 language, in which thought finds its fullest and most final 
 expression, should be the first medium of utterance to come 
 to its perfection ; painting and sculpture halt far behind.. 
 
 We left the Cyclops in his moment of anguish. Mad- 
 dened with pain, he casts away the olive stake and calls 
 with a loud voice on his fellow Cyclopes, who dwelt about 
 him in the caves along the windy heights. They flock 
 together and ask him what mortal is slaying him by force 
 or craft, and the strong Polyi^hemus makes answer, " My 
 
THE AIYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 13 
 
 friends, No-man is slaying me by guile, nor at all by force." 
 Then, witli a quaint piety that comes strangely from the 
 mouth of the unholy Cyclopes, they answer, " If, then, ISTo- 
 man is violently handling thee in thy solitude, it can in 
 nowise be that thou shouldest escape the sickness sent by 
 mightyi^Zeus. Nay, pray thou to thy father, the lord 
 Poseidon." Odysseus laughs in his heart at the success of 
 his shallow device. " But the Cyclops, groaning and travail- 
 ing in pain, groped with his hands and lifted away the 
 stone from the door of the cave, and himself sat in the 
 entry, with arms outstretched to catch, if he might, any 
 one that was going forth with his sheep, so witless, me- 
 thinks, did he hope to find me." 
 
 At the door of his cave we shall see the Cyclops seated. 
 Meanwhile Odysseus weaves all manner of craft how he may 
 escape. " And this was the counsel that showed best in 
 my sight. The rams of the flock were well nurtured, and 
 thick of fleece, great and goodly, with wool dark as the 
 violet. Quietly I lashed them together with twisted withies, 
 whereon the Cyclops slept, that lawless monster. Three 
 together I took; now the middle one of the three would 
 bear each a man, but the other twain went on either side, 
 saving my fellows. Thus every three sheep have their 
 man. But as for me, I laid hold of the back of a young 
 ram, who was far the best and goodliest of all the flock, and, 
 curled beneath his shaggy belly, there I lay, and so clung, 
 face upward, grasping the wondrous fleece with a steadfast 
 heart." 
 
 This device of Odysseus is quaintly figured on more 
 than one early vase with black figures, never, so far as we 
 know, on one of later period, when the red figures appear 
 
14 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 on the black gi'ound. Curiously enough, in no instance is 
 the Homeric story strictly adhered to; the comrades, as 
 well as Odysseus, appear clinging or lashed to a single ram. 
 I think this discrepancy is partly accounted for by the 
 early date of the monuments ; to depict three rams running 
 parallel, with a comrade visible beneath the central one, 
 would have severely taxed the skill of the early artist. 
 Also, it was quite in the manner of Greek symbolism to 
 indicate the many by the one. Later ceramography per- 
 haps felt that the situation lacked heroic dignity; this is 
 much to be regretted, as the treatment of so curious a 
 subject in the best period of vase-painting would have been 
 full of interest, 
 
 In Plates 5a and 6 we have the- obverse and reverse 
 design of a vase, both dealing with this adventure. On 
 the obverse is a spreading tree with fruit; possibly this 
 tree, found frequently in Polyphemus' vases, indicates the 
 fruitful land of the Cyclops, or the " tall pines and oaks with 
 high crown of leaves." In front of it is a ram curiously 
 spotted. Odysseus is attached somewhat vaguely to the 
 ram; in one hand he lifts a sword. This motive of the 
 lifted sword is repeated in a lekythos,^ now in the British 
 Museum, which bears an inscription, unhappily illegible. 
 The signification of the sword is not quite clear ; there may 
 be some idea that the hero is protecting himself, or 
 defying the blind Cyclops, or, again, it may indicate 
 in advance the cutting of the twisted withies. On 
 the reverse the mouth of a cave is figured, and a ram 
 similar to that on the obverse; the figure clasping it 
 
 1 Figured in the translation of the Odyssey by S. H. Butcher and 
 A. Lang, page 152. 
 
iMkMiM)^MMMMy^m 
 
 K 
 
 y Z^ya^^y>^rjx^/a.^^yU>^^ 
 
 MSMEP 
 
 Pt 5 . 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 15 
 
 beneath is probably a comrade of Odysseus. As in 
 tbe obverse, the ground is covered by branch-like decora- 
 tions. These, which occur so frequently in archaic designs, 
 are possibly relics of a time when floral or geometric decora- 
 tion covered the whole field of the vase, before advance was 
 made to the conception of a group surrounded by clear 
 space. In neither of these designs are the twisted withies 
 very clearly to be seen, but on an Agrigenttae amphora 
 (figured in Plate 7a) there is no doubt. The comrade 
 clasps the ram firmly with one hand round the back, the 
 other round the neck ; but in addition to this he is firmly 
 bound, the " twisted withies " passing over his back and 
 behind his knee. One foot, a very long one, protrudes 
 between the ram's hind legs. The ram himself is unduly 
 elongated to suit the length of the attached comrade. 
 Except for this want of proportion the design is clear and 
 life-like, freer than those in Plate 5 a and &. 
 
 Before dealing with what seem to be our most interest- 
 ing archaic rams, we must advance a step further in the 
 story. 
 
 " So soon as early dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, 
 then did the rams of the flock hasten forth to pasture, but 
 the ewes bleated unmilked about the pens, for their udders 
 were swoUen to bursting. Then their lord, sore stricken 
 with pain, felt along the backs of all the sheep as they 
 stood up before him, and guessed not in his folly how that 
 my men were bound beneath the breasts of his thick-fleeced 
 flocks." 
 
 On an oinochoe found in Magna ©roscia, now at Berlin, 
 figured in Plate 6a, we see the hapless giant. He looks 
 sad and downcast; his head droops, heavy perhaps with 
 
MYTHS OF THE OD YSSE Y. 
 
 wine ; lie is not asleep, for his hand is raised as if to touch 
 the ram, — only dazed with pain and misery. Odysseus, 
 screened by the ram (it is not clear how), passes out his 
 sword, naively swung, possibly in defiance. The ground of 
 the design is covered with tree-like decorations. Very simi- 
 lar in motive is the design in Plate 6J, from an oinochoe in 
 the British Museum.^ The painting is= black on red ground ; 
 the outline incised in white ; details filled in in white, such 
 as the ram's horn and the mouth of the cave. Odysseus, 
 bearded, clings to the side of the ram. The Cyclops is half 
 reclining under a tree with large white fruit, very similar to 
 that in Plate 5a. His right hand is stretched out. In 
 curious opposition to the Homeric account, he feels under 
 the ram, and the hero seems on the verge of detection. 
 Slight deviations in details such as this serve clearly to 
 show the free attitude of art towards literature. The artist 
 depicted a story current in everyone's mouth, known probably 
 ages before Homer wrote, and liable to aU manner of local 
 variations. 
 
 A striking instance of this freedom is seen in the two 
 designs figured in Plate 75 and c, from a kylix found at Vulci, 
 now at Wurzburg. The figures are black on red ground, 
 and are inscribed, but the characters are now illegible. 
 Polyphemus in the one design holds his club, in the other a 
 sort of chlamys is folded over his arm. But the curious 
 point is that the giant is here represented as himself drivino- 
 out the flocks, with Odysseus and his comrades lashed be- 
 neath them ; he is either actually shepherding them, or pur- 
 suing them for vengeance. In either case the artist boldly 
 
 ' My attention was drawn to this vase (hitherto I believe unpublished) bv 
 Mr. Cecil Smith of the British Musuem. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 17 
 
 runs counter to Homer, for we remember, " when we had gone 
 but a little way from the cave and from the yard, first I 
 loosed myself from under the ram, and then I set my fellows 
 free. And swiftly we drove on those stiff-shanked sheex^, so 
 rich in fat, and often turned to look about, tiU we came to 
 the ship," Clearly the giant was not present. I have little 
 doubt that this monument, though I place it here because of 
 its subject, belongs to a class we shall consider later, works of 
 art dealing with comic mimes, parodies of the Odyssey story. 
 
 We will not close Homer with a burlesque. We have 
 kept back one archaic ram, and before he passes out, his 
 master shall make to him his pathetic appeal, " for the 
 strong Polyphemus laid his hands on him and spake to him, 
 saying, Dear ram, wherefore, I pray thee, art thou the last 
 of all the flocks to go forth from the cave, who of old wast 
 not wont to lag behind the sheep, but wert ever the fore- 
 most to pluck the tender blossom of the pasture, faring with 
 long strides, and wert still the first to come to the streams 
 of the rivers, and didst first long to return to the homestead 
 in the evening. But now art thou the very last. Surely 
 thou art sorrowing for the eye of thy lord, which an evil 
 man blinded with his accursed fellows, when he had sub- 
 dued my wits with wine, even No-man, who I say hath not 
 yet escaped destruction." 
 
 A moment so beautiful as this could scarcely escape the 
 artist. In the design figured in Plate 8 a, we see Poly- 
 phemus seated half-recumbent at the mouth of the cave. 
 His eager scrutiny is over ; in his left hand he holds his 
 club, but with the right he no longer feels for the comrades 
 beneath the ram. Sorrow has supplanted search. The hand 
 which should be blindly groping is lifted piteously in 
 appeal, with just the gesture that in early art indicates 
 
MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 speech. The design is only slightly sketched ; it is scarcely 
 equal in finish or power to that in Plate 6&. The actual 
 tree there observable is absent, but the branch-like decora- 
 tions remain. We are glad to learn tllat a vase so beautiful 
 should have been found at Athens, but somewhat surprised, 
 as Odj'ssey myths have, except throug-h Athene, little con- 
 nection with the Attic cycles. 
 
 Lest this last archaic ram should seem somewhat slight 
 and meagre, we will turn finally to one of later date and 
 finer fleece. Such a goodly creature, cumbered with his 
 wool, fit to be the darling of his lord, we have in the marble 
 statue figured in Plate 85.i The attitude of Odysseus 
 huddled up in abject fear contrasts finely with the proud 
 bearing of the ram. We reaKse what a trial it must have 
 been even to the " much-enduring Odysseus " to cling in 
 this posture; waiting " with patient heart for the dawn." The 
 ram, in contrast to Homer's account, still " fares " with lone 
 strides ; we could almost think he wa? pleased to serve his 
 new master. Still we know that he was faithful to the old, 
 for we shall find him in later days sorrowing anew, when 
 his lord suffers a fresh disaster. 
 
 Some five or six hundred years later we meet the 
 Homeric Cyclops again, in the Satp-ic drama of Euripides, 
 which bears the monster's name. His features are little 
 changed. He and his comrades are still the "one-eyed 
 children of the Ocean God ; " ^ they dwell " on a wild Etna-an 
 
 ^ A somewhat similar motive is embodied in a small bronze statue of 
 Odysseus clinging to the ram, now in the British Museum. 
 ''■ " h Alnatav Trerpav 
 'Iv' oi fiov&wes itovtIov iraiSf s Otou 
 
 Kii/fXcuTres oIkovct' HvTp' fyij/x' dv5poKT6i'oi:"—'Eiin. Cycl. 2] 22 
 " T(J re Svaae^a. 
 Ki^kAwtti Silivnav Avoatap SidKOPoi_." 3] 32 
 
PI. 8. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 19 
 
 rock," and still consume tlie "impious and abominable 
 meal." The lapse of five centuries has not taught them to 
 know in their ungracious land the " Bromian wine," the 
 " Bacchic dew of joy-inspiring grapes.'' It is curious how 
 to the Greeks this ignorance of the taste of wine and 
 inability to resist it seemed so specially characteristic of the 
 typical barbarian, whether Centaur or Cyclops.-^ We need 
 scarcely say that in the hands of Euripides the Cyclops 
 loses nothing of his scepticism. Something of sophistic 
 subtlety is added to the old rude blasphemy. It is 
 strange to hear the stupid giant expound at length his 
 brutal logic : 
 
 " Wealth, my good fellow, is the wise, man's god ; 
 All otlier things are a pretence and boast. 
 What are my father's ocean promontories, 
 The sacred rocks whereon he dwells, to me ? 
 Stranger, 1 laugh to scorn Jove's thunderbolts. 
 
 The wise man's only Jupiter is this, 
 
 To eat and drink during his little day. 
 
 And give himself no care. And as for those 
 
 Who complicate with laws the life of men, 
 
 I freely give thorn tears for their reward. 
 
 I will not cheat my soul of its delight, 
 
 Or hesitate in dining upon you ; 
 
 And that I may be quit of all demand, 
 
 These are my hospitable gifts, fierce fire 
 
 And yon ancestral cauldron, which, o'erbubbling. 
 
 Shall finely cook your miserable flesji." ^ — ShblIjBT, Cyclops. 
 
 ' See Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. i. page 146, where this common 
 savage peculiarity is noted by Professor Colvin. 
 
 ^ "6 TrXoOros, dvdpcoTriffKe, tois crotpdi^ ded^ ' 
 ra S' dWa /ci/tirot Kal \6yo}e e^fiopcpLat. 
 (J/cpm 5' ivaXlas & KaOlSpvrai, wariip 
 Xaip^ti^ K^X^vtij' rl rdSe Trpou(Tr^iru XSyc^i ; 
 Zijubs 5' iyCi Kepavvbv oi tjiphau, !^iv£, 
 
20 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 From the Cyclops of Euripides we get indeed less of 
 howling and whooping, more of articulate speech, but his 
 manner of life is the same. As the play was a satiric 
 drama (the only one left us), naturally the scene of the 
 wine-cup is emphasised, to the honour of the god Dionysos. 
 It may be due to this that so many of our late art monu- 
 ments embody this particular motive, the offering of the 
 cup. There is nothing to mark that t'he intent is specially 
 Euripidean, but they might well have been inspired by 
 words such as these : — 
 
 " I filled 
 The cup of Maron, and I offered him 
 To taste, and said, ' Child of the Ocpn God, 
 Behold what drinks the wines of Greece produce, 
 The exultation and the joy of Bacchus.' " i 
 
 Such designs are figured in Plates 9 a, I, c. Plate 9&, from 
 a gem, is noticeable because it partly reproduces the motive 
 of the archaic cylix, only in more modern fashion. Odysseus 
 approaches with the wine-cup in his right hand, in his left a 
 lance, as if the drinking of the wine and the blinding of the 
 eye were to be simultaneous. 
 
 In another gem, Plate 9«, we see, Odysseus with the 
 wine-skin preparing to pour the wine into a cup. 
 
 Zeivs ofiros avOpuiwoiaL Toiai auKppotrt, 
 
 Xuireh Si fiTiSiv avrdf ol' 5^ rods Mjxovs 
 
 WevTO) TT oiKlWovTfLt avOpJjTToji/ ^ioy, 
 
 K\a.lew Hviiiya' tt]v S' f/xijv tpvxv" ^7" 
 
 ou TraOfTo/iaL dpujif eC Karfadiuiv tc"<t4' 
 
 ^ivii. re X^^ei roidS', us d/xefnrTo;: Ci, 
 
 TTup Kal Trarpfiov rSde Xi^nrd ff', Ss f^aai 
 
 •Tijf aapKa Sm<pbpr,Tov i.p.^it^i, Ka\w."~Cycl., 316. 
 
 ^ " unral ttopHov SeoO, 'KiixXuij/, 
 <TKi4>ai. t6S' olov "EXXds afxiriXuv Utto 
 Othv Kop-ii-ci Tru/io., Aioj-iicrou ydvos."—Cijd. 413 
 
PI. 9. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 21 
 
 The motive of the offering of the cup is finely repro- 
 duced in a statue of the Eoman period in the Villa Pamfili 
 (Plate 9 c). The giant is not presented, but his size is 
 sensible by the gesture of the head of Odysseus, the direc- 
 tion of his eye, and the upraised hand. He also looks as if 
 he were ready for retreat at a moment's notice. 
 
 On the other hand, Euripides may well have borrowed 
 from some vase or frieze his description of the drunken 
 giant : — 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! I scarce can rise. What pure delight ! 
 The heavens and earth appear to whirl ahout 
 Confusedly. I see the throne of Jove 
 And the clear congregation of the gods. 
 Now, if the graces tempted me to kiss, 
 I would not for the loveliest of them' all, 
 I would not leave this Ganymede." ^ — Shelley. 
 
 It seems strange that art has left us, so far as we know, 
 nothing that we can certainly and distinctly call a Euri- 
 pidean monument. Scenes from the Dionysiac cycle of 
 myths abound, and we might have expected some artist would 
 group around the Cyclops Silenus and his Satyrs. But 
 we look in vain. History tells us that the great Timanthes 
 pauited a picture in which a Satyr is measuring the thumb 
 of a sleeping Cyclops, but the Satyr was probably only 
 introduced to indicate the giant's size. 
 
 us eXhtxiaa. ixbyi.^' (S/tparos 17 xci/sis' 
 6 5' o'Opaph? fioi ov/j.fxtf/.iyfLsi'os doKtl 
 rri yrj (pep€<T$at, rod At6s re rbv dp^vov 
 \€Vffer(J 7-6 TTciv 7f. Saifidvccv ayvov o-e/3as' 
 oi)k b.v ^iXricrai/x' ' at Xapires -wetpGiiyl /ie" 
 
 KaWuTTa vri ras xapiras." — Cyd.,_57i-5S3. 
 
22 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 In the play of Euripides we hear nothing of the escape 
 beneath the ram. It would no doubt have been a difficult 
 subject for scenic representation ; also it had no special 
 Dionysiac significance. 
 
 We pass to another class of monuments, which, though 
 we cannot call them Euripidean, represent a literary and 
 artistic phase which was in some degiiee the descendant of 
 the Satyric drama. I mean the class of monuments whose 
 character is distinctly comic. There is a tinge of humour in 
 the representation on the early cylix, (Plate 4), but it is 
 humour of a very naive, and, I think, unconscious sort. 
 Turning to Plate lOa, we see the comic element of the scene 
 pushed to pure burlesque. 
 
 The subject here figured is from an amphora in the 
 British Museum ; the design is in blabk or red, with acces- 
 sories in a sort of dull chocolate, the style possibly archaistic 
 {i.e. pseudo-archaic), the attitudes exaggerated. The Cyclops 
 has the conventional long beard, and thick, conventionally 
 treated hair. The three men who are about to blind him 
 are dressed in short chitons, with swords stuck into their 
 belts. The first, possibly meant for Odysseus, plants his 
 foot on the chest of the Cyclops i:ij order to get more 
 purchase, and it may be partly as a gesture of contempt. 
 The other four appear to be executing a kind of rhythmic, 
 impromptu dance. The whole design is clearly a burlesque. 
 If we place it by the side of the cylix in Plate 4, the 
 caricature is, I think, unmistakable. There we have the 
 same general motive, but the tone is serious, however quaint 
 and inadequate its treatment. In Plate 106, a design from a 
 crater found at Cervetri, we have, I think, the same humorous 
 
TOS^^ 
 
 PI. -10. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 23 
 
 intent, but the execution is much rougher ; the short 
 swords again appear, but they are stuck awkwardly across 
 the chest. The foremost Greek seems to be trampling on 
 the fallen master, but the drawing is far from clear; the 
 hindmost is leaning against the cave so as to drive 
 the stake more forcibly home. The free spaces between 
 the figures are strewn with curious rosettes, due, at least 
 originally, to the horror vacui of archaic style. The 
 figures here are not actually dancing, but the comic intent 
 is evident from the disproportionate size of the faces and 
 the length of the noses. The execution is very rough and 
 careless. 
 
 We do not associate such designs as these with the 
 Satyric drama of Euripides, because of the absence of 
 satyrs, and also because the burlesc[ue seems excessive. We 
 know, however, that there did exist literary productions where 
 the Odyssey story was distinctly caricatured. Kratinos wrote 
 a sort of parody or comic version of the Odyssey (Biaavp/Mol 
 T77? 'OSwcro-eta? 'Ofii^pov), and no doubt in this the Cyclops 
 would play a prominent part. Had the vases we have 
 figured been intended as definite copies of a scene from 
 Kratinos, the persons represented wovdd probably have 
 worn the comic mask. Perhaps more exactly to our point 
 is an incidental mention in Horace of some mimic perform- 
 ance representing the Cyclops : 
 
 " permulta jocatus, 
 Pastorem saltaret uti Cyclopa rogabat." 
 
 HoRAT. Sat. i. V, 63. 
 
 Art, I think, here confirms the slight suggestions of 
 literature, and makes us feel sure that the Cyclops story, 
 always bordering on the ludicrous, was utilised to the utmost 
 
24 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 for the purposes of broad farce. It is remarkable that the 
 three vases we have noted as decorated with these distinctly 
 comic designs are all from Vulci or its neighbourhood. 
 Italy was the proper home of the low burlesq^ue. ^ 
 
 We have placed the Homeric and Euripidean Cyclops 
 with their descendants together, widely separated though they 
 are by time, because the later is distinctly borrowed from 
 the earlier. But we must retrace our steps as far as Hesiod. 
 With him genealogy and functions areabke widely different. 
 The Cyclops of Homer, distinguished ty name, (though belong- 
 ing to a large tribe), is himself one, Polyphemus, the loud- 
 roarer. Hesiod knows of three by name, Brontes, Steropes, 
 Arges — Thunder, Lightning, and Swift-Brightness. Homer's 
 Cyclops is son to Poseidon and the sea-nymph Thoosa, 
 daughter of Phorkys; Hesiod's three brothers are children of 
 Ouranos and Gaia. Homer's Cyclopes are unsocial herdsmen, 
 mortal in their manners and customs ;" they eat cheese and 
 milk. Hesiod's, but for their one eye, are very Like to the 
 gods. Most important of aU, Homer's Cyclops defies Zeus 
 himself, and lives in open rebellion ; Hesiod's are diligent 
 and orderly craftsmen, who forge the thunderbolts of Zeus, 
 and must therefore needs obey him, though they are still 
 high-hearted.^ 
 
 ' There is much discussion as to whether these'vases are genuinely archaic 
 or merely archaistic. I am quite unable to decide the question, but it does 
 not affect the point I desire to emphasise, i.e. the intentionally comic char- 
 acter of these monuments. Early art was, I believe, usually serious, but 
 I see nothing impossible in the idea that there may have been an occajioual 
 lapse into the burlesque. JIuch licensed buffoonery mingled, we know, with the 
 sei-vice of the gods, and relaxed the strain of intenser devotion. 
 - 'TffoaTo h'a.h KukAwttos viripPi.ov firop ?xo»'ras 
 
 ^p6vT7,v re -ZTipbTrriv rt KaVApy-qv 6)il3pifi6evp.ov, 
 
 ot Zi}vl fSpofTrjv t' l5o(Tau reuteiy re Kepawov 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 25 
 
 As forgemen the Cyclopes kept their character steadily 
 down to late days ; we may see them on a Campanian wall- 
 painting working with the god Hephaistos. The design in 
 Plate 11 is from the Pompeian Casa deUe Quadrighe. In 
 the centre, on a yellow rock, an anvil is fixed ; before it is 
 seated Hephaistos, a red chlamys thrown over his hips ; he 
 sHngs his hammer over his shoulder, about to let it fall on 
 the metal work which he has on the anvil. In the back- 
 ground is the hearth with a glowing fire, which, however,- 
 casts no light or shade. Opposite Hephaistos stand two of 
 his Cyclops workmen; there is nothing of the monster about 
 them ; their attitudes are full of life and vigour ; all the 
 picture seems to resound with the clanging of the anvil.^ 
 The face of Hephaistos is young and beautiful ; those of the 
 Cyclopes are too mutilated for the expression to be discernible. 
 
 We are sorry to find that these goodly craftsmen were 
 put to ignoble use by Olympian matrons. Callimachus 
 tells us that if one of the baby-goddesses would not do 
 as she was bid, her lady mother used to call a Cyclops to 
 come and take her, so to speak, up the chimney. Let us 
 
 oi 6' l^roi ra p.kv 6Xka deoU ii^aXiyKLOi 'qaav^ 
 
 ^oufos d' d<pda\fjLds fxiffaifi iv^K€LTo iienbTTi^ 
 
 Icrxvs r' ^5^ ^ir/ Kal /iijxacai ij"'"'' ^t' Ipyois." 
 
 Hesiod. Tkeog. 139. 
 
 ^ Such a picture as this, Callimachus (260 B.C. ),' might have seen when he 
 
 ivrote : 
 
 ' • Ad0i, S^ Kiy/fXuTras /xereKiaffe. tovs jxh Irerfie 
 
 vri(7Ui ivl AnrdpT] {AiTrdp'r) v^ov, dAXct rbT' ^uKev 
 
 oHvopid OL 'M.eKiyovvh) iir' ixKiioatv 'Hc^atcrroio 
 
 e(7Ta6ra5 Tre/ji fiudpov lively gto ydp^ijAya ^pyof. 
 
 tD^' o'i yG patffr^pas deipdjWe^'ot iiir^p (h^oiv 
 ^ X(0\Khv ^eiovra Kaixi.v69tv ijh (xlBiipov 
 afi^oKadls rervTroyTes, iirl fi^ya ixoxSriaeiav. " 
 
 Callim. Dian. 46. 
 
26 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 hope the Olympian babies had godd nerves, for though 
 neither "Arges " nor " Steropes '' responded to the summons 
 Plermes blacked his face with a coal, and counterfeited' a 
 Cyclops with excellent effect.^ 
 
 The forge of the blacksmith Cyclopes was placed 
 either at J5tna or the Lipari Isles, or sometimes at Lemnos ; 
 in fact, wherever a volcanic neighbourhood suggested. They 
 have a curious Keltic parallel : Maildun, the Irish Odysseus, 
 among other perils has to pass by "the island of big black- 
 smiths." But the Irish craftsmen are not orderly workers 
 like the servants of Hephaistos ; they are ready to desert 
 their anvil at a moment's notice to play the more congenial 
 part of the sea robber Polyphemus. Maildun does not even 
 land, but for all that he barely escapes,<for one of the giants 
 runs down to the shore with long hea\'y strides, and flings a 
 mass of molten iron with all his might after the pigmy 
 curragh. Like the rock of Polyphemus, it faUs a little 
 short, and plunging down just near the prow causes the 
 whole sea to hiss and boil and heave up round the boat. 
 But Maildun and his comrades ply their oars, and quickly 
 get beyond his reach and sail out into the open ocean. 
 
 The Irish Cyclops combines somewhat both of the 
 Homeric and Hesiodic qualities ; but the accounts of Hesiod 
 and Homer are, as we have seen, markedly diverse. Con- 
 troversy used to run high as to which of the conceptions 
 was prior to the other. Eecently much' attention has been 
 
 ' ' ' dXV Sts Koiipciwj/ tU ivfiSfa ixtjTipi. reixei 
 lxi]T-nf> fi.h Kii/cXcuTras tT)" iwl waidi KaXLa.Tpe? 
 "Apynv ^ ■S.Tcpkivr,:-- 6 Si S^^aros 4k p^vxdroio 
 SpxfTai 'EpfidTis (TTTodirj Kexprjfiitoi alBg- 
 airiKa Tw Koiprjv fiopnifffferar ij U reKom-qs 
 Si.u ?.„ .iX^„„,, eef.^.^ M^&,,, X-pa..---CALL.M. Dian., 67. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 27 
 
 drawn to another race of Cyclopes, who may have been the 
 ancestors of both, and who claim our reverence as the 
 legendary fathers of Greek architecture. Most peoples who 
 have a past, and whose past has left them vast masses of 
 masonic structure, are wont to attribute such monuments 
 to some pre-existing, half-dsemonic race of giants, whose 
 strength surpassed that of the pigmies of later days. Such 
 a tradition prevailed among the Greeks ; at Tiryns, at 
 Mykense, were huge masses of stone-work, which it seemed 
 to the men of modern times mortal hands could never have 
 upreared,^ so they fabled that the Cyclopes built them,^ 
 often under the direction of some Greek hero, as the wild 
 sea-giant Poseidon raised the walls of Troy to the sound of 
 Apollo's lyre. Sometimes these Cyclopes are autochthonic ; 
 sometimes a hero brings them from foreign lands,^ Their 
 most familiar bit of work — wrought possibly in the day of 
 Homer himself — we give in Plate 12, the famous lions 
 that guarded the gates of Mykense. Their character, and 
 that of the pillar at each side of which they stand in 
 heraldic posture, is foreign to later Greek art. They may 
 well have been the work of some Lycian or Lydian crafts- 
 man in prehistoric times.* Pausanias tells us that in his 
 
 ^ " rh dr] re^xo^ {TipvvBos) 8 drj ixhvov rdv ipciiricjiu Xe/Trerat K.vicKunr(iJv p4v 
 iartv ^pyov, TreTroiTjTaL 5^ dpydv \id{jOv ^^yedos ^x^^ ^KacrrQS \i6o5 tlis d7r' aurcop ytiTjS' 
 ^p dpxv^ Kivr}drivai rhv fiLKpdrarov VTrh fei^yoi/s ri^ibywv — XiBia 5^ h'^pp.ocrraL 
 TrdXai ws p.i\i.uTa, airwv 'iKairrov apixovlav ToU p.eya\ois XWms dvai." 
 ^ " tS KvKXonriS^s ecrWat, Sj irarpls 
 
 MuKi'iva ^l\a." — EuB. Iph. in Taur. 845. 
 
 ^ '* T^ pkv odv Tipvvdi bpp.TjTTjpltp ^p^crao"(?at doK^i Jlpolros Kai T^ix^cai 5iA 
 KuKXtiTTOJt', oOs ^TTTd pkv elvac KaXetfTdai 5^ yaffTep6x^^po.s rpEtpopiifovs 4k ttjs 
 T^X^V^i TJKeLv 5^ pLETaTT^pLTTTOvs ^K Au/c£as." — Strabo, viii. 373. 
 
 ■* Mr. Murray [History of Gfreek Sculpture) notes that these lions are 
 sculptured in stone "in the low flat relief characteristic of the system of 
 decoration evolved from working in hronze. Their heads had been of 
 
28 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 days tradition assigned them to the Cyclopes who helped 
 Proetus to fortify Tiryns.-' If they seem to us somewhat 
 gaunt and uncouth, we must remember that they still 
 claim our reverence ; they have kept ^their steadfast watch 
 over the dead Atridae for full thirty centuries, and those 
 who have seen them ^ in their own place tell how well 
 their rude proportions blend with the rough Cyclopean 
 walls around. No picture is left us of the workmen ; we 
 must be content to gaze at what they have wrought. 
 
 It is not hard to see that at the root of all these three 
 Cyclops conceptions there lies the one thought, diverse 
 though its forms may be, of mighty nature-forces, existing 
 before man and, in the earlier stages of his civilisation, 
 beyond his power to control. These forces are akin to the 
 gods (hence the parentage assigned both by Homer and 
 Hesiod), because they are mightier than man. But they 
 are not wholly god-like, because they are formless, im- 
 measured, uncouth. 
 
 Teutonic mythology has a whole theogony of such 
 giants, daemons of the sea, the air, fire,"and the earth ; BeU, 
 the loud roarer, is a sea-giant, so is Thrud Gelmir of the 
 mighty voice. Oegir, a sea robber, keeps a huge caiildron 
 that might match the ancestral vessel of Polyphemus ; but 
 
 separate pieces and are now wanting, but whether they had consisted of 
 metal, as some have thought, is at best uncertain. The attitude is no other 
 than that with which we are familiar from the: art of Assyria, a country 
 whence it would seem the early Greeks had drawn their artistic knowledge 
 of this animal in general. There is, however, a bold spirit in the execution 
 suggestive of the dawn of an individual faculty for art in Greece itself." 
 
 ^ " AelTTfTtti U S^ws tri Koi SXka. rod ire/5i/3(5Xou koX tj ttijXtj- X^oj/res Si i<pe- 
 (TTT}Ka.(nv airrj- KvKXJnruv Si Ka.1 ravra Ipya di-a^ 'Kiyov(Tiv oL Xlpolrtfi to reixos 
 iTTuLriijav in tlpwdi." — Pauh. ii. 16, 5. 
 
 - Essays on Art and Arohixology. C. T. Newton. 
 
g:£. 
 
 PI. 12. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 29 
 
 he is no liermit ; he has a wild, uncouth water wife, Ran, 
 who does him good service by catching drowning sailors. 
 In the German legends fire and water giants are in close 
 connection, so that we need not wonder at the kinship 
 between the son of Poseidon and the workmen of Hephai- 
 stos. We find the same rebellion against the gods ; the 
 German giants contend with Odin and -are defeated by him. 
 Polyphemus is quite in character when he blasphemes the 
 gods, though he is near akin to them. Giant morality 
 among the Teutons was higher than among the Greeks — 
 " Treu wie Eiesen " is a proverb which would scarcely have 
 gained currency in the land of Polyphemus. 
 
 These wild nature-forces, whether of water or of fire, were 
 in themselves, so to speak, neutral ; they might be tamed 
 to the service of the gods and of men ; then we have 
 Cyclopes forging thunderbolts and uprearing masonry ; they 
 might expend themselves in lawless violence ; then we have 
 the giant-robber of many lands. But the special character- 
 istic of the Greek giant -robber is, as was likely, that he 
 lacks social virtue ; no more dismal,^ more barbarian picture 
 could be presented to the mind of the city-loving Greek 
 than that of a " froward, lawless folk, who have neither 
 gatherings for council nor oracles of law." Thus the 
 Cyclopes became for Greek political writers ^ the type of 
 primitive barbarism, when the family was the only social 
 unit. For such a state as this the Homeric Greek, with his 
 social instincts, would naturally feel an "almost physical 
 
 * Cf. the sad words of Atys : — 
 
 " Egone a mea remota lieec fera in nemora domo ? 
 Patria bonis amieis genitoribus abero ? 
 Abero /oro palsestris stadio et gyninasiis ?" 
 
 2 (I 
 
 AoKoSal /iM Trdrres rijn iv roirif ry Xftivif TtoKirdav hwaardav kcCK 
 
 eiv • 
 
30 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 loathing, which would express itself by describing such 
 barbarians as monsters, or even (which is almost always the 
 case in Oriental mythology) as demons."^ 
 
 No doubt travellers' strange tales of cave cannibals who 
 dwelt on the shores of Sicily and Africa helped out the 
 details of the Cyclops picture ; and a sea-loving folk would 
 feel and express natural contempt for a coast race who, 
 with all natural advantages to hand, yet built them no 
 ships " with vermilion prows," whereby they might " voyage 
 to the towns of men." 
 
 It is perhaps not to the credit of humanity that, among 
 the mythologies of many nations, it is not the architect nor 
 the craftsman Cyclops who most often meets us, but the 
 one-eyed cannibal robber-giant. Among peoples the most 
 diverse — Kelts, Teutons, Oghuzians, Esthonians, Indians, 
 dwellers in Polynesia — we light upon, legends which look 
 like scattered shreds of the Homeric tale patched into 
 mythic webs of widely different weaving. Whether these 
 aU have some common original, or whether, as seems more 
 likely, they are akin only through the likeness of mankind's 
 early fancies in all times, is one of the problems that still 
 asks comparative mythology to solve it. 
 
 Into such far-off fields Ave may not wander, but where 
 the giants still survive on classic ground we must not pass 
 them over. In Zakynthos the peasants of to-day stand in 
 
 Koi vvv in TToXXaxoS koX iv "EXX»;(j-i Kai Ka.Tk /Bap^dpovs icrV Xiya S' amiiv wov 
 Kal "O/xTipos ycyotiivai. irepl tt}v tCiv KvkXwttoiv oUrjaw elwuiv. 
 " Totcriv d'ovT dyopal," etc. — Plato, Leg. 3-680, B. 
 
 "iraaa yhp okla ftatyiXeierai mb rod Trpcu^vTinv &<tti Kal «£ d7^0I^•k( Sm 
 riji' iTvyyiiKLi.ai'- Kai tout ianv 8 \£yet"Op.rjpos. 
 
 ' ' Qe/xiiTTeijei Si f KOdros, " etc. 
 "... Kal o»TW TO dpxa7ov yVow."— Arist. Polii. I. i. 7. 
 ' Maine, Ancient Lena. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 31 
 
 awe of monsters of superhuman strength, with one eye only 
 in the middle of the forehead : it is of huge size, and spurts 
 out fire. These giants, however, are more social than the 
 Cyclopes of Homer's days, and they have truly domestic 
 wives who spin and weave. There is also a tradition 
 among the folk-lore of the Arachobites, that in a foreign 
 land dwells a godless race of one-eyed men. The term 
 " one-eyed " is with this people a term equivalent to savage 
 barbarian. When one of their number is about to go into 
 a strange land, they bid him beware lest "the one-eyed 
 fall upon you and eat you " {ol ixovofip.aT pi')(vovvT kol ae 
 TpMve). 
 
 More direct descendants of the Homeric cannibals 
 still survive in the land of the Theokritean Polyphemus. 
 In the part of Sicily known as the Plane di Greci the 
 peasants still tell a story of " I Ciclopi,"' which in its main 
 outlines is the same as the Odyssey tale. These modern 
 Cyclopes make ample amends for the deficient eyesight 
 of their ancestors ; they have four eyes, two in front, two 
 behind. 
 
 This characteristic of the one eye is in fact by no means 
 common to the Polyphemus of many lands. It is, however, 
 as we have seen in laie authors and late artists, a distinctly 
 emphasised attribute of the Greek giant. Homer, perhaps, 
 seems to assume that his hearers will know that the Cyclops 
 has but one eye; he never states the fact. Possibly 
 the great round burning eye is a sort of symbol of world- 
 
 1 My attention was called to this interesting parallel by the kindness of 
 Miss E. M. Clarke. The story is told in full by Comparetti— " Canti e 
 Racconti del Popolo Italiano," 
 
32 MYTHS OF THE OUYSSEY. 
 
 wide vision, of piercing sight, an attribute of lingering god- 
 head in the inferior demon. To other nations, Egyptians 
 and Persians, with their Eastern love of the marvellous, 
 this inhuman monstrosity might seem an attribute of 
 divinity ; but to the Greek, who was always careful of 
 symmetry of form, it became a token of savage deformity. 
 Even the Greek, however, adopted it at one time for his 
 chief god. Pausanias^ saw in the Akropolis at Argos a wooden 
 image of Zeus Patroos, which had, in addition to the two 
 conventional eyes, a third in the forehead. But what might 
 be tolerated in the hieratic xoanon would be scarcely per- 
 petuated in the ideal Zeus of later days. Whether this 
 round " world-eye," as the Germans call it, was connected 
 with primitive sun-worship or not is hard to determine. 
 Apart from any such origin, there is a terror of concentration 
 about the conception of the one eye, that two, however 
 glaring, lack. Semitic mythology, through the medium of 
 mediasval tradition, still haunts the dreams of children with 
 visions of a being whose 
 
 "piercing E3'e 
 " Strikes thro' tile sliades of .night." 
 
 The one-eyed cannibal giant of many lands stiU lives as 
 a savage terror, but among the Greeks in later days a strange, 
 unlooked-for fate befell him; by many poets, many painters! 
 the story is told. Let us turn to Plate 13, a reUef in the' 
 Villa Albani. Here is the Cyclops, Polyphemus, reclining 
 near his cave as of old, huge and ungainly stiU, with the 
 monstrous eye midway in his forehead. Prom out of 
 
 ^XO" i<pd^\^oi,, rplTov Si M rod m^tu^ov/'-Vavs. ii. 21. 
 
^^ 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 33 
 
 the cave has come his "dear ram," sorrowing again, but this 
 time not for the eye of his lord ; the Cyclops has a worse 
 pain to bear, — a pigmy has dealt hioa a blow deadlier than 
 the wound of the crafty Odysseus; his wits are subdued, 
 but no longer "with wine." " No-man:" has done it, a little 
 winged god, who perches behind him. To the whispering of 
 this god he is listening and neglects his faithful ram. The 
 Cyclops is a shepherd still, but also he is a lover and a 
 minstrel. Surely these two words as applied to Polyphemus 
 are a note of later days and altered fashions. The archaic 
 tree has branched and blossomed into soft foliage, the rigid 
 outline of the giant's shape, his quaint austerity of posture, 
 are alike relaxed since last we met him, and to his soul has 
 come a no less unwonted softness. 
 
 Let us turn to another picture, and see more fully how 
 this all came about. The design in Plate 14 is from a 
 Pompeian wall-painting, and deserves our close attention 
 as a characteristic specimen of Grfeco-Eoman mural de- 
 coration. To the left under a high rock stands a giant 
 shepherd, with his conventional club-staff in his right 
 hand, a chlamys thrown over his left arm ; in the fore- 
 ground a group of goats indicate his= flock. To the right 
 a dolphin ^ swims by, bearing on his back a maiden ; a 
 little ahead a Triton blows a conch. The maiden holds a 
 leaf-shaped fan above her head, and over her a winged Love 
 
 1 Sucli a picture, whether actually existent or not, and dealing with the 
 story of Galatea, is described by Philostratus ; — 
 
 " T\ S'a.ira\rj T(j daKdrr-Q iraltfi T^Tpwpov SeA^ij-wc ^vydyovaa oixoivyoivTUv 
 TeKalr'ailTov Trve6vT(iiy, Trapdhot S' auTods HyouaiTptTums al dp.ual Trjs VaKardas, 
 iTTttTTop-l^ova-ai. (rrpds d a.yipaxl"' « KoX irapa Tr]v TjvLav irpaTToieV i) S' inrip 
 KiipaX^s a\iw6p<pvpo!' p.kv yrlov Ti3 ipp-ari, a(t>' oi5 Kai avyi] tis iirl t6 p^Taway Kai 
 rijv KeipaX^v TJKeL oBttu i]5ioii> toO ttjs Trapetas di/6ovs." — JSik. xvm. 
 
 D 
 
34 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 hovers bearing her parasol. In the distance is a land- 
 scape, hills surmounted by a sort of villa; a wide bay is 
 encircled by terrace and colonnade. The picture tells its 
 own story ; the character of its execution we shall note later. 
 Polyphemus it is who stands by the sea-shore with a club- 
 staff under hia arm, his flock beside him. To-night it seems 
 "from the green pastures his ewes will stray back self- 
 shepherded to the fold;"^ for through the blue sea, mounted 
 on the dolphin, the sea-nymph Galatea rides by and casts 
 only a sidelong glance on her yearning lover ; she floats away, 
 but he is left " by the seaweed of the beach from the dawn 
 of day, with the direst hurt beneath his breast of mighty 
 Cypris' sending, the wound of her arrow in his heart." Yet 
 he finds a solace in his sadness : let him tell us wherein. 
 " Also I am skilled in piping, as none other of the Cyclopes 
 here ; and of thee, my love, my sweet apple, and of myself 
 too, I sing many a tune deep in the night." We saw him 
 under the tree " shepherding his love " to the sound of his 
 uncouth lyre. We have seen him too by the seaside ; but 
 he tells us himself that was not the beginning of the mis- 
 chief " I fell in love with thee, maiden, on the day when 
 first thou camest with my motlier, and didst wish to pluck 
 the hyacinths from the bill, and I was thy guide on the 
 way. But to leave loving thee when once I had seen thee, 
 neither afterward nor now at all have- 1 the strength, even 
 
 " ttoXXiIki KaXatii% iron x' aflXioc avraX a.TrTjvdov 
 xXiupSs iK /SoTctcas- 6 S^ tclv VaKa.Tei.av adbuv 
 aiiTU ir' dUfOt KaTerdKeTO rt>\lKl.oiaaai 
 i^ doSs ex^iiTToi' Ix'^v iiwoKapSiov ffX/cos 
 KuTTpios ^K fieyd\at a oi ijiraTi 7ra|e ^iXe^voV 
 dXXa rb (pdpiJ.aKoi/ elipe- /caSefi/iej-os 5' M Ttirpas 
 liV-i/Xas, is tt6vtov op&v ddie roiaCTa."— THEOK./rf. xi. 12-18 
 
L' -^ 
 
 PI. 14. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 35 
 
 from that hour. But to thee all this is nothing ; by Zeus, nay, 
 nothing at all." ^ 
 
 And how about the maiden herself ? Alas ! she 
 was cold and shallow-hearted ; we may hear her babble 
 of this fierce tender lover to her girl companion. Doris, 
 the sea -nymph, is piqued that the burly giant sees 
 only one maid among the many, and so, woman-hie, she 
 comes to twit Galatea with her uncouth swain. " A fine 
 lover you've got, Galatea, this Sicilian shepherd ; he's dis- 
 traught about you ; it's the talk of the neighbourhood." 
 
 " Hush, Doris ; he mayn't be good-looking ; but think 
 who he is — son of Poseidon." 
 
 " Much good may it do you. If he were son to Zeus 
 himself it wouldn't mend matters, — such a hairy ruffian, 
 and only one eye ! " ^ 
 
 But one eye, with the dukedom of the sea for its setting, 
 is no blemish to Galatea. In vain Doris with heartless 
 frankness piles up objections : the giant's complexion is 
 amiss, he sings out of tune, his lyre is not the correct 
 shape ; Galatea clings to her suitor, weU born, if ill-favoured. 
 Such is Lucian's account ; but the poet, writing long before, 
 has left us a fairer picture than the cynic of this coquettish 
 
 1 " TjpaaBriii iJ.h 'iyvya reoOs Khpa, rivUa irpaTOV 
 9iv$ii iij.q. alii' fj-arpi, OeXour' vaKlvBava (piXKa 
 g^ bpeos Spifatrdai.- iyii S' odbv ay^iibvevov — 
 Tuiffaa-Bai 5' iffiSiiv tI Kal iiffrepov oiiSin ttio vdv 
 iK T-ljVU! diva/j.ai' tIv 5' oi5 /iAet, ov p.a Ai, oidiv.' 
 
 Thbok. Id. xi. 25-29. 
 2 " AfiP. KaXbv ipasTTiv Si Tahi-Teia rtiy Si/ceXoc tovtoi' woi/J.ii'a (paalv iTifxep.- 
 
 'qv^vai <Tol. 
 
 " TAA. Mt) a-KwiTTs Aupi- Uoo-eidCivos yap vl6s iariv ottoios &.v J. 
 
 " AfiP. tI oSv; d Kal toO Ai6s avTov irals S>v Hypi-os ciiru Kal Xdirios iipalvero 
 Kal rb irdvTUiv dp.op<p6TaTOP ijiov6<pea\fios, ofci rb yivo^ dy ti fo^TOi airbv tt/jJs 
 TTjv /io/)0-^j' ; "—LuciAK, Dial. Marin, i. 
 
36 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 sea-maiden, Daphnis, the shepherd, sings to his fellow 
 Damoetas : 
 
 " Galatea is pelting thy flock with apples, Polyphemus ; 
 she says the goatherd is a laggard loyer. And thou dost 
 not glance at her, hard, hard, that thou art ! but still thou 
 sittest at thy sweet piping. Ah ! see again, she is pelting 
 thy dog that follows thee to watch thy sheep. He barks as 
 he looks into the brine, and now the beautiful waves that 
 softly plash reveal him as he runs upon the shore. Take 
 heed that he leap not on the maiden's limbs as she rises from 
 the salt water ; see that he rend not her lovely body. Ah ! 
 thence again, see she is wantoning, light as dry thistle down 
 in the scorching summer weather. She flies when thou 
 wooing her ; when thou woo'st not she pursues after 
 thee." 1 
 
 And Polyphemus makes answer by Damoetas' mouth — 
 " I saw her, by Pan, I saw her when she was pelting my 
 flock. Nay, she escaped not me, escaped not my one dear 
 eye. But it is all to torment her that I in my turn give 
 not back her glances, pretending that I have another love. 
 To hear this makes her jealous of rde, by Ptean, and she 
 wastes with pain, and springs madly from the sea, gazing at 
 
 ^ " BaXXfi Toi, no\i;0a;ne, t6 it difxy i.ov a. TaXdreia 
 fLdXoiffip, Svaipara. rbv a.lTv6\ov dvSpa (caXeOcrcf 
 KOi rb VLV ov TToSdpTicrffa, rdXaP, rdXaf, dXXa KdOtjaai 
 dS^a (TvptaSiijV irdXiv (SS', ld( Tav.Kiva ^dXXci 
 a Toi Tai- dtav ^TTfrai anoirbf d S^ ^avcrSei 
 £15 aXa SepKop.ha' rd 54 vw KoKd Kif^ara (palvd. 
 da-vxa KaxaXd^ovros iir' alyiaKot'o Beolua.f- 
 ippdadeo iirj ras TvaiSbs iwi Kvdna.iiTLv bpovirri 
 ii dXbs ipxop.ifas, Kara Si xpia KaXbv dp-v^r)- 
 a Si Kai airiBe toi hiadpiTTTiTai, ws aV dKdvda; 
 Tal Kairvpal X"''™', rb /caXi.- BtEpos dWra (ppviryei 
 Kal ipevyei (piKiovra, koX oil (piMovra 3ic6/ce(. "—/<;. vi. 6-19. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 37 
 
 my caves and at my herds. And I liiss on my dog to bark 
 at her, for when I loved Galatea he woirld whine with joy, 
 and lay his muzzle on her lap. Perchance, when she marks 
 how I use her, she will send me many a messenger ; but on 
 her envoys I will shut my door till she promises that herself 
 will make a glorious bridal bed on this island for me." ^ 
 
 But for all his proud words the gi&nt is not so sure ; 
 so down he goes to the sea again, in hopes of tidings 
 from the maiden. There we may see^ him in Plate 15. 
 How he hates that sea, shepherd-borri as he is. While 
 he waits he cries to Galatea, " Leave the gray sea to roll 
 against the land; more sweetly in this cavern shalt thou 
 fleet the night with me ! Thereby the laurels grow, and 
 there the slender cypresses ; there is the ivy dim, and the 
 sweet clustered grapes ; there is chill water that for me 
 deep-wooded iEtna sends down from the white snow, a 
 draught divine. Ah ! who, in place of these, would choose 
 the sea to dwell in, or the waves of the sea ? " So he 
 sings to his lyre, that very lyi-e at which Doris scoffed. 
 We have it pictured here with detailed accuracy — a stag's 
 antlers stripped of the flesh, the horns make the sides, 
 
 ^ '' eXdov, yai t6p Ila^'a, rb Troip-VLOV avlK efiaXKe, 
 
 KoS fj,' ^\a6', ov Thv ifj.bv riiv ha y\vKvv =v Trod6pr!IJ,i 
 es Te\os. 
 
 6X\a Kal airbs iyij^ kvIctSojv irdXtv ov TvoSbpt^ixi 
 
 aW S.\\av Tiva (papX yvvaiK Ix^" ' "^ ^' Woiffa 
 
 ^aXoL yti', (S HaLdv, Kal rtxKCTaL' iK 5^ &a\d<Tiras 
 
 otarpe? TraiTTaivotaa ttot' fivrpa. re /cat Trort iroip-vas. 
 
 cri^a 5' vKanTilv VLV Kal tS, kvvV koi yap- 6 k' fipwu 
 
 avTcis iKwi^dro ttot' iVx'tt pi!)yxos ^oicra' 
 
 rauTa 5' ?trus eiropevtra irotevvrd pie TroXXct/ci irep^ei 
 
 fi77EXo!'' avrdp iyoi (cXaJu Sijpas Icrre k 6p.6airri 
 
 avrd p-oi aTopi<Tuv koKo, S4p.vta ras 5' ctI vdiru." — Id, vi. 20-34. 
 
38 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 sinews for strings, not even a peg to tune them with.^ To- 
 day he has not long to sing. Eound the corner comes a 
 mounted " messenger," ^ bearing in his hand no letter sealed 
 and addressed, but the double tablets * of old times, and the 
 eager Cyclops stretches out his hand. We cannot know 
 what the tablets held that day; whether the Cyclops went 
 home sad or happy ; whether before he turned he proudly 
 looked into the calm sea mirror, and "beautiful seemed his 
 beard, beautiful his one eye, and the sea reflected the gleam 
 of his teeth whiter than Parian stone ; " * or whether in 
 bitterness of heart he cried again, " I know thee, gracious 
 maiden, why it is thou dost shun me. It is all for the 
 shaggy brow that spans all my forehead, from this to 
 the other ear, one long unbroken eyebrow. And but one 
 eye is on my forehead, and broad is the nose that it over- 
 hangs. . . . But if thou dost refuse because my body seems 
 shaggy and rough, well, I have faggots^ of oak wood, and 
 
 " AfiP. KoX aiiTT} di 7] ttjktIs oi'a' Kpavlov e\d<pov yvixvhv ran crapKwv, Kal to. 
 ft-lv Kipara trrixeii waivep ^aav, fu-ywiras Si auTo. ,Kal kvafa^ to. peSpa oiSi 
 KdWoTTi TTspiiTTpixj/ai if/ieXcJSei &IJ.0V76V Ti Kal dirijiSdv, S.\\o /liv airis /3o£c SXXo 
 di ■}) Mpa vwnx'^i, iitrre oiSi Kar^x"" riv yi\ojTa iSwd/ieea ewi rip ipariKip 
 iKelvif d.crp.aTi." 
 
 ■■' This very messenger, we learn from another and an earlier poet than 
 Theokritus, had been sent by Polyphemus. See Schol. Theok. xi. 1. 
 
 " *iX6^£;'os TTOis: Thv KvKkonra KaTafi.vOoifi.evoi> iavriv iwl T(p rrp TaXareias 
 IpwTi Kal iuTe\Up.€vov rots SeX0?o-w 6Vus d-y7£iXuo-(v avT-o Srm rals Moi^o-ais t6^ 
 Epwra d/cetrat.'' 
 
 Of the poem of Philoxenus, we have, unhappily, only a few bare frag- 
 ments ; enough, though, to make us guess how much Theokritus may have 
 been indebted. 
 
 ^ Cf. Ovid. Amor. i. 12— 
 
 " flete meos casus, tristes rediere tabellm." 
 * " Kal yap wpkv h irovTov iai^Xewov, 775 di yaXdva, 
 Kal Ka\d fiiv Th yiviia KaXd S' ifilu a fxla Kiipa 
 us rap' ip.lv KiKpirai Kan^atvero, twv Si r'dSbvTUv, 
 \eVKOTipav aiyhv Haptas W4<t>a,ve XWoio."— Theok. Id. vi. 35 
 
Pi. 15. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 39 
 
 beneath the ashes is fire unwearied, and I would endure to 
 let thee burn my very soul, and this my one eye, the dearest 
 thing that is mine." ^ 
 
 Whatever the tablets may have brought, they did not 
 bring content. The maiden will not come ashore ; she 
 cares nothing for the laurels, the dun ivy, the sweet clus- 
 tered grapes. And so the giant's longing grows ; a mad hope 
 bestirs him ; he will even leave his lovely cave and seek 
 her through the unknown treacherous waters. " Ah me ! " 
 he cries, " that my mother bore me not a finny thing ; so 
 would I have gone down to thee and kissed thy hand, if 
 thy lips thou would not suffer me to kiss." " Now verily," 
 he quaintly adds, " maiden, now and here will I learn to 
 swim, if perchance some stranger come hither sailing with 
 his ship, that I may see why it is so dear to thee to 
 have thy dwelling in the deep," No ipoit tells us if the 
 giant really plunged into the sea he hated. But let us turn 
 to Plate 16, from a mural painting in the tablinum of the 
 house of Livia, on the Palatine. Here, breast-high amid 
 the waves, we see the faithful lover. A little mischievous 
 love has literally drivm him down from the land, and now 
 holds him with slack rein. The giant is younger than in 
 most of our pictures ; his face is soft and smooth ; and we 
 remember that Theokritus tells us how lie loved Galatea when 
 
 1 ' 
 
 ' yivdiaKiji xapii-o-ira Kbpa Hvoi ovveKO. tpeiyeii' 
 ovveKi 11.01. Xaala jj-h 6<ppis M ttuvtI fi.cTiiTr(f 
 e^ lirbs Tirarai. totI S' ibrepov cis p.la /j-aKpa, 
 eU S' d^BaXjibs Hwea-Ti, wXare'ta di^h iirl xf'^-"- 
 
 al U TOi aijT6s eyiiv SoK4id \a.<TidiT€pos Tip.(v, 
 
 ivri 8pvb^ JuXa p-oi Kal vTth a-wodip amparov irvp- 
 
 Ka.i.6pevos S' virb revs Kal rav fvxav avexoipav^ 
 
 Kal rbv h dipdaXpbv rip poi. yXvKepiirepov ovUv." — Id. xi. 30. 
 
40 MYTHS OF THE OD YSSE Y. 
 
 " the beard was yet young on his clieek and chin." He 
 crouches behind a rock ; he longs to see his love, yet half 
 fears that she should see him. Perhaps she has just 
 caught a glimpse, for she turns round, resting her right 
 hand on the back of her sea-horse. A red drapery falls 
 loosely about her; her left hand grasps the horse's neck. 
 The giant has not yet learned to swim ; he stands upright, 
 awkward and helpless, but he seems happy in his venture, for 
 he is nearer to Galatea than he has ever been before. Per- 
 haps he hopes to catch her as she sails round the rock ; 
 more likely — for the burly giant was a reverent lover — he 
 hopes that when she sees him for her sake daring the strange 
 water, she will pity his " fatal frenzy," and relent at last. 
 
 We cannot know which way Galatea turned her sea-horse, 
 but we feel sure that the Cyclops never learnt the lesson he 
 tried so hard to teach himself. " Milk the ewe that thou 
 hast ; why pursue the thing that shuns, thee ? " He was not 
 the lover to find " another and a fairer Galatea," although 
 " many were the girls that bade him play with them through 
 the night, and softly they all laughed if perchance he 
 answered them." The poets tell us no more, only Propertius 
 hints ^ that all was well at last. But art is kinder. In a 
 Pompeian wall-painting ^ we see the giant leaning against a 
 rock, a huge brown-bearded man. Before him stands a 
 maiden with her face uplifted to his; a bright-coloured 
 drapery is cast over her arm and hip ; in her left hand she 
 holds a leaf-shaped fan ; her brown hair falls loosely down 
 her back ; " love in her eyes sits playing ; " but these eyes 
 1 " Quia etiam, Polypheme fera Galatea sub iEtna 
 
 Ad tuarorautes carmina flexit equos."— Prop iv 2 ,5 
 " Preserved at Naples, but in such » mutilated condition that'wl have 
 attempted no reproduction. 
 
l1K'^W'f''f 
 
 
 1.=^; 
 
 Pi. J 6. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 41 
 
 and all the profile are blurred beyond recall. In the fore- 
 ground stands the ram ; poor ram, no one looks at him now ! 
 Even the lyre (this time a syrinx) and the huge club-staff 
 lean neglected for the moment against a tall rock ; the staff 
 has been tied by blue ribbons scarcely of the giant's knotting. 
 In the background is the blue sea, but the nymph will go 
 back no more ; she " has forgot the way ; " she will ride 
 never again upon the dolphin, with the Triton blowing his 
 horn gaily ahead. Nay, rather she wiU " choose to go a 
 shepherding with her strange love, to milk the flocks, and to 
 pour the sharp rennet in, and fix the cheeses." 
 
 Another legend gives a sadder ending — how Galatea 
 loved the river god Acis, and the jealous Cyclops crushed 
 him beneath a mighty rock. But this cruel version arose 
 in later days when Polyphemus was rationalised into 
 Mount ^tna, who slays the streams with ruthless lava as 
 they flow to seek the sea nymphs ; so we may leave Galatea 
 in peace, safe under the guardianship of her kind, big 
 shepherd. 
 
 The story is so lovely, its art monuments so graceful, 
 that we scarcely like to say a word that may seem like 
 thankless criticism of Alexandrian thought and art. StiU 
 we feel that Theokritus and the Hellenistic artists have 
 dared a perilous thing; the monster cannibal was never 
 meant for a lovesick wooer. A robuster age would not 
 have attempted the transformation. It has succeeded, 
 thanks to their delicate touch; but failure and the ridiculous 
 were dangerously near. As it is, the picture is not wholly 
 congruous. Polyphemus, it is true, is dignified throughout, 
 with just a thought of added courtliness— shall we say 
 chivalry ? when he is fain to " kiss the hand " of his mis- 
 
42 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 tress ; and the morbid culture of Alexandria has not sapped 
 his manhood ; his love is nowise artificial ; when 
 
 " a Cyclop pines 
 
 'Tis not Ilia wont to woo with valentines, 
 
 But with distraction." ^ 
 
 But the lady on the dolphin in the gay yellow garment, 
 
 with the parasol held above her head, is somewhat too 
 
 courtly; we are almost sorry that the great-hearted giant 
 
 should fiercely love a thing so slight. And Eros, the 
 
 great and awful god, how changed he is since the days 
 
 when Praxiteles fashioned him — to what base uses has he 
 
 come ! — to bear a lady's sunshade or carry her hillds doux. 
 
 We can well believe that in days such as these Homer was 
 
 little read and less reverenced. In fashionable circles even 
 
 the dramatists must have seemed too severely simple ; 
 
 perhaps no one mentioned it, but they were felt to be just 
 
 a trifle out of date. So on the walls of Pompeii we miss, 
 
 for the most part, myths from Trojan ^ and Theban cycles. 
 
 We miss also any trace of deep religious conviction ; the gods 
 
 are always in love, not often seriously. There is much of 
 
 situation, little of action, much that is minutely descriptive 
 
 to the eye, little that is narrative. So it was, no doubt, with 
 
 the lost frescoes in Alexandrian houses. The delicate, 
 
 highly sensuous critic might possibly collect as " old china " 
 
 such designs as the cylyx and oiaochoes we have figured in 
 
 Plates 4 and 6 ; but the walls of the artistic dwelling-place 
 
 more common-place citizen had just built himself would be 
 
 decorated with softer scenes, with a frieze of " mythological 
 
 genre pictures "^ whose sentiment was his own by more than 
 
 1 From an unpublished translation of Idyll xi., kindly lent to me by the 
 author, Mr. E. Garnett. 
 
 ^ Brunn, Die Bukoliker und dw hildende Kunst. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE CYCLOPES. 43 
 
 historical sympathy.i Much that we feel to be in doubtful 
 taste, if not actually incongruous, was to him fresh and 
 suggestive ; we, may wonder to see Polyphemus, the great sea 
 god, sitting on the shore of a sort of inland lake surrounded 
 by much landscape gardening, and tier upon tier of delicate 
 temple -like structures; but, to the Pompeian, landscape 
 painting at all was a new delight and perspective a wonder, 
 and, like all fashionable wonders, welcome everywhere. We 
 may now grieve over the fallen love-god ; but if Eros with 
 the parasol were the last new thing in art, we should caU 
 it a quaint conceit, and hang it, like the Pompeian, in our 
 favourite boudoir. Our own age is least of all the age which 
 can turn with contempt from a Pompeian wall-painting. 
 
 These paintings have also a special interest, because their 
 relation with contemporary literature is close beyond that of 
 any former age. Sciilptors and vase-painters no doubt drew 
 their subjects and something of their inspiration from epic 
 poets and tragedians, with what freedom we have seen ; rarely, 
 if ever, does a dramatist seek in return inspiration from a 
 work of art. In the Alexandrian days not only were art 
 and literature contemporary in approximate stages of de- 
 velopment — a thing unknown before ; but art paid back its 
 long-standing debt to literature, and became in turn a source 
 of inspiration. Poets begin to deal in detailed description ; 
 they paint minutiae instead of boldly sketching the old clear 
 outlines. They begin consciously to seek after highly coloured 
 effects and elaborate decoration, such as they saw daily 
 
 ^ That a taste for collecting or imitating the antic^ue prevailed we have 
 actual proof. Some of the paintings recently excavated in the gardens of the 
 Farnesina Palace are copies of early Athenian designs, if not the originals cut 
 out and let into the walls. 
 
44 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 around. So art and literature, mythology and mythography, 
 act and react upon each other in ever-recurring waves of 
 graceful decadence. How far this tide= had ebbed we may 
 best see by placing side by side the cylix in Plate 4 and the 
 painting in Plate 15. The mere juxtaposition is enough; 
 and we thank the Cyclops for living on from age to age to 
 tell us in person a story so strange. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE L^STR YGONES. 45 
 
 II 
 
 THE MYTH OF THE L^STEYGONES 
 
 Forty years ago, had we been dealing witli the art monu- 
 ments of the Odyssey, we must have passed in silence by 
 this strange cannibal pirate folk. No statue, no frieze, no 
 vase, no gem, no Pompeian wall-painting, has, so far as we 
 know, left us any portrayal of them and their cruel deeds. 
 They are a people no uncouther than the Cyclopes, yet 
 early art rejected them. But in the year A.D. 1848, during 
 some excavations on the Esquiline Hill, there came to light 
 a series of wall frescoes dealing exclusively with Odyssey 
 landscapes, In four out of the seven pictures preserved to 
 us we meet at last the loathly monasters, depicted in no 
 harsh outlines, but, as if Fate were ironical, with all the 
 soft surroundings of rich colouring and dim distance. 
 
 Since this discovery the "strong Ltestrygons" have 
 acquired a fresh prestige. They are no longer to us the 
 somewhat feeble echo of the Polyphemus tribe, nor is the 
 adventure of Odysseus in their land any more a mere slight 
 episode apt to be confused and misplaced. They themselves 
 obtain a new prominence, and most of all their "fair 
 haven," with, on either side, its "jutting headlands," becomes 
 for all time the ideal landscape of the ancient world. 
 
 But we must not anticipate. Before we turn to any 
 
46 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 general considerations as to the nature of the myth and the 
 special character of the art which has chosen it for present- 
 ation, let us hear the Homeric story, and study in order our 
 four pictures as they follow each other" in close sequence. 
 
 Through the folly of his comrades, who opened the 
 wallet of iEolus, Odysseus is driven helplessly on at the 
 mercy of contrary winds and waves. 
 
 " And the spirit of the men was. spent beneath the 
 grievous rowing by reason of our vaiff endeavour, for there 
 was no more any sign of a wafting wiid. So for the space 
 of six days we sailed by night and day continually, and on 
 the seventh we came to the steep stronghold of Lamos, 
 Telepylos of the Lsestrygons, where herdsman hails herds- 
 man as he drives in his flock, and the other who drives forth 
 answers the call. There might a sleepless man have earned 
 a double wage, the one as neatherd, the other shepherding 
 white flocks ; so near are the outgoings of the night and of 
 the day. Thither when we had come to the fair haven, 
 whereabout on both sides goes one steep ciiff unbroken, and 
 juttiag headlands over against each other stretch forth at 
 the mouth of the harbour, and strait is the entrance, 
 thereinto aU the others steered their curved ships. Now 
 the vessels were bound within the hollow harbour, each 
 hard by other, for no wave ever swelled within it, gi-eat or 
 small, but there was a bright calm all around. But I alone 
 moored my dark ship without the harbour, at the uttermost 
 point thereof, and made fast the hawser to a rock. And I 
 went up a craggy hiU, a place of outlook, and stood thereon ; 
 thence there was no sign of the labour of men or oxen, only 
 we saw the smoke curling upward from the land. Then I 
 sent forth certain of my company to go -and search out what 
 
THE MYTH OF THE L^STRYGONES. 47 
 
 manner of men they were who here live upon the earth by 
 bread, choosing out two of my company and- sending a third 
 with them as herald. Now, when they had gone ashore 
 they went along a level road, whereby wains were wont to 
 draw down wood from the high hiUs to the town. And 
 without the town they fell in with a d-amsel drawing water, 
 the noble daughter of Lsestrygonian Antiphates. She had 
 come down to the clear-flowing spring Artacia, for thence 
 it was custom to draw water to the town. So they stood 
 by her and spake unto her, and asked who was king of that 
 land, and who they were he ruled over."^ 
 
 This is the moment the Augustan wall-painter has chosen 
 for the first of his Lsestrygon series (figured in Autotype I.) 
 For a full view of the fair haven and the jutting headlands 
 we must wait till our third picture. At present we have 
 to the left just a glimpse of the blue sea and the " hollow 
 harbour," and assuredly there is a bright calm all around ; 
 only the steep yellow rocks tell beforehand of an inhospit- 
 able coast. Within the harbour the ships, with their double 
 rows of oars, are made fast ; aU, we inay suppose, but the 
 ship of the prudent Odysseus, who tarries without. Over 
 these ships still hover the figures of the wind-gods, let loose 
 from the wallet of iEolus ; this links our picture to the last 
 adventure ; probably some storm scene was figured in the 
 next preceding painting, now lost. The winds are repre- 
 sented as winged and as complete figures ; they seem to be 
 in motion, and are blowing on trumpet-like instruments. 
 Their stormy character is well seen both in their attitudes 
 and their doubtful gray tints. 
 
 Still to the left, close to the beach and beneath a steep 
 
 1 Od. X. 80-110. 
 
48 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 rock, is figured a high-beaked boat. In it a brown-hued 
 boatman, with pctasos and chiton ; he is in the act of 
 putting off from the shore. It is well that beside him is 
 written "Coast" (AKTAI), or much curious mythology would 
 doubtless have been woven together to provide him with a 
 personality. He has no connection with the action of the 
 scene ; his sole function is to indicate the locale,. The painter 
 in ancient days, new to the task of depicting landscape, 
 mistrusted his powers of realism, and fearing to be mis- 
 understood, resorted to the old plan of idealism. He wishes 
 to portray the coast ; lest any one mistake his meaning, he 
 adds to his realistic painted beach a speaking symbol, not a 
 shore god, but the coast itself, idealised, personified. This 
 figure to our eyes, habituated to modern artistic usage, is no 
 help ; but the Greek mind, accustomed to this quaint sym- 
 bolism, would at once seize its meaning. The ancient sculptor, 
 unaljle and unwilling to attempt landscape, if he wishes to 
 indicate Attica as the locale of his subject, fashions a nymph 
 Attica, and places her recumbent at the base of his desio-n ; 
 or possibly even, as she merely denotes the ground, allows 
 her to be trampled beneath the feet of men and horses. 
 The painter only slowly dared to desert the traditions of 
 sculpture. In our Odyssey pictures we have a very 
 charming transition stage; the landscape is successfully 
 treated from the realistic point of view, and yet the ideal 
 figure symbols are there to give it an otd-world life. There 
 is a human warmth about the scene which our modern 
 god -deserted landscapes lack. Near to this personified 
 AKTAI is a figure of similar intent, a nymph reclining at 
 the foot of a tall rock. She wears a light brown mantle, 
 with a green girdle and a yeUow drapery thrown across her 
 
THE MYTH OF THE L^STR YGONES. 49 
 
 knee. She is KPHNH, the spring ; she lies at ease with 
 that careless flowing grace characteristic in Greek art of the 
 water god or goddess. Below her is her spring, the clear- 
 flowing Artakia ; the realistic presentation is again added to 
 the ideal symbol. To the right, high up on the precipice, is a 
 third recumbent figure ; he is not inscribed, but there is no 
 doubt that he is the personified mountain-steep. His right 
 hand is raised over his head ; his whole posture is full of 
 sublime unconcern. These personified mountain figures 
 occur not unfrequently on Campanian wall-paintings. To 
 the extreme right a herdsman is hurrying away ; his oxen 
 follow him somewhat tumultuously. He serves to point out 
 the pastoral nature of the scene — another possible significa- 
 tion we will consider when we come tp-the second picture. 
 
 Such is the surrounding scene ; it remains to identify 
 the figures of the principal actors. Down a very steep 
 path from the " stronghold of Lamos " we see approach- 
 ing the "noble daughter of Lajstrygonian Antiphates." 
 She wears a blue gray robe, a peplos draped around her. 
 Opposite her, and of much smaller stature (for she is 
 a giant's daughter,) are the three messengers of Odysseus. 
 In Homer they are nameless. But the painter is more 
 personal, and has carefully noted their identity— Archilochus, 
 Anchialos, Eurybates.^ Curiously enough, though the text 
 says nothing of these three in this special connection, we 
 1 For Eurybates, see Tl. ii. 184 : — 
 
 KTJpv^ Bu/)U/3dr7)s lffaKri<nos." . . . 
 The herald of Agamemnon, however, was also called Eurybates, so the name 
 may have^had some professional connotation. 
 For Anchialos, see Od. i, 180 : — 
 
 " M^i-Tijs 'A7XiaAoio Sat(ppoi'os eUxofJ-ai elvai.." 
 For Archilochus, see Tsetzes, GUI. x. 360, on verse 891. 
 
 E 
 
50 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 know from another source that Eurybates was actually the 
 herald of Odysseus, and that Archilochus and Anchialos 
 were closely connected with the hero. Either the painter 
 added these three probable messengers from his own fancy, 
 or some other poem handed them down as traditional 
 emissaries. All three wear short chitons, red coloured, 
 with a bright light chlamys and white petasos. The 
 foremost has a spear in his left hand; he lifts his right as 
 if about to address the king's daughter, and seems pre- 
 pared to mount the hill. Plainly he is the spokesman of 
 the party ; the other two wait quietly behind. The middle 
 one carries two spears, the hindmost is unarmed. Had 
 they been uninscribed, we might have supposed the fore- 
 most to be Eurybates, the herald; but clearly he is not. 
 Eurybates follows last, unarmed as becomes a herald. 
 Curiously enough, though it may be a mere coincidence, 
 this hindmost figure is much bent ; and we learn from 
 another book of the Odyssey that Eurybates, besides being 
 "brown-skinned" and " curly- haired," was " round-shoul- 
 dered," ^ Early art would probably have scorned to repre- 
 sent a mere accidental peculiarity, but the scholiast spirit of 
 later days delighted in details. The level road along which 
 the three messengers go is very clearly indicated, and comes 
 out in striking contrast to the almost impossible precipice 
 down which the maiden appears to have descended. 
 
 We must advance a step farther in the story before we 
 turn to our second picture. The messengers have asked 
 her of the land and its rulers. 
 
 ^ '* Kol iikv ol KTjpv^ 6\iyov irpoyev^ffTepos ai5rou 
 direTo, Kal rdv TOi /j,)iOi/i(TOnai olos Irjy irep ' 
 yvpbs iv diixoiffLv /xeXafSxpoos o^\QKa.pTji>oi 
 Ewu/3dT))s 5' 6m/j.a (ffKe." — Od. xix. 244-247. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE LyESTRYGONES. 51 
 
 "Then at once she showed them the high-roofed hall 
 of her father. Wow when they had entered the renowned 
 house they found his wife therein. She was huge of bulk 
 as a mountain peak, and was loathly in their sight. Straight- 
 way she called the renowned Antiphat'es, her lord, from the 
 assemhly-place, and he contrived a pitiful destruction for 
 my men. Forthwith he clutched up one of my company 
 and made ready his mid-day meal, but the other twain 
 sprang up and came in flight to the ships. Then he raised 
 the war-cry through the town, and the valiant Lsestrygons 
 at the sound thereof flocked together from every side, a 
 host past number, not like men, but like the giants." ■'■ 
 
 This scene, the muster of the giant-host, is depicted in 
 the second picture (Autotype II.), but we must first notice 
 how closely the two are connected. If we place the second 
 picture immediately to the right of the first (as in Autotype 
 IV. B.), we shall see that not only the=subject, but the actual 
 lines are continuous ; the water of the spring Artakia flows 
 on behind the intercepting decorative pillar ; the gray violet 
 tint is uninterrupted ; the sheep still cluster round the pool. 
 These sheep we may now take in connection with the oxen 
 in Autotype I., as they belong in sentiment rather to the 
 peaceful meeting -scene than to the turbulent gathering. 
 Unfortunately the painting is in this part very indistinct. 
 The herdsman, however, stands out quite clearly ; he seems 
 to be mounting the hiU, and about to drive his sheep 
 before him through the wide portals of " big-gated Lamos," 
 dimly visible in the distance. It has been conjectured 
 that here we have the "herdsman who shepherds white 
 flocks," and who "drives in his herd" at early morn; 
 1 Od. X. 111-121. 
 
52 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 whereas to the right of the first picture" we have the neatherd 
 with his attendant oxen, who rush out eagerly to their 
 morning pasture. Such an interpretation we should have 
 rejected at once in an earlier work of art ; but it is not out 
 of harmony with the realism of Augustan days ; through- 
 out tlie Lsestrygonian pictures the text of Homer is very 
 closely followed, and the juxtaposition of neatherd and 
 shepherd is so emphasised by the poet,^ that it would 
 scarcely be omitted by the painter. 
 
 The intention of the scene to the left is markedly 
 pastoral. Close to the herdsman in the second picture, 
 seated beneath a tree by the stream, are figures inscribed 
 NOMAI, pastures personified, as are the spring and the coast 
 in the first scene. Only one of the figures is very clearly 
 made out ; that of a woman, her right hand raised to her 
 head, as if in meditation. The prominent man's figure 
 seated near her has satyr horns and sandals with thongs ; 
 in his right hand a pedum; a rich brown, gleaming 
 drapery is thrown over his left shoulder. He looks calmly 
 on at the uproar to his right. Exactly who he is is not 
 clear, but his attributes and careless attitude rank him as 
 some rural impersonation. 
 
 Let us turn to the main subject "of the picture. The 
 scene in the palace is spared us ; our eyes are not to be 
 offended by the sight of the " loathly" wife, and a veil is 
 drawn over the horrid " mid-day meal." The giant has just 
 raised his war cry. To the right of the picture he de- 
 scends the hill, above him his name is clearly written, 
 ANTI<E>ATH^. He strides hurriedly oh, in his left hand he 
 
 ' " 'Yy\\iiTv\ov kaiarpvyovlrjv, 061, TOi/xha iroi/i-Jji/ 
 
 iiTriiec eiaiXAuv 6 Se r' i^t\iav inraKSvei," Od. x. 82-83. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE L^STRYGONES. 53 
 
 holds a spear, his right is raised in command. A white 
 drapery is thrown round his waist. The foreground 
 figures do not need their inscription, they are obviously 
 AAl2;TPTrONES. Some are naked, some slightly clothed 
 with skins. One of the number is tearing at a tree, eager 
 to break off the trunk for a club ; another to the front of 
 him runs off in answer to his lord's war-cry, a spear in his 
 left hand, an uncertain object, possibly a stone, in his right ; 
 a third is engaged in heaving up a huge rock. Quite to 
 the right, where the transition to the next scene has already 
 set in, is a fourth ; he has seized two pigmy Greeks, — one he 
 casts over his shoulder, the other he drags behind him. 
 The figures of the Greeks serve well to show the giant 
 bulk of the Lisestrygonian ; he evidently drags off his 
 booty up the hill for a prospective " mid-day meal." Again, 
 still farther to the right, a fifth Lasstrygonian has caught 
 a Greek, and is slaying him in the water ; higher up the 
 hill a sixth is hurrying out from behind a cLifi'; and dimly 
 in the distance several others are busy breaking off rocks 
 and hurling them down. Throughout, the variety of 
 motive in the different figures, and the contrast between 
 the pastoral peace of the left hand scene and the tumult 
 of the right, is finely conceived and full of that transitional 
 spirit which is the proper and peculiar characteristic of 
 painting. 
 
 By no abrupt transition we pass to" the scene in the third 
 picture (figured in Autotype III.), the outcome of the second. 
 The " host past number " of the giants has mustered, and 
 the fray is in mid-action. " They cast at us from the cHffs 
 with great rocks, each of them a man's burden, and anon 
 there arose from the fleet an evil din of men dying and ships 
 
54 MYTHS OF THE OD YSSE V. 
 
 shattered withal. And like folk spearing fishes they bare 
 home their hideous meal." ^ Such is the dreadful scene 
 which has for its setting our loveliest landscape. The sweep- 
 ing curve of the " fair haven " is full in sight ; in the dis- 
 tance are the "jutting headlands over against each other," 
 and the entrance we see is " strait." For all the ruin and 
 havoc, there is stUl a " bright calm '' in the blue sea. In this 
 picture, so full of hfe and glow, we have no inscriptions, no 
 personifications ; and we need none. The artist has dared 
 to trust outline and colour for once, and they do not betray 
 him. In the centre two mighty Laistrygonians stand with 
 their backs turned ; they are about to cast down huge 
 boulders on the helpless ships. In vain the Greeks uprear 
 their pigmy shields. To the right a giant is pulling in a 
 wrecked ship, another goes on hurlmg- stones. We notice 
 to the left how well the size of the Lsestrygonians is 
 emphasised ; a giant strides only knee-deep through the 
 water, while the hapless Greeks struggle to keep their heads 
 up, swimming feebly. The bay is fiUed with shattered 
 ships and giant wreckers, and aU arourtd, high up among the 
 mountains, scattered Ltestrygonians are hurling down rocks on 
 the still uutouched boats in the distance. No more lively 
 picture of a sea fight can be conceived; the whole bay is 
 aglow with action, and everywhere the relentless fury of the 
 giants finely contrasts with the helpless ruin of the wrecks. 
 We must turn to our fourth picture (in Autotype IV.), 
 to hear the last notes of the fierce discord, and watch 
 its modulation to a close of the softest harmony. There 
 is no pause in the landscape or the action from the 
 third to the fourth picture. The coast to the left in the 
 1 Od. X. 121-123. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE L^STRYGONES. 55 
 
 fourth picture is still Lsestrygonian. A mighty naked 
 giant standing in the foreground holds in both hands a 
 huge boulder ; he is about to let it fall on a tiny Greek, 
 who grovels on the ground before him, holding out his 
 piteous supplicating hands. Behind the Lsestrygonian 
 rocks emerges a ship in full sail, inscribed OAT2SETS, 
 and we remember how he has told us, — " WliUe as yet they 
 were slaying my friends within the deep harbour, I drew 
 my sharp sword from my thigh, and with it cut the hawsers 
 of my dark-prowed ship. Quickly then I called to my 
 company and bade them dash in with the oars, that we 
 might clean escape this evil plight. And all with one 
 accord they tossed the sea water with the oar-blade, in dread 
 of death, and to my delight my bark flew forth to the high 
 seas away from the beetling rocks ; but those other ships 
 were lost there, one and all." ■' 
 
 But to the right there is another land towards which 
 Odysseus is steering ; instead of steep beetling cliffs, a soft 
 undulating coast-hne and dim gray-green tints, which lure 
 us on to follow. Three maiden figures seated by the shore 
 would fain beguile us to ask their name and country ; 
 faintly outlined forms that climb the hills invite us to 
 explore with them this strange new land ; but a duty un- 
 performed lies behind us, and we must retrace our steps. 
 
 We have considered the four pictures separately for pur- 
 poses of detail ; let us now place them mentally in close juxta- 
 position (as in Autotype IV. B.), and note how much artisti- 
 cally they gain by uninterrupted sequence. For decorative 
 purposes they are divided by pHlars coloured deep crimson, 
 but their character and purport is still that of a continuous 
 1 Od. X. 125-134. 
 
56 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 frieze. Pictures one, two, and three in reality form only 
 two scenes ; the first scene is bounded by the two steep 
 yellow rocks occurring respectively in. the first and second 
 picture. Of this first scene the quiet spring of Artakia, 
 and the pool with the cattle, forms the real centre ; it is 
 essentially pastoral. The second scene begins to the right 
 of the steep yellow rock in picture two, and includes the 
 whole circle of the bay in the third picture and a part 
 of the fourth. Its subject is one and complete — the havoc 
 of the Lsestrygonians. The left hand portion of the fourth 
 picture, which we have put aside for the present, belongs 
 to the scene which is to follow. Considered as separate 
 fragments, we see how much the unity of the first and 
 second picture is marred, for in each the scene is harshly 
 interrupted by the steep dividing rock. This arrangement 
 of the scenes, this overlapping from picture to picture, is 
 very skilful. Were we harshly stopped in thought as well 
 as in vision by each intercepting pillar, we should have no 
 sense of consecution in the frieze. As it is, the coloured bars 
 mark indeed the rhythm of recurring feet, but our eye rests 
 contented at the halting points of rightly placed caesuras. 
 
 Now that we have made acquaintance with these pic- 
 tures separately and in succession, we; turn the better pre- 
 pared to questions of their date and style. The whole 
 series decorated the peristyle of a large private house on the 
 Esquiline Hill. From the character of the architecture 
 of the house it is supposed that the date of the paint- 
 ings falls somewhere in the last years of the Republic 
 or the beginning of the Empire. The letters of the inscrip- 
 tions accord with this date ; we have sigma %, and epsilon 
 E, omega 12, forms which occur during the period of the 
 

 V 
 
 ,*, '\"\ ■■ " ■ 
 
 '-t 
 
 
 ^^- 
 
 r"^ 
 
 »: 
 
 >; 
 
 ilL-^. ' ■---;' Vi 
 
 oiCV^^fr »• 
 
THE MYTH OF THE L^STHYGOJVES. 57 
 
 early Empire. A passage from Vitruvius (writing between 
 the time of Julius Ctesar and the battle of Actium) 
 tells us curiously enough that before his days Odyssey 
 landscapes were fashionable. He bemoans the degene- 
 racy of his own contemporaries, and thus recalls the good 
 old times : — " Galleries from their extended length they 
 decorated with varied landscapes, the representations of 
 particular spots. In these they also painted ports, x^romon- 
 tdries, coasts of the sea, rivers, fountains, straits, groves, 
 mountains, cattle, shepherds, and sometimes figures repre- 
 senting gods, and stories such as the Trojan battles or the 
 wanderings of Odysseus over different countries, and other 
 subjects founded on real history."^ Vitruvius goes on to 
 lament that such good old-fashioned subjects had been super- 
 seded ia his own time by flimsy and fantastic conceits. 
 Our pictures might fairly come under the head of the not 
 too explicit " errationes per topia," and the general character 
 of the landscape is such as he describes. We may fairly 
 suppose that we have before us specimens of a style which 
 in his days was on the wane. He speaks indeed of those 
 who executed such designs as " antiqui ; " but from the ad- 
 vanced feeling for nature shown by the topics chosen, we 
 are sure they cannot have been of earlier date than Alexan- 
 drian times. Our EsquHine wall-paintings may be copies 
 of some noted Alexandrian series lost to us for ever. 
 
 1 "Ambulationes vero propter spatia longituclinis varietatibus topiorum 
 ornarant ab certis locorum proprietatibus imagines expriinentes. Pingimtur 
 enim portus, promontoria, litora, fluuiina, fontes, euripi, fana, montes, pecora, 
 pastores : nonnuUis locis item signantur megalograpMas habentes deorum 
 simulacra, seu fabularam dispositas explicationes, nee minus Trojanas pugnas 
 seu Ulms errationes per topia ceteraque qasi sunt eorum similibus rationibus 
 ab rerum natura procreata." — Fit., L. vii. cap. 5. 
 
58 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 As regards the style, those who have studied the original 
 frescoes incline to the opinion that they are the work not 
 of a great master, but of a skilful copyist. The conception 
 is throughout, as we have seen, exceedingly fine, the execu- 
 tion fluent but somewhat mechanical. We need not be 
 surprised to find at Eome a higher level of taste and skUl 
 in the decoration even of a private house than that which 
 meets us in the wall-patutings of a provincial town such 
 as Pompeii. On the whole, the pictures show a surprising 
 sense of aerial perspective, and also of light and shade. 
 The horizon is placed always very much higher than is usual 
 in modern art ; this is specially noticeable in the third picture 
 (Autotype III.) Here too we have an example of excellent 
 fore-shortening in the undamaged ship, which hurries away to 
 the assistance of its comrades. In the same scene, however, 
 we have the distant ships of quite disproportionate size ; the 
 shading of colour from the deep blue of the foreground to 
 the dim gray of the distance is very good. Throughout 
 this scene the feeling for colour is fresh and vivid ; the brown- 
 red flesh colour of the Lsestrygonians contrasts most pleas- 
 antly with the rich blue water, and the contrast is as true 
 to nature (in countries where sun and air tone and beautify 
 the skin) as it is satisfj^ing to the eye. Gradation of colour 
 is also well seen in the second picture (Autotype II.), where, 
 in the distance, big-gated Lamos is just faintly seen through a 
 haze of dim gray. In picture one (Autotj-pe I.) we notice a 
 natural touch. In the pool to the right the reeds growing 
 round are distinctly and accurately mirrored, and the advanc- 
 ing figures cast very tolerably correct shadows. There are, 
 in fact, traces of such a knowledge of chiaroscuro and per- 
 spective as would arise from a rather close observation of 
 
THE MYTH OF THE L^STRYGONES. 59 
 
 natural phenomena, but would not be sufficiently definite 
 for systematic application. Certainly in this respect these 
 Greek wall-paintings are much in advance of early mediaeval 
 art. 
 
 Turning from the Lsestrygonian pictures to the tribe 
 themselves, we remember that in Edman days they were 
 localised at Formise. Horace says he can stUl be happy 
 though no Formian wine meUows for him in a Leestry- 
 goniau jar.^ Cicero ^ teUs his friend that at Formise tumult 
 can stiU rage, though it be political, not cannibal. Many of 
 the adventures of Odysseus were, as we know, localised along 
 the western coast of Italy ; but we need not therefore con- 
 clude that our landscapes are realistic seaside sketches. 
 The coast about Formise bears some general analogy to that 
 which the artist has depicted, but by no means sufficient 
 for identification. 
 
 The Lsestrygonian myth undergoes no modification ; 
 from age to age it remains the simple fetory of a monstrous, 
 cannibal sea folk. No doubt Greek adventurers, as they 
 coasted cautiously about the Mediterranean shores, met with 
 many barbarian or semi-barbarian tribes, and fared roughly 
 at their hands. The stories they brought home of such 
 adventures woidd not lose in the telling. 
 
 One touch of mystery still hangs over the Lsestrygonian 
 race, — a mystery we can scarcely hope wholly to clear away. 
 We remember in the first picture the neatherd with his oxen 
 hurrying forth in the morning, and in the second the shepherd 
 
 1 "Nee Lffistrygonia Bacclius in-amphora 
 
 Languescit mihi. — Qarm. Lib., iii. 16, 34." 
 "^ " At hercule in agris non siletur ; nee iam ipsi agri regnum vestriim ferre 
 possunt. Si vero in hane TtikiirvKov veneris AaKTTpvyoulTjv (Formias dice) qni 
 fremitus hominnm ! quam irati animi ! " — Cio. ad Att., ii. 13. 
 
60 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 returning with his sheep ; and in connection with these 
 pictures we noted the words, " Telepylos of the Lscstrygons, 
 where herdsman hails herdsman as he drives in his flockj and 
 the other who drives forth answers the call." Homer adds the 
 curious comment, " There might a sleepless man have earned 
 a double wage, the one as neatherd, the other shepherding 
 white flocks ; so near are the outgoings of the night and of 
 the day." ^ The passage has exercised the ingenuity of com- 
 mentators ^ from very early times. Most agree in thinking 
 that Homer had heard some strange tale of a northern land 
 where dawn follows close upon sunsfet. If, as has been 
 conjectured, the floating island of ^olus, with its sheer 
 walls, was suggested by some dim .reminiscences of an 
 iceberg,^ seen by Greek mariners and only half understood, 
 then we cannot wonder if we find a farther trace of polar 
 phenomena. We need not at once proceed to localise the 
 Lffistrygonians in Norway or Iceland; they are far enough 
 afield already in a land of fancy which knows of no geo- 
 graphy. Homer wanted to tell of a strange people, and he 
 renders his outline the more fantastic by this weird prox- 
 imity of night and day. His Lsestrygonians are a race of 
 herdsmen, as most of his barbarians were ; so, with quaint 
 naivete, he suggests a possible pastoral economy. The 
 
 ^ "^tfda /c' dvirvos dfi^p 5oto))s i^-riparo fj^LirdoM, 
 
 Thv ^kv ^ovKoK^wv rhv 5' dpyvtpa /j.7j\a foixtuojv' 
 ^yyiis yap vvkt6s re Kal ijpLard^ elffi K^XevBoi." — Od. x. 84-86. 
 2 Eustatliius gives to Krates the credit of first,coiijecturing wliat seems the 
 correct view — 
 
 " Harripi^f 6^ (paffL Trj^ rotavT'rjs ^a6ri/j,a.Ti.KTJs iirtvoia^ KpdrTjs ^pax^l-as vToS^/ievos 
 TOiS e/cti vi!jKTa.i KoX e^TTuir tlirai. ro^s Aaiarpvydi^as i'lrb ttjv K€tpa\^l^ TOV dpaKOVTOs 
 KaTtaT(pi<yp.hy]V irepl avrovs ijv KafAparos Xf7et tffff^crdai ^x^'^^P ^xpo-t ^layopTat 
 Svffies re Kal draroXai aWrjXrjcnv." — EuSTATH., 1649. 
 2 See Odyssey of Homer, "W". W. Merry, ad loc. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE LJiSTRYGONES. 61 
 
 knowledge he had of northern phenomena was probably 
 of the dimmest, but a poet's fancy only asks slight stimulus. 
 We left our last Lsestrygonian consistent to the end, 
 about to crush a helpless Greek ; but we must return to the 
 same picture (Autotype IV.), and solve, as far as may be, the 
 mystery of the fair, low-lying, opposite coast. We shall 
 then see how graceful and appropriate is the transition. 
 To the right, on a yellow rock in the foreground, is a 
 group of three female figures. The= centre one stands a 
 little behind the others ; her outline is very dim. The 
 figure to the left is seated ; she is the most charming of 
 the three, with her bright blue garment and red mantle 
 cast about her left shoulder. The third figure, to the right, 
 rechnes in a careless, graceful attitude ; a dull violet drapery 
 is thrown over her hips, and a veil about her head; her 
 left arm rests on the rock, and she points to the right to 
 something in the distance. Perhaps, if our hopes have been 
 raised very high, we are a little disappointed to learn from 
 the inscription that these three fair maidens are no human 
 actors in the scene to come : they are simply AKTAI, per- 
 sonifications of the lovely coast. Possibly the figure who 
 points to the right indicates that we must look for the 
 future action over beyond the hills, not on the opposite 
 coast. Some shadowy shapes in the distance must also be 
 noted. They are so sketchily worked we can with diffi- 
 culty make them out. One figure is standing ; another, the 
 central one of the three, is recumbent; a third, to the 
 right, evidently mounts the hill. We must seek our 
 clue to the interpretation of these figures in Homer him- 
 self. Our painting only tells us that not far away from the 
 LEBstrygonians, divided only by a atrip of clear blue sea, there 
 
62 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 lies another coast-line, scene of another peril. The poet 
 makes scarcely a wider interval in his verse than the 
 painter in his frescoes. 
 
 " Thence we sailed outward, stricken in heart, yet glad 
 as men saved from death, albeit we had lost our dear com- 
 panions. And we came to the isle ^cean, where dwelt Circe. 
 . . . There we put in with our ship into the haven silently, 
 and some god was our guide. Then we stepped ashore, and 
 for two days and two nights lay ther'e consuming our own 
 hearts for weariness and pain. But when now the fair- 
 tressed Dawn had brought the fuU light of the third day, 
 then did I seize my spear and sharp sword, and quickly 
 departing from the ship I went Vip iuto a place of wide 
 prospect, if haply I might see any sign of the labour of 
 men, and hear the sound of their speech. So I went up a 
 craggy hill — a place of outlook." 
 
 It is this gentle interlude of two days and two nights, 
 and the dawn of the third morning, that is pictured on our 
 wall-painting. Two of the comrades (their names are not 
 given) are figured tarrying behind; Odysseus climbs the 
 hill. The scene is indicated slightly, but sufficiently, for 
 its character is purely transitional. 
 
 If before we have been puzzled to remember the order 
 of the adventures of Odysseus, three at- least of them wUl be 
 for ever fixed in our minds in clear sequence. We shall 
 see the wind gods hover over the harbour of the Lsestry- 
 gonians in our first picture ; and in our last can we forget 
 that, opposite the rude cannibal coast, stretches the fair 
 shore of Circe ? Her palace we shall see hereafter ; the 
 coast-nymph is pointing inland, and thither we must follow. 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 63 
 
 III 
 
 THE MYTH OF CIECE 
 
 Many nations, scattered far and wide, have told tlie tale of 
 the witch -woman who dwelt in a wood, — how she turned 
 men to beasts by her magic. Only the Greek poet has 
 availed to soften the repulsive features of the story, and 
 lend to the evil enchantress the grace and dignity of a 
 mighty and beautiful goddess. It is perhaps in the treat- 
 ment of such folk-lore as this, — the common stock at least, if 
 not the common Iwritage of many peoples, — that the unique 
 genius of the Greek is most clearly seen. What he touches 
 he transfigures. Compared with the versions of other story- 
 tellers his tale is more human, and therefore more pathetic — 
 more real by the definiteness of its outline, more ideal 
 through the elimination of all trivial, accidental detail; nor 
 is it the less profitable because its moral purpose is 
 instinctive and unconscious. 
 
 After dire perils among the Cyclopes, after rough 
 battling with the winds from the wallet of iEolus, after 
 cruel mishap at the hands of the Ltestrygones, Odysseus and 
 his comrades sail on, stricken at heart, and they come " to 
 the isle ^sean, where dwelt Circe of the braided tresses, an 
 awful goddess of mortal speech, own sister to the wizard 
 ^etes. Both were begotten by Helios, who gives Mght to 
 
64 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 all men, and their mother was Perse, ^daughter of Oceanus." 
 The mariners put in silently to shore. At early dawn 
 Odysseus (as we saw in a former chapter), with spear and 
 sword, climbs a high hill to reconnoitre.-' Through the thick 
 coppice he sees the smoke of a dwelling ; he goes back to 
 his comrades, bearing with him a tall antlered stag which 
 the gods send in his way. He tells them of the smoke he 
 has seen rising from the palace of the goddess ; but even 
 after they have "feasted gloriously," their spirit is still 
 broken within them by their past sorrows, and none are 
 for goiag. They cast lots, and the lot= falls on Eurylochus 
 to lead his band. With him go twenty-two of his fellows, 
 all weeping. " In the forest glades they found the" halls 
 of Circe, buUded of polished stone, in a place with wide 
 prospect." Later on, we shall see these halls of polished 
 stone, these forest glades and their clear prospect ; but 
 early art cared more for the human actors than the scene 
 in which they played their part; and for the time we will 
 follow its guidance. " All around the palace mountain-bred 
 wolves and lions were roaming, whom she herself had be- 
 witched with evil drugs that she gave them. Yet the beasts 
 did not set on my men, but lo, they ramped about them and 
 fawned on them, wagging their long tails ! And as when 
 dogs fawn about their lord when he comes from the feast — 
 for he always brings them the fragments that soothe their 
 mood — even so the strong- clawed wolves and the lions fawned 
 around them ; but they were affrighted when they saw the 
 
 ' Just so .ffincaa {JSti. i. 180 scq.) climbed a high hill to view the fair land 
 of Libyan Dido. In place of one " tall antlered stag '' of Odysseus, .^neas slays 
 seven ; but for all this more abundant cheer his comrades somehow do not 
 seem to feast so "gloriously." 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 65 
 
 strange and terrible creatures. So they stood at the outer 
 gate of the fair -tressed goddess, and within they heard 
 Circe singing in a sweet voice, as she fared to and fro before 
 the great web imperishable, such as is the handiwork of 
 goddesses, fine of woof and full of grace and splendour." 
 
 They cry aloud to her, and " straightway she came forth 
 and opened the shining doors and bade them in, and all 
 went with her in their heedlessness. But Eurylochus 
 tarried behind, for he guessed there was some treason." Of 
 this introductory scene, the arrival of the comrades, we 
 have a curious presentation in Plate iVrt. The design 
 is from an amphora found at Vulci, now in the Parma 
 Museum. Both the obverse and reverse have reference to 
 the myth of Circe. The obverse we shall consider later. 
 On the reverse, figured in Plate l7a, are three figures. 
 To the left stands a man, dressed in a belted chiton with 
 short sleeves ornamented with a darH; border ; he wears a 
 chlamys fastened in the breast by a brooch. His petasos 
 falls back on his neck. The whole dress is that conven- 
 tionally assigned to the heroic traveller. He carries a 
 spear, and his left hand is raised to indicate that he is 
 talking to the woman opposite him. She is dressed in a 
 long chiton, fastened at the shoulders ; her head is adorned 
 by a sort of sphendone ; she seems to receive the traveller 
 kindly, and to be speaking to him. By her side is a very 
 noticeable dog ; his size alone is quite unusual ; his expression 
 still more so. He lifts his head towards the stranger ; his 
 mouth is open, but apparently with no evil intent, certainly 
 not barking, for his whole attiuude is too quiet ; his ears 
 lie back, not pricked with any sudden attention. We have 
 many ancient dogs, but none like this ; there is something 
 
66 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 of magic about him, and we remember that " all around the 
 palace wolves of the hills and lions were roaming ;" and as 
 when dogs fawn about their lord, so the strong -clawed 
 wolves and lions fawned around the " dear comrades " of 
 Odysseus. Has the artist by a curious device reaKsed the 
 simile in place of the fact ? Did he bethink him that a 
 friendly wolf would be difficult of presentation, and substi- 
 tute for him the dog to whom he was likened ? It was 
 about the comrades of Odysseus that the strange creatures 
 thronged, and it is one of these comrades that is here 
 depicted, not Odysseus. Of this we may be almost sure, for 
 on the obverse of the same vase, figured in Plate 176, 
 we have the hero himself, distinguished, as usual in early 
 art, by his superior heroic nakedness. Two moments are 
 combined in the reverse design, — the meeting with the 
 enchanted animals, and that with Girce herself; this is 
 quite in the manner of Greek art. 
 
 We must continue the story : " So she led them in and 
 set them upon chairs and high seats, and made them a 
 mess of cheese and barley meal and" yellow honey, with 
 Pramnian wine, and mixed harmful drugs with the food to 
 make them utterly forget their own country. ISTow, when 
 she had given them the cup and they had drunk it off, 
 presently she smote them with a wand, and in the styes of 
 the swine she penned them. So they had the head and 
 voice, the bristles and the shape of swine ; but their mind 
 abode even as of old. Thus were they penned there weep- 
 ing, and Circe flung them acorns, and inast, and fruit of the 
 cornel tree to eat, whereon wallowing swine do always batten." 
 
 Such is the first act in the drama, and lovely though 
 the picture of Circe herself is, we feel at once that, for art 
 
PI. 18. 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 6V 
 
 presentation, the subject is a difficult one. The Egyptian 
 loved to fashion beast-headed gods ; the Greek, if he must 
 depict a hybrid monster, preferred the human head with 
 the beast's body. But the case of the enchanted victims 
 of Circe is a special one ; the artist desires above all things 
 to emphasise degxadation, and thereby heighten pathos, so 
 the beast-head is preserved. Let us turn to Plate 18 a, 
 and see how the problem of depicted transformation was 
 solved in the best period of Greek art.'' 
 
 The design is from an amphora found at Nola; the 
 drawing is of peculiar firmness and delicacy, Circe wears 
 a fine full chiton with sleeves, her hair fastened by a band. 
 In her left hand she holds a bowl, and in her right a ladle, 
 with which she stirs the mess of cheese and barley meal 
 and yellow honey and Pramnian wine. Prom her hastens 
 away one of the comrades of Odysseus ; he has drunk of the 
 cup ; already the shape of a beast is growing about him. 
 But, as we look, the full pathos of his upraised hand comes 
 upon us ; he lifts it as a last protest against the cruel fate 
 he is still man enough keenly to feel; he moves away, but 
 it is too late for escape. The artist surely has remembered 
 Homer's words, " So they had the head and voice, the bristles 
 and the shape of swine, but their mind abode even as of 
 old."^ When the moment of release comes we know that the 
 
 1 This conception of the mixed beast-man arose doubtless from the neces- 
 sities of art, and was thence transferred to literature. Homer's men are 
 transformed to natural swine : those of ApoUonius Khodius to hybrid mon- 
 sters : — 
 
 " 077pey Voh OrjpeaUiV ioinSres uifj.tjtTT^iTti' 
 ov 8^ fj.ky ov8' 6.vSpeffaiv bfxhv S^fj,as SXKo d'iir' dWojp 
 ffvfifuyie; fi.e'h.ioii'. " — APOLL. Rhod. iv. 670. 
 - " ot di avwv nkv ix"" Kf(pd\ds tpuv-qv re rplxai re 
 
 KoL d^fj.as, aurap foOs 9iv (piwedos uis t6 irdpos irep." — Od. x. 239-240. 
 
68 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 strange beast-man will instantly recognise his lord and dear 
 comrades, and " wistful will be the lament that will sink 
 into his soul." 
 
 Even finer in conception is the design figured in Plate 
 18&, also from a Nola amphora, new at^ Berlin. The 
 execution is, however, somewhat careless, though free and 
 graceful. Circe is dressed in a full chiton, with fine folds ; 
 her hair is confined by a sphendone. She is seated calmly. 
 In her right hand she holds her wand, in the left a skyphos. 
 On the comrade before her the charm has jiist begun to 
 work ] he lifts his hand to his head in piteous protest. 
 The treatment of the situation is on the whole superior to 
 that in Plate 18a, because the calm seated posture of the 
 strong enchantress contrasts so dramatically with the help- 
 less tumult expressed in the gesture of her hapless victim. 
 The balance of the figures in Plate 18a is more pleasing, 
 but the antithesis is not so pathetic. 
 
 Of all our Circe monuments these two are perhaps the 
 most purely conceived and most finely executed. From the 
 conditions of the subject there is in soine of the designs we 
 must study a tendency to overcrowd the figures, and in no 
 others is the beauty of the goddess herself so severely simple. 
 Sometimes, too, the moment selected for pourtrayal is when 
 the spell has taken fuller effect, and,.we miss the pathetic 
 consciousness of degradation. The CQjinterpoise of attitude 
 also in both our Nola designs is very skilful, and the space 
 is filled in a manner peculiarly satisfying to the eye. It is 
 in specimens of ceramography such as these that we feel 
 how to artists of a really great school limitation of space 
 is only a fresh scope for charm of posture and grouping. We 
 feel also how clear and defined must have been the thought 
 

THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 69 
 
 whicla found in outlines such as these its artistic outcome, 
 — how severe the taste which restrained its expression. 
 
 For the sake of comparison let us look for a moment at 
 another scene of transformation, and we shall feel more 
 convinced than ever that even if the Greek artist disliked a 
 hybrid monster, he could on occasion turn him to beautiful 
 account. Perhaps nowhere is complete mastery over a 
 difficult subject better seen than the frieze from the Choragic 
 monument of Lysikrates. Dionysos, by the help of his 
 Satyrs, punishes the Tyrrhenian pirates by transforming 
 them into sea-monsters. To give the whole beautiful frieze 
 would be foreign to our purpose, but one of the man- 
 dolphins ^ is figured in Plate 1 9. He is about to plunge 
 madly into the sea. He is later in date than the examples 
 we give of the monsters of Circe, and may be profitably 
 compared with them. 
 
 Similar in style to Plates 18a and 18&, and with much of 
 
 the same early simplicity, is the design: figured in Plate 20 a. 
 
 Authorities differ much as to whether the myth of Circe is 
 
 here presented, or merely a domestic scene. The question 
 
 scarcely admits of decision, but in either case the picture 
 
 affords a graceful comment on the words — " Thus were they 
 
 penned there weeping, and Circe flung thmn acorns and 
 
 mast and fruit of the cornel tree to eat, whereon wallowing 
 
 swine do always batten." ^ I incline myself to think that 
 
 the goddess is really intended, because the drapery seems 
 
 1 See the Homeric hymn, vi, 51 — 
 
 " of 5^ Oijpate KaKhv jj-bpov i^akiovTei 
 irdvTes b^Qs Tr^qbyjaav, ^irel Wov^ €h 6Xa dtdv 
 5eX0tfes 6' iy^vovTO.'^ 
 
 ^ "rolffi Si KipKri 
 Trap' HkvKov §iXav6v t' i^aXiv Kapirliv -re Kpavdifs 
 ^Sjuecai, ota a>ies xa/'«"fi"'£(Scs a,th ISovffiv." — Od, X, 242. 
 
70 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 scarcely that of a menial, and because in the period of 
 art to which this vase presumably belongs a mythological 
 motive was preferred. The design is from a small lekythos 
 found at Nocera ; the figures are red on black. 
 
 In Plate 20c is figured the design from a gem now at 
 St. Petersburg, a human figure with a swine's head, one of 
 the comrades of Odysseus. He holds in his hand, supported 
 on his knees, the fatal cup ; his attitude is dejected ; he too 
 has kept his mind " even as before." 
 
 We must pass on to the next scene. Eurylochus goes 
 back to the swift black ship, and bears to Odysseus the 
 tidings of the " unseemly doom " of his comrades. And the 
 hero " casts about his shoulders his sword dight with silver, 
 a great blade of bronze," and slings his bow about him, and 
 leaving the timorous Eurylochus goes^ forth alone to seek 
 vengeance, " for a strong constraint is laid upon him." On 
 his way through the sacred glades he meets Hermes of the 
 golden wand in the likeness of a young man with the first 
 down on his lip, the time when youth is most gracious. 
 Hermes warns him of danger to come, both from the magic 
 and from the love of Circe, and gives to him a herb of 
 virtue, whereby he may be proof against her charms. 
 " Therewith the slayer of Argos gave me the plant that he 
 had plucked from the ground, and he showed me the growth 
 thereof. It was black at the root, but the flower was like 
 to milk. Moly the gods call it, but it is hard for mortal 
 men to dig. Howbeit, with the gods all things are possible." 
 Engraven on a gem (Plate 205) we may see Odysseus as he 
 goes on his way armed with the herb of virtue. He wears 
 his pointed sailor's cap ; in the one; hand he holds his 
 "great blade of bronze," in the other he uplifts the moly. 
 

 PI. 20. 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 71 
 
 Most nations have their herb of 'virtue, and, curiously 
 enough, the AlUrmannsharnisch of the Germans is a charm 
 against love as well as magic. Its juice is white, and it 
 has long black bulbous roots. The siegwurz, a kind of 
 gladiolus, was in olden times sacred to Woden, and had 
 similar properties. 
 
 " Then Hermes departed toward high Olympos, up 
 through the woodland isle ; but as for me I held on my way 
 to the house of Circe, and my heart was darkly troubled as 
 I went. So I halted in the portal's of the fair -tressed 
 goddess. There I stood and called aloud, and the goddess 
 heard my voice, who presently came forth and opened the. 
 shining doors and bade me in ; and I went with her, heavy 
 at heart. So she led me in and set me on a chair with 
 studs of silver, a goodly carven chair, and beneath was a 
 footstool for the feet. And she made me a potion in a 
 golden cup that I might drink, and she also put a charm 
 therein, in the evil counsel of her heart. ISTow when she 
 had given it, and I had drunk it off and was not bewitched, 
 she smote me with her wand, and spake and hailed me — - 
 ' Go thy way now to thy stye ; couch thee there with the 
 rest of thy company.' 
 
 " So spake she, but I drew my sharp sword from my 
 thigh and sprang upon Circe as one eager to slay her. But 
 with a great cry she slipped under and clasped my knees, 
 and bewailing herself, spake to me winged words." 
 
 This is the moment, or rather succession of moments, 
 when the action rises to its climax, most frequently chosen 
 for art presentation. 
 
 We are fortunate here in being able to compare early 
 and late treatment of the same scene. The design in Plate 
 
72 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 2 1 is from a lekythos now in Berlin ; the figures black 
 on red ground, the style early. The vase has STiffered 
 considerably from the superposition of a second painting, 
 which had to be washed off before the first could become 
 intelligible. In fact, we have here an instance of the not 
 nnfrequent ceramic palimpsest. The gi;oundwork of the de- 
 sign is strewn with the conventional black foliage frequent 
 on vases of early date. 
 
 In the middle of the picture sits Circe on a "goodly 
 carven " stool. She is fully draped ; a band ties her hair. 
 Her eyes are bent on a cup, the contents of which she 
 seems to be stirring with a kind of twig. Close in front of 
 her stands Odysseus. He wears a sort of short chiton, and 
 a chlamys is cast over both arms. He stands quite quietly. 
 A sword in its scabbard hangs by his side, and apparently 
 he holds a lance under his arm ; but the drawing here is not 
 quite clear. Odysseus seems about to grasp the cup ; he 
 has not yet drunk. Circe is just putting the charm 
 therein, "in the evil counsel of her heart." The moment 
 for drawing the sword has not yet come. If we grant this 
 to be the motive of the middle group, the action of the 
 comrades becomes very clear and significant. They are not 
 grouped about simply with a view to the picturesque ; they 
 take an active part in the impending trial. The comrade 
 farthest to the left, with the ass's head, brays loudly; how 
 else should he utter his sorrowful warning ? The next to 
 the left (his head is an uncertain restoration) stretches his 
 hand behind Circe, trying to reach Odysseus. The one to 
 the right nearest the hero plucks him by the elbow. The 
 last, with the swan's head, has sunk on his knees ; his long 
 neck droops, his arms are crossed upon his breast. Thus 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 73 
 
 each, according to the capacity left him, expresses his eager 
 alarm for Odysseus, his desire at this critical moment to 
 save his lord from the degradation that has fallen on himself ; 
 tlie two nearest by expressive gesture, the two fu.rther ones 
 not by active interference, but in lively utterance of their 
 emotion by voice or posture. This subsidence of feeling 
 towards the extremities of the design,f after the manner of 
 pedimental compositions, is very skilful. 
 
 In the monuments that follow we advance a step farther. 
 The cup has been drunk; the enchantment has failed; the 
 tension of alarm and excitement is shifted from the com- 
 rades to Circe ; in wonder and terror she implores for 
 mercy. 
 
 For the portrayal of this moment we shall first return 
 to the obverse of our amphora from Vulci, figured in Plate 
 17&, the reverse of which, representing the arrival and 
 friendly reception of the comrades, we have already described. 
 To the left stands Odysseus, naked but for the chlamys 
 thrown over his arm and the sword-belt across his chest. 
 In his right hand is his " great blade of bronze," which he 
 has drawn against the goddess. To the right Circe uplifts 
 her hands in dire amazement. The attitude is stiff and 
 curious, but I can see in it only an attempt to depict terror 
 and wonder after the somewhat clumsy fashion of the 
 Etrurian artist, not, as has been conjectured,^ a ritual ges- 
 ture of disenchantment. At the feet of Circe reclines a 
 beast-man comrade, whose presence serves to indicate the 
 scene. He lifts his hand in wonder at the failure of the 
 
 1 Dr. Overbeck {Oalkrie Eeroischer BiUwerie) considers that the design 
 depicts quite a different moment in the story. From his very interesting 
 view I am compelled with the utmost diffidence to dissent. 
 
74 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 charm, perhaps in entreaty for help from his lord ; he tries 
 to rise, but the beast nature still chains him to the ground. 
 This beast-man found in Etruria does not lack a certain 
 pathos, but he shows iU by comparison with the delicate and 
 graceful monsters of the Magna Graecia vases figured in 
 Plates 18a and 18&. 
 
 Our next art monument, from an Etruscan mirror found 
 at Corneto (Plate 22), is of special interest, because it is 
 inscribed with the names of the persons= presented, and thus 
 the intention of the design is undoubted. In the middle sits 
 a woman fully draped, above her head is written " CERCA " 
 backwards in Etruscan characters. Gn the left stands a man 
 dressed in a chlamys only, his head bare; in his right hand 
 he holds a drawn sword, in the left a rather curiously-shaped 
 scabbard; above him also backwards and in Etruscan 
 characters " V@STE;" he threatens Circe; at her feet is a 
 swine, doubtless as an indication of the intended enchant- 
 ment ; close by are two mortars, with pestles for the pounding 
 of " harmful drugs." To the right of Circe is a figure, 
 whose personality, but for the inscription, FELPARVN, 
 no conjecture would have identified. Among the com- 
 rades of Gdysseus there was one whom he " led not in 
 safety away" from the house of Circe, "Elpenor, the 
 youngest of us aU, not very valiant in war, neither steadfast 
 in miad. He was lying apart from the rest of my men on 
 the housetop of Circe's sacred dwelling, very fain of the 
 cool air, as one heavy with wine. Now when he heard the 
 noise of the voices and of the feet of my fellows as they 
 moved to and fro, he leaped up of ^a- sudden and minded 
 him not to descend again by the way of the tall ladder, but 
 fell right down from the roof, and his neck was broken from 
 
~V^JsA/V^i^•'^ 
 
 pj 22. 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. V5 
 
 the bones of the spiue, and his spirit went down to the 
 house of Hades. 
 
 It seems strange indeed that this boy, " not very valiant 
 in war," should be singled out to share the great peril of 
 Odysseus when he threatened the enchantress ; however, 
 here he is unmistakeably, with a bow in his left hand, an 
 arrow in his right, prepared to draw in case of need ; he 
 wears a crested helmet. 
 
 The explanation of this presence of Elpenor is due, I 
 think, to more than one artistic motive. A third figure was 
 desired to balance the design ; the other two were inscribed, 
 so a name was desired for the third. Eurylochus would 
 have been too glaring a contradiction — only Elpenor re- 
 mained. Further, he figures prominently in the Circe story ,^ 
 and the artist of those days loved to gather together as 
 much that was suggestive as possible, even at the expense 
 of some lack of Kteral congruity.^ It is far from unusual 
 to find persons collected as spectators at a scene which it 
 was impossible they could have actually witnessed. This is 
 one of the many instances which help us to understand the 
 relation between art and poetry in ancient days. Art in 
 the time of its vitality did not stoop to illustrate the works 
 of poets. Artists caught, it is true, an inspiration from the 
 poetic garb given to the myth ; but they framed their own 
 independent conceptions, and embodied them in such manner 
 as the conditions of their own art suggested. I further 
 believe that the presence of Elpenor may be due to some 
 
 ^ " ^'EKirrjvap i^ ri! ^ufce veiiiraTos, oSre tl \li)v 
 
 &\KifiOS iv TToX^jUlf! oStC (ppwlv 7J<7LI' ApTipihs," — Od. X. 550, 
 
 ^ Juvenal also singles out Elpenor, but as victim, not avenger — 
 ' ' tenui percussum verbere Circes 
 Et cum remigibus grunisse Elpenora pprcis." — Sat. xv. 21. 
 
76 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 local influence. The mirror is Etruscan; to the Etruscan 
 artist, whose religion abounded in gloomy under -world 
 associations, the figure of Elpenor would, among all the 
 comrades of Odysseus, he of special sanctity and significance. 
 We shall see when we come to consider the myth of the 
 descent into Hades, that when the ghosts flocked ahout the 
 trench, " first came the ghost of Elpenor, my companion, 
 that had not yet been buried beneath the wide-wayed earth." 
 I offer this suggestion as a possible solution of a much- 
 vexed question. 
 
 The design figured in Plate 23 is a late and con- 
 scious copy of the Homeric scene. It is from a wall- 
 painting at Pompeii. Odysseus, distinguished by the piles, 
 draws his sword on Circe; her mouth is wide open; she is 
 uttering the great cry.^ The nimbus about her head 
 possibly marks her as the daughter of Helios. She is fully 
 draped. Behind is an attendant maiden carrying a vase ; 
 another hastens away with a gesture of mingled fright and 
 curiosity. Circe, in amazement that her charm has failed, 
 is about to touch the knees of Odysseus in the conventional 
 attitude of supplication.^ The foot of the hero still rests 
 on the footstool ^ she had placed for him. The original is 
 brilliantly coloured. Odysseus wears a violet exomis and 
 red chlamys ; his piles is white. Circe has a green chiton, 
 the nimbus over her head is blue. One attendant is in 
 yellow, the other in violet and yellow. There is little of 
 
 ^ " ^7ii 5' fiop dji> ipvcrcdfiepos Trapci, jxTtpov 
 J^tpKjj iirrji^a (is re KTd/j.evat fieveaivuiv 
 fj di ij.iya. Idxovaa vwidpa,iJ,e Kal Xd^e yoiviiiv 
 KaX p,' 6\o(pvpop4l^7j ^TTta 7rTtp6€VTa 7rpoff7/(J5a. " 
 2 '* vir^Spapie Kal Xd/Se yoijfui^." 
 ' " ebe Si /I elixayayoviTa iwl dpbvov d'pyvpo^\ov, 
 KdKoO SaiSaX^ou* vrit Si dpyjvvs irocriv ^gp," 
 
PI. 23. 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. V7 
 
 interest iu tlie picture except its careful fidelity to the 
 Homeric scene. The naivete of earlier presentations is 
 quite absent, and there is none of the idyllic charm of some 
 of the Pompeian designs. 
 
 Our next two monuments are unattractive, but instruc- 
 tive in their variety of treatment. Plate 24a is from a 
 relief on a Eoman lamp, whose flat ugliness is somewhat 
 redeemed by the graceful design of the two swans on 
 the apex. Circe is clothed in rich drapery, in her left 
 hand a long sceptre or staff. ^ Her hair is luxuriant and 
 crowned by a rayed diadem. She is seated in a " goodly 
 carven chair." The goddess has lost all the dignity of 
 her old severe simplicity, and the apparatus of royalty 
 does little to restore it. Odysseus is clad in the pilos and 
 chlamys ; with his left hand he grasjps his sheathed sword 
 and nerves himself to meet her imploring look with stern 
 resolution.^ In the background, looking out from their 
 stable, appear the heads of three beasts, apparently two 
 horses and an ox. 
 
 Very similar in motive is the design in Plate 245, from 
 the reverse of a contorniat. A woman clothed in a chiton, 
 and with a rayed crown, falls on her knees before a man. 
 He wears, in addition to chiton and chlamys, a helmet. 
 Over a wall are seen three creatures, half beast, half men. 
 No doubt the artist intended to portray Odysseus and Circe ; 
 but an early critic quaintly enough sees in the kneeling 
 woman a Christian martyr about to be thrown to wild 
 beasts which gaze eagerly from the windows of their cage. 
 The martyr is supposed to be wearing, somewhat proleptic- 
 
78 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 ally, her crown of glory. Very possibly the design, occur- 
 ring as it does on a contorniat (%.&. a medal of a special 
 desii'n struck in commemoration of the games), was suggested 
 by somi^ scenic representation of the Girce myth. 
 
 Late literature, we know, as well as late art, delighted 
 to trick out the enchantress in regal splendour. Perhaps, as 
 faith in the beauty and goodness of the goddess declined, and 
 belief in her mahgnant magic increased, men felt in- 
 stinctively the need of gilding with meretricious decoration 
 a creed no longer in itself pure an4 lovely. Also, no 
 doubt, learned poets delighted to show their erudition by 
 emphasising the symbols of pedigree. = From the head of 
 all the daughters of Helios streams a glory of fire -like 
 rays."' When Medea and Jason, sin-laden and sorrowful, 
 came to the island of Circe to seek purification, Circe 
 recognises her erring kinswoman by the halo that plays 
 about her.^ As time goes on the divine daughters of the 
 sun grow more dazzling, more sensational, more malignant, 
 far less lovely. 
 
 We left Circe with her winged words unspoken. She 
 claims Odysseus as the hero of whose coming Hermes 
 of the golden wand had foretold, and bids him put up 
 his sword into his sheath, and thereafter "abide with 
 her, that, meeting in love and sleep, they might trust each 
 the other." But he fears her love as sorely as her magic, 
 
 ^ " ^ ^a ^ows ^ttX VT^a Kar'^XvOev ^k 5' &pa iravre^ 
 
 $d/jL(3€ov daQpb(j3VTCs, diri Kparhs yap ^dstpav 
 
 TTvpffaU d,KTlvi<jaiv aklyKioi. rtdipTji'TO 
 
 ariXl^e 5^ /caXi TrjoicrWTra, tpXoycis 5' aTr^XajUTTe*' diir^^. " 
 ^ '' avrix ^TTWS Ivbrjff^v aiv' oi!f5eos 6ffa€ ^aXov<Ta.v 
 
 Tratra yap 'HeAt'ou y^vei) dpiStj'Kos tdcadhi 
 
 ^cv, lirei ^Xetpdpoiv airoTfjXddL fjLapfJLapvyrjfftv 
 
 oUp re xP'JV^^V avrdiinov U^av aCy}Kr)v," — ApoiJj. Rhod. iv. 724. 
 
PL 24. 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 79 
 
 and will not consent till she swears a great oath to plan 
 nought else of mischief to his hurt, and straightway she 
 swore as he bade her. 
 
 " JSTow all this while her handmaids busied thera in the 
 halls, four maidens that are her serving women in the house. 
 They are born of the wells and of the woods, and of the 
 holy rivers that flow forward into the salt sea. Of these 
 one casts upon the chairs goodly coverlets of purple above, 
 and spread a linen cloth thereunder. And lo, anothet drew 
 up silver tables to the chairs, and thereon set for them 
 golden baskets. And a third mixed sweet honey-hearted 
 wine in a silver bowl, and set out cups of gold. And a 
 fourth bare water and kindled a great fire beneath the 
 mighty cauldron. So the water waxed warm ; but when it 
 boiled in the bright brazen vessel she set me in a bath and 
 bathed me with water from out a great cauldron, pouring it 
 over head and shoulders when she had mixed it to a 
 pleasant warmth, till from my limbs she took away the 
 consuming weariness." 
 
 An unkind fate has destroyed for ever the one art monu- 
 ment which dealt, we know, with this lovely picture of the 
 friendship of Circe and her gentle hospitality. Some seven- 
 teen centuries ago Pausanias, travelling through the Pelo- 
 ponnese, came to Olympia, and there, in the great temple 
 of Hera, he saw the chest of Cypselus, conspicuous for its 
 beauty and elaborate execution even among that crowd of 
 splendid votive offerings. He gives a detailed description 
 of the subjects wrought in gold, ivory, and wood upon the 
 chest. To most were attached boustrophedon inscriptions 
 telling their meaning, but the uppermost of five rows of 
 subjects bore no inscription ; so the intent, he says, " must be 
 
80 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 conjectured from the designs." Within a cave a woman is 
 sleeping by the side of a man, and Pausanias interprets them 
 to be Odysseus and Circe, from the number of the attend- 
 ants and the nature of their occupations ; "for," he adds, "they 
 are four in number, and their employments are those that 
 Homer described in his poem," ■^ Pausanias, we know, is not 
 a trustworthy guide in these matters — he was himself too 
 much at the mercy of ignorant local cicerones ; but here 
 there seems no sufficient ground for doubting his verdict. 
 Critics object that Circe dwelt in a "fair palace," not a cave; 
 but accuracy in the reproduction of details of topography is 
 not to be expected or desired in an artist. It is objected 
 further that the situation is too slight and general, too little 
 emphasised by the Homeric story to have been chosen for 
 art presentation. Here again we must bear in mind that it 
 is just such scenes as this, rural and domestic in character, 
 that the earliest art — the art, indeed of Homer's own days — 
 loved to embody. If we date the chest of Cypselus some- 
 where about the seventh century before Christ, the tendency 
 to this almost genre, kind of art — due in the main to 
 Phcenician influence — may not have completely given place 
 to that idealism in mythology which was the outcome of 
 the pure Greek spirit. Once more, the situation was 
 perhaps more central and significant, also more sacred, to 
 the early artist than it is to us. The friendship of Circe was 
 fraught with great issues to Odysseus. By the express 
 
 ^ " r/ 5^ Aywrtiroj X^P^i irhTe yap apiBfidv elaL, Trap^xfrai /i^f ^iriy pafifia oi5h 
 XefTrerat 6^ elKd^etv i$ rd, iireLpyao'fJ.^va' ^lalv o^y iv o'T'r]\atit> 7i'i'7/ Kadevdovo'a 
 ffvv di^Spl iirl KXivrj, Kal tr^as '05u(T(T^a eli'at Kal KipK-ijv iSo^d^ofji^v dpiOfU^ re 
 tC)v BepairaLPuiv a'i elirt irpb rod (nrr}\aiov, Kal toIs Troiovp.ivois vtt^ avrCiv' reaaaph 
 re 7ixp etatif al yxivcuKCS, kcll ipyd^oifrat rd ^pya d iv Toit ^tt^clv "OfiTjpot eiprjKS. " — 
 Pausanias, v. 19, 7. 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 
 
 pre-counsel of the gods she was appcinucd to keep 2x1-^ 
 comfort hiin, and "take away from heart and limbs con-^^ 
 suming weariness and pain." Even her victims when they „ 
 rise again are goodlier from their faU. It is no evil enchant- 
 ress who says, " Myself I know of all the pains ye endured 
 npon the teeming deep, and the great despite done you by 
 unkindly men upon the land ; nay, come, eat ye meat and 
 drink wine till your spirit shall return to you again. But 
 now are ye wasted and wanting heart, mindful evermore 
 of your sore wandering." The great goddess remembered 
 that the hero was but of mortal frame ; she knew, too, that 
 only by union with her strength and wisdom could he bear 
 the strange trial before him. But when the right day comes 
 there is no weak struggle to kee^J him ; we hear of no faint- 
 hearted parting ; as Odysseus and his timorous fellows 
 were wending their way to the sea banks " shedding big 
 tears, Circe, meanwhile, had gone her ways and made 
 fast a ram and a black ewe by the dark ship, lightly pass- 
 ing us by ; who may behold a god against his will, whether 
 going to or fro ? " Such a god might fitly be graven on a 
 sacred chest by the side of the mortal it was her mission to 
 succour. 
 
 But we must go back. Odysseus, for all the goodly 
 cheer that is set before him, is ill at ease; and when the 
 goddess asks him the caufe of his sorrow he makes answer, 
 " O Circe, what righteous man would have the heart to 
 taste meat and drink ere he had redeemed his company and 
 beheld them face to face ? But if in good faith thou 
 biddest me eat atid drink, then let them go free, that mine 
 eyes may behold my dear companions. 
 
 " So I spake, and Circe passed out through the haU with 
 
82 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 tlie wand in her liand, and opened \M doors of the stye and 
 drave them forth in the shape of swine of nine seasons old." 
 This moment, the driving forth of the swine, is depicted in 
 one curious art monument, figured iu Plate 25. Art monu- 
 ment we may call it by courtesy, but it is in reality a mere 
 school diagram, a copy of such as were"-used by the granamar, 
 rhetoric, and poetry teachers of Eoman times. The design 
 is from a relief in the palace Eondaniai. Three scenes are 
 inscribed in order, though their intent is sufficiently ob- 
 vious without inscription : — " To Odysseus the moly Hermes " 
 (OAISSEI TO MfiAT EPMHS). " Odysseus Kirke " 
 (OAI^^ET^ KIPKH). " The companions enchanted into 
 beasts" (ETAIPOI TEeHPinMENDl). Little interest 
 save that of curiosity attaches to this monument, but from 
 its detailed treatment of the various scenes of the mjrth it 
 could scarcely be omitted. Perhaps art in her most 
 skilful days shrank from depicting with rash finger the con- 
 summate beauty of these last pathetic words : — " There they 
 stood before her, and she went tlirough their midst, and 
 anointed each one of them with another charm. And lo, 
 from their limbs the bristles dropped away wherewith the 
 venom had erewhile clothed them, that lady Circe gave 
 them. And they became men again, younger than before 
 they were, and goodlier far, and taUer to behold. And they 
 all knew me again, and each one took my hands, and wistful 
 was the lament that sank into their souls, and the roof 
 around rang wondrously. And even the goddess herself 
 was moved with compassion." 
 
 Ouv last art monument of the Homeric story shall not 
 be the diagram of a Koman rhetorician. We have learnt to 
 know in full the liuman actors, their downfall and their 
 
in 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 83 
 
 uprising ; and while the gracious goddess comforts them in 
 body and in soul within her halls, let us tarry outside for a 
 while, and see how the scene of their trial, the goodly 
 palace of Circe, was figured by the fancy of the Grseco- 
 Eoman wall-painter. 
 
 In Autotype V. we have one of the series of Esquiline 
 frescoes which have already furnished us with such abun- 
 dant comment on the Lsestrygonian mishap. To the left, 
 then, we must fancy a peep of blue sea-water — for Circe 
 dwells in an island palace — and stretching beyond, gray 
 mountains covered with thicket growth, only dimly indi- 
 cated. Part only of the palace is in sight, enough to show 
 us that it is "builded of polished stone in a place with a 
 wide prospect." To the right is a sort of crescent structure, 
 the chord of which is formed by a light architrave supported 
 by Doric-Tuscan pillars ; between the two middle pillars is 
 seen a door surmounted by a pediment. To the left is a 
 wing of the building, with towers, and a latticed doorway 
 which seems to lead into a court beyond. This forms a 
 sort of side scene. In the front of the palace is a tall high- 
 spreading tree, round its trunk is twisted a taenia. Close 
 to the left hand tower stands the conventional Hermes bust. 
 In front of the chief entrance is a table, with vessels — pro- 
 bably the apparatus of magic — upon it. On either side is a 
 large crater. Beyond the tree we see two curious broom- 
 like objects fastened together at an inclination; they arc 
 clearly artificial, and probably indicate in some way the 
 magic character of the palace. Similar objects occur in 
 Campanian wall-paintings. 
 
 Two scenes are represented in the one picture, and in 
 both the actors are the same. Such, we know, was frequent 
 
84 MYTHS OF THE OD YSSE V. 
 
 in ■wall decorations, and the example before us is a striking- 
 one, because in both cases the figures are inscribed. Our 
 first scene is described in Od. x. 308-313. "But as for me, 
 I held on my way to the house of Circe, and my heart was 
 darkly troubled as I went, and I halted in the portals of 
 the fair-tressed goddess. Then I stood and called aloud, 
 and the goddess heard my voice, who presently came forth 
 and opened the shining doors, and bade me in, and I went 
 with her, heavy at heart." Circe wears a bright blue gar- 
 ment and brown cloak ; she raises lier hand in welcome ; 
 a rayed diadem is on her head. Though a woman she is 
 a goddess, and her stature is loftier than that of Odysseus. 
 Behind her stands, that she may look the more " divinely 
 tall," a small, shadowy maiden, a sort of conventional at- 
 tendant. Odysseus carries his shield; he is armed, but 
 wears the pilos. We see nothing of tlie moment when she 
 seats him on the goodly carven chair, nothing of the offering 
 of the cup. The next scene depicted on the right is the 
 entreaty of Circe, already so familiar. Both the goddess and 
 Odysseus have changed the colour of their attire, and a 
 somewhat more majestic maid flies in terror. 
 
 The design has far less landscape than the others of the 
 series, and is the only one that contains any architecture. 
 The prevailing tint of the picture is a tather lurid yellow, 
 softened by a dark gray in the more distant parts. The 
 perspective is on the whole good, but in some of the archi- 
 tectural details becomes confused. 
 
 There is little doubt that the next in order of these wall- 
 paintings related to tlic myth of Circe; and when we think 
 that it mny have depicted the scene of disenchantment, our 
 regret for its total loss is the bitterer. 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 85 
 
 Here, in the forest glades, we tate leave of the Circe of 
 Homer; but before we pass to the consideration of another 
 and non-Homeric aspect of the goddess, we must note 
 shortly some of the forms that thiS: myth of the witch 
 woman has taken in other lands than Hellas. Maildun, the 
 Keltic Odysseus, in addition to perils at the hands of the 
 Big Blacksmiths (cf. Cyclopes), passes "an island of intoxi- 
 cating wine fruits (cf Lotophagi), and is detained on a 
 magic island by a beautiful queen, who loves him, and, more 
 like Calypso than Circe, will not suffer him to go. >She 
 employs, however, no more baleful charm than a magic thread 
 clue, which draws back her hero's ship. Teutonic nations 
 tell with every variety of detail the story of Jorinda and 
 Joringel — how the maiden is turned into a bird of an ugly 
 old witch, and her lover learns (in a dream instead of by 
 Hermes) the magic herb that is to set her free. More akin 
 perhaps in substance to Homer's story, though far removed 
 in form, is the Indian tale of even earlier date. A young 
 merchant goes forth to seek a Vidyadhari maiden, who has 
 appeared to him in a vision. On the way he meets four 
 pious pilgrims, with whom he joins company. They come 
 to a wood. A woodcutter warns them that a demon dwells 
 there, who will change their shape and devour them. They 
 go on their way, and at midnight the Yakschiui appears, 
 dancing and blowing on a flute made of men's bones. As 
 soon as she sees the foremost pilgrim, she fixes her glance 
 on him, and midway in her dance stops to recite the fatal 
 charm. A horn begins to grow from her victim's head, and 
 haH-mad he tries to spring into the fire ; she catches him, 
 tears him, and eats him. So with thc: second and the third ; 
 she is about to fall on the fourth, but the merchant mean- 
 
86 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 time has listened and learnt her charm ; he seizes her magic 
 flute, and recites the spell. Powerless she falls on her 
 knees and cries aloud, " Cease only to chant the charm ; spare 
 my life ; I know all things ; I will fulfil all ye desire, and 
 bring you to where the Vidyadhari dwells.'' The magic 
 herb is missing, but the parallel to the Homeric story is 
 striking. Circe too lives in a wood; she first enchants the 
 comrades of Odysseus, then fails before himself She too 
 knows all things, and shows him whereby he may fare to 
 his Vidyadhari land. Hades, whither no black shij^ ever 
 came. 
 
 Closer still is a second Eastern parallel, familiar to us 
 in the Arabian collection of tales, the Thousand and One 
 Mghts. King Bedr Basim, like Odysseus, is seeking to re- 
 turn to his kingdom. He is shipwrecked, and escapes on a 
 plank to an island. A beautiful city is in sight ; he desires 
 to go up to it. But as he tries to approach, " there came 
 to him mules and asses and horses, numerous as the grains 
 of sand, and they began to strike him and prevent him from 
 going up from the sea to the land." Later ou a sheykh, 
 who plays the part of Hermes, tells him that this is the 
 city of the Enchanters, wherein dv^ells Queen Lab, an 
 enchantress, who is like to a- she-devil. A curious, and, I 
 think, significant fact is, that the Persian word " lab " means 
 sun. We remember that Circe was daughter of Helios. 
 The conceptions of magic and sun-worship seem to have 
 been closely interwoven, and this seems the more natural if 
 the Greek myth -were of Eastern origiti. The sheykh teUs 
 Bedr Baaim that the strange mules and horses and asses are 
 the lovers of this wicked witch. With each of them she 
 abides forty days, and after that enchants them into beast- 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 87 
 
 shapes. Queen Lab sees Bedr Basim, aind falls in love with 
 
 him. He goes up to her castle, hut after some suspicious 
 
 experiences begins to fear that his appomted day is drawing 
 
 nigh. His friend the sheykh gives him a magic " saweek." 
 
 This " saweek," which he is to give to the queen in place of 
 
 her own magic potion, is the meal of parched barley made 
 
 into a sort of gruel — thick, but not too thick to drink — a 
 
 curious parallel to the " mess of cheese and barley meal and 
 
 yellow honey mixed with Pramnian wine." Queen Lab 
 
 fares worse for her evil deeds than did Circe. Bedr Basim 
 
 gives her the " saweek," and commands her to become a 
 
 dappled mule. He then puts a bridle in her mouth and 
 
 rides her forth from the city, and the sheykh thus addresses 
 
 her: — "May God, whose name be exalted, abase thee by 
 
 affliction." Even the Circe of Homer, however, is, we regret 
 
 to find, in mediteval days made the object of stern retributive 
 
 justice. Fifteen centuries of Ptoman legalism have done 
 
 their work, and laid for morals a new and less goodly, less 
 
 sure foundation. In the Orlando Inamniorato, when the 
 
 Count views the story of " Ulysses and Circella " depicted 
 
 on a "fair arcade," judgment has fallen even upon the 
 
 Greek enchantress : — 
 
 " So blinded was she by the passion's heat 
 That fired her bosom for this Baron bold, 
 That, more deceived by lier own deceit, 
 Th' enchanted cup she drank of ; when, behold, 
 Tnrned to a milk-white hart, her flying feet 
 Were snared by huntsman's craft upon the wold. " ' 
 
 "We cannot avoid noticing how much harsher because 
 more rigid, are the outlines in these Eastern tales and in 
 the Medijeval version. Even where their Circe is beautiful 
 1 Orlando Iiiam. xlix. 52 ; translated for me by Miss E. M. Clarke. 
 
MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 she is made repiilsive, through the desire to emphasise her 
 malignant aspect. We are never allowed to doubt or forget 
 for a moment that she is morally vile, and her evil deeds are 
 promptly punished. Homer, in his siipple reverence for the 
 goddess, in his tender admiration for- the beautiful woman, 
 scarcely raises the question of good or bad. The Greeks 
 were less anxious than either easterns or moderns to point 
 a moral; their praise or blame is, as we so often see, 
 adapted to an ethical standard which is aesthetic rather than 
 judicial. A fatal dualism had not yet sundered for them 
 the divine wedlock of the good and the beautiful ; so, in 
 their large human sympathy, they gi-ant to the fair -haired 
 Circe a meed of praise for her loveliness born only of 
 a gentle nature. 
 
 So now, having learnt to know the Hellenic Circe, we 
 feel that the Circe of other and less favoured lands may 
 indeed interest by way of antithesis; but, for us, the great 
 type of the enchantress is for ever fixed. No Irish lady, 
 brilliant to charm, but yet too slight to hurt; no ugly 
 Teutonic witch, shapeless and dreary ; no cruel malignant 
 demon, surrounded by uncertain Eastern glamour, — none of 
 these ; but, in tlieir stead, the clear fixed outline of a 
 mighty goddess, strong to comfort the broken-hearted, to 
 ensnare the foolish, yet beautiful and human ; beautiful for 
 her fair hair and clear, sweet voice ; human in her sudden, 
 helpless love for the hero who availed to withstand her. 
 
 Thus far, our monuments have been strictly Homeric in 
 character, even where details have varied. Had after ages 
 been content to leave the epic Circe as she was, neither art 
 nor literature would have suffered ; but early perfection in 
 form pays the inevitable penalty of ^arly degradation and 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 89 
 
 decay. The story lent itself too easily to allegory to escape 
 tlie conscious moralist. Apollonius Ehodius, when he re- 
 Yived the epic form, recreated Circe with something of her 
 old godhead, as mistress, however, of the rights of purifica- 
 tion,^ as the stern rebnker of shi ; hut long before his days 
 the work of destruction was complete — the beautiful myth 
 had been degraded to a moral tale. Sokrates sees in the 
 beast-form only a symbol of greediness.^ The Stoics find a 
 sermon ready made to hand : Circe is for them the incarna- 
 tion of beast -like irrationality." Eustathius discovers in 
 the dread daughter of Helios an impersonation of animal 
 appetite.* We are ashamed for philosophy when she lays 
 her hand upon poetry. Porphyry says that Homer has 
 expounded in the fable of Circe the mystic cycle, ^ of 
 metempsychosis — life, death, and resurrection ; man lives 
 in human form ; he dies and takes the shape of a beast, 
 whereby he is purified and rises to a higher human life. 
 This old-world purgatory — this transmigration of souls — took 
 firm hold on men's imagination. Sokrates, in the Phsedo, 
 is made to tell us how, when the souls of men came to 
 the Acherusian lake, they are sent back to be born again as 
 diverse animals. 
 
 Of this belief we have a curious art monument 
 
 1 ApoU. Rhod., iv. 666:— 
 
 " 7y]V 5' avrij (povUi) a^^uev a'Lfiart ■7ra^<pcLv6u(rai^ 
 Xepcrl" aipviraa.iJ.ivq Ajjjei' o'iAooio (pi/Soiu. " 
 And see iv. 695-715. 
 
 2 Xeii. Mem. i. 3-7. 
 
 * "KlpK-n i] Kark to. yeva-ri. tjSovt] Kal tj iK Tpv(prj^ KaTaa-dpKaais, rjinp ol 
 ilxTe\d(ravT€s eKe-npiovvTai,'' etc.— EliSTATH. Com. ad Od. 1656. 
 
 5 "°Ofii]pos di TTjv kUkKiiI irepioSov Kal irepicpopay vaXi.yy€vc<ria^ KipK-ijn Trpou- 
 ■tjybpevKiV, ijXiov walSa, ToO ira.aa.i' tpOophp yevicra, Kal yiveaiv ad iraXip ^ 
 avmwTOPTos del Kal ffVPelpovTOS." — PoBPH. p. 1050. 
 
90 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 figured in Plate 26a.; the design is of very late Eoman 
 style, of no interest except to illustrate this point. 
 It is from the tomb of one Quintus" Naso, and was dis- 
 covered in the seventeenth century in the Via Mamiaia; 
 it forms part of a series of representations of scenes in the 
 under world. One soul in the form" of an ass is drinking 
 the waters of Lethe; a mule which has already drunk is 
 eagerly leaping up ready to return to his new life ; a pig 
 soul is contentedly feeding in the distance, his probation 
 apparently not ended. On the bank stands Hermes 
 Psychopompos, unmistakeable because^ of the caduceus in 
 his hand. 
 
 With this doctrine in our minds, let us turn to Plate 
 26&; the design is from an Etruscan sarcophagus, now 
 in the museum at Volterrae. A figure on the left hand, 
 possibly Circe, hands a cup to a man with a ram's head. 
 Next, to the right, is an ox-headed man, who tears away at a 
 tree in insensate fury ; close by him, to the right again, is a 
 seated male figure wrapped in a cloak ; his head is in the 
 original uncertain ; to the extreme right another figure 
 hastens away, bearing in her hand a small animal. The 
 conception of the design is full of life, and also of humour, 
 though probably unconscious. The magic cup has acted 
 differently on each different nature ; the sheep is evidently 
 making the best of it — probably he ha'd not far to fall; the 
 ox has been of nobler make and fierce? passions ; he wreaks 
 his rage even on a senseless tree. The seated man-beast is 
 very sad at heart; he wraps his mantle about him with 
 pathetic dignity, and bears his sorrpw silently. Critics 
 differ about his head. If, as some say, it is that of a horse, 
 his fall has been as light as may be, but, because he is still 
 
X- 
 
 c.< - ■ 
 
 
 
 
 1^7: -.^ 
 
 . "7 C!a>a= yOOCXXOCC»0Q0COCCO0C 
 
 PI. 26_ 
 
THE MYTH OF CIRCE. 
 
 noble, he feels it bitterly. Now, we migbt ask, Why is this 
 cixrious scene — this presentation of men who enjoyed the 
 pleasures of sin for a season — chosen for a sarcophagus 
 relief, and most of all in grim Etruria ? I think the answer 
 is found in the preceding Plate. The story is taken as an 
 allegory. Circe is conceived of as partly an evil enchant- 
 ress, but partly also as a minister of the divine purpose, the 
 instrument of purgatorial transmigration. These comrades 
 of Odysseus are the types of men who, Nebuchadnezzar- 
 like, are driven forth into the fields to eat grass for a 
 season, who faU for a while that they may rise again the 
 higher. The Semitic story in its poetic form makes its 
 punishment more spiritual — a beast's heart as well as a 
 beast's body ; to the Greek bodily distortion was chastise- 
 ment enough, even though his " mind was steadfast as 
 before." The Greek in his theological system (though not 
 in the fable of Circe) keeps this ungainly discipline for 
 another world ; the Semite does not shrink from the 
 spectacle before his bodily eyes. When the spell of Circe 
 becomes part of the mysteries of Hades, at once its fitness 
 for sepulchral presentation appears ; at once, also, there is a 
 further fitness in the diversity of beast fonn ; punishment 
 is differentiated according to the crime to be cleansed. 
 
 Filling this gloomy function we must leave the bright 
 yet awful daughter of Helios, Never does she in modern 
 days regain her cheerful Homeric charm ; she is beautiful 
 once more in the hands of the poet of " Endjonion," but 
 with a fitful morbid beauty, very far removed, like the spirit 
 of to-day, from the old heroic calm. It might be Queen 
 Lab — it is not the Circe of Homer — whom Glaucus saw 
 when he cried in misery and amaze — 
 
ff2 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 " In thicket hid I cursed the haggard scene, 
 The banq^^et of my arms, my arbour queen 
 Seated upon an uptom forest root, 
 And all around her shapes, wizard and brute. 
 Laughing and wailing, grovelling, serpentine. 
 
 Pierce, wan, 
 And tyrannising was the lady's.look 
 As over them a gnarled staff she shook." 
 
 Mighty she is still, but no longer strong to comfort or even 
 to cleanse. Gladly we turn our eyes away from this "sight 
 too fearful for the feel of fear," and, looking back at the old- 
 world picture, quiet our vision by its restful outline. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES- 93 
 
 IV 
 
 THE MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES 
 
 We have seen how strangely, in the Homeric conception of 
 Circe, good and evil are intermingled ; how at one time she 
 seems a power of the baser sort, the lower world — a 
 sinister demon luring body and sonl to destruction by the 
 bait of sense temptation ; at another moment she is in very 
 truth the daughter of Helios, the sun god, a goddess of light 
 and strength, of comfort and new life. Towards the end of 
 the story the shadows clear wholly away, and about the 
 lady Circe is shed a radiancy of awful brightness — fitting 
 portent of the dread experience to come. One seems to feel 
 that, after the interlude of soft delight and feasting, needful 
 for a while to repair the wasting of soul and body, there 
 comes with fresh fitness a girding-up of spirit for new perils 
 of yet more fearful import. The strain to come justifies 
 beforehand a timely slacking of the tension. It was fitting 
 that " for the full circle of a year " the battered mariners 
 should "sit day by day feasting on abundant flesh and 
 sweet wine." It was no less fitting tliat as " the seasons 
 returned and the months wore away " their spirit should be 
 " eaCTcr to be gone." The goddess never seems stronger and 
 fairer than when to the entreaty of the hero slie makes 
 answer — 
 
94 MYTHS OF THE OD YSSE V. 
 
 " Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many- 
 devices, tarry ye now no longer in my house against your 
 will ; but first must ye perform another journey, and reach 
 the dwelling of Hades and of dread Persephone, to seek to 
 the spirit of Theban Teiresias, the bhnd soothsayer, whose 
 wits abide steadfast. To him Persephone hath given judg- 
 ment, even in death, that he alone should have understand- 
 ing ; but the other souls sweep shadow-like around." ^ 
 
 How much of help and strength from the goddess the 
 human, childlike hero needed, we feel when he tells us — 
 
 " Thus spake she ; but as for me, my heart was broken, 
 and I wept as I sat upon the bed, and my soul had no more 
 care to live and to see the sunlight. But when I had my 
 fill of- weeping and grovelling, then at the last I answered 
 and spake unto her, saying, And who, Circe, will guide us 
 on this way ? for no man ever yet sailed to hell in a black 
 ship. '' 
 
 The goddess may have smiled to herself at this feeble 
 subterfuge, but her answering words are full of gracious 
 comfort. "Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of 
 many devices, nay, trouble not thyself- for want of a guide, 
 by thy ship abiding; but set up the mast and spread 
 abroad the white sails, and sit thee down, and the breeze of 
 the north wind will bear thy vessel on her way." More 
 than once we notice that when any great issue is to be 
 accomplished, Odysseus, the crafty schemer, the man of 
 " many a shift," is for a while helpless in the hands of the 
 gods. Perhaps the most pathetic passage in the whole 
 poem tells us how, fast asleep, he was borne by the 
 Phteacians at last to his desired haven. " Soon as they 
 
 1 Od. X. 486, etc. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 95 
 
 bent backwards and tossed the sea water witb the oar-blade, 
 a deep sleep fell upon his eyelids — a sound sleep, very sweet, 
 and next akin to death." Thus did the black ship bear to 
 his home " a man whose counsel was as the counsel of the 
 gods, one that erewhile had suffered much sorrow of heart 
 in passing through the wars of men, and the grievous 
 waves ; ttii for that time he slept in peace, forgetful of all 
 that he had suffered." ^ So now, when he is bidden to fare 
 to Hades, it is the goddess who sends in the wake of the 
 ship a " welcome breeze;'' the hero's strength is to sit still. 
 
 Circe tells him beforehand to what manner of land he 
 will come, and we must follow closely her description, for 
 nearly every detail we shall recognise 'again in some artistic 
 portrayal of the under world. 
 
 " But when thou hast now sailed in thy ship across the 
 stream Oceanus, where is a waste shore and the groves of 
 Persephone, even tall poplar trees and willows that shed 
 their fruit before the season, there beach thy ship by deep 
 eddying Oceanus, but go thyself to the^ dark house of Hades. 
 Thereby into Acheron flows Pyriphlegethon, and likewise 
 Cocytus, a branch of the water of the Styx, and there is a 
 rock, and a meeting of the two roaring waters." Precisely 
 this picture we shall see figured on a Greek wall-painting, 
 but before we turn to it we must hear to the end the 
 monition of Circe, 
 
 vi]ypeTO% -ijSlaTOS, Bavdrif dyx'-O'Ta ioiKiiis. 
 
 &vSpa (p^pov<ra Seoh cvaXlyKia p-riSc 'ixovTa, 
 
 5s '!Tpiv fj.h /xaXa ttoWo, iraB' ciX7eci &v Kara Bv/ibv, 
 
 AvSpQp T6 TToX^jiovs a\eyeii/d re KUfiara ivelpuv 
 
 St] rSrey' arpip-as ci55e, 'KiKaa p-ipoi S<X(t' iirewivdeiv,^' 
 
 Od. xiii. 79-92. 
 
96 MYTHS OF THE OD YSSE Y. 
 
 " So, hero, draw nigh thereto, as I command thee, and 
 dig a trencli as it were a cubit in length and breadth, and 
 about it pour a drink-offering to all the dead, first with 
 mead, and thereafter with sweet wine, and for the third 
 time with water, and sprinlde white meal thereon, and 
 entreat with many prayers the strengthless heads of the 
 dead, and promise that on thy return to Ithaca thou wilt 
 offer in thy halls a barren heifer, the best thou hast, and 
 wilt fill the pyre with treasure, and wilt sacrifice apart to 
 Teiresias alone a black ram without spot, the fairest of your 
 iiock. But when thou hast with prayers made supplication 
 to the lordly races of the dead, then offer up a ram and a 
 black ewe, bending their heads towards Erebus, and thyself 
 turn thy back, with thy face set for the shore of the river ; 
 then will many spirits come to thee of the dead that be 
 departed. Thereafter thou shaft call to thy company and 
 command them to flay the sheep which even now lie slain 
 by the pitiless sword, and to consume them with fire ; and 
 to make prayer to the gods, to mighty Hades and to dread 
 Persephone. And thyself draw the sharp sword from thy 
 thigh and sit there, suffering not the strengthless heads 
 of the dead to draw nigh to the blood, ere thou hast word 
 of Teiresias. Then the seer will come to thee quickly, 
 leader of the people ; he will surely declare to thee the 
 way and the measure of thy path, and as touching thy 
 returning how thou mayest go over the teeming deep." 
 
 As the lady Circe ceased to speak the morning dawned, 
 and she clad her hero in a mantle and doublet meet for the 
 journey ; and herself she arrayed in " a great shining robe, 
 light of woof and gracious, and about her waist she cast a 
 fair golden girdle, and put a veil upon her head." 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 97 
 
 Not in vain had been his sojourn in the magic halls, 
 for straightway, from the transfigured presence of his divine 
 mistress Odysseus passed out, and upronsed his men, saying, 
 " Sleep ye now no more, nor breathe sweet slumber ; but let 
 us go on our way, for the lady Circe hath verily shown me 
 all." 
 
 We know what is to befall Odysseus ; the time has come 
 when he, like the hero of many another mythology, must 
 descend into Hades. This is the uttermost trial by which 
 the steadfast soul must be put to the proof. Only the great- 
 hearted, even among the Greeks, might endure to the end : 
 Dionysos to redeem his mother Semele ; Herakles at the 
 bidding of Eurystheus ; Orpheus for his great love to Eury- 
 dike. It may be that these stories took their rise in some 
 nature-myth ; men saw the sun-god descend that he might 
 ascend ; but surely from very early days, about this simple 
 notion there must have been woven a complex web of keen 
 sorrow and vague aspiration — a longing, swiftly changed to 
 a conviction, that somewhere, by some desolate lake or 
 darkly yawning cavern, a way led to the world below, by 
 which the living might pass to revisit the dead, the dead 
 the living. How else should the Greeks have their Cim- 
 merian land for Odysseus ; the Eomans their Avernus for 
 ^neas; the Teutons their swamps of Dromling, whither 
 departed souls have access ; the Kelts their island on Lough 
 Derg, sacred still as St. Patrick's Purgatory ; the Aztecs their 
 subterranean temple Michtan, door to the lower world; 
 South African savages their cavern Marimatle, whence 
 ghosts creep out, and whereby dead =nien's souls go down; 
 Egyptians their sacred lake, across which the dead are 
 
 rowed to their last home ; Eijians their " calm and solemn 
 
 H 
 
MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 place of cliff and forest, where the souls of the dead embark 
 for the judgment-seat of Udengei, and whither the living 
 come in pilgrimage, thinking to see gl|osts and gods ?"^ 
 
 ISTot all nations, perhaps, are quick to fashion beautiful 
 nature-myths ; but all can feel the pang of separation from 
 their dead, the desire for reunion. Among most there 
 is also the feeling that to the dead, with their added 
 experience, comes increase of wisdom,; — wisdom to which, 
 under specified conditions, they are wilKng to give oracular 
 utterance, sometimes with beneficent, sometimes with malig- 
 nant intent. Hence, beginning for the Greeks with the 
 Theban Teiresias, we have the long line of traditions respect- 
 ing magical rites and oracular utterances from the dead 
 {veKVba or veKvofiavTela), — traditions "dating from the dim 
 distance of the Egyptian and Chaldsean past, through the 
 classical period of Greece and Eome, through the legends of 
 mediaeval tribes, clown in unbroken hne to the latest mani- 
 festation of so-called spiritualistic phenomena,- — a tradition 
 sometimes degraded into a superstitious belief in possession 
 by demons, sometimes sublimated into faith in the ministry 
 of angels. In one and every modification we find this 
 common formative element, — regret for the past shaping 
 itself into comfort for the present, hope for the future. 
 
 It is happily not our duty to investigate these mani- 
 fold veKuofjbavTeia, to follow the clue of this golden thread 
 of Truth, this faith in things invisible, through the maze of 
 jugglery and deceit in which time has tangled it. For us 
 there is a lighter and pleasanter taSk, though withal a 
 solemn one, — to fare down into Hades with Odysseus, and 
 reverently face the shade of the Theban Teiresias. 
 
 ' Tylor, Hist, of Primitive Cults. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 99 
 
 " JSTow when we had gone down to' the ship and to the 
 sea, first of all we drew the ship unto the fair salt water, and 
 placed the mast and sails in the black ship, and took those 
 sheep and put them therein ; and ourselves too climbed on 
 board, sorrowing, and shedding big tears. And in the wake 
 of our darked-prowed ship she sent a favouring wind that 
 filled the sails — -a kindly escort — even Circe of the braided 
 tresses, a dread goddess of human speech. And we set in 
 order all the gear throughout the ship, and sat us down ; 
 and the wind and the helmsman guided our bark. And 
 all day long her sails were stretched in her seafaring, and 
 the sun sank, and all the ways were darkened. 
 
 " She came to the limits of the world, to the deep-flowing 
 Oceanus. There is the land and the city of the Cim- 
 merians, shrouded in mist and cloud, and never does the 
 shining sun look down on them with his rays, neither when 
 he climbs up the starry heavens, nor when again he turns 
 earthward from the firmament, but deadly night is outspread 
 over miserable mortals. Thither we came and ran the 
 ship ashore, and took out the sheep ; but for our part we 
 held on our way along the stream of Oceanus till we came 
 to the place which Circe had declared to us." ^ Such a 
 place is before us in Autotype VI. (the sixth in our series 
 of Odyssey landscapes). There is nothing very distinctively 
 Greek about the scene; we might be looking at the Fijian 
 "calm and solemn peace of cliff and forest;" we might be 
 about to land on the sacred island in Lough Derg; we 
 might be in Finland, the " home of the dreamy imagination, 
 with its deep bays and inlets, its granite mountains," 
 waiting for the hero Wainamoinen to descend into the 
 ' Od. xi. 1, etc. 
 
100 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 Finnish Hades. A consecrated calm rests upon the 
 Homeric Hades both in the poet's words and in the 
 painter's picture. In striking contrast is the description 
 by Apollonius Ehodius^ of the approach to Acheron ; in the 
 Hades he tells us the peaceful cliffs are sharp precipices, the 
 quiet waters rage and swell, the wicked are like a troubled 
 sea that cannot rest. 
 
 The Esquiliae landscape is purely ideal— no sketch from 
 the coastland by Cumse. It is, however, strictly Homeric, 
 the entrance to the under world such as Circe foretold.^ To 
 the left, on deep eddying Oceanus, still in full sail, is the ship 
 of Odysseus (all the rest were destroyed by the Lsestry- 
 gonians). It has not yet been drawn in to shore, probably 
 the hero is still supposed to be on board. He is coming, 
 indeed, to a "waste shore," a land "shrouded in mist and 
 darkness." Very skilfully, and with a surprising mastery 
 of chiarosciiro, the painter has thrown the whole of the 
 right half into deep shadow, illumined only by light 
 which streams in from the outer world through the 
 rocky doorway. In the front are the steel-blue waters 
 of Acheron, and watching beside these waters and those 
 of the mighty Cocytus we are no longer surprised to see 
 
 ^ " fl iJ.il> re Kpriixvoiaiv dpl<TX^rai yj\i§ii.TOi<nv 
 eh aXa SepKo^ivT} HLdwlda' ry 5' vwb TrirpaL 
 XictrdSes ^ppL^uivrai aXi^poxot ' d)u0t 6^ Trjinv 
 KVfia Kv\Lv56p.evQV fieyaXa ^pifj^ei." 
 
 ArOLL. Rhod. ii. 731-734. 
 
 ^ *' dXX' 6?r6r' hp Srj vijl St 'QKeavoTo ireprjaris, 
 ^v6^ &KT'^ T£ Xctx^ta Kal d\(rea Il£ptje(povelvj^ 
 fxaKpai T atyetpot /cat hiat chXecriKapTroi 
 
 (pBa flip ell 'KxfpovTa IIvpt<p\(y4ffuii' re piovai 
 K^iiKurd? ^' 6s St; Xrvybs iiSarSs ^utlv cLiroi^pd)^, 
 ■n-^Tp-i) T€ ^I'pea-l! re S6u TroTa/j.u>v ipiSovirup." — Od. x. 608-515. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 101 
 
 the personified rivers themselves. The whole scene is 
 thickly overgi-owu with rushes ; these are the sole repre- 
 sentatives of the " tall poplar trees and willows that shed 
 their fruit before the season," and they well serve to indi- 
 cate the " waste," squalid shore. We shall see hereafter 
 that these rushes may have been suggested by an older 
 picture of greater fame. The main action of the scene 
 takes place among the figures grouped to the right; but 
 before we consider them we have other art monuments to 
 review which deal with intermediate scenes, and we must 
 advance a step further with the story. 
 
 " There Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims ; but 
 I drew my sharp sword from my thigh; and dug a pit, as it 
 were a cubit in length and breadth, and about it poured a 
 drink offering to all the dead, first with mead and thereafter 
 with sweet wine, and for the third time with water. . . . 
 But when I had besought the tribes of the dead with 
 vows and prayers, I took the sheep and cut their throats 
 over a trench, and the dark blood flowed forth ; and lo, the 
 spirits of the dead that be departed gathered them from out 
 of Erebus. Brides and youths unwed, and old men of many 
 and evil days, and tender maidens with grief yet fresh at 
 heart . . . and these many ghosts flocked together from 
 every side about the trench with a wondrous cry, and pale 
 fear got hold on me. . . And myself I drew the sharp 
 sword from my thigh, and sat there, suffering not the 
 strengthless heads of the dead to draw nigh to the blood 
 ere I had word of Teiresias." ^ 
 
 This piteous throng of waiting, eager ghosts we see 
 pictured to the right of the scene in^ Autotype VI. Only 
 1 Od. xi. 23, etc. 
 
102 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 one will Odysseus allow to approach " ere " he has " word 
 of Teiresias," — Ms lost comrade Elpenor, who, though he has 
 left the land of the living, stiU, because he lacks burial, has 
 no lot as yet in the habitation of the dead. We see him 
 seated high up on a rock (in Autotype VI.), away from the 
 thronging ghosts; for though he has had speech with 
 Odysseus, and due burial is promised, as yet his corpse lies 
 still in the hall of Circe, dishonoured, unwept. His head 
 is resting on his hand as if in sad meditation ; above is the 
 inscription Elpenor (EAIIHNflP) ; the E and the Xi are 
 both defaced, the rest is clear ; were there any doubt, the 
 solitary position of the figure would suffice. 
 
 After Elpenor, had come up the so'ul of the mother of 
 Odysseus ; but even she is turned back to wait for the 
 coming of the prophet. There is no figure in our picture 
 inscribed Anticleia, but probably a woman standing to the 
 front, behind Teiresias, is intended for her. " Anon came 
 the soul of Theban Teiresias, with a golden sceptre in his 
 hand, and he knew me and spake unto me : Son of Laertes, 
 of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many devices, what seekest 
 thou now, wretched man, wherefore hast thou left the sun- 
 light and come hither to behold the dead and a land 
 desolate of joy ? Nay, hold off from the ditch and draw 
 back thy sharp sword, that I may drink of the blood and 
 tell thee sooth. 
 
 " So spake he, and I put up my silver-studded sword 
 into the sheath, and when he had drunk the dark blood, 
 even then did the noble seer speak unto me." ^ 
 
 This is probably the precise moment seized by the 
 painter. The shades have trooped ,up, but are refused 
 
 1 Od. xi. 88. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 103 
 
 access; only Elpenor has had speech with Odysseus and 
 returned to his rock. Teiresias apprdaclies, a gray-bearded 
 old man, clad in a long, priestly garment, a golden staff in 
 his hand. Only one letter, the first of the inscribed name, is 
 lost. Odysseus stands opposite in a curious attitude of eager 
 expectancy ; his inscription is quite clear (OATSSETS). 
 Behind him to the left is the scene of the sacrifice. The ram 
 lies dead on his back ; Perimedes and Eurylochus are busy 
 about him. Perimedes is clearly the figure most to the left, 
 for though his inscription is gone,, that of the other, 
 Eurylochus, is still plain. We shall have to return to our 
 picture again when the souls of the dead fair women come 
 forward ; but for the present we must turn to other works of 
 art which deal with the oracle scene. 
 
 In Plate 27 we have a design from a vase, executed, 
 to judge from the style, some time during the period of the 
 Diadochi. In the centre of the picture Odysseus is seated 
 on a heap of stones, rudely piled together, and covered by 
 a hanging drapery. A chlamys falls' loosely behind him, 
 and he wears richly decorated buskins. His sword, also 
 richly ornamented, has been drawn from the scabbard ; he 
 points it downward, and sits in an attitude of expectation ; 
 he wears neither helmet nor piles. To the right stands a 
 young man in similar dress ; his right arm is cast over his 
 head in a somewhat sensational attitude. To the left a 
 second youth, wearing chlamys and pilos, leans in an easy 
 attitude on his lance. The two side figures arc presumably 
 Eurylochus and Perimedes. At the feet of Odysseus we 
 see the heads of the " ram and black ewe," the gift of Circo, 
 newly slaughtered, and uprising from the trench is the ghost- 
 like head of the seer Teiresias. The portrayal is very 
 
104 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 faithful to Homer ; we have the pit, " as it were a cubit in 
 length and breadth," the prescribed sacrifice, the seated hero, 
 the drawn sword, the attendant comrades.^ The design is 
 executed in a large bold way, showing great mastery of out- 
 line, but already we miss something of the severity and 
 simplicity of the old style. The attitudes and faces of all 
 three figures are a little too elaborately expressive, the 
 drapery too complex and sinuous, and the ornamentation on 
 the buskins and weapons contrasts too emphatically with 
 the simple naked forms. It is the design of an artist who 
 worked under the influence rather of the traditions of paint- 
 ing than sculpture. 
 
 It is noticeable that nowhere does Homer specify the 
 manner of the coming of Teiresias, so that the artist is left 
 fancy-free in his depiction of the ghost's advent. His 
 choice in this particular design is certainly curious. It is 
 but fair to add that, mainly ovring to the strange ghost 
 head, grave doubt has been thrown on the whole portrayal. 
 It has been maintained,^ though I think without sufficient 
 reason, that the head of Teiresias is interpolated, and that 
 the scene depicted is not the descent into Hades at all. 
 Take away this head, and we do not need to be told what 
 would then be the natural interpretation : the mighty, 
 seated hero and the slaughtered sheep would be enough. 
 The doubt, though I believe it to be needless, is worth 
 noting, because it reminds us of the extreme caution neces- 
 
 ^ "^vd' Up'^ia fi^v Ylfpt^-^drjt EupiJXoxis re 
 ^axoV .... 
 
 ^bdpOV ipv^ 8(TfT0V T€ TTvyoOffLov ^vOo, Ka.1 ^v6a . . 
 avTos S^ ^ifpo^ d^b ipvaadfi^vos irapa ix-qpov 
 ijfii/v." — Od. xi. 22 seq. 
 " On this question see Welcker, AUe DetikinaUr erklart, Part III. 
 
PL. L'8. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 105 
 
 sary in the interpretation of vases, and the ease with which 
 a preconception may mislead. If we conceive the hero to he 
 Odysseus, we interpret his attitude to .be one of eager ex- 
 pectation ; if Aias, of deep dejection. The morahst may 
 note with satisfaction that nowhere more swiftly than in 
 the study of archasology does the retribution of a false 
 deduction follow on the error of a rash hypothesis. 
 
 Turning to Plate 28 we see a much more commonplace 
 presentation of Teiresias. There is very little of the ghost 
 about the old man leaning, half-seated, upon the rock, and 
 conversing in serious ease with the hero opposite him. 
 His character of seer is, however, indicated by the long 
 garment, staff, and most of all by the veiled head. Odysseus 
 stands opposite, his sword drawn ; but his whole attitude, 
 though perhaps not his face, is placid, almost careless ; his 
 foot is raised on a rock, and he rests his elbow on his knee ; 
 the descent into Hades is no doubt indicated by the rocky 
 cleft which forms the background. The design is from a 
 marble rehef, now in the Louvre. 
 
 Of very curious and special interest is our next monu- 
 ment, relating to the Teiresias scene. We are not perhaps 
 justified in caUing it strictly Homeric, but it is certainly 
 Odyssean. The design is from an Etruscan mirror (Plate 
 2 9) ; the execution is unusually careful and delicate. The 
 seated figure is unmistakeably Odysseus. He is naked but for 
 the drapery across his hip ; he has drawn his sword, and points 
 the blade upwards. The inscription is of course Etruscan, 
 Uthuche, the frequent form for Odysseus. Equally unmis- 
 takeable is the standing figure ; the winged petasos marks 
 him at once as Hermes ; his inscription would not help us 
 much, Turms Aitas, — the letters read backwards. He 
 
106 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 B ' 
 
 lifts his hand as if speaking to Odysseus, no doubt in- 
 troducing his companion. This strange companion chains 
 our attention from the first glance. Looking at the faiat 
 drooping figure, so tenderly supported by the spirit guide, 
 one thinks instantly of the " lady mother " of Odysseus, 
 sorrow-worn Anticleia, who died because of her " sore long- 
 ing '' for her son ; and Hermes seems for a moment the old- 
 world prototype of the Apostle John. But alas it is not so ! 
 We are bound to read the at best mysterious inscription 
 above the head of the drooping ghost, " Phiathial Teiresias." 
 What Phinthial may mean is known to the Etruscans, and 
 probably to them only ; but the " Teiresias " is enough to 
 dispel our pleasant fancy. It is the aged seer agaia ; his 
 eyes are closed, for he is blind; leaning on his staff, for 
 he is old ; softly shod, for he has come in silence from 
 the under world.^ So womanly is the iigure that some 
 critics have thought an allusion was intended to the current 
 legend of the alternate sex of the prophet.^ This does not 
 seem probable. It is well known that the Greeks, with 
 characteristic daring, did venture on the pourtrayal of a 
 double sex. Ill brooking the wise dualism of nature, they 
 imperiously demanded of art that shd- should adventure a 
 unity more complete. But here we have, I think, no 
 Hermaphroditic conception. This dim, feeble figure is 
 rather a most fit presentation of the haggard, nervous 
 medium, whose " sinews," in Greek pTiraseology, " no more 
 
 ' One is reminded of the " liellshoon " (helsko), which the jSTorseman 
 bound on the feet of his dead in forethought for the toilsome, downward road. 
 These low flat shoes, however, occur not infrequently in Etruscan designs, 
 and with no special import. 
 
 ^ Ovid's unprofitable account of this matter may be read in Metam. iii. 
 320, sqq. 
 
PI. 2 9, 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 107 
 
 bind together the flesh and the bones." It is not the image 
 of a prophet such as Circe must have pictured when she 
 bade Odysseus " seek to the spirit of Theban Teiresias, the 
 blind soothsayer, whose wits abide steadfast."^ 
 
 We must return for a moment to the guide of Teiresias. 
 In the Odyssey story no Hermes is present at this particular 
 crisis of the descent into Hades. The ghosts come up 
 unmarshalled. Hermes' psychopompos or psychagogos is 
 not, however, wholly un-Homeric ; we find him later usher- 
 ing down into the lower world the souls of the slain stiitors.^ 
 Certainly Teiresias in our mirror-design looks most unlikely 
 to have come by himself Probably the whole conception 
 embodied in this particular picture is due to some Etruscan 
 version of the myth, which may in its turn have been 
 borrowed from the lost tragedy of ^schylus, the Psychagogoi, 
 in which Hermes figured,^ though exactly in what capacity 
 we do not know, and in which Teiresias is summoned, and 
 gives utterance to a strange prophecy, which we shall soon 
 have to consider. We must leave this dreamy Etruscan 
 ghost, and listen to the fateful words which fell from the 
 lips of the Homeric Teiresias, the shade " whose wits abide 
 steadfast." 
 
 " Thou art asking of thy sweet returning, great Odysseus, 
 but that will the god make hard for thee; for methinlis 
 
 ' ' ' i'^XV XPW/^^^O"^ Qri^alov Teipecrtao 
 
 IxdvT-qoi dXaoC, toO re <pp4i>es ^/iire^ot dm.' — Od. x. 492-498. 
 ^ ' ' "Ep/ifjs Si ^vxo-i KiiXXiJi-ios ^JfKaXeiTo 
 
 AuSpuy p.vqaTrip'jiv ix^ ^^ pAfiSov peri. x^P"^" 
 kclK^v xpv'^^^Wt TV '^' o,vhpwv Spp^ara 6^\y€i.." — Od. xxiv. 1-3. 
 The passage is, however, a disputed one. 
 ^ In Aristophanes, Eanse, 1267, we have the passage — 
 
 " 'Spp.av p.kv irp6yovov Hop-ev yivos oi irepl \lp,vav, 
 which the Scholiast says is from the Psychagogoi of .fflsohylus. 
 
108 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 thou shalt not pass unheeded by the Shaker of the Earth, 
 who hath laid up wrath in his heart against thee, for rage 
 at the blinding of his dear son. Yet even so, through 
 many troubles, ye may come home, if thou wilt restrain thy 
 spirit and the spirit of thy men so soon as thou shalt bring 
 thy well-builded ship nigh to the isle Thrinacia, fleeing the 
 sea of violet blue when ye find the herds of Helios grazing, 
 and his brave flocks, — of Helios, who overseeth all, and over- 
 heareth all things. If thou doest these no hurt, being 
 heedful of thy return, so may ye yet reach Ithaca, albeit in 
 evil case. But if thou hurtest them I foreshow ruin for 
 thy ship and for thy men ; and even though thou shalt thy- 
 self escape, late shalt thou return in evil plight, with the 
 loss of all thy company, on board the ship of strangers ; and 
 thou shalt find sorrows in thy house, even proud men that 
 devour thy living, while they woo thy godlike wife and 
 offer the gifts of wooiug. Yet I tell thee on thy coming 
 thou shalt avenge their violence." ^ 
 
 So far the prediction of Teiresias is verified by the 
 issue which Homer himself narrates ;> the kine are stolen, 
 the comrades of Odysseus perish to a man, the hero himself 
 returns to his home on board the Phfeakian ship ; he finds in 
 the " little isle " confusion and violence"; he executes venge- 
 ance, — but before the vision of Teiresias a further future 
 stretches of which in its accomplishment Homer says nothiag. 
 
 ^ Od. xi. 100-116. Just auch a prophecy is made to the Indian hero of 
 tlie Red Swan. He too fares to the lower world, and, while lie is won- 
 dering at the strange regions of light and darkness, a buffalo spirit asks 
 him (as Antieleia asks Odysseus) how he, a living man, has dared to face 
 the dead. The spirit further warns him that his wife is beset by evil wooers, 
 find bids him go to her rescue. He returns to the upper world, sets his magic 
 MTOWS to his bow, and lays the evil wooers at the feet of this faithful Pene- 
 lope. — See H. R. Schoolcraft, Akjic Researches, ii.> 33. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 109 
 
 "But when thou hast slain the wooers in thy halls, 
 whether by guile, or openly with the edge of the sword, 
 thereafter go thy way, taking with thee a shapen oar, till 
 thou shalt come to such men as know not the sea, neither 
 eat meat savoured with salt ; yea, nor have they knowledge 
 of shijjs, of vermilion cheek, nor shapen oars which serve 
 for wings to ships." 
 
 This motive, Odysseus bearing on his shoulder the 
 " shapen oar," we find engraven on a gem figured in Plate 
 30 a. The hero wears his pUos ; on the left shoulder he 
 rests the oar, in the right hand he holds a torch ; he seems 
 to be stepping out cautiously into the :darkness. The exact 
 significance of the double attributes it is hard to deter- 
 mine. There may be some confusion between Odysseus 
 descending into the darkness of the lower world and 
 Odysseus starting on the predicted journey ; or the torch 
 may have some connection with the mysteries into which it 
 was supposed Odysseus was initiated at Samothrace. The 
 motive of the shapen oar is clear enough. The execution 
 of the engraving is unusually fine. 
 
 A second gem leads us a step further in the prophecy, 
 " And I will give thee," Teiresias continues, " a most mani- 
 fest token, which cannot escape thee. In the day when 
 another wayfarer shall meet thee and say that thou hast a 
 winnowing-fan on thy stout shoulder, even then make fast 
 thy shapen oar in the earth, and do goodly sacrifice to the 
 Lord Poseidon, even with a ram and a bull and a boar, the 
 mate of swine ; and depart for home and offer holy heca- 
 tombs to the deathless gods that keep the wide heaven, to 
 each in order due." 
 
 The witless wayfarer who " knew not of the sea " must 
 
ua. MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 indeed some time have met Odysseus, for, in the design on 
 an onyx figured in Plate 3 OS, the oar has been planted, and 
 Odysseus stands firmly beside it. The incident seems a 
 slight one, but this planting of the Oar is the goal of the 
 hero's long-protracted toU ; and the " shapen oar " might well 
 become the recognised symbol of endurance to the end, and 
 as such very meet to be graven on the signet-ring worn by 
 a faithful hand. 
 
 The genuineness of this later portion of the prophecy 
 of Teiresias is well known to be open to doubt. It may 
 have been interpolated to suit certain sequels to the Odyssey 
 story composed by later poets.^ Our gems offer no solution 
 of the question. We have seen frequently that art bor- 
 rowed its inspiration from sources other than the Homeric 
 poem; and designs of the Grseco-Eoman period, such as 
 those before us, might be derived from literature even later 
 than the TeUgonia. (Together with these two gems, though 
 the moments they depict come earlier in the story, we group 
 two other very fine gems of simiLar style, — Odysseus with 
 the black ram, Plate 2>Qd, and Odysseus with his foot on 
 the slain sheep's head, Plate 30c.) But the seer has words 
 of yet more mysterious and fateful import stiU unspoken : 
 let us hear him to the end. 
 
 "And from the sea shall thine own death come, — the 
 gentlest death that may be, which shall end thee foredone 
 with smooth old age, and the folk shall dwell happily 
 
 • A grammarian says of tlie passage, ' ' Nonnisi ea potuerit setate exoriri 
 qua cum fabula ilia de Telegono conformata esset hanc rhapsodia studerent 
 cum ilia de Ulixes erroribus conjungere." 
 
 The Tclegonia probably dates about B.C. 560 ; but possibly its author 
 pirated from an earlier poem, the Thesprotis, cofnposed centuries before by 
 tlie mythic Musjeus. 
 
PI. 30, 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. Ill 
 
 around thee. This that I say is sooth." Homer, at the 
 close of his poem, leaves his hero resting at peace, content 
 at last within his " little isle ;" but poets of later days, 
 brooding perhaps on these very words, " from the sea 
 (e^ a\o?) shall tliine own death come," have fashioned for the 
 great-hearted hero new perils and fresh voyaging through 
 unknown seas. They fancied that the " man of many 
 shifts '' must weary of the simple, tranquil home-life by the 
 " still hearth " among the " barren crags," and know 
 
 " How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
 To rust unburnished, not to shine in use ;'' 
 
 tiU his longing grew to purpose, and within him and about 
 him he felt the stirring of the sea, and he cried at last — 
 
 " Come, my friends, 
 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 
 Push off, and, sitting well in order, smite 
 The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 
 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
 Of all the western stars, until I die." 
 
 Of such a second voyage and its dread end, Odysseus 
 told to Dante, from his place of burning torment, — how he 
 and his " small company " fared by the Pillars of Hercules, 
 and saw ahead a vision of a mighty mountain, and their joy 
 was turned to weeping ; 
 
 " For out of the new land a whirlwind rose, 
 And smote upon the forepart of the ship ; " 
 
 and so they perished by a fell sea doom. 
 
 We may well suppose that about this mysterious death 
 of Odysseus, the ancients, as well as the moderns, wove their 
 traditions. The Cyclic poets rumour that he perished by 
 the spear of Telegonus, son of Circe. This spear was tipped 
 
112 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 by the poison of a fisli, and so tlie hero's death came to him 
 from the sea. If we turn to Plate 31, we shall see a quaint 
 variation of this tradition.-' 
 
 A boat is nearing the shore ; in it are two sailors ; the 
 foremost one is fixing his anchor — the goal of the voyage is 
 evidently reached; the second sailor stiU works his oar. 
 Above his head flies a sort of heron holding in his mouth a 
 ray-fish, the poisonous trygon (rpvycov), which still endangers 
 the Mediterranean waters. The heron is about to let fall 
 his prey; its long stinging tail hangs directly over the 
 rower's head. This rower is presumably Odysseus. The 
 beautiful lady seated on the shore may be the patient 
 Penelope, or she may be merely a coast nymph. AIL three 
 figures are very youthful — too youthful to accord well with 
 the exjjlauation. We might be in doubt as to the situa- 
 tion intended, but the sceptic Sextus Empiricus (not 
 usually a writer fruitful in suggestion) comes to our aid. 
 He says, in his grumbling way, how can he attach import- 
 ance to historical tradition when "one man says, for 
 example, that Odysseus died by the hand of his son Tele- 
 gonos, another that he breathed his last owing to a sea-gull 
 which let fall on his head the sting of a ray-fish." ^ Such a 
 death assuredly is about to befall the rower in our vase- 
 
 ^ The design iu Plate 31 is taken from the Yasi Fittili of Inghirami. 
 Since it was drawn it was long supposed that the original rase had perished, 
 bnt it has been rediscovered at the Porcinari House, Naples. The following 
 inscriptions have been maiie out : — Above the woman's head IIONTIA, which 
 would accord \\4th the supposition that she is a sea or coast nymph ; above 
 the head of the foremost sailor AAIMOS, meaning unknown ; above the head 
 of the rower KAM-PIS. Odysseus was, wo know, called by his mother Kii/t^o/je 
 rpWT&f, and the two forms viay have some connection. 
 
 " Tinis ixiu \iyovTo$ bri 'OSiKTffei)! inrb VrjXeydvov TratSis Kara &yvaiav 
 duripriTai tlvos d^ Sn \apov Kivrpov ffaXaaalas rpvydyos i<l>&TOS aiiToD Tjj /C£0oXi? 
 5if0iicj;crej', "— Sext. Empir., Adv. Gramm., 273. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 113 
 
 painting, whether he be Odysseus or not. A similar fate, 
 though in less picturesque form, was, we know, prophesied 
 for Odysseus by the seer Teiresias in the Psychagogoi of 
 ^schylus.i It is thought that the issue foretold in the 
 Psychagogoi may have been accomplished in a second or 
 third drama of the same trilogy, bearing possibly the title of 
 Odysseus the Sting-Pierced {ajcavOoTrXrj^}. Such a drama 
 we know to have been written by Sophokles, but no notice 
 of its contents has been preserved us. 
 
 These literary memorials of a later tradition are too 
 curious, and our vase-painting too beautiful, to have been 
 passed over in silence ; but already the oracles of the " prince 
 Teiresias " have detained us too long, and we must suffer the 
 spirit of the seer to go back within the house of Hades, for 
 a mighty throng presses behind him. 
 
 Next in order draws near the shade of Anticleia, the 
 daughter of Autolycus the great-hearted. Of this pathetic 
 meeting between Odysseus and the soxil of his mother, art 
 has left us no certain monument. It was the subject of a 
 noted decorative design in the temple of Apollo at Cyzicus, 
 but the only record left us of it is an epigram in the 
 Anthology.^ 
 
 ' Scholiast on Odyss. xi. 134, says that .ffischylus in Ms Psychagogoi 
 
 describes how the heron {'UpoiSiM) swallowed the poisonous fish itself, and 
 
 hence — 
 
 " iK ToSd' &Kapffa irovriov ;8orrK7j,«aTos 
 
 ff^^ec iraXaibv 5^pfj.a Kal Tpixoppo^Sj' 
 
 the bird is described just as it appears in our vase-painting, i.e., "ii\//69i. 
 
 Trord)p.€vos.'' 
 
 ^ "Mdrep 'Odvcr(T7}os Trivvrdtppovos ^AvriKXeta 
 
 dXAA (re c Ok 'Ax^povros iirl firiypSai •yeydaav 
 Oapfiti iiva y\vK£pav p,aT^pa 5ep/c6/ief os. " 
 
 Anth. Pcdat. iii. 8. 
 I 
 
1 1 4 MYTHS OF THE OD YSSE Y. 
 
 In our first picture (tlie wall-painting in Autotype VI.) 
 we left the shades of the mighty women of the past throng- 
 ing the reedy background. To them we must return, for 
 while Anticleia has told her sad story, they wait to have 
 speech of Odysseus. 
 
 " And lo, the women came up ; for the high goddess 
 Persephone sent them forth, all they that had been the 
 wives and daughters of mighty men. And they gathered 
 and pressed about the black blood, and I took counsel how 
 I might question them each one. And this was the counsel 
 that showed best in my sight. I drew my long hanger 
 from my stalwart thigh, and suffered them not all at one 
 time to drink of the dark blood." ^ 
 
 We note, almost with regret, how, again and again, this 
 ritual point, the drinking of the dark blood, is emphasised. 
 This Nekyia, this " Book of the Dead," is, we are obliged 
 to own, if not " steeped " yet at least tinged " with the 
 Animism of barbarous peoples." ^ In the mythologies, 
 alike of nations the most barbarous as well as the most 
 cultured, the soul is conceived of a*s a sort of shadowy 
 material shape, to be revivified by the same material essence 
 as the body itself, by that blood which is the life. For 
 this warm draught of life the ghosts are greedy. 
 
 Only three of the fourteen famous women who declared 
 to Odysseus their lineage can be identified in our land- 
 scape. Phffidra (<35AI APA) is clearly inscribed ; Homer only 
 mentions her in passing:^ "and I saw Phajdra." Later we 
 shall meet her again on the walls of the Lesche at Delphi, 
 mth the symbol of her destruction in her hands. Ariadne 
 (APIAANE) is also plainly inscribed, and Homer tells her 
 
 ' Od. xi. ^ Sec Hdlcnica, page 437. ' Od. xi. 321. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES, 115 
 
 tale — "fair Ariadne, tlie daughter of wizard Minos, whom 
 Theseus on a time was bearing from Crete to the slope of 
 sacred Athens. Yet had he no joy of her; for Artemis 
 slew her ere that, in sea-girt Dia, by reason of the witness 
 of Dionysos." ^ Ariadne, too, will meet us in the Lesche 
 with her sister, sadder even than herself. 
 
 Our third inscribed fair Avoman is Leda ( EAA). The 
 L of the inscription is lost ; the remaining letters are clear. 
 She, Homer teUs us,^ was "the famous bedfellow of Tyn- 
 dareus, who bare to Tyndareus two sons hardy of heart, — 
 Castor, tamer of steeds, and Polydeuces the boxer." 
 
 In the reedy background we have to fancy the ghosts of 
 a throng of other women, " wives and daughters of heroes," 
 Tyro, Antiope, Alcmene, Epicaste, Chloris, Iphimedeia, 
 Prokris, Msera, Clymene, Eriphyle. Of these we shall 
 meet again all but Tyro, Alcmene, and Epicaste, when we 
 come to consider the great picture of Polygnotus. 
 
 After " holy Persephone had scattered this way and 
 that the spirits of the women folk," ^ the heroes came up to 
 have speech. Agamemnon and Achilles, and Patroclus 
 and Archilochus ; only the soul of Aias stood apart, sullen 
 and vengeful.* These heroes, too, we shall later behold 
 in the Delphian Lesche ; for the present we must turn to 
 our second Hades landscape from the^ Esciuiline series, and 
 note the scenes that are there depicted. The ghosts now in 
 view, we observe, no longer throng to approach Odysseus ; 
 he seems to have sight into the innermost depths of hell.' 
 
 1 Ocl, xi. 321. -^ Od. xi. 298. '' Od. xi. 385, 386. ^ Od. xi. 5^4. 
 
 5 This incongruity has led to the supposition that the whole passage is inter- 
 polated to suit later conventional representations of Hades. Lauer, arguing 
 from the Theban origin of Teiresias and many of the heroines, supposes that 
 the whole veKvla is of Boeotian authorship. See Lauer, Literarischer Nachlass. 
 
116 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 The landscape figured ia Autotype VII. is unhappily 
 much mutilated. The design seems to have been rudely in- 
 terrupted. Possibly some barbarian hand may have broken 
 through the picture to make a door or window. It was 
 clearly not intended for a half picture. To the left we see 
 a large overhanging rock ; beneath it" a narrow stream, on 
 the opposite side of which rises hiUy g=round. Here lies full 
 length an outstretched figure — we do not need the inscrip- 
 tion (TITT02) to tell us his name. His enormous size is 
 somewhat diminished for artistic purposes by the fore- 
 shortening his position necessitates. Two vultures, one 
 of which is very indistinct, tear at liis hver; with his 
 left hand he seems to try without success to keep them at 
 bay. The Homeric description has been closely followed. 
 "And I saw Tityos, son of renowned Earth, lying on a 
 levelled ground, and he covered nine roods as he lay ; and 
 vultures twain beset him, one on either side, and gnawed at 
 his liver, piercing even to the caul ; but he drove them not 
 away with his hands. For he had dealt violently with 
 Leto, the famous bedfellow of Zeus, as she went up to 
 Pytho through the fair lawns of Panopeus." ^ Worn out at 
 last with punishment for tliis awful sacrilege, we shall see 
 him in the Lesche of that very shrine of Pytho, to which 
 Leto was going. 
 
 Equally clear is the inscription and the attitude of 
 Sisyphus (SI5T<1>0^), whom Odysseds saw, "in strong 
 torment, grasping a monstrous stone with both his hands. 
 He was pressing thereat with hands and feet, and trying 
 to roll the stone towards the brow of the hill. But oft 
 as he was about to hurl it over the top the weio'ht would 
 
 1 Od. xi. 576. 
 

MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 117 
 
 drive him back, so once again to the plain rolled the 
 stone — the pitiless thing. And he once more kept heaving 
 and straining, and the sweat the while was pouring down 
 his limbs, and the dust rose upwards from his head." ^ 
 Sisyphus, too, is numbered, as we shall see, among the fruit- 
 less labourers in the hall at Delphi,, whose hell is their 
 bootless toil. 
 
 So far all is clear, but above Sisyphus there stands in 
 our picture a naked youth of threatening aspect. N"o in- 
 scription helps us. In connection with Sisyphus and Tityos 
 Homer mentions only Tantalus, Herakles, Minos, Orion, 
 Tantalus is impossible ; probably he occupied in part the 
 lost right-hand part of the picture. Herakles would 
 naturally have held the three -headed Cerberus; Minos 
 would have been seated on his throne. Only Orion is left ; 
 and on the whole our figure tallies with Homer's description : 
 " I marked the mighty Orion driving the wild beasts to- 
 gether over the mead of asphodel, the very beasts that him- 
 self had slain on the lonely hills, with a strong mace all of 
 bronze in his hands, that is ever unbroken."^ The gesture 
 of the figure is certainly that of a man driving on some- 
 thing ahead of him. The giant stature is seen by the fact 
 that his size is the same as that of the women in the fore- 
 ground, though some allowance must be made for inadequate 
 knowledge of perspective. The object he holds in his hand 
 is indistinct, but it might be intended for the " strong mace, 
 all of bronze." 
 
 Of the scene presented in the foreground Homer tells 
 us nothing ; but the intent is obvious. Eound a huge 
 vessel, half buried in the ground, are grouped four female 
 
 1 Od. xi. 593. ^ Od. xi. 572. 
 
118 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 figures. Their arms are bare; they wear head-dresses; 
 the centre figure has emptied her jug ; two others are in 
 the act of pouring out their water; the fourth seems to 
 turn away to refill her vessel ; a fifth has gone to the river 
 to replenish her jar, and sits down a while, sorrowful and 
 exhausted. The inscription is effaced but for three 
 letters, AIA ; the remainder are obviously thus supplied ; — 
 AAN]AIA[EX (Danaides). We shall see in the picture of 
 Polygnotus, not indeed these actual Danaides, but a group 
 analogous to them, — a family of the Uninitiated, who for 
 ever carry water in vain in leaking jars. I believe that our 
 landscape-painter had come to regard some such figures as 
 these as a sort of necessary conventional symbol of Hades ; 
 but, desirous of making his presentation Epic rather than 
 Orj^hic, he gave to his fruitless toilers the title of 
 Danaides. 
 
 We have learnt to know how tlie Hades of Homer 
 appeared to the fancy of the Augustan wall -painter. 
 Though his work is somewhat marred by time, enough 
 remains to allow of a clear and vivid conception. The 
 painter's name is lost, but his pictures remain, — a lasting 
 treasure. Another artist ^ had already depicted on walls of 
 world-wide fame this Hades scene. The name of Polygnotus 
 is still honoured among men ; but no jfragment of this, liis 
 greatest work, has survived the wreck of time. Some four 
 hundred years before the Greek painter began to decorate 
 
 ■■ A famous NiKvla was also painted by a third artist, the celebrated 
 Nikias, more than a century later than Polygnotus, but no description re- 
 mains of it ; we only know that he refused to sell it to Attains for sixty 
 talents, and presented it to his natiye city of Athens. See Plut. xi. 2 ; Pliny, 
 If.H. XXXV. 132 ; and Anthol. ix. 792. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 119 
 
 for a wealthy Eoman his house on the Esquiline Hill, Polyg- 
 notus, by command of the Cnidians, adorned the walls of 
 their Lesche at Delphi with a design, depicting on the right 
 hand the taking of Troy, on the left the descent of Odysseus 
 into Hades. Though his work has wholly perished, there 
 remains for us a detailed description. Seven whole chapters 
 are devoted by Pausanias to his account of the wall-paint- 
 ings of the Lesche, and however uncritical,, almost inco- 
 herent, we may consider his loose narrative, to it we must 
 turn as our main source for information. 
 
 The task of reconstructing these Lesche pictures from 
 the meagre material of these travellers' notes has fascinated 
 archiBologists from all times. The subject has a literature 
 to itself, — a literature of absorbing interest, and sometimes 
 amazing ingenuity. The problem to be solved is, briefly. 
 What and in what manner did Polygnotus paint in the 
 hall at Delphi ? In what sequence were his subjects placed, 
 and with what degree of artistic perfection did he render 
 them ? The materials for its solution are the narrative of 
 Pausanias, the literary sources (whether written or verbally 
 traditional) to wliich Polygnotus resorted for his mythology, 
 our knowledge generally of his style, and the treatment of 
 analogous subjects by other artists. Of these topics time 
 and space alike forbid the exhaustive treatment. We 
 must be content if, with Pausanias at hand, and the restora- 
 tion of the modern artist before our eyes, we may stand 
 in spirit for a while in the Delphian Lesche, and see 
 clearly at least, if not completely, some shadow of the ghosts 
 that throng the kingdoms of Persephone. Let us turn to 
 Plate 32. 
 
 To the left of the picture is seen a river, which Pau- 
 
120 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 saiiias says is evidently Acheron.i In its ghastly waters 
 dank reeds are growing, and shadowy fishes can be dimly 
 seen. The foreground of our Esquiline landscape picture, 
 we have seen, was thickly overgrown with rushes, no doubt 
 suggested by the swamps of Avernus; this is perhaps the 
 only point in which the two pictures clearly resemble each 
 other. On the river is a boat, and a ferryman sitting to his 
 oars, the ancient Charon. This Charon,^ unknown to 
 Homer, Pausanias thinks was borrowed by Polygnotus from 
 the Minyas,^ where the ferryman is introduced refusing to 
 admit to his boat Theseus and Pirithoos. The shades whom 
 Charon ferries across are too dim for their relationship * to 
 be clearly made out ; two only Pausanias recognises, the 
 maiden Cleobeia and the youth TeUis. The maiden carries 
 on her knee the sacred cista ; she it was who first brought 
 to her island home of Thasos (the painter's birthplace) the 
 mysteries of Demeter. We shall never know what was the 
 tale of love and sacrifice and early death which brought 
 these two unwed to Charon's boat ; but they cross together, 
 and bear with them the symbol of sacred joy. Below, in 
 contrast perhaps to this scene of holy bliss, we see an im- 
 pious son strangled in Hades by an avenging father, and a 
 
 1 " DSap eTfac TroTa.fj.bs (oiKe, dffKa. ws 6 'Kxiptav, Kal Kd\ajj.ol re 4v avTi^ 
 TetpvKdrcs, Kal Si.f.ivdpa o6tui 5ij Tt rh dSrj t&v IxSviiiv tf-Kids iiaKKov fj IxBui eiVdcreis ' 
 Kal vavs ianv iv ri} Tora/iifi Kal 6 Top$fieds iirl rats Kiiirais." — Paus. X. 28. 
 
 ^ Charon still lives on in modern Greece as Chares or Charontas. But he 
 is now no longer a mere ferryman, rather he is ;a terrible impersonation of 
 Hades itself He rides a coal-black horse, his eyes gleam iire, and, Erlkonig 
 fashion, he drags off children from their struggling parents. 
 
 ' " i-rr-qKoKoiSricre 5i 6 TloKiyvoiTO^ i/jLol SoKilv Toiijaei MivudSi.." — PauS. 
 X. 28. 
 
 ^ " of 5^ ^TTL^ejStjKdTes rys pfws quk 4inrpa.veh eh dirav etalv ots irpoiyijKovcn." 
 This vague sentence leaves quite undetermined the number of persons in the 
 boat. Possibly there were only Tellis and Cleobeia. 
 
Pi. 32. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 121 
 
 man tortured for sacrilege. Above the criminals, and above 
 the boat of Charon, watches a grim and terrible fiend, of 
 whom no author known to Pausauias makes mention, a 
 Delphic Hades-demon, Eurynomus,^ of "blue-black colour, 
 like flesh-eating flies.'' He lies upon a vulture's skin, and 
 shows his savage teeth. 
 
 So far the figures presented by Polygnotus are foreign 
 to the Odyssey story; but next to the fiend Eurynomus 
 are standing two matrons, Auge, the goodliest of the 
 wives of Herakles, and Iphimedeia, who told to Odysseus 
 the story of her mighty sons, how they sought to " pile a 
 pathway " to the skies, but the son of Leto slew them.^ 
 Above the matrons are two figures of special interest for lis, 
 Perimedes and Eurylochus. They are represented carrying 
 the victims, black rams. Apparently they were separated 
 from Odysseus by some considerable interval. After them 
 is a man seated, inscribed Ocnus ; his quaint companion 
 relieves by a touch of humour the gloom of Hades. Ocnus ^ 
 is twisting a rope ; near him stands a she-ass, who eats the 
 rope as fast as he twists. Ocnus it seems was in the upper 
 
 ^ Pausanias distinctly states that no such demon was descrihed either in 
 the Minyas or the Nostoi ; and for the name and nature of Eurynomus he 
 relies on the guides ; probably the fiend embodied some local conception — 
 
 " halfxava. eXvai tuc ^j/'AiSou rpacrlv ol AeXtpdv f^yrjTal rbv Biipiico/ioc, /cai is 
 Tas (rdpKa! TrfpieaBUi tuv vfKftSiv, /idva tnplm.v dTroXelTtuv tci, iara." — Paus. x. 28. 
 
 And again — 
 
 "il Si'Ofn-^pov TToiTjo-ts ij is 'OSv<r<ria. KoX rj Micras re KoXovixivri Kal ol 
 Nitrroi l<Ta<nv ohhiva EujOiJi'o/iOj'." — Paus. x. 28. 
 
 2 Od. xi. 315-320 :— 
 
 " "Oaaav iir' 'OXiinrif /li/iaaav 8iiJ,ev avrap iw' 'Oaari 
 TlrfKwv ehoHrjivWov, IV o!ipa.vbi ip-jSaris eii)." 
 
 " An Genua occurred in some play by Kratiniis. See Meinecke, Fr. Com. 
 ii. 203 ;— 
 
 " ' Apia-rapxos Si Sia rb Kpanyov vvoBeaBai. iv "AiSou irxoii'/oi' v'KiKovTa, 6vov 
 Si t6 irK^KOfi.ii'ov atrendiovTa." 
 
122 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 world an industrious man, with an extravagant wife ; per- 
 haps he was a miser, else why in Hades is this conjugal 
 discipline protracted ? The feeling here is certainly 
 rather Hesiodic than Homeric. Near to this humorous 
 pair lies a shadowy shape, more terrible because so dim, 
 Tityos, tortured no longer, but worn out through ceaseless 
 punishment.1 In our landscape-painting we have seen the 
 vultures tear him ; we feel how much grander is this concep- 
 tion of the exhausted ghost. Above this figure, close to the 
 thrifty Ocnus and his mate, we meet another familiar pair. 
 Ariadne sits upon a rock, and looks towards her sister 
 Phaedra. Phaedra holds in both her hands a rope, and 
 from it her body is suspended. The description of Pausa- 
 nias is so vague, it is hard to say how the unhappy Phsedra 
 hung ; the traveller only adds that, " though the attitude 
 was pleasing and becoming, it indicated the manner of her 
 death.2 
 
 Beneath these luckless sisters must' have been depicted 
 a charming group^ — somewhat analogous, perhaps, to the so- 
 called Herse and Pandrosos of the Parthenon — lovely Chloris 
 reclining against the knees of her dear friend Thyia, for 
 
 ^ " yiypairrai Si Kal Tiri/tls oi5 Ko\a!^6/j.evoi ?Ti. dXXA virb tov (Tvvexovs ttjs 
 Ti/iti>p(as is (hrav i^avTjkuinivo^ d/ivSpii' Kai ouSi 6\6k\tipov eiSoAoi/," — Paus. z. 
 
 ^ " (ApidSpTi) KciSijTai p.h iirl Trirpas bpq. U is tt]ii iSe\<pi]v ^alSpav to re dXXo 
 atiopov/iivTip adfia iv creip^ Kal rah x^P"^" i-p-<i>0Tipu9ev rfis tretpas ixop-ivrjv. 
 Ilapdxe Si rb (XXW"- "aiirep is ri evTrpeiriffTepov TrcTrpi-qiiivov <Tvp.§i.Wea9a.L ret h 
 TTjs ialdpas TTji' TeXevTT^v." 
 
 The manner depicted by the modem artist is no fanciful conceit, but 
 would be quite consonant with Greek tradition. It appears that at the fes- 
 tival of the Attic Aiora the women of Athens were: wont to swing themselves, 
 in memory of an Attic heroine, Erigone, who died the death of Phajdra. 
 They sang during this to us somewhat ghastly paistime a song by Theodoras 
 of Colophon. Vase pictures with female figures swinging occur not unfre- 
 quently ; they may have some reference to this ceremony. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 123 
 
 between these two, the traveller tells ns, great love subsisted. 
 Of Chloris Homer sang that she was bride of Neleus and 
 bare glorious children to her lord, among them " stately 
 Pero, the wonder of all men." ^ Near to them, standing 
 alone, is jealous Prokris, whom unwittingly her husband 
 slew, and after her comes Clymente, also the bride of 
 Kephalos. Not far away is Theban Megara seated sadly 
 alone; her Herakles put away because her children 
 perished by the hand of the gods. Above the heads of 
 these women the daughter of Salmoneus is seated on a 
 stone, and near her stands "hateful Eriphyle, who took 
 fine gold for the price of her dear lord's life." ^ She feels 
 with her finger tips for her neck through the folds of her 
 garment; perchance the necklet still burns there. Still 
 higher in the picture, and possibly in a central position, we 
 see the group already so familiar. Odysseus crouches on 
 his knees ^ and holds a sword over the ditch. The prophet 
 Teiresias approaches, and after Teiresias is figured Anticlcia 
 seated, waiting, on a stone. Near to Odysseus is Elpenor, 
 not, as we saw him in our landscape, holding aloof. The 
 attitude of Odysseus {oKKafyvra iirl toI<; iroaiv) is markedly 
 different from that we have seen in the vase-painting. 
 Some analogy is observable between this description of 
 Pausanias and the ungainly posture in the Esquiline wall- 
 picture. Elpenor's dress is carefully noted ; he wears a gar- 
 
 ^ " Toim S' iir' l(pdl/j,riv UripCi r&e ffav/ia fipoToi<n." — Od. xi 287. 
 ^ " (TTvyeprjv t' 'Epi<f>6\ijv 
 f/ xpucrJ^ <pl\ov 6.ySp6s iSi^aro nix-q^vTa." — Od. xi. 326, 327. 
 ' " hirip S^ TT]V 'EpLtpvX-rjv lypaypev ''EXvfjvopa, re /cai '05u(nr('a {3/c\dfoi'Ta iirl 
 Tois TToali' ^x^^"^^ vir^p rod ^bdpov rb ^i<po^j Kol 6 p-difTis Teipeaias irpbeKyw iiri 
 rbv pbBpov' lUerd Sk rbv Tupeffiav M iriTpas ij 'OSva-cr^uis M^vtvp 'AvTlKKeid 
 ianv." — Paus. x. 28. 
 
124 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 ment made of rushes after the manner of sailors.^ Beneath 
 Odysseus are seated the pair whom Homer tells us the hero 
 was "fain to see, Theseus and Peirithobs, renowned children 
 of the gods." ^ They are represented seated on a throne 
 together — in their death they were not divided. Theseus 
 holds in his hands both his own sword and that of 
 Peirithoos. Pausanias fancies that Peirithoos looks at the 
 swords with angry eyes, indignant that they may not serve 
 him for bold deeds. 
 
 After this pair of friends come the two daughters of 
 Pandareus. So goodly was their nurture we cannot forbear 
 to tell of it as Penelope ^ told in her prayer to Artemis. 
 " Their father and their mother the gods had slain, and the 
 maidens were left orphans in the halls, and fair Aphrodite 
 cherished them with curds and sweet honey and delicious 
 wine. And Here gave them beauty and wisdom beyond the 
 lot of women, and holy Artemis dowered them with stature, 
 and Athene taught them skill in aIL= famous handiwork.'' 
 But alas ! rude fate cut short this gentle tendance. " Now, 
 
 ' " d/j!r^xf "' 4'opixhv &vtI iffOfJTOS criij/ijAes tois rai/rais ^6pijiJ.a" — the wonted 
 garment, too, of fishermen, according to Tlieokritiis. — Id. xxi. 13. 
 ^ " Kal vu K ^TL irporipovs tdov dv^pas ods ^d€\6v irep' 
 
 Qritria. HfipLffoiv re, ffewv ipiKvSia tiKva." — Od. xi. 631. 
 ^ " ra<7i TOKrias fxh cpffiffai' deoi, al S'i\lToyTO 
 6p<pavai iv [x^ydponn /ci/^trtre 5^ Si 'AtppoSiT-rj 
 Tvpt^ Kal iiO^iTL y\vK€pQ Kal ifS^i biVy 
 'Hp?? 6' avT^ijLv Tepl irau^iiiv 3wk€ yvvaiKwif 
 ffSos leal TTiniTT)!' fi^KO! S' (irop' 'Aprefus ayvi] 
 (pya 5' 'KB-nvali] S4Sa€ KXvTh ipyd^eaSai. 
 Ei5r' 'A^poSfr^ S7a irpoaiaTtxe fiaxpbi^ "OXv/xirov 
 Koijp-p^ atTTfjtrovira TfKos OaXepoio ydfj.010 
 4s Ala TepTTtK^pavvov. . . 
 riippa S^ rds Koipas "Apirmai dvTiPel\j/avTO 
 Kal p ^So(rav (rrvycp^aiv 'Epiviinv d/npLiroKeveu'." 
 
 Od. XX. 67. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 125 
 
 while fair Aphrodite was wending to high Olympus to pray- 
 that a glad marriage might be accomplished for the maidens, 
 and to Zeus she went whose joy is in the thunder . . , 
 in the meanwhile the spirits of the storm snatched away 
 these maidens, and gave them to b"e handmaids to the 
 hateful Erinnyes." In Hades they are crowned by Poly- 
 gnotus with flowers, and, because unwed, play, girl fashion, 
 with the astragaloi,^ symbols perhaps of Tate. 
 
 After the two daughters of Pandareus comes a series of 
 Trojan heroes. Antilochus, with one foot on a stone, — noble 
 Antilochus, whom Odysseus spake with in Hades. After 
 him the soul of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, still the king 
 of men, for he leans with his left arm on a sceptre, and 
 holds in both hands a wand. We know the sad tale he 
 had to tell to Odysseus, and the embittered counsel that, all 
 unneeded, he proffered. Three other mighty Trojan heroes 
 are nigh at hand ; Achilles and Protssilaus, seated, gaze at 
 each other; near them stands Patroklus. Above, two 
 friends, young Phocus and aged lascus ; from the finger 
 of Phocus lascus draws a ring — pledge of fidelity. 
 
 Above them, again, Msera is seated alone on a stone ; 
 her too Odysseus saw. She was a heroine of the Nostoi, 
 and died a virgin. After Msera, Actceon the huntsman, 
 with his mother ; she holds a fawn in her hand ; near them 
 is a hound to show the manner of the youth's death. 
 
 Beneath these figures, in the lower part of the picture, 
 is a group at which we well may gaze with earnest eyes. 
 Upon a hillock, leaning against a sacred tree, is seated the 
 
 ' Some echo, perhaps, of the motiye of this lovely group we may have in 
 the terracotta- maidens playing with astragaloi, now in the British Museum. 
 Guide to 2d Vase Room, Part II., page 96. 
 
126 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 minstrel Orpheus, clad in simple Greek dress. In Ms left 
 hand he holds a lyre, and with his right he touches a 
 willow branch.-' Exactly what mystic significance Poly- 
 gnotus attached to this Orpheus figure we shall probably 
 never know ; around his name has grown " a web of hopes 
 and emotions which no hand can disentangle now." ^ 
 Odysseus teUs us nothing of the prophet bard; in his 
 days mysticism had not cast over HeUas that cloud which, 
 at the first softly transparent, was soon to deepen into 
 darkness. This lute of Orpheus, sounding in Hades, rouses 
 us to note how far, from key to key, the music of faith had 
 wandered since Homer's simple song. Orpheus, in a later 
 Hades picture, we shall meet again ; at present beside him 
 are listeniag Promedon, leaning also on the willow, Schedios, 
 and hoary Pelias seated on a throne. Schedios is crovroed 
 with reeds and holds a dagger. Near to Pelias sits sight- 
 less Thamyris, Ms shattered lyre beside Mm; he MmseK, 
 Pausanias notes, looks humbled and dejected. All these 
 are shaded by the sacred grove of Persephone.^ Above 
 them is Marsyas sitting on the stone; he teaches to the boy 
 Olympus his art of piping. StOI further above come a 
 group of Trojans, enemies of Odysseus, whom Polygnotus 
 (Pausanias thinks) has purposely collected in one place. 
 Palamedes and Thersites play with the dice wMch Pala- 
 medes * on earth invented. Between this group and 
 
 ^ " aTTo/SX^f aiTi 5^ aliBi.'i h to. Karoi ttjs ypa<prjs IffTiv i<p€^ri! /lera. rhv JliTpoKKov 
 ola iirl X6(pov Tivis "Op<l>€vs Kaffe^Sfievos, i<p6.TrT(Tai Si Kal ry dpi(rTepf KiBdpas, Ty 
 di iT^p(} x^'-P^ irias KKGivis claiv uiv faict, wpoiravaKiKXiTai Si T(f SifSpCj}." 
 2 See Mr. F. ^Y. II. Myers' Greek Omchs—McUcnica, p. 459. 
 * " ifO' aKTT} Ti Xdxeia nal dXaea Uepire^ofeliit 
 
 /xaKpal t' alyeipoi Kal hiai liXeffiKapTTOi." — Od. X. 510, 511. 
 ^ Palamedes, unknown to Homer, a prominent hero iu the Cyclic poems 
 and a not infrequent figure in vase-paintings. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 127 
 
 Actseon stands Salaminian Aias, the only shade (we re- 
 member) who remained sullenly apart,^ and refused to have 
 speech of Odysseus, even in Hades remembering his enmity. 
 Watching the dice players stands the other Aias, the son of 
 Oileus, whom Odysseus, for his daring to Cassandra, desired 
 to stone to death. Above this Aias stands Meleager, of 
 whom Homer ^ tells us that he died at the hand of the 
 Eriunys through the curse of Althaea. In the lowest part of 
 the picture sits Hector, his hands about his knee, in deep 
 depression ; next to him Memnon, with one hand on the 
 shoulder of Sarpedon. Memnon wears a robe decorated 
 with painted birds. Near Memnon iS a naked Ethiopian 
 boy. This beautiful hero we shall meet again depicted in 
 the wall decoration of an Etruscan tomb. Above Memnon 
 and Sarpedon is Paris, yet a beardless youth ; he seems to 
 clap his hands in token that he calls; Penthesilea, but she 
 turns away, scorning him. She is attired like a virgin 
 huntress, with Scythian bow and leopard skin. 
 
 Above these two are the figures of two women, one 
 young, one old. Tliey carry water in jars with holes. 
 Instinctively we think of the Danaides, but Pausanias tells 
 us that a common inscription denotes them as two of the 
 uninitiated, and then our thoughts turn to Sokrates,^ and 
 we remember how a " certain ingenious man of Italy or 
 
 vbacpLv d(pea-rr}K€tj Ke^oKio^ivy) eUeKa j/Iktjs/' — Od. xi. 543, 544. 
 ^ See Iliad, ix. 571 : — 
 
 *' KLKXifiaKovo'^ 'Ai'^T/j/ Kal ^Traii^Tjv Xlepixtipbi'^Lai' 
 Trp6xw Kade'^ofj-ivrj, Se'uovTO hk daKpv<Ti kSXttol 
 iraidl d6p.£v ddvaTov ' ttj? 5' riepocpolrts 'E/jt**))? 
 ^/cXuej'. '* 
 ' "(cat tout' &pa ns /ivdoKoyuiv Kop-^f/bs i,vy]p ig-Qis Si/ceXcSs Tis rj IraXiKbs, 
 irapdywi/ Tip dvip-ari did t6 in9avl>v Te naX irujTiKbi' ibpbimae irWov, Tois Si 
 
128 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 Sicily " told him a fable that the appetites of the uninitiate 
 soul were as a leaky jar, figuring thereby its insatiate 
 nature. Did this " ingenious man of Sicily," Empedokles 
 perhaps, ever gaze on the picture ot Polygnotus and see 
 these women, these uninitiate souls, seek for ever in vain 
 to draw water from the wells of salvation ? If not Empe- 
 dokles, at least Sokrates, the first of ethical philosophers, 
 would surely sometime ponder this masterpiece of the 
 greatest ethical painter.^ 
 
 After these hapless, thirsty souls a group of three fair 
 figures follows. CalHsto, with the hide of a bear for the 
 covering of her couch, her feet resting on the lap of the 
 Arcadian nymph Nomia, and for the third " stately Pero," 
 whose wooer must needs "drive off the kine" of Tyro that 
 Iphikles held.^ 
 
 After this group of goodly women there rises a precipice 
 up which Sisyphus toils for ever to raise his mighty stone. 
 Below him more water-carriers enduring fruitless labour with 
 perforated jars ; these again are the iminitiated — an old man, 
 an old woman, a matron, and a boy, each sex and every 
 age. Below again, and last of all, is Tantalus ia torment, as 
 
 &vo'^QV$ afi.vriTo\JS' rCiv Sk d/j.vfjT(ap touto r^y ^vxv'^ o5 a^ iirL0vfj,iaL elal^ rh 
 aKhXaffTov avTov Kal ov ffTeyavbv^ tiis rerptj/iivos edj TrLdos, Sia t^v air\tj(TTiai' 
 diretKdaai. ToiivavTlov 5^ oSros aol, u) KaXXf/fXa?, ^vMiicvvrai uis tC)v ^v "AiSou — ■ 
 rb duhh bi) X^-ywi/ — odroi dd'KiitxraToi dv eUv ol d^ijtjTOi Kai ipopolev eU Thv 
 TerpTjfihov irWov i)diiip iripiji TOioi;rv Ttrprnxivifi koukIvi^." — Plat. Gorg. 493, A. B. 
 See Paus. x, 31. 
 
 ^ •* Ol) ixy]v dXX' 8iTov hiacjiipu Kal Tcpi tt]v to(}tuv dec^piav, Set fi^ rd Xlaijiroifos 
 deiope'iv Toi)s t'^ous, dXXa rd Ilo\vypu)TOu kSlv ei rts dXXos ruJi' ypa<piwv ^ tC)v 
 dyaKixaroTTOiCov ia-jlif ^6ik6s.^^ — Ai-istot. Polit. viii. 5, 7. 
 
 ^ " roiirt SVtt' ttp&i^tjv HTjpw t^ke 6ap/ia ^poTOLffL 
 TTjf irdfTfS fxvwovTO TrepiKTiTat' oud^ Tt NljXei)s 
 Tip idLdov 5s p.i] ^Xi/faj ^ias €vpvfJi.eTU3Trovs 
 iK <^v\dKiis Acitreie /S/tjs 'l0«Xj;e(9;s. " — Od. xi. 287-290. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 129 
 
 Odysseus saw him ^ " standing in a mere, and the water 
 came nigh unto his chin. And he stood straining as one 
 athirst, but he might not attain to the water to drink of it. 
 For often as that old man stooped down in his eagerness to 
 drink, so often the water was swallowed up and it vanished 
 away, and the black earth still showed at his feet, for some 
 god parched it evermore. And tall trees flowering shed 
 their fruit overhead, pears and pomegranates, and apple- 
 trees with bright fruit, and sweet figs and olives in their 
 bloom, whereat, when that old man reached out his hands 
 to clutch them, the wind would toss them to the shadowy 
 clouds." To this lingering torment, surely grievous enough, 
 Polygnotus had added a more instant h'orror;^ in his picture, 
 above the old man hangs a mighty rock, ever ready to fall 
 upon him. In this addition Pausanias says he clearly 
 followed Archilochos ; the painter and the poet were alike 
 of Thasian birth. 
 
 ^ *' KoX fj.Tiv TldvraKov elfreLdov xaX^Tf' d\ye' ^xopra 
 io'TeQr iv \i/j.yri' ^ Si irpoijiTrXa^e yepelii)' 
 trreuTo Si Si^diov, inhiv S'o^x ^^X^^ cXitrdaL' 
 ba(j6.Ki ykp kij^el' 6 yipu}v irUeiv /jievcaivoii' 
 TO(T(Tdx' ijSo}p diroKicKeT' dvci^poxkv, d/i<pi Si iroaal 
 7ata /j.i\a.Lva (pdveffKG, Kara^vvacKG Si Salp-wv ' 
 Sii'Sp^a S^ u^nrir-qka icard KpTj9i^v x^'^ Kapirbf^ 
 Hyx^oLL KoX poial Kal p.i]\iai dyXadKapiroL 
 auK^ai re yXvKepal Kal iXdlat TTJXeObijKTaL 
 tC^v OTriiT Wvaei o yiptjyv i-wl X^P^^ /tdcracfJat, 
 Ttis 5' dvefios plirracKe irorl vi(p£a (7/Ci6e^ra. " 
 
 Od. xi. 582-590. 
 ^ " TttPraXos Kal SXXa ^x^^ ^arlv dXyeivd oTrbffa"Opjripoi iir^ aur^ Trciroi'qKev 
 — iwl di avTOis irpbaeffriv ol Kal rb iK toO iTnjprTj/xivovXiOou d€ip.a.^' — Patjs. X. 28. 
 And— 
 
 " no\ii7i'WTos /J.if SijXbs iariv iiraKo\ov8T)iTas rw 'Apxi^bxov X67(}>." — P.4US, x. 
 This addition brings to our mind — 
 
 " Quid memorem Lapithas, Ixiona, Pirithoumque 
 quos super atra silex jam jam lapsura, cadentique 
 imminet assimilis." — ViKO. ^n. vi. 600-601. 
 K 
 
130 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 As we read througli the long detailed account of 
 Pausanias we hope that, at the end, he will take some 
 general survey, characterise the work of Polygnotus, and 
 unfold the plan and sequence of the vast design. But no ; 
 his account closes with perhaps the vaguest, tritest, and 
 most unsatisfactory sentence ever written by careless 
 traveller. Great though the debt we owe him, we cannot 
 but read with vexation, — " Such is tbe number of subjects 
 depicted, and such the suitability (or beauty) of their 
 portrayal in the picture of the Thasian artist." ^ 
 
 Much greater would have been our vexation had our 
 purpose been purely artistic, not in the main mythological; 
 it would then have been our harassing and most perplexing 
 task to determine with as much precision as possible what 
 Pausanias meant by such ever-recurring phrases as "near to 
 this " (toO iT\r\(yLov) ; " above what we have described " {avmTepco 
 rav KareiXery/jLevaiv) ; " next in order " (ec^gf*)? yaero.) ; " in 
 the lower pa rt of the picture " (eh ro 'avw ti)^ ypacpi]^) ; and 
 a host of others. This troublesome task we are spared. 
 For mythological purposes it is enough that Pausanias dis- 
 tinctly names the persons represented, and that, by the help 
 of the modern artist, some rough notion of their relative 
 juxtaposition is clearly before our eye. Without dealing 
 in refinements as to each particular group, we must now 
 determine broadly the significance of these persons. 
 
 Those figures which appear in the Homeric Hades re- 
 quire, I think, no apology for their presence here. Such 
 are nine of the thirteen fair women-;— Iphimedeia, Ariadne, 
 Phfedra, Tyro, Eriphyle, Chloris, Prokris, Clymene, Megara. 
 
 ^ " TOffaijTTj fx^f TrXrjOos Kal cuTrpeireias is tooovt6v iffriv i^Kovua 7} ToO Qaffiov 
 ypdcpTj." — I'AUS. X, 28. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 131 
 
 We are only surprised to miss the remaining four, Epikaste, 
 Antiope, Leda, and Alkmene. In their place we have the 
 two Pandarids, also Auge and Thyia, though I do not believe 
 the coincidence of numbers to be intentional. The groups of 
 Greek and Asiatic heroes are natural and indispensable in a 
 picture which was the counterpart of another design called 
 the Iliou persis ; on the right hand of the Lcschc would be 
 Trojan and Greek in the world above ; on the left Trojan 
 and Greek in the world below. The group of Odysseus 
 and Teiresias was necessitated by the very title of the 
 picture — "The descent of Odysseus into Hades." Certain 
 other figures are present probably on complimentary gTOunds. 
 Tellis and Cleobeia are doubtless in part a tribute to the 
 painter's own island, Thasos ; I'elias and Schedios represent 
 their native Phocis. The opposite ends of the picture, the 
 prelude and the close, are occupied by groups whose signi- 
 iicance is mainly religious. The presence of such groups is 
 natural in a painting which decorates a hall of the temple 
 at Delphi, the great seat of the cult of the Dorian Apollo. 
 Vice we see punished, virtue rewarded; — specially such vices 
 as consist in the violation of the laws of natural affection 
 and in contempt for things sacred to the gods. The code 
 of ApoUo was a simple one : it prescribed dutiful reverence 
 of son to father, wife to husband, all men to the gods. 
 Among the blessed we have therefore the two young lovers 
 who reverence their mystic cista; Antilochus, model of 
 filial piety; Protesilaos, of conjugal fidelity; Achilles and 
 Patroclus, of faithful friendship. Among the accursed we 
 have a son who slew his father, a king who oppressed his 
 subjects, a criminal who did violence to a goddess on her 
 way to a sacred shrine. 
 
1,32 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 The question has been asked more than once, What was 
 the fundamental purport of the picture, and which in con- 
 sequence is its central group ? Did Polygnotus desire to 
 realise the conception of the national poet, or to embellish 
 local tradition, or to allegorise and embody a theory of the 
 future state ? Was his intent, in a word, poetic, historic, or 
 doctrinally religious ? Such a question appears to me to 
 imply a sharp differentiation of modes of thought which is 
 thoroughly and exclusively modern; we miss in these modern 
 days much of the mutual significance of poetry, history, and 
 religion, because we wiU put asunder what God and nature 
 have joined together. We cannot, I think, look fairly from 
 end to end of the picture of Polygnotus without feeling that 
 the three elements are united and harnionised in proportions 
 so subtle as to defy analysis ; we may say, indeed, and we 
 do say, that, compared with the Esquiline wall-painting, the 
 design of Polygnotus is the more religious and the more 
 historical of the two, the less purely mythological ; but that 
 is from its more comprehensive and complete character, not 
 from any one-sided doctrinal emphasis. 
 
 In describing the two pictures, we' have noted incident- 
 ally their chief points of contrast : it may be profitable to 
 recapitulate. In our Esquiline landsca,pe the human interest 
 of the picture all centred in one group ; in the Lesche picture 
 it is dispersed among many. In the landscape the ghosts 
 are absorbed in anxiety to have speech with Odysseus ; in 
 the Lesche picture they pursue their own occupation with 
 marked iiisoudance. In the landscape each shade is but one 
 of a throng, uncharacterised, except occasionally, by name ; 
 ill the Lesche picture not only is eajch inscribed, but in 
 most cases each is further marked out by some characteristic 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 133 
 
 attribute or gesture. Lastly, in the landscape, all the persons 
 presented (with the exception of the Danaides) are Homeric ; 
 in the Lesche picture Polygnotus drew his heroes and 
 heroines not only from Homer, but from other Cyclic poems 
 — the Minyas, the Lesser Iliad, the Nostoi, the Iliou- 
 persis, the Cypria, also from logographoi (Xoy&v avv6eTai) 
 and other sources unknown even to Pausanias. These points 
 of contrast are, we at once see, closely interdependent ; 
 they result in the main from the different artistic con- 
 ditions of the centuries which respectively produced the 
 two designs. Ability to conceive and capacity to execute 
 act and react upon each other. The idea of a large and 
 lovely landscape, with a group of human actors centred in 
 the foregTound, but accessory in effect, would have been a 
 notion foreign to the mind of Polygnotus, its execution 
 impossible to his hand. He could indicate a tree, a bit of 
 water, — any symbol of locale ; but with his four simple 
 colours,^ — black, white, red, yellow, with little if any fore- 
 cast of the perspective of Agatharcus, or the chiaroscuro 
 of ApoUodorus, — -how could he, had he wished it, have 
 brought nature into a predominance which would have 
 seemed to him unnatural? His triumphs — and splendid 
 triumphs he won — were in the higher field of humanity ; 
 his it was to open the sealed hps, to lighten the darkened 
 eyes, to relax the rigorous muscles.'' That his design 
 
 ^ Empedokles says incidentally that the pai&ters of his time used four 
 colours, and by their mixture (just as nature by her four elements) produced 
 all the desired effects. We wonder how the hlue-Uaclc demon of Eurynomus 
 was compounded, — hoAV shadowy were the rushes, and how solid the phantom 
 fishes ! The lovely, though severe, effect of these four colours may be seen in 
 such vase-paintings as the " Aphrodite on the Swan " in the British Museum. 
 
 2 Pliny says of him that he first began " os adaperire, denies ostendere, 
 voltum ab antiquo rigore variare." 
 
134 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 was strictly architectonic, his arrangement carefully balanced 
 — that he obeyed every ancient and honoured canon of 
 composition — we may feel sure ; but to him law became 
 ordered freedom^ and, within the limits of even hieratic 
 rigour, he knew how to give utterance to the wider ethics 
 of idealised human character (17^0?). 
 
 However fascinating may be the attempted reconstruc- 
 tion of that which is for ever lost, it is a rehef to quit the 
 unknown for the known, — to leave the fancied picture of 
 Polygnotus and turn to the actual vas^-painting, though by 
 an inferior hand and of later date. In it we may expect to 
 see, not indeed actual copies of the motives of particular 
 Lesche groups, though that is possible, but some faint 
 image, some reflection, or perhaps — fof time's atmosphere is' 
 dense — some refraction of the mighty painter's thought. 
 
 In Plate 33 we have a design from a vase now ia the 
 museum at Carlsruhe. In the centre is the palace of 
 Hades, a splendid building, rich with costly decoration. 
 Within we see Pluton himself, with hid sceptre in his hand ; 
 to the left of him Persephone, also holding a sceptre, and 
 seated on a richly ornamented chair. By her side stands 
 an Erinys, bearing two flaming torches ; she is youthful, 
 and wears the conventional dress of the Erinys — ia late art 
 that of a maiden huntress, — buskins on her feet, and a wild 
 beast's skin girt about her. Lower ^own on the picture, 
 and considerably to the left, are two more Erinues in similar 
 garb ; the standing one is winged and bears a twisted 
 snake on her left arm ; her companion, who has a snake, is 
 seated on a wild beast's skin. Both are in graceful atti- 
 tudes of careless repose ; for a while they cease to discharge 
 
en 
 
 Ph 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 135 
 
 their dread functions, and why ? The familiar words return 
 to us — 
 
 " qnin ipsae stupuere domus, atque intima leti 
 
 Tartara, caeruleosque implexae crinibus angues 
 
 Eumenides ;" 
 
 and turning again to our picture, we see why upon the 
 
 " high halls of Dis '' has fallen this calm unwonted, — 
 
 " Neoiion Tlireicius longa cum veste sacerdos 
 Obloquitur mimeris septem discrirdina vocum, 
 Jamque eadem digitis iam pectine "pulsat eburno." 
 
 Surely some such figure must have met the Roman 
 poet's eyes. Here we have the long Thracian priestly 
 garment, while in the picture of Polygnotus Pausanias 
 observed with surprise the mystic bard in simple Hellenic 
 dress. 
 
 To the right of the picture is another listening group. 
 Midway between a youth and a maiden stands a woman- 
 figure holding an empty jar ; perhaps, though for the storeage 
 of his Formian wine Horace used most likely a rude un- 
 painted Lsestrygonian amphora, he may have seen a vase 
 from Hellas on which some such design was depicted, for 
 
 he tells us — 
 
 " stetit urna paulum 
 Sicca duni grato Danai puellas 
 Carmine mulces." 
 
 Who the youth and the maiden are is uncertain ; they seem 
 to be happy souls, like TeUis and Cleobeia, unpunished in 
 the world below. 
 
 Descending to the lower plane, we see to the left the 
 figure of Sisyphus, already twice familiar. For the centre 
 group, the youth with the club straining to hold the three- 
 headed Cerberus, we turn back to Homer, and hear Odysseus 
 
136 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 tell of the " phantom of mighty Heracles." " About him 
 was there a clamour of the dead, as- it were fowls flying 
 every way in fear, and he, like black Night, with bow un- 
 cased, and shaft upon the string, fiercely glancing around, 
 like one in act to shoot. And about his breast was an 
 awful belt, a baldric of gold, whereon wondrous things were 
 wrought — bears and wild boars, and Hons with flashing 
 eyes, and strife and battles, and slaughters and manslayings. 
 Nay, after fashioning this, never another may he fashion, 
 whoso stored in his craft the device of this belt." ^ ISTo 
 Hellenic artist of Homer's days, we are now sure, could 
 have fashioned this wondrous belt. Homer must have 
 seen, and, with a poet's fancy, grouped, the splendid and 
 delicate handiwork of some Phoenician craftsmen.^ On 
 our vase-painting all this magnificence^ of dress and circum- 
 stance is wanting. We see Herakles, not arrayed as a 
 triiimphant conqueror, who " hath to wife Hebe of the 
 fair ankles," and sits for ever at the " banquet of the death- 
 less gods," but still militant, toiling at the hardest of his 
 labours. He tells his story to Odysseus. 
 
 " Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many 
 devices. Ah, wretched one, dost thou too lead such a hfe 
 of evil doom as I bore beneath the rays of the sun ? I was 
 the son of Zeus Cronion, yet I had trouble beyond measure, 
 for I was subdued unto a man far worse than I. And he 
 enjoined on me hard adventures ; yea, and on a time he 
 sent me hither to bring back the hound of hell ; for he 
 devised no harder task for me than this. I lifted the hound 
 
 1 Od. xi. 604. 
 2 Mr. C. T. Newton's, Essays cm. Arclimology,'-g. 272 ; and Dr. Selilie- 
 mann's Discoveries at MyccTuc. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 137 
 
 and brought him forth from out of the house of Hades ; 
 and Hermes sped me on my way, and the gray-eyed 
 Athene." i 
 
 In our picture Hermes, unmistakeable from his cadu- 
 ceus, speeds the hero on his way ; aiid we should like to 
 think that to the right the woman who lights the dark path- 
 way with her torch is the " gray - eyed Athene ; " but the 
 dress and attributes forbid us, and we are left to suppose 
 she is the dreadful Hecate who performs for once this 
 friendly office. Behind her stands a female figure, of un- 
 certain significance, possibly Alkmene.^ 
 
 Far less easy of determination are the figures grouped 
 on either side in the topmost plane — a matron and two very 
 young boys to the left, two youths on the right. The 
 intent of these gToups would be wholly obscure but for our 
 knowledge of two other vases of very similar design ; one of 
 these fortunately has its figures inscribed. From a com- 
 parison of these we learn with certainty that the matron 
 seated to the left is Megara, the wife of Herakles, with her 
 two sons ; and the group to the right represents Orestes 
 and Pylades ; possibly their presence indicates the venge- 
 ance that follows upon crime. The existence of these three 
 similar vases, of which unhappily we are only able to offer 
 one, makes it almost certain that they are copies from 
 some great original, now lost, by some master other than 
 Polygnotus. 
 
 Viewing the design figured in Plate 33 as a whole, it 
 affords us an excellent specimen of the characteristics of 
 late though still very fine ceramography. We see with regret 
 that art, while it has attained freedom and dexterity, has 
 
 1 Od. xi. 617. 
 
138 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 lost its early severe beauty. The field is overcrowded ; there 
 is a striving after pictorial effect which is out of harmony 
 with the tectonic conditions and limits of the vase surface. 
 The heaping together of successive scenes, raised tier above 
 tier, is an attempt at the perspective of distance; but it 
 leaves the eye weary with a crowded impression very 
 different from the restful effect of the early, simple grouping. 
 The general treatment, too, of the draperies and accessories 
 is over luxuriant. Witness the almost sensational splendour 
 of the winged Erinys,-' and the gorgeous attire of the 
 Thracian bard. It is curious to note how Greek artists 
 at first patiently evolved for themselves out of Phcenician 
 complexity a simplicity truly Hellenic, and then, when 
 perfection was attained, rapidly reverted to a complexity 
 which became at last almost barbaric. At present that sad 
 period of decadence still seems far away. The figures of 
 Sisyphus, of Hermes, most of all of Herakles, while showing 
 complete mastery of outline, are full of strength ; and 
 Cerberus shows us that a three-headed dog need be no 
 monster. 
 
 Turning from the manner to the matter of our picture, 
 it is evident, I think, that here, far more than in the 
 Polygnotus picture, the presence and functions of Orpheus 
 are emphasised. There he was depicted simply playing 
 on his lyre " upon a certain hill," ^ with musicians grouped 
 
 ■' These Eriuys figures seem to have come much into fashion on vase- 
 paintings, possibly in consequence of the scenic effects in the Eumenides of 
 iEschylus. Later, we know from Demosthenes that Hades was peopled, 
 modern fashion, with a whole crew of impersonated horrors :—'■' ^t^S" &v S' ol 
 ^cjypd^ot rods affe^eh h "AiSov yp6.<pov(Ti fiera toOtuv- fi-ir' 'Apas Kal BXa(r^i;/i/as 
 Kal i^Bivov Kal Srdo-ews icai Nckous Trepi4pxeTai."~'Vo>it. Arist. i. p. 489 (786). 
 
 ^ " lirl \6ipov Ttvo! " — a hill probably indicated |jy the conventional dotted 
 lines, such as occur in our vase-picture. 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 1 39 
 
 around listening, as they might on earth ; here he 
 chains the attention of Pluto and Persephone, the dread 
 gods of Hades, and the Erinues cease their work to listen. 
 Heraldes is present, perhaps, as a sort of heroic counterpart 
 to Orpheus, — what the musician availed to do by his music 
 the hero achieved by pure strength ; but in tracing analogies 
 in vase-painting we tread on slippery ground. Orpheus 
 would still more certainly be the central figure of the 
 design, could we determine more clearly that the uppermost 
 groups have relation to Orphic mysteries and initiation ; but 
 here we must be content for the present to doubt. 
 
 Turning to Plate 34, we have another vase-painting 
 the Orphic significance of which is unmistakeable. The design 
 is from a large krater now in the British Museum, of pre- 
 sumably about the same date as our last picture {i.e.. some- 
 where in the fourth or early part of the third century B.C.) 
 Here we have no palace of Persephone ;: we are sure, however, 
 that we are in the under world, for we see Cerberus ; also 
 we notice a tall slender tree, which rears its crown of leaves 
 to the upper world, where are grouped in graceful conclave 
 Pan and Hermes, Aphrodite and Eros ; and we remember that 
 in the picture of Polygnotus Orpheus leant against a tree. 
 Possibly this is a reminiscence, or it may be taken 
 direct from Homer, who tells, as we know, of the " groves of 
 Persephone, even tall poplar trees and wiUows, that shed 
 their fruit before the season." ^ Close to this tree is Orpheus ; 
 in the one hand he holds his lyre, which he reaches out to 
 an approaching boy, with the other he restrains Cerberus, 
 who is about to fall on the new-comer. Orpheus, we 
 
 fiaKpal T aiyeipoL Kal IriaL ib^calKapTroi." — Od. X. 509. 
 
140 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 remember, had power by his music to sway the hound of 
 hell-i And who, we ask, is the youth who approaches, led 
 by an older man ? Surely a boy whoj^ early instructed by 
 his father in the mysteries of the holy religion of Orpheus, 
 is initiated in the world above, and, djing, is welcomed by 
 the author of his faith to the world below. The lyre 
 is offered no doubt with reference to some ritual detail of 
 initiation now lost to us, but this gesture seems the intelli- 
 gible and natural symbol of union and complete fruition. 
 The female figure to the right of Orpheus some have thought 
 to be the pious mother of the boy, gone home before him ; 
 more likely it is Eurydike, though her presence here has no 
 special significance. 
 
 We might multiply examples, but these two vase- 
 paintings, out of a multitude which represent scenes from 
 the lower world, will serve our purpose., namely, to see how, 
 as time went on, the simple epic conception of Hades 
 became transformed by complex religious associations, by 
 the influence of creeds and doctrines, to the mysteries of 
 which we no longer hold the clue. Our latest art monu- 
 ment, the Esquihne landscape in Autotype YI., we placed first, 
 partly because it dealt with the opening scene of our myth, 
 but chiefly because it was in spirit the most simple and 
 Homeric. A thing so lovely in itself as this landscape 
 we may not call irreligious, but it is certainly wow-religious, 
 the work of a man who either has no creed, or is not con- 
 cerned artistically to enforce it. 
 
 In this Greek Hades we have, us we see, traces of 
 
 ^ " Cessat imnianis tibi blandienti 
 Janitoi' auliE 
 Cerberus." HOKAT. Oarm. iii. 11, 14. 
 

 
 
 
 •■-^x• 
 
 fx--\« ,,^ 
 
 
 CO 
 
& 
 
 MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 141 
 
 growing doctrinal mysticism ; we have also the downright 
 expression of righteous retribution which overtakes the 
 grievous criminal ; but still in the main the under world 
 atmosphere is serene, even cheerful. We must turn now to 
 Italy, and visit the ghosts of another, a more gloomy land, 
 grim Etruria. 
 
 However much Etrurian conceptions were modified by 
 the influence of the traditions of pure Greek art, there still 
 remains about them for the most part a touch of the 
 grotesque, the horrible. We constantly miss that Hellenic 
 euphemism, that quick instinct for beauty and limit, which 
 prompts the true Greek artist to conceal deformity and 
 soften terror. 
 
 The pictures before us (in Plates 35 and 36) are from 
 the second chamber of the Tomba dell Oreo at Corneto. Of 
 the three chambers into which the tomb is divided, one, the 
 second, is entirely decorated with scenes from the under 
 world. Space forbids us to give the whole, but our two 
 examples are chosen as specially characteristic of Etrurian 
 thought. Let us turn to Plate 35. To the right we have 
 the Theban seer again inscribed, much' the same as in the 
 Etruscan mirror (see Plate 29), with very mysterious letters. 
 He leans upon a staff, something of anxious weakness in 
 his posture. He wears the long prophetic veU ; his eyes are 
 closed ; his head droops slightly, with the same expression of 
 dreamy blindness we noted in the mirror. In fact in the 
 whole figure the pathos of blindness is very forcibly ex- 
 pressed. The beard and hair are luxuriant and curl softly. 
 The colouring of the drapery is somewhat duU and austere. 
 
 In contrast to this venerable seer of sad and feeble 
 aspect comes a figure on whom, even though inadequately 
 
142 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 painted by an Etrnscan artist, we may pot look without the 
 keenest emotion, — Memnon, "goodly Memnon" the most 
 beautiful man of all the ancient world.^ He is inscribed 
 MEMEXJN, and he is here represented in the full glory of 
 manhood ; long curling hair falls upon his shoulders and 
 circles his forehead. Once already we have met him in the 
 Hades of Polygnotos. Why he now stands so near to 
 Teiresias we cannot tell. Probably the juxtaposition is 
 merely accidental. Both at this moment are in strange 
 company. On either side of Teiresias are reed-like, branching 
 trees ; on the tree to the left strange pigmy black figures are 
 climbing and clinging in every manner of grotesque, jocund 
 attitude ; one swings suspended by his: hand, one swarms a 
 branch, one stands balancing himself. Who are these 
 strange black pigmies ? we may well ask, and no certain 
 answer can be given. Some have thought they are tiny 
 Ethiopians, present, like the two negro boys in the Lesche 
 picture, more clearly to identify Memnon. This seems im- 
 probable. Others recall the mighty elm iEneas saw in 
 Hades, thronged with the clustering phantoms of vain 
 dreams — 
 
 " In medio ramos, annosaque brachia pandit 
 Ulmus opaca, ingens ; quam sedem'Somnia vulgo 
 Vana tenere ferunt, foliisqrie sub omnibus lucrent." 
 
 ViRG. ^lin. vi. 282-284. 
 
 Perhaps the most probable solution is that the pigmies 
 are tiny souls. We know that it was the custom of Greek 
 art to represent the soul as a tiny winged figure fluttering 
 above the 'body it had left. Still we wonder to see these 
 
 ^ Achilles says of Emyiiylus — 
 
 " Keimv Stj KaKKi,<7TQv Uov nfrh M^fxnona Slav." — Od. xi. 522. 
 

 ^' 
 
 n 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 143 
 
 souls, if such they be, disporting themselves after the fashion 
 of imps and gnomes. But such unseemly pranks accord not 
 ill with tlie grim humour of Etrurian. 
 
 Humour, liowever grim, deserts us in our second 
 Etruscan wall-picture. Turning to Plate 36, we find horror 
 unrelieved by any lighter touch. Here we have an infernal 
 demon of truly Etruscan pattern — a frightful shape, with 
 open mouth to show his grinning teeth. He has great 
 wings, and strides on holding in both his hands a large 
 hammer. He looks like one of the " workmen " (faber) who, 
 Plutarch tells us,^ torture with their tools the Souls of the 
 covetous below. The flesh of this demon is of greenish hue ; 
 his nose is hooked like an eagle's beak, about his shoulders 
 are serpents, and the fierce monster is made more beast-like 
 by his satyr's ear. All these dreadful details are drawn 
 with considerable force and delicacy, as if the subject were 
 much to the artist's liking. The limbs are full and round, 
 the muscles peculiarly weU emphasised. We ask at once 
 who the demon is. The inscription helps us but little, 
 though it confirms what is undoubtedly the right solution. 
 One letter only remains, the archaic equivalent of the letter 
 X. When we read of the green flesh, the grinning teeth, at 
 once we remember the Delphic demon Eurynomos, and our 
 thoughts are carried still further back to the fabled shield 
 of Herakles, on which Hesiod teUs us ^ the " Keres " were 
 
 1 Plutarcli de sera num vindict. cap. 22. 
 
 ^ Kijpes KvdvfaL, AewKoi'/s apa^evaat dSivTas, 
 SetvoiTol ^Xoffvpoi re da(poii'oi r dirXT/xof re 
 dTJpiy ^X^^ TTEpi irnnbvTOJv, ■wa(Tai 5' Up 'Uvto 
 alp-a iii\a,v TrihiV Sv S^ irpCiTOV //.efj-diroiev 
 Ksifjievov ^ TriirTOVTa veovTaroc dfj.<pt p.^v avTip 
 /SdAX' Smxas /j-eyaXovs. — Hbsiod, Scut., 249-254. 
 
144 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 graven, demons worthy to be the ancestors of Eurjuomos; they 
 too were of blue-black colour, with mighty claws, and they 
 ground their white teeth, waiting to drink the black blood 
 of the slain. One of these same monsters was sculptured, 
 Eausanias tells us,^ on the chest of Cypselos. 
 
 Archaic art seems to have dealt somewhat freely in 
 these terrible impersonations, but later Hellenic art with its 
 euphemistic tendencies kept such horrors in the background; 
 though still we have fantastic furies such as we have noted 
 on our vase-painting (Plate 33). But in Etruria, the 
 proper home of grotesque terror, all such creations found an 
 appropriate dwelling-place. Even the harmless waterman 
 Charon, who at worst in Hellas is somewhat churlish and 
 uncouth, is in Etruria transformed into= a minister of torture 
 to the damned, the very monster before us. How the 
 transformation was effected it is not feasy to trace, but we 
 have already noted that Charon has met with a similar fate 
 in modern Hellas. Perhaps it was only for a few happy 
 centuries, when beauty reigned supreme, that even the 
 Greeks could resist the strong doctrinal impulse which 
 besets mankind to people hell with horrors. 
 
 Eor such horrors Etruria shall suffice. Time forbids 
 us to descend with .lEneas down the easy steep of Avernus, 
 nor may we question the tortured ghosts that dwell in 
 Dante's Inferno, nor yet the devils that plot and plan in 
 the Pandemonium of Milton. It is l-ash to tarry so long 
 in Hades, lest the dim uncertain twilight baffle and daze us, 
 
 ^ rCiv 5^ Oldiirodo^ TrafSwi' IJoKvveiKei ircTnwKbrt is yhvv ^ttehtlv 'Ereo/cXjJs. 
 TQu ^oKwcIkov^ S^ &TrL(xQ€v 'iuTT}Kev 6hhyTa^ re ^x^^<^'^ ovdh i]fj.€p(xJTipovs dTjpiov, 
 Kal oi Kal T&v Xfipuj^ duiv iiri.Kafi.TrcU o£ &iix" iirlypaixixa Sk itr airy eXval 
 (paiTi Kfipa. — Paus. v. 17. 
 
PI. 36, 
 
MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 145 
 
 and we behold no longer clearly the light of the upper 
 
 world. Let us remember the caution of the simple-hearted 
 
 Odysseus : " And pale fear gat hold of me lest the high 
 
 goddess Persephone should send me the head of the Gorgon, 
 
 that dread monster from out of Hades." 
 
 The light of the upper world streams in again as we 
 
 read, " Straightway then I went to the ship, and bade 
 
 my men mount the vessel and loose the hawsers. So 
 
 speedily they went on board, and sat upon the benches, 
 
 and the wave of the flood bore the bark down the stream 
 
 of Oceanus, we rowing first, and afterwards the fair wind 
 
 was our convoy." ^ 
 
 1 Od. xi. 635. 
 
146 MYTHS OF THE 0-DYSSEY. 
 
 V 
 THE MYTH OF THE SIEENS 
 
 ' ' Vobis Aoheloides unde 
 Pluma pedesque avium cum viigiiiis ora geratis ? " 
 
 We do not propose to content ourselves with Ovid's answer, 
 but his question strikes the key-note to our investigations. 
 It is well that we should bear this in mind from the out- 
 set, for, in the juxtaposition of literary and artistic monu- 
 ments of the Sirens, we have to prepare ourselves for a 
 distinct sesthetic shock. Homer leaves us somehow with a 
 vision of sea maidens whose form we fancy must be fair 
 because their song is sweet. Yet the design on our first 
 Siren vase (in Plate 37) is more quaint than beautifid. 
 We turn, perhaps with something akin to disgust, from 
 these hybrid bird -woman creatures with heavy wings and 
 awkward flight, and ask almost indigiiantly. Why care to 
 investigate an art whose sole purport seems to be degrada- 
 tion ? But a closer inquiry, here as el'sewhere, will modify 
 our views ; we shall learn to see that our conception even 
 of Homer's Sirens loses nothing, and by antithesis gains 
 much ; we shall feel that these quaint forms which at first 
 so vex our imagination have a strange beauty, a deep moral 
 and religious significance of their own, which the conditions 
 of Homer's art and time alike forbade. 
 
 Let us examine the Homeric story, and briefly call to 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 147 
 
 mind how first tlie warning against the song of the Sirens 
 fell on the ears of Odysseus. At a moment surely 
 strange and fateful enough : by the might of Circe he has 
 fared back in safety from his descent to Hades; the banquet 
 ended, she takes him by the hand and leads him apart, away 
 from his dear comrades ; he tells her air his tale, and then, as 
 she lies at his feet for the last time, as the sun sinks and 
 the darkness falls, in the mystery of night, she warns him of 
 the dread perils to come, and first of the Sirens. 
 
 " Then at last the lady Circe spoke unto me, saying, To 
 the Sirens first shalt thou come, who bewitch all men ; who- 
 soever shall come to them, whoso draws nigh them unwit- 
 tingly and hears the sound of the Sirens' voice, never doth he 
 see wife or babes stand by him on his return, nor have they 
 joy at his coming ; but the Sirens enchant him with their 
 clear song (sitting in the meadow), and all about is a 
 great heap of bones of men, corrupt in death, and round 
 the bones the skin is wasting. But do thou drive thy ship 
 past, and knead honey-sweet wax, and anoint therewith the 
 ears of thy company, lest any of the rest hear the song; 
 but if thou thyself art minded to hear, let them bind thee 
 in the swift ship, hand and foot, upright in the mast-stead, 
 and from the mast let rope-ends be tied, that with delight 
 thou mayest hear the voice of the Sirens. And if thou 
 shalt beseech thy company and bid them to loose thee, then 
 let them bind thee with yet more bonds." ^ 
 
 So much for the warning. When the dark-prowed ship 
 is -fairly on its way, Odysseus, with a heavy heart, tells 
 his companions of the oracles of Circe, that they may the 
 better escape from the coming peril, 
 i Od. xii. 40-54. 
 
148 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 " First she bade us avoid the sound of the voice of the 
 wondrous Sirens and their iield of flowers, and me only she 
 bade listen to their voices. So bind ye me in a hard bond, 
 that I may abide unmoved in my place, upright in the 
 mast-stead, and from the mast let rope-ends be tied ; and if 
 I beseech and bid you to set me free,: then do ye straiten 
 me with yet more bonds. 
 
 " Thus I rehearsed these things, one and all, and declared 
 them to my company. Meanwhile our good ship quickly 
 came to the island of the Sirens twain, for a gentle breeze 
 sped her on her way. Then straightway the wind ceased, 
 and lo ! there was a windless calm, and some god lulled the 
 waves. Then my company rose up and drew in the ship's 
 sails, and stowed them in the hold of the ship, while they 
 sat at the oars and whitened the wate? with their polished 
 ashen blades. But I with my sharp Sword cleft in pieces 
 a great circle of wax, and with my strong hands kneaded it. 
 And soon the wax grew warm, for that my great might con- 
 strained it, and the beam of the lord Helios, son of Hyperion. 
 And I anointed therewith the ears of all my men in 
 their order ; and in the ship they bound me, hand and foot, 
 upright in the mast- stead, and from the mast they fastened 
 rope-ends, and themselves sat down and smote the gray sea- 
 water with their oars. But when the slrip was within the 
 sound of a man's shout from the land, we fleeing swiftly 
 on our way, the Sirens espied the swift ship speeding 
 toward them, and they raised their clea"r -toned song : 
 
 " Hither, come hither, renowned Odysseus, great glory of 
 the Achaeans ; here stay thy bark, that thou mayst listen to 
 the voice of us twain. For none hath ever driven by this 
 way in his black ship till he hath heard from our lips the 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 149 
 
 voice, sweet as the honeycomb, and hath had joy thereof, 
 and gone on his way the wiser. For lo, we know all 
 things, all the travail that in wide Troy-land the Argives and 
 Trojans bare by the gods' designs; yea, we know aU that 
 shall hereafter be upon the fruitful earth. 
 
 " So spake they, uttering a sweet voice, and my heart 
 was fain to listen, and I bade my company unbind me, 
 nodding at them with bent brows, but they leant forward 
 and rowed on. Then straight uprose Perimedee and Eury- 
 lochus and bound me with more cords, and straitened me 
 yet the more. ISTow when we had driven past them, nor 
 heard we any longer the sound of the Sirens and their song, 
 forthwith my dear company took away the wax wherewith 
 I had anointed their ears, and loosed me from my bonds." ^ 
 
 No word as to the form of these mysterious Sirens, no 
 hint of their parentage ; without father, without mother — a 
 voice and nothing more : 
 
 ..." Their -words are no more known aright, 
 Through lapse of many ages, and no man 
 Can any more across the waters wan 
 Behold these singing women of the sea." 
 
 Had Homer let us espy them for a moment, as they 
 espied Odysseus, we might have had knowledge for wonder, 
 but he left them to us, all the more haunting, the more 
 beguiling, because shrouded in mystery, the mystery of the 
 hidden things of the sea, with the haze of the noontide 
 about them, and the meshes of sweet music for their unseen 
 toils, — knowing all things, yet themselves for ever unknown. 
 Nor is the manner of the death of their victims more clearly 
 told. If, smitten with fell desire for knowledge, they 
 1 Od. xii. 153-200. 
 
150 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 hearken to the forbidden song, they must die, — as, in the 
 Semitic saga, they perish who taste of the forbidden fruit of 
 the tree of knowledge ; as, in the Eg'Jptian story, destruc- 
 tion falls on him who wins for himself the Book of Thoth, 
 wherein is all wisdom, — die not at once, but by a slow 
 wasting ; life is sapped away as with some dire disease ; 
 the hapless seafarer is cut off henceforth from all simple, 
 human, wholesome joys of wife and babe, and consumed by a 
 barren desire. Still, except for Circe's warning, the "heap 
 of bones corrupt in death," horror is kept in the background, 
 seduction only to the fore. We think of the Sirens as 
 fair, baneful maidens, or possibly, influenced by modern art, 
 as of mermaid shape, certainly not as hybrid monsters, half 
 bird, half woman. The plastic art of Homer's days has, so 
 far as we know, left us no Siren image whereby to frame 
 our conception,! 
 
 A long leap in time, a longer interval of thought, brings 
 us to our first art presentation, figured in Plate 37, the 
 design on the obverse of an amphora now in the British 
 Museum. Odysseus is tied to the mast of his ship, which 
 passes between two rocks, on either of which is perched a 
 Siren ; a third Siren flies downwards,, possibly with intent 
 to seize one of the crew, or in despair at the failure of her 
 song. The Sirens are represented with* the bodies of birds 
 and large claws, female heads with lon-g hair confined by a 
 
 ' Most in harmony with the conception we naturally frame of Homer's 
 Sirens is the representation figured in Plate 46, belonging to a late period of 
 art, when imitation of literary description was conscious and deliberate. The 
 plate will be described later. Eustathius says quaintly, commenting on the 
 Homeric Sirens, " oBtoi SJ koI irrejOMTas o.vra% Tr'XdrTovai.p oi /i-qv oOru /cal 6 
 TToiiiTTjs — tJ -yi.p $,v 4dlu^av rbv 'OSvffa^a irapeXdcrarTa ■!rpoaireT6fievai., d ye 
 
CO 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 151 
 
 sphendone ; the hair falls in a curious formal tress in front 
 of the ear. Over the left-hand Siren her name is written, 
 HIMEPOrA, " lovely voiced," Odysseus himself is naked ; 
 his hands are boimd to the mast ; he looks up toward the 
 Sirens as if attracted ; his beard is pointed ; he wears a 
 wreath, not the seaman's cap which is his characteristic in 
 later times ; in front of him is inscribed OAT^ET^. The 
 crew are all bearded ; two of the rowers and the steersman 
 wear wreaths, the other two diadems. The heads of only 
 four rowers appear, but on the side of the ship are seven 
 rowlocks and six oars ; the mast has a sail attached — it ia 
 reefed up ; and to the yard are fastened many ropes. The 
 prow is decorated with a large eye. The steersman seated 
 in the stern gives the word of command with his right 
 hand ; he is naked to the waist ; from the aphlaston hangs 
 an embroidered, fringed drapery. The design is in dull red 
 on a black ground, accessories in brown and crimson ; the 
 style of work stiff and early. On tlie reverse are figured 
 three youthful loves floating over the land ; later on we 
 shall note the love aspect of the Sirens. 
 
 The artist has clearly had in his mind, in the obverse 
 design, the Odyssey story, but there^ are discrepancies in 
 detail ; the reefed sail,'- the eager exertion of the rowers,^ 
 are true to Homer; Odysseus is rightly bound straight 
 upright to the mast.^ On the other hand. Homer speaks 
 of his Sirens in the dual : * here they are three. In Homer 
 
 ' " hrria /J.iipv<rayTO." — Od. xii. 170. 
 
 ^ " airrol 3' i^ofiefot ttoAitji' &\a ri-KTOv iperfioTs." — xii. 180. 
 
 3 " ipebv ip icrTOiriSri."—xn. 179. 
 
 4 " Nijo-ov "S.eip-qmav." — xii. 167. Dual Sirens appear on a lekythos 
 figured in Stackelberg's G-rdher der Uellenen, but the number is probably- 
 accidental. 
 
152 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 they dwell in a meadow : ^ here we have steep bare rocks ; 
 possibly, however, the representation of the meadow may 
 have been avoided as too pictorial. Homer makes the 
 Sirens, when their song has once fairly failed to attract, let 
 the ship go by in peace : here a Siren seems to swoop 
 down with warlike intent, aggressive, not merely seduc- 
 tive.^ The eye in the prow is possibly prophylactic, of 
 Egyptian origin. Similar designs occur frequently on 
 vases ; probably, in the case of a ship,„ there is the special 
 symbolism of foresight for the journey.^ The kredemnon, 
 i.e.. the sacred fringed drapery, is foreign to the Odyssey story. 
 The Scholiast on ApolL Ehod. i. 907, says that Odysseus 
 was initiated into the Samothracian mysteries, and this 
 kredemnon may possibly have been meant to have some 
 sacred significance. 
 
 ^ ""H^ctei'ai kv \€Liiu3Vi.*^ — sii. 45. 
 
 ^ Since writing the above my attention lias been drawn (by Mr. Cecil 
 Smith of the British Museum) to the peculiar depiction of the eye of this 
 third Siren. Two strokes form the outline ; the pupil is wholly absent. The 
 effect is that of a closed or blind eye. On anothei- vase in the Museum the 
 sightless eyes of Phineus are drawn in exactly the same manner. Tradition 
 after Homer fabled that when the ArgoTiauts had passed in safety, the Sirens, 
 in despair, threw themselves into the sea, and were transformed into rocks. It 
 seems probable that the artist had this account in -his mind, and by a curious 
 prolepsis has anticipated for one tempter this future fate. Two moments are, 
 according to this theory, combined in one, the teihptation proffered, and the 
 subsequent self-destruction of the tempters. It has not escaped former com- 
 mentators that the whole gesture of the third Siren was rather of despair than 
 attack ; but the additional and, I think, conclusive evidence of the closed eye 
 has never, I believe, been pointed out. If this explanation be correct, our 
 three vase Sirens are of course reduced in the most satisfactory way to the 
 Homeric two. 
 
 ^ Cp. " Kol Tvp(f>pa irpiadev ip.ij.a'n PKiwovu' bSiv." — .SsCH. Ik. 716. 
 
 Or again — 
 
 " 6(jTi^ (pvXdffcrcL TTpdyoi iv 7rpOp.vt} iriXews 
 oiaxa v<i!p,Gsv, pM(papa pii) Koi/idv uTrcijj. " — .3isoH. Theb. 3. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 153 
 
 We note, as regards the bare rocks on wtiich the Sirens 
 perch, that the vase-painting is in accord with later tradition. 
 Virgil speaks 'of the "rocks of the Sirens, cruel in bygone 
 days, and white with the bones of many." ^ Our vase gives 
 no indication of "the bones of many," but if we turn to 
 Plate 38, we shall find this ghastly detail faithfully por- 
 trayed. The design is from a Pompeian wall-painting, 
 executed some three hundred years after our vase, and 
 now in the British Museum. The colours are dim in 
 the original, but we can make out steep cliffs rising 
 to either side, and an almost phantom ship that glides 
 between. Usually in Pompeian painting we find the poet's 
 story faithfully depicted in all miautise, but here, as on our 
 vase, the Sirens are three, not two, as in Homer. Early 
 tradition seems to have fixed this number three too firmly 
 in the popular mind for the fresco-painter to dare its con- 
 tradiction. The Sirens are represented as gaunt giant-birds, 
 with human face; here, again, the painter chooses the 
 accepted conventional form, though in art so late we might 
 have expected a more euphemistic depiction, — fair maiden 
 tempters, such as we shall later meet on an Etruscan sarco- 
 phagus. The topmost Siren on the right hand plays a 
 double flute, the one to the left a lyre, the third Siren, 
 on a lower cliff, has no instrument ; no doubt she sings, 
 apcompanied by the other two; about her are strewn the 
 bleached bones and skuUs. The boat of Odysseus is a 
 richly ornamented Roman galley; he himself is bound 
 high up on the mast above the heads of his comrades. 
 We are irresistibly reminded that, sorae two or three cen- 
 
 1 ' ' Jamque adeo scopulos Sirenum advecta subibat 
 
 Difficiles quondam multorumque ossibus albos." — Vieg. ^En. v. 864. 
 
154 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 turies after the date of our picture, 'Odysseus became, in 
 the hands of Christian artists, the symbol of a crucified 
 Christ, who was uplifted that he might draw aU men to 
 him. It is difficult to judge of the colour effects of the 
 picture, so marred is it by the lapse of time ; but as we see 
 it now, the dull blue water, the dim galley, the white-patched 
 rocks, streaked and splashed with red, are grim and ghastly, 
 and the bird-woman tempters seem rather terrible than al- 
 luring. 
 
 Leaving the Sirens of Homer, we come to a later version 
 of the same myth. The story of the passage of the Argonauts 
 told by Apollonius Ehodius, though plainly an imitation of 
 Homer, is marked by many significant differences in concep- 
 tion. The Sirens still dwell in their "flowery island," which 
 corresponds to the "meadow" of Homer; but they no longer 
 come to us unfathered, out of the unknown past ; learning 
 and mythology have been at work to provide them with a 
 pedigree, and in literature, as well as art, with a conventional 
 shape. Possibly Apollonius Ehodius = himself may have 
 pondered over the vase, or a twin brother, that we have 
 considered in Plate 37; his poem would be written, roughly 
 speaking, about two hundred years after its execution. The 
 clear- voiced Sirens are now Acheloides, daughters of Achelous, 
 the great river god, and of the muse Terpsichore.^ He tells 
 us how of old they played with Persephone in the vale of 
 Enna, and from that time, when they lost their fair play- 
 
 ^etpijve^ fflvovT^ 'AxeXw/5es, T}S€i})(nv 
 6i\yov(Tai ixokir^aiv, Stis jrapa wairfia /3dXotTO. 
 rds /jih dp' ev€i5r}t ''AxeXwfy evvrjde'taa 
 ydvaTO Tep\pix^pri, Moi/tr^w;' fda.'' 
 
 Apoll. Rhod. iv, 889-894. 
 
PI. 38. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 155 
 
 mate, they were changed into monsters, part bird, part 
 woman.^ Possibly Apollonius Ehodiuswas perplexed by the 
 conflict between literary and artistic tradition. He may 
 have wished to copy Homer, but a thousand representa- 
 tions of bird-woman sirens would force" him to portray the 
 familiar figure. 
 
 "We have taken the Argonautic and Odyssean story 
 in close connection because of their obvious analogies ; we 
 must retrace the intervening ground, and watch the Sirens 
 fulfilling other and widely different functions ; reserving for 
 final consideration, and, we hope, partial solution, the prob- 
 lem, how this strange artistic form came to be the recognised 
 representation of the beguiling Siren, and also some fuller 
 investigation of the nature and origin bf the myth. 
 
 Next in order of date to the Odyssey story comes a 
 fragment of Erinna, an epitaph written for her girl friend 
 Baukis. Only the first line immediately concerns us, but 
 we may be pardoned if we forbear to mutilate verses so 
 graceful : — 
 
 " Pillars of death ! carved Sirens ! tearful urns ! 
 In whose sad keeping my poor dust is laid, 
 To him who near my tomb his footsteps turns, 
 Stranger or Greek, hid hail ! and say a maid 
 
 Bests in her tomb below ; her sire the name 
 Of Baukis gave ; her birth and lineage high : 
 
 And say her bosom friend Erinna came 
 And on this tomb engraved her elegy." ^ 
 
 1 " rire S' &\Xo p-h olupoio-iv, 
 aXXo 5^ Trap8cviKrjs haXlyKiai. HaKov lUadai..'' 
 
 Apoll. Rhod. Arg. iv. 896-897. 
 2 "ffTciXat, Kal Seip^^fs i/ial, Ktu w4vdtlJ.f Kpwcffi, 
 offTis ^x^'s 'AKa Tic SKlyav ffwoSiav, 
 
156 MYTHS OF THE OBYSSEY. 
 
 Here we have the Sirens addressed, together with the funeral 
 pillars and the funeral vase, possibly a cinerary urn. They 
 are bidden to tell the passer-by the story of her who lay below 
 the funeral mound. The conjunction seems a strange one, but 
 if we turn to Plate 39 we may indeed still wonder why the 
 muse of song and seduction, the "improba Siren," should be 
 chosen to discharge a duty so sombre, but the fact we may 
 no longer doubt. There she stands on the funeral stele with 
 the lyre in her hand, making sweet music, serious indeed, as 
 befits her station, but, as of old, beguiling — so beguiling that 
 two grave, bearded men, and, quainter still, two thoughtless 
 dogs, halt by her side, alike spellbound, to listen. The design 
 is from the obverse of a vase found at Melos, and now in 
 the British Museum. The style is archaic, stiff, but full of 
 strength and purpose. The eyes in all three profiles are full- 
 face ; from the three heads branch out; the curious tree-like 
 decorations frequent in early art. 
 
 This funeral aspect of the Sirens is a very frequent one 
 both in art and literature. Stone Sirens stood on the tomb 
 of the lovely Kleo, noted in an epigram by Mnasalcas ; ^ 
 over the grave of his beloved Hephsestion, Alexander the 
 Great raised hollow Siren-figures in which were hidden the 
 
 TOis inhv ipxof-ii'OKTl trap Tjptof eiTrare xo'pe"', 
 
 aifr' d(7Toi te\46o}i't\ at6' er^pas ffoXios' 
 X&TL fie viifKpav (Ba-av fx^ i Td0os, etirare Kal to ' 
 
 X&TL Trar^p p.' iicdXei BavdSa, x^ti y4i>os 
 Trifia, lis eIS&vti.' Kai Sti piol a avvsraipls 
 
 'Yi.pLvv' h ripfSip ypa/ip,' ix''-P<^^^ rdSe,'' 
 
 TraiislaUd by Elton. 
 ' Mnasalkas, Anih. Pal, vii. 491 :— 
 
 " a^ttt irapOevlas 6\o6fppovos, ds diro t^aidpdf 
 
 ^K\a(Ta^ aKiKiav, IpepSeffaa KXeoI" 
 
 KaBd^ (y ap.oi^a.p.tva.1 TrcpLdaKpvoi a'iS'~ iirl Tvp.^cp 
 
 \aei "Zeipijvuv ^arapes dddXipoi." 
 
CO 
 
 n-f 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 15V 
 
 musicians who were to make lamentation ; ^ Sirens watched 
 over the funeral mounds of Sophokles and Isokrates. The 
 Eomans preferred for the decoration of their sarcophagi, not 
 simple Siren -figures, but elaborate groupings embodying 
 some Siren myth. The Etruscans sculptured for funeral pur- 
 poses the Odyssey story only, and their Sirens take a purely 
 human form. 
 
 Strangely enough, about the streets of Athens there may 
 stm be heard songs which tell of three birds {rpla ■n-ovkaiua) 
 who chant a death-song from the under world. Sometimes 
 one only sings, and she has not indeed a human face, but a 
 human voice (Moi/ eXaXovae k eXeyev av6 panruvT] XaXtTcra),^ 
 another teUs how she has seen Charos (Charon) on his black 
 steed dragging his victims below, old men and youths and 
 children. Another more terrible still has blood-red claws 
 and death-black wings. If these terrible monsters be indeed 
 the descendants of our placid Sirens, modern Hellas must 
 have created for herself a new and more sensational Hades 
 whence they may fitly come. 
 
 Eeturning to our old-world Sirens, we note that their 
 funeral aspect is significant in many ways ; it links these 
 Sirens with the Muses who were wont to lament over dead 
 
 ' " iwl TTcia-c S^ itf>eiiTTriKeLiTav Zeipijpes SidKoiXoi. (cat SvvAix^vai XcXijSirws 
 Si^anSai. to6s if aurais Spras Kal ddovras iiriK-qSaov SpTJi/ov rtp TeTekevrriKliTi." — 
 DiOD. xvii. 115. 
 
 2 See the song " o TroTa/iS^ rSiv ye/cpwi'," and also the " tllj]ati.% anri rbv 
 'AiSijc," which begins as follows : — 
 
 " 'ifo, irovXaKL ^i^ymvev aTrb rhv k6,tw Kia/xo' 
 €lx^ ''"ct vvx'-^ KbKKipa Kal ra (prepd rod jxavpa 
 TCI vvxi dird tcl at^ara Kal ra 0Tfp' dir' rh xu/ia." 
 Translated by Passow, Neugriechische FolksUeder, p. 55 : — 
 
 " Es kam einst aus der Uuterwelt ein Togel hergeflogen, 
 Der hatte Klauen piirpurroth, schwart-z waren seine Fliigel, 
 An seinen Klauen haftet Blut das Grab an seinen Fliigel. " 
 
158 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 heroes/ and gives a new significance to their chthonic 
 parentage. The hapless Helen in her sorrow calls aloud, 
 " Alas, ye wing-bearing maidens, virgins, daughters of Earth, 
 ye Sirens, would that ye might come at my cry, holding the 
 Libyan reed or the syrinx ;" ^ and she prays that Persephone 
 may send them to weep with her in her sorrow. Here 
 their evil aspect is obscured, they are the austere ministrants 
 of the dread queen of Hades. 
 
 Most frequently in art they appear as actually part of 
 the funeral monument, but occasionally as detached figures, 
 mourners, or mere symbols of the sadness of the scene de- 
 picted. Such a scene is the vase-painting in Plate 40 ; 
 and here the Siren has a peculiar fitness, for the tale is of 
 love as well as death,^ the myth of Prokris and Kephalos. 
 Proki'is, distrustful of her husband's faith, follows him to the 
 hunting-ground, and dies by his unwitting hand. In the 
 centre of the scene she is depicted falling, pierced by the 
 spear of Kephalos. He stands to the left, and strikes his 
 forehead as in despair; on the right hand is Erechtheus, 
 
 ^ ** dX\(£ ol Trapd re irvpav rd^tov 6' 'EXt/cw^iat Tapdipoi 
 
 CTaii, iTl dpTjvoi/ re TtoXiKpa^ov ^x^aj/. "— PiND. Isth. vii. 57. 
 2 Euiiip. Ed. 167 :— 
 
 Trrepo^Spoi vedvtSes 
 Trapd^i'Ot, -fi^dovh^ KSpat 
 ^eLprjves, etd^ ip.6ls ydoLS 
 fiiXoLT ^X"""''" '"£»' AI/3uf 
 Xwrii' ■^ (Tiiptyyat, aftfcois KaKois 
 Tois ^pLoitTL avvox^ SdKpva 
 TrdBeffL Trd^ea, fiiXetrt fi^Xea 
 Ixovff€La re dp-qvi^p.affi ^Uf lyScte 
 ir^^^ei^ ^epaifpaaaa 
 ^ovta. " 
 ' The story, which formed the subject of a lost tragedy by Sophokles, is 
 given in full by Ovid, Met. vii. 687-758. 
 
o 
 
 (^ 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 159 
 
 father of Prokris. It is quite in the Greek manner to 
 collect for presentation the persons interested, even if not 
 actually present. Prokris wears the full douhle- sleeved 
 chiton, girt at the waist ; she has fallen on her knees, and 
 faintly tries to draw out the spear ; her head sinks on her 
 shoulder. Kephalos holds in a leash the dog Lailaps, the 
 gift given him by Prokris in the early trustful days, before 
 she learned to misdoubt his hunting. Just above the dying 
 Prokris hovers a bird with human head — a Siren, symbol of 
 love and mourning, here with no sinister intent. The 
 presence of this Siren would, to the Greek eye, at once 
 mark the funeral aspect of the scene. The vase is now in 
 the British Museum ; the design red on black, the execution 
 somewhat rough and clumsy. 
 
 Before we leave the Sirens in this their sombre and, it 
 may have seemed, incongruous aspect, we must add a word of 
 explanation. It is hard for us, with our Christian associations, 
 deepened to a gloomier austerity by Puritan training, to feel 
 with the Greeks about death and funeral ceremonies ; but 
 if we wish to understand them at all we must cultivate this 
 historical sympathy. When our dead go away, it is much 
 if we strew a few ilowers, if we forego our wonted hearse 
 
 ■' As such the human-headed bird is interpretred by Stephani, " Compte 
 Rendu," 1866. This iuterprelation I have adopted, after much deh'beration, 
 as seemingly most consonant with the spirit of Greek art. Two other 
 alternative explanations arc offered ; — 
 
 1st, The human-headed bird may represent the soul of Prokris escaping 
 from her body. This would be quite in the manner of Egyptian presenta- 
 tion (see Plate SOS, but I am not aware of any parallel instance in Greek art. 
 
 2d, It may be a personification of Nephele, the cloud to whom Kephalos 
 called to shelter him from the burning sun. This Nephele the foolish 
 Prokris in her jealousy mistook to be a nymph beloved by Kephalos. 
 The presence of Nephele personified would be most natural ; but here again 
 we lack a sufficient parallel in Greek art. 
 
160 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 and plumes ; we have no Aphrodite Epitymbia, goddess 
 of love and death ; but the Greeks figured her on their 
 funeral vases. Our funeral vaults are not circled round 
 with friezes of musicians and choral dancers, with Satyrs 
 and Bacchants ; but we learn from= the funeral monu- 
 ments that remain that these were to the Greeks seemly 
 decorations for a tomb.^ If we carve a marble mourner, 
 she droops in cheerless destitution ; but to the Greek 
 Siren, as she discharged her sacred office, it was not 
 forbidden to clash the cymbals, beat the tympanon, and 
 wave the thyrsos. The Greek mind, in its early freshness 
 at least, was little troubled by the dualism of this world 
 and the next. Greek youths and maidens made no 
 promise to renounce the wreath and wine cup, the mirror 
 and bead necklace, and so they bear them to the grave — to 
 the end a glory and a grace. No doubt this close connection of 
 Bacchus and Aphrodite with the dreadful gods of Hades had 
 a deep mystic significance, of which much is lost to us, only 
 the lighter aspect remaining. We must not condemn as 
 frivolity the outcome of a sacred joy, a, glad religious confi- 
 dence, — must not turn away offended when we see the Siren 
 standing as chief mourner by the tomb. 
 
 Indeed he would be a harsh critic who could condemn a 
 figure so gentle as the Siren mourner figured in the frontis- 
 piece. The design is from a small terra-cotta now in the 
 British Museum, about four inches in height, found with 
 
 1 The early Cluistians did not at once renounce their heritage of classic 
 grace and beauty. A sarcophagus from a Coemeterium, sacred to St. Agnes, 
 is adorned with a frieze representing Bacchus attended by Amores and genii 
 of the seasons. The centre figure has been thought to be Venus Libitina. 
 The inscription proves that the tomb is Christian; it runs;— " Aur. Agapetilla 
 ancilla dei quae dormit in pace," etc. 
 
PL 41. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE ISIRENS. 161 
 
 a funeral vase at Athens.^ Figures of mourning Sirens 
 occur more frequently in and about the tombs of Attica 
 than elsewhere. This terra cotta has- been gilt, and bears 
 traces of painting. The figure is winged and has a bird's 
 tail, so gracefully contrived, however, that it seems only 
 a sort of tectonic support to the kneeling human form. 
 The bird-wings are long and graceful ; the Siren has some- 
 thing of the aspect of a sorrowing angel. With her left 
 hand she tears her hair, and with her right she beats her 
 very fully modelled breast. The left foot is broken away, 
 but the riglit ankle ends in a delicate bird's claw. The 
 whole figure is finely executed, full of tenderness and 
 charm ; perhaps it is in part specially attractive because of 
 the skill and tact with which the bird element is preserved, 
 yet subordinated. 
 
 We have seen that Dionysiac subjects were considered 
 suitable for funeral representation ; we will therefore take 
 in close connection with her lamentatioh office the directly 
 and emphatically Dionysiac aspect of the Siren. Of this 
 Dionysiac aspect art has left us abundant illustration. 
 In Plate 41& we have a design from a gem in the 
 Townley collection. The Siren form is still that of a 
 bird-woman, but the human element is more emphasised 
 than in Plate 3 7, less than in the terra cotta. She holds in 
 her right hand a flaming torch, over her shoulder she 
 supports with her left an amphora. She seems about to 
 execute a sort of Dionysiac dance. The exact motive of 
 the design is hard to determine ; but its general Dionysiac 
 intent is, I think, clear. We know that at ISTeapolis a torch 
 
 ' For tlie drawing of this beautiful terra cotta which forms my frontispiece, 
 I am indebted to Mrs. Bellot. 
 
 M 
 
162 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 race was run in honour of the Siren Parthenope, and some 
 have seen in the jar on the Siren's shoulder the prize 
 amphora, and in the gesture of the figure an indication 
 of the contest ; but I believe the interpretation to be too 
 special, as the gem is not known to be from Neapolis. 
 Others think that the jar is a cinerary urn, and the torch 
 for kindling the pyre ; this is possible, but I beKeve the 
 true view accepts a mixed funereal and Dionysiac intent. 
 More clearly Dionysiac and less funereal is the design 
 in Plate 41a., from the neck of a lekythos formerly in the 
 Hamilton collection. The main decoration of the vase 
 consisted in a representation of the rape of a maiden by 
 a gigantic eagle ; the Siren is merely an accessory figure. 
 She is clumsily drawn, with the full heavy bird-body not 
 unfrequently found. In her right hand she holds a tsemia, 
 in her left a tympanon. In comparing the musical instru- 
 ments of the Sirens and the Muses, we note that the 
 tympanon and cymbal are peculiar to the Sirens ; they 
 probably denote a certain wild, ungoverned, though still 
 sacred revelry ; other instruments, lyre, flute, syrinx, they 
 share in common with the more ordered Muses. The Siren 
 in our present picture is further adorned with necklace and 
 head-dress. It would be rash to establish any positive con- 
 nection between this Siren figure on the neck of the vase 
 and the main subject, i.e., the abduction of the maiden; but 
 it is noticeable that we do find Sirens present, as we shall 
 again see, as the fit witnesses of scenes of love and revelry. 
 Most surely Dionysiac of aU is the Siren we figure in 
 Plate 41c, from a small Apulian lekythos in the British 
 Museum. The design is red and black, with accessories of 
 wliite. The Siren stands fuU face, aiid the face is so ugly 
 
M 
 ^ 
 
 ft 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 163 
 
 that we are sorry it is full ; but, clumsy though she is, this 
 hideous bird-maiden has a special charm for the archae- 
 ologist, for in her right hand she waves the one attribute 
 about whose Dionysiac significance there can be no doubtful 
 opinion, the thyrsos. Of merely Aphroditic or funereal mean- 
 ing might be tympanon, cymbal, torch, beaker, wine-jar, crown, 
 flower, branch, ribbon, censer, basket, mirror, or bead neck- 
 lace ; but to the wine god, and him only, belongs, to the best 
 of my knowledge, this sacred token of the hollow narthex. 
 In her left hand our Dionysiac Siren fitly holds a phiale, 
 and above her is figured a bunch of grapes ; she wears 
 a necklace, pendants, and armlets. 
 
 With this picture in our mind let us turn to Plate 42, 
 from the obverse of an Apulian phiale in the British 
 Museum. The design is in dull red on black, accessories 
 in crimson. Quite apart from the Sirens here depicted, 
 the scene is one of special interest, a Bacchic thiasos. In 
 the centre is the great god Dionysos himself, always a 
 welcome figure in art as well as literature. Dionysos 
 moves to the right ; his hair is ivy-crowned, and falls 
 in long tresses ; his beard is pointed ; he wears a long 
 chiton with sleeves, over which is draped a peplos. In his 
 right hand he holds his wine-horn {ickprai), in his left a vine. 
 Dionysos is followed by a Satyr, who stretches out his right 
 hand, and in his left brandishes a thyrsos. To the left of 
 Dionysos is a second Satyr, holding in his right hand a wine- 
 horn, and bearing, swung over his left shoulder, an askos 
 full of wine. The Satyrs also have their hair ivy-crowned, 
 and it falls behind in long tresses. The scene is bounded 
 on either side by a Siren playing on the double flute, her 
 hair bound with a sphendone and ivy sprays. 
 
164 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 We know from countless monuments of art and litera- 
 ture that poets and painters alike deHghted to group around 
 tke wine-god figures and personalities the quaintest and 
 most various, Nymphs, Satyrs, SHens, Pans, Kentaurs, and 
 every diverse personification of nature-powers, of Love and 
 Licence, Song and Eevelry ; the more hybrid and monstrous 
 the shape, the more fitting as the comrade of a deity so 
 fantastic. We need not wonder then to find a Siren 
 goddess of death, and, by antithesis, of life and love and 
 music, joining the motley revel ; but we cannot distinctly 
 affirm that in the present vase she is so figured; rather she 
 is a passive spectator, interested but inert ; she calmly plays 
 her double flute (not her lyre, for the music had need be 
 riotous), while the komos passes by. Corner figures such as 
 these have no necessary connection, specially in late art, 
 where considerations of form rather than meaning prevailed ; 
 but in the period to which our vase-painting belongs — that 
 of early fine art — a certain appropriateness may, I think, be 
 assumed without hazard ; specially in, the present instance, 
 where, by other examples, the Dionysiac significance of the 
 Siren has been securely established, and in this particular 
 instance she actually wears the Dionysiac ivy in her hair. 
 Turning to the reverse of the same vase, Plate 43, we meet 
 the Sirens again fulfilling functions, this time discreditable as 
 well as orgiastic. The Dionysiac ivy still appropriately binds 
 their hair (the drawing of the head of the one to the left is 
 indistinct, and her double flute is lost), and they watch as 
 interested spectators the attempted rape of a Maenad by a 
 lawless Satyr. The Misnad figure is very finely conceived, 
 With her right hand she thrusts off the Satyr ; with her left 
 she swings her thyrsos, perhaps about to deal a defensive 
 
Hi 
 
 03 
 

THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 165 
 
 blow. She wears no ivy in her hair, and its ordered 
 arrangement contrasts suggestively with the wild aspect of 
 the aggressor. He also bears over his left shoulder a 
 thyrsos, and a grape basket seems to have been suspended 
 from his elbow. The drawing is very fine and spirited, 
 though with traces still remaining of archaic stiffness. 
 
 With the good fame of our Sirens^ at heart, we are glad 
 to leave this spectacle of unseemly rout, and view the 
 goddesses fulfilling a function more orderly, such as links 
 them the closer to the muses, yet nowise dissevers them 
 from Dionysos, the function of Inspiration. Never, perhaps, 
 so keenly as in the conception of the Sirens are we made to 
 feel how fluctuating, how almost antithetic, are the elements 
 which go to form a Greek myth : the sinister daemon of one 
 moment is the gracious goddess of the next, the boundary 
 between good and evil is a soft shadow land to a people 
 whose moral standard was in the main sesthetic. 
 
 As Muses of Inspiration our Sirens have no doubt in 
 part already figured on the tombs of rhetoricians and poets, 
 and women famous for their grace and= beauty ; but in some 
 cases all funereal import seems distinctly absent. If we turn 
 to Plate 44 we find no trace of lamentation. The design is 
 from an amphora, now at the Hermitage. Between two 
 palm-trees stands a beardless man looking towards the right ; 
 he plays on a lyre with six strings ; his dress is a long white 
 chiton, with a himation coloured partly brown; on his head 
 is a wreath; the lyre and wreath, the beardless face, mark him 
 almost without doubfas Apollo. Near "him stands a bearded 
 man with pointed cap, wearing a short brown chlamys, pro- 
 bably Hermes. Facing them stands a bird with woman-face, 
 a Siren ; they seem to gaze at her with admiration. 
 
166 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 lu cases like this the conception of the Siren (as apart 
 from her form) seems scarcely distinguishable from that of 
 the Muse unless by a special charm; we find in literature 
 the two terms Siren and Muse become almost interchange- 
 able; " the Muse, the clear- voiced Siren, has spoken,"^ says 
 a poet ; " Cato the Grammarian, thfe Latin Siren," says 
 Suetonius ; and Plato raises his Sirens, now eight in number, 
 to cosmic functions that the Muses might have envied ;^ 
 and in the mouth of the Delphic prjestess Homer himself 
 becomes " a deathless Siren." ^ 
 
 Before we leave the Sirens in their bird- wo man form, 
 we have to see them as actors in another mj^th widely 
 different from the Odyssey story, and, in the form in which 
 it has reached us, far less lovely. Late tradition, associating 
 closely the Muses and the Sirens, told a tale of rivalry 
 between them. A contest is held in singing and in play- 
 ing on the lyre and the flute ; the Sirens are vanquished ; 
 
 ^ "a MiSo-a k^kXt]-/', d Xty^ia Seip^i'. " Ai7€ia is actually the name of one 
 of the Sirens. — Alkman, p. 7. 
 Again — 
 
 " TliuSape, Movadoiv Up6v crS^a, Kal XdXe 2et/37;i', 
 BaKxvMSr), Sa7r0oCs t' Aio\iSes x^piTes. " — Anth. Pal. ix. 184. 
 Again, the Siren seems entirely a creature of grace and inspiration in the 
 following : — 
 
 *' ^adXhv ^Totpov "EpcjTo^ opcis Xeipyji'a Oedrpuv 
 /cXuffi M^vavSpov ael Kpara ■!rvKa^biJ>evov."~,Anth. Pal. vii. 710. 
 ^ " ^TTt 5^ tCiv k6k\wv avTov dvojdev ^0' iKdffTov^l^e^rjK^vaL Xeipyjva cv/j.Tept- 
 >j>epoi).ivT}v, (panTjv ixiav ktirav, Sfa Tbvov (k Tratrwi' Si Sktij} ouaSiv /j.lai/ apfiovlau 
 ^vfKpapeli'." — Plato, Pep. x. 617, B. 
 
 He makes them eight in number, probably because the number nine was 
 sacred to the Muses. Eight Sirens occur (but probably the coincidence of 
 number is accidental) on a lamp at Cortona. 
 
 ' See the answer given by the priestess to the Emperor Hadrian when he 
 asked of the race and birthplace of the poet — 
 
 " dyvuia-Tov /J.' ipieis yeveyjs Kal TrarplSos atijs 
 d/ifSpoaiov 2ei/D^i/os." — Anthol. Pal. xiv. 102. 
 
^^^'^^'^~~~^^ 
 
 ^^V"^^!^^ 
 
 
 fx 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 167 
 
 the victor Muses fall upon the conquered, pluck their 
 feathers, and wear them hereafter in token of victory."^ The 
 story is a late one ; early art knows nothing of it, nor would 
 it have lent itself fitly to the severity of archaic design. 
 Our art monuments of this form of the myth are feeble, 
 though not wanting in a sort of degenerate grace. 
 
 On a sarcophagus relief in the gallery of the UfBzi at 
 Florence the story is depicted in full (see Plate 45), both 
 the contest and the subsequent defeat and punishment. To 
 the left Zeus is seated as arbiter ; near him Athene, eager 
 for the victory of her m\ises ; and Hera, at whose instiga- 
 tion (we learn from Pausanias^) the Sirens dared the combat. 
 She seems to entreat for them, but in vain. A few of the 
 Muses only can be identified by their regular attributes. 
 Urania has her globe, Melpomene the mask at her feet — 
 these two seem to be spectators merely ; Thalia, identified 
 by her pedum, is busy with the punishment of her foes. 
 
 We regret that a story which to us in modern days is 
 so full of meaning and pathos, should have been depicted 
 by the ancients in a form so clumsy. Near akin are such 
 tales as the rivalry between the flute ^player Marsyas and 
 the lyre-god Apollo, between the Pierides and the Muses. In 
 each and all we have the natural antagonism, the attempted 
 revolt, of the new order against the old, of wild sensa- 
 tion against tempered emotion, the clamour of earth's pas- 
 
 ^ " 71 yh,p 5ei ras Setp^i'as 'K^yeiv, (hv ^rl rb irrephv iirl toO p^ejihirov ^^povcrtf 
 al friK-fiffacrai." — JULIAN, Epist. 41. 
 
 ' Paus. ix. xxxiv. 3 : — 
 
 " Tas ykp St] ^Ax^^t^ov Ovyar^pas dfaireLadeitra^ <pafxlv inrd "Mpat KarafTTrivai 
 Trpos Tas Movtras h ojStj? ^piv' al 5e, ihs hlK'r}<rav, airortXaffat rdv Xeiprjviav rd 
 ■wrepa iroi-fiaaaBai (rrerpdvovt dir' airwv XiyovTai." Possibly the myth origin- 
 ated in the name of the scene of action, Aptera in= Crete. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 169 
 
 ventional attribute of Odysseus in late art. The attitudes 
 of the heroes are dramatic, even sensational, and the whole 
 presentation contrasts strangely with the quaint austerity of 
 the earlier vase in Plate 37. 
 
 The passing of Odysseus by the Sirens was a very 
 favourite subject with the Etruscans ; no less than eight 
 sarcophagi remain on which this design is figured. A very 
 similar one to that we have figured inay be studied in the 
 Etruscan Eoom of the British Museum ; the sarcophagus is 
 surmounted as usual by a heavy recumbent figure executed 
 in the clumsy Etruscan style. 
 
 As beautiful maidens the ancient world left its Sirens. 
 As art grew less stern, less severely moral, the desire for 
 ethical significance, for religious symbolism, gave way to the 
 demand for mere festhetic satisfaction. But in later days 
 the moral sense awoke again, and would not have these 
 muses of seduction wholly fair ; their song ended in death, 
 and so to the beautiful maiden was fitly given the tail of 
 an evil sea monster ; and thus we find the Siren transformed 
 into the modern mermaid. Brought at first perhaps by 
 Phoenician mariners from the East, the land of wonder and 
 mystery, they took fresh shape, fresh meaning, in the later 
 mythology of the Greeks and Eomans, and live as Loreleys 
 and Undines in Teutonic waters. Thither for a while we 
 must follow them. 
 
 By some it is maintained that the Siren of the middle 
 ages is a mere copy of the ancient figure, and has nothing 
 to do with the nixies and mermaids of northern mythology. 
 Probably the myth was common Aryan property, and had 
 its separate growth and development in the several branches 
 
170 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 of the race. In later days, wlien the mythology of Greek 
 and Teuton met and mingled, the several conceptions sepa- 
 rately formed would be liable to confusion. In one respect 
 there is a curious analogy between classic and mediaeval 
 times, — that is, in the iliictuations which the conception of 
 the Siren undergoes both in literature and art. On the whole 
 we should incline to think that the fish form is characteristic 
 of mediaeval times. 1'his statement might be made more 
 positively but for the existence of one monument of doubtful 
 antiquity. A terra cotta lamp (Plate 4 7a), preserved at Canter- 
 bury, is decorated with a design — Odysseus in his boat passing 
 a single Siren.^ The work is very feeble and clumsy ; it must 
 have been executed at a time when art had sunk very low ; 
 its only claim to reproduction is the fact that in it alone of 
 all works with any claim to antiquity the Siren has a fish's 
 tail. The general baldness and flatness of the design is 
 somewhat relieved by the naive attitude of one of the com- 
 rades. Unmindful of the traditional wax, or deeming it unfit 
 for presentation, the artist makes the seafarer stop his ears 
 with his fingers. Odysseus himself wears a simple long 
 flowing garment, no pointed cap. 
 
 Though on the whole the fish form was most popular, 
 the bird-woman form was not wholly deserted in mediaeval 
 times. The learned Abbess of St. Odilie, Herrad of Land- 
 sperg, tells the story of Odysseus and the Sirens in her 
 Horhis Beliciarum ; ^ and in the quaint illustrations with 
 which her work is profusely decorated she adheres to the 
 
 1 The Siren myth was a favourite one Tor representation on lamps, donlit- 
 less from its prophylactic association. 
 
 = The original MS. perished in the fire at the Strashurg Library, and I 
 have only had access to the commentary of Engelhardt, to which selected 
 illustrations are appended. 
 
PI -17. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 171 
 
 conventional bird-woman form, i.a. in its later shape. She is 
 faithful also to the Homeric dual number. She gives three 
 pictures. In the first, two Sirens, women with bird feet and 
 wings, stand playing, one the flute, the other the lyre ; the 
 passing sailors are unmanned and powerless through the 
 sweetness of their song ; in the second, they spring on board 
 and slay the sailors ; in the third, they in turn are overcome 
 by the guile of Odysseus, and perish. Plate 48 gives part 
 of the first scene. One scarcely need -add that the abbess 
 makes allegorical use of her Sirens ; they figure among 
 the dangers through which Christ leads his betrothed, the 
 Church, to the vintry of Bliss. Herrad died in a.d. 
 1195; the Hortus Deliciarum probably dates from about 
 A.D. 1160. The grim austerity of these mediteval tempters 
 brings to our mind the strange awful outline of Dante's 
 Siren : — 
 
 "It was the liour when the diurnal heat, 
 
 No more can warm the coldness of the moon, 
 Vanquished by earth or peradventure Saturn. 
 
 There came to me in dreams a stammering woman, 
 Squint in her eyes, and in her feet distorted. 
 With hands dissevered and of sallow hue. 
 
 I looked at her ; and as the sun restores 
 
 The frigid members which the night benumbs, 
 Even thus my gaze did render voluble 
 
 Her tongue, and made her all erect thereafter ; 
 In little while, and the lost countenance. 
 As love desires it, so in it did colour. 
 
 When in this wise she had her speech unloosed, 
 She 'gan to sing, so that with difficulty 
 Could I have turned my thoughts away from her. 
 
172 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 ' I am,' she sang, ' I am the Siren sweet, 
 Who mariners amid the main unman, 
 So full am I of pleasantness to hear.' " 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 She is put to fliglit by a lady, "saintly and alert," and all 
 her hidden vileness ia exposed. The lady is Eeason ; the 
 Siren has fallen in mediaeval days to a mere image of sense 
 temptation ; she no longer allures men by the bait of know- 
 ledge ; or shall we rather say the men of later times had 
 sunk, and only sense — knowledge no longer — could entice 
 them? 
 
 Dante's vision needs no picture : it is alone too terribly 
 distinct, and we turn with a sense of pleasant relief to 
 gentler Sirens, and a lighter tale concerning them. Our five 
 Sirens in Plate 49 dwell in the tower which stands to the 
 right as you enter the old Bishop's Palace at Beauvois. The 
 design is executed in distemper, and is full of freedom and 
 quaint grace. The figures are relieved by a ground tint of 
 deep red, enriched with powderings of sombre foliage work ; 
 the date of their execution is about a.d. 1306. 
 
 Some such design may have met the eyes of Gower when 
 
 he wrote — 
 
 " Sirenes of a wonder kind, 
 Ben monstres as the bokes tellen. 
 And in the grete see they dwellen ; 
 
 1 " Nell ora, che non puo '1 oalor diurno, 
 Intiepidar piu '1 freddo della Luna, 
 Vinto da Terra o talor da Saturno. 
 Me veime in sogno una femmina balba, 
 Con gli occM guerci, e sovra i pi^ distorta 
 Con le man monche e di colore seialba. " 
 i pie distorta is strangely in accordance with the claw feet of the bird- 
 woman, though there is no other trace of any such conception in Dante's 
 description. 
 
PL 48. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 173 
 
 Of body both and of visage, 
 Like imto women of yonge age, 
 Up fro' the navel on high they be, 
 And down benethe, as men may see, 
 They bene of fishes the figiire," 
 
 Confessio Amantis, I. 
 
 He, too, knows of their wondrous singing. They raise 
 
 " So swete a steven 
 Like to the melodie of heven," 
 
 The same delusion waits upon their song ; only here again 
 the snare is sense, not as in old times, knowledge : — 
 
 " in here aris 
 they wene it be a paradis 
 wch after is to hem a hell 
 for reson may nought with hem dwell." 
 
 Their very number — five, as it occurs on our fresco — is 
 noted by Spencer. 
 
 " There those five sisters had continuall trade. 
 And used to bathe themselves in that deceitful! shade. 
 
 " They were faire Ladies till they fondly strived 
 With th' Heliconian maids for maystery, 
 Of whom they, overcomen, were deprived 
 Of their proud beautie, and th' one moyity 
 Transformed to fish for their bold surquedry." ' 
 
 Sometimes the blood of the Siren (as in classic days her 
 sculptured form) seems to have been regarded as prophy- 
 lactic. In the Orlando Innamorato the Count slays an evil 
 Siren who seeks his destruction, and smears with her gore 
 his casque and corselet. He thereby renders them proof 
 against the onslaught of a terrible fire-breathing bull, for 
 
 1 Spenser, Fanrie Queene, Book IL, Canto xii. 30. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 175 
 
 order, the principal records, literary and artistic, left us of 
 the Sirens. We have now to consider the etymology of 
 their name, their parentage and its significance, and briefly 
 the chief locales of their worship, before we approach finally 
 the question of the origin of their bird form in art, and, a 
 question closely akin, their funeral significance. 
 
 As regards their name, unhappily there are two Indo- 
 European roots, SVAE, identical in form, widely different 
 in signification. SVAE, to burn and shine (yielding in 
 Greek aFep, and with suffix, yo aFep'jov, %eip6<!, 'Zeipio'i, the 
 burning dog-star, yielding also crfeXo.?, creXa^, aFepa Hpa). 
 Schrader attributes Siren to this root, and hence proceeds to 
 turn these sea-muses into a sort of female dog-star, a 
 personification of oppressive earth-born stifling heat. For 
 confirmation of this view he relies mainly on the chthonic 
 origin later attributed to the Sirens, and on the mention 
 in the Odyssey of the fierce heat of the sun and the dead 
 calm of the sea. From this dreary view of our old-world 
 mermaids we are saved by the second root, SVAE, to 
 sound (SVAEYANS, aFepyev;, a-eiprjv; cognate forms are 
 aFapij^, avpir/^, aFaXin'y^, aaXTrcy^ ; creCkif^voi, the in- 
 ventors of the flute).' According to this view the Sirens 
 will be simply the singers or those who make music, and 
 through every phase and development of the myth this 
 characteristic is clearly present. It is possible that the root 
 SVAE may not be of Indo-European origin at all ; the 
 name with the myth may have been Brought from the East 
 by the great carriers of the ancient world. There is a 
 Semitic root (tib*), meaning " sing." Their name, then, be 
 it of Indo-European or of Semitic origin, links them with 
 
 ' See Vani9ek, Eti/molo;.jisches Worteriach ad verb. 
 
176 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 music, and through music with the Muses. The parentage 
 assigned them speaks yet more clearly. An ^Etolian myth 
 makes them spring from the broken horn of Achelous, the 
 river-god. A more current form of the myth makes them 
 the daughters of the muse Terpsichore, by Achelous. 
 Sophokles calls them daughters of Phorkys. Euripides 
 makes his Helen implore them as daughters of Chthon to 
 come at the bidding of Persephone and join her funeral wail. 
 
 As regards the locale, of their worship, its chief seat was 
 in the south-west coast of Italy, washed" by a sea which was 
 to the early Greek mariner full of wonder and mysterious 
 peril. Neapolis borrowed its name of Parthenope from one 
 of the Sirens (in post-Homeric times three in number), 
 Parthenope, who was fabled to have been buried there, and 
 a torch race was run in her honour. 
 
 These western haunts of the Sirens are familiar to us 
 
 all. 
 
 " By tlie songs of Sirens sweet, 
 By dead Parthenope's dear tomb, 
 And fair Ligeia's golden comb; 
 Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks 
 Sleeking her soft alluring lock's." 
 
 Near the island of Caprese were three small rocky points 
 known as Sirenes. At Terina the Siren Ligeia was wor- 
 shipped, and it may be her image that was stamped on the 
 beautiful coinage of the place. The father of the Sirens, 
 Achelous, was widely worshipped in lower Italy. We 
 gather, then, thus far, that they were akin to the Muses, 
 and dwelt in the western sea. Wheije other localities are 
 mentioned, some obvious reason is usually evident. Aptera, 
 in Crete, the scene of the later battle between the Muses 
 and the Sirens, is due to a mistaken etymology, ^tolia' 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 177 
 
 mentioned by Lucian, is due to the connection with Ache- 
 lous. Thessaly is suggested by their Muse aspect. Pliny 
 mentions India, possibly because India was in his days the 
 favourite seat of the marvellous. 
 
 Let us pass briefly in review the materials, literary and 
 artistic, we have collected. As regards the Siren form, we 
 began with the sinister bird-woman, and, through gradual 
 stages of anthropomorphism, we passed to the purely human 
 shape stamped by no outward impress of evil ; thence 
 again, by a mediaeval reaction, to the modern fish-maiden. 
 As regards functions, we have seen the Sirens figure as 
 muses of seduction, as tempters of Odysseus, as muses of 
 death and lamentation, as muses of inspiration, lastly as 
 conquered rivals of the sacred Nine. We have noted that, 
 by functions, parentage, or attributes, they connect them- 
 selves in turn with chthonic deities, with sea and river 
 gods, with Athene, with Hera, most of all with Dionysos. 
 The chief locale of their worship we have found to be the 
 western sea. None of these details, as we shall see, are 
 wanting in significance ; but it is the gradual euphemism 
 in their treatment observable in literature, most striking in 
 art, which is, I think, specially suggestive — the euphemism 
 of the Greek of later days in contrast to his early religious 
 simplicity; for to this euphemism we owe the later human 
 Siren-form, which by antithesis makes the early bird-woman 
 seem to us unnatural and monstrous. 
 
 Beginning with our first art monuinent, Plate ,37, let us 
 suppose an artist, say of the sixth, or early in the fifth century 
 B.C., wishful to depict on his vase the story of Odysseus and 
 the Sirens. "Why," perhaps we ask, "should he choose this 
 
178 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 particular myth for representation?" The -work is a sacred, a 
 very solemn one ; we feel sure the subject was chosen with an 
 earnest purpose. The vase may perhaps he buried hereafter 
 with its dead owner, to his honour and to the glory of the 
 gods. The artist's mind is full, it may be, of the mystic 
 doctrines of some Orphic sect, teachings about trial and 
 purification, of death and some sort oi shadowy after-life ; 
 to him nothing is more suitable, more significant, than this 
 picture of the trial and victory of this human agonist by the 
 might of the gods, this sailor through the sea of death, for 
 as such this western sea was in early days regarded. The 
 artist then read or listened to his Homer, but read it, so to 
 speak, by the light of patristic interpretation. No shadow 
 of allegory, I believe, clouded the clear fancy of Homer ; but 
 as soon as we look at our funeral vase we feel instinctively 
 that the mists are closing around ; there is an air of con- 
 straint, of mystery, of religious rather than moral significance. 
 Odysseus means more than himself, the peril of the Sirens 
 is not past. Nothing in Homer at all gives utterance to our 
 feeling ; the words of later days and sadder poets -^ are present 
 rather to our minds. We remember that for centuries the 
 sea voyage has been the symbol of the troublesome waves of 
 this world and the transit to the next,^ — that on graves is 
 found the inscription einrXol. But, we may naturally ask. 
 Who taught to the happy Greek this gloomy symbolism ? If 
 
 ' See Anthol. Palat. x. 65. 
 
 ° If any one desires to see the moral of the Siren story drawn out in full 
 liy the allegoriser of later days, Tlieophylactus mil satisfy him. 
 
 Solcrates writes to Alkibiades: — 
 
 ^' Kal Tct T^s TTOLTjaeiJs 'ircLiyviaTrd(Tr]t ^/XTr\€affo<piai Ka6^<rT7}K€. . . . fj.v6o\o- 
 yeTraL rd TJj? (piXoaotpias airbppy)Ta' Seipjji'as 71x^3 hoKU) ras acx^t^ova^ Tjdovas rrjV 
 TTol-qaiv avaTrXaTTfadai . dib K7]pi^ tijv pL^v dTeipiav, Setr^y 5^ Tyjv <pi\o(ro<piav 
 
 iSifKuxjev" etc. — Theoph. Epist., 82. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 179 
 
 Homer and Hesiod know nothing of it, whence did it come ? 
 We cannot too much bear in mind, in feflecting on the spirit 
 of Greek art, that in the seventh century B.C. there was 
 opened to the Greeks that great treasure-house of wonder 
 and mystery and strange religious sjrmbolism, Semitic Egypt. 
 By the sixth century Egyptian superstitions had spread far 
 and wide over Hellas; conjectures were rife as to the future 
 existence and its mode of approach ; and the transit of the 
 soul along the sacred river in the Mle-boat would be familiar 
 to all. The Greek, always ready to assimilate fresh thoughts, 
 would adopt much of this foreign lore; and see in his own 
 mythology a new significance. 
 
 If some such allegorising process was going on in his mind, 
 we may conjecture with even more confidence what recognised 
 forms of presentation hovered before his eye. We are supposing 
 that he wished to depict the Siren as an evil tempter, watching 
 for the seafarer as he voyaged through the perilous waters of 
 life and death. Even had he wished to be strictly faithful to 
 Homer, what indications of form does Homer give ? ISTone. 
 !N"ow, an artist of these early days desired above all things not 
 to please, but to edify ; he worked not to minister to sensuous 
 enjoyment, but for the glory of the gods; his religious pur- 
 pose was at once clear and unshrinking. If he had a moral 
 to enforce, as we suppose in this case he had, his object would 
 be, not so much that the design should be pleasing as that 
 the symbolism should be forcible. Assyrian artists, who, 
 through the medium of the Phoenicians, did so much to 
 stimulate and mould Greek tastes, were lavish in strange 
 hybrid forms. On countless vases we find figures of curious 
 monsters, among them human-headed birds. For his gods 
 the Greek, with his exaltation of human form, would allow 
 
180 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 no such abasement ; but for a being of sinister intent, 
 an incarnation of mysterious danger, what more suitable? 
 I do not say that the Siren bird-woman form was 
 borrowed from Assyrian decorations;; but it does seem 
 as if designs of this monstrous character, borrowed from 
 foreign nations, and alien on the whole to his own genius, 
 helped to familiarise the Greek mind with hybrid forms, and 
 made their adoption possible. Once more, these Sirens were 
 unseen singers crouching to wait unseen for the ruin of the 
 mariner. Familiar to the eye of the artist would probably 
 be the Egyptian picture of the soul itself; the unseen thing 
 figured as a bird, human-faced ; ^ the type was common on 
 monuments; one instance is figured in Plate 50& — the 
 vignette to chapter eighty-nine of the " Book of the Dead," 
 the chapter of the Eeunion of the Soul with the Body in 
 Chermeter {i.e the Egyptian Hades). The soul flies towards 
 the body, which lies on 'the funeral couch, and bears to it 
 the symbol of life. Perhaps also familiar to the eye of the 
 artist were the forms of the gentle death genii (Harpies, as 
 we call them, probably by confusion with a stronger, fiercer 
 type), — those genii who so tenderly bear away the souls of 
 mortals after death. One, from the so-called "Harpy tomb" 
 in the British Museum, is figured in Plate 50a. The gentle 
 smile may be but the quaint fixity of the archaic mouth, 
 but we can scarcely attach any sinister interpretation to 
 forms so peaceful. 
 
 ' The bird form of the soul is found in Keltic mythology. Mailduin (the 
 Irish Odysseus) comes to an island with trees on it' in clusters, on which were 
 perched many birds. The aged man of the island, who is clothed all over 
 •v\ith long white hair, and wears no other dress,; tells him, "These are the 
 souls of my children, and of all ray descendants, both men and women, who 
 are sent to this little island to abide with me according as they die in 
 Erin." 
 
pi. ,so. 
 
THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 181 
 
 If, then, our artist was, as we suppose, tinged with the 
 influence of mystic Egyptian speculation, this bird-woman 
 form, this symbol of the unseen demonic power, would seem 
 a fitting incarnation of an evil influence, unseen yet per- 
 sonal. He would certainly, in those early, earnest days, 
 desire to emphasise the avil aspect of the Sirens ; he might 
 also wish to indicate, in a way suggestive to the quick 
 Greek instinct, the fact that they were unseen. To any one 
 accustomed to read the curious symbolism of Greek art, this 
 indication will not seem far-fetched. Once this bird-form 
 adopted, with its spiritual JEgyptian associations, and it 
 would promptly react in the conception of the Siren, and 
 render her doubly fit for mystic primeval associations, and 
 her other attributes of song and loveliness would harmonise 
 well with the Greek Dionysiac surroundings of death. That 
 the hybrid form should in later days, by a gradual an- 
 thropomorphism, become purely human, is intelligible 
 enough. Later Greek artists wrought more and more to 
 please the senses, less and less to glorify the gods ; they 
 became more intent in producing a design Eesthetically 
 charming, less intent on securing a clear and striking 
 symbolism ; in art as in literature speculation is seen to 
 sap the old faith, and with it perishes the simple, earnest 
 purpose. 
 
 In considering their form in art we have well-nigh 
 solved the question of their essence. We cannot find in 
 them with one author merely an incarnation of the smiling 
 sea, nor with another an embodiment of chthonic heat, nor 
 with a third see in them the song of the wind in the 
 clouds ; still less with a fourth do we think them to have 
 been originally birds, nightingales by the sea-shore beguiling 
 
182 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 mariners to listen. They seem to us, from the outset to 
 the end, to have been a kind of evil Muse, not wholly evil, 
 but very far from entirely good ; sprung from a lower world 
 of mystery and evil and death ; as such fitted for sombre 
 funeral lamentation ; sculptured on tombs with a half pro- 
 pitiatory prophylactic intent; yet largely, because of Dionysiac 
 association, merging by degrees this character into that of 
 mere seductive loveliness, becoming in- later days a sort of 
 mythic hetairai ; yet, because to the pure all things are 
 pure, rising at times to loftier functions, ordering for Plato 
 the sphere music of his Kosmos. Muses they are in their 
 knowledge of all things,^ in their sweet song ; but Muses 
 rather of the barren sea than of the clear spring water, — 
 
 Muses who dwell below, not they who " 'OXxifLiria Bafiar 
 )f It 
 
 ' Of the Muses— 
 
 " v/j.eh yap Seal iirre, irdpea-Ti re, IcTS t€ irav-a," — II. ii. 484. 
 Of the Sirens — 
 
 " tSjxev ydp Toi wavTa." — Od. xii. 189. 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 183 
 
 VI 
 
 THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS 
 
 After Odysseus and his comrades have passed the " Sirens 
 twain," another double peril is to come, — a sharp sudden 
 trial, which follows with harsh antithesis after the dead calm 
 and the sound of sweet voices singing, Of this peril also 
 Circe warns him beforehand. 
 
 " On the other part are two rocks, whereof the one 
 reaches with sharp peak to the wide heaven, and a dark 
 cloud encompasses it ; this never streams away, and there 
 is no clear air about the peak, neither in summer nor in 
 harvest-tide. No mortal man may scale it or set foot 
 thereon, not though he had twenty hands and feet ; for 
 the rock is smooth and sheer as it were polished. And 
 in the midst of the cliff is a dim ca;ve turned to Erebus, 
 towards the place of darkness, whereby ye shall even steer 
 your hollow ship, noble Odysseus. Not with an arrow from 
 a bow might a man in his strength reach from his hollow 
 ship into that deep cave. And therein dwelleth Scylla, 
 yelping terribly. Her voice is indeed no greater than the 
 voice of a new-born whelp, but a dreadful monster is she ; 
 nor would any look on her gladly, not if it were a god that 
 met her. Verily she hath twelve feet all dangling down, and 
 six necks, exceeding long, and on each a hideous head, and 
 
184 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 therein three rows of teeth set thick and close, full of hlack 
 death. Up to her middle is she sunk far down in the 
 hollow cave, but forth she holds her heads from the dreadful 
 gulf, and there she fishes, swooping" round the rock for 
 dolphins or sea dogs, or whatso greater beast she may 
 anywhere take, whereof the deep -voiced Amphitrite feeds 
 countless flocks. Thereby no sailors Can boast that they 
 have fled scathless ever with their ships, for with each 
 head she carries off a man whom she:; hath snatched from 
 out the dark-prowed ship. 
 
 " But that other cliff, Odysseus, thou shalt note, lying 
 lower, hard by the first ; thou couldst send an arrow across. 
 And thereon is a great fig-tree growing, in fullest leaf, and 
 beneath it mighty Charybdis sucks down black water, for 
 thrice a day she spouts it forth, and thrice a day she sucks 
 it down in terrible wise. Never mays't thou be there when 
 she sucks the water, for none might save thee there from 
 thy bane, not even the Earth-shaker. But take heed, and, 
 swiftly drawing nigh to Scylla's rocky drive the ship past, 
 since of a truth it is far better to mourn sis of thy company 
 in the ship than all in the self-same hour. So spake she, 
 but I answered and said unto her : Come, I pray thee 
 herein, goddess, tell me true if there be any means whereby 
 I might escape from the deadly Charybdis and avenge 
 me on that other, when she would prey upon my company. 
 
 " So spake I, and that fair goddess answered me : Man 
 overbold, lo, now again the deeds of war are in thy mind, 
 and the travail thereof. "Wilt thou not yield thee, even to 
 the deathless gods ? As for her, she is no mortal, but an 
 immortal plague, dread, grievous, and fierce, and not to be 
 fought with ; and against her there is no defence — flight is 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS- 185 
 
 the bravest way. For if thou tarry to do on thine armour 
 by the cliff, I fear lest once again she sally forth and catch 
 at thee with so many heads, and seize as many men as 
 before. So drive past with all thy force and call on 
 Cratais, mother of Scylla, which bore her for a bane to 
 mortals. And she will then let her from dashing forth 
 thereafter." 
 
 Such is the warning of Circe ; and before we pass to the 
 actual adventure of Odysseus, we may pause to see how 
 this fell monster was figured in art. We can fancy that 
 some Semitic craftsman might have attempted a faithful 
 copy of this hideous sea brute, have fashioned " six necks 
 of gTcat length, on each a hideous head, and within three 
 rows of teeth ; " but the Greek artist refused almost from 
 the outset to embody conceptions so unmeasured. If even 
 the great Homer sang of a hybrid beast too horrid for 
 presentation, the artist refused to produce a servile copy of 
 the poet's picture. Nothing, perhaps, is more instructive 
 than to see how the conception of Scylla was gradually 
 matured '^ into finished loveliness, with just a touch of 
 malignant mystery ; how incongruities which might have 
 appalled genius less flexible are modified and recombined 
 into a new symmetry, and the beast-form, at first the token 
 of degradation, becomes an added splendour. 
 
 Unhappily we have no very early Scylla; we can only 
 
 ' This fluctuation in the form ot Soylla, and the want of fidelity to 
 Homeric details, is noted by ancient writers : — 
 
 ' ' T€64a/j.at, dtfiai, TroXXaxou S/f iJXXt;? eUbva oix "'^"■v "Ofi'r]poi Si-qyuTU . . . 
 ol 6i ffXdffTai iiri /j,SXKov KOixtpsiovTai if tQ ipyV' TotoScri ykp aOrrjs rh p-kv 
 Hit' dxP'' nefpaXiji &XP^ Xaybvwv TrapB^fov, dirb 5f Tyji l^oos svOvs e/s roi/s /ciJfas 
 iKc(>epoiJ.ivriii, SeLvois ifras Kal <T/J.cpSa\^ovs, nal rplaTOixoi- jJ-kv airoh ol dSivres, 
 dveffTrjKain dk al Ke^aXal, i^rjTovffi Si l<rdpi6/j.oi. dripav." — Them. Or. xxii. p. 279 B. 
 
186 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 watch the later stages of the transformation, and guess how 
 the fancy of early artists wrestled with„ the form of the rude 
 beast-fish, over which at last they obtained such perfect 
 mastery. We can well understand that in later days, when 
 the cultus of form was at its height, artists must have 
 revelled in the fantastic shapes and sinuous combinations 
 to which a sea-beast such as Scylla very readily lent her- 
 self 
 
 In Plate 51 is figured a design from a Hydria in the 
 British Museum, red on black, with accessories of white. 
 Scylla is woman-shaped to the waist ; she ends in a finely 
 curved fish's tail. Below her waist projects the head of a 
 fish : this fish has a long snout, with teeth jutting out, and 
 horns. Scylla herself holds in one hand an oar, in the 
 other a cuttle-fish. "We remember that it was her wont to 
 "fish, groping ro\md the rocks for dolphins or sea-dogs, 
 or whatso greater beast she may anywhere take." We see at 
 once that there is no attempt to copy the Homeric picture : if 
 the artist remembered at all the horrid details of the poet, 
 he at once rejects such as are unfit for his purpose. 
 That purpose was to paint on a vase a beautiful design, with 
 probably some mystic Dionysiac significance. The goddess 
 is decorated with stephane and bead necklace crossed, and 
 as we look, we are reriinded irresistibly (though the two 
 moments have no purposed connection) of the day when 
 Scylla, the maiden, love-stricken, "non niveo retinet 
 baccata monilia coUo ;" she wears her enforced adornments 
 calmly enough now, and possibly with some funereal intent, 
 for we shall see later on that her mission is to watch at the 
 portals of Hades. 
 
 Somewhat similar in design, though of finer and earlier 
 

THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 187 
 
 character, is the very beautiful Scylla type which appears 
 on the coins of Thurium. The goddess is figured on the 
 helmet of Athene (Plate 52a) ; on the reverse is the butting 
 bull, symbol of the river god of Thuriu.m. The Athenians 
 founded Thurium on the ruins of Sybaris. They may have 
 foiind a local cult, with Scylla for its object, and added her 
 with some prophylactic intent to the helmet of theit pro- 
 tecting sea goddess. Or possibly the connection is through 
 the Scylla of Megara, whom we shall learn to know later ; 
 she belonged to Attic cycles, as her father Nisos was son to 
 Pandion, king of Athens. 
 
 But we must return to the hideous daughter of Cratais, 
 and see how Odysseus fared at her hands. 
 
 "But as soon as we left that isle (Sirens'), thereafter 
 presently I saw smoke and a great wave, and heard the sea 
 roaring. Then, for very fear, the oars fell from their hands, 
 and rang all as they went down the stream ; and the ship 
 was holden there, for my company no longer plied the long- 
 oars with their hands. But T paced the ship, and cheered 
 on my company as I stood by each one and spake smooth 
 words : 
 
 " Friends, forasmuch as in sorrow we are not aU un- 
 learned, truly this is no greater woe that is upon us than 
 when the Cyclops penned us by main might in his hollow 
 cave ; yet even thence we made escape by my manfulness, 
 even by my counsel and my wit, and some day I think this 
 adventure too we shall remember. Come now, therefore, 
 let us all give ear to do according to my word. Do ye 
 smite the deep surf of the sea with your blades, as ye sit on 
 the benches, if peradventure Zeus may grant us to escape 
 from and shun this death. And as for thee, helmsman, thus 
 
188 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 I charge thee, and ponder it in thine heart, seeing that thou 
 wieldest the helm of the hollow ship. Keep the ship -well 
 away from this smoke and from the- wave, and hug the 
 rocks, lest the ship, when thou heedest not, start from her 
 course to the other side, and so thou run us upon trouble. 
 
 " So I spake, and quickly they hearkened to my words. 
 But of Scylla I told them nothing more, — a bane none 
 might deal with, lest haply my company should cease from 
 rowing for fear, and hide them in the hold. In that same 
 hour I suffered myself to forget the hard behest of Circe, in 
 that she bade me in no wise be armed; but I did on my 
 glorious harness, and caught up two long lances in my 
 hands, and went on to the decking of the prow, for thence, 
 methought that Scylla of the rock would first be seen who 
 was to bring woe on my company. Yet could I not spy 
 her anywhere, and my eyes failed for gazing all about 
 toward the darkness of the rock. 
 
 " Next we began to sail up the narrow strait lamenting. 
 For on the one hand lay Scylla, and on the other mighty 
 Charybdis in terrible wise sucked down the salt sea -water. 
 Often as she discharged it, like a cauldron on a great fire, 
 she would seethe up through all her troubled deeps, and, 
 overhead, the spray fell on the tops of either cliff." But oft as 
 she gulped down the salt sea-water, within she was aU plain 
 to see through her troubled deeps ; and the rock around 
 roared horribly, and beneath the earth was manifest, swart 
 with sand ; and pale fear gat hold on my men. Towards 
 her, then, we looked, fearing destruction; but Scylla, mean- 
 while, caught from out my hollow ship six of my company, 
 the hardiest of their hands and the chief in might. And 
 looking into the swift ship to find my men, even then I 
 
PI. 6 2 . 
 
' THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHAR Y£ BIS. 189 
 
 marked their feet and hands as they were lifted on high ; 
 and they cried aloud in their agony, and called me by my 
 name for that last time of all. Even as when a fisher on some 
 headland lets down with a long rod his baits for a snare to 
 the little fishes below, casting into the deep the horn of an 
 ox of the homestead, and, as he catches each, flings it 
 struggling ashore, so struggling were they borne upward to 
 the cliff. And there she devoured them, shrieking, in her 
 gates, they stretching forth their hands to me in the dread 
 death struggle. And the most pitiful thing was this that 
 mine eyes have seen of all my travail that I endured in 
 searching out the paths of the sea." 
 
 This scene of tumult and agony is- seldom presented in 
 full by the artist. Painting, in the modern sense, with all 
 the adjuncts of chiaroscuro, might have adventured the 
 cloud -encompassed peak, the seething cauldron, and the 
 pigmy ship ; but for plastic treatment the scene is too 
 shadowy, too little statuesque ; it involves too much that is 
 realistic and accidental. Hence our art monuments treat, 
 for the most part, detached situations, — Scylla dealing 
 death to one or more of the comrades ; and such representa- 
 tions as these occur more frequently in late times, when 
 sensational art could even adventure to dramatise the death 
 agonies of Laokoon. 
 
 Three designs of this character We must consider to- 
 gether, because the analogy of their treatment is so close as 
 to suggest something more than mere accidental similarity. 
 We begin with the design figured in Plate 53 c, from a 
 Pompeian wall-painting. Scylla is here depicted as a 
 terrible raging woman, yet with a sort of wild sensational 
 beauty about her. Her body ends iii a double fish's tail. 
 
190 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 from under which her dogs emerge. She is in the act of 
 brandishing a rudder, about to hurl it at the youths whom 
 three of her dogs have caught hold of, and are tearing to 
 pieces. These dogs are not of strictly dog form ; there is 
 something of the sea-horse about them„; they may have been 
 intended as a sort of indication of the cruel sea waves. The 
 painting is architectural in character — intended for a 
 cornice. It is executed in yellow monochrome on a white 
 ground. 
 
 Turning to Plate 53 a, a design from a gem, we are at 
 once struck by the similarity of treatment. The execution 
 of the gem is, I think, far finer; the whole action and 
 expression of Scylla is more vigorous, yet less sensational. 
 Still formally the conception is the sanie ; we have the same 
 proportion observed between the human and fish parts ; the 
 same motive, Scylla brandishing a rudder against the ship- 
 wrecked mariner. On one side in the gem a human figure 
 and a sea-dog are absent, but this is probably due to the 
 rounded limits of the stone as opposed to the square of the 
 picture. 
 
 Turning to Plate 535, the design from the obverse of a 
 coin of Sextus Pompeius, the same picture again meets us, 
 only with yet further limitations. Scylla still brandishes her 
 rudder, but the victims are gone : the general pose and 
 composition of the monster figure is the same as before. 
 
 Looking closely at these three analogous designs, what 
 is the conviction that grows upon us ? Perhaps our first 
 thought is. Surely the engravers of the gem and the coin 
 die saw the great picture at Pompeii, and borrowed for their 
 lesser worlds a conception from the famous original. This 
 might seem plausilile for a moment ; the picture to us is 
 

 \(i^. 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 P] . 5 3 . 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBBIS. 191 
 
 well known and important, but its importance is due to its 
 historical interest. In the days when it was painted it was 
 only one amongst the thousand decorations of a private 
 house in an obscure provincial town, — a town which in 
 modern days, from the simple fact of its unique preserva- 
 tion, has assumed a quite fictitious prominence. Was it 
 likely that the design on a coin, struck to commemorate 
 the victory of a great imperial commander, should be 
 borrowed from a work of art whose interest was purely 
 local ? As to the when and the why of the production of 
 this coin we are left in no doubt. On the obverse the 
 inscription runs — "Mag: Pius imp: iter: ;" on the reverse it is 
 continued — "Prffif: clas : et or^e marit ; ex. S. C. ;" Magnus 
 Pius imperator iterum; prsefectus classis et orcC maritimse ex 
 Senatus Consulto. The design on the reverse is a ship, the 
 Pharos of Messenia surmounted by a statue of N'eptune. 
 History tells us that Sextus, hy the help of a great sea storm, 
 defeated the fleet of Octavian in the Bay of Messenia. What 
 more natural than that he should depict on the coin struck 
 to commemorate his victory, the image of the great sea- 
 monster, the incarnation of storm and shoal and sea peril, 
 by whose aid he had triumphed ? 
 
 In striking the coin he would naturally select a familiar 
 type, but we think he would not seek his original so far 
 afield as Pompeii. 
 
 On the other hand, did the painter copy the coin- 
 engraver ? Scarcely ; the design was too small, the system 
 of " enlarging to life-size " had not conie into vogue. 
 
 We have left out of consideration the gem, because its 
 date is uncertain ; the question has to be decided between 
 the coin and the picture. Or, satisfied that neither is the 
 
192 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 copy of the other, shall we seek for a third original ? Such 
 is the bold fashion of archeeologists when they are driven to 
 bay. They see the effect, and confidently claim the existence 
 of a cause. Secure in this confidence they ransack not only 
 artistic but literary monuments, to see if any record be left 
 of this great original, and after much weary turning over of 
 the pages of Pliny, perhaps when courage and perseverance 
 are about to fail, they come upon some such notice as this :— 
 " Mcomachus pinxit Scyllam quae nunc est Eomse in templo 
 Pads." They remember that the coin and the picture, of 
 which they seek the original, were executed by Italian 
 artists : what more likely than that the original should be 
 sought in Italy's capital, in Eome ? One of these supposed 
 copies is a picture ; this adds probability to the hypothesis 
 that the original was a picture too. This original must have 
 been famous to have been so widely copied, and the picture 
 of Nicomachus was known far and wide even before it 
 reached Italy ; this is implied in the words " quae nunc est 
 Eomce." A high probability is arrived at, but another witness 
 is called in — the internal evidence of style. Archseologists 
 know that it is on record of a pupil of Nicomachus, Aristides 
 by name, that he excelled in the expression of "ethe et 
 perturbationes ;" did he learn this art from a master who 
 painted the terror of Scylla and the anguish of her victims ? 
 Something of negative reasoning has to be added. 
 Supposing a great original, were there other Scyllas painted 
 by other masters of fame equal to that of Nicomachus ? 
 We know of one other painted by Androkydes; it attained an 
 unenviable reputation. The artist, gourmand as well as genius, 
 expended much loving care on the execution of the well-fed 
 comely fishes with which he surrounded his monster. This 
 
PI. 54. 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 193 
 
 artist is rejected from the circle of probabrLity. He could 
 not have painted our raging Scylla, iior have we any trace 
 of the well-loved fishes. By such curious details, by the 
 collections and comparison of such scattered materialj does 
 the archaeologist gain for himself a few sparse facts. Some- 
 times, instead of gleaning only a half-dead inference, he gathers 
 in a living harvest. Certain that the great original has 
 existed, he conceives a hope he scarcely dares to utter, that 
 it exists still ; he seeks, and by some happy chance, some 
 half-inspired intuition, he finds. Then indeed full fruition 
 crowns the labour of his patient quest. His joy is like the 
 joy of the astronomer when the planet he alone has known 
 of darkly, but most surely, at last shines upon his sight in 
 actual vision — like, but with an added tenderness, for to 
 this lover of the past his long-lost new-found treasure comes 
 to him sacred from the touches of dead human fingers. 
 
 We have dwelt at length on these three Scylla monu- 
 ments, because they afford a good illustration of what we 
 may call " the method by replicas." Again and again the 
 archteologists are obhged to frame their sole coucexjtion of 
 what has been by what is, to reconstruct in thought the 
 original from copies scattered far and wide, to detect these 
 copies through all the disguises of mutilation, and, stm worse, 
 false restoration. For this purpose late Eoman work, coins, 
 medals, gems, pictures, reliefs, statuettes, all are pressed into 
 service; objects artistically insignificant become precious 
 as copies, useful because always servile ; such copies we 
 cherish as the degraded descendants of a splendid ancestry. 
 
 Before we leave the Homeric story we must note one 
 pathetic marble monument figured in Plate 54, the fragment 
 of a statue once forming part of a group, and now in the 
 
194 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 Villa Albani. Scylla herself is lost, only one comrade 
 remains; a fierce sea-dog grips at his thigh; his head is 
 thrown back, his left arm seems to have been raised, despair 
 and anguish are in his face. As we look at him we 
 remember the words of Odysseus, " The most pitiful thmg 
 was this that mine eyes beheld of "all my travail that I 
 endured in searching out the paths of the sea."^ 
 
 It is the more to be regretted that the rest of the group 
 is lost, because the existence of a somewhat similar fragment 
 at Palermo makes us conjecture that both were marble 
 repUcas of a great bronze group, probably that which 
 perished from the Hippodrome at Constantuiople in a.d. 
 1204, when the city was taken by the Crusaders. Bronze, 
 we can imagine, with its finer tenacity of texture, was Avell 
 fitted for the highly-wi'ought pathos of the Scylla scene. 
 An epigrammatist ^ has told us how, but for the glitter of 
 metal which told of the work of Hephaistos, he should have 
 thought ScyUa herself had left the waves and come ashore, 
 such fury seems to rage in the " breathing bronze." 
 
 After all this tumult and frenzy it is a treat to turn 
 from the dreadful Odyssey tale, and see the goddess in a 
 calmer aspect, — symbolising, one might fancy, the sea at 
 rest, with all its hidden terrors luUed to peace for a while. 
 The design in Plate 55a is from a terra cotta from ^gina, 
 now in the British Jluseum. The style is severe, but full 
 
 ' Niketas, Uliron., p. 861, 11, describes " t6 apxaiov kukov t^v ^KiWav" 
 as part of this group. 
 
 ^ "f' fJ-ri X"-^"^^ Att/iirec, ifj.6.yve S'ipyov dvaKTOs 
 ^l^fi€vat ''H.tpaiaTov SaiSaX^oto f^x^"5 
 avTy}v dv Tis ^KiiWap dUcraro T-qXdSi Xevffauv 
 
 iirrdfiey, iK ttSvtov yaiav ifieitf/aiu.hav 
 Tbaaov iwi.aaeUi, t6u(fov k6tov avria ipahei, 
 
 oTov iTTb TeXdyev! avyKXoviovaa viat.—Anthol. Pal. ix. T.l.'i. 
 
^^'^/^/'B/e/'-^B/^/^c 
 
 PI. 55 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 195 
 
 of grace. Scylla is seen in profile ; the expression of face 
 and figure are alike quiet and peaceful ; a long, pliant, dol- 
 phin tail curls behind her ; two dogs' heads appear in front. 
 The goddess wears a sort of light tunic ; her hair is bound 
 by an opistho sphendone. 
 
 If possible, still more gentle is her aspect in the beauti- 
 ful design figured in Plate 65&, a rhyton from the Jatta 
 collection at Naples. Scylla here plays the part of Caryatid 
 to the upper portion of the vase. lii her left hand she 
 holds a sepia ; about her waist a slight drapery is folded ; 
 below two dogs, one only slightly indicated, issue. Her tail, 
 richly ornamented with a sort of shell device, is gracefully 
 curled. Below her is a wave-pattern, the regular conven- 
 tional indication of the sea. On the other side of the 
 rhyton a fish is figured ; above her, on the neck of the vase, 
 is a winged victory, probably with some funeral intent. 
 Scylla designs were popular for vases of grotesque forms 
 such as rhytons. On an askos in the British Museum we 
 have her sculptured as a sort of lid ; she is accompanied 
 by sea-horse decorations, and as in the present vase by a 
 winged victory, with wreath and other more decidedly 
 funeral attributes. The rhyton we have figured belongs 
 probably to the latter part of the best vase period ; the body 
 of the goddess is painted white ; the rest of the design — t.e. 
 the hair, drapery, tail, and dogs — red on black. We seem 
 in this vase to have the final and most finished conception 
 of Scylla : the monstrous elements are all present, but so 
 softened, so skilfully combined, that ^iheir horror is abated ; 
 the general type has been preserved, but there is no rigid 
 adherence to unsightly details. 
 
 The goddess, however, is not always peaceful when she 
 
196 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 is represented alone ; she needs no victims to excite her in- 
 herent ferocity. In Plate 56 a, from an Etruscan relief, we 
 have a fine portrayal of Scylla alone in an attitude unmis- 
 takably warlike. Her dogs and sea-dragon tails are finely 
 disposed about her, with due regard to symmetry and 
 balance; she lifts her hands armed with two stones, which 
 she prepares to throw ; the face is mutilated, but the wild 
 dishevelled hair is blown about her head, — a disorder which 
 contrasts strikingly with the neat compact arrangement of 
 her sphendone in Plate 55«. 
 
 Another warhke Scylla we have iri Plate 5 66, a design 
 from a flat-shaped water-bottle. The 'sea-monster seems to 
 have been a favourite figure for presentation on this class of 
 vessel. A very similar one to that in our Plate may be studied 
 in the Second Vase Ptoom of the British Museum. Scylla in 
 both appears armed with a dagger ; the object in her left 
 hand is uncertain ; it may be a second" dagger, or it may be 
 the sheath from which her right-hand dagger has been 
 drawn; the style is rough and clumsy, the outhne somewhat 
 confused. A third warlike Scylla is seen on another water- 
 bottle, figured in Plate 57a. Her shape here is very simple ; 
 instead of the complicated mingling of dogs and sea-dragons, 
 slie has simply two dolphin-tails endiiig in dogs' heads. She 
 lalds in her hands torches, which she seems to brandish with 
 a threatening gesture. The signification of these torches is 
 not quite obvious. Some allusion may be intended to the 
 reputed parentage of Scylla, as daughter of Hecate, the 
 familiar torch-bearer of the under world. If so, this torch- 
 bearing Scylla forms a fitting transition to the funeral 
 aspect of the goddess and her consequent connection with 
 the Centaurs. 
 

 ^2; '(^^^.g^^A <g\S 
 
 -i:^--?r 
 
 (^■-^^l 
 
 PI. 56. 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 197 
 
 Turning to Plate 57&, a design from an Etruscan sarco- 
 phagus, and so necessarily of funeral import, we see Scylla 
 between two female Centaurs. She brandishes still her 
 accustomed oar, and two sea-serpent tails are gracefully 
 arrayed beneath her. Each of the Centaurs holds in her 
 hands an uncertain object, possibly a stone or log, which 
 she is about to hurl. The she-monsters of rapine from the 
 torrents and tempests of sea and laud are met in unholy 
 union. Such is the only definite motive of the association 
 we can perceive. The juxtaposition of rfiah Centaurs and 
 Scylla is familiar in Latin literature, and such juxtaposition 
 occurs always, I believe, in late, art. When Virgil desires to 
 depict a sensational approach to Hades, among the monsters 
 that affiright his hero, 
 
 " Centauri in foribus stabulant Scyllfeque biformes." ■' 
 
 Lucretius, some half-century before, in his image-theory 
 coupled together these same monstrous shapes — 
 
 " Centauros itaque et Scyllarum membra videmus 
 Cerbereasque canum fauoeis ; " ^ 
 
 and Statius makes his hero beg that far-off valleys may 
 hide from him 
 
 " Centaurosque Hydr» greges Scyllaeaque monstra." ^ 
 
 Any or all of these poets may weli have borrowed the 
 notion from monuments around them, or artists may have 
 conceived the idea from these very poQts. There is nothing 
 imnatural in the placing of these monsters as guardians at 
 the gates of Hades. Scylla was of course specially popular 
 with the monster-loving Etruscan ; she is finely represented 
 
 ' Ain. vi. 286. ^ Luc. iv. 736. ' Stat. Silv. v. 3, 280. 
 
198 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 on two sarcophagi now in the Etruscan Gallery of the 
 British Museum. 
 
 Before we proceed to frame, as well as may be, our final 
 conception of Scylla, we must turn for a while to her ter- 
 rible counterpart, Charybdis. It is not till after the sacred 
 cows of Helios have been slain, and the comrades of 
 Odysseus have perished by the wrath of the gods, that the 
 hero, alone on his perilous raft, is drifted back by the 
 ruinous winds within reach of the whirlpool. 
 
 " Then verily the west wind ceased to blow with a 
 rushing storm, and swiftly withal the south wind came, 
 bringing sorrow to my soul, that so I might measure back 
 that space of sea, the way to deadly Charybdis. All the 
 night was I borne, but with the rising of the sun I came to 
 the rock of Scylla, and to dread Charybdis. Now she had 
 sucked down her salt sea-water, when I was swung up on 
 high to the tall fig-tree, whereto I clung like a bat, and 
 could find no sure rest for feet, nor place to stand, for the 
 roots spread far below, and the branches himg aloft out of 
 reach, long and large, and overshadowed Charybdis. Stead- 
 fastly I clung tni she should vomit forth keel and mast 
 again ; and late they came at my desire. At the hour when 
 a man rises up from the assembly and goes to supper, one 
 who judges the many quarrels of the young men that seek 
 to him for law, at that same hour those timbers came forth 
 to view from out Charybdis. And I let myself drop down 
 hands and feet, and plunged clean 'in the midst of the 
 waters beyond the long timbers, and sitting on these I 
 paddled hard with my hands. But the father of gods and 
 men suffered me no longer to behold Scylla, else T should 
 never have escaped from utter doom." 
 
PI. :i7. 
 
THE MYTFI OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 199 
 
 If Scylla was a trying subject for art-presentation, much 
 more so Charybdis, the unseen goddess of the whirlpool. 
 On DO frieze or vase or gem does she meet us. But in late 
 clays, when art began to be pictorial in character, the medal- 
 engraver bethought him that her fig-tree would make a 
 graceful adjunct to the terrible scene of the struggle between 
 Scylla and her victims. On a contorniat (figured in Plate 
 525) we see this attempt at the picturesque, the only trace 
 in art, so far as I know, of the " deadly Charybdis." 
 
 Charybdis has an Indian parallel too close and curious to 
 be passed over. In the Somadeva tales, when Saktideva is 
 in search of the golden city, he comes to the island of the 
 fisher-king Satyavrata and asks for guidance. Satyavrata 
 (the ever-faithful) gives him a ship and goes with him as 
 guide. As they are crossing the sea, Saktideva sees ahead 
 a dark spot, and asks, " What is that which raises itself so 
 invitingly and fair ?" It seemed like^ a winged mountain, 
 now rising, now dipping down into the waves. Satyavrata 
 answers, " It is a fig-tree beneath which men say there is a 
 whirlpool which draws men down to their destruction." Both 
 note with horror that their ship is drifting helplessly towards 
 it. Satyavrata (the ever faithful) bids his comrade catch the 
 boughs of the fig-tree and draw himself aloft, promising him- 
 self to hold the boat up till Saktideva- is safe ; so it falls out ; 
 the faithful fisher-king perishes, Saktideva hangs like a 
 bat to the tree till birds with golden wings alight thereon ; 
 he is at last borne away by them to the golden city. 
 
 What the significance of this recurring fig-tree may be 
 is hard to tell. Possibly its Greek name, epweo?, may 
 have some connection with '^pivv^, the might and destruc- 
 tion of the lower world. 
 
200 MYTHS OF THE OBYSSEY. 
 
 We have severed Scylla and Charybdis, the tearer and 
 the swallower, for a time ; but we must link them together 
 again in the joint locale of their terrors. No myth that we 
 have met with is of so simple and definite an origin, so 
 plainly the result of the personification of natural phenomena. 
 This was early recognised. Thucydides says in his cold 
 way, " The strait in question is the sea that is between 
 Ehegium and Messana, where Sicily is at the least distance 
 from the continent, and this is thB so-called Charybdis, 
 where Odysseus is said to have sailed through. It is from 
 the narrowness and the currents caused by inrush from the 
 Tyrrhenian Sea, that it has naturally become accounted 
 dangerous." Modern geographers confirm the account. The 
 conjoint influence of the moon and the coast formation of 
 the straits produce, they say, certain tidal phenomena, 
 which, with prosaic accuracy, they declare correspond 
 exactly with the words of Homer — " Thrice a day she 
 spouts the black water forth, and thrice a day she sucks 
 it down in terrible wise." Be this as it may, there is still 
 enough of danger about Charybdis to warrant the growth 
 of a myth. The water is for about thirty yards agitated to 
 the depth of from seventy to ninety fathoms, and circles in 
 quick eddies. This to the undeckecj boats of the Greeks 
 would be formidable. 
 
 Charybdis, in the course of time, seems to have changed 
 but little : she has not lost her terrors, though the skill of 
 sailors has lessened their fears. It is otherwise with 
 Scylla. Her rock can scarcely now' be called formidable 
 even to the most excited imagination ; but if Ave may trust 
 a Dutch geographer who wrote of her in A.D. 1700, it is 
 only the last two centuries that have seen the change. A 
 
CO 
 
 P^ 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 201 
 
 sketch from his painting, taken in that year, is given in 
 Plate 5 8, and we add his own description : — " Scylla est un 
 rocher de la cote de Calabre qui s'avance dans la mer vis ^ 
 vis le Cap de Faro eu Sicile : on I'appelle aujourdhuy Capo. 
 Ce rocher a la figure d'une femme, il a de grands creux et 
 de profondes cavernes, dans les quelles les vents et les eanx 
 font des mugissements horribles. II est tr^s dangere^ix, tons 
 les vaisseaux qui y sont emportes par la violence du 
 flux ou par cellos des vents y p4rissent sans resource." 
 Of Charybdis he gives us one somewhat contemptuous 
 particular: — "Les matelots ne le craignent pourtant 
 pas tant d'aujourdhuy comme on faisait autrefois ; ceux 
 de Messine vont s'y promener avec des barques plattes, 
 et d'aprfes y avoir fait plusieurs tours au gr^ de I'eau lis se 
 retirent \ force de rames." Truly times are changed since 
 the days when "even the Earthshakjer himself could not 
 save one from the bane." There is a iniddle-age story of a 
 certain Cola Pesce who lived like a fish in the water of 
 Charybdis, and who twice dived to the bottom of the 
 whirlpool and brought back a beaker to King Frederic, but 
 the third time he perished. 
 
 Though the sharp-peaked rocks of Scylla the " Eender " 
 are fallen, some lingering elements of horror haunt her still. 
 The beach slopes steeply ; short jutting rocks, half wave- 
 covered, have something the look of monstrous embryonic 
 feet; the wind still howls in frequent gusts of storm; pirates 
 too often lurk in her caves ; and still, no less than in the 
 days of Polybius and Strabo, dolphins and sword-fish swim 
 in abundant shoals, a prey to fishers, if not to Scylla herself 
 The myth, we may own for once without misgiving, has 
 arisen from the play of a poet's fancy around the highly 
 
202 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 wrought description brought by sorae traveller of the actual 
 perils of the strait.^ 
 
 The fisher folk of our own land are not quick to per- 
 sonify ; but had they the apt fancy of the Greeks, they 
 might see in many of the peaks about the Yorkshire coast 
 the " shape of a woman/' hear her dreadful bowlings in the 
 mysterious caves, and see her cruel -Jiands outstretched to 
 grasp the shipwrecked sailor. It was from such elements 
 as these that the Greek imagined his ScyUa ; sharp rocks 
 reared up on high, low-lying reefs, tangled currents, howling 
 storms and waves. To this conception his genius forced 
 him to give instant shape. Naturally that shape was the 
 form of a sea-beast, hideous because monstrous, malignant 
 because hideous. " En effet, dans I'absolu, 6tre liidieux c'est 
 hair,'' says the poet of the pieuvre ; and he further explains 
 "le difforme se d^bat sous ime n^cessit^ d' elimination qui 
 le rend hostile." Further, we know the Greek, in his 
 pride of ancestry, suffered no goddess, however evil, to 
 remain parentless. With Homer Scylla is the daughter 
 of Kratais, of Force. Stesichorus, in his poem " Scylla," 
 makes her the daughter of Phorkys the sea-god ; as such 
 she enters into the Herakles saga.^ She seizes on one of 
 
 ' The Jesuit Kaiqnelle, travelling among the Delaware tribes in North 
 America, was told of a terrible place, to which his canoe was fast approaching, 
 where a demon (an evil manitu) lurked ready to devour him and wreck his 
 boat. The demon proved to be a high steep rock at a sudden bend of the 
 river, against which the current ran with dangerous violence. — Tylor, Hist. 
 rrim. Cull, ii 190. 
 
 - " 6 TT\v BaXdaaTjs AiiaovlriSoi fj.vxovs 
 arevoii^ 6imrT€iJov(rai' dyplav Kvva 
 KTavCiv VTT^p (FTTijXvyyo^ lxBviop.ivr}v 
 Tavpoo'tpdyov 'K^atvau, ^v aO^is Tar-qp 
 (rdpKa^ KaralBiiiv \o<pvltnv SD/I^ffaro. " 
 
 Lycoph. Alex. 44. 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 203 
 
 the cows that Herakles is driving off; he slays her, and slie 
 is restored to life through the strange means of burning by 
 the torches of her father. In one art monument she bran- 
 dishes two torches, This may have reference to her extra- 
 ordinary resurrection, or again may, as we have already 
 noted, indicate another parentage. Eustathius ^ says she 
 was sometimes accounted daughter of' Hekate, whose attri- 
 bute of the torch as goddess of the under world is well 
 known. 
 
 Another version makes her daughter of Lamia. This 
 Lamia may possibly at first have been a sort of per- 
 son! Gcation of some frightful sea beast. Mythology says 
 she was beloved of Zeus; Hera in jealousy robbed her of her 
 cliildren; henceforth the childless Lamia, mad with grief, 
 became a hideous cannibal, seizing and eating the children 
 of more happy mothers. As such she became the stock 
 conventional bugbear of later superstition, in request, as 
 we learn from both Theokritus and Strabo, to frighten 
 naughty children, and as such she lives on about the 
 coasts of modern Hellas. There are land Lamias and sea 
 Lamias. The sea Lamia, or Lamna as she is called, 
 specially haunts the coast of Elis ; she raises storms and 
 
 1 Eust. M. 1714 :— 
 
 " r-J;y hk ^KiXKixv ^opKvvo^ OvycCT^pa Kal 'E/carT/s 6 ^u6o^ X^7et, ^-^(pvuav 
 Trp6s rah TrXevpal^ o-KvXaKai Ka.Tiyov(TO.v rbv Trepl ^iKeXiai/ iropSp-bv. "0/j.7jpos 
 IX^HTOL Kparauii' ev toIs e^^s ^riripa rrjs ^kvWtj^ St/Xo?, iirdyojif Ko.i ij fxiv r^Ke 
 TTTJ/ia jSpoTotatv. "El Sk Kal "Opivpos Kparaitt^ "K^yeL aunjy, dAA' ol p-d-yoL 'JK/cdr?;!' 
 fpatriv avTif]v KoXovai-v. . . ^Tijcrixopos dk Adp^iap auTiis pLTjr^pa iroiti . . . 
 
 Kal TT/r XKC'Wav, el-jroiv 8tl 6 Kapxapias IxSv^ Kal \dp.tci Kal o'Kt!'Wa /faXetrat. '' 
 
 See Horat. de Art Poet. 340 ; and Strabo, i. 19. — "rots re iraur! jr/jo- 
 tpepo/xevT} eh d'jrorpoirTji' rovs (po^kpov^ p.ii&ovt' ^ re yap Adpaa fj.d66s eart Kal 7] 
 Fopyi),'' etc. 
 
204 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 ■whirlwinds to shipwreck sailors ; she= consumes the flesh of 
 men and frightens children. If a child dies suddenly the 
 peasants say, ro iraihX to eTrvc^ev 97 Ad/jiva — the Lamna 
 has choked the child. Ad/j,va is a current term of reproach 
 for a greedy woman. 
 
 In these diverse forms of parentage we detect, I think, 
 a common element, a connection with the horror of death 
 and the under-world, weU borne out by the funeral signifi- 
 cance we have noted in the Centaur connection and on 
 j funeral vases. Scylla, in a word, is the sinister aspect of 
 j the sea, with all its malignant forces 6f storm and rock and 
 \ sea monster, — as such, by birth and functions, in close con- 
 l nection with the daemons of the lower world. 
 
 Such was the Homeric Scylla; but the men of later 
 days were not content with a nature-myth so simple. The 
 fierce rage of the sea-monster had for them no interest 
 unless it were tinged with the bitterness of some more 
 human frenzy, so about the stern daughter of Phorkys they 
 wove the web of a love story. 
 
 Let us turn to Plate 59. The design is from a series of 
 five pictures which decorated a room in the Villa Tor 
 Marancio, representing five women who died for love — 
 Canace, Pasiphae, ScyUa, MjTrha, Phaedra. The name of 
 each is clearly written above her in smaU. Eoman letters, so 
 there is no mistake about this saddest of all companies. It 
 is curious that this practice of writing the name meets us in 
 very early art, timid of its own power to express ; and 
 again at a very late period of decadence, when a degenerate 
 style needed elucidation. The picture before us is some- 
 what feebly executed, but the conception is full of sim- 
 
PI. 59. 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 205 
 
 plicity and pathos. A maiden stands with her hand upon 
 a wall, and looks into the far distance ; in her other hand 
 she holds a large lock of hair newly cut. Her face is 
 troubled ; the fear has begun to work which will soon be 
 despair. A terrible deed has been done, and the issue is 
 still unknown. Scylla stands on the walls of her father's 
 city. The beautiful King Minos is besieging it ; he is great, 
 we are told, as "the harrier of towns;" but this time he 
 prevails not by the might of his sword, but by his beauty 
 only,^ for Scylla loves him. On her father's head there 
 grows a purple lock ^ of hair, on which the safety of the city 
 depends. She has just shorn it off; and she mounts the 
 city waUs to look at the camp of Minos ^ once more, 
 perhaps even to bid farewell to her fair native town 
 before she goes forth to carry to her love * the fateful 
 present. We know how she was received ; we hear 
 the harsh words of the horror -stricken= Minos : — 
 
 " Di te summoveant, o nostri infamia seecli ; " 
 
 and we wonder that the Pompeian could have cared to see 
 painted upon his walls a scene so sad and shameful, — the 
 daughter who, unasked, betrays her father. The design in 
 Plate 60 comes from the Casa dei Dioscuri. A youth sits 
 on an arm-chair overspread with a green drapery. Over 
 his hips is a red chlamys ; in his left hand a spear. Two 
 
 v<Tfiivrii T^Xos cipe, Kai ov vUijiri inSripif 
 dXKi. irbdtf Kal ipuiTi." — NoNN. Dionys. 25. 
 ^ This purple lock passed into a sort of proverb. Cp. Lucian de Sacrif. 
 15:— 
 
 '■ K.i,v Tov N(<rou ^xi TXi/ca/xoc rhv Troptpvpodf.'' 
 3 " Sedibus ex altis tecti speculatur amorem." 
 '' " Suasit amor f acinus." 
 
206 MYTHS OF THE OD YSSE Y. 
 
 women approacli him. The older of the two wears a green 
 chiton, red chlamys, and a sort of head-dress, which pro- 
 bably indicates her as nurse to Scylla. She raises her 
 hands as if in deprecation. In the foreground is a maiden 
 in a double purple chiton. Her light hair falls loosely 
 about her, giving a look of careless haste. She holds in her 
 right hand the purple lock from her father's head. Minos 
 makes a gesture of dismay. Behind two male attendants 
 are speaking to each other. 
 
 Art has left us no monument of the sad ending, but 
 the poets tell us how the ruthless Minos made use of 
 ScyUa's love and treachery, but, hating the traitress, 
 bound her behind his ship ^ on the homeward voyage. 
 And she became a sea-bird, pursued always by the cruel 
 Minos. 
 
 The story, which belongs to the Attico-Megarian cycle, 
 has many variations. We first meet it in the Choephorse 
 of jSjlschylus. He sternly, after the manner of Greek 
 tragedy, excludes, so far as may be, the element of love. 
 Scylla, he says, was bribed by a present of golden chains ; ^ 
 and he seems to have known nothing of the final trans- 
 formation. We have not many mentions of it in our extant 
 
 ^ " Turn suspensa novo ritu de navihus altis 
 
 Per mare cferuleum trahitur Niseia virgo. " — Cirii, 389. 
 And more circumstantially — 
 
 '•/cat T^v Khpyjv ttJs Trpu^vt}^ ruiv iTobu>v 
 
 iKd^a-as iiwo^ptJXi-ov iTToiijcre." — ApOLL. iii. 15, 8. 
 ' ' d,\\av del Tip' iv \6yois arvyeif 
 
 H.t' ix^P^^ iiirep 0wt' dirJjXe^ey (pCkov^ KprjTtKols 
 
 XP^tr€0hp.-f)T0lCT LV SppLOLS TtOrjiTaO-a SwpOLffL Mtf w, 
 
 TTv^ovd' a Kuv6(ppbiv virvip' Ki7xaVet 5^ /xij* 'Ep/i^s. '' 
 
 ^SCH. Choeph. 613-22. 
 
PI 60. 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 207 
 
 tragedies, but we know from Ovid^ that it must have been 
 frequently chosen for stage representation. We feel also 
 that it was unlikely a theme so full of situation should have 
 been neglected by the later drama. From Ovid's time we 
 hear no more of the gojden chains ; love becomes the more 
 tragic motive. He tells the story at length in the Mda- 
 morjphoses, and works up the presentation scene with much 
 of the stock artificial pathos he had always so largely at 
 command. Our Pompeian picture may have been partly 
 inspired by his elaborate treatment. An imitator of Virgil 
 (probably of the time and circle of Messala) wrote a long 
 poem (Ciris) on the story of Scylla, and introduces one new 
 element which this same picture illustrates. No one who 
 remembers the nurse of Phsedra is surprised to see Scylla 
 accompanied by a similar confidante, but literature is silent 
 as to her name and even existence till we come to the 
 author of Ciris. He adds to the dramatis pcrsonce an old 
 nurse, Carme,^ who no doubt figures in our wall-painting. 
 He also describes the scene to which our first picture is 
 due — Scylla standing in silent conflict on the wall ; but he 
 passes over the presentation scene sa elaborated by Ovid. 
 Possibly our paurting may have been inspired by neither 
 poem, but by some Alexandrian production lost to us. 
 
 There is, I think, little doubt th&t originally the two 
 Soyllas were quite distinct. The traitress Scylla belongs, as 
 we noted, to the Attico-Mcgarian cycle ; the grave of her 
 
 ^ " Trapia nee tragicos tetigisset Scylla cothurnos, 
 
 ni patrium crinem desecuisset amor." — Ovid. Trist. it. 393. 
 ^ "Quam simul Ogygii Phcenicis filia Carme 
 surgere sensit anus,'' etc. — Ciris. 220 scq. 
 The version of the story given by the author of Ciris is no doubt taken 
 from some Alexandrian original. 
 
208 MYTHS OF THE OD YSSE V. 
 
 father stood in the time of Pausanias behind the Lykeion at 
 Athens. The Homeric Scylla is a monster of more western 
 seas. It is clear, however, that the ancients regarded them, 
 at all events in Virgil's ^ time, as one and the same. Nor 
 is the reason, I think, far to seek. When colonists from 
 Athens and Megara sought the eastera coast of Sicily, they 
 bore with them their joint heritage of mythic lore. Coming to 
 the Strait of Messina, they found abeady reverenced there a 
 Scylla cruel and treacherous. Greek colonists, we know, 
 loved to assimilate to and combine with their own religions 
 cults akin to their own. Was it surprising they should 
 interweave with the local story already current the myth of 
 their own most ill-starred maiden ? 
 
 If we have any misgivings as to the connection of the 
 Minos myth, we can have none as to another less terrible 
 but still very tragic tale. Homer tells us when he speaks 
 of his Scylla, " A dreadful monster is she, nor would any 
 look on her gladly, not if a god should meet her." ^ But it 
 was not always so. If we turn to Plate 61, we shall see 
 that a god did " meet her " once long ago, and " was glad " 
 for a while and sorry thereafter, even the sea god Glaucus.^ 
 
 ' ' ' Quid loquar, ut Scyllam Nisi quani fama secuta est 
 Candida succinctam latrantibua inguina monstris 
 Dulichias vexasse rates, et gurgite in alto 
 Ah ! timidos nautas canibus lacerasse marinis." 
 
 ViEG. Ed. vi. 74. 
 ^ " . . . . auri) 5" aSre iriXoip KaKbv ov^^ k4 tL^ ^lv 
 
 y-qd-^aei^v /5wp, oiJS' e/ B^h^ dyriaffetf.'' — Od. xii. 87. 
 ^ I cannot forbear from here quoting what M. Reuan has written as to the 
 rise of the myth of GLaucus. My object is not the investigation of this 
 wondrous sea-god except as the lover of Scylla, but many of M. Kenan's 
 beautiful words are equally applicable to her. 
 
 " Un de ces mythes qui me semblent les plus .propres a faire comprendre 
 
PI. 61 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 209 
 
 Our design is from a painting in the Villa Albani, and may 
 have been inspired by Ovid's telling of the story. Scylla, 
 half-draped, stands at the brink of the sea, with terror or 
 wonder in her npUfted hands,^ At a very short distance 
 Glaucus swims up. He has the body of a man ; his beard is 
 thick, his hair long; behind him he uprears a beautiful 
 dolphin's tail. He is no ignoble lover for a sea-nymph to 
 scout. He strikes his hand passionately upon his breast, 
 with an emjDhasis which would be almost comic, only we 
 remember how, in the words of a sixteenth century poet, 
 
 " He loved her to the very white of truth, 
 But she would not concern it." 
 
 The painting is very delicately conceived, full of a 
 
 oette extreme complexite, ces aspects fuyants, ces irreconcihables contradic- 
 tions des fables antiques est celui de Glaucus ■; mythe humble pourtant, 
 mythe de p'auvres gens mais ayant par la meme mieus conserve son caractfere 
 primitif et populaiie, 
 
 " Jetez pele-mele toutes les idees des gens de mer, amalgamez les branches 
 eparses dea reves d'un matelot vous aurez le mythe de Glaucus ; preoccupa- 
 tion melancolique, songes penibles et difformes, sensation vive de tons les 
 phenomenes qui naissent dans les flots, inquietude perpetuelle, le danger 
 partout, la seduction partout, I'avenir incertain, grande impression de la 
 fatalite, Glaucus est \ la fois la couleur et le bruit de la mer, le dot qui 
 blanchit, le reflet du ciel sur le dos des vagues, le vent du soir qui pr^dit la 
 tempete du lendemain, le mouvement du plongeur, les formes rabougries de 
 rhomme de mer, les desirs impuissants, les tristes retours de la vie solitaire, 
 le doute, la dispute, le desespoir, le long ennui: d'une certitude s'epuisaut 
 centre le sophisme et I'immortalite qui ne pent ni s'assurer ni se delivrer 
 d'elle meme. 
 
 " Quelque fois, Glaucus est Glauce . . . la couleur de la mer devient ainsi 
 une femme, comme le sommet montonnant des vagues devient la tete blanche 
 des Grecs qui fait peur aux matelots. Quelque fois il est Lamie qui attire 
 les hommes, et les seduit par ces attraits ; d'autres fois un epervier qui plonge 
 en tournoyant sur sa proie, puis une Sirene insatiable tenant un jeune homme 
 de chaque main.'' 
 
 ^ ' ' Constitit hie et tuta loco, monstrumne deusne 
 Ilia sit equorans." 
 
 P 
 
210 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 certain weak daintiness. It is, so far as I know, the only 
 actual art monument left us of the love of Glaucus. The 
 nymph, it seems, fled affrighted, and the lover went home 
 for a while. Little peace he had there, to judge from the 
 picture that meets us in Plate 62a. Here is a sea-god (if 
 not indeed Glaucus, some one who shared his lot) teased by 
 two of the pestilent Loves, who in later days were so much 
 abroad. They are mounted on dolphins, so no ocean-god 
 can escape them ; their " way is on the sea," ^ though such 
 light Loves as these were aU unknown to Sophokles. Has 
 " Eros unconquerable " come to this, that he must pull his 
 victim's hair and twitch his cheek ? Glaucus looks ill at 
 ease ; his eyebrows contract, and there is pain in his face. 
 The design, from a terra cotta in the British Museum, 
 is very late in style, but soft and full of grace and pathos. 
 The beard of marine foliage shows a sea-god, and we know 
 Glaucus was thus traditionally bedecked.^ We could almost 
 think the sixteenth century Oxford poet ^ had added to his 
 classical training some tincture of archaeology, and studied 
 the terra cotta before us. For he tells us how poor Glaucus, 
 his locks touselled no doubt by the Loves, deems himself 
 unfit to appear before his lady, so he goes to the sea-goddess 
 Thetis for help, and we hear 
 
 ' " (f>OlTg.s S' VTrepTr6l'TWS." — SoPH. Antig. 785, 
 ^ " t6 S' f tSos iiypol fih avTC^ yevduv ^6(TTpvxoi, XevKol S' tSe'ii' Kaffairep Kpovvot, 
 ^ape?s Si w'KdKH/j.oi K0f:i7ji, Kal Tois &}xok iiroxereiovTei buov iairAixavTO SaXdrr^s' 
 6(ppm 5^ Xdctat Kal ^vvaTTTOvaai irphs oWrfKas otov fiia. , . . 
 
 '' (peS tQiv aripvav, m Xdx""/ f-^^ auTois iyKar^inrapTcu, ppvoi% KOfiwaa Kal 
 (pVKlois, yacTT^p S' 6w6KeiTai„" — Philos. Imag, ii. 15. 
 
 ' See " Scillaes Metamorphoses interlaced with the unfortunate love of 
 Glauoua, by Thomas Lodge of Linoolnes Inne, Gentleman. " Thomas Lodge was 
 an Oxford scholar, but he strangely intermingles his classic lore with Chi'is- 
 tian mythology. 
 
PI. 62 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 211 
 
 " A hundred swelling tides my mother spent 
 Upon these locks, and all hir nymphs were prest 
 To plait them fairs when to her boure I went." 
 
 His pains were all in vain, the riymph dismisses him, 
 and with scant courtesy — 
 
 " Pack hence, thou fondling of the western seas," 
 
 is all her answer to his fond entreaty. But he does not 
 despair ; it is still the lover who thus bemoans himself : — 
 
 " Scilla hath eyes, but two sweete eyes hath Soilla ; 
 Scilla hath hands, faire hands, bnt coy in touching ; 
 Scilla hath wit, surpassing grave Sibylla. 
 
 Scilla hath words, but words well stored with grutching 
 Soilla a saint in looke, no saint in scorning ; 
 Locke saint-like, Scilla, lest I die with mourning." 
 
 Another and earlier poet of classic days tells us how 
 Glaucus bethought him of a wiser plan than idle lamenta- 
 tion. He remembered that some nymphs of sea as well as 
 land, loving a gift, will cease to scout the giver, so next time 
 he sought her cave it was with no empty hands. One day 
 he brought to melt his cruel love some unfledged halcyon 
 nestlings, and, most costly gift of all, a shell ^ from the far-off 
 Erythrean Sea. Such a shell we see in Plate 62&. It 
 was found on no western sea-coast. We do not know if 
 
 ^ A specimen of this shell, known to naturalists as the Tridacna squamosa, 
 now lies in the Second Vase Room of the British Museum. On the inside a design 
 is incised ; round the edges on either side a monster crouching. The faces are 
 Assyrian, in profile. The apex is cai-ved in the form of a mask. The shell 
 was found at Canino in Etruria. A similar shell, now in the Secojid Egyjitian 
 Room, was found at Bethlehem. Fragments have also been found at Nimrud. 
 The Tridacna squamosa, not found in the Mediterranean, probably found its 
 way to Greek and Etruscan towns through Phcenician traders. Cf Herod, i. 1 . 
 See Guide to Vase Rooms. Part I. 
 
212 MYTHS OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 the sea-god had swum far away into the strange Eastern 
 Ocean to fetch his gift, or if he had. bartered for it with 
 some Plicenician trader. He had no doubt learned that 
 few maidens could resist this dainty toy. It was his last 
 hope, and as he came to the cave he looked so sad and 
 downcast that a kind girl Siren ^ pitied him as he passed 
 her, shedding salt tears. We are glad to meet a Siren 
 again filling so gentle a function; but her pity availed 
 nothmg, and in his despair the foolish Glaucus betook him- 
 self to Circe to seek for help from her magic. Through the 
 words either of Ovid or Keats, the rest of the dreadful story 
 is familiar to us all ; how Circe, when she saw Glaucus, loved 
 him, and, hating Scylla, some say slew her, some say turned 
 her into an evil sea beast. Our Oxford poet tells us how 
 
 " Hir locks 
 Are clianged with wonder into liideous sands, 
 And hard as flint became her snow-white hands ; 
 The waters howl with fatal tunes ahout her : 
 The aire doth scowle ; when as she turns within them, 
 The winds and waves with pufFes and billows scout her. 
 
 And he parts from his wave-beat •'' Scilla," with this c[uaint 
 sixteenth-century " envoy," bidding all ladies know 
 
 " That Nimphs must yield when faitlifull lovers straie not, 
 Lest thro' contempt alinightie love compell you 
 With Scilla in the rocks to make 3*e biding, 
 A cursed plague for women's proud backsliding." 
 
 ^ In a poem by a lady called Ileidyle, cited by 'Aihenoeos, vii. 296, we have 
 the following lines : — 
 
 " i] Koyxov duipyj^a tp^pofr' 'Epvdpas dirb TrirpTjt, 
 ^ Toi)s *A\kv6voju iraTSa? ^r' aTrrep&yov?, 
 Ttj yvfiipTU 5t'0"7re£(7T£fj ddi'p^oLra. AaKpv 5' indvov 
 Kal HfipTjv y^lrwp irapOefos olKrio'aTo,^' 
 
THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 213 
 
 But Odysseus meanwhile is clinging to a plank, rowing 
 liard with his hands," and for nine days is he borne along ; 
 on the tenth the gods bring him nigh to the Isle of 
 Ogygia, where dwells lovely Calypso of the braided tresses. 
 Here, seated on the rocky sea-shore, w^ may leave our hero 
 at last. 
 
APPENDIX OF AUTHORITIES. 
 
 BOOKS OF GENERAL REFERENCE. 
 
 Gallerie heroischcr Bildwerke. J. Overbeck. 1853. 
 
 Geschichte der Griechischen Kiinstler. H. Brunn. 
 
 Antike Schriftquellen. J. Overbeck. 
 
 History of Ancient Pottery. S. Birch. 
 
 ^ Geschichte der Malerei. A. Woltmann und C. Woermann. 
 
 Handbuch der Archaologie der Kunst. C. 0. Mtiller. 1848. 
 
 Nouvelle Gallerie Mythologique. Millin. 
 
 Griechische Mythologie. Ludwig Preller, 
 
 Die Griechische Vasen. H. Brunn und P. Krell. 
 
 Denkmaler der alten Kunst. C. O. Muller, edited by Wieseler. 
 
 Auserlesene Griechische Vasenbilder. E] Gerhard. 
 
 Antike Bildwerke. E. Gerhard. 
 
 Elite des Monumens C^ramograpliiques. Lenormant et de 
 
 Witte. 
 Monumenti Inediti d'Ant. Pop. Italiani, 1844. 
 
 With reference to Monuments in the British Museum, con- 
 stant use has been made of the official Guides to the several 
 departments of Antiquities, and the " Catalogue of the Greek 
 and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum." 2 vols. 1870. 
 
 Scattered references, too numerous to. be always noted, have 
 been made throughout to articles which have appeared from 
 time to time in the following periodicals : — 
 Annali dell' Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica. Rome, 
 
 1 Translation into Englisli edited by S. Colvin. 1880. 
 
216 APPENDIX OF AUTHORITIES. 
 
 from 1829 in progress, with the BuUetino and Monumenti 
 
 of tlie same Institute. 
 Archaologische Zeitung. Denkmaler und Torschungen. Berlin. 
 
 From 1849 in progress. 
 Bullotino Archoologico Napolitano. 1842-8. Nuovo Serie, 1853-9. 
 Berichte der Koniglichen Sachsischen Gesellschaft der Wissen- 
 
 scliaften. 
 Eheinisches Museum fiir Philologie. Bonn. From 1832 in pro- 
 gress. 
 Eeal Museo Borbonico Naples. 1824-1857. 
 Compte Eendu de la Commission Imp^riale Archeologique S. 
 
 Petersbourg. From 1859 in progress. 
 Gazette Arch(5ologique. De Witte et Lenormant. From 1875 
 
 in progress. 
 
 SPECIAL AUTHORITIES FOR THE MYTH OF THE 
 CYCLOPES. 
 
 Monumens inedits. Eaoul-Eoohette. 
 
 Polyphemos und G-alateia. Wolfgang Helbig. 
 
 History of Sicily. W. W. Lloyd. 1872. 
 
 Die Schonsten Ornamente. W. Zahn. 1828. 
 
 Voyage Pittoresque des Isles de Sicile. J. P. L, L. Houel. 
 
 Sitzungsberiohte der Kaiserliche Akademie. Vienna. 1858. 
 
 Annali delF Instituto Archeologico. 1878. 
 
 Wandgemalde Campaniens. W. Helbig. 1868. 
 
 Rheinisches Museum. Erster Supplement Band dor epische 
 
 Cyclus. 1835. 
 Wandgemalde Pompeji. Ternite und Miiller. 1839. 
 Die Bukoliker und die bildende Kunst. H. Brunn. 
 Geschichte Siciliens. Adolph Holm. 
 Die Darstellungen des Troischen Sagen Kreis auf Etruskischen 
 
 Asohenkisten. F. Schlie und H. Brunn. 1868. 
 Museo Borbonico. Vol. 1. 
 Die Philostratischen Bilder. Friedriohs. 
 Monumens Inedits. Winckelmann. 
 
APPENDIX OF AUTHORITIES. 217 
 
 THE MYTH OF THE L^STRYGONES. 
 
 Die Odyssee Landschaften vom Esquilin. C. Woermann. 
 
 La Citta di Lamo. P. Maanga. 
 
 Archaologische Zeitung. E. Braun. 1849. 
 
 Die Landschaft in der Kunst der antiken Volker. C. Woer- 
 mann. 
 
 Die Wandgemalde Campaniens. W. Helbig. 
 
 Untersucliungen viber die Campauische Wandmalerei. W. 
 Helbig. 
 
 THE MYTH OF ClfiCE. 
 
 Archaologische Zeitung. 1865. Otto Jahn. 
 
 Alte Denkmaler, V. Welcker. 
 
 Description des medallions contorniates. Sabatier. 
 
 Archaologische Beitrage. Otto Jahn. 
 
 Altgriechische Mahrchen. 0. Gerland. 1869. 
 
 Le pitture anticke delle Grotte di Roma. Bartoli, F. 1706. 
 
 Les Euines de Pompei. Mazois, F. Paris. 1824. 
 
 Archaologische Zeitung. 1866 
 
 Antiquities of Athens. Jas. Stuart. 1825. 
 
 Nimbus und Strahlenkranz. Stepliani. 
 
 (1) Etruskische Spiegel. (2) Ueber die Metallspiegel der Etrus- 
 
 ker. Gerhard. 1838 und 1859. 
 Bulletino Nap., Nuove Serie, V. 
 The Thousand and One Nights. E. W. Lane. 
 Die Darstellungen des Troischen Sagen Kreis auf Etruskisohcn 
 
 Aschenkisten. F. Schlie und H. Brunn. 1868. 
 
 THE MYTH OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 
 
 Peintures de Polygnote a Delphes dessinees et gravdes apr^s la 
 description de Pausanias. F. et J. Eiepenhausen. 1826. 
 
 Die Gcmiilde des Polygnotes in der Lesdhe zu Delphi erliiutert 
 von 0. Jahn. 1841. 
 
 Q 
 
218 APPENDIX OF AUTHORITIES. 
 
 Die Komposition der Polygnotischen Gemailde in der Lesche zu 
 
 Delphi. F. G. Welcker. 1848. 
 Antepikritische Betrachtungen iiber die polygnotischen Genaalde 
 
 in der Lesche zu Delphi. Overbecfc 1850. 
 On the Paintings of Polygnotus in the Lesche at Delphi. Wil- 
 liam Watkiss Lloyd. 
 Mi^moire sur les peintures, que Polygnote avait executees dans la 
 
 Lesch(5 de Delphes. Memoires de I'Academie Eoyale, 
 
 Bruxelles. 1864. Ch. Lenormant. 
 Die Komposition der Gemalde des Polygnot in der Lesche zu 
 
 Delphi. W. Gebhardt. 1872. 
 Primitive Culture. E. B. Tylor. 
 Algic Researches. Schoolcraft. 
 Ueber die epischen Dichtungen der finnikhen Volker besonders 
 
 die Kalewala. Tettan, W. J. A. von. 1873. 
 Kalewala, translated into German by A. Schiefner. 1852. 
 Hellenica. Greek Oracles. P. W. Myers. 
 Die Etrusker. 0. 0. MiiUer. 1877. 
 
 Orpheus und Heracles in der Unterwelt. Valentin. 1866. 
 Die Idee des Todes in den Mythen und Kunstdenkmalerei 
 
 W. Furtwaengler. 1855. 
 Mus(5e Blacai. Theodor Panofka. 1830. 
 Archaologische Zeitung. 1843. 
 Pitture di Vasi Fittili. F. lughirani. 
 De Charonte Etrusco. J. A. Ambrosch. 1837. 
 Monument! del' Instituto Archeologico. 1859. 
 Musee de Sculpture. 0. 0. F. J. B. Clarac. 
 Annali dell' Instituto di Corrisp. Archeol.. Vol. viii. Secchi. 
 
 THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. 
 
 Die Sirenen nacli ihrer Bedeutung und ktinstlerischen Darstel- 
 
 lung im Alterthum. Hermann Schrader. 
 Homer nach Antiken. Tischbein. Schorn. 
 Jahresber. der kdn. bayer. Akad der Wiss. 1829-1831. 
 Annali del' Instituto Archeologico. Laglandifere. 1829. 
 Monumens Inedits. Eaoul-Eochette. 
 Anmerk. zur Homers Odyssee. Nitzsch. 
 
APPENDIX OF AUTHORITIES. 219 
 
 Compte Eendu. Stephani, L. 1866. 
 
 Mythol. und Symb. der cliristl. Kunst. Piper. 
 
 Eevuo Arch^ologiqiie. Paris. 1848. 
 
 Hortus Deliciarum. Herrad von Landsperg. 
 
 Heroen und Gotter Gestalten. 1875. A. Conze. 
 
 Liebes und Klagelieder des Neugriecliischen Volkes. Passow. 
 
 Das Volksleben der Neugriechischen. Schmidt, B. 
 
 Popularia Carmina Grsecise recentioris. Passow. 
 
 Ancient Unedited Monuments. Millingen, Jas. 
 
 Collection of Engravings of Ancient Vases. Tischbein, J. H. W. 
 
 Die Graber der Hellenen. 0. M. Stackelberg. 1837. 
 
 The Arcliaeological Album. T.Wright. 1845. 
 
 Die Darstellungen des Troischen Sagen Kreis auf Etruskischen 
 
 Aschenkisten, F. Schlie und H. Brunn. 1868. 
 Old Celtic Romances, translated from the Gaelic. P, W. Joyce, 
 
 1879. 
 
 THE MYTH OF SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 
 
 Le Mythe de Glaucus et de Scylla. E. Vinet. Annali dell' Insti- 
 
 tuto Archeologlco. 1843. 
 Museum Etniscum. A. F. Gori. 1837-1843. 
 Peintures Antiques In^dites. Raoul-Eochette. 1836. 
 Etudes d'Histoire Eeligieuse. J. Renan. 1858. 
 Nikomachus. Sclmchardt. 1866. 
 Minos und Skylla. W. Helbig. Archaologische Zeitung. 
 
 1866. 
 Mus. Chiaramonti. Monumenti Amaranziani. Biondi. 
 Kunstsinn der Romer. Friedlander. 
 Altgriechische Mahrchen. Gerland. 
 Revue Arch^ologique, II. E. Vinet.